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 http://www.archive.org/details/mayorofcasterbri01hard
 
 THE 
 
 MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE.
 
 BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH 
 CHANDOS STREET, LONDON
 
 THE 
 
 MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE 
 
 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A 
 MAN OF CHARACTER, 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS HARDY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD," "A PAIR OF BLUE EYES," ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VODUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1886. 
 
 [All rights reserved.]
 
 
 THE 
 
 MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 CHAPTEH I. 
 
 One evening of late summer, before the 
 present century had reached its thirtieth 
 year, a young man and woman, the latter 
 carrying a child, were approaching the large 
 village of Weydon-Priors on foot. They 
 were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick 
 hoar of dust which had accumulated on their 
 shoes and garments from an obviously long 
 journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to 
 their appearance just now. 
 
 The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and 
 stern in aspect ; and he showed in profile a 
 facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost 
 perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of 
 brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of 
 
 VOL. 1. ^
 
 2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 liis suit, whicli was a fustian waistcoat with 
 white horn buttons, breeches of the same, 
 tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid 
 with black glazed canvas. At his back he 
 carried by a looped strap a rush basket, from 
 which protruded at one end the crutch of a 
 hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also 
 visible in the aperture. His measured spring- 
 less walk was the walk of the skilled country- 
 man as distinct from the desultory shamble of 
 the general labourer ; v/hile in the turn and 
 plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged 
 and cynical indifference, personal to himself, 
 showing itself even in the regularly inter- 
 changing fustian folds, now in the left leg, 
 now in the right, as he paced along. 
 
 "What was really peculiar, however, in this 
 couple's progress, and would have attracted 
 the attention of any casual observer otherwise 
 disposed to overlook them, was the perfect 
 silence they preserved. They walked side by 
 side in such a way as to suggest afar off the 
 low, easy, confidential chat of people full of 
 reciprocity ; but on closer view it could be 
 discerned that the man was reading, or pre- 
 tending to read, a ballad-sheet which he kept 
 before ])is eyes with some difiiculty by the
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 3 
 
 hand tliat was passed tlirough tlie basket- 
 strap. Whether this apparent cause were the 
 real cause, or whether it were an assumed one 
 to escape an mtercourse that would have been 
 irksome to him, nobody but himself could 
 have said precisely ; but his taciturnity was 
 unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society 
 whatever from his presence. Virtually she 
 walked the highway alone, save for the child 
 she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow 
 almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as 
 close to his side as was possible without 
 actual contact ; but she seemed to have no 
 idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it ; 
 and far from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring 
 silence she appeared to receive it as a natural 
 thing. If any word at all was uttered by the 
 little group it was an occasional whisper of the 
 woman to the child — a tiny girl in short 
 clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn — and 
 the murmured babble of the child in reply. 
 
 The chief— almost the only — attraction of 
 the young woman's face was its mobility. 
 When she looked down sideways to the girl 
 she became pretty, and even handsome, parti- 
 cularly that in the action her features caught 
 slantwise the rays of the strongly coloured 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 sun, which made transparencies of her eyelids 
 and nostrils, and set fire on her lips. When 
 she plodded on in the shade of the hedge^ 
 silently thinking, she had the hard, half- 
 apathetic expression of one who deems 
 anything possible at the hands of Time and 
 Chance, except, perhaps, fair-play. The first 
 phase was the work of Nature, the second 
 probably of civilization. 
 
 That the man and woman were husband 
 and wife,- and the parents of the girl in arms, 
 there could be little doubt. No other than 
 such relationship would have accounted for 
 the atmosphere of domesticity which the trio 
 carried along with them like a nimbus as they 
 moved down the road. 
 
 The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, 
 though with little interest — the scene for that 
 matter being one that might have been 
 matched at almost any spot in any county in. 
 England at this time of the year : a road 
 neither straight nor crooked, neither level 
 nor hilly, bordered by hedges, trees, and other 
 veofetation, which had entered the blackened- 
 green stage of colour that the doomed leaves 
 pass through on their way to dingy, and 
 yellow, and red. The grassy margin of thv
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 5 
 
 bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were 
 powdered by the dust that had been stirred 
 over them by hasty vehicles, the same dust 
 as it lay on the road deadening their footfalls 
 like a carpet ; and this, with the aforesaid 
 total absence of conversation, allowed every 
 extraneous sound to be. heard. 
 
 For a long time there was none, beyond the 
 voice of a weak bird singing a trite old even- 
 ino; sono' that mi2:ht doubtless have been 
 heard on the hill at the same hour,, and with 
 the self-same trills, quavers, and breves, at 
 any sunset of tliat season for centuries untold. 
 But as they approached the village sundry 
 distant shouts and rattles reached their ears 
 from some elevated spot in that direction, as 
 yet screened from view by foliage. When 
 the outlying houses of Weydon-Priors could 
 just be descried, the family group was met by 
 a turnip-hoer with his hoe on his shoulder, 
 and his dinner-bag suspended from it. The 
 reader promptly glanced up. 
 
 " Any trade doing here V he asked phleg- 
 matically, designating the village in his van 
 by a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking 
 the labourer did not understand him, he added, 
 '' Anything in the hay-trussing line '? "
 
 6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 The turnip-hoer liad already begun shaking 
 his head. " Why, save the man, what 
 wisdom's in fashion that 'a should come to 
 Weydon for a job of that sort this time o' 
 year ? '' 
 
 "Then is there any house to let — a little 
 small new cottage just a builded, or such 
 like ? " asked the other. 
 
 The pessimist still maintained a negative : 
 " Pulling down is more the nater of Weydon. 
 There were five houses cleared away last year, 
 and three this ; and the fokes nowhere to go 
 — no, not so much as a thatched hurdle ; 
 that's the way o' Weydon-Priors." 
 
 The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, 
 nodded with some superciliousness. Looking 
 towards the village, he contiuued, " There is 
 something going on here, however, is there 
 not?'' 
 
 ''Ay. 'Tis Fair-Day. Though what you 
 hear now is little more than the clatter and 
 scurry of getting away the money o' children 
 and fools, for the real business is done earlier 
 than this. I've been working within sound 
 o't all day, but I didn't go up — not I. 'Twas 
 no business of mine." 
 
 The trusser and his family proceeded on
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 7 
 
 their way, and soon entered tlie Fair-field, 
 which showed standing-places and pens where 
 many hundreds of horses and sheep had been 
 exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but were 
 now in great part taken away. At present, 
 as their informant had observed, but little 
 real business remained on hand, the chief 
 being the sale by auction of a few inferior 
 animals, that could not otherwise be disposed 
 of, and had been absolutely refused by the 
 better class of traders, who came and went 
 early. Yet the crowd was denser now than 
 during the morning hours, the frivolous con- 
 tingent of visitors, including journeymen out 
 foi' a holiday, a stray soldier or two home on 
 furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, 
 having latterly flocked in ; persons whose 
 activities found a cono^enial field amono- the 
 peep-shows, toy- stands, v»^ax-works, inspired 
 monsters, disinterested medical men who 
 travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers, 
 nick-nack vendors, and readers of Fate. 
 
 Neither of our pedestrians had much heart 
 for these things, and they looked around for 
 a refreshment tent among the many which 
 dotted the down. Two, which stood nearest 
 to them in the ochreous haze of expiring sun-
 
 a THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 light, seemed almost equally inviting. One 
 was formed of new, milk-hued canvas, 'and 
 bore red flags on its summit ; it announced 
 "Good Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder." 
 The other was less new ; a little iron stove- 
 pipe came out of it at the back, and in front 
 appeared the placard, " Good Furmity Sold 
 Hear." The man mentally weighed the 
 two inscriptions, and inclined to the former 
 tent. 
 
 " No — no — the other one," said the woman. 
 " I always like furmity ; and so does Elizabeth- 
 Jane ; and so will you. It is nourishing after 
 a long hard day." 
 
 " I've never tasted it," said the man. 
 However, he gave way to her representations, 
 and they entered the furmity-booth forth- 
 with. 
 
 A rather numerous company appeared 
 within, seated at the long narrow tables that 
 ran down the tent on each side. At the 
 upper end stood a stove, containing a charcoal 
 fire, over which hung a large three-legged 
 crock, sufficiently polished round the rim to 
 show that it was made of bell-metal. A hag- 
 gish creature of about fifty presided, in a 
 white apron, which, as it threw an air of
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 9 
 
 respectability over her as far as it extended, 
 was made so wide as to reach nearly round 
 her waist. She slowly stirred the contents 
 of the pot. The dull scrape of her large 
 spoon was audible throughout the tent as she 
 thus kept from burning the mixture of corn 
 in the grain, milk, raisins, currants, and what 
 not that composes the antiquated slop in 
 which she dealt. Vessels holding the separate 
 ingredients stood on a white-clothed table of 
 boards and trestles close by. 
 
 The young man and woman ordered a basin 
 each of the mixture, steaming hot, and sat 
 down to consume it at leisure. This was 
 very well so far, for furmity, as the woman 
 had said, was nourishing, and as proper a 
 food as could be obtained within the four 
 seas ; though, to those not accustomed to it, 
 the grains of wheat, swollen as large as lemon- 
 pips, which floated on its surface might have 
 a deterrent effect at first. 
 
 But there was more in that tent than met 
 the cursory glance ; and the man, with the 
 instinct of a perverse character, scented it 
 quickly. After a mincing attack on his bowl, 
 he watched the hag's proceedings from the 
 corner of his eye, and saw the game she
 
 lO THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 played. He winked to her, and passed up 
 his basin in reply to her nod ; when she took 
 a bottle from under the table, slily measured 
 out a quantity of its contents, and tipped the 
 same into the man's furmity. The liquor 
 poured in was ram. The man as slily sent 
 back money in payment. 
 
 He found the concoction, thus strongly 
 laced, much more to his satisfaction than it 
 had been in its natural state. His wife had 
 observed the proceeding with much uneasi- 
 ness, but he persuaded her to have hers laced 
 also, and she agreed to a milder allowance 
 after some misgiving. 
 
 The man finished his basin, and called for 
 another, the rum being signalled for in yet 
 stronger proportion. The effect of it was 
 soon apparent in his manner, and his wife 
 but too sadly perceived that in strenuously 
 steering off the rocks of the licensed liquor- 
 tent she had only got into Maelstrom depths 
 here amono-st the smuo:o:lers. 
 
 The child began to prattle imjDatiently, and 
 the wife more than once said to her husband, 
 " Michael, how about our lodging ? You 
 know we may have trouble in getting it if we 
 don't go soon." 
 
 But he turned a deaf ear to these bird-like
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I I 
 
 cliirpings. He talked loud to the company. 
 The child's black eyes, after slow, round, 
 ruminating gazes at the candles when they 
 were lighted, fell together ; then they opened, 
 then shut again, and she slept. 
 
 At the end of the first basin the man had 
 risen to serenity. At the second he was 
 jovial ; at the third argumentative. At the 
 fourth, the points signified by the shape of his 
 face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and 
 the fiery spark of his dark eye, began to tell 
 in his conduct ; he was overbearing — even 
 brilliantly quarrelsome. 
 
 The conversation took a high turn, as it 
 often does on such occasions. The ruin oi 
 good men by bad wives, and, more particularly, 
 the frustation of many a promising youth's 
 high aims and hopes, and the extinction of his 
 energies, by an early imprudent marriage, was 
 the theme. 
 
 " I did for myself that way thoroughly,'' 
 said the trusser, with a contem23lative bitter- 
 ness that was well-nigh resentful. '' I married 
 at eighteen, like a fool that 1 was ; and this 
 is the consequence o't." He pointed at him- 
 self and family with a wave of the hand in- 
 tended to bring out the penuriousness of the 
 exhibition.
 
 12 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 The young woman liis wife, who seemed 
 accustomed to such remarks, acted as if she 
 did not hear them, and continued her inter- 
 mittent private words on tender trifles to the 
 sleeping and waking child, who was just big 
 enough to be placed for a moment on the 
 bench beside her when she wished to ease her 
 arms. The man continued : 
 
 " I haven't more than fifteen shillino-s in 
 the world, and yet I am a good experienced 
 hand in my line. I'd challenge England to 
 beat me in the fodder business ; and if I were 
 a free man again I'd be worth a thousand 
 pound before I'd done o't. But a fellow never 
 knows these little things till all chance of 
 acting upon 'em is past." 
 
 The auctioneer sellino^ the old horses in the 
 field outside could be heard saying, " Now 
 this is the last lot — now who'll take the last 
 lot for a song ? Shall I say forty shillings ? 
 'Tis a very promising brood-mare, a trifle over 
 five years old, and nothing the matter with the 
 boss at all, except that she's a little holler in 
 the back and had her left eye knocked out by 
 the kick of another, her own sister, coming 
 along the road." 
 
 " For my part I don't see why men who
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I 3 
 
 have got wives, and don't want 'em, shouldn't 
 get rid of 'em as these gipsy fellows do their 
 old horses," said the man in the tent. ^' Why 
 shouldn't they put 'em up and sell 'em by 
 auction to men who are in want of such 
 articles ? Hey ? Why, begad, I'd sell mine 
 this minute, if anybody would buy her ! " 
 
 " There's them that would do that," some 
 of the guests replied, looking at the woman, 
 who was by no means ill-favoured. 
 
 "True," said a smoking gentleman, whose 
 coat had the fine polish about the collar, 
 elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades that long- 
 continued friction with oily surfaces will 
 produce, and which is usually more desired 
 on furniture than on clothes. From his 
 appearance he had possibly been in former 
 time groom or coachman to some neighbouring 
 county family. " I've had my breedings in as 
 good circles, I inay say, as any man," he added, 
 *' and I know true cultivation, or nobody do ; 
 and I can declare she's got it — in the bone, 
 mind ye, I say — as much as any female in the 
 fair — though it may want a little bringing out. " 
 Then, crossing his legs, he resumed his pipe with 
 a nicely adjusted gaze at a point in the air. 
 
 The fuddled young husband stared for a few^
 
 14 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 seconds at this unexpected praise of liis wife, 
 half in doubt of the wisdom of his own atti- 
 tude towards the possessor of such qualities. 
 But he speedily lapsed into his former convic- 
 tion, and said harshly : 
 
 " Well, then, now is your chance ; I am 
 open to an offer for this gem of creation." 
 
 She turned to her husband and murmured, 
 '* Michael, you have talked this nonsense in 
 public places before. A joke is a joke, but 
 you may make it once too often, mind ! '' 
 
 " I know I've said it before ; I meant it. 
 All I want is a buyer." 
 
 At the moment a swallow, one among the 
 last of the season, which had by chance found 
 its way through an opening into the upper 
 part of the tent, flew to and fro in quick 
 curves above their heads, causing all eyes to 
 follow it absently. In watching the bird till 
 it made its escape the assembled company 
 neglected to respond to the workman's offer, 
 and the subject dropped. 
 
 But a quarter of an hour later the man, 
 who had gone on lacing his furmity more and 
 more heavily, though he was either so strong- 
 minded or such an intrepid toper that he still 
 appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain,
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I 5 
 
 as in a musical fantasy the instrument fetches 
 up the original theme. " Here — I am '>vaiting 
 to know about this offer of mine. The woman 
 is no good to me. Who'll have her ? " 
 
 The company had by this time decidedly 
 degenerated, and the renewed inquiry was 
 received with a laugh of appreciation. The 
 woman whispered ; she was imploring and 
 anxious : " Come, come, it is getting dark, 
 and this nonsense won't do. If you don't 
 come along I shall go without you. Come ! " 
 
 She waited and waited ; yet he did not 
 move. In ten minutes the man broke in upon 
 the desultory conversation of the furmity 
 drinkers with, '' I asked this question, and 
 nobody answered to 't. Will any Jack Eag 
 or Tom Straw among ye buy my goods ? " 
 
 The woman's manner changed, and her face 
 assumed the grim shape and colour of which 
 mention has been made. 
 
 ''Mike, Mike," said she ; "this is getting 
 serious. Oh — too serious ! " 
 
 " Will anybody buy her ? " said the man. 
 
 ''I wish somebody would," said she firmly. 
 " Her present owner is not at all to her liking !'^ 
 
 '' Nor you to mine," said he. ''So we are 
 agreed about that. Gentlemen, you hear ?
 
 l6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 It's an agreement to part. She shall take the 
 girl if she wants to, and go her ways. I'll 
 take my tools, and go my ways. Tis simple as 
 Scripture history. Now then, stand up, Susan, 
 and show yourself." 
 
 '' Don't, my chiel," whispered a buxom stay- 
 lace dealer in voluminous petticoats, who sat 
 near the woman ; "yer good man don't know 
 what he's saying." 
 
 The womaQ, however, did stand up. " Now, 
 who's auctioneer ? " cried the hay-trusser. 
 
 " I be," promptly answered a short man, 
 with a nose resembling a copper knob, a damp 
 voice, and eyes like button-holes. " Who'll 
 make an offer for this lady ? " 
 
 The woman looked on the ground, as if she 
 maintained her position by a supreme effort 
 of will. 
 
 " Five shillings," said some one, at which 
 there was a laugh. 
 
 '' No insults," said the husband. '' Wholl 
 say a guinea ? " 
 
 Nobody answered ; and the female dealer 
 in staylaces interposed. 
 
 '' Behave yerself moral, good man, for 
 Heaven's love ! Ah, what a cruelty is the 
 poor soul married to ! Bed and board is dear 
 at some figures, 'pon my 'vation 'tis ! "
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1/ 
 
 " Set it higher, auctioneer," said the trusser. 
 
 " Two guineas 1 " said the auctioneer ; and 
 no one replied. 
 
 "If they don't take her for that, in ten 
 seconds they'll have to give more," said the 
 husband. " Very well. Now, auctioneer, add 
 another.''^ 
 
 " Three guineas — going for three guineas ! " 
 said the rheumy man. 
 
 " No bid ? " said the husband. " Good Lord, 
 why she's cost me fifty times the money, if a 
 penny. Go on." 
 
 " Four guineas ! " cried the auctioneer. 
 
 " 111 tell ye what — I won't sell her for less 
 than ^vej' said the husband, bringing down 
 his fist so that the basins danced. " I'll sell 
 her for five guineas to any man that will pay 
 me the money, and treat her well; and he 
 shall have her for ever, and never hear aught 
 o' me. But she sha'n't go for less. Now then 
 — five guineas — and she's yours. Susan, you 
 agree ?" 
 
 She bowed her head with absolute indif- 
 ference. 
 
 "Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or 
 she'll be withdrawn. Do anybody give it ? 
 The last time. Yes or no ? '' 
 
 VOL. L C
 
 1 8 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 " Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway. 
 
 All eyes were turned. Standing in the 
 triangular opening which formed the door of 
 the tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the 
 rest, had arrived there within the last two or 
 three minutes. A dead silence followed his 
 affirmation. 
 
 " You say you do ? " asked the husband, 
 staring at him. 
 
 " I say so," replied the sailor. 
 
 " Saying is one thing, and paying is another. 
 Where's the money ? " 
 
 The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew 
 at the woman, came in, unfolded a crisj) piece 
 of paper, and threw it down upon the table- 
 cloth. It was a Bank-of-England note for five 
 pounds. Upon the face of this he chinked 
 down the shillings severally — one, two, three, 
 four, five. 
 
 The sight of real money in full amount, in 
 answer to a challenge for the same till then 
 deemed slightly hypothetical, had a great 
 effect upon the spectators. Their eyes became 
 riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and 
 then upon the note, as it lay, weighted by the 
 shillings, on the table. 
 
 Up to this moment it could not positively
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 9 
 
 have been asserted that the man, in spite 
 of his tantalizing declaration, was really in 
 earnest. The spectators had, indeed, taken 
 the proceedings throughout as a piece of 
 mirthful irony carried to extremes ; and had 
 assumed that, being out of work, he was, as a 
 consequence, out of temper with the world, 
 and society, and his nearest kin. But with the 
 demand and response of real cash the jovial 
 frivolity of the scene departed. A lurid colour 
 seemed to fill the tent, and change the aspect 
 of all therein. The mirth-wrinkles left the 
 listeners' faces, and they waited with parting 
 lips. 
 
 " Now," said the woman, breaking the 
 silence, so that her low dry voice sounded 
 quite loud, " before you go further, Michael, 
 listen to me. If you touch that money, I and 
 this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke 
 no longer." 
 
 " A joke ? — Of course it is not a joke ! " 
 shouted her husband, his resentment rising at 
 her suggestion. " I take the money : the 
 sailor takes you. That's plain enough. It has 
 been done elsewhere — and why not here ? " 
 
 '' 'Tis quite on the understanding that the 
 young woman is willing," said the sailor, 
 
 C 2
 
 20 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 blandly. '' I wouldn't Imrt her feelings for 
 the world." 
 
 ''Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But 
 she is willing, provided she can have the child. 
 She said so only the other day when I talked 
 o't ! " 
 
 " That you swear ? " said the sailor to her. 
 
 *' I do/' said she, after glancing at her 
 husband's face and seeing no repentance there. 
 
 *' Very well, she shall have the child, and 
 the bargain's complete," said the trusser. He 
 took the sailor's note and deliberately folded 
 it, and put it with the shillings in a high 
 remote pocket with an air of finality. 
 
 The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. 
 '' Come along ! " he said, kindly. " The little 
 one, too — the more the merrier ! " She paused 
 for an instant, with a close glance at him. 
 Then dropping her eyes again, and saying 
 nothing, she took up the child and followed 
 him as he made towards the door. On reaching 
 it, she turned, and pulling off her wedding- 
 ring flung it across the room in the hay- 
 trusser's face. 
 
 ''Mike," she said, "I've lived with thee 
 a couple of years and had nothing but 
 temper 1 Now I'm no more to you ; I'll try
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 2 1 
 
 my luck elsewhere. 'Twill be better for me 
 and the child, both. So good-bye." 
 
 Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, 
 and mounting the little girl on her left, she 
 went out of the tent, sobbing bitterly, and 
 apparently without a thought that she was 
 not strictly bound to go with the man who had 
 paid for her. 
 
 A stolid look of concern filled the husband's 
 face, as if, after all, he had not quite anticipated 
 this ending ; and some of the guests laughed. 
 
 " Is she gone? " he said. 
 
 *' Faith, ay ; she gone clane enough," said 
 some rustics near the door. 
 
 He rose and walked to the entrance with the 
 careful tread of one conscious of his alcoholic 
 load. Some others followed, and they stood 
 looking into the twilight. The difference 
 between the peacefulness of inferior nature 
 and the wilful hostilities of mankind was very 
 apparent at this place. In contrast with the 
 harshness of the act just ended within the 
 tent was the sight of several horses crossing 
 their necks and rubbing each other lovingly as 
 they waited in patience to be harnessed for 
 the homeward journey. Outside the fair, in 
 the valleys and woods, all was quiet. The sun
 
 2 2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDCE. 
 
 had recently set, and the west heaven was 
 hung with rosy cloud, Avhich seemed perma- 
 nent, yet slowly changed. To watch it was 
 like looking at some grand feat of stagery 
 from a darkened auditorium. In presence of 
 this scene, after the other, there was a natural 
 instinct to abjure man as the blot on an 
 otherwise kindly universe ; till it was re- 
 membered that all terrestrial conditions were 
 intermittent, and that mankind might some 
 night be innocently sleeping when these quiet 
 objects were raging loud. 
 
 '' Where do the sailor live ?" asked a spec- 
 tator, when they had vainly gazed around. 
 
 " God knows that," replied the man who 
 had seen high life. "He's without doubt 
 a stranger here." 
 
 " He came in about five minutes ao^o,'' said 
 the furmity woman, joining the rest with her 
 hands on her hips. " And then 'a stepped 
 back, and then a looked in again. I'm not a 
 penny the better for him." 
 
 " Serves the husband well be-right," said 
 the stay lace vendor. *' A comely respectable 
 body like her — what can a man want more ? I 
 glory in the woman's sperrit. I'd ha' done it 
 myself— od send if I wouldn't, if a husband
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 23 
 
 had behaved so to me ! I'd go, and 'a might 
 call, and call, till his keacorn was raw ; but 
 I'd never come back — no, not till the great 
 trumpet, would I." 
 
 " Well, the woman will be better off," said 
 another of a more deliberative turn. ''For 
 seafaring naters be very good shelter for shorn 
 lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty of 
 money, which is what she's not been used 
 to lately, by all showings." 
 
 " Mark me — I'll not go after her ! " said the 
 trusser, returning doggedly to his seat. ''Let 
 her go. If she's up to such vagaries she must 
 suffer for 'em. She'd no business to take the 
 maid — 'tis my maid ; and if it were the doing 
 again she shouldn't have her 1 " 
 
 Perhaps from some little sense of having 
 countenanced an indefensible proceeding, per- 
 haps because it was late, the customers 
 thinned away from the tent shortly after this 
 episode. The man stretched his elbows forward 
 on the table, leant his face upon his arms, and 
 soon began to snore. The furmity-seller de- 
 cided to close for the night, and after seeing 
 the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, &c., that 
 remained on hand, loaded into ih.Q cart, came 
 to where the man reclined. She shook him ;
 
 24 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 but could not wake him. As the tent was not 
 to be struck that night, the fair continuing for 
 two or three days, she decided to let the 
 sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay 
 where he was, and his basket vnth him. 
 Extinguishing the last candle, and lowering 
 the flap of the tent, she left it, and drove 
 away.
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The morning sun was streaming through the 
 crevices of the canvas when the man awoke. 
 A warm glow pervaded the whole atmosphere 
 of the marquee, and a single big blue fly 
 buzzed musically round and round it. Besides 
 the buzz of the fly there was not a sound. 
 He looked about — at the benches — at the 
 table supported by trestles — at his basket of 
 tools — at the stove where the furmity had 
 been boiled — at the empty basins — at some 
 shed grains of wheat — at the corks which 
 dotted the grassy floor. Among the odds and 
 ends he discerned a little shining object, and 
 picked it up. It was his wife's ring. 
 
 A confused picture of the events of the 
 previous evening seemed to come back to him, 
 and he thrust his hand into his coat pocket. A 
 rustlina: revealed the sailor's bank-note thrust 
 carelessly in. 
 
 This second verification of his dim memories 
 was enough ; he knew now they were not
 
 2 6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 dreams. He remained seated, looking on the 
 ground for some time. " I must get out of 
 this as soon as I can/' he said deliberately at 
 last, with the air of one who could not catch 
 his thoughts without pronouncing them. 
 " She's gone — to be sure she is — gone with 
 that sailor who bought her, and little Eliza- 
 beth-Jane. We walked here, and I had the 
 furmity, and rum in it — and sold her. Yes, 
 that's what's happened, and here am I. 
 Now, what am I to do — am I sober enouo-h 
 to walk, I wonder ? " He stood up, found 
 that he was in fairly good condition for pro- 
 gress, unencumbered. Next he shouldered 
 his tool basket, and found he could carry it. 
 Then lifting the tent door he emerged into 
 the open air. 
 
 Here the man looked around with gloomy 
 curiosity. The freshness of the September 
 morning inspired and braced him as he stood. 
 He and his family had been weary when they 
 arrived the night before, and they had 
 observed but little of the place ; so that he 
 now beheld it as a new thing. It exhibited 
 itself as the top of an open down, bounded 
 on one extreme by a plantation, and ap- 
 proached by a winding road. At the bottom
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 2/ 
 
 stood the villao'e which lent its name to the 
 upland, and the annual fair that was held 
 thereon. The spot stretched downward into 
 valleys, and onward to other uplands, dotted 
 with barrows, and trenched with the remains 
 of prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay 
 under the rays of a newly risen sun, which 
 had not as yet dried a single blade of the 
 heavily dewed grass, whereon the shadows of 
 the yellow and red vans were projected far 
 away, those thrown by the felloe of eacli 
 wheel being elongated in shape to the orbit 
 of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen 
 who had remained on the ground lay snug 
 within their carts and tents, or wrapped in 
 horse-cloths under them, and were silent and 
 still as death, with the exception of an occa- 
 sional snore that revealed their presence. 
 But the Seven Sleepers had a dog ; and dogs 
 of the mysterious breeds that vagrants own, 
 that are as much like cats as dogs, and as 
 much like foxes as cats, also lay about here. 
 A little one started up under one of the carts, 
 barked as a matter of principle, and quickly 
 lay down again. He was the only positive 
 spectator of the hay-trasser s exit from the 
 Weydon fairfield.
 
 2S THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 This seemed to accord with his desire. 
 He went on in silent thought, unheeding 
 tlie yellow-hammers which flitted about the 
 hedges with straws in their bills, the crowns 
 of the mushrooms, and the tinkling of local 
 sheep-bells, whose wearers had had the good 
 fortune not to be included in the fair. When 
 he reached a lane, a good mile from the scene 
 of the previous evening, the man pitched his 
 basket, and leant npon a gate. A difficult 
 problem or two occupied his mind. 
 
 " Did I tell my name to anybody last 
 night, or didn't I tell my name ? " he said to 
 himself; and at last concluded that he did 
 not. His sreneral demeanour was enouo^h to 
 show how he was surprised and nettled that 
 his wife had taken him so literally — as much 
 could be seen in his face, and in the way he 
 2iibbled a straw which he pulled from the 
 hedge. He knew that she must have been 
 somewhat excited to do this ; moreover, she 
 must have believed in the binding force of 
 the transaction. On this latter point he felt 
 quite certain, knowing her freedom from 
 levity of character, and the extreme simpli- 
 city of her intellect. There may have been 
 a little recklessness beneath her ordinary
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 29 
 
 placidity. On a previous occasion when he 
 had declared during a fuddle that he would 
 dispose of her as he had done, she had de- 
 clared that she should not hear him say that 
 many times more before it happened, in the 
 
 resigned tones of a fatalist " Yet she 
 
 knows I am not in my senses when I do 
 that ! " he exclaimed. " Well, I must walk 
 about till I find her. .... Seize her, w*hy 
 didn^t she know better than bring me into 
 this disgrace ! " he roared out. '' She wasn't 
 queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such 
 idiotic simplicity. Meek — that meekness has 
 done me more harm than the bitterest 
 temper ! " 
 
 When he was calmer, he returned to his 
 original conviction that he must somehow 
 find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and 
 put up with the shame as best he could. It 
 was of his own making, and he ought to 
 bear it. But first he resolved to register an 
 oath, a greater oath than he had ever sworn 
 before : and to do it properly lie required a 
 fit place and imagery ; for there was some- 
 thing fetichistic in this man's beliefs. 
 
 He shouldered his basket and moved on, 
 casting his eyes inquisitively round uj)on the
 
 30 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 landscape as lie walked, and at the distance 
 of three or four miles perceived the roofs of 
 a villaofe and the tower of a church. He 
 instantly made towards the latter object. 
 The village was quite still, it being that 
 motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills 
 the interval between the departure of the 
 field labourers • to their work, and the rising 
 of their wives and daughters to prepare the 
 breakfast for their return. Hence he reached 
 the church without observation, and the door 
 being only latched he entered. The hay- 
 trusser deposited his basket by the font, 
 went up the nave till he reached the altar- 
 rails, and opening the gate entered the sac- 
 rarium, where he seemed to feel a sense of 
 the strangeness for a moment, then knelt 
 upon the foot-pace. Dropping his head upon 
 the clamped book which lay on the Com- 
 munion table, he said aloud : 
 
 "I, Michael Hen chard, on this morning of 
 the sixteenth of September, do take an oath 
 here in this solemn place that I will avoid all 
 strong liquors for the space of twenty years 
 to come, being a year for every year that I 
 have lived. And this I swear upon the 
 Book before me ; and may I be stricken
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 3 1 
 
 dumb, blind, and helpless if I break this my 
 oath." 
 
 When he had said it and kissed the big 
 book, the hay-trusser arose, and seemed re- 
 lieved at having made a start in a new 
 direction. While standing in the porch a 
 moment, he saw a thick jet of wood-smoke 
 suddenly start up from the red chimney of a 
 cottage near, and knew that the occupant 
 had just lit her fire. He went round to 
 the door, and the housewife agreed to prepare 
 him some breakfast for a trifling payment, 
 which was done. Then he started on the 
 search for his wife and child. 
 
 The tantalizino; nature of the undertakinP' 
 became apparent soon enough. Though he 
 examined and inquired, and walked hither 
 and thither day after day, no such characters 
 as those he described had anywhere been seen 
 since the evening of the fair. To add to the 
 difficulty he could gain no sound of the 
 sailor s name. As money was short with him 
 he decided, after some hesitation, to spend 
 the sailor's money in the prosecution of this 
 search ; but it was equally in vain. The 
 truth was that a certain shyness of revealing 
 his conduct prevented Michael Henchard from
 
 32 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 following up tlie investigation with the loud 
 hue-and-cry such a pursuit demanded to 
 render it effectual ; and it was probably for 
 this reason that he obtained no clue, though 
 everything was done by him that did not 
 involve an explanation of the circumstances 
 under which he had lost her. 
 
 Weeks counted up to months and still he 
 searched on, maintaining himself by small 
 jobs of work in the intervals. By this time 
 he had arrived at a western seaport, and 
 there he derived intelligence that persons 
 answering somewhat to his description had 
 emiofrated a little time before. Then he said 
 he would search no longer, and that he would 
 go and settle in the district which he had had 
 for some time in his mind. Next day he 
 started, journeying southward, and did not 
 pause till he reached the town of Casterbridge, 
 more than a hundred miles off.
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The high road into the village of Weydon- 
 Priors was again carpeted with dust. The 
 trees had put on as of yore their aspect of 
 dingy green, and where the Henchard family 
 of three had once walked along, two per- 
 sons not unconnected with that family walked 
 now. 
 
 The scene in its broad aspect had so much 
 of its previous character, even to the voices 
 and rattle from the neighbouring village 
 down, that it might for that matter have 
 been the afternoon following the previously 
 recorded episode. Change was only to be 
 observed in details ; but here it was obvious 
 that a long procession of years had passed by. 
 One of the two who walked the road was 
 she who had figured as the young wife of 
 Henchard on the previous occasion ; now her 
 face had lost much of its rotundity ; her skin 
 had undergone a textural change ; and though 
 her hair had not lost colour, it was con- 
 
 YOL. I. D
 
 34 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 siderably thinner than heretofore. She was 
 dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. 
 Her companion, also in black, appeared as a 
 well-formed young woman of eighteen, com- 
 pletely possessed of that ephemeral precious 
 essence, youth, which is itself beauty, irrespec- 
 tive of complexion or contour. 
 
 A glance was sufficient to inform the eye 
 that this was Susan Henchard's grown-up 
 daughter. While life's middle summer had 
 set its hardening mark on the mother's face, 
 her former spring-like specialities were trans- 
 ferred so dexterously by Time to the second 
 figure, her child, that the absence of certain 
 facts within her mother's knowledge from the 
 girl's mind would have seemed for the 
 moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to 
 be a curious imperfection in Nature's powers 
 of continuity. 
 
 They walked with joined hands, and it 
 could be perceived that this was the act 
 of simple affection. The daughter carried 
 in her outer hand a withy basket of old- 
 fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, 
 which contrasted oddly with her black 
 stuff gown. 
 
 Reaching the outskirts of the village they
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 35 
 
 pursued the same track as formerly, and 
 ascended to the fair. Here, too, it was evi- 
 dent that the years had told. Certain 
 mechanical improvements might have been 
 noticed in the roundabouts and hiefhfliers, 
 machines for testing rustic strength and 
 weight, and in the erections devoted to 
 shooting for nuts. But the real business of 
 the fair had considerably dwindled. The new 
 periodical great markets of neighbouring 
 towns were beginning to interfere seriously 
 with the trade carried on here for centuries. 
 The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for horses, 
 were about half as long as they had been. 
 The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen- 
 drapers, and other such trades had almost 
 disappeared, and the vehicles were far less 
 numerous. The mother and daughter threaded 
 the crowd for some little distance, and then 
 stood still. 
 
 *' Why did we hinder our time by coming- 
 in here "? I thought you wished to get on- 
 ward 'i " said the maiden. 
 
 '*Yes, my dear Elizabeth- Jane," explained 
 the other. " But I had a fancy for looking 
 up here.'' 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 *' It was here I first met with Newson — on 
 such a day as this." 
 
 '' First met with father here ? Yes, you 
 have told me so before. And now he's 
 drowned and gone from us I " As she spoke 
 the girl drew a card from her pocket and 
 looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with 
 black, and inscribed within a design resem- 
 bling a mural tablet were the words, 
 *^ In affectionate memory of Hichard Newson, 
 mariner, who was unfortunately lost at sea, 
 in the month of November, 184 — , aged 41 
 years." 
 
 " And it was here," continued her mother, 
 with more hesitation, '^ that I last saw the 
 relative we are going to look for — Mr. Michael 
 Henchard." 
 
 " What is his exact relation to us, mother ? 
 I have never clearly had it told me." 
 
 " He is, or was — for he may be dead — a 
 relation by marriage," said her mother, deli- 
 berately. 
 
 " That's exactly what you have said a score 
 of times before ! " replied the young woman, 
 looking about her inattentively. " He's not a 
 near relation, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Not by any means."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 3/ 
 
 "He was a hay-trusser, wasn't he, when 
 you last heard of him ? " 
 
 " He was." 
 
 " I suppose he never knew me ? " the girl 
 innocently continued. 
 
 Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and 
 answered uneasily, " Of course not, Elizabeth- 
 Jane. But come this way." She moved on 
 to another part of the field. 
 
 "It is not much use inquiring here for any- 
 body, I should think/' the daughter observed, 
 as she gazed round about. " People at fairs 
 change like the leaves of trees ; and I dare 
 say you are the only one here to-day who was 
 here all those years ago." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that," said Mrs. New- 
 son, as she now called herself, keenly eyeing 
 something under a green bank a little way off. 
 " See there." 
 
 The daughter looked in the direction 
 signified. The object pointed out was a 
 tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from 
 which hung a three-legged crock, kept hot by 
 a smouldering wood fire beneath. Over the 
 pot stooped an old woman, haggard, wrinkled, 
 and almost in rags. She stirred the contents 
 of the pot with a large spoon, and occasionally
 
 38 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 croaked in a broken voice, *'Good furmity 
 sold here I " 
 
 It was indeed the former mistress of the 
 furmity-tent — once thriving, cleanly, white- 
 aproned, and chinking with money — now 
 tentless, dirty, owning no tables or benches, 
 and having scarce any customers except two 
 small whitey-brown boys, who came up and 
 asked for " A ha'p'orth please — good mea- 
 sure," which she served in a couple of chipped 
 yellow basins of commonest clay. 
 
 " She was here at that time," resumed 
 Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to draw 
 nearer. 
 
 '^ Don't speak to her — it isn't respectable ! " 
 urged the other. 
 
 "I will just say a word — you, Elizabeth- 
 Jane, can stay here." 
 
 The girl was not loth, and turned to some 
 stalls of coloured prints while her mother 
 went forward. The old woman begged for the 
 latter's custom as soon as she saw^ her, and 
 responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's recjuest 
 for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she 
 had shown in selling sixpennyworths in her 
 younger days. When the soi-disant widow 
 had taken the basin of thin poor slop that
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 39 
 
 stood for the rich concoction of the former 
 time, the hag opened a little basket behind 
 the fire, and, looking up slyly, whispered, 
 *' Just a thought o' rum in it ? — smuggled, 
 you know — say two penn'orth — 'twill make it 
 slip down like cordial." 
 
 Her customer smiled bitterly at this sur- 
 vival of the old trick, and shook her head 
 with a meaning the old woman was far from 
 translating. She pretended to eat a little of 
 the furmity with the leaden spoon offered, 
 and as she did so said blandly to the hag, 
 " You've seen better days ? " 
 
 " Ah, ma'am — well ye may say it ! " re- 
 sponded the old woman, opening the sluices 
 of her heart fori Ji with. *' I've stood in this 
 fair-ground, maid, wife, and widow, these 
 nine-and-thirty year, and in that time have 
 known what it was to do business with the 
 richest stomachs in the land ! Ma'am, you'd 
 hardly believe that I was once the owner of 
 a great pavilion-tent that was the attraction 
 of the fair. Nobody could come, nobody 
 could go, without having a dish of Mrs. Good- 
 enough's furmity. I knew the clergy's taste, 
 the dandy gent's taste ; I knew the town's 
 taste, the country's taste. I even knowed
 
 40 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 the taste of the coarse shameless females. 
 But seize my life — the world's no memory; 
 straightforward dealings don't bring profit — 
 'tis the sly and the underhand that get on 
 in these times 1 " 
 
 Mrs. Newson glanced round — her daughter 
 was still bending over the distant stalls. 
 ** Can you call to mind," she said cautiously 
 to the old woman, *' the sale of a wife by her 
 husband in your tent eighteen years ago to- 
 day ? " 
 
 The hag reflected, and half shook her head. 
 "If it had been a big thing I should have 
 minded it in a moment," she said. " I can 
 mind every serious fight o' married parties, 
 every murder, every manslaughter, even every 
 pocket-picking — leastwise large ones — that 't 
 has been my lot to witness. But a selling ? 
 Was it done quiet-like ? " 
 
 " Well, yes. I think so." 
 
 The furmity-woman half shook her head 
 again. '' And yet," she said, " I do. At any 
 rate I can mind a man doing something o' 
 the sort — a man in a cord jacket, with a 
 basket of tools ; but. Lord bless ye, we don't 
 gie it head-room, we don't, such as that. The 
 only reason why I can mind the man is that
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 4 1 
 
 he came back here to the next year's fair, and 
 told me quite private-Uke that if a woman 
 ever asked for him I was to say he had gone 
 to — where ? — Casterbridge — yes — to Caster- 
 bridge, said he. But, Lord's my Hfe, I 
 shouldn't ha' thought of it again ! " 
 
 Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old 
 woman as far as her small means afforded, 
 had she not discreetly borne in mind that it 
 was by that unscrupulous person's liquor her 
 husband had been degraded. She briefly 
 thanked her informant, and rejoined Eliza- 
 beth, who greeted her with, " Mother, do 
 let's go on — it was hardly respectable for you 
 to buy refreshments there. I see none but 
 the lowest do." 
 
 "I have learned what I wanted, however," 
 said her mother, quietly. " The last time 
 our relative visited this fair he said he was 
 living at Cksterbridge. It is a long, long 
 Avay from here, and it was many years ago 
 that he said it ; but there I think we'll go." 
 
 With this they descended out of the fair, 
 and went onward to the village, where they 
 obtained a night's lodging.
 
 42 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 HENCHAiiD's wife acted for the best, but she 
 had involved herself in difficulties. A hun- 
 dred times she had been upon the point of 
 telling her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, the true 
 story of her life, the tragical crisis of which 
 had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, 
 when she was not much older than the girl 
 now beside her. But she had refrained. An 
 innocent maiden had thus grown up in the 
 belief that the relations between the genial 
 sailor and her mother were the ordinary ones 
 that they had always appeared to be. The 
 risk of endano^erino^ a child's strong; affection 
 by disturbing ideas which had grown with. 
 her growth was to Mrs. Henchard too fearful 
 a thing to contemplate. It had seemed, 
 indeed, folly to think of making Elizabeth- 
 Jane wise. 
 
 But Susan Henchard 's fear of losing her 
 dearly loved daughter's heart by a revelation 
 had little to do with any sense of wrong-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 43 
 
 doing on lier own part. Her simplicity — the 
 original ground of Henchard s contempt for 
 her — had allowed her to live on in the con- 
 viction that Newson had acquired a real and 
 binding right to her by his purchase — though 
 the exact beaiings and legal limits of that 
 right were vague. It may seem strange to 
 sophisticated minds that a sane young matron 
 could believe in the validity of such a trans- 
 fer ; and were there not numerous other 
 instances of the same belief the thing might 
 scarcely be credited. But she was by no 
 means the first or last peasant woman who 
 had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as 
 too many rural records show. 
 
 The history of Susan Henchard's adventures 
 in the interim can be told in two or three 
 sentences. Absolutely helpless, she had been 
 taken off to Canada, where they had lived 
 several years without any great worldly 
 success, though she worked as hard as any 
 woman could to keep their cottage cheerful 
 and well-provided. When Elizabeth-Jane 
 was about twelve years old the three returned 
 to England, and settled at Falmouth, where 
 Newson made a living for a few years as 
 boatman and general handy shoreman.
 
 44 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 He then engao^ed in. the Newfoundland 
 trade, and it was during this period that 
 Susan had an awakening. A friend to whom 
 she confided her history ridiculed her belief 
 and position ; and all was over with her peace 
 of mind. When Newson came home at the 
 end of one winter he saw that the delusion he 
 had so carefully sustained had vanished for 
 ever. 
 
 There was then a time of sadness. Newson 
 left home again on the Newfoundland trade 
 when the season came round. The news of 
 his loss at sea a little later on solved a 
 problem which had become torture to her 
 meek conscience. She saw him no more. 
 
 Of Hen chard they heard nothing. To the 
 liege subjects of Labour, England is a conti- 
 nent, and a mile a geographical degree. 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane developed early into woman- 
 liness. One day, a month or so after receiv- 
 ino^ intelliQ:ence of Newson's death off the 
 Bank of Newfoundland, when the girl w^as 
 about eighteen, she was sitting on a willow 
 chair in the cottage they still occupied, work- 
 ing twine nets for the fishermen. Her mother 
 was in a back corner of the same room, 
 engaged in the same labour ; and dropping
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 45 
 
 the heavy wood needle she was filling, she 
 surveyed her daughter thoughtfully. The 
 sun shone in at the door upon the young 
 woman's head and hair, which was worn 
 loose, so that the rays streamed into its 
 depths as into a hazel copse. Her face, 
 though somewhat wan and incomplete, 
 possessed the raw materials of beauty in a 
 promising degree. There was an under- 
 handsomeness in it, struggling to reveal itself 
 through the provisional curves of immaturity, 
 and the casual disfigurements that resulted 
 from the straitened circumstances of their 
 lives. She was handsome in the bone, hardly 
 as yet handsome in the flesh. She possibly 
 might never be fully handsome, unless the 
 carking accidents of her daily existence 
 could be evaded before the mobile parts 
 of her countenance had settled to their final 
 mould. 
 
 The sight of the girl made her mother sad — 
 not vaguely, but by logical inference. They 
 both were still in that strait- waistcoat of 
 poverty from which she had tried so many 
 times to be delivered for the girl's sake. The 
 woman had long perceived how zealously and 
 constantly the young mind of her companion
 
 46 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 was struggling for enlargement ; and yet now, 
 in her eighteenth year, it still remained but 
 little unfolded. The desire — sober and re- 
 pressed — of Elizabeth- Jane's heart was indeed 
 to see, to hear, and to understand. How 
 could she become a woman of wider know- 
 ledge, higher repute — *' better," as she termed 
 it : — this was her constant inquiry of her 
 mother. She soun^ht further into thino;s than 
 other girls in her position ever did, and her 
 mother groaned as she felt she could not aid 
 in the search. 
 
 The sailor was now lost to them ; and 
 Susan's staunch, religious adherence to him 
 as her husband, till her views had been 
 disturbed by enlightenment, was demanded no 
 more. She asked herself whether the present 
 moment, now that she was a free woman 
 again, were not as opportune a one as she 
 would find, in a world where everything had 
 been so inopportune, for making a desperate 
 effort to advance Elizabeth. To pocket her 
 pride and search for the first husband seemed, 
 wisely or not, the best initiatory step. He 
 had possibly drunk himself into his tomb. 
 But he might, on the other hand, have had 
 too much sense to do so ; for in her time witn
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 47 
 
 Mm he had been given to bouts only, and 
 was not a habitual drunkard. 
 
 At any rate the propriety of returning to 
 him, if he lived, was unquestionable. The 
 awkwardness of searching for him lay in 
 enlightening Elizabeth, a proceeding which 
 her mother could not endure to contemplate. 
 She finally resolved to undertake the search 
 without confiding to the girl her former 
 relations with Henchard, leavino- it to him if 
 they found him to take what steps he might 
 choose to that end. This will account for 
 their conversation at the fair, and the half- 
 informed state in which Elizabeth was led 
 onward. 
 
 In this attitude they proceeded on their 
 journey, trusting solely to the dim light 
 afforded of Henchard's whereabouts by the 
 furmity-woman. The strictest economy was 
 indispensable. Sometimes they might have 
 been seen on foot, sometimes on farmers' 
 waggons, sometimes in carriers' vans ; and 
 thus they drew near to Casterbridge. Eliza- 
 beth-Jane discovered to her alarm that her 
 mother's health was not what it once had 
 been, and there was ever and anon in her talk 
 that renunciatory tone which showed that.
 
 48 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 but for the girl, she would not he very sorry 
 to quit a life she was growing thoroughly 
 weary of 
 
 It was on a Friday evening, near the 
 middle of September, and just before dusk, 
 that they reached the summit of a hill within 
 a mile of the place they sought. There were 
 no hedges to the highway here, and they 
 mounted upon the green turf and sat down. 
 The spot commanded a full view of the town 
 and its environs. 
 
 " What an old-fashioned place it seems 
 to be ! " said Elizabeth- Jane, while her 
 silent mother mused on other things 
 than topography. "It is huddled all 
 together ; and it is shut in by a square 
 wall of trees, like a plot of garden ground by a 
 box-edging." 
 
 Its squareness was, indeed, the charac- 
 teristic which most struck the eye in this 
 antiquated borough, the borough of Caster- 
 bridge — at that time, recent as it was, 
 untouched by the faintest sprinkle of modern- 
 ism. It was compact as a box of dominoes. 
 It had no suburbs — in the ordinary sense. 
 Country and town met at a mathematical 
 line.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 49 
 
 To birds of the more soaring kind Caster- 
 bridge must have appeared on this fine 
 evening as a mosaic-work of subdued reds, 
 browns, greys, and crystals, held together by 
 a rectangular frame of deep green. To the 
 level eye of humanity it stood as an indistinct 
 mass behind a dense stockade of limes and 
 chestnuts, set in the midst of miles of rotund 
 down and concave field. The mass became 
 gradually dissected by the vision into towers, 
 gables, chimneys, and casements, the highest 
 glazings shining bleared and bloodshot with 
 the coppery fire they caught from the belt of 
 sunlit cloud in the w^est. 
 
 From the centre of each side of this tree- 
 bound square ran avenues east, west, and 
 south into the wide ex]3anse of corn-land and 
 combe to the distance of a mile or so, after 
 which the highway was bare. It was one 
 of these avenues that the pedestrians had 
 entered. Before they had risen to proceed 
 two men passed by, engaged in argumentative 
 conversation. 
 
 "Why, surely," said Elizabeth, as they 
 receded; "those men mentioned the name of 
 Henchard in their talk — the name of our 
 relative ? " 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 
 
 *'I thought SO too," said Mrs. Newson (as 
 she may be called for the present). 
 
 " That seems a hint to us that he is still 
 here." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 *' Shall I run after them, and ask them 
 about him " 
 
 *' No, no, no ! Not for the world just yet. 
 He may be in the workhouse or in the stocks 
 for all we know." 
 
 "Dear me — why should you think that, 
 mother ? " 
 
 " 'Twas just something to say — that's all. 
 But we must make private inquiries." 
 
 Having sufficiently rested, they proceeded 
 on their way. The dense trees of the avenue 
 rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though 
 the corn-land on each side was still under a 
 faint daylight ; in other words, they passed 
 down a midnight between two gloamings. 
 The features of the town had a keen interest 
 for Elizabeth's mother now that the human 
 side came to the fore. As soon as they 
 approached the margin they could see that 
 the stockade of gnarled trees which framed 
 in Casterbridge was itself an avenue, standing 
 on a low green bank or escarpment, with a
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 5 I 
 
 ditch yet visible without. Within the avenue 
 and bank was a wall more or less disconti- 
 nuous, and within the wall were packed the 
 abodes of the burghers. 
 
 Though the two women did not know it, 
 these external features were but the ancient 
 defences of the town, planted as a promenade. 
 
 The lamplights now glimmered through the 
 engirdling trees, conveying a sense of great 
 snugness and comfort inside, and rendering 
 at the same time the unlighted country 
 without strangely solitary and vacant in 
 aspect, considering its nearness to life. The 
 difference between burgh and champaign was 
 increased, too, by sounds which now reached 
 them above others — the notes of a brass band. 
 The travellers wandered down the High 
 Street, where there were timber houses with 
 overhanging stories, whose small-paned lattices 
 were screened by dimity curtains on a draw- 
 ing-string, and under whose barge-boards old 
 cobwebs waved in the breeze. There were 
 houses of brick-nogging, w^hich derived their 
 chief support from those adjoining. There 
 were slate roofs patched with tiles, and tile 
 roofs patched with slate, with occasionally a 
 roof of thatch. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 The agricultural and pastoral cliaracter of 
 the people upon whom, the town depended for 
 its existence was shown by the class of objects 
 displayed in the shop-windows. Scythes, 
 reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks, spades, 
 mattocks, and hoes at the ironmonger's ; bee- 
 hives, butter-firkins, churns, milking-stools 
 and pails, hay-rakes, field-flagons, and seed- 
 lips at the cooper's ; cart-ropes and plough- 
 harness at the saddler's ; corn-drills and 
 winnowing-machines at the wheelwright's 
 and machinist's ; horse-embrocations at the 
 chemist's ; at the glover's and leather-cutter's 
 hedging-gloves, thatcher's knee-caps, plough- 
 man's leggings, villager's pattens and clogs. 
 
 They came to a grizzled church, whose 
 massive square tower rose unbroken into the 
 darkening sky, the lower parts being illumi- 
 nated by the nearest lamps sufficiently to 
 show how completely the mortar from the 
 joints of the stonework had been nibbled out 
 by time and weather, which had planted in 
 the crevices thus made little tufts of stone- 
 crop and grass almost as far up as the very 
 battlements. From this tower the clock 
 struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to 
 toll with a peremptory clang. The curfew
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 5 3 
 
 was still rung in Casterbridge, and it was 
 utilized by the inhabitants as a signal for 
 shutting their shops. No sooner did the 
 deep notes of the bell throb between the 
 house-fronts than a clatter of shutters arose 
 through the whole length of the High Street. 
 In a few minutes business at Casterbridge 
 was ended for the day. 
 
 Other clocks struck eight from time to 
 time — one gloomily from the gaol, another 
 from the gable of an almshouse, with a prepa- 
 rative creak of machinery, more a,udible than 
 the note of the bell ; a row of tall, varnished 
 case-clocks from the interior of a watch- 
 maker's shop joined in one after another just 
 as the shutters were enclosing them, like a 
 row of actors delivering their final speeches 
 before the fall of the curtain ; then chimes 
 were heard stammering out the Sicilian 
 Mariners' Hymn ; so that chronologists of 
 the advanced school were appreciably on 
 their way to the next hour before the whole 
 business of the old one was satisfactorily 
 wound up. 
 
 In an open space before the church walked 
 a woman with her gown-sleeves rolled up 
 so high that the edge of her under-linen
 
 54 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 was visible, and her skirt tucked up through 
 her pocket-hole. She carried a loaf under 
 her arm, from which she was pulling pieces 
 of bread, and handing them to some other 
 women who walked with her ; which pieces 
 they nibbled critically. The sight reminded 
 Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her daughter 
 that they had an appetite; and they inquired 
 of the woman for the nearest baker's. 
 
 " Ye may as well look for manna-food as good 
 bread in Casterbridge just now," she said, after 
 directing them. " They can blare their trum- 
 pets and thump their drums, and have their 
 roaring dinners" — waving her hand towards a 
 point further down the street, where the brass 
 band could be seen standing in front of an 
 illuminated building — "but we must needs 
 be put-to for want of - a wholesome crust. 
 There's less good bread than good beer in 
 Casterbridge now." 
 
 " And less good beer than swipes," said a 
 man with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 ''How does it happen there's no good 
 bread ? " asked Mrs. Henchard. 
 
 "Oh, 'tis the corn-factor — he's the man 
 that our millers and bakers all deal wi', and 
 he has sold 'em grown wheat, which they
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 55 
 
 didn't know was grown, so tliey say, till the 
 dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver ; 
 so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and 
 like suet pudden inside. I've been a wife, 
 and Tve been a mother, and I never see such 
 unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this 
 
 before But you must be a real stranger 
 
 here not to know what's made all the poor 
 folks plim like blowed blathers this week ? " 
 
 *' I am," said Elizabeth's mother, shyly. 
 
 Not wishing to be observed further till 
 she knew more of her future in this place, 
 she withdrew with her daughter from the 
 speaker's side. Getting a couple of biscuits 
 at the shop indicated, as a temporary sub- 
 stitute for a meal, they next bent their 
 steps instinctively to where the music was 
 playing.
 
 56 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 A FEW score yards broiiglit them to the spot 
 where the town band was now shaking the 
 window-panes with the strains of "The Roast 
 Beefof Old England." 
 
 The building before whose doors they had 
 pitched their music-stands was the chief 
 hotel in Casterbridge — namely, The Golden 
 Crown. A spacious bow -window projected 
 into the street over the main portico, and 
 from the open sashes came the babble of 
 voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing 
 of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left 
 unclosed, the whole interior of this room 
 could be surveyed from the top of a flight of 
 steps opposite, for which reason a knot of 
 idlers had gathered there. 
 
 " We might, perhaps, after all, make a few 
 inquiries about— our relation, Mr. Henchard," 
 whispered Mrs. Newson, who, since her entry 
 into Casterbridge, had seemed strangely 
 weak and agitated. "And this, I think.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 5 7 
 
 would be a good place for trying it — -just to 
 ask, you know, how lie stands in the town — 
 if he is here, as I think he must be. You, 
 Elizabeth-Jane, had better be the one to do 
 it. I'm too worn out to do anything — pull 
 down your fall first." 
 
 She sat down upon the lowest step, and 
 Elizabeth- Jane obeyed her directions and 
 stood among the idlers. 
 
 " What's going on to-night ? " asked the 
 girl, after singling out an old man, and 
 standing by him long enough to acquire a 
 neighbourly right of converse. 
 
 " Well, ye must be a stranger sure," said 
 the old man, without taking his eyes from the 
 window. '' W"hy, 'tis a great public dinner 
 of the gentle -people and such like leading 
 folk — wi' the Mayor in the chair. As 
 we plainer fellows baint invited, they leave 
 the winder-shutters open that we may 
 get jest a sense o't out here. If you mount 
 the steps you can see 'em. That's Mr. 
 Henchard, the Mayor, at the end of the 
 table, a facing ye ; and that's the Council- 
 men right and left Ah, lots of them 
 
 when they begun life were no more than 
 I be now ! "
 
 58 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 *' Henchard ?" said Elizabeth- Jane, sur- 
 prised, but by no means suspecting the whole 
 force of the revelation. She ascended among 
 the other persons to the space at the top 
 of the steps. 
 
 Her mother, though her head was bowed, 
 had already caught from the window tones 
 that strangely riveted her attention, before 
 the old man's words. "Mr. Henchard, the 
 Mayor," reached her ears. She arose, and 
 ascended in her daughter's rear as soon as 
 she could do so without showing exceptional 
 eagerness. 
 
 The interior of the hotel dining-room was 
 spread out before her, with its tables, and 
 glass, and plate, and inmates. Facing the 
 window, in the chair of dignity, sat a man 
 approaching forty years of age ; of heavy 
 frame, large features, and commanding voice ; 
 his general build being rather coarse than 
 compact. He had a rich complexion, which 
 verged on swarthiness, a flashing black eye, 
 and dark, bushy brows and hau*. When he 
 indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some 
 remark among the guests his large mouth 
 parted so far back as to show to the rays of 
 the chandelier a full score or more of the two-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 59 
 
 and-thirty sound white teeth that he obviously 
 still could boast of. 
 
 That laugh was not encouraging to strangers; 
 and hence it may have been well that it was 
 rarely heard. Many theories might have been 
 built upon it. It fell in well with conjectures 
 of a temperament which would have no pity 
 for weakness, but would be ready to yield un- 
 grudging admiration to greatness and strength. 
 Its producer's personal goodness, if he had any, 
 would be of a very fitful cast — an occasional 
 almost oppressive generosity rather than a 
 mild and constant kindness. 
 
 Susan Henchard's husband — in law, at 
 least — sat before them, matured in shape, 
 stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits ; dis- 
 ciplined, thought-marked — in a word, older. 
 Elizabeth, encumbered with no recollections as 
 her mother was, regarded him with nothing 
 more than the keen curiosity and interest 
 which the discovery of such unexpected social 
 standing in the long-sought relative naturally 
 begot. He was dressed in an old-fashioned 
 evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt 
 showing on his broad breast ; jewelled studs ; 
 and a heavy gold chain. Three glasses stood 
 at his right hand ; but, to his wife's surprise,
 
 60 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 
 
 tlie two for wine were empty, while the third, 
 a tumbler, was half full of water. 
 
 When last she had seen him he was sitting 
 in a light fustian jacket, corduroy waistcoat 
 and breeches, and tanned leather leggings, 
 with a basin of hot furmity before him. Time, 
 the magician, had wTOught much here. 
 Watching him, and thus thinking of past 
 days, she became so moved that she shrank 
 back against the jamb of the deep doorway to 
 which the steps gave access, the shadow from 
 it conveniently hiding her features. She for- 
 got her daughter, till a touch from Elizabeth- 
 Jane aroused her. " Have you seen him, 
 mother ? " whispered the girl. 
 
 " Yes, yes," answered her companion 
 hastily. " I have seen him, and it is enough 
 for me ! Now I only want to go — pass away 
 —die." 
 
 " Why — O what \ " She drew closer, and 
 whispered in her mother's ear, " Does he seem 
 to you not likely to befriend us ? 1 thought he 
 looked a generous man. What a gentleman he 
 is, isn't he ? and how his diamond studs shine ! 
 How strange that you should have said he 
 might be in the stocks or in the workhouse, or 
 dead ! Did ever anything go more by con-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 6 1 
 
 traries ! Wliy do you feel so afraid of him ? 
 I am not at all ; 111 call upon him — he can but 
 say he don't own such remote kin." 
 
 " I don't know at all — I can't tell what to 
 set about. I feel so down." 
 
 *' Don't be that, mother, now we have got 
 here and all ! Rest there Avhere you be a 
 little while — I will look on and find out more 
 about him.^' 
 
 *^ I don't think I can ever meet Mr. Hen- 
 chard. He is not how I thought he would be 
 — he overpowers me. I don't wish to see him 
 any more." 
 
 *' But w^ait a little time and consider." 
 
 Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much 
 interested in anything in her life as in their 
 present position, partly from the natural 
 elation she felt at discovering herself akin to 
 a coach ; and she gazed again at the scene. 
 The younger guests were talking and eating 
 with animation ; their elders w^ere searching 
 for tit-bits, and sniffing and grunting over 
 their plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. 
 Three drinks seemed to be sacred to the 
 company — port, sherry, and rum ; outside 
 which old-established trinity few or no palates 
 ranged.
 
 62 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 A row of ancient rummers with ground 
 figures on their sides, and each primed with a 
 spoon, was now placed down the table, and 
 these were promptly filled with grog at such 
 high temperatures as to raise serious con- 
 siderations for the articles exposed to its 
 vapours. But Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, 
 though this filling went on with great 
 promptness up and down the table, nobody 
 filled the Mayor's glass, who still drank large 
 quantities of water from the tumbler behind 
 the clump of crystal vessels intended for wine 
 and spirits. 
 
 "They don't fill Mr. Henchard's wine- 
 glasses," she ventured to say to her elbow 
 acquaintance, the old man. 
 
 ** Oh no ; don't ye know him to be the cele- 
 brated abstaining worthy of that name ? He 
 scorns ail tempting liquors ; never touches 
 nothing. Oh yes, he've strong qualities that 
 way. I have heard tell that he sware a gospel 
 oath in bygone times, and has bode by it ever 
 since. So they don't press him, knowing it 
 would be unbecoming in the face of that ; for 
 yer gospel oath is a serious thing." 
 
 Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, 
 now joined in by inquiring, " How much
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 63 
 
 longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon 
 Longways ? " 
 
 "Another two year, they say. I don't 
 know the why and the wherefore of his fixing 
 such a time, for 'a never has told anybody. But 
 'tis exactly two calendar years longer, they 
 say. A powerful mind to hold out so long ! " 
 
 "True But there's great strength 
 
 in hope. Knowing that in four-and-twenty 
 months' time ye'll be out of your bondage, 
 and able to make up for all you've suffered, 
 by partaking without stint ; vrhy, it keeps a 
 man up, no doubt." 
 
 " No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. 
 And 'a must need such reflections — a lonely 
 widow man," said Longways, 
 
 "When did he lose his wife ? " asked Eliza- 
 beth. 
 
 "I never knowed her. 'Twas afore he 
 came to Casterbridge," Solomon Longways 
 replied, with terminative emphasis, as if the 
 fact of his ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were 
 sufficient to deprive her history of all interest. 
 " But I know that 'a's a banded teetotaller, 
 and that if any of his men be ever so little 
 overtook by a drop, he's down upon 'em as 
 stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews."
 
 64 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 " Has he many men, then ? " said Ehzabeth- 
 Jane. 
 
 " Many ? Why, my good maid, he's the 
 powerfullest member of the town council, and 
 quite a principal man in the country round 
 besides. He and Casterbridge bank-folk are 
 sworn brothers. Never a big dealing in 
 wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like 
 in this county but Henchard's got a hand in 
 it. Ay, and he'll go into other things, too ; 
 and that's where 'he makes his mistake. He 
 worked his way up from nothing when 'a came 
 here ; and now he's a pillar of the town. 
 Not but what he's been shook a little to-year 
 about this bad corn he has supplied in his 
 contractSv I've seen the sun rise over Caster- 
 bridge Moor these nine -and- sixty year, and 
 though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me 
 unfairly ever since I've worked for'n, seeing I 
 be but a little small man, and though 'tis not 
 my interest to spak against him, I must say 
 that I have never before tasted such rough 
 bread as hev been made from Henchard 's 
 wheat lately. 'Tis that growed out that ye 
 could a'most call it malt, and there's a list at 
 bottom o' the loaf as thick as the sole of one's 
 shoe."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 65 
 
 The band now struck up another melody, 
 and by the time it was ended the dinner was 
 over, and speeches began to be made. The 
 evening being calm, and the windows still 
 open, these orations could be distinctly heard. 
 Henchard's voice arose above the rest ; he 
 was telling a story of his hay-dealing expe- 
 riences, in which he had outwitted a sharper 
 who had been bent upon outwitting him. 
 
 " Ha-ha-ha ! " responded his audience at 
 the upshot of the story ; and hilarity was 
 general till a new voice arose with, *'This 
 is all very well; but how about the bad 
 bread?" 
 
 It came fi'om the lower end of the table, 
 where there sat a group of minor tradesmen 
 who, although part of the company, a23peared 
 to be a little below the social level of the 
 others ; and who seemed to nourish a certain 
 independence of opinion, and carry on discus- 
 sions not quite in harmony with those at the 
 head ; just as the west end of a church is 
 sometimes persistently found to sing out of 
 time and tune with the leading spirits in the 
 chancel. 
 
 This interruption about the bad bread 
 aJBTorded infinite satisfaction to the loungers 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 outside, several of whom were in the mood 
 which finds its pleasure in others' discomfiture ; 
 and hence they echoed pretty freely, " Hey I 
 How about the bad bread, Mr. Mayor ? " 
 Moreover, feeling none of the restraints of 
 those who shared the feast, they could afford 
 to add, " You rather ought to tell the story 
 o' that, sir ! " 
 
 The interruption was sufficient to compel 
 the Mayor to notice it. 
 
 '-' Well, I admit that the wheat turned out 
 badly," he said. "But I was taken in in 
 buying it as much as the bakers who bought 
 it o' me." 
 
 " And the poor folk who had to eat it 
 whether or no," said the inharmonious man 
 outside the window. 
 
 Henchard's face darkened. There was tem- 
 per under the thin bland surface — the temper 
 which, artificially intensified, had banished 
 a wife nearly a score of years before. 
 
 "You must make allowances for the ac- 
 cidents of a large business," he said. " You 
 must bear in mind that the weather just at 
 the harvest of that corn was worse than we 
 have known it for years. However, I have 
 mended my arrangements on account o't.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 67 
 
 Since I have found my business too large to be 
 well looked after by myself alone, I have 
 advertised for a thorough good man as mana- 
 ger of the corn department. When I've got 
 him you will find these mistakes will no longer 
 occur — matters will be better looked into/' 
 
 " But what are you going to do to repay 
 us for the past ? " inquired the man who had 
 before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker 
 or miller. '' Will you replace the grown flour 
 we've still got by sound grain ? " 
 
 Henchard's face had grown still more stern 
 at these interruptions, and he drank from his 
 tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain 
 time. Instead of vouchsafing a direct reply 
 he stifily observed : 
 
 " If anybody will tell me how to turn grown 
 wheat into wholesome wheat. 111 take it back 
 with pleasure. But it can't be done." 
 
 Henchard was not to be drawn again. 
 Having said this he sat down. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 Now the group outside the window had within 
 the last few minutes been reinforced by new 
 arrivals, some of them respectable shopkeepers 
 and their assistants, who had come out for a 
 whiff of air after putting up the shutters for 
 the night ; some of them of a lower class. Dis- 
 tinct from either there appeared a stranger — a 
 young man of remarkably pleasant aspect, 
 who carried in his hand a carpet-bag of the 
 smart floral pattern prevalent in such articles 
 at that time. 
 
 He was fair and ruddy, bright- eyed, and 
 slight in build. He might possibly have 
 passed by without stopping at all, or at most 
 for half a minute to glance in at the scene, 
 had not his advent coincided with the dis- 
 cussion on corn and bread ; in which event 
 this history had never been enacted. But the 
 subject seemed to arrest him, and he whispered 
 some inquiries of the other bystanders, and 
 remained listenino-.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 69 
 
 When he heard Henchard's closing words, 
 ** It can't be done/' he smiled, impulsively 
 drew out his pocket-book, and wrote down a 
 few words by the aid of the light in the win- 
 dow. He tore out the leaf, folded and directed 
 it, and seemed about to throw it in through 
 the open sash upon the dining-table, but, on 
 second thoughts, edged himself through the 
 loiterers, till he reached the door of the hotel, 
 where one of the waiters who had been serving 
 inside was now idly leaning against the door- 
 post. 
 
 " Give this to the Mayor at once,'' he said, 
 handing in his hasty note. 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane had seen his movements and 
 heard the words, which attracted her both by 
 their subject and by their accent — a strange 
 one for those parts. It was quaint and 
 northerly. 
 
 The waiter took the note, while the young 
 stranger continued : 
 
 '' And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel 
 that^s a little more moderate than this ? " 
 
 The waiter glanced indifferently up and 
 down the street. 
 
 " They say the King of Prussia, just below 
 here, is a very good place," he languidly
 
 7Q THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 answered ; '' but I have never stayed there 
 myself." 
 
 The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked 
 him, and strolled on in the direction of the 
 King of Prussia aforesaid, apparently more 
 concerned about the question of an inn than 
 about the fate of his note, now that the 
 momentary impulse of writing it was over. 
 While he was disappearing slowly down the 
 street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth- 
 Jane saw with some interest the note brought 
 into the dining-room and handed to the Mayor. 
 
 Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded 
 it with one hand, and glanced it through. 
 Thereupon it was • curious to note an un- 
 expected effect. The nettled, clouded aspect 
 which had held possession of his face since 
 the subject of his corn-dealings had been 
 broached, changed itself into one of arrested 
 attention. He read the note slowly, and fell 
 into thought, not moody, but fitfully intense, 
 as that of a man who has been captured by 
 an idea. 
 
 By this time toasts and speeches had given 
 place to songs, the wheat subject being quite 
 forgotten. Men were putting their heads 
 together in twos and threes, telling good
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 7 1 
 
 stories, with pantomimic laughter which 
 reached convulsive grimace. Some were be- 
 ginniDg to look as if they did not know how 
 they had come there, what they had come for, 
 or how they were going to get home again ; 
 and provisionally sat on with a dazed smile. 
 Square-built men showed a tendency to 
 become hunchbacks, men with a dignified 
 presence lost it in a curious obliquity of 
 figure, in which their features grew dis- 
 arranged and one-sided ; whilst the heads of 
 a few who had dined with extreme thorough- 
 ness were somehow sinking into their 
 shoulders, the corners of their mouth and 
 eyes being bent upwards by the subsidence. 
 Only Ilenchard did not conform to these 
 flexuous changes ; he remained stately and 
 vertical, silently thinking. 
 
 The clock struck nine ; Elizabeth-Jane 
 turned to her companion. " The evening is 
 drawing on, mother," she said. " What do 
 you propose to do ? " 
 
 She was surprised to find how irresolute 
 her mother had become. "We must get a 
 place to lie down in," she murmured, " I have 
 seen — Mr. Henchard ; and that's all I wanted 
 to do."
 
 72 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 "That's enough for to-night at any rate," 
 EHzabeth-Jane replied soothingly. " We can 
 think to-morrow what is best to do about him. 
 The question now is — is it not ? — how shall we 
 find a lodging ? " 
 
 As her mother did not reply, Elizabeth- 
 Jane's mind reverted to the words of the 
 waiter, that the King of Prussia was an inn 
 of moderate charges. A recommendation 
 good for one person was probably good for 
 another. " Let's go where, the young man 
 has gone to," she said. " He is respectable. 
 What do you say ? " 
 
 Her mother assented, and down the street 
 they went. 
 
 In the meantime the Mayor's thoughtful- 
 ness, engendered by the note as stated, 
 continued to hold him in abstraction ; till, 
 whispering to his neighbour to take his place, 
 he found opportunity to leave the chair. This 
 was just after the departure of his wife and 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Outside the door of the assembly-room he 
 saw the waiter, and beckoning to him, asked 
 who brought the note which had been handed 
 in a quarter of an hour before.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 73 
 
 '^A young man, sir — a sort of traveller. 
 He was a Scotchman seemingly." 
 
 " Did lie say how he had got it ? " 
 
 ''He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood out- 
 side the window.'*' 
 
 " Oh — wrote it himself. .... Is the young 
 man in the hotel ? " 
 
 " No, sir. He went to the King o' Prussia, 
 I believe." 
 
 The Mayor walked up and down the vesti- 
 bule of the hotel with his hands under his 
 coat-tails, as if he were merely seeking a 
 cooler atmosphere than that of the room he 
 had quitted. But there could be no doubt 
 that he was in reality still possessed to the 
 full by the new idea, Avhatever that might be. 
 At length, he went back to the door of tlie 
 dining-room, paused, and found that the 
 songs, toasts, and conversation were proceed- 
 ing quite satisfactorily without his presence. 
 The corporation, private residents, and major 
 and minor tradesmen had, in fact, gone in for 
 comforting beverages to such an extent, that 
 they had quite forgotten, not only the Mayor, 
 but all those vast political, religious, and 
 social differences which they felt necessary to
 
 74 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 maintain in the daytime, and which separated 
 them Uke iron grills. Seeing this, the Mayor 
 took his hat, and, when the waiter had helped 
 him on with a thin holland overcoat, went out 
 and stood under the portico. 
 
 Very few persons were now in the street ; 
 and his eyes, by a sort of attraction, turned 
 and dwelt upon a spot about a hundred yards 
 further down. It was the house to which the 
 writer of the note had gone — the King of 
 Prussia — whose two prominent gables, bow- 
 window, and passage-light could be seen from 
 where he stood. Having kept his eyes on it 
 for a while, he strolled in that direction. 
 
 This immutable house of accommodation 
 for man and beast was built of mellow sand- 
 stone, with mullioned windows of the same 
 material, now markedly out of perpendicular 
 from the settlement of foundations. The bow- 
 window projecting into the street, whose in- 
 terior was so popular among the frequenters 
 of the inn, was closed with shutters, in each of 
 which appeared a heart-shaped aperture, some- 
 what more attenuated in the right and left 
 ventricles than is seen in Nature. Inside these 
 illuminated holes, at a distance of about three 
 inches, were ranged at this hour, as every
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 7S 
 
 passer knew, the ruddy polls of Billy Wills 
 the glazier. Smart the shoemaker, Buzzford 
 the general dealer, and others of that set, 
 each with his yard of clay. 
 
 A four-centred Tudor arch was over the 
 entrance, and over the arch the signboard, 
 now visible in the rays of an opposite lamp. 
 Hereon, the King, who had been represented 
 by the artist as a person of two dimensions 
 only — in other words, flat as a shadow — was 
 seated on a war-horse in a paralyzed prance. 
 Being on the sunny side of the street, both 
 he and his charger had suffered largely from 
 warping, splitting, fading, and shrinkage, so 
 that he was but a half invisible film upon the 
 reality of the grain, and knots, and nails, 
 which composed the signboard. As a matter 
 of fact, this state of thingfs was not so much 
 owing to Stannidge the landlord's neglect, as 
 from the lack of a painter in Casterbridge 
 w^ho would undertake to reproduce the uni- 
 form of a man so traditional. 
 
 A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave 
 access to the inn, within which passage the 
 horses going to their stalls at the back, and 
 the coming and departing human guests, 
 rubbed shoulders indiscriminately, the latter
 
 76 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 running no slight risk of having their toes 
 trodden upon by the animals. The good 
 stabling and the good ale of the King of 
 Prussia, though somewhat difficult to reach 
 on account of there being but this narrow 
 way to both, were nevertheless perseveringly 
 sought out by the sagacious old heads w4io 
 knew what was what in Casterbridge. 
 
 Henchard stood without the inn for a few 
 instants ; then, lowering the dignity of his 
 presence as much as possible by buttoning 
 the brown-holland coat over his shirt-front, 
 and in other ways toning himself down to his 
 ordinary everyday appearance, he entered the 
 inn door.
 
 77 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane and her mother had arrived 
 some twenty minutes earher. Outside the 
 house they had stood and considered whether 
 even this homely place, though recommended 
 as moderate, might not be too serious in its 
 prices for their light pockets. Finally, how-; 
 ever, they had found courage to enter, and 
 duly met Stannidge, the landlord ; a silent 
 man, who drew and carried frothing measures 
 to this room and to that, shoulder to 
 shoulder with his waiting-maids — a stately 
 slowness, however, entering into his minis- 
 trations by contrast with theirs, as became 
 one whose service was somewhat optional. 
 It would have been altogether optional but- 
 for the orders of the landlady, a person who 
 sat in the bar, corporeally motionless, but 
 with a flitting eye and quick ear, with which 
 she observed and heard through the open 
 door and hatchway the pressing needs of 
 customers whom her husband overlooked
 
 78 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 though close at hand. Elizabeth and her 
 mother were passively accepted as sojourners, 
 and shown to a small bedroom under one of 
 the gables, where they sat down. 
 
 The principle of the inn seemed to be to 
 compensate for the antique awkwardness, 
 crookedness, and obscurity of the passages, 
 floors and ceilings, by quantities of clean 
 linen spread about everywhere, and this had 
 a dazzling effect upon the travellers. 
 
 " 'Tis too good for us — we can t meet it ! " 
 said the elder woman, looking round the 
 apartment with misgiving as soon as they 
 were left alone. 
 
 " I fear it is, too," said Elizabeth. " But 
 we must be respectable." 
 
 '' We must pay our way even before we 
 must be respectable," replied her mother. 
 *' Mr. Henchard is too high for us to make 
 ourselves known to him, I much fear ; so 
 we've only our own pockets to depend on." 
 
 " I know what 111 do," said Elizabeth- 
 Jane, after an interval of waiting, during 
 which their needs seemed quite forgotten 
 under the press of business below. And 
 leaving the room, she descended the stairs 
 and penetrated to the bar.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 79 
 
 If there was one good thing more than 
 another which characterized this sinsrle- 
 hearted girl, it was a willingness to sacrifice 
 her personal comfort and dignity to the 
 common weal. 
 
 "As you seem busy here to-night, and 
 mother's not well off, might I take out part 
 of our accommodation by helping ? " she 
 asked of the landlady. 
 
 The latter, who remained as fixed in the 
 arm-chair as if she had been melted into it 
 when in a liquid state, and could not now be 
 unstuck, looked the girl up and down in- 
 quiringly, with her hands on the chair-arms. 
 Such arrangements as the one Elizabeth 
 proposed were not uncommon in country 
 villages ; but, though Casterbridge was old- 
 fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsolete 
 here. The mistress of the house, however, 
 was an easy woman to strangers, and she 
 made no objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, 
 being instructed by nods and motions from 
 the taciturn landlord as to where she could 
 find the different things, trotted up and down 
 stairs with materials lor her own and her 
 parent's meal. 
 
 While she was doing this, the wood par-
 
 bo THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 tition in the centre of the house thrilled to its 
 centre with the tugging of a bell-pull upstairs. 
 A bell below tinkled a note that was feebler 
 in sound than the twanging of wires and 
 cranks that had produced it. 
 
 " 'Tis the Scotch gentleman," said the land- 
 lady omnisciently ; and, turning her eyes to 
 Elizabeth : " Now then, can you go and see 
 if his supper is on the tray ? If it is, you can 
 take it up to him. The front room over this."^ 
 
 Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly 
 postponed serving herself a while, and applied 
 to the cook in the kitchen, whence she 
 brought forth the tray of supper viands, and 
 proceeded with it upstairs to the apartment 
 indicated. The accommodation of the King 
 of Prussia was far from spacious, despite the 
 fair area of ground it covered. The room 
 demanded by intrusive beams and rafters, 
 partitions, passages, staircases, disused ovens, 
 settles, and four-posters, left comparatively 
 small quarters for human beings. Moreover, 
 this being at a time before home-brewing was 
 abandoned by the smaller victuallers, and a 
 house in which the twelve-bushel strength 
 was still religiously adhered to by the land- 
 lord in his ale, the quality of the liquor was
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 8 1 
 
 the chief attraction of the premises, so that 
 everything had to make way for utensils and 
 operations in connection therewith. Thus 
 Elizabeth found that the Scotchman was 
 located in a room quite close to the small one 
 that had been allotted to herself and her 
 mother. 
 
 When she entered nobody was present but 
 the young man himself— the same whom she 
 had seen lino^erino^ without the windows of 
 the Golden Crown Hotel. He was now idly 
 reading a copy of the local paper, and was 
 hardly conscious of her entry, so that she 
 looked at him quite coolly, and saw how his 
 forehead shone where the light caught it, and 
 how nicely his hair was cut, and the sort of 
 velvet-pile or down that was on the skin at 
 the back of his neck, and how his cheek was 
 so truly curved as to be part of a globe, and 
 how clearly drawn were the lids and lashes 
 which hid his bent eyes. 
 
 She set down the tray, spread his supper, 
 and went away without a word. On her 
 arrival below, the landlady, who was as kind 
 as she w^s fat and lazy, saw that Elizabeth- 
 Jane was rather tired, though in her earnest- 
 ness to be useful she was waiving her own 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 S2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 needs altogether. Mrs. Stannidge tliereupon 
 said, with a considerate peremptoriness, that 
 she and her mother had better take their own 
 suppers if they meant to have any. 
 
 EHzabeth fetched their simple provisions, as 
 she had fetched the Scotchman's, and went up 
 to the little chamber where she had left her 
 mother, noiselessly pushing open the door 
 with the edge of the tray. To her surprise 
 her mother, instead of being reclined on the 
 bed where she had left her, was in an erect 
 position, with lips parted. At Elizabeth's 
 entry she lifted her finger. 
 
 The meaning of this was soon apparent. 
 The room allotted to the two women had at 
 at one time served as a dressing-room to the 
 Scotchman's chamber, as was evidenced by 
 signs of a door of communication between 
 them — now screwed up and pasted over with 
 the wall paper. But, as is frequently the 
 case with hotels of far higher pretensions than 
 the King of Prussia, every word spoken in 
 either of these rooms was distinctly audible in 
 the other. Such sounds came through now. 
 
 Thus silently conjured, Elizabeth deposited 
 the tray, and her mother whispered as she 
 drew near, " 'Tis he."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. S^ 
 
 "Who?" said the girl. 
 
 "The Mayor." 
 
 The tremors in Susan Henchard's tone 
 might have led any person but one so per- 
 fectly unsuspicious of the truth as the girl 
 was, to surmise some closer connection than 
 the admitted simple kinship as a means of 
 accountinof for them. 
 
 Two men were indeed talking in the adjoin- 
 ing chamber, the young Scotchman and 
 Henchard, who, having entered the inn while 
 Elizabeth-Jane was in the kitchen waiting for 
 the supper, had been deferentially conducted 
 upstairs by host Stannidge himself. The 
 girl noiselessly laid out their little meal, and 
 beckoned to her mother to join her, which 
 Mrs. Henchard mechanically did, her atten- 
 tion being fixed on the conversation through 
 the door. 
 
 *' I merely strolled in on my way home to 
 ask you a question about something that has 
 excited my curiosity," said the Mayor, with 
 careless geniality. "But I see you have not 
 finished supper." 
 
 " Ay, but I will have done in a few minutes ! 
 Ye needn't go, sir. Take a seat. iVe almost 
 done, and it makes no difference at all." 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, 
 and in a moment he resumed : " Well, first I 
 should ask, did you write this ? " A rustling 
 of paper followed. 
 
 " Yes, I did," said the Scotchman. 
 
 ''Then," said Henchard, "I am under the 
 impression that we have met by accident 
 while waiting for the morning to keep an 
 appointment with each other ? My name is 
 Henchard ; han't you replied to an advertise- 
 ment for a corn-factor's manager that I put 
 into the paper — ha'n't you come here to see 
 me about it ? " 
 
 " No," said the Scotchman^ with some 
 surprise. 
 
 " Surely you are the man," went on Hen- 
 chard, insistingly, " who arranged to come 
 and see me ? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp — Jopp — 
 what was his name ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ? " said the young man. '' My 
 name is Donald Farfrae. It is true I am in 
 the corern trade — but I have replied to no 
 advarrtisment, and arranged to see no one. I 
 am on my way ±o Bristol — from there to the 
 other side of the warrld to try my fortune in 
 the great wheat-growing districts of the West ? 
 I have some inventions useful to the trade.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 85 
 
 and there is no scope for developing them 
 heere." 
 
 "To America — well, well," said Henchard, 
 in a tone of disappointment, so strong as to 
 make itself felt like a damp atmosphere. 
 ''And yet I could have sworn you were the 
 man ! " 
 
 The Scotchman murmured another nega- 
 tive, and there was a silence, till Henchard 
 resumed : " Then I am truly and sincerely 
 obliged to you for the few w^ords you wrote 
 on that paper." 
 
 '' It was nothing." 
 
 ''Well, it has a great importance for me 
 just now. This row about my grown wheat, 
 which I declare to heaven I didn't know to be 
 bad till the people came complaining, has put 
 me to my wits' end. Tve some hundreds of 
 quarters of it on hand ; and if your renovating 
 process will make it wholesome, why you can 
 see what a quag 'twould get me out of I 
 saw in a moment there might be truth in it. 
 But I should like to have it proved ; and of 
 course you don't care to tell the steps of the 
 process sufficiently for me to do that, without 
 my paying ye well for't first." 
 
 The young man reflected a moment or two.
 
 86 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 " I don't know that I have any objection," he 
 said. '' I'm going to another country, and 
 curing bad corn is not the line I'll take 
 up there. Yes, I'll tell ye the whole of it — 
 you'll make more of it here than I will in 
 a foreign country. Just look here a minute, 
 sir. I can show ye by a sample in my 
 carpet-bag." 
 
 The click of a lock followed, and there was 
 a sifting and rustling ; then a discussion about 
 so many ounces to the bushel, and drying, 
 and refrigerating, and so on. 
 
 " These few grains will be sufficient to show 
 ye with," came in the young fellow's voice ; 
 and after a pause, during which some opera- 
 tion seemed to be intently watched by them, 
 both, he exclaimed, " There, now do you taste 
 that." 
 
 " It's complete ! — quite restored, or — well 
 — nearly." 
 
 " Quite enough restored to make good 
 seconds out of it," said the Scotchman. 
 " To fetch it back entirely is impossible ; 
 Nature won't stand so much as that, but here 
 you go a great way towards it. Well, sir, 
 that's the process ; I don't value it, for it can 
 be but of little use in countries where the
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 87 
 
 weather is more settled than in ours ; and 
 I'll be only too glad if it's of service to 
 you." 
 
 " But, hearken to me," pleaded Henchard. 
 " My business, you know, is in corn and in hay, 
 but I was brought up as a hay-trusser simply^ 
 and hay is what I understand best, though I 
 now do more in corn than in the other. If 
 you'll accept the situation, you shall manage 
 the corn branch entirely, and receive a com- 
 mission in addition to salary.'^ 
 
 "It is liberal — very liberal ; but no, no — I 
 cannet ! " the young man still replied, with 
 some distress in his accents. 
 
 "So be it!" said Henchard conclusively. 
 " Now — to change the subject — one good 
 turn deserves another; don't stay to finish 
 that miserable supper. Come to my house ; 
 I can find something better for ye than cold 
 ham and ale." 
 
 Donald Farfrae was grateful — said he 
 feared he must decline — that he wished to 
 leave early next day. 
 
 "Very well," said Henchard quickly, 
 "please yourself. But I tell you, young 
 man, if this holds good for the bulk:, as it has 
 done for the sample, you have saved my
 
 88 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 credit, stranger though you be. What shall 
 I pay you for this knowledge ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may 
 not prove necessary to ye to use it often, and 
 I don't value it at all. I thought I might 
 just as well let ye know, as you were in a 
 difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye." 
 
 Henchard paused. " I shan't soon forget 
 this/' he said. ''And from a stranger ! . . . . 
 I couldn't believe you were not the man I 
 had engaged ! Says I to myself, ' He knows 
 who I am, and recommends himself by this 
 stroke.' And yet it turns out, after all, that 
 you are not the man who answered my adver- 
 tisement, but a stranger ! " 
 
 " Ay, ay ; 'tis so,"" said the young man. 
 
 Henchard again suspended his words, and 
 then his voice came thoughtfully : "Your fore- 
 head, Farfrae, is something like my poor 
 brother's — now dead and gone ; and the nose, 
 too, isn't unlike his. You must be, what — 
 ^ve foot nine, I reckon ? I am six foot one 
 and a half out of my shoes. But what of 
 that ? In my business, 'tis true that strength 
 and bustle build up a firm. But judgment 
 and knowledge are w^hat keep it established. 
 Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae ; bad
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 89 
 
 at fio^ures — a rule o' thumb sort of man. You 
 are just the reverse — I can see that. I have 
 been looking for such as you these two year, 
 and yet you are not for me. Well, before I 
 go, let me ask this : Though joii are not the 
 young man I thought you v^ere, what^s the 
 difference ? Can^t ye stay just the same ? 
 Have you really made up your mind about 
 this American notion ? I won^t mince matters. 
 I feel you would be invaluable to me — that 
 needn't be said — and if you w^U stay and 
 be my manager I will make it worth your 
 while.'^ 
 
 " My plans are fixed," said the young man 
 in negative tones, " I have formed a scheme, 
 and there can be no more words about it. 
 But will you not drink with me, sir ? I 
 find this Casterbridge ale warreming to the 
 stomach — ay, as Presbyterian cream." 
 
 *' No, no ; I fain would, but I can't," said 
 Henchard gravely, the scraping of his chair 
 informing the listeners that he was rising to 
 leave. '' When I was a young man I went in 
 for that sort of thino^ too strong^ — far too 
 strong — and was well-nigh ruined by it ! I 
 did a deed on account of it which 1 shall be 
 ashamed of to my dying day. It made such
 
 90 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 an impression on me that I swore, there and 
 then, that Td drink nothing stronger than 
 tea for as many years as I was old that day. 
 I have kept my oath ; and though, Farfrae, I 
 am sometimes that dry in the dog days that 
 I could drink a quarter-barrel to the pitching, 
 I think o' my oath, and touch no strong drmk 
 at all." 
 
 " I won't press ye, sir — I won't press ye. 
 I respect your vow." 
 
 " Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, 
 no doubt," said Henchard, with strong feeling 
 in his tones. " But it will be long before I 
 see one that would suit me so well ! " 
 
 The young man appeared much moVed by 
 Henchard's warm convictions of his value. 
 He was silent till they reached the door, " I 
 wish I could stay — sincerely wish it," he 
 replied. " But no — it cannet be ! it cannet ! 
 I want to see the warrld."
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Thus thej parted; and Elizabetli-Jane and 
 her mother remained each in her thoughts 
 over their meal, the mother's face being 
 strangely bright since Henchard's avowal of 
 shame for a past action. The quivering of 
 the partition to its core presently denoted 
 that Donald Farfrae had again rung his bell, 
 no doubt to have his supper removed; for 
 humming a tune, and walking up and down, 
 he seemed to be attracted by the lively bursts 
 of conversation and melody from the general 
 company below. He sauntered out upon the 
 landing, and descended the staircase. 
 
 "When Elizabeth- Jane had carried down his 
 supper tray, and also that used by her mother 
 a.nd herself, she found the bustle of serving to 
 be at its height below, as it always was at 
 this hour. The young woman shrank from 
 having anything to do with the ground-floor 
 serving, and crept silently about observing the 
 scene — so new to her, fresh from the seclu-
 
 92 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 sion of a sea-side cottage. In tlie general 
 parlour, which was large, she remarked the 
 two or three dozen strong-backed chairs that 
 stood round against the wall, each fitted with 
 its genial occupant — the sanded floor — the 
 black settle which, projecting endwise from 
 the wall within the door, permitted Elizabeth 
 to be a spectator of all that went on, without 
 herself being particularly seen. 
 
 The young Scotchman had just joined the 
 guests. These, in addition to the respectable 
 master-tradesmen occupying the seats of pri- 
 vilege in the bow-window and its neighbour- 
 hood, included an inferior set at the unliglited 
 end, whose seats were mere benches against 
 the wall, and who drank from cups instead of 
 from glasses. Among the latter she noticed 
 some of those personages who had stood out- 
 side the windows of the Golden Crown. 
 
 Behind their backs was a small window, 
 with a wheel ventilator in one of the panes, 
 which would suddenly start off spinning with 
 a jingling sound, as suddenly stop, and as 
 suddenly start again. 
 
 While • thus furtively making her survey, 
 the opening words of a song greeted her ears 
 from behind the settle, in a melody and
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 93 
 
 accent of peculiar charm. There had been 
 some singmg before she came down ; and 
 now the Scotchman had made himself so soon 
 at home that, ac the request of some of the 
 master-tradesmen, he too was favouring the 
 room with a song. 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane was fond of music ; she 
 could not help pausing to listen ; and the 
 longer she listened, the more she was enrap- 
 tured. She had never heard any singing like 
 this ; and it was evident that the majority of 
 the audience had not lieard such frequently, 
 for they were attentive to a much greater 
 degree than ordinary. They neither whis- 
 pered, nor drank, nor dipped their pipe-stems 
 in their ale to moisten them, nor pushed the 
 mug to their neighbours. The singer himself 
 grew emotional, till she could imagine a tear 
 in his eye as the words went on : — 
 
 " It's liarae and it's hame, hame faiii would I be, 
 O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree ! 
 There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain, 
 As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bauds 
 
 again ; 
 When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree. 
 The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree ! " 
 
 There was a burst of applause ; and a deep 
 silence which was even more eloquent than
 
 94 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 the applause. It was of such a kind that the 
 snapping of a pipe-stem too long for him by 
 old Solomon Longways, who was one of those 
 gathered at the shady end of the room, seemed 
 a harsh and irreverent act. Then the venti- 
 lator in the window-pane spasmodically started 
 off for a new spin, and the pathos of Donald's 
 song was temporarily effaced. 
 
 " 'Twas not amiss — not at all amiss ! " 
 muttered Christopher Coney, who was also 
 present. And removing his pipe a finger's- 
 breadth from his lips, he said aloud, " Draw 
 on with the next verse, young gentleman, 
 please." 
 
 "Yes. Let's have it again, stranger," 
 said the glazier, a stout, bucket-headed man, 
 with a white apron rolled up round his waist. 
 " Folks don't lift up their hearts like that in 
 this part of the world." And turning aside 
 he said in undertones, "Who is the young 
 man ? — Scotch, d'ye say ? " 
 
 " Yes, straight from the mountains of Scot- 
 land, I believe," replied Coney. 
 
 Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It 
 was plain that nothing so pathetic had been 
 heard at the King of Prussia for a consi- 
 derable time. The difference of accent, the
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 95 
 
 excitability of the singer, the intense local 
 feelinof, and the seriousness with which he 
 worked himself up to a climax, surprised this 
 set of worthies, who were only too prone to 
 shut up their emotions with caustic words. 
 
 " Danged if our country down here is 
 worth singing about like that ! " continued 
 the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodised 
 with a dying fall " my ain countree ! " 
 " When you take away from among us the 
 fools and the rogues, and the lammigers, and 
 the wanton hussies and the slatterns, and 
 such like, there's oust few left to ornament a 
 song with in Casterbridge, or the country 
 round." 
 
 " True," said Buzzford, the dealer, looking 
 at the grain of the table. " Casterbridge is a 
 old, hoary place o' wickedness, by all account. 
 'Tis recorded in history that we rebelled 
 against the King one or two hundred years 
 ago, in the time of the Eomans, and that 
 lots of us was hanged on Gallows Hill, and 
 quartered, and our different jints sent about 
 the country like butcher's meat ; and for my 
 part I can well believe it." 
 
 '^What did ye come away from yer own 
 country for, young maister, if ye be so
 
 g6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 wownded about it ? " inquired Christopher 
 Coney, from the background, with the tone 
 of a man who preferred the original subject. 
 "Faith, it wasn't worth your while on our 
 account, for as Maister Billy Wills says, we 
 be bruckle folk here — the best o' us hardly 
 honest sometimes, what with hard winters, 
 and so many mouths to fill, and Goda'mighty 
 sending his little taties so terrible small to 
 fill 'em with. We don't think about flowers 
 and fair faces, not we — except in the shape o' 
 cauliflowers and pigs' chaps." 
 
 " But, no ? " said Donald Farfrae, gazing 
 round into their faces with earnest concern, 
 " the best of ye hardly honest — not surely ? 
 None of ye has been stealing what didn't 
 belong to him ? " 
 
 " No, no. God forbid ! " said Solomon 
 Longways. " That's only his random way o' 
 speaking. 'A was always such a man of 
 under-thoughts." (And reprovingly towards 
 Christopher) : " Don't ye be so over- familiar 
 with a gentleman that ye know nothing of — 
 and that's travelled a'most from the North 
 Pole." 
 
 Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he 
 could get no public sympathy he mumbled
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 9/ 
 
 Lis feelings to liimself : " Be dazed, if I loved 
 my country half as well as the young feller 
 do, I'd live by claning my neighbour's pigsties 
 afore I^d go away ! For my part I^'ve no more 
 love for my country than I have for Botany 
 Bay." 
 
 "Come," said Longways; "let the young 
 man draw onward with his ballet, or we shall 
 be here all night." 
 
 " That's all of it," said the singer, apolo- 
 getically. 
 
 " Soul of my body, then we'll have another !" 
 said the general dealer. 
 
 ' " Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir ? " 
 inquired a fat woman with a figured purple 
 apron, the waist-string of which was overhung 
 so far by her sides as to be invisible. 
 
 " Let him breathe — let him breathe. Mother 
 Cuxsom. He hain't got his second wind yet," 
 said the master glazier. 
 
 " Oh, yes, but I have ! " exclaimed the 
 young man ; and he at once rendered " Oh 
 Nannie " with faultless modulations, and 
 another or two of the like sentiment, winding 
 up at their earnest request with " Auld Lang 
 Syne." _ 
 
 By this time he had completely taken pos- 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 session of the hearts of the King of Prussia's 
 inmates, inckiding even old Coney. Notwith- 
 standing an occasional oddity which awoke 
 their sense of the ludicrous for the moment, 
 they began to view him through a golden 
 haze which the tone of his mind seemed to 
 raise around him. Casterbridge had senti- 
 ment — Casterbridge had romance ; but this 
 stranger's sentiment was of differing quality. 
 Or rather, perhaps, the difference was mainly 
 superficial ; he was to them like the poet of a 
 new school who takes his contemporaries by 
 storm ; who is not really new, but is the first 
 to articulate what all his listeners have felt, 
 though but dumbly till then. 
 
 The silent landlord came and leant over the 
 settle w^hile the young man sang ; and even 
 Mrs. Stannidge managed to unstick herself 
 from the framework of her chair in the bar, 
 and get as far as the door-post, which move- 
 ment she accomplished by rolling herself 
 round, as a cask is trundled on the chine by a 
 drayman without losing the perpendicular. 
 
 " And are you going to bide in Caster- 
 bridge, sir ? " she asked. 
 
 " Ah — no ! " said the Scotchman, with 
 melancholy fatality in his voice, " I'm only
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 99 
 
 passing tliirrough. I am on my way to 
 Bristol, and thence to foreign parts." 
 
 " We be truly sorry to hear it," said Solo- 
 mon Longways. '' We can ill afford to lose 
 tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when they fall 
 among us. And verily, to mak' acquaintance 
 with a man a come from so far, from the land 
 0' perpetual snow as we may say, where 
 wolves and wild boars and other dan^rerous 
 animalcules be as common as blackbirds here- 
 about — why, 'tis a thing we can't do every 
 day ; and there's good sound information for 
 bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens 
 his mouth." 
 
 "Nay, but ye mistake my country," said 
 the young man, looking round "upon them 
 with tragic fixity ; till his eye lighted up and 
 his cheek kindled with a sudden enthusiasm 
 to right their errors. " There are not per- 
 petual snow and wolves at all in it ! — 
 except snow in winter, and — well — -a, little in 
 summer just sometimes, and a * gaberlunzie ' 
 or two stalking about here and there, if ye 
 may call them dangerous. Oh, but men, you 
 should take a summer jarreny to Edinboro', 
 and Arthur's Seat, and all around, and then 
 go on to the Lochs, and all the Highland 
 
 H 2
 
 lOO THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 scenery — in May and June — and you would 
 never say 'tis the land of wolves and per- 
 petual snow ! " 
 
 " Of course not — it stands to reason," said 
 Buzzford. *' 'Tis barren ignorance tliat leads 
 to such words. He's a simple home-spun man, 
 that never was fit for good company — think 
 nothing of him, sir." 
 
 " And do ye carry your flock bed, and your 
 quilt, and your crock, and your bit of chiney ; 
 or do ye go in bare bones, as I may say ? " in- 
 quired Christopher Coney. 
 
 '^ I've sent on my luggage — though it isn't 
 much ; for the voyage is long." Donald's 
 eyes dropped into a remote gaze as he added : 
 " But I said to myself, ' Never a one of the 
 prizes of life will I come by unless I under- 
 take it I ' and I decided to go." 
 
 A general sense of regret, in which Eliza- 
 beth-Jane shared not least, made itself 
 apparent in the company. As she looked at 
 Farfrae from the back of the settle she de- 
 cided that his statements showed him to 
 be no less thoughtful than his fascinating 
 melodies revealed him to be cordial and im- 
 passioned. She admired the serious light in 
 which he looked at serious things. He had
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. lOI 
 
 seen no jest in ambiguities and roguery, as 
 the Casterbridge toss-pots had done ; and 
 rightly not — there was none. She disHked 
 those wretched humours of Christopher Coney 
 and his tribe; and he did not appreciate them. 
 He seemed to feel exactly as she felt about 
 life and its surroundings — that they were a 
 tragical, rather than a comical, thing ; that 
 though one could be gay on occasion, mo- 
 ments of gaiety were interludes, and no part 
 of the actual drama. It was extraordinary 
 how similar their views were. 
 
 Though it was still early, the young Scotch- 
 man expressed his wish to retire, whereupon 
 the landlady whispered to Elizabeth to run 
 upstairs and turn down his bed. She took a 
 candlestick and proceeded on her mission, 
 which was the act of a few moments only. 
 When, candle in hand, she reached the top of 
 the stairs on her way down again, Mr. Farfrae 
 was at the foot coming up. She could not 
 very well retreat ; they met and passed in 
 the turn of the staircase. 
 
 She must have appeared interesting in 
 some way — notwithstanding her plain dress 
 — -or rather, possibly, in consequence of it, 
 for she was a girl characterized by earnestness
 
 102 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 and soberness of raien, with which simple 
 drapery accorded well. Her face flushed, too, 
 at the slight awkwardness of the meeting, 
 and she passed him with her eyes bent on the 
 candle-flame that she carried just below her 
 nose. Thus it happened that when confront- 
 ing her he smiled ; and then, with the manner 
 of a temporarily light-hearted man, who has 
 started himself on a flight of song whose 
 momentum he cannot readily check, he softly 
 funed an old ditty that she seemed to 
 suggest : 
 
 " As I came in by my bower door, 
 As day was waxin' wearie, 
 wha came tripping down the stair 
 But bonnie Peg my dearie." 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane, ratherr disconcerted, hastened 
 on; and the Scotchman's voice died away, 
 humming more of the same within the closed 
 door of his room. 
 
 Here the scene and sentiment ended for tlie 
 present. When, soon after, the girl rejoined 
 her mother, the latter was still in thought — 
 on quite another matter than a young man's 
 song. 
 
 "WeVe made a mistake," she whispered 
 (that the Scotchman might not overhear).
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. IO3 
 
 " On no account ouglit ye to have helped 
 serve here to-night. Not because of ourselves, 
 but for the sake of him. If he should befriend 
 us, and take us up, and then find out v^hat 
 you did when staying here, 'twould grieve 
 and wound his natural pride as Mayor of 
 the town." 
 
 Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been 
 more alarmed at this than her mother had she 
 known the real relationship, was not much 
 disturbed about it as things stood. Her '' he " 
 was another man than her poor mother's. 
 " For myself," she said, " I didn't at all mind 
 waiting a little upon him. He's so respectable, 
 and educated — far above the rest of em in the 
 inn. They thought him very simple not to 
 know their grim broad way of tallying about 
 themselves here. But of course he didn't 
 know — he was too refined in his mind to know 
 such things ! " Thus she earnestly pleaded. 
 
 Meanwhile, the " he " of her mother was 
 not so far away as even they thought. After 
 leavino' the Kiner of Prussia he had sauntered 
 up and down the empty High Street, passing 
 and repassing the inn in his promenade. 
 When the Scotchman sang, his voice had 
 reached Henchard's ears throuofh the heart-
 
 104 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 shaped holes in the window- shutters, and 
 had led him to pause outside them a long 
 while. 
 
 "To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow 
 does draw me ! " he had said to himself. " I 
 suppose 'tis because I'm so lonely. I'd have 
 given him a third share to have stayed ! "
 
 los 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged 
 casement next morning the mellow air brought 
 in the feel of imminent autumn almost as 
 distinctly as if she had been in the remotest 
 hamlet. Casterbridge was the complement of 
 the rural life around ; not its urban opposite. 
 Bees and butterflies in the corn-fields at the 
 top of the town, who desired to get to the 
 meads at the bottom, took no circuitous 
 course, but flew straight down High Street 
 without any apparent consciousness that they 
 were traversing strange latitudes. And in 
 autumn airy spheres of thistledown floated 
 into the same street, lodged upon the shop- 
 fronts, blew into drains : and innumerable 
 tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along the 
 pavement, and stole through people's door- 
 ways into their passages with a hesitating 
 scratch on the floor, like the skirts of timid 
 visitors. 
 
 Hearing voices, one of which was close at
 
 I06 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 hand, she withdrew her head, and glanced 
 from behind the window-curtains. Mr. Hen- 
 chard — now habited no longer as a great per- 
 sonage, but as a thriving man of business — 
 was pausing on his way up the middle of the 
 street, and the Scotchman was looking from 
 the window adjoining her own. Henchard, it 
 appeared, had gone a little way past the inn 
 before he had noticed his acquaintance of 
 the previous evening. He came back a few 
 steps, Donald Farfrae opening the window 
 further. 
 
 " And you are oft' soon, I suppose ? " said 
 Henchard upwards. 
 
 "Yes — almost this moment, sir,'^ said the 
 other. " Maybe I'll walk on till the coach 
 overtakes me." 
 
 "Which way?" 
 
 " The way ye are going." 
 
 " Then shall we walk together to the 
 top o' town ? '' 
 
 " If yell wait a minute," said the Scotch- 
 man. 
 
 In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in 
 hand. Henchard looked at the bag as at an 
 enemy. It showed there was no mistake 
 about the young man s departure. " Ah, my
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 10/ 
 
 lad," lie said ; " jou should have been a wise 
 man, and have stayed with me." 
 
 " Yes, yes — it might have been wiser," said 
 Donald, looking microscopically at the houses 
 that were farthest off. "It is only telling ye 
 the truth when I say my plans are vague." 
 
 They had by this time passed on from the 
 precincts of the inn, and Elizabeth-Jane 
 heard no more. She saw that they continued 
 in conversation, Henchard turning to the 
 other occasionally, and emphasizing some re- 
 mark with a gesture. Thus they passed the 
 Golden Crown Hotel, the Market House, the 
 churchyard wall, ascending to the upper end of 
 the long street till they w^ere small as two 
 grains of corn ; when they bent suddenly to 
 the right into the Bristol E-oad, and were out 
 of view. 
 
 " He was a good man — and he's gone," she 
 said to herself. *' I was nothing to him, and 
 there was no reason why he should have 
 wished me good-bye." 
 
 The simple thought, with its latent sense 
 of slight, had moulded itself out of the follow- 
 ing little fact : when the Scotchman came out 
 at the door he had by accident glanced up at 
 her ; and then he had looked away again
 
 I08 .THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 without nodding, or smiling, or saying a 
 word. 
 
 " You are still thinking, mother," she said 
 when she turned inwards. 
 
 '* Yes ; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard's 
 sudden liking for that young man. He was 
 always so. Now surely, if he takes so warmly 
 to people who are not related to him at all, 
 may he not take as warmly to his own kin 1 " 
 
 While they debated this question a pro- 
 cession of five large Avaggons went past, laden 
 with hay up to the bedroom windows. They 
 came in from the country, and the steaming 
 horses had probably been travelling a great 
 pa,rt of the night. To the shaft of each hung 
 a little board on which was painted in white 
 letters, *' Henchard, corn-factor and hay- 
 merchant." The spectacle renewed his wife's 
 conviction that, for her daugl iter's sake, she 
 should strain a point to rejoin him. 
 
 The discussion was continued durinof break- 
 fast, and the end of it was that Mrs. Henchard 
 decided, for good or for ill, to send Elizabeth- 
 Jane with a message to Henchard, to the 
 effect that his relative Susan, a sailor's widow, 
 was in the town ; leaving it to him to say 
 whether or not he would recognize her.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. IO9 
 
 What had brought her to this determination 
 were chiefly two things. He had been 
 described as a lonely widower ; and he had 
 expressed shame for a past transaction of his 
 life. There was promise in both. 
 
 *' If he says no," she enjoined, as Elizabeth- 
 Jane stood, bonnet on, ready to depart ; " if 
 he thinks it does not become the good position 
 he has reached to in the town, to own — to let 
 ns call on him as — his distant kinsfolk, say, 
 * Then, sir, we would rather not intrude ; we 
 will leave Casterbridge as quietly as we have 
 come, and go back to our own country.' . . . 
 I almost feel that I would rather he did say 
 so, as I have not seen him for so many years, 
 and we are so — little allied to him ! '' 
 
 " And if he says yes ? '' inquired the more 
 sanguine one. 
 
 " In tliat case," answered Mrs. Henchard 
 cautiously, " ask him to write me a note, 
 saying when and how he will see us — or meJ' 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane went a few steps towards 
 the landing. " And tell him," continued her 
 mother, " that I fully know I have no claim 
 upon him — that I am glad to find he is 
 thriving ; that I hope his life may be long and 
 happy — there, go." Thus with a half-hearted
 
 no THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 willingness, a smothered reluctance, did the 
 poor forgiving woman start her unconscious 
 daughter on this errand. 
 
 It was about ten o'clock, and market-day, 
 when Elizabeth paced up the High Street, in 
 no great hurry ; for to herself her position was 
 only that of a poor relation deputed to hunt 
 up a rich one. The front doors of the private 
 houses were mostly left open at this warm 
 autumn time, no thought of umbrella stealers 
 disturbing the minds of the placid burgesses. 
 Hence, through the long, straight entrance 
 passages thus unclosed could be seen, as 
 through tunnels, the mossy gardens at the 
 back, glowing with nasturtiums, fuchsias, 
 scarlet geraniums, " bloody warriors," snap- 
 dragons, and dahlias, this floral blaze being 
 backed by crusted grey stone-work remaining 
 from a yet remoter Casterbridge than the 
 venerable one visible in the street. The old- 
 fashioned fronts of these houses, which had 
 older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheer 
 from the pavement, into Avhich the bow- 
 windows protruded like bastions, necessitat- 
 ing a pleasing chassez-decliassez movement to 
 the time-pressed pedestrian at every few 
 yards. He was bound also to evolve other
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I I I 
 
 Terpsiclioreaii figures in respect of door-steps, 
 scrapers, cellar-hatches, church buttresses, 
 and the overhanging angles of walls which, 
 originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged 
 and knock-kneed. 
 
 In addition to these fixed obstacles which 
 spoke so cheerfully of individual unrestraint 
 as to boundaries, movables occupied the path 
 and roadway to a perplexing extent. First 
 the vans of the carriers in and out of Caster- 
 bridge, who hailed from Mellstock, Weather- 
 bury, Hintock, Sherton-Abbas, Stickleford, 
 Overcombe, and many other villages round. 
 Their owners were numerous enough to be 
 regarded as a tribe, and had almost dis- 
 tinctiveness enough to be regarded as a race. 
 Their vans had just arrived, and were drawn 
 up on each side of the street in close file, so as 
 to form at places a wall between the pave- 
 ment and the roadway. Next every shop 
 pitched out half its contents upon trestles and 
 boxes on the kerb, extending the display 
 each week a little farther and farther into 
 the roadway, despite the expostulations of 
 the two feeble old constables, until there 
 remained but a tortuous defile for carriages 
 down the centre of the street, which afibrded
 
 I I 2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 fine opportunities for showing skill with the 
 reins. Over the pavement on the sunny side 
 of the way hung shop-blinds so constructed as 
 to give the passenger's hat a smart buffet off 
 his head as from the unseen hands of Cran- 
 stoun's Goblin Page, celebrated in romantic 
 lore. 
 
 Horses for sale were tied in rows, their 
 foredegs on the pavement, their hind-legs in 
 the street, in which position they occasionally 
 nipped little boys by the shoulder who were 
 passing to school. And any inviting recess 
 in front of a house that had been modestly 
 kept back from the general line was utilized 
 by pig-dealers as a pen for their stock. 
 
 The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and towns- 
 folk, who came to transact business in these 
 ancient streets, spoke in other ways than by 
 articulation. Not to hear the words of your 
 interlocutor in metropolitan centres is to 
 know nothing of his meaning. Here the face, 
 the arms, the hat, the stick, the body 
 thro\ighout spoke equally with the tongue. 
 To express satisfaction the Casterbridge 
 market- man added to his utterance a broad- 
 ening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the eyes, 
 a throwing back of the shoulders, which was
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I I 3 
 
 intelligible from the other end of the street. 
 If he wondered, though all Henchard's carts 
 and waggons were rattling past him, you 
 knew it from perceiving the inside of his 
 crimson mouth, and a target-like circling of 
 his eyes. Deliberation caused sundry attacks 
 on the moss of adjoining walls with the end 
 of his stick, a change of his hat from the 
 horizontal to the less so ; a sense of tedious- 
 ness announced itself in a lowerino- of 
 the person by spreading the knees to a 
 lozenge-shaped aperture, and contorting 
 the arms. Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly 
 a place in the streets of this honest borough 
 to all appearance ; and it was said that the 
 lawyers in the Court House hard by occa- 
 sionally threw in strong arguments for the 
 other .side out of pure generosity (though 
 apparently by mischance) when advancing 
 their own. 
 
 Thus Casterbridge was in most respects 
 but the pole, focus, or nerve-knot of the 
 surrounding country hfe; differing from the 
 many manufacturing towns which are as 
 foreign bodies set down, like boulders on a 
 plain, in a green world with which they have 
 nothing in common. Casterbridge lived by 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 
 
 aoriculture at one remove further from the 
 fountain-head than the adjoining villagers — no 
 more. The townsfolk understood every fluc- 
 tuation in the rustic's condition, for it affected 
 their receipts as much as the labourer's ; they 
 entered into the troubles and joys which 
 moved the aristocratic families ten miles 
 round — for the same reason. And even at 
 the dinner-parties of the professional fami- 
 lies the subjects of discussion were corn, 
 cattle-disease, sowing and reaping, fencing 
 and planting ; while politics w^ere viewed 
 by them less from their own standpoint 
 of burgesses with rights and privileges 
 than from the standpoint of their county 
 neighbours. 
 
 All the venerable contrivances and con- 
 fusions which delighted the eye by their 
 quaintness, and in a measure reasonableness, 
 in this rare old market-town, were metropo- 
 litan novelties to the unpractised eyes of 
 Elizabeth-Jane, fresh from netting fish-seines 
 in a sea-side cottage. Very little inquiry was 
 necessary to guide her footsteps. Henchard s 
 house was one of the best, fronted with 
 murrey- coloin^ed old brick. The front door 
 was open, and, as in other houses, she could
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 115 
 
 see through the passage to the end of the 
 garden — nearly a quarter of a mile off. 
 
 Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in 
 the store-yard. She was conducted into the 
 mossy garden, and through a side-door in the 
 wall, which was studded with rusty nails 
 speaking of generations of fruit-trees that 
 had been trained there. The door opened 
 upon the yard, and here she was left to find 
 him as she could. It was a place flanked by 
 hay-barns, into which tons of fodder, all in 
 trusses, were being packed from the waggons 
 she had seen pass the inn that morning. On 
 other sides of the yard were wooden granaries 
 on stone staddles, to which access was given 
 by Flemish ladders, and a store-house several 
 floors hio:h. Wherever the doors of these 
 places were open, a closely packed throng 
 of bursting wheat-sacks could be seen stand- 
 ing, with the air of awaiting a famine that 
 w^ould not come. 
 
 She wandered about this place, uncomfort- 
 ably conscious of the impending interview, 
 till she was quite weary of searching; she 
 ventured to inquire of a boy in what quarter 
 of the labyrinth Mr. Henchard could be 
 found. He directed her to an oflice which 
 
 I 2
 
 I 1 6 THE MAYOR OF CxVSTERBRIDGE. 
 
 she had not seen before, and knocking at 
 the door she was answered by a cry of 
 " Come in." 
 
 Ehzabeth turned the handle ; and there 
 stood before her, bending over some sample- 
 bags on a table, not the corn-merchant, but 
 the young Scotchman Mr. Farfrae — in the 
 act of pouring some grains of wheat from one 
 hand to the other. His hat hung on a peg 
 behind him, and the roses of his carpet-bag 
 glowed from the corner of the room. 
 
 Having toned her feelings and arranged 
 words on her lip for Mr. Henchard, and for him 
 alone, she was for the moment confounded. 
 
 " Yes, what is it ? " said the Scotchman, 
 like a man who permanently ruled there. 
 
 She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard. 
 
 '^ Ah, yes ; will ye wait a minute ? He's 
 engaged just now," said the young man, 
 apparently not recognizing her as the girl at 
 the inn. He handed her a chair, bade her 
 sit down, and turned to his sample-bags 
 again. While Elizabeth-Jane sits waiting 
 in great amaze at the young man's presence 
 we may briefly explain how he came there. 
 
 When the two new acquaintances had 
 passed out of sight that morning towards the
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I I / 
 
 Bath-and-Bristol road they went on silently, 
 except for a few commonplaces, till they had 
 gone down an avenue on the town walls 
 called the New Walk, leading to an angle 
 where the North and West escarpments met. 
 From this high corner of the square earth- 
 works a vast extent of country could be seen. 
 A footpath ran steeply down the green slope, 
 conducting from the shady promenade on the 
 walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp. 
 It was by this path the Scotchman had to 
 descend. 
 
 " Well, here's success to ye," said Henchard, 
 holding out his right hand and leaning with 
 his left upon the wicket which protected the 
 descent. In the act there was the inelegance 
 of one whose feelings are nipped and wishes 
 defeated. *' I shall often think of this time, 
 iind of how you came at the very moment 
 to throw a light upon my difficultyo" 
 
 Still holding the young man's hand he 
 paused, and then added deliberately : " Now 
 I am not the man to let a cause be lost for 
 v/ant of a word. And before ye are gone for 
 ever I'll speak. Once more, will ye stay ? 
 There it is, flat and plain. You can see that 
 it isn't all selfishness that makes me press 'ee ;
 
 Il8 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 for my business is not quite so scientific as to 
 require an intellect entirely out of the common. 
 Others would do for the place without doubt. 
 Some selfishness perhaps there is, but there is 
 more ; it isn't vor me to repeat what. Come, 
 bide with me — and name your own terms. 
 I'll agree to "em willingly and 'ithout a word 
 of gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like 
 thee well ! " 
 
 The young man's hand remained steady in 
 Henchard's for a moment or two. He looked 
 over the fertile country that stretched beneath 
 them, then backward along the shaded walk 
 reaching to the top of the town. His face 
 flushed. 
 
 " I didn't expect such as this — I did not ! " 
 he said. " Surely there's destiny in it ? 
 Should a man turrun against fate '? No ; I'll 
 not go to America ; I'll stay and be your 
 man ! " 
 
 His hand, which had lain lifeless in Hen- 
 chard's, returned the latter 's grasp. 
 
 "Done," said Henchard. 
 
 " Done," said Donald Farfrae. 
 
 The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth 
 a satisfaction that was almost fierce in its 
 strength. " Now you are my friend ! " he
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. II9 
 
 exclaimed. *' Come back to my house ; let's 
 clinch it at once by clear terms, so as to be 
 comfortable in our minds." Farfrae caught 
 up his bag and retraced the North- West 
 Avenue in Henchard's company as he had 
 come. Henchard was all confidence now. 
 
 " I am the most distant fellow in the world 
 when I don't care for a man," he said. " But 
 when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong. 
 Now I am sure you can eat another break- 
 fast. You couldn't have eaten much so early 
 even if they had anything at that place to 
 gie thee, which they hadn't ; so come to 
 my house and we will have a solid, staunch 
 tuck-in, and settle terms in black-and-white 
 if you like ; though my word's my bond. 
 I can always make a good meal in the 
 morning. I've got a splendid cold pigeon-pie 
 gouig just now. You can have some home- 
 brew if you want to, you know." 
 
 "It is too early in the morning for that," 
 said Farfrae with a smile. 
 
 *' Well, of course I didn't know. I don't 
 drink it because of my oath ; but I am obliged 
 to brew for my work-people." 
 
 Thus talking they returned, and entered 
 Henchard's premises by the back way or
 
 2 20 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 
 
 traffic-entrance. Here the matter was settled 
 over the breakfast, at which Henchard heaped 
 the young Scotchman's plate to a prodigal 
 fulness. He would not rest satisfied till 
 Farfrae had written for his luggage from 
 Bristol, and despatched the letter to the post- 
 office. When it was done this man of strong 
 impulses declared that his new friend should 
 take up his abode in his house — at least 
 till some suitable lodgings could be found. 
 
 He then took Farfrae round and showed 
 him the place, and the stores of grain, and 
 other stock; and finally entered the offices 
 where the younger of them had already been 
 discovered by Elizabeth.
 
 121 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 While she still sat under the Scotchman's 
 eyes a man came up to the door, reaching 
 it as Henchard opened the door of the inner 
 office to admit Elizabeth. The new-comer 
 stepped forward like the quicker cripple at 
 Bethesda, and entered in her stead. She 
 could hear his words to Henchard : " Joshua 
 Jopp, sir — by appointment — the new 
 manager. " 
 
 " The new manager ! — he's in his office," 
 said Henchard bluntly. 
 
 " In his office ! " said the man with a stul- 
 tified air. 
 
 '' I mentioned Thursday/' said Henchard ; 
 " and as you did not keep your appoint- 
 ment, I have engaged another manager. 
 At first I thought he must be you. Do 
 you think I can wait when business is in 
 question ? " 
 
 " You said Thursday or Saturday, sir," said 
 the new-comer, pulling out a letter.
 
 122 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 " Well, you are too late/' said the corn- 
 factor. " I can say no more." 
 
 ''You as good as engaged me," murmured 
 the man. 
 
 " Subject to an interview," said Henchard. 
 '* I am sorry for you — very sorry indeed. But 
 it can't be helped." 
 
 There was no more to be said, and the man 
 came out, encountering Elizabeth-Jane in 
 his passage. She could see that his mouth 
 twitched with anger, and that bitter dis- 
 appointment was written in his face every- 
 where. 
 
 Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood 
 before the master of the premises. His dark 
 pupils — which always seemed to have a red 
 spark of light in them, though this could 
 hardly be a physical fact — turned indifferently 
 round under his dark brows until they rested 
 on her figure. " Now then, what is it, my 
 young woman ? " he said blandly. 
 
 *'Can I speak to you — not on business, 
 sir ? " said she. 
 
 " Yes — I suppose." He looked at her more 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 '' I am sent to tell you, sir," she innocently 
 went on, " that a distant relative of yours by
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 23 
 
 marriage, Susan Newson, a sailor's widow, is 
 in the town ; and to ask whether you would 
 wish to see her." 
 
 The rich rouge-et-noir of his countenance 
 underwent a sUght change. " Oh — Susan is 
 — still alive ? " he asked with difficulty. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Are you her daughter ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir — her only daughter." 
 
 "What — do you call yourself — your 
 Christian name ? " 
 
 '' Elizabeth- Jane, sir." 
 
 "Newson?" 
 
 " Elizabeth- Jane Newson." 
 
 This at once suggested to Hen chard that 
 the transaction of his early married lite at 
 Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the family 
 history. It was more than he could have 
 expected. His wife had behaved kindly to 
 him in return for his unkindness, and had 
 never proclaimed her wrong to her child or to 
 the world. 
 
 "I am — a good deal interested in your 
 news," he said. "And as this is not a 
 matter of business, but pleasure, suppose we 
 go indoors." 
 
 It was with a gentle delicacy of manner.
 
 124 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 surprising to Elizabeth, that he showed her 
 out of the office, and through the outer room, 
 where Donald Farfrae was overhauling bins 
 and samples with the inquiring inspection of 
 a beginner in charge. Henchard preceded 
 her through the door in the wall to the 
 suddenly changed scene of the garden and 
 flowers, and onward into the house. The 
 dining-room to which he introduced her still 
 exhibited the remnants of the lavish breakfast 
 laid for Farfrae. It was furnished to pro- 
 fusion with heavy mahogany furniture of the 
 deepest red- Spanish hues. Pembroke tables, 
 with leaves hanging so low that they well- 
 nigh touched the floor, stood against the 
 walls on legs and feet shaped like those of an 
 elephant, and on one lay three huge folio 
 volumes — a family Bible, a " Josephus," and a 
 '' Whole Duty of Man." In the chimney 
 corner was a fire-grrate with a fluted semi- 
 circular back, having urns and festoons cast 
 in relief thereon ; and the chairs were of the 
 kind which, since that day, has cast lustre 
 upon the names of Chippendale and Sheraton, 
 though, in point of fact, their patterns may 
 have been such as those illustrious carpenters 
 never saw or heard of.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 125 
 
 *' Sit down — Eiizabeth-Jane— sit clown," he 
 said, with a shake in his voice as he uttered 
 her name ; and sitting down himself lie 
 allowed his hands to hang between his knees, 
 while he looked upon the carpet. " Your 
 mother, then, is quite well ? " 
 
 '' She is rather Avorn out, sir, with travel- 
 ling." 
 
 " A sailor's widow — when did he die ? " 
 
 ''^ Father was lost last spring." 
 
 Henchard winced at the word "father," 
 thus applied. " Do you and she come from 
 abroad — America or Australia ? " he asked. 
 
 '' No. We have been in England some 
 years. I was twelve when we came here from 
 Canada." 
 
 " Ah ; exactly." By such conversation he 
 discovered the circumstances which had enve- 
 loped his wife and her child in such total 
 obscurity that he had long ago believed them 
 to be in their graves. These things being 
 clear, he returned to the present. "And 
 where is your mother staying ? " 
 
 " At the King o' Prussia." 
 
 *' And you are her daughter EHzabeth- 
 Jane,^' repeated Henchard. He arose, came 
 close to her, and glanced in her face. " I
 
 126 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 think," he said, suddenly turning away with 
 a wet eye, " you shall take a note from me to 
 your mother. I should like to see her. . . . 
 She is not left very well off by her late 
 husband ? " His eye fell on Elizabeth^s 
 clothes, which, though a respectable suit of 
 black, and her very best, were decidedly old- 
 fashioned, even to Casterbridge eyes. 
 
 '^ Not very well,'' she said, glad that he 
 had divined this without her being obliged to 
 express it. 
 
 He sat down at the table and wrote a few 
 lines ; next taking from his pocket-book a five- 
 pound note, which he put in the envelope 
 with the letter, adding to it, as by an after- 
 thought, five shillings. Sealing the whole up 
 carefully, he directed it to *' Mrs. Newson, 
 King of Prussia Inn," and handed the packet 
 to Elizabeth. 
 
 " Deliver it to her personally, please," said 
 Henchard. " Well, I am glad to see you here, 
 Elizabeth-Jane — very glad. We must have 
 a long talk together — but not just now." 
 
 He took her hand at parting, and held it so 
 warmly that she, who had known so little 
 friendship, was much afiected, and tears rose 
 to her aerial-grey eyes. The instant that she
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 12/ 
 
 was gone Henchard's state showed itself more 
 distinctly; having shut the door, he sat in 
 his dining-room stiffly erect, gazing at the 
 opposite wall as if he read his history there. 
 
 " Begad ! " he suddenly exclaimed, jumping 
 up. "I didn't think of that. Perhaps these 
 are impostors — and Susan and the child dead 
 after all ! " 
 
 However, a something in Elizabeth- Jane 
 soon assured him that, as regarded her, at 
 least, there could be little doubt. And a few 
 hours would settle the question of her 
 mother's identity ; for he had arranged in his 
 note to see her that evening. 
 
 " It never rains but it pours ! " said Hen- 
 chard. His keenly excited interest in his 
 new friend the Scotchman was now eclipsed 
 by this event ; and Donald Farfrae saw so 
 little of him during the rest of the day that 
 he wondered at the suddenness of his em- 
 ployer's moods. 
 
 In the meantime Elizabeth had reached 
 the iim. Her mother, instead of taking the 
 note with the curiosity of a poor woman ex- 
 pecting assistance, was much moved at sight 
 of it. She did not read it at once, asking 
 Elizabeth to describe her reception, and the
 
 128 • THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 very words Mr. Henchard used. Elizabetli's 
 back was turned when lier mother opened the 
 letter. It ran thus ; — 
 
 " Meet me at eight o'clock this evening, if 
 you can, at the King on the Budmouth road. 
 The place is easy to find. I can say no more 
 now. The news upsets me almost. The girl 
 seems to be in ignorance. Keep her so till I 
 have seen you. 
 
 "M. H." 
 
 He said nothing about the enclosure of 
 five guineas. The amount was significant ; it 
 may tacitly have said to her that he bought 
 her back again. She waited restlessly for the 
 close of the day, telling Elizabeth-Jane that 
 she was invited to see Mr. Henchard ; that 
 she would go alone. But she said nothing to 
 show that the place of meeting was not at 
 his house, nor did she hand the note to 
 Elizabeth.
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The 'Ring at Casterbridge was merely the 
 local name of one of the finest E-oman 
 Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remain- 
 ing in Britain. 
 
 Casterbridge announced old Rome in every 
 street, alley, and precinct. It looked Roman, 
 bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men 
 of Rome. It was impossible to dig more 
 than a foot or two deep about the town fields 
 and gardens without coming upon some tall 
 soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain 
 there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a 
 space of fifteen hundred years. He was 
 mostly found lying on his side, in an oval 
 scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell ; 
 his knees drawn up to his chest ; sometimes 
 with the remains of his spear against his arm ; 
 a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or 
 forehead ; an urn at his knees, a jar at his 
 breast, a bottle at his mouth ; and mystified 
 conjecture pouring down upon him from the 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 eyes of Casterbridge street-boys and men, 
 who had turned a moment to gaze at the 
 familiar spectacle as they passed by. 
 
 Imaginative inhabitants, who would have 
 felt an unpleasantness at the discovery of a 
 comparatively modern skeleton in their gar- 
 dens, were quite unmoved by these hoary 
 shapes. They had lived so long ago, their 
 time was so unlike the present, their hopes 
 and motives were so widely removed from 
 ours, that between them and the living there 
 seemed to stretch a gulf too wide for even a 
 spirit to pass. 
 
 The Amphitheatre was a huge circular en- 
 closure, with a notch at opposite extremities 
 " of its diameter north and south. From its 
 sloping internal form it might have been 
 called the spittoon of the Jotuns. It was 
 to Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum is 
 to modern Eome, and was nearly of the same 
 magnitude. The dusk of evening was the 
 proper hour at which a true impression of 
 this suggestive place could be received. 
 Standing in the middle of the arena at that 
 time there by degrees became apparent its 
 real vastness, which a cursory view from the 
 summit at noon-day was apt to obscure.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 13I 
 
 Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yet accessible 
 from every part, of the town, the historic 
 circle was tlie frequent spot for appointments 
 of a furtive kind. Intrigues were arranged 
 there ; tentative meetings were there experi- 
 mented after divisions and feuds. But one 
 kind of appointment — in itself the most 
 common of any — seldom had place in the 
 Amphitheatre : that of happy lovers. 
 
 Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an 
 airy, accessible, and interesting spot for 
 assignations, the cheer full est form of those 
 occurrences never took kindly to the soil of 
 the ruin would be a curious inquiry. Perhaps 
 it w^as because its associations had about 
 them something sinister. Its history proved 
 that. Apart from the sanguinary nature of 
 the games originally played thereiuj such 
 incidents attached to its past as these : that 
 for scores of years the town-gallows had 
 stood at one corner: that in 1705 a woman 
 who had murdered her husband was half- 
 strangled and then burnt there in the pre- 
 sence of ten thousand spectators. Tradition 
 reports that at a certain stage of the burning 
 her heart burst and leapt out of her body to 
 the terror of them all, and that not one of 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 
 
 those ten thousand people ever cared particu- 
 larly for hot roast after that. In addition to 
 these old tragedies pugilistic encounters 
 almost to the death had come off down to 
 recent dates in that secluded arena, entirely 
 invisible to the outside world, save by climb- 
 ing to the top of the enclosure, which few 
 townspeople in the daily round of their lives 
 ever took the trouble to do. So that, though 
 close to the turnpike-road, crimes might be 
 perpetrated there unseeen at mid-day. 
 
 Some boys had latterly tried to impart 
 gaiety to the ruin by using the central arena 
 as a cricket-ground. But the game usually 
 languished, for the aforesaid reason — that of 
 the dismal privacy which the earthen circle 
 enforced, shutting out every appreciative 
 passer's vision, every commendatory remark 
 from outsiders — everything, except the sky ; 
 and to play at games in such circumstances 
 was like acting to an empty house. Possibly, 
 too, the boys were timid, for some old people 
 said that at certain moments in the summer 
 time, in broad daylight, persons sitting wdth 
 a book, or dozing in the arena, had, on lifting 
 their eyes, beheld the slopes lined with a 
 gazing legion of Hadrian's soldiery as if
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 33 
 
 watching the gladiatorial combat ; and had 
 heard the roar of their excited voices ; that 
 the scene would remain but a moment, like a 
 lightning flash, and then disappear. 
 
 It was related that there still remained 
 under the south entrance arched cells for the 
 reception of the wild animals and athletes who 
 took part in the games. The arena was still 
 smooth and circular, as if used for its original 
 purpose not so very long ago. The sloping 
 pathways by which spectators had ascended 
 to their seats were pathways yet. But the 
 whole was grown over with grass, which now, 
 at the end of summer, was bearded with 
 withered bents that formed waves under the 
 brush of the wind, returning to the attentive 
 ear ^olian modulations, and detaining for 
 moments the flying globes of thistledown. 
 
 Henchard had chosen this spot as being the 
 safest from observation which he could think 
 of for meeting his long-lost wife, and at the 
 same time as one easily to be found by a 
 stranger after nightfall. As Mayor of the 
 town, with a reputation to keep up, he could 
 not invite her to come to his house till some 
 definite course had been decided on. 
 
 Just before eight he approached the
 
 134 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 deserted earthwork, and entered by the south 
 path which descended over the debris of 
 the former dens. In a few moments he could 
 discern a female figure creeping in by the 
 great north gap, or public gateway. They 
 met in the middle of the arena. Neither 
 spoke just at first — there was no necessity 
 for speech — and the poor woman leant against 
 Henchard, who supported her in his arms. 
 
 " I don^'t drink," he said in a low, halting, 
 apologetic voice. " You hear, Susan ? — I don t 
 drink now — I haven't since that night." 
 Those were his first words. 
 
 He felt her bow her head in acknowledg- 
 ment that she understood. After a minute 
 or two he again began : 
 
 ''If I had known you were living, Susan ! 
 But there was every reason to suppose you 
 and the child were dead and gone. I took 
 every possible step to find you — travelled — 
 advertised. My opinion at last was that you 
 had started for some colony with that man, 
 and had been drowned on your voyage out. 
 Why did you keep silent like this ? " 
 
 " Oh, Michael, because of him — what other 
 reason could there be ? I thought I owed 
 him faithfulness to the end of one of our lives
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I 35 
 
 — foolishly I believed there was something 
 soleran and binding in the bargain ; I thought 
 that even in honour I dared not desert him 
 when he had paid so much for me in good 
 faith. I meet you now only as his widow — 
 I consider myself that, and that I have no 
 claim upon you. Had he not died, I should 
 never have come — never. Of that you may 
 be sure." 
 
 " Tut-tut ! How could you be so simple ? " 
 
 *' I don't know. Yet it would have been 
 very wicked — if I had not thought like 
 that ! " said Susan, almost crying. 
 
 " Yes — yes — so it would. It is only that 
 which makes me feel ye an innocent woman. 
 But — to lead me into this ! " 
 
 " What, Michael ? " she asked, alarmed. 
 
 " Why, this difficulty about our living 
 too^ether ao-ain, and Elizabeth- Jane. She 
 cannot be told all — she would so despise us 
 both that — I could not bear it ! " 
 
 " That was why she was brought up in 
 ignorance of you. I could not bear it either." 
 
 " Well — we must talk of a plan for keeping 
 her in her present belief, and getting matters 
 straight in spite of it. You have heard I am 
 in a large way of business here — that I am
 
 136 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and I 
 don't know what all ? " 
 
 " Yes," she murmured. 
 
 " These things, as well as the dread of the 
 girl discovering our disgrace, makes it neces- 
 sary to act with extreme caution. So that I 
 don't see how you two can return openly to 
 my house as the wife and daughter I once 
 treated badly, and banished from me ; and 
 there's the rub o't." 
 
 " We'll go away at once. I only came to 
 see " 
 
 " No, no, Susan ; you are not to go — you 
 mistake me ! " he said with kindly severity. 
 '' I have thought of this plan : that you and 
 Elizabeth take a cottage in the town as the 
 widow Mrs. Newson and her daughter ; that 
 I meet you, court you, and marry you, Eliza- 
 beth-Jane coming to my house as my step- 
 daughter. The thing is so natural and easy 
 that it is half done in thinking o't. This 
 would leave my shady, headstrong, disgracefal 
 life as a young man absolutely unopened; 
 the secret wouli be yours and mine only ; 
 and T should have the pleasure of seeing my 
 own onlv child under my roof, as well as my 
 wife."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 13/ 
 
 *' I am quite in your hands, Michael," 
 she said meekly. " I came here for the 
 sake of EHzabeth ; for myself, if you tell me 
 to leave again to-morrow morning, and 
 never come near you more, I am content 
 to go/^ 
 
 " Now, now ; we don't want to hear that," 
 said Henchard gently. " Of course you won't 
 leave again. Think over the plan I have pro- 
 posed for a few hours ; and if you can't hit 
 upon a better one we'll adopt it. I have 
 to be away for a day or two on business, 
 unfortunately; but during that time you 
 can get lodgings — the only ones in the town 
 fit for you are those over the china-shop in 
 High Street — and you can also look for a 
 cottage." 
 
 " If the lodgings are in High Street they 
 are dear, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Never mind — you must start genteel, if 
 our plan is to be carried out. Look to me 
 for money. Have you enough till I come 
 backr' 
 
 " Quite," said she. 
 
 " And are you comfortable at the inn ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes."" 
 
 " And the girl is quite safe from learning
 
 138 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 the shame of her case and ours ? — that's what 
 makes me most anxious of all." 
 
 '' You would be surprised to find how 
 unlikely she is to dream of the truth. How 
 could she ever suppose such a thing ! '"' 
 
 " True ! " 
 
 " I like the idea of repeating our marriage/' 
 said Mrs. Henchard, after a pause. " It seems 
 the only right course, after all this. Now I 
 think I must go back to Elizabeth-Jane, and 
 tell her that our kinsman, Mr. Henchard, 
 kindly wishes us to stay in the town." 
 
 ^' Very well — arrange that yourself I'll go 
 some way with you." 
 
 " No, no. Don't run any risk ! " said his 
 wife anxiously. " I can find my way back — 
 it is not late. Please let me go alone." 
 
 ''Eight," said Henchard. "But just one 
 word. Do you forgive me, Susan ? " 
 
 She murmured something ; but seemed to 
 find it difiicult to frame her answer. 
 
 " Never mind — all [iuj good time," said he. 
 ''Judge me by my future works — good-bye." 
 
 He retreated, and stood at the upper side 
 of the Amphitheatre while his wife passed out 
 through the lower way, and descended under 
 the trees to the town. Then Henchard him-
 
 THE MAYOR OF GASTERBRIDGE. I 39 
 
 self went homeward, going so fast, that by 
 the time he reached his door he was almost 
 upon the heels of the unconscious woman 
 from whom he had just parted. He 
 watched her up the street, and turned into 
 his house.
 
 140 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 On entering his own door, after watching his 
 wife out of sight, the Mayor walked on 
 through the tunnel-shaped passage into the 
 garden, and thence by the side door towards 
 the stores and granaries. A light shone from 
 the office-window, and, there being no blind 
 to screen the interior, Henchard could see 
 Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left 
 him, initiating himself into the managerial 
 work of the liouse by overhauling the books. 
 Henchard entered, merely observing, " Don't 
 let me interrupt you, if ye will stay so 
 late." 
 
 He stood behind Farfrae's chair, watching 
 his dexterity in clearing up the numerical 
 fogs which had been allowed to grow so 
 thick in Henchard's books as almost to baffle 
 even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The corn- 
 factor s mien was half admiring, and yet it 
 was not without a dash of pity for the tastes 
 of any one who could care to give his mind
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I4I 
 
 to such finikin details. Henchard himself 
 ■was mentally and physically unfit for grub- 
 bing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in 
 a modern sense received the education of 
 Achilles, and found penmanship a tantalizing 
 art. 
 
 " You shall do no more to-night," he said 
 at length, spreading his great hand over the 
 paper. " There's time enough to-morrow. 
 Come indoors with me and have some 
 supper. Now you shall ! I am determined 
 on't.' He shut the account-books "with 
 friendly force. 
 
 Donald had w^ished to 2:et to his lodpinofs ; 
 but he already saw that his friend and 
 employer was a man who knew no modera- 
 tion in his requests and impulses, and he 
 yielded gracefully. He liked Henchard's 
 warmth, even if it inconvenienced him ; the 
 OTeat difference in their characters addino- to 
 the liking. 
 
 They locked up the office, and the young 
 man followed his companion through the 
 private little door w^hich, admitting directly 
 into Henchard's garden, permitted a passage 
 from the utilitarian to the beautiful at one 
 step. The garden was silent, dewy, and full
 
 142 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 of perfume. It extended a long way back 
 from the house, first as lawn and flower- 
 beds, then as fruit-garden, where the long- 
 tied espaliers, as old as the old house itself, 
 had grown so stout and cramped and gnarled 
 that they had pulled their stakes out of the 
 ground, and stood distorted and writhing in 
 vegetable agony, like leafy Laocoons. The 
 flowers which smelt so sweetly were not dis- 
 cernible ; and they passed through them into 
 the house. 
 
 The hospitalities of the morning were re- 
 peated, and when they were over Henchard 
 said, " Pull your chair round to the fireplace, 
 my dear fellow, and let's make a blaze — 
 there's nothing I hate like a black grate, even 
 in September." He applied a light to the 
 laid-in fuel, and a cheerful radiance spread 
 around. 
 
 "It is odd," said Henchard, "that two 
 men should meet as we have done on a 
 purely business ground, and that at the end 
 of the first day I should wish to speak to 'ee 
 
 on a family matter. But, d it all, I am 
 
 a lonely man, Farfrae : I have nobody else to 
 speak to ; and why shouldn't I tell it to you ? " 
 
 " I'll be glad to hear it, if I can be of any
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 43 
 
 service," said Donald, allowing his eyes to 
 travel over the intricate wood-carvings of the 
 chimney-piece, representing garlanded lyres, 
 shields, and quivers, on either side of a draped 
 ox-skull, and flanked by heads of Apollo and 
 Diana in low relief. 
 
 "I've not been always what I am now," 
 continued Henchard, his firm deep voice 
 being ever so little shaken. He was plainly 
 under that strange influence which sometimes 
 prompts men to confide to the new-found 
 friend what they will not tell to the old. " I 
 began life as a working hay-trusser, and when 
 I was eighteen I married on the strength o' my 
 calling. Would you think me a married 
 man ? " 
 
 "I heard in the town that you were a 
 widower. " 
 
 " Ah, yes — ^you would naturally have heard 
 that. Well, I lost my wife eighteen years 
 
 ago — by my own fault This is how it 
 
 came about. One summer evening I was 
 travelling for employment, and she was 
 walking at my side carrying the baby, our 
 only child. We came to a booth in a 
 country fair. I was a drinking man at that 
 time."
 
 144 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Hen chard paused a moment, threw himself 
 back so that his elbow rested on the table, 
 his forehead being shaded by his hand, which, 
 however, did not hide the marks of introspec- 
 tive inflexibility on his features as he narrated 
 in fullest detail the incidents of the transac- 
 tion with the sailor. The tinge of indiffer- 
 ence which had at first been visible in the 
 Scotchman now disappeared. 
 
 Henchard went on to describe his attempts 
 to find his wife ; the oath he swore ; the 
 solitary life he led during the years which 
 followed. " I have kept my oath for eighteen 
 years," he went on ; "I have risen to what 
 you see me now." 
 
 ''And it's not a small counterbalance to 
 the immoral years that ye've done so much 
 since ! " 
 
 " Well — no wife could I hear of in all that 
 time ; and being by nature something of a 
 woman-hater, I have found it no hardship to 
 keep at a distance from the sex. No wife 
 could I hear of, I say, till this very day. 
 And now — she has come back." 
 
 *' Come back, has she ! " 
 
 '' This morning — this very morning. And 
 what's to be done ? "
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 45 
 
 " Can't ye take her and live with her, and 
 so make amends ? " 
 
 "That's what I've planned and proposed. 
 But Farfrae/' said Henchard gloomily, "by 
 doing right with Susan I wrong another 
 innocent woman." 
 
 "Ye don't say that?" 
 
 " In the nature of things, Farfrae, it is 
 almost impossible that a man of my sort 
 should have the good fortune to tide through 
 twenty years o' life without making more 
 blunders than one. It has been my custom 
 for many years to run across to Jersey in the 
 way of business, particularly in the potato and 
 root season. I do a large trade wi' them 
 in that line. Well, one autumn when stop- 
 ping there I fell quite ill, and in my illness 
 I sank into one of those gloomy fits I some- 
 times suffer from, on account o' the loneliness 
 of my domestic life, when the world seems to 
 have the blackness of hell, and, like Job, I 
 could curse the day that gave me birth." 
 
 " Ah, now, I never feel like it," said 
 Farfrae. 
 
 " Then pray to God that you never may, 
 young man. While in this state I was taken 
 pity on by a woman — a young lady I should 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 call her, for she was of good family, well bred, 
 and well educated — the daughter of some 
 harum-scarum military officer who had got into 
 difficulties, and had his pay sequestrated. He 
 was dead now, and her mother, too, and she was 
 as lonely as I. This young creature was stay- 
 ing at the boarding-house where I happened 
 to have my lodging ; and when I was pulled 
 down she took upon herself to nurse me. 
 From that she got to have a foolish liking for 
 me. Heaven knows why, for I didn't en- 
 courage any such thing. But, being together 
 in the same house, and her feelings warm, 
 there arose a terrible scandal, which did me 
 no harm, but was of course ruin to her. 
 Though Farfrae, between you and me, as 
 man and man, I solemnly declare that I did 
 her no wrong. Devotion to women-folk has 
 neither been my vice nor my virtue. But 
 I am bound to admit that she was terribly 
 careless of appearances, and that I was 
 perhaps more, because o' my dreary state ; 
 and it was through this that the scandal 
 arose. At last I was well, and came away. 
 When I was gone she suffered much, on my 
 account, and didn't forget to tell me so in 
 letters one after another ; till, latterly, I felt
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 47 
 
 I owed her somethiDg, and tliought that, as 
 I had not heard of Susan for so long, I would 
 make this other one the only return I could 
 make, and ask her if she would run the risk 
 of Susan being alive (very slight as I believed) 
 and marry me, such as I was. She jumped 
 for joy, and we should no doubt soon have 
 been married — but, behold, Susan appears ! '* 
 
 Donald showed his deep concern at a com- 
 plication so far beyond the degree of his 
 simple experiences. 
 
 "Now see what injury a man may cause 
 around him. Even after that wrong-doing at 
 the fair when I was young, if I had never 
 been so selfish as to let this giddy girl devote 
 herself to me over at Jersey, to the injury of 
 her name, all might now be well. Yet, as 
 it stands, I must bitterly disappoint one of 
 these women ; and it is the second. My first 
 duty is to Susan — there's no doubt about 
 that." 
 
 " They are both in a very melancholy 
 position, and that's true ! " murmured 
 Donald. 
 
 " They are ! For myself I don't care — 
 'twill all end one way. But these two." 
 Henchard paused in reverie. "I feel I should 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 like to treat the second, no less than the first, 
 as kindly as a man can in such a case." 
 
 *' Ah, well, it cannet be helped ! " said the 
 other, with philosophic woefulness. " You 
 must write to the young lady, and in your 
 letter you must put it plain and honest that 
 it turns out she cannet be your wife, the first 
 having come back ; that ye cannet see her 
 more ; and that — ye wish her weel/' 
 
 " That won't do. 'Od seize it, I must do a 
 little more than that. I must — though she 
 did always brag about her rich uncle or rich 
 aunt, and her expectations from 'em — I must 
 send a useful sum of money to her, I suppose 
 — -just as a little recompense, poor girl. . . . 
 Now, will you help me in this, and draw up 
 an explanation to her of all IVe told ye, 
 breaking it as gently as you can ? I'm so 
 bad at letters." 
 
 ^^Andlwill." 
 
 ''Now, I haven't told you quite all yet. 
 My wife Susan has my daughter with her — 
 the baby that was in her arms at the fair ; 
 and this girl knows nothing of me beyond 
 that I am some sort of relation by marriage. 
 She has grown up in the belief that the sailor 
 to whom I made over her mother, and who is
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 49 
 
 now dead, was her father, and her mother s 
 husband. What her mother has always felt, 
 she and I together feel now — that we can't 
 proclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting 
 her know the truth. Now what would you 
 do — I want your advice 1 " 
 
 " I think I'd run the risk, and tell her the 
 truth. She'll forgive ye both." 
 
 " Never ! " said Henchard. " I am not going 
 to let her know the truth. Her mother and I 
 are going to marry again ; and it will not only 
 enable us to retain our child's respect, but it 
 will be more proper. Susan looks upon herself 
 as the sailor's widow, and won't think of 
 living with me as formerly without another 
 religious ceremony — and she's right." 
 
 Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter 
 to the young Jersey woman was carefully 
 framed by him, and the interview ended, 
 Henchard saying, as the Scotchman left : " I 
 feel it a great relief, Farfrae, to tell some 
 friend of this ! You see now that the Mayor of 
 Casterbridge is not so thriving in his mind as 
 it seems he might be from the state of his 
 pocket." 
 
 *' I do. And I am sorry for it ! " said 
 Farfrae.
 
 I50 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 When he was gone, Henchard copied the 
 letter, and, enclosing a cheque, took it to 
 the post-office, from which he walked back 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Can it be that it will go off so easily ! " 
 he said. " Poor thing — God knows ! Now 
 then, to make amends to Susan ! "
 
 151 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The cottacre which Michael Henchard hired 
 for his wife Susan, under her name of Newson 
 — in pursuance of their plan — was in the 
 upper or western part of the town, near 
 the wall, and the avenue which overshadowed 
 it. The evening sun seemed to shine more 
 yellowly there than anywhere else this 
 autumn — stretching its rays, as the hours 
 grew later, under the lowest sycamore boughs, 
 and steeping the ground-floor of the dwelhng, 
 with its green shutters, in a substratum 
 of radiance which the foliao;e screened from 
 the upper parts. Beneath these sycamores on 
 the town walls could be seen from the sitting- 
 room the tumuli and earth forts of the distant 
 uplands ; making it altogether a pleasant 
 spot, with the usual toucli of melancholy that 
 a western prospect lends. 
 
 As soon as the mother and daughter were 
 comfortably installed, with a white -aproned 
 servant and all complete, Henchard paid
 
 152 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 them a visit, and remained to tea. During the 
 entertainment EHzabeth was carefully hood- 
 winked by the very general tone of the 
 conversation that prevailed — a proceeding 
 which seemed to afford some humour to 
 Henchard, though his wife was not par- 
 ticularly happy in it. The visit was repeated 
 again and again with business-like determina- 
 tion by the Mayor, who seemed to have 
 schooled himself into a course of strict me- 
 chanical rightness towards this woman of 
 prior claim, at any expense to the later 
 one, and to his own sentiments. 
 
 One afternoon the daughter was not in- 
 doors when Henchard came, and he said drily, 
 " This is a very good opportunity for me 
 to ask you to name the happy day, Susan." 
 
 The poor woman smiled faintly ; she did 
 not enjoy pleasantries on a situation into 
 which she had entered solely for the sake 
 of her girl's reputation. She liked them 
 so little, indeed, that there was room for 
 wonder why she had countenanced deception 
 at all, and had not bravely let the girl know 
 her history. But the flesh is weak ; and 
 the true explanation came in due course. 
 
 '' Oh Michael,'' she said, *' I am afraid all
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I 53 
 
 this is taking up your time and giving trouble 
 — ^when I did not expect any such thing ! " 
 And she looked at him and at his dress as 
 a man of affluence, and at the furniture he 
 had provided for the room — ornate and lavish 
 to her eyes. 
 
 " Not at all," said Henchard, in rough 
 benignity. ''This is only a cottage — it costs 
 me next to nothing. And as to taking up my 
 time " — here his red and black visasfe kindled 
 with satisfaction — " I've a splendid fellow to 
 suj)erintend my business now — a man whose 
 like I've never been able to lay hands on 
 before. I shall soon be able to leave every- 
 thing to him, and have more time to call my 
 own than I've had for these last twenty 
 years." 
 
 Henchard's visits here grew so frequent and 
 so regular that it soon became whispered, and 
 then openly discussed in Casterbridge, that 
 the masterful, coercive Mayor of the town 
 was captured and enervated hj the genteel 
 widow, Mrs. Newson. His well-known 
 haughty indifference to the society of woman- 
 kind, his silent avoidance of converse with 
 the sex, contributed a piquancy to what 
 would otherwise have been an unromantic
 
 154 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 matter enough. That such a poor fragile 
 woman should be his choice was inexplicable, 
 except on the ground that the engagement 
 was a family affair in which sentimental 
 passion had no place ; for it was known that 
 they were related in some way. Mrs. Hen- 
 chard was so pale that the boys called her 
 " The Ghost." Sometimes Henchard over- 
 heard this epithet when they passed together 
 alonof the Walks — as the avenues on the walls 
 were named — at which his face would darken 
 with an expression of destructiveness towards 
 the speakers ominous to see ; but he said 
 nothing. 
 
 He pressed on the preparations for his union, 
 or rather re-union, with, this pale creature in a 
 dogged unflinching spirit which did credit to 
 his conscientiousness. Nobody w^oTild have 
 conceived from his outward demeanour that 
 there was no amatory fire or pulse of romance 
 acting as stimulant to the bustle going on in 
 his gaunt, great house ; nothing but three 
 lar2:e resolves : one to make amends to his 
 neglected Susan, another to provide a com- 
 fortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under his 
 paternal eye ; and a third to castigate himself 
 with the thorns which these restitutory acts
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 155 
 
 brought in their train ; among them the 
 lowering of his dignity in public opinion 
 by marrying so comparatively humble a 
 woman. 
 
 Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the 
 first time in her life when she stepped into 
 the plain brougham which drew up at the 
 door on the wedding-day to take her and 
 Elizabeth- Jane to church. It was a windless 
 morning of warm November rain, which 
 floated down like meal, and lay in a powdery 
 form on the nap of hats and coats. Few 
 people had gathered round the church door, 
 though they were well packed within. The 
 Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was 
 of course the only one present, beyond the 
 chief actors, who knew the true situation of 
 the contracting parties. He, however, was 
 too inexperienced, too thoughtful, too judicial, 
 too strongly conscious of the serious side of 
 the business, to enter into the scene in its 
 dramatic aspect. That required the special 
 genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Long- 
 ways, Buzzford, and their fellows. But they 
 knew nothing of the secret ; though as the 
 time for coming out of church drew on they 
 gathered on the pavement adjoining, and
 
 156 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 expounded the subject according to their 
 lights. 
 
 "Tis five-and-forty years since I had my 
 settlement in this here town/' said Coney ; 
 " but daze me if ever I see a man wait so 
 long before to take so little ! There's a 
 chance even for thee after this, Nance Mock- 
 ridge." The remark was addressed to a 
 woman who stood behind his shoulder — the 
 same who had exhibited Henchard's bad bread 
 in public when Elizabeth and her mother 
 entered Casterbridge. 
 
 " Be cust if I'd marry any such as he, or 
 thee either," replied that lady. ''As for 
 thee, Christopher, we know what ye be, and 
 the less said the better. And as for he — 
 well, there — (lowering her voice) ^tis said 'a 
 was a poor parish 'prentice — I wouldn't say it 
 for all the world — but 'a was a poor parish 
 'prentice, that began life wi' no more belong- 
 ing to 'en than a carrion crow." 
 
 "And now he's worth ever so much a 
 minute," murmured Longways. "When a 
 man is said to be worth so and so a minute 
 he's a man to be considered ! " 
 
 Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated 
 with creases, and recognized the smiling
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I 57 
 
 countenance of the fat woman who had asked 
 for another song at the King of Prussia. 
 " Wei], Mother Cuxsom," he said, " how's 
 this ? Here's Mrs. Newson, a mere skelHnton, 
 has got another husband to keep her, while 
 a woman of your tonnage have not." 
 
 " I have not. Nor another to beat me. . . . 
 Ah, yes, Cuxsom s gone, and so shall leather 
 breeches ! " 
 
 " Yes ; with the blessing of God leather 
 breeches shall go." 
 
 '' 'Tisn't worth my old while to think of 
 another husband," continued Mrs. Cuxsom. 
 " And yet I'll lay my life I'm as respectable 
 born as she." 
 
 " True ; your mother was a very good 
 woman — I can mind her. She were rewarded 
 by the Agricultural Society for having the 
 greatest number of healthy children without 
 parish assistance, and other virtuous marvels." 
 
 " 'Twas that that kept us so low upon 
 ground — that great family." 
 
 " Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash 
 runs thin." 
 
 " And dostn't mind how mother would sing, 
 Christopher '? " continued Mrs. Cuxsom, kind- 
 ling at the retrospection : '' and how we went
 
 15S THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 with her to the party at Mellstock, do ye 
 mind ; — at old Dame Ledlow's, farmer Penny's 
 sister, do ye mind ? — she we used to call 
 Toadskin, because her face were so yaller and 
 freckled, do ye mind ? " 
 
 " I do, hee-hee, I do ! " said Christopher 
 Coney. 
 
 " And well do I — for I was getting up 
 husband-high at that time — one -half girl, 
 and t'other] half woman, as one may say. 
 And canst mind" — she prodded Solomon's 
 shoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes 
 twinkled between the crevices of their lids — 
 " canst mind the sherry- wine, and the silver 
 snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took 
 bad when we were coming home, and Jack 
 Griggs was forced to carry her through the 
 mud ; and how 'a let her fall in Dairyman 
 Sweetapple's cow-barton, and we had to 
 clane her gown wi' grass — never such a mess 
 
 O O 
 
 as 'a were in ? " 
 
 " Ay — that I do — hee-hee-^such doggery 
 as there was in them ancient days to be sure ! 
 Ah, the miles 1 used to walk then ; and now I 
 can hardly step over a furrow ! " 
 
 Their reminiscences were cut short bj the
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 59 
 
 appearance of the re-united pair — Henchard 
 looking round upon the idlers with that 
 ambiguous gaze of his, which at one moment 
 seemed to mean satisfaction, and at another 
 fiery disdain. 
 
 " Well — there's a difference between 'em, 
 though he do call himself a teetotaller," said 
 Nance Mockridge. " She'll wish her cake 
 dough afore she's done of him. There's a 
 bluebeady look about 'en ; and 'twill out in 
 time." 
 
 "Stuff — he's well enough. Some folk 
 want their luck buttered. If I had a choice 
 as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn't wish for 
 a better man. A poor twanking woman like 
 her — 'tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair 
 of jumps to her name." 
 
 The plain little brougham drove off in the 
 mist, and the idlers dispersed. " Well, we 
 hardly know how to look at things in these 
 times ! " said Solomon. *' There was a man 
 dropped down dead yesterday, not so very 
 many miles from here ; and what wi' that, 
 and this moist weather, 'tis scarce worth 
 one's while to begin any work of consequence 
 to-day. I'm in such a low key with drink-
 
 l60 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 ing nothing but small table ninepenny this 
 last week or two that I shall call and warm 
 up at the Prooshia as I pass along." 
 
 " I don't know but that I may as well go 
 with 'ee, Solomon," said Christopher ; '^ I'm 
 as clammy as a cockle-snail."
 
 i6i 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A Martinmas- summer of Mrs. Henchard's 
 life set in with her entry into her husband's 
 large house and respectable social orbit ; and 
 it was as bright as such summers well can 
 be. Lest she should pine for deeper affec- 
 tion than he could give, he made a point of 
 showing some semblance of it in external 
 action. A.mong other things he had the iron 
 railings, that had smiled sadly in dull green 
 for the last eighty years, painted a bright 
 chocolate, and the heavy-barred, small-paned, 
 Georgian sash windows enlivened with three 
 coats of white. He was as kind to her as 
 a man, mayor, and churchwarden could 
 possibly be. The house was large, the rooms 
 lofty, and the landings wide ; and the two 
 unassuming women scarcely made a percep- 
 tible addition to its contents. 
 
 To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most 
 triumphant one. The freedom she ex- 
 perienced, the indulgence with which she 
 
 VOL. T. M
 
 1 62 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 was treated, went beyond her expectations. 
 The reposeful, easy, affluent hfe to which her 
 mother's marriage had introduced her was, 
 in truth, the beginning of a great change in 
 Ehzabeth. She found she could have nice 
 personal possessions and ornaments for the 
 asking, and, as the mediaeval saying puts it, 
 " Take, have, and keep, are pleasant words."' 
 With peace of mind came development, and 
 with development beauty. Knowledge — " 
 the result of great natural insight — she did 
 not lack ; learning, accomplishments — those, 
 alas, she had not ; but as the winter and 
 spring passed by her thin face and figure 
 filled out in rounder and softer curves ; the 
 lines and contractions upon her young brow 
 went away ; the muddiness of skin which 
 she had looked upon as her lot by nature 
 departed with a change to abundance of good 
 things, and a bloom came upon her cheek. 
 Perhaps, too, her grey, thoughtful eyes 
 revealed an, arch gaiety sometimes ; but this 
 was infrequent ; the sort of wisdom which 
 looked from their pupils did not readily keep 
 company with these lighter moods. Like all 
 people who have known rough times, light- 
 heartedness seemed to her too irrational and
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 63 
 
 inconsequent to be indulged in except as a 
 reckless dram now and then ; for she had 
 been too early habituated to anxious reason- 
 ing to drop the habit suddenly. She felt 
 none of those ups and downs of spirit which 
 beset so many people without cause ; never 
 • — to paraphrase a recent poet — never a 
 gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well 
 knew how it came there ; and her present 
 cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to her 
 solid guarantees for the same. 
 
 It might have been supposed that, given 
 a girl rapidly becoming good-looking, com- 
 fortably circumstanced, and for the first time 
 in her life commanding ready money, she 
 would go and make a fool of herself by 
 dress. But no. The reasonableness of 
 almost everything that Elizabeth did was 
 nowhere more conspicuous than in this 
 question of clothes. To keep in the rear 
 of opportunity in matters of indulgence is 
 as valuable a habit as to keep abreast of 
 .opportunity in matters of enterprise. This 
 unsophisticated girl did it by an innate per- 
 ceptiveness that w^as almost genius. Thus 
 she refrained from bursting out like a water- 
 flower that spring, and clothing herself in 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 puffings and knick-knacks as most of the 
 Casterbridge girls would have done in her 
 circumstances. Her triumph was tempered 
 by circumspection ; she had still that field- 
 mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despite 
 fair promise, which is common among the 
 thoughtful who have suffered early from 
 poverty and oppression. 
 
 '' I won't be too gay on any account," she 
 would say to herself '* It would be tempt- 
 ing Providence to hurl mother and me down, 
 and afHict us again as He used to do." 
 
 We now see her in a black silk bonnet, 
 velvet maiitle or silk spencer, dark dress, and 
 carrying a sunshade. In this latter article 
 she drew the line at fringe, and had it plain 
 edged, with a little ivory ring for keeping it 
 closed. It was odd about the necessity for 
 that sunshade. She discovered that with the 
 clarification of her complexion and the birth 
 of pink cheeks her skin had grown more 
 sensitive to the sun's rays. She protected 
 those cheeks forthwith, deeming spotlessness 
 part of womanliness. 
 
 Henchard had become very fond of her, 
 and she went out with him more frequently 
 than with her mother now. Her appearance
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 65 
 
 one day was so attractive that he looked at 
 her critically. 
 
 " I happened to have the ribbon by me, so 
 I made it up," she faltered, thinking him 
 perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright 
 trimming she had donned for the first time. 
 
 "Ay — of course — to be sure," he replied 
 in his leonine way. " Do as you like — or 
 rather as your mother advises ye. 'Od send 
 — I've nothing to say to 't ! " 
 
 Indoors she appeared with her hair divided 
 by a parting that arched like a white rainbow 
 from ear to ear. All in front of this line was 
 covered with a thick encampment of curls ; all 
 behind was dressed smoothly, and dVawn to a 
 knob. 
 
 The three members of the family were 
 sitting at breakfast one day, and Henchard 
 was looking silently, as he often did, at this 
 head of hair, which in colour was brown — 
 rather light than dark. " I thought Elizabeth- 
 Jane's hair — didn't you tell me that Elizabeth- 
 Jane's hair promised to be black when she 
 was a baby ? " he said to his wife. 
 
 She looked startled, jerked his foot warn- 
 ingly, and murmured, " Did I ? " 
 
 As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own
 
 166 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 room Henchard resumed. " Begad, I nearly 
 forgot myself just now ! What I meant was 
 that the girl's hair certainly looked as if it 
 would be darker, when she was a baby." 
 
 " It did ; but they alter so," replied Susan. 
 
 " Their hair gets darker, I know — but I 
 wasn't aware it lightened ever '? " 
 
 ' ' Oh yes. " And the same uneasy expression 
 came out on her face, to which the future 
 held the key. It passed as Henchard went on : 
 
 " Well, so much the better. Now, Susan, 
 I want to have her called Miss Henchard — 
 not Miss Newson. Lots o' people do it 
 already in carelessness — it is her legal name 
 - — so it may as well be made her usual name 
 — I don't like t'other name at all for my own 
 flesh and blood. I'll advertise it in the 
 Casterbridge paper — that's the way they do 
 it. She won't object." 
 
 "No. Oh no. But " 
 
 " Well, then, I shall do it," said he, per- 
 emptorily. "Surely, if she's willing, you 
 must wish it as much as I ? " 
 
 " Oh yes — if she agrees let us do it by all 
 means," she replied. 
 
 Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat 
 inconsistently ; it might have been called
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 6/ 
 
 falsely, but that lier manner was emotional 
 and full of tlie earnestness of one wlio wishes 
 to do right at great hazard. She went to 
 Elizabeth-Jane, whom she found sewing in 
 her own sitting-room upstairs, and told her 
 what had been proposed about her surname. 
 "Can you agree — is it not a slight upon 
 Newson — now he's dead and gone ? " 
 
 Elizabeth reflected. " I'll think of it, 
 mother," she asked. 
 
 When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, 
 she adverted to the matter at once, in a way 
 which showed that the line of feeling started 
 by her mother had been persevered in. " Do 
 you wish this change so very much, sir ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Wish it ? Why, my blessed fathers, 
 what an ado you women make about a trifle 1 
 I proposed it — that's all. Now, 'Lizabeth- 
 Jane, just please yourself Curse me if I 
 care what you do. Now, you understand, 
 don't 'ee go agreeing to it to please me.'' 
 
 Here the subject dropped, and nothing 
 more was said, and nothing was done, and 
 Elizabeth still passed as Miss Newson^ and 
 not by her legal name. 
 
 Meanwhile the great corn and hay trafiic
 
 1 68 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 conducted by Henchard tlirove under the 
 management of Donald Farfrae as it had 
 never thriven before. It had formerly moved 
 in jolts ; now it went on oiled castors. The 
 old crude viva voce system of Henchard, in 
 which everything depended upon his memory, 
 and bargains were made by the tongue alone, 
 was swept away. Letters and ledgers took 
 the place of "I'll do't," and "You shall 
 hae't ; " and, as in all such cases of advance, 
 the rugged picturesqueness of the old method 
 disappeared with its inconveniences. 
 
 The position of Elizabeth- Jane's room — • 
 rather hisfh in the house, so that it commanded 
 a view of the hay-stores and granaries across 
 the garden — afforded her opportunity for 
 accurate observation of what went on there. 
 She saw that Donald and Mr. Henchard were 
 inseparables. When walking together Hen- 
 chard would lay his arm familiarly on his 
 manager's shoulder, as if Farfrae were a 
 younger brother, bearing so heavily that his 
 slight figure bent under the weight. Occa- 
 sionally she would hear a perfect cannonade 
 of laughter from Henchard, arising from 
 something Donald had said, the latter looking 
 quite innocent and not laughing at all. In
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 109 
 
 Henchard's somewhat lonely life lie evidently 
 found the young man as desirable for com- 
 radeship as he was useful for consultations. 
 Donald's brightness of intellect maintained in 
 the corn-factor the admiration it had won at 
 the first hour of their meeting. The poor 
 opinion, and but ill-concealed, that he enter- 
 tained of the slim Farfrae's physical girth, 
 strength, and dash, was more than counter- 
 balanced by the immense respect he had for 
 his brains. 
 
 Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard's 
 tigerish afPection for the younger man, his 
 constant liking to have Farfrae near him, 
 now and then resulted in a tendency to 
 domineer, which, however, was checked in a 
 moment when Donald exhibited marks of real 
 offence. One day, looking down on their 
 hats from on high, she heard the latter 
 remark, as they stood in the doorway 
 between garden and yard, that their habit of 
 walking and driving about together rather 
 neutralized Farfrae's value as a second pair 
 of eyes, which should be used in places where 
 
 the principal was not. "Od d n it," cried 
 
 Henchard, " what's all the world ! I like a 
 fellow to talk to. Now come along and hae
 
 lyo THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 some supper, and don't take too much thought 
 about things, or yell drive me crazy. '^ 
 
 When she walked with her mother, on the 
 other hand, she often beheld the Scotchman 
 looking at them with a curious interest. The 
 fact that he had met her at the King of 
 Prussia was insufficient to account for it, 
 since the assistance she had ill-ad visedly 
 tendered there had passed unobserved by 
 him, who, on the occasions on which she had 
 entered his room, had never raised his eyes. 
 Besides, it was at her mother more particu- 
 larly than at herself that he looked, as it 
 sometimes seemed, to Elizabeth-Jane's half- 
 unconscious, simple-minded, perhaps pardon- 
 able, disappointment. Thus she could not 
 account for this interest by her own attrac- 
 tiveness, and she decided that it might be 
 apparent only — a way of turning his eyes 
 ^hat Mr. Farfrae had. She did not divine 
 the ample explanation of his manner, without 
 personal vanity, that was afforded by the 
 fact of Donald being the depositary of 
 Henchard's confidence in respect of his past 
 treatment of the pale, chastened mother who 
 walked by her side. Her conjectures on that 
 past never went further than faint ones based
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 17I 
 
 Oil things casually heard and seen — mere 
 guesses that Henchard and her mother might 
 have been lovers in their younger days, who 
 had quarrelled and parted. 
 
 Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a 
 place deposited in the block upon a corn-field. 
 There was no suburb in the modern sense, or 
 transitional intermixture of town and down. 
 It stood, with reo^ard to the wide fertile land 
 adjoining, clean-cut and distinct, like a chess- 
 board on a green table-cloth. The farmer's 
 boy could sit under his barley-mow and pitch a 
 stone into the office-window of the town-clerk ; 
 reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to 
 acquaintances standing on the pavement- 
 corner ; the red-robed judge, when he con- 
 demned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence 
 to the tune of Baa, that floated in at the 
 window from the remainder of the flock 
 browsing hard by ; and at executions the 
 waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately 
 before the drop, out of which the cows had 
 been temporarily driven to give the spectators 
 room. 
 
 The corn grown on the upland side of tlie 
 borough was garnered by farmers who lived 
 in an eastern purlieu called Dummerford.
 
 1/2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Here wheat-ricks overhung the old Eoman 
 street, and thrust their eaves against the 
 church tower ; green-thatched barns, with 
 doorways as high as the gates of Solomon's 
 Temple, opened directly upon the main 
 thoroughftire. Barns indeed were so numer- 
 ous as to alternate with every half-dozen 
 houses along the way. Here lived burgesses 
 who daily walked the fallow ; shepherds in 
 an intramural squeeze. A street of farmers' 
 homesteads — a street ruled by a mayor and 
 corporation, yet echoing with the thump 
 of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, 
 and the purr of the milk into the pails — a 
 street which had nothing urban in it what- 
 ever — this was the Dummerford end of 
 Casterbridge. 
 
 Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely 
 with this nursery or bed of small farmers 
 close at hand — and his waggons were often 
 down that way. One day, when arrangements 
 were in progress for getting home corn from 
 one of the aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Jane 
 received a note by hand, asking her to oblige 
 the writer by coming at once to a granary on 
 Dummerford Hill. As this was the granary 
 whose contents Henchard was removing, she
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 73 
 
 thought the request had something to do with 
 his business, and proceeded thither as soon 
 as she had put on her bonnet. The granary 
 was just within the farm^^ard, and stood on 
 stone staddles, higli enough for persons to 
 walk under. Tiie gates were open, but 
 nobody was within. However, she entered 
 and waited. Presently she saw a figure 
 approaching the gate— that of Donald Far- 
 frae. He looked up at the church clock, and 
 came in. By some unaccountable shyness, 
 some wish not to meet him there alone, she 
 quickly ascended the step-ladder leading to 
 the granary door, and entered it before he 
 had seen her. Farfrae advanced, imagining 
 himself in solitude ; and a few drops of rain 
 beginning to fall, he moved and stood under 
 the shelter where she had just been standing. 
 Here he leant against one of the staddles, 
 and gave himself up to patience. He too 
 was plainly expecting some one ; could it be 
 herself; if so, why ? In a few minutes he 
 looked at his watch, and then pulled out a 
 note, a duplicate of the one she had herself 
 received. 
 
 The situation began to be very awkward, 
 and the longer she waited the more awkward
 
 1/4 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 it became. To emerge from a door just above 
 liis head and descend the ladder, and show 
 she had been in hiding there, would look so 
 very foolish, that she still waited on. A 
 winnowing machine stood close beside her, 
 and to relieve her suspense she gently moved 
 the handle ; whereupon a cloud of vv^ieat 
 husks flew out into her face, and covered her 
 clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur 
 of her victorine. He must have heard the 
 slight movement, for he looked up, and then 
 ascended the steps. 
 
 " Ah — it's Miss NoAvson," he said, as soon 
 as he could see into the granary. '' I didn't 
 know you were there. I have kept the 
 appointment, and am at your service." 
 
 " O Mr. Farfrae," she faltered ; " so have I. 
 But I didn't know it was you who wished to 
 see me, otherwise I " 
 
 " I wished to see you ? Oh, no — at lea.st, 
 that is, I am afraid there may be a mistake." 
 
 " Didn't you ask me to come here ? Didn't 
 you write this?" Elizabeth held out her note. 
 
 " No. Indeed, at no hand would I have 
 thought of it ! And for you — didn't you ask 
 me ? This is not your writing ? " And he 
 held up his.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1/5 
 
 " By no means." 
 
 " And is it even so ! Then it's somebody 
 wanting to see us both. Perhaps we would do 
 well to wait a little longer." 
 
 Acting on this consideration they lingered, 
 Elizabeth-Jane's face being arranged to an 
 expression of preternatural composure, and 
 the young Scot, at every footstep in the street 
 without, looking from under the granary to 
 see if the passer were about to enter and 
 declare himself their summoner. They watched 
 individual drops of ra.in creeping down the 
 thatch of the opposite rick — straw after straw 
 — till they reached the bottom ; but nobody 
 came, and the granary roof began to drip. 
 
 " The person is not likely to be coming," 
 said Farfrae. " It's a trick perhaps, and if so, 
 it's a great pity to waste our time like this, 
 and so much to be done." 
 
 " 'Tis a great liberty," said Elizabeth. 
 
 " It's true. Miss Newson. We'll hear news 
 of this some day, depend on't, and who it was 
 that did it. I wouldn't stand for it hinderinof 
 myself; but you, Miss Newson " 
 
 " I don't mind — much," she replied. 
 
 "Nor do I." 
 
 They lapsed again into silence. "You
 
 176 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 are anxious to get back to Scotland, I 
 suppose, Mr. Farfrae ? " she inquired. 
 
 " Oh, no, Miss Newson. Why would I 
 be?" 
 
 " I only supposed you might be from the 
 song you sang at the King of Prussia — 
 about Scotland and home, I mean — which 
 you seemed to feel so deep down in your 
 heart ; so that we all felt for you." 
 
 " Ay — and I did sing there — I did . 
 
 But Miss Newson " — and Donald's voice 
 musically undulated between two semitones, 
 as it always did when he became earnest — 
 '^ it's well you feel a song, for a few minutes, 
 and your eyes they get quite tearful ; but you 
 finish it, and for all you felt you don't mind it 
 or think of it again for a long while. Oh, no, 
 I don't want to go back ! Yet I'll sing 
 the song to you wi' pleasure whenever you 
 like. I could sing it now, and not mind 
 at all?" 
 
 '' Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go 
 
 — rain or no." 
 
 *' Ay ! Then, Miss Newson, ye were best 
 to say nothing about this hoax, and take no 
 heed of it. And if the person should say 
 anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 77 
 
 you did not mind it — so you'll take the clever 
 person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes 
 became fixed upon her dress, still sown with 
 wheat husks. When she was stepping out he 
 added : " There's husks and dust on you. 
 Perhaps you don't know it ? " in tones of 
 extreme delicacy. 
 
 *' Yes/' she said. ''I turned the handle, 
 and they flew out suddenly." 
 
 " But it's very bad to let rain come upon 
 clothes when there's chaff on them. It 
 washes in and spoils them. Let me help you 
 — blowing is the best." ' 
 
 As Elizabeth neither assented nor dis- 
 sented, Donald Farfrae inflated his mouth 
 and began blowing her back hair, and her 
 side hair, and her neck, and the crown of 
 her bonnet, and the fur of her victorine, 
 Elizabeth saying, '^ Oh, thank you," at every 
 puff, and picking out the chaff and dust 
 in front with her own hands. At last she was 
 fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got over 
 his first concern at the situation, seemed in 
 no manner of hurry to be gone. 
 
 *^ Ah — now 1^11 go and get ye an umbrella," 
 he said. 
 
 " Oh, no. I don't mind the rain at all." 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 She stepped out and was gone. Farfrae 
 walked slowly after, looking thoughtfully at 
 her diminishing figure, and whistling in 
 undertones, "As I came down through 
 Cannobie."
 
 179 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 At first Miss Newson^s budding beauty was 
 not regarded with much interest by anybody 
 in Casterbridge. Donald Farfrae's gaze, it 
 is true, was now attracted by the Mayor's 
 so-called stepdaughter, but he was only one. 
 The truth is that she was but a poor illus- 
 trative instance of the prophet Baruchs 
 sly definition : " The virgin that loveth to 
 go gay." This particular virgin was just a 
 shade too far the other way ; and she paid 
 the penalty. Sober and discreet, she was 
 yet so hearty, that her homespun simplicity 
 afforded none of those piquant problems 
 which are afforded by the simplicity that 
 is carefully constructed by art. When she 
 walked abroad she seemed to be occupied 
 with an inner chamber of ideas, and to have 
 slight need for visible objects. In short, it 
 was obvious to real philosophers that Caster- 
 bridge young-manhood of the deep-seeing 
 sort ought to have had a solicitous regard 
 
 N 2
 
 l80 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 for her. So they took no notice of her 
 at all. 
 
 If the news got abroad that she was un- 
 well, Henchard's door' wa,s not haunted by 
 young fellows with cigars, making some 
 excuse for inquiring indirectly about her. 
 But, to set against tliis, at inn gatherings of 
 the rollicking sort, where discussions of the 
 female world were apt to take a turn irre- 
 verent to the sex, the criticism was stopped 
 when it came to Elizabeth with, " I say, now, 
 we'll leave her alone." 
 
 Perhaps the young men were penetrating 
 enough to see that she was too honest to be a 
 woman of correct education. This view of 
 her was helped by the curious resolves that 
 she had formed on checking gay fancies in 
 the matter of clothes, because it was in- 
 consistent with her past life to blossom 
 gaudily the moment she had become pos- 
 sessed of money. But nothing is more 
 insidious than the evolution of wishes from 
 mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes. 
 Henchard gave Elizabeth-Jane a box of 
 delicately tinted gloves one spring day. She 
 w^anted to wear them to show her appre- 
 ciation of his kindness, but she had no bonnet
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 161 
 
 that would harmonize. As an artistic in- 
 dulgence she thought she would have such a 
 bonnet. When she had a bonnet that would 
 go with the gloves she had no dress that 
 would go with the bonnet. It was now 
 absolutely necessary to finish ; she ordered 
 the requisite article, and found that she had 
 no sunshade to go with the dress. In for 
 a penny in for a pound ; she bought the 
 sunshade, and the whole structure was at 
 last complete. 
 
 Everybody was attracted, and some said 
 that her bygone simplicity was the art that 
 conceals art, the " delicate imposition " of 
 Rochefoucauld ; she had produced an effect, 
 a contrast, and ifc had been done on purpose. 
 As a matter of fact this was not true, but it 
 had its result ; for as soon as young Caster- 
 bridge thought her artful it thought her 
 worth notice. "It is the first time in my 
 life that I have been so much admired," 
 she said to herself; "though perhaps it is 
 by those whose admiration is not worth 
 having." 
 
 But Donald Farfrae admired her, too ; and 
 altogether the time was an exciting one ; sex 
 had never before asserted itself in her so
 
 1 82 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 strongly, for in former days slie had perhaps 
 been too impersonally human to be distinc- 
 tively feminine. After an unprecedented 
 success one day she came indoors, went up- 
 stairs, and leant upon her bed face down- 
 wards, quite forgetting the possible creasing 
 and damage. " Good Heaven," she whis- 
 pered, " can it be ? Here am I setting up 
 as the town beauty ! " 
 
 When she had thought it over, her usual 
 fear of exaggerating appearances engendered 
 a deep sadness. " There is something wrong 
 in all this," she mused. " If they only knew 
 what an unfinished girl I am — that I can't talk 
 Italian, or use globes, or show any of the 
 accomplishments they learn at boarding- 
 schools, how they would despise me ! Better 
 sell all this finery and buy myself grammar- 
 books, and dictionaries, and a history of all 
 the philosophies ! " 
 
 She looked from the window, and saw 
 Henchard and Farfrae in the hay-yard 
 talking, with that impetuous cordiality on 
 the mayor s part, and genial modesty on the 
 younger man's, that was now so generally 
 observable in their intercourse. Friendship 
 between man and man ; what a rugged
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. I 83 
 
 strength there was in it, as evinced by these 
 two. And yet the seed that was to lift the 
 foundation of this friendship was at that 
 nioment taking root in a chink of its structure. 
 
 It was about six o'clock ; the men were 
 dropping off homeward one by one. The last 
 to leave was a round-shouldered, blinking 
 young man of nineteen or twenty, whose 
 mouth fell ajar on the slightest provocation, 
 seemingly because there was no chin to 
 support it. Henchard called aloud to him 
 as he went out of the gate. "Here — Abel 
 Whittle ! '' 
 
 Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. 
 " Yes, sir," he said, in breathless deprecation, 
 as if he knew what was comino- next. 
 
 " Once more — be in time to-morrow morn- 
 ing. You see what's to be done, and you 
 hear what I say, and you know I^m not going 
 to be trifled with any longer.^' 
 
 " Yes, sir.^^ Then Abel Whittle left, and 
 Henchard and Farfrae ; and Elizabeth saw 
 no more of them. 
 
 Now there was good reason for this com- 
 mand on Henchard's part. Poor Abel, as he 
 was called, had an inveterate habit of over- 
 sleeping himself and coming late to his work.
 
 1 84 THE MAYOR OF CASTERERIDGE. 
 
 His anxious will was to be among the 
 earliest ; but if liis comrades omitted to pull 
 the string that he always tied round his 
 great toe and left hanging out of the window 
 for that purpose, his will was as wind. He 
 did not arrive in time. 
 
 As he was often second hand at the hay- 
 weighing, or at the crane which lifted the 
 sacks, or was one of those who had to accom- 
 pany the waggons into the country to fetch 
 away stacks that had been purchased, this 
 affliction of AbePs was productive of much 
 inconvenience. For two mornino;s in the 
 present week he had kept the others waiting 
 nearly an hour ; hence Henchard's threat. 
 It now remained to be seen what would 
 happen to-morrow. 
 
 Six o'clock struck, and there was no Whittle. 
 At half-past six Henchard entered the yard ; 
 the waggon was horsed that Abel was to accom- 
 pany ; and the other man had been waiting 
 twenty minutes. Then Henchard swore, and 
 Whittle coming up breathless at that instant, 
 the corn-factor turned on him, and declared 
 with an oath that this was the last time ; 
 
 that if he were behind once more, by G 
 
 he would come and drag him out o' bed.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 85 
 
 " There is sommit wrong in my make, your 
 worshipful ! '-' said Abel, " especially in the 
 inside, whereas my poor dumb brain gets as 
 dead as a clot afore I've said my few scrags 
 of prayers. Yes — it came on as a stripling, 
 just afore I'd got man^s wages, whereas I 
 never enjoy my bed at all, for no sooner 
 do I lie down than I be asleep, and afore 
 I be awake I be up. I've fretted my 
 gizzard green about it, maister, but what 
 can I do ? Now last night, afore I went 
 to bed, I only had a scantling o' cheese 
 and " 
 
 " I don't want to hear it ! '' roared Hen- 
 chard. " To-morrow the waggons must start 
 at four, and if you're not here, stand clear. 
 I'll mortify thy flesh for thee ! " 
 
 "But let me clear up my points, your 
 worshipful '' 
 
 Hen chard turned away. 
 
 " He asked me and he questioned me, and 
 then a' wouldn't hear my points ! " said Abel, 
 to the yard in general. " Now, I shall twitch 
 like a moment-hand all night to-night for fear 
 o' him ! " 
 
 The journey to be taken by the waggons 
 next day was a long one, into White Hart
 
 lS6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Yale, and at four o'clock lanterns were 
 moving about the yard. But Abel was 
 missing. Before either of the other men 
 could run to Abel's and warn him, Henchard 
 appeared in the garden doorway. " Where's 
 Abel Whittle ? Not come after all I've said ? 
 Now, I'll carry out my word, by my blessed 
 fathers — nothing else will do him any good ! 
 Im going up that way." 
 
 Henchard went off, entered Abel's house, a 
 little cottage in Back Street, the door of 
 which was never locked, because the inmates 
 had nothing to lose. Beaching Whittle's 
 bedside, the corn-factor shouted a bass note 
 so vigorously that Abel started up instantly, 
 and beholding Henchard standing over him, 
 was galvanized into spasmodic movements 
 which had not much relation to getting on 
 his clothes. 
 
 " Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, 
 or you leave my employ to-day I Tis to teach 
 ye a lesson. March on ; never mind your 
 breeches ! " 
 
 The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve 
 waistcoat, and managed to get into his boots 
 at the bottom of the stairs, while Henchard 
 thrust his hat over his head. Whittle then
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 87 
 
 trotted on down Back Street, Hencliard 
 walking sternly beliind. 
 
 Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to 
 Henchard's house to look for him, came out of 
 the back gate, and saw something white flut- 
 tering in the morning gloom, which he soon 
 perceived to be the part of Abel's shirt that 
 showed below his waistcoat. 
 
 " For mercy's sake, what object's this ? " 
 said Farfrae, following Abel into the yard, 
 Henchard being some way in the rear by this 
 time. 
 
 " Ye see, Mr. Farfrae," gibbered Abel with" a 
 resigned smile, " he said he'd mortify my flesh 
 if so be I didn't get up sooner, and now he's 
 a doing on't ! Ye see it can't be helped, Mr. 
 Farfrae ; things do happen queer sometimes. 
 Yes— I'll go to White Hart Yale half naked 
 as I be, since he do command ; but I shall 
 kill myself afterwards ; I can't outlive the 
 disgrace ; for the women-folk will be looking 
 out of their winders at my mortification all 
 the way along, and laughing me to scorn. 
 You know how I feel such things, Maister 
 Farfrae, and how forlorn thoughts get hold 
 upon me. Yes — I shall do myself harm — I 
 feel it coming on ! "
 
 1 88 THE MAYOR OF CASTERERIDGE. 
 
 '^ Get back home, and slip on your breeches, 
 and come to wark like a man ! If ye go not, 
 you'll hae your death standing there." 
 
 *'I'm afeard I mustn't! Mr. Henchard 
 said " 
 
 '' I don't care what Mr. Henchard said, 
 nor anybody else ! ^Tis simple foolishness 
 to do this. Go and dress yourself instantly, 
 Whittle." 
 
 " Hullo, hullo ! " said Henchard, coming up 
 behind. " Who's sending him back ? " 
 
 All the men looked towards Farfrae. 
 
 "I am," said Donald. "I say this joke 
 has been carried far enough." 
 
 "And I say it hasn't. Get up in the 
 waggon, Whittle." 
 
 *' Not if I am manao^er," said Farfrae. 
 "He either goes home, or I march out of this 
 yard for good." 
 
 Henchard looked at him with a face stern 
 and red. But he paused for a moment, and 
 their eyes met. Donald went up to him, for 
 he saw in Henchard's look that he began to 
 regret this. 
 
 •' Come," said Donald quietly^, " you know 
 better than all this, sir. It is tyrannical and 
 unworthy of you."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 89 
 
 " 'Tis not tyrannical !" murmured Henchard, 
 like a sullen boy. "It is to make Mm re- 
 member ! " He presently added, in a tone 
 of one bitterly hurt : '' Why did you speak 
 to me before them like that, Farfrae ? You 
 might have stopped till we were alone. Ah — 
 I know why ! IVe told ye the secret o' my 
 life — fool that I was to do't — and you take 
 advantage of me ! " 
 
 "I had forgot it," said Farfrae simply. 
 
 Henchard looked on the ground, said 
 nothing more, and turned away. During 
 the day Farfrae learnt from the men that 
 Henchard had kept Abel's old mother in 
 coals and snuff all the previous winter, which 
 made him less antagonistic to the corn-factor. 
 But Henchard continued moody and silent, 
 and when one of the men inquired of him if 
 some oats should be hoisted to an upper floor 
 or not, he said shortly, *'Ask Mr. Farfrae. 
 He's master here ! " 
 
 Morally he was ; there could be no doubt 
 of it. Henchard, who had hitherto been the 
 most admired man in his circle, was the most 
 admired no longer. One day the daughters 
 of a deceased farmer in Dummerford wanted 
 an opinion on the value of their haystack, and
 
 1 90 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGP:. ' 
 
 sent a messenger to ask Mr. Farfrae to olilige 
 them with one. The messenger, who was 
 a child, met in the yard not Farfrae, but 
 Henchard. 
 
 " Very well/' he said. " I'll come." 
 
 ** But please will Mr. Farfrae come ? " said 
 the child. 
 
 " I am going that way Why Mr. 
 
 Farfrae ? " said Henchard, with the fixed look 
 of thought. *' Why do people always want 
 Mr. Farfrae r" 
 
 "I suppose because they like him so — 
 that's what they say." 
 
 " Oh — I see — that's what they say — hey ? 
 They like him because he's cleverer than Mr. 
 Henchard, and because he knows more ; and, 
 in short, Mr. Henchard can't hold a candle to 
 him — hey ? " 
 
 "Yes — that's just it, sir — some of it." 
 
 " Oh, there's more. Of course there's more. 
 What besides ? Come, here's sixpence for a 
 fairing." 
 
 " ' And he's better tempered, and Hen- 
 chard's a fool to him,' they say. And when 
 some of the women were a walking home 
 they said, ' He's a dirnent — he's a chap o' 
 wax — he's the best — he's the horse for my
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. IQI 
 
 money,' says they. And they said, ' He's the 
 most understandmg man o' them two by long 
 chalks. I wish he was the master instead of 
 Henchard/ " they said. 
 
 "They'll talk any nonsense," Henchard 
 replied, with covered gloom. ''Well, you can 
 go now. And / am coming to value the hay, 
 d'ye hear ? — I." The boy departed, and 
 Henchard murmured, " Wish he were master 
 here, do they ? " 
 
 He went towards Dummerford, On his way 
 he overtook Farfrae. They walked on together, 
 Henchard looking mostly on the ground. 
 
 " And are ye not right to-day ? " Donald 
 inquired. 
 
 " Yes, I am very well," said Henchard. 
 
 " But ye are down — surely ye are down ? 
 Why, there's nothing to be angry about. 
 ^Tis splendid stuff that we've got from White 
 Hart Vale. By-the-by, the people in Dum- 
 merford want their hay valued." 
 
 ''Yes. I am going there." 
 
 " I'll go with ye." 
 
 As Henchard did not reply, Donald prac- 
 tised a piece of music sotto voce, till, getting 
 near the bereaved people's door he stopped 
 himself with —
 
 192 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 " All, as their father is dead, I won't go 
 on with such as that. How could I forget ? " 
 
 ** Do you care so very much about hurting 
 folks' feelings ? " observed Henchard with- 
 a half sneer. '* You do, I know — especially 
 mine." 
 
 " I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir," re- 
 plied Donald, standing still, with a second 
 expression of the same sentiment in the re- 
 gretfulness of liis face. '' AVhy should you 
 say it — think it ? " 
 
 The cloud lifted from Henchard^s brow, 
 and as Donald finished the corn-merchant 
 turned to him, regarding his breast rather 
 than his face. 
 
 " I have been hearing things that vexed 
 me," he said. " 'Twas that made me short in 
 my manner — made me overlook what you 
 really are. Now, I don't want to go in here 
 about this hay — Farfrae, you can do it better 
 than I. They sent for ye, too. I have 
 to attend a meeting of the Town Council at 
 eleven, and 'tis drawing on for't." 
 
 They parted thus in renewed friendship, 
 Donald forbearinsf to ask Henchard for mean- 
 ings that were not very plain to him. On 
 Henchard s part there was now again repose ;
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 93 
 
 and yet, whenever he thought of Farfrae, 
 it was with a dim dread ; and he often 
 regretted that he had told the young man his 
 whole heart, and confided to him the secrets 
 of his life. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 On tliis account Henchard's manner towards 
 Farfrae insensibly became more reserved. He 
 was courteous — too courteous — and Farfrae 
 was quite surprised at the good breeding 
 which now for the first time showed itself 
 among the quahties of a man he had hitherto 
 thought undisciplined, if warm and sincere. 
 The corn-factor seldom or never again put his 
 arm upon the young man's shoulder so as to 
 nearly weigh him down with the pressure of 
 mechanized friendship. He left off coming 
 to Donald's lodgings and shouting into the 
 passage, "Hoy, Farfrae, boy, come and have 
 some dinner with us ! Don't sit here in 
 solitary confinement ! " But in the daily 
 routine of their business there was little 
 change. 
 
 Thus their lives rolled on till a day of 
 public rejoicing was suggested to the country 
 at large in celebration of a national event 
 that had recently taken place.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 95 
 
 For some time Casterbridge, by nature 
 slow, made no response. Then one day 
 Donald Farfrae broached the subject to 
 Henchard by asking if he would have any 
 objection to lend some rick- cloths to himself 
 and a few others, who contemplated getting 
 up an entertainment of some sort on the day 
 named, and required a shelter for the same, 
 to which they might charge admission at the 
 rate of so much a head. 
 
 '' Have as many cloths as you like," Hen- 
 chard replied. 
 
 When his manager had gone about the 
 business Henchard was fired with emulation. 
 It certainly had been very remiss of him, as 
 Mayor, he thought, to call no meeting ere 
 this, to discuss what should be done on this 
 holiday. But Farfrae had been so cursed 
 quick in his movements as to give old- 
 ftishioned people in authority no chance of 
 the initiative. However, it was not too late ; 
 and on second thoughts he determined to 
 take upon his own shoulders the responsibility 
 of orojanizinof some amusements, if the other 
 Councilmen would leave the matter in his 
 hands. To this they quite readily agreed, 
 the majority being fine old crusted characters 
 
 o 2
 
 ig6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 who had a decided taste for hving without 
 worry. 
 
 So Henchard set about his preparations for 
 a really brilliant thing — such as should be 
 worthy of the venerable town. As for Far- 
 frae's little affair, Henchard nearly forgot it ; 
 except once now and then when, on it coming 
 into his mind, he said to himself, '' Charge 
 admission at so much a head — -just like him ! 
 — who is going to pay anything a head ! " 
 The diversions which the Mayor intended to 
 provide were to be entirely free. 
 
 He had grown so dependent upon Donald 
 that he could scarcely resist calling him in to 
 consult. But by sheer self-coercion he re- 
 frained. No, he thought, Farfrae would be 
 
 suggesting such improvements in his d d 
 
 luminous way, that in spite of himself he, 
 Henchard, would sink to the position of 
 second fiddle, and only scrape harmonics ta 
 his manager's talents. 
 
 Everybody applauded the Mayors pro- 
 posed entertainment, especially when it 
 became known that he meant to pay for it 
 all himself. 
 
 Close to the town was an elevated green 
 spot surrounded by an ancient square earth-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 9/ 
 
 work — earthworks square, and not square, 
 were as common as blackberries hereabout — 
 a spot whereon the Casterbridge people 
 usually held any kind of merry-making, 
 meeting, or sheep-fair that required more 
 space than the streets would afford. On 
 one side it sloped to a river, and from any 
 point a view was obtained of the country 
 round for many miles. This pleasant up- 
 land was to be the scene of Henchard's 
 exploit. 
 
 He advertised about the town, in long 
 posters of a pink colour, that games of all 
 sorts would take place here ; and set to work 
 a little battalion of men under his own eye. 
 They erected greasy-poles for climbing, with 
 smoked hams and local cheeses at the top. 
 They placed hurdles in rows for jumping 
 over ; across the river they laid a slippery 
 pole, with a live pig of the neighbourhood 
 tied at the other end, to become the property 
 of the man who could walk over and get it. 
 There were also provided wheelbarrows for 
 racing, donkeys for the same, a stage for 
 boxing, wrestling, and drawing blood gene- 
 rally ; sacks for jumping in. Moreover, not 
 forgetting his principles, Henchard provided
 
 198 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 a mammoth tea, of which everybody who 
 lived in the borough was invited to partake 
 witliout payment. The tables were laid 
 parallel with the inner slope of the rampart, 
 and awnings were stretched overhead. 
 
 Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the 
 unattractive exterior of Farfrae's erection, 
 rick-cloths of different sizes and colours 
 being hung up to the arching trees without 
 any regard to appearance. He w^as easy in 
 his mind now, for his own preparations far 
 transcended these. 
 
 The morning came. The sky, which had 
 been remarkably clear down to within a day 
 or two, was overcast, and the weather 
 threatening, the wind having an unmistak- 
 able hint of water in it. Henchard wished 
 he had not been quite so sure about the 
 continuance of a fair season. But it was 
 too late to modify or postpone, and the pro- 
 ceedino's went on. At twelve o'clock the 
 rain began to fall, small and steady, com- 
 mencing and increasing so insensibly that it 
 was difficult to state exactly when dry 
 weather ended or w^et established itself 
 The slight moisture resolved itself into a 
 monotonous smiting of earth by heaven in
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 1 99 
 
 torrents to which no end could be prognos- 
 ticated. 
 
 A number of people had heroically 
 gathered in the field, but by three o'clock 
 Henchard discerned that his project was 
 doomed to end in failure. The hams at the 
 top of the poles dripped watered smoke in 
 the form of a brown liquor, the pig shivered 
 in the wind, the grain of the deal tables 
 showed through the sticking tablecloths, for 
 the awning allowed the rain to drift under 
 at its will, and to enclose the sides at this 
 hour seemed a useless undertaking. The 
 landscape over the river disappeared ; the 
 wind played on the tent-cords in -^olian 
 improvisations ; and at length rose to such a 
 pitch that the whole erection slanted to the 
 ground, those who had taken shelter within it 
 having to crawl out on their hands and knees. 
 
 But towards six the storm abated, and a 
 drier breeze shook the moisture from the 
 grass bents. It seemed possible to carry 
 out the programme after all. The awning 
 w^as set up again ; the band was called out 
 from its shelter, and ordered to begin, and 
 where the tables had stood a space was 
 cleared for dancing.
 
 200 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 "But where are the folk ? " said Henchard, 
 after the lapse of half-an-hour, during which 
 time only two men and a woman had stood 
 up to dance. " The shops are all shut. 
 Why don't they come ? " 
 
 *' They are at Farfrae's affair in the Chest- 
 nut Walk," answered a councilman who 
 stood in the field with the Mayor. 
 
 '' A few I suppose. But where are the 
 
 em 
 
 body o' 
 
 " All out of doors are there." 
 
 *' Then the more fools they ! " 
 
 Henchard walked away moodily. One or 
 two young fellows gallantly came to climb 
 the poles, to save the hams from being 
 wasted ; but as there were no spectators, and 
 the whole scene presented the most melan- 
 choly appearance, Henchard gave orders that 
 the proceedings were to be suspended, and 
 the entertainment closed, the food to be 
 distributed among the poor people of the 
 town. In a short time nothing was left in 
 the field but a few hurdles, the tents, and 
 the poles. 
 
 Henchard returned to his house, had tea 
 with his wife and daughter, and then walked 
 out. It was now dusk. He soon saw that
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 201 
 
 the tendency of all promenaders was towards 
 a particular spot in the Walks, and even- 
 tually proceeded thither himself. The notes 
 of a stringed band came from the enclosure 
 that Farfrae had erected — the pavilion, as 
 he called it — and when he reached it he 
 perceived that a gigantic tent had been 
 ingeniously constructed without poles or 
 ropes. The densest point of the avenue of 
 chestnuts had been selected, where the 
 boughs made a closely interlaced vault over- 
 head ; to these boughs the canvas had been 
 hung, and a barrel roof was the result. The 
 end towards the wind was enclosed, the 
 other end was open. Henchard went round 
 and saw the interior. 
 
 In form it was like a nave of a cathedral 
 with one gable removed, but the scene within 
 was anything but devotional. A reel or 
 fling of some sort was in progress ; and the 
 usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of 
 the other dancers in the costume of a wild 
 Highlander, flinging himself about and spin- 
 ning to the tune. For a moment Henchard 
 could not help laughing. Then he perceived 
 the immense admiration for the Scotchman 
 that revealed itself in the women^s faces ;
 
 202 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 and when this exhibition was over, and a 
 new dance proposed, and Donald had dis- 
 appeared for a time to return in his natural 
 garments, he had an unlimited choice of 
 partners, every girl being in a coming-on 
 disposition towards one who so thoroughly 
 understood the poetry of motion as he. 
 
 All the town crowded to the Walk, such a 
 delightful idea of a ball-room never having 
 occurred to the inhabitants before. Among 
 the rest of the on-lookers were Elizabeth and 
 her mother — the former thoughtful yet much 
 interested, her eyes beaming v/ith a longing 
 lingering light, as if Nature had been advised 
 by Correggio in their creation. The dancing 
 progressed with unabated spirit, and Hen- 
 chard walked and waited till his wife should 
 be disposed to go home. He did not care to 
 keep in the light, and when he went into 
 the dark it was worse, for there he heard 
 remarks of a kind which were becoming too 
 
 frequent : 
 
 " Mr. Henchard's rejoicings couldn't say 
 good morning to this," said one. *'A man 
 must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk 
 would go up to that bleak place to-day." 
 
 The other answered that people said it was
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 203 
 
 not only in sucli things as those that the 
 Mayor was wanting. Where would his 
 business be if it were not for this young 
 fellow ? 'Twas verily Fortune sent him to 
 Henchard. His accounts had been like a 
 bramble-wood when Mr. Farfrae came. He had 
 used to reckon his sacks by chalk strokes all 
 in a row like garden-palings, measure his 
 ricks by stretching with his arms, weigh his 
 trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a " chaw," 
 and settle the price with a curse. But now 
 this accomplished young man did it all 
 by smooth ciphering, and machines, and 
 mensuration. Then the wheat — that some- 
 times had used to taste so strongly of mice 
 when made into bread that people could 
 fairly tell the breed — Farfrae had a plan for 
 purifying, so that nobody would dream the 
 smallest four-legged beast had walked over it 
 once. ''Oh yes, everybody is full of him, and 
 the care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to be 
 sure ! " concluded this gentleman. 
 
 " But he won t do it for long, good-now/' 
 said the other. 
 
 " No ! " said Henchard to himself behind 
 the tree. " Or if he do, he'll be honeycombed 
 clean out of all the character and standing
 
 204 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 that he's built up in these eighteen 
 years ! " 
 
 He went back to the dancing paviUon. 
 Farfrae was footing a quaint little dance with 
 Elizabeth-Jane — an old country thing, the 
 only one she knew, and though he consider- 
 ately toned down his movements to suit her 
 demurer gait, the pattern of the shining little 
 nails in the soles of his boots became familiar 
 to tlie eyes of every bystander. The tune 
 had enticed her into it ; being a tune of a 
 busy, vaulting, leaping sort — some low notes 
 on the silver string of each fiddle, then a 
 skipping on the small, like running up and 
 down ladders — "MissMcLeod of Ayr " was 
 its name, so Mr. Farfrae had said, and that it 
 was very popular in his own country. 
 
 It was soon over, and the girl looked at 
 Henchard for approval ; but he did not give 
 it. He seemed not to see her. " Look here, 
 Farfrae," he said, like one whose mind was 
 elsewhere ; '' I'll go to Port-Bredy Great 
 Market to-morrow myself. You can stay and 
 put things right in your clothes-box and 
 recover strength to your knees after your 
 vagaries." He planted on Donald an an- 
 tagonistic glare that had begun as a smile.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 205 
 
 Some other townsmen came up, and 
 Donald drew aside. " What's this, Hen- 
 chard," said Alderman Tubber, applying his 
 thumb to the corn-factor like a cheese-taster. 
 " An opposition randy to yours, eh ? Jack's 
 as good as his master, eh ? Eclipsed ye 
 quite, hasn't he ? " 
 
 " You see, Mr. Henchard," said the lawyer, 
 another good-natured friend, " where you 
 made the, mistake was in going so far afield. 
 You should have taken a leaf out of his book, 
 and have had your sports in a sheltered place 
 like this, But you didn't think of it, you 
 see ; and ho did, and that's where he's beat 
 you." 
 
 " He'll be top-sawyer soon of you two, 
 and carry all afore him," added jocular Mr. 
 Tubber. 
 
 *' No," said Henchard gloomily. " He 
 won't be that, because he's shortly going to 
 leave me." He looked towards Donald, who 
 had again come near. " Mr. Farfrae's time 
 as my manager is drawing to a close — isn't 
 it, Farfrae ? " 
 
 The young man, who could now read the 
 lines and folds of Henchard 's strongly- traced 
 face as if they were clear verbal inscriptions.
 
 206 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 quietly assented ; and when people deplored 
 the fact, and asked why it was, he simply 
 replied that Mr. Henchard no longer required 
 his help. 
 
 Henchard went home, apparently satisfied. 
 But in the morning, when his jealous temper 
 had passed away, his heart sank within him 
 at what he had said and done. He was 
 the more disturbed when he found that this 
 time Farfrae was determined to take him at 
 his word.
 
 20/ 
 
 CHAPTEH XYII. 
 
 Eltzabeth-Jane had perceived from Hen- 
 chard's manner that in assenting to dance she 
 had made a mistake of some kind. In her 
 simphcity she did not know what it was, till 
 a hint from a nodding acquaintance enlight- 
 ened her. As the Mayor's stepdaughter, she 
 learnt, she had not heen quite in her place in 
 treading a measure amid such a mixed throng 
 as filled the dancing pavilion. 
 
 Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin 
 glowed like live coals at the dawning of the 
 idea that her manners and tastes were not 
 good enough for her position, and would 
 bring her into disgrace. 
 
 This made her very miserable, and she 
 looked about for her mother ; but Mrs. Hen- 
 chard, who had less idea of conventionality 
 than Elizabeth herself, had gone away, leaving 
 her daughter to return at her own pleasure. 
 The latter moved on into the dark dense old 
 avenues, or rather vaults of living woodwork,
 
 208 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 which ran along the town boundary, and 
 stood reflecting. 
 
 A man followed in a few minutes, and 
 her face being towards the shine from the 
 tent, he recognized her. It was Farfrae — 
 just come from the dialogue with Henchard 
 which had signified his dismissal. 
 
 " And it's you, Miss Newson ? — and I've 
 been looking for ye everywhere ! " he said, 
 overcoming a sadness imparted by the es- 
 trangement with the corn-merchant. *'May 
 I walk on with you as far as your street - 
 corner { 
 
 She thought there might be something 
 wrong in this ; but did not utter any objec- 
 tion. So together they went on, first down 
 the Old Walk, and then into the Bowling 
 Walk, till Farfrae said, ^^t's like that I'm 
 going to leave you soon." 
 
 She faltered ^^Why?" 
 
 " Oh — as a mere matter of business — 
 nothing more. But we'll not concern our- 
 selves about it — it is for the best. I hoped 
 to have another dance with you." 
 
 She said she could not dance — in any 
 proper way. 
 
 " Oh, but you do. It's the feeling for it
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 20g 
 
 rather than the learning of steps that makes 
 pleasant dancers. ... I fear I offended your 
 father by gettmg up this ! And now, perhaps, 
 I'll have to go to another part o^ the worrld 
 altogether ! " 
 
 This seemed such a melancholy prospect 
 that Elizabeth-Jane breathed a sigh — letting 
 it off in fragments that he might not hear her. 
 But darkness makes joeople truthful, and the 
 Scotchman went on impulsively — perhaps he 
 had heard her after all : 
 
 '' I wish I was richer, Miss Newson ; and 
 your step-father had not been ofiended ; I 
 would ask you something in a short time — 
 yes, I would ask you to-night. But that's not 
 for me ! " 
 
 What he would have asked her he did not 
 say ; and instead of encouraging him she 
 remained incompetently silent. Thus afraid 
 one of another, they continued their prome- 
 nade along the walls till they got near the 
 bottom of the Bowling Walk : twenty steps 
 further and the trees would end, and the 
 street-corner and lamps appear. In con- 
 sciousness of this they stopped. 
 
 " I never found out who it was that sent 
 us to Dummerford granary on a fool's errand 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2IO THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 that day," said Donald, in his undulating- 
 tones. '' Did ye ever know yourself, Miss 
 Newson ? " 
 
 '' Never," said she. 
 
 " I wonder why they did it ? ^' 
 
 ^^ For fun, perhaps." 
 
 " Perhaps it was not for fun. It might 
 have been that they thought they would like 
 us to stay waiting there, talking to one 
 another. Ah, well ! I hope you Casterbridge 
 people won't forget me if I go." 
 
 " That I'm sure we won't ! " she said, 
 earnestly. " I — wish you wouldn't go at all." 
 
 They had got into the lamplight. " Now, 
 I'll think over that," said Donald Farfrae. 
 '' And I'll not come up to your door ; but part 
 from ye here ; lest it make your father more 
 angry still." 
 
 They parted, Farfrae returning into the 
 dark Bowling Walk, and Elizabeth-Jane 
 going up the street. Without any conscious- 
 ness of what she was doing she started 
 running with all her might till she reached 
 her father's door. '* Oh, dear me — what am 
 I at ? " she thought, as she pulled up breath- 
 less. 
 
 Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 211 
 
 of Farfrae's enig^matic words about not darincr 
 to ask her what he fain would. Elizabeth, 
 that silent observing woman, had long noted 
 how he was rising in favour among the towns- 
 people ; and, knowing Henchard's nature 
 now, she had feared that Farfrae's days as 
 manager were numbered; so that the 
 announcement gave her little surprise. 
 Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge 
 despite his words and her father's dismissal ? 
 His occult breathinofs to her mi^ht be 
 solvable by his course in that respect. 
 
 The next day was windy — so windy that 
 walking in the garden she picked up a portion 
 of the draft of a letter on business in Donald 
 Farfrae's writing, which had flown over the 
 wall from the office. The useless scrap she 
 took indoors, and began to copy the caligraphy, 
 which she much admired. The letter began 
 ^' Dear sir/' and presently writing on a loose 
 slip " Elizabeth- Jane," she laid the latter 
 over " Sir," making the phrase " Dear 
 Elizabeth- Jane." When she saw the effect a 
 quick red ran up her face and warmed her 
 through, though nobody was there to see 
 what she had done. She quickly tore up the 
 slip, and threw it away. After this she grew 
 
 P 2
 
 212 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 cool, and laughed at herself, walked about 
 the room, and laughed again ; not joyfully, 
 but distressfully rather. 
 
 It was quickly known in Casterbridge that 
 Farfrae and Henchard had decided to dispense 
 with each other. Elizabeth- Janets anxiety to 
 know if Farfrae was going away from the 
 town reached a pitch that disturbed her, for 
 she could no longer conceal from herself the 
 cause. At length the news reached her that 
 he was not going to leave the place. A man 
 following the same trade as Henchard, but 
 on a very small scale, had sold his business 
 to Farfrae, who was forthwith about to 
 start as corn and hay-merchant on his own 
 account. 
 
 Her heart fluttered when she heard of this 
 step of Donald's, proving that he meant to 
 remain ; and yet, would a man who cared one 
 little bit for her have endangered his suit by 
 setting up a business in opposition to lSh\ 
 Henchard's ? Would he not have tried at 
 any sacrifice to please the corn -factor on her 
 account ? Surely yes ; and it must have been 
 a passing impulse only which had led him to 
 address her so softly. 
 
 To solve the problem whether her appear-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 213 
 
 ance on the eveninc^ of the dance were such 
 as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she 
 dressed herself up exactly as she had dressed 
 then — the muslin, the spencer, the sandals, 
 the parasol — and looked in the mirror. The 
 picture glassed back was, in her opinion, 
 precisely of such a kind as to inspire that 
 fleeting regard, and no more — "just enough 
 to make him silly, and not enough to keep 
 him so," she said luminously ; and Elizabeth 
 thought, in a much lower key, that by this 
 time he had discovered how plain and homely 
 was the informing spirit of that pretty out- 
 side. 
 
 Hence, when she felt her heart going out 
 to him she would say to herself with a mock 
 pleasantry that carried an ache with it, ^^ No, 
 no, Elizabeth- Jane — such dreams are not for 
 you ! " She tried to prevent herself from 
 seeing him, and thinking of him ; succeeding 
 fairly well in the former attempt, in the latter 
 not so completely. 
 
 Henchard, who had been hurt at finding 
 that Farfrae did not mean to put up with his 
 temper any longer, was incensed beyond 
 measure when he learnt what the young man 
 had done as an alternative. It was in the
 
 2 14 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 town hall, after a council meeting, that he 
 first became aware of Farfrae's coup for estab- 
 lishing himself independently in the town ; 
 and his voice might have been heard as far as 
 the town-pump expressing his feelings to his 
 fellow councilmen. Those tones showed that, 
 though under a long reign of self-control he 
 had become Mayor and churchwarden and 
 what not, there was still the same unruly 
 volcanic stuff beneath the rind of Michael 
 Henchard as when he had sold his wife at 
 Weydon Fair. 
 
 " Well, he's a friend of mine, and I'm a 
 friend of his — or if we are not, what are we '] 
 'Od send, if I've not been his friend, who has, 
 I should like to know ? Didn't he come here 
 without a sound shoe to his voot ? Didn't I 
 keep him here — help him to a living ? Didn't 
 I help him to money, or whatever he wanted ? 
 I stuck out for no terms — I said ' Name your 
 own price.' I'd have shared my last crust 
 with that young fellow at one time, I liked 
 him so well. And now he's defied me ! But 
 
 d him, I'll have a tussle with him now — 
 
 at fair buying and selling, mind— at fair buy- 
 ing and selling ! And if I can't overbid such 
 a stripling as he then I'm not worth a varden.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 21$ 
 
 We'll show that we know our business as 
 well as one here and there." 
 
 His friends of the Corporation did not 
 specially respond. Henchard was less popular 
 now than he had been when, nearly two 
 years before, they had voted him to the chief 
 magistracy on account of his amazing energy. 
 While they had collectively profited by this 
 quality of the corn-factor's, they had been 
 made to wince individually on more than one 
 occasion. So he went out of the hall and 
 down the street alone. 
 
 Eeaching home he seemed to recollect 
 something with a sour satisfaction. He 
 called Elizabeth- Jane. Seeing how he looked 
 when she entered she appeared alarmed. 
 
 " Nothing to find fault with," he said, 
 observing her concern. "Only I want to 
 caution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae — 
 it is about him. I've seen him talkino^ to vou 
 two or three times — he danced with 'ee at the 
 rejoicings, and came home with 'ee. Now, 
 now, no blame to you. But just hearken : 
 Have you made him any foolish promise ? 
 Gone the least bit beyond snifi' and snafF at 
 all?'' 
 
 " No. I have promised him nothing."
 
 2l6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 "Good. All's well that ends well. I 
 particularly wish you not to see him 
 again." 
 
 " Very well, sir." 
 
 " You promise ? " 
 
 She hesitated for a moment, and then said, 
 
 *' Yes, if you much wish it." 
 
 '' I do. He's an enemy to our house." 
 
 When she had gone he sat down, and wrote 
 in a heavy hand to Farfrae thus : — 
 
 " Sir, 
 "I make request that henceforth 3^ou and 
 my step-daughter be as strangers to each 
 other. She on her part has promised to 
 welcome no more addresses from you ; and I 
 trust, therefore, you will not attempt to force 
 them upon her. 
 
 '•'M. Henchakd." 
 
 One would almost have supposed Henchard 
 to have had policy to see that no better 
 modus viiiendi could be arrived at with 
 Farfrae than by encouraging him to become 
 his son-in-law. But such a scheme for buy- 
 ing over a rival had nothing to recommend it 
 to the Mayor s headstrong faculties. With 
 all domestic finesse of that kind lie was hope-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 2 1/ 
 
 lessly at variance. Loving a man or hating 
 him, his diplomacy was as wrongheaded as a 
 buffalo's ; and his wife had not ventured to 
 suggest the course which she, for many 
 reasons, would have welcomed gladly. 
 
 Meanwhile, Donald Farfrae had opened 
 the gates of commerce on his own account 
 at a spot on Dummerford Hill — as flir as pos- 
 sible from Henchard's stores, and with every 
 intention of keeping clear of his former friend 
 and employer's customers. There was, it 
 seemed to the younger man, room for both of 
 them and to spare. The town was small, but 
 the corn and hay-trade was proportionately 
 large, and with his na^tive sagacity he saw 
 honest opportunity for a share of it. So 
 determined was he to do nothing which 
 should seem like trade-antagonism to the 
 Mayor that he refused his first customer — 
 a large farmer of good repute — because 
 Henchard and this man had dealt together 
 within the preceding three months. 
 
 " He was once my friend," said Farfrae, 
 "and it's not for me to take business from 
 him. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I 
 cannot hurt the trade of a man who's been so 
 kind to me."
 
 2l8 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 In spite of this praiseworthy course the 
 Scotchman's trade increased. Whether it 
 were that his northern energy was an over- 
 mastering force among the easy-going Wessex 
 worthies, or whether it was sheer hick, the 
 fact remained that whatever he touched he 
 prospered in. Like Jacob in Padan-Aram, 
 he would no sooner humbly limit himself to 
 the ringstraked-and-spotted exceptions of 
 trade, than the ringstraked-and-spotted 
 would multiply and prevail. 
 
 But most probably luck had little to do 
 with it. Character is Fate, said Novalis, and 
 Farfrae's character was just the reverse of 
 Henchard's, who might not inaptly be de- 
 scribed as Faust has been described — as a 
 vehement, gloomy being, who had quitted 
 the ways of vulgar men without light to 
 guide him on a better way. 
 
 Farfrae duly received the request to dis- 
 continue attentions to Elizabeth-Jane. His 
 acts of that kind had been so slight that the 
 request was almost superfluous. Yet he had 
 felt a considerable interest in her, and after 
 some cogitation he decided that it would 
 be as well to enact no Eomeo part just then 
 — for the young girls own sake no less than
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 2ig 
 
 his own. Thus the incipient attachment was 
 stifled, down. 
 
 A time came when, avoid colHsion with his 
 former friend as he might, Farfrae was com- 
 pelled, in sheer self-defence, to close with 
 Henchard in mortal commercial combat. He 
 could no longer parry the fierce attacks of the 
 latter by simple avoidance. As soon as their 
 war of prices began everybody was interested, 
 and some few guessed the end. It was, 
 in some degree, Northern insight matched 
 against Southron doggedness — the dirk against 
 the cudgel — and Henchard's weapon was one 
 which, if it did not deal ruin at the first or 
 second stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh 
 at his antagonist's mercy. 
 
 Almost every Saturday they encountered 
 each other amid the crowd of farmers which 
 thronged about the market-place in the 
 weelily course of their business. Donald was 
 always ready, and even anxious, to say a few 
 frieiidly words ; but the Mayor invariably 
 gazed stormfully past him, like one who had 
 endured and lost on his account, and could in 
 no sense forgive the wrong ; nor did Farfrae's 
 snubbed manner of perplexity at all appease 
 him. The large farmers, corn-merchants,
 
 2 20 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 millers, auctioneers, and others had each an 
 official stall in the corn-market room, with 
 their names painted thereon ; and when to the 
 famihar series of " Henchard," *' Everdene," 
 " Darton," and so on, was added one mscribed 
 " Farfrae," in staring new letters, Henchard 
 was stung into bitterness ; like Bellerophon, 
 he wandered away from the crowd, cankered 
 m soul. 
 
 From that day Donald Farfrae's name was 
 seldom mentioned in Henchard's house. If 
 at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth- Jane's mother 
 inadvertently alluded to her favourite's 
 movements, the girl would implore her by 
 a look to be silent ; and her husband 
 would say, '' What — are you, too, my 
 enemy ? "
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 There came a sliock which had been foreseen 
 for some time by Elizabeth, as the box- 
 passenger foresees the approaching jerk from 
 some channel across the highway. 
 
 Her mother was ill — too unwell to leave 
 her room. Henchard, who treated her kiodly, 
 except in moments of irritation, sent at once 
 for the richest, busiest doctor, whom he 
 supposed to be the best. Bedtime came, and 
 they burnt a light all night. In a day or two 
 she rallied. 
 
 Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did 
 not appear at breakfast on the second morn- 
 ing, and Henchard sat down alone. He was 
 startled to see a letter for him from Jersey in 
 a writing he knew too well, and had expected 
 least to behold again. He took it up in his 
 hands and looked at it as at a picture, 
 a vision, a vista of past enactments ; and 
 then he read it as an unimportant finale 
 to conjecture.
 
 22 2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 The writer said that she at length per- 
 ceived how impossible it would be for any 
 further communications to proceed between 
 them now that his re-marriage had taken 
 place. That such re-union had been the only 
 straightforward course open to him she was 
 bound to admit. " On calm reflection, 
 therefore," she went on, ^' I quite forgive you 
 for landing me in such a dilemma, remem- 
 bering that you concealed nothing before our 
 ill-advised acquaintance ; and that you really 
 did set before me in your grim way the fact 
 of there being a certain risk in loving you, 
 slight as it seemed to be after eighteen years 
 of silence on your wife's part. I thus look 
 upon the whole as a misfortune of mine, and 
 not a fault of yours. 
 
 *' So that, Michael, I must ask you to over- 
 look those letters with which I pestered you 
 day after day in the heat of my feehngs. 
 They were written whilst I thought your 
 conduct to me cruel ; but now I know more 
 particulars of the position you were in I see 
 how inconsiderate my reproaches were. 
 
 *' Now you will, I am sure, perceive that 
 the one condition which will make any future 
 happiness possible for me, is that the past
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 22 3 
 
 connection between our lives be kept secret 
 outside this isle. Speak of it I know you will 
 not ; and I can trust you not to write of it. 
 One safeguard more remains to be mentioned 
 — that no writings of mine, or trifling articles 
 belonging to me, should be left in your 
 possession through neglect or forgetfulness. 
 To this end may I request you to return to 
 me any such you may have, particularly the 
 letters written in the first abandonment of 
 feeling. 
 
 "For the handsome sum you forwarded to 
 me as a plaster to the wound, I heartily thank 
 you. 
 
 ''I am now on my way to Bristol, to 'see 
 my only relative. She is rich, and I hope will 
 do something for me. I shall return through 
 Oasterbridge and Budmouth, where I shall 
 take the steamboat. Can you meet me with 
 the letters and other trifles ? I shall be in the 
 coach w^hich chanofes horses at the Stasf Hotel 
 at half-past five Wednesday evening ; I shall 
 be wearing a Paisley shawl with a red centre, 
 and thus may easily be found. I should prefer 
 this plan of receiving them to having them 
 sent. '^ I remain still, yours ever, 
 
 "LUCETTA."
 
 2 24 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Hencliard breathed heavily. ''Poor thing 
 — better you had not known me ! Upon my 
 heart and soul, if ever I should be left in a 
 position to carry out that marriage with thee, 
 I ought to do it — I ought to do it, indeed ! " 
 
 The contingency that he had in his mind 
 was, of course, the death of Mrs. Henchard. 
 
 As requested, he sealed up Lucetta s letters, 
 and put the parcel aside till the day she had 
 appointed ; this plan of returning them by 
 hand being apparently a little ruse of the 
 young lady's for exchanging a word or two 
 with him on past times. He would have 
 preferred not to see her ; but deeming that 
 there could be no great harm in acquiescing 
 thus far, he went at dusk and stood opposite 
 the coach-office. 
 
 The evening was chilly, and the coach was 
 late. Henchard crossed over to it while the 
 horses were being changed ; but there was no 
 Lucetta inside or out. Concluding that some- 
 thing had happened to modify her arrange- 
 ments he gave the matter up and went home, 
 not without a sense of relief 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Henchard was weakenino^ 
 visibly. She could not go out of doors any 
 more. One day, after much thinking which
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 22 5 
 
 seemed to distress her, she said she wanted 
 to write something. A desk was put upon 
 her bed with pen and paper, and at her 
 request she was left alone. She remained 
 writing for a short time, folded her paper 
 carefully, called Elizabeth-Jane to bring a 
 taper and wax, and then, still refusing assis- 
 tance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and 
 locked it in her desk. She had directed it in 
 these words : — 
 
 . " J/r. Michael Hemhard. Not to be opened 
 till Elizabeth- Jane' s wedding -da^T 
 
 The latter sat up with her mother to the 
 utmost of her strength night after night. 
 To learn to take the universe seriously there 
 is no quicker way than to watch — to be a 
 "waker," as the country-people call it. 
 Between the hours at which the last toss-pot 
 went by and the first sparrow shook himself, 
 the silence in Casterbridge — barring the rare 
 sound of the watchman — was broken in Eliza- 
 beth's ear only by the time-piece in the bed- 
 room ticking frantically against the clock on 
 the stairs ; ticking harder and harder till it 
 seemed to clang Hke a gong ; and all this 
 while the subtle-souled girl asking herself 
 why she was born, why sitting in a room, and 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 blinking at the candle ; why things around 
 her had taken the shape they wore in pre- 
 ference to every other possible shape. Why 
 they stared at her so helplessly, as if waiting 
 for the touch of some wand that should 
 release them from terrestrial constraint ; what 
 that chaos called consciousness, which spun 
 in her at this moment like a top, tended to, 
 and began in. Her eyes fell together ; she 
 was awake, yet she was asleep. 
 
 A word from her mother roused her. 
 Without preface, and as the continuation of 
 a scene already progressing in her mind, Mrs. 
 Henchard said : '^ You remember the note 
 sent to you and Mr. Farfrae — asking you to 
 meet some one in Dummerford Barton — and 
 that you thought it ^vas a trick to make fools 
 of you ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " It was not to make fools of you — it was 
 done to bring you together. 'Twas I did it." 
 
 '' Why ? "'said Elizabeth, with a start. 
 
 " I — wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae." 
 
 '^ Oh, mother ! " Elizabeth- Jane bent down 
 her head so much that she looked quite into 
 her own lap. But as her mother did not go 
 on, she said, " What reason ? "
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 2 2/ 
 
 " Well, I had a reason. 'Twill out one day. 
 I wish it could have been in my time ! But 
 there — nothing is as you wish it. Henchard 
 hates him." 
 
 " Perhaps they'll be friends again," mur- 
 mured the girl. 
 
 '' I don't know — I don't know." After this 
 her mother was silent, and dozed ; and she 
 spoke on the subject no more. 
 
 Some little time later on, Farfrae was 
 passing Henchard's house on a Sunday morn- 
 ing, when he observed that the blinds were 
 all down. He rang the bell so softly that it 
 only sounded a single full note and a small 
 one ; and then he was informed that Mrs. 
 Henchard was dead — -just dead — that very 
 hour. 
 
 At the town-pump there were gathered 
 Avhen he passed a few old inhabitants, who 
 came there for water whenever they had, as 
 at present, spare time to fetch it, because it 
 was purer from that original fount than from 
 their own wells. Mrs. Cuxsom, who had 
 been standing there for an indefinite time 
 with her pitcher, was describing the incidents 
 of Mrs. Henchard's death, as she had learnt, 
 them from the nurse. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 "And she was as white as marble-stone/' 
 said Mrs. Cuxsom. "And hkewise such a 
 thoughtful woman, too — ah, poor soul — so 
 thoughtful that a' minded every little thing 
 that wanted tending, ' Yes,' says she, ' when 
 I'm gone, and my last breath's blowed, look 
 in the top drawer o' the chest in the back 
 room by the window, and you'll find all my 
 coffin clothes ; a piece of flannel — that's to 
 put under me, and the little piece is to put 
 under my head ; and my new stockings for 
 my feet — they are folded alongside, and all 
 my other things. And there's four ounce 
 pennies, the heaviest I could find, a- tied up 
 in bits of linen, for weights — two for my 
 right eye and two for my left,' she said. 
 ' And when you've used 'em, and my eyes 
 don't open no more, bury the j)ennies, good 
 souls, and don't ye go spending 'em, for I 
 shouldn't like it. And open the windows 
 as soon as I am carried out, and make it 
 as cheerful as you can for my Elizabeth- 
 Jane.'" 
 
 " Ah, poor heart ! " 
 
 " Well, and Martha did it, and buried the 
 ounce pennies in the garden. 'But if ye'll 
 believe words, that man, Christopher Coney,
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 229 
 
 went and dug 'em up, and spent 'em at tlie 
 King o' Prussia. ' Faith,' lie said, ' why 
 should death deprive life of fourpence ? 
 Death's not of such good report that we 
 should respect 'en to that extent,' says he." 
 
 "'Twas a cannibal deed!" deprecated her 
 listeners. 
 
 ■ " Gad, then, I won't quite hae it," said 
 Solomon Longways. '' I say it to-day, and 
 'tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn't speak 
 wrongfully for a silver sixpence a.t such a 
 time. I don't see harm in it. To respect the 
 dead is sound doxology ; and I wouldn't sell 
 skellintons — leastwise respectable skellintons 
 — to be varnished for 'natomies, except I were 
 out o' work. But money is scarce, and 
 throats get dry. Why should death deprive 
 life of fourpence ? I say there was no treason 
 m it. 
 
 " Well, poor soul ; she's helpless to hinder 
 that or anything now," answered Mother 
 Cuxsom. " And all her shining keys will be 
 took from her, and her cupboards opened; 
 and things a' didn't wish seen, anybody will 
 see ; and her little wishes and ways will all 
 be as nothing ! "
 
 230 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by 
 the fire. It was three weeks after Mrs. 
 Henchard's funeral ; the candles were not 
 lighted, and a flexuous acrobatic flame, poised 
 on a coal, called from the shady walls the 
 smiles of all shapes that could respond — the 
 old pier-glass, with gilt columns and huge 
 entablature, the picture-frames, sundry knobs 
 and handles, and the brass rosette at the 
 bottom of each riband bell-pull on either side 
 of the chimney-piece. 
 
 " Elizabeth, do you think much of old 
 times ? " said Henchard. 
 "Yes, sir; often," said she. 
 " Who do you put in your pictures of em?" 
 " Mother and father — nobody else hardly." 
 Henchard always looked like one bent on 
 resisting pain when Elizabeth-Jane spoke of 
 Bichard JSTewson as " father." " Ah ! I am 
 out of all that, am I not ? " he said. ..... 
 
 '' Was Newson a kind father ? "
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 23 T 
 
 " Yes, sir ; very." 
 
 Hen chard's face settled into an expression 
 of stolid loneliness which gradually modulated 
 into something softer. '^ Suppose I had been 
 your real father ? " he said. " Would you 
 have cared for me as much as you cared for 
 Richard Newson 'I " 
 
 " I can't think it/' she said quickly. '^ I 
 can. think of no other as my father except 
 my father.^' 
 
 Henchard's wife was dissevered from him 
 by death ; his friend and hel23er Farfrae by 
 estrangement : Elizabeth- Jane by ignorance. 
 It seemed to him that only one of them 
 could possibly be recalled, and that was the 
 girl. His mind began vibrating between the 
 wish to reveal himself to her, and the policy 
 of leaving well alone, till he could no longer 
 sit still. He walked up and down, and then 
 he came and stood behind her chair, looking 
 down upon the top of her head. He could 
 no longer restrain his impulse. *' What did 
 your mother tell you about me — my his- 
 tory?" he asked. 
 
 •'' That you were related by marriage." 
 
 " She should have told more — before you 
 knew me. Then my task would not have
 
 232 THE MAYOR OF CASTERERIDGE. 
 
 been such a hard one Elizabeth, it 
 
 is I who am your father, and not Richard 
 Newson. Shame alone prevented your 
 wretched parents from owning this to you 
 while both of 'em were alive." 
 
 The back of Elizabeth's head remained 
 still, and her shoulders did not denote even 
 the movements of breathing. Henchard 
 went on : *^ I'd rather have your scorn, 
 your fear, anything, than your ignorance ; 
 'tis that I hate. Your mother and I were 
 man and wife when we were young. What 
 you saw was our second marriage. Your 
 mother was too honest. We had thought 
 each other dead — and — Newson became her 
 husband." 
 
 This was the nearest approach Henchard 
 could make to the full truth. As far as he 
 personally was concerned he would have 
 screened nothing ; but he showed a respect 
 for the young girl's sex and years worthy of 
 a better man. 
 
 When he had gone on to give details 
 which a whole series of slight and unre- 
 garded incidents in her past life strangely 
 corroborated ; when, in short, she believed 
 his story to be true, she became greatly
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 233 
 
 agitated, and, turning round to the table, 
 flung her face upon it weeping. 
 . "Don't cry — don't cry," said Henchard, 
 with vehement pathos, " I can't bear it, I 
 won't bear it. I am your father ; why 
 should you cry ? Am I so dreadful, so hate- 
 ful to 'ee ? Don't take agfainst me, Elizabeth- 
 Jane ! " he cried, grasping her wet hand. 
 *' Don't take agfainst me — thouarh I was a 
 drinking man once, and used your mother 
 roughly — I'll be kinder to you than Ice was 1 
 I'll do anything, if you will only look upon 
 me as your father I " 
 
 She tried to stand up and confront him 
 trustfully ; but she could not ; she was 
 troubled at his presence, like the brethren at 
 the avowal of Joseph. 
 
 " I don't want you to come to me all of a 
 sudden," said Henchard, in jerks, and moving 
 like a great tree in a wind. " No, Elizabeth, 
 I don't. I'll go away and not see you till 
 to-morrow, or when you like ; and then I'll 
 show 'ee papers to prove my words. There, 
 I am gone and won't disturb you any more. 
 .... 'Twas I . that chose your name, my 
 daughter ; your mother wanted it Susan. 
 There, don't forget 'twas I gave you your
 
 2 34 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 name." He went "out at the door and shut 
 her softly in, and she heard him go away 
 into the garden. But he had not done. 
 Before she had moved, or in any way re- 
 covered from the effect of his disclosure, he 
 reappeared. 
 
 " One word more, Elizabeth," he said. 
 " You'll take my surname now — hey ? Your 
 mother was against it ; but it will be much 
 more pleasant to me. 'Tis legally yours, you 
 know. But nobody need know that. You 
 shall take it as if by choice. I'll talk to my 
 lawyer — I don't know the law of it exactly ; 
 but will you do this — let me put a few lines 
 into the newspaper that such is to be your 
 name i 
 
 "If it is my name I must have it, mustn't 
 I ? " she asked. 
 
 " Well, well ; usage is everything in these 
 matters." 
 
 *' I wonder why mother didn't wish it '? " 
 
 " Oh, some whim of the poor soul's. Now 
 get a bit of paper and draw up a paragraph 
 as I shall tell you. But let's have a light." 
 
 *' I can see by the firelight," she answered. 
 " Yes— I'd rather." 
 
 "Vervwell."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 235 
 
 She got a piece of paper, and bending over 
 the fender, wrote at his dictation words 
 which he had evidently got by heart from, 
 some advertisement or other — words to the 
 effect that she, the writer, hitherto known 
 as Ehzabeth-Jane Newson, was going to call 
 herself Elizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith. 
 It was done, and fastened up, and directed 
 to the office of the Casterhridge Chronicle. 
 
 " Now," said Henchard, with the blaze of 
 satisfaction that he always emitted when he 
 had carried his point — though tenderness 
 softened it this time — '' I'll go upstairs and 
 hunt for some documents that will prove it 
 all to you. But I won't trouble you w^ith 
 them till to-morrow. Good night, my Eliza- 
 beth-Jane." 
 
 He was gone before the bewildered girl 
 could realize what it all meant, or adjust 
 her filial sense to the new centre of gravity. 
 She was thankful that he had left her to 
 herself for the evening, and sat down over 
 the fire. Here she remained in silence, and 
 wept — not for her mother now, but for the 
 genial sailor, Hichard Newson, to whom she 
 seemed doing a wrong. 
 
 Henchard, in the meantime, had gone
 
 2^6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature he 
 kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this 
 he unlocked. Before turning them over he 
 leant back and indulged in reposeful thought. 
 Elizabeth was his at last, and she was a girl 
 of such good sense and kind heart that she 
 would be sure to like him. He was the kind 
 of man to whom some human object for 
 pouring out his heat upon — were it affective 
 or were it choleric — was almost a necessity. 
 The cravinP' of his heart for the re-establish- 
 ment of this tenderest human tie had been 
 great during his wife's lifetime, and now he 
 had submitted to its mastery without re- 
 luctance and without fear. He bent over 
 the drawer again, and proceeded in his 
 search. 
 
 Among the other papers had been placed 
 the contents of his wife's little desk, the keys 
 of which had been handed to him at her 
 request. Here was the letter addressed to 
 him with the restriction, " JYot to be opened till 
 Elizabeth- Jane's wedding-day," 
 
 Mrs. Henchard, though better educated 
 than her husband, had been no practical 
 hand at anything. In sealmg up the sheet, 
 which was folded and iucked in without an
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 237 
 
 envelope, in tlie old-fashioned way, she had 
 overlaid the junction with a large mass of 
 wax without the requisite under-touch of the 
 same. The seal had cracked, and the letter 
 was open. Henchard had no reason to sup- 
 pose the restriction one of serious weight, 
 and his feelino- for his late wife had not been 
 of the nature of deep respect. '^ Some trifling 
 fancy or other of poor Susan's, I suppose," he 
 said ; and without curiosity he allowed his 
 eyes to scan the letter : 
 
 " My dear Michael, 
 
 " For the good of all three of us, I 
 have kept one thing a secret from you till 
 now. I hope you will understand why ; I 
 think you will ; though perhaps you may not 
 forgive me. But, dear Michael, I have done 
 it for the best. I shall be in my grave when 
 you read this, and Elizabeth-Jane will have a 
 home. Don't curse me, Mike — think of how 
 I was situated. I can hardly write it, but 
 here it is. Elizabeth- Jane is not your 
 Elizabeth- Jane — the child who was in my 
 arms when you sold me. No ; she died three 
 months after that, and this livino^ one is mv 
 other husband's. I christened her by the
 
 238 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 same name we Lad given to the first, and she 
 filled up the ache I felt at the other's loss. 
 Michael, I am dying, and I might have held 
 my tongue ; but I could not. Tell her hus- 
 band of this or not, as you may judge ; and 
 forgive, if you can, a woman you once deeply 
 wronged, as she forgives you. 
 
 "Susan Henchard." 
 
 Her husband regarded the paper as if it 
 were a window-jDane through which he saw 
 for miles. His lip twitched, and he seemed 
 to compress his frame, as if to bear better. 
 His usual habit was not to consider whether 
 destiny were hard upon him or not — the 
 shape of his ideas in cases of affliction being 
 simply a moody " I am to sufier, I perceive." 
 " So much scourging as this, then, is it for 
 me ? " But now through his passionate head 
 there stormed this thoufirht — that the blasting: 
 disclosure was what he had deserved. 
 
 His wife's extreme reluctance to have the 
 girl's name altered from Newson to Henchard 
 was now accounted for fully. It furnished 
 another illustration of that honesty in dis- 
 honesty which had characterized her in other 
 things.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 239 
 
 He remained unnerved and purposeless for 
 near a couple of hours ; till he suddenly 
 said, " Ah — I wonder if it is true ! " 
 
 He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off 
 his slippers, and went with a candle to the 
 door of Elizabeth-Jane's room, where he put 
 his ear to the keyhole and listened. She 
 was breathing profoundly. Henchard softly 
 turned the handle, entered, and shading the 
 light, approached the bedside. Gradually 
 brinofinP' the lisfht from behind a screeninp- 
 curtain he held it in such a manner that it 
 fell slantwise on her face without shining 
 on her eyes. He steadfastly regarded her 
 features. 
 
 They were fair : his were dark. But this 
 was an unimportant preliminary. In sleep 
 there come to the surface buried genealogical 
 facts, ancestral curves, dead men's traits, 
 which the mobility of daytime animation 
 screens and overwhelms. In the present 
 statuesque repose of the young girl's counte- 
 nance Eichard Newson's was unmistakably 
 reflected. He could not endure the sight of 
 her, and hastened away. 
 
 Misery taught him nothing more than 
 defiant endurance of it. His wife was dead,
 
 240 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 and the £rst impulse for revenge died with 
 the thought that she was beyond him. He 
 looked out at the night as at a hend. 
 Henchard, like all his kind, was superstitious, 
 and he could not help thinking that the 
 concatenation of events this evening had 
 produced was the scheme of some sinister 
 intelligence bent on punishing him. Yet 
 they had developed naturally. If he had not 
 revealed his past history to Elizabeth he 
 would not have searched the drawer for 
 papers, and so on. The mockery was, that 
 he should have no sooner taught a girl to 
 claim the shelter of his paternity than he dis- 
 covered her to have no kinship with him. 
 
 This ironical sequence of things angered 
 him like an impish trick from a fellow- creature. 
 Like Prester John's, his table had been spread, 
 and infernal harpies had snatched up the food. 
 He went out of the house, and moved sullenly 
 onward down the pavement till he came to 
 the bridge at the bottom of the High Street. 
 Here he turned in upon a bypath on the 
 river bank, skirting the north-eastern limits 
 of the town. 
 
 These precincts embodied the mournful 
 phases of Casterbridge life, as the south
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 24 1 
 
 avenues embodied its cheerful moods. The 
 whole way along here was sunless, even 
 in summer time ; in spring white frosts lin- 
 gered here when other places were steaming 
 with warmth ; while in winter it was the 
 seed-field of all the aches, rheumatisms, and 
 torturing cramps of the year. The Caster- 
 bridge doctors must have pined away for 
 want of sufficient nourishment, but for the 
 configuration of the landscape on the north- 
 eastern side. 
 
 The river — slow, noiseless, and dark — the 
 Schwarzwasser of Casterbridge — ran beneath 
 a low clifi*, the two together forming a defence 
 which had rendered walls and artificial earth- 
 works on this side unnecessary. Here were 
 ruins of a Franciscan priory, and a mill 
 attached to the same, the water of which 
 roared down a back-hatch like the voice of 
 desolation. Above the clifi^, and behind the 
 river, rose a pile of buildings, and in the front 
 of the pile a square mass cut into the sky. 
 It was like a pedestal lacking its statue. 
 This missing feature, without which the 
 design remained incomplete, was, in truth, 
 the corpse of a man ; for the square mass 
 formed the base of the gallows, the extensive 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 242 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 buildings at tlie back being the county gaol. 
 In the meadow where Henchard now walked 
 the mob were wont to gather whenever an 
 execution took place, and there to the tune 
 of the roaring vv^eir they stood and watched 
 the spectacle. 
 
 The exaggeration which darkness imparted 
 to the glooms of this region impressed Hen- 
 chard more than he had expected. The 
 lugubrious harmony of the spot with his 
 domestic situation was too perfect for him, 
 impatient of effects, scenes, and adumbrations. 
 It reduced his heartburning to melancholy, 
 and he exclaimed, '' Why the deuce did I 
 come here ! " He went on past the cottage 
 in which the old local hangman had lived 
 and died, in times before that calling was 
 monopolized by a single gentleman; and 
 climbed up by a steep back lane into the 
 town. 
 
 For the sufferings of that night, en- 
 gendered by his bitter disappointment, he 
 might well have been pitied. He was like 
 one who had half-fainted, and could neither 
 recover nor complete the swoon. In words 
 he could blame his wife, but not in his heart ; 
 and had he obeyed the wise directions outside
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 243 
 
 her letter this pain would have been spared 
 him for long — possibly for ever, Elizabeth- 
 Jane seeming to show no ambition to quit 
 her safe and secluded maiden courses for the 
 speculative path of matrimony. 
 
 The morning came after this night of 
 unrest, and with it the necessity for a plan. 
 He was far too self-willed to recede from a 
 position, especially as it would involve 
 humiliation. His daughter he had asserted 
 her to be, and his daughter she should always 
 think herself, no matter what hypocrisy it 
 involved. 
 
 But he was ill-prepared for the first step 
 in this new situation. The moment he came 
 into the breakfast-room Elizabeth advanced 
 with open confidence to him and took him by 
 the arm. 
 
 " I have thought and thought all night 
 of it," she said frankly. "And I see that 
 everything must be as you say. And I am 
 going to look upon you as the father that 
 you are, and not to call you Mr. Henchard 
 any more. It is so plain to me now. Indeed, 
 father, it is. For, of course, you would not 
 have done half the things you have done for 
 me, and let me have my own way so entirely, 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 and bought me presents, if I had only been 
 your stepdaughter. He — Mr. Newson — 
 whom my poor mother married by such a 
 strange mistake " (Henchard was glad that 
 he had disguised matters here) "was very 
 j^ind — oh, so kind ! " (she spoke with tears 
 in her eyes) '^but that is not the same thing 
 as being one's real father after all. Now, 
 father, breakfast is ready," said she cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The 
 moment and the act he had contemplated for 
 weeks with a thrill of pleasure ; yet it was 
 no less than a miserable insipidity to him 
 now that it had come. His reinstation of 
 her mother had been chiefly for the girl's 
 sake, and the fruition of the whole scheme 
 was such dust and ashes as this.
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Or all the enigmas wliicli ever confronted a 
 girl there can have been seldom one like that 
 which followed Henchard's announcement of 
 himself to Elizabeth as her father. He had 
 done it in an ardour and an ao^itation which 
 had half carried the point of affection with 
 her ; yet, behold, from the next morning 
 onwards his manner was constrained as she 
 had never seen it before. 
 
 The coldness soon broke out into open 
 chiding. One grievous failing of Elizabeth's 
 was her occasional pretty and picturesque 
 use of dialect words — those terrible marks of 
 the beast to the truly genteel. 
 
 It was dinner-time — they never met except 
 at meals — and she happened to say when he 
 was rising from table, wishing to show him 
 something, "If you'll bide where you be a 
 minute, father, 111 get it." 
 
 " ' Bide where you be,' " he echoed sharply. 
 " Good G , are you only fit to carry wash
 
 246 TPIE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 to a pig-trough, that ye use such words as 
 those ? " 
 
 She reddened with shame and sadness. 
 
 "I meant 'Stay where you are/ father," 
 she said, in a low. humble voice. " I ought 
 to have been more careful." 
 
 He made no reply, and went out of the 
 room. 
 
 The sharp reprimand was not lost upon 
 her, and in time it came to pass that for 
 " fay " she said " succeed ; " that she no 
 longer spoke of " dumbledores " but of 
 "humble bees;" no longer said of young- 
 men and women that they "walked to- 
 gether," but that they were " engaged ; " 
 that she grew to talk of "greggles" as 
 "wild hyacinths;" that when she had not 
 slept she did not quaintly tell the servants 
 next morning that she had been " hag- 
 rid," but that she had "suffered from indi- 
 gestion." 
 
 These improvements, however, are some- 
 what in advance of the story. Henchard, 
 being uncultivated himself, was the bitterest 
 critic the fair girl could possibly have had 
 of her own lapses — really slight now, for 
 she read omnivorously. A gratuitous ordeal
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 247 
 
 was in store for her in the matter of her 
 handwriting. She was passing the dining- 
 room door one evening, and had occasion to 
 go in for something. It was not till she had 
 opened the door that she knew the Mayor 
 was there in the company of a man with 
 whom he transacted business. 
 
 " Here, Elizabeth-Jane," he said, looking 
 round at her, "just write down what I tell 
 you — a few words of an agreement for me 
 and this gentleman to sign. I am a poor tool 
 with a pen." 
 
 " Be j owned, and so be I," said the gentle- 
 man. 
 
 She brought forward blotting-book, paper, 
 and ink, and sat down. 
 
 " Now then — ' An agreement entered into 
 tliis sixteenth day of October ' — write that 
 first." 
 
 She started the pen in an elephantine 
 march across the sheet. It was a splendid 
 round, bold hand of her own conception, a 
 style that would have stamped a woman as 
 Minerva's own in more recent days. But 
 other ideas reigned then : Henchard's creed 
 was that proper young girls wrote ladies'- 
 hand — nay, he believed that bristling charac-
 
 248 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 ters were as innate and inseparable a part of 
 refined womanhood as sex itself. Hence 
 when, instead of scribbling, like the Princess 
 Ida, — 
 
 " In such a hand as when a field of corn 
 Bows all its ears before the roaring East," 
 
 Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot 
 and sand-bags, he reddened in angry shame 
 for her, and, peremptorily saying, " Never 
 mind — I'll finish it," dismissed her tliere and 
 then. 
 
 Her considerate and willing disposition 
 became a pitfall to her now. Whenever she 
 took upon herself any domestic duty that the 
 servants could have done — which she often 
 did — he set it down to her faults of breeding. 
 She was, it must be admitted, sometimes pro- 
 vokingly and unnecessarily willing to saddle 
 herself with manual labours. She would go 
 to the kitchen instead of ringing, *' Not to 
 make Phoebe come up twice ; " she went 
 down on her knees, shovel in hand, when the 
 cat overturned the coal-scuttle ; moreover, 
 she would persistently thank the parlour- 
 maid for everything, till one day, as soon 
 as the girl was gone from the room. Hen-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 249 
 
 cliard broke out with, "Good G , why 
 
 dost n't leave off thankmg that gh4 as if she 
 were a goddess-born ! Don't I pay her a 
 dozen pound a year to do things for 
 'ee ? " Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the 
 exclamation that he became sorry a few 
 minutes after, and said that he did not mean 
 to be so rough. 
 
 These domestic exhibitions were the small 
 protruding needle-rocks which suggested 
 rather than revealed what was underneath. 
 But his passion had less terror for her than 
 his coldness. The increasing frequency of 
 the latter mood told her the sad news that 
 he disliked her with a growing dislike. The 
 more interesting that her appearance and 
 manners became under the softening in- 
 fluences which she could now command, and 
 in her wisdom did command, the more she 
 seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she 
 caught him looking at her with a louring 
 invidiousness that she could hardly bear. 
 Not knowing his secret, it was a cruel 
 mockery that she should for the first time 
 excite his animosity when she had taken his 
 surname. 
 
 But the most terrible ordeal was to come.
 
 250 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Elizabeth had latterly been accustomed of an 
 afternoon to take out a cup of cider or ale and 
 bread-and-cheese to Nance Mockridge, who 
 worked in the yard, wimbling hay-bonds. 
 Nance accepted this otfering thankfully at 
 first ; afterwards as a matter of course. On 
 a day when Henchard was on the premises he 
 saw his stepdaughter enter the hay-barn on 
 this errand ; and, as there was no clear spot 
 on which to deposit the provisions, she at once 
 set to work arranging two trusses of hay as a 
 table, Mockridge meanwhile standing with 
 her hands on her hips, easefully looking at 
 the preparations on her behalf 
 
 '^ Elizabeth, come here ! " said Henchard ; 
 and she obeyed. 
 
 " Why do you lower yourself so con- 
 foundedly?" he said with suppressed passion. 
 *' Haven't I told you o't fifty times ? Hey ? 
 Making yourself a drudge for a common work- 
 woman of such a character as hers ! Why, 
 ye'll disgrace me to the dust ! " 
 
 Now these words were uttered loud enough 
 to reach Nance inside the barn door, who fired 
 up immediately at the slur upon her personal 
 character. Coming to the door, she cried, re- 
 gardless of consequences, " Come to that, Mr.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 25 1 
 
 Michael Hencliard ; I can let 'ee know slie've 
 waited on worse ! " 
 
 '' Then she must have had more charity 
 than sense/' said Henchard. 
 
 " Oh, no, she hadn't. 'Twere not for charity 
 but for hire ; and at a public-house in tliis 
 town." 
 
 "It is not true," cried Henchard indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 "Just ask her," said Nance, folding her 
 naked arms in such a manner ohat she could 
 comfortably scratch her elbows. 
 
 Henchard glanced at Elizabeth- Jane, whose 
 complexion, now pink and white from confine- 
 ment, lost nearly all of the former colour. 
 " What does this mean ? " he said to her. 
 " Anything or nothing ? " 
 
 "It is true," said Elizabeth- Jane. " But 
 it was only " 
 
 " Did you do it, or didn't you ? Where 
 was it ? " 
 
 " At the King of Prussia ; one evening for 
 a little while, when we were staying there." 
 
 Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, 
 and sailed into the barn ; for, assuming that 
 she was to be discharged on the instant, she 
 had resolved to make the most of her victory.
 
 25 2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Henchard, however, said notlimg about dis- 
 charging her. Unduly sensitive on such 
 points by reason of his own past, he had the 
 look of one completely ground down to the 
 last indignity. Elizabeth followed him to the 
 house like a culprit ; but when she got inside 
 she could not see him. Nor did she see him 
 again that day. 
 
 Convinced of the scathins: damao^e to his 
 local repute and position that must have been 
 caused by such a fact, though it had never 
 before reached his own ears, Henchard 
 showed a positive distaste for the presence 
 of this girl not his own, whenever he en- 
 countered her. He mostly dined with the 
 farmers at the market-room of one of the two 
 chief hotels, leaving her in utter solitude. 
 Could he have seen how she made use of 
 those silent hours he might have found reason 
 to reverse his judgment on her quality. She 
 read and took notes incessantly, mastering 
 facts with painful laboriousness, but never 
 flinching from her self-imposed task. She 
 began the study of Latin, incited by the 
 Eoman characteristics of the town she lived 
 in. ''If I am not well-informed it shall be by 
 no fault of my own," she would say to herself
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 253 
 
 tlirough the tears that Avoiild occasionally 
 glide down her peachy cheeks when she was 
 fairly bafEed by the portentous obscurity of 
 many of these educational works. 
 
 Thus she lived on, a dumb, deep-feelings 
 great -eyed creature, construed by not a 
 single contiguous being ; quenching with 
 patient fortitude her incipient interest in 
 Earfrae, because it seemed to be one-sided, 
 unmaidenly, and unwise. True, that for 
 reasons best known to herself, she had, since 
 Farfrae's dismissal, shifted her quarters from 
 the back room affording a view of the yard 
 (which she had occupied with such zest) to a 
 front chamber overlooking the street ; but as 
 for the young man, whenever he passed the 
 house he seldom or never turned his head. 
 
 Winter had almost come, and unsettled 
 weather made her still more dependent upon 
 indoor resources. But there were certain 
 early winter days in Casterbridge — days of 
 firmamental exhaustion which followed angry 
 south-westerly tempests — when, if the sun 
 shone, the air was like velvet. She seized on 
 these days for her periodical visits to the spot 
 where her mother lay buried — the still-used 
 burial-ground of the old Eoman-British city.
 
 2 54 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 whose curious feature was this its continuity 
 as a place of sepulture. Mrs. Henchard's 
 dust mingled with the dust of women who 
 lay ornamented with glass hairpins and amber 
 necklaces, and men who held in their 
 mouths coins of Hadrian, Posthumus, and 
 the Constan tines. 
 
 Half-past ten in the morning was about 
 her hour for seeking this spot — a time when 
 the promenades were deserted as the pillared 
 avenues of Karnac. Business had long since 
 passed down them into its daily cells, and 
 Leisure had not arrived there. So Elizabeth- 
 Jane walked and read, or looked over the 
 edge of the book to think, and thus reached 
 the churchyard. 
 
 There, approaching her mother's grave, she 
 saw a solitary dark figure in the middle of the 
 gravel- walk. This figure, too, was reading ; 
 but not from a book : the words which en- 
 grossed it being the inscription on Mrs. 
 Henchard's tombstone. The personage was 
 in mourning like herself, was about her age 
 and size, and might have been her wraith 
 or double, but for the fact that it was a lady 
 much more beautifully dressed than she. 
 Indeed, comparatively indifferent as Elizabeth-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 255 
 
 Jane was to dress, unless for some temporary 
 whim or purpose, her eyes were arrested 
 by the artistic perfection of the lady's 
 appearance. Her gait, too, had a flexuous- 
 ness about it, which seemed to avoid angu- 
 larity of movement less from choice than 
 from predisposition. It was a revelation to 
 EUzabeth that human beings could reach 
 this stage of external development — she had 
 never suspected it. She felt all the freshness 
 and grace to be stolen from herself on the 
 instant by the neighbourhood of such a 
 stranger. And this was in face of the fact 
 that Elizabeth could now have been writ hand- 
 some, while the young lady was simply pretty. 
 Had she been envious she might have 
 hated the woman ; but she did not do that — - 
 she allowed herself the pleasure of feeling- 
 fascinated. She wondered where the lady 
 had come from. The stumpy and practical 
 walk of honest homeliness which mostly 
 prevailed there, the two styles of dress 
 thereabout, the simple and the mistaken, 
 equally avouched that this figure was no 
 Casterbridge woman's, even if a book in her 
 hand resembling a guide-book had not also 
 suggested it.
 
 256 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 The stranger presently moved from the 
 tombstone of Mrs. Henchard, and vanished 
 behind the corner of the walL EHzabeth went 
 to the tomb herself; beside it were two 
 footprints distinct in the soil, signifying that 
 the lady had stood there a long time. She 
 returned homeward, musing on what she had 
 seen, as she might have mused on a rainbow 
 or the Northern Lights, a rare butterfly or a 
 cameo. 
 
 Interestina: as thino-s had been out of doors, 
 at home it turned out to be one of her bad 
 days. Henchard, whose two years' mayoralty 
 was ending, had been made aware that he 
 was not to be chosen to fill a vacancy in the 
 list of aldermen ; and that Farfrae was likely 
 to become one of the Council. This caused 
 the unfortunate discovery that she had played 
 the waiting-maid in the town of which he was 
 Mayor to rankle in his mind yet more 
 poisonously. He had learnt by personal 
 inquiry at the time that it was to Donald 
 Farfrae — that treacherous upstart — that she 
 had thus humihated herself And though 
 Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attach no great 
 importance to the incident — the cheerful 
 souls at the King of Prussia having exha.usted
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 257 
 
 its aspects long ago — such was Henchard's 
 haughty spirit that the simple thrifty deed 
 was regarded as little less than a social 
 catastrophe by him. 
 
 Ever since the evening of his wife's arrival 
 with her daughter there had been something 
 in the air which had changed his luck. That 
 dinner at the Golden Crown with his friends 
 had been Henchard's Austerlitz : he liad had 
 his successes since, but his course had not 
 been upward. He was not to be numbered 
 among the aldermen — that Peerage of burghers 
 — as he had expected to be, and the con- 
 sciousness of this soured him to-day. 
 
 " Well, where have you been ? " he said to 
 her, with off-hand laconism. 
 
 " I've been strolling in the Walks and 
 churchyard, father, till I feel quite leery." She 
 clapped her hand to her mouth, but too late. 
 
 This was just enough to incense Hen chard 
 after the other crosses of the day. " I woiit 
 have you talk like that ! " he thundered. 
 *'' Leery,' indeed. One would think you 
 worked upon a farm. One day I learn that 
 you lend a hand in public-houses. Then I hear 
 you talk like a clodhopper. I'm burned, if it 
 goes on, this house can't hold us two." 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 The only way of getting a single pleasant 
 thought to go to sleep upon after this was by 
 recalling the lady she had seen that day, and 
 hoping she might see her again. 
 
 Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, think- 
 ing over his jealous folly in forbidding Farfrae 
 to pay his addresses to this girl who did not 
 belong to him, when if he had allowed them 
 to go on he might not have been encumbered 
 with her. At last he said to himself with 
 satisfaction as he jumped up and went to the 
 writing table : " Ah ! — he'll think it means 
 peace, and a marriage portion — not that I 
 don't want my house to be troubled with her, 
 and no portion at all." He wrote as follows: — 
 
 " Sir, — On consideration I don't wish to 
 interfere with your courtship of Elizabeth- 
 Jane, if you care for her. I therefore with- 
 draw my objection; excepting in this — that 
 the business be not carried on in my house. 
 '^ Yours, 
 
 '' Mr. Tarfrae. '' M. Henchard." 
 
 The morrow, being fairly fine, found 
 Elizabeth- Jane again in the churchyard ; but 
 while looking for the lady she was startled by 
 the apparition of Farfrae, who passed outside
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 259 
 
 the gate. He glanced up for a moment from 
 a pocket-book in which he appeared to be 
 making figures as he went ; whether or not 
 he saw her he took no notice, and disappeared. 
 Unduly depressed by a sense of her own 
 superfluity she thought he probably scorned 
 her ; and quite broken in spirit sat down on a 
 bench. She fell into painful thought on her 
 position, which ended with her saying quite 
 loud, " Oh, I wish I was dead with dear 
 mother ! " 
 
 Behind the bench was a little promenade 
 under the wall where people sometimes 
 walked instead of on the gravel. The bench 
 seemed to be touched by something ; she 
 looked round, and a face was bending over 
 her, veiled, but still distinct, the face of the 
 young woman she had seen yesterday. 
 
 Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a 
 moment, knowing she had been overheard, 
 though there was pleasure in her confusion. 
 *' Yes, I heard you," said the lady, in a 
 vivacious voice, answering her look. " What 
 can have happened ? " 
 
 " I don't — I can't tell you," said Elizabeth, 
 putting her hand to her face to hide a quick 
 flush that had come. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 There was no movement or word for a few 
 seconds ; then the girl felt that the young 
 lady was sitting down beside her. 
 
 "I guess how it is with you," said the 
 latter. '' That was your mother." She 
 waved her hand towards the tombstone. 
 Elizabeth looked up at her as if inquiring of 
 herself whether there should be confidence. 
 The lady's manner was so desirous, so anxious, 
 that the girl decided there should be con- 
 fidence. " It was my mother," she said, " my 
 only friend." 
 
 "But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is 
 living V 
 
 "Yes, he is living," said Ehzabeth-Jane. 
 
 " Is he not kind to you ? " 
 
 " I've no wish to complain of him." 
 
 " There has been a disagreement ? " 
 
 "A little." 
 
 "Perhaps you were to blame," suggested 
 the stranger. 
 
 " I was — in many ways," sighed the meek 
 Elizabeth. "I swept up the coals when 
 the servant ought to have done it ; and 
 I said I was leery ; and he was angry with 
 me. 
 
 The lady seemed to warm towards her for
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 26 1 
 
 that reply. "Do you know the impression 
 your words give me 1 " she said ingenuously. 
 " That he is a hot-tempered man — a little 
 proud — perhaps ambitious ; but not a bad 
 man." Her anxiety not to condemn Hen- 
 chard, while siding with Elizabeth, was 
 curious. 
 
 *' Oh no ; certainly not had" agreed the 
 honest girl. "And he has not even been 
 unkind to me till lately — smce mother died. 
 But it has been very much to bear while it 
 has lasted. All is owing to my defects, I 
 dare say ; and my defects are owing to my 
 history." 
 
 " What is your history ? " 
 
 Ehzabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her 
 questioner; found that her questioner was 
 looking at her ; turned her eyes down ; and 
 then seemed compelled to look back again. 
 "My history is not gay nor attractive," she 
 said. "And yet I can tell it, if you really 
 want to know." 
 
 The lady assured her that she did want to 
 know ; whereupon Elizabeth-Jane told the 
 tale of her life as she understood it, which 
 was in general the true one, except that the 
 sale at the fair had no part therein.
 
 2 62 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Contrary to the girl's expectation her new 
 friend was not shocked. This cheered her; 
 and it was not till she thought of returning 
 to that home in which she had been treated 
 so roughly of late that her spirits fell. 
 
 *^ I don't know how to return," she mur- 
 mured. " I think of going away. But what 
 can I do ? Where can I go ? " 
 
 " Perhaps it will be better soon," said her 
 friend gently. "Sol would not go far. Now 
 what do you think of this : I shall soon want 
 somebody to live in my house, partly as 
 housekeeper, partly as companion ; would 
 you mind coming to me ? But perhaps " 
 
 "Oh, yes," cried Elizabeth with tears in 
 her eyes. "I would, indeed — I would do 
 anything to be independent ; for then perhaps 
 my father might get to love me. But, ah ! " 
 
 "Whatr' 
 
 " I am no accomplished person. And a 
 compa.nion to yoii, dear madam, must be 
 that." 
 
 " Oh, not necessarily." 
 
 " Not ? But 1 can't help using rural words 
 sometimes, when I don't mean to." 
 
 " Never mind. I shall like to know 
 them."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 263 
 
 " And — oh, I know I slia'n't do ! " — she 
 cried with a distressful lausrh. "I acci- 
 dentally learned to write round-hand instead 
 of ladies'-hand. And, of course, you want 
 some one who can write that ? " 
 
 '' Well, no." 
 
 " What, not necessary to write ladies^- 
 hand ? " cried the joyous Elizabeths 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 *' But where do you live, madam ? " 
 
 " In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be 
 living here after twelve o'clock to-day." 
 
 Elizabeth expressed her astonishment. 
 
 '' I have been staying at Budmouth for a 
 few days while my house was getting ready. 
 The house I am going into is that one they 
 call High Street Hall — the old stone one 
 overlooking the Market. Two or three rooms 
 are fit for occupation, though not all : I sleep 
 there to-nig^ht for the first time. Now will 
 you think over my proposal, and meet me 
 here the first fine day next week, and say if 
 you are still in the same mind 1 " 
 
 Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect 
 of a change from an unbearable position, joy- 
 fully assented ; and the two parted at the 
 gate of the churchyard.
 
 264 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 As a maxim glibly repeated from cliildhood 
 remains practically unmarked till some mature 
 experience enforces it, so did this High 
 Street Hall now for the first time really 
 show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her 
 ears had heard its name on a hundred 
 occasions. 
 
 Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the 
 lady, and the house, and her own chance of 
 living there, all the rest of the day. In the 
 afternoon she had occasion to pay a few bills 
 in the town and do a little shopping, when 
 she learnt that what was a new disco verv to 
 herself had become a common topic about the 
 streets. Hio-h Street Hall was underP'oino- 
 repair ; a lady was coming there to live 
 shortly ; all the shop-people knew it, and 
 had already discounted the chance of her 
 being a customer. 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane could, however, add a 
 capping touch to information so new to her
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 265 
 
 in the bulk. Tlie lady, slie said, had arrived 
 that day. 
 
 When the lamps were lighted, and it was 
 yet not so dark as to render chimneys, attics, 
 and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a 
 lover's feeling, thought she would like to look 
 at the outside of High Street Hall. She 
 went up the street in that direction. 
 
 The Hall, with its grej facade and parapet, 
 was the only residence of its sort so near the 
 centre of the town. It had, in the first place, 
 the characteristics of a country mansion — 
 birds'-nests in its chimneys, damp nooks 
 where fungi grew, and irregularities of sur- 
 face direct from Nature's trowel. At night 
 the forms of passengers were patterned by 
 the lamps in black shadov/s upon the pale 
 walls. 
 
 This evening motes of straw lay around, 
 and other signs of the premises having been 
 in that lawless condition which accompanies 
 the entry of a new tenant. The house was 
 entirely of stone, and formed an example of 
 dignity without great size. It was not alto- 
 gether aristocratic, still less consequential, 
 yet the old-fashioned stranger instinctively 
 said, " Blood built it, and Wealth enjoys it,"
 
 266 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 however vague his opinions of those acces- 
 sories might be. 
 
 Yet as regards the enjoying it, the stranger 
 would have been wrong, for until this very 
 evening, when the new lady had arrived, the 
 house had been empty for a year or two, 
 while before that interval its occupancy had 
 been irregular. The reason of its unpopu- 
 larity was soon made manifest. Its rooms 
 overlooked the market-place ; and such a 
 prospect from such a house was not consid- 
 ered desirable or seemly by its would-be 
 occupiers. 
 
 Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, 
 and saw lights there. The lady had obviously 
 arrived. The impression that this woman of 
 comparatively practised manner had made 
 upon the studious girl's mind was so deep that 
 she enjoyed standing under an opposite arch- 
 way merely to think that the charming lady 
 was inside the confronting walls, and to 
 wonder what she was doinof. Her admiration 
 for the architecture of that front was entirely 
 on account of the inmate it screened. 
 Though for that matter the architecture 
 deserved admiration, or at least study, on its 
 own account. It was Palladian, and, hke all
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERERIDGE. 267 
 
 architecture erected since the Gothic age, 
 was a compilation rather than a design. 
 But its reasonableness made it impressive. 
 It was not rich, but rich enough. A timely 
 consciousness of the ultimate vanity of human 
 architecture, no less than of other human 
 things, had prevented artistic superfluity. 
 
 Men had till quite recently been going in 
 and out with parcels and packing-cases, ren- 
 dering the door and hall within like a public 
 thoroughfare. Elizabeth trotted through the 
 open door in the dusk, but becoming alarmed 
 at her own temerity, she went quickly out 
 again by another which stood open in the 
 lofty wall of the back court. To her surprise 
 she found herself in one of the little-used 
 blind alleys of the town. Looking round at 
 the door which had given her egress, by the 
 light of the solitary lamp fixed in the alley, 
 she saw that it was arched and old — older 
 even than the house itself The door was 
 studded, and the keystone of the arch was a 
 mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a 
 comic leer, as could still be discerned; but 
 generations of Casterbridge boys had thrown 
 stones at the mask, aiming at its open 
 mouth j and the blows thereof had cliipped
 
 268 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 off the lips and jaws as if tliey had been 
 eaten away by disease. The appearance was 
 so ghastly by the weakly lamp glimmer that 
 she could not bear to look at it — the first 
 unpleasant feature of her visit. 
 
 The position of the queer old door and the 
 odd presence of the leering mask suggested 
 one thing above all others as appertaining to 
 the mansion^s past history — intrigue. By the 
 alley it had been possible to come unseen 
 from all sorts of quarters in the town — the 
 old play-house, the old bull-stake, the old 
 cock-pit, the pool wherein nameless infants 
 had been used to disappear. High Street Hall 
 could boast of its conveniences undoubtedly. 
 
 She turned to come away in the nearest 
 direction, homeward, which was up the alley, 
 but hearing footsteps approaching in that 
 quarter, and having no great wish to be found 
 in such a place at such a time, she quickly 
 retreated. There being no other way out, she 
 stood behind a brick pier till the intruder 
 should have gone his ways. 
 
 Had she watched she would have been 
 surprised. She would have seen that the 
 pedestrian on coming up made straight for 
 the arched doorway : that as he paused with
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 269 
 
 his hand upon the latch the lamphght fell 
 upon the face of Henchard. 
 
 But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her 
 nook she that discerned nothing of this. Hen- 
 chard passed in, as ignorant of her presence 
 as she was ignorant of his identity, and dis- 
 appeared in the darkness. Elizabeth came 
 out a second time into the alley, and made 
 the best of her way home. 
 
 Henchard's chiding, by begetting in her a 
 nervous fear of doing anything definable as 
 unlady-like, had operated thus curiously in 
 keeping them unknown to each other at a 
 critical moment. Much might have resulted 
 from recognition — at the least a query on 
 either side in one and the self-same form : 
 What could he or she possibly be doing- 
 there '? 
 
 Henchard, whatever his business at the 
 lady's house, reached his own home only a 
 few minutes later than Elizabeth-Jane. Her 
 plan was to broach the question of leaving his 
 roof this evening ; the events of the day had 
 urged her to the course. But its execution 
 depended upon his mood, and she anxiously 
 awaited his manner towards her. She found 
 that it had changed. He showed no further
 
 270 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 tendency to be angry ; he showed something 
 worse. Absolute indifference had taken the 
 place of irritability; and his coldness was 
 such that it encouraged her to departure, 
 even more than, hot temper could have 
 done. 
 
 '^Father, have you any objection to my 
 going away \ " she asked. 
 
 '• Going away ? No — none whatever. 
 "Where are you going % " 
 
 She thought it undesirable and unnecessary 
 to say anything at present about her destina- 
 tion to one who took so little interest in her. 
 He would know that soon enough. " I have 
 heard of an opportunity of getting more culti- 
 vated and finished, and being less idle," she 
 answered, with hesitation. "A chance of a 
 place in a household where I can earn my 
 living, and have advantages of study, and 
 seeing refined life." 
 
 "Then make the best of it, in Heavens 
 name — if you can't get cultivated where you 
 
 are. 
 
 "You don't object?" 
 
 "Object — I? Ho — no! Not at all." 
 After a pause he said, " But you won't have 
 enough money for this lively scheme without
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 27 1 
 
 help, you know ? If you like I should be 
 willing to make you an allowance, so that 
 you be not bound to live upon the starvation 
 wages refined folk are likely to pay 'ee." 
 
 She thanked him for this offer. 
 
 " It had better be done properly," he 
 added, after a pause. " A small annuity is 
 what I should like you to have — so as 
 to be independent of me — and so that I 
 may be independent of you. Would that 
 please ye 1 " 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 " Then I'll see about it this very day." 
 He seemed relieved to get her off his hands 
 by this arrangement, and as far as they were 
 concerned the matter was settled. She now 
 simply waited to see the lady again. 
 
 The day and the hour came ; but a 
 drizzling rain fell. Elizabeth-Jane, having 
 now changed her orbit from one of gay inde- 
 pendence to laborious self-help, thought the 
 weather good enough for such declined glory 
 as hers, if her friend would only face it — a 
 matter of doubt. She went to the boot-room 
 where her pattens had hung ever since her 
 apotheosis ; took them down, had their mil- 
 dewed 'leathers blacked, and put them on as
 
 2^2 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 she had done m old times. Thus mounted, 
 and with cloak and umbrella, she went off 
 to the place of appointment — intending, if 
 the lady were not there, to call at the 
 house. 
 
 One side of the churchyard — the side 
 towards the weather — was sheltered by an 
 ancient thatched mud wall, whose eaves over- 
 hun2r as much as one or two feet. At the 
 back of the wall was a corn-yard with its 
 granary and barns — the place wherein she 
 had met Farfrae many months earlier. Under 
 the projection of the thatch she saw a figure. 
 The young lady had come. 
 
 Her presence so exceptionally substantiated 
 the girl's utmost hopes that she almost feared 
 her good fortune. Fancies find room in the 
 strongest minds. Here, in a churchyard old 
 as civilization, in the worst of w^eathers, was a 
 stranofe woman of curious fascinations never 
 seen elsewhere : there might be some devilry 
 about her presence. However, Ehzabeth 
 went on to the church tower, on whose 
 summit the rope of a flag-staff rattled in the 
 wind ; and thus she came to the wall. 
 
 The lady had such a cheerful aspect in tlie 
 drizzle that Elizabeth forgot her fancy.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 273 
 
 "Well ? " said the lady, a little of tlie white- 
 ness of her teeth appearing with the word 
 through the black fleece that protected her 
 face, " have you decided '? " 
 
 " Yes, quite,'' said the other, eagerly. 
 
 " Your father is willing ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then come along." 
 
 " When, ma am ^ " 
 
 " Now — as soon as you like. I had a good 
 mind to send to you to come to my house, 
 thinking you might not venture up here in 
 the wind. But, as I like getting out of doors, 
 I thought I would come and see first." 
 
 " It was my own thought." 
 
 " That shows we shall agree. Then can 
 you come to-day '? My house is so hollow 
 and dismal that I want some living thing 
 there." 
 
 " I think I might be able to," said the girl, 
 reflecting. 
 
 Voices were borne over to them at that 
 instant on the wind and raindrops from the 
 other side of the wall. TJiere came such 
 words as " sacks," " quarters," " threshing," 
 " tailing," " next Saturday s market," each 
 sentence being disorganized by the gusts 
 
 VOL. T. T
 
 274 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 
 
 like a face in a curved mirror. Both the 
 women Hstened. "Who are those ? " said 
 the lady. 
 
 "One is my father. He rents that yard 
 and barn." 
 
 The lady seemed to forget the immediate 
 business in listening to the technicalities of 
 the corn trade. At last she said suddenly, 
 " Did you tell him where you were going 
 to ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Oh— how was that?" 
 
 " I thought it safer to get away first — as 
 he is so uncertain in his temper." 
 
 " Perhaps you are right Besides, I 
 
 have never told you my name. It is Miss 
 Templeman. .... Are they gone — on the 
 other side ? " 
 
 " No. They have only gone up into the 
 granary." 
 
 "Well, it is getting damp here. I shall 
 expect you to-day — this evening, say, at six." 
 
 "Which way shall I come, ma'am ? " 
 
 " The front way — through the door. There 
 is no other." 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane had been thinking of the 
 door in the alley.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 275 
 
 " Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your 
 destination, you may as well keep silent upon 
 it till you are clear off. Who knows but 
 that he may alter his mind ? " 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane shook her head. *' On con- 
 sideration I don't fear it," she said, sadly. 
 *' He has grown quite cold to me." 
 
 " Very well. Six o'clock then." 
 
 When they had emerged upon the open 
 road and parted they found enough to do in 
 holding their bowed umbrellas to the wind. 
 Nevertheless, the lady looked in at the corn 
 yard gates as she passed them, and paused 
 on one foot for a moment. But nothing was 
 visible there save the ricks, and the hump- 
 backed barn, cushioned with moss, and the 
 granary, rising against the church tower 
 behind, where the smacking of the rope 
 against the flag-staff still went on. 
 
 Now Henchard had not the slio-htest sus- 
 picion that Elizabeth-Jane's movement was 
 to be so prompt. Hence when, just before 
 six, he reached home and sav/- a fly at the 
 door from the Golden Crown, and his 
 stepdaughter, with all her little bags and 
 boxes, getting into it, he was taken by 
 surprise. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 " But you said I might go, father ? " she 
 explained, through the carriage window. 
 
 '' Said ! — yes. But I thought you meant 
 next month, or next year. 'Od, seize it — 
 you take time by the forelock. This, then, 
 is how you be going to treat me for all my 
 trouble about ye ? " 
 
 " Oh, father, how can you speak like 
 that? It is unjust of you! " she said with spirit. 
 
 ''Wei], well, have your own way," he re- 
 plied. He entered the house, and, seeing 
 that all her things had not yet been brought 
 down, went up to her room to look on. He 
 had never been there since she had occupied 
 it. Evidences of her care, of her endeavours 
 for improvement, were visible all around, in 
 the form of books, sketches, maps, and little 
 arrangements for tasteful effects. Henchard 
 had known nothing of these efforts. He gazed 
 at them, turned suddenly about, and came 
 down to the door. 
 
 " Look here," he said, in an altered voice 
 — he never called her by name now — " Don't 
 'ee go away from me. It may be I've spoke 
 roughly to you — but I've been grieved beyond 
 everything by you — there's something that 
 caused it."
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 277 
 
 " By me ? " she said, with deep concern. 
 '' Wheat have I done ^ " 
 
 " I can't tell you now. But if you'll stop, 
 and go on living as my daughter, I'll tell you 
 all in time." 
 
 But the proposal had come ten minutes too 
 late. She was in the fly — was already, in 
 imagination, at the house of the lady whose 
 manner had such charms for her. " Father," 
 she said, as considerately as she could, *' I 
 think it best for us that I go on now. I need 
 not stay long ; I shall not be far away ; and 
 if you want me badly I can soon come back 
 again." 
 
 He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of 
 her decision, and no more. " You are not 
 going far, you say. What will be your 
 address, in case I wish to write to you ? Or 
 am I not to know ? " 
 
 " O yes — certainly. It is only in the town 
 —High Street Hall." 
 
 " Where ? " said Henchard, his face 
 stilling. 
 
 She repeated the words. He neither 
 moved nor s]3oke, and waving her hand to 
 him in utmost friendliness, she signified to 
 the flyman to drive up the street.
 
 278 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 We go back for a moment to the preceding 
 night, to account for Henchard's attitude. 
 
 At the hour when Ehzabeth-Jane was 
 contemplating her stealthy reconnoitring 
 excursion to the abode of the lady of her 
 f'diicj, he had been not a little amazed at 
 receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta's well- 
 known characters. The self-repression, the 
 resignation of her previous communication 
 had vanished from her mood ; she wrote with 
 some of the natural lightness which had 
 marked her in their early acquaintance. 
 
 " High Street Hall. 
 
 " My dear Mk. Henchard, 
 
 " Don't be surprised. It is for your 
 good and mine, as I hope, that I have come 
 to live at Casterbridge — for how long I 
 cannot tell. That depends upon another ; 
 and he is a man, and a merchant, and a 
 Mayor, and one who has the first right to 
 my affections.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 2/9 
 
 " Seriously, mo7i ami, I am not so ligKt- 
 hearted as I may seem to be from this. I 
 have come here in consequence of hearing of 
 the death of your wife — whom you used to 
 think of as dead so many years before ! 
 Poor woman, she seems to have been a 
 sufferer, though uncomplaining, and though 
 weak in intellect not an imbecile. I am 
 glad you acted fairly by her. As soon as 1 
 knew she was no more, it was brought home 
 to me very forcibly by my conscience that I 
 ought to endeavour to disperse the shade 
 which my etourderie flung over my name, by 
 asking you to carry out your promise to me. 
 I hope you are of the same mind, and that 
 you will take steps to this end. As, how- 
 ever, I did not know^ how you were situated, 
 or what had happened since our separation, 
 I decided to come and establish myself here 
 before communicating with you. 
 
 "You probably feel as I do about this. I 
 shall be able to see you in a day or two. 
 Till then, farewell. 
 
 '' Yours, 
 
 " LUCETTA. 
 
 *'P.S. — I was unable to keep my appoint- 
 ment to meet you for a moment or two in
 
 2 8o THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 passing through Casterbridge the other day. 
 My plans were altered by a family event, 
 which it will surprise you to hear of." 
 
 Henchard had already heard that High 
 Street Hall was being prepared for a tenant. 
 He said with a puzzled air to the first person 
 he encountered, " Who is coming to live at 
 the Hall?" 
 
 '' A lady of the name of Templeman, I 
 believe, sir," said his informant. 
 
 Henchard thought it over. " Lucetta is 
 governess or housekeeper there, I suppose," 
 he said to himself. " Yes, I must put her in 
 her proper position, undoubtedly." 
 
 It was by no means with the oppression 
 that would once have accompanied the 
 thought that he regarded the moral neces- 
 sity now ; it was, indeed, with interest, if 
 not warmth. His bitter disappointment at 
 finding Elizabeth- Jane to be none of his, 
 and himself a childless man, had left an 
 emotional void in Henchard that he uncon- 
 sciously craved to fill. In this frame of 
 mind, though without strong feeling, he had 
 strolled up the blind alley and into High 
 Street Hall by the postern at which Eliza-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTEKBRIDGE. 25 1 
 
 betli had so nearly encountered him. He 
 had gone on thence into the court, and 
 inquired of a man whom he saw unpacking 
 china from a crate, if Miss Le Sueur was 
 living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the 
 name under which he had known Lucetta — 
 or " Lucette " as she had called herself at 
 that time. 
 
 The man replied in the negative ; that 
 Miss Templeman only had come. Henchard 
 went away, concluding that Lucetta had not 
 as yet settled in. 
 
 He was in this interested stage of the 
 inquiry when he witnessed Elizabeth-Jane's 
 departure the next day. On hearing her 
 announce the address there suddenly took 
 possession of him the strange thought that 
 Lucetta and Miss Templeman were one and 
 the same person, for he could recall that in 
 her season of intimacy with him the name of 
 the rich relative whom he had deemed some- 
 what a mythical personage had been given 
 as Templeman. Though not a fortune- 
 hunter, the possibility that Lucetta had been 
 sublimed into a lady of means by some 
 munificent testament on the part of this 
 relative lent a charm to her image which it
 
 282 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 might not otherwise have acquired. He was 
 getting on towards the dead level of middle 
 age, when material things increasingly pos- 
 sess the mind. 
 
 But Henchard was not left long in sus- 
 pense. Lucetta vms rather addicted to 
 scribbling, as had been shown by the torrent 
 of letters after the fiasco in their marriage 
 arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth gone 
 away when another note came to the Mayor's 
 house from High Street Hall. 
 
 " I am in residence," she said, " and com- 
 fortable, though getting here has been a 
 wearisome undertaking. You probably know 
 what I am going to tell you, or do you not ? 
 My good Aunt Templeman, the banker's 
 widow, whose very existence you used to 
 doubt, leave alone her affluence, has lately 
 died, and bequeathed some of her property 
 to me. I will not enter into details except 
 to say that I have taken her name — as a 
 means of escape from mine, and its wrongs. 
 
 " I am now my own mistress, and have 
 chosen to settle among the gentilhommerie of 
 Casterbridge — to be tenant of High Street 
 Hall, that at least you may be put to no trouble 
 if you wish to see me. My first intention was
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 283 
 
 to keep you in ignorance of the changes in 
 my hfe till you should meet me by accident ; 
 but I have thouofht better of this. 
 
 "You probably are aware of my arrange- 
 ment with your daughter, and have doubt- 
 less laughed at the — what shall I call it ? — 
 practical joke (in all affection) of my getting 
 her to live with me. But my first meeting 
 with her was purely an accident. Do you see, 
 Michael, partly why I have done it ? — why, 
 to give you an excuse for coming here as if 
 to visit hei% and thus to form my acquaint- 
 ance naturally. She is a dear, good girl, 
 and she thinks you have treated her with 
 undue severity. You may have done so in 
 your haste, but not deliberately, I am sure. 
 As the result has been to bring her to me, 
 I am not disposed to upbraid you. — In haste, 
 yours always, " Lxtcetta." 
 
 The excitement which these announce- 
 ments produced in Henchard's gloomy soul 
 was to him most pleasurable. He sat over 
 his dining-table long and dreamily, and by an 
 almost mechanical transfer the sentiments 
 which had run to waste since his estrange- 
 ment from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald
 
 284 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Farfrae gathered around Lucetta before they 
 had grown dry. She was plainly in a very 
 coming-on disposition for marriage. But 
 what else could a poor woman be who had 
 given her time and attention to him so 
 thoughtlessly, at that former time, as to lose 
 her credit by it ? Probably conscience no less 
 than affection had brought her here. On the 
 whole he did not blame her. 
 
 "The artful little woman ! " he said, smil- 
 ing (with reference to Lucetta's adroit and 
 pleasant manoeuvre with Elizabeth -Jane). 
 
 To feel that he would like to see Lucetta 
 was with Henchard to start for her house. 
 He put on his hat and went. It was between 
 eight and nine o'clock when he reached her 
 door. The answer brought him was that 
 Miss Tem pieman was engaged for that 
 evening ; but that she would be happy to 
 see him the next day. 
 
 " That's rather like giving herself airs ! " 
 he thought. But, after all, she plainly had 
 not expected him, and he took the refusal 
 quietly. Nevertheless, he resolved not to go 
 next day. *' These cursed women — there's 
 not an inch of straight grain in 'em ! " he 
 said.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 285 
 
 Let US follow the track of Mr. Hencliard's 
 thought as if it were a clue line, and view 
 the interior of High Street Hall on this 
 particular evening. 
 
 On Elizaheth- Jane's arrival she had been 
 phlegmaticallj asked by an elderly woman to 
 go upstairs and take off her things. She had 
 replied with great earnestness that she would 
 not think of giving that trouble, and on the 
 instant divested herself of her bonnet and 
 cloak in the passage. She was then con- 
 ducted to the first door on the landing, and 
 left to find her way further alone. 
 
 The room disclosed was prettily furnished 
 as a boudoir or small drawing-room, and on a 
 sofa with two cylindrical pillows reclined a 
 dark-haired, large-eyed, pretty woman, of 
 unmistakably French extraction on one side 
 or the other. She was probably somewhat 
 older than Elizabeth, and had a sparkling- 
 light in her eye. In front of the sofa was a 
 small table, Avith a pack of cards scattered 
 upon it faces upward. 
 
 The attitude had been so fall of abandon- 
 ment that she bounded up like a spring on 
 hearing the door open. 
 
 Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed
 
 2 86 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 into ease, and came across to her with a reck- 
 less skip that innate grace only prevented 
 from being boisterous. 
 
 "Why, you are late," she said, taking hold 
 of Elizabeth -Jane's hands. 
 
 " There were so many little things to 
 put up." 
 
 " And you seem dead-alive and tired. Let 
 me try to enliven you by some wonderful 
 tricks I have learnt, to kill time. Sit there 
 and don't move." She gathered up the pack 
 of cards, pulled the table in front of her, and 
 began to deal them rapidly, telling Elizabeth 
 to choose some. 
 
 " Well, have you chosen ? " she asked, 
 flinging down the last card. 
 
 " No," stammered Elizabeth, arousing her- 
 self from a reverie. "I quite forgot, I was 
 thinking of — yoa, and me — and how strange 
 it is that I am here." 
 
 Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane 
 with interest, and laid down the cards. 
 " Ah ! you are another sort than that," she 
 said. " I'll lie here while you sit by me ; and 
 we'll talk." 
 
 Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of 
 the sofa, but with obvious pleasure. It could
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 287 
 
 be seen that in years she was rather younger 
 than her entertainer, while in manner and 
 general vision she seemed more of the sage. 
 Miss Templeman deposited herself on the 
 sofa in her former flexuons position, and 
 throwing her arm above her brow — somewhat 
 in the pose of a well-known conception of 
 Titian's — talked up at Elizabeth -Jane in- 
 vertedly across her forehead and arm. 
 
 " I must tell you something," she said. 
 '' I wonder if you have suspected it. I have 
 only been mistress of a large house and 
 fortune a little while." 
 
 '' Oh ! only a little while ? " murmured 
 Elizabeth-Jane, her countenance slightly 
 falling. 
 
 '^ As a girl I lived about in garrison-towns 
 and elsewhere with my father, till I was quite 
 flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in 
 the army. I should not have mentioned this 
 had I not thought it best you should know 
 the truth." 
 
 "Yes, yes." She looked thoughtfully 
 round the room — at the little square piano 
 with brass inlayings, at the window-curtains, 
 at the lamp, at the fair and dark kings and 
 queens on the card-table, and finally at the
 
 288 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 inverted face of Lucetta Templeman, whose 
 large lustrous eyes had such an odd effect 
 upside down. 
 
 Elizabeth's mind ran on acquirements to an 
 almost morbid degree. *' You speak French 
 and Italian fluently, no doubt," she said. 
 " I have not been able to get beyond a 
 wretched bit of Latin yet." 
 
 " Well, for that matter, in my native isle 
 speaking French does not go for much. It is 
 rather the other way." 
 
 " Where is your native isle ? " 
 
 It was with rather more reluctance that 
 Miss Templeman said, " Jersey. There they 
 speak French on one side of the street and 
 English on the other, and a mixed tongue in 
 the middle of the road. But it is a long 
 time since I was there. Bath is where my 
 people really belong to, though my ancestors 
 in Jersey were as good as anybody in Eng- 
 land. They were the Le Sueurs, an old 
 family who have done great things in their 
 time. I went back and lived there after my 
 father's death. But I don't value such past 
 matters, and am quite an English person in 
 my feelings and tastes." 
 
 Lucetta's tongue had for a moment outrun
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 289 
 
 her discretion. She had arrived at Caster- 
 bridge as a Bath lady, and. there were 
 obvious reasons why Jersey should drop out 
 of her life. But Elizabeth had tempted her 
 to make free, and a deliberately-formed 
 resolve had been broken. 
 
 It could not, however, have been broken in 
 safer company. Lucetta's words went no 
 further, and after this day she was so much 
 upon her guard that there appeared no chance 
 of her identification with the young Jersey 
 woman who had been Henchard's attached 
 comrade at a critical time. Not the least 
 amusing of her safeguards was her resolute 
 avoidance of a French word, if one by accident 
 came to her tongue more readily than its 
 English equivalent. She shirked it with the 
 suddenness of the weak Apostle at the accu- 
 sation, " Thy speech bewrayeth thee ! " 
 
 Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the 
 next morning. She dressed herself for Mr. 
 Henchard, and restlessly awaited his call 
 before mid-day ; as he did not come she 
 waited on through the afternoon. But she 
 did not tell Elizabeth that the person expected 
 was her stepfather. 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 2 90 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 They sat in adjoining windows of the same 
 room in Lucetta's great stone mansion, net- 
 ting, and looking out upon the market, which 
 formed an animated scene. Ehzabeth could 
 see the crown of her stepfather's hat among 
 the rest beneath, and was not aware that 
 Lucetta watched the same object with yet 
 intenser interest. He moved about amid the 
 throng, at this point lively as an ant-hill ; 
 elsewhere more reposeful, and broken up by 
 stalls of fruit and vegetables. The farmers as 
 a rule preferred the open carrefour for their 
 transactions, despite its inconvenient jostlings 
 and the danger from crossing vehicles, to the 
 gloomy sheltered market-room provided for 
 them. Here they surged on this one day of 
 the week, forming a little world of leggings, 
 switches, and sample-bags ; men of extensive 
 stomachs, sloping like mountain sides ; men 
 whose heads in walking swayed as the trees 
 in November gales ; who in conversing varied 
 their attitudes much, lowering themselves by 
 spreading their knees, and thrusting their 
 hands into the pockets of remote inner jackets. 
 Their faces radiated tropical warmth ; for 
 though when at home their countenances 
 varied with the seasons, their market-faces
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 29 1 
 
 all tlie year round were glowing little 
 fires. 
 
 All over- clothes here were worn as if they 
 were an inconvenience, a hampering necessity. 
 Some men were well-dressed ; but the majority 
 were careless in that respect, appearing in 
 suits which were historical records of their 
 wearer's deeds, sun-scorchings, and daily 
 struggles for many years past. Yet they 
 carried ruffled cheque-books in their pockets 
 which regulated at the bank hard by a balance 
 of never less less than four figures. In fact, 
 what these gibbous human shapes specially 
 represented was ready money — money insis- 
 tently ready — not ready next year like a 
 nobleman's — often not merely ready at the 
 bank like a professional man's, but ready in 
 their large plump hands. 
 
 It happened that to-day there rose in the 
 midst of them all two or three tall apple-trees 
 standing as if they grew on the spot ; till it 
 w^as perceived that they were held by men 
 from the cider-districts who came here to sell 
 them, bringing the clay of their county on 
 their boots. Elizabeth-Jane, who had often 
 observed them, said, " I wonder if the same 
 trees come every week ? " 
 
 u 2
 
 292 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 " What trees ? " said Lucetta, absorbed in 
 watcliing for Hen chard. 
 
 Elizabeth replied vaguely, for an incident 
 checked her. Behind one of the trees stood 
 Farfrae, briskly discussing a sample-bag with 
 a farmer. Henchard had come up, accidentally 
 encountering the young man, whose face 
 seemed to inquire, " Do we speak together ? " 
 
 She saw her stepfather throw a shine into 
 his eye, which answered " No ! " Elizabeth- 
 Jane sighed. 
 
 "Are you particularly interested in any- 
 body out there ? " said Lucetta. 
 
 *' Oh no," said her companion, a quick red 
 shooting over her face. 
 
 Luckily Farfrae's figure was immediately 
 covered by the apple-tree. 
 
 Lucetta looked hard at her. " Quite sure ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Elizabeth- Jane. 
 
 Again Lucetta looked out. " They are all 
 farmers, I suppose ? " she said. 
 
 " No. There's Mr. Bulge ; he's a wine 
 merchant : there's Benjamin Brownlet — a 
 horse-dealer ; and Kitson, the pig-breeder ; 
 and Yopper, the auctioneer ; besides maltsters, 
 and millers — and so on." Farfrae stood out
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 293 
 
 quite distinctly now ; but she .did not men- 
 tion him. 
 
 The Saturday afternoon sHpped on thus 
 desultorily. The market changed from the 
 sample-showing hour to the idle hour before 
 starting homew^ards, when tales were told. 
 Henchard had not called on Lucetta, though 
 he had stood so near. He must have been 
 too busy, she thought. He would come on 
 Sunday or Monday. 
 
 The days came, but not the visitor, though 
 Lucetta repeated her dressing with scrupulous 
 care. She was disheartened. It may at once 
 be declared that Lucetta no longer bore 
 towards Henchard all that warm allegiance 
 which had characterized her in their first 
 acquaintance ; the then unfortunate issue of 
 things had chilled pure love considerably. 
 But there remained a conscientious wish to 
 bring about her union with him, now that 
 there was nothing to hinder it — to right her 
 position — which in itself was a happiness to 
 siofh for. "With strons^ social reasons on her 
 side why their marriage should take place, 
 there had ceased to be any worldly reason on 
 his why it should be postponed, since she had 
 succeeded to comparative fortune.
 
 294 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair. At 
 breakfast she said to Elizabeth-Jane quite 
 coolly : " I imagine your father may call to 
 see you to-day ? I suppose he stands close by 
 in the market-place, with the rest of the 
 corndealers ? " 
 
 She shook her head. ^' He won't come." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " He has taken against me," she said in a 
 husky voice. 
 
 " You have quarrelled more deeply than I 
 know of" 
 
 Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she 
 believed to be her father from any charge of 
 unnatural dislike, said " Yes." 
 
 " Then where you are is, of all places, the 
 one he will avoid ? " 
 
 Elizabeth nodded sadly. 
 
 Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her 
 lyvely eyebrows and lip, and burst into 
 hysterical sobs. Here was a contretemps — 
 her ingenious scheme completely stul- 
 tified ! 
 
 " Oh, my dear Miss Templeman — what's 
 the matter ? " cried her companion. 
 
 " I like your company much," said Lucetta, 
 as soon as she could speak.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 295 
 
 " Yes, yes — and so do I yours I " Elizabeth 
 chimed in soothingly. 
 
 " But— but " She could not finish the 
 
 sentence, which was, naturally, that if Hen- 
 chard had such a rooted dislike for the girl as 
 now seemed to be the case, Elizabeth -Jane 
 would have to be got rid of — a disagreeable 
 necessity. 
 
 A provisional resource suggested itself. 
 '* Miss Henchard— will you go on an errand 
 for me as soon as breakfast is over? — Ah, 
 that's very good of you. Will you go and 
 
 order " Here she enumerated several 
 
 commissions at sundry shops, which would 
 occupy Elizabeth's time for the next hour 
 or two, at least. 
 
 " And have you ever seen the Museum ? " 
 
 Elizabeth- Jane had not. 
 
 *' Then you should do so at once. You can 
 finish the morning by going there. Tt is an 
 old house in a back street — I forget where — 
 but you'll find out — and there are crowds of 
 interesting things — skeletons, teeth, old pots 
 and pans, ancient boots and shoes, birds' eggs 
 — all charmingly instructive. You'll be sure 
 to stay till you get quite hungry." 
 
 Elizabeth hastily put on her things and de-
 
 2g6 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 parted. " I wonder why she wants to get rid 
 of me to-day ! " she said sorrowfully, as she 
 went. That her absence, rather than her ser- 
 vices or instruction, was in request, had been 
 readily apparent to Elizabeth- Jane, simple as 
 she seemed, and difficult as it was to attribute 
 a motive for the desire. 
 
 She had not been gone ten minutes when one 
 of Lucetta's servants was sent to Henchard's 
 with a note. The contents were briefly : — 
 
 '' Dear Michael, — 
 
 " You will be standing close to my house 
 to-day for two or three hours in the course of 
 your business, so do please call and see me. 
 I am sadly disappointed that you have not 
 come before, for can I help anxiety about my 
 own equivocal relation to you ? — especially 
 now my aunt's fortune has brought me more 
 prominently before society. Your daughter's 
 presence here may be the cause of your 
 neglect ; and I have therefore sent her away 
 for the morning. Say you come on business 
 — I shall be quite alone. 
 
 " LUCETTA." 
 
 "When the messenger returned, her mistress 
 gave directions that if a gentleman called he
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 297 
 
 was to be admitted at once, and sat down to 
 await results. 
 
 Sentimentally she did not much care to see 
 him — his delays had wearied her ; but it was 
 necessary ; and with a sigh she arranged her- 
 self picturesquely in the chair ; first this way, 
 then that ; next so that the light fell over her 
 head. Next she flung herself on the couch in 
 the cyma-recta curve which so became her, 
 and, with her arm over her head, looked 
 towards the door. This, she decided, was 
 the best position after all ; and thus she re- 
 mained till a man's step was heard on the 
 stairs. Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her 
 curve (for Nature was too strong for Art as 
 yet), jumped up, and ran and hid herself 
 behind one of the window-curtains in a freak 
 of timidity. In spite of the waning of pas- 
 sion the situation was an agitating one — she 
 had not seen Henchard since his (supposed) 
 temporary parting from her in Jersey. 
 
 She could hear the servant showing the 
 visitor into tlie room, shutting the door upon 
 him, and leaving as if to go and look for her 
 mistress. Lucetta fluno^ back the curtain 
 with a nervous greeting. The man before her 
 was not Henchard.
 
 298 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A CONJECTURE that her visitor might be 
 some other person had. indeed, flashed through 
 Lucetta's mind when she was on the point of 
 bursting out ; but it was just too late to 
 recede. 
 
 He was years younger than the Mayor of 
 Casterbridge ; fair, fresh, and slenderly hand- 
 some. He wore genteel cloth leggings with 
 white buttons, polished boots with infinite lace 
 holes, light cord breeches, and black velveteen 
 coat and waistcoat ; and he had a silver-topped 
 switch in his hand. Lucetta blushed, and said 
 with a curious mixture of pout and laugh on 
 her face — " Oh, I've made a mistake 1 " 
 
 The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh 
 half a wrinkle. " But I'm very sorry ! " he 
 said, in deprecating tones. " I came and I 
 inquired for Miss Henchard, and they showed 
 me up here, and at no hand would I have 
 caught ye so unmannerly if I had known ! " 
 
 " I was the unmannerly one," said she.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 299 
 
 '' But is it tliat I have come to the wrong 
 house, madam ? " said Mr. Farfrae, bhnking a 
 little in his bewilderment, and nervously tap- 
 ping his legging with his switch. 
 
 " Oh no, sir — sit down. You must come 
 and sit down now you are here," replied 
 Lucetta, kindly, to relieve his embarrass- 
 ment. " Miss Henchard will be here di- 
 rectly." 
 
 Now this was not strictly true ; but that 
 something about the young man — that Hyper- 
 borean crispness, constringency, and charm, 
 as of a well-braced musical instrument, which 
 had awakened the interest of Henchard, and 
 of Elizabeth-Jane, and of the King of Prus- 
 sia's jo vial crew, at sight, made his unexpected 
 presence here attractive to Lucetta. He hesi- 
 tated, looked at the chair, thought there was 
 no danger in it (though there was), and sat 
 down. 
 
 Farfrae's presence here was simply the 
 result of Henchard's permission to him to see 
 Elizabeth, if he were minded to woo her. At 
 first he had taken no notice of Henchard's 
 brusque letter ; but an exceptionally fortunate 
 business transaction put him on good terms 
 with everybody, and revealed to him that he
 
 300 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 coulcl undeniably marry if he chose. Then 
 who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in 
 every way as Elizabeth-Jane ? Apart from 
 her personal recommenda-tions, a reconciliation 
 T^'ith his former friend Henchard would, in 
 the natural course of things, flow from such a 
 union. He therefore forgave the Mayor his 
 curtness ; and this morning on his w^ay to the 
 fair he had called at her house, where ho 
 learnt that she was staying at Miss Temple- 
 man's. A little stimulated at not finding her 
 ready and waiting — so fanciful are men — he 
 hastened on to High Street Hall, to encounter 
 no Elizabeth, but its mistress herself. 
 
 " The fair to-day seems a large one," she 
 said, when, by a natural deviation, their 
 eyes sought the busy scene without. "Your 
 numerous fiirs and markets keep me in- 
 terested. How many things I think of while 
 I watch from here ! " 
 
 He seemed in doubt how to answer, and 
 the babble without reached them as they sat 
 — voices as of w^avelets on a lopping sea, one 
 ever and anon rising above the rest. " Do 
 you look out often ? " he asked. 
 
 "Yes — very often." 
 
 " Do you look for any one you know ? "
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 3OI 
 
 Why should she have answered as she did ^ 
 "I look as at a picture merely. But," she 
 went on, turning pleasantly to him, " I may 
 do so now — I may look for you. You are 
 always there, are you not ? Ah — I don't 
 mean it seriously ! But it is amusing to look 
 for somebody one knows in a crowd, even if 
 one does not want him. It takes off the 
 terrible oppressiveness of being surrounded 
 by a throng, and having no point of junction 
 with it through a single individual." 
 
 " Ah ! Maybe you'll be very lonely, 
 ma am ^ 
 
 "Nobody knows how lonely." 
 
 " But you are rich, they say ? " 
 
 " If so I don't know how to enjoy my 
 riches. I came to Casterbrido^e thinkino- I 
 should like to live here. But I wonder if I 
 shall." 
 
 " Where did ye come from, ma'am ? " 
 
 '' The neighbourhood of Bath." 
 
 '' And I from near Edinboro', ' he mur- 
 mured. '' It's better to stay at home, and 
 that's true ; but a man must live where his 
 money is made. It is a great pity, but it's 
 even so ! Yet I've done very well this year. 
 Oh, yes," he went on with ingenuous en-
 
 302 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 thusiasm. " You see tliat man with the drab 
 kerseymere coat ? I bought largely of him in 
 the autumn when wheat was down, and then 
 afterwards when it rose a little I sold off all I 
 had. It brought only a small profit to me ; 
 while the farmers kept theirs, expecting 
 higher figures, yes, though the rats were 
 gnawing the ricks hollow. Just when I sold 
 the markets went lower, and I bought up 
 the corn of those who had been holding back, 
 at less price than my first purchases. And 
 then," cried Farfrae, impetuously, his face 
 alight, " I sold it a few weeks after when it 
 happened to go up again ! And so, by con- 
 tenting myself with small profits frequently 
 repeated I soon made five hundred pounds— 
 yes ! " — (bringing down his hand upon the 
 table, and quite forgetting where he was) — 
 " while the others by keeping theirs in hand 
 made nothing at all ! " 
 
 Lucetta regarded him with a critical 
 interest. He was quite a new type of person 
 to her. At last his eye fell upon the lady's, 
 and their glances met. 
 
 " Ah, now, I'm wearying you ! " he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 She said, " No, indeed," colouring a shade.
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 303 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " Quite otherwise. You are most interest- 
 
 ing." 
 
 It was now Farfrae who showed the modest 
 pink. 
 
 " I mean all you Scotchmen," she added in 
 hasty correction. " So free from Southern 
 extremes. We common people are all one 
 way or the other — warm or cold, passionate or 
 frigid. You have both temperatures going on 
 in you at the same time." 
 
 "But how do you mean that? Ye were 
 best to explain clearly, ma'am." 
 
 "You are animated — then you are think- 
 ing of getting on. You are sad the next 
 moment — then you are thinking of Scotland 
 and friends." 
 
 " Yes. I think of home sometimes ! " he 
 said, simply. 
 
 "So do I — as far as I can. But it was an 
 old house where I was born, and they pulled 
 it down for improvements, so. I seem hardly 
 to have any home to think of now." 
 
 Lucetta did not add, as she might have 
 done, that the house was in St. Holier, and 
 not in Bath. 
 
 " But the mountains and the mists and the
 
 304 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 rocks, they are there ! And don't they seem 
 hke home ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " They do to me — they do to me," he mur- 
 mured. And his mind could be seen flying 
 away northwards. Whether its origin were 
 national or personal, it was quite true what 
 Lucetta had said, that the curious double 
 strands in Farfrae's thread of life — the com- 
 mercial and the romantic — were very distinct 
 at times. Like the colours in a variegated 
 cord those contrasts could be seen inter- 
 twisted, yet not mingling. 
 
 *'You are wishing you were back again," 
 said she. 
 
 "Ah, no, ma'am," said Farfrae, suddenly re- 
 calling himself 
 
 The fair without the windows was now 
 raging thick and loud. It was the chief 
 hiring fair of the year, and differed quite 
 from the market of a few days earlier. In 
 substance it was a whitey-brown crowd 
 flecked with white — this being the body of 
 labourers waiting for places. The wing- 
 bonnets of women like waggon-tilts, their 
 cotton gowns and checked shawls, mixed 
 with the carters' smockfrocks ; for they, too,
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 305 
 
 entered into the hiring. Among the rest, at 
 the corner of the pavement, stood an old 
 shepherd, who attracted the eyes of Lucetta 
 and Farfrae by his stillness. He was evidently 
 a chastened man. The battle of life had been 
 a sharp one with him, for, to begin with, 
 he was a man of small frame. He was now so 
 bowed b}^ hard work and years that., ap- 
 proaching from behind, a person could hardly 
 see his head. He had planted the stem of his 
 crook in the gutter and was resting upon the 
 bow, which was polished to silver brightness 
 by the long friction of his hands. He had 
 quite forgotten where he was, and what he 
 had come for, his eyes being bent on the 
 ground. A little way off negotiations were 
 proceeding which had reference to him ; but 
 he did not hear them, and there seemed to be 
 passing through his mind pleasant visions 
 of the hiring successes of his prime, when his 
 skill laid open to him any farm for the 
 asking. 
 
 The negotiations were between a farmer 
 from a distant county and the old man's son. 
 In these there was a difficulty. The farmer 
 would not take the crust without the crumb 
 of the bargain, in other words, the old man 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 without the younger ; and the son had a 
 sweetheart on his present farm, who stood by, 
 waiting the issue with pale hps. 
 
 " I'm sorry to leave ye, Nelly," said the 
 young man with emotion. " But, you see, 
 I can't starve father, and he's out o' work at 
 Lady-day. 'Tis only seventy mile." 
 
 The girl's lips quivered. " Seventy mile ! ' 
 she murmured. ''Ah! 'tis enough! I shall 
 never see 'ee again ! " It was, indeed, a 
 hopeless length of traction for Dan Cupid's 
 magnet ; for young men were young men at 
 Casterbridge as elsewhere. 
 
 " Oh ! no, no — I never shall," she insisted, 
 when he pressed her hand ; and she turned 
 her face to Lucetta's wall to hide her weeping. 
 The farmer said he would give the young- 
 man half-an-hour for his answer, and went 
 away, leaving the group sorrowing. 
 
 Lucetta's eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae's. 
 His, too, to her surprise, were moist at the 
 scene. 
 
 "It is very hard," she said with strong- 
 feeling. " Lovers ought not to be parted like 
 that ! Oh, if I had my wish I'd let people 
 live and love at their pleasure ! " 
 
 " Maybe I can manage that they'll not be
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 307 
 
 parted/' said Farfrae. " I want a young 
 carter ; and perhaps I'll take the old man 
 too — yes ; he'll not be very expensive, 
 and doubtless he will answer me parrpose 
 somehow." 
 
 " Oh, you are so good ! " she cried delighted. 
 " Go and tell them, and let me know if you 
 have succeeded." 
 
 Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to 
 the group. The eyes of all brightened ; the 
 bargain was soon struck. Farfrae returned 
 to her immediately it was concluded. 
 
 " It is kind-hearted of you, indeed," said 
 Lucetta. " For my part, I have resolved that 
 all my servants shall have lovers if they want 
 them. Do you make the same resolve ? " 
 
 Farfrae looked more serious, waving his 
 head a half- turn. " I must be a little stricter 
 than that," he said. 
 " Why '? " 
 "You are a — a thriving lady ; and I am a 
 struggling hay-and-corn merchant." 
 '' I am a very unambitious lady." 
 " Ah well, I cannot explain. I don't know 
 how to talk to ladies, ambitious or no ; and 
 that's true," said Donald with grave regret. 
 " I try to be civil to a' folk — no more ! " 
 
 X 2
 
 308 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 "I see you are as you say," replied she, 
 sensibly getting the upper hand in these 
 exchanges of sentiment. Under this revela- 
 tion of insight Farfrae again looked out of 
 the window into the thick of the fair. 
 
 Tm^o farmers met and shook hands, and 
 being quite near the window their remarks 
 could be heard as others' had been. 
 
 " Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this 
 morning ? " asked one. '' He promised to 
 meet me here at the stroke of twelve ; but 
 I've gone athwart and about the fair half-a- 
 dozen times, and never a sign of him : though 
 he's mostly a man to his word." 
 
 " I quite forgot the engagement," murmured 
 Farfrae. 
 
 " Now you must go," said she ; '* must you 
 not ? " 
 
 " Yes," he replied. Bat he still remained. 
 
 " You had better go," she urged. " You 
 Avill lose a customer." 
 
 " Now, Miss Tem pieman, you will make me 
 angry," exclaimed Farfrae. 
 
 '' Then suppose you don't go ; but stay a 
 little longer ? " 
 
 He looked anxiously at the farmer who 
 was seeking him, and who just then ominously
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 309 
 
 walked across to where Henchard was stand- 
 ing, and he looked into the room and at her. 
 " I Hke staying ; but I fear I must go ! '' 
 he said. " Business ought not to be neglected, 
 ought it ? " 
 
 " Not for a single minute." 
 
 "It's true. I'll come another time — if I 
 may, ma'am ? " 
 
 " Certainly," she said. '' What has hap- 
 pened to us to-day is very curious." 
 
 " Something to think over when we are 
 alone^ it's like to be." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know that. It is commonplace 
 after all." 
 
 '' No, miss ; I'll not say that. Oh, no ! " 
 
 " Well, whatever it has been, it is now 
 over ; and the market calls you to he 
 gone." 
 
 " Yes, yes. Market — business I I wish there 
 were no business in the warrld." 
 
 Lucetta almost laughed — she wo aid quite 
 have laughed — but that there was a little 
 emotion going in her at the time. " How 
 you change ! " she said. " You should not 
 change like this." 
 
 '' I have never wished such things before," 
 said the Scotchman, with a simple, shamed,
 
 310 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 apologetic look for his weakness. ''It is only 
 since coming here, and seeing you." 
 
 '' If that's the case you had better not look 
 at me any longer. Dear me, I feel I have 
 quite demoralized you I " 
 
 ''But look or look not, I will see you in 
 my thoughts. Well, I'll go — thank you for 
 the pleasure of this visit." 
 
 " Thank you for staying." 
 
 "Maybe I'll get into my market-mind 
 when I've been out a few minutes," he mur- 
 mured. " But I don't know — I don't know!" 
 
 As he went she said eagerly, " You may 
 hear them speak of me in Casterbridge as 
 time goes on. If they tell you I'm a 
 coquette, which some may, because of the 
 incidents of my life, don't believe it, for I 
 am not." ♦ 
 
 " I swear I will not ! " he said, fervidly. 
 
 Thus the two. She had enkindled the 
 young man's enthusiasm till he was quite 
 brimming with sentiment, while he, from 
 merely affording her a new form of idleness, 
 had gone on to wake her serious solicitude. 
 Why was this ? They could not have told. 
 
 Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have 
 looked at a tradesman. But her ups-and-
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 3 I I 
 
 downs, capped by lier indiscretions in relation 
 to Henchard, had made lier uncritical as to 
 station. In iier poverty she had met with 
 repulse from the society to which she had 
 belonged, and she had no great zest for 
 renewing an attempt upon it now. Her 
 heart longed for some ark into which it could 
 fly and be at rest. Rough or smooth she did 
 not care, so long as it was warm. 
 
 Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely 
 escaped him that he had called to see Eliza- 
 beth. Lucetta at the window watched him 
 threading the maze of farmers and farmers* 
 men. She could see by his gait that he was 
 conscious of her eyes, and her heart went 
 out to him for his modesty — pleaded with 
 her sense of his unfitness that he might 
 be allowed to come again. He entered the 
 market-house, and she could see him no more. 
 
 Three minutes later, when she had left the 
 window, a knock, not of multitude but of 
 strength, sounded through the house, and the 
 waiting-maid tripped up. 
 
 " Mr. Henchard," she said. 
 
 Lucetta had reclined herself, and was 
 looking dreamily through her fingers. She 
 did not answer at once, and the maid
 
 312 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. 
 
 repeated the information with the addition, 
 "And he's afraid he hasn't much time to 
 spare, he says." 
 
 '' Oh ! Then tell him that as I have a 
 headache I won't detain him to-day." 
 
 The message was taken down, and she 
 heard the door close. 
 
 Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to 
 quicken Henchard's feelings with regard to 
 her. She had quickened them, and now she 
 was indifferent to the achievement. 
 
 Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as 
 a disturbing element changed, and she no 
 longer felt strongly the necessity of getting 
 rid of the girl for her stepfather's sake. 
 When the young woman came in, sweetly 
 unconscious of the turn in the tide, Lucetta 
 went up to her, and said quite sincerely : 
 
 " I'm so glad you've come. You'll live 
 with me a long time, won't you ? " 
 
 Elizabeth as a watch-dog to kee23 her 
 father off — what a new idea. Yet it was not 
 unpleasing. Henchard had neglected her all 
 these days, after compromising her indescrib- 
 ably in the past. The least he could have 
 done when he found himself free, and herself
 
 THE MAYOR OF CASTERB RIDGE. 
 
 J ^ J 
 
 affluent, would have been to respond heartily 
 and promptly to her mvitation. 
 
 Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled 
 her with wild surmise at their suddenness ; 
 and so passed Lucetta's experience, of that 
 day. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BY BALKAN TVNR, HANSON AND Ca 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH
 
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