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 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/undergreenwoodtr01hard 
 
UNDER 
 
 THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
UNDER THE 
 
 GREENWOOD TREE 
 
 §lwral ^amting oi ih ^wtrj^ S^Ij00L 
 
 BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' DESPERATE REMEDIES.' 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST. STRAND. 
 
 1872. 
 [All rights reserved.] 
 
LONDON : 
 ROBSON AND SONS, PBINTEJ^, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. 
 
I> fl^ i 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 Part I. Wimht. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 
 
 PAGa 
 
 I. Mellstock-lane . . , . .3 
 
 II. The Tranter's .... 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 III. The assembled Choir 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 IV. Going the Eounds . 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 V. The Listeners . 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 VI. Christmas Morning : 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 VII. The Tranter's Party 
 
 
 
 86 
 
 VIII. They dance more wildly . 
 
 
 
 104 
 
 IX. Dick calls at the School . 
 
 
 
 . 126 
 
 Part II. spring. 
 
 I. Passing by the School 
 II. A Meeting of the Choir . 
 in. A Turn in the Discussion 
 IV. The Interview with the Vicar 
 V. Eeturning Homeward 
 
 VI. Yalbury Wood and the Keeper's House . 192 
 
 135 
 137 
 149 
 160 
 185 
 
PAET I. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 MELLSTOCK-LANE. 
 
 To dwellers in a wood, almost every species 
 of tree has its voice as well as its feature. 
 At tlie passing of tlie breeze, the fir-trees 
 sob and moan no less distinctly than they 
 rock ; the holly whistles as it battles with 
 itself ; the ash hisses amid its quiverings ; 
 the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise 
 and fall. And winter, which modifies the 
 note of such trees as shed their leaves, does 
 not destroy its individuality. 
 
 On a cold and starry Christmas-eve less 
 than a generation ago, a man was passing 
 along a lane in the darkness of a plantation 
 
4 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. _ 
 
 that whispered thus distinctively to his in- 
 telliofence. All the evidences of his nature 
 were those afforded by the spirit of his foot- 
 steps, which succeeded each other lightly 
 and quickly, and by the liveliness of his 
 voice as he sang in a rural cadence : 
 
 * With the rose and the lily 
 And the daffodowndilly, 
 The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go.' 
 
 The lonely lane he was following con- 
 nected the hamlets of Mellstock and Lew- 
 gate, and to his eyes, casually glancing up- 
 ward, the silver and black-stemmed birches 
 with their characteristic tufts, the pale gray 
 boughs of oak, the dark-creviced elm, all 
 appeared now as black and flat outlines 
 upon the sky, wherein the white stars 
 twmkled so vehemently that their flickering 
 seemed like the flapping of wings. Within 
 the woody pass, at a level anything lower 
 than the horizon, all was dark as the grave. 
 
MELLSTOCK-LANE. 
 
 The copsewood forming the sides of the 
 bower interlaced its branches so densely, 
 even at this season of the year, that the 
 draught from the north-east flew along the 
 channel with scarcely an interruption from 
 lateral breezes. 
 
 At the termination of the wood, the 
 white surface of the lane revealed itself be- 
 tween the dark hedgerows, like a ribbon 
 jagged at the edges ; the irregularity being 
 caused by temporary accumulations of leaves 
 extending from the ditch on either side. 
 
 The song (many times interrupted by 
 flitting thoughts which took the place of 
 several bars, and resumed at a point it 
 would have reached had its continuity been 
 unbroken) now received a more palpable 
 check, in the shape of ' Ho-i-i-i-i-i !' from the 
 dark part of the lane in the rear of the 
 singer, who had just emerged from the trees. 
 
 ' Ho-i-i-i-i-i !' he answered with uncon' 
 
6 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 cern, stopping and looking round, though 
 with no idea of seeing anything more than 
 imagination pictured. 
 
 ' Is that thee, young Dick Dewy ?' came 
 from the darkness. 
 
 'Ay, sure, Michael Mail !' 
 
 ' Then why not stop for fellow-craters — 
 going to thy own father's house too, as we 
 be, and knowen us so well ?' 
 
 Young Dick Dewy faced about and con- 
 tinued his tune in an under-whistle, imply- 
 ing that the business of his mouth could 
 not be checked at a moment's notice by the 
 placid emotion of friendship. 
 
 Having escaped both trees and hedge, 
 he could now be distinctly seen rising 
 against the sky, his profile appearing on the 
 light background like the portrait of a 
 gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed 
 the form of a low-crowned hat, an ordi- 
 nary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an ordi- 
 
MELLSTOCK-LANE. 
 
 nary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he 
 consisted of farther down was invisible from 
 lack of sky low enough to picture him on. 
 
 Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of 
 various kinds were now heard, coming up 
 the hill from the dark interior of the grove, 
 and presently there emerged severally five 
 men of different ages and gaits, all of them 
 working villagers of the parish of Mellstock. 
 They too had lost their rotundity with the 
 daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat 
 outlines, like some procession in Assyrian or 
 Egyptian incised work. They represented 
 the chief portion of Mellstock parish choir. 
 
 The first w^as a bowed and bent man, 
 who carried a fiddle under his arm, and 
 walked as if engaged in studying some sub- 
 ject connected with the surface of the road. 
 He was Michael Mail, the man who had 
 hallooed to Dick. 
 
 The next was Mr. Eobert Penny, boot- 
 
8 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 and shoe -maker, a little man, who though 
 rather round-shouldered, walked as if that 
 fact had not come to his own knowledge, 
 moving on with his back very hollow and 
 his face fixed on the north quarter of the 
 heavens before him, so that his lower waist- 
 coat-buttons came first, and then the re- 
 mainder of his figure. His features were 
 invisible, yet when he occasionally looked 
 round, two faint moons of light gleamed 
 for an instant from the precincts of his eyes, 
 denoting that he wore spectacles of a circu- 
 lar form. 
 
 The third was Elias Spinks, who walked 
 perpendicular^ and dramatically. The 
 fourth outline was that of Joseph Bowman, 
 who had now no distinctive appearance be- 
 yond that of a human being. Finally came 
 a weak lath-like form, trotting and stumb- 
 ling along with one shoulder forward and 
 his head inchned to the left, his arms dans:- 
 
MELLSTOCK-LANE. 
 
 ling nervelessly in the wind as if they were 
 empty sleeves. This was Thomas Leaf. 
 
 ' Where be the boys ?' said Dick to this 
 somewhat indifferently-matched assembly. 
 
 The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, 
 cleared his throat from a great depth. 
 
 ' We told them to keep back at home 
 for a time, thinken they wouldn't be wanted 
 yet awhile ; and we could choose the tuens, 
 and so on.' ^ 
 
 'Father and grandfather William have 
 expected ye a little sooner. I have just 
 been for a run to warm my feet.' 
 
 'To be sure father did! To be sure a 
 did expect us — to taste the little barrel 
 beyond compare that he's going to tap.' 
 
 ' 'Od rabbit it all ! Never heard a word 
 of it !' said Mr. Penny, small gleams of de- 
 light appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, 
 Dick meanwhile singing parenthetically, 
 
 ' Tlie lads and the lasses a-sheep-sliearing go.' 
 
lo UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. . 
 
 'Neighbours, there's time enough to 
 drink a sight of drink now afore bedtime/ 
 said Mail. 
 
 ' Trew, trew — time enough to get as 
 drunk as lords !' replied Bowman cheerfully. 
 
 This argument being convincing, they 
 all advanced between the varying hedges 
 and the trees dotting them here and there, 
 kicking their toes occasionally among the 
 crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmer- 
 ing indications of the few cottages forming 
 the small hamlet of Lewgate, for which 
 they were bound, whilst the faint sound 
 of church - bells ringing a Christmas peal 
 could be heard floating over upon the breeze 
 from the direction of Mintfield parish on 
 the other side of the hills. A little wicket 
 admitted them to a garden, and they pro- 
 ceeded up the path to Dick's house. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE tranter's. 
 
 It was a small low cottage Avitli a thatclied 
 pyramidal roof, and having dormer win- 
 dows breaking up into the eaves, a single 
 chimney standing in the very midst. The 
 window- shutters were not yet closed, and 
 the fire- and candle-light within radiated 
 forth upon the bushes of variegated box and 
 thick laurestinus growing in a throng out- 
 side, and upon the bare boughs of several 
 codlin-trees hanging above in various dis- 
 torted shapes, the result of early training as 
 espaliers, combined with careless climbing 
 
12 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. ■ 
 
 into their boughs in later years. The walls of 
 the dwelling were for the most part covered 
 with creepers, though these were rather 
 beaten back from the doorway — a feature 
 which Y/as worn and scratched by much 
 passing in and out, giving it by day the 
 appearance of an old keyhole. Light 
 streamed through the cracks and joints of a 
 wooden shed at the end of the cottage, a sight 
 which nourished a fancy that the purpose 
 of the erection must be rather to veil bright 
 attractions than to shelter unsightly neces- 
 saries. The noise of a beetle and wedges 
 and the splintering of wood was periodically 
 heard from this direction ; and at the other 
 end of the house a steady regular munch- 
 ing and the occasional scurr of a rope be- 
 tokened a stable, and horses feeding with- 
 in it. 
 
 The choir stamped severally on the door- 
 stone to shake from their boots any frag- 
 
THE TRANTERS. 13 
 
 ment of dirt or leaf adhering thereto, then 
 entered the house, and looked around to 
 survey the condition of things. Through 
 the open doorway of a small inner room 
 on the left hand, of a character between 
 pantry and cellar, was Dick De^vy's father, 
 Reuben, by vocation a ' tranter,' or irregu- 
 lar carrier. He was a stout florid man about 
 forty years of age, who surveyed people up 
 and down when first making their acquaint- 
 ance, and generally smiled at the horizon 
 or other distant object during conversa- 
 tions with friends, walking about with a 
 steady sway, and turning out his toes very 
 considerably. Being now occupied in bend- 
 ing over a hogshead, that stood in the pan- 
 try ready horsed for the process of broach- 
 ing, he did not take the trouble to turn or 
 raise his eyes at the entry of his \dsitors, 
 well knowing by their footsteps that they 
 were the expected old acquaintance. 
 
14 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 The main room, on tlie right, was decked 
 with bunches of holly and other evergreens, 
 and from the middle of the huge beam bi- 
 sectino; the ceilino; huno^ the mistletoe, of a 
 size out of all proportion to the room, and 
 extending so low that it became necessary 
 for a full-grown person to walk round it in 
 passing, or run the risk of entangling his 
 hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy 
 the tranter's wife, and the four remaining 
 children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, 
 graduating uniformly though at wide stages 
 from the age of sixteen to that of four years 
 — the eldest of the series being separated 
 from Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal 
 interval. 
 
 Some circumstance having apparently 
 caused much grief to Charley just previous 
 to the entry of the choir, he had absently 
 taken down a looking-glass, and was holding 
 it before his face to see how the human 
 
THE TRANTERS. 15 
 
 countenance appeared when engaged in 
 crying, which survey led him to pause at 
 the various points in each wail that were 
 more than ordinarily striking, for a more 
 thorough appreciation of the general effect. 
 Bessy was leaning against a chair, and 
 glancing under the plaits about the waist 
 of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the 
 original unfaded pattern of the material as 
 there preserved, her face bearing an ex- 
 pression of regret that the brightness had 
 passed away from the visible portions. Mrs. 
 Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of 
 the glowing wood fire — so glowing that 
 with a doubting compression of the lips she 
 would now and then rise and put her hand 
 vipon the hams and flitches of bacon lining 
 the chimney, to reassure herself that they 
 were not being broiled instead of smoked, 
 — a misfortune that had been known to 
 happen at Christmas-time. 
 
1 6 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then ! ' 
 said Reuben Dewy at length, standing up 
 and blowing forth a vehement gust of 
 breath. ' How the blood do puiF up in 
 anybody's head, to be sure, stooping like 
 that ! I was just coming athwart to hunt 
 ye out.' He then carefully began to wind a 
 strip of broAvn paper round a brass tap he 
 held in his hand. ' This in the cask here 
 is a drop o' the right sort' (tapping the 
 cask) ; ' 'tis a real drop o' cordial from the 
 best picked apples— Horner's and Cadbury's 
 — you d'mind the sort, Michael?' (Michael 
 nodded.) ' And there's a sprinkling of they 
 that grow down by the orchard - rails — 
 streaked ones — rail apples we d'call 'em, as 
 'tis by the rails they grow, and not know- 
 ing the right name. The water-cider from 
 'em is as good as most people's best cider is.' 
 
 ' Ay, and of the same make too,' said 
 Bowman. ' It rained when we wrung it 
 
THE TRANTERS. 17 
 
 out, and the water got into it, folk Avill say. 
 But 'tis ony an excuse. Watered cider is 
 too common among us.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; too common it is !' said Spinks 
 mth an inward sigh, whilst his eyes seemed 
 to be looking at the world in an abstract 
 form rather than at the scene before him. 
 ' Such poor liquor makes a man's throat 
 feel very melancholy — and is a disgrace to 
 the name of stimmilent.' 
 
 ' Come in, come in, and draw up to the 
 fire; never mind your shoes,' said Mrs. 
 Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had 
 paused to wipe them upon the door-mat. 
 ' I be glad that you've stepped up-along at 
 last; and, Susan, you run across to Gam- 
 mer Caytes's and see if you can borrow 
 some larger candles than these fourteens. 
 Tommy Leaf, don't ye be afeard! Come 
 and sit here in the settle.' 
 
 This was addressed to the young man 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
1 8 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 before mentioned, consisting chiefly of a 
 human skeleton and a smock-frock, and who 
 was very awkward in his movements, ap- 
 parently on account of having grown so 
 very fast, that before he had had time to 
 get used to his height he was higher. 
 
 ' Hee — ^hee — ay !' replied Leaf, letting 
 his mouth continue to smile for some time 
 after his mind had done smiling, so that his 
 teeth remained in view as the most conspi- 
 cuous members of his body. 
 
 ' Here, Mr. Penny,' continued Mrs. 
 Dewy, 'you sit in this chair. And how's 
 your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?' 
 
 ^ Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair,' 
 adjusting his spectacles a quarter of an inch 
 to the rifi^ht. ' But she'll be worse before 
 she's better, 'a b'lieve.' 
 
 ' Indeed — poor soul ! And how many 
 will that make in all, four or five ?' 
 
 ' Five ; they've buried three. Yes, five ; 
 
THE TRANTERS. 19 
 
 and she no more than a maid yet. How- 
 ever, 'twas to be, and none can gainsay it.' 
 
 Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. ' Won- 
 der where your grandfather James is ?' she 
 inquired of one of the children. ' He said 
 he'd drop in to-night.' 
 
 'Out in fuel -house with grandfather 
 William,' said Jimmy. 
 
 ' Now let's see what we can do,' was 
 heard spoken about this time by the tranter 
 in a private voice to the barrel, beside 
 which he had again established himself, 
 and was stooping to cut away the cork. 
 
 ' Reuben, don't make such a mess o' 
 tapping that barrel as is mostly made in 
 this house,' Mrs. Dewy cried from the fire- 
 place. ' I'd tap a hundred without wasting 
 more than you do in one. Such a squizzling 
 and squirting job as 'tis in your hands. 
 There, he always was such a clumsy man 
 indoors.' 
 
20 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' Ay, ay ; I know you'd tap a hundred, 
 Ann — I know you would; two hundred, 
 perhaps. But I can't promise. This is a 
 old cask, and the wood's rotted away about 
 the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam 
 Lawson — that ever I should call'n such, 
 now he's dead and gone, pore old heart ! — 
 took me in completely upon the feat of 
 buying this cask. " Eeub," says he — 'a 
 alwaj^s used to call me plain Reub, pore old 
 heart ! — " Reub," he said, says he, " that 
 there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, 
 good as new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the 
 best port-wine in the commonwealth have 
 been in that there cask ; and you shall have 
 en for ten shillens, Reub," — 'a said, says 
 he — "he's worth twenty, ay, five -and - 
 twenty, if he's worth one; and an iron 
 hoop or two put round en among the 
 wood ones will make en worth thirty 
 shillens of any man's money, if — " ' 
 
THE TRANTERS. 21 
 
 'I think I should have used the eyes 
 that Providence gave me to use afore I paid 
 any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel ; 
 a saint is sinner enough not to be cheated. 
 But 'tis like all your family were, so easy 
 to be deceived.' 
 
 'That's as true as gospel of this mem- 
 ber,' said Keuben. 
 
 Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the ans- 
 wer, then altering her lips and re-folding 
 them so that it was not a smile, commenced 
 smoothing little Bessy's hair ; the tranter 
 having meanwhile suddenly become oblivi- 
 ous to conversation, occupying himself in a 
 deliberate cutting and arrangement of some 
 more brown paper for the broaching oper- 
 ation. 
 
 ' Ah, who can believe sellers !' said old 
 Michael Mail in a carefully-cautious voice, 
 by way of tiding over this critical point of 
 affairs. 
 
2 2 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' ISTo one at all/ said Joseph Bowman, 
 in the tone of a man fully agreeing with 
 everybody. 
 
 ' Ay/ said Mail, in the tone of a man 
 who did not agree with everybody as a 
 rule, though he did now; ^I knowed an 
 auctioneering feller once — a very friendly 
 feller 'a was too. And so one day, as I was 
 walking down the front street of Caster- 
 bridge, I passed a shop-door and see him 
 inside, stuck upon his perch, a-selling off. 
 I jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I 
 passed, and went my way, and thought no 
 more about it. Well, next day, as I was 
 oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a letter 
 didn't come wi' a bill in en, charging me 
 with a feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that 
 I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's sale. The 
 slim-faced martel had knocked 'em down to 
 me because I nodded to en in my friendly 
 way J and I had to pay for 'em too. Now, 
 
THE TRANTERS. 23 
 
 I hold that that was cutting it very close, 
 Reuben ?' 
 
 ''Twas close, there's no denymg,' said 
 the general voice. 
 
 ' Too close, 'twas, ^ said Reuben, in the 
 rear of the rest. ' And as to Sam Lawson 
 — pore heart! now he's dead and gone too! 
 — I'll warrant, that if so be I've spent one 
 hour in making hoops for that barrel, I've 
 spent fifty, first and last. That's one of my 
 hoops' — touching it with his elbow — ' that's 
 one of mine, and that, and that, and all these.* 
 
 'Ah, Sam was a man!' said Mr. Penny, 
 looking contemplatively at a small stool. 
 
 ' Sam was !' said Bowman, shaking his 
 head twice. 
 
 ' Especially for a drap o' drink,' said the 
 tranter. 
 
 ' Good, but not religious - good,' sug- 
 gested Mr. Penny. 
 
 The tranter nodded. Having at last 
 
24 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 made the tap and hole quite ready, ' Now 
 then, Suze, bring a mug,' he said. 'Here's 
 luck to us, my sonnies!' 
 
 The tap went in, and the cider imme- 
 diately squirted out in a horizontal shower 
 over Keuben's hands, knees, and leggings, 
 and into the eyes and neck of Charley, who, 
 having temporarily put off his grief imder 
 pressure of more interesting proceedings, 
 was squatting down and blinking near his 
 father. 
 
 ' There 'tis again !' said Mrs. Dewy. 
 
 ' D — 1 take the hole, the cask, and Sam 
 Laws on too, that good cider should be 
 wasted Hke this !' exclaimed the tranter 
 excitedly. ' Your thumb ! Lend me your 
 thumb, Michael ! Eam it in here, Michael ! 
 I must get a bigger tap, my sonnies.' 
 
 'Idd it cold inthide te hole?' inquired 
 Charley of Michael, as he continued in a 
 stooping posture with his thumb in the cork- 
 hole. 
 
THE TRANTERS. 25 
 
 'What wonderful odds and ends that 
 chiel has in his head to be sure !' Mrs. Dewy 
 admiringly exclaimed from the distance. ' I 
 lay a wager that he cares more about the 
 climate inside that barrel than in all the 
 other parts of the world put together.' 
 
 All persons present put on a speaking 
 countenance of admiration for the cleverness 
 alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben 
 returned. The operation was then satisfac- 
 torily performed ; when Michael arose, and 
 stretched his head to the extremest fraction 
 of height that his body would allow of, to 
 restraighten his bent back and shoulders — 
 thrustmo; out his arms and twistino; his fea- 
 tures to a mere mass of wrinkles at the 
 same time, to emphasise the relief acquired. 
 A quart or two of the beverage was then 
 brought to table, at which all the new arri- 
 vals reseated themselves with wide -spread 
 knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out 
 
26 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 with excruciating precision any small speck 
 or knot in the table upon which the gaze 
 might precipitate itself. 
 
 ' Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel- 
 house so long for?' said the tranter. 'JSTever 
 such a man as father for two things — cleav- 
 ing up old dead apple-tree w^ood and play- 
 ing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass his life between 
 the two, that 'a would.' He stepped to the 
 door and opened it. 
 
 'Father!' 
 
 ' Ay !' rang thinly from round the corner. 
 
 ' Here's the barrel tapped, and we all 
 a-waiting !' 
 
 A series of dull thuds, that had been 
 heard through the chimney-back for some 
 time past, now ceased; and after the light 
 of a lantern had passed the window and 
 made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside, 
 the eldest of the Dewy family appeared. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR. 
 
 William Dewy — otherwise grandfather 
 William — was now about seventy; yet an 
 ardent vitality still preserved a warm and 
 roughened bloom upon his face, which re- 
 minded gardeners of the sunny side of a 
 ripe ribstone- pippin; though a narrow strip 
 of forehead, that was protected from the 
 weather by lying above the line of his hat- 
 brim, seemed to belong to some town man, 
 so gentlemanly was its whiteness. His was 
 a humorous and gentle nature, not unmixed 
 with a frequent melancholy ; and he had a 
 firm relio-ious faith. But to his neio^hbours 
 he had no character in particular. If they 
 
28 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 saw him pass by their windows when they 
 had been bottling off old mead, or when they 
 had just been called long-headed men who 
 might do an3^thing in the world if they 
 chose, they thought concerning him, ^Ah, 
 there^s that good-hearted man — open as a 
 child !^ If they saw him just after losing a 
 shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally let- 
 ting fall a piece of crockery, they thought, 
 ' There's that poor weak-minded man Dewy 
 again ! Ah, he'll never do much in the 
 world either!' If he passed when fortune 
 neither smiled nor frowned on them, they 
 merely thought him old William Dewy. 
 
 'Ah so's — here you be! — Ah, Michael 
 and Joseph and John — and you too, Leaf! a 
 merry Christmas all ! "VVe shall have a rare 
 leg- wood fire directly, Eeub, if it d'go by the 
 toughness of the job I had in cleaving 'em.' 
 As he spoke he threw down an armful of 
 logs, which fell in the chimney-corner mth 
 
THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR. 29 
 
 a rumble, and looked at them with some- 
 thing of the admiring enmity he would 
 have bestowed on living people who had 
 been very obstinate in holding their own. 
 ' Come in, grandfather James.' 
 
 Old James (grandfather on the maternal 
 side) had simply called as a visitor. He 
 lived in a cottage by himself, and many 
 people considered him a miser : some, rather 
 slovenly in his habits. He now came for- 
 ward from behind grandfather William, 
 and his stooping figure formed a well-illum- 
 inated picture as he passed towards the fire- 
 place. Being by trade a mason, he wore a 
 long linen apron reaching almost to his 
 toes, corduroy breeches and gaiters, which, 
 together with his boots, graduated in 
 tints of whitish-brown by constant friction 
 against lime and stone. He also wore a very 
 stiff fustian coat, having folds at the elbows 
 and shoulders as unvarying in their arrange- 
 
30 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 merit as those in a pair of bellows : the 
 ridges and the projecting parts of the coat 
 collectively exhibiting a shade different 
 from that of the hollows, which were lined 
 with small ditch-like accumulations of stone 
 and mortar-dust. The extremely large side 
 pockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps, bulged 
 out convexly whether empty or full ; and 
 as he was often engaged to work at build- 
 ings far away — his breakfasts and dinners 
 being eaten in a strange chimney-corner, 
 by a garden wall, on a heap of stones, or 
 walking along the road — he carried in these 
 pockets a small tin canister of butter, a 
 small canister of sugar, a small canister of 
 tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper : 
 the bread, cheese, and meat, forming the 
 substance of his meals, hanging up behind 
 him in his basket among the hammers and 
 chisels. If a passer-by looked hard at him 
 when he was drawing forth any of these. 
 
THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR. 31 
 
 — 'My larders,' he said, with a pinched 
 
 smile. 
 
 'Better try over number seventy-eight 
 before we start, I suj^pose?' said William, 
 pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol 
 books on a side table. 
 
 ' Wi' all my heart,' said the choir gene- 
 rally. 
 
 'Number seventy -eight was always a 
 teaser — always. I can mind him ever since 
 I was growing up a hard boy-chap.' 
 
 ' But he's a good tune, and worth a mint 
 o' practice,' said Michael. 
 
 ' He is ; though I've been mad enough 
 wi' that tune at times to seize en and tear 
 en all to linnet. Ay, he's a splendid carrel 
 — there's no denying that. ' 
 
 ' The first line is well enough,' said Mr. 
 Spinks; 'but when you come to "0, thou 
 man," you make a mess o't.' 
 
 ' We'll have another go into en, and see 
 
32 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. , 
 
 what we can make of the martel. Half an 
 hour's hammering at en will conquer the 
 toughness of en ; I'll warn it/ 
 
 "Od rabbit it all !' said Mr. Penny, in- 
 terrupting with a flash of his spectacles, 
 and at the same time clawino; at something: 
 in the depths of a large side pocket. ' If so 
 be I hadn't been as scatter-brained and 
 thirtingill as a chiel, I should have called at 
 the schoolhouse wi' a boot as I cam up- 
 along. Whate^^er is coming to me I really 
 can't estimate at all !' 
 
 ' The brain hev its weaknesses/ mur- 
 mured Mr. Spinks, waving his head omin- 
 ously. 
 
 'Well, I must call with en the first 
 thing to-morrow. And I'll empt my pocket 
 o' this last too, if you don't mind, Mrs. 
 Dewy.' He drew forth a last, and placed 
 it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of 
 three or four followed it. 
 
THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR. -t^Z 
 
 'Well/ said the shoemaker, seeming to 
 perceive that the smn-total of interest the 
 object had excited was greater than he had 
 anticipated, and warranted the last's being 
 taken up again and exhibited, ' now, whose 
 foot do ye suppose this last was made for? 
 It was made for Geoffrey Day's father, over 
 at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many's the pair o' 
 boots he've had off the last ! Well, when 'a 
 died, I used the last for Geoffrey, and have 
 ever since, though a little doctoring was 
 wanted to make it do. Yes, a very quaint 
 humorous last it is now, 'a b'lieve,' he con- 
 tinued, turning it over caressingly. ^Now, 
 you notice that there' (pointing to a lump 
 of leather bradded to the toe) — 'that's a very 
 bad bunion that he've had ever since 'a was 
 a boy. Now, this remarkable hu'ge piece' 
 (pointing to a patch nailed to the side) 
 ' shows an accident he received by the tread 
 of a horse, that squashed his foot a'most 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 to a pomace. The horseshoe cam full- 
 butt on this point, you see. And so I've 
 just been over to Geoffrey's, to know if he 
 wanted his bunion altered or made bigger 
 in the new pair I'm making.' 
 
 During the latter part of this speech, 
 Mr. Penny's left hand wandered towards 
 the cider- cup, as if the hand had no connec- 
 tion with the person speaking ; and bring- 
 ing his sentence to an abrupt close, all but 
 the extreme margin of the bootmaker's face 
 was eclipsed by the circular brim of the 
 vessel. 
 
 'However, I was going to say,' con- 
 tinued Penny, putting down the cup, ' I 
 ought to have called at the school' — here he 
 went groping again in the depths of his poc- 
 ket — 'to leave this without fail, though I 
 suppose the first thing to-morrow will do.' 
 
 He now drew forth and placed upon the 
 table a boot — small, light, and prettily 
 
THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR. 35 
 
 shaped — upon the heel of which he had 
 been operating. ^ The new schoohnistress's !' 
 
 ' Ay, no less ; Miss Fancy Day : as nate 
 a little figure of fun as ever I see, and just 
 husband-high.' 
 
 ' Never Geoffrey's daughter Fancy?' said 
 Bowman, as all glances present converged 
 like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre 
 of them. 
 
 'Yes, sure,' resumed Mr. Penny, regard- 
 ing the boot as if that alone were his audi- 
 tor ; ' 'tis she that's come here schoolmistress. 
 You knowed his daughter was in training ?' 
 
 ' Strange, isn't it, for her to be here 
 Christmas-night, Master Penny ?' 
 
 ' Yes; but here she is, 'a blieve.' 
 
 ' I know how she d'come here — so I do I' 
 chirruped one of the children. 
 
 ' Why ?' Dick inquired, with subtle in- 
 terest. 
 
 ' Parson Maybold was afraid he couldn't 
 
36 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 manage us all to-morrow at the dinner, and 
 he talked o' getting her jist to come over and 
 help him hand about the plates, and see we 
 didn't make beasts of ourselves ; and that's 
 what she's come for !' 
 
 ' And that's the boot, then,' continued 
 its mender imaginatively, 'that she'll walk 
 to church in to-morrow morning. I don't 
 care to mend boots I don't make ; but 
 there's no knomng what it may lead to, and 
 her father always comes to me.' 
 
 There, between the cider-mug and the 
 candle, stood this interesting receptacle of 
 the little unknown's foot ; and a very pretty 
 boot it was. A character, in fact — the flexi- 
 ble bend at the instep, the rounded locali- 
 ties of the small nestling toes, scratches 
 from careless scampers now forgotten — all, 
 as repeated in the tell-tale leather, evi- 
 dencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed 
 it with a delicate feeling that he had no 
 
THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR, 37 
 
 right to do so without having first asked 
 the owner of the foot's permission. 
 
 ' Now, naibours, though no common eye 
 can see it,' the shoemaker went on, 'a man 
 in the trade can see the likeness between 
 this boot and that last, although that is so 
 deformed as hardly to be called one of God's 
 creatures, and this is one of as pretty a 
 pair as you'd get for ten-and-sixpence in 
 Casterbridge. To you, nothing ; but 'tis 
 father's foot and daughter's foot to me, as 
 plain as houses.' 
 
 ' I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master 
 Penny — a mild likeness — a far-remote like- 
 ness — still, a likeness as far as that goes,' 
 said Spinks. ' But / haven't imagination 
 enough to see it, perhaps.' 
 
 Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. 
 
 'Now, I'll tell you what happened to 
 me once on this very point. You used to 
 know Johnson the dairyman, William?' 
 
38 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' Ay, sure ; that I did.' 
 
 ' Well, 't wasn't opposite his house, but 
 a little lower down — by his pigsty, in front 
 o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-walking down 
 the lane, and lo and behold, there was a 
 man just brought out o' the Pool, dead ; he 
 had been bathing, and gone in flop over his 
 head. Men looked at en ; women looked at 
 en ; children looked at en ; nobody knowed 
 en. He was covered in a cloth; but I 
 catched sight of his foot, just showing out 
 as they carried en along. " I don't care 
 what name that man went by," I said, in my 
 bold way, "but he's John Woodward's bro- 
 ther; lean swear to the family foot." At 
 that very moment, up comes John Wood- 
 ward, weeping and crying, "I've lost my 
 brother ! I've lost my brother !" ' 
 
 ' Only to think of that !' said Mrs. Dewy. 
 
 ' 'Tis well enough to know this foot and 
 that foot,' said Mr. Spinks. ' 'Tis some- 
 
THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR. 39 
 
 thing, ill fact, as far as that goes. I know 
 little, 'tis true — I say no more; but show 
 me a man's foot, and I'll tell you that man's 
 heart.' 
 
 ' You must be a cleverer feller, then, 
 than mankind in jineral,' said the tranter. 
 
 'Well, that's nothing for me to speak 
 of,' returned Mr. Spinks solemnly. ' A man 
 acquires. Maybe I've read a leaf or two 
 in my time. I don't wish to say anything 
 large, mind you ; but nevertheless, maybe 
 I have.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know,' said Michael soothingly, 
 'and all the parish knows, that ye've read 
 something of everything almost. Learning's 
 a worthy thing, and ye've got it, ^Master 
 Spinks.' 
 
 ' I make no boast, though I may have 
 read and thought a little; and I know — it 
 may be from much perusing, but I make 
 no boast — that by the time a man's head is 
 
40 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep 
 underground. I am over forty-five.' 
 
 Mr. Spinks emitted a look to signify that 
 if his head was not finished, nobody's head 
 ever could be. 
 
 ' Talk of knowing people by their feet !' 
 said Reuben. ' Rot me, my sonnies, then, 
 if I can tell what a man is from all his 
 members put together, oftentimes.' 
 
 ' But still, look is a good deal,' observed 
 grandfather William absently, moving and 
 balancing his head till the tip of grand- 
 father James's nose was exactly in a right 
 line with William's eye and the mouth of a 
 miniature cavern he was discerning in the 
 fire. ' By the way,' he continued in a fresher 
 voice, and looking up, ' that young crater, 
 the schoolmistress, must be sung to to- 
 night wi' the rest ? If her ear is as fine as 
 her face, we shall have enough to do to be 
 up-sides with her.' 
 
THE ASSEMBLED CHOIR. 41 
 
 ' What about her face ?' said young 
 Dewy. 
 
 ' Well, as to that,' Mr. Spinks replied, 
 ' 'tis a face you can hardly gainsaj^ A very 
 good face — and a pink face, as far as that 
 goes. Still, only a face, when all is said 
 and done.' 
 
 ' Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she's a 
 pretty maid, and have done wi' her,' said 
 the tranter, again preparing to visit the 
 cider-barrel. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GOING THE ROUNDS. 
 
 Shortly after ten o'clock, the singing-boys 
 arrived at the tranter's house, which was 
 invariably the place of meeting, and prepa- 
 rations were made for the start. The older 
 men and musicians wore thick coats, with 
 stiff perpendicular collars, and coloured 
 handkerchiefs wound round and round the 
 neck till the end came to hand, over all 
 which they just showed their ears and 
 noses, like people looking over a wall. The 
 remainder, stalwart ruddy men and boys, 
 were mainly dressed in snow-white smock- 
 frocks, embroidered upon the shoulders 
 and breasts, in ornamental forms of hearts. 
 
GOING THE ROUNDS. 43 
 
 diamonds, and zigzags. The cider-mug was 
 emptied for the ninth time, the music-books 
 were arranged, and the pieces finally decided 
 upon. The boys in the mean time put the 
 old horn-lanterns in order, cut candles into 
 short lengths to fit the lanterns ; and a thin 
 fleece of snow having fallen since the early 
 part of the evening, those who had no leg- 
 gings went to the stable and wound wisps 
 of hay round their ankles to keep the insi- 
 dious flakes from the interior of their boots. 
 Mellstock was a parish of considerable 
 acreage, the hamlets composing it lying at 
 a much greater distance from each other 
 than is ordinarily the case. Hence several 
 hours were consumed in playing and smg- 
 ing within hearing of every family, even if 
 but a single au' were bestowed on each. 
 There was East Mellstock, the main village ; 
 half a mile from this were the church and 
 the vicarage, called West Mellstock, and 
 
44 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 originally the most thickly - populated 
 portion. A mile north-east lay the hamlet 
 of Lewgate, where the tranter lived; and 
 at other points knots of cottages, besides 
 solitary farmsteads and dairies. 
 
 Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, 
 played the bass ; his grandson Dick the 
 treble violin ; and Eeuben and Michael Mail 
 the tenor and second violins respectively. 
 The singers consisted of four men and 
 seven boys, upon whom devolved the task 
 of carrying and attending to the lanterns, 
 and holdmg the books open for the players. 
 Directly music was the theme, old William 
 ever and instinctively came to the front. 
 
 ' Now mind, naibours,' he said, as they all 
 went out one by one at the door, he himself 
 holding it ajar and regarding them with a 
 critical face as they passed, like a shepherd 
 counting out his sheep. ' You two counter.- 
 boys, keep your ears open to Michael's fin- 
 
GOING THE ROUNDS. 45 
 
 gering, and don't ye go straying into the 
 treble part along o' Dick and his set, as ye 
 did last year ; and mind this especially when 
 we be in " Arise, and hail." Billy Chimlen, 
 don't you sing quite so raving mad as you 
 fain would ; and, all o' ye, whatever ye do, 
 keep from making a great scufSe on the 
 ground when we go in at people's gates ; 
 but go quietly, so as to strik' up all of a 
 sudden, like sj^irits.' 
 
 ' Farmer Ledlow's first?' 
 
 ' Farmer Ledlow's first ; the rest as 
 usual.' 
 
 'And, Yoss,' said the tranter termina- 
 tively, ' you keep house here till about half- 
 past two ; then heat the methegiin and cider 
 in the warmer you'll find turned up upon 
 the copper; and bring it w? the victuals 
 to church-porch, as th'st know.' 
 
 Just before the clock struck twelve, they 
 
46 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 lighted the lanterns and started. The moon, 
 in her third quarter, had risen since the 
 snow-storm; but the dense accumulation of 
 snow- cloud weakened her power to a faint 
 twilight, which was rather pervasive of the 
 landscape than traceable to the sky. The 
 breeze had gone down, and the rustle of 
 their feet, and tones of their speech, echoed 
 with an alert rebound from every post, 
 boundary- stone, and ancient wall they passed, 
 even where the distance of the echo's origin 
 was less than a few yards. Beyond their 
 o^vn slight noises nothing was to be heard, 
 save the occasional howl of foxes in the 
 direction of Yalbury Wood, or the brush 
 of a rabbit among the grass now and then, 
 as it scampered out of their way. 
 
 Most of the outlying homesteads and 
 hamlets had been visited by about two 
 o'clock : they then passed across the Home 
 Plantation toward the main village. Pur- 
 
GOING THE ROUNDS. 47 
 
 suing no recognised track, great care was 
 necessary in walking lest their faces should 
 come in contact with the low -hanging 
 boughs of the old trees, which in many 
 spots formed dense overgrowths of inter- 
 laced branches. 
 
 ' Times have changed from the times 
 they used to be,' said Mail, regarding no- 
 body can tell what interesting old pano- 
 ramas with an inward eye, and letting his 
 outward glance rest on the ground, because 
 it was as convenient a position as an3^ 
 ' People don't care much about us now ! 
 I've been thinking, we must be almost the 
 last left in the county of the old string 
 players. Barrel-organs, and they next door 
 to 'em that you blow wi' your foot, have 
 come in terribly of late years.' 
 
 ' Ah 1' said Bo^\'man, shakins: his head : 
 and old William, on seeing him, did the 
 same thing. 
 
 ' More's the pity/ replied another. ' Time 
 
48 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 was — ^long and merry ago now! — when not 
 one of the varmits was to be heard of; but 
 it served some of the choirs right. They 
 should have stuck to strings as we did, and 
 keep out clar'nets, and done away with ser- 
 pents. If you'd thrive in musical religion, 
 stick to strings, says 1/ 
 
 ' Strino;s are well enouo;h, as far as that 
 goes,' said Mr. Sj)inks. 
 
 ' There's worse things than serpents,' 
 said Mr. Penny. ' Old things pass away, 
 'tis true ; but a serpent was a good old 
 note : a deep rich note was the serpent.' 
 
 ' Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times,' 
 said Michael Mail. ' One Christmas — years 
 agone now, years — I went the rounds wi' 
 the Dibbeach choir. 'Twas a hard frosty 
 night, and the keys of all the clar'nets froze 
 — ah, they did freeze ! — so that 'twas like 
 drawing a cork every time a key was 
 opened; the players o' 'em had to go into 
 a hedger and ditcher's chimley-corner, and 
 
• GOING THE ROUNDS. 49 
 
 thaw their clar'nets every now and then. 
 An icicle o' spet hung down from the end 
 of every man's clar'net a span long ; and as 
 to fingers — well, there, if yell believe me, 
 we had no fingers at all, to our knowledge.' 
 
 ' I can well bring back to my mind,' 
 said Mr. Penny, ' what I said to poor Joseph 
 Ryme (who took the tribble part in High- 
 Story Church for two-and-forty year) when 
 they thought of having clar'nets there. 
 "Joseph," I said, says I, '^depend upon't, if 
 so be you have them tooting clar'nets youll 
 spoil the whole set-out. Clar'nets were not 
 made for the service of Providence ; you 
 can see it by looking at 'em," I said. And 
 what cam o't? Why, my dear souls, the 
 parson set up a barrel-organ on his own ac- 
 count within two years o' the time I spoke, 
 and the old choir went to nothing.' 
 
 ' As far as look is concerned,' said the 
 tranter, ' I don't for my part see that a fid- 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 die is much nearer heaven than a clar'net. 
 'Tis farther off. There's always a rakish, 
 scampish countenance about a fiddle that 
 seems to say the Wicked One had a hand in 
 making o'en; while angels be supposed to 
 play clar'nets in heaven, or som'at like 'em, 
 if ye may believe picters.' 
 
 ' Eobert Penny, you were in the right,' 
 broke in the eldest Dewy. They should ha' 
 stuck to strings. Your brass-man, is brass 
 — well and good; your reed-man, is reed — 
 well and good; your percussion-man, is 
 percussion — good again. But I don't care 
 who hears me say it, nothmg will speak to 
 your heart wi' the sweetness of the man of 
 strings !' 
 
 ' Strings for ever !' said little Jimmy. 
 
 ' Strings alone would have held their 
 ground against all the new comers in crea- 
 tion.' (' True, true !' said Bowman.) ' But 
 clar'nets was death.' (^ Death they was !' said 
 
GOING THE ROUNDS. 51 
 
 Mr. Penny.) 'And harmoniums/ William 
 continued in a louder voice, and getting 
 excited by these signs of approval, ' har- 
 moniums and barrel-organs' ('Ah!' and 
 groans from Spinks) 'be miserable — what 
 shall I call 'em? — miserable — ' 
 
 ' Sinners,' suggested Jimmy, who made 
 large strides like the men, and did not lag 
 behind like the other little boys. 
 
 ' Miserable machines for such a divine 
 thing as music !' 
 
 ' Right, William, and so they be !' said 
 the choir with earnest unanimity. 
 
 By this time they were crossmg to a 
 wicket in the direction of the school, which, 
 standing on a slight eminence on the op- 
 posite side of a cross lane, now rose in un- 
 varying and dark flatness against the sky. 
 The instruments were retuned, and all the 
 band entered the enclosure, enjoined by old 
 William to keep upon the grass. 
 
52 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 'Number seventy -eight/ he softly gave 
 out as they formed round in a semicircle, the 
 boys opening the lanterns to get a clearer 
 light, and directing their rays on the books. 
 
 Then passed forth into the quiet night 
 an ancient and well-worn hymn, embodying 
 Christianity in words peculiarly befitting 
 the simple and honest hearts of the quaint 
 characters who sang them so earnestly. 
 
 * Kemember Adam's fall, 
 
 thou man : 
 Eemember Adam's fall 
 
 From Heaven to Hell. 
 Remember Adam's fall ; 
 How he hath condemned all 
 In Hell perpetual 
 
 Therefore to dwell. 
 
 Remember God's goodnesse, , 
 
 thou man : 
 Remember God's goodnesse, 
 
 His promise made. 
 Remember God's goodnesse; 
 He sent his Son sinlesse 
 Our ails for to redress, 
 
 Our hearts to aid. 
 
GOING THE ROUNDS. 53 
 
 In Bethlehem he was born, 
 
 thou man : 
 In Bethlehem he was born, 
 
 For mankind's sake. 
 In Bethlehem he was born, 
 Christmas-day i' the morn : 
 Our Saviour did not scorn 
 
 Our faults to take. 
 
 Give thanks to God alway, 
 
 thou man : 
 Give thanks to God alway 
 
 "With heart-felt joy. 
 Give thanks to God alway 
 On this our joyful day : 
 Let all men sing and say, 
 
 Holy, Holy !' 
 
 HaTOig concluded the last note, they 
 listened for a minute or two, but found that 
 no sound issued from the school-house. 
 
 ' Forty breaths, and then, '' 0, what 
 unbounded goodness!" number fifty -nine,' 
 said William. 
 
 This was duly gone through, and no 
 notice whatever seemed to be taken of the 
 performance. 
 
54 UNDER THE GREENV/OOD TREE. 
 
 ' Surely 'tisn't an empty house, as befell 
 us in the year thirty-nine and forty-three !' 
 said old Dewy, with much disappointment. 
 
 'Perhaps she's jist come from some 
 noble city, and sneers at our doings,' the 
 tranter whispered. 
 
 ' 'Od rabbit her !' said Mr. Penny, with 
 an annihilating look at a corner of the school 
 chimney, ' I don't quite stomach her, if this 
 is it. Your plain music well done is as 
 worthy as your other sort done bad, a' 
 b'lieve souls; so say I.' 
 
 ' Forty breaths, and then the last,' 
 said the leader authoritatively. ' '' Rejoice, 
 ye tenants of the earth," number sixty- 
 four.' 
 
 At the close, waiting yet another minute, 
 he said in a clear loud voice, as he had said 
 in the village at that hour and season for 
 the previous forty years : 
 
 ^ A merry Christmas to ye !' 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE LISTENEES. 
 
 When the expectant stillness consequent 
 upon the exclamation had nearly died out 
 of them all, an increasing light made itself 
 visible in one of the windows of the upper 
 floor. It came so close to the blind that 
 the exact position of the flame could be 
 perceived from the outside. Remaining 
 steady for an instant, the blind went up- 
 ward from before it, revealing to thirty con- 
 centrated eyes a young girl, framed as a 
 picture by the window-architrave, and un- 
 consciously illuminating her countenance 
 
56 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 to a vivid brightness by a candle she held 
 in her left hand, close to her face, her right 
 hand being extended to the side of the win- 
 dow. She was wrapped in a white robe 
 of some kind, whilst down her shoulders 
 fell a twining profusion of marvellously rich 
 hair, in a wild disorder which proclaimed 
 it to be only during the invisible hours of 
 the night that such a condition was dis- 
 coverable. Her bright eyes were looking 
 into the gray world outside with an uncer- 
 tain expression, oscillating between courage 
 and shyness, which, as she recognised the 
 semicircular group of dark forms gathered 
 before her, transformed itself into pleasant 
 resolution. 
 
 Opening the window, she said lightly 
 and warmly : 
 
 ^ Thank you, singers, thank you !' 
 Together went the window quickly and 
 quietly, and the blind started do^vnward 
 
THE LISTENERS. 57 
 
 on its return to its place. Her fair fore- 
 head and eyes vanished ; her little mouth ; 
 her neck and shoulders ; all of her. Then 
 the spot of candlelight shone nebulously as 
 before ; then it moved away. 
 
 ^ How pretty !' exclaimed Dick Dewy. 
 
 ^ If she'd been rale wexwork she couldn't 
 ha' been comelier,' said Michael Mail. 
 
 ' As near a thing to a spiritual vision 
 as ever I wish to see !' said tranter Dewy 
 fervently. 
 
 ' 0, sich I never, never see !' said Leaf. 
 
 All the rest, after clearing their throats 
 and adjusting their hats, agreed that such 
 a sight was worth singing for. 
 
 ' Now to Farmer Shinar's, and then re- 
 plenish our inside s, father,' said the tranter. 
 
 ' Wi' all my heart,' said old William, 
 shouldering his bass-viol. 
 
 Farmer Shinar's was a queer lump of a 
 house, standing at the corner of a lane that 
 
58 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ran obliquely into the principal thorough- 
 fare. The upper windows were much wider 
 than they were high, and this feature, to- 
 gether with a broad bay-window where the 
 door might have been expected, gave it 
 by day the aspect of a human countenance 
 turned askance, and wearing a sly and 
 wicked leer. To-night nothing was visible 
 but the outline of the roof upon the sky. 
 
 The front of this building was reached, 
 and the preliminaries arranged as usual. 
 
 ' Forty breaths, and number thirty-two, 
 — " Behold the morning star," ' said old 
 William. 
 
 They had reached the end of the second 
 verse, and the fiddlers were doing the up 
 bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the 
 opening chord of the third verse, when, 
 without a light appearing or any signal 
 being given, a roaring voice exclaimed : 
 
 ' Shut up ! Don't make your blaring 
 
THE LISTENERS. 59 
 
 row here. A feller wi' a headache enough 
 to split likes a quiet night.' 
 
 Slam went the window. 
 
 ' Hullo, that's an ugly blow for we 
 artists !' said the tranter, in a keenly appre- 
 ciative voice, and turning to his companions. 
 
 ' Finish the carrel, all who be friends of 
 harmony!' said old William commandingly ; 
 and they continued to the end. 
 
 * Forty breaths, and number nineteen !' 
 said William firmly. ' Give it him well ; 
 the choir can't be insulted in this manner !' 
 
 A light now flashed into existence, the 
 window opened, and the farmer stood re- 
 vealed as one in a terrific passion. 
 
 ^ Drown en! — drown en!' the tranter 
 cried, fiddling frantically. ' Play fortissimy, 
 and drown his spaking !' 
 
 * Fortissini}^ !' said Michael Mail, and the 
 music and singing waxed so loud that it 
 was impossible to know what Mr. Shinar 
 
6o UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 had said, was saying, or was about to say ; 
 but wildly flinging his arms and body 
 about in the form of capital Xs and Ys, 
 he appeared to utter enough invectives to 
 consign the whole parish to perdition. 
 
 ' Yery unseemly — very! 'said old Wil- 
 liam, as they retired. ' Never such a dread- 
 ful scene in the whole round o' my carrel 
 practice — never! And he a churchwarden!' 
 
 ' Only a drap o' drink got into his head,' 
 said the tranter. ^ Man's well enough when 
 he's in his reli2:ious frame. He's in his 
 worldly frame now. Must ask en to our 
 bit of a party to-morrer night, I suppose, 
 and so put en in track again. We bear no 
 martel man ill-will.' 
 
 They now crossed Twenty-acres to pro- 
 ceed to the lower village, and met Yoss 
 with the hot mead and bread-and-cheese as 
 they were crossing the churchyard. This 
 determined them to eat and drink before 
 
THE LISTENERS. 6i 
 
 proceeding farther, and they entered the 
 belfry. The lanterns were opened, and the 
 Avhole body sat round against the walls on 
 benches and whatever else was available, 
 and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of 
 conversation could be heard through the 
 floor overhead a little world of undertones 
 and creaks from the halting clockwork, 
 which never spread farther than the tower 
 they were born in, and raised in the more 
 meditative minds a fancy that here lay the 
 direct pathway of Time. 
 
 Ha^ino; done eatins; and drinkino;, the 
 instruments were again tuned, and once 
 more the party emerged into the night air. 
 
 ' Where's Dick ?' said old Dewy. 
 
 Every man looked round upon every 
 other man, as if Dick might have been 
 transmuted into one or the other; and then 
 they said they didn't know. 
 
 ^ Well now, that's what I call very nasty 
 
62 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 of Master Dicky, that I do so,' said Michael 
 Mail. 
 
 ' He've clinked oft home-along, depend 
 upon 't,' another suggested, though not quite 
 believing that he had. 
 
 'Dick!' exclaimed the tranter, and his 
 voice rolled sonorously forth among the 
 
 yews. 
 
 He suspended his muscles rigid as stone 
 whilst listening for an answer, and finding 
 he listened in vain, turned to the assem- 
 blage. 
 
 ' The tribble man too ! Now if he'd been 
 a tinner or counter chap, we might ha' con- 
 trived the rest o't without en, you see. 
 But for a choir to lose the tribble, why, my 
 sonnies, you may so well lose your . . . .' 
 The tranter paused, unable to mention an 
 image vast enough for the occasion. 
 
 'Your head at once,' suggested Mr. 
 Penny. 
 
THE LISTENERS. 63 
 
 The tranter moved a pace, as if it were 
 puerile of people to complete sentences 
 when there were more pressing things to 
 be done. 
 
 'Was ever heard such a thing as a 
 young man leaving his work half done and 
 turning tail like this !' 
 
 ^ Never/ replied Bowman, in a tone sig- 
 nifying that he was the last man in the 
 world to wish to withhold the formal finish 
 required of him. 
 
 ' I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook 
 the lad!' said his grandfather. 
 
 ^ no,' replied tranter Dewy placidly. 
 ' Wonder where he've put that there fiddle 
 of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillens, 
 and good words besides. Somewhere in 
 the damp, without doubt ; that there instru- 
 ment will be unglued and spoilt in ten 
 minutes — ten ! ay, two.' 
 
 ' What in the name o' righteousness can 
 
64 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 have happened ?' said old William still more 
 uneasily. 
 
 Leaving their lanterns and instruments 
 in the belfry they retraced their steps. ' A 
 strapping lad like Dick d'know better than 
 let anything happen onaAvares/ Reuben re- 
 marked. ' There^s sure to be some poor 
 little scram reason for't staring us in the 
 face all the while.' He lowered his voice 
 to a mysterious tone: 'Naibours, have ye 
 noticed any sign of a scornful woman in his 
 head, or suchlike ?' 
 
 ' Not a glimmer of such a body. He's 
 as clear as water yet.' 
 
 ' And Dicky said he should never 
 marry,' cried Jimmy, 'but live at home 
 always along wi' mother and we !' 
 
 ' Ay, ay, my sonny ; every lad has said 
 that in his time.' 
 
 They had now again reached the pre- 
 cincts of Mr. Shinar's, but hearing nobody 
 
THE LISTENERS. 65 
 
 in that direction, one or two went across to 
 the school-house. A lio^ht was still burnino; 
 in the bedroom, and though the blind was 
 down, the window had been slightly opened, 
 as if to admit the distant notes of the carol- 
 lers to the ears of the occupant of the 
 room. 
 
 Opposite the window, leaning motion- 
 less against a wall, was the lost man, 
 his arms folded, his head thrown back, 
 his eyes fixed upon the illuminated lat- 
 tice. 
 
 ' Why, Dick, is that thee ? What's doing 
 here ?' 
 
 Dick's body instantly flew into a more 
 rational attitude, and his head was seen to 
 turn east and west in the gloom, as if en- 
 deavouring to discern some proper answer to 
 that question ; and at last he said in rather 
 feeble accents, 
 
 ' Nothing, father.' 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' Th'st take lono; enouo^h time about it 
 then, upon my body/ said the tranter, as 
 they all turned towards the vicarage. 
 
 ' I thought you hadn't done having snap 
 in the belfry,' said Dick. 
 
 ' Why, we've been traypsing and ram- 
 bling about, looking everywhere like any- 
 thing, and thinking you'd done fifty horrid 
 things, and here have you been at nothing 
 at all!' 
 
 ^The insult lies in the nothingness of 
 the deed,' murmured Mr. Spinks. 
 
 The vicarage garden was their next 
 field of operation, and Mr. Maybold, the 
 lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his 
 share of the night's harmonies. It was 
 hoped that by reason of his profession he 
 would have been led to open the window, 
 and an extra carol in quick time was added 
 to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold made 
 no stir. 
 
THE LISTENERS. 67 
 
 * A bad sign !^ said old Willianij shaking 
 his head. 
 
 However, at that same instant a musi- 
 cal voice was heard exclaiminsf from inner 
 depths of bedclothes, 
 
 ' Thanks, villagers !' 
 
 ' What did he say ?' asked Bowman, 
 who was rather dull of hearins^. Bowman's 
 voice, being therefore loud, had been heard 
 by the vicar within. 
 
 'I said, "Thanks, villagers!"' cried the 
 
 vicar again. 
 
 'Beg yer pardon; didn^t hear ye the 
 first time !' cried Bowman. 
 
 ' Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the 
 young man's temper by answering Hke that!' 
 said the tranter. 
 
 'You won't do that, my friends!' the 
 vicar shouted. 
 
 ' Well to be sure, what ears !' said Mr. 
 Penny in a whisper. ' Beats any horse or 
 
68 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's 
 a sign he's a proper clever chap.' 
 
 ^We shall see that in time/ said the 
 tranter. 
 
 Old William, in his gratitude for such 
 thanks from a comparatively new inhabi- 
 tant, was anxious to play all the tunes over 
 again ; but renounced his desire on being 
 reminded by Reuben that it would be best 
 to leave well alone. 
 
 'Now putting two and two together,' 
 the tranter continued, as they wended their 
 way to the other portion of the village, 
 ' that is, in the form of that young vision we 
 seed just now, and this young tinner- voiced 
 parson, my belief is she'll wind en round 
 her finger, and twist the pore young feller 
 about like the figure of 8 — that she will so, 
 my sonnies.' 
 
CHAPTER YL 
 
 CHRISTMAS MORNING. 
 
 The choir at last reached their beds, and 
 slept like the rest of, the parish. Dick's 
 slumbers, through the three or four hours 
 remaining for rest, were disturbed and 
 slight ; an exhaustive variation upon the 
 incidents that had passed that night in con- 
 nection with the school- window 2:oino: on in 
 his brain every moment of the time. 
 
 In the morning, do what he would — go 
 upstairs, downstairs, out of doors, speak of 
 the wind and weather, or what not — ^he 
 could not refrain from an unceasing renewal, 
 in imagination, of that interesting enactment. 
 Tilted on the edge of one foot he stood 
 
70 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 beside the fireplace, watching his mother 
 grilling rashers; but there was nothing in 
 grilling, he thought, unless the Vision 
 grilled. The limp rasher hung down be- 
 tween the bars of the gridiron like a cat in 
 a child's arms; but there was nothing in 
 similes. He looked at the daylight shadows 
 of a yellow hue, dancing with the firelight 
 shadows in blue on the whitewashed chim- 
 ney corner, but there was nothing in 
 shadows. ' Perhaps the new young worn — 
 sch — Miss Fancy Day will sing in church 
 with us this morning,' he said. 
 
 The tranter looked a long time before 
 he replied, ' I fancy she will ; and yet I 
 fancy she won't.' 
 
 Dick implied that such a remark was 
 rather to be tolerated than admired ; though 
 the slight meagreness observable in the in- 
 formation conveyed disappointed him less 
 than may be expected, deliberateness in 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. ji 
 
 speech being known to have, as a rule, more 
 to do with the machinery of the tranter's 
 throat than with the matter enunciated. 
 
 They made preparations for going to 
 church as usual; Dick with extreme alac- 
 rity, though he would not definitely con- 
 sider why he was so religious. His won- 
 derful nicety in brushing and cleaning his 
 best light boots had features which ele- 
 vated it to the rank of an art. Every 
 particle and speck of last week's mud was 
 scraped and brushed from toe and heel ; 
 new blacking from the packet was carefully 
 mixed and made use of, regardless of ex- 
 pense. A coat was laid on and polished ; 
 then another coat for increased blackness: 
 and lastly a third, to give the perfect and 
 mirror-like jet which the hoped-for ren- 
 contre demanded. 
 
 It being Christmas-day, the tranter 
 prepared himself with Sunday particularity. 
 
72 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard 
 to proceed from the back quarters of the 
 dwelling, proclaiming that he was there 
 performing his great Sunday wash, lasting 
 half an hour, to which his washings on 
 working- day mornings were mere flashes in 
 the pan. Vanishing into the outhouse with 
 a large broAvn basin, and the above-named 
 bubblings and sriortings being carried on 
 for about twenty minutes, the tranter would 
 appear round the edge of the door, smelling 
 like a summer fog, and looking as if he had 
 just narrowly escaped a watery grave with 
 the loss of hat and neckerchief, having since 
 been weeping bitterly till his eyes were red; 
 a crystal drop of water hanging ornament- 
 ally at the bottom of each ear, one at the 
 tip of his nose, and others in the form of 
 spangles about his hair. 
 
 After a great deal of crunching upon the 
 sanded stone floor by the feet of father, son. 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. 
 
 and grandson as they moved to and fro in 
 these preparations, the bass-viol and fiddles 
 were taken from their nook, and the strings 
 examined and screwed a little above concert 
 pitch, that they might keep their tone when 
 service commenced, to obviate the awkward 
 contingency of having to retime them at the 
 back of the gallery during a cough, sneeze, 
 or amen — an inconvenience which had been 
 known to arise in damp wintry weather. 
 
 The three left the door and paced down 
 Mellstock-lane, bearing under their arms the 
 instruments in faded green-baize bags, and 
 old brown music-books in their hands; Dick 
 continually finding himself in advance of the 
 other two, and the tranter moving on with 
 toes turned outwards to an enormous angle. 
 
 Seven human heads in a row were now 
 observable over a hedge of laurel, which 
 proved to be the choristers waiting; sitting 
 occasionally on the churchyard - wall and 
 
74 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 letting their heels dangle against it, to pass 
 the time. The musicians being now in 
 sight, the youthful party scampered off and 
 rattled up the old wooden stairs of the gal- 
 lery like a regiment of cavalry ; the other 
 boys of the parish waiting outside looking 
 at birds, cats, and other creatures till the 
 vicar entered, when they suddenly subsided 
 into sober church-goers, and passed down 
 the aisle with echoing heels. 
 
 The gallery of Mellstock Church had 
 a status and sentiment of its own. A 
 stranger there was regarded with a feeling 
 altogether differing from that of the congre- 
 gation below towards him. Banished from 
 the nave as an intruder whom no originality 
 could make interesting, he was received 
 above as a curiosity that no unfitness could 
 render dull. The gallery, too, looked down 
 upon and knew the habits of the nave to its 
 remotest peculiarity, and had an extensive 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. 75 
 
 stock of exclusive information about it ; 
 whilst tlie nave knew nothin^^ of the gallery 
 people, as gallery people, beyond their loud- 
 sounding minims and chest notes. Such 
 topics as that the clerk was always chewing 
 tobacco except at the moment of crying 
 amen ; that he had a dust-hole in his pew ; 
 that during the sermon certain young 
 daughters of the village had left oif caring 
 to read anything so mild as the marriage 
 service for some years, and now regularly 
 studied the one which chronologically fol- 
 lows it; that a pair of lovers touched fin- 
 gers through a knot-hole between their pews 
 in the manner ordained by their great ex- 
 emplars, Pyramus and Thisbe \ that Mrs. 
 Ledlow, the farmer's wife, counted her 
 money and reckoned her week's marketing 
 expenses during the first lesson — all news 
 to those below — were stale subjects here. 
 Old William sat in the centre of the 
 
76 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 front row, his violoncello between his knees, 
 and two singers on each hand. Behind 
 him, on the left, came the treble singers and 
 Dick; and on the right the tranter and the 
 tenors. Farther back was old Mail with 
 the altos and supernumeraries. 
 
 But before they had taken their places, 
 and whilst they were standing in a circle at 
 the back of the gallery practising a psalm 
 or two, Dick cast his eyes over his grand- 
 father's shoulder, and saw the vision of the 
 past night enter the porch-door as methodi- 
 cally as if she had never been a vision at 
 all. A new atmosphere seemed suddenly to 
 be puffed into the ancient edifice by her 
 movement, which made Dick's body and 
 soul tingle with novel sensations. Directed 
 by Shinar, the churchwarden, she proceeded 
 to the short aisle on the north side of the 
 chancel, a spot now allotted to a throng of 
 Sunday-school girls, and distinctly visible 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. 77 
 
 from the gallery -front by looking under 
 the curve of the furthermost arch on that 
 side. 
 
 Before this moment the. church had 
 seemed comparatively empty — now it was 
 thronged ; and as Miss Fancy rose from her 
 knees and looked around her for a perma- 
 nent place in which to deposit herself — fin- 
 ally choosing the remotest corner — Dick 
 began to breathe more freely the warm new 
 air she had brought with her ; to feel rush- 
 ings of blood, and to have impressions that 
 there was a tie between her and himself 
 visible to all the cono^reo-ation. 
 
 Ever afterwards the young man could 
 recollect individually each part of the ser- 
 vice of that bright Christmas morning, and 
 the minute occurrences which took place as 
 its hours slowly drew along ; the duties of 
 that day dividing themselves by a complete 
 line from the services of other times. The 
 
78 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 tunes they that mornmg essayed remained 
 with him for years, apart from all others; 
 also the text; also the appearance of the 
 layer of dust upon the capitals of the piers ; 
 that the holly -bough in the chancel archway 
 was hung a little out of the centre — all the 
 ideas, in short, that creep into the mind 
 when reason is only exercising its lowest 
 activity through the eye. 
 
 By chance or by fate, another young 
 man who attended Mellstock Church on that 
 Christmas morning had towards the end of 
 the service the same instinctive perception 
 of an interesting presence, in the shape of 
 the same bright maiden, though his emotion 
 reached a far less - developed stage. And 
 there was this difference, too, that the per- 
 son in question was surprised at his condi- 
 tion, and sedulously endeavoured to reduce 
 himself to his normal state of mind. He 
 was the young vicar, Mr. Maybold. 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. 
 
 79 
 
 The music on Christmas mornings was 
 frequently below the standard of church-per- 
 formances at other times. The boys were 
 sleepy from the heavy exertions of the 
 night ; the men were slightly wearied ; and 
 now, in addition to these constant reasons, 
 there was a dampness in the atmosphere 
 that still farther aggravated the evil. Their 
 strings, from the recent long exposure to 
 the night air, rose whole semitones, and 
 snapped with a loud twang at the most 
 silent moment; which necessitated more re- 
 tiring than ever to the back of the gallery, 
 and made the gallery throats quite husky 
 with the quantity of coughing and hemming 
 required for tuning in. The vicar looked 
 cross. 
 
 When the singing was in progress, there 
 was suddenly discovered to be a strono* and 
 shrill reinforcement from some point, ulti- 
 mately found to be the school -girls' aisle. 
 
8o UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 At every attempt it grew bolder and more 
 distinct. At the third time of singing, these 
 intrusive feminine voices were as mighty as 
 those of the regular singers; in fact, the 
 flood of sound from this quarter assumed 
 such an individuality, that it had a time, a 
 key, almost a tune of its own, surging up- 
 Avards when the gallery plunged downwards, 
 and the reverse. 
 
 Now this had never happened before 
 within the memory of man. The girls, like 
 the rest of the congregation, had always 
 been humble and respectful followers of the 
 gallery ; singing at sixes and sevens if with- 
 out gallery leaders ; never interfering with 
 the ordinances of these practised artists — 
 having no will, union, power, or proclivity 
 except it was given them from the estab- 
 lished choir enthroned above them. 
 
 A good deal of desperation became no- 
 ticeable in the gallery throats and strings. 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. 8i 
 
 which continued throughout the musical 
 portion of the service. Directly the fiddles 
 were laid down, Mr. Penny's spectacles put 
 in their sheath, and the text had been given 
 out, an indignant whispering began. 
 
 'Did ye hear that, souls?' Mr. Penny 
 said in a groaning breath. 
 
 ' Brazen-faced hussies !' said Bowman. 
 
 'Trew; why, they were every note as 
 loud as we, fiddles and all, if not louder.' 
 
 ' Fiddles and all,' echoed Bowman bit- 
 terly. 
 
 ' Shall anything bolder be found than 
 united woman ?' Mr. Spinks murmured. 
 
 ' What I want to know is,' said the tran- 
 ter (as if he knew already, but that civilisa- 
 tion required the form of words), ' what 
 business people have to tell maidens to sing 
 like that when they don't sit in a gallery, 
 and never have entered one in their lives? 
 That's the question, my sonnies.' 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 "Tis the gallery have got to sing, all 
 the world knows,' said Mr. Penny. ' Why, 
 souls, what's the use o' the ancients spend- 
 ing scores of pounds to build galleries if 
 people down in the lowest depths of the 
 church sing like that at a moment's notice ?' 
 
 ^ Eeally, I think we useless ones had 
 better march out of church, fiddles and all !' 
 said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a 
 stranger, would have sounded mild and real. 
 Only the initiated body of men he addressed 
 could understand the horrible bitterness of 
 irony that lurked under the quiet words 
 ^ useless ones,' and the ghastliness of the 
 laughter apparently so natural. 
 
 * Never mind ! Let 'em sing too — 'twill 
 make it all the louder — hee, hee !' said 
 Leaf 
 
 'Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where 
 have you lived all your life?' said grand- 
 father William sternly. 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. 83 
 
 The quailing Leaf tried to look as if he 
 had lived nowhere at all. 
 
 ^ When all's said and done, my sonnies,' 
 Eeuben said, 'there'd have been no real 
 harm in their singing if they had let no- 
 body hear 'em, and only jined in now and 
 then.' 
 
 'None at all,' said Mr. Penny. 'But 
 though I don't wish to accuse people 
 wrongfully, I'd say before my lord judge 
 that I could hear every note o' that last 
 psalm come from 'em as much as from us 
 — every note as if 'twas their own.' 
 
 ' Know it ! ah, I should think I did 
 know it !' Mr. Spinks was heard to observe 
 at this moment, without reference to his fel- 
 low-creatures — shaking his head at some 
 idea he seemed to see floating before him, 
 and smihng as if he were attending a fune- 
 ral at the time. ' Ah, do I or don't I know 
 it !' 
 
84 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 No one said ^ Know what ?' because all 
 were aware from experience that what he 
 knew would declare itself in process of 
 time. 
 
 ' I could fancy last night that we should 
 have some trouble wi' that young man,' 
 said the tranter, pending the continuance 
 of Spinks's speech, and looking towards 
 the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the pulpit. 
 
 '/fancy,' said old William, rather se- 
 verely, ' I fancy there's too much whisper- 
 ing going on to be of any spiritual use to 
 gentle or simple.' Then folding his lips and 
 concentrating his glance on the vicar, he 
 implied that none but the ignorant would 
 speak again ; and accordingly there was 
 silence in the gallery, Mr. Spinks's telling 
 speech remaining for ever unspoken. 
 
 Dick had said nothing, and the tranter 
 little, on this episode of the morning; for 
 Mrs. Dewy at breakfast expressed it as 
 
CHRISTMAS MORNING. 85 
 
 her intention to invite the youthful leader 
 of the culprits to the small party it was 
 customary with them to have on Christmas- 
 night — a piece of knowledge which had 
 given a particular brightness to Dick's re- 
 flections since he had received it. And in 
 the tranter's slightly cynical nature, party 
 feeling was weaker than in the other mem- 
 bers of the choir, though friendliness and 
 faithful partnership still sustained in him 
 a hearty earnestness on their account. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE tranter's PARTY. 
 
 During tlie afternoon unusual activity was 
 seen to prevail about the precincts of tran- 
 ter Dewy's house. The flagstone floor was 
 swept of dust, and a sprinkling of the finest 
 yellow sand from the innermost stratum 
 of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered 
 thereupon. Then were produced large knives 
 and forks, which had been shrouded in 
 darkness and grease since the last occasion 
 of the kind, and bearing upon their sides, 
 ' Shear-steel, warranted,' in such emphatic 
 letters of assurance, that the cutler's name 
 
THE TRANTERS PARTY. 87 
 
 was not required as further proof, and not 
 given. The key was left in the tap of the 
 cider-barrel, instead of being carried in a 
 pocket. And finally the ti^anter had to 
 stand up in the room and let his wife wheel 
 him round like a turnstile, to see if anything 
 discreditable was visible in his appearance. 
 
 ' Stand still till I've been for the scis- 
 sors,' said Mrs. Dewy. 
 
 The tranter stood as still as a sentinel 
 at the challenge. 
 
 The only repairs 'necessary were a trim- 
 ming of one or two whiskers that had ex- 
 tended beyond the general contour of the 
 mass ; a like trimming of a slightly frayed 
 edge visible on his shirt-collar ; and a final 
 tug at a gray hair — to all of which opera- 
 tions he submitted in resigned silence, ex- 
 cept the last, which produced a mild ' Come, 
 come, Ann,' by way of expostulation. 
 
 ' Eeally, Eeuben, 'tis quite a disgrace to 
 
88 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 see such a man,' said Mrs. Dewy, with the 
 severity justifiable in a long - tried com- 
 panion, giving him another turn round, and 
 picking several of Smiler's hairs from the 
 shoulder of his coat. Reuben's thoughts 
 seemed engaged elsewhere, and he yawned. 
 ' And the collar of your coat is a shame to 
 behold — so plastered mth dirt, or dust, or 
 grease, or something. Why, wherever could 
 you have got it?' 
 
 ' 'Tis my warm nater in summer-time, 
 I suppose. I always did get in such a heat 
 when I bustle about.' 
 
 ' Ay, the Dewys always were such a 
 coarse -skinned family. There's your bro- 
 ther Bob — as fat as a porpoise — just as 
 bad; wi' his low, mean, "How'st do, Ann?" 
 whenever he meets me. I'd " How'st do" 
 him, indeed ! If the sun only shines out a 
 minute, there be you all streaming in the 
 face — I never see!' 
 
THE TRANTERS PARTY. 89 
 
 ' If I be hot week-days, I must be hot 
 Sundays.' 
 
 ' If any of the gh^ls should turn after 
 their father 'twill be a poor look-out for 
 'em, poor things ! None of my family was 
 sich vulgar perspirers, not one of 'em. But, 
 Lord-a-mercy, the Dewys! I don't know 
 how ever I came into such a family.' 
 
 ' Your woman's weakness when I asked 
 ye to jine us. That's how it was, I suppose ;' 
 but the tranter appeared to have heard 
 some such words from his wife before, and 
 hence his answer had not the energy it 
 might have possessed if the inquiry had 
 possessed the charm of novelty. 
 
 ' You never did look so well in a pair 
 o' trousers as in them,' she continued in 
 the same unimpassioned voice, so that the un- 
 friendly criticism of the Dewy family seemed 
 to have been more normal than spontaneous. 
 ' Such a cheap pair as 'twas too. As big 
 
90 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 as any man could wish to have, and lined 
 inside, and double-lined in the lower parts, 
 and an extra piece of stiffening at the bot- 
 tom. And 'tis a nice high cut that comes 
 up right under your armpits, and there's 
 enouofh turned down inside the seams to 
 make half a pair more, besides a piece of 
 stuff left that will make an honest waist- 
 coat — all by my contriving in buying the 
 stuff at a bargain, and having it made up 
 under my eye. It only shows what may 
 be done by taking a little trouble, and not 
 going straight to the rascally tailors.' 
 
 The discourse was cut short by the 
 sudden appearance of Charley on the scene 
 with a face and hands of hideous blackness, 
 and a nose guttering like a candle. Why, 
 on that particularly cleanly afternoon, he 
 should have discovered that the chimney- 
 crook and chain from which the hams were 
 suspended should have possessed more merits 
 
THE TRANTERS PARTY. 91 
 
 and general interest as playthings than any 
 other article in the house, is a question for 
 nursing mothers to decide. However, the 
 humour seemed to lie in the result being, 
 as has been seen, that any given player 
 with these articles was in the long-run 
 daubed with soot. The last that Avas seen 
 of Charley by daylight after this piece of 
 ingenuity was when in the act of vanishing 
 from his father's presence round the corner 
 of the house, — looking back over his shoul- 
 der with an ex^Dression of great sin on his 
 face, like Cain as the Outcast in Bible pic- 
 tures. 
 
 The guests had all assembled, and the 
 tranter's party had reached that degree of 
 development which accords Avith ten o'clock 
 r.M. in rural assemblies. At that hoiu^ the 
 sound of a fiddle in process of tuning was 
 heard from the inner pantry. 
 
92 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' That's Dick,' said the tranter. ' That 
 lad's crazy for a jig.' 
 
 ^Dick! Now I cannot — really, I can- 
 not allow any dancing at all till Christmas - 
 day is out,' said old William emphatically. 
 ^ When the clock ha' done striking twelve, 
 dance as much as ye like.' 
 
 ' Well, I must say there's reason in that, 
 William,' said Mrs. Penny. ' If you do 
 have a party on Christmas-day-night, 'tis 
 only fair and honourable to the Church of 
 England to have it a sit -still party. Jig- 
 ging parties be all very well, and this, that,, 
 and therefore; but a jigging party looks 
 suspicious. 0, yes ; stop till the clock 
 strikes, young folk — so say L' 
 
 It happened that some warm mead ac- 
 cidentally got into Mr. Spinks's head about 
 this time. 
 
 ' Dancing,' he said, ' is a most strength- 
 ening, enlivening, and courting movement, 
 
THE TRANTERS PARTY. 93 
 
 especially with a little beverage added ! And 
 dancing is good. But why disturb what 
 is ordained, Eichard and Reuben, and the 
 company zhinerally ? Why, I ask, as far 
 as that goes ?' 
 
 ' Then nothing till after twelve/ said 
 William. 
 
 Though Reuben and his wife ruled on 
 social points, religious questions were mostly 
 disposed of by the old man, whose firmness 
 on this head quite counterbalanced a cer- 
 tain weakness in his handling of domestic 
 matters. The hopes of the younger mem- 
 bers of the household were therefore rele-. 
 gated to a distance of one hour and three- 
 quarters — a result that took visible shape 
 in them by a remote and listless look about 
 the eyes — the singing of songs being per- 
 mitted in the interim. 
 
 At five minutes to twelve the soft tun- 
 ing was again heard in the back quarters ; 
 
94 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 and when at length the clock had whizzed 
 forth the last stroke, Dick appeared ready 
 primed, and the instruments were boldly 
 handled; old William very readily taking 
 the bass-viol from its accustomed nail, and 
 touching the strings as irreligiously as could 
 be desired. 
 
 The country-dance called the 'Triumph, 
 or Follow my Lover,' was the figure with 
 which they opened. The tranter took for 
 his partner Mrs. Penny, and Mrs. Dewy 
 was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so 
 much of his limited height by a judicious 
 carriage of the head, straightening of the 
 back, and important flashes of his spectacle- 
 glasses, that he seemed almost as tall as 
 the tranter. Mr. Shinar, age about thirty- 
 five, farmer and churchwarden, a character 
 principally composed of watch-chain, with 
 a mouth always hanging on a smile but 
 never smiling, had come quite willingly to 
 
THE TRANTERS PARTY, 95 
 
 the party, and showed a wondrous oblivi- 
 ousness of all his antics on the previous 
 night. But the comely, slender, prettily- 
 dressed prize Fancy Day fell to Dick's lot, 
 in spite of some private machinations of the 
 farmer, for the reason that Mr. Shinar, as a 
 richer man, had shown too much assurance 
 in asking the favour, whilst Dick had been 
 duly courteous. 
 
 We gain a good view of our heroine as 
 she advances to her place in the ladies' line. 
 She belonged to the taller division of mid- 
 dle height. Flexibility was her first cha- 
 racteristic, by which she appeared to enjoy 
 the most easeful rest when she was in 
 gliding motion. Her dark eyes — arched by 
 brows of so keen, slender, and soft a curve, 
 that they resembled nothing so much as two 
 slurs in music — showed primarily a bright 
 sparkle each. This was softened by a fre- 
 quent thought fulness, yet not so frequent as 
 
96 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 to do away, for more than a few minutes at 
 a time, with a certain coquettishness ; which 
 in its turn was never so decided as to banish 
 honesty. Her lips imitated her brows in their 
 clearly- cut outline and softness of curve; 
 and her nose was well shaped — which is say- 
 ing a great deal, when it is remembered that 
 there are a hundred pretty mouths and 
 eyes for one pretty nose. Add to this, plen- 
 tiful knots of dark-brown hair, a gauzy dress 
 of white, with blue facings ; and the slight- 
 est idea may be gained of the young maiden 
 who showed, amidst the rest of the dancing- 
 ladies, like a flower among vegetables. And 
 so the dance proceeded. Mr. Shinar, accord- 
 ing to the interesting rule laid down, de- 
 serted his own partner, and made oiF down 
 the middle with this fair one of Dick's — the 
 pair appearing from the top of the room 
 like two persons tripping down a lane to be 
 married. Dick trotted behind with what 
 
THE TRANTER'S PARTY, 
 
 97 
 
 was intended to be a look of composure, but 
 wbicli was, in fact, a rather silly exj)ression 
 of feature — implying, with too much earnest- 
 ness, that such an elopement could not be 
 tolerated. Then they turned and came back, 
 Y/hen Dick* or^ew more rio^id around his 
 mouth, and blushed with ingenuous ardour 
 as he joined hands with the rival and formed 
 the arch over his lady's head ; relinquishing 
 her again at setting to partners, when Mr. 
 Shinar's new chain quivered in every link, 
 and all the loose flesh upon the tranter — 
 who here came into action again— shook 
 like jelly. Mrs. Penny, being always rather 
 concerned for her personal safety when she 
 danced with the tranter, fixed her face to 
 a chronic smile of timidity the whole time 
 it lasted — a peculiarity which filled her fea- 
 tures with wrinkles, and reduced her eyes 
 to little straight lines like hyphens, as she 
 jigged up and down opposite him ; repeating 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 in her own person not only his proper move- 
 ments, but also the minor flourishes which 
 the richness of the tranter's imaraiation led 
 him to introduce from time to time — an 
 imitation which had about it something of 
 slavish obedience, not unmixed with fear. 
 
 The ear-rings of the ladies now flung 
 themselves wildly about, turning violent 
 summersaults, banging this way and that, 
 and then swinging quietly against the ears 
 sustaining them. Mrs. Grumpier — a heavy 
 woman, who, for some reason which nobody 
 ever thought worth inquiry, danced in a 
 clean apron — moved so smoothly through 
 the figure that her feet were never seen; 
 conveying to imaginative minds the idea 
 that she rolled on castors. 
 
 ]\Iinute after minute glided by, and the 
 party reached the period when ladies' back- 
 hair begins to look forgotten and dissipated; 
 when a perceptible dampness makes itself 
 apparent upon the faces even of delicate 
 
THE TRANTER'S PARTY. 99 
 
 girls — a ghastly dew having for some time 
 rained from the features of their masculine 
 partners; when skirts begin to be torn out 
 of their gathers ; when elderly people, who 
 have stood up to please their juniors, begin 
 to feel sundry small tremblings in the re- 
 gion of the knees, and to wish the inter- 
 minable dance was at Jericho; when (at 
 country parties) waistcoats begin to be un- 
 buttoned, and when the fiddlers' chairs have 
 been wriggled, by the frantic bowing of their 
 occupiers, to a distance of about two feet 
 from where they originally stood. 
 
 Fancy was dancing with Mr. Shinar. 
 Dick knew that Fancy, by the law of good 
 manners, was bound to dance as pleasantly 
 with one partner as with another; yet he 
 could not help suggesting to himself that 
 she need not have put quite so much spirit 
 into her steps, nor smiled qidte so frequently 
 whilst in the farmer's hands. 
 
TOO UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 'I'm afraid you didn't cast off,' said 
 Dick mildly to Mr. Shinar, before the latter 
 man's watch-chain had done vibrating from 
 a recent whirl. 
 
 Fancy made a motion of accepting the 
 correction; but her partner took no no- 
 tice, and proceeded with the next move- 
 ment, with an affectionate bend towards 
 her. 
 
 ' That Shinar' s too fond of her,' the 
 young man said to himself as he watched 
 them. They came to the top again, Fancy 
 smiling warmly towards her partner, and 
 went to their places. 
 
 ' Mr. Shinar, you didn't cast off,' said 
 Dick, for want of something else to demolish 
 him with ; casting off himself, and being 
 put out at the farmer's irregularity. 
 
 ' Perhaps I sha n't cast off for any man,' 
 said Mr. Shinar. 
 
 ' I think you ought to, sir.' 
 
THE TRANTER'S PARTY. loi 
 
 Dick's partner, a young lady of the 
 name of Lizzy — called Lizz for short — 
 tried to mollify. 
 
 ' I can't say that I myself have much 
 feelino; for castim>: off,' she said. 
 
 ' Nor 1/ said Mrs. Penny, following up 
 the argument ; ' especially if a friend and 
 naibour is set against it. Not but that 'tis 
 a terrible tasty thing in good hands and 
 well done ; yes, indeed, so say I.' 
 
 'All I meant was,' said Dick, rather 
 sorry that he had spoken correctingly to a 
 guest, ' that 'tis in the dance ; and a man 
 has hardly any right to hack and mangle 
 what was ordained by the regular dance- 
 maker, who, I daresay, got his living by 
 making 'em, and thought of nothing else 
 all his life.' 
 
 ' I don't like casting off : then very 
 well; I cast off for no dance -maker that 
 ever lived.' 
 
3 02 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 Dick now appeared to be doing mental 
 arithmetic, the act being really an effort to 
 present to himself, in an abstract form, how 
 far an argument with a formidable rival 
 ought to be carried, when that rival was 
 his mother s guest. The dead-lock was put 
 an end to by the stamping arrival up the 
 middle of the tranter, Vv^ho, despising mi- 
 nutiae on principle, started a theme of his 
 own. 
 
 ' I assure you, naibours,' he said, ' the 
 heat of my frame no tongue can tell !' He 
 looked around, and endeavoured to give, 
 by a forcible gaze of self - sympathy, some 
 faint idea of the truth. 
 
 Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next 
 couple. 
 
 ' Yes,' she said in an auxiliary tone, 
 * Reuben always was such a hot man.' 
 
 Mrs. Penny implied the correct species 
 of sympathy that such a class of affliction 
 
THE TRANTERS PARTY. 103 
 
 required, by trying to smile and to look 
 grieved at the same time. 
 
 ' If he only walk round the garden of a 
 Sunday morning, his shirt-collar is as limp 
 as no starch at all,' continued Mrs. Dewy, 
 her countenance lapsing parenthetically into 
 a housewifely expression of concern at the 
 reminiscence. 
 
 'Come, come, you wimmen-fplk; 'tis 
 hands-across — come, come!' said the tran- 
 ter; and the conversation ceased for the 
 present. 
 
CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 
 
 Dick had at length secured Fancy for that 
 most delightful of country - dances, begm- 
 ning with six-hands-round. 
 
 ' Before we begin/ said the tranter, 
 'my proposal is, that 'twould be a right 
 and proper plan for every martel man in 
 the dance to pull off his jacket, considering 
 the heat.' 
 
 ' Such low notions as you have, Reuben ! 
 Nothing but strip will go down with you 
 when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man 
 as he is!' 
 
 ' Well, now, look here, my sonnies,' he 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 105 
 
 argued to his wife, whom he often addressed 
 in the plural masculine for convenience of 
 epithet merely ; ' I don't see that. You 
 dance and get hot as fire; therefore you 
 lighten your clothes. Isn't that nater and 
 reason for gentle and simple ? If I strip by 
 myself and not necessary, 'tis rather pot- 
 housey, I own ; but if we stout chaps strip 
 one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of 
 the country, which no man can gainsay. 
 Hey — what do you say, my sonnies?' 
 
 'Strip we will!' said the three other 
 heavy men; and their coats were accord- 
 ingly taken off and hung in the passage, 
 whence the four sufferers from heat soon 
 reappeared, inarching in close column, with 
 flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as com- 
 mon to them all, a general glance of being 
 now a match for any man or dancer in 
 England or Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose 
 ground in Fancy's good opinion, retained 
 
io6 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 Ms coat ; and Mr. Sliinar did tlie same from 
 superior knowledge. 
 
 And now a further phase of rural revelry 
 had disclosed itself. It was the time of 
 night when a guest may write his name in 
 the dust upon the tables and chairs, and a 
 bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, be- 
 coming a distinct halo round the candles; 
 when people's nostrils, wrinkles, and cre- 
 vices in general, seem to be getting gradu- 
 ally plastered up ; when the very fiddlers as 
 well as the dancers get red in the face, the 
 dancers having advanced farther still towards 
 incandescence, and entered the cadaverous 
 phase ; the fiddlers no longer sit do^vn, but 
 kick back their chairs and saw madly at the 
 strings, with legs firmly spread and eyes 
 closed, regardless of the visible world 
 Again and again did Dick share his Love's 
 hand with another man, and wheel round; 
 then, more delightfully, promenade in a cir- 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 107 
 
 cle with her all to himself, his arm holding her 
 waist more firmly each time, and his elbow 
 getting farther and farther behind her back, 
 till the distance reached was rather notice- 
 able ; and, most blissful, swinging to places 
 shoulder to shoulder, her breath curling 
 round his neck like a summer zephyr that 
 had strayed from its proper date. Thread- 
 ing the couples one by one they reached 
 the bottom, when there arose in Dick's 
 mind a minor misery lest the tune should 
 end before they could work their way to 
 the top again, and have anew the same ex- 
 citing run down through. Dick's feelings 
 on actually reaching the top in spite of his 
 doubts were supplemented by a mortal fear 
 that the fiddling might even stop at this 
 supreme moment ; which prompted him to 
 convey a stealthy whisper to the far-gone 
 musicians, to the effect that they were not 
 to leave off till he and his partner had 
 
loS UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 reached the bottom of the dance once more, 
 which remark was replied to by the nearest 
 of those convulsed and quivering men by a 
 private nod to the anxious young man be- 
 tween two semiquavers of the tune, and a 
 simultaneous 'All right, ay, ay,' mthout 
 opening his eyes. Fancy was now held so 
 closely, that Dick and she were practically 
 one person. The room became to Dick like 
 a picture in a dream; all that he could re- 
 member of it afterwards being the look of 
 the fiddlers going to sleep, as humming-tops 
 sleep — by increasing their motion and hum, 
 together with the figures of grandfather 
 James and old Simon Grumpier sitting by 
 the chimney-corner, talking and nodding 
 in dumb-show, and beating the air to their 
 emphatic sentences like people in a railway 
 train. 
 
 The dance ended. ' Piph-h-h-h !' said 
 tranter Dewy, blowing out his breath in 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 109 
 
 tlie very finest stream of vapour that a 
 man's lips could form. ' A regular tightener, 
 that one, sonnies!' He wiped his forehead, 
 and went to the cider-mug on the table. 
 
 ^ Well!' said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a 
 chair, ^my heart haven't been in such a 
 thumping state of uproar since I used to sit 
 up on old Midsummer-eves to see who my 
 husband was going to be.' 
 
 ' And that's getting on for a good few 
 years ago now, from what I've heard you 
 tell,' said the tranter without lifting his eyes 
 from the cup he was filling. Being now 
 engaged in the business of handing round 
 refreshments, he was warranted in keeping 
 his coat off still, though the other heavy 
 men had resumed theirs. 
 
 ' And a thing I never expected w^ould 
 come to pass, if you'll believe me, cam to 
 pass then,' continued Mrs. Penny. ' Ah, 
 the first spirit ever I see on a Midsummer- 
 
no UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 eve was a puzzle to me wlien lie appeared, 
 a hard puzzle, so say I !' 
 
 ' So I should have imagined ; as far as 
 that goes,' said Elias Spinks. 
 
 'Yes,' said Mrs. Penny, throwing her 
 glance into past times, and talking on in a 
 running tone of complacent abstraction, as 
 if a listener were not a necessity. ' Yes ; 
 never was I in such a taking as on that 
 Midsummer-eve ! I sat up, quite deter- 
 mined to see if John Wildway was going to 
 marry me or no. I put the bread-and- 
 cheese and cider quite ready, as the witch's 
 book ordered, and I opened the door, and I 
 waited till the clock struck twelve, my 
 nerves all alive, and so distinct that I could 
 feel every one of 'em twitching like bell- 
 wires. Yes, sure ! and when the clock had 
 struck, lo and behold, I could see through 
 the door a little small man in the lane wi' 
 a shoemaker's apron on.' 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. in 
 
 Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged 
 himself half an inch. 
 
 'Now John Wildwaj^,' Mrs. Penny con- 
 tinued, ' who courted me at that time, was a 
 shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair- 
 sized man, and I couldn't believe that any 
 such a little small man had anything to do 
 wi' me, as anybody might. But on he came, 
 and crossed the threshold — not John, but 
 actually the same little small man in the 
 shoemaker's apron — ' 
 
 ' You needn't be so mighty particular 
 about little and small!' said her husband, 
 pecking the air with his nose. 
 
 ' In he walks, and down he sits, and 
 my goodness me, didn't I flee upstairs, 
 body and soul hardly hanging together ! 
 Well, to cut a long story short, by -long 
 and by-late, John Wildway and I had a 
 miff and parted; and lo and behold, the 
 coming man came ! Penny asked me if I'd 
 
112 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 go snacks ^vitli liim, and afore I knew what 
 I was about a'most, the thing was done.' 
 
 ' I've fancied yoii never knew better in 
 yonr life ; but I may be mistaken,' said 
 Mr. Penny in a murmur. 
 
 After ]\Irs. Penny had spoken, there 
 being no new occupation for her eyes, she 
 still let them stay idling on the past scenes 
 just related, which were apparently visible 
 to her in the candle-flame. Mr. Penny's 
 remark received no reply. 
 
 During this discourse the tranter and 
 Ms wife might have been observed standing 
 in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious 
 closeness to each other, a just perceptible 
 current of intelligence passing from each to 
 each, which had apparently no relation 
 whatever to the conversation of their guests, 
 but much to their sustenance. A conclu- 
 sion of some kind having at length been 
 drawn, the palpable confederacy of man 
 and wife was once more obliterated, the 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. T13 
 
 tranter marching off into the pantry, 
 humming a tune that he couldn't quite 
 recollect, and then breaking into the words 
 of a song of which he could remember about 
 one line and a quarter. Mrs. Dewy men- 
 tioned a few words about preparations for 
 a bit of supper. 
 
 That portion of the company which 
 loved eating and drinking then put on . a 
 look to signify that till that moment they 
 had quite forgotten that it was customary 
 to eat suppers in this climate ; going even 
 farther than this politeness of feature, and 
 abruptly starting irrelevant subjects, the 
 exceedino^ flatness and forced tone of which 
 rather betrayed their object. The younger 
 members said they were quite hungry, and 
 that supper would be delightful though it 
 was so late. 
 
 Good luck attended Dick's love-passes 
 during the meal. He sat next Fancy, and 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 had the thrillmg pleasure of using perman- 
 ently a glass which had been taken by 
 Fancy in mistake ; of letting the outer 
 edge of the sole of his boot touch the 
 lower verge of her skirt; and to add to 
 these delights, a cat, which had lain un- 
 observed in her lap for several minutes, 
 crept across into his own, touching him 
 with the same portion of fur that had 
 touched her hand a moment before. Besides 
 these, there were some little pleasures in 
 the shape of helping her to vegetable she 
 didn't want, and when it had nearly alighted 
 on her plate, taking it across for his own 
 use, on the plea of waste not, want not. He 
 also, from time to time, sipped sweet sly 
 glances at her profile; noticing the set of 
 her head, the curve of her throat, and other 
 artistic properties of the lively goddess, who 
 the while kept up a rather free, not to say 
 too free, conversation with Mr. Shinar sit- 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 115 
 
 ting opposite ; wliich, after some uneasy 
 criticism, and mucli shifting of argmiient 
 backwards and forwards in Dick's mind, lie 
 decided not to consider of alarmino- sio^nifi- 
 cance. 
 
 ' A new music greets our ears now,' said 
 Miss Fancy, alluding, with the sharpness 
 that her position as village sharpener de- 
 manded, to the contrast between the rattle 
 of knives and forks and the late notes of the 
 fiddlers. 
 
 ' Ay ; and I don't know but that 'tis 
 sweeter in tone when you get above forty,' 
 said the tranter ; ' except, in faith, 'tis as re- 
 gards father there : never such a martel man 
 as he for tunes. They move his soul ; don't 
 'em, father?' 
 
 The eldest Dewy smiled across from his 
 distant chair an assent to Reuben's remark. 
 
 ' Spaking of being moved in soul,' said 
 Mr. Penny, ' I shall never forget the first 
 
ii6 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 time I heard the " Dead March." 'Twas at 
 poor Corp'l Mneman's funeral at Caster- 
 bridge. It fairly made my hair creep and 
 fidget about like a flock of sheep — ah, it 
 did, souls ! And when they had done, and 
 the last trump had sounded, and the guns 
 was fired over the dead hero's grave, an icy- 
 cold drop of moist sweat hung upon my 
 forehead, and another upon my jawbone. 
 Ah, 'tis a very solemn thing !' 
 
 ^ Well, as to father in the corner there,' 
 the tranter said, pointing to old William, 
 who was in the act of filling his mouth; 
 ' he'd starve to death for music's sake now, 
 as much as when he was a boy -chap of 
 fifteen.' 
 
 ' Truly, now,' said Michael Mail, clearing 
 the corner of his throat in the manner of a 
 man who meant to be convincing; Hhere's 
 a friendly tie of some sort between music 
 and eating.' He lifted the cup to his mouth, 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 
 
 117 
 
 and drank liimself gradually backwards from 
 a perpendicular position to a slanting one, 
 during which time his looks performed a 
 circuit from the wall opposite him to the 
 ceiling overhead. Then clearing the other 
 corner of his throat : ^ Once I was sitting in 
 the little kitchen of the Three Choughs at 
 Casterbridge, having a bit of dinner, and a 
 brass band struck up in the street. Sich a 
 beautiful band as that were ! I was sitting 
 eating fried liver and lights, I well can 
 mind — ah, I was! and to save my life, I 
 couldn't help chawing to the tune. Band 
 played six-eight time; six-eight chaws I, 
 mllynilly. Band plays common ; common 
 time went my teeth among the fried liver 
 and lights as true as a hair. Beautiful 
 'twere ! Ah, I shall never forget that there 
 band !' 
 
 ' That^s as musical a circumstance as ever 
 I heard of,' said grandfather James, with 
 
ii8 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 the absent gaze which accompanies pro- 
 found criticism. 
 
 ' I don t like Michael's musical circum- 
 stances then,' said Mrs. Dewy. ' They are 
 quite coarse to a person of decent taste.' 
 
 Old Michael's mouth twitched here and 
 there, as if he wanted to smile but didn't 
 know where to begin, which gradually set- 
 tled to an expression that it was not dis- 
 j^leasing for a nice woman Hke the tranter's 
 wife to correct him. 
 
 ' Well, now,' said Eeuben, with decisive 
 earnestness, ' that coarseness that's so up- 
 setting to Ann's feelings is to my mind a 
 recommendation; for it do always prove a 
 story to be true. And for the same reason, 
 h I like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, 
 all true stories have a coarseness or a bad 
 moral, depend upon't. If the story-tellers 
 could have got decency and good morals 
 from true stories, who'd ha' troubled to in- 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 119 
 
 vent parables ?' Saying this the tranter arose 
 to fetch a new stock of cider, mead, and 
 home-made wines. 
 
 Mrs. Dewy sighed, and apj^ended a re- 
 mark (ostensibly behind her husband's back, 
 though that the words should reach his ears 
 distinctly was understood by both) : ' Such 
 a man as Dewy is ! nobody do know the 
 trouble I have to keep that man barely re- 
 spectable. And did you ever hear too — 
 just now at supper-time — talking about 
 "taties" with Michael in such a labourer's 
 way. Well, 'tis what I was never brought 
 up to! With our family 'twas never less 
 than " taters," and very often " pertatoes" 
 outright ; mother was so particular and nice 
 "svith us girls : there was no family in the 
 parish that kept theirselves up more than 
 we.' 
 
 The hour of parting came. Fancy could 
 not remain for the night, because she had 
 
I20 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 engaged a woman to wait up for her. She 
 disappeared temporarily from the flagging 
 party of dancers, and then came downstairs 
 wrapped up and looking altogether a differ- 
 ent person from whom she had been hither- 
 to; in fact (to Dick's sadness and disap- 
 pointment), a woman somewhat reserved 
 and of a phlegmatic temperament — nothing 
 left in her of the romping girl that she had 
 been but a short quarter-hour before, who 
 had not minded the weight of Dick's hand 
 upon her waist, nor shirked the purlieus of 
 the mistletoe. 
 
 ' What a contradiction !' thought the 
 young man — hoary cynic jpro tern, ' What 
 a miserable delusive contradiction between 
 the manners of a maid's life at dancing times 
 and at others I Look at this idol Fancy ! dur- 
 ing the whole past evening touchable, press- 
 able — even kissable. For whole half-hours 
 I held her so close to me that not a sheet 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 121 
 
 of j^aper could have been slipped between 
 us; and I could feel her heart only just out- 
 side my own, her existence going on so 
 close to mine, that I was aware of every 
 breath in it. A flit is made to the bedroom 
 —a hat and a cloak put on — and I no more 
 dare to touch her than — ' Thought failed 
 him, and he returned to life. 
 
 But this was an endurable misery in 
 comparison with what followed. Mr. Shinar 
 and his watch-chain, taking the intrusive ad- 
 vantage that ardent males who are going 
 homeward along the same road as a pretty 
 young female always do take of that cir- 
 cumstance, came forward to assure Fancy 
 — with a total disregard of Dick's emotions, 
 and in tones which were certainly not frigid 
 — that he (Shinar) was not the man to go 
 to bed before seeing his Lady Fair safe 
 mthin her own door — not he : nobody 
 should say he was that; — and that he would 
 
122 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 not leave lier side an inch till the thing was 
 done — drown him if he would. The pro- 
 posal was assented to by Miss Day, in Dick's 
 foreboding judgment with one degree — or 
 at any rate, an appreciable fraction of a 
 degree — of warmth beyond that required by 
 a disinterested desire for protection from 
 the dangers of the night. 
 
 All was over; and Dick surveyed the 
 chair she had last occupied, looking now 
 like a setting from which the gem has been 
 torn. There stood her glass, and the ro- 
 mantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the bot- 
 tom that she couldn't drink by trying ever 
 so hard, in obedience to the mighty argu- 
 ments of the tranter (his hand coming 
 down upon her shoulder the while, like a 
 Nasmyth hammer) ; bufc the drinker was 
 there no longer. There were the nine or 
 ten pretty little crumbs she had left on her 
 plate ; but the eater was no more seen. 
 
THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY. 123 
 
 There seemed to be a disagreeable close- 
 ness of relationship between himself and the 
 m-embers of his family, now that they were 
 left alone again face to face. His father 
 seemed quite offensive for appearing to be 
 in just as high spirits as when the guests 
 were there ; and as for grandfather James 
 (who had not yet left), he was quite fiendish 
 in being rather glad they were gone. 
 
 ' Really,' said the tranter, in a tone of 
 placid satisfaction, ' I've had so little time 
 to attend to myself all the evenen, that I 
 mane to enjoy a quiet meal now ! A slice 
 of this here ham — neither too fat nor too 
 lane — so ; and then a drop of this vinegar 
 and pickles — there, that's it — and I shall 
 be as fresh as a lark again ! And to tell 
 the truth, my sonny, my inside Ve a-been 
 as dry as a lime -basket all night.' 
 
 ' I like a party very well,' said Mrs. 
 Dew}', leaving off the adorned tones she 
 
124 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 had been bound to use throughout the 
 evening, and returning to the natural mar- 
 riage voice; 'but, lord, 'tis such a sight of 
 heavy work next day ! And what with the 
 plates, and knives and forks, and bits kicked 
 off your furniture, and I don't know what- 
 all, why a body could a'most wish there 
 were no such things as Christmases. Ah-h 
 dear !' she yawned, till the clock in the 
 corner had ticked several beats. She cast 
 her eyes round upon the dust-laden fur- 
 niture, and sank down overpowered at the 
 sight. 
 
 ' Well, I be getting all right by degrees, 
 thank the Lord for't !' said the tranter 
 cheerfully through a mangled mass of ham 
 and bread, without lifting his eyes from his 
 plate, and chopping away with his knife 
 and fork as if he were felling trees. ' Ann, 
 you may as well go on to bed at once, and 
 not bide there making such sleepy faces; 
 
THE V DANCE MORE WILDL Y. 125 
 
 you look as long-favoured as a fiddle, upon 
 my life, Ann. There, you must be wearied 
 out, 'tis true. I'll do the doors and wind 
 up the clock ; and you go on, or you'll be as 
 white as a sheet to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Ay ; I don't know whether I sha'n't or 
 no.' The matron passed her hand across 
 her eyes to brush away the film of sleep till 
 she got upstairs. 
 
 Dick wondered how it was that when 
 people were married they could be so blind 
 to romance; and was quite certain that if 
 he ever took to wife that dear impossible 
 Fancy, he and she would never be so dread- 
 fully practical and undemonstrative of the 
 Passion as his father and mother were. The 
 most extraordinary thing was, that all the 
 fathers and mothers he knew were just as 
 undemonstrative as his own. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL. 
 
 The early days of the year drew on, and 
 Fancy, having passed the holiday weeks at 
 home, returned again to Mellstock. 
 
 Every spare minute of the week follow- 
 ing her return was spent by Dick in acci- 
 dentally passing the school-house in his 
 journeys about the neighbourhood; but not 
 once did she make herself visible. A hand- 
 kerchief belonging to her had been provi- 
 dentially found by his mother in clearing 
 the rooms the day after that of the dance ; 
 and by much contrivance Dick got it handed 
 over to him, to leave with her at any time 
 
DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL. 127 
 
 he was passing the school after her return. 
 But he delayed taking the extreme measure 
 of calling with it lest, had she really no 
 sentiment of interest in him, it might be 
 regarded as a slightly absurd errand, the 
 reason guessed ; and the sense of the ludi- 
 crous, which was rather keen in her, might 
 do his dignity considerable injury in her 
 eyes: and what she thought of him, even 
 apart from the question of her loving, was 
 all the world to him now. 
 
 But the hour came when the patience 
 of love at twentv-one could endure no 
 longer. One Saturday he approached the 
 school with a mild air of indiiference, and 
 had the satisfaction of seeing the object of 
 his quest at the farther end of her garden, 
 trying, by the aid of a spade and gloves, to 
 root a bramble that had intruded itself 
 there. 
 
 He disguised his feelings from some sus- 
 
128 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 picious-looking cottage-windows opposite, by 
 endeavouring to appear like a man in a 
 great hurry of business, who wished to 
 leave the handkerchief and have done mth 
 such trifling errands. 
 
 This endeavour signally failed; for on 
 approaching the gate, he found it locked to 
 keep the children, who were playing pri- 
 soner's base in the front, from running into 
 her private grounds. 
 
 She did not see him ; and he could only 
 think of one thing to be done, which was 
 to shout her name. 
 ^ Miss Day!' 
 
 The words were uttered with a jerk and 
 a look, which were meant to imply to the 
 cottages opposite that he was simply a young 
 man who liked shouting, as being a plea- 
 sant way of passing his time, without any 
 reference at all to persons in gardens. The 
 name died away, and the unconscious Miss 
 
DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL. 129 
 
 Day continued digging and pulling as 
 before. 
 
 He screwed himself up to enduring the 
 cottage -windows yet more stoically, and 
 shouted again. Fancy took no notice what- 
 ever. 
 
 He shouted again the third time, with 
 desperate vehemence ; then turned suddenly 
 about and retired a little distance, as if he 
 had no connection with the school, but was 
 standing there by chance. 
 
 This time she heard him, came down 
 the garden, and entered the school at the 
 back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, 
 the door opened, and three-quarters of the 
 blooming young schoolmistress's face and 
 figure stood revealed before him ; a perpen- 
 dicular slice on her left-hand side being cut 
 off by the edge of the door she held ajar. 
 Having surveyed and recognised him, she 
 came to the gate. 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
I30 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 At sight of him had the pink of her 
 cheeks increased, lessened, or did it con- 
 tinue to cover its normal area of ground ? 
 It was a question meditated several hun- 
 dreds of times by her visitor in after-hours 
 — the meditation, after wearying involu- 
 tions, always ending in one way, that it was 
 impossible to say. 
 
 'Your handkerchief: Miss Day : I called 
 with/ He held it out spasmodically and 
 awkwardly. ' Mother found it : under a 
 chair.^ 
 
 ' 0, thank you very much for bringing 
 it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn't think where I 
 had dropped it.' 
 
 Now Dick, not being an experienced 
 lover — indeed, never before having been 
 engaged in the practice of love-making at 
 all, except in a small schoolboy way — could 
 not take advantage of the situation ; and 
 out came the blunder, which afterwards 
 
DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL. 131 
 
 cost him so many bitter moments and three 
 sleepless nights : — 
 
 ' Good-morning, Miss Day.' 
 
 * Good-morning, Mr. Dewy.' 
 
 The gate was closed ; she was gone ; and 
 Dick was standing outside, unchanged in 
 his condition from what he had been before 
 he called. Of course Angel was not to 
 blame — a young woman living alone in a 
 house could not ask him indoors unless she 
 had known him better — he should have 
 kept her outside. He wished that before 
 he called he had realised more fully than 
 he did the pleasure of being about to call ; 
 and turned away. 
 
PART II. 
 SPRING. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 PASSING BY THE SCHOOL. 
 
 It followed that as the spring advanced, 
 Dick walked abroad much more frequently 
 than had hitherto been usual with him, and 
 was continually finding that his nearest 
 way to or from home lay across the field at. 
 the corner of the school. The first-fruits 
 of his perseverance were that, on turning 
 the angle on the nineteenth journey that 
 way, he saw Miss Fancy's figure, clothed in 
 a dark-gray dress, looking from a high open 
 window upon the crown of his hat. The 
 friendly greeting, which was the result of 
 
136 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 this rencounter, was considered so valuable 
 an elixir that Dick passed still oftener ; and 
 by the time he had trodden a little path in 
 the grass where never a path was before, 
 he was rewarded with an actual meeting 
 face to face on the open ground. This 
 brought another meeting, and another. 
 Fancy faintly showing by her bearing that 
 it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see 
 him there ; but the sort of pleasure she de- 
 rived, whether exultation at the hope her 
 exceeding fairness inspired, or the true feel- 
 ing which was alone Dick's concern, he could 
 not anyhow decide, although he meditated 
 on her every little movement for hours after 
 it was made. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 A MEETING OF THE CHOIR. 
 
 It was the evening of a fine spring day. 
 The descending sun appeared as a nebulous 
 blaze of amber light, its outline being lost 
 in cloudy masses hanging round it, like 
 wild locks of hair. 
 
 The chief members of Mellstock parish 
 choir were standing in a group in front of 
 Mr. Penny's workshop in the lower village. 
 They were all brightly illuminated, and 
 each was backed up by a shadow as long as 
 a steeple ; the lowness of the source of light 
 rendering the brims of their hats of no use 
 at all as a protection to the eyes. 
 
138 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 Mr. Penny's was the last house in that 
 portion of the parish, and stood in a hollow 
 by the road-side; so that cart-wheels and 
 horses' feet were about level with the sill 
 of his shop-window. This was low and 
 ■wide, and was open from morning till even- 
 ing, Mr. Penny himself being invariably 
 seen working inside, like a framed portrait 
 of a shoemaker by some modern Moroni. He 
 sat facing the road, with a boot on his knees 
 and the awl in his hand, only looking up for 
 a moment as he stretched out his arms and 
 bent forward at the pull, when his spectacles 
 flashed in the passer's face with a shine of 
 flat whiteness, and then returned again to 
 the boot as usual. Eows of lasts, small and 
 large, stout and slender, covered the wall 
 which formed the background, in the ex- 
 treme shadow of which a kind of dummy 
 was seen sitting, in the shape of an appren- 
 tice with a string tied round his hair (pro- 
 
A MEETING OF THE CHOIR. 139 
 
 bably to keep it out of his eyes). He smiled 
 at remarks that floated in from the outside^ 
 but was never known to answer them in 
 Mr. Penny's presence. Outside the window^ 
 the upper-leather of a Wellington-boot wa& 
 usually hung, pegged to a board as if to 
 dry. No sign was over his door ; in fact — 
 as with old banks and mercantile houses — 
 advertising in any shape was scorned; and 
 it would have been felt as beneath his disf- 
 nity to paint, for the benefit of strangers^ 
 the name of an establishment the trade of 
 which came solely by connection based on 
 personal respect. 
 
 His visitors now stood on the outside 
 of his window, sometimes leanino- ao^ainst 
 the sill, sometimes moving a pace or two 
 backwards and forwards in front of it. They 
 talked with deliberate gesticulations to Mr. 
 Penny, enthroned in the shadow of the in- 
 terior. 
 
I40 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 * I do like a man to stick to men who 
 be in the same line o' life — o' Sundays, any 
 way — that I do so.' 
 
 ' 'Tis like all the doings of folk who don't 
 know what a day's work is, that's what I say.' 
 
 ' My belief is the man's not to blame; 
 'tis slie — -she's the bitter weed.' 
 
 ' No, not altogether. He's a poor gawk- 
 hammer. Look at his sermon yesterday.' 
 
 ' His sermon was well enough, a very 
 excellent sermon enough, only he couldn't 
 put it into words and speak it. That's all 
 was the matter wi' the sermon. He hadn't 
 been able to get it past his pen.' 
 
 'Well — ay, the sermon might be good 
 enough ; for, ye see, the sermon of Old 
 Ecclesiastes himself lay in Old Ecclesiastes's 
 ink-bottle afore he got it out.' 
 
 Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing 
 the last stitch tight, could afford time to 
 look up and throw in a word at this point. 
 
A MEETING OF THE CHOIR. 141 
 
 ' He's no spouter — that must be said, 
 'a blieve.' 
 
 ' 'Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with 
 the man, as far as that goes,' &aid Spinks. 
 
 ' Well, we'll say nothing about that,' 
 the tranter answered ; ' for I don't believe 
 'twill make a penneth o' difference to we 
 poor martels here or hereafter whether his 
 sermons be good or bad, my sonnies.' 
 
 Mr. Penny made another hole with his 
 awl, pushed in the thread, and looked up 
 and spoke again at the extension of arms. 
 
 ' 'Tis his goings-on, souls, that's what 
 it is.' He clenched his features for an Her- 
 culean addition to the ordinary pull, and 
 went on, ^ The first thing he do when he 
 cam here was to be hot and strong about 
 church business.' 
 
 ' Trew,' said Spinks; ' that was the very 
 first thing he do.' 
 
 Mr. Penny, having now been offered the 
 
142 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 €ar of the assembly, accepted it, ceased 
 stitching, swallowed an unimportant quan- 
 tity of air as if it were a pill, and con- 
 tinued : 
 
 ' The next thing he do is to think about 
 altering the church, until he found 'twould 
 be a matter o' cost and what not, and then 
 not to think no more about it/ 
 
 ' Trew: that was the next thing he 
 do.' 
 
 'And the next thing was to tell the 
 young chaps that they were not on no ac- 
 count to put their hats in the font during 
 service.' 
 
 ' Trew.' 
 
 ' And then 'twas this, and then 'twas 
 that, and now 'tis — ' 
 
 Words were not forcible enough to con- 
 clude the sentence, and Mr. Penny gave a 
 huge pull to signify the concluding word. 
 
 ' Xo.w 'tis to turn us out of the quire 
 
A MEETING OF THE CHOIR. 143 
 
 neck and crop/ said the tranter after a 
 silent interval of half a minute, not at all 
 by way of explaining the pause and pull, 
 which had been quite understood, but sim- 
 ply as a means of keeping the subject well 
 before the meeting. 
 
 Mrs. Penny came to the door at this 
 point in the discussion. Like all good 
 wives, however much she was inclined to 
 play the Tory to her husband's Whiggism, 
 and vice versci^ in times of peace, she coa- 
 lesced with him heartily enough in time of 
 war. 
 
 ' It must be o^^Tied he's not all there, 
 she replied, in a general way, to the frag- 
 ments of talk she had heard from indoors. 
 ' Far below poor Mr. Grinham' (the late 
 vicar). 
 
 ' Ay, there was this to be said for him, 
 that you were quite sure he'd never come 
 mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were 
 
T44 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 in the middle of your work, and put you 
 out with his anxious trouble about you — 
 so say L' 
 
 ' Never. But as for this new Mr. May- 
 bold, he's a very singular, well-intentioned 
 party in that respect, but unbearable; for 
 as to sifting your cinders, scrubbing your 
 floors, or emptying your soap-suds, why you 
 can't do it. I assure you I've not been 
 able to empt them for several days, unless 
 I throw 'em up the chimley or out of win- 
 der; for as sure as the sun you meet him 
 at the door, coming to ask how you be, 
 and 'tis such a confusing thing to meet a 
 gentleman at the door when ye are in the 
 mess o' washing.' 
 
 ^ 'Tis only for want of knowing better, 
 poor gentleman,' said the tranter. ' His 
 maning's good enough. Ay, your parson 
 comes by fate : 'tis heads or tails, like pitch- 
 halfpenny, and no choosiug ; so we must take 
 
A MEETING OF THE CHOIR. 145 
 
 en as he is, my sonnies, and thank God he's 
 no worse, I suppose/ 
 
 ^ I fancy I've seen hiin look across at 
 Miss Day in a warmer way than Chris- 
 tianity required,' said Mrs. Penny mus- 
 ingly; ' but I don't quite like to say it.' 
 
 ' 0, no ; there's nothing in that,' said 
 grandfather William. 
 
 ' If there's nothing, we shall see no- 
 thing,' Mrs. Penny replied, in the tone of 
 a woman who might possibly have private 
 opinions still. 
 
 ' Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man !' said 
 Bowman. ' Why, he never troubled us wi' 
 a visit from year's end to year's end. You 
 might go anywhere, do anything : you'd be 
 sure never to see him.' 
 
 ' 'A was a right sensible parson,' said 
 Michael. ' He never entered our door but 
 once in his life, and that was to tell my 
 poor wife — ay, poor soul, dead and gone 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 now, as we all shall ! — that as she was such 
 a old aged person, and lived so far from 
 the church, he didn't at all expect her to 
 come any more to the service.' 
 
 ' And 'a was a very jinerous gentleman 
 about choosing the psalms and hymns o' Sun- 
 days. "Confound ye," says he, "blare and 
 scrape what ye like, but don't bother me !" ' 
 
 ' And he was a very honourable good 
 man in not wanting any of us to come and 
 hear him if we Avere all on-end for a jaunt 
 or spree, or to bring the babies to be chris- 
 tened if they were inclined to squalhng. 
 There's virtue in a man's not putting a 
 parish to spiritual trouble.' 
 
 ' And there's this man never letting us 
 have a bit of peace ; but wanting us to be ' 
 good and upright till 'tis carried to such a 
 shameful pitch as I never see the like afore 
 nor since!', 
 
 ^ Still, for my part,' said old William, 
 
A MEETING OF THE CHOIR. 147 
 
 ' though he's arrayed against us, I like the 
 hearty borus-snorus ways of the new pa'son.' 
 
 ' You, ready to die for the quire,' said 
 Bo^vman reproachfully, ' to stick up for the 
 quire's enemy, William!' 
 
 ' Nobody will feel the loss of our occu- 
 pation so much as I,' said the old man 
 firmly ; ^ that you d'all know. I've been 
 in the quire man and boy ever since I was 
 a chiel of eleven. But for all that 'tisn't in 
 me to call the man a bad man, because I 
 truly and sincerely believe en to be a good 
 young feller.' 
 
 Some of the youthful sparkle that used 
 to reside there animated William's eye as 
 he uttered the words, and a certain nobility 
 of aspect was also imparted to him by the 
 setting sun, which gave him a Titanic sha- 
 dow at least thirty feet in length, stretching 
 away to the east in outlines of imposing 
 magnitude, his head finally terminating 
 upon the trunk of a grand old oak-tree. 
 
148 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' Mayble's a hearty feller/ the tranter 
 replied, ^ and will spak to you be you dirty 
 or be you clane. The first time I met en 
 was in a drong, and though ^a didn't know 
 me no more than the dead, ^a passed the 
 time of day. " D'ye do?" he said, says he, 
 nodding his head, '' A fine day." Then the 
 second time I met en was full-buff in town 
 street, when my breeches were tore all to 
 strents and lippets by getting through a 
 copse of thorns and brimbles for a short 
 cut home -along; and not wanting to dis- 
 grace the man by spaking in that state, I 
 fixed my eye on the weathercock to let en 
 pass me as a stranger. But no : " How 
 d'ye do, Reuben ?" says he, right hearty. If 
 I'd been dressed in silver spangles from top 
 to toe, the man couldn't have been civiller.' 
 
 At this moment Dick was seen coming 
 up the village-street, and they turned and 
 watched him. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 'I'm afraid Dick's a lost man/ said the 
 tranter. 
 
 'What? — ^no!' said Mail, implying by 
 his manner that it was a far commoner thing- 
 for his ears to report what was not said 
 than that his judgment should be at fault. 
 
 ' Ay,' said the tranter, still looking at 
 Dick's unconscious advance. 'I don't at 
 all like what I see! There's too many 
 o' them looks out of the winder -without 
 noticing anything ; too much shining of 
 boots ; too much peepmg round corners ; 
 too much looking at the clock ; telling 
 
ISO UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 about clever things She did till you be sick 
 of it, and then upon a hint to that effect a 
 horrible silence about her. I've walked the 
 path once in my life and know the country, 
 naibours; and Dick's a lost man!' The 
 tranter turned a quarter round and smiled 
 a smile of miserable satire at the rising new 
 moon, which happened to catch his eye. 
 
 The others' looks became far too serious 
 at this announcement to allow them to speak ; 
 and they still regarded Dick in the distance. 
 
 "Twas his mother's fault,' the tranter 
 continued, shaking his head two-and-half 
 times, ' in asking the young woman to our 
 party last Christmas. When I eyed the 
 blue frock and light heels o' the maid, I 
 had my thoughts directly. '' God bless 
 thee, Dicky my sonny," I said to myself, 
 " there's a delusion for thee !" ' 
 
 ' They seemed to be rather distant in 
 manner last Sunday, I thought,' said Mail 
 
A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION. i 5 i 
 
 tentatively, as became one who was not a 
 member of the family. 
 
 'Ay, that's a part of the illness. Dis- 
 tance belongs to it, slyness belongs to it, 
 quarest things on earth belongs to it. 
 There, 'tmay as well come early as late s'far 
 as I know. The sooner begun, the sooner 
 over; for come it will.' 
 
 ' The question I ask is,' said Mr. Spinks, 
 connecting into one thread the two subjects 
 of discourse, as became a man learned in 
 rhetoric, and beating with his hand in a 
 way which signified that the manner rather 
 than the matter of his speech was to be 
 observed, ' how did Mr. Maybold know 
 she could play the organ ? You know- we 
 had it from her own lips, as far as that 
 goes, that she has never, first or last, 
 breathed such a thing to him ; much less 
 that she ever would play.' 
 
 In the midst of this puzzle Dick 
 
152 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 joined the party, and the news which had 
 caused such a convulsion among: the ancient 
 musicians was unfolded to him. ^ Well/ he 
 said, blushing at the allusion to Miss Day, 
 ' I know by some words of hers that she 
 has particularly wished not to play, because 
 she is a friend of ours 5 and how the alter- 
 ation comes, I don't know.' 
 
 ' Now, this is my plan,' said the tranter, 
 turning from Dick and reviving the spirit 
 of the discussion by the infusion of new 
 ideas, as was his custom. ' This is my plan ; 
 if you don't like it, no harm's done. We 
 all know one another very well, don't we, 
 naibours ?' 
 
 That they knew one another very well 
 was received as a statement of much rele- 
 vance to the present subject, and one which, 
 though very familiar, should not in the 
 nature of things be omitted in introductory 
 speeches. 
 
A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION 153 
 
 ' Then I say this' — and the tranter in his 
 emphasis suddenly slapped do^vn his hand 
 on Mr. Spinks's shoulder with a momentum 
 of several pounds, upon which Mr. Spinks 
 tried to look not in the least startled by 
 what had sent his nerves flying in all direc- 
 tions — ' I say that we all move down-along 
 straight as a line to Pa'son Mayble's when 
 the clock have gone six to-morrow night. 
 There we one and all stand in the passage, 
 then one or two of us go in and spak to en, 
 man and man; and say, '^Pa'son Mayble, 
 every tradesman d'like to have his o^vn 
 way in his workshop, and Mellstock Church 
 is yours. Instead of turning us out neck 
 and crop, let us stay on till Christmas, and 
 we'll gie way to the young woman, Mr. 
 Mayble, and make no more ado about it. 
 And we shall always be quite willing to 
 touch our hats when we meet ye, Mr. 
 
154 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 Mayble, just as before." That sounds very 
 well? Hey? 
 
 ' Excellent well in faith, Reuben Dewy.' 
 
 ' And we won't sit down in his house ; 
 'twould be looking too familiar when only 
 just reconciled.' 
 
 ' No need at all to sit dowii. Just do 
 our duty man and man, turn round, and 
 march out — he'll think all the more of us 
 for it.' 
 
 ' I hardly think Leaf had better go wi' 
 us ?' said Michael, turning to Leaf and tak- 
 ing his measure from top to bottom by the 
 eye. ' He's so terrible silly that he might 
 ruin the concern.' 
 
 'He don't want to go much; do ye, 
 Thomas Leaf?' said William. 
 
 ' Hee-hee! no; I don't want to.' 
 
 'I be martal afeard, Leaf, that you'll 
 never be able to tell how many cuts d'take 
 to sharpen a spar,' said Mail. 
 
A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION. 
 
 ^55 
 
 ' I never had no head, never ! that's how 
 it happened to happen, hee-hee !' 
 
 They all assented to this, not with any 
 sense of humiliating Leaf by disparaging 
 him after an open confession, but because it 
 was an accepted thing that Leaf didn't in the 
 least mind having no head, that he habitu- 
 ally walked about without one being an 
 unimpassioned matter of parish history. 
 
 ' But I can sing my treble !' continued 
 Thomas Leaf, quite delighted at being called 
 a fool in such a friendly way; 'I can sing 
 my treble as well as any maid, or married 
 woman either, and better ! And if Jim had 
 lived, I should have had a clever brother ! 
 To-morrow is poor Jim's birthday. He'd 
 ha' been twenty-six if he'd lived till to- 
 morrow.* 
 
 ' You always seem very sorry for Jim,' 
 said old William musingly. 
 
 ' Ah ! I do. Such a stay to mother as 
 
156 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 he'd always ha' been! She'd never have 
 had to work in her old age if he had con- 
 tinued strong, poor Jim!' 
 
 ^ What was his age when 'a died ?' 
 
 ' Four hours and twenty minutes, poor 
 Jim. 'A was born as might be at night; 
 and 'a didn't last as might be till the morn- 
 inof. No, 'a didn't last. Mother called en 
 Jim on the day that would ha' been his 
 christening day if he had lived j and she's 
 always thinking about en. You see he 
 died so very young.' 
 
 'Well, 'twas rather youthful,' said Mi- 
 chael. 
 
 ' Now to my mind that woman is very 
 imaginative on the subject of children?' said 
 the tranter, his eye precisely sweeping his 
 audience as he spoke. 
 
 ' Ah, well she may be,' said Leaf. ' She 
 had twelve regularly one after another, and 
 they all, except myself, died very young; 
 
A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION. 157 
 
 either before they was born or just after- 
 wards/ 
 
 ' Pore feller too. I suppose th'st want 
 to come wi' us?' the tranter murmured. 
 
 ^Well, Leaf, you shall come wi' us as 
 yours is such a melancholy family,' said old 
 William rather sadly. 
 
 ' I never see such a melancholy family 
 as that afore in my life,' said Keuben. 
 ' There's Leafs mother, pore woman ! Every 
 morning I see her eyes mooning out through 
 the panes of glass like a pot-sick winder- 
 flower; and as Leaf sings a very high 
 treble, and we don't know what we should 
 do without en for upper G, we'll let en 
 come as a trate, pore feller.' 
 
 * Ay, we'll let en come 'a b'lieve,' said 
 Mr. Penny, looking up, as the pull happened 
 to be at that moment. 
 
 ' Now,' continued the tranter, dispersing 
 
158 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 by a new tone of voice this digression about 
 Leaf; ^ as to going to see the pa'son, one of 
 us might just call and ask en his maning, 
 and 'twould be just as well done; but it 
 will add a bit of a flourish to the cause if the 
 quire waits on him as a body. Then the 
 great thing to mind is, not for any of our 
 fellers to be nervous ; so before starting 
 we'll one and all come to my house and 
 have a rasher of bacon; then every man- 
 jack het a pint of cider into his inside; then 
 well warm up an extra drop wi' some mead 
 and a bit of ginger ; every man take a 
 thimbleful — just a glimmer of a drop, mind 
 ye, no more, to finish off his inner man — 
 and march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, 
 sonnies, a man's not himself till he is forti- 
 fied wi' a bit and a drop ? We shall be able 
 to look any gentleman in the face then with- 
 out sin or shame.' 
 
A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION. 159 
 
 Mail just recovered from a deep medita- 
 tion and downward glance into the earth in 
 time to give a cordial approval to this line 
 of action, and the meeting adjourned. 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 
 
 At six o'clock the next day, the whole body 
 of men in the choir emerged from the tran- 
 ter's door, and advanced with a firm step 
 down the lane. This dignity of march gra- 
 dually became obliterated as they went on, 
 and by the time they reached the hill be- 
 hind the vicarage, a faint resemblance to a 
 flock of sheep might have been discerned in 
 the venerable party. A word from the 
 tranter, however, set them right again ; 
 and as they descended the hill, the regular 
 tramp, tramp, tramp of the united feet was 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. i6i 
 
 clearly audible from the vicarage garden. 
 At tlie opening of the gate there was ano- 
 ther short interval of irregular shuffling, 
 caused by a rather peculiar habit the gate 
 had, when swung open quickly, of striking 
 asrainst the bank and slamminig^ back into 
 the opener's face. 
 
 ' Now keep step again, will ye?' said 
 the tranter solemnly. ^ It looks better, and 
 more becomes the high class of errand 
 which has brought us here.' Thus they 
 advanced to the door. 
 
 At Reuben's ring the more modest of 
 the group turned aside, adjusted their hats, 
 and looked critically at any shrub that hap- 
 pened to lie in the line of vision; endea- 
 vouring thus to give any one who chanced 
 to look out of the windows the impression 
 that their request, whatever it was going to 
 be, was rather a casual thous^ht occurrin^r 
 whilst they were inspecting the vicar's 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
i62 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 shrubbery and grass-plot than a predeter- 
 mined thing. The tranter, who, coming 
 frequently to the vicarage with luggage, 
 coals, firewood, &c., had none of the awe 
 for its precincts that filled the breasts of 
 most of the others, fixed his eyes with 
 much strong feeling on the knocker during 
 this interval of waiting. The knocker hav- 
 ing no characteristic worthy of notice, he 
 relinquished it for a knot in one. of the 
 door-panels, and studied the winding lines 
 of the o;rain. 
 
 ' 0, sir, please, here's tranter DeA\y, and 
 old William Dewy, and young Richard 
 Dewy, 0, and all the quire too, sir, except 
 the boys, a-come to see you !' said Mr. May- 
 bold's maid-servant to Mr. Maybold, the pu- 
 pils of her eyes dilating like circles in a pond. 
 
 ' All the choir ?' said the astonished vicar 
 (who may be shortly described as a good- 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 163 
 
 looking young man with courageous eyes, 
 timid mouth, and neutral nose), looking 
 fixedly at his parlour-maid after speaking, 
 like a man who fancied he had seen her 
 face before but couldn't recollect where. 
 
 ' And they looks very firm, and tranter 
 Dewy do turn neither to the right hand nor 
 to the left, but looked quite straight and 
 solemn with his mind made up !' 
 
 ' 0, all the choir,' repeated the vicar to 
 himself, trying by that simple device to trot 
 out his thouD^hts on what the choir could 
 come for. 
 
 'Yes; every man-jack of 'em, as I be 
 alive I' (The parlour-maid was rather local 
 in manner, having in fact been raised in the 
 same village.) 'Really, sir, 'tis thoughted 
 by many in town and country that — ' 
 
 'Town and country ! — Heavens, I had 
 no idea that I was public property in this 
 way!' said the vicar, his face acquiring a 
 
i64 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 hue somewhere between that of the rose 
 and the peony. ^Well, "It is thought in 
 town and country that — " ' 
 
 ' It is thought that you are going to get it 
 hot and strong ! — excusen my incivihty, sir.' 
 
 The vicar suddenly recalled to his recol- 
 lection that he had long ago settled it to be 
 decidedly a mistake to encourage his ser- 
 vant Jane in giving personal opinions. The 
 servant Jane saw by the vicar's face that 
 he suddenly recalled this fact to his mind ; 
 and removing her forehead from the edge 
 of the door, and rubbing away the indent 
 that edge h^d made, vanished into the 
 passage as Mr. Maybold remarked, ^ Show 
 them in, Jane.' 
 
 A few minutes later a shuffling and 
 jostling (reduced to as refined a form as 
 was compatible with the nature of shuffles 
 and jostles) was heard in the passage; then 
 an earnest and prolonged wiping of shoes, 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 165 
 
 conveying the notion that volumes of mud 
 had to be removed • but the roads being so 
 clean that not a particle of dirt appeared 
 on the choir's boots (those of all the elder 
 members being newly oiled, and Dick's 
 brightly polished), this wiping must be set 
 down simply as a desire to show that these 
 respectable men had no intention or wish 
 to take a mean advantage of clean roads for 
 curtailing proper ceremonies. Next there 
 came a powerful whisper from the same 
 quarter : — 
 
 ' Now stand stock-still there, my sonnies, 
 one and all ! and don't make no noise \ and 
 keep your backs close to the wall, that com- 
 pany may pass in and out easy if they ^vant 
 to without squeezing through ye ; and we 
 
 two be enough to go in.' The voice 
 
 was the tranter's. 
 
 ' I wish I could go in, too, and see the 
 sio^ht !' said a reedv voice — that of Leaf. 
 
i66 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' 'Tis a pitv Leaf is so terrible silly, or 
 else he might,' another said. 
 
 ' I never in my life seed a quire go into 
 a study to have it out about the playing 
 and singing,' pleaded Leaf; 'and I should 
 like, too, to see it just once !' 
 
 ' Very well ; we'll let en come in,' said 
 the tranter feelingly. ' You'll be like chips 
 in porridge, Leaf — neither good nor hurt. 
 All right, my sonny, come along ;' and im- 
 mediately himself, old William, and Leaf 
 appeared in the room. 
 
 ' We've took the liberty to come and see 
 ye, sir,' said Reuben, letting his hat hang 
 in his left hand, and touching with his right 
 the brim of an imaginary one on his head. 
 ' We've come to see ye, sir, man and man, 
 and no offence, I hope?' 
 
 ' In one at all,' said Mr. May bold. 
 
 ' This old aged man standing by my side 
 is father; William Dewy by name, sir.' 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 167 
 
 ' Yes ; I see it is,' said the vicar, nod- 
 ding aside to old William, who smiled. 
 
 ' I thought ye mightn't know en with- 
 out his bass-viol,' said the tranter apologeti- 
 cally. ' You see, he always wears his best 
 clothes and his bass-viol a- Sundays, and it 
 do make such a difference in a old man's 
 look.' 
 
 ' And who's that young man?' the vicar 
 said. 
 
 ' Tell the pa'son yer name,' said the 
 tranter, turning to Leaf, who stood with his 
 elbows nailed back to a bookcase. 
 
 'Please, Thomas Leaf, your hoHness!' 
 said Leaf, tremblinor. 
 
 ' I hope you'll excuse his looks being so 
 very thin,' continued the tranter deprecat- 
 ingly, turning to the vicar again. ' But 'tisn't 
 his fault, pore feller. He's rather silly by 
 nater, and could never get fat ; though he's 
 a excellent tribble, and so we keep him on.' 
 
i68 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 ' I never had no head, sir,' said Leaf, 
 eagerly grasping at this opportunity for 
 being forgiven his existence. 
 
 'Ah, poor young man!' said Mr. May- 
 bold. 
 
 'Bless you, he don't mind it a bit, if 
 you don't, sir,' said the tranter assuringly. 
 ' Do ye, Leaf?' 
 
 ' Not I — not a morsel — hee, hee ! I was 
 afeard it mightn't j)lGase your holiness, sir, 
 that's all.' 
 
 The tranter, finding Leaf get on so very 
 well through his negative qualities, was 
 tempted in a fit of generosity to advance 
 him still higher, by giving him credit for 
 positive ones. ' He's very clever for a silly 
 chap, good-now, sir. You never knowed a 
 young feller keep his smock-frocks so clane ; 
 very honest too. His ghastly looks is all 
 there is against en, pore feller ; but we can't 
 help our looks, you know, sir.' 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 169 
 
 ' True : we cannot. You live with your 
 mother, I think, Leaf?' 
 
 The tranter looked at Leaf to express 
 that the most friendly assistant to his 
 tongue could do no more for him now, and 
 that he must be left to his own resources. 
 
 ' Yes, sir : a widder, sir. Ah, if bro- 
 ther Jim had lived she'd have had a clever 
 son to keep her without work !' 
 
 'Lideed! poor woman. Give her this 
 half-crown. I'll call and see your mother.' 
 
 ' Say, '' Thank you, sir," ' the tranter 
 whispered imperatively towards Leaf. 
 
 ' Thank you, sir !' said Leaf. 
 
 'That's it, then; sit down. Leaf,' said 
 Mr. Maybold. 
 
 ' Y-yes, sir !' 
 
 The tranter cleared his throat after this 
 accidental parenthesis about Leaf, rectified 
 his bodily position, and began his speech. 
 
 'Mr. Mayble,' he said, 'I hope you'll 
 
lyo UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 excuse my common way, but I always like 
 to look tilings in the face.' 
 
 Eeuben made a point of fixing this sen- 
 tence in the vicar's mind by giving a smart 
 nod at the conclusion of it, and then gazing 
 hard out of the window. 
 
 Mr. Maybold and old William looked in 
 the same direction, apparently under the 
 impression that the things' faces alluded to 
 were there visible. 
 
 ' What I have been thinking' — the tran- 
 ter implied by this use of the past tense 
 that he was hardly so discourteous as to be 
 positively thinking it then — 'is that the 
 quire ought to be gie'd a little time, and 
 not done away wi' till Christmas, as a fair 
 thing between man and man. And, Mr. 
 Mayble, I hope you'll excuse my common 
 way ?' 
 
 ' I will, I mil. Till Christmas,' the 
 vicar murmured, stretching the two words 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 171 
 
 to a great lengtb, as if the distance to 
 Christmas might be measured in that way. 
 ' Well, I want you all to understand that I 
 have no personal fault to find, and that I 
 don't wish to change the church music in 
 a forcible way, or in a way which should 
 hurt the feelings of any parishioners. Why 
 I have at last spoken definitely on the sub- 
 ject is that a player has been brought un- 
 der — I may say pressed upon— my notice 
 several times by one of the churchwardens. 
 And as the oro;an I brouoht with me is here 
 waiting' (pointing to a cabinet-organ stand- 
 ing in the study), ' there is no reason for 
 longer dela3\' 
 
 ' We made a mistake I suppose then, sir ? 
 But we understood the young lady didn't 
 want to play particularly?' The tranter 
 arranged his countenance to signify that he 
 did not want to be inquisitive in the least. 
 
 ' No, nor did she. Xor did I definitely 
 
172 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 wish her to just yet; for your playing is 
 very good. But as I said, one of the church- 
 wardens has been so anxious for a change, 
 that as matters stand, I couldn't consistently 
 refuse my consent.' 
 
 Xow for some reason or other, the vicar 
 at this point seemed to have an idea that 
 he had prevaricated ; and as an honest vicar, 
 it was a thing he determined not to do. 
 He corrected himself, blushing as he did 
 so, though why he should blush was not 
 known to Reuben. 
 
 ' Understand me rightly,' he said : ' the 
 churchwarden proposed it to me, but I had 
 thought myself of getting — Miss Day to 
 play.' 
 
 ' Which churchwarden might that be 
 who proposed her, sir ? — excusing my com- 
 mon way.' The tranter intimated by his 
 tone, that so far from being inquisitive he 
 did not even wish to ask a single question. 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 173 
 
 ' Mr. Shinar, I believe.' 
 
 ' Clk, my sonny ! — beg your pardon, sir, 
 that's only a form of words of mine, sir, 
 and slipped out accidental — sir, he nourishes 
 enmity against us for some reason or ano- 
 ther ; perhaps because we played rather hard 
 upon en Christmas night. I don't know; 
 but 'tis certain-sure that Mr. Shinar's rale 
 love for music of a particular kind isn't his 
 reason. He've no more ear than that chair. 
 But let that pass.' 
 
 ' I don't think you should conclude that, 
 because Mr. Shinar wants a different music, 
 he has any ill-feeling for you. I myself, I 
 must own, prefer organ-music to any other. 
 I consider it most proper, and feel justified 
 in endeavouring to introduce it ; but then, 
 although other music is better, I don't say 
 yours is not good.' 
 
 ^ Well then, Mr. Mayble, since death's 
 
174 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 to be, we'll die like men any day you names, 
 (excusing my common way).' 
 
 Mr. Maybold bowed his head. 
 
 ' All we thought was, that for us old 
 ancient singers to be finished off quietly at 
 no time in particular, as now, in the Sun- 
 days after Easter, would seem rather mean 
 in the eyes of other parishes, sir. But if we 
 fell glorious with a bit of a flourish at Christ- 
 mas, we should have a respectable end, and 
 not dwindle away at some nameless paltry 
 second-Sunday-after or Sunday-next-before 
 something, that's got no name of his own.' 
 
 ^ Yes, yes, that's reasonable ; I own it's 
 reasonable.' 
 
 ' You see, Mr. Mayble, we've got — do I 
 keep you inconveniently long, sir ?' 
 
 ' No, no.' 
 
 ' We've got our feelings — father there 
 especially, Mr. Mayble.' 
 
 The tranter, in his eagerness to explain, 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 175 
 
 had advanced his person to within six inches 
 of the vicar's. 
 
 ' Certainly, certainly !' said Mr. ]\IaybQld, 
 retreating a little for convenience of seeing. 
 ' You are all enthusiastic on the subject, and 
 I am all the more gratified to find you so. 
 A Laodicean lukewarmness is worse than 
 wrongheadedness itself 
 
 ' Exactly, sir. In fact now, Mr. Mayble,' 
 Eeuben continued, more impressively, and 
 advancing a little closer still to the vicar, 
 ' father there is a perfect figure of wonder, 
 in the way of being fond of music !' 
 
 The vicar drew back a little farther, the 
 tranter suddenly also standing back a foot 
 or two, to throw open the view of his father, 
 and pointing to him at the same time. 
 
 Old William moved uneasily in the large 
 chair, and constructing a minute smile on the 
 mere edge of his lips, for good-manners, said 
 he was indeed very fond of tunes. 
 
176 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' Now, sir, you see exactly how it is/ 
 Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. May- 
 bold's sense of justice by looking sideways 
 into his eyes. The vicar seemed to see how it 
 was so well, that the gratified tranter walked 
 up to him again with even vehement eager- 
 ness, so that his waistcoat-buttons almost 
 rubbed against the vicar's as he continued : 
 ' As to father, if you or I, or any man or 
 woman of the present generation, at the time 
 music is playing, was to shake your fist in 
 father's face, as might be this way, and 
 say, " Don't you be delighted with that 
 music !" ' — the tranter went back to where 
 Leaf was sitting, and held his fist so close 
 to Leaf's face, that the latter pressed his 
 head back against the wall : ^ All right. Leaf, 
 my sonny, I won't hurt you; 'tis just to 
 show my maning to Mr. Mayble. — As I 
 was saying, if you or I, or any man, was to 
 shake your fist in father's face this way. 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 177 
 
 and say, " William, your life or your music !" 
 he'd say, " My life !" Now that's father's 
 nater all over; and you see, sir, it must 
 hurt the feelings of a man of that kind, for 
 him and his bass-viol to be done away wi' 
 neck and crop.' 
 
 The tranter went back to the vicar's 
 front, and looked earnestly at a very minute 
 point in his face. 
 
 ' True, true, Dewy,' Mr. Maybold ans- 
 wered, trying to withdraw his head and 
 shoulders without moving his feet; but 
 finding this impracticable, edging back ano- 
 ther inch. These frequent retreats had at 
 last jammed Mr. Maybold between his easy- 
 chair and the edge of the table. 
 
 And at the moment of the announce- 
 ment of the choh^, Mr. Maybold had just 
 re-dipped the pen he was using; at their 
 entry, instead of wiping it, he had laid it 
 on the table with the nib overhan^rinof. At 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
178 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 the last retreat his coat-tails came in con- 
 tact with the pen, and down it rolled, first 
 against the back of the chair ; thence turn- 
 ing a summersault into the seat; thence 
 rolling to the floor with a rattle. 
 
 The vicar stooped for his pen, and the 
 tranter, wishing to show that, however great 
 their ecclesiastical differences, his mind was 
 not so small as to let this affect his social 
 feelings, stooped also. 
 
 ' And have you anything else you want 
 to explain to me, Dewy?^ said Mr. Maybold 
 from under the table. 
 
 ^ Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be 
 not offended ? I hope you see our desire is 
 reason?' said the tranter from under the chair. 
 
 ^ Quite, quite ; and I shouldn't think of 
 refusing to listen to such a reasonable re- 
 quest,' the vicar replied. Seeing that Reu- 
 ben had secured the pen, he resumed his 
 vertical position, and added, ^You know, 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 179 
 
 Dewy, it is often said how difficult a matter 
 it is to act up to our convictions and please 
 all parties. It may be said with equal 
 truth, that it is difficult for a man of any 
 appreciativeness to have convictions at all. 
 Now in my case, I see right in you, and 
 right in Shinar. I see that violins are good, 
 and that an organ is good; and when we 
 introduce the organ, it ^vill not be that 
 fiddles were bad, but that an organ was 
 better. That you'll clearly understand. 
 Dewy ?' 
 
 ' I will ; and thank you very much for 
 such feelings, sir. Piph-h-h-h! How the 
 blood do get into my head to be sure, when- 
 ever I quat down like that!' said Eeuben, 
 having also risen to his feet, sticking the pen 
 vertically in the inkstand and almost through 
 the bottom, that it might not roll down 
 again under any circumstances whatever. 
 
 Now the ancient body of minstrels in 
 
i8o UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 the passage felt their curiosity surging 
 higher and higher as the minutes passed. 
 Dick, not having much affection for this 
 errand, soon grew tired, and went away in 
 the direction of the school. Yet their sense 
 of propriety would probably have restrained 
 them from any attempt to discover what 
 was going on in the study, had not the 
 vicar's pen fallen to the floor. The convic- 
 tion that the movement of chairs, &c. neces- 
 sitated by the search, could only have been 
 caused by the catastrophe of a bloody 
 fight, overpowered all other considerations ; 
 and they advanced to the door, which had 
 only just fallen to. Thus, when Mr. May- 
 bold raised his eyes after the stooping, he 
 beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny 
 in full-length portraiture. Mail's face and 
 shoulders above Mr. Penny's head, Spinks's 
 forehead and eyes over Mail's crown, and a 
 fractional part of Bowman's countenance 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. i8i 
 
 under Spinks's arm — crescent-shaped por- 
 tions of other heads and faces being visible 
 behind these — the whole dozen and odd 
 eyes bristling with eager inquiry. 
 
 Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable 
 bootmakers and men, on seeing the vicar 
 look at him, and hearing no word spoken, 
 thought it incumbent upon himself to say 
 something of any kind. Nothing suggested 
 itself till he had looked for about half a 
 minute at the vicar. 
 
 ' You'll excuse my naming it, sir,' he 
 said, regarding with much commiseration 
 the mere surface of the vicar's face ; ' but 
 perhaps you don't know, sir, that your chin 
 have bust out a-bleeding where you cut 
 yourself a-shaving this morning, sir.' 
 
 ' Now, that was the stooping, depend 
 upon't, Mr. Mayble,' the tranter suggested, 
 also lookino; with much interest at the 
 vicar's chin. ' Blood always will bust out 
 
i82 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 again if you hang do^vn the member that 
 ha' been bleeding/ 
 
 Old William raised his eyes and watched 
 the vicar's bleeding chin likewise ; and Leaf 
 advanced two or three paces from the book- 
 case, absorbed in the contemplation of the 
 same phenomenon, with parted lips and de- 
 lighted eyes. 
 
 ' Dear me, dear me !' said Mr. Maybold 
 hastily, looking very red, and brushing his 
 chin with his hand, then taking out his 
 handkerchief and wiping the place. 
 
 ^ That's it, sir ; all right again now, 'a 
 b'lieve — a mere nothing,' said Mr. Penny. 
 ' A little bit of fur off your hat will stop 
 it in a minute if it should bust out 
 again.' 
 
 Til let ye have a bit of fur off mine,' 
 said Reuben, to show his good feeling; ^my 
 hat isn't so new as yours, sir, and 'twon't 
 hurt mine a bit.' 
 
INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR. 183 
 
 * No, no; thank you, thank you,' Mr. 
 Maybold again nervously replied. 
 
 ^ 'Twas rather a deep cut seemingly, 
 sir?' said Reuben, thinking these the kind- 
 est and best remarks he could make. 
 
 ' 0, no; not particularly.' 
 
 ' Well, sir, your hand will shake some- 
 times a-shaving, and just when it comes 
 into your head that you may cut yourself 
 there's the blood.' 
 
 ' I have been revolving in my mind that 
 question of the time at which we make the 
 change,' said Mr. Maybold, ' and I know 
 you'll meet me half-way. I think Christ- 
 mas-day as much too late for me as the 
 present time is too early for you. I sug- 
 gest Michaelmas or thereabout as a con- 
 venient time for both parties; for I think 
 your objection to a Sunday which has no 
 name is not one of any real weight.' 
 
 * Yery good, sir. I suppose martel men 
 
1 84 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 mustn't expect their own way entirely; and 
 I express in all our names that we'll make 
 shift and be satisfied with what you say.' 
 The tranter touched the brim of his ima- 
 ginary hat again, and all the choir did the 
 same. ^ About Michaelmas, then, as far as 
 you be concerned, sir, and then we make 
 room for the next generation.' 
 
 ^ About Michaelmas,' said the vicar. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 RETURNING HOMEWARD. 
 
 ' 'A TOOK it very well, then ?' said Mail, as 
 they all walked up the hill. 
 
 ' He behaved like a man, 'a did so,* said 
 the tranter. ^ Supposing this tree here was 
 Pa'son Mayble as might be, and here be I 
 standing, and that large stone is father sit- 
 ting in the easy-chair. "Dewy," says he, 
 " I don't wish to change the church music 
 in a forcible way." ' 
 
 ' Now, that was very nice o' the man.' 
 ' Proper nice — out and out nice. The 
 fact is,' said Reuben confidentially, ' 'tis 
 
1 86 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 how you take a man. Everybody must be 
 managed. Queens must be managed : kings 
 must be managed ; for men want managing 
 almost as much as women, and that's saymg 
 a good deal.' 
 
 ' 'Tis truly I' murmured the husbands. 
 
 ' Pa'son Mayble and I were as good 
 friends all through it as if we'd been sworn 
 brothers. Ay, the man's well enough- 'tis 
 what's in his head that spoils him.' 
 
 ' There's really no believing half you 
 hear about people nowadays.' 
 
 ' Bless ye, my sonnies ! 'tisn't the pa'son's 
 move at all. That gentleman over there' 
 (the tranter nodded in the direction of 
 Shinar's farm) ' is at the ]^ot of the mis- 
 chief.' 
 
 'What! Shinar?' 
 
 ' Ay ; and I see what the pa'son don't 
 see. Why, Shinar is for putting forward 
 that young woman that only last night I 
 
RETURNING HOMEWARD. 187 
 
 was saying was our Dick's sweetheart, but 
 I suppose can't be, and making much of her 
 in the sight of the congregation, and think- 
 ing he'll win her by showing her off; well, 
 perhaps 'a will/ 
 
 ^ Then the music is second to the wo- 
 man, the other churchwarden is second to 
 Shinar, the pa'son is second to the church- 
 wardens, and God A'mighty is nowhere at 
 all; 
 
 ^That's true; and you see,' continued 
 Reuben, ' at the very beginning it put me in a 
 stud as to how to quarrel wi' en. In short, 
 to save my soul, I couldn't quarrel wi' such 
 a civil man without belying my conscience. 
 Says he to father there, in a voice as quiet as 
 a lamb's, " William, you are a old aged man, 
 William, as all shall be," says he, " and sit 
 down in my easy-chair, and rest yourself." 
 And down father set. I could fain ha' 
 laughed at thee, father ; for thou'st take it 
 
1 88 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 SO unconcerned at first, and then looked so 
 frightened when the chair-bottom sunk in.' 
 
 'Ye see' said old William, hastenino: 
 to explain, ' I was alarmed to find the bot- 
 tom gie way — what should I know o' spring 
 bottoms? — and thought I had broke it down : 
 and of course as to breaking down a man's 
 chair, I didn't wish any such thing.' 
 
 ' And, naibours, when a feller, ever so 
 much up for a miiF, d'see his own father 
 sitting in his enemy's easy-chair, and a pore 
 chap like Leaf made the best of, as if he 
 almost had brains — why, it knocks all the 
 wind out of his sail at once : it did out of 
 mine.' 
 
 'If that young figure of fun — Fance 
 Day, I mean,* said Bowman, ' hadn't been 
 so mighty forward wi' showing herself off 
 to Shinar and Dick and the rest, 'tis my 
 belief we should never ha' left the gallery.' 
 
 ' 'Tis my belief that though Shinar fired 
 
RETURNING HOMEWARD. 189 
 
 the bullets, tlie parson made 'em,' said Mr. 
 Pemiy. ' My wife sticks to it that he's in 
 love wi' her.' 
 
 ' That's a thing we shall never know. I 
 can't translate her, nohow.' 
 
 ' Thou'st ought to be able to translate 
 such a little chiel as she,' the tranter ob- 
 served. 
 
 ' The littler the maid, the bigger, the 
 riddle, to my mind. And coming of such a 
 stock, too, she may well be a twister.' 
 
 'Yes; Geofifrey Day is a clever man if 
 ever there was one. Never says anything : 
 not he.' 
 
 ' Never.' 
 
 ^ You might live wi' that man, my son- 
 nies, a hundred years, and never know there 
 was anything in him.' 
 
 ' Ay ; one o' these up-country London 
 ink-bottle fellers would call Geoffrey a fool.' 
 
 ' Ye never find out what's in that 
 
iQO UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 man : never. Silent ? ah, lie is silent ! He 
 can keep silence well. That man's silence 
 is wonderful to listen to.' 
 
 ' There's so much sense in it. Every 
 moment of it is brimming over with sound 
 
 « 
 
 understanding.' 
 
 * ^A can keep a very clever silence — very 
 clever truly,' echoed Leaf. ' 'A looks at me 
 as if 'a could see my thoughts running 
 round like the works of a clock.' 
 
 * Well, all will agree that the man can 
 pause well in conversation, be it a long time 
 or be it a short time. And though we can't 
 expect his da^ughter to inherit his silence, 
 she may have a few dribblets from his 
 sense.' 
 
 ' And his pocket, perhaps.' 
 
 ' Yes ; the nine hundred pound that 
 everybody says he's worth; but I call it 
 four hundred and fifty ; for I never believe 
 more than half T hear.' 
 
RETURNING HOMEWARD. 191 
 
 ^ Well, 'tis to be believed he've made a 
 pound or tAvo, and I suppose the maid will 
 have it, since there's nobody else. But 'tis 
 rather sharp upon her, if she's born to for- 
 tune, to make her become as if not born for 
 it, by using her to work so hard.' 
 
 ' 'Tis all upon his principle. A long- 
 headed feller !' 
 
 'Ah,' murmured Spinks, '^twould be 
 sharper upon her if she were born for for- 
 tune, and not to it ! I suffer from that 
 affliction.' 
 
CHAPTEE YI. 
 
 YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER'S HOUSE. 
 
 A MOOD of blitheness rarely experienced 
 even by young men was Dick's on the fol- 
 lowing Monday morning. It was the week 
 after the Easter holidays, and he was jour- 
 neying along with Smart the mare and the 
 light spring- cart, Avatching the damp slopes 
 of the hill- sides as they streamed in the 
 warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled 
 season shone on the grass mth the fresh- 
 ness of an occasional inspector rather than 
 as an accustomed proprietor. His errand 
 was to fetch Fancy, and some additional 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 193 
 
 household goods, to her dwelling at Mell- 
 stock. The distant view was darkly shaded 
 with clouds; but the nearer parts of the 
 landscape were whitely illumined by the 
 visible rays of the sun streaming down 
 across the heavy gray shade behind. 
 
 The tranter had not yet told his son of 
 the state of Shinar's heart, that had been 
 suggested to him by Shinar's movements. 
 He preferred to let such delicate affairs 
 right themselves ; experience having taught 
 him that the uncertain phenomenon of love, 
 as it existed in other people, was not a 
 groundwork upon which a single action of 
 his own life could be founded. 
 
 The game-keeper, Geoffrey^Day, lived in 
 the depths of Yalbury Wood ; but the wood 
 was intersected by a lane at a place not far 
 from the house, and some trees had of late 
 years been felled, to give the solitary cot- 
 tager a glimpse of the occasional passers-by. 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
194 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 It was a satisfaction to walk into the 
 keeper's house, even as a stranger, on a fine 
 spring morning like the present. A curl 
 of wood-smoke came from the chimney, and 
 drooped over the roof like a blue feather in 
 a lady's hat; and the sun shone obliquely 
 upon the patch of grass in front, which 
 reflected its brightness through the open 
 doorway and up the staircase opposite, 
 lighting up each riser with a shiny green 
 radiance, and leaving the top of each step 
 in shade. 
 
 The window-sill of the front room was 
 between four and five feet from the floor, 
 dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, 
 over which, as well as over the whole sur- 
 face of the wall beneath, there always hung 
 a deep shade, which was considered objec- 
 tionable on every ground save one, namely, 
 that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and 
 water by the caged canary above was not 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 195 
 
 noticed as an eyesore by visitors. The 
 window was set with thickly -leaded dia- 
 mond glazing, formed, especially in the 
 lower panes, of knotty glass of various 
 shades of green. Nothing Avas better known 
 to Fancy than the extravagant manner in 
 which these circular knots or eyes distorted 
 everything seen through them from the 
 outside — lifting hats from heads, shoulders 
 from bodies; scattering the spokes of cart- 
 wheels, and bending the straight fir- trunks 
 into semicircles. The ceiling; was carried 
 by a huge beam traversing its midst, from 
 the side of which projected a large nail, 
 used solely and constantly as a peg for 
 Geoffrey's hat; the nail was arched by a 
 rainbow - shaped stain, imprinted by the 
 brim of the said hat when it was hung 
 there dripping wet. 
 
 The most striking point about the room 
 was the furniture. This was a repetition 
 
196 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 upon inanimate objects of the old principle 
 introduced by Noah, consisting for the most 
 part of two articles of every sort. The 
 duplicate system of furnishing owed its 
 existence to the forethought of Fancy's mo- 
 ther, exercised from the date of Fancy's 
 birthday onwards. The arrangement spoke 
 for itself; nobody who knew the tone of the 
 household could look at the goods without 
 being aware that the second set was a pro- 
 vision for Fancy, when she should marry 
 and have a house of her own. The most 
 noticeable instance was a pair of green- 
 faced eight-day clocks, ticking alternately, 
 which were severally two and half minutes 
 and three minutes striking the hour of 
 twelve, one proclaiming, in Italian flour- 
 ishes, Thomas Wood as the name of its 
 maker, and the other — arched at the top 
 and altogether of more cynical appearance 
 — that of Ezekiel Sparrowgrass. These were 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 197 
 
 two departed clockmakers of Casterbridge, 
 whose desperate rivalry throughout their 
 lives was nowhere more emphatically per- 
 petuated than here at Geoffrey's. These 
 chief specimens of the marriage provision 
 were supported on the right by a couple of 
 kitchen dressers, each fitted complete with 
 their cups, dishes, and plates, in their turn 
 followed by two dumb-waiters, two family 
 Bibles, two warming-pans, and two inter- 
 mixed sets of chairs. 
 
 But the position last reached — the 
 chimney-corner — was, after all, the most 
 attractive side of the parallelogram. It 
 was large enough to admit, in addition to 
 GeoiFrey himself, Geoffrey's wife, her chair, 
 and her work-table, entirely within the line 
 of the mantel, mthout danger or even in- 
 convenience from the heat of the fire; and 
 was spacious enough overhead to allow of 
 the insertion of wood poles for the hanging 
 
198 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 of bacon, whicli were cloaked with long 
 shreds of soot, floating on the draught like 
 the tattered banners on the walls of ancient 
 aisles. 
 
 These points were common to most 
 chimney corners of the neighbourhood ; but 
 one feature there was which made Geof- 
 frey's fireside not only an object of interest 
 to casual aristocratic visitors — to whom 
 every cottage fireside was more or less a 
 curiosity — but the admiration of friends 
 who were accustomed to fireplaces of the 
 ordinary hamlet model. This peculiarity 
 was a little window in the chimney-back, 
 almost over the fire, around which the 
 smoke crept caressingly when it left the per- 
 pendicular course. The window-board was 
 curiously stamped mth black circles, burnt 
 thereon by the heated bottoms of drinkmg- 
 cups, which had rested there after pre- 
 viously standing on the hot ashes of the 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 199 
 
 hearth for the purpose of warming then' 
 contents, the result siivino^ to the leclo-e 
 the look of an envelo^^e which has passed 
 through innumerable post-offices. 
 
 Fancy was gliding about the room pre- 
 paring dinner, her head inclining now to 
 the right, now to the left, and singing the 
 tips and ends of tunes that sprang up in 
 her mind like mushrooms. The footsteps 
 of Mrs. Day could be heard in the room 
 overhead. Fancy went finally to the door. 
 
 ' Father ! Dinner.' 
 
 A tall spare figure was seen advancing 
 by the window with periodical steps, and 
 the keeper entered from the garden. He 
 appeared to be a man who was always look- 
 ing down, as if trying to recollect some- 
 thing he said yesterday. The surface of 
 his face was fissured rather than wrinkled, 
 and over and under his eyes were folds 
 which seemed as a kind of exterior eyelids. 
 
2 00 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 His nose had been thrown backwards by 
 a blow in a poaching fray, so that when 
 the sun was low and shining in his face, 
 people could see far into his head. There 
 was in him a quiet grimness, which would 
 in his moments of displeasure have become 
 surliness, had it not been tempered by 
 honesty of soul, and which was often wrong- 
 headedness because not allied with sub- 
 tlety. 
 
 Although not an extraordinarily taci- 
 turn man among friends slightly richer 
 than he, he never wasted words upon out- 
 siders, and to his trapper Enoch his ideas 
 were seldom conveyed by any other means 
 than nods and shakes of the head. Their 
 long acquaintance with each other's ways, 
 and the nature of their labours, rendered 
 words between them almost superfluous 
 as vehicles of thought, whilst the coincid- 
 ence of their horizons, and the astonishing 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 201 
 
 equality of their social views, by startling 
 the keeper from time to time as very dam- 
 aging to the theor3^ of master and man, 
 strictly forbade any indulgence in words as 
 courtesies. 
 
 Behind the keeper came Enoch (who 
 had been assisting in the garden) at the 
 well-considered chronological distance of 
 three minutes — an interval of non-appear- 
 ance on the trapper's part not arrived at 
 mthout some reflection. Four minutes 
 had been found to express indifference to 
 indoor arrangements, and simultaneousness 
 had implied too great an anxiety about 
 meals. 
 
 ' A little earlier than usual, Fancy,' the 
 keeper said, as he sat down and looked at 
 the clocks. ' That Ezekiel Sparrowgrass 
 o' thine is tearino; on afore Thomas "Wood 
 
 agam. 
 
 ' I kept in the middle betvreen them,' 
 
202 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 said Fancy, also looking at the two 
 clocks. 
 
 ' Better stick to Thomas,' said her fa- 
 ther. ' There's a healthy beat in Thomas 
 that would lead a man to swear by en off- 
 hand. He is as true as the Squire's time. 
 How is it your stap-mother isn't here?' 
 
 As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle 
 of wheels was heard, and 'Weh-hey, Smart!' 
 in Mr. Eichard Dewy's voice rolled into 
 the cottao:e from round the corner of the 
 house. 
 
 ' Hullo ! there's Dewy's cart come for 
 thee. Fancy — Dick driving — afore time, 
 too. Well, ask the lad to have a bit and 
 a drop with us.' 
 
 Dick on entering made a point of im- 
 plying by his general bearing that he took 
 an interest in Fancy simply as in one 
 of the same race and country as himself; 
 and they all sat down. Dick could have 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 203 
 
 wished her manner had not been so en- 
 tire]}^ free from all apparent consciousness 
 of those accidental meetino^s of theirs: but 
 he let the thought pass. Enoch sat dia- 
 gonally at a table afar off, under the corner 
 cupboard, and drank his cider from a long 
 perpendicular pint cup, having tall fir-trees 
 done in brown on its sides. He threw 
 occasional remarks into the general tide 
 of conversation, and with this advantage 
 to himself, that he participated in the plea- 
 sures of a talk (slight as it was) at meal- 
 times, mthout saddling himself with the 
 responsibility of sustaining it. 
 
 'Why don't your stap - mother come 
 down, Fancy?' said Geoffrey. 'You'll ex- 
 cuse her. Mister Dick, she's a little quare 
 sometimes.' 
 
 '0 yes, — quite,' said Richard, as if he 
 were in the habit of excusing several people 
 every day. 
 
204 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' She d'belong to that class of woman- 
 kind that become second wives : a rum class 
 rather.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' said Dick, with sympathy for 
 an indefinite something. 
 
 'Yes; and 'tis trying to a female, espe- 
 cially if you've been a first wife, as she hev.' 
 
 ' Yery trying it must be.' 
 
 ' Yes : you see her first husband was a 
 young man, who let her go too far ; in fact, 
 she used to kick up Bob's- a -dying at the 
 least thing in the world. And when I'd mar- 
 ried her and found it out, I thought, thinks 
 I, " 'Tis too late now to begin to cure ye ;" 
 and so I let her bide. But she's quare, — 
 very quare, at times !' 
 
 ' I'm sorry to hear that.' 
 
 ' Yes : there ; wives be such a provoking 
 class of society, because though they be never 
 right, they be never more than half wrong.' 
 
 Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 205 
 
 of this household moralisino;, which mio-ht 
 tend to damage the airy-fairy nature that 
 Dick, as maiden shrewdness told her, had 
 accredited her with. Her dead silence im- 
 pressed Geoffrey with the notion that some- 
 thing in his words did not agree with her 
 educated ideas, and he changed the conver- 
 sation. 
 
 ' Did Fred Shinar send the cask o' drink, 
 Fancy ?' 
 
 'I think he did: yes, he did.' 
 
 ' Mce solid feller, Fred Shinar !' said 
 Geoffrey to Dick as he helped himself to 
 gravy, bringing the spoon round to his plate 
 by way of the potato-dish, to obviate a stain 
 on the cloth in the event of a spill. 
 
 Geoffrey's eyes had been fixed upon his 
 plate for the previous four or five minutes, 
 and in removing them he had only carried 
 them to the spoon, which, from its fulness 
 and the distance of its transit, necessitated a 
 
2o6 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 steady watching through the whole of the 
 route. Just as intently as the keeper's eyes 
 had been fixed on the spoon, Fancy's had 
 been fixed on her father's, without premedi- 
 tation or the slightest phase of furtiveness ; 
 but there they were fastened. This was the 
 reason why : 
 
 Dick was sitting next to her on the right 
 side, and on the side of the table opposite to 
 her father. Fancy had laid her right hand 
 lightly down upon the table-cloth for an in- 
 stant, and to her alarm Dick, after dropping 
 his fork and brushing his forehead as a rea- 
 son, flung down his own left hand, overlap- 
 ping a third of Fancy's with it, and keeping 
 it there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of 
 pulling her hand from the trap, settled her 
 eyes on her father's, to guard against his dis- 
 covery of this perilous game of Dick's. Dick 
 finished his mouthful; Fancy finished her 
 crumb, and nothing was done beyond watch- 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 207 
 
 ing Geoffrey's eyes. Then the hands slid 
 apart; Fancy's gomg over six inches of cloth, 
 Dick's over one. Geoffrey's eye had risen. 
 
 ' I said Fred Shinar is a nice solid feller,' 
 he repeated, more emphatically. 
 
 * He is; yes, he is,' stammeiced Dick ; 'but 
 to me he is little more than a stranger.' 
 
 ^ True. There, I know en as well as any 
 man can be known. And you know en very 
 well too, don't ye, Fancy ?' 
 
 Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that 
 these words signified at present about one 
 hundred times the amount of meaning they 
 conveyed literally. 
 
 Dick looked anxious. 
 
 'Will you pass me some bread?' said 
 Fancy in a flurry, the red of her flice be- 
 coming slightly disordered, and looking as 
 solicitous as a human being could look about 
 a piece of bread. 
 
 'Ay, that I will,' replied the unconscious 
 
2o8 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 Geoffrey. 'Ay/ he continued, returning to 
 the displaced idea, * we be likely to remain 
 friendly wi' Mr, Shinar if the wheels d'run 
 smooth/ 
 
 ^An excellent thing — a very capital 
 thing, as I should say,' the youth answered 
 mth exceeding relevance, considering that 
 his thousrhts, instead of followino- Geof- 
 frey's remark, were nestling at a distance 
 of about two feet on his left the whole time. 
 
 'A young woman's face will turn the 
 north wind, Master Richard: my heart if 
 'twon't.' Dick looked more anxious and was 
 attentive in earnest at these words. ' Yes ; 
 turn the north wind,' added Geoffrey after 
 an emphatic pause. ' And though she's one 
 of my own flesh and blood ' 
 
 ' Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil' 
 cheese from pantry-shelf,' Fancy interrupted, 
 as if she were famishing. 
 
 'Ay, that I will, chiel, chiel, saj^s I, and 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 209 
 
 Mr. Shinar only asking last Saturday night 
 . . . . cheese you said, Fancy?' 
 
 Dick controlled his emotion at these 
 mysterious allusions to Mr. Shinar, — the 
 better enabled to do so by perceiving that 
 Fancy's heart went not with her father's — 
 and spoke like a stranger to the affairs of 
 the neighbourhood. ' Yes, there's a great 
 deal to be said upon the power of maiden 
 faces in settling your courses,' he said as 
 the keeper retreated for the cheese. 
 
 'The conversation is taking a very strange 
 turn : nothing that / have ever done war- 
 rants such things being said,' murmured 
 Fancy with emphasis, just loud enough to 
 reach Dick's ears. 
 
 ' You think to yourself, 'twas to be,' cried 
 Enoch from his distant corner, by way of 
 filling up the vacancy caused by Geoffrey's 
 momentary absence. 'And so you marry her, 
 Master Dewy, and there's an end o't.' 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
2IO UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 ' Pray don^t say such things, Enoch,' said 
 Fancy severely, upon which Enoch relapsed 
 into servitude. 
 
 ' If we are doomed to marry, we marry ; 
 if we are doomed to remain single, we do,' 
 replied Dick. 
 
 Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, 
 and he now made his lips thin by severely 
 straining them across his gums, and looked 
 out of the fireplace window to the end of 
 the paddock mth solemn scrutiny. ' That's 
 not the case with some folk,' he said at 
 length, as if he read the words on a board 
 at the farther end of the paddock. 
 
 Fancy looked interested, and Dick said, 
 'No? 
 
 ' There's that wife o' mine. It was her 
 doom not to be nobody's wife at all in the 
 wide universe. But she made up her mind 
 that she would, and did it twice over. 
 Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly 
 woman — quite a chiel in her hands.' 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 211 
 
 A movement was now heard along the 
 upstairs passage and footsteps descending. 
 The door at the foot of the stairs opened 
 and the second Mrs. Day appeared in view, 
 looking fixedly at the table as she advanced 
 towards it^ with apparent obliviousness of 
 the presence of any other human being 
 than herself In short, if the table had 
 been the personages, and the persons the 
 table, her glance would have been the most 
 natural imaginable. 
 
 She showed herself to possess an ordi- 
 nary woman's face, iron-gray hair, hardly 
 any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness 
 in a broad white apron-string, as it appeared 
 upon the waist of her dark stuff dress. 
 
 ' People will run away with a story now, 
 I suppose,' she began saying, 'that Jane 
 Day's tablecloths be as poor and ragged as 
 any union beggar's !' 
 
 Dick now perceived that the tablecloth 
 
212 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. 
 
 was a little the worse for wear, and reflect- 
 ing for a moment, concluded that ^people' 
 in step-mother language probably meant 
 himself. On lifting his eyes he found that 
 Mrs. Day had vanished again upstairs, and 
 presently returned with an armful of new 
 damask-linen tablecloths, folded square and 
 hard as boards by long compression. These 
 she flounced down into a chair; then took 
 one, shook it out from its folds, and spread 
 it on the table by instalments, transferring 
 the plates and dishes one by one from the 
 old to the new cloth. 
 
 ' And I suppose they'll say, too, that she 
 hasn't a decent knife and fork in her house !' 
 
 'I shouldn't say any such ill-natured 
 thing, I am sure — ' began Dick. But Mrs. 
 Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy 
 appeared distressed. 
 
 ' Very strange woman, isn't she ?' said 
 Geoffrey, quietly going on with his dinner. 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 213 
 
 ' But 'tis too late to attempt curing. My 
 heart ! 'tis so growed into her that 'twould 
 kill her to take it out. Ay, she's very 
 quare : you'd be amazed to see what valu- 
 able goods we've got stowed away upstairs.' 
 
 Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of 
 bright steel horn - handled knives, silver 
 forks, carver, and all complete. These were 
 wiped of the preservative oil which coated 
 them, and then a knife and fork were laid 
 down to each individual with a bang, the 
 carving knife and fork thrust into the meat 
 dish, and the old ones they had hitherto 
 used tossed away. 
 
 Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the 
 new knife and fork, and asked Dick if he 
 wanted any more. 
 
 The table had been spread for the 
 mixed midday meal of dinner and tea, 
 which is common among cottagers. ' The 
 parishioners about here,' continued Mrs. 
 
214 UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE, 
 
 Day, not looking at any living being, but 
 snatching up the brown delf tea-things, ' be 
 the laziest, gossipest, poachest, - jailest set 
 of any ever I come among. And they'll 
 talk about my teapot and tea-things next, I 
 suppose !' She vanished with the teapot, 
 cups, and saucers, and reappeared with a 
 tea-service in white china, and a packet 
 wrapped in brown paper. This was re- 
 moved, together with folds of tissue-paper 
 underneath; and a brilliant silver teapot 
 appeared. 
 
 ' I'll help to put the things right,' said 
 Fancy soothingly, and rising from her 
 seat. ^I ought to have laid out better 
 things, I suppose. But' (here she enlarged 
 her looks so as to include Dick) 'I have 
 been away from home a good deal, and I 
 make shocking blunders in my housekeep- 
 ing.' Smiles and suavity were then dis- 
 pensed all around by the bright little bird. 
 
YALBURY WOOD. 215 
 
 After a little more preparation and 
 modification, Mrs. Day took her seat at the 
 head of the table, and during the latter or 
 tea division of the meal, presided with 
 much composure. It may cause some sur- 
 prise to learn that, now her vagary was 
 over, she showed herself to be an excellent 
 person with much common sense, and even 
 a religious seriousness of tone on matters 
 pertaining to her afflictions. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 E0B80N AND SONS, PRINTEKS, PANCHAS BOAD, N.W. 
 
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