Interlopers at the
Knap
The north road
from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especially
in winter-time. Along a part of its course it connects with
Some few years ago
a certain farmer was riding through this lane in the gloom of a winter evening.
The farmer's friend, a dairyman, was riding beside him. A few paces in the rear
rode the farmer's man. All three were well horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to be well horsed was to be in better
spirits about
But the farmer did
not talk much to his friend as he rode along. The enterprise which had brought
him there filled his mind; for in truth it was important. Not altogether so
important was it, perhaps, when estimated by its value to society at large; but
if the true measure of a deed be proportionate to the space it occupies in the
heart of him who undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton's
business to-night could hold its own with the business of kings.
He was a large
farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probably thirty thousand pounds a
year. He had a great many draught horses, a great many milch
cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortable position was, however, none of
his own making. It had been created by his father, a
man of a very different stamp from the present representative of the line.
Darton, the father, had been a one-idea'd
character, with a buttoned-up pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with
commercial subtlety. In Darton the son, this trade
subtlety had become transmuted into emotional, and the harshness had
disappeared; he would have been called a sad man but for his constant care not
to divide himself from lively friends by piping notes out of harmony with
theirs. Contemplative, he allowed his mind to be a quiet meeting place for
memories and hopes. So that, naturally enough, since succeeding to the
agricultural calling, and up to his presentage of
thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor receded as a capitalist a stationary
result which did not agitate one of his unambitious, unstrategic nature, since he had
all that he desired. The motive of his expedition to-night showed the same
absence of anxious regard for Number One.
The party rode on
in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time and bad roads, Farmer Darton's head jigging rather unromantically up and down
against the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolder emphasis by his
friend Japheth Johns; while those of the latter were travestied in jerks
stillness softened by art in the person of the lad who attended them. A pair of
whitish objects hung one on each side of the latter, bumping against him a
teach step, and still further spoiling the grace of his seat. On close
inspection they might have been perceived to be open rush baskets—one containing
a turkey, and the other some bottles of wine.
"D'ye feel ye can meet your fate
like a man, neighbour Darton?"
asked Johns, breaking a silence which had lasted while five-and-twenty hedgerow
trees had glided by.
Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, "Ay— call it my
fate! Hanging and wiving go by destiny." And
then they were silent again.
The darkness
thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on the land in a perceptible
flap, like the wave of a wing. The customary close of day was accelerated by a
simultaneous blurring of the air. With the fall of night had come a mist just
damp enough to incommode, but not sufficient to saturate them. Countrymen as
they were born, as may be said, with only an open door between them and the
four seasons—they regarded the mist but as an added obscuration, and ignored
its humid quality.
They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern
current of traffic, the place of Darton's pilgrimage
being an old-fashioned village—one of the Hintocks
(several villages of that name, with a distinctive prefix or affix, lying
thereabout)—where the people make the best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, and where the dunghills smell of pomace instead of stable refuse as elsewhere. The lane was
sometimes so narrow that the brambles of the hedge, which hung forward like
anglers' rods over a stream, scratched their hats and hooked their whiskers as
they passed. Yet this neglected lane had been a highway to Queen Elizabeth's
subjects and the cavalcades of the past. Its day was over now, and its history
as a national artery done for ever.
"Why I have
decided to marry her," resumed Darton (in a
measured musical voice of confidence which revealed a good deal of his
composition), as he glanced round to see that the lad was not too near,
"is not only that I like her, but that I can do no better, even from a
fairly practical point of view. That I might ha' looked higher is possibly
true, though it is really all nonsense. I have had experience enough in looking
above me. 'No more superior women for me,' said I—you know when. Sally is a
comely, independent, simple character, with no make-up about her, who'll think
me as much a superior to her as I used to think—you know who I mean —was to
me."
"Ay,"
said Johns. "However, I shouldn't call Sally Hall simple. Primary, because no Sally is; secondary, because if some could be,
this one wouldn't. 'Tis a wrong denomination
to apply to a woman, Charles, and affects me, as your best man, like cold
water. 'Tis like recommending a stage play by saying
there's neither murder, villainy, nor harm of any sort in it, when that's what
you've paid your half-crown to see."
"Well; may
your opinion do you good. Mine's a different
one." And turning the conversation from the philosophical to the practical,
Darton expressed a hope that the said Sally had
received what he'd sent on by the carrier that day.
Johns wanted to
know what that was.
"It is a
dress," said Darton. "Not exactly a wedding
dress; though she may use it as one if she likes. It is rather serviceable than
showy—suitable for the winter weather."
"Good,"
said Johns. "Serviceable is a wise word in a bridegroom. I commend 'ee, Charles."
"For,"
said Darton, "why should a woman dress up like a
rope-dancer because she's going to do the most solemn deed of her life except
dying?"
"Faith,
why? But she will, because she
will, I suppose," said Dairyman Johns.
"H'm," said Darton.
The lane they
followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but they now left it for a
smaller one which after winding uncertainly for some distance forked into two.
By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities which pass without
observation during day; and though Darton had travelled this way before, he had not done so frequently,
Sally having been wooed at the house of a relative near his own. He never
remembered seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways looking so equally probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a
few steps.
"Don't be out of heart, sonny," he cried. "Here's a
handpost. Ezra—come and climb
this post, and tell us the way."
The lad
dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood under a tree.
"Unstrap the baskets, or you'll smash up that wine!"
cried Darton, as the young man began spasmodically to
climb the post, baskets and all.
"Was there
ever less head in a brainless world?" said Johns. "Here, simple Ezzy, I'll do it." He leapt off, and with much puffing
climbed the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the
light along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle.
"I have faced
tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as milk!" said
Japheth; "but such things as this don't come short of devilry!" And
flinging the match away, he slipped down to the ground.
"What's the
matter?" asked Darton.
"Not a
letter, sacred or heathen—not so much as would tell us the way to the town of
"Let us take
the straightest road," said Darton placidly;
"I shan't be sorry to get there—'tis a tiresome ride. I would have driven
if I had known."
"Nor I neither,
sir," said Ezra. "These straps plough my shoulder like a zull. If 'tis much further to your lady's home, Maister Darton, I shall ask to be
let carry half of these good things in my innerds—hee, hee!"
"Don't you be
such a reforming radical, Ezra," said Johns sternly. "Here, I'll take
the turkey."
This being done,
they went forward by the right-hand lane, which ascended a hill, the left
winding away under a plantation. The pit-a-pat of their horses' hoofs lessened
up the slope; and the ironical directing-post stood in solitude as before,
holding out its blank arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the
wood as if Skrymir the Giant were sleeping there.
II
Three miles to the
left of the travelers, along the road they had not followed, rose an old house
with mullioned windows of Ham-hill stone, and chimney so flavish
solidity. It stood at the top of a slope beside King's-Hintock
village-street, only a mile or two from King's-Hintock
Court, yet quite shut away from that mansion and its precincts. Immediately in
front of it grew a large sycamore tree, whose bared roots formed a convenient
staircase from the road below to the front door of the dwelling. Its situation
gave the house what little distinctive name it possessed, namely, "The Knap."
Some forty yards off a brook dribbled past, which, for its size, made a great
deal of noise. At the back was a dairy barton,
accessible for vehicles and live-stock by a side "drong."
Thus much only of the character of the homestead could be divined out of doors
at this shady evening-time.
But within there
was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was construed at Hintock.
Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose moulded four-centred arch was nearly hidden by a figured blue-cloth
blower, were seated two women—mother and daughter—Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or
Sally; for this was a part of the world where the latter modification had not
as yet been effaced as a vulgarity by the march of intellect. The owner of the
name was the young woman by whose means Mr. Darton
proposed to put an end to his bachelor condition on the approaching day. The
mother's bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much mark of its
occurrence upon her now, either in face or clothes. She had resumed the mob-cap
of her early married life, enlivening its whiteness by a few rose-du-Barry ribbons. Sally required no such aids to pinkness.
Rose ate good-nature lit up her gaze; her features showed curves of decision
and judgment; and she might have been regarded without much mistake as a
warm-hearted, quick-spirited, handsome girl.
She did most of
the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent air, as she picked up
fragments of red-hot wood ember with the tongs, and piled them upon the brands.
But the number of speeches that passed was very small in proportion to the
meanings exchanged. Long experience together often enabled them to see the
course of thought in each other's minds without a word being spoken. Behind
them, in the centre of the room, the table was spread for supper, certain
whiffs of air laden with fat vapours, which ever and
anon entered from the kitchen, denoting its preparation there.
"The new gown
he was going to send you stays about on the way like himself,"
Sally's mother was saying.
"Yes, not
finished, I daresay," cried Sally independently. "Lord, I shouldn't
be amazed if it didn't come at all! Young men make such kind promises when they
are near you, and forget 'em when they go away. But
he doesn't intend it as a wedding-gown—he gives it to me merely as a gown to
wear when I like—a travelling-dress is what it would
be called by some. Come rathe or come late it don't
much matter, as I have a dress of my own to fall back upon. But what time is
it?"
She went to the
family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was not otherwise discernible
by night, and indeed at all times was rather a thing to be investigated than
beheld, so much more wall than window was there in the apartment. "It is
nearly eight," said she.
"
"Mother, if
you think to tantalize me by talking like that, you are much mistaken! Let him
be as late as he will—or stay away altogether—I don't care," said Sally.
But a tender, minute quaver in the negation showed that there was something
forced in that statement.
Mrs. Hall
perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so
sure about Sally not caring. "But perhaps you don't care so much as I do, after all," she said. "For I see
what you don't, that it is a good and flourishing match for you; a very honourable offer in Mr. Darton.
And I think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God 'twill go smooth, and wind
up well."
Sally would not
listen to misgivings. Of course it would go smoothly, she asserted. "How
you are up and down, mother!" she went on. "At this moment, whatever
hinders him, we are not so anxious to see him as he is to be here, and his
thought runs on before him, and settles down upon us like the star in the east.
Hark!" she exclaimed, with a breath of relief, her eyes sparkling. "I
heard something. Yes—here they are!"
The
next moment her mother's slower ear also distinguished the familiar
reverberation occasioned footsteps clambering up the roots of the sycamore.
"Yes it
sounds like them at last," she said. "Well, it is not so very late
after all, considering the distance."
The footfall
ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began to think it might have
been, after all, some neighbouring villager under Bacchic influence, giving the centre of the road a wide
berth, when their doubts were dispelled by the new-comer's entry into the
passage. The door of the room was gently opened, and there appeared not the
pair of travellers with whom we have already made
acquaintance, but a pale-faced man in the garb of extreme poverty—almost in
rags.
"O, it's a
tramp—gracious me!" said Sally, starting back.
His cheeks and
eye-orbits were deep concaves—rather, it might be,
from natural weakness of constitution than irregular living, though there were
indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at the two women fixedly
for a moment: then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour,
dropped his glance to the floor, and sank into a chair without uttering a word.
Sally was in
advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the fire. She now tried to
discern the visitor across the candles.
"Why—mother,"
said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. "It is Phil, from
Mrs. Hall started,
and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the man with the ragged clothes.
"To come home like this!" she said. "O, Philip—are you ill?"
"No, no,
mother," replied he impatiently, as soon as he could speak.
"But for
God's sake how do you come here—and just now too?"
"Well, I am
here," said the man. "How it is I hardly know. I've come home,
mother, because I was driven to it. Things were against me out there, and went
from bad to worse."
"Then why
didn't you let us know?—you've not writ a line for the last two or three
years."
The son admitted
sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped and thought he might fetch up
again, and be able to send good news. Then he had been obliged to abandon that
hope, and had finally come home from sheer necessity—previously to making a new
start. "Yes, things are very bad with me,"
he repeated, perceiving their commiserating glances at his clothes.
They brought him
nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, which was so small and smooth
as to show that his attempts to fetch up again had not been in a manual
direction. His mother resumed her inquiries, and dubiously asked if he had
chosen to come that particular night for any special reason.
For no reason, he
told her. His arrival had been quite at random. Then Philip Hall looked round
the room, and saw for the first time that the table was laid somewhat
luxuriously, and for a larger number than themselves; and that an air of
festivity pervaded their dress. He asked quickly what was going on.
"Sally is
going to be married in a day or two," replied the mother; and she
explained how Mr. Darton, Sally's intended husband,
was coming there that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other details.
"We thought it must be their step when we heard you," said Mrs. Hall.
The needy wanderer
looked again on the floor. "I see—I see," he murmured. "Why,
indeed, should I have come to-night? Such folk as I
are not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no business
here—spoiling other people's happiness."
"Phil,"
said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of lip and
severity of manner which were presumably not more than past events justified;
"since you speak like that to me, I'll speak honestly to you. For these
three years you have taken no thought for us. You left home with a good supply
of money, and strength and education, and you ought to have made good use of it
all. But you come back like a beggar; and that you come in a very awkward time
for us cannot be denied. Your return to-night may do us much harm. But mind you
are welcome to this home as long as it is mine. I don't wish to turn you
adrift. We will make the best of a bad job; and I hope you are not seriously
ill?"
"O no. I have
only this infernal cough."
She looked at him
anxiously. "I think you had better go to bed at once," she said.
"Well—I shall
be out of the way there," said the son wearily.
"Having
ruined myself, don't let me ruin you by being seen in these togs, for Heaven's
sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be married to—a Farmer Darton?"
"Yes—a
gentleman—farmer—quite a wealthy man. Far better in station than she could have expected.
It is a good thing, altogether."
"Well done,
little Sal!" said her brother, brightening and looking up at
he with a smile. "I ought to have written; but
perhaps I have thought of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I
would rather go and jump into the river than be seen here. But have you
anything I can drink? I am confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp."
"Yes, yes, we
will bring something upstairs to you," said Sally, with grief in her face.
"Ay, that
will do nicely. But, Sally and mother—" He stopped, and they waited.
"Mother, I
have not told you all," he resumed slowly, still looking on the floor
between his knees. "Sad as what you see of me is, there's worse
behind."
His mother gazed
upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant upon the bureau,
listening for every sound, and sighing. Suddenly she turned round, saying,
"Let them come, I don't care! Philip, tell the
worst, and take your time."
"Well,
then," said the unhappy Phil, "I am not the only one in this mess.
Would do Heaven I were! But—"
"O, Phil!
"I have a
wife as destitute as I."
"A
wife?" said his mother.
"Unhappily!"
"A
wife! Yes, that is the way with
sons!"
"And
besides—" said he.
"Besides! O, Philip, surely—"
"I have two
little children."
"Wife and
children!" whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded.
"Poor little
things!" said Sally involuntarily.
His mother turned
again to him. "I suppose these helpless beings are left in
"No. They are
in
"Well, I can
only hope you've left them in a respectable place."
"I have not
left them at all. They are here—within a few yards of us. In short, they are in
the stable."
"Where?"
"In
the stable. I did not like to bring
them indoors till I had seen you, mother, and broken the bad news a bit to you.
They were very tired, and are resting out there on some straw."
Mrs.
Hall's fortitude visibly broken down. She had been brought up not without refinement, and was even more
moved by such a collapse of genteel aims as this than a substantial dairyman's
widow would in ordinary have been moved. "Well, it must be borne,"
she said, in a low voice, with her hands tightly joined. "A starving son,
a starving wife, starving children! Let it be. But why
is this come to us now, to-day, to-night? Could no
other misfortune happen to helpless women than this, which will quite upset my
poor girl's chance of a happy life? Why have you done us this wrong, Philip?
What respectable man will come here, and marry open-eyed into a family of
vagabonds?"
"Nonsense,
mother!" said Sally vehemently, while her face flushed. "Charley
isn't the man to desert me. But if he should be, and won't marry me because
Phil's come, let him go and marry elsewhere. I won't be ashamed of my own flesh
and blood for any man in
"Wait till
you are twenty years older and you will tell a different tale, "replied
her mother.
The son stood up.
"Mother," he said bitterly, "as I have come, so I will go. All I
ask of you is that you will allow me and mine to lie in your stable to-night. I
give you my word that we'll be gone by break of day, and trouble you no
further!"
Mrs. Hall, the
mother, changed at that. "O no," she answered hastily; "never
shall it be said that I sent any of my own family from my door. Bring 'em in, Philip, or take me out to them."
"We will put
'em all into the large bedroom," said Sally,
brightening, "and make up a large fire. Let's go and help them in, and
call Rebekah." (Rebekah
was the woman who assisted at the dairy and housework; she lived in a cottage
hard by with her husband, who attended to the cows.)
Sally went to
fetch a lantern from the back-kitchen, but her brother said, "You won't
want a light. I lit the lantern that was hanging there."
"What must we
call your wife?" asked Mrs. Hall.
"
With shawls over
their heads they proceeded towards the back door.
"One minute
before you go," interrupted Philip. "I haven't confessed all."
"Then Heaven help us!" said Mrs. Hall, pushing to the door and
clasping her hands in calm despair.
"We passed
through Evershead as we came," he continued,
"and I just looked in at the 'Sow-and-Acorn' to see if old Mike still kept
on there as usual. The carrier had come in from Sherton
Abbas at that moment, and guessing that I was bound
for this place—for I think he knew me—he asked me to bring on a dressmaker's
parcel for Sally that was marked 'immediate.' My wife had walked on with the
children. 'Twas a flimsy parcel, and the paper was
torn, and I found on looking at it that it was a thick warm gown. I didn't wish
you to see poor
Sally looked at
her mother, speechless.
"You have
others, I daresay!" repeated Phil, with a sick man's impatience, "I
thought to myself, 'Better Sally cry than
"No—no; not
of consequence," returned Sally sadly, adding in a gentle voice, "You
will not mind if I lend her another instead of that one, will you?"
Philip's agitation
at the confession had brought on another attack of the cough, which seemed to
shake him to pieces. He was so obviously unfit to sit in a chair that they
helped him upstairs at once; and having hastily given him a cordial and kindled
the bedroom fire, they descended to fetch their unhappy new relations.
III
It was with
strange feelings that the girl and her mother, lately so cheerful, passed out
of the back door into the open air of the barton,
laden with hay scents and the hereby breath of cows. A fine sleet had begun to
fall, and they trotted across the yard quickly. The stable-door was open; a
light shone from it—from the lantern which always hung there, and which Philip
had lighted, as he said. Softly nearing the door, Mrs. Hall pronounced the name
"
There was no
answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by surprise. Two people
appeared before her. For one, instead of the drabbish
woman she had expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed, ladylike creature, whose
personality ruled her attire rather than was ruled by it. She was in a new and
handsome gown, Sally's own, and an old bonnet. She was standing up, agitated;
her hand was held by her companion—none else than Sally's affianced, Farmer
Charles Darton, upon whose fine figure the pale
stranger's eyes were fixed, as his were fixed upon her. His other hand held the
rein of his horse, which was standing saddled as if just led in.
At sight of Mrs.
Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way neither quite conscious nor
unconscious, and without seeming to recollect that words were necessary as a
solution to the scene. In another moment Sally entered also, when Mr. Darton dropped his companion's hand, led the horse aside,
and came to greet his betrothed and Mrs. Hall.
"Ah!" he
said, smiling—with something like forced composure—"this is around about
way of arriving, you will say, my dear Mrs. Hall. But we lost our way, which
made us late. I saw a light here, and led in my horse at once—my friend Johns
and my man have gone onward to the little inn with theirs, not to crowd you too
much. No sooner had I entered than I saw that this lady had taken temporary
shelter here—and found I was intruding."
"She is my
daughter-in-law," said Mrs. Hall calmly. "My son, too, is in the
house, but he has gone to bed unwell."
Sally had stood
staring wonderingly at the scene until this moment, hardly recognizing Darton's shake of the hand. The spell that bound her was
broken by her perceiving the two little children seated on a heap of hay. She
suddenly went forward, spoke to them, and took one on her arm and the other in
her hand.
"And two
children?" said Mr. Darton, showing thus that he
had not been there long enough as yet to understand the situation.
"My
grandchildren," said Mrs. Hall, with as much affected ease as before.
Philip Hall's
wife, in spite of this interruption to her first rencounter,
seemed scarcely so much affected by it as to feel any one's presence in
addition to Mr. Darton's. However, arousing herself
by a quick reflection, she threw a sudden critical glance of her sad eyes upon
Mrs. Hall; and, apparently finding her satisfactory, advanced to her in a meek
initiative. Then Sally and the stranger spoke some friendly words to each
other, and Sally went on with the children into the house. Mrs. Hall and Helena
followed, and Mr. Darton followed these, looking at
By the time the
others reached the house Sally had already gone upstairs with the tired
children. She rapped against the wall for Rebekah to
come in and help to attend to them, Rebekah's house
being a little "spit-and-daub" cabin leaning against the substantial
stonework of Mrs. Hall's taller erection. When she came a bed was made up for
the little ones, and some supper given to them. On descending the stairs after
seeing this done Sally went to the sitting-room. Young Mrs. Hall entered it
just in advance of her, having in the interim retired with her mother-in-law to
take off her bonnet, and otherwise make herself presentable. Hence it was
evident that no further communication could have passed between her and Mr. Darton since their brief interview in the stable.
Mr.
Japheth Johns now opportunely arrived, and broke up the restraint of the
company, after a few orthodox meteorological commentaries had passed between
him and Mrs. Hall by way of introduction. They at once sat down to supper, the present of wine and turkey not
being produced for consumption tonight, lest the premature display of those
gifts should seem to throw doubt on Mrs. Hall's capacities as a provider.
"Drink
hearty, Mr. Johns drink hearty," said that matron magnanimously.
"Such as it is there's plenty of. But perhaps cider-wine is not to your
taste?—though there's body in it."
"Quite the
contrary, ma'am—quite the contrary," said the dairyman. "For
though I inherit the malt-liquor principle from my father, I am a cider-drinker
on my mother's side. She came from these parts, you know. And there's
this to be said for't—'tis a more peaceful liquor,
and don't lie about a man like your hotter drinks. With care, one may live on
it a twelve month without knocking down a neighbour,
or getting a black eye from an old acquaintance."
The general
conversation thus begun was continued briskly, though it was in the main
restricted to Mrs. Hall and Japheth, who in truth required but little help from
anybody. There being slight call upon Sally's tongue, she had ample leisure to
do what her heart most desired, namely, watch her intended husband and her
sister-in-law with a view of elucidating the strange momentary scene in which
her mother and herself had surprised them in the stable. If that scene meant
anything, it meant, at least, that they had met before. That there had been no
time for explanations Sally could see, for their manner was still one of
suppressed amazement at each other's presence there. Darton's
eyes, too, fell continually on the gown worn by Helena as if this were an added
riddle to his perplexity; though to Sally it was the one feature in the case
which was no mystery. He seemed to feel that fate had impishly changed his vis-a-vis in the lover's jig he was about to foot; that
while the gown had been expected to enclose a Sally, a Helena's face looked out
from the bodice; that some long-lost hand met his own from the sleeves. Sally
could see that whatever
Sally's
independence made her one of the least jealous of women. But there was
something in the relations of these two visitors which ought to be explained.
Japheth Johns
continued to converse in his well-known style, interspersing his talk with some
private reflections on the position of Darton and
Sally, which, though the sparkle in his eye showed them to be highly
entertaining to himself, were apparently not quite communicable to the company.
At last he withdrew for the night, going off to the roadside inn half-a-mile
ahead, whither Darton promised to follow him in a few
minutes.
Half-an-hour
passed, and then Mr. Darton also rose to leave, Sally
and her sister-in-law simultaneously wishing him good-night as they retired
upstairs to their rooms. But on his arriving at the front door with Mrs. Hall a
sharp shower of rain began to come down, when the widow suggested that he
should return to the fireside till the storm ceased.
Darton accepted her proposal, but insisted that, as it was
getting late, and she was obviously tired, she should not sit up on his
account, since he could let himself out of the house, and would quite enjoy
smoking a pipe by the hearth alone. Mrs. Hall assented; and Darton
was left by himself. He spread his knees to the brands, lit up his tobacco as
he had said, and sat gazing into the fire, and at the notches of the
chimney-crook which hung above.
An occasional drop
of rain rolled down the chimney with a hiss, and still he smoked on; but not
like a man whose mind was at rest. In the long run, however, despite his
meditations, early hours afield and a long ride in
the open air produced their natural result. He began to doze.
How long he
remained in this half-unconscious state he did not know. He suddenly opened his
eyes. The back-brand had burnt itself in two, and ceased to flame; the light
which he had placed on the mantelpiece had nearly gone out. But in spite of
these deficiencies there was a light in the apartment, and it came from elsewhere.
Turning his head he saw Philip Hall's wife standing at the entrance of the room
with a bed-candle in one hand, a small brass tea-kettle in the other, and his
gown, as it certainly seemed, still upon her.
"
Her countenance
expressed dismay, and her first words were an apology. "I did not know you
were here, Mr. Darton," she said, while a blush
flashed to her cheek. "I thought every one had retired—I was coming to
make a little water boil; my husband seems to be worse. But perhaps the kitchen
fire can be lighted up again."
"Don't go on
my account. By all means put it on here as you intended, "said Darton. "Allow me to help
you." He went forward to take the kettle from her hand, but she did not
allow him, and placed it on the fire herself.
They stood some
way apart; one on each side of the fireplace, waiting till the water should boil, the candle on the mantel between them, and Helena with
her eyes on the kettle. Darton was the first to break
the silence. "Shall I call Sally?" he said.
"O no,"
she quickly returned. "We have given trouble enough already. We have no
right here. But we are the sport of fate, and were obliged to come."
"No right
here!" said he in surprise.
"None. I can't explain it now," answered
There was another
pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots was never more clearly
exemplified.
"He had the
prior claim," said she.
"What! you knew him at that time?"
"Yes, yes!
And he went to
there!"
"Ah—that was
the mystery!"
"Please say
no more," she implored. "Whatever, my errors, I have paid for them
during the last five years!"
The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings.
He was kind to a fault. "I am sorry from my soul," he said,
involuntarily approaching her.
"Well, you
might have been my wife if you had chosen," he said at last. "But
that's all past and gone. However, if you are in any trouble or poverty I shall
be glad to be of service, and as your relation by marriage I shall have aright
to be. Does your uncle know of your distress?"
"My uncle is
dead. He left me without a farthing. And now we have two children to
maintain."
"What, left you nothing? How could he be so
cruel as that?"
"I disgraced myself
in his eyes."
"Now,"
said Darton earnestly, "let me take care of the
children, at least while you are so unsettled. You belong to another, so I
cannot take care of you."
"Yes you
can," said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood beside them. It was
Sally. "You can, since you seem to wish to?" she repeated. "She
no longer belongs to another. . . . My poor brother is dead!"
Her face was red,
her eyes sparkled, and all the woman came to the
front. "I have heard it!" she went on to him passionately. "You
can protect her now as well as the children!" She turned then to her
agitated sister-in-law. "I heard something," said Sally (in a gentle
murmur, differing much from her previous passionate words), "and I went
into his room. It must have been the moment you left. He went off so quickly,
and weakly, and it was so unexpected, that I couldn't leave, even to call
you."
Darton was just able to gather from the confused discourse
which followed that, during his sleep by the fire, Sally's brother whom he had
never seen had become worse; and that during
After standing
there a short time he went to the front door and looked out; till, softly
closing it behind him, he advanced and stood under the large sycamore-tree. The
stars were flickering coldly, and the dampness which had just descended upon
the earth in rain now sent up a chill from it. Darton
was in a strange position, and he felt it. The unexpected appearance, in deep
poverty, of Helena young lady, daughter of a deceased naval officer, who had
been brought up by her uncle, a solicitor, and had refused Darton
in marriage years ago—the passionate, almost angry demeanour
of Sally at discovering them, the abrupt announcement that Helena was a widow;
all this coming together wasaconjuncture difficult to
cope with in a moment, and made him question whether he ought to leave the
house or offer assistance. But for Sally's manner he would unhesitatingly have
done the latter.
He was still
standing under the tree when the door in front of him opened, and Mrs. Hall
came out. She went round to the garden-gate at the side without seeing him. Darton followed her, intending to speak. Pausing outside,
as if in thought, she proceeded to a spot where the sun came earliest in
spring-time, and where the north wind never blew; it was where the row of
beehives stood under the wall. Discerning her object, he waited till she had
accomplished it.
It was the
universal custom thereabout to wake the bees by tapping at their hives whenever
a death occurred in the household, under the belief that if this were not done
the bees themselves would pine away and perish during the ensuing year. As soon
as an interior buzzing responded to her tap at the first hive Mrs. Hall went on
to the second, and thus passed down the row. As soon as she came back he met
her.
"What can I
do in this trouble, Mrs. Hall?" he said.
"O nothing,
thank you, nothing," she said in a tearful voice, now just perceiving him.
"We have called Rebekah and her husband, and
they will do everything necessary." She told him in a few words the
particulars of her son's arrival, broken in health— indeed, at death's very
door, though they did not suspect it— and suggested, as the result of a
conversation between her and her daughter, that the wedding should be
postponed.
"Yes, of
course," said Darton. "I think now to go
straight to the inn and tell Johns what has happened." It was not till
after he had shaken hands with her that he turned hesitatingly and added,
"Will you tell the mother of his children that, as they are now left
fatherless, I shall be glad to take the eldest of them, if it would be any
convenience to her and to you?"
Mrs. Hall promised
that her son's widow should be told of the offer, and they parted. He retired
down the rooty slope and disappeared in the direction
of the inn, where he informed Johns of the circumstances.
Meanwhile Mrs.
Hall had entered the house. Sally was downstairs in the sitting-room alone, and
her mother explained to her that Darton had readily
assented to the postponement,
"No doubt he
has," said Sally, with sad emphasis. "It is not put off for a week,
or a month, or a year. I shall never marry him, and she will!"
IV
Time passed, and
the household on the Knap became again serene under the composing influences of
daily routine. A desultory, very desultory correspondence, dragged on between
Sally Hall and Darton, who, not quite knowing how to
take her petulant words on the night of her brother's death, had continued
passive thus long,
One day, seven
months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his
farm, twenty miles from King's-Hintock, a note
reached him from
On a fine summer
day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sally and his mother—to the
"White Horse," the fine old Elizabethan inn at Chalk Newton,* where
he was handed over to Darton's bailiff in a shining
spring-cart, who met them there.
He was entered as
a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge,
three or four miles from Darton's, having first been
taught by Darton to ride a forest-pony, on which he
cantered to and from the aforesaid fount of knowledge, and (as Darton hoped) brought away a promising headful
of the same at each diurnal expedition. The thoughtful taciturnity into which Darton had latterly fallen was quite dissipated by the
presence of this boy.
When the Christmas
holidays came it was arranged that he should spend them with his mother. The
journey was, for some reason or other, performed in two stages, as at his
coming, except that Darton in person took the place
of the bailiff, and that the boy and himself rode on
horseback.
Reaching the
renowned "White Horse," Darton inquired if Miss
and young Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip (as they had agreed to
be). He was answered by the appearance of
"At the last
moment Sally would not come," she faltered.
That meeting
practically settled the point towards which these long-severed persons were
converging. But nothing was broached about it for some time yet. Sally Hall
had, in fact, imparted the first decisive motion to events by refusing to
accompany
[Private.]
DEAR CHARLES,— Living here so long and intimately with
Yours sincerely,
SALLY HALL.
Thus set in train,
the transfer of Darton's heart back to its original
quarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In the following July, Darton went to his friend Japheth to ask him at last to
fulfill the bridal office which had been in abeyance since the previous January
twelvemonths.
"With all my
heart, man o' constancy!" said Dairyman Johns warmly. "I've lost most
of my genteel fair complexion haymaking this hot weather, 'tis true, but I'll
do your business as well as them that look better. There be scents and good
hair-oil in the world yet, thank God, and they'll take off the roughest o'myedge. I'll compliment her. 'Better late than never,
Sally Hall, "I'll say."
"It is not
Sally," said Darton hurriedly. "It is young
Mrs. Hall."
Japheth's face, as
soon as he really comprehended, became a picture of reproachful dismay.
"Not Sally?" he said. "Why not Sally? I can't believe it! Young
Mrs. Hall! Well, well—where's your wisdom?"
Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not
be reconciled. "She was a woman worth having if ever woman was," he
cried. "And now to let her go!"
"But I
suppose I can marry where I like," said Darton.
"H'm," replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows
expressively. "This don't become you, Charles—it
really do not. If I had done such a thing you would have sworn I was a curst no'thern fool to be drawn off the scent by such a
red-herring doll-oll-oll."
Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic
opinion that the two friends finally parted in a way they had never parted
before. Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after
all. He had flatly declined. Darton went off sorry,
and, even unhappy, particularly as Japheth was about to leave that side of the
county, so that the words which had divided them were not likely to be
explained away or softened down.
A short time after
the interview Darton was united to
For some months
the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness and satisfaction. There had
been a flaw in his life, and it was as neatly mended as was humanly possible.
But after a season the stream of events followed less clearly, and there were
shades in his reveries.
This led to
occasional unpleasantness, until Darton some times
declared to himself that such endeavours as his to
rectify early deviations of the heart by harking back to the old point mostly
failed of success. "Perhaps Johns was right," he would say. "I
should have gone on with Sally. Better go with the tide and make the best of
its course than stem it at the risk of a capsize."
But he kept these unmelodious thoughts to himself, and was outwardly
considerate and kind.
This somewhat
barren tract of his life had extended to less than a year and half when his
ponderings were cut short by the loss of the woman they concerned. When she was
in her grave he thought better of her than when she had been alive; the farm
was a worse place without her than with her, after all. No woman short of
divine could have gone through such an experience as hers with her first
husband without becoming a little soured. Her stagnant sympathies, her
sometimes unreasonable manner, had covered a heart frank and well meaning, and
originally hopeful and warm. She left him a tiny red infant in white wrappings.
To make life as easy as possible to this touching object became at once his
care.
As this child
learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see
feasibility in a scheme which pleased him. Revolving the experiment which he
had hither to made upon life, he fancied he had gained
wisdom from his mistakes and caution from his miscarriages.
What the scheme was
needs no penetration to discover. Once more he had opportunity to recast and
rectify his ill-wrought situations by returning to Sally Hall, who still lived
quietly on under her mother's roof at Hintock.
Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out
of his reparative designs might have been delayed for some time. But there came
a winter evening precisely like the one which had darkened over that former
ride to Hintock, and he asked himself why he should
postpone longer, when the very landscape called for a repetition of that
attempt.
He told his man to
saddle the mare, booted ad spurred himself with a
younger horseman's nicety, kissed the two youngest children, and rode off. To
make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he would fain have had his
old acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. But Johns, alas! was
missing. His removal to the other side of the county had left unrepaired the breach which had arisen between him and Darton; and though Darton had
forgiven him a hundred times, as Johns had probably forgiven Darton, the effort of reunion in present circumstances was
one not likely to be made.
He screwed himself
up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without his former crony, and became
content with his own thoughts as he rode, instead of the words of a companion.
The sun went down; the boughs appeared scratched in like an etching against the
sky; old crooked men with faggots at their backs said "Good-night,
sir," and Darton replied "Good-night"
right heartily.
By the time he reached
the forking roads it was getting as dark as it had been on the occasion when
Johns climbed the directing-post. Darton made no
mistake this time. "Nor shall I be able to mistake, thank Heaven, when I
arrive," he murmured. It gave him peculiar satisfaction to think that the
proposed marriage, like his first, was of the nature of setting in order things
long awry, and not a momentary freak of fancy.
Nothing hindered
the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not half its former length. Though
dark, it was only between five and
V
That evening Sally
was making "pinners" for the milkers, who were now increased by two, for her mother and
herself no longer joined in milking the cows themselves. But upon the whole
there was little change in the household economy, and not much in its
appearance, beyond such minor particulars as that the crack over the window,
which had been a hundred years coming, was a trifle wider; that the beams were
a shade blacker; that the influence of modernism had supplanted the open
chimney corner by a grate; that Rebekah, who had worn
a cap when she had plenty of hair, had left it off now she had scarce any,
because it was reported that caps were not fashionable; and that Sally's face
had naturally assumed a more womanly and experienced cast.
Mrs. Hall was
actually lifting coals with the tongs, as she had used to do.
"Five years
ago this very night, if I am not mistaken—" she said, laying
on an ember.
"Not this
very night—though t'was one night this week,"
said the correct Sally.
"Well, 'tis
near enough. Five years ago Mr. Darton came to marry
you, and my poor boy Phil came home to die." She sighed. "Ah,
Sally," she presently said, "if you had managed well Mr. Darton would have had you, Helena or none."
"Don't be
sentimental about that, mother," begged Sally. "I didn't care to
manage well in such a case. Though I liked him, I wasn't so anxious. I would
never have married the man in the midst of such a hitch as that was," she
added with decision; "and I don't think I would if he were to ask me
now."
"I am not
sure about that, unless you have another in your eye."
"I wouldn't;
and I'll tell you why. I could hardly marry him for love at this time o' day.
And as we've quite enough to live on if we give up the dairy to-morrow, I
should have no need to marry for any meaner reason. . . . I am quite happy
enough as I am, and there's an end of it."
Now it was not
long after this dialogue that there came a mild rap at the door, and in a
moment there entered Rebekah, looking as though a
ghost had arrived. The fact was that that accomplished skimmer and churner (now
a resident in the house) had overheard the desultory observations between mother
and daughter, and on opening the door to Mr. Darton
thought the coincidence must have a grisly meaning in it. Mrs. Hall welcomed
the farmer with warm surprise, as did Sally, and for a moment they rather
wanted words.
"Can you push
up the chimney-crook for me, Mr. Darton? the notches hitch," said the matron. He did it, and the
homely little act bridged over the awkward consciousness that he had been a
stranger for four years.
Mrs. Hall soon saw
what he had come for, and left the principals together while she went to
prepare him a late tea, smiling at Sally's recent hasty assertions of
indifference, when she saw how civil Sally was. When tea was ready she joined
them. She fancied that Darton did not look so confident as when he had arrived; but Sally was quite
light-hearted, and the meal passed pleasantly.
About seven he
took his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the door to light him down the
slope. On the doorstep he said frankly—
"I came to ask
your daughter to marry me; chose the night and everything, with an eye to a favourable answer. But she won’ t."
"Then she's a
very ungrateful girl!" emphatically said Mrs. Hall.
Darton paused to shape his sentence, and asked, "I—I
suppose there's nobody else more favoured?'
"I can't say
that there is, or that there isn't," answered Mrs. Hall. "She's
private in some things. I'm on your side, however, Mr. Darton,
and I'll talk to her."
"Thank 'ee, thank 'ee!" said the
farmer in a gayer accent; and with this assurance the not very satisfactory
visit came to an end. Darton descended the roots of
the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, and the door closed. At the bottom of
the slope he nearly ran against a man about to ascend.
"Can a
jack-o'-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or can't he?"
exclaimed one whose utterance Darton recognized in a
moment, despite its unexpectedness. "I dare not swear he can, though I
fain would!" The speaker was Johns.
Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it
was, of putting an end to the silence of years, and asked the dairyman what he
was travelling that way for.
Japheth showed the
old jovial confidence in a moment. 'I'm going to see your— relations—as they
always seem to me," he said—"Mrs. Hall and Sally. Well, Charles, the
fact is I find the natural barbarousness of man is
much increased by a bachelor life, and, as your leavings were always good
enough for me, I'm trying civilisation here." He
nodded towards the house.
"Not with
Sally—to marry her?" said Darton, feeling
something like a rill of ice-water between his shoulders.
"Yes, by, the
help of
"Yes, for a
short while. But she didn't say a word about you."
"A
good sign, a good sign. Now that
decides me. I'll swing the mallet and get her answer this very night as I
planned."
A few more
remarks, and Darton, wishing his friend joy of Sally
in a slightly hollow tone of jocularity, bade him good-bye. Johns promised to
write particulars, and ascended, and was lost in the shade of the house and
tree. A rectangle of light appeared when Johns was admitted, and all was dark
again.
"Happy
Japheth!" said Darton. "This then is the
explanation!"
He determined to
return home that night. In a quarter of an hour he passed out of the village,
and the next day went about his swede-lifting and
storing as if nothing had occurred.
He waited and
waited to hear from Johns whether the wedding-day was fixed: but no letter
came. He learnt not a single particular till, meeting Johns one day at a
horse-auction, Darton exclaimed genially—rather more
genially than he felt—"When is the joyful day to be?"
To his great
surprise a reciprocity of gladness was not conspicuous
in Johns. "Not at all," he said, in a very subdued tone. " 'Tis a bad job; she won't
have me."
Darton held his breath till he said with treacherous
solicitude, "Try again—'tis coyness."
"O no,"
said Johns decisively. "There's been none of that. We talked it over
dozens of times in the most fair and square way. She tells me plainly, I don't
suit her. 'Twould be simply annoying her to ask her
again. Ah, Charles, you threw a prize away when you let her slip five years
ago."
"I did—I
did," said Darton.
He returned from
that auction with a new set of feelings in play. He had certainly made a
surprising mistake in thinking Johns his successful rival. It really seemed as
if he might hope for Sally after all.
This time, being
rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to
pen-and-ink, and wrote her as manly and straightforward a proposal as any woman
could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:—
DEAR MR. DARTON,— I am as sensible as any woman can be of the goodness that
leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better women than I would be
proud of the honour, for when I read your nice long
speeches on mangold—wurzel, and such like
topics, at the Casterbridge Farmers' Club, I do feel
it an honour, I assure you. But my answer is just the
same as before. I will not try to explain what, in truth, I cannot explain—my
reasons; I will simply say that I must decline to be married to you. With good
wishes as informer times, I am, your faithful friend, SALLY HALL.
Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative,
there was just a possibility of sarcasm in it—"nice long speeches on mangold-wurzel" had a suspicious sound. However,
sarcasm or none, there was the answer, and he had to be content.
He proceeded to
seek relief in a business which at this time engrossed much of his
attention—that of clearing up a curious mistake just current in the county,
that he had been nearly ruined by the recent failure of a local bank. A farmer
named Darton had lost heavily, and the similarity of
name had probably led to the error. Belief in it was so persistent that it
demanded several days of letter—writing to set matters straight, and persuade
the world that he was as solvent as ever he had been in his life. He had hardly
concluded this worrying task when, to his delight, another letter arrived in
the handwriting of Sally.
Darton tore it open; it was very short.
DEAR MR. DARTON,—
We have been so alarmed these last few days by the report that you were ruined
by the stoppage of —'s Bank, that, now it is contradicted, I hasten, by my
mother's wish, to say how truly glad we are to find there is no foundation for
the report. After your kindness to my poor brother's
children. I can do no less than write at such a moment. We had a letter
from each of them a few days ago, —
Your
faithful friend, SALLY HALL.
"Mercenary
little woman!" said Darton to himself with a
smile. "Then that was the secret of her refusal this time she thought I
was ruined."
Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help feeling too
generously towards Sally to condemn her in this. What did he want in a wife? he asked himself. Love and integrity.
What next? Worldly wisdom. And was there really more
than worldly wisdom in her refusal to go aboard a sinking ship? She now knew it
was otherwise. "Begad," he said, "I'll
try her again."
The fact was he
had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that nothing was to be
allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was purely formal.
Anniversaries
having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day late in May—a day when
all animate nature was fancying, in its trusting, foolish way, that it was
going to bask under blue sky for evermore. As he rode through
The tall shade of
the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall sat, and made her start, for
he had ridden by a side path to the top of the slope, where riders seldom came.
In a few seconds he was in the garden with Sally.
Five—ay, three
minutes—did the business at the back of that row of bees. Though spring had
come, and heavenly blue consecrated the scene, Darton
succeeded not. "No," said Sally firmly. "I will never, never
marry you, Mr. Darton. I—would have done it once; but
now I never can."
"But!"—implored
Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real eloquence he went on to declare all sorts of
things that he would do for her. He would drive her to see her mother every
week—take her to
"Then,"
said he simply, "you hadn't heard of my supposed failure when you declined
last time?"
"I had
not," she said. "That you believed me capable of refusing you for
such a reason does not help your cause."
And
'tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years ago?"
"No. That
soreness is long past."
"Ah—then you
despise me, Sally!"
"No,"
she slowly answered. "I don't altogether despise you. I don't think you
quite such a hero as I once did—that's all. The truth is, I am happy enough as
I am; and I don't mean to marry at all. Now may I ask a favour,
sir?" She spoke with an ineffable charm, which, whenever he thought of it,
made him curse his loss of her as long as he lived.
"To
any extent."
Please do not put
this question to me any more. Friends as long as you like, but lovers and
married never."
"I never
will," said Darton. "Not if I live a
hundred years."
And he never did.
That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was only too plain.
When his
step-children had grown up and were placed out in life all communication
between Darton and the Hall family ceased. It was
only by chance that, years after, he learnt that Sally, notwithstanding the
solicitations her attractions drew down upon her, had refused several offers of
marriage, and steadily adhered to her purpose of leading a single life.
*It is now pulled
down, and its site occupied by a modern one in red brick (1912). — T.H.