A Few Crusted Characters
Introduction
It is a Saturday afternoon of blue and yellow
autumn-time, and the scene is the High Street of a well-known market-town. A
large carrier's van stands in the quadrangular fore-court of the White Hart Inn,
upon the sides of its spacious tilt being painted, in weather-beaten letters:
'Burthen, Carrier to Longpuddle.' These vans, so numerous hereabout, are a
respectable, if somewhat lumbering, class of conveyance, much resorted to by
decent travellers not overstocked with money, the better among them roughly
corresponding to the old French diligences.
The present one is timed to leave the town at four
in the afternoon precisely, and it is now half-past three by the clock in the
turret at the top of the street. In a few seconds errand-boys from the shops
begin to arrive with packages, which they fling into the vehicle, and turn away
whistling and care for the packages no more. At twenty minutes to four an
elderly woman places her basket upon the shafts, slowly mounts, takes p a seat
inside, and folds her hands and her lips. She has secured her corner for the
journey, though there is as yet no sign of a horse being put in, nor of a
carrier. At the three-quarters, two other women arrive, in whom the first recognizes
the postmistress of Upper Longpuddle and the registrar's wife, they recognizing
her as the aged groceress of the same village. At five minutes to the hour
there approach Mr. Profitt, the schoolmaster, in a soft felt hat, and
Christopher Twink, the master-thatcher; and as the hour strikes there rapidly
drop in the parish clerk and his wife, the seedsman and his aged father, the
registrar; also Mr. Day, the world-ignored local landscape-painter, an elderly
man who resides in his native place, and has never sold a picture outside it,
though his pretensions to art have been nobly supported by his
fellow-villagers, whose confidence in his genius has been as remarkable as the
outer neglect of it, leading them to buy his paintings so extensively (at a price
of a few shillings each, it is true) that every dwelling in the parish exhibits
three or four of those admired productions on its walls.
Burthen, the carrier, is by this time seen bustling
round the vehicle; the horses are put in, the proprietor arranges the reins and
springs up into his seat as if he were used to it—which he is.
'Is everybody here?' he asks preparatorily over his
shoulder to the passengers within.
As those who were not there did not reply in the
negative the muster was assumed to be complete, and after a few hitches and
hindrances the van with its human freight was got under way. It jogged on at an
easy pace till it reached the bridge which formed the last outpost of the town.
The carrier pulled up suddenly.
'Bless my soul!' he said, 'I've forgot the curate!'
All who could do so gazed from the little back
window of the van, but the curate was not in sight.
'Now I wonder where that there man is?' continued
the carrier.
'Poor man, he ought to have a living at his time of
life.'
'And he ought to be punctual,' said the carrier.
'"Four O'clock sharp is my time for
starting," I said to 'en. And he said, " I'll be there." Now
he's not here; and as a serious old church-minister he ought to be as good as
his word. Perhaps Mr. Flaxton knows, being in the same line of life?' He turned
to the parish clerk.
'I was talking an immense deal with him, that's
true, half an hour ago,' replied that ecclesiastic, as one of whom it was no
erroneous supposition that he should be on intimate terms with another of the
cloth. 'But he didn't say he would be late.'
The discussion was cut off by the appearance round
the corner of the van of rays from the curate's spectacles, followed hastily by
his face and a few white whiskers, and the swinging tails of his long gaunt
coat. Nobody reproached him, seeing how he was reproaching himself; and he
entered breathlessly and took his seat.
'Now be we all here?' said the carrier again. They started
a second time, and moved on till they were about three hundred yards out of the
town, and had nearly reached the second bridge, behind which, as every native
remembers, the road takes a turn, and travellers by this highway disappear
finally from the view of gazing burghers.
'Well, as I'm alive!' cried the postmistress from
the interior of the conveyance, peering through the little square back-window
along the road townward.
'What?' said the carrier.
'A man hailing us!'
Another sudden stoppage. 'Somebody else?' the
carrier asked.
'Ay, sure!' All waited silently, while those who
could gaze out did so.
'Now, who can that be?' Burthen continued. 'I just
put it to ye, neighbours, can any man keep time with such hindrances? Bain't we
full a'ready? Who in the world can the man be?'
'He's a sort of gentleman,' said the schoolmaster,
his position commanding the road more comfortably than that of his comrades.
The stranger, who had been holding up his umbrella
to attract their notice, was walking forward leisurely enough, now that he
found, by their stopping that it had been secured. His clothes were decidedly
not of a local cut, though it was difficult to point out any particular mark of
difference. In his left hand he carried a small leather travelling bag. As soon
as he had overtaken the van he glanced at the inscription on its side, as if to
assure himself that he had hailed the right conveyance, and asked if they had
room.
The carrier replied that though they were pretty
well laden he supposed they could carry one more, whereupon the stranger
mounted, and took the seat cleared for him within. And then the horses made
another move, this time for good, and swung along with their burden of fourteen
souls all told.
'You bain't one of these parts, sir?' said the
carrier. 'I could tell that as far as I could see 'ee.'
'Yes, I am one of these parts,' said the stranger.
'Oh? H'm.'
The silence which followed seemed to imply a doubt
of the truth of the new-comer's assertion. (I was speaking of Upper Longpuddle
more particular,' continued the carrier hardily, 'and I think I know most faces
of that valley.'
'I was born at Longpuddle, and nursed at Longpuddle,
and my father and grandfather before me,' said the passenger quietly
'Why, to be sure,' said the aged groceress in the
background, 'it isn't John Lackland's son—never—it can't be he who went to
foreign parts five-and-thirty years ago with his wife and family?—Yet—what do I
hear?—that's his father's voice!'
'That's the man,' replied the stranger. 'John
Lackland was my father, and I am John Lackland's son. Five-and-thirty years
ago, when I was a boy of eleven, my parents emigrated across the seas, taking
me and my sister with them. Kytes's boy Tony was the one who drove us and our
belongings to Casterbridge on the morning we left; and his was the last
Longpuddle face I saw. We sailed the same week across the ocean, and there
we've been ever since, and there I've left those I went with—all three.'
'Alive or dead?'
'Dead,' he replied in a low voice. 'And I have come
back to the old place, having nourished a thought—not a definite intention, but
just a thought—that I should like to return here in a year or two, to spend the
remainder of my days.'
'Married man, Mr. Lackland?'
'No.'
'And have the world used 'ee well, sir—or rather
John, knowing 'ee as a child? In these rich new countries that we hear of so
much, you've got rich with the rest?'
'I am not very rich,' Mr. Lackland said. 'Even in
new countries, you know, there are failures. The race is not always to the
swift, nor the battle to the strong; and even if it sometimes is, you may be
neither swift nor strong. However, that's enough about me. Now, having answered
your inquiries, you must answer mine; for being in London, I have come down
here entirely to discover what Longpuddle is looking like, and who are living
there. That was why I preferred a seat in your van to hiring a carriage for
driving across.
'Well, as for Longpuddle, we rub on there much as
usual. Old figures have dropped out o' their frames, so to speak it, and new
ones have been put in their places. You mentioned Tony Kytes as having been the
one to drive your family and your goods to Casterbridge in his father's wagon
when you left. Tony is, I believe, living still, but not at Longpuddle. He went
away and settled at Lewgate, near, Mellstock after his marriage. Ah, Tony was a
sort o man!'
'His character had hardly come out when I knew him.'
'No. But 'twas well enough, as far as that
goes—except as to women. I shall never forget his courting—never!'
The returned villager waited silently, and the
carrier went on: —