The Return of the Native

by Thomas Hardy

  BOOK SECONDTHE ARRIVAL

  I

  Tidings of the Comer

  On fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain ephemeraloperations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the majesticcalm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those of atown, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment ofstagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence. But here,away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which merewalking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imaginehimself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted theattention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep,and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at asafe distance.

  The performance was that of bringing together and building into astack the furze-faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for thecaptain's use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at theend of the dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphreyand Sam, the old man looking on.

  It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock; but the wintersolstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun causedthe hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little hereto remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experienceof the sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrisehad advanced its quarters from north-east to south-east, sunset hadreceded from north-west to south-west; but Egdon had hardly heeded thechange.

  Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like akitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air wasstill, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices inconversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She enteredthe recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft, withits cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its wayto the square bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struckdown with a pallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the flue asseaweed drapes a rocky fissure.

  She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and thevoices were those of the workers.

  Her grandfather joined in the conversation. "That lad ought never tohave left home. His father's occupation would have suited him best,and the boy should have followed on. I don't believe in these newmoves in families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should myson have been if I had had one."

  "The place he's been living at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and theytell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poormother used to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say,'I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing mother's capsone afternoon the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king'shead off, Jane; and what 'twill be next God knows."'"

  "A good many of us knew as well as He before long," said the captain,chuckling. "I lived seven years under water on account of it in myboyhood--in that damned surgery of the _Triumph_, seeing men broughtdown to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho... Andso the young man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant,or some such thing, is he not?"

  "Yes, sir, that's it. 'Tis a blazing great business that he belongsto, so I've heard his mother say--like a king's palace, as far asdiments go."

  "I can well mind when he left home," said Sam.

  "'Tis a good thing for the feller," said Humphrey. "A sight of timesbetter to be selling diments than nobbling about here."

  "It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place."

  "A good few indeed, my man," replied the captain. "Yes, you may makeaway with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton."

  "They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man,with the strangest notions about things. There, that's because hewent to school early, such as the school was."

  "Strange notions, has he?" said the old man. "Ah, there's too muchof that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Everygatepost and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word orother chalked upon it by the young rascals: a woman can hardly passfor shame some times. If they'd never been taught how to write theywouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy. Their fatherscouldn't do it, and the country was all the better for it."

  "Now, I should think, cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much inher head that comes from books as anybody about here?"

  "Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her headit would be better for her," said the captain shortly; after which hewalked away.

  "I say, Sam," observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, "she andClym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If theywouldn't I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain,and learned in print, and always thinking about high doctrine--therecouldn't be a better couple if they were made o' purpose. Clym'sfamily is as good as hers. His father was a farmer, that's true; buthis mother was a sort of lady, as we know. Nothing would please mebetter than to see them two man and wife."

  "They'd look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best clotheson, whether or no, if he's at all the well-favoured fellow he used tobe."

  "They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terriblemuch after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was comingI'd stroll out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anythingfor'n; though I suppose he's altered from the boy he was. They say hecan talk French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so,depend upon it we who have stayed at home shall seem no more thanscroff in his eyes."

  "Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?"

  "Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know."

  "That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such anice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What anunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't marriedat all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if Ishould like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by aman. It makes the family look small."

  "Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health issuffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. Wenever see her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as redas a rose, as she used to do."

  "I've heard she wouldn't have Wildeve now if he asked her."

  "You have? 'Tis news to me."

  While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia'sface gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toeunconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.

  The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. Ayoung and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of allcontrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming fromheaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupledher and this man together in their minds as a pair born for eachother.

  That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visionsenough to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternationsfrom mental vacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could neverhave believed in the morning that her colourless inner world wouldbefore night become as animated as water under a microscope, andthat without the arrival of a single visitor. The words of Sam andHumphrey on the harmony between the unknown and herself had on hermind the effect of the invading Bard's prelude in the "Castle ofIndolence," at which myriads of imprisoned shapes arose where hadpreviously appeared the stillness of a void.

  Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she becameconscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; themen had gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she wouldtake a walk at this her usual time; and she determined that her walkshould be in the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of youngYeobright and the present home of his mother. She had no reason forwalking elsewhere, and why should she not go that way? The scene of aday-dream is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at thepalings before the Yeobrights' house had the dignity of a necessaryperformance. Strange that suc
h a piece of idling should have seemedan important errand.

  She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill onthe side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valleyfor a distance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot inwhich the green bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushesto recede yet further from the path on each side, till they werediminished to an isolated one here and there by the increasingfertility of the soil. Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was arow of white palings, which marked the verge of the heath in thislatitude. They showed upon the dusky scene that they bordered asdistinctly as white lace on velvet. Behind the white palings was alittle garden; behind the garden an old, irregular, thatched house,facing the heath, and commanding a full view of the valley. This wasthe obscure, removed spot to which was about to return a man whoselatter life had been passed in the French capital--the centre andvortex of the fashionable world.