The temporary flush upon her cheek changed to a lesser hue, which was permanent, and at length their eyes met; there was present between them a certain feeling of embarrassment, which arises at such moments when all the instinctive acts dictated by the position have been performed. Dick, being engaged with the reins, thought less of this awkwardness than did Fancy, who had nothing to do but to feel his presence, and to be more and more conscious of the fact, that by accepting a seat beside him in this way she succumbed to the tone of his note. Smart jogged along, and Dick jogged, and the helpless Fancy necessarily jogged, too; and she felt that she was in a measure captured and made a prisoner.

"I am so much obliged to you for your company, Miss Day," he observed, as they drove past the two semicircular bays of the Old Royal Hotel, where His Majesty King George the Third had many a time attended the balls of the burgesses.

To Miss Day, crediting him with the same consciousness of mastery—a consciousness of which he was perfectly innocent—this remark sounded like a magnanimous intention to soothe her, the captive.

"I didn't come for the pleasure of obliging you with my company," she said.

The answer had an unexpected manner of incivility in it that must have been rather surprising to young Dewy. At the same time it may be observed, that when a young woman returns a rude answer to a young man's civil remark, her heart is in a state which argues rather hopefully for his case than otherwise.

There was silence between them till they had left the sea-front and passed about twenty of the trees that ornamented the road leading up out of the town towards Casterbridge and Mellstock.

"Though I didn't come for that purpose either, I would have done it," said Dick at the twenty-first tree.

"Now, Mr. Dewy, no flirtation, because it's wrong, and I don't wish it."

Dick seated himself afresh just as he had been sitting before, arranged his looks very emphatically, and cleared his throat.

"Really, anybody would think you had met me on business and were just going to commence," said the lady intractably.

"Yes, they would."

"Why, you never have, to be sure!"

This was a shaky beginning. He chopped round, and said cheerily, as a man who had resolved never to spoil his jollity by loving one of womankind—

"Well, how are you getting on, Miss Day, at the present time? Gaily, I don't doubt for a moment."

"I am not gay, Dick; you know that."

"Gaily doesn't mean decked in gay dresses."

"I didn't suppose gaily was gaily dressed. Mighty me, what a scholar you've grown!"

"Lots of things have happened to you this spring, I see."

"What have you seen?"

"O, nothing; I've heard, I mean!"

"What have you heard?"

"The name of a pretty man, with brass studs and a copper ring and a tin watch-chain, a little mixed up with your own. That's all."

"That's a very unkind picture of Mr. Shiner, for that's who you mean! The studs are gold, as you know, and it's a real silver chain; the ring I can't conscientiously defend, and he only wore it once."

"He might have worn it a hundred times without showing it half so much."

"Well, he's nothing to me," she serenely observed.

"Not any more than I am?"

"Now, Mr. Dewy," said Fancy severely, "certainly he isn't any more to me than you are!"

"Not so much?"

She looked aside to consider the precise compass of that question. "That I can't exactly answer," she replied with soft archness.

As they were going rather slowly, another spring-cart, containing a farmer, farmer's wife, and farmer's man, jogged past them; and the farmer's wife and farmer's man eyed the couple very curiously. The farmer never looked up from the horse's tail.

"Why can't you exactly answer?" said Dick, quickening Smart a little, and jogging on just behind the farmer and farmer's wife and man.

As no answer came, and as their eyes had nothing else to do, they both contemplated the picture presented in front, and noticed how the farmer's wife sat flattened between the two men, who bulged over each end of the seat to give her room, till they almost sat upon their respective wheels; and they looked too at the farmer's wife's silk mantle, inflating itself between her shoulders like a balloon and sinking flat again, at each jog of the horse. The farmer's wife, feeling their eyes sticking into her back, looked over her shoulder. Dick dropped ten yards further behind.

"Fancy, why can't you answer?" he repeated.

"Because how much you are to me depends upon how much I am to you," said she in low tones.

"Everything," said Dick, putting his hand towards hers, and casting emphatic eyes upon the upper curve of her cheek.

"Now, Richard Dewy, no touching me! I didn't say in what way your thinking of me affected the question—perhaps inversely, don't you see? No touching, sir! Look; goodness me, don't, Dick!"

The cause of her sudden start was the unpleasant appearance over Dick's right shoulder of an empty timber-wagon and four journeymen-carpenters reclining in lazy postures inside it, their eyes directed upwards at various oblique angles into the surrounding world, the chief object of their existence being apparently to criticize to the very backbone and marrow every animate object that came within the compass of their vision. This difficulty of Dick's was overcome by trotting on till the wagon and carpenters were beginning to look rather misty by reason of a film of dust that accompanied their wagon-wheels, and rose around their heads like a fog.

"Say you love me, Fancy."

"No, Dick, certainly not; 'tisn't time to do that yet."

"Why, Fancy?"

"'Miss Day' is better at present—don't mind my saying so; and I ought not to have called you Dick."

"Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your love. Why, you make any one think that loving is a thing that can be done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim."

"No, no, I don't," she said gently; "but there are things which tell me I ought not to give way to much thinking about you, even if—"

"But you want to, don't you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be truthful. Whatever they may say about a woman's right to conceal where her love lies, and pretend it doesn't exist, and things like that, it is not best; I do know it, Fancy. And an honest woman in that, as well as in all her daily concerns, shines most brightly, and is thought most of in the long- run."

"Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little," she whispered tenderly; "but I wish you wouldn't say any more now."

"I won't say any more now, then, if you don't like it, dear. But you do love me a little, don't you?"

"Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can't say any more now, and you must be content with what you have."

"I may at any rate call you Fancy? There's no harm in that."

"Yes, you may."

"And you'll not call me Mr. Dewy any more?"

"Very well."



CHAPTER II: FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD

Dick's spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the whip; and on Smart's neck, not far behind his ears. Smart, who had been lost in thought for some time, never dreaming that Dick could reach so far with a whip which, on this particular journey, had never been extended further than his flank, tossed his head, and scampered along with exceeding briskness, which was very pleasant to the young couple behind him till, turning a bend in the road, they came instantly upon the farmer, farmer's man, and farmer's wife with the flapping mantle, all jogging on just the same as ever.

"Bother those people! Here we are upon them again."

"Well, of course. They have as much right to the road as we."

"Yes, but it is provoking to be overlooked so. I like a road all to myself. Look what a lumbering affair theirs is!" The wheels of the farmer's cart, just at that moment, jogged into a depression running across the road, giving the cart a twist, whereupon all three nodded to the left, and on coming out of it all three nodded to the right, and went on jerking their backs in and out as usual. "We'll pass them when the road gets wider."

When an opportunity seemed to offer itself for carrying this intention into effect, they heard light flying wheels behind, and on their quartering there whizzed along past them a brand-new gig, so brightly polished that the spokes of the wheels sent forth a continual quivering light at one point in their circle, and all the panels glared like mirrors in Dick and Fancy's eyes. The driver, and owner as it appeared, was really a handsome man; his companion was Shiner. Both turned round as they passed Dick and Fancy, and stared with bold admiration in her face till they were obliged to attend to the operation of passing the farmer. Dick glanced for an instant at Fancy while she was undergoing their scrutiny; then returned to his driving with rather a sad countenance.

"Why are you so silent?" she said, after a while, with real concern.

"Nothing."

"Yes, it is, Dick. I couldn't help those people passing."

"I know that."

"You look offended with me. What have I done?"

"I can't tell without offending you."

"Better out."

"Well," said Dick, who seemed longing to tell, even at the risk of offending her, "I was thinking how different you in love are from me in love. Whilst those men were staring, you dismissed me from your thoughts altogether, and—"

"You can't offend me further now; tell all!"

"And showed upon your face a pleased sense of being attractive to 'em."

"Don't be silly, Dick! You know very well I didn't."

Dick shook his head sceptically, and smiled.

"Dick, I always believe flattery if possible—and it was possible then. Now there's an open confession of weakness. But I showed no consciousness of it."

Dick, perceiving by her look that she would adhere to her statement, charitably forbore saying anything that could make her prevaricate. The sight of Shiner, too, had recalled another branch of the subject to his mind; that which had been his greatest trouble till her company and words had obscured its probability.

"By the way, Fancy, do you know why our quire is to be dismissed?"

"No: except that it is Mr. Maybold's wish for me to play the organ."

"Do you know how it came to be his wish?"

"That I don't."

"Mr. Shiner, being churchwarden, has persuaded the vicar; who, however, was willing enough before. Shiner, I know, is crazy to see you playing every Sunday; I suppose he'll turn over your music, for the organ will be close to his pew. But—I know you have never encouraged him?"

"Never once!" said Fancy emphatically, and with eyes full of earnest truth. "I don't like him indeed, and I never heard of his doing this before! I have always felt that I should like to play in a church, but I never wished to turn you and your choir out; and I never even said that I could play till I was asked. You don't think for a moment that I did, surely, do you?"

"I know you didn't, dear."

"Or that I care the least morsel of a bit for him?"

"I know you don't."

The distance between Budmouth and Mellstock was ten or eleven miles, and there being a good inn, 'The Ship,' four miles out of Budmouth, with a mast and cross-trees in front, Dick's custom in driving thither was to divide the journey into three stages by resting at this inn going and coming, and not troubling the Budmouth stables at all, whenever his visit to the town was a mere call and deposit, as to-day.

Fancy was ushered into a little tea-room, and Dick went to the stables to see to the feeding of Smart. In face of the significant twitches of feature that were visible in the ostler and labouring men idling around, Dick endeavoured to look unconscious of the fact that there was any sentiment between him and Fancy beyond a tranter's desire to carry a passenger home. He presently entered the inn and opened the door of Fancy's room.

"Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my being here alone with you like this. I don't think you had better come in with me."

"That's rather unpleasant, dear."

"Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself too, because you must be tired."

"Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, if you recollect, Fancy."

"Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I don't know what to do."

"It shall be as you say, then." Dick began to retreat with a dissatisfied wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance at the cosy tea- tray.

"But you don't see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that," she said, with more earnestness than she had ever shown before. "You do know, that even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I have a difficult position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, as his schoolmistress, to indulge in a tete-a-tete anywhere with anybody."

"But I am not any body!" exclaimed Dick.

"No, no, I mean with a young man;" and she added softly, "unless I were really engaged to be married to him."

"Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we'll be engaged at once, to be sure we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a glove!"

"Ah! but suppose I won't! And, goodness me, what have I done!" she faltered, getting very red. "Positively, it seems as if I meant you to say that!"

"Let's do it! I mean get engaged," said Dick. "Now, Fancy, will you be my wife?"

"Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did coming along the road," she remarked, as if she had not heard the latter part of his speech; though an acute observer might have noticed about her breast, as the word 'wife' fell from Dick's lips, a soft silent escape of breaths, with very short rests between each.

"What did I say?"

"About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig."

"You couldn't help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, you do care for me?"

"Yes."

"Very much?"

"Yes."

"And you'll be my own wife?"

Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek varying tones of red to match each varying thought. Dick looked expectantly at the ripe tint of her delicate mouth, waiting for what was coming forth.

"Yes—if father will let me."

Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting them out, as if he were about to whistle the softest melody known.

"O no!" said Fancy solemnly.

The modest Dick drew back a little.

"Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!—here's somebody coming!" she whisperingly exclaimed.

* * *

Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy's lips had been real cherries probably Dick's would have appeared deeply stained. The landlord was standing in the yard.

"Heu-heu! hay-hay, Master Dewy! Ho-ho!" he laughed, letting the laugh slip out gently and by degrees that it might make little noise in its exit, and smiting Dick under the fifth rib at the same time. "This will never do, upon my life, Master Dewy! calling for tay for a feymel passenger, and then going in and sitting down and having some too, and biding such a fine long time!"

"But surely you know?" said Dick, with great apparent surprise. "Yes, yes! Ha-ha!" smiting the landlord under the ribs in return.

"Why, what? Yes, yes; ha-ha!"

"You know, of course!"

"Yes, of course! But—that is—I don't."

"Why about—between that young lady and me?" nodding to the window of the room that Fancy occupied.

"No; not I!" said the innkeeper, bringing his eyes into circles.

"And you don't!"

"Not a word, I'll take my oath!"

"But you laughed when I laughed."

"Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!"

"Really, you don't know? Goodness—not knowing that!"

"I'll take my oath I don't!"

"O yes," said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, "we're engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after her."

"Of course, of course! I didn't know that, and I hope ye'll excuse any little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I was talking to your father very intimate about family matters only last Friday in the world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and we all then fell a-talking o' family matters; but neither one o' them said a mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I at your father's own wedding. 'Tisn't what I should have expected from an old neighbour!"

"Well, to say the truth, we hadn't told father of the engagement at that time; in fact, 'twasn't settled."

"Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday's the courting day. Heu-heu!"

"No, 'twasn't done Sunday in particular."

"After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very proper good time."

"O no, 'twasn't done then."

"Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?"

"Not at all; I wouldn't think of getting engaged in a dog-cart."

"Dammy—might as well have said at once, the when be blowed! Anyhow, 'tis a fine day, and I hope next time you'll come as one."

Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the newly affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the Ridgeway, and vanished in the direction of Mellstock.



CHAPTER III: A CONFESSION

It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering dews, when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias were laden till eleven o'clock with small drops and dashes of water, changing the colour of their sparkle at every movement of the air; and elsewhere hanging on twigs like small silver fruit. The threads of garden spiders appeared thick and polished. In the dry and sunny places, dozens of long- legged crane-flies whizzed off the grass at every step the passer took.

Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter's daughter, were in such a spot as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. Three months had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together from Budmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously during the whole time. There had been just enough difficulty attending its development, and just enough finesse required in keeping it private, to lend the passion an ever-increasing freshness on Fancy's part, whilst, whether from these accessories or not, Dick's heart had been at all times as fond as could be desired. But there was a cloud on Fancy's horizon now.

"She is so well off—better than any of us," Susan Dewy was saying. "Her father farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor or curate or anything of that kind if she contrived a little."

"I don't think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all when he knew I couldn't go," replied Fancy uneasily.

"He didn't know that you would not be there till it was too late to refuse the invitation," said Susan.

"And what was she like? Tell me."

"Well, she was rather pretty, I must own."

"Tell straight on about her, can't you! Come, do, Susan. How many times did you say he danced with her?"

"Once."

"Twice, I think you said?"

"Indeed I'm sure I didn't."

"Well, and he wanted to again, I expect."

"No; I don't think he did. She wanted to dance with him again bad enough, I know. Everybody does with Dick, because he's so handsome and such a clever courter."

"O, I wish!—How did you say she wore her hair?"

"In long curls,—and her hair is light, and it curls without being put in paper: that's how it is she's so attractive."

"She's trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through keeping this miserable school I mustn't wear my hair in curls! But I will; I don't care if I leave the school and go home, I will wear my curls! Look, Susan, do! is her hair as soft and long as this?" Fancy pulled from its coil under her hat a twine of her own hair, and stretched it down her shoulder to show its length, looking at Susan to catch her opinion from her eyes.

"It is about the same length as that, I think," said Miss Dewy.

Fancy paused hopelessly. "I wish mine was lighter, like hers!" she continued mournfully. "But hers isn't so soft, is it? Tell me, now."

"I don't know."

Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly and a red-and-black butterfly that were flitting along in company, and then became aware that Dick was advancing up the garden.

"Susan, here's Dick coming; I suppose that's because we've been talking about him."

"Well, then, I shall go indoors now—you won't want me;" and Susan turned practically and walked off.

Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or picnic, had been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and depriving himself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded him, by sighing regretfully at her absence,—who had danced with the rival in sheer despair of ever being able to get through that stale, flat, and unprofitable afternoon in any other way; but this she would not believe.

Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. "I am in great trouble," said she, taking what was intended to be a hopelessly melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the tree; yet a critical ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative tone as to the effect of the words upon Dick when she uttered them.

"What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it," said Dick earnestly. "Darling, I will share it with 'ee and help 'ee."

"No, no: you can't! Nobody can!"

"Why not? You don't deserve it, whatever it is. Tell me, dear."

"O, it isn't what you think! It is dreadful: my own sin!"

"Sin, Fancy! as if you could sin! I know it can't be."

"'Tis, 'tis!" said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of sorrow. "I have done wrong, and I don't like to tell it! Nobody will forgive me, nobody! and you above all will not! . . . I have allowed myself to—to—fl—"

"What,—not flirt!" he said, controlling his emotion as it were by a sudden pressure inward from his surface. "And you said only the day before yesterday that you hadn't flirted in your life!"

"Yes, I did; and that was a wicked story! I have let another love me, and—"

"Good G—! Well, I'll forgive you,—yes, if you couldn't help it,—yes, I will!" said the now dismal Dick. "Did you encourage him?"

"O,—I don't know,—yes—no. O, I think so!"

"Who was it?" A pause. "Tell me!"

"Mr. Shiner."

After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a long- checked sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with real austerity—

"Tell it all;—every word!"

"He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, 'Will you let me show you how to catch bullfinches down here by the stream?' And I—wanted to know very much—I did so long to have a bullfinch! I couldn't help that and I said, 'Yes!' and then he said, 'Come here.' And I went with him down to the lovely river, and then he said to me, 'Look and see how I do it, and then you'll know: I put this birdlime round this twig, and then I go here,' he said, 'and hide away under a bush; and presently clever Mister Bird comes and perches upon the twig, and flaps his wings, and you've got him before you can say Jack'—something; O, O, O, I forget what!"

"Jack Sprat," mournfully suggested Dick through the cloud of his misery.

"No, not Jack Sprat," she sobbed.

"Then 'twas Jack Robinson!" he said, with the emphasis of a man who had resolved to discover every iota of the truth, or die.

"Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the bridge to get across, and—That's all."

"Well, that isn't much, either," said Dick critically, and more cheerfully. "Not that I see what business Shiner has to take upon himself to teach you anything. But it seems—it do seem there must have been more than that to set you up in such a dreadful taking?"

He looked into Fancy's eyes. Misery of miseries!—guilt was written there still.

"Now, Fancy, you've not told me all!" said Dick, rather sternly for a quiet young man.

"O, don't speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn't been harsh, I was going on to tell all; now I can't!"

"Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I'll forgive; I must,—by heaven and earth, I must, whether I will or no; I love you so!"

"Well, when I put my hand on the bridge, he touched it—"

"A scamp!" said Dick, grinding an imaginary human frame to powder.

"And then he looked at me, and at last he said, 'Are you in love with Dick Dewy?' And I said, 'Perhaps I am!' and then he said, 'I wish you weren't then, for I want to marry you, with all my soul.'"

"There's a villain now! Want to marry you!" And Dick quivered with the bitterness of satirical laughter. Then suddenly remembering that he might be reckoning without his host: "Unless, to be sure, you are willing to have him,—perhaps you are," he said, with the wretched indifference of a castaway.

"No, indeed I am not!" she said, her sobs just beginning to take a favourable turn towards cure.

"Well, then," said Dick, coming a little to his senses, "you've been stretching it very much in giving such a dreadful beginning to such a mere nothing. And I know what you've done it for,—just because of that gipsy-party!" He turned away from her and took five paces decisively, as if he were tired of an ungrateful country, including herself. "You did it to make me jealous, and I won't stand it!" He flung the words to her over his shoulder and then stalked on, apparently very anxious to walk to the remotest of the Colonies that very minute.

"O, O, O, Dick—Dick!" she cried, trotting after him like a pet lamb, and really seriously alarmed at last, "you'll kill me! My impulses are bad—miserably wicked,—and I can't help it; forgive me, Dick! And I love you always; and those times when you look silly and don't seem quite good enough for me,—just the same, I do, Dick! And there is something more serious, though not concerning that walk with him."

"Well, what is it?" said Dick, altering his mind about walking to the Colonies; in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so rooted to the road that he was apparently not even going home.

"Why this," she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears she had been going to shed, "this is the serious part. Father has told Mr. Shiner that he would like him for a son-in-law, if he could get me;—that he has his right hearty consent to come courting me!"



CHAPTER IV: AN ARRANGEMENT

"That is serious," said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken for a long time.

The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter's continued walks and meetings with Dick. When a hint that there were symptoms of an attachment between them had first reached Geoffrey's ears, he stated so emphatically that he must think the matter over before any such thing could be allowed that, rather unwisely on Dick's part, whatever it might have been on the lady's, the lovers were careful to be seen together no more in public; and Geoffrey, forgetting the report, did not think over the matter at all. So Mr. Shiner resumed his old position in Geoffrey's brain by mere flux of time. Even Shiner began to believe that Dick existed for Fancy no more,—though that remarkably easy-going man had taken no active steps on his own account as yet.

"And father has not only told Mr. Shiner that," continued Fancy, "but he has written me a letter, to say he should wish me to encourage Mr. Shiner, if 'twas convenient!"

"I must start off and see your father at once!" said Dick, taking two or three vehement steps to the south, recollecting that Mr. Day lived to the north, and coming back again.

"I think we had better see him together. Not tell him what you come for, or anything of the kind, until he likes you, and so win his brain through his heart, which is always the way to manage people. I mean in this way: I am going home on Saturday week to help them in the honey-taking. You might come there to me, have something to eat and drink, and let him guess what your coming signifies, without saying it in so many words."

"We'll do it, dearest. But I shall ask him for you, flat and plain; not wait for his guessing." And the lover then stepped close to her, and attempted to give her one little kiss on the cheek, his lips alighting, however, on an outlying tract of her back hair by reason of an impulse that had caused her to turn her head with a jerk. "Yes, and I'll put on my second-best suit and a clean shirt and collar, and black my boots as if 'twas a Sunday. 'Twill have a good appearance, you see, and that's a great deal to start with."

"You won't wear that old waistcoat, will you, Dick?"

"Bless you, no! Why I—"

"I didn't mean to be personal, dear Dick," she said, fearing she had hurt his feelings. "'Tis a very nice waistcoat, but what I meant was, that though it is an excellent waistcoat for a settled-down man, it is not quite one for" (she waited, and a blush expanded over her face, and then she went on again)—"for going courting in."

"No, I'll wear my best winter one, with the leather lining, that mother made. It is a beautiful, handsome waistcoat inside, yes, as ever anybody saw. In fact, only the other day, I unbuttoned it to show a chap that very lining, and he said it was the strongest, handsomest lining you could wish to see on the king's waistcoat himself."

"I don't quite know what to wear," she said, as if her habitual indifference alone to dress had kept back so important a subject till now.

"Why, that blue frock you wore last week."

"Doesn't set well round the neck. I couldn't wear that."

"But I shan't care."

"No, you won't mind."

"Well, then it's all right. Because you only care how you look to me, do you, dear? I only dress for you, that's certain."

"Yes, but you see I couldn't appear in it again very well."

"Any strange gentleman you mid meet in your journey might notice the set of it, I suppose. Fancy, men in love don't think so much about how they look to other women." It is difficult to say whether a tone of playful banter or of gentle reproach prevailed in the speech.

"Well then, Dick," she said, with good-humoured frankness, "I'll own it. I shouldn't like a stranger to see me dressed badly, even though I am in love. 'Tis our nature, I suppose."

"You perfect woman!"

"Yes; if you lay the stress on 'woman,'" she murmured, looking at a group of hollyhocks in flower, round which a crowd of butterflies had gathered like female idlers round a bonnet-shop.

"But about the dress. Why not wear the one you wore at our party?"

"That sets well, but a girl of the name of Bet Tallor, who lives near our house, has had one made almost like it (only in pattern, though of miserably cheap stuff), and I couldn't wear it on that account. Dear me, I am afraid I can't go now."

"O yes, you must; I know you will!" said Dick, with dismay. "Why not wear what you've got on?"

"What! this old one! After all, I think that by wearing my gray one Saturday, I can make the blue one do for Sunday. Yes, I will. A hat or a bonnet, which shall it be? Which do I look best in?"

"Well, I think the bonnet is nicest, more quiet and matronly."

"What's the objection to the hat? Does it make me look old?"

"O no; the hat is well enough; but it makes you look rather too—you won't mind me saying it, dear?"

"Not at all, for I shall wear the bonnet."

"—Rather too coquettish and flirty for an engaged young woman."

She reflected a minute. "Yes; yes. Still, after all, the hat would do best; hats are best, you see. Yes, I must wear the hat, dear Dicky, because I ought to wear a hat, you know."



PART THE FOURTH—AUTUMN

CHAPTER I: GOING NUTTING

Dick, dressed in his 'second-best' suit, burst into Fancy's sitting-room with a glow of pleasure on his face.

It was two o'clock on Friday, the day before her contemplated visit to her father, and for some reason connected with cleaning the school the children had been given this Friday afternoon for pastime, in addition to the usual Saturday.

"Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with you. Smart is lame in his near-foot-afore, and so, as I can't do anything, I've made a holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you to go nutting with me!"

She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying across her lap and scissors in her hand.

"Go nutting! Yes. But I'm afraid I can't go for an hour or so."

"Why not? 'Tis the only spare afternoon we may both have together for weeks."

"This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury;—I find it fits so badly that I must alter it a little, after all. I told the dressmaker to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; instead of that, she did it her own way, and made me look a perfect fright."

"How long will you be?" he inquired, looking rather disappointed.

"Not long. Do wait and talk to me; come, do, dear."

Dick sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the snipping and sewing, till about half-past two, at which time his conversation began to be varied by a slight tapping upon his toe with a walking-stick he had cut from the hedge as he came along. Fancy talked and answered him, but sometimes the answers were so negligently given, that it was evident her thoughts lay for the greater part in her lap with the blue dress.

The clock struck three. Dick arose from his seat, walked round the room with his hands behind him, examined all the furniture, then sounded a few notes on the harmonium, then looked inside all the books he could find, then smoothed Fancy's head with his hand. Still the snipping and sewing went on.

The clock struck four. Dick fidgeted about, yawned privately; counted the knots in the table, yawned publicly; counted the flies on the ceiling, yawned horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, and so thoroughly studied the principle upon which the pump was constructed that he could have delivered a lecture on the subject. Stepping back to Fancy, and finding still that she had not done, he went into her garden and looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and reminded himself that they seemed to him to wear a decidedly feminine aspect; then pulled up several weeds, and came in again. The clock struck five, and still the snipping and sewing went on.

Dick attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his walking-stick, then threw the stick into the scullery because it was spoilt, produced hideous discords from the harmonium, and accidentally overturned a vase of flowers, the water from which ran in a rill across the table and dribbled to the floor, where it formed a lake, the shape of which, after the lapse of a few minutes, he began to modify considerably with his foot, till it was like a map of England and Wales.

"Well, Dick, you needn't have made quite such a mess."

"Well, I needn't, I suppose." He walked up to the blue dress, and looked at it with a rigid gaze. Then an idea seemed to cross his brain.

"Fancy."

"Yes."

"I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day to-morrow on your trip to Yalbury, and in the evening too, when I shall be with you, and ask your father for you?"

"So I am."

"And the blue one only on Sunday?"

"And the blue one Sunday."

"Well, dear, I sha'n't be at Yalbury Sunday to see it."

"No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with father, and such lots of people will be looking at me there, you know; and it did set so badly round the neck."

"I never noticed it, and 'tis like nobody else would."

"They might."

"Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? 'Tis as pretty as the blue one."

"I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn't so good; it didn't cost half so much as this one, and besides, it would be the same I wore Saturday."

"Then wear the striped one, dear."

"I might."

"Or the dark one."

"Yes, I might; but I want to wear a fresh one they haven't seen."

"I see, I see," said Dick, in a voice in which the tones of love were decidedly inconvenienced by a considerable emphasis, his thoughts meanwhile running as follows: "I, the man she loves best in the world, as she says, am to understand that my poor half-holiday is to be lost, because she wants to wear on Sunday a gown there is not the slightest necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, to appear more striking than usual in the eyes of Longpuddle young men; and I not there, either."

"Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither is good enough for the youths of Longpuddle," he said.

"No, not that exactly, Dick. Still, you see, I do want—to look pretty to them—there, that's honest! But I sha'n't be much longer."

"How much?"

"A quarter of an hour."

"Very well; I'll come in in a quarter of an hour."

"Why go away?"

"I mid as well."

He went out, walked down the road, and sat upon a gate. Here he meditated and meditated, and the more he meditated the more decidedly did he begin to fume, and the more positive was he that his time had been scandalously trifled with by Miss Fancy Day—that, so far from being the simple girl who had never had a sweetheart before, as she had solemnly assured him time after time, she was, if not a flirt, a woman who had had no end of admirers; a girl most certainly too anxious about her frocks; a girl, whose feelings, though warm, were not deep; a girl who cared a great deal too much how she appeared in the eyes of other men. "What she loves best in the world," he thought, with an incipient spice of his father's grimness, "is her hair and complexion. What she loves next best, her gowns and hats; what she loves next best, myself, perhaps!"

Suffering great anguish at this disloyalty in himself and harshness to his darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel thought crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had promised, at the end of a quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a punishment she well deserved. Although the best part of the afternoon had been wasted he would go nutting as he had intended, and go by himself.

He leaped over the gate, and pushed up the lane for nearly two miles, till a winding path called Snail-Creep sloped up a hill and entered a hazel copse by a hole like a rabbit's burrow. In he plunged, vanished among the bushes, and in a short time there was no sign of his existence upon earth, save an occasional rustling of boughs and snapping of twigs in divers points of Grey's Wood.

Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon. He worked like a galley slave. Half-hour after half-hour passed away, and still he gathered without ceasing. At last, when the sun had set, and bunches of nuts could not be distinguished from the leaves which nourished them, he shouldered his bag, containing quite two pecks of the finest produce of the wood, about as much use to him as two pecks of stones from the road, strolled down the woodland track, crossed the highway and entered the homeward lane, whistling as he went.

Probably, Miss Fancy Day never before or after stood so low in Mr. Dewy's opinion as on that afternoon. In fact, it is just possible that a few more blue dresses on the Longpuddle young men's account would have clarified Dick's brain entirely, and made him once more a free man.

But Venus had planned other developments, at any rate for the present. Cuckoo-Lane, the way he pursued, passed over a ridge which rose keenly against the sky about fifty yards in his van. Here, upon the bright after-glow about the horizon, was now visible an irregular shape, which at first he conceived to be a bough standing a little beyond the line of its neighbours. Then it seemed to move, and, as he advanced still further, there was no doubt that it was a living being sitting in the bank, head bowed on hand. The grassy margin entirely prevented his footsteps from being heard, and it was not till he was close that the figure recognized him. Up it sprang, and he was face to face with Fancy.

"Dick, Dick! O, is it you, Dick!"

"Yes, Fancy," said Dick, in a rather repentant tone, and lowering his nuts.

She ran up to him, flung her parasol on the grass, put her little head against his breast, and then there began a narrative, disjointed by such a hysterical weeping as was never surpassed for intensity in the whole history of love.

"O Dick," she sobbed out, "where have you been away from me? O, I have suffered agony, and thought you would never come any more! 'Tis cruel, Dick; no 'tisn't, it is justice! I've been walking miles and miles up and down Grey's Wood, trying to find you, till I was wearied and worn out, and I could walk no further, and had come back this far! O Dick, directly you were gone, I thought I had offended you and I put down the dress; 'tisn't finished now, and I never will finish, it, and I'll wear an old one Sunday! Yes, Dick, I will, because I don't care what I wear when you are not by my side—ha, you think I do, but I don't!—and I ran after you, and I saw you go up Snail-Creep and not look back once, and then you plunged in, and I after you; but I was too far behind. O, I did wish the horrid bushes had been cut down, so that I could see your dear shape again! And then I called out to you, and nobody answered, and I was afraid to call very loud, lest anybody else should hear me. Then I kept wandering and wandering about, and it was dreadful misery, Dick. And then I shut my eyes and fell to picturing you looking at some other woman, very pretty and nice, but with no affection or truth in her at all, and then imagined you saying to yourself, 'Ah, she's as good as Fancy, for Fancy told me a story, and was a flirt, and cared for herself more than me, so now I'll have this one for my sweetheart.' O, you won't, will you, Dick, for I do love you so!"

It is scarcely necessary to add that Dick renounced his freedom there and then, and kissed her ten times over, and promised that no pretty woman of the kind alluded to should ever engross his thoughts; in short, that though he had been vexed with her, all such vexation was past, and that henceforth and for ever it was simply Fancy or death for him. And then they set about proceeding homewards, very slowly on account of Fancy's weariness, she leaning upon his shoulder, and in addition receiving support from his arm round her waist; though she had sufficiently recovered from her desperate condition to sing to him, 'Why are you wandering here, I pray?' during the latter part of their walk. Nor is it necessary to describe in detail how the bag of nuts was quite forgotten until three days later, when it was found among the brambles and restored empty to Mrs. Dewy, her initials being marked thereon in red cotton; and how she puzzled herself till her head ached upon the question of how on earth her meal-bag could have got into Cuckoo-Lane.



CHAPTER II: HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS

Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, according to the arrangement with Fancy.

The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything suddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced from sunset to dusk long before Dick's arrival, and his progress during the latter portion of his walk through the trees was indicated by the flutter of terrified birds that had been roosting over the path. And in crossing the glades, masses of hot dry air, that had been formed on the hills during the day, greeted his cheeks alternately with clouds of damp night air from the valleys. He reached the keeper-steward's house, where the grass-plot and the garden in front appeared light and pale against the unbroken darkness of the grove from which he had emerged, and paused at the garden gate.

He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of procession advancing from the door in his front. It consisted first of Enoch the trapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern dangling in his hand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern revealing that she bore in her arms curious objects about a foot long, in the form of Latin crosses (made of lath and brown paper dipped in brimstone—called matches by bee-masters); next came Miss Day, with a shawl thrown over her head; and behind all, in the gloom, Mr. Frederic Shiner.

Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss how to proceed, and retired under a tree to collect his thoughts.

"Here I be, Enoch," said a voice; and the procession advancing farther, the lantern's rays illuminated the figure of Geoffrey, awaiting their arrival beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the path. Taking the spade from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in the earth beside the hives, the others standing round in a circle, except Mrs. Day, who deposited her matches in the fork of an apple-tree and returned to the house. The party remaining were now lit up in front by the lantern in their midst, their shadows radiating each way upon the garden-plot like the spokes of a wheel. An apparent embarrassment of Fancy at the presence of Shiner caused a silence in the assembly, during which the preliminaries of execution were arranged, the matches fixed, the stake kindled, the two hives placed over the two holes, and the earth stopped round the edges. Geoffrey then stood erect, and rather more, to straighten his backbone after the digging.

"They were a peculiar family," said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hives reflectively.

Geoffrey nodded.

"Those holes will be the grave of thousands!" said Fancy. "I think 'tis rather a cruel thing to do."

Her father shook his head. "No," he said, tapping the hives to shake the dead bees from their cells, "if you suffocate 'em this way, they only die once: if you fumigate 'em in the new way, they come to life again, and die o' starvation; so the pangs o' death be twice upon 'em."

"I incline to Fancy's notion," said Mr. Shiner, laughing lightly.

"The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved nor murdered, is a puzzling matter," said the keeper steadily.

"I should like never to take it from them," said Fancy.

"But 'tis the money," said Enoch musingly. "For without money man is a shadder!"

The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from hives destroyed some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, were now getting a living as marauders about the doors of other hives. Several flew round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then darted upon him with an irritated bizz.

Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a currant bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. Shiner floundered away helter-skelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, unmoved and firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed by Enoch picking up the lantern. Mr. Shiner still remained invisible.

"Have the craters stung ye?" said Enoch to Geoffrey.

"No, not much—on'y a little here and there," he said with leisurely solemnity, shaking one bee out of his shirt sleeve, pulling another from among his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest looked on during this proceeding with a complacent sense of being out of it,—much as a European nation in a state of internal commotion is watched by its neighbours.

"Are those all of them, father?" said Fancy, when Geoffrey had pulled away five.

"Almost all,—though I feel one or two more sticking into my shoulder and side. Ah! there's another just begun again upon my backbone. You lively young mortals, how did you get inside there? However, they can't sting me many times more, poor things, for they must be getting weak. They mid as well stay in me till bedtime now, I suppose."

As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it seemed satisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking against cabbages in a blundering progress among them, the voice of Mr. Shiner was heard from the darkness in that direction.

"Is all quite safe again?"

No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that he might venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. The hives were now removed from their position over the holes, one being handed to Enoch to carry indoors, and one being taken by Geoffrey himself.

"Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide."

Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and Fancy standing side by side on the garden-plot.

"Allow me," said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at the same time with Fancy.

"I can carry it," said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination to trifle. She had thoroughly considered that subject after the tearful explanation of the bird-catching adventure to Dick, and had decided that it would be dishonest in her, as an engaged young woman, to trifle with men's eyes and hands any more. Finding that Shiner still retained his hold of the lantern, she relinquished it, and he, having found her retaining it, also let go. The lantern fell, and was extinguished. Fancy moved on.

"Where is the path?" said Mr. Shiner.

"Here," said Fancy. "Your eyes will get used to the dark in a minute or two."

"Till that time will ye lend me your hand?" Fancy gave him the extreme tips of her fingers, and they stepped from the plot into the path.

"You don't accept attentions very freely."

"It depends upon who offers them."

"A fellow like me, for instance." A dead silence.

"Well, what do you say, Missie?"

"It then depends upon how they are offered."

"Not wildly, and yet not careless-like; not purposely, and yet not by chance; not too quick nor yet too slow."

"How then?" said Fancy.

"Coolly and practically," he said. "How would that kind of love be taken?"

"Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor pale; nor religiously nor yet quite wickedly."

"Well, how?"

"Not at all."

* * * * *

Geoffrey Day's storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with bunches of dried horehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of thyme and lavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were spread large red and yellow apples, and choice selections of early potatoes for seed next year;—vulgar crowds of commoner kind lying beneath in heaps. A few empty beehives were clustered around a nail in one corner, under which stood two or three barrels of new cider of the first crop, each bubbling and squirting forth from the yet open bunghole.

Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which rested against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the contents. She thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink hand edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act so adroitly and gently as not to unseal a single cell. Then cracking the piece off at the crown of the hive by a slight backward and forward movement, she lifted each portion as it was loosened into a large blue platter, placed on a bench at her side.

"Bother these little mortals!" said Geoffrey, who was holding the light to her, and giving his back an uneasy twist. "I really think I may as well go indoors and take 'em out, poor things! for they won't let me alone. There's two a stinging wi' all their might now. I'm sure I wonder their strength can last so long."

"All right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone," said Mr. Shiner, leisurely taking the light, and allowing Geoffrey to depart, which he did with his usual long paces.

He could hardly have gone round to the house-door when other footsteps were heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a finger appeared in the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, and Dick Dewy came in, having been all this time walking up and down the wood, vainly waiting for Shiner's departure.

Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped the candlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should not imply to Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home and cool, he sang invincibly—

"'King Arthur he had three sons.'"

"Father here?" said Dick.

"Indoors, I think," said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him.

Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just at that moment. Shiner went on singing—

"'The miller was drown'd in his pond, The weaver was hung in his yarn, And the d—- ran away with the little tail-or, With the broadcloth under his arm.'"

"That's a terrible crippled rhyme, if that's your rhyme!" said Dick, with a grain of superciliousness in his tone.

"It's no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!" said Mr. Shiner. "You must go to the man that made it."

Fancy by this time had acquired confidence.

"Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy," she said, holding up to him a small circular piece of honeycomb that had been the last in the row of layers, remaining still on her knees and flinging back her head to look in his face; "and then I'll taste a bit too."

"And I, if you please," said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer looked superior, as if he could even now hardly join the trifling from very importance of station; and after receiving the honeycomb from Fancy, he turned it over in his hand till the cells began to be crushed, and the liquid honey ran down from his fingers in a thin string.

Suddenly a faint cry from Fancy caused them to gaze at her.

"What's the matter, dear?" said Dick.

"It is nothing, but O-o! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He was in one of the cells I was eating!"

"We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!" said Shiner, stepping up and kneeling beside her. "Let me see it."

"No, no!"

"Just let me see it," said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and after some hesitation she pressed down her lip with one finger to show the place. "O, I hope 'twill soon be better! I don't mind a sting in ordinary places, but it is so bad upon your lip," she added with tears in her eyes, and writhing a little from the pain.

Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close to Fancy's, as if the lip had been shown exclusively to himself, upon which Dick pushed closer, as if Shiner were not there at all.

"It is swelling," said Dick to her right aspect.

"It isn't swelling," said Shiner to her left aspect.

"Is it dangerous on the lip?" cried Fancy. "I know it is dangerous on the tongue."

"O no, not dangerous!" answered Dick.

"Rather dangerous," had answered Shiner simultaneously.

"I must try to bear it!" said Fancy, turning again to the hives.

"Hartshorn-and-oil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day," said Shiner with great concern.

"Sweet-oil-and-hartshorn I've found to be a good thing to cure stings, Miss Day," said Dick with greater concern.

"We have some mixed indoors; would you kindly run and get it for me?" she said.

Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, the individuality of the you was so carelessly denoted that both Dick and Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched abreast to the door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and continued marching on, shoulder to shoulder, in the same manner to the dwelling-house. Not only so, but entering the room, they marched as before straight up to Mrs. Day's chair, letting the door in the oak partition slam so forcibly, that the rows of pewter on the dresser rang like a bell.

"Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me the hartshorn, please," said Mr. Shiner, very close to Mrs. Day's face.

"O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please, because she has stung her lip!" said Dick, a little closer to Mrs. Day's face.

"Well, men alive! that's no reason why you should eat me, I suppose!" said Mrs. Day, drawing back.

She searched in the corner-cupboard, produced the bottle, and began to dust the cork, the rim, and every other part very carefully, Dick's hand and Shiner's hand waiting side by side.

"Which is head man?" said Mrs. Day. "Now, don't come mumbudgeting so close again. Which is head man?"

Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, as a high-class man, would not look in the least triumphant, and turned to go off with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the search in his linen for concealed bees.

"O—that you, Master Dewy?"

Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then determined upon a bold stroke for the attainment of his end, forgetting that the worst of bold strokes is the disastrous consequences they involve if they fail.

"I've come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day," he said, with a crushing emphasis intended for the ears of Mr. Shiner, who was vanishing round the door-post at that moment.

"Well, I've been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake some bees out o' me" said Geoffrey, walking slowly towards the open door, and standing on the threshold. "The young rascals got into my shirt and wouldn't be quiet nohow."

Dick followed him to the door.

"I've come to speak a word to you," he repeated, looking out at the pale mist creeping up from the gloom of the valley. "You may perhaps guess what it is about."

The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled his eyes, balanced himself on his toes, looked as perpendicularly downward as if his glance were a plumb-line, then horizontally, collecting together the cracks that lay about his face till they were all in the neighbourhood of his eyes.

"Maybe I don't know," he replied.

Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some small bird that was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, whose cry passed into the silence without mingling with it.

"I've left my hat up in chammer," said Geoffrey; "wait while I step up and get en."

"I'll be in the garden," said Dick.

He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey went upstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to discuss matters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, and to reserve the garden for very important affairs: a custom which, as is supposed, originated in the desirability of getting away at such times from the other members of the family when there was only one room for living in, though it was now quite as frequently practised by those who suffered from no such limitation to the size of their domiciles.

The head-keeper's form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walked towards him. The elder paused and leant over the rail of a piggery that stood on the left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; and they both contemplated a whitish shadowy shape that was moving about and grunting among the straw of the interior.

"I've come to ask for Fancy," said Dick.

"I'd as lief you hadn't."

"Why should that be, Mr. Day?"

"Because it makes me say that you've come to ask what ye be'n't likely to have. Have ye come for anything else?"

"Nothing."

"Then I'll just tell 'ee you've come on a very foolish errand. D'ye know what her mother was?"

"No."

"A teacher in a landed family's nursery, who was foolish enough to marry the keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper then, though now I've a dozen other irons in the fire as steward here for my lord, what with the timber sales and the yearly fellings, and the gravel and sand sales and one thing and 'tother. However, d'ye think Fancy picked up her good manners, the smooth turn of her tongue, her musical notes, and her knowledge of books, in a homely hole like this?"

"No."

"D'ye know where?"

"No."

"Well, when I went a-wandering after her mother's death, she lived with her aunt, who kept a boarding-school, till her aunt married Lawyer Green—a man as sharp as a needle—and the school was broke up. Did ye know that then she went to the training-school, and that her name stood first among the Queen's scholars of her year?"

"I've heard so."

"And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, she had the highest of the first class?"

"Yes."

"Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when I've got enough to do without it, and why I make her work as a schoolmistress instead of living here?"

"No."

"That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, should want to marry her, and she want to marry him, he sha'n't be superior to her in pocket. Now do ye think after this that you be good enough for her?"

"No."

"Then good-night t'ee, Master Dewy."

"Good-night, Mr. Day."

Modest Dick's reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away wondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen from the beginning to be so superior to him.



CHAPTER III: FANCY IN THE RAIN

The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, and Fancy Day is discovered walking from her father's home towards Mellstock.

A single vast gray cloud covered the country, from which the small rain and mist had just begun to blow down in wavy sheets, alternately thick and thin. The trees of the fields and plantations writhed like miserable men as the air wound its way swiftly among them: the lowest portions of their trunks, that had hardly ever been known to move, were visibly rocked by the fiercer gusts, distressing the mind by its painful unwontedness, as when a strong man is seen to shed tears. Low-hanging boughs went up and down; high and erect boughs went to and fro; the blasts being so irregular, and divided into so many cross-currents, that neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the skies in independent motions, crossed each other, or became entangled. Across the open spaces flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, which, after travelling a long distance from their parent trees, reached the ground, and lay there with their under-sides upward.

As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy's bonnet-ribbons leapt more and more snappishly against her chin, she paused on entering Mellstock Lane to consider her latitude, and the distance to a place of shelter. The nearest house was Elizabeth Endorfield's, in Higher Mellstock, whose cottage and garden stood not far from the junction of that hamlet with the road she followed. Fancy hastened onward, and in five minutes entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood of water-drops as she opened it.

"Come in, chiel!" a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a promptness that would have surprised her had she not known that Mrs. Endorfield was an exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the use of her eyes and ears.

Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her husband's supper.

Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a bucket of water.

Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she began to reconsider an old subject that lay uppermost in her heart. Since the interview between her father and Dick, the days had been melancholy days for her. Geoffrey's firm opposition to the notion of Dick as a son-in- law was more than she had expected. She had frequently seen her lover since that time, it is true, and had loved him more for the opposition than she would have otherwise dreamt of doing—which was a happiness of a certain kind. Yet, though love is thus an end in itself, it must be believed to be the means to another end if it is to assume the rosy hues of an unalloyed pleasure. And such a belief Fancy and Dick were emphatically denied just now.

Elizabeth Endorfield had a repute among women which was in its nature something between distinction and notoriety. It was founded on the following items of character. She was shrewd and penetrating; her house stood in a lonely place; she never went to church; she wore a red cloak; she always retained her bonnet indoors and she had a pointed chin. Thus far her attributes were distinctly Satanic; and those who looked no further called her, in plain terms, a witch. But she was not gaunt, nor ugly in the upper part of her face, nor particularly strange in manner; so that, when her more intimate acquaintances spoke of her the term was softened, and she became simply a Deep Body, who was as long-headed as she was high. It may be stated that Elizabeth belonged to a class of suspects who were gradually losing their mysterious characteristics under the administration of the young vicar; though, during the long reign of Mr. Grinham, the parish of Mellstock had proved extremely favourable to the growth of witches.

While Fancy was revolving all this in her mind, and putting it to herself whether it was worth while to tell her troubles to Elizabeth, and ask her advice in getting out of them, the witch spoke.

"You be down—proper down," she said suddenly, dropping another potato into the bucket.

Fancy took no notice.

"About your young man."

Fancy reddened. Elizabeth seemed to be watching her thoughts. Really, one would almost think she must have the powers people ascribed to her.

"Father not in the humour for't, hey?" Another potato was finished and flung in. "Ah, I know about it. Little birds tell me things that people don't dream of my knowing."

Fancy was desperate about Dick, and here was a chance—O, such a wicked chance—of getting help; and what was goodness beside love!

"I wish you'd tell me how to put him in the humour for it?" she said.

"That I could soon do," said the witch quietly.

"Really? O, do; anyhow—I don't care—so that it is done! How could I do it, Mrs. Endorfield?"

"Nothing so mighty wonderful in it."

"Well, but how?"

"By witchery, of course!" said Elizabeth.

"No!" said Fancy.

"'Tis, I assure ye. Didn't you ever hear I was a witch?"

"Well," hesitated Fancy, "I have heard you called so."

"And you believed it?"

"I can't say that I did exactly believe it, for 'tis very horrible and wicked; but, O, how I do wish it was possible for you to be one!"

"So I am. And I'll tell you how to bewitch your father to let you marry Dick Dewy."

"Will it hurt him, poor thing?"

"Hurt who?"

"Father."

"No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be broke by your acting stupidly."

Fancy looked rather perplexed, and Elizabeth went on:

"This fear of Lizz—whatever 'tis— By great and small; She makes pretence to common sense, And that's all.

"You must do it like this." The witch laid down her knife and potato, and then poured into Fancy's ear a long and detailed list of directions, glancing up from the corner of her eye into Fancy's face with an expression of sinister humour. Fancy's face brightened, clouded, rose and sank, as the narrative proceeded. "There," said Elizabeth at length, stooping for the knife and another potato, "do that, and you'll have him by-long and by-late, my dear."

"And do it I will!" said Fancy.

She then turned her attention to the external world once more. The rain continued as usual, but the wind had abated considerably during the discourse. Judging that it was now possible to keep an umbrella erect, she pulled her hood again over her bonnet, bade the witch good-bye, and went her way.



CHAPTER IV: THE SPELL

Mrs. Endorfield's advice was duly followed.

"I be proper sorry that your daughter isn't so well as she might be," said a Mellstock man to Geoffrey one morning.

"But is there anything in it?" said Geoffrey uneasily, as he shifted his hat to the right. "I can't understand the report. She didn't complain to me a bit when I saw her."

"No appetite at all, they say."

Geoffrey crossed to Mellstock and called at the school that afternoon. Fancy welcomed him as usual, and asked him to stay and take tea with her.

"I be'n't much for tea, this time o' day," he said, but stayed.

During the meal he watched her narrowly. And to his great consternation discovered the following unprecedented change in the healthy girl—that she cut herself only a diaphanous slice of bread-and-butter, and, laying it on her plate, passed the meal-time in breaking it into pieces, but eating no more than about one-tenth of the slice. Geoffrey hoped she would say something about Dick, and finish up by weeping, as she had done after the decision against him a few days subsequent to the interview in the garden. But nothing was said, and in due time Geoffrey departed again for Yalbury Wood.

"'Tis to be hoped poor Miss Fancy will be able to keep on her school," said Geoffrey's man Enoch to Geoffrey the following week, as they were shovelling up ant-hills in the wood.

Geoffrey stuck in the shovel, swept seven or eight ants from his sleeve, and killed another that was prowling round his ear, then looked perpendicularly into the earth as usual, waiting for Enoch to say more. "Well, why shouldn't she?" said the keeper at last.

"The baker told me yesterday," continued Enoch, shaking out another emmet that had run merrily up his thigh, "that the bread he've left at that there school-house this last month would starve any mouse in the three creations; that 'twould so! And afterwards I had a pint o' small down at Morrs's, and there I heard more."

"What might that ha' been?"

"That she used to have a pound o' the best rolled butter a week, regular as clockwork, from Dairyman Viney's for herself, as well as just so much salted for the helping girl, and the 'ooman she calls in; but now the same quantity d'last her three weeks, and then 'tis thoughted she throws it away sour."

"Finish doing the emmets, and carry the bag home-along." The keeper resumed his gun, tucked it under his arm, and went on without whistling to the dogs, who however followed, with a bearing meant to imply that they did not expect any such attentions when their master was reflecting.

On Saturday morning a note came from Fancy. He was not to trouble about sending her the couple of rabbits, as was intended, because she feared she should not want them. Later in the day Geoffrey went to Casterbridge and called upon the butcher who served Fancy with fresh meat, which was put down to her father's account.

"I've called to pay up our little bill, Neighbour Haylock, and you can gie me the chiel's account at the same time."

Mr. Haylock turned round three quarters of a circle in the midst of a heap of joints, altered the expression of his face from meat to money, went into a little office consisting only of a door and a window, looked very vigorously into a book which possessed length but no breadth; and then, seizing a piece of paper and scribbling thereupon, handed the bill.

Probably it was the first time in the history of commercial transactions that the quality of shortness in a butcher's bill was a cause of tribulation to the debtor. "Why, this isn't all she've had in a whole month!" said Geoffrey.

"Every mossel," said the butcher—"(now, Dan, take that leg and shoulder to Mrs. White's, and this eleven pound here to Mr. Martin's)—you've been treating her to smaller joints lately, to my thinking, Mr. Day?"

"Only two or three little scram rabbits this last week, as I am alive—I wish I had!"

"Well, my wife said to me—(Dan! not too much, not too much on that tray at a time; better go twice)—my wife said to me as she posted up the books: she says, 'Miss Day must have been affronted this summer during that hot muggy weather that spolit so much for us; for depend upon't,' she says, 'she've been trying John Grimmett unknown to us: see her account else.' 'Tis little, of course, at the best of times, being only for one, but now 'tis next kin to nothing."

"I'll inquire," said Geoffrey despondingly.

He returned by way of Mellstock, and called upon Fancy, in fulfilment of a promise. It being Saturday, the children were enjoying a holiday, and on entering the residence Fancy was nowhere to be seen. Nan, the charwoman, was sweeping the kitchen.

"Where's my da'ter?" said the keeper.

"Well, you see she was tired with the week's teaching, and this morning she said, 'Nan, I sha'n't get up till the evening.' You see, Mr. Day, if people don't eat, they can't work; and as she've gie'd up eating, she must gie up working."

"Have ye carried up any dinner to her?"

"No; she don't want any. There, we all know that such things don't come without good reason—not that I wish to say anything about a broken heart, or anything of the kind."

Geoffrey's own heart felt inconveniently large just then. He went to the staircase and ascended to his daughter's door.

"Fancy!"

"Come in, father."

To see a person in bed from any cause whatever, on a fine afternoon, is depressing enough; and here was his only child Fancy, not only in bed, but looking very pale. Geoffrey was visibly disturbed.

"Fancy, I didn't expect to see thee here, chiel," he said. "What's the matter?"

"I'm not well, father."

"How's that?"

"Because I think of things."

"What things can you have to think o' so mortal much?"

"You know, father."

"You think I've been cruel to thee in saying that that penniless Dick o' thine sha'n't marry thee, I suppose?"

No answer.

"Well, you know, Fancy, I do it for the best, and he isn't good enough for thee. You know that well enough." Here he again looked at her as she lay. "Well, Fancy, I can't let my only chiel die; and if you can't live without en, you must ha' en, I suppose."

"O, I don't want him like that; all against your will, and everything so disobedient!" sighed the invalid.

"No, no, 'tisn't against my will. My wish is, now I d'see how 'tis hurten thee to live without en, that he shall marry thee as soon as we've considered a little. That's my wish flat and plain, Fancy. There, never cry, my little maid! You ought to ha' cried afore; no need o' crying now 'tis all over. Well, howsoever, try to step over and see me and mother- law to-morrow, and ha' a bit of dinner wi' us."

"And—Dick too?"

"Ay, Dick too, 'far's I know."

"And when do you think you'll have considered, father, and he may marry me?" she coaxed.

"Well, there, say next Midsummer; that's not a day too long to wait."

On leaving the school Geoffrey went to the tranter's. Old William opened the door.

"Is your grandson Dick in 'ithin, William?"

"No, not just now, Mr. Day. Though he've been at home a good deal lately."

"O, how's that?"

"What wi' one thing, and what wi' t'other, he's all in a mope, as might be said. Don't seem the feller he used to. Ay, 'a will sit studding and thinking as if 'a were going to turn chapel-member, and then do nothing but traypse and wamble about. Used to be such a chatty boy, too, Dick did; and now 'a don't speak at all. But won't ye step inside? Reuben will be home soon, 'a b'lieve."

"No, thank you, I can't stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he'll do me the kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da'ter Fancy, if she's well enough? I don't like her to come by herself, now she's not so terrible topping in health."

"So I've heard. Ay, sure, I'll tell him without fail."



CHAPTER V: AFTER GAINING HER POINT

The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might have been expected to pass off when it was the first day of smooth experience in a hitherto obstructed love-course. And then came a series of several happy days, of the same undisturbed serenity. Dick could court her when he chose; stay away when he chose,—which was never; walk with her by winding streams and waterfalls and autumn scenery till dews and twilight sent them home. And thus they drew near the day of the Harvest Thanksgiving, which was also the time chosen for opening the organ in Mellstock Church.

It chanced that Dick on that very day was called away from Mellstock. A young acquaintance had died of consumption at Charmley, a neighbouring village, on the previous Monday, and Dick, in fulfilment of a long-standing promise, was to assist in carrying him to the grave. When on Tuesday, Dick went towards the school to acquaint Fancy with the fact, it is difficult to say whether his own disappointment at being denied the sight of her triumphant debut as organist, was greater than his vexation that his pet should on this great occasion be deprived of the pleasure of his presence. However, the intelligence was communicated. She bore it as she best could, not without many expressions of regret, and convictions that her performance would be nothing to her now.

Just before eleven o'clock on Sunday he set out upon his sad errand. The funeral was to be immediately after the morning service, and as there were four good miles to walk, driving being inconvenient, it became necessary to start comparatively early. Half an hour later would certainly have answered his purpose quite as well, yet at the last moment nothing would content his ardent mind but that he must go a mile out of his way in the direction of the school, in the hope of getting a glimpse of his Love as she started for church.

Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of across the ewelease direct to Charmley, he arrived opposite her door as his goddess emerged.

If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that morning as she floated down those school steps, in the form of a nebulous collection of colours inclining to blue. With an audacity unparalleled in the whole history of village-school-mistresses at this date—partly owing, no doubt, to papa's respectable accumulation of cash, which rendered her profession not altogether one of necessity—she had actually donned a hat and feather, and lowered her hitherto plainly looped-up hair, which now fell about her shoulders in a profusion of curls. Poor Dick was astonished: he had never seen her look so distractingly beautiful before, save on Christmas-eve, when her hair was in the same luxuriant condition of freedom. But his first burst of delighted surprise was followed by less comfortable feelings, as soon as his brain recovered its power to think.

Fancy had blushed;—was it with confusion? She had also involuntarily pressed back her curls. She had not expected him.

"Fancy, you didn't know me for a moment in my funeral clothes, did you?"

"Good-morning, Dick—no, really, I didn't know you for an instant in such a sad suit."

He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. "You've never dressed so charming before, dearest."

"I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick," she said, smiling archly. "It is meat and drink to a woman. Do I look nice really?"

"Fie! you know it. Did you remember,—I mean didn't you remember about my going away to-day?"

"Well, yes, I did, Dick; but, you know, I wanted to look well;—forgive me."

"Yes, darling; yes, of course,—there's nothing to forgive. No, I was only thinking that when we talked on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday about my absence to-day, and I was so sorry for it, you said, Fancy, so were you sorry, and almost cried, and said it would be no pleasure to you to be the attraction of the church to-day, since I could not be there."

"My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I do take a little delight in my life, I suppose," she pouted.

"Apart from mine?"

She looked at him with perplexed eyes. "I know you are vexed with me, Dick, and it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat and feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you are away and won't be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And you think that all this week I ought to have remembered you wouldn't be here to- day, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. Yes, you do, Dick, and it is rather unkind!"

"No, no," said Dick earnestly and simply, "I didn't think so badly of you as that. I only thought that—if you had been going away, I shouldn't have tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. But then of course you and I are different, naturally."

"Well, perhaps we are."

"Whatever will the vicar say, Fancy?"

"I don't fear what he says in the least!" she answered proudly. "But he won't say anything of the sort you think. No, no."

"He can hardly have conscience to, indeed."

"Now come, you say, Dick, that you quite forgive me, for I must go," she said with sudden gaiety, and skipped backwards into the porch. "Come here, sir;—say you forgive me, and then you shall kiss me;—you never have yet when I have worn curls, you know. Yes, just where you want to so much,—yes, you may!"

Dick followed her into the inner corner, where he was probably not slow in availing himself of the privilege offered.

"Now that's a treat for you, isn't it?" she continued. "Good-bye, or I shall be late. Come and see me to-morrow: you'll be tired to-night."

Thus they parted, and Fancy proceeded to the church. The organ stood on one side of the chancel, close to and under the immediate eye of the vicar when he was in the pulpit, and also in full view of the congregation. Here she sat down, for the first time in such a conspicuous position, her seat having previously been in a remote spot in the aisle.

"Good heavens—disgraceful! Curls and a hat and feather!" said the daughters of the small gentry, who had either only curly hair without a hat and feather, or a hat and feather without curly hair. "A bonnet for church always," said sober matrons.

That Mr. Maybold was conscious of her presence close beside him during the sermon; that he was not at all angry at her development of costume; that he admired her, she perceived. But she did not see that he loved her during that sermon-time as he had never loved a woman before; that her proximity was a strange delight to him; and that he gloried in her musical success that morning in a spirit quite beyond a mere cleric's glory at the inauguration of a new order of things.

The old choir, with humbled hearts, no longer took their seats in the gallery as heretofore (which was now given up to the school-children who were not singers, and a pupil-teacher), but were scattered about with their wives in different parts of the church. Having nothing to do with conducting the service for almost the first time in their lives, they all felt awkward, out of place, abashed, and inconvenienced by their hands. The tranter had proposed that they should stay away to-day and go nutting, but grandfather William would not hear of such a thing for a moment. "No," he replied reproachfully, and quoted a verse: "Though this has come upon us, let not our hearts be turned back, or our steps go out of the way."

So they stood and watched the curls of hair trailing down the back of the successful rival, and the waving of her feather, as she swayed her head. After a few timid notes and uncertain touches her playing became markedly correct, and towards the end full and free. But, whether from prejudice or unbiassed judgment, the venerable body of musicians could not help thinking that the simpler notes they had been wont to bring forth were more in keeping with the simplicity of their old church than the crowded chords and interludes it was her pleasure to produce.



CHAPTER VI: INTO TEMPTATION

The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About five o'clock it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind she wandered into the schoolroom, for want of something better to do. She was thinking—of her lover Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of how weary she was of living alone: how unbearable it would be to return to Yalbury under the rule of her strange-tempered step-mother; that it was far better to be married to anybody than do that; that eight or nine long months had yet to be lived through ere the wedding could take place.

At the side of the room were high windows of Ham-hill stone, upon either sill of which she could sit by first mounting a desk and using it as a footstool. As the evening advanced here she perched herself, as was her custom on such wet and gloomy occasions, put on a light shawl and bonnet, opened the window, and looked out at the rain.

The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the position from which she used to survey the crown of Dick's passing hat in the early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a living soul was now visible anywhere; the rain kept all people indoors who were not forced abroad by necessity, and necessity was less importunate on Sundays than during the week.

Sitting here and thinking again—of her lover, or of the sensation she had created at church that day?—well, it is unknown—thinking and thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into distinctness at the further end of the Grove—a man without an umbrella. Nearer and nearer he came, and she perceived that he was in deep mourning, and then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness and foolishness of his young heart, after walking four miles, in a drizzling rain without overcoat or umbrella, and in face of a remark from his love that he was not to come because he would be tired, he had made it his business to wander this mile out of his way again, from sheer wish of spending ten minutes in her presence.

"O Dick, how wet you are!" she said, as he drew up under the window. "Why, your coat shines as if it had been varnished, and your hat—my goodness, there's a streaming hat!"

"O, I don't mind, darling!" said Dick cheerfully. "Wet never hurts me, though I am rather sorry for my best clothes. However, it couldn't be helped; we lent all the umbrellas to the women. I don't know when I shall get mine back!"

"And look, there's a nasty patch of something just on your shoulder."

"Ah, that's japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack's coffin when we lowered him from our shoulders upon the bier! I don't care about that, for 'twas the last deed I could do for him; and 'tis hard if you can't afford a coat for an old friend."

Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the palm of that little hand there existed for that half-minute a little yawn.

"Dick, I don't like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn't sit down. Go home and change your things. Don't stay another minute."

"One kiss after coming so far," he pleaded.

"If I can reach, then."

He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the door. She twisted from her seated position and bent herself downwards, but not even by standing on the plinth was it possible for Dick to get his lips into contact with hers as she held them. By great exertion she might have reached a little lower; but then she would have exposed her head to the rain.

"Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand," she said, flinging it down to him. "Now, good-bye."

"Good-bye."

He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till he was out of sight. During the retreat she said to herself, almost involuntarily, and still conscious of that morning's triumph—"I like Dick, and I love him; but how plain and sorry a man looks in the rain, with no umbrella, and wet through!"

As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but glancing in the other direction she saw another form coming along the same track. It was also that of a man. He, too, was in black from top to toe; but he carried an umbrella.

He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant his umbrella that from her height above the ground his head was invisible, as she was also to him. He passed in due time directly beneath her, and in looking down upon the exterior of his umbrella her feminine eyes perceived it to be of superior silk—less common at that date than since—and of elegant make. He reached the entrance to the building, and Fancy suddenly lost sight of him. Instead of pursuing the roadway as Dick had done he had turned sharply round into her own porch.

She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, smoothed and patted her hair till the curls hung in passable condition, and listened. No knock. Nearly a minute passed, and still there was no knock. Then there arose a soft series of raps, no louder than the tapping of a distant woodpecker, and barely distinct enough to reach her ears. She composed herself and flung open the door.