No More Learning

"Give thanks to God alway,
O thou man:
Give thanks to God alway
With heartfelt joy.
Give thanks to God alway
On this our joyful day:
Let all men sing and say,
Holy, Holy! "
Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or
two, but found that no sound issued from the schoolhouse.
"Forty breaths, and then, 'O what unbounded goodness! '
number fifty-nine," said William.
This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed
to be taken of the performance.
"Surely, 'tisn't an empty house, as befell us in the year thirty-
nine and forty-three! " said old Dewy, with much disappointment.
"Perhaps she's jist come from some noble city, and sneers at
our doings," the tranter whispered.
"Od rabbit her! " said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look
at a corner of the school chimney; "I don't quite stomach her,
if this is it. Your plain music well done is as worthy as your
other sort done bad, a' b'lieve souls; so say I. "
"Forty breaths, and then the last," said the leader authorita-
tively. "Rejoice, ye tenants of the earth'; number sixty-
four. "
At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear
loud voice, as he had said in the village at that hour and season
for the previous forty years:—
"A merry Christmas to ye! "
WHEN the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation
had nearly died out of them all, an increasing light made itself
visible in one of the windows of the upper floor. It came so
close to the blind that the exact position of the flame could be
perceived from the outside. Remaining steady for an instant,
the blind went upward from before it, revealing to thirty con-


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6944
THOMAS HARDY
centrated eyes a young girl, framed as a picture by the window
architrave, and unconsciously illuminating her countenance to a
vivid brightness by a candle she held in her left hand, close to
her face, her right hand being extended to the side of the win-
dow. She was wrapped in a white robe of some kind, while
down her shoulders fell a twining profusion of marvelously rich
hair, in a wild disorder which proclaimed it to be only during
the invisible hours of the night that such a condition was discov-
erable. Her bright eyes were looking into the gray world out-
side with an uncertain expression, oscillating between courage
and shyness, which, as she recognized the semicircular group of
dark forms gathered before her, transformed itself into pleasant
resolution.
Opening the window, she said, lightly and warmly:-
"Thank you, singers, thank you! "
Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind
started downward on its return to its place. Her fair forehead
and eyes vanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all
of her. Then the spot of candle-light shone nebulously as before;
then it moved away.
"How pretty! " exclaimed Dick Dewy.
"If she'd been rale wexwork she couldn't ha' been comelier,"
said Michael Mail.
—
"As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever I wish to see! "
said tranter Dewy fervently.
"Oh, sich I never, never see! " said Leaf.
All the rest, after clearing their throats and adjusting their
hats, agreed that such a sight was worth singing for.
"Now to Farmer Shinar's, and then replenish our insides,
father," said the tranter.
"Wi' all my heart," said old William, shouldering his bass-viol.
Farmer Shinar's was a queer lump of a house, standing at
the corner of a lane that ran obliquely into the principal thor-
oughfare. The upper windows were much wider than they
were high, and this feature, together with a broad bay-window
where the door might have been expected, gave it by day the
aspect of a human countenance turned askance, and wearing a
sly and wicked leer. To-night nothing was visible but the out-
line of the roof upon the sky.
The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries
arranged as usual.
1


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THOMAS HARDY
6945
"Forty breaths, and number thirty-two, -'Behold the morn-
ing star," said old William.
They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fid-
dlers were doing the up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth
the opening chord of the third verse, when without a light ap-
pearing or any signal being given, a roaring voice exclaimed:
"Shut up! Don't make your blaring row here. A feller wi'
a headache enough to split, likes a quiet night. "
Slam went the window.
"Hullo, that's an ugly blow for we artists! " said the tranter
in a keenly appreciative voice, and turning to his companions.
"Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony! " said old
William commandingly; and they continued to the end.
"Forty breaths, and number nineteen! " said William firmly.
"Give it him well; the choir can't be insulted in this man-
ner! "
A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and
the farmer stood revealed as one in a terrific passion.
"Drown en drown en! " the tranter cried, fiddling frantically.
"Play fortissimy, and drown his spaking! "
"Fortissimy! " said Michael Mail, and the music and singing
waxed so loud that it was impossible to know what Mr. Shinar
had said, was saying, or was about to say; but wildly flinging
his arms and body about in the form of capital X's and Y's, he
appeared to utter enough invectives to consign the whole parish
to perdition.
"Very unseemly, very! " said old William, as they retired.
"Never such a dreadful scene in the whole round o' my carrel
practice, never! And he a churchwarden! »
"Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter.
"Man's well enough when he's in his religious frame. He's in
his worldly frame now. Must ask en to our bit of a party to-
morrer night, I suppose, and so put en in track again. We bear
no martel man ill-will. "
They now crossed Twenty-acres to proceed to the lower
village, and met Voss with the hot mead and bread and cheese
as they were crossing the church-yard. This determined them
to eat and drink before proceeding further, and they entered
the belfry. The lanterns were opened, and the whole body sat
round against the walls on benches and whatever else was avail-
able, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of conversation
XII-435


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THOMAS HARDY
could be heard through the floor overhead a little world of under-
tones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never spread
farther than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more
meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of
Time.
Having done eating and drinking, the instruments were again
tuned, and once more the party emerged into the night air. . .
The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment
of its own. A stranger there was regarded with a feeling alto-
gether differing from that entertained towards him by the con-
gregation below. Banished from the nave as an intruder whom
no originality could make interesting, he was received above as a
curiosity that no unfitness could render dull. The gallery, too,
looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remot-
est peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive informa-
tion about it; while the nave knew nothing of the gallery people,
beyond their loud-sounding minims and chest notes.
Such topics
as that the clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the
moment of crying Amen; that he had a dust-hole in his pew;
that during the sermon certain young daughters of the village
had left off caring to read anything so mild as the marriage serv-
ice for some years, and now regularly studied the one which
chronologically follows it; that a pair of lovers touched fingers
through a knot-hole between their pews in the manner ordained
by their great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs. Ledlow,
the farmer's wife, counted her money and reckoned her week's
marketing expenses during the first lesson,-all news to those
below,- were stale subjects here.
Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violon-
cello between his knees, and two singers on each hand. Behind
him, on the left, came the treble singers and Dick; and on the
right the tranter and the tenors. Farther back was old Mail, with
the altos and supernumeraries.
But before they had taken their places, and while they were
standing in a circle at the back of the gallery practicing a psalm
or two, Dick cast his eyes over his grandfather's shoulder, and
saw the vision of the past night enter the porch door as method-
ically as if she had never been a vision at all. A new atmos-
phere seemed suddenly to be puffed into the ancient edifice by
her movement, which made Dick's body and soul tingle with
novel sensations. Directed by Shinar the churchwarden she


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THOMAS HARDY
6947
proceeded to the short aisle on the north side of the chancel, a
spot now allotted to a throng of Sunday-school girls, and dis-
tinctly visible from the gallery front by looking under the curve
of the furthermost arch on that side.
Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively
empty now it was thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her
knees and looked around her for a permanent place in which to
deposit herself, finally choosing the remotest corner, Dick began
to breathe more freely the warm new air she had brought with
her; to feel rushings of blood, and to have impressions that
there was a tie between her and himself visible to all the con-
gregation.
Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually
each part of the service of that bright Christmas morning, and
the minute occurrences which took place as its hours slowly drew
along the duties of that day dividing themselves by a complete
line from the service of other times. The tunes they that morn-
ing essayed remained with him for years, apart from all others;
also the text; also the appearance of the layer of dust upon the
capitals of the piers; that the holly-bough in the chancel archway
was hung a little out of the centre,- all the ideas, in short, that
creep into the mind when reason is only exercising its lowest
activity through the eye.
By chance or by fate, another young man who attended
Mellstock Church on that Christmas morning had towards the
end of the service the same instinctive perception of an interest-
ing presence in the shape of the same bright maiden, though his
emotion reached a far less developed stage. And there was this
difference, too: that the person in question was surprised at his
condition, and sedulously endeavored to reduce himself to his
normal state of mind. He was the young vicar, Mr. Maybold.
SOCIABILITY IN THE MALT-HOUSE
From Far from the Madding Crowd›
G
ABRIEL'S nose was greeted by an atmosphere laden with the
sweet smell of new malt. The conversation (which seemed
to have been concerning the origin of the fire) immediately
ceased, and every one ocularly criticized him to the degree
expressed by contracting the flesh of their foreheads and looking


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THOMAS HARDY
at him with narrow eyelids, as if he had been a light too strong
for their sight. Several exclaimed meditatively, after this opera-
tion had been completed:-
—
"Oh, 'tis the new shepherd, 'a b'lieve. "
"We thought we heard a hand pawing about the door for the
bobbin, but weren't sure 'twere not a dead leaf blowed across,"
said another. "Come in, shepherd; sure, ye be welcome, though
we don't know yer name. "
"Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbors. "
The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned at this - his
turning being as the turning of a rusty crane.
«< That's never Gable Oak's grandson over at Norcombe —
never! " he said, as a formula expressive of surprise, which
nobody was supposed for a moment to take literally.
"My father and my grandfather were old men of the name of
Gabriel," said the shepherd placidly.
"Thought I knowed the man's face as I seed him on the
rick! thought I did! And where be ye trading o't to now, shep-
herd ? »
"I'm thinking of biding here," said Mr. Oak.
"Knowed yer grandfather for years and years! " continued the
maltster, the words coming forth of their own accord as if the
momentum previously imparted had been sufficient.
"Ah, and did you! "
"Knowed yer grandmother. "
"And her too! "
"Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child. Why, my
boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers- that they
were, sure, weren't ye, Jacob? "
"Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with
a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper
jaw, which made much of itself by standing prominent, like a
milestone in a bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do with him.
However, my son William must have knowed the very man afore
us, didn't ye, Billy, afore ye left Norcombe ? »
"No, 'twas Andrew," said Jacob's son Billy, a child of forty
or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a
cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assum-
ing a chinchilla shade here and there.
"I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a
place when I was quite a child. "
man in the


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6949
"Ay; the other day I and my youngest daughter Liddy were
over at my grandson's christening," continued Billy.
"We were
talking about this very family, and 'twas only last Purification
Day in this very world, when the use-money is gi'ed away to the
second-best poor folk, you know, shepherd, and I can mind the
day because they all had to traypse up to the vestry-yes, this
very man's family. "
«< Come, shepherd, and drink. 'Tis gape and swaller with us
a drap of sommit, but not of much account," said the maltster,
removing from the fire his eyes, which were vermilion red and
bleared by gazing into it for so many years. "Take up the
God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if 'tis warm, Jacob. "
Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled
tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat:
it was rather furred with extraneous matter about the outside,
especially in the crevices of the handles, the innermost curves of
which may not have seen daylight for several years by reason
of this incrustation thereon-formed of ashes accidentally wetted
with cider and baked hard; but to the mind of any sensible
drinker the cup was no worse for that, being incontestably clean
on the inside and about the rim. It may be observed that such
a class of mug is called a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and
its vicinity for uncertain reasons; probably because its size makes
any given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees its bottom
in drinking it empty.
Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor was warm
enough, placidly dipped his forefinger into it by way of thermom-
eter, and having pronounced it nearly of the proper degree,
raised the cup and very civilly attempted to dust some of the
ashes from the bottom with the skirt of his smock-frock, because
shepherd Oak was a stranger.
"A clane cup for the shepherd," said the maltster command-
ingly.
--
"No, not at all," said Gabriel, in a reproving tone of consid-
erateness. "I never fuss about dirt in its pure state, and when
I know what sort it is. " Taking the mug, he drank an inch or
more from the depths of its contents and duly passed it to the
next man. "I wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neigh-
bors in washing up when there is so much work to be done in
the world already," continued Oak in a moister tone, after recov-
ering from the stoppage of breath which is occasioned by pulls
at large mugs.


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THOMAS HARDY
"
"A right sensible man," said Jacob.
"True, true; it can't be gainsaid! " observed a brisk young
man - Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman,
whom to meet anywhere in your travels was to know, to know
was to drink with, and to drink with was, unfortunately, to pay
for.
"And here's a mouthful of bread and bacon that mis'ess have
sent, shepherd. The cider will go down better with a bit of
victuals. Don't ye chaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the
bacon fall in the road outside as I was bringing it along, and
maybe 'tis rather gritty. There, 'tis clane dirt; and we all know
what that is, as you say, and you bain't a particular man, we see,
shepherd. "
"True, true; not at all," said the friendly Oak.
"Don't let your teeth quite meet, and you won't feel the
sandiness at all. Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be done by con-
trivance! "
"My own mind exactly, neighbor. "
"Ah, he's his granfer's own grandson! his grandfer were
just such a nice unparticular man! " said the maltster.
"Drink, Henry Fray, drink," magnanimously said Jan Cog-
gan, a person who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and
share alike where liquor was concerned, as the vessel showed
signs of approaching him in its gradual revolution among them.
Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze
into mid-air, Henry did not refuse. He was a man of more than
middle age, with eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it
down that the law of the world was bad, with a long-suffering
look through his listeners at the world alluded to, as it presented
itself to his imagination. He always signed his name "Henery"
-strenuously insisting upon that spelling; and if any passing
schoolmaster ventured to remark that the second "e" was super-
fluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply that "H-e-n-e-r-y"
was the name he was christened and the name he would stick
to-in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences were
matters which had a great deal to do with personal character.
Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup fo Henery, was a
crimson man with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in
his eye, whose name had appeared on the marriage register of
Weatherbury and neighboring parishes as best man and chief
witness in countless unions of the previous twenty years; he also


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THOMAS HARDY
6951
very frequently filled the post of head godfather in baptisms of
the subtly jovial kind.
Ther's plenty more in the bar-
«< Come, Mark Clark, come.
rel," said Jan.
"Ay, that I will; 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark,
who, twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the
same orbit. He secreted mirth on all occasions for special dis-
charge at popular parties.
"Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop! " said Mr.
Coggan to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the
cup towards him.
"Such a modest man as he is! " said Jacob Smallbury. "Why,
ye've hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young
mis'ess's face, so I hear, Joseph ? "
All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.
"No, I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph, re-
ducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek
sense of undue prominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas noth-
ing but blushes with me! "
"Poor feller," said Mr. Clark.
Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan.
"Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass; his shyness, which was
so painful as a defect, filling him with a mild complacency now
that it was regarded as an interesting study.
an interesting study. "Twere blush,
blush, blush with me every minute of the time when she was
speaking to me. "
"I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a
very bashful man. ”
"Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the maltster.
"And how long have ye suffered from it, Joseph? "
"Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes, mother was concerned to
her heart about it - yes. But 'twas all naught. "
"Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph
Poorgrass? "
"Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company. They took me to Green-
hill Fair, and into a great large jerry-go-nimble show, where
there were women-folk riding round-standing upon horses with.
hardly anything on but their smocks; but it didn't cure me a
morsel. And then I was put errand-man at the Woman's Skittle
Alley at the back of the Tailor's Arms in Casterbridge. 'Twas a
horrible evil situation, and a very curious place for a good man.


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THOMAS HARDY
I had to stand and look ba'dy people in the face from morning
till night; but 'twas no use I was just as bad as ever after all.
Blushes hev been in the family for generations. There, 'tis a
happy Providence that I be no worse, and I feel the blessing. "
"True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a
profounder view of the subject.
Tis a thought to look at,
that ye might have been worse; but even as you be, 'tis a very
bad affliction for ye, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, though 'tis
very well for a woman, dang it all, 'tis awkward for a man like
him, poor feller. »
He appealed to the shepherd by a feeling
glance.
«Yes,
-
"Tis, 'tis," said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation.
very awkward for the man. "
« Once
"Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan.
he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap
of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home along through
Yalbury Wood, didn't ye, Master Poorgrass? "
"No, no, no; not that story! " expostulated the modest man,
forcing a laugh to bury his concern.
"And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan with an
impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide,
must run its course and would respect no man. "And as he was
coming along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not
able to find his way out of the trees nohow, 'a cried out, 'Man-
a-lost! man-a-lost! ' A owl in a tree happened to be crying
'Whoo-whoo-whoo! ' as owls do, you know, shepherd" (Gabriel
nodded), “and Joseph all in a tremble said, 'Joseph Poorgrass
of Weatherbury, sir! ""
wwwxxx. com
"No, no, now that's too much! " said the timid man, becom-
ing a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. "I didn't say sir.
I'll take my oath I didn't say Joseph Poorgrass o' Weatherbury,
sir. ' No, no; what's right is right, and I never said sir to the
bird, knowing very well that no man of a gentleman's rank would
be hollering there at that time o' night. Joseph Poorgrass of
Weatherbury,' - that's every word I said, and I shouldn't ha'
said that if 't hadn't been for Keeper Day's metheglin.
There, 'twas a merciful thing it ended where it did. "
The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the
company, Jan went on meditatively: -
"And he's the fearfullest man, bain't ye, Joseph? Ay, another
time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph ? "


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THOMAS HARDY
6953
"I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions
too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being
one.
"Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would
not open, try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil's
hand in it, he kneeled down. "
"Ay," said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of
the fire, the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities
of the experience alluded to. "My heart died within me, that
time; but I kneeled down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then
the Belief right through, and then the Ten Commandments, in
earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't open; and then I went
on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and thinks I, this makes four,
and 'tis all I know out of book, and if this don't do it nothing
will, and I'm a lost man. Well, when I got to Saying After Me,
I rose from my knees and found the gate would open,—yes,
neighbors, the gate opened the same as ever. "
A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all,
and during its continuance each directed his vision into the ash-
pit, which glowed like a desert in the tropics under a vertical
sun, shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of the light,
partly from the depth of the subject discussed.
Gabriel broke the silence. "What sort of a place is this to
live at, and what sort of a mis'ess is she to work under? " Ga-
briel's bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice
of the assembly the innermost subject of his heart.
-
"We d' know little of her — nothing. She only showed her-
self a few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor
was called with his world-wide skill; but he couldn't save the
As I take it, she's going to keep on the farm. "
man.
"That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan.
"Ay, 'tis a very good family. I'd as soon be under 'em as under
one here and there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of man.
Did ye know en, shepherd-a bachelor man? "
"Not at all. "
"I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife Charlotte,
who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were.
farmer Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was
allowed to call and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but
not to carry away any outside my skin I mane, of course. "
"Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning. "
――――――


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THOMAS HARDY
"And so, you see, 'twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value
his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered
as to drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting
the man's generosity - "
"True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark.
—
- And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and
then by the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket-
so thorough dry that that ale would slip down-ah, 'twould slip
down sweet! Happy times! heavenly times! Such lovely drunks
as I used to have at that house! You can mind, Jacob? You
used to go wi' me sometimes. "
"I can, I can," said Jacob. "That one, too, that we had at
Buck's Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple. "
་་
"Twas. But for a drunk of really a noble class, that brought
you no nearer to the Dark Man than you were afore you begun,
there was none like those in farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not a
single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most
cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good old
word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great
relief to a merry soul. "
"True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at
the regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy exclamations
is a necessity of life. "
Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. "You must be a
very aged man, malter, to have sons growed up so old and
ancient," he remarked.
"Father's so old that 'a can't mind his age, can ye, father? "
interposed Jacob. "And he's growed terrible crooked, too, lately,"
Jacob continued, surveying his father's figure, which was rather
more bowed than his own. Really, one may say that father
there is three-double. "
<<
"Crooked folk will last a long while," said the maltster
grimly, and not in the best humor.
"Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer life, father
- would'nt ye, shepherd? "
"Ay, that I should," said Gabriel, with the heartiness of a
man who had longed to hear it for several months. "What may
your age be, malter? "
The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for
emphasis. and elongating his gaze to the remotest point of the
ash-pit said, in the slow speech justifiable when the importance


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THOMAS HARDY
6955
of a subject is so generally felt that any mannerism must be
tolerated in getting at it:-
"Well, I don't mind the year I were born in, but perhaps I
can reckon up the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I
bode at Upper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north)
"till I were eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the
east), "where I took to malting. I went therefrom to Norcombe,
and malted there two-and-twenty years, and two-and-twenty years.
I was there turnip-hoeing and harvesting. Ah, I knowed that
old place Norcombe, years afore you were thought of, Master
Oak" (Oak smiled a corroboration of the fact). "Then I malted
at Durnover four year, and four year turnip-hoeing; and I was
fourteen times eleven months at Millpond St. Jude's" (nodding
north-west-by-north). "Old Twills wouldn't hire me for more
than eleven months at a time, to keep me from being chargeable
to the parish if so be I was disabled. Then I was three year at
Mellstock, and I've been here one-and-thirty year come Candle-
mas. How much is that? "
«Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another old gentleman,
given to mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hith-
erto sat unobserved in a corner.
"Well then, that's my age," said the maltster emphatically.
"Oh no, father! " said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing were in
the summer and your malting in the winter of the same years,
and ye don't ought to count both halves, father. "
"Chok' it all! I lived through the summers, didn't I? That's
my question. I suppose ye'll say next I be no age at all to
speak of? "
"Sure we shan't," said Gabriel soothingly.
"Ye be a very old aged person, malter," attested Jan Coggan,
also soothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a won-
derful talented constitution to be able to live so long, mustn't he,
neighbors ? "
"True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," said the meeting
unanimously.
The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough.
to voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having
lived a great many years, by mentioning that the cup they were
drinking out of was three years older than he.
While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's
flute became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery


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6956
THOMAS HARDY
Fray exclaimed, "Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a
great flute by now at Casterbridge? "
"You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly.
trouble, neighbors, and was driven to it.
poor as I be now. "
"Never mind, heart! " said Mark Clark.
careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come.
thank ye for a tune, if ye bain't too tired. "
"Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard this Christmas,"
said Jan Coggan. "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak! "
"I've been in great
I used not to be so
"You should take it
But we could
"Ay, that I will," said Gabriel readily, pulling out his flute
and putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbors; but such as I
can do ye shall have and welcome. "
Oak then struck up 'Jockey to the Fair,' and played that
sparkling melody three times through, accenting the notes in the
third round in a most artistic and lively manner by bending his
body in small jerks and tapping with his foot to beat time.
"He can blow the flute very well, that 'a can," said a young
married man, who, having no individuality worth mentioning, was
known as "Susan Tall's husband. " He continued admiringly,
"I'd as lief as not be able to blow into a flute as well as that. "
"He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to have
such a shepherd," murmured Joseph Poorgrass in a soft cadence.
"We ought to feel real thanksgiving that he's not a player of
ba'dy songs instead of these merry tunes; for 'twould have been
just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose low
mana man of iniquity, so to speak it as what he is. Yes,
for our wives' and daughters' sakes we should feel real thanks-
giving. "
"True, true,-real thanksgiving! " dashed in Mark Clark con-
clusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion.
that he had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what
Joseph had said.
"Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the
Bible; "for evil do thrive so in these times, that ye may be as
much deceived in the clanest shaved and whitest shirted man as
in the raggedest tramp upon the turnpike, if I may term it so. "
"Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd," said Henery Fray,
criticizing Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his second
"Yes, now I see ye blowing into the flute I know ye to
be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were
tune.


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THOMAS HARDY
6957
scrimped up and yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man's-
just as they be now. "
"Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look
such a scarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criti-
cism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out, with
the ghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of
'Dame Durden':
'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate',
And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle-Tail'. "
"I hope you don't mind that young man Mark Clark's bad
manners in naming your features? " whispered Joseph to Gabriel
privately.
"Not at all," said Mr. Oak.
"For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd," con-
tinued Joseph Poorgrass, with winning suavity.
"Ay, that ye be, shepherd," said the company.
"Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good
manners demanded; thinking, however, that he would never let
Bathsheba see him playing the flute.
THE GRAVE-DIGGERS
From A Pair of Blue Eyes'
A
LL eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and
the ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized him inquiringly.
"Why, 'tis our Stephen! " said his father, rising from
his seat; and still retaining the frothy mug in his left hand, he
swung forward his right for a grasp. "Your mother is expect-
ing ye- thought you would have come afore dark.
But you'll
wait and go home with me? I have all but done for the day,
and was going directly. "
"Yes, 'tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so
soon again, Master Smith," said Martin Cannister, chastening the
gladness expressed in his words by a strict neutrality of counte-
nance, in order to harmonize the feeling as much as possible with.
the solemnity of a family vault.
"The same to you, Martin; and you, William," said Stephen,
nodding around to the rest, who, having their mouths full of


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6958
THOMAS HARDY
bread and cheese, were of necessity compelled to reply merely
by compressing their eyes to friendly lines and wrinkles.
"And who is dead? " Stephen repeated.
"Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall," said
the under-mason. "Ay, and we be going to enlarge the vault
to make room for her. "
"When did she die? "
"Early this morning," his father replied, with an appearance
of recurring to a chronic thought. "Yes, this morning. Martin
hev been tolling ever since, almost. There, 'twas expected. She
was very limber. "
"Ay, poor soul, this morning," resumed the under-mason, a
marvelously old man, whose skin seemed so much too large for
his body that it would not stay in position. "She must know by
this time whether she's to go up or down, poor woman. "
"What was her age? >>>
"Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candle-light.
But, Lord! by day 'a was forty if 'a were an hour. "
"Ay, night-time or daytime makes a difference of twenty
years to rich feymels," observed Martin.
"She was one-and-thirty really," said John Smith. "I had it
from them that know. "
"Not more than that! "
"A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she
was dead for years afore 'a would own it. "
"As my old father used to say, 'dead, but wouldn't drop
down. '»
-
"I seed her, poor soul," said a laborer from behind some
removed coffins, "only but last Valentine's Day of all the world.
'A was arm in crook wi' my lord. I says to myself, 'You be
ticketed "church-yard," my noble lady, although you don't dream
on't. '»
"I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in
the nation, to let 'em know that she that was is now no more? "
'Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour
after the death. Sich wonderful black rims as they letters had
- half an inch wide, at the very least. "
-
"Too much," observed Martin. "In short, 'tis out of the
question that a human being can be so mournful as black edges
half an inch wide. I'm sure people don't feel more than a very
narrow border when they feels most of all. "


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THOMAS HARDY
6959
"And there are two little girls, are there not? " said Ste-
phen.
"Nice clane little faces! -left motherless now. "
"They used to come to Parson Swancourt's to play with Miss
Elfride when I were there," said William Worm. "Ah, they did
so's! " The latter sentence was introduced to add the necessary
melancholy to a remark which intrinsically could hardly be made
to possess enough for the occasion. "Yes," continued Worm,
"they'd run upstairs, they'd run down; flitting about with her.
everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. Ah well! "
"Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so 'tis said here
and there," added a laborer.
"Well, you see, 'tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from
'em so was so drowsy-like, that they couldn't love her in the
jolly-companion way children want to like folks. Only last winter
I seed Miss Elfride talking to my lady and the two children, and
Miss Elfride wiped their noses for 'em so careful, my lady never
once seeing that it wanted doing; and naturally children take to
people that's their best friend. "
«< Be as 'twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must
make a place for her," said John. "Come, lads, drink up your
ale, and we'll just rid this corner, so as to have all clear for
beginning at the wall as soon as 'tis light to-morrow.