No More Learning

Hardy's peasantry say nothing which is consciously witty. His art
has discovered the unconscious humor of their homely talk. The
serenade of the church choir in 'Under the Greenwood Tree,' the
gossip of the rustics opening a vault in 'A Pair of Blue Eyes,' are
rich in this elemental humor. So talk the clowns of Shakespeare;
Grandfer Cantle is linked with Dogberry. Yet the clowns of Hardy
have a worldly wisdom of their own. In 'The Return of the Native'
the question of the advisability of church-going is discussed by the
natives of Egdon Heath. "I ha'n't been these three years," said
Humphrey; "for I'm so mortal sleepy of a Sunday, and 'tis so mortal
far to get there, and when you do get there 'tis such a mortal poor
chance that you'll be chose for up above, when so many bain't, that
I bide at home and don't go at all. " Here are a few observations on
dancing:-
-


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THOMAS HARDY
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"You be bound to dance at Christmas, because 'tis the time of the year:
you must dance at weddings, because it is the time of life. At christenings
folks will even smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no further on than the first or
second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you've got to sing. For my
part, I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything. You've as splendid
victuals and drink as at other parties, and even better, and it don't wear
your legs to stumps in talking over a poor feller's ways as it do to stand
up in hornpipes. »
In A Pair of Blue Eyes,' Hardy's third novel, he passes under
the domination of the one aspect of life which has impressed him
most forcibly. Little Elfride, the blue-eyed heroine, the dainty child
of the hills, formed by nature for tenderness and joy, is unlucky
enough to have been beloved, before the story opens, by a village
youth in her father's parish. She was not altogether unconscious of
his far-off worship. She led him on a little. Through that slight
girlish concession to a passing coquetry she blights her life. Her
punishment is out of all proportion to her offense. The youth pines
away and dies. His mother becomes the active enemy of Elfride.
She blackens a thoughtless adventure of the girl's with a subsequent
lover into a sin, and by means of this scandal alienates forever the
one man above all others whom Elfride really loves. She in her turn
tightens the miserable tangle of affairs by an over-exaggeration of
her imprudence. She makes the mistakes of a schoolgirl, and is
punished for the sins of a woman.
In The Return of the Native' it is the hero who plays this
uneven game with chance; and chance, as so often happens in
Hardy's novels, takes the form of a woman. It is Eustacia Vye,
"with pagan eyes full of nocturnal mysteries," who leads Clym Yeo-
bright into the wilderness of love, stripped of his ambitions. "Throw
a woman into this bargaining matter of life, and its intricacies are
increased tenfold," might be Hardy's motto in the treatment of his
"dainty heroines. ” And here a word may be said concerning these
heroines. Hardy's women are even more real than his men. He
understands woman nature, or rather the nature of the eternal woman
as opposed to the woman who is an artificial product of a period or
of a system. Sue in Jude the Obscure' is the one striking excep-
tion to this rule. She is the type of the over-civilized, neurotic
female who has unholy shivers over nature's pure ordinance of mar-
riage. Happily she has no predecessors. She has little in common
with the warm, bright Bathsheba, with the tender, fair Lady Con-
stantine, with demure little Anne, with the quaint and gentle Eliza-
beth Jane, with Elfride, or with the frankly human 'Group of
Noble Dames. ' Hardy's women are always lovable; and because
they are so they make men more or less irresponsible, and thus add


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6936
THOMAS HARDY
to the confusion, the moral disorder, of which Hardy sees SO
much in the working out of character. In Two on a Tower' Lady
Constantine draws the eyes of the boy astronomer from the stars to
gaze into her own. She enters his life only to render his primitive
austere devotion to science forever impossible. Eustacia Vye leads
Clym Yeobright a devious dance in the direction of nowhere. Jude
is purloined from a possible Oxford career, first by Arabella, then by
Sue. But women are not altogether to blame for the mischief which
is always brewing in Hardy's novels. The Mayor of Casterbridge'
is the story of a man hampered by himself. In a fit of drunkenness,
he sells his wife and child to the highest bidder. For his hour of
dissipation he pays a lifetime of struggle and remorse.
The irony of circumstance is ever present in Hardy's portrayal of
the ambitions and good intentions of men and women. Their "hopes
and fears, so blind and yet so sweet,” have always death about them
to Hardy: the trickery of death, its hideous surprises, its untimely
interventions. In 'Life's Little Ironies,' a middle-aged man, laboring
under the delusion that marriage can patch up a wrong done to a
woman, heroically resolves to take this step after many years of
cowardice. His melodramatic self-sacrifice to the woman once sacri-
ficed to him is turned by the irony of circumstance into mere clumsi-
ness, since his appearance in the neglected little family ruins the
chances of his daughter to make a match of smug respectability.
In Fellow-Townsmen,' one of the 'Wessex Tales,' Lucy Saville, a
middle-aged widow, says no to the man who has loved her and waited
for her through many years, because she does not think it good form
to say yes at once. She sends a note after him, however, asking him
to call again; but he has taken her at her word, and has left the
town forever. Such an incident has a marked resemblance to certain
incidents of real life. Hardy has the courage always to tell a thing
as it really happened, not as weak-hearted humanity would like it to
happen.
In 'Tess' Hardy has written the modern classic of misfortune;
in Tess the finest and most characteristic qualities of his art are
focused. In the portrayal of this primitive tragedy, this spirit-rending
story of a girl's struggle with destiny, Hardy has put forth his con-
summate effort. In 'Tess' the Calvinistic idea of fate, predestination,
the treacherous power outside of ourselves which makes for confus-
ion, as opposed to the rational Greek idea of pursuing punishment
for sins committed,- in Tess' this Calvinistic idea receives its fin-
ished embodiment. The subtle poison of the book lies in the false
theory which actuated its production, not in the working out of the
theory. Tess is a pure woman; the defiant sub-title is unnecessary.
Only the inexperienced would wag their heads dubiously over it as


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THOMAS HARDY
6937
they read the tale in sheltered and respectable parlors. Hardy to
the contrary, it is society, not the Almighty, which is to blame for
the moral gaucherie, for the malignant blunders which entrap Tess.
Nature is non-moral. She herself would have put no obstacles in the
way of the recuperation of this fair-souled, high-minded country lass,
knocked into the mud by a lustful hoof. The virginal spirit of the
maiden would have regained the birthright violently snatched from
her, if conventional opinion in the form of Angel Clare had not inter-
vened. This young man, half seraph, half prig, meets Tess at a dairy,
miles away from the scene of her trouble. He is a gentleman's son,
and the gentle nature in him is drawn to this rare wild flower sprung
from the forgotten graves of the D'Urberville knights. He loves the
maiden Tess. On their marriage day he confesses a certain folly of
his, a three-days' unholy fever for an unworthy woman. Tess gives
back confession for confession. Clare, under the spell of false tradi-
tion, throws her from the heights which she has regained back into
the limbo of the hopeless. He cannot separate her body from her
soul. He the deliberate sinner passes judgment on her, the sinned
against. Rejected by love itself as unclean, Tess drifts on to her
tragic doom. The mercifulness of nature and of God are alike un-
known to her. Her case is against man. In 'Tess' Hardy has per-
haps unconsciously stigmatized the man-made moral order.
The soil which smells of grass and flowers in 'Under the Green-
wood Tree,' in 'Jude the Obscure' sends up a sour odor to the nos-
trils. If 'Tess is the classic of the unlucky, 'Jude' is the classic of
the neurotic woman. The hero has after all little to do with the
working out of the story. His part is to a great degree passive.
Like certain other heroes of Hardy, he is born under an evil star.
His boyish ambition to become a student at Oxford is thwarted con-
tinually by the assertions of his lower nature; but-and this again
is essentially in the spirit of Hardy-accident, chance, take sides
with his baser elements. He is tricked into marriage with the sensual
Arabella. He has the misfortune to run across his cousin Sue at a
time when it is most necessary for the accomplishment of his pur-
pose that he should enter into the sexless temper of the scholar. Sue
is intellectual, pseudo-passionate, morbidly pure. She is a type of
the modern woman, whose intellect is developed at the expense of
her earthy nature. The awful innocence of Sue throughout the book
is the innocence of the bold thinker whose flights of fancy reach to
Mars, but who knows nothing of the soil underfoot. It is futile to
call the actions of the two bewildered children Jude and Sue immoral;
a new adjective will have to be evolved to meet their essentially
modern case. 'Jude' is the book of an era where between one and
one there is always a shadowy third.


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THOMAS HARDY
Hardy's novels of rustic life will give probably the most pleasure
to coming generations. The chapters of the dairy life in 'Tess,'
the idyl of the lush green meadows, will save her tragedy from
oblivion. 'Far from the Madding Crowd,' with its troop of men
and maidens of the fields, will give solace when 'A Laodicean' is
well-nigh forgotten. The Trumpet-Major' and 'The Return of the
Native' are revivingly sweet and clean with the breath of the sea
and with the heather-scented wind of the moors. In Hardy's stories
of his beloved Wessex country there is the perennial refreshment
of nature. His peasantry are primitive. Their quaint humor, their
wise saws, their hold upon Mother Earth, might have been character-
istic of the homely parents of the race in the first dawn of the world.
They are "representative of a magnificent antiquity. "
Hardy is as much in sympathy with the natural world as he is
with those men and women who seem a part of the soil on which
they live. He has the love of genius for the open air. Nature is
the perpetual background for the scenes of his novels; and as in
Shakespeare, the aspect of nature reflects the moral atmosphere of
the scene. The happiest time of Tess's life begins in the flowery
months of May and June. Her desolate existence, after she has been
forsaken by her husband, coincides with the bitter, barren winter-
time upon the upland moors. Elfride's love story seems well-nigh a
part of the processes of nature in its interchange of storm and sun-
shine. The majority of Hardy's people are near to nature: sensitive,
passionate lovers of the sea, and of the heath. His genius compre-
hends at once the natural, primitive man, and man the product of
modern hypercultivation. In this wideness of human view lies per-
haps his surest claim to greatness.
Alma Marune Sholl
THE MELLSTOCK «WAITS »
From Under the Greenwood Tree'
S
HORTLY after ten o'clock the singing-boys arrived at the tran-
ter's house, which was invariably the place of meeting,
and preparations were made for the start. The older men
and musicians wore thick coats, with stiff perpendicular collars,
and colored handkerchiefs wound round and round the neck till


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THOMAS HARDY
6939
the end came to hand, over all which they just showed their ears
and noses like people looking over a wall. The remainder,—stal-
wart, ruddy men and boys,- were mainly dressed in snow-white.
smock-frocks, embroidered upon the shoulders and breasts in orna-
mental forms of hearts, diamonds, and zigzags. The cider mug
was emptied for the ninth time, the music-books were arranged,
and the pieces finally decided upon. The boys in the mean time
put the old horn lanterns in order, cut candles into short lengths
to fit the lanterns, and a thin fleece of snow having fallen since
the early part of the evening, those who had no leggings went
to the stable and wound wisps of hay round their ankles to keep
the insidious flakes from the interior of their boots.
Mellstock was a parish of considerable acreage, the hamlets
composing it lying at a much greater distance from each other
than is ordinarily the case. Hence several hours were consumed
in playing and singing within hearing of every family, even if
but a single air were bestowed on each. There was East Mell-
stock, the main village; half a mile from this were the church
and the vicarage, called West Mellstock, and originally the most
thickly populated portion. A mile northeast lay the hamlet of
Lewgate, where the tranter lived; and at other points knots of
cottages, besides solitary farmsteads and dairies.
Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played the bass; his
grandson Dick, the treble violin; and Reuben and Michael Mail,
the tenor and second violins respectively. The singers consisted
of four men and seven boys, upon whom devolved the task of
carrying and attending to the lanterns, and holding the books
open for the players. Directly music was the theme, old William
ever and instinctively came to the front.
"Now mind, naibors," he said, as they all went out one by
one at the door, he himself holding it ajar and regarding them
with a critical face as they passed, like a shepherd counting
out his sheep. "You two counter-boys, keep your ears open to
Michael's fingering, and don't ye go straying into the treble part
along o' Dick and his set, as ye did last year; and mind this
especially when we be in 'Arise, and hail. ' Billy Chimlen, don't
you sing quite so raving mad as you fain would; and all o' ye,
whatever ye do, keep from making a great scuffle on the ground
when we go in at people's gates; but go quietly, so as to strik'
up all of a sudden, like spirits. "
"Farmer Ledlow's first ? "


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THOMAS HARDY
2
"Farmer Ledlow's first; the rest as usual. >>>>
"And Voss," said the tranter terminatively, "you keep house
here till about half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider
in the warmer you'll find turned up upon the copper; and bring
it wi' the victuals to church porch, as th'st know. "
Just before the clock struck twelve, they lighted the lanterns
and started. The moon, in her third quarter, had risen since the
snow-storm; but the dense accumulation of snow-cloud weakened
her power to a faint twilight, which was rather pervasive of the
landscape than traceable to the sky. The breeze had gone down,
and the rustle of their feet and tones of their speech echoed
with an alert rebound from every post, boundary stone, and
ancient wall they passed, even where the distance of the echo's
origin was less than a few yards. Beyond their own slight
noises nothing was to be heard, save the occasional howl of foxes
in the direction of Yalbury Wood, or the brush of a rabbit
among the grass now and then, as it scampered out of their way.
Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited.
by about two o'clock; they then passed across the Home Planta-
tion toward the main village. Pursuing no recognized track,
great care was necessary in walking lest their faces should come
in contact with the low-hanging boughs of the old trees, which
in many spots formed dense overgrowths of interlaced branches.
"Times have changed from the times they used to be," said
Mail, regarding nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas
with an inward eye, and letting his outward glance rest on the
ground, because it was as convenient a position as any. "People
don't care much about us now! I've been thinking we must be
almost the last left in the country of the old string players.
Barrel organs, and they next door to 'em that you blow wi' your
foot, have come in terribly of late years. "
"Ah! " said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on
seeing him, did the same thing.
"More's the pity," replied another. "Time was-long and
merry ago now! - when not one of the varmints was to be heard
of; but it served some of the choirs right. They should have
stuck to strings as we did, and kept out clar'nets, and done away
with serpents. If you'd thrive in musical religion, stick to
strings, says I. "
"Strings are well enough, as far as that goes," said Mr.
Spinks.


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THOMAS HARDY
6941
"Old
"There's worse things than serpents," said Mr. Penny.
things pass away, 'tis true: but a serpent was a good old note; a
deep, rich note was the serpent. "
"Clar'nets however be bad at all times," said Michael Mail.
"One Christmas-years agone now, years-I went the rounds
wi' the Dibbeach choir. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys
of all the clar'nets froze-ah, they did freeze! -so that 'twas
like drawing a cork every time a key was opened; the players o'
'em had to go into a hedger's and ditcher's chimley-corner, and
thaw their clar'nets every now and then. An icicle o' spet hung
down from the end of every man's clar'net a span long; and as
to fingers-well, there, if ye'll believe me, we had no fingers at
all, to our knowledge. ”
"I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr. Penny, "what
I said to poor Joseph Ryme (who took the tribble part in High-
Story Church for two-and-forty year) when they thought of hav-
ing clar'nets there. 'Joseph,' I said, says I, 'depend upon't, if
SO you have them tooting clar'nets you'll spoil the whole set-
Clar'nets were not made for the service of Providence; you
can see it by looking at 'em,' I said. And what cam o't?
Why, my dear souls, the parson set up a barrel organ on his own
account within two years o' the time I spoke, and the old choir
went to nothing. "
out.
"As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for
my part see that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar'net.
'Tis farther off. There's always a rakish, skampish countenance
about a fiddle that seems to say the Wicked One had a hand in
making o' en; while angels be supposed to play clar'nets in
heaven, or some’at like 'em, if ye may believe picters. "
«<
"Robert Penny, you were in the right," broke in the eldest
Dewy. They should ha' stuck to strings. Your brass-man is
brass-well and good; your reed-man is reed-well and good;
your percussion-man is percussion-good again. But I don't care
who hears me say it, nothing will speak to your heart wi' the
sweetness of the man of strings! "
"Strings forever! " said little Jimmy.
"Strings alone would have held their ground against all the
new-comers in creation. " ("True, true! " said Bowman. ) "But
clar'nets was death. " ("Death they was! " said Mr. Penny. )
"And harmoniums," William continued in a louder voice, and
getting excited by these signs of approval, "harmoniums and


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6942
THOMAS HARDY
barrel organs" ("Ah! " and groans from Spinks) "be miserable-
what shall call 'em? -miserable—»
"Sinners," suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the
men, and did not lag behind like the other little boys.
"Miserable machines for such a divine thing as music! "
(( Right, William, and so they be! " said the choir with earnest
unanimity.
By this time they were crossing to a wicket in the direction
of the school, which, standing on a slight eminence on the oppo-
site side of a cross-lane, now rose in unvarying and dark flatness
against the sky. The instruments were retuned, and all the
band entered the inclosure, enjoined by old William to keep
upon the grass.
"Number seventy-eight," he softly gave out, as they formed
round in a semicircle, the boys opening the lanterns to get clearer
light and directing their rays on the books.
Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and well-
worn hymn, embodying Christianity in words peculiarly befitting
the simple and honest hearts of the quaint characters who sang
them so earnestly:-
"Remember Adam's fall,
O thou man:
Remember Adam's fall
From heaven to hell.
Remember Adam's fall;
How he hath condemn'd all
In hell perpetual
Therefore to dwell.
"Remember God's goodnesse,
O thou man,
Remember God's goodnesse,
His promise made.
Remember God's goodnesse;
He sent his Son sinlesse
Our ails for to redress,
Our hearts to aid.
"In Bethlehem he was born,
O thou man:
In Bethlehem he was born,
For mankind's sake.


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THOMAS HARDY
6943
In Bethlehem he was born,
Christmas-day i' the morn,
Our Saviour did not scorn
Our faults to take.
"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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6948
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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THOMAS HARDY
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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6950
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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6952
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.