“Who’s there?” said Eustacia.
“What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?”
“Yes, miss. The cap’n used to let the old mummers practise here.”
“We shall by Monday.”
“Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright’s.”
“She’s got up a bit of a party, because ‘tis the first Christmas that her son Clym has been home for a long time.”
“To be sure, to be sure—her party! I am going myself.
I almost forgot it, upon my life.”
“Which part do you play, Charley—the Turkish Knight, do you not?” inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on the other side.
“Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight,” he replied diffidently.
“Is yours a long part?”
“Nine speeches, about.”
“Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them.”
“Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,”
continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.
“I have heard it before,” she quietly observed.
“I’d do a good deal, miss.”
“Would you let me play your part for one night?”
The youth shook his head
“Five shillings?”
“Half an hour of that, and I’ll agree, miss.”
“Holding your hand in mine.”
“But, miss!”
“Well—it is hardly fair.” She pulled off the glove, and gave him her bare hand.
He returned to the fuelhouse door.
“Where do you meet before you go to Mrs. Yeobright’s?”
“We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing to say against it. At eight o’clock, so as to get there by nine.”
Eustacia gave him her hand as before.
5 - Through the Moonlight
“Ten minutes past by Blooms-End.”
“And ‘tis five minutes past by the captain’s clock.”
“Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?” Eustacia asked, a little surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.
“I see,” said Eustacia.
“Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us,” said the Saracen.
“You may go to the deuce!” said Eustacia.
“Be you Miss Vye? We think you must be.”
“We’ll say nothing, miss. That’s upon our honour.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
“Ah, the mummers, the mummers!” cried several guests at once.
“Clear a space for the mummers.”
Humpbacked Father Christmas then made a complete entry,
“Make room, make room, my gallant boys,
And give us space to rhyme;
Upon this Christmas time.”
“Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;
Slasher is my name”;
“Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;
If his blood’s hot I’ll make it cold!”
“Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,
“Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better, haven’t I, hey?” said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself something above half a foot from Clym’s eye, to induce the most searching criticism.
“You haven’t changed much,” said Yeobright.
“No, no. Don’t let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and be a man,” said Timothy reproachfully.
“None, thank you,” replied Eustacia.
“He’s quite a youngster,” said the Saracen apologetically, “and you must excuse him. He’s not one of the old set, but have jined us because t’other couldn’t come.”
“Yes, you had better try that,” said the Saracen.
“Hush—no, no,” she said quickly. “I only came to speak to you.”
“Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight, perhaps?”
[1] Written in 1877.
“Why did you?”
“What depressed you?”
“Life.”
“Yes.”
A long silence. “And do you find excitement?” asked Clym at last.
“At this moment, perhaps.”
“Then you are vexed at being discovered?”
“Yes; though I thought I might be.”
“Never.”
“Won’t you come in again, and stay as long as you like?”
“It is lonely here.”
“No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn’t expect it of you, Eustacia.”
“You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa.”
“Yes, I have business here.”
“Not altogether the selling of reddle?”
Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said frankly, “Yes, miss; it is on account of her.”
Venn flushed through his stain. “Don’t make sport of me, Miss Vye,” he said.
“It isn’t true?”
“Certainly not.”
“Certainly, miss; I’ll make a place for you.”
“Can you ask that?”
Are you as anxious as ever to help on her marriage?”
Eustacia appeared at a loss. “I cannot tell you that, reddleman,” she said coldly.
“We three?” said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
“Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she.” He held up the letter and parcel.
“Who are you?” said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure rubicundity of person in his companion.
“Please read the letter.”
TO MR. WILDEVE.
EUSTACIA.
The reddleman hummed a tune.
“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang the reddleman.
“My interests?”
“Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn’t believe it.
When did she say so?”
Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
“Ru-um-tum-tum,” sang Wildeve.
“I’ll have this out. I’ll go straight to her.”
“Man alive, you’ve been quick at it,” said Diggory sarcastically.
8 - Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
“I thought as much.”
“Indeed! What—is he anxious?” Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching look upon her niece. “Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?”
“Don’t say that and dishearten me.”
“O no, Aunt,” murmured Thomasin.
“No?”
“Yes, that queer young man Venn.”
“Asks to pay his addresses to me?”
Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. “Poor Diggory!” she said, and then aroused herself to other things.
“It is necessary,” said Thomasin.
“It is true in many points,” said Mrs. Yeobright quietly;
“True?”
“Thomasin is gone to him today.”
“Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It may, considering he’s the same man.”
“You should have looked more into it.”
“Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don’t quite like your keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope he has failed to meet her!”
“And ruined her character?”
“I find there isn’t time for me to get there,” said Clym.
“And he didn’t disappoint her this time?” said Mrs. Yeobright.
“Miss Vye.”
“Who’s Miss Vye?” said Clym.
“Captain Vye’s granddaughter, of Mistover Knap.”
“I offered to go,” said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully.
book three
THE FASCINATION
1 - “My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is”
“Well, ‘a can’t keep a diment shop here,” said Sam.
“About me.”
“So ‘tis; so ‘tis!”
“Yes, Paris must be a taking place,” said Humphrey.
“’Tis good-hearted of the young man,” said another.
“But, for my part, I think he had better mind his business.”
“I am not going back to Paris again, Mother,” he said.
“At least, in my old capacity. I have given up the business.”
“’Tis a cruel thing,” said Yeobright.
“Yes,” said his mother.
“The nation ought to look into it,” said Christian.
“Here’s Humphrey coming, I think.”
“It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and all such men,” she replied. “But it is right, too, that I should try to lift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should not come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all.”
“Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us.”
“Beauty?” said Clym.
“Dark or fair?”
“Darker than Tamsin,” murmured Mrs. Yeobright.
“She is melancholy, then?” inquired Clym.
“Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?”
“No.”
“Mumming, for instance?”
“I should say so.”
“What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered greatly—more in mind than in body.”
Sam shook his head. “Quite a different sort of body from that, I reckon.”
“I’ll think of it,” said Yeobright; and they parted.
“You mean to call on Thomasin?” he inquired.
“Yes. But you need not come this time,” said his mother.
“In that case I’ll branch off here, Mother. I am going to Mistover.”
Mrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly.
“Must you go?” his mother asked.
“I thought to.”
“I’ll take your place.”
Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top of the bank. “Ashes?” he said.
“Yes,” said Eustacia. “We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of November, and those are the marks of it.”
On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.
“I don’t mind the trouble at all.”
“I can hold it,” said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her hands, going then to search for the end.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Very much?”
“You should have let go,” said Yeobright. “Why didn’t you?”
“Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon.
Was it a serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?”
“There it is,” she said, putting her finger against the spot.
“Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear your scheme at any time.”
“Yes.”
“You are lonely here.”
“I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season.
The heath is a cruel taskmaster to me.”
Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground.
“That means much,” he said.
“It does indeed,” said Eustacia.
“I have been on the heath.”
“You’ll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there.”
“No; such meetings never are.”
“But you are not angry, Mother?”
“You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother. But I can assure you that you need not be disturbed by it on my account.”
“I had been studying all day.”
“Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard furniture seemingly.”
“What! you really mean to marry her?”
“Don’t suppose she has any money. She hasn’t a farthing.”
“Oh, Clym!”
“I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools in the county.”
