THE THREE STRANGERS

THE THREE STRANGERS

by Thomas Hardy


AMONG the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance
but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy
and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that
fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark
of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the
solitary cottage of some shepherd.
Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may
possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot,
by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-town. Yet that
affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical
seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space
enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to
please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others
who 'conceive and meditate of pleasant things.'
Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some starved
fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the erection of these
forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, such a kind of shelter had been
disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house was called, stood quite detached
and undefended. The only reason for its precise situation seemed to be the
crossing of two footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed there
and thus for a good five hundred years. Hence the house was exposed to the
elements on all sides. But, though the wind up here blew unmistakably when it
did blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of the
winter season were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were imagined to
be by dwellers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in the
hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the shepherd and his
family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from the
exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced by 'wuzzes
and flames' (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had lived by the stream of a
snug neighbouring valley.
The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were wont
to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level rainstorm smote
walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such
sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the
winds; while the tails of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn
were blown inside-out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained
with wet, and the eavesdroppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was
commiseration for the shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was
entertaining a large party in glorification of the christening of his second
girl.
The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were all now
assembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A glance into the
apartment at eight o'clock on this eventful evening would have resulted in the
opinion that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook as could be wished for in
boisterous weather. The calling of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of
highly-polished sheep-crooks without stems that were hung ornamentally over the
fireplace, the curl of each shining crook varying from the antiquated type
engraved in the patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved
fashion of the last local sheep-fair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen
candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped
them, in candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, holy-days, and
family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them standing on
the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself significant. Candles
on the chimney-piece always meant a party.
On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of
thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'
Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of
various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled
the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah
New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighbouring dairyman, the shepherd's
father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing
over tentative pourparlers on a life-companionship, sat beneath the
corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly
about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was.
Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered
by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion
begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly
princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or
trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or
do any eclipsing thing whatever--which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and
bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.
Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's daughter from
a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket--and kept them
there, till they should be required for ministering to the needs of a coming
family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised as to the character that
should be given to the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an
undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead on the men to
such an unconscionable deal of toping that they would sometimes fairly drink the
house dry. A dancing-party was the alternative; but this, while avoiding the
foregoing objection on the score of good drink, had a counterbalancing
disadvantage in the matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered
by the exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shepherdess Fennel fell
back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with short periods of
talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable rage in either. But this
scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: the shepherd himself was in
the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases of hospitality.
The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who had a
wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so small and
short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high notes, from which he
scrambled back to the first position with sounds not of unmixed purity of tone.
At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this youngster had begun, accompanied by a
booming ground-bass from Elijah New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully
brought with him his favourite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was
instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no account to let
the dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour.
But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite forgot
the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one of the dancers,
who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three rolling years, had
recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musicians, as a bribe to keep going
as long as they had muscle and wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to
generate on the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the
fiddler's elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth. But they took no
notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if she were
to interfere too markedly, she retired and sat down helpless. And so the dance
whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers moving in their planet-like
courses, direct and retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of the
well-kicked clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the circumference
of an hour.
While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel's
pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party had
occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about the growing
fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with the ascent of a human
figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs from the direction of the
distant town. This personage strode on through the rain without a pause,
following the little-worn path which, further on in its course, skirted the
shepherd's cottage.
It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky
was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors
were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a
man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period
of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than
rapid of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have been
about forty years of age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other
person accustomed to the judging of men's heights by the eye, would have
discerned that this was chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not more
than five-feet-eight or nine.
Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as in
that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it was not a
black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there was something
about him which suggested that he naturally belonged to the black-coated tribes
of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his
progress he showed not the mud-accustomed bearing of hobnailed and fustianed
peasantry.
By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd's premises the rain
came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence. The
outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the force of wind and rain,
and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the shepherd's domestic
erections was an empty sty at the forward corner of his hedgeless garden, for in
these latitudes the principle of masking the homelier features of your
establishment by a conventional frontage was unknown. The traveller's eye was
attracted to this small building by the pallid shine of the wet slates that
covered it. He turned aside, and, finding it empty, stood under the pent-roof
for shelter.
While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and the
lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompaniment to the
surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on the
cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just discernible by
the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of buckets and pans that
had been placed under the walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at
all such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was an
insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilized by turning out, as
catchers, every utensil that the house contained. Some queer stories might be
told of the contrivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are absolutely
necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But at this
season there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the skies
bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store.
At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This
cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie into
which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an apparently new
intention, he walked up the path to the house-door. Arrived here, his first act
was to kneel down on a large stone beside the row of vessels, and to drink a
copious draught from one of them. Having quenched his thirst he rose and lifted
his hand to knock, but paused with his eye upon the panel. Since the dark
surface of the wood revealed absolutely nothing, it was evident that he must be
mentally looking through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the
possibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they might bear
upon the question of his entry.
In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a soul was
anywhere visible. The garden-path stretched downward from his feet, gleaming
like the track of a snail the roof of the little well (mostly dry), the
well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were varnished with the same dull
liquid glaze; while, far away in the vale, a faint whiteness of more than usual
extent showed that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a
few bleared lamplights through the beating drops--lights that denoted the
situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of
all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he
knocked at the door.
Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical sound.
The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which nobody just then
was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not unwelcome diversion.
'Walk in!' said the shepherd promptly.
The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon
the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned
to look at him.
Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not
unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not remove,
hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and
determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the room. He seemed
pleased with his survey, and, baring his shaggy head, said, in a rich deep
voice, 'The rain is so heavy, friends, that I ask leave to come in and rest
awhile.'
'To be sure, stranger,' said the shepherd. 'And faith, you've been lucky in
choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling for a glad cause--though,
to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad cause to happen more than once a
year.'
'Nor less,' spoke up a woman. 'For 'tis best to get your family over and
done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier out of the fag o't.'
'And what may be this glad cause?' asked the stranger.
'A birth and christening,' said the shepherd.
The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too many or
too few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to a pull at the mug,
he readily acquiesced. His manner, which, before entering, had been so dubious,
was now altogether that of a careless and candid man.
'Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb--hey?' said the engaged man of
fifty.
'Late it is, master, as you say.--I'll take a seat in the chimney-corner,
if you have nothing to urge against it, ma'am; for I am a little moist on the
side that was next the rain.'
Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer,
who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his legs and
his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home.
'Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,' he said freely, seeing that the
eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, 'and I am not well fitted
either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced to pick up what
I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better fit for
working-days when I reach home.'
'One of hereabouts?' she inquired.
'Not quite that--further up the country.'
'I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my
neighbourhood.'
'But you would hardly have heard of me,' he said quickly. 'My time would be
long before yours, ma'am, you see.'
This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of
stopping her cross-examination.
'There is only one thing more wanted to make me happy,' continued the
new-comer. 'And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say I am out of.'
'I'll fill your pipe,' said the shepherd.
'I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise.'
'A smoker, and no pipe about 'ee?'
'I have dropped it somewhere on the road.'
The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he did so,
'Hand me your baccy-box--I'll fill that too, now I am about it.'
The man went through the movement of searching his pockets.
'Lost that too? ' said his entertainer, with some surprise.
'I am afraid so,' said the man with some confusion. 'Give it to me in a
screw of paper.' Lighting his pipe at the candle with a suction that drew the
whole flame into the bowl, he resettled himself in the corner and bent his looks
upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he wished to say no more.
Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice of this
visitor by reason of an absorbing discussion in which they were engaged with the
band about a tune for the next dance. The matter being settled, they were about
to stand up when an interruption came in the shape of another knock at the door.
At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker and
began stirring the brands as if doing it thoroughly were the one aim of his
existence; and a second time the shepherd said, 'Walk in!' In a moment another
man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He too was a stranger.
This individual was one of a type radically different from the first. There
was more of the commonplace in his manner, and a certain jovial cosmopolitanism
sat upon his features. He was several years older than the first arrival, his
hair being slightly frosted, his eyebrows bristly, and his whiskers cut back
from his cheeks. His face was rather full and flabby, and yet it was not
altogether a face without power. A few grog-blossoms marked the neighbourhood of
his nose. He flung back his long drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he
wore a suit of cinder-gray shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or
other that would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal
ornament. Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, 'I
must ask for a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted to my skin
before I get to Casterbridge.'
'Make yourself at home, master,' said the shepherd, perhaps a trifle less
heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the least tinge of
niggardliness in his composition; but the room was far from large, spare chairs
were not numerous, and damp companions were not altogether desirable at close
quarters for the women and girls in their bright-coloured gowns.
However, the second comer, after taking off his greatcoat, and hanging his
hat on a nail in one of the ceiling-beams as if he had been specially invited to
put it there, advanced and sat down at the table. This had been pushed so
closely into the chimney-corner, to give all available room to the dancers, that
its inner edge grazed the elbow of the man who had ensconced himself by the
fire; and thus the two strangers were brought into close companionship. They
nodded to each other by way of breaking the ice of unacquaintance, and the first
stranger handed his neighbour the family mug--a huge vessel of brown ware,
having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of whole generations
of thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh, and bearing the following
inscription burnt upon its rotund side in yellow letters:--
THERE IS NO FUN UNTILL i CUM.
The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and drank on, and
on, and on--till a curious blueness overspread the countenance of the shepherd's
wife, who had regarded with no little surprise the first stranger's free offer
to the second of what did not belong to him to dispense.
'I knew it!' said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction. 'When I
walked up your garden before coming in, and saw the hives all of a row, I said
to myself, "Where there's bees there's honey, and where there's honey there's
mead." But mead of such a truly comfortable sort as this I really didn't expect
to meet in my older days.' He took yet another pull at the mug, till it assumed
an ominous elevation.
'Glad you enjoy it!' I said the shepherd warmly.
'It is goodish mead,' assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of enthusiasm
which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise for one's cellar at too
heavy a price. 'It is trouble enough to make--and really I hardly think we shall
make any more. For honey sells well, and we ourselves can make shift with a drop
o' small mead and metheglin for common use from the comb-washings.'
'O, but you'll never have the heart!' reproachfully cried the stranger in
cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and setting it down empty. 'I
love mead, when 'tis old like this, as I love to go to church o' Sundays, or to
relieve the needy any day of the week.'
'Ha, ha, ha!' said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the
taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain from
this slight testimony to his comrade's humour.
Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or maiden
honey, four pounds to the gallon--with its due complement of white of eggs,
cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of working,
bottling, and cellaring--tasted remarkably strong; but it did not taste so
strong as it actually was. Hence, presently, the stranger in cinder-gray at the
table, moved by its creeping influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw himself
back in his chair, spread his legs, and made his presence felt in various ways.
'Well, well, as I say,' he resumed, 'I am going to Casterbridge, and to
Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this time; but the
rain drove me into your dwelling, and I'm not sorry for it.'
'You don't live in Casterbridge?' said the shepherd.
'Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there.'
'Going to set up in trade, perhaps?'
'No, no,' said the shepherd's wife. 'It is easy to see that the gentleman
is rich, and don't want to work at anything.'
The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would accept
that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by answering, 'Rich is not
quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I must work. And even if I only get
to Casterbridge by midnight I must begin work there at eight to-morrow morning.
Yes, het or wet, blow or snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be
done.'
'Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse off than we?' replied
the shepherd's wife.
''Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis the nature of my trade
more than my poverty.... But really and truly I must up and off, or I shan't get
a lodging in the town.' However, the speaker did not move, and directly added,
'There's time for one more draught of friendship before I go; and I'd perform it
at once if the mug were not dry.'
'Here's a mug o' small,' said Mrs. Fennel. 'Small, we call it, though to be
sure 'tis only the first wash o' the combs.'
'No,' said the stranger disdainfully. 'I won't spoil your first kindness by
partaking o' your second.'
'Certainly not,' broke in Fennel. 'We don't increase and multiply every
day, and I'll fill the mug again.' He went away to the dark place under the
stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him.
'Why should you do this? ' she said reproachfully, as soon as they were
alone. 'He's emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and now he's
not contented wi' the small, but must needs call for more o' the strong! And a
stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I don't like the look o' the man
at all.'
'But he's in the house, my honey; and 'tis a wet night, and a christening.
Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or less? There'll be plenty more next
bee-burning.'
'Very well--this time, then,' she answered, looking wistfully at the
barrel. 'But what is the man's calling, and where is he one of, that he should
come in and join us like this?'
'I don't know. I'll ask him again.'
The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger
in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel. She
poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a discreet
distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the shepherd renewed his
inquiry about the stranger's occupation.
The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney-corner,
with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 'Anybody may know my trade--I'm a
wheel-wright.'
'A very good trade for these parts,' said the shepherd.
'And anybody may know mine--if they've the sense to find it out,' said the
stranger in cinder-gray.
'You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,' observed the
hedge-carpenter, looking at his own hands. 'My fingers be as full of thorns as
an old pin-cushion is of pins.'
The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the shade,
and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the table took up
the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, 'True; but the oddity of my
trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my
customers.'
No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, the
shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles presented
themselves as at the former time--one had no voice, another had forgotten the
first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now risen to a good
working temperature, relieved the difficulty by exclaiming that, to start the
company, he would sing himself. Thrusting one thumb into the arm-hole of his
waistcoat, he waved the other hand in the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze
at the shining sheep-crooks above the mantelpiece, began:--
'O my trade it is the rarest one, Simple shepherds all--- My trade is a
sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, And waft 'em to
a far countree!'
The room was silent when he had finished the verse--with one exception, that
of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word, 'Chorus!' joined
him in a deep bass voice of musical relish--
'And waft 'em to a far countree!'
Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged man
of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in thought not of
the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the ground, the shepherdess
gazed keenly at the singer, and with some suspicion; she was doubting whether
this stranger were merely singing an old song from recollection, or was
composing one there and then for the occasion. All were as perplexed at the
obscure revelation as the guests at Belshazzar's Feast, except the man in the
chimney-corner, who quietly said, 'Second verse, stranger,' and smoked on.
The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went on
with the next stanza as requested:--
'My tools are but common ones, Simple shepherds all-- My tools are no sight
to see: A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing Are implements
enough for me!'
Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the
stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and all started
back with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to the man of fifty
fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but finding him wanting in alacrity
for catching her she sat down trembling.
'O, he's the ----!' whispered the people in the background, mentioning the
name of an ominous public officer. 'He's come to do it! 'Tis to be at
Casterbridge jail to-morrow--the man for sheep-stealing--the poor clock-maker we
heard of, who used to live away at Shottsford and had no work to do--Timothy
Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he went out of Shottsford by the
high-road, and took a sheep in open daylight, defying the farmer and the
farmer's wife and the farmer's lad, and every man jack among 'em. He' (and they
nodded towards the stranger of the deadly trade) 'is come from up the country to
do it because there's not enough to do in his own county-town, and he's got the
place here now our own county man's dead; he's going to live in the same cottage
under the prison wall.'
The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of
observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the
chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any way, he
held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also held out his own.
They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the room hanging upon the
singer's actions. He parted his lips for the third verse; but at that moment
another knock was audible upon the door. This time the knock was faint and
hesitating.
The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation towards
the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted his alarmed wife's
deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the welcoming words, 'Walk
in!'
The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like
those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a short, small
personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark clothes.
'Can you tell me the way to----?' he began: when, gazing round the room to
observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes lighted
on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when the latter, who
had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that he scarcely heeded the
interruption, silenced all whispers and inquiries by bursting into his third
verse:--
'To-morrow is my working day, Simple shepherds all-- To-morrow is a working
day for me: For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, And
on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'
The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so heartily
that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his bass voice as
before:--
'And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'
All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway. Finding
now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests particularly
regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood before them the
picture of abject terror--his knees trembling, his hand shaking so violently
that the door-latch by which he supported himself rattled audibly: his white
lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice in the
middle of the room. A moment more and he had turned, closed the door, and fled.
'What a man can it be?' said the shepherd.
The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd conduct
of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to think, and said
nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and further from the grim gentleman
in their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for the Prince of Darkness
himself, till they formed a remote circle, an empty space of floor being left
between them and him--
'... circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.'
The room was so silent--though there were more than twenty people in
it--that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the
window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that fell
down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man in the corner,
who had now resumed his pipe of long clay.
The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun
reverberated through the air--apparently from the direction of the county-town.
'Be jiggered!' cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up.
"What does that mean?' asked several.
"A prisoner has escaped from the jail--that's what it means.'
All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man in
the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 'I've often been told that in this county
they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till now.'
'I wonder if it is my man?' murmured the personage in cinder-gray.
'Surely it is!' said the shepherd involuntarily. 'And surely we've zeed
him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered like a leaf
when he zeed ye and heard your song!'
'His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,' said the
dairyman.
'And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,' said Oliver Giles.
'And he bolted as if he'd been shot at,' said the hedge-carpenter.
'True---his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he bolted as
if he'd been shot at,' slowly summed up the man in the chimney-corner.
'I didn't notice it,' remarked the hangman.
'We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,' faltered
one of the women against the wall, 'and now 'tis explained!'
The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and
their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder-gray
roused himself. 'Is there a constable here?' he asked, in thick tones. 'If so,
let him step forward.'
The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his betrothed
beginning to sob on the back of the chair.
'You are a sworn constable?'
'I be, sir.'
'Then, pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back
here. He can't have gone far.'
'I will sir, I will--when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get it, and
come sharp here, and start in a body.'
'Staff!--never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!'
'But I can't do nothing without my staff--can I, William, and John, and
Charles Jake? No; for there's the king's royal crown a painted on en in yaller
and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up and hit my
prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn't 'tempt to take up a man
without my staff--no, not I. If I hadn't the law to gie me courage, why, instead
o' my taking up him he might take up me!'
'Now, I'm a king's man myself, and can give you authority enough for this,'
said the formidable officer in gray. 'Now then, all of ye, be ready. Have ye any
lanterns?'
'Yes--have ye any lanterns?--I demand it!' said the constable.
'And the rest of you able-bodied----'
'Able-bodied men--yes--the rest of ye!' said the constable.
'Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks----'
'Staves and pitchforks--in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer hands
and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!'
Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed,
though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was needed to
show the shepherd's guests that after what they had seen it would look very much
like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, who
could not as yet have gone more than a few hundred yards over such uneven
country.
A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these
hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the door,
taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the town, the rain
having fortunately a little abated.
Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her baptism,
the child who had been christened began to cry heart-brokenly in the room
overhead. These notes of grief came down through the chinks of the floor to the
ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, and seemed glad of the excuse
to ascend and comfort the baby, for the incidents of the last half-hour greatly
oppressed them. Thus in the space of two or three minutes the room on the
ground-floor was deserted quite.
But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away when a
man returned round the corner of the house from the direction the pursuers had
taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he entered leisurely. It
was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who had gone out with the rest. The
motive of his return was shown by his helping himself to a cut piece of
skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge beside where he had sat, and which he had
apparently forgotten to take with him. He also poured out half a cup more mead
from the quantity that remained, ravenously eating and drinking these as he
stood. He had not finished when another figure came in just as quietly--his
friend in cinder-gray.
'O--you here?' said the latter, smiling. 'I thought you had gone to help in
the capture.' And this speaker also revealed the object of his return by looking
solicitously round for the fascinating mug of old mead.
'And I thought you had gone,' said the other, continuing his skimmer-cake
with some effort.
'Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,' said the
first confidentially, 'and such a night as it is, too. Besides, 'tis the
business o' the Government to take care of its criminals--not mine.'
'True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough without me.'
'I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of this
wild country.'
'Nor I neither, between you and me.'
'These shepherd-people are used to it--simple-minded souls, you know,
stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready for me before the
morning, and no trouble to me at all.'
'They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in the
matter.'
'True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as my legs
will do to take me that far. Going the same way?'
'No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there' (he nodded
indefinitely to the right), 'and I feel as you do, that it is quite enough for
my legs to do before bedtime.'
The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which,
shaking hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other well, they went their
several ways.
In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the
hog's-back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had decided on
no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of the baleful trade was
no longer in their company, they seemed quite unable to form any such plan now.
They descended in all directions down the hill, and straightway several of the
party fell into the snare set by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers over
this part of the cretaceous formation. The 'lanchets,' or flint slopes, which
belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones
unawares, and losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply
downwards, the lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying
on their sides till the horn was scorched through.
When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the man
who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these
treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their eyes and
warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, were extinguished, due
silence was observed; and in this more rational order they plunged into the
vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile, affording some shelter to any
person who had sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and ascended on
the other side. Here they wandered apart, and after an interval closed together
again to report progress. At the second time of closing in they found themselves
near a lonely ash, the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown
there by a passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to
one side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself, appeared the man they
were in quest of, his outline being well defined against the sky beyond. The
band noiselessly drew up and faced him.
'Your money or your life!' said the constable sternly to the still figure.
'No, no,' whispered John Pitcher. ''Tisn't our side ought to say that.
That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the law.'
'Well, well,' replied the constable impatiently; 'I must say something,
mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your mind,
perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too!--Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in the
name of the Father--the Crown, I mane!'
The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, and,
giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, he strolled
slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third stranger; but his
trepidation had in a great measure gone.
'Well, travellers,' he said, 'did I hear ye speak to me?'
'You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!' said the
constable. 'We arrest 'ee on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge jail in a
decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbours, do your duty, and
seize the culpet!'
On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not another
word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the search-party, who,
with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on all sides, and marched him
back towards the shepherd's cottage.
It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from the
open door, a sound of men's voices within, proclaimed to them as they approached
the house that some new events had arisen in their absence. On entering they
discovered the shepherd's living room to be invaded by two officers from
Casterbridge jail, and a well-known magistrate who lived at the nearest
country-seat, intelligence of the escape having become generally circulated.
'Gentlemen,' said the constable, 'I have brought back your man--not without
risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside this circle of
able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid, considering their ignorance of
Crown work. Men, bring forward your prisoner!' And the third stranger was led to
the light.
'Who is this?' said one of the officials.
'The man,' said the constable.
'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his
statement.
'But how can it be otherwise?' asked the constable. 'or why was he so
terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law who sat there?' Here he
related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering the house during
the hangman's song.
'Can't understand it,' said the officer coolly. 'All I know is that it is
not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from this one; a
gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather good-looking, and with a
musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never mistake as long as you
lived.'
'Why, souls--'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'
'Hey--what?' said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring
particulars from the shepherd in the background. 'Haven't you got the man after
all?'
'Well, sir,' said the constable, 'he's the man we were in search of, that's
true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the man we were in
search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you understand my every-day way;
for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'
'A pretty kettle of fish altogether!' said the magistrate. 'You had better
start for the other man at once.'
The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the
chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. 'Sir,' he
said, stepping forward to the magistrate, 'take no more trouble about me. The
time is come when I may as well speak. I have done nothing; my crime is that the
condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon I left home at Shottsford to
tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to bid him farewell. I was benighted,
and called here to rest and ask the way. When I opened the door I saw before me
the very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the condemned cell at
Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, so that he
could not have got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take
his life, singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was
close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at
me, and I knew he meant, "Don't reveal what you see; my life depends on it." I
was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and, not knowing what I did, I
turned and hurried away.'
The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story made a
great impression on all around. 'And do you know where your brother is at the
present time?' asked the magistrate.
'I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.'
'I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since,' said the
constable.
'Where does he think to fly to?--what is his occupation?'
'He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.'
''A said 'a was a wheelwright--a wicked rogue,' said the constable.
'The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,' said Shepherd
Fennel. 'I thought his hands were palish for's trade.'
'Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this poor
man in custody,' said the magistrate; 'your business lies with the other,
unquestionably.'
And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the less
sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or constable to
raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they concerned another whom he
regarded with more solicitude than himself. When this was done, and the man had
gone his way, the night was found to be so far advanced that it was deemed
useless to renew the search before the next morning.
Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became
general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended punishment was
cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the sympathy of a great many
country-folk in that district was strongly on the side of the fugitive.
Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring in hob-and-nobbing with the
hangman, under the unprecedented circumstances of the shepherd's party, won
their admiration. So that it may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made
themselves so busy in exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so
thorough when it came to the private examination of their own lofts and
outhouses. Stories were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in
some old overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a
search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was found. Thus
the days and weeks passed without tidings.
In brief, the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured.
Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried
himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in
cinder-gray never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at
all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour
of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb.
The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his
frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly followed
their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they all had met is a
matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of the three strangers at
the shepherd's that night, and the details connected therewith, is a story as
well known as ever in the country about Higher Crowstairs.
March 1883.
(End.)