Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, she withdrew her head and glanced from behind the window-curtains. Mr. Henchard--now habited no longer as a great personage, but as a thriving man of business--was pausing on his way up the middle of the street, and the Scotchman was looking from the window adjoining her own. Henchard it appeared, had gone a little way past the inn before he had noticed his acquaintance of the previous evening. He came back a few steps, Donald Farfrae opening the window further.
"And you are off soon, I suppose?" said Henchard upwards12.
"Yes--almost this moment, sir," said the other. "Maybe I'll walk on till the coach makes up on me."
"Which way?"
"The way ye are going."
"Then shall we walk together to the top o' town?"
"If ye'll wait a minute," said the Scotchman.
In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand. Henchard looked at the bag as at an enemy. It showed there was no mistake about the young man's departure. "Ah, my lad," he said, "you should have been a wise man, and have stayed with me."
"Yes, yes--it might have been wiser," said Donald, looking microscopically13 at the houses that were furthest off. "It is only telling ye the truth when I say my plans are vague."
They had by this time passed on from the precincts of the inn, and Elizabeth-Jane heard no more. She saw that they continued in conversation, Henchard turning to the other occasionally, and emphasizing some remark with a gesture. Thus they passed the King's Arms Hotel, the Market House, St. Peter's churchyard wall, ascending14 to the upper end of the long street till they were small as two grains of corn; when they bent15 suddenly to the right into the Bristol Road, and were out of view.
"He was a good man--and he's gone," she said to herself. "I was nothing to him, and there was no reason why he should have wished me good-bye."
The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight, had moulded itself out of the following little fact: when the Scotchman came out at the door he had by accident glanced up at her; and then he had looked away again without nodding, or smiling, or saying a word.
"You are still thinking, mother," she said, when she turned inwards.
"Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard's sudden liking16 for that young man. He was always so. Now, surely, if he takes so warmly to people who are not related to him at all, may he not take as warmly to his own kin11?"
While they debated this question a procession of five large waggons17 went past, laden18 with hay up to the bedroom windows. They came in from the country, and the steaming horses had probably been travelling a great part of the night. To the shaft19 of each hung a little board, on which was painted in white letters, "Henchard, corn-factor and hay-merchant." The spectacle renewed his wife's conviction that, for her daughter's sake, she should strain a point to rejoin him.
The discussion was continued during breakfast, and the end of it was that Mrs. Henchard decided20, for good or for ill, to send Elizabeth-Jane with a message to Henchard, to the effect that his relative Susan, a sailor's widow, was in the town; leaving it to him to say whether or not he would recognize her. What had brought her to this determination were chiefly two things. He had been described as a lonely widower21; and he had expressed shame for a past transaction of his life. There was promise in both.
"If he says no," she enjoined23, as Elizabeth-Jane stood, bonnet24 on, ready to depart; "if he thinks it does not become the good position he has reached to in the town, to own--to let us call on him as--his distant kinfolk, say, 'Then, sir, we would rather not intrude25; we will leave Casterbridge as quietly as we have come, and go back to our own country.'...I almost feel that I would rather he did say so, as I have not seen him for so many years, and we are so-little allied26 to him!"
"And if he say yes?" inquired the more sanguine27 one.
"In that case," answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, "ask him to write me a note, saying when and how he will see us--or ME."
Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing. "And tell him," continued her mother, "that I fully28 know I have no claim upon him--that I am glad to find he is thriving; that I hope his life may be long and happy--there, go." Thus with a half-hearted willingness, a smothered29 reluctance30, did the poor forgiving woman start her unconscious daughter on this errand.
It was about ten o'clock, and market-day, when Elizabeth paced up the High Street, in no great hurry; for to herself her position was only that of a poor relation deputed to hunt up a rich one. The front doors of the private houses were mostly left open at this warm autumn time, no thought of umbrella stealers disturbing the minds of the placid31 burgesses. Hence, through the long, straight, entrance passages thus unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels, the mossy gardens at the back, glowing with nasturtiums, fuchsias, scarlet33 geraniums, "bloody34 warriors," snapdragons, and dahlias, this floral blaze being backed by crusted grey stone-work remaining from a yet remoter Casterbridge than the venerable one visible in the street. The old-fashioned fronts of these houses, which had older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheer from the pavement, into which the bow windows protruded35 like bastions, necessitating36 a pleasing chassez-dechassez movement to the time-pressed pedestrian at every few yards. He was bound also to evolve other Terpsichorean37 figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers, cellar-hatches, church buttresses38, and the overhanging angles of walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged and knock-kneed.
In addition to these fixed39 obstacles which spoke40 so cheerfully of individual unrestraint as to boundaries, movables occupied the path and roadway to a perplexing extent. First the vans of the carriers in and out of Casterbridge, who hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury, The Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere, Overcombe, and many other towns and villages round. Their owners were numerous enough to be regarded as a tribe, and had almost distinctiveness41 enough to be regarded as a race. Their vans had just arrived, and were drawn42 up on each side of the street in close file, so as to form at places a wall between the pavement and the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched out half its contents upon trestles and boxes on the kerb, extending the display each week a little further and further into the roadway, despite the expostulations of the two feeble old constables43, until there remained but a tortuous44 defile45 for carriages down the centre of the street, which afforded fine opportunities for skill with the reins46. Over the pavement on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so constructed as to give the passenger's hat a smart buffet47 off his head, as from the unseen hands of Cranstoun's Goblin Page, celebrated48 in romantic lore49.
Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegs on the pavement, their hind10 legs in the street, in which position they occasionally nipped little boys by the shoulder who were passing to school. And any inviting50 recess51 in front of a house that had been modestly kept back from the general line was utilized52 by pig-dealers as a pen for their stock.
The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, who came to transact22 business in these ancient streets, spoke in other ways than by articulation53. Not to hear the words of your interlocutor in metropolitan54 centres is to know nothing of his meaning. Here the face, the arms, the hat, the stick, the body throughout spoke equally with the tongue. To express satisfaction the Casterbridge market-man added to his utterance55 a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the eyes, a throwing back of the shoulders, which was intelligible56 from the other end of the street. If he wondered, though all Henchard's carts and waggons were rattling57 past him, you knew it from perceiving the inside of his crimson58 mouth, and a target-like circling of his eyes. Deliberation caused sundry59 attacks on the moss32 of adjoining walls with the end of his stick, a change of his hat from the horizontal to the less so; a sense of tediousness announced itself in a lowering of the person by spreading the knees to a lozenge-shaped aperture60 and contorting the arms. Chicanery61, subterfuge62, had hardly a place in the streets of this honest borough63 to all appearance; and it was said that the lawyers in the Court House hard by occasionally threw in strong arguments for the other side out of pure generosity64 (though apparently65 by mischance) when advancing their own.
Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole, focus, or nerve-knot of the surrounding country life; differing from the many manufacturing towns which are as foreign bodies set down, like boulders66 on a plain, in a green world with which they have nothing in common. Casterbridge lived by agriculture at one remove further from the fountainhead than the adjoining villages--no more. The townsfolk understood every fluctuation67 in the rustic's condition, for it affected68 their receipts as much as the labourer's; they entered into the troubles and joys which moved the aristocratic families ten miles round--for the same reason. And even at the dinner-parties of the professional families the subjects of discussion were corn, cattle-disease, sowing and reaping, fencing and planting; while politics were viewed by them less from their own standpoint of burgesses with rights and privileges than from the standpoint of their country neighbours.
All the venerable contrivances and confusions which delighted the eye by their quaintness69, and in a measure reasonableness, in this rare old market-town, were metropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes of ElizabethJane, fresh from netting fish-seines in a seaside cottage. Very little inquiry70 was necessary to guide her footsteps. Henchard's house was one of the best, faced with dull redand-grey old brick. The front door was open, and, as in other houses, she could see through the passage to the end of the garden--nearly a quarter of a mile off.
Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard. She was conducted into the mossy garden, and through a door in the wall, which was studded with rusty71 nails speaking of generations of fruit-trees that had been trained there. The door opened upon the yard, and here she was left to find him as she could. It was a place flanked by hay-barns, into which tons of fodder72, all in trusses, were being packed from the waggons she had seen pass the inn that morning. On other sides of the yard were wooden granaries on stone staddles, to which access was given by Flemish ladders, and a store-house several floors high. Wherever the doors of these places were open, a closely packed throng73 of bursting wheat-sacks could be seen standing74 inside, with the air of awaiting a famine that would not come.
She wandered about this place, uncomfortably conscious of the impending75 interview, till she was quite weary of searching; she ventured to inquire of a boy in what quarter Mr. Henchard could be found. He directed her to an office which she had not seen before, and knocking at the door she was answered by a cry of "Come in."
Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood before her, bending over some sample-bags on a table, not the cornmerchant, but the young Scotchman Mr. Farfrae--in the act of pouring some grains of wheat from one hand to the other. His hat hung on a peg76 behind him, and the roses of his carpet-bag glowed from the corner of the room.
Having toned her feelings and arranged words on her lips for Mr. Henchard, and for him alone, she was for the moment confounded.
"Yes, what it is?" said the Scotchman, like a man who permanently77 ruled there.
She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.
"Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He's engaged just now," said the young man, apparently not recognizing her as the girl at the inn. He handed her a chair, bade her sit down and turned to his sample-bags again. While Elizabeth-Jane sits waiting in great amaze at the young man's presence we may briefly78 explain how he came there.
When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sight that morning towards the Bath and Bristol road they went on silently, except for a few commonplaces, till they had gone down an avenue on the town walls called the Chalk Walk, leading to an angle where the North and West escarpments met. From this high corner of the square earthworks a vast extent of country could be seen. A footpath79 ran steeply down the green slope, conducting from the shady promenade80 on the walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp. It was by this path the Scotchman had to descend81.
"Well, here's success to 'ee," said Henchard, holding out his right hand and leaning with his left upon the wicket which protected the descent. In the act there was the inelegance of one whose feelings are nipped and wishes defeated. "I shall often think of this time, and of how you came at the very moment to throw a light upon my difficulty."
Still holding the young man's hand he paused, and then added deliberately82: "Now I am not the man to let a cause be lost for want of a word. And before ye are gone for ever I'll speak. Once more, will ye stay? There it is, flat and plain. You can see that it isn't all selfishness that makes me press 'ee; for my business is not quite so scientific as to require an intellect entirely83 out of the common. Others would do for the place without doubt. Some selfishness perhaps there is, but there is more; it isn't for me to repeat what. Come bide84 with me--and name your own terms. I'll agree to 'em willingly and 'ithout a word of gainsaying85; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!"
The young man's hand remained steady in Henchard's for a moment or two. He looked over the fertile country that stretched beneath them, then backward along the shaded walk reaching to the top of the town. His face flushed.
"I never expected this--I did not!" he said. "It's Providence86! Should any one go against it? No; I'll not go to America; I'll stay and be your man!"
His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard's, returned the latter's grasp.
"Done," said Henchard.
"Done," said Donald Farfrae.
The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth87 a satisfaction that was almost fierce in its strength. "Now you are my friend!" he exclaimed. "Come back to my house; let's clinch88 it at once by clear terms, so as to be comfortable in our minds." Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced89 the North-West Avenue in Henchard's company as he had come. Henchard was all confidence now.
"I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don't care for a man," he said. "But when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong. Now I am sure you can eat another breakfast? You couldn't have eaten much so early, even if they had anything at that place to gi'e thee, which they hadn't; so come to my house and we will have a solid, staunch tuck-in, and settle terms in black-and-white if you like; though my word's my bond. I can always make a good meal in the morning. I've got a splendid cold pigeon-pie going just now. You can have some home-brewed if you want to, you know."
"It is too airly in the morning for that," said Farfrae with a smile.
"Well, of course, I didn't know. I don't drink it because of my oath, but I am obliged to brew90 for my work-people."
Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard's premises91 by the back way or traffic entrance. Here the matter was settled over the breakfast, at which Henchard heaped the young Scotchman's plate to a prodigal92 fulness. He would not rest satisfied till Farfrae had written for his luggage from Bristol, and dispatched the letter to the post-office. When it was done this man of strong impulses declared that his new friend should take up his abode93 in his house--at least till some suitable lodgings94 could be found.
He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the stores of grain, and other stock; and finally entered the offices where the younger of them has already been discovered by Elizabeth.
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1
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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circuitous
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| adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的 | |
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latitudes
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| 纬度 | |
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7
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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10
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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microscopically
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| 显微镜下 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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waggons
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| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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transact
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| v.处理；做交易；谈判 | |
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enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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protruded
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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necessitating
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的现在分词 ) | |
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terpsichorean
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| adj.舞蹈的；n.舞蹈家 | |
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buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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distinctiveness
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| 特殊[独特]性 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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constables
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| n.警察( constable的名词复数 ) | |
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tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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buffet
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| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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52
utilized
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| v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
articulation
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| n.（清楚的）发音；清晰度，咬合 | |
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54
metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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55
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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56
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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57
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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58
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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59
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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60
aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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61
chicanery
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| n.欺诈，欺骗 | |
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62
subterfuge
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| n.诡计；藉口 | |
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63
borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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64
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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66
boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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fluctuation
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| n.(物价的)波动，涨落；周期性变动；脉动 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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quaintness
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| n.离奇有趣，古怪的事物 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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bide
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| v.忍耐；等候；住 | |
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gainsaying
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| v.否认，反驳( gainsay的现在分词 ) | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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clinch
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| v.敲弯，钉牢；确定；扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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retraced
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| v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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brew
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| v.酿造，调制 | |
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premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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