PART THE FIRST
Winter
Chapter I
Mellstock Lane
To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality.
On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was passing up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a plantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of his nature were those afforded by the spirit of his footsteps, which succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and by the liveliness of his voice as he sang in a rural cadence:
The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark-creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, at a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as the grave. The copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced its branches so densely, even at this season of the year, that the draught from the north-east flew along the channel with scarcely an interruption from lateral breezes.
After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either side.
The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the shape of āHo-i-i-i-i-i!ā from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, on the right of the singer who had just emerged from the trees.
āHo-i-i-i-i-i!ā he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured.
āIs that thee, young Dick Dewy?ā came from the darkness.
āAy, sure, Michael Mail.ā
āThen why not stop for fellow-cratersāgoing to thy own fatherās house too, as we be, and knowen us so well?ā
Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a momentās notice by the placid emotion of friendship.
Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the portrait of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he consisted of further down was invisible from lack of sky low enough to picture him on.
Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat outlines, which suggested some processional design on Greek or Etruscan pottery. They represented the chief portion of Mellstock parish choir.
The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm, and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had hallooed to Dick.
The next was Mr Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, who, though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not come to his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and his face fixed on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, so that his lower waistcoat-buttons came first, and then the remainder of his figure. His features were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked round, two faint moons of light gleamed for an instant from the precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore spectacles of a circular form.
The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph Bowmanās, who had now no distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder forward and his head inclined to the left, his arms dangling nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. This was Thomas Leaf.
āWhere be the boys?ā said Dick to this somewhat indifferently-matched assembly.
The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a great depth.
āWe told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldnāt be wanted yet awhile; and we could choose the tunes, and so on.ā
āFather and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I have just been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to warm my feet.ā
āTo be sure father did! To be sure āa did expect usāto taste the little barrel beyond compare that heās going to tap.ā
āāOd rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!ā said Mr Penny, gleams of delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick meanwhile singing parentheticallyā
āThe lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go.ā
āNeighbours, thereās time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore bedtime!ā said Mail.
āTrue, trueātime enough to get as drunk as lords!ā replied Bowman cheerfully.
This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the varying hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking their toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmering indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound of church-bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating over upon the breeze from the direction of Longpuddle and Weatherbury parishes on the other side of the hills. A little wicket admitted them to the garden, and they proceeded up the path to Dickās house.
Chapter II
The Tranterās
It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the middle of the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutters were not yet closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated forth upon the thick bushes of box and laurestinus growing in clumps outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hanging about in various distorted shapes, the result of early training as espaliers combined with careless climbing into their boughs in later years. The walls of the dwelling were for the most part covered with creepers, though these were rather beaten back from the doorwayāa feature which was worn and scratched by much passing in and out, giving it by day the appearance of an old keyhole. Light streamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than to shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses feeding within it.
The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewyās father Reuben, by vocation a ātranter,ā or irregular carrier. He was a stout florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon or other distant object during conversations with friends, walking about with a steady sway, and turning out his toes very considerably. Being now occupied in bending over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process of broaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the expected old comrades.
The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and other evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the ceiling hung the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and extending so low that it became necessary for a full-grown person to walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling his hair. This apartment contained Mrs Dewy the tranterās wife, and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four yearsāthe eldest of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal interval.
Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the human countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led him to pause at the various points in each wail that were more than ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general effect. Bessy was leaning against a chair, and glancing under the plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the original unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her face bearing an expression of regret that the brightness had passed away from the visible portions. Mrs Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of the glowing wood fireāso glowing that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and then rise and put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the chimney, to reassure herself that they were not being broiled instead of smokedāa misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas-time.
āHullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!ā said Reuben Dewy at length, standing up and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. āHow the blood do puff up in anybodyās head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was just going out to gate to hark for ye.ā He then carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he held in his hand. āThis in the cask here is a drop oā the right sortā (tapping the cask); āāTis a real drop oā cordial from the best picked applesāSansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such-likeāyou dāmind the sort, Michael?ā (Michael nodded.) āAnd thereās a sprinkling of they that grow down by the orchard-railsāstreaked onesārail apples we dācall āem, as āTis by the rails they grow, and not knowing the right name. The water-cider from āem is as good as most peopleās best cider is.ā
āAy, and of the same make too,ā said Bowman. āāIt rained when we wrung it out, and the water got into it,ā folk will say. But āTis onāy an excuse. Watered cider is too common among us.ā
āYes, yes; too common it is!ā said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst his eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form rather than at the scene before him. āSuch poor liquor do make a manās throat feel very melancholyāand is a disgrace to the name of stimmilent.ā
āCome in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes,ā said Mrs Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them upon the door-mat. āI am glad that youāve stepped up-along at last; and, Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytesās and see if you can borrow some larger candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, donāt ye be afeard! Come and sit here in the settle.ā
This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting chiefly of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward in his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast that before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher.
āHeeāheeāay!ā replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth remained in view as the most conspicuous members of his body.
āHere, Mr Penny,ā resumed Mrs Dewy, āyou sit in this chair. And howās your daughter, Mrs Brownjohn?ā
āWell, I suppose I must say pretty fair.ā He adjusted his spectacles a quarter of an inch to the right. āBut sheāll be worse before sheās better, āa bālieve.ā
āIndeedāpoor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or five?ā
āFive; theyāve buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a maid yet. She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. However, ātwas to be, and none can gainsay it.ā
Mrs Dewy resigned Mr Penny. āWonder where your grandfather James is?ā she inquired of one of the children. āHe said heād drop in to-night.ā
āOut in fuel-house with grandfather William,ā said Jimmy.
āNow letās see what we can do,ā was heard spoken about this time by the tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had again established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork.
āReuben, donāt make such a mess oā tapping that barrel as is mostly made in this house,ā Mrs Dewy cried from the fireplace. āIād tap a hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and squirting job as āTis in your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy man indoors.ā
āAy, ay; I know youād tap a hundred beautiful, AnnāI know you would; two hundred, perhaps. But I canāt promise. This is aā old cask, and the woodās rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam Lawsonāthat ever I should callān such, now heās dead and gone, poor heart!ātook me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. āReub,ā says heāāa always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!āāReub,ā he said, says he, āthat there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as new. āTis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens, Reub,āāāa said, says heāāheās worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if heās worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood ones will make en worth thirty shillens of any manās money, ifāāā
āI think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use afore I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is sinner enough not to be cheated. But āTis like all your family was, so easy to be deceived.ā
āThatās as true as gospel of this member,ā said Reuben.
Mrs Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little Bessyās hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement of some more brown paper for the broaching operation.
āAh, who can believe sellers!ā said old Michael Mail in a carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of affairs.
āNo one at all,ā said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully agreeing with everybody.
āAy,ā said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as a rule, though he did now; āI knowed aā auctioneering feller onceāa very friendly feller āa was too. And so one hot day as I was walking down the front street oā Casterbridge, jist below the Kingās Arms, I passed aā open winder and see him inside, stuck upon his perch, a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and went my way, and thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a letter didnāt come wiā a bill charging me with a feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr Taylorās sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked āem down to me because I nodded to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for āem too. Now, I hold that that was coming it very close, Reuben?ā
āāTwas close, thereās no denying,ā said the general voice.
āToo close, ātwas,ā said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. āAnd as to Sam Lawsonāpoor heart! now heās dead and gone too!āIāll warrant, that if so be I...