wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in being of
the shiftless house of Durbeyfield. Some people would like to know
whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound
and trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority
for speaking of 'Nature's holy plan.'
It grew later, and neither father nor mother reappeared. Tess looked
out of the door, and took a mental journey through Marlott. The
village was shutting its eyes. Candles and lamps were being put
out everywhere: she could inwardly behold the extinguisher and the
extended hand.
Her mother's fetching simply meant one more to fetch. Tess began to
perceive that a man in indifferent health, who proposed to start on a
journey before one in the morning, ought not to be at an inn at this
late hour celebrating his ancient blood.
'Abraham,' she said to her little brother, 'do you put on your
hat--you bain't afraid?--and go up to Rolliver's, and see what has
gone wi' father and mother.'
The boy jumped promptly from his seat, and opened the door, and the
night swallowed him up. Half an hour passed yet again; neither man,
woman, nor child returned. Abraham, like his parents, seemed to have
been limed and caught by the ensnaring inn.
'I must go myself,' she said.
'Liza-Lu then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, started on
her way up the dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty
progress; a street laid out before inches of land had value, and when
one-handed clocks sufficiently subdivided the day.
IV
Rolliver's inn, the single alehouse at this end of the long and
broken village, could only boast of an off-licence; hence, as
nobody could legally drink on the premises, the amount of overt
accommodation for consumers was strictly limited to a little board
about six inches wide and two yards long, fixed to the garden palings
by pieces of wire, so as to form a ledge. On this board thirsty
strangers deposited their cups as they stood in the road and drank,
and threw the dregs on the dusty ground to the pattern of Polynesia,
and wished they could have a restful seat inside.
Thus the strangers. But there were also local customers who felt the
same wish; and where there's a will there's a way.
In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly
curtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the
landlady, Mrs Rolliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen
persons, all seeking beatitude; all old inhabitants of the nearer
end of Marlott, and frequenters of this retreat. Not only did the
distance to the The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the
further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation
practically unavailable for dwellers at this end; but the far more
serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent
opinion that it was better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the
housetop than with the other landlord in a wide house.
A gaunt four-post bedstead which stood in the room afforded
