It proceeded with some cheerfulness, a friendly neighbour or two
assisting. When the large articles of furniture had been packed in
position, a circular nest was made of the beds and bedding, in which
Joan Durbeyfield and the young children were to sit through the
journey. After loading there was a long delay before the horses were
brought, these having been unharnessed during the ridding; but at
length, about two o'clock, the whole was under way, the cooking-pot
swinging from the axle of the waggon, Mrs Durbeyfield and family
at the top, the matron having in her lap, to prevent injury to its
works, the head of the clock, which, at any exceptional lurch of the
waggon, struck one, or one-and-a-half, in hurt tones. Tess and the
next eldest girl walked alongside till they were out of the village.
They had called on a few neighbours that morning and the previous
evening, and some came to see them off, all wishing them well,
though, in their secret hearts, hardly expecting welfare possible
to such a family, harmless as the Durbeyfields were to all except
themselves. Soon the equipage began to ascend to higher ground,
and the wind grew keener with the change of level and soil.
The day being the sixth of April, the Durbeyfield waggon met many
other waggons with families on the summit of the load, which was
built on a wellnigh unvarying principle, as peculiar, probably, to
the rural labourer as the hexagon to the bee. The groundwork of the
arrangement was the family dresser, which, with its shining handles,
and finger-marks, and domestic evidences thick upon it, stood
importantly in front, over the tails of the shaft-horses, in its
erect and natural position, like some Ark of the Covenant that they
were bound to carry reverently.
Some of the households were lively, some mournful; some were stopping
at the doors of wayside inns; where, in due time, the Durbeyfield
menagerie also drew up to bait horses and refresh the travellers.
During the halt Tess's eyes fell upon a three-pint blue mug, which
was ascending and descending through the air to and from the feminine
section of a household, sitting on the summit of a load that had also
drawn up at a little distance from the same inn. She followed one of
the mug's journeys upward, and perceived it to be clasped by hands
whose owner she well knew. Tess went towards the waggon.
'Marian and Izz!' she cried to the girls, for it was they, sitting
with the moving family at whose house they had lodged. 'Are you
house-ridding to-day, like everybody else?'
They were, they said. It had been too rough a life for them at
Flintcomb-Ash, and they had come away, almost without notice,
leaving Groby to prosecute them if he chose. They told Tess their
destination, and Tess told them hers.
Marian leant over the load, and lowered her voice. 'Do you know that
the gentleman who follows 'ee--you'll guess who I mean--came to ask
for 'ee at Flintcomb after you had gone? We didn't tell'n where you
was, knowing you wouldn't wish to see him.'
'Ah--but I did see him!' Tess murmured. 'He found me.'
'And do he know where you be going?'
