'Yes,' said Tess.
'When most people are at rest from their week's work.'
She also assented to this.
'Though I do more real work to-day than all the week besides.'
'Do you?'
'All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the
glory of God. That's more real than the other--hey? I have a little
to do here at this stile.' The man turned, as he spoke, to an
opening at the roadside leading into a pasture. 'If you'll wait a
moment,' he added, 'I shall not be long.'
As he had her basket she could not well do otherwise; and she waited,
observing him. He set down her basket and the tin pot, and stirring
the paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square
letters on the middle board of the three composing the stile, placing
a comma after each word, as if to give pause while that word was
driven well home to the reader's heart--
THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT.
2 Pet. ii. 3.
Against the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints of the
copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened stile-boards,
these staring vermilion words shone forth. They seemed to shout
themselves out and make the atmosphere ring. Some people might have
cried 'Alas, poor Theology!' at the hideous defacement--the last
grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time.
But the words entered Tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this
man had known her recent history; yet he was a total stranger.
Having finished his text he picked up her basket, and she
mechanically resumed her walk beside him.
'Do you believe what you paint?' she asked in low tones.
'Believe that tex? Do I believe in my own existence!'
'But,' said she tremulously, 'suppose your sin was not of your own
seeking?'
He shook his head.
'I cannot split hairs on that burning query,' he said. 'I have
walked hundreds of miles this past summer, painting these texes on
every wall, gate, and stile the length and breadth of this district.
I leave their application to the hearts of the people who read 'em.'
'I think they are horrible,' said Tess. 'Crushing! Killing!'
'That's what they are meant to be!' he replied in a trade voice.
'But you should read my hottest ones--them I kips for slums and
seaports. They'd make ye wriggle! Not but what this is a very good
tex for rural districts. ... Ah--there's a nice bit of blank wall up
by that barn standing to waste. I must put one there--one that it
will be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed. Will
ye wait, missy?'
'No,' said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way
forward she turned her head. The old gray wall began to advertise
a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted
mien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon
to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized
