At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the man who had been called Charl, “‘Tis Jim coming in. Would ye go and let down the bridge for me?”
Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a lantern from her went out at the back door and down the garden-path, which ended abruptly at the edge of the stream already mentioned. Beyond the stream was the open moor, from which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces as they advanced. Taking up the board that had lain in readiness one of them lowered it across the water, and the instant its further end touched the ground footsteps entered upon it, and there appeared from the shade a stalwart man with straps round his knees, a double-barrelled gun under his arm and some birds slung up behind him. They asked him if he had had much luck.
“Not much,” he said indifferently. “All safe inside?”
Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards, the others withdrawing the bridge and beginning to retreat in his rear. Before, however, they had entered the house a cry of “Ahoy” from the moor led them to pause.
The cry was repeated. They pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and went back to the brink of the stream.
“Ahoy—is this the way to Casterbridge?” said some one from the other side.
“Not in particular,” said Charl. “There’s a river afore ‘ee.”
“I don’t care—here’s for through it!” said the man in the moor. “I’ve had travelling enough for to-day.”
“Stop a minute, then,” said Charl, finding that the man was no enemy. “Joe, bring the plank and lantern; here’s somebody that’s lost his way. You should have kept along the turnpike road, friend, and not have strook across here.”
“I should—as I see now. But I saw a light here, and says I to myself, that’s an outlying house, depend on’t.”
The plank was now lowered; and the stranger’s form shaped itself from the darkness. He was a middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers prematurely grey, and a broad and genial face. He had crossed on the plank without hesitation, and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit. He thanked them, and walked between them up the garden. “What place is this?” he asked, when they reached the door.
“A public-house.”
“Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at. Now then, come in and wet your whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me.”
They followed him into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him as one who would stand higher in an estimate by the eye than in one by the ear. He was dressed with a certain clumsy richness—his coat being furred, and his head covered by a cap of seal-skin, which, though the nights were chilly, must have been warm for the daytime, spring being somewhat advanced. In his hand he carried a small mahogany case, strapped, and clamped with brass.
Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted him through the kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea of putting up at the house; but taking the situation lightly, he called for glasses of the best, paid for them as he stood in the passage, and turned to proceed on his way by the front door. This was barred, and while the landlady was unfastening it the conversation about the skimmington was continued in the sitting-room, and reached his ears.
“What do they mean by a ‘skimmity-ride’?” he asked.
“O, sir!” said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with deprecating modesty; “‘tis a’ old foolish thing they do in these parts when a man’s wife is—well, not too particularly his own. But as a respectable householder I don’t encourage it.
“Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I suppose?”
“Well, sir!” she simpered. And then, bursting into naturalness, and glancing from the corner of her eye, “‘Tis the funniest thing under the sun! And it costs money.”
“Ah! I remember hearing of some such thing. Now I shall be in Casterbridge for two or three weeks to come, and should not mind seeing the performance. Wait a moment.” He turned back, entered the sitting-room, and said, “Here, good folks; I should like to see the old custom you are talking of, and I don’t mind being something towards it— take that.” He threw a sovereign on the table and returned to the landlady at the door, of whom, having inquired the way into the town, he took his leave.
“There were more where that one came from,” said Charl when the sovereign had been taken up and handed to the landlady for safe keeping. “By George! we ought to have got a few more while we had him here.”
“No, no,” answered the landlady. “This is a respectable house, thank God! And I’ll have nothing done but what’s honourable.”
“Well,” said Jopp; “now we’ll consider the business begun, and will soon get it in train.”
“We will!” said Nance. “A good laugh warms my heart more than a cordial, and that’s the truth on’t.”
Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhat late he did not attempt to call at Farfrae’s with them that night. He reached home, sealed them up as before, and delivered the parcel at its address next morning. Within an hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who, poor soul! was inclined to fall down on her knees in thankfulness that at last no evidence remained of the unlucky episode with Henchard in her past. For though hers had been rather the laxity of inadvertence than of intention, that episode, if known, was not the less likely to operate fatally between herself and her husband.
37.
Such was the state of things when the current affairs of Casterbridge were interrupted by an event of such magnitude that its influence reached to the lowest social stratum there, stirring the depths of its society simultaneously with the preparations for the skimmington. It was one of those excitements which, when they move a country town, leave permanent mark upon its chronicles, as a warm summer permanently marks the ring in the tree-trunk corresponding to its date.
A Royal Personage was about to pass through the borough on his course further west, to inaugurate an immense engineering work out that way. He had consented to halt half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receive an
