Greenfield Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 22 March 1894 — Page 2

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CHAPTER XXXVI.

BY THOMAS HARDY-

"Ah! it is said Donald. "Yes." said Henchard. "I have been looking for you I have some news to tell you. But no I won't interrupt you now," Farfraesaid, his eyes for the fh*st time falling on the female figure. "It don't matter," said Henchard. quietly perceiving that Donald had no suspicion of the personal) t}r of his companion, owing to the unusual wrappings she wore. '"Is the news serious?" "'Tis good news," said Farfrae, cheerful!}'. "'News I'm right giacl to have to tell ye, man. About the seed business, YOU know. Vv shall be able to arrange it for ve, aicer all."

They had walked on togetner through the gloom. Henchard drawing Lucet-ta's arm through his own to lend a delusive aspect to the rendezvous he had been surprised^in, and keeping her on the outside. Farfrae proceeded to state the details, of the proposal, which he did without reserve, being under the impression that if. as .t seemed, Henchard was about to contract another marriage he could have no secrets from his future partner. "Well, an will ye accept?" he asked.

Henchard, feeling how deeply he had wronged. Fartrae in suspecting him of enmity to the scheme, could not reply at once, and a certain pride kept him from jumping at the offer. He thanked Donald for his exertions in his behalf and said he would think the matter over adding, "I have still strong arms, you know, andean keep myself without assistance, as far as that goes. "And will add another to yourself soon, apparently,"said Farfrae playfully, nodding to Henchard's com-1 pamon. Henchard made no answer to this, and feeling himself one too many in such circumstances, Farfrae bade them good night and went his way.

Lucetta and Henchard parted immediately Donald had left them, Lucetta passionately longing to get back to her husband, whose bearing toward. Henchard had so moved her during her enforced silence as almost- to lead her to lling her arms around his neck regardless of consequences. She crept in doors like a shade and ascended to her room. When she had restored herself to her natural hues she went down and found her husband in the dining room. "Well, Lucetta, I've a bit of news for ve," he said, gaylv. "I think poor Heuchard is going to console himself by speculating iu a wife once more'. I met him courting just now."

Returning from her appointment Lucetta had seen a man waiting bv the lamp nearest her When she stopped to go and spoke to her. It. wa

He begged her pardon Lng her. But he had hea Farfrae had been applied to by a neighboring corn merchant to recommend a working partner: if so, he wished to offer hi rase if. lie could give good security, and had stated as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter but he would feel much obliged if Lucetta would sajr a word in his favor to her husband. "It is a thing I know nothing about," said Lucetta, coldly. "But you can testify to m^y trustworthiness better tiian anybody, ma'am." said Jopp. "1 was in Jersey several years, and knew there bv sight

CHAPTER XXXV—CONTINUED

Henchard. I think?"i original, he found that it had formed

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itself into ahead like a red-hot cauliflower. Henchard's packet next met his gaze. He knew there had been something of the nature of wooing between Henchard and the no.w Mrs. Farfrae, and hfs vague ideas on the subject narrowed themselves down to these: Henchard had a parcel belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he had reasons for not returning that parcel to her in person. What could be inside it? So he went on and on, till, animated by resentment at Lucetta's haughtiness, as he thought it, and curiosity to learn if there wrere any weak sides to this transaction with Henchard, he examined the package. The pen and all its relations being awkward tools in Henchard's hands, he had affixed the seals without an impression, it never occurring to him that the efficacy of such a fastening depended on this. Jopp was far less of a tyro he lifted one of the seals with his penknife, peeped in at the end again by simply softening the wax with the candle, and went off with the parcel as requested.

His path was by the riverside at the foot of the town. Coming into the light at the bridge which stood at the end of High street, he beheld lounging there Mother Cuxsom and Xanee Mockridge. "We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to look into Peter's Finger afore creeping to bed," said Mrs. Cuxsom. "There's a fiddle and tambourine going on there. Lord, what's all the world—do ye come along too. Jopp?—'twon't hinder ye live minutes."

Jopp had mostly kept himsea out of this compan}r, but present circumstances made him somewhat more reckless than usual, and without many words he decided to go to his destination that way.

Though the upper part of Dummerford was mainly composed of a curious congeries of barns and farmsteads, there was a less picturesque side to the parish. This was Mixen Lane, now in great part pulled down.

Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surrounding villages. It was the hiding place of those who were in distress and in debt, and trouble of every kind. Farm laborers and other peasants who combined a little poaching with their farming, and a little brawling and bibbing with their poaching, found themselves sooner or later in Mixen Lane. Rural mechanics too idle to mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to serve, drifted or were forced into Mixen Lane.

The lane and it suiTounding thicket of thatched cottages stretched out like a spit into the moist and mis£y lowland. Penury, as may be supposed. was no stranger here. Much that was poor, much that was low, some things that were shameful,

own door. could be seen in Mixen Lane. Vice in he came ra11 freely in and out certain of the doors of the neighborhood recklessaddress- nes.s dwelt under the roof with the crooked chimney, shame in some bay windows, theft (in times of privation) in the thatched and mudwalled houses by the sallows. Even slaughter had not been altogether unknown here. In a block of cottages up an alley there might have been erected an altar to disease in times gone by. Such was Mixen

Lane in the years when Henchard and Farfrae were mayors. Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Cas-1 terbridge plant lay close to .the open country, not a hun-1 you dred yards from a row of noble elms, and commanding a view across the

'Indeed," she replied. "But I moor of airy uplands and corn-fields, knew nothing of you." A brook divided the moor from the "I think, ma'am, that a word or tenements, and to outward view two from you would secure for .me there was no way across. it—no way what I covet very much," he per- to the houses but round about by the sifted. road. But under every household's

She steadily refused to have any- stairs there was kept a mysterious thing to do with the affair, and cut- plank nine inches wide, which plank tin» him short because of her anxiety was a secret bridge. to get indoors before her husband

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should miss her, left him on the pave- housholdcrs, came in from business ment. after dark—and this was the business He watched her till she had van- time hei*e—you stealthily crossed the isbed, and then he went, home, moor, approached the border of the When he got there he sat down in aforesaid brook, and whistled oppothe tireless chimney-corner, looking site thehouseto which you belonged, at the iron dogs, and the wood laid A shape thereupon made its appearacross them for heating the morning anoe on the other side bearing the kettle. A movement upstairs dis- bridge on end against the sky it was turbed him. and Henchard came lowered you crossed, and a hand down from his bedroom, where he helped you to land yourself, together seemed to have been rurnaging with the pheasants and hare gathboxes. ered from neighboring manors. You "I wish," said Henchard, "you1 sold them slyly next morning, and would do me a service, Jopp—now, the day after you stood before the to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave magistrates, with the eyes of all your this at Mrs. Farfrae's for her. I sympathizing neighbors concenshould take it mvself, of course, but trated on your back. You disapI don't wish to be seen there." peared for a time then you were

He handed a package in brown: again found quietly living in paper, sealed. Henchard had been Mixen Lane. as good as his word. Immediately Walking along the lane at dusk, oncoming indoors he had searched the stranger was struck by two or

entlj expressed his willingness "TV ell, how have ye got on today?" his lodger asked. "Any prospect o? an opening?" "Iain afraid not," said Jopp, who had not told the other of his application to Farfrae. "There never will be in Casterbridge," declared Henchard,decisively "'You must roam further afield." said good night to Jopp, and returned to his own part of the house.

Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of the candle snuff on the wall, and looking at the

If you, as one of those refugee

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there this meant a skittle-alley. Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling in the various domiciles, a piped note of some kind coming from nearly every open door. Another was the frequency of white aprons over dingy gowns among the women around the doorways. A white apron is a suspicious vesture in situations where spotlessness is difficult moreover the industry and cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by the postures and gaits of the women who wore it, their knuckles being mostly

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on their hips (in an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and their shoulders against door-posts, while there was a curious alacrity in the turn of, each honest woman's head upon her neck and in the twirl of her honest eyes at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along the lane.

Yet amid so much that was bad, needy respectability also found a home. lender somer of the roofs abode pure and virtuous souls whose presence there was due to necessitv, and to that alone. Families from decayed villages—families of that once bulky, but now nearly extinct, section of village society called "liviers," or life-holders—those whose roof-trees had fallenwiththe expiring of their term of holding, compelling them to quit the rural spot that had been their home for generationscame here, unless they chose to lie under a hedge by the wayside.

The inn called" Peter's Finger was the church of Mixen Lane. It was centrally situate, as such places should be. and bore about the same social relation to the King of Prussia as the latter bore to the Golden Crown. At first sight the inn was so respectable as to be puzzling. The front door was kept shut, and the step was so clean that evidently but few persons entered over its sanded surface. But- at the corner of the public-house was a slit, dividing it from the next building. Half way up the slit was a narrow door, shiny and paintless from the rub of infinite hands and shoulders. This was the actual entrance to Peter's Finger,

A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen Lane and then, in a moment, he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like Colonel Ashton at the disappearance of Ravens wood. That abstracted pedestrian had edged into the slit by the adroit fillip of his person sideways from the slit he edged into the tavern by a similar exercise of skill.

The company at the King of Prussia were persons of quality in comparison with the company which gathered here though it must be admitted that the lowest fringe of the King's party touched the crest of Peter's at all points. Waifs and strays of all sorts loitei'ed about there. The landlady was a virtuous woman,who had been unjustly sent to jail as an accessory to something or other after the fact. She underwent her year, and had worn a martyr's countenance ever since, except at times of meeting the constable who took her, when she winked

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eve.

To this house Jopp and his acquaintance had arrived. The settles on which they sat down were thin and tall, their tops being guyed by pieces of twine to hooks in the ceiling for when the guests grew boisterous the settles would rock a*i overturn without some such security. The thunder of bowls echoed from the back yard: swingles hung behind the blower of the chimney and expoachers and ex-gamekeepers whom princes had persecuted without a cause (in their own view), sat elbowing each other—men who in past times had met in lights under the moon, till lapse of sentences on the one part, and loss of favor and expulsion on the other, brought them here, together to a common level, where they sat calmly together discussing old times. "Dost mind how you could chuck a trout ashore with a bramble, and not ruffle the stream, Charl?" a deposed keeper was saying. 'Twas at- that I caught 'ee once, if you can mind?" "Ay that can I. But the worst larry'for me was that pheasant business at Horewood. The wife sweared false that time. Joe—oh, by gad she did!—there's no denying it." "How was that?" asked Jopp. "Why, Joe collared me. and we rolled down together, close to his garden hedge. Hearing the noise out ran his wife with the oven pvle, and it being dark under the trees she couldn't see which was uppermost. 'Where beest thee, Joe, under or top?' she screeched. 'Oh —under, by gad!' says he. She then began to rap down upon my poor back and ribs with the pyle till we'd roll over again. 'WThere beest now, dear Joe. under or top?' she'd scream again. By George, 'twas through her I was took! And then when wo got up in hall she sware that the cock-pheasant was one of her rearing, when 'twas not your bird at all, Joe: 'twas Squire Brown's bird— that's whose 'twas—one that we'd picked off as we passed his wood an hour afore. It did hurt mv feelings to be so wronged! Ah, well—'tis over now." "But I might have had ve days afore that," said the keeper. "I was within a few yards of 'ee dozens of times, with a sight more of birds than that poor one." "Yes—'tis not our greatest doings that the world gct-s wind of," said the furmity woman, who, lately settled in this purlieu, sat among the rest. Having traveled a great deal in her time, she spoke with cosmopolitan largeness of idea. It was she who presently asked Jopp what was the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm. "Ah, therein lies a grand secret," said Jopp. "It is the passion of love. To think that a woman should love one man so well, and hate another so unmercifully 1" "Who's the object of your meditation, sir?" ...:.. "One thac chaws high in this town.

I'd like to shame her! Upon ray life 'twould be as good as a play to read her love letters, the proud piece of silk end wax work! For 'tis her love letters that I've got here." "Love letter? then let's hear 'era, good soul," said Mother Cuxsom. "Lord, do ye mind, Richard, what

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fools we used to be when we were vounger? getting a school bov to write 'em for us and giving him a penny, do ye myid, not to tell other folks what he'd put inside, do ve mind? and how vou'd kiss and cole me, do ye mind

By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under the seals, and unfastened the letters, tumbling them over and picking up one here and there at random, which he read aloud. These passages soon began to uncover the secret which Lucetta had so earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the epistles, being allusive only, did not make it altogether plain. "Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!" said Nance Mockridge. 'Tis a humbling thing for us, as respectable women, I that one of the same sex could do it. And now she's vowed .herself to another man!" "So much the better for her," said the furmity woman. "Ah. I saved her from a real bad marriage, and she's never been the one to thank me." "I say. what a good foundation for a skimmity ride," said Nance. "True," said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. 'Tis as good a ground for a skimmity ride as ever I knowed: and it ought not to be wasted. The last

one seen in Casterbridge must have been ten years ago. if a day. 'Twer about Jane Criddle. do ye mind,that used to boat her husband with the mop stem, a well-to-do gentleman kind of man that used to travel in the whitey brown thread and button line, if ye can mind."

At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the man who had been called Charl, I "'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 I which ended abruptly at the ede of the stream already mentioned. Beyond the stream was the open mocr, 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 tne 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-barreled 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 afTirmative he wont on inward, 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 mo.)!- led them to pause.

The cry was repeated. Tney pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and went back to the brink of ihe 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 ye." "I don't care—here's for through it," said the man in the moor. "J've had traveling 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 a fellow that's lost his way. You should have kept along the turnpike road, friend, and not have struck across here." "I should—as I see now. But I saw alight here, and says I to myself, there's a short cut, depend on't."

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The plank was now lowered, and the stranger's form shaped itself from the darkness. He was a mid-die-aged man. with hair and whiskers prematurely gray, 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." "Oh! 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 car. He was dressed with a certain clumsy richness—his coat being furred, and his head being covered with a cap of sealskin, which though the nights were cool, must have been warm for the daytime, spring being somewhat advanccd. 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 ot putting up at the house but taking the situation lightlv, he called for glasses of the best, paid for them as he stood in the passage, and turned to proceed on his wav by the front door. This was barred, and while the landlady was unfastening it the conv~.rsi.tion about the skimmington was continued in the sitting room, and reached his ears. "What do they mean by a skim-mity-ridei"'he asked. "'Oh. sir," said the landlady, shaking her long earrings with deprecating modesty, "'tis a old foolish thing they do in these parts when a man's wife is—well, a bad bargain in any way. 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 sv^ziose?" "Well, 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 sittingroom, and said: ''Here, good folks I should like to see the old custom you are talking of, and I don't mind being something toward 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-keep-ing. "By George! we ought to hove 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 honorable." "Well," said Jopp: "now we'll consider the business begun, and we'll soon get it in train." "We will." said Nance. "A. good laugh warms the cockles of 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 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, beyond the simple evidence in a remote parish register, remained of the unlucky episode with Henchard in her past. For, innocent as she had been of wrongdoing therein, that episode, if known, was not the less likely to operate disastrousl between herself and her husband.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

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 so sensibly as to cut into the midst of the preparations for the skimmington. It was one of those excitements which, when they move a country town, leave a 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 address from the Corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a representative center of husbandry, wished thus to express its sense of the great services he had rendered to agricultural science and economics by his zealous promotions of designs for placing the art of farmingon a more scientific footing.

Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since the days of the third King George, and then only by candlelight for a few minutes when that monarc.h on a night journey had stopped to change horses at the Golden Crown. The inhabitants, therefore, decided to make a thorough fete carillonnee of the unwonted occasion. Half an hour's pause is not long, it is true, but much might be done in it by a judicious grouping of incidents above all if the weather were line.

The address was prepared on parchment by one Miggs. who was handy at ornamental lettering, and was laid with the best gold leaf and colors that Turpess, the sign painter, had iu his shop. The council met on the Tuesday before the appointed dav to arrange the details of procedure. While they were sitting, the do.'ir of the, council chamber standing open, they heard a heavy footstep coming up the stairs. It advanced along the passage and Henchard entered the. room in clothek of frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the very clothes which he had used to wear in the primal days when he had sal among them.

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have a feeling." he said, ad­

vancing to the table and laying his hand upon the green cloth, "that 1 should like to join ye in the reception of our illustrious visitor. I suppose I could walk with the rest?

Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the council, and Grower nearly eat'the end of'his quill pen, so gnawed he it during the silence. Farfrae, the young mayor, who by virtue of his office occupied the big chair, intuitively caught the sense of the meeting and as spokesman was obliged to utter it, glad as he would have been that the duty should have fallen to another one. "I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard," said he. "The council are the council, and as ye are no longer one of the body, "there would be irregularity in the proceeding. If you were included why not others?" "I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the ceremony."

Farfrae looked round. "I think 1 have expressed the feeling of the council?" he said. "Yes, yes," from several. "Then I am not to be allowed to have anything- to do with it officially?" "I am afraid sb it is out of the question, indeed. But of course you can see the doings full well, such as they are to be, like the rest of the spectators." (TO BK CONTINUED.)

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OUR PLEASURE CLUB.

"Why do you sign your name J. John B. B. B. Bronson," asked Hawkins "Because it is my name," said Bronson. "1 was christened by a, minister who stuttered."

"Your husband is a traveling man isn't he?" said one Pittsburg lady to another. "Yes." "I should think you wouldn't like his being away from home so much." "I don't like that, but there is one advantage." "What is it?" "When he's away he forgets he is married and so he writes love letters to me." "ONJ: ON TilK DOU." Life.

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"Longer overcoats are more stylish this winter than last, don't you: think"?'' asked Van Bra-am. "1 can't speak authoritatively on the subject." replied Shingiss, "but I know that arn wearing my overcoat longer than I intended."

"'Mamma, how long are the yardarms of a ship?" asked Harry Hilland. "J-f the name is any indication," replied Mrs. Hilland. "I should say they were three feet long."

Mrs. Snaggs—I read in the paper the other day that glass eyes are quite expensive.

Mr. Snaggs—I s-uppse that is true. Anyone should know that they cost more than artificial teeth "How should any one know that?" "By observation patent to all.: The eves come higher than the teeth."

TEMPORARY" I 1SFJGURKMENT. Judge.

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Little Gertie—Bo you suppose I'm going to the picnic with .such a look-,, ing thing as you?

Little Toimnv—M-marm p-put her work b-baskot on niv head when she e-cut my hair, an' she couldn't c-clip 'round th' handles boo-hoo.

Gaswell—-Young Blivens boasts that he never loses his head. Dukane—Well, he couldn't expect such great luck as that, you know.

SOKXE I'ROM AN UNrUJH/XSIiED DRAMA. Life.

Hermione—Lconidas, hear me! Leon.—Peace. 1 will, hear no farder!

Her You must: you shall! Leon.—--Oh. heavinks! Her.—When we first met I wax young and inexperienced. 1 thought I loved you—

Leon.—Oh, I shall go mad! Rushes frantically from the scene.

Mrs. Snaggs—Don't you think my new bonnet is a poem, loveP Mr. Snaggs—Have you paid for it? "Of course not." "Then it is a poem, no doubt—an owed."

'Zolcclel's pone to prcachin', Hob's ii-stuclyin' law: William runs railroad train—

Hc.it you ever .saw. Dick—lie runs a ^roccry store An' makes the business stir But John ain't doin' uotliiu'—

He's a politicianer.

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—Atlanta Constitution.

Johnnie (seeing his twin cousins for the first time)—Isn't it funny, mamma!

Mamma—What, dear? "Why, this baby is a philopena."

"Did I understand you that this is a charity concert?" a "Yes, I suppose there was never anything poorer put on a stage."

"I do believe I'm a perfect fright in this bonnet." Husband—There is no need of telling people about it is one comfort.

A new law of Massachusetts imposes a fine of from $10 to $100 on consumers of bituminous coal in. towns that do not consume three* fourths of their smoke.

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