Greenfield Republican, Greenfield, Hancock County, 5 April 1894 — Page 2

When he was ]ust on the point of driving off. Whittlebone arrived with a note, badly addressed, and bearing the word "immediate" upon the outside. On opening it, he was surprised to see that it was unsigned. It contained a brief request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening about some business which he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothing that' could make it pressing but, as he was bent upon going out, he yielded to the. anonymous request, particularly as he had a call to make at Mellstock, whica could be included in the same tour. Thereupon he told Whittlebone of his change of direction, in words which Henchard had overheard. and set out on his way. Farfrae had not directed his man to take the message indoors, and Whittlebone had not been supposed to do so on his own responsibility.

Now the anonymous letter was the well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance of Longwavs and other of Farfrae' men to get him out of the way for the evening, in order that the satirical mummery should fail flat, if it were attempted. By giving open information they would have brought down upon their heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who enjoyed these boisterous old games, and therefore the plan of sending a letter recommended itself by its in-, directness.

For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing with the majority there was some truth in the scandal, which she would have to bear as best she might.

It was about eight o'clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawingroom atone. Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had the candles lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting for him by the firelight. and, if it were, not too cold, keeping one of the window-sashes a little wav open, ihal the sound of his

The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by a hubbub in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not greatly surprise her, the afternoon tving ?n riven up to recrealion by a majority of the populace since the passage of the royal equipages. But- her attention was at one riveted to the matter by the voice of the maid-servant next door, who spoke from an upper window across the street to some other maid even' more elevated than she. "Which way be they going now?" inquired the first, with interest. "I can't be sure for a moment," said the second, matter's chimbiey. see 'em. Well, I clare!" "What, what?" from the first, more enthusiastic !,]!}'. "They are coming up Corn Street, after ali! They sit back to back!" "What---two of'era—are there two figure

BY THOMAS HARDY-

When Farfrae descended out of the loft, breathless from his encounter with Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself. He arrived at the yard with the intention of putting the horse into the gig himself (all the men having a holiday), and driving to a village on the Budmouth Road. Despite the fearful struggle, he decided to still persevere in his journoy, so as to recover himself before going indoors and meeting the eyes of Lucetta. He wished to consider his course in a case so serious.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

wheels might reach her ears early. an indescribable personality in its She was leaning back in her chair in noise, the vehicle having been his a more hopeful mood than she had,

en joyed since her marriage. The at the sale of his effects. Henchard day had been such a success and •.thereupon descended the hill on its the temporary uneasiness which further side, meeting the gig as its Henchard's .show of effrontery had wrought in her disappeared with the quiet disappearance of Henchard himself under her husband's reproof. The floating evidences of her void marriage with him had been destroved, and she really seemed to have: no cause, for fear.

'because of Oh, ves—I declare—I

V"

the can de-

images on a donkey, their elbows tied to She's facing the facing the tail." for anybody in par-

"Yes. Two back to back. one another's. head, and he's "Is it meant ticular?" "Well, it may be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere leggings he has black whiskers and a reddish face. 'Tis a stuffed figure with a mask."

The din was increasing now—then it lessened a litlio. "There--T- shan't see, after all!" cried the disappointed first maid. '"They have gone into aback street ,'iat's all." said the one who occupied the enviable position in the attic. "There now 1 have got 'em all endways nicely." "What's the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if 'ti# meant for one I've in mind." "My -why -'tis dressed just as she was dressed when she sat in the front seat actors came

Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the door of the room was quickh-- and softly opened. Elizabeth Jane advanced into the firelight. "I have come to see you," she said, breathlessly. "I did not stop to knoc r—- forgive me. I see you havn not shut your shutters, and the window is open."

,'HAPTER XL.

-A Long before this time Henchard, **eary-of' his ruminations »6 ti\e

bridge, had repaired toward the town. When he stood at the bottom of the street a procession burst upon his view, in the act of turning out of an alley just above him. The lanterns, horns, and multitude frightened him he saw the mounted images, and knew what it all meant.

They crossed the way, entered another street and disappeared. He turned back a few steps and was lost in grave raflection, finally wending his way homeward bv the obscure riverside path. Unable to rest there he went to his stepdaughter's lodging, and was told that Elizabeth Jane had gone to Mrs. Farfrae's. Like one acting in obedience to a charm and with a nameless apprehension, he followed in the same direction. in the hope of meeting her, the roisterers having vanished. Disappointed in this, he gave the gentlest of pulls to the doorbell and then

Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the branch lane before he pulled up. He then drew rein, and said "Yes?" over his shoulder, as one would toward a pronounced enemy. "Come back to Casterbridge at once!" Henchard said. "There's something wrong at your house—requiring your return. I've run all the way here on purpose to tell 'ee!"

Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard's soul sunk within him, Why had he not before this thought of what was only too obvious? He who, four hours earlier, had enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle, stood now in the darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, at a point where it plunged into a cutting through a wood he invited the man, whom on the first occasion he had let off, to enter that wood, when his purposed way was across an open upland, where there was at least a better opportunity of guarding himself from attack. Henchard could almost feel this view of things in course of passage through Farfrae's mind. "I have to go to Mellstock," said Farfrae, coldly, as he loosened his rein to move on. "But," implored Henchard, "the matter is more serious than your business at Mellstock. It is—yonr wife. She is ill. I can tell you particulars as we go along."

The very agitation and hesitancy of Henchard increased Farfrae's suspicion that this was a ruse to decoy him into the wood, where might be

at the the time the^play- effectually compassed what from polie to the Town Hall!" jCy

Qr

learned the particulars of what had have no reason for delay upon the occurred, together with the doctor's imperative orders that Farfrae should be brought home, and how they had set out to meet him on the Budmouth Road. "But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!" exclaimed Henchard, now unspeakably grieved. "Not Budmouth way at all."

But, alas! for Henchard he had

lost his good name. They would not long since returned, and all hopes believe him, taking nis word but as the frothy utterances of recklessness. Though Lucetta's life at that moment seemed to depend upon her husband's return (she being in great mental agony lest he should never know how little she was to blame for her past relations with Henchard), no messenger was dispatched toward Weatherbury. Henchard, in a state of bitter anxiety and contrition, determined to seek Farfrae himself.

To this end he hastened down the' town, ran along the eastern road over the moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward in the moderate darkness of this spring night till he had reached a second and a third hill about three miles distant. In a cutting on the summit of the last he listened. At first nothing beyond his own heart-throbs was to be heard but the slow wind making its moan among the masses of spruce and the larch which clothed the heights on I beth either hand but presently there came the sound of light wheels whetting their felloes against the newly stoned patches of road, accompanied I by the distant glimmer of lights.

He knew it was Farfrae's gig, from

0wn

till bought by the Scotchman

driver slackened speed at the foot of the incline. It was a point in the highway at which the road to Mellstock branched off from the homeward direction. By diverging to that village, as he had intended to do, Farfrae might probably delay his return by a couple of hours. It soon appeared that his intention was to do so still, the light swerving toward the bj'road. Farfrae's off gig-lamp flashed in Henchard's face. At the same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist. "Farfrae—Mr. Farfrae!' cried the breathless Henchard, holding up his hand.

want of nerve, Henchard had

failed to do earlier in the day. He started the horse. "I know what you think," deprecated Henchard, running after, almost bowed down with despair as he perceived the monstrous image of unscrupulous villainy that he had assumed in his former friend's eyes. "But I am not what you think!" he cried, hoarsely. "Believe me, Farfrae I have come entirely on your own and your wife's account. She is in danger. I know no more ind thej want you to coma Your man

has gone the other way in a mistake. Oh, Farfrae, don't mistrust me—I am a wretched man but my heart is true to you still!"

Farfrae did distrust him utterly. He had left his wife not long ago in perfect health: and Henchard's treachery was more credible than his story. He had in his time heard bitter ironies from Henchard's lips, and those might be ironies now. He quickened the horse's pace, and had soon risen into the open country lying between there and Mellstock, Henchard's spasmodic run after him lending yet more substance to his thought of evil purposes.

The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in Henchard's eyes his exertions for Farfrae's good had been in vain. Over this repentant sinner, at least, there was to be no joy in heaven. He cursed himself

road by seeing him there when he took his journey homeward later on. Arriving at Casterbridge, Henchard went again to Farfrae's house to make inquiries. As soon as the door opened anxious faces confronted his from the staircase, hall, and landing and they all said in grievous disappointment. "Oh—it is not he!" The man, finding his mistake, had

had been centered upon Henchard. "But haven't you found him?" said the doctor. 'Yes. I cannot tell 'ee!" Hench-

ard replied, as he sunk down on a chair within the entrance. "He can't be home for two hours." "H'm!" said the physician, returning upstairs. 'How is she?" asked Henchard of Elizabeth Jane, who formed one of the group. "In great danger. Her anxiety to see her husband makes her fearfully restless. Poor woman—I fear they have killed her!"

Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants, as if she struck him in anew light then, without further remarks, went out of the door and onward to his lonely cottage. So much for man's rivalry he thought. Death was to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself shells. But about Eliza-

Jane in the midst of his I gloom she seemed to him as a pin point of light. He had liked the look of her face as she answered him from the stairs. There had been affection in it, and above all things what he desired now was "wfection from anything that was good and pure. She was not his own: yet, for the first time, he had a faint dream that he might get to like her as his I own—if she would only continue to love him.

Jopp was just going to bed when I Henchard got home. As the latter opened the door Jopp said, "This is rather bad about Mrs. Farfrae's illness." "Yes," said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of Jopp's complicity in the night's harlequinade, and raised his eyes just sufficiently to observe that Jopp's face was lined with anxiety. "Somebody called for you. "continued Jopp when Henchard was shutting himself in his own apartment. "A kind of traveler, or sea-captain of some sort." "Oh! who could he be?" "He seemed a well-be-doing man— had gray hair and a broadish face: but he gave no name and no message." "Nor do I gie him any attention." And. saying this, Henchard closed his door. 7!- -x-

The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae's return very nearly the two hour's of Henchard's estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state bordering on

distraction at his misconception of

like a less scrupulous Job, as a vehe- of all other interests, his life seemed ment man will do when he loses selfrespect, the last mental prop under poverty. To this he had come after a time of emotional darkness, of which the adjoining woodland shade afforded inadequate illustration. Presently he began to walk back again along the way by which he had come. Farfrae should at all events

Henchard's motives. "Good morning, good Henchard's motives. A messenger was dispatched to Budmouth, late as it had grown the night wore on. and the other doctor came in the small hours. Lucetta had been much soothed by Donald's arrival he seldom or never left her side and when, immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to him the secret which so oppressed her, he checked her feeble words lest talking should be dangerous, assuring her there was plenty of time to tell him everything.

Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmingtori ride. The dangerous illness of Mrs. Farfrae was soon rumored through the town,and an apprehensive guess having been given as to its cause by the protagonists of the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over all particular's of the orgy while those immediately around Lucetta would not venture to add to her husband's distress by alluding to the subject.

What and how much Farfrae's wife ultimately explained to him of her past entanglement with Henchard when they were alone in the solitude of that sad night cannot be told. That she informed him of the bare facts of her void marriage with the bankrupt merchant became plain from Farfrae's own statements! But in respect of her subsequent conduct—her motive in coming to Casterbridge to reunite herself with Henchard—her assumed justification ii abuudoning him as she discovered

reasons for fearing him—h|r inconsequent passion for another man at first sight—her method of rcconciling to her conscience a marriage with the second when she was in a measure the partner of the first to what extent she spoke of these things remained Farfrae's secret alone.

Beside the watchman who called the hours and weather in Casterbridge that night there walked a figure up and down Corn Street hardly less frequently. It was TT.enchard's, whose retiring to rest had proved itself a futility as soon as attempted, and he gave it up to go

hither and thither and make inquiries about the patient every now and then. He called as much on Farfrae's account as on Lucetta's, and on Elizabeth Jane's even more than on cither's. Shorn one by one

to be centering on the personality of the stepdaughter whose presence but recently he could not endure. To see her on each occasion of his inquiry at Lucetta's was a comfort.

The last of his calls was made about four o'clock in the morning, in the steely light of dawn. Lucifer was fading into day over Drummerford Moor, the sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle in the out houses. When within a few yards of Farfrae's he saw the door gently opened and a servant raise her hand to the knocker and untie a piece of cloth which had muffled it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the horse droppings, so little did they believe in human aggression at so early a time. "Why do you take off that?" said Henchard.

She turned in some surprise at his presence and did not answer for an instant or two. Recognizing him, she said, "Because they may knock as loud as they will, she will never hear it any more.

CHAPTER XLI.

Henchard went home. The morning having now fully broke he lighted his fire and sat abstractedly beside it. He had not sat there long when a gentle footstep approached the house and entered the passage, a finger tapping lightly at the door. Henchard's face brightened, for he knew the motions to be Elizabeth's. She came into his room, looking pale and sad. "Have you heard?" she asked. "Mrs. Farfrae? She is dead! Yes, indeed—about an hour ago." "I know it," said Henchard. "I have but lately come in from there. It is so very good of ye, Elizabeth, to come and tell me. You must be so tired out, too, with sitting up. Now do you bide here with me this morning. You can go and rest in the other room, and I will call 'ee when breakfast is ready."

To please him, and' herself—for I his recent kindness was winning a surprised gratitude from the lonely girl- she did as he bade her, and lay down on a sort of couch which

Henchard had rigged up out of a settle in the adjoining room. She could hear him moving about in his preparations but her mind ran most strongly on Lucetta, whose death, in such fulness of life, and amid such cheerful hopes of maternity-, was appallingly unexpected. Presently she fell asleep.

Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the breakfast in readiness but finding that she dozed he would not call her he waited on, looking into the lire and keeping the kettle boiling with housewifely care, as if it were an honor to have her in the house. In truth, a great change had come over him with regard to her, and he was developing the I dream of a future lighted by her filial presence, as though that way alone could happiness i-C

He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to open it, rather deprecating a call from anybody just then. A stoutlv-built I man stood on the doorstep, with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure and bearing an air which might have been called colonial bj people of cosmopolitan experience. It was I the man who had asked his wav at Peter's Finger. Henchard nodded,

anc]

looked inquiry.

morning:

said thestrnger, wish profuse heartiness. "Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?" "My name is Henchard." "Then I caught .ye at home—that's right. Morning's the time for business, says I. Can I have a few words with 'ee?" "By all means." Henchard answered, showing the way in. "You may rememocr me," said his visitor, seating himself.

Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head. "Well, perhaps you may not^-i-My name is Newson."

Henchard's face and eyes seemed to die. The other did not notice it. "1 know 'he name well." Henchard said at last, looking on the floor. "T make no doubt, of that. Well, the fact is, I've been looking for you this fortnight past. I went through Casterbridge on my way to Weydon Priors, and when I got there they told me you had some years before been living at Casterbridge, Back came I again, and by long and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago. 'He lives down by the mill,' says they, so here I am. Now—that transaction between us some twenty years agone—'tis that I've called abou$. 'Twas a curious business. I was younger then than I am now, and perhaps the less said about it in one sense the better." "Curious business? 'Twas worse than curious. I cannot even allow that I'm the man you. met then. I

was not in my senses, and a man's senses are himself." "We were young and thoughtless," said Newson. "However, I've come to mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor Susan—her's was a strange experience." "It was." "She was a warm-hearted, homespun woman. She was not what they call shrewd or sharp at all—• better she had been." "She was not." "As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough to think that the sale was binding. She was as guiltless o' wrong-doing in that particular as a saint in the clouds." "I know it—I know it. I found it out directly." said Henchard, still with averted eves. "There lay the sting o't to me. If she had known the truth she never would, have left me—never! But how should she be expected to know? What ad van tages had she? None? She could write, her own name, and no more." "Well, it was not in my heart to undpeeive her when the deed wis done," said the sailor of former days. "I thought, and there was not much vanity in thinking it. that she would be happier with me. She was fairly happy, and I never would have undeceived her till the day of her death. Your child died she had another, and ali went well. But a time came —mark me, a time always does come. A time came—it was some time after she and I and the child had returned from America—when somebody she had confided her history to told her my claim to her was a mockery, and and made a jest of her belief in my right. After that she was never happy with me. She pined and pined, and rocked and sighed. She said she must leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a man advised me what to do. and I did it, for I thought it was best. I left her at Falmouth, and went to sea. "When I got to the other side of the Atlantic there was a storm, and it got in the papers that a lot of us, including myself, had been washed overboard. I got ashore at Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do. "Since I'm here, here I'll bide,' I thought to myself 'twill be most kindness to her, now she's took against me. to let her beI lieve me lost for. I thought, 'while she supposes us both alive she'll be miserable but if she thinks me dead she'll go back to him, and the child will have a home.' I never returned to this country till a month ago, and

1

I found that, as I had supposed, she went to you, and my daughter with her. They told me in Falmouth that Susan was dead. But Elizabeth Jane—where is she?" "Dead likewise," said Henchard doggedly. "Surely you learned that too?"

The sailor started up, and took an I enervated pace or -wo down the room. "Dead!" he said, in a low voice. "Then what's the use of my S money to me?"

Henc-bard, without answering, shook his head, as if that were rather I a question for Newson himself than for him. "Where is she buried?" the traveler inquired. "Beside her mother," said Henchard. in the same stolid tones, "When did she die?" "Two years ago next 24th of

March," replied the other without hesitation. The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up from the floor. At last Newson said: "My journey hither has been for nothing. I may as well go as I came! It has served me right. I'll trouble you no longer."

Henchard. however, leaving the town by the east- road, proceeded to the second stone or bridge, and I thence struck into this path of solitude, following its course beside the stream till the dark shapes of the

Ten Hatches cut the sheen thrown upon the river by the weak luster I that still lingered in the'west. In a second or two he stood beside the wear-hole where the water was at its deepest. He looked backward and forward, and no creature appeared in view. He then took of*' I iiis hat and coat, and stood on UJC brink of the stream with his hands clasped in front of him.

While his eyes were bent on the water beneath, there slowly became visible a something floating in the circular pool formed by the wash of centuries the pool he was intending to make his death bed. At first it was indistinct by reason of the shallow from the bank: but it emerged I thence, and took shane, which wabod v. lying stiff an irface of the strea u. current imparted I flow to form was brought forward, till it pass undci' his eves, and then lie perceived wi! a sense of horror that it was all himself. Not a man somewhat resembling him, bu!. on in all respects Ins counterpart, his actual double. floating as if dead in Ten Hatches

that of a human star!: upon the si In the circula bv the central

Hole. The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappy man, and iie turned away as one might have done in the actual presence of an appalling miracle. He covered his eyes, and bowed his head. Without looking again into the stream, lie took his coat and hat, and went slowly away. (TO BE CONTINUUM

"I hope things are more peaceov. hi the cll$r than formerly," yaid tht pastor. "Yes, sir," replied the organist "it's perfectly calm now." "I'm glad to Lear it. How wii'peace secured?" "Everybody ex(epting mvseif re. jjned."

THE FAIR SEX.

When Mrs. Amelia Frost was or-« dained to the Congregational minisat Littleton, Mass., last month, one of the examining committee asked Mrs. Frost: Does the Bible: point to women's preaching?" "Apparently so in my case." was the reply. "But," said the questioner, "1 had hoped you would answer by some quotation from the Bible." Instantly Mrs. Frost replied: "Your:: sons and your daughters shall prophesy." There was a tremendous applause, and any spirit of opposition: to the ordination ended.

The women of Canada who subscribed for a pair of horses, a sleigh, and furs as a wedding gift to Princess May are highly indignant that the horses' tails were docked before the gift was shipped to England, and have telegraphed to the Princess asking- her to refuse to accept the horses. They propose to prosecute the parties responsible for the docking.

NEW vismNC, rosrrMi:s.

When a club woman begins to burrow in libraries and among old statistics for data for her papers, very little escapes her search. A member of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore, contributing a paper on "The Ijooths" to an "afternoon with the authors and artists of Maryland," gave some points about the famous actor's family that are certainly not in everybody's possession. The family was originally from Spain, of Hebrew extraction, the name being Cabana. When an ancestor settled in England he drolly translated it. for convenience sake into its English equivalent of booth or bazar.

4^

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7*1 •.

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11

si'UTNi! :AI:^!I-:NTS TOR IRI S.

It is reported that .Mrs. LT. S. Grant has quite decide.! not to publish the memoirs of her husl and, as it is her wish that this book shall not be published until after her death. Several publishers have had the opportunity to look it over, and it is said that one has offered •siO.OOO for the work.

Mrs. Thomas A. ISdison has certain literary gifts, if she would only exercise them, it is said. She is a niece of Emily IJ un tinglon Miiier.

Miss C. Eide, of Chri just received a diploma. No: way awarded to a candidate of pharmacy.

at the branches

stiana. lias the first in I! i! 11. lli

She stood ass in all

lead of but one.

her

I

'I

TWO NEW CO A'

No more beautiful tribute has ever been paid to a woman than that paid by Prof. Tyndall in a letter written to Herbert Spencer several years ago, in which he says of his wi'fe: "She has raised my ideal of the possibilities of human nature."

The late Mrs. Mary Hemenway, of Boston, preserved the historic Old South Church +'roni demolition, and that act alone will keep her memory green at the Hub. In many other ways she showed her great, philanthropy—chiefly as the main support of the Hampton Institute. for the education of negroes and Indians and in equiping Frank Lushing's arcli:eological expedition, while she. did American history a good turn in making John Fiske her protege.