Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1899 — THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

BY THOMAS HARDY

CHAPTER 111. The high road into the village of Weydon Priors was again carpeted with dust. The trees had put on as of yore their aspect of dingy green, and where the Henchard family of three had once walked along, two persons not unconnected with that family walked now. One of the two who walked the road was she who had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her face hid lost much of its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textual change; and though her hair had not lost color it was considerably thinner than heretofore. She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her companion, also in black, appeared as a well-formed young woman of eighteen, completely possessed of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour. A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard’s grown-up daughter. While middle summer had set its hardening mark on the mother’s face, her former spring-like specialties were transferred so dexterously by Time to this second figure, her child, that the absence of certain facts within her mother’s knowledge from the girl’s mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be a cusous imperfection in Nature’s powers of continuity. - They walked and joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was the act of simple affection. The daughter carried in her other hand a withy basket of oldfashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with her black stuff gown. Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same track as formerly, and ascended to the fair. The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some little distance and then stood still. “Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to get onward?” said the maiden. “Yes, my dear Elizabeth Jane,” explained the other. “But I had a fancy for looking up here.” “Why?” “It was here I first met Newson —on such a day as this.” ' “First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now he’s drowned and gone from us!” As she spoke the girl drew a card from her packet and looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with black, and inscribed within a design resembling a mural tablet were the words: “In affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was unfortunately lost at sea, aged 41 years.” ’'“And it was here,” continued her mother, with more hesitation, “that I last saw the .relative we are going to look so Michael Henchard.” “What is his exact relation to us, mother?—l have never clearly had it told me.” “He is. or was —for he may be dead—a relation by marriage,” said her mother, deliberately. “That’s exactly what you have said a score of times before!” replied the young woman, looking about her inattentively. “He’s not a near relation, I suppose?” “Not by any means!” “He was a hay trusser, wasn't he, when you last heard of him?” “He was.” “I suppose he never knew me?” the girl innocently continued. Why should Mrs. Henchard have paused? She did pause for a moment, and answered, “Of course not, Elizabeth Jane'. But come this way.” “It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should think,” the daughter observed, as she gazed round about. “People at fairs change like the leaves of trees; and I dare say you are the only one here to-day who was here all those years ago.” “I am not so sure of that,” said Mrs. Newson" as she now called herself, keenly eying something under a green bank a little way off. “See there.” The daughter looked in the direction signified. The object pointed but was a tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from which hung a three-legged crock, kept hot by a smoldering wood fire beneath. Over the pot stooped an old woman, haggard, wrinkled and almost in rags. It was the former mistress of the furmity tent. “She was here at that time,” resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to draw nearer. “Don’t speak to her—it isn’t respectable!” urged the other. “I will just say a word—you, Elizabeth Jane, can bide here.” The girl was not loath, and turned to some stalls of colored prints while her mother went forward. “Can you call to mind,” she said, cautiously, to the old woman, “the sale of a wife by her husband in your tept eighteen years ago to-day?” The hag reflected and half shook her head. “If it had been a big thing I should have minded it in a moment,” she said. “I can mind every serious fight pf married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-picking—-leastwise large ones—that ’it has been my lot to witness. But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?” “Well, yes. I think so." The furmity woman half shook her head again. “And yet,” she said, “I do. At any rate I can mind a man doing something o’ the sort—a man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools. The only reason why I can mind the man is that he came back here to the next year’s fair and told me quite private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was to say be bad gone to—where? —Casterbridge—yes—to Oaaterbridge, said he.” Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous person’s liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly thanked her informant and rejoined Elizabeth Jane, who greeted her with, “Mother, do let’s go on —it was hardly respectable for yon to buy refreshments there. I see none but the lowest do.” “I have learned what I wanted, however,” said her mother, quietly. “The fast time our relative visited this fair be

said he was living at Casterbridge. It ig a long, long way from here, and it was many years ago that he said it; but there I think we’ll go.” With this they descended out of t the fair and went onward to the village, where they obtained a night’s lodging. The next day they set out on their journey. CHAPTER IV. It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September, and just before dusk, that Mrs. Newson and her daughter reached the summit of a hill within a mile of the place they sought. There were no hedges to the highway here, and they mounted upon the green turf and sat down. The spot commanded a full view of the town and its environs. Before they had risen to proceed two men passed by engaged in argumentative conversation. “Why, surely,” said Elizabeth Jane, as they receded, “those men mentioned the name of Henchard in their talk —the name of our relative?” “I thought so, too,” said Mrs. Newson. “That seems a hint to us that he is still here.” “Yes.” “Shall I run after them and ask them about him ” “No. no no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse or in the stocks for all we know.” “Dear me —why should yoii think that, mother ?” “ ’Twas just something to say—that’s all. But we must make private inquiries.” Having sufficiently rested, they proceeded on their way. The travelers wandered down the High street, where there were timber houses with overhanging stories, whose small-paned lattices were screened by dimity curtains on a drawing string, and under whose barge-boards old cobwebs waved in the breeze. They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken into the darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by the nearest lamps sufficiently to show how completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework had been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in the 'crevices thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass almost as far up as the v.'ry battlements. From this tower the clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll with a peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and it was utilized by the inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No sooner did the deep notes of the bell throb between the housefronts than a clatter of shutters arose through the whole length of the High street. In a few minutes business at Casterbridge was ended for the day. A few score yards brought mother and daughter to the spot, Where the town band was now’ shaking the w’indow panes with the strains of “The Roast Beef of Old England.” The building before whose doors they had pitched their music stands was the chief hotel in Cahterbridge—namely, The Golden Crown. A spacious bow-window projected into the street over the main portico, and from the open sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the popping of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the whole interior of this room ibould be surveyed from the top of a flight of steps opposite, for w’hich reason a knot of idlers had gathered there. “We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about —our relation, Mr. Henchard,” whispered Mrs. New’son, who, since her entry into Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and agitated. “And this, I think, would be a good place for trying it —just to ask, you know, how he stands in the town—if he is here, as I think he must be. You, Elizabeth Jane, had better be the one to do it. I’m too worn out to do anything—pull down your veil first.” She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth Jane obeyed her directions and stood among the idlers. “What’s going on to-night?” asked the girl, after singling out an old man, and standing by him long enough to acquire a neighborly right of converse. “Well, ye must be a stranger sure,” said the old man, without taking his eyes from the window’; "why, ’tis a great public dinner of the gentle-people and such-Hke leading folk —wi’ the Mayor in the chair. If you mount the steps yon can see ’em. That’s Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end of the table, a-facing ye; and that’s the councilmen right and left.” "Henchard?” said Elizabeth Jane, surprised, but by no means suspecting the whole force of the revelation. She ascended among the other persons to the space at the top of the steps. Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught from the window tones that strangely riveted her attention before the old man’s words, “Mr. Henchard, the Mayor,” reached her ears. She arose and ascended in her daughter’s rear as soon as she could do so without showing exceptional eagerness. The interior of the hotel dining room was spread out before her, with its tables, and glass and plate, and inmates. Facing the window, in the chair of dignity, sat a man approaching forty years of age; of heavy frame, large features and commanding voice; his general build being rather coarse than qpmpact. He bad a rich complexion, which verged on swarthiness, a flashing black eye and dark, busby brows and hair. When he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some remark among the guests his large mouth parted ao far back as to show to the rays of the chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound white teeth that he obviously still could boast of. Susan Henchard’s husband—in law, at least—sat before them, matured in shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined, thought-marked—in a word, older. Elizabeth, encumbered with no recollections, regarded him with nothing qpore than the keen curiosity and interest which the discovery of such unexpected social standing in the long-sought relative naturally begot He was dressed in an

old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt showing on his broad breast; jeweled studs, and a heavy gold chain. Three glasses stood at his right band; but, to his wife’s surprise, the two for wine were empty,- while the third, a tumbler, was half full of water. When last she had seen him he was sitting in a light fustian jacket, corduroy waistcoat and breeches and tanned leather leggins, with a basin of hot furmity before him. Time, the magician, had wrought mqch here. '■Watching him, and thus thinking of past days, she became so moved that she shrank back against the jamb of the deep doorway to which the steps gave access, the shadow from it conveniently hiding her features. She forgot her daughter till a touch from Elizabeth Jane aroused her. “Have you seen.him, mother?’ whispered the girl. “Yes, yes,” answered her companion, hastily. “I have seen him, and it is enough for me! Now 1 only want to go —pass away—die.” “Why—oh, what?’ She drew closer and whispered in her mother’s ear, “Does he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I thought he looked a generous man. What a gentleman he is, isn’t he? and how his diamond studs shine! How strange that you should have said he might be in the stocks, or in the workhouse, or dead! Did ever anything go more by contraries! Why do you feel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I’ll call upon him—he can but say h« Mon’t own such remote kin.” “I don’t think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I thought he would be —he overpowers me. I don’t wish to see him any more.” “But wait a little time and consider.” Elizabeth Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her life as in their present position, partly from the natural elation she felt at discovering herself, in the old phrase, akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the scene. “They don’t fill Mr. Henchard’s wine glasses,” she ventured to say to her elbow acquaintance, the old man. “Oh, no; don’t ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy of that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. Oh, yes, he’ve strong qualities way. I have heard tell that’ he swore a gospel oath in bygone times, and has bode by it ever since. So they don’t press him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that; for yer gospel oath is a serious thing.” Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by inquiring: “How much longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon Longways?’ “Another two year, they say. I don’t know the why and the wherefore of his fixing such a time, for ’a never has told anybody. But ’tis exactly two calendar years longer, they say.” “But there’s great strength in hope. Knowing that in four-and-twenty months’ time ye’ll be out of yer bondage, and able to make up for all you’ve suffered, by partaking without stint; why, it keeps a man up, no doubt.” “No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And ’a must need such reflections —a lonely widow man,” said Longways. “Where did he lose his wife?” asked Elizabeth.. “I never knowed her. ’Twas afore he came to Casterbridge. But I know that ’a’s a banded teetotaller, and that if any of his men be ever so little overtook by a drop, he’s down upon ’em stern.” “Has he many men, then?” said Elizabeth Jane. “Many? Why, my good maid, he’s the powerfulest member of the town council, and quite a principal man in the country round besides. He and Casterbridge bank-folk are sworn brothers; and it’s not every man that’s hand in glove with a bank. Never a big dealing in wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots and such like in this county but Henchard’s got a band in it. He worked his way up from nothing when ’a came here; and now he’s a pillar of the town. Not but what he’s been shook a little to-year about this bad corn he has supplied in his contracts. I may say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as hev been made from Henchard’s wheat lately.” The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it was ended the dinner was over, and speeches began to be made. The evening being calm, and the windows still open, these orations could be distinctly heard. Henchard’s voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his hay-dealing experiences. From that he went on to talk about the grown wheat. “You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business,” he said. “You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of that corn was worse than we have known it for years. However, I have mended my arrangements on account o’t. Since I have found my business too large to be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for a thorough good man as manager of the corn department. When I’ve got him you will find these mistakes will no longer occur —matters will be better looked into.” “But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?’ inquired a man who seemed to be a baker or miller. “Will you replace the grown flour we’ve still got by sound grain?” Henchard’s face grew stern at this interruption, and he drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain time. Instead of vouhesafing a direct reply he stiffly observed: "ft anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into wholesome wheat, I’ll take it back with pleasure. But it can’t be done.” Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said this he sat down. CHAPTER V. Now the group outside the window had within the last few minutes been re-en-fbreed by new arrivals, some of them respectable shop-keepers and their assistants, who had come out for a whiff of air after putting up the shutters for the night; some of them of a lower class. Distinct from either there appeared a stranger—a young man of remarkably pleasant aspect, who carried in his hand a carpet bag of the smart floral pattern prevalent in such articles at that time. He was fair and ruddy, bright-eyed, and slight in build. He might possibly have passed by without stopping at all or at most for half a minute to glance in at the scene, had not his advent coincided with the discussion on corn and bread, in which event this history had never appeared. But the subject seemed to arrest him, and he whispered some inquiries of the other bystanders, and remained listening. When he heard Henchard’s closing words, "It can’t be done,” he smiled, impulsively drew out his pocketbook, and wrote down a few words by the aid of the light in the window.' He tore out the leaf.

folded and directed It, and seemed about to throw it in through the open sash upon the dining table, but, on second thoughts, edged himself through the loiterers, till he reached the door of the inn, where one of the waiters who had been serving inside was now idly leaning against the door post. “Give this to the Mayor at once,” he said, handing in his hasty note. Elizabeth Jane had seen his movements and heard the words, which attracted her both by their subject and by their accent —a strange one for those parts. It was quaint and northerly. The waiter took the note, while the young stranger continued: “And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that's a little more moderate than this?” The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street. “They say the King of Prussia, just below here, is a very good place,” he languidly answered; "but 1 have never stayed there myself.” The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, and strolled on in the direction of the King of Prussia aforesaid, apparently more concerned about the question of an inn than about the fate of his note now that the momentary impulse of writing it was over. While he was disappearing slowly down the street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth Jane saw with some interest the note brought into the dining room and handed to the Mayor. Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it with one hand, and glanced it through. Thereupon it was curious to note an unexpected effect. The nettled, clouded aspect which had held possession of his face since the subject of his corn dealings had been broached, changed itself into one of arrested attention. He fell into thought, not moody, but fitfully intense, as that of a man who has been captured by an idea. (To be continued.)