Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1899 — THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

BY THOMAS HARDY.

I XXV.—(Continued.) |BrWell. it was not in my heart to unde■falve firt. when the deed was done,” said ■B sailor of former days. “I thought ■Mere was not mjich vanity in thinking ■hat she would be happier with me. She Hfas' fairly happy, and I never would have Khdeeeived her until the day of her death. Hfour child died: she had another, and all ■fruit well. But a time came—mark me ,a ■pine always does come. A time came —it Kras some while after she and I and the ■hild returned from America—when some■bdy she had confided her history to told Kbr that my claim to her was a mockery, ■fed made a jest of her belief in my right. ■Lfter that she w as never happy with me. ■Me pined and pined, and socked and sigh■s. She said she must leave me, and then K*nie the question of our child. Then a ■pan advised me what to do, and I did it, K° r l thought it was best. I left her at and went off to sea. When I ■ot to the other side of the Atlantic there Kras a storm and it got into the papers ■bat a lot of us, including myself, had ■Sen washed overboard. I got ashore at and then I asked myself Ijftat I should do. ‘Since I’m here, here |R|l bide,’ I thought to myself; * ’twill be ■abet kindness to her, now she’s took ■gainst me, to let her believe me lost; ■mt,’ I thought, ‘while she supposes us alive she’ll be miserable; but if she ■Kinks me dead she’ll go back to him, and ■he child will have a home.’ I’ve never ■Earned to this country till a month ago, ■md I found that, as I had supposed, she |Kent to you, and my daughter with her. ■They told me in Falmouth that Susan ■Was dead. But Elizabeth Jane —where is Kr g(“Dead likewise,” said Henchard, dog■ftdly. “Surely you learned that, too?” ■KThe sailor started up, and took an en■ryated pace or two down the room. Bfeead!” he said, in a low voice. “Then ■mat’s the use of my money to me?” KgElenchard, without answering, shook ■h head, as if that were rather a ques■fon for Newson himself than for him. Kp*Where is she buried?” the traveler inmßSfeside her mother,” said Henchard, in ■ke tame stolid tones. U*‘When did she die?” ■■Two years ago next twenty-fourth of ■birch,” replied the other without hesita■The sailor continued standing. Hench■m never looked up from the floor. At ■frft Newson said: “My journey hither has ■ten for nothing. I may as well go as I ■taae! It has served me right. I'll trouyou no longer.” KKi CHAPTER XXVI. ■piewson did not return. Lucetta had ■ten borne along the churchyard path; ■uterbridge had for the last time turned Kg regard upon her, before proceeding to work as if she had never lived. But |Bkxabeth Jane remained undisturbed in ■■ belief of her relationship to Henchard, ■|il ‘now shared his home. Perhaps, asNewson was gone forever. gßpor Elizabeth Jane's sake Henchard ■ad fettered his pride sufficiently to ac■frpt the small seed business which some ■j[the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, purchased, to afford him a new open■(g. Had he been only personally con|Kned, Henchard without doubt, would ■»• declined assistance even remotely about by the man whom he had gjteKflercely assailed. But the sympathy KflEthe girl seemed necessary to his very ■lstence, and on her account pride itself ■nre the garments of humility. wßChus they lived on in the shop overlookMK the churchyard, and nothing occurred B»<mark their days during the remainder ■l the year. Going out but seldom, and ■taer on a market day, they saw Donald IKOrae only at rarest intervals, and then ■Hr as a transitory object in the disHmee of the street. Yet he was pursuing ■la ordinary avocations, smiling mechan■uly to fellow-tradesmen, and arguing ■■th bargainers—as bereaved men do aswhile. Hwy the end of a year Henchard’s little ■Stall seed and grain shop, not much than a cupboard, had developed its ■Kde considerably, and the stepfather ■m daughter enjoyed much serenity in KB pleasant, sunny corner in which it ■ttime passed on until the quiet weeks IKK preceded the hay-making season had ■be—setting their special stamp upon Krnfaerbridge by thronging the market ■■s wood rakes, new wagons in yellow, EHBrn and red, formidable scythes, and KBraforks of prong sufficient to skewer gbp a small family.*' Henchard, contrary Khis wont > tvent out one Saturday afterto the market place, from a curious yKbg that he would like to pass a few on the spot of his former triKphs. Farfrae, to whom he was still a Htnparative stranger, stood a few steps .■vw the Corn Exchange door—a usual ■Bon with him at this hour—and he ap■ared lost in thought about something | was looking at a little way off. ' SH#Bchard’s eyes followed Farfrae’s, he saw that the object of his gaze ■W no sam P le ' sJlowiu K farmer, but his ®K;. ; Btep-daughter, who had just come Kof a shop over the way. She, on her quite unconscious of his atten.and in this was less fortunate than ■tab young women whose very plumes, ■^ O 8 J une ' s bir<1 > are set with i-.-.ilfgUS eyes whenever possible admirers ■ fr within ken. S went away, thinking that gj Naps there was nothing significant asFarfrae’s look at Elizabeth Jane Scotchman had once shown a fi; nder interest in her, of a fleeting kind. " ■ta’upon promptly came to the surface Bid had mainly made him what he was. j/. . a. a « a, 1 V 4. i Kdwrfahed step-daughter and the enerthriving Donald was a thing to be possibility.

all in this world by saying to her, as if he did not care about her more: “I am going to leave Casterbridge, Elizabeth Jane. This little shop can be managed by you alone as well as by us both; I don’t care about shops, and streets, and folks—l would rather get into the country by myself out of sight, and follow my own ways, and leave you to yours.” “I am sorry you have decided on this,” she said, with disciplined firmness. “For it is probable—possible—that I may marry Mr. Farfrae some little time hence, and I should like you to stay and approve of the step at least.” “I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy,” said Henchard, huskily. “But I wish to go away. My presence might make things awkward for Mr. Farfrae, and—in short, it is best that I go.” Nothing that she could urge would induce him to reconsider his determination; and it must be confessed that there was a leaven of half-heartedness in her deprecations which after-events explained. “Then,” she said at last, “you will not come to my wedding, and that is not as I should wish it to be.” “I don’t want to see it—l don’t want to see it!” he exclaimed; adding more softly: “But think of me sometimes in your future life —you’ll do that, Izzy? Think of me when you are living as the wife of the richest, the foremost man in the town, and don’t let my sins cause ye to quite forget that though I loved ’ee late I loved ’ee well,” She promised, and the same evening at dusk Henchard left the town, to whose development he had been one of chief stimulants for many years. After he was gone Elizabeth Jane went out, and was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was evidently not their first meeting that day; they joined hands without ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously asked: “And is he gone—and did you tell him? I mean of the other matter —not of ours.” “He is gone. But I did not tell him. I could not do it.” “Well, well, dearie, you may know best about that. But he’ll hear of it if he does not go far.” “He will go far; he’s bent upon getting out of sight and sound.” She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the town pump turned with him into Corn street, instead of going straight to her own door. At Farfrae’s house they stopped and went in. Farfrae flung open the door of the ground floor sitting room, saying: “There he is waiting for you,” and Elizabeth entered. In the armchair sat the broadfaced, genial man who had called on Henchard on a memorable morning between one and two years before this time, and whom the latter had seen mount the coach and depart within half an hour of his arrival. It was Richard Newson. “At last I’ve saved ’ee the trouble to come and meet me—ha! ha!" said Newson. “The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said, ‘Come up and stop with me for a day or two, Newson, and I’ll bring her round.’ ‘Faith,’ says I, ‘so I will;’ and here I am.” “Well, Henchard is gone,” said Farfrae, shutting the door. “He has done it all voluntarily, and, as I gather from Elizabeth Jane, he has been very nice with her. I was got rather uneasy; but all is as it should be, and we will have no more difficulties at all.” • CHAPTER XXVII. Meanwhile the man of their talk had pursued his solitary way eastward till weariness overtook him, and he looked about for a place of rest. His heart was so exacerbated at parting from the girl that he could not face an inn or even a household of the most humble kind; and entering a field he lay down under a wheat rick, feeling no want of food. The very heaviness of his soul caused him to sleep profoundly. During five consecutive days Henchard’s rush basket rode along upon his shoulders between the highway hedges, the new yellow of the rushes catching the eye of an occasional field laborer as he glanced over the quickset, together with the wayfarer's hat and head, and down-turned face, over which the twig shadows moved in endless procession. It now became apparent that the direction of his journey was Weydon Priors, which he reached on the afternoon of the sixth day. Here he obtained employment at his old occupation of hay-trusser, work of that sort being in demand at the autumn time, and here he subsequently learned that Elizabeth Jane’s marriage had been set for Martin’s day. He impulsively determined to attend the wedding. He returned to Casterbridge on the appointed day. There was no need to make inquiries beforehand, for on drawing near Farfrae’s residence it was plain to the least observant that festivity prevailed within, and that Donald himself shared it, his voice being distinctly audible in the street, giving strong expression to a song of his native country. Idlers were standing on the pavement in front, and, wishing to escape the notice of these, Henchard passed quickly on to the door. It was wide open; the hall was lighted extravagantly, and people were going up and down the stairs. His courage failed him; to enter, footsore, laden and poorly dressed, into the midst of such resplendency was to bring needless humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court repulse from her husband. Accordingly he went round into the back street that he knew so well, entered the garden, and came quietly into the house through the kitchen, temporarily depositing the bird cage under a bush outside to lessen the awkwardness of his arrival. Solitude and sadness had so emoliated Henchard that he now feared circumstances he would formerly have scorned, and he began to wish that he had not taken upon himself to arrive at such a juncture. However, his progress was made unexpectedly easy by his discovering slope In the kitchen an elderly woman who seemed to be acting as provisional housekeeper during the convulsion* from which Farfrae’s establishment was just then ■tifyopin c fill® tITAS OKM? D&ODle

whom nothing surprises, and though to her, a total stranger, his request must have seemed odd, she willingly volunteered to go up and inform the master and mistress of the house that he had come. On second thoughts she said that he had better not wait in the kitchen, but come up into the little back parlor, which was empty. He thereupon followed her thither, and she left him. Just as she got across the landing to the door of the best parlor, a dance was struck up, and she returned to say that she would wait till that was over before announcing him— Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having both joined in the figure. The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to give more space, and that of the room Henchard sat in being ajar, he could see fractional parts of the dancers whenever their gyrations brought them near the doorway chiefly in the shape of the skirts of dresses and streaming curls of hair; together with about three-fifths of the band in profile, including the restless shadow of a fiddler’s elbow and the tip of the bass viol bow. With the progress of the dance the performers spread out somewhat, and then for the first time he caught a glimpse of the once-despised daughter who had mastered him and made his heart ache. She was in a dress of white silk or satin —he was not near enough to say which—snowy white, without a tinge of milk or cream; and the expression of her face was one of nervous pleasure rather than of gayety. Presently Farfrae came round, his exuberant movement making him conspicuous in a moment. The pair were not dancing together, but Henchard could discern that whenever the interchanges of the figure made them the partners for a moment, their emotions breathed a much subtler essence than at other times.

By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod by some one who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory intenseness. This was strange, and it was stranger to find that the eclipsing personage was Elizabeth Jane’s partner. The first time that Henchard saw him he was sweeping grandly round; his head quivering, and low down, his legs in the form of an X, and his back toward the door. The next time he came round in the other direction, his white waistcoat preceding his face, and his toes preceding his white waistcoat. That sac lived a lifetime the moment that he saw it —that face was Newson’s! Henchard pushed to the door, and for some seconds made no other movement. He rose to his feet, and stood in dark despair, obscured by “the shade from his own soul unthrown.” His agitation was great, and he would fain have been gone; but before he could leave the dance had ended, the housekeeper had Informed Elizabeth Jane of the stranger who awaited her, and she entered the room immediately. “Oh—it if*—Mr. Henchard!” she said, starting coldly back. “What, Elizabeth,” he cried, as he seized her hand—“what do you say? Mr. Henchard? Don’t, don’t scourge me like that; call me worthless old Henchard—anything—bat don’t ’ee be so cold as this! Oh, my maid. I see you have another—a real father in my place; you know all, but don’t give all your heart to him. Cannot you save a little room for me?” She flushed up, and pulled her hand away. “I could have loved you always— I would have gladly," said she. “But how can I when I know you have deceived me so—bitterly deceived me? You persuaded me that my father was not my father, allowed me to livi on in ignorance of the truth for years, and then, when he came to see me, cruelly Sent him away with an account of my death. Oh, how can I do anything but hate a man who has served me like this?” Henchard’s lips naif parted t» begin an explanation; but he shut them np like a vise, and uttered not a sound. How should he, there and then, set before her with any effect the palliatives of his' great faults —that he had himself been deceived in her identity, til) informed by her mother’s letter that his own child had died; that, in the second accusation, his lie had been the last desperate throw of a gamester who loved irftr affection better than his own honor? Among the many hindrances to such a pleading not the least was this —that he did not sufficiently value himself to lessen his sufferings by any active means. Waiving, therefore, his privilege of selfdefense, he regarded only her discomposure. “Don’t distress yourself on my account,” he said, with proud self-mastery. “I would not wish it—at such a tjme, too, as this! I have done wrong in coming to ’ee. I see my error; but it is only for once, so forgive it. I’ll never, never trouble ’ee again, Elizabeth Jone—no, not to my dying day. Good-night. Gqod-bye.” Thus Henchard went out from her rooms, and she saw him no more. CHAPTER XXVIII. About a month later, white Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae were out ridiixg at some distance from Casterbridge, they saw a solitary humaft form come from under the clump of tree* and cross ahead of them. The person w*as some laborer; his gait was shambling, his regard fixed in front of him as absolutely as if he wore blinkers, and in his hand he carried « few sticks. Having crossed the road, he descended into a ravine, Where a cottaga revealed itself, which he entered. “If it were not so far away from Casterbridge I should say must be poor Elson. ’Tis ju»t like him,-’ observed Elizabeth Jane. “And it may be Elson, for he’s never been to the yaffl these three weeks, going away without saying any word at all, and I owing him for two days’ work, without knowing who to pay fit to.” The possibility led them to alight, and at least make an inquiry at the cottage. Farfrae hitched the reins to the gate-post, and they approached wh>t was of humble dwellings surely the humblest. The walls, built of kneaded clay originally, faced with a trowel, had been worn by years of rain-washings to a lumpy, crumbling surface, channeled and sunken from its plane, its gray rents hald together here and there by a leafy strip of ivy, which could scarcely find substance enough for the purpose. Leaves from the fence had been blown into the corners of the doorway and lay there undisturbed. The door was ajar; Farfrta knocked; and he who stood before them was Elson, as they had conjectured. His face showed marks of deep sadness, his eyes lighting wa them with an unfocussed gaze; and lift still held in his hand the few sticks he had been out to gather. As soon as he recognised them he started. “What, Abel Elrojj; and Is it that ye are here?” said Farfrae. “Ay, yes, air. Yon see, he was kind like to mother when she were here below,

“Oh, sir—Mr. Henchet! Didn’t ye know it? He’s just gone—about half an hour ago, by the sun; for I’ve got no watch to my name." “Not—dead?" faltered Elizabeth Jane. “Yes, ma’am, he’s gone. He was kind like to mother when she were here below, sending her the best ship-coal, and hardly any ashes from it at all; and taties, and such like, that were very needful to her. So I seed him go down street on the night of your worshipful’s wedding to the lady at yer side, and I thought he looked low and faltering. And I followed en over the road, and he turned and saw me, and said: ‘You go back!’ But I followed, and he turned agin and said: ‘Do you hear, sir? Go back.* But I saw that he was low, and I followed on still. Then *a said: ‘Elson, what do you follow me for, when I’ve told ye to go back all these times?* And I said: ‘Because, sir, I see things be bad with ye, and ye wer kind like to mother, if ye wer rough to me, and I would fain to be kind like to you.’ Then he walked on, and I followed; and he never complained at me any more. We walked on like that all night; and in the blue o’ the morning, when ’twas hardly day, I looked ahead o* me, and I seed that he wabbled, and could hardly drag along. By that time we had got past here, but I had seen that this house was empty as I went by, and I got him to come back; and I took down the boards from the windows, and helped his inside. Then I went on further, and some neighborly woodmen lent me a bed, and a chair, and a few other traps, and we brought ’em here, and made him as comfortable as we could. But he didn’t gain strength, for you see, ma’am, he couldn’t eat —no, no appetite at all —and he got weaker; and to-day he died. One of the neighbors have gone to get a man to measure him.” “Dear me—and is it so!” said Farfrae. As for Elizabeth, she said nothing. “Upon the head of his bed he pinned a pieces of paper, with some writing upon it,” continued Abel Elson. “But not being a man of letters I can’t read writing; so I don’t know what it is. I can get it and show you.” They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage, returning in a moment with a crumpled scrap of paper. On it there was penciled as follows: “MICHAEL HENCHARD’S WILL. “That Elizabeth Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. “& that I be not bury’d in consecrated ground. “& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. “& that nobody is wished to see my dead body. “& that no mourners walk behind me at my funeral. “& that no flowers be planted on my grave. “& that no man remember me. “To this I put my name. “MICHAEL HENCHARD.” “What are we to do?” said Donald, when he had handed the paper to her. She could not answer distinctly. “Oh, Donald,” she said at last. “What bitterness lies there! I would not have minded so much if it had not been for that last parting! But there’s no altering—so it must be.” (The end.)