The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy (best books for 8th graders .TXT) đ
- Author: Thomas Hardy
Book online «The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy (best books for 8th graders .TXT) đ». Author Thomas Hardy
âAnd are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?â she asked.
âAhâ âno!â said the Scotchman, with melancholy fatality in his voice, âIâm only passing thirrough! I am on my way to Bristol, and on frae there to foreign parts.â
âWe be truly sorry to hear it,â said Solomon Longways. âWe can ill afford to lose tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when they fall among us. And verily, to makâ acquaintance with a man a-come from so far, from the land oâ perpetual snow, as we may say, where wolves and wild boars and other dangerous animalcules be as common as blackbirds hereaboutâ âwhy, âtis a thing we canât do every day; and thereâs good sound information for bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens his mouth.â
âNay, but ye mistake my country,â said the young man, looking round upon them with tragic fixity, till his eye lighted up and his cheek kindled with a sudden enthusiasm to right their errors. âThere are not perpetual snow and wolves at all in it!â âexcept snow in winter, andâ âwellâ âa little in summer just sometimes, and a âgaberlunzieâ or two stalking about here and there, if ye may call them dangerous. Eh, but you should take a summer jarreny to Edinboroâ, and Arthurâs Seat, and all round there, and then go on to the lochs, and all the Highland sceneryâ âin May and Juneâ âand you would never say âtis the land of wolves and perpetual snow!â
âOf course notâ âit stands to reason,â said Buzzford. âââTis barren ignorance that leads to such words. Heâs a simple homespun man, that never was fit for good companyâ âthink nothing of him, sir.â
âAnd do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt, and your crock, and your bit of chiney? or do ye go in bare bones, as I may say?â inquired Christopher Coney.
âIâve sent on my luggageâ âthough it isnât much; for the voyage is long.â Donaldâs eyes dropped into a remote gaze as he added: âBut I said to myself, âNever a one of the prizes of life will I come by unless I undertake it!â and I decided to go.â
A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Jane shared not least, made itself apparent in the company. As she looked at Farfrae from the back of the settle she decided that his statements showed him to be no less thoughtful than his fascinating melodies revealed him to be cordial and impassioned. She admired the serious light in which he looked at serious things. He had seen no jest in ambiguities and roguery, as the Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and rightly notâ âthere was none. She disliked those wretched humours of Christopher Coney and his tribe; and he did not appreciate them. He seemed to feel exactly as she felt about life and its surroundingsâ âthat they were a tragical rather than a comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion, moments of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actual drama. It was extraordinary how similar their views were.
Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressed his wish to retire, whereupon the landlady whispered to Elizabeth to run upstairs and turn down his bed. She took a candlestick and proceeded on her mission, which was the act of a few moments only. When, candle in hand, she reached the top of the stairs on her way down again, Mr. Farfrae was at the foot coming up. She could not very well retreat; they met and passed in the turn of the staircase.
She must have appeared interesting in some wayâ ânotwithstanding her plain dressâ âor rather, possibly, in consequence of it, for she was a girl characterized by earnestness and soberness of mien, with which simple drapery accorded well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight awkwardness of the meeting, and she passed him with her eyes bent on the candle-flame that she carried just below her nose. Thus it happened that when confronting her he smiled; and then, with the manner of a temporarily lighthearted man, who has started himself on a flight of song whose momentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned an old ditty that she seemed to suggestâ â
As I came in by my bower door,
As day was waxinâ wearie,
Oh wha came tripping down the stair
But bonnie Peg my dearie.
Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on; and the Scotchmanâs voice died away, humming more of the same within the closed door of his room.
Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present. When soon after, the girl rejoined her mother, the latter was still in thoughtâ âon quite another matter than a young manâs song.
âWeâve made a mistake,â she whispered (that the Scotchman might not overhear). âOn no account ought ye to have helped serve here tonight. Not because of ourselves, but for the sake of him. If he should befriend us, and take us up, and then find out what you did when staying here, âtwould grieve and wound his natural pride as Mayor of the town.â
Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmed at this than her mother had she known the real relationship, was not much disturbed about it as things stood. Her âheâ was another man than her poor motherâs. âFor myself,â she said, âI didnât at all mind waiting a little upon him. Heâs so respectable, and educatedâ âfar above the rest of âem in the inn. They thought him very simple not to know their grim broad way of talking about themselves here. But of course he didnât knowâ âhe was too refined in his mind to know such things!â Thus she earnestly pleaded.
Meanwhile, the âheâ of her mother was not so far away as even they thought. After leaving the Three Mariners he had sauntered up and down the empty High Street, passing and repassing the inn in his promenade. When the Scotchman sang his voice had reached Henchardâs ears through the heart-shaped holes in the window-shutters, and had led him to pause
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