The Mayor of Casterbridge

Chapter 2

The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the

canvas when the man awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole

atmosphere of the marquee, and a single big blue fly buzzed

musically round and round it. Besides the buzz of the fly

there was not a sound. He looked about--at the benches--at

the table supported by trestles--at his basket of tools--at

the stove where the furmity had been boiled--at the empty

basins--at some shed grains of wheat--at the corks which

dotted the grassy floor. Among the odds and ends he

discerned a little shining object, and picked it up. It was

his wife's ring.

A confused picture of the events of the previous evening

seemed to come back to him, and he thrust his hand into his

breast-pocket. A rustling revealed the sailor's bank-notes

thrust carelessly in.

This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he

knew now they were not dreams. He remained seated, looking

on the ground for some time. "I must get out of this as

soon as I can," he said deliberately at last, with the air

of one who could not catch his thoughts without pronouncing

them. "She's gone--to be sure she is--gone with that sailor

who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked here,

and I had the furmity, and rum in it--and sold her. Yes,

that's what's happened and here am I. Now, what am I to do--

am I sober enough to walk, I wonder?" He stood up, found

that he was in fairly good condition for progress,

unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool basket, and found

he could carry it. Then lifting the tent door he emerged

into the open air.

Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The

freshness of the September morning inspired and braced him

as he stood. He and his family had been weary when they

arrived the night before, and they had observed but little

of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing. It

exhibited itself as the top of an open down, bounded on one

extreme by a plantation, and approached by a winding road.

At the bottom stood the village which lent its name to the

upland and the annual fair that was held thereon. The spot

stretched downward into valleys, and onward to other

uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched with the remains

of prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay under the rays of

a newly risen sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade

of the heavily dewed grass, whereon the shadows of the

yellow and red vans were projected far away, those thrown by

the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape to the

orbit of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen who had

remained on the ground lay snug within their carts and tents

or wrapped in horse-cloths under them, and were silent and

still as death, with the exception of an occasional snore

that revealed their presence. But the Seven Sleepers had a

dog; and dogs of the mysterious breeds that vagrants own,

that are as much like cats as dogs and as much like foxes as

cats also lay about here. A little one started up under one

of the carts, barked as a matter of principle, and quickly

lay down again. He was the only positive spectator of the

hay-trusser's exit from the Weydon Fair-field.

This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent

thought, unheeding the yellowhammers which flitted about the

hedges with straws in their bills, the crowns of the

mushrooms, and the tinkling of local sheep-bells, whose

wearer had had the good fortune not to be included in the

fair. When he reached a lane, a good mile from the scene of

the previous evening, the man pitched his basket and leant

upon a gate. A difficult problem or two occupied his mind.

"Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn't I tell

my name?" he said to himself; and at last concluded that he

did not. His general demeanour was enough to show how he

was surprised and nettled that his wife had taken him so

literally--as much could be seen in his face, and in the way

he nibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge. He knew

that she must have been somewhat excited to do this;

moreover, she must have believed that there was some sort of

binding force in the transaction. On this latter point he

felt almost certain, knowing her freedom from levity of

character, and the extreme simplicity of her intellect.

There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment

beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any

momentary doubts. On a previous occasion when he had

declared during a fuddle that he would dispose of her as he

had done, she had replied that she would not hear him say

that many times more before it happened, in the resigned

tones of a fatalist...."Yet she knows I am not in my senses

when I do that!" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about

till I find her....Seize her, why didn't she know better

than bring me into this disgrace!" he roared out. "She

wasn't queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such idiotic

simplicity. Meek--that meekness has done me more harm than

the bitterest temper!"

When he was calmer he turned to his original conviction that

he must somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and

put up with the shame as best he could. It was of his own

making, and he ought to bear it. But first he resolved to

register an oath, a greater oath than he had ever sworn

before: and to do it properly he required a fit place and

imagery; for there was something fetichistic in this man's

beliefs.

He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes

inquisitively round upon the landscape as he walked, and at

the distance of three or four miles perceived the roofs of a

village and the tower of a church. He instantly made

towards the latter object. The village was quite still, it

being that motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills

the interval between the departure of the field-labourers to

their work, and the rising of their wives and daughters to

prepare the breakfast for their return. Hence he reached

the church without observation, and the door being only

latched he entered. The hay-trusser deposited his basket by

the font, went up the nave till he reached the altar-rails,

and opening the gate entered the sacrarium, where he seemed

to feel a sense of the strangeness for a moment; then he

knelt upon the footpace. Dropping his head upon the clamped

book which lay on the Communion-table, he said aloud--

"I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of

September, do take an oath before God here in this solemn

place that I will avoid all strong liquors for the space of

twenty-one years to come, being a year for every year that I

have lived. And this I swear upon the book before me; and

may I be strook dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break this

my oath!"

When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser

arose, and seemed relieved at having made a start in a new

direction. While standing in the porch a moment he saw a

thick jet of wood smoke suddenly start up from the red

chimney of a cottage near, and knew that the occupant had

just lit her fire. He went round to the door, and the

housewife agreed to prepare him some breakfast for a

trifling p*****t, which was done. Then he started on the

search for his wife and child.

The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent

soon enough. Though he examined and inquired, and walked

hither and thither day after day, no such characters as

those he described had anywhere been seen since the evening

of the fair. To add to the difficulty he could gain no

sound of the sailor's name. As money was short with him he

decided, after some hesitation, to spend the sailor's money

in the prosecution of this search; but it was equally in

vain. The truth was that a certain shyness of revealing his

conduct prevented Michael Henchard from following up the

investigation with the loud hue-and-cry such a pursuit

demanded to render it effectual; and it was probably for

this reason that he obtained no clue, though everything was

done by him that did not involve an explanation of the

circumstances under which he had lost her.

Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on,

maintaining himself by small jobs of work in the intervals.

By this time he had arrived at a seaport, and there he

derived intelligence that persons answering somewhat to his

description had emigrated a little time before. Then he

said he would search no longer, and that he would go and

settle in the district which he had had for some time in his

mind.

Next day he started, journeying south-westward, and did not

pause, except for nights' lodgings, till he reached the town

of Casterbridge, in a far distant part of Wessex.