The Mayor of Casterbridge

Chapter 1

One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century

had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman,

the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large

village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They

were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust

which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an

obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to

their appearance just now.

The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect;

and he showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined

as to be almost perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of

brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which

was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of

the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with

black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped

strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the

crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also

visible in the aperture. His measured, springless walk was

the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from the

desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn

and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and

cynical indifference personal to himself, showing its

presence even in the regularly interchanging fustian folds,

now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along.

What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's

progress, and would have attracted the attention of any

casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook them, was the

perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side in

such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy,

confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on

closer view it could be discerned that the man was reading,

or pretending to read, a ballad sheet which he kept before

his eyes with some difficulty by the hand that was passed

through the basket strap. Whether this apparent cause were

the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape

an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody

but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity

was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from

his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone, save

for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow

almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his

side as was possible without actual contact, but she seemed

to have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it;

and far from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence she

appeared to receive it as a natural thing. If any word at

all were uttered by the little group, it was an occasional

whisper of the woman to the child--a tiny girl in short

clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn--and the murmured

babble of the child in reply.

The chief--almost the only--attraction of the young woman's

face was its mobility. When she looked down sideways to the

girl she became pretty, and even handsome, particularly that

in the action her features caught slantwise the rays of the

strongly coloured sun, which made transparencies of her

eyelids and nostrils and set fire on her lips. When she

plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she

had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems

anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except,

perhaps, fair play. The first phase was the work of Nature,

the second probably of civilization.

That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the

parents of the girl in arms there could be little doubt. No

other than such relationship would have accounted for the

atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along

with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.

The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with

little interest--the scene for that matter being one that

might have been matched at almost any spot in any county in

England at this time of the year; a road neither straight

nor crooked, neither level nor hilly, bordered by hedges,

trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the

blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass

through on their way to dingy, and yellow, and red. The

grassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs,

were powdered by the dust that had been stirred over them by

hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on the road

deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the

aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every

extraneous sound to be heard.

For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak

bird singing a trite old evening song that might doubtless

have been heard on the hill at the same hour, and with the

self-same trills, quavers, and breves, at any sunset of that

season for centuries untold. But as they approached the

village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached their ears

from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened

from view by foliage. When the outlying houses of Weydon-

Priors could just be described, the family group was met by

a turnip-hoer with his hoe on his shoulder, and his dinner-

bag suspended from it. The reader promptly glanced up.

"Any trade doing here?" he asked phlegmatically, designating

the village in his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And

thinking the labourer did not understand him, he added,

"Anything in the hay-trussing line?"

The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. "Why,

save the man, what wisdom's in him that 'a should come to

Weydon for a job of that sort this time o' year?"

"Then is there any house to let--a little small new cottage

just a builded, or such like?" asked the other.

The pessimist still maintained a negative. "Pulling down is

more the nater of Weydon. There were five houses cleared

away last year, and three this; and the volk nowhere to go--

no, not so much as a thatched hurdle; that's the way o'

Weydon-Priors."

The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some

superciliousness. Looking towards the village, he

continued, "There is something going on here, however, is

there not?"

"Ay. 'Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little

more than the clatter and scurry of getting away the money

o' children and fools, for the real business is done earlier

than this. I've been working within sound o't all day, but

I didn't go up--not I. 'Twas no business of mine."

The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon

entered the Fair-field, which showed standing-places and

pens where many hundreds of horses and sheep had been

exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but were now in great

part taken away. At present, as their informant had

observed, but little real business remained on hand, the

chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior animals,

that could not otherwise be disposed of, and had been

absolutely refused by the better class of traders, who came

and went early. Yet the crowd was denser now than during

the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors,

including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or

two come on furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like,

having latterly flocked in; persons whose activities found a

congenial field among the peep-shows, toy-stands, waxworks,

inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who travelled

for the public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and

readers of Fate.

Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things,

and they looked around for a refreshment tent among the many

which dotted the down. Two, which stood nearest to them in

the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed almost

equally inviting. One was formed of new, milk-hued canvas,

and bore red flags on its summit; it announced "Good Home-

brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder." The other was less new; a

little iron stove-pipe came out of it at the back and in

front appeared the placard, "Good Furmity Sold Hear." The

man mentally weighed the two inscriptions and inclined to

the former tent.

"No--no--the other one," said the woman. "I always like

furmity; and so does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is

nourishing after a long hard day."

"I've never tasted it," said the man. However, he gave way

to her representations, and they entered the furmity booth

forthwith.

A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the

long narrow tables that ran down the tent on each side. At

the upper end stood a stove, containing a charcoal fire,

over which hung a large three-legged crock, sufficiently

polished round the rim to show that it was made of bell-

metal. A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a

white apron, which as it threw an air of respectability over

her as far as it extended, was made so wide as to reach

nearly round her waist. She slowly stirred the contents of

the pot. The dull scrape of her large spoon was audible

throughout the tent as she thus kept from burning the

mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins,

currants, and what not, that composed the antiquated slop in

which she dealt. Vessels holding the separate ingredients

stood on a white-clothed table of boards and trestles close by.

The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture,

steaming hot, and sat down to consume it at leisure. This

was very well so far, for furmity, as the woman had said, was

nourishing, and as proper a food as could be obtained within

the four seas; though, to those not accustomed to it, the grains

of wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips, which floated on its

surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.

But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance;

and the man, with the instinct of a perverse character,

scented it quickly. After a mincing attack on his bowl, he

watched the hag's proceedings from the corner of his eye,

and saw the game she played. He winked to her, and passed

up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a bottle

from under the table, slily measured out a quantity of its

contents, and tipped the same into the man's furmity. The

liquor poured in was rum. The man as slily sent back money

in p*****t.

He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to

his satisfaction than it had been in its natural state. His

wife had observed the proceeding with much uneasiness; but

he persuaded her to have hers laced also, and she agreed to

a milder allowance after some misgiving.

The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum

being signalled for in yet stronger proportion. The effect

of it was soon apparent in his manner, and his wife but too

sadly perceived that in strenuously steering off the rocks

of the licensed liquor-tent she had only got into maelstrom

depths here amongst the smugglers.

The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more

than once said to her husband, "Michael, how about our

lodging? You know we may have trouble in getting it if we

don't go soon."

But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings. He

talked loud to the company. The child's black eyes, after

slow, round, ruminating gazes at the candles when they were

lighted, fell together; then they opened, then shut again,

and she slept.

At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity;

at the second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at

the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his

face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery

spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; he was

overbearing--even brilliantly quarrelsome.

The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such

occasions. The ruin of good men by bad wives, and, more

particularly, the frustration of many a promising youth's

high aims and hopes and the extinction of his energies by an

early imprudent marriage, was the theme.

"I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser

with a contemplative bitterness that was well-night

resentful. "I married at eighteen, like the fool that I

was; and this is the consequence o't." He pointed at himself

and family with a wave of the hand intended to bring out the

penuriousness of the exhibition.

The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such

remarks, acted as if she did not hear them, and continued

her intermittent private words of tender trifles to the

sleeping and waking child, who was just big enough to be

placed for a moment on the bench beside her when she wished

to ease her arms. The man continued--

"I haven't more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet

I am a good experienced hand in my line. I'd challenge

England to beat me in the fodder business; and if I were a

free man again I'd be worth a thousand pound before I'd done

o't. But a fellow never knows these little things till all

chance of acting upon 'em is past."

The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside

could be heard saying, "Now this is the last lot--now who'll

take the last lot for a song? Shall I say forty shillings?

'Tis a very promising broodmare, a trifle over five years

old, and nothing the matter with the hoss at all, except

that she's a little holler in the back and had her left eye

knocked out by the kick of another, her own sister, coming

along the road."

"For my part I don't see why men who have got wives and

don't want 'em, shouldn't get rid of 'em as these gipsy

fellows do their old horses," said the man in the tent.

"Why shouldn't they put 'em up and sell 'em by auction to

men who are in need of such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I'd

sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!"

"There's them that would do that," some of the guests

replied, looking at the woman, who was by no means ill-favoured.

"True," said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine

polish about the collar, elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades

that long-continued friction with grimy surfaces will

produce, and which is usually more desired on furniture than

on clothes. From his appearance he had possibly been in

former time groom or coachman to some neighbouring county

family. "I've had my breedings in as good circles, I may

say, as any man," he added, "and I know true cultivation, or

nobody do; and I can declare she's got it--in the bone, mind

ye, I say--as much as any female in the fair--though it may

want a little bringing out." Then, crossing his legs, he

resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjusted gaze at a point in

the air.

The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this

unexpected praise of his wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of

his own attitude towards the possessor of such qualities. But

he speedily lapsed into his former conviction, and said harshly--

"Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for

this gem o' creation."

She turned to her husband and murmured, "Michael, you have

talked this nonsense in public places before. A joke is a

joke, but you may make it once too often, mind!"

"I know I've said it before; I meant it. All I want is a

buyer."

At the moment a swallow, one among the last of the season,

which had by chance found its way through an opening into

the upper part of the tent, flew to and from quick curves

above their heads, causing all eyes to follow it absently.

In watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled

company neglected to respond to the workman's offer, and the

subject dropped.

But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on

lacing his furmity more and more heavily, though he was

either so strong-minded or such an intrepid toper that he

still appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain, as

in a musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the original

theme. "Here--I am waiting to know about this offer of

mine. The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?"

The company had by this time decidedly degenerated, and the

renewed inquiry was received with a laugh of appreciation.

The woman whispered; she was imploring and anxious: "Come,

come, it is getting dark, and this nonsense won't do. If

you don't come along, I shall go without you. Come!"

She waited and waited; yet he did not move. In ten minutes

the man broke in upon the desultory conversation of the

furmity drinkers with. "I asked this question, and nobody

answered to 't. Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw among ye buy

my goods?"

The woman's manner changed, and her face assumed the grim

shape and colour of which mention has been made.

"Mike, Mike," she said; "this is getting serious. O!--too

serious!"

"Will anybody buy her?" said the man.

"I wish somebody would," said she firmly. "Her present

owner is not at all to her liking!"

"Nor you to mine," said he. "So we are agreed about that.

Gentlemen, you hear? It's an agreement to part. She shall

take the girl if she wants to, and go her ways. I'll take

my tools, and go my ways. 'Tis simple as Scripture history.

Now then, stand up, Susan, and show yourself."

"Don't, my chiel," whispered a buxom staylace dealer in

voluminous petticoats, who sat near the woman; "yer good man

don't know what he's saying."

The woman, however, did stand up. "Now, who's auctioneer?"

cried the hay-trusser.

"I be," promptly answered a short man, with a nose

resembling a copper knob, a damp voice, and eyes like

button-holes. "Who'll make an offer for this lady?"

The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her

position by a supreme effort of will.

"Five shillings," said someone, at which there was a laugh.

"No insults," said the husband. "Who'll say a guinea?"

Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces

interposed.

"Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven's love! Ah, what

a cruelty is the poor soul married to! Bed and board is dear

at some figures 'pon my 'vation 'tis!"

"Set it higher, auctioneer," said the trusser.

"Two guineas!" said the auctioneer; and no one replied.

"If they don't take her for that, in ten seconds they'll

have to give more," said the husband. "Very well. Now

auctioneer, add another."

"Three guineas--going for three guineas!" said the rheumy

man.

"No bid?" said the husband. "Good Lord, why she's cost me

fifty times the money, if a penny. Go on."

"Four guineas!" cried the auctioneer.

"I'll tell ye what--I won't sell her for less than five,"

said the husband, bringing down his fist so that the basins

danced. "I'll sell her for five guineas to any man that

will pay me the money, and treat her well; and he shall have

her for ever, and never hear aught o' me. But she shan't go

for less. Now then--five guineas--and she's yours. Susan,

you agree?"

She bowed her head with absolute indifference.

"Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or she'll be

withdrawn. Do anybody give it? The last time. Yes or no?"

"Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway.

All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening

which formed the door of the tent was a sailor, who,

unobserved by the rest, had arrived there within the last

two or three minutes. A dead silence followed his

affirmation.

"You say you do?" asked the husband, staring at him.

"I say so," replied the sailor.

"Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where's the

money?"

The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman,

came in, unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them

down upon the tablecloth. They were Bank-of-England notes

for five pounds. Upon the face of this he clinked down the

shillings severally--one, two, three, four, five.

The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a

challenge for the same till then deemed slightly

hypothetical had a great effect upon the spectators. Their

eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and

then upon the notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings,

on the table.

Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted

that the man, in spite of his tantalizing declaration, was

really in earnest. The spectators had indeed taken the

proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried

to extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he

was, as a consequence, out of temper with the world, and

society, and his nearest kin. But with the demand and

response of real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene

departed. A lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and

change the aspect of all therein. The mirth-wrinkles left

the listeners' faces, and they waited with parting lips.

"Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low

dry voice sounded quite loud, "before you go further,

Michael, listen to me. If you touch that money, I and this

girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke no longer."

"A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband,

his resentment rising at her suggestion. "I take the money;

the sailor takes you. That's plain enough. It has been

done elsewhere--and why not here?"

"'Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is

willing," said the sailor blandly. "I wouldn't hurt her

feelings for the world."

"Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But she is willing,

provided she can have the child. She said so only the other

day when I talked o't!"

"That you swear?" said the sailor to her.

"I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and

seeing no repentance there.

"Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's

complete," said the trusser. He took the sailor's notes and

deliberately folded them, and put them with the shillings in

a high remote pocket, with an air of finality.

The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. "Come along!" he

said kindly. "The little one too--the more the merrier!"

She paused for an instant, with a close glance at him. Then

dropping her eyes again, and saying nothing, she took up the

child and followed him as he made towards the door. On

reaching it, she turned, and pulling off her wedding-ring,

flung it across the booth in the hay-trusser's face.

"Mike," she said, "I've lived with thee a couple of years,

and had nothing but temper! Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try

my luck elsewhere. 'Twill be better for me and Elizabeth-

Jane, both. So good-bye!"

Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, and mounting

the little girl on her left, she went out of the tent

sobbing bitterly.

A stolid look of concern filled the husband's face, as if,

after all, he had not quite anticipated this ending; and

some of the guests laughed.

"Is she gone?" he said.

"Faith, ay! she's gone clane enough," said some rustics near

the door.

He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of

one conscious of his alcoholic load. Some others followed,

and they stood looking into the twilight. The difference

between the peacefulness of inferior nature and the wilful

hostilities of mankind was very apparent at this place. In

contrast with the harshness of the act just ended within the

tent was the sight of several horses crossing their necks

and rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in patience

to be harnessed for the homeward journey. Outside the fair,

in the valleys and woods, all was quiet. The sun had

recently set, and the west heaven was hung with rosy cloud,

which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed. To watch it was

like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a darkened

auditorium. In presence of this scene after the other there

was a natural instinct to abjure man as the blot on an

otherwise kindly universe; till it was remembered that all

terrestrial conditions were intermittent, and that mankind

might some night be innocently sleeping when these quiet

objects were raging loud.

"Where do the sailor live?" asked a spectator, when they had

vainly gazed around.

"God knows that," replied the man who had seen high life.

"He's without doubt a stranger here."

"He came in about five minutes ago," said the furmity woman,

joining the rest with her hands on her hips. "And then 'a

stepped back, and then 'a looked in again. I'm not a penny

the better for him."

"Serves the husband well be-right," said the staylace

vendor. "A comely respectable body like her--what can a man

want more? I glory in the woman's sperrit. I'd ha' done it

myself--od send if I wouldn't, if a husband had behaved so

to me! I'd go, and 'a might call, and call, till his keacorn

was raw; but I'd never come back--no, not till the great

trumpet, would I!"

"Well, the woman will be better off," said another of a more

deliberative turn. "For seafaring natures be very good

shelter for shorn lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty

of money, which is what she's not been used to lately, by

all showings."

"Mark me--I'll not go after her!" said the trusser,

returning doggedly to his seat. "Let her go! If she's up to

such vagaries she must suffer for 'em. She'd no business to

take the maid--'tis my maid; and if it were the doing again

she shouldn't have her!"

Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an

indefensible proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the

customers thinned away from the tent shortly after this

episode. The man stretched his elbows forward on the table

leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to snore. The

furmity seller decided to close for the night, and after

seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, etc., that

remained on hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the

man reclined. She shook him, but could not wake him. As

the tent was not to be struck that night, the fair

continuing for two or three days, she decided to let the

sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and

his basket with him. Extinguishing the last candle, and

lowering the flap of the tent, she left it, and drove away.