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The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
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The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
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horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
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miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
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departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
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furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
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by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
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cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
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which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
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having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
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purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
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moving house.
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The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
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sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
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the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
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everything would be smooth again.
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The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
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standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
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The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
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should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
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the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
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lodgings just at first.
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A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
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packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
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spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
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great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
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found a place to settle in, sir.”
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“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
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It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
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old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
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Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
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to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
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and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
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“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
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Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
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scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
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but one who had attended the night school only during the present
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teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
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be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
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disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
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The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
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Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
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he was sorry.
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“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
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“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
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“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
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Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
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“I think I should now, sir.”
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“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
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is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
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who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
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a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
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Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
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and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
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spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
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have elsewhere.”
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The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
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was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
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the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
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the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
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removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
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The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
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o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
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impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
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“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
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“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
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all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
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me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
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The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
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by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
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of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
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his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
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now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
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paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
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his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
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pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
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looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
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position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
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disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
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There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
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hart’s-tongue fern.
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He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
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that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
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morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
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him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
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do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
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But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
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like this!”
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A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
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was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
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a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
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interrupted by a sudden outcry:
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“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
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It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
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garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
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waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
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for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
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own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
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with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
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stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
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of Marygreen.
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It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
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an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
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was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
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history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
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and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
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many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
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|
hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
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down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
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|
utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
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rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
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a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
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|
eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
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obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
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|
in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
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the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
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|
grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
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graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
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warranted to last five years.
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II
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Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
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house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
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|
was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
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in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
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|
panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
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|
five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
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|
pattern.
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|
While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
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animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
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|
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
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|
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
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|
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
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“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
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entered.
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“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
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you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
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|
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
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|
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
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|
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
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|
for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
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|
and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
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|
know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
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|
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
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|
useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
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|
what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
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|
penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
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|
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
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|
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
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|
upon his face, moved aside.
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The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
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|
Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
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|
with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
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|
the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
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|
Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
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|
take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
|
|
|
continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
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|
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
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|
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
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|
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
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|
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
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|
husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
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|
some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
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|
into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
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|
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
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|
|
a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
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|
maid should know such changes!”
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|
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|
|
Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
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|
|
out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
|
|
|
breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
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|
|
from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
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|
|
path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
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|
|
general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
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|
|
vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
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|
|
and he descended into the midst of it.
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|
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
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|
|
round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
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|
|
actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
|
|
|
uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
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|
|
in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
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|
the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
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|
|
hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
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|
“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
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|
The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
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|
|
a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
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|
|
expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
|
|
|
beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
|
|
|
there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
|
|
|
songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
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|
|
deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
|
|
|
of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
|
|
|
gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
|
|
|
that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
|
|
|
between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
|
|
|
field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
|
|
|
who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
|
|
|
and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
|
|
|
a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
|
|
|
fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
|
|
|
the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
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|
|
possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
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|
|
in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
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|
|
|
|
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
|
|
|
used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
|
|
|
pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
|
|
|
like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
|
|
|
warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
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|
|
|
|
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
|
|
|
grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
|
|
|
himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
|
|
|
he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
|
|
|
gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
|
|
|
being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
|
|
|
told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
|
|
|
anew.
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|
|
|
|
“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
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|
|
you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
|
|
|
to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
|
|
|
good meal!”
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|
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|
|
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
|
|
|
enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
|
|
|
own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
|
|
|
resembled his own.
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|
|
|
|
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
|
|
|
and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
|
|
|
as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
|
|
|
upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
|
|
|
surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
|
|
|
used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
|
|
|
eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
|
|
|
himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
|
|
|
clacker swinging in his hand.
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|
|
|
|
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
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|
|
birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
|
|
|
‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
|
|
|
schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
|
|
|
how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
|
|
|
had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
|
|
|
frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
|
|
|
with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
|
|
|
the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
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|
|
|
|
“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
|
|
|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
|
|
|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
|
|
|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
|
|
|
amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
|
|
|
crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
|
|
|
little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
|
|
|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
|
|
|
smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
|
|
|
to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
|
|
|
workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
|
|
|
of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
|
|
|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
|
|
|
structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
|
|
|
God and man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
|
|
|
the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
|
|
|
gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
|
|
|
never let him see him in one of those fields again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
|
|
|
weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
|
|
|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
|
|
|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
|
|
|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
|
|
|
in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
|
|
|
life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
|
|
|
village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
|
|
|
and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
|
|
|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
|
|
|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
|
|
|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
|
|
|
at each tread.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
|
|
|
himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
|
|
|
young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
|
|
|
often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
|
|
|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
|
|
|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
|
|
|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
|
|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
|
|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
|
|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
|
|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
|
|
|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
|
|
|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
|
|
|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I’m turned away.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“What?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
|
|
|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
|
|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
|
|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
|
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|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
|
|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
|
|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
|
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|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
|
|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
|
|
|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
|
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|
mischty.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
|
|
|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
|
|
|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
|
|
|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
|
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|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
|
|
|
side of the family, and never will be!”
|
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|
|
|
|
“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
|
|
|
is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
|
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|
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|
“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
|
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|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
|
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|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
|
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|
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|
“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
|
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|
|
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|
“How can I tell?”
|
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|
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|
“Could I go to see him?”
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|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
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that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
|
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|
folk in Christminster with we.”
|
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|
|
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|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
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|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
|
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|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
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|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
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|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
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|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
|
|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
|
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|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
|
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|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
|
|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
|
|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
|
|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
|
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|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
|
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|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
|
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|
it.
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|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
|
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|
man.
|
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|
|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
|
|
|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
|
|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
|
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|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
|
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|
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|
|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
|
|
|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
|
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|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
|
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|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
|
|
|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
|
|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
|
|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
|
|
open down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
|
|
|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
|
|
|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
|
|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
|
|
|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
|
|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
|
|
|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
|
|
|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
|
|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
|
|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
|
|
|
purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
|
|
moving house.
|
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|
|
|
|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
|
|
|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
|
|
|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
|
|
|
everything would be smooth again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
|
|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
|
|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
|
|
|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
|
|
|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
|
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|
|
|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
|
|
|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
|
|
|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
|
|
|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
|
|
|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
|
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|
|
|
|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
|
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|
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|
|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
|
|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
|
|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
|
|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
|
|
|
Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I think I should now, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
|
|
|
is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
|
|
|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
|
|
|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
|
|
|
Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
|
|
|
and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
|
|
|
spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
|
|
|
have elsewhere.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
|
|
|
was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
|
|
|
the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
|
|
|
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
|
|
|
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
|
|
|
o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
|
|
|
impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
|
|
|
“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
|
|
|
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
|
|
|
me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
|
|
|
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
|
|
|
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
|
|
|
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
|
|
|
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
|
|
|
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
|
|
|
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
|
|
|
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
|
|
|
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
|
|
|
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
|
|
|
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
|
|
|
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
|
|
|
hart’s-tongue fern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
|
|
|
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
|
|
|
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
|
|
|
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
|
|
|
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
|
|
|
But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
|
|
|
like this!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
|
|
|
was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
|
|
|
a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
|
|
|
interrupted by a sudden outcry:
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
|
|
|
garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
|
|
|
waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
|
|
|
for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
|
|
|
own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
|
|
|
with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
|
|
|
stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
|
|
|
of Marygreen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
|
|
|
an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
|
|
|
was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
|
|
|
history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
|
|
|
and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
|
|
|
many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
|
|
|
hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
|
|
|
down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
|
|
|
utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
|
|
|
rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
|
|
|
a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
|
|
|
eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
|
|
|
obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
|
|
|
in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
|
|
|
the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
|
|
|
grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
|
|
|
graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
|
|
|
warranted to last five years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
|
|
|
house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
|
|
|
was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
|
|
|
in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
|
|
|
panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
|
|
|
five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
|
|
|
pattern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
|
|
|
animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
|
|
|
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
|
|
|
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
|
|
|
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
|
|
|
entered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
|
|
|
you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
|
|
|
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
|
|
|
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
|
|
|
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
|
|
|
for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
|
|
|
and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
|
|
|
know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
|
|
|
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
|
|
|
useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
|
|
|
what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
|
|
|
penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
|
|
|
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
|
|
|
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
|
|
|
upon his face, moved aside.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
|
|
|
Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
|
|
|
with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
|
|
|
the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
|
|
|
take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
|
|
|
continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
|
|
|
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
|
|
|
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
|
|
|
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
|
|
|
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
|
|
|
husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
|
|
|
some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
|
|
|
into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
|
|
|
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
|
|
|
a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
|
|
|
maid should know such changes!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
|
|
|
out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
|
|
|
breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
|
|
|
from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
|
|
|
path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
|
|
|
general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
|
|
|
vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
|
|
|
and he descended into the midst of it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
|
|
|
round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
|
|
|
actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
|
|
|
uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
|
|
|
in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
|
|
|
the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
|
|
|
hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
|
|
|
a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
|
|
|
expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
|
|
|
beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
|
|
|
there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
|
|
|
songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
|
|
|
deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
|
|
|
of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
|
|
|
gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
|
|
|
that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
|
|
|
between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
|
|
|
field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
|
|
|
who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
|
|
|
and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
|
|
|
a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
|
|
|
fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
|
|
|
the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
|
|
|
possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
|
|
|
in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
|
|
|
used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
|
|
|
pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
|
|
|
like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
|
|
|
warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
|
|
|
grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
|
|
|
himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
|
|
|
he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
|
|
|
gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
|
|
|
being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
|
|
|
told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
|
|
|
anew.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
|
|
|
you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
|
|
|
to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
|
|
|
good meal!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
|
|
|
enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
|
|
|
own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
|
|
|
resembled his own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
|
|
|
and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
|
|
|
as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
|
|
|
upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
|
|
|
surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
|
|
|
used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
|
|
|
eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
|
|
|
himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
|
|
|
clacker swinging in his hand.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
|
|
|
birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
|
|
|
‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
|
|
|
schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
|
|
|
how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
|
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|
|
|
|
Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
|
|
|
had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
|
|
|
frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
|
|
|
with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
|
|
|
the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
|
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|
|
|
|
“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
|
|
|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
|
|
|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
|
|
|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
|
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|
amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
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|
crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
|
|
|
little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
|
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|
|
|
|
This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
|
|
|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
|
|
|
smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
|
|
|
to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
|
|
|
workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
|
|
|
of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
|
|
|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
|
|
|
structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
|
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|
God and man.
|
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|
|
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|
Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
|
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|
the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
|
|
|
gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
|
|
|
never let him see him in one of those fields again.
|
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|
|
|
|
Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
|
|
|
weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
|
|
|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
|
|
|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
|
|
|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
|
|
|
in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
|
|
|
life.
|
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|
|
|
|
With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
|
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|
village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
|
|
|
and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
|
|
|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
|
|
|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
|
|
|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
|
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|
at each tread.
|
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|
|
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|
Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
|
|
|
himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
|
|
|
young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
|
|
|
often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
|
|
|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
|
|
|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
|
|
|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
|
|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
|
|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
|
|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
|
|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
|
|
|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
|
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|
|
|
|
On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
|
|
|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
|
|
|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
|
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|
|
|
|
“I’m turned away.”
|
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|
|
|
|
“What?”
|
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|
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|
|
“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
|
|
|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
|
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|
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|
|
He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
|
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|
|
|
|
“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
|
|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
|
|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
|
|
|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
|
|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
|
|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
|
|
|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
|
|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
|
|
|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
|
|
|
mischty.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
|
|
|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
|
|
|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
|
|
|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
|
|
|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
|
|
|
side of the family, and never will be!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
|
|
|
is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
|
|
|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
|
|
|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How can I tell?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Could I go to see him?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
|
|
|
that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
|
|
|
folk in Christminster with we.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
|
|
|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
|
|
|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
|
|
|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
|
|
|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
|
|
|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
|
|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
|
|
|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
|
|
|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
|
|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
|
|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
|
|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
|
|
|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
|
|
|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
|
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
|
|
|
man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
|
|
|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
|
|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
|
|
|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
|
|
|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
|
|
|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
|
|
|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
|
|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
|
|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
|
|
open down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
|
|
|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
|
|
|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
|
|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
|
|
|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
|
|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
|
|
|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
|
|
|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
|
|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
|
|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
|
|
|
purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
|
|
moving house.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
|
|
|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
|
|
|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
|
|
|
everything would be smooth again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
|
|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
|
|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
|
|
|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
|
|
|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
|
|
|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
|
|
|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
|
|
|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
|
|
|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
|
|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
|
|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
|
|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
|
|
|
Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I think I should now, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
|
|
|
is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
|
|
|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
|
|
|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
|
|
|
Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
|
|
|
and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
|
|
|
spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
|
|
|
have elsewhere.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
|
|
|
was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
|
|
|
the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
|
|
|
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
|
|
|
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
|
|
|
o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
|
|
|
impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
|
|
|
“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
|
|
|
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
|
|
|
me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
|
|
|
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
|
|
|
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
|
|
|
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
|
|
|
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
|
|
|
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
|
|
|
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
|
|
|
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
|
|
|
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
|
|
|
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
|
|
|
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
|
|
|
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
|
|
|
hart’s-tongue fern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
|
|
|
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
|
|
|
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
|
|
|
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
|
|
|
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
|
|
|
But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
|
|
|
like this!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
|
|
|
was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
|
|
|
a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
|
|
|
interrupted by a sudden outcry:
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
|
|
|
garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
|
|
|
waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
|
|
|
for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
|
|
|
own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
|
|
|
with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
|
|
|
stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
|
|
|
of Marygreen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
|
|
|
an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
|
|
|
was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
|
|
|
history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
|
|
|
and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
|
|
|
many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
|
|
|
hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
|
|
|
down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
|
|
|
utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
|
|
|
rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
|
|
|
a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
|
|
|
eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
|
|
|
obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
|
|
|
in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
|
|
|
the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
|
|
|
grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
|
|
|
graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
|
|
|
warranted to last five years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
|
|
|
house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
|
|
|
was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
|
|
|
in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
|
|
|
panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
|
|
|
five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
|
|
|
pattern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
|
|
|
animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
|
|
|
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
|
|
|
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
|
|
|
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
|
|
|
entered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
|
|
|
you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
|
|
|
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
|
|
|
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
|
|
|
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
|
|
|
for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
|
|
|
and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
|
|
|
know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
|
|
|
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
|
|
|
useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
|
|
|
what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
|
|
|
penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
|
|
|
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
|
|
|
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
|
|
|
upon his face, moved aside.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
|
|
|
Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
|
|
|
with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
|
|
|
the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
|
|
|
take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
|
|
|
continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
|
|
|
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
|
|
|
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
|
|
|
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
|
|
|
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
|
|
|
husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
|
|
|
some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
|
|
|
into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
|
|
|
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
|
|
|
a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
|
|
|
maid should know such changes!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
|
|
|
out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
|
|
|
breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
|
|
|
from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
|
|
|
path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
|
|
|
general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
|
|
|
vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
|
|
|
and he descended into the midst of it.
|
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|
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|
|
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
|
|
|
round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
|
|
|
actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
|
|
|
uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
|
|
|
in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
|
|
|
the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
|
|
|
hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
|
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|
|
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|
“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
|
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|
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|
|
The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
|
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|
a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
|
|
|
expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
|
|
|
beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
|
|
|
there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
|
|
|
songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
|
|
|
deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
|
|
|
of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
|
|
|
gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
|
|
|
that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
|
|
|
between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
|
|
|
field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
|
|
|
who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
|
|
|
and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
|
|
|
a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
|
|
|
fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
|
|
|
the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
|
|
|
possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
|
|
|
in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
|
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|
|
|
|
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
|
|
|
used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
|
|
|
pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
|
|
|
like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
|
|
|
warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
|
|
|
grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
|
|
|
himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
|
|
|
he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
|
|
|
gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
|
|
|
being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
|
|
|
told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
|
|
|
anew.
|
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|
|
|
|
“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
|
|
|
you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
|
|
|
to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
|
|
|
good meal!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
|
|
|
enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
|
|
|
own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
|
|
|
resembled his own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
|
|
|
and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
|
|
|
as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
|
|
|
upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
|
|
|
surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
|
|
|
used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
|
|
|
eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
|
|
|
himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
|
|
|
clacker swinging in his hand.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
|
|
|
birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
|
|
|
‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
|
|
|
schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
|
|
|
how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
|
|
|
had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
|
|
|
frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
|
|
|
with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
|
|
|
the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
|
|
|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
|
|
|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
|
|
|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
|
|
|
amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
|
|
|
crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
|
|
|
little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
|
|
|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
|
|
|
smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
|
|
|
to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
|
|
|
workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
|
|
|
of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
|
|
|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
|
|
|
structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
|
|
|
God and man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
|
|
|
the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
|
|
|
gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
|
|
|
never let him see him in one of those fields again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
|
|
|
weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
|
|
|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
|
|
|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
|
|
|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
|
|
|
in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
|
|
|
life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
|
|
|
village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
|
|
|
and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
|
|
|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
|
|
|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
|
|
|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
|
|
|
at each tread.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
|
|
|
himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
|
|
|
young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
|
|
|
often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
|
|
|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
|
|
|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
|
|
|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
|
|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
|
|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
|
|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
|
|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
|
|
|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
|
|
|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
|
|
|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I’m turned away.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“What?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
|
|
|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
|
|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
|
|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
|
|
|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
|
|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
|
|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
|
|
|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
|
|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
|
|
|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
|
|
|
mischty.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
|
|
|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
|
|
|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
|
|
|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
|
|
|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
|
|
|
side of the family, and never will be!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
|
|
|
is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
|
|
|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
|
|
|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How can I tell?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Could I go to see him?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
|
|
|
that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
|
|
|
folk in Christminster with we.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
|
|
|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
|
|
|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
|
|
|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
|
|
|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
|
|
|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
|
|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
|
|
|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
|
|
|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
|
|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
|
|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
|
|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
|
|
|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
|
|
|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
|
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
|
|
|
man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
|
|
|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
|
|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
|
|
|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
|
|
|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
|
|
|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
|
|
|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
|
|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
|
|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
|
|
open down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
|
|
|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
|
|
|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
|
|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
|
|
|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
|
|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
|
|
|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
|
|
|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
|
|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
|
|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
|
|
|
purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
|
|
moving house.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
|
|
|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
|
|
|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
|
|
|
everything would be smooth again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
|
|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
|
|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
|
|
|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
|
|
|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
|
|
|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
|
|
|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
|
|
|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
|
|
|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
|
|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
|
|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
|
|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
|
|
|
Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I think I should now, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
|
|
|
is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
|
|
|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
|
|
|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
|
|
|
Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
|
|
|
and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
|
|
|
spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
|
|
|
have elsewhere.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
|
|
|
was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
|
|
|
the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
|
|
|
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
|
|
|
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
|
|
|
o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
|
|
|
impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
|
|
|
“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
|
|
|
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
|
|
|
me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
|
|
|
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
|
|
|
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
|
|
|
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
|
|
|
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
|
|
|
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
|
|
|
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
|
|
|
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
|
|
|
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
|
|
|
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
|
|
|
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
|
|
|
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
|
|
|
hart’s-tongue fern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
|
|
|
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
|
|
|
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
|
|
|
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
|
|
|
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
|
|
|
But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
|
|
|
like this!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
|
|
|
was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
|
|
|
a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
|
|
|
interrupted by a sudden outcry:
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
|
|
|
garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
|
|
|
waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
|
|
|
for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
|
|
|
own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
|
|
|
with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
|
|
|
stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
|
|
|
of Marygreen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
|
|
|
an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
|
|
|
was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
|
|
|
history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
|
|
|
and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
|
|
|
many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
|
|
|
hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
|
|
|
down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
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utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
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rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
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a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
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eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
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obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
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in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
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the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
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grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
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graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
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warranted to last five years.
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II
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Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
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house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
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was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
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in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
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panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
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five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
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pattern.
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While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
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animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
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the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
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seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
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the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
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“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
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entered.
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“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
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you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
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gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
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gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
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from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
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for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
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and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
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know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
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if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
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useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
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what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
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penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
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It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
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continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
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upon his face, moved aside.
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The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
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Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
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with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
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the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
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Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
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take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
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continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
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better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
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family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
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I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
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place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
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husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
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some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
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into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
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Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
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a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
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maid should know such changes!”
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Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
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out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
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breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
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from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
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path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
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general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
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vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
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and he descended into the midst of it.
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The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
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round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
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actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
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uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
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in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
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the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
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hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
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“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
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The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
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a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
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expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
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beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
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there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
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songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
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deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
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of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
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gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
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that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
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between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
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field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
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who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
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and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
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a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
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fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
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the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
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possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
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in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
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The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
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used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
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pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
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like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
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warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
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He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
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grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
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himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
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he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
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gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
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being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
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told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
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anew.
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“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
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you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
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to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
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good meal!”
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They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
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enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
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own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
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resembled his own.
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His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
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and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
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as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
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upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
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surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
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used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
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eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
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himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
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clacker swinging in his hand.
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“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
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birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
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‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
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schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
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how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
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Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
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had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
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frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
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with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
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the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
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“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
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helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
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fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
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plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
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amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
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crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
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little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
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Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
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This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
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than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
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smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
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to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
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workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
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of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
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church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
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structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
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God and man.
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Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
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the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
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gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
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never let him see him in one of those fields again.
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Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
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weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
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perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
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good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
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sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
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in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
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life.
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With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
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village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
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and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
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lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
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they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
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impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
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at each tread.
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Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
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himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
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young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
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often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
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morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
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from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
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and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
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infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
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that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
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the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
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all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
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among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
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On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
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little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
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you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
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“I’m turned away.”
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“What?”
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“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
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peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
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He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
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“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
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a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
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doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
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don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
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myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
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younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
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disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
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father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
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go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
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mischty.”
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More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
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dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
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and only secondarily from a moral one.
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“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
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planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
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go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
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But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
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side of the family, and never will be!”
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“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
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is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
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“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
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score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
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to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
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“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
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“How can I tell?”
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“Could I go to see him?”
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“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
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that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
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folk in Christminster with we.”
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Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
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undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
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the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
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the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
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straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
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plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
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brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
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he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
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That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
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|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
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to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
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circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
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with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
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to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
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hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
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it.
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If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
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man.
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Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
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During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
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afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
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village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
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“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
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there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
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|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
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field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
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|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
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|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
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|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
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|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
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stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
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|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
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|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
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|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
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|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
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|
open down.
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|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
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|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
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|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
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|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
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|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
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|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
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|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
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|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
|
|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
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|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
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|
purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
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|
moving house.
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|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
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|
|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
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|
|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
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|
|
everything would be smooth again.
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|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
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|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
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|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
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|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
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|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
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|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
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|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
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|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
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|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
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|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
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|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
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|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
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|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
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|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
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|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
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|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
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|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
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|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
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|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
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|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
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“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
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“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
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Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
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“I think I should now, sir.”
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“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
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is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
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|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
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|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
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Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
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and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
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spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
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have elsewhere.”
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The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
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was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
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the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
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the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
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removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
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The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
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o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
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impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
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“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
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“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
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all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
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me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
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The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
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by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
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of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
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his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
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now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
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paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
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his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
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pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
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looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
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position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
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disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
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There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
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hart’s-tongue fern.
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He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
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that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
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morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
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him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
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do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
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But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
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like this!”
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A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
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was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
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a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
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interrupted by a sudden outcry:
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“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
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It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
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garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
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waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
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for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
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own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
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with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
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stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
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of Marygreen.
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It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
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an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
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was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
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history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
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and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
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many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
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hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
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down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
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utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
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|
rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
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|
a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
|
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|
eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
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|
obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
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|
in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
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the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
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grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
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graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
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warranted to last five years.
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|
II
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|
Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
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house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
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|
was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
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in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
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|
panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
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five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
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|
pattern.
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|
While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
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|
animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
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|
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
|
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|
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
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|
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
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|
“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
|
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|
entered.
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|
“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
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|
you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
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|
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
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|
|
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
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|
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
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|
|
for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
|
|
|
and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
|
|
|
know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
|
|
|
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
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|
useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
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|
what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
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|
penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
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|
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
|
|
|
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
|
|
|
upon his face, moved aside.
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|
The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
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|
|
Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
|
|
|
with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
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|
|
the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
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|
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|
Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
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|
|
take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
|
|
|
continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
|
|
|
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
|
|
|
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
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|
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
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|
|
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
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|
husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
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|
|
some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
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|
|
into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
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|
|
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
|
|
|
a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
|
|
|
maid should know such changes!”
|
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|
|
|
|
Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
|
|
|
out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
|
|
|
breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
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|
|
from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
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|
|
path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
|
|
|
general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
|
|
|
vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
|
|
|
and he descended into the midst of it.
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|
|
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
|
|
|
round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
|
|
|
actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
|
|
|
uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
|
|
|
in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
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|
|
the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
|
|
|
hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
|
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|
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|
|
“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
|
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|
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|
|
The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
|
|
|
a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
|
|
|
expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
|
|
|
beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
|
|
|
there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
|
|
|
songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
|
|
|
deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
|
|
|
of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
|
|
|
gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
|
|
|
that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
|
|
|
between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
|
|
|
field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
|
|
|
who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
|
|
|
and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
|
|
|
a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
|
|
|
fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
|
|
|
the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
|
|
|
possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
|
|
|
in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
|
|
|
used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
|
|
|
pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
|
|
|
like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
|
|
|
warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
|
|
|
grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
|
|
|
himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
|
|
|
he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
|
|
|
gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
|
|
|
being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
|
|
|
told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
|
|
|
anew.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
|
|
|
you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
|
|
|
to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
|
|
|
good meal!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
|
|
|
enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
|
|
|
own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
|
|
|
resembled his own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
|
|
|
and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
|
|
|
as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
|
|
|
upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
|
|
|
surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
|
|
|
used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
|
|
|
eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
|
|
|
himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
|
|
|
clacker swinging in his hand.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
|
|
|
birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
|
|
|
‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
|
|
|
schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
|
|
|
how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
|
|
|
had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
|
|
|
frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
|
|
|
with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
|
|
|
the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
|
|
|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
|
|
|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
|
|
|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
|
|
|
amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
|
|
|
crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
|
|
|
little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
|
|
|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
|
|
|
smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
|
|
|
to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
|
|
|
workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
|
|
|
of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
|
|
|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
|
|
|
structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
|
|
|
God and man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
|
|
|
the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
|
|
|
gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
|
|
|
never let him see him in one of those fields again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
|
|
|
weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
|
|
|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
|
|
|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
|
|
|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
|
|
|
in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
|
|
|
life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
|
|
|
village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
|
|
|
and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
|
|
|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
|
|
|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
|
|
|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
|
|
|
at each tread.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
|
|
|
himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
|
|
|
young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
|
|
|
often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
|
|
|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
|
|
|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
|
|
|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
|
|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
|
|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
|
|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
|
|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
|
|
|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
|
|
|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
|
|
|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I’m turned away.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“What?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
|
|
|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
|
|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
|
|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
|
|
|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
|
|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
|
|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
|
|
|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
|
|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
|
|
|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
|
|
|
mischty.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
|
|
|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
|
|
|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
|
|
|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
|
|
|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
|
|
|
side of the family, and never will be!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
|
|
|
is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
|
|
|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
|
|
|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How can I tell?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Could I go to see him?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
|
|
|
that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
|
|
|
folk in Christminster with we.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
|
|
|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
|
|
|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
|
|
|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
|
|
|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
|
|
|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
|
|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
|
|
|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
|
|
|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
|
|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
|
|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
|
|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
|
|
|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
|
|
|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
|
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|
it.
|
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|
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|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
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|
man.
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|
|
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|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
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|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
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|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
|
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|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
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|
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|
|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
|
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|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
|
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|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
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|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
|
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|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
|
|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
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|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
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|
open down.
|
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|
|
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|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
|
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|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
|
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|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
|
|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
|
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|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
|
|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
|
|
|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
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|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
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|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
|
|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
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purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
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|
moving house.
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|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
|
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|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
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|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
|
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|
everything would be smooth again.
|
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|
|
|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
|
|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
|
|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
|
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|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
|
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|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
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|
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|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
|
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|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
|
|
|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
|
|
|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
|
|
|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
|
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|
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|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
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|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
|
|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
|
|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
|
|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
|
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|
|
|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
|
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|
|
|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
|
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|
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|
|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
|
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|
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|
|
“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
|
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|
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|
“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
|
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|
Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
|
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|
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|
|
“I think I should now, sir.”
|
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|
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|
|
“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
|
|
|
is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
|
|
|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
|
|
|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
|
|
|
Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
|
|
|
and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
|
|
|
spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
|
|
|
have elsewhere.”
|
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|
|
|
|
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
|
|
|
was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
|
|
|
the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
|
|
|
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
|
|
|
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
|
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|
|
|
|
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
|
|
|
o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
|
|
|
impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
|
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|
|
|
|
“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
|
|
|
“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
|
|
|
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
|
|
|
me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
|
|
|
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
|
|
|
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
|
|
|
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
|
|
|
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
|
|
|
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
|
|
|
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
|
|
|
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
|
|
|
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
|
|
|
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
|
|
|
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
|
|
|
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
|
|
|
hart’s-tongue fern.
|
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|
|
|
|
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
|
|
|
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
|
|
|
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
|
|
|
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
|
|
|
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
|
|
|
But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
|
|
|
like this!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
|
|
|
was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
|
|
|
a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
|
|
|
interrupted by a sudden outcry:
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
|
|
|
garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
|
|
|
waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
|
|
|
for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
|
|
|
own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
|
|
|
with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
|
|
|
stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
|
|
|
of Marygreen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
|
|
|
an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
|
|
|
was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
|
|
|
history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
|
|
|
and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
|
|
|
many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
|
|
|
hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
|
|
|
down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
|
|
|
utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
|
|
|
rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
|
|
|
a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
|
|
|
eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
|
|
|
obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
|
|
|
in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
|
|
|
the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
|
|
|
grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
|
|
|
graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
|
|
|
warranted to last five years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II
|
|
|
|
|
|
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|
|
Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
|
|
|
house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
|
|
|
was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
|
|
|
in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
|
|
|
panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
|
|
|
five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
|
|
|
pattern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
|
|
|
animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
|
|
|
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
|
|
|
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
|
|
|
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
|
|
|
entered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
|
|
|
you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
|
|
|
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
|
|
|
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
|
|
|
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
|
|
|
for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
|
|
|
and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
|
|
|
know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
|
|
|
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
|
|
|
useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
|
|
|
what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
|
|
|
penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
|
|
|
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
|
|
|
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
|
|
|
upon his face, moved aside.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
|
|
|
Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
|
|
|
with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
|
|
|
the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
|
|
|
take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
|
|
|
continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
|
|
|
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
|
|
|
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
|
|
|
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
|
|
|
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
|
|
|
husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
|
|
|
some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
|
|
|
into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
|
|
|
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
|
|
|
a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
|
|
|
maid should know such changes!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
|
|
|
out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
|
|
|
breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
|
|
|
from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
|
|
|
path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
|
|
|
general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
|
|
|
vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
|
|
|
and he descended into the midst of it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
|
|
|
round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
|
|
|
actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
|
|
|
uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
|
|
|
in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
|
|
|
the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
|
|
|
hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
|
|
|
a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
|
|
|
expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
|
|
|
beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
|
|
|
there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
|
|
|
songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
|
|
|
deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
|
|
|
of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
|
|
|
gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
|
|
|
that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
|
|
|
between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
|
|
|
field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
|
|
|
who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
|
|
|
and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
|
|
|
a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
|
|
|
fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
|
|
|
the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
|
|
|
possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
|
|
|
in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
|
|
|
used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
|
|
|
pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
|
|
|
like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
|
|
|
warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
|
|
|
grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
|
|
|
himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
|
|
|
he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
|
|
|
gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
|
|
|
being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
|
|
|
told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
|
|
|
anew.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
|
|
|
you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
|
|
|
to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
|
|
|
good meal!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
|
|
|
enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
|
|
|
own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
|
|
|
resembled his own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
|
|
|
and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
|
|
|
as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
|
|
|
upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
|
|
|
surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
|
|
|
used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
|
|
|
eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
|
|
|
himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
|
|
|
clacker swinging in his hand.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
|
|
|
birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
|
|
|
‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
|
|
|
schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
|
|
|
how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
|
|
|
had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
|
|
|
frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
|
|
|
with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
|
|
|
the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
|
|
|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
|
|
|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
|
|
|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
|
|
|
amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
|
|
|
crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
|
|
|
little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
|
|
|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
|
|
|
smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
|
|
|
to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
|
|
|
workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
|
|
|
of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
|
|
|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
|
|
|
structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
|
|
|
God and man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
|
|
|
the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
|
|
|
gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
|
|
|
never let him see him in one of those fields again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
|
|
|
weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
|
|
|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
|
|
|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
|
|
|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
|
|
|
in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
|
|
|
life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
|
|
|
village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
|
|
|
and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
|
|
|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
|
|
|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
|
|
|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
|
|
|
at each tread.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
|
|
|
himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
|
|
|
young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
|
|
|
often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
|
|
|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
|
|
|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
|
|
|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
|
|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
|
|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
|
|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
|
|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
|
|
|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
|
|
|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
|
|
|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I’m turned away.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“What?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
|
|
|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
|
|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
|
|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
|
|
|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
|
|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
|
|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
|
|
|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
|
|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
|
|
|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
|
|
|
mischty.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
|
|
|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
|
|
|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
|
|
|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
|
|
|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
|
|
|
side of the family, and never will be!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
|
|
|
is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
|
|
|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
|
|
|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How can I tell?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Could I go to see him?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
|
|
|
that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
|
|
|
folk in Christminster with we.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
|
|
|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
|
|
|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
|
|
|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
|
|
|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
|
|
|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
|
|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
|
|
|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
|
|
|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
|
|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
|
|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
|
|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
|
|
|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
|
|
|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
|
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
|
|
|
man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
|
|
|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
|
|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
|
|
|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
|
|
|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
|
|
|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
|
|
|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
|
|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
|
|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
|
|
open down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
|
|
|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
|
|
|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
|
|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
|
|
|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
|
|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
|
|
|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
|
|
|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
|
|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
|
|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
|
|
|
purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
|
|
moving house.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
|
|
|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
|
|
|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
|
|
|
everything would be smooth again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
|
|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
|
|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
|
|
|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
|
|
|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
|
|
|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
|
|
|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
|
|
|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
|
|
|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
|
|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
|
|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
|
|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
|
|
|
Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I think I should now, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
|
|
|
is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
|
|
|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
|
|
|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
|
|
|
Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
|
|
|
and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
|
|
|
spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
|
|
|
have elsewhere.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
|
|
|
was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
|
|
|
the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
|
|
|
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
|
|
|
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
|
|
|
o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
|
|
|
impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
|
|
|
“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
|
|
|
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
|
|
|
me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
|
|
|
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
|
|
|
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
|
|
|
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
|
|
|
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
|
|
|
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
|
|
|
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
|
|
|
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
|
|
|
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
|
|
|
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
|
|
|
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
|
|
|
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
|
|
|
hart’s-tongue fern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
|
|
|
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
|
|
|
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
|
|
|
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
|
|
|
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
|
|
|
But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
|
|
|
like this!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
|
|
|
was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
|
|
|
a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
|
|
|
interrupted by a sudden outcry:
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
|
|
|
garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
|
|
|
waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
|
|
|
for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
|
|
|
own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
|
|
|
with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
|
|
|
stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
|
|
|
of Marygreen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
|
|
|
an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
|
|
|
was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
|
|
|
history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
|
|
|
and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
|
|
|
many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
|
|
|
hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
|
|
|
down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
|
|
|
utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
|
|
|
rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
|
|
|
a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
|
|
|
eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
|
|
|
obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
|
|
|
in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
|
|
|
the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
|
|
|
grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
|
|
|
graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
|
|
|
warranted to last five years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
|
|
|
house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
|
|
|
was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
|
|
|
in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
|
|
|
panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
|
|
|
five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
|
|
|
pattern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
|
|
|
animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
|
|
|
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
|
|
|
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
|
|
|
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
|
|
|
entered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
|
|
|
you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
|
|
|
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
|
|
|
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
|
|
|
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
|
|
|
for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
|
|
|
and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
|
|
|
know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
|
|
|
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
|
|
|
useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
|
|
|
what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
|
|
|
penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
|
|
|
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
|
|
|
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
|
|
|
upon his face, moved aside.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
|
|
|
Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
|
|
|
with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
|
|
|
the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
|
|
|
take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
|
|
|
continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
|
|
|
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
|
|
|
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
|
|
|
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
|
|
|
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
|
|
|
husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
|
|
|
some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
|
|
|
into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
|
|
|
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
|
|
|
a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
|
|
|
maid should know such changes!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
|
|
|
out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
|
|
|
breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
|
|
|
from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
|
|
|
path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
|
|
|
general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
|
|
|
vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
|
|
|
and he descended into the midst of it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
|
|
|
round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
|
|
|
actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
|
|
|
uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
|
|
|
in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
|
|
|
the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
|
|
|
hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
|
|
|
a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
|
|
|
expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
|
|
|
beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
|
|
|
there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
|
|
|
songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
|
|
|
deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
|
|
|
of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
|
|
|
gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
|
|
|
that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
|
|
|
between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
|
|
|
field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
|
|
|
who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
|
|
|
and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
|
|
|
a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
|
|
|
fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
|
|
|
the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
|
|
|
possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
|
|
|
in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
|
|
|
used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
|
|
|
pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
|
|
|
like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
|
|
|
warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
|
|
|
grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
|
|
|
himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
|
|
|
he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
|
|
|
gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
|
|
|
being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
|
|
|
told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
|
|
|
anew.
|
|
|
|
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“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
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|
you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
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|
|
to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
|
|
|
good meal!”
|
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|
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|
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
|
|
|
enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
|
|
|
own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
|
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|
resembled his own.
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|
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|
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
|
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|
and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
|
|
|
as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
|
|
|
upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
|
|
|
surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
|
|
|
used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
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|
eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
|
|
|
himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
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|
clacker swinging in his hand.
|
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|
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|
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
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|
birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
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|
‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
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|
schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
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|
how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
|
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|
|
|
|
Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
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|
had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
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|
frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
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|
with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
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|
the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
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|
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|
“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
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|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
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|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
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|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
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|
amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
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|
crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
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|
little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
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|
Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
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|
This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
|
|
|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
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|
smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
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|
to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
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|
workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
|
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|
of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
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|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
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|
structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
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|
God and man.
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|
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|
Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
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|
the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
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|
gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
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|
never let him see him in one of those fields again.
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|
Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
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|
weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
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|
|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
|
|
|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
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|
|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
|
|
|
in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
|
|
|
life.
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|
With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
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|
village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
|
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|
and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
|
|
|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
|
|
|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
|
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|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
|
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|
at each tread.
|
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|
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|
Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
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|
himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
|
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|
young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
|
|
|
often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
|
|
|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
|
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|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
|
|
|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
|
|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
|
|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
|
|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
|
|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
|
|
|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
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|
On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
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|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
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|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
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|
“I’m turned away.”
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|
“What?”
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|
“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
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|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
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|
He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
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|
“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
|
|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
|
|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
|
|
|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
|
|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
|
|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
|
|
|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
|
|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
|
|
|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
|
|
|
mischty.”
|
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|
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|
|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
|
|
|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
|
|
|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
|
|
|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
|
|
|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
|
|
|
side of the family, and never will be!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
|
|
|
is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
|
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|
|
|
|
“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
|
|
|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
|
|
|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
|
|
|
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|
|
“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
|
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|
|
|
|
“How can I tell?”
|
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|
|
|
|
“Could I go to see him?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
|
|
|
that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
|
|
|
folk in Christminster with we.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
|
|
|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
|
|
|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
|
|
|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
|
|
|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
|
|
|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
|
|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
|
|
|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
|
|
|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
|
|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
|
|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
|
|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
|
|
|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
|
|
|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
|
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
|
|
|
man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
|
|
|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
|
|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
|
|
|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
|
|
|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
|
|
|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
|
|
|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
|
|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
|
|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
|
|
open down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
|
|
|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
|
|
|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
|
|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
|
|
|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
|
|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
|
|
|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
|
|
|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
|
|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
|
|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
|
|
|
purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
|
|
moving house.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
|
|
|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
|
|
|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
|
|
|
everything would be smooth again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
|
|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
|
|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
|
|
|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
|
|
|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
|
|
|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
|
|
|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
|
|
|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
|
|
|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
|
|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
|
|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
|
|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
|
|
|
Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I think I should now, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
|
|
|
is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
|
|
|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
|
|
|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
|
|
|
Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
|
|
|
and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
|
|
|
spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
|
|
|
have elsewhere.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
|
|
|
was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
|
|
|
the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
|
|
|
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
|
|
|
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
|
|
|
o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
|
|
|
impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
|
|
|
“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
|
|
|
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
|
|
|
me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
|
|
|
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
|
|
|
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
|
|
|
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
|
|
|
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
|
|
|
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
|
|
|
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
|
|
|
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
|
|
|
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
|
|
|
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
|
|
|
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
|
|
|
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
|
|
|
hart’s-tongue fern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
|
|
|
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
|
|
|
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
|
|
|
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
|
|
|
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
|
|
|
But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
|
|
|
like this!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
|
|
|
was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
|
|
|
a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
|
|
|
interrupted by a sudden outcry:
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
|
|
|
garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
|
|
|
waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
|
|
|
for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
|
|
|
own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
|
|
|
with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
|
|
|
stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
|
|
|
of Marygreen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
|
|
|
an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
|
|
|
was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
|
|
|
history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
|
|
|
and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
|
|
|
many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
|
|
|
hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
|
|
|
down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
|
|
|
utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
|
|
|
rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
|
|
|
a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
|
|
|
eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
|
|
|
obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
|
|
|
in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
|
|
|
the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
|
|
|
grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
|
|
|
graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
|
|
|
warranted to last five years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
II
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
|
|
|
house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
|
|
|
was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
|
|
|
in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
|
|
|
panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
|
|
|
five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
|
|
|
pattern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
|
|
|
animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
|
|
|
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
|
|
|
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
|
|
|
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
|
|
|
entered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
|
|
|
you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
|
|
|
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
|
|
|
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
|
|
|
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
|
|
|
for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
|
|
|
and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
|
|
|
know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
|
|
|
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
|
|
|
useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
|
|
|
what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
|
|
|
penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
|
|
|
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
|
|
|
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
|
|
|
upon his face, moved aside.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
|
|
|
Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
|
|
|
with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
|
|
|
the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
|
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|
|
|
|
Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
|
|
|
take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
|
|
|
continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
|
|
|
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
|
|
|
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
|
|
|
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
|
|
|
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
|
|
|
husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
|
|
|
some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
|
|
|
into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
|
|
|
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
|
|
|
a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
|
|
|
maid should know such changes!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
|
|
|
out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
|
|
|
breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
|
|
|
from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
|
|
|
path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
|
|
|
general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
|
|
|
vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
|
|
|
and he descended into the midst of it.
|
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|
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|
|
The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
|
|
|
round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
|
|
|
actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
|
|
|
uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
|
|
|
in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
|
|
|
the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
|
|
|
hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
|
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|
|
|
|
The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
|
|
|
a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
|
|
|
expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
|
|
|
beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
|
|
|
there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
|
|
|
songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
|
|
|
deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
|
|
|
of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
|
|
|
gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
|
|
|
that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
|
|
|
between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
|
|
|
field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
|
|
|
who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
|
|
|
and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
|
|
|
a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
|
|
|
fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
|
|
|
the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
|
|
|
possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
|
|
|
in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
|
|
|
used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
|
|
|
pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
|
|
|
like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
|
|
|
warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
|
|
|
grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
|
|
|
himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
|
|
|
he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
|
|
|
gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
|
|
|
being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
|
|
|
told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
|
|
|
anew.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
|
|
|
you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
|
|
|
to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
|
|
|
good meal!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
|
|
|
enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
|
|
|
own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
|
|
|
resembled his own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
|
|
|
and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
|
|
|
as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
|
|
|
upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
|
|
|
surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
|
|
|
used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
|
|
|
eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
|
|
|
himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
|
|
|
clacker swinging in his hand.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
|
|
|
birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
|
|
|
‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
|
|
|
schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
|
|
|
how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
|
|
|
had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
|
|
|
frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
|
|
|
with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
|
|
|
the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
|
|
|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
|
|
|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
|
|
|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
|
|
|
amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
|
|
|
crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
|
|
|
little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
|
|
|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
|
|
|
smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
|
|
|
to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
|
|
|
workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
|
|
|
of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
|
|
|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
|
|
|
structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
|
|
|
God and man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
|
|
|
the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
|
|
|
gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
|
|
|
never let him see him in one of those fields again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
|
|
|
weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
|
|
|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
|
|
|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
|
|
|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
|
|
|
in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
|
|
|
life.
|
|
|
|
|
|
With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
|
|
|
village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
|
|
|
and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
|
|
|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
|
|
|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
|
|
|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
|
|
|
at each tread.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
|
|
|
himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
|
|
|
young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
|
|
|
often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
|
|
|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
|
|
|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
|
|
|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
|
|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
|
|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
|
|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
|
|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
|
|
|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
|
|
|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
|
|
|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I’m turned away.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“What?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
|
|
|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
|
|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
|
|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
|
|
|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
|
|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
|
|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
|
|
|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
|
|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
|
|
|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
|
|
|
mischty.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
|
|
|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
|
|
|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
|
|
|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
|
|
|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
|
|
|
side of the family, and never will be!”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
|
|
|
is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
|
|
|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
|
|
|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“How can I tell?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Could I go to see him?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
|
|
|
that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
|
|
|
folk in Christminster with we.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
|
|
|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
|
|
|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
|
|
|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
|
|
|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
|
|
|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
|
|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
|
|
|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
|
|
|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
|
|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
|
|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
|
|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
|
|
|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
|
|
|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
|
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
|
|
|
man.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
|
|
|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
|
|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
|
|
|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
|
|
|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
|
|
|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
|
|
|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
|
|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
|
|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
|
|
open down.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.
|
|
|
The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and
|
|
|
horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty
|
|
|
miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the
|
|
|
departing teacher’s effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly
|
|
|
furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed
|
|
|
by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a
|
|
|
cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in
|
|
|
which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm
|
|
|
having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the
|
|
|
purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in
|
|
|
moving house.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the
|
|
|
sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when
|
|
|
the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and
|
|
|
everything would be smooth again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were
|
|
|
standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument.
|
|
|
The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he
|
|
|
should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster,
|
|
|
the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary
|
|
|
lodgings just at first.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the
|
|
|
packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he
|
|
|
spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunt have got a
|
|
|
great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you’ve
|
|
|
found a place to settle in, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“A proper good notion,” said the blacksmith.
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy’s aunt—an
|
|
|
old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till
|
|
|
Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started
|
|
|
to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy
|
|
|
and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Sorry I am going, Jude?” asked the latter kindly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tears rose into the boy’s eyes, for he was not among the regular day
|
|
|
scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster’s life,
|
|
|
but one who had attended the night school only during the present
|
|
|
teacher’s term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must
|
|
|
be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic
|
|
|
disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr.
|
|
|
Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that
|
|
|
he was sorry.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“So am I,” said Mr. Phillotson.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Why do you go, sir?” asked the boy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn’t understand my reasons,
|
|
|
Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I think I should now, sir.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
“Well—don’t speak of this everywhere. You know what a university
|
|
|
is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man
|
|
|
who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be
|
|
|
a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at
|
|
|
Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak,
|
|
|
and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the
|
|
|
spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should
|
|
|
have elsewhere.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley’s fuel-house
|
|
|
was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give
|
|
|
the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in
|
|
|
the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for
|
|
|
removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine
|
|
|
o’clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other
|
|
|
impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
|
|
|
|
|
|
“I shan’t forget you, Jude,” he said, smiling, as the cart moved off.
|
|
|
“Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read
|
|
|
all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt
|
|
|
me out for old acquaintance’ sake.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner
|
|
|
by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge
|
|
|
of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help
|
|
|
his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip
|
|
|
now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he
|
|
|
paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework,
|
|
|
his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child’s who has felt the
|
|
|
pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was
|
|
|
looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present
|
|
|
position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining
|
|
|
disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down.
|
|
|
There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the
|
|
|
hart’s-tongue fern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy,
|
|
|
that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a
|
|
|
morning like this, and would never draw there any more. “I’ve seen
|
|
|
him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I
|
|
|
do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home!
|
|
|
But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place
|
|
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like this!”
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A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning
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was a little foggy, and the boy’s breathing unfurled itself as
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a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were
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interrupted by a sudden outcry:
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“Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!”
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It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the
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garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly
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waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort
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for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his
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own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started
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with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well
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stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet
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of Marygreen.
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It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of
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an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it
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was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local
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history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched
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and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and
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many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church,
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hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken
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down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or
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utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and
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rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it
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a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English
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eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain
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obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back
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in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to
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the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level
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grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated
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graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses
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warranted to last five years.
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II
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Slender as was Jude Fawley’s frame he bore the two brimming
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house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door
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was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted
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in yellow letters, “Drusilla Fawley, Baker.” Within the little lead
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panes of the window—this being one of the few old houses left—were
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five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow
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pattern.
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While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
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animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
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the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
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seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
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the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
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“And who’s he?” asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
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entered.
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“Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He’s my great-nephew—come since
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you was last this way.” The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
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gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
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gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. “He come
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from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago—worse luck
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for ‘n, Belinda” (turning to the right) “where his father was living,
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and was took wi’ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
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know, Caroline” (turning to the left). “It would ha’ been a blessing
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if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi’ thy mother and father, poor
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useless boy! But I’ve got him here to stay with me till I can see
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what’s to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
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penny he can. Just now he’s a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
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It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?” she
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continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
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upon his face, moved aside.
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The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
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Miss or Mrs. Fawley’s (as they called her indifferently) to have him
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with her—”to kip ‘ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
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the winder-shetters o’ nights, and help in the bit o’ baking.”
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Miss Fawley doubted it.... “Why didn’t ye get the schoolmaster to
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take ‘ee to Christminster wi’ un, and make a scholar of ‘ee,” she
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continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I’m sure he couldn’t ha’ took a
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better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
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family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same—so I’ve heard; but
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I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
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place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
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husband, after they were married, didn’ get a house of their own for
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some year or more; and then they only had one till—Well, I won’t go
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into that. Jude, my child, don’t you ever marry. ‘Tisn’t for the
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Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
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a child o’ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
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maid should know such changes!”
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Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went
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out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his
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breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging
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from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a
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path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the
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general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This
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vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr Troutham the farmer,
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and he descended into the midst of it.
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The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all
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round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the
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actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the
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uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year’s produce standing
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in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and
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the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he
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hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family.
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“How ugly it is here!” he murmured.
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The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in
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a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the
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expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history
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beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone
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there really attached associations enough and to spare—echoes of
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songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy
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deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last,
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of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of
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gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches
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that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there
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between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the
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field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers
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who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest;
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and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to
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a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after
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fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor
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the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place,
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possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and
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in the other that of a granary good to feed in.
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The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds
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used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off
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pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished
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like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him
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warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
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He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart
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grew sympathetic with the birds’ thwarted desires. They seemed, like
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himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should
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he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of
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gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends he could claim as
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being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often
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told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted
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anew.
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“Poor little dears!” said Jude, aloud. “You SHALL have some dinner—
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you shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford
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to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a
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good meal!”
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They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude
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enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his
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own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much
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resembled his own.
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His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean
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and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself
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as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow
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upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his
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surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence
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used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed
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eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham
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himself, his red face glaring down upon Jude’s cowering frame, the
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clacker swinging in his hand.
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“So it’s ‘Eat my dear birdies,’ is it, young man? ‘Eat, dear
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birdies,’ indeed! I’ll tickle your breeches, and see if you say,
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‘Eat, dear birdies,’ again in a hurry! And you’ve been idling at the
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schoolmaster’s too, instead of coming here, ha’n’t ye, hey? That’s
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how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!”
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Whilst saluting Jude’s ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham
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had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim
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frame round him at arm’s-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts
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with the flat side of Jude’s own rattle, till the field echoed with
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the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution.
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“Don’t ‘ee, sir—please don’t ‘ee!” cried the whirling child, as
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|
helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked
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|
fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the
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|
plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an
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amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meant that—there was a good
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crop in the ground—I saw ‘em sow it—and the rooks could have a
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little bit for dinner—and you wouldn’t miss it, sir—and Mr.
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Phillotson said I was to be kind to ‘em—oh, oh, oh!”
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This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more
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|
than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still
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smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing
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to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant
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workers—who gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business
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of clacking with great assiduity—and echoing from the brand-new
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|
church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which
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structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for
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God and man.
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Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing
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the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and
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gave it him in payment for his day’s work, telling him to go home and
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never let him see him in one of those fields again.
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Jude leaped out of arm’s reach, and walked along the trackway
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weeping—not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the
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|
perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was
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|
good for God’s birds was bad for God’s gardener; but with the awful
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|
sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year
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in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for
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life.
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With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the
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village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge
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and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms
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|
lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as
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|
they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was
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|
impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them
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at each tread.
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Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not
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himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of
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young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and
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often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next
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|
morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
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|
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up
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|
and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his
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|
|
infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested
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|
|
that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before
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|
|
the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that
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|
|
all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe
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|
among the earthworms, without killing a single one.
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On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a
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|
little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, “Well, how do
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|
you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?”
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“I’m turned away.”
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“What?”
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“Mr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few
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|
peckings of corn. And there’s my wages—the last I shall ever hae!”
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He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.
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“Ah!” said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him
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|
|
a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands
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|
|
doing nothing. “If you can’t skeer birds, what can ye do? There!
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|
don’t ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than
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|
|
myself, come to that. But ‘tis as Job said, ‘Now they that are
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|
|
younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have
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|
disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.’ His father was my
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|
|
father’s journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let ‘ee
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|
go to work for ‘n, which I shouldn’t ha’ done but to keep ‘ee out of
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|
mischty.”
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|
More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for
|
|
|
dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view,
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|
and only secondarily from a moral one.
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|
“Not that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham
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|
planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstn’t
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|
go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere?
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|
But, oh no—poor or’nary child—there never was any sprawl on thy
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|
side of the family, and never will be!”
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“Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—this place where Mr. Phillotson
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is gone to?” asked the boy, after meditating in silence.
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“Lord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a
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|
score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever
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|
to have much to do with, poor boy, I’m a-thinking.”
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“And will Mr. Phillotson always be there?”
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“How can I tell?”
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“Could I go to see him?”
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|
“Lord, no! You didn’t grow up hereabout, or you wouldn’t ask such as
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|
that. We’ve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor
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|
folk in Christminster with we.”
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|
Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an
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|
undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near
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|
the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and
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|
|
the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his
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|
straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the
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|
plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up
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|
|
brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as
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|
|
he had thought. Nature’s logic was too horrid for him to care for.
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|
|
That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another
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|
|
sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself
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|
|
to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its
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|
|
circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized
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|
|
with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed
|
|
|
to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares
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|
|
hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped
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|
|
it.
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|
If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a
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|
|
man.
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|
Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up.
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|
|
During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the
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|
|
afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the
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|
|
village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay.
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|
“Christminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though I’ve never bin
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|
|
there—not I. I’ve never had any business at such a place.”
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|
|
The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that
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|
|
field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something
|
|
|
unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness
|
|
|
of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The
|
|
|
farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet
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|
|
Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So,
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|
|
stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which
|
|
|
had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch
|
|
|
from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the
|
|
|
other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of
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|
|
trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak
|
|
|
open down.
|