Shrewd Man

obtained by other routes. Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence which characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant periodical journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular camping out from month to mon

ights on, and stamps unmistakably, as with the mark

ng for you!" had been the formulated threat of Wessex mothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a while, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as process of time rendered the

ings; but they merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than that of pedlars; but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes straight ahead. He was such an unnatural colour to look at that the men of round-abouts and wax-work shows seemed gent

had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance of the pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular, when an ugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose. The one point that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour. Freed from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rustic manhood as one would often s

ntained among other articles a brown-paper packet, which, to judge from the hinge-like character of its worn folds, seemed to have been carefully opened and closed a good many times. He sat down on a three-legged milking stool that formed the only seat in the van, and, examining his packet by the light of a candle, took thence an old letter and spread it open. T

e you very much, and I always put you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. I did not in the least expect that you were going to speak on such a thing when you followed me, because I had never thought of you in the sense of a lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke; you mistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man. I laughed because the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great reason with my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I do not feel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you with the

in Yeo

enn, Dai

al he had shifted his position even further from hers than it had originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in ver

ys congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions, had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intru

hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened, it was impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve's intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and dismissi

Wildeve's carelessness in relation to the marriage had at once been Venn's conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did not occur to his mind that Eustacia's love-signal to Wildeve was the ten

time in moving with his ponies and load to a new point in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here he selected a nook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain, which seemed to mean that his stay there was to be a

he watched in vain. Nobody except hi

e shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a certain mass of disappointment as the nat

ain at the same place; but Eustacia and Wil

evious meeting, he saw a female shape floating along the ridge and the outline of a young man ascending from the valley. They met

t the bush and crept forward on his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely venture withou

ed his head and shoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have been quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing. He crept along again, and the turves

any longer!" She began weeping. "I have loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret; and yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you w

as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me for having brought it about, Thomasin's

tesy-the courtesy of a lady in loving you-who used to think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin's fault. She won you away from me, and she deserv

hut up in a bedroom, and keeping out of

lly about her. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Why did you originally go away from me? I don't think

wish to d

now and then. Love is the dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it is a shame to say so; but it is true!

"so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy person. It is I

her it is the most merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That's always the best way. There, now I h

he intonation of a pollard thorn a little way to windward, the breezes filtering through its

once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me you did not marry her. Te

press me

I have been too ready to

before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point you had nothing to do w

. You only trifle with me. Heaven, what can I, E

ng these bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and t

d how I used to laugh at you for daring to look up to

I thought I had found some one fairer t

hink you found

. The scales are balanced so nicel

whether I meet you or wheth

find there are two flowers where I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four, or any num

which either love or anger seemed an equ

can

; I will

you are too do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don't know what, except-that you are not the whole worl

till she said, in a voice of suspended might

do worse than

antly. "Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from me all that you can-you wi

had from time to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this

ly. "'Tis my cross, my sh

e. "How mournfully the w

od. Acoustic pictures were returned from the darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of heather began and ended; where the furze was growing stalky and tall; where it had been

avines and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay h

ts consid

here, unless one were a wild bir

his hand. "America is so far away. Are

from the base of the barrow, and Wildeve follow

from against the sky. They were as two horns which the sluggish heath h

ightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His spirit was perturbed to aching. The breez

he three-legged stool, and pondered on what he had seen and heard touching that still loved-one of his. He

vily. "What can be done? Yes,