ccommodation for consumers was strictly limited to a little board about six inches wide and two yards long, fixed to the garden palings by pieces of wire, so as to form a ledge. On this board t

local customers who felt the same wish;

itants of the nearer end of Marlott, and frequenters of this retreat. Not only did the distance to The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation practically unavailable

and thus all were, somehow, seated at their ease. The stage of mental comfort to which they had arrived at his hour was one wherein their souls expanded beyond their skins, and spread their personalities warmly through the room. In this process the chamber and its furniture grew mo

p gloom, and then unfastened the stair-door like one whose fingers knew the tricks of the latches well. Her ascent of the crooked staircase was

ed at the sound of footsteps, as glibly as a child repeating the Catechism, while she peered over the stairs. `Oh

r husband sat. He was humming absently to himself, in a low tone: `I be as good as some folks here and ther

whispered his cheerful wife. `Here, John, don't `ee see me?' She nudged him, whi

the landlady; in case any member of the Governm

ppened to us, I suppose?

e think there's any

in `en.' She dropped her public voice, and continued in a low tone to her husband: `I've been thinking since you brou

s that?' sai

must be our relation,'she said. `And my

Pa'son Tringham didn't think of that. But she's nothing beside we - a

ed, in their preoccupation, that little Abraham had crept into th

nued Mrs Durbeyfield; `and `twill be a very good thing. I don't se

he bedstead. `And we'll all go and see her when Tess has gone to l

mother be ready! Well, Tess ought to go to this other member of our family. She'd be sure to win the lady

ow

out that very thing! You should ha' seen how pretty sh

e maid hersel

dy relation yet. But it would certainly put her in the w

is q

able at bottom.

of those around to suggest to them that the Durbeyfields had weightier concerns to talk of now

rest,' observed one of the elderly boozers in an undertone.'But Joan Durbeyfield must mind that she don

, and presently other footsteps w

ng at my own expense.' The landlady had rapidly reused the formula she ke

itable medium for wrinkled middle-age; and hardly was a reproachful f lash f rom Tess's dark eyes needed to make her father and mother

ars or I mid lose my license, and be summons

this kind. On reaching the fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of three at one moment as if they were marching to London, and at another as if they were marching to Bath - which produced a comical effect, frequent enough in families on nocturnal home goings; and, like most comical effects, not quite so comic after all. The two women val

m - ily vault

at the Anktells, and Horseys, and the Tringhams themselves gone to seed almost as much as you - though you was bigge

my belief you've disgraced yourselves more than any o

s far more prominent in her own mind at t

ble to take the journey with t

ght in an hour or two

red to the retailers in Caster-bridge before the Saturday market began, the way thither lying by bad roads over a distance of between twenty and thirty miles, and

est daughter, whose great eyes had opened th

a vague interspace between a

ing will soon be over for the year; and if we put off taking `em till next we

g feller, perhaps, would go? One of them who were so much a

nd letting everybody know the reason such a thing to be ashamed of!

t on his clothes while still mentally in the other world. Meanwhile Tess had hastily dressed herself; and the twain, lighting a lantern, went out

he off side of the load, and directed the horse onward, walking at his shoulder at first during the uphill parts of the way, in order not to overload an animal of so little vigour. To cheer themselves as well as they could, they made an artificial morning with the lantern, some bread and butter, and their own conversa

their left, the elevation called Bulbarrow or Bealbarrow, well-nigh the highest in South Wessex, swelled into the sky, engirdled by its earthen t

a preparatory ton

Abra

that we've beco

rticula

at you `m going to

Tess, lifti

tion will help `ee t

ave no such relation. What h

re's a rich lady of our family out at Trantridge, and mother said that if you

vations on the stars, whose cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two wisps of human life. He asked how far away those twinklers were, and whether God was on the other side of them. But ever and anon his childish

to have impregnated the whole fa

that now!' s

he stars were

es

like

seem to be like apples on our stubbard tree. M

n - a splendid one

ghted

't pitch on a sound one, when t

es

much impressed, on reconsideration of this rare information

, and wouldn't have got too tipsy to go this journey; and mother

read-ymade, and not have had to be

don't talk of

upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present, and allow Abraham to go to sleep if he wished to do so. She made him a sor

into reverie than ever, her back leaning against the hives. The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes out

r mother's fancy; to see him as a grimacing personage, laughing at her poverty, and her shrouded knightly ancestry. Everything grew more and more ext

the waggon had stopped. A hollow groan, unlike anything she had ever hea

n her face - much brighter than her own had been. Something terrible had

s two noiseless wheels, speeding along these lanes like an arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow and unlighted equipage. The pointed shaft of the car

became splashed from face to skirt with the crimson drops. Then she stood helplessly looking on.

e hot form of Prince. But he was already dead, and, seeing that nothing more could be

t the best thing for you to do is to bide here with your load. I'll send somebody t

e features, and Tess showed hers, still whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation; and when the sun rose a hundred prismatic

none - What will mother and father live on now? Aby, Aby!' She shook the child, who had s

furrows of fifty years were e

sterday!' she went on to herself.

, and not a sound one, isn't it, Tess

hem that the driver of the mail-cart had been as good as his word. A farmer's man from near Stourcastle came up, leading a

blood-pool was still visible in the middle of the road, though scratched and scraped over by passing vehicles. All that was left of Prince was now hoisted into

to her tongue to find from the faces of her parents that they already knew of their loss, though

though in the present case it meant ruin, and in the other it would only have meant inconvenience. In the Durbeyfield countenances there was not

give only a very few shillings for Prince's carcase becau

ights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers for cat's meat. Let `em keep their

wife tied a rope round the horse and dragged him up the path towards it, the children following in funeral train. Abraham and `Liza-Lu sobbed, Hope and Modesty discharged their g

en?' asked Abraham,

ren cried anew. All except Tess. Her face was dry and pale,