The Mayor of Casterbridge
comrade. To wonder how many of these cups the landlord possessed
altogether was a favourite exercise of children in the marvellous.
Forty at least might have been seen at these times in the large room,
forming a ring round the margin of the great sixteen-legged oak table,
like the monolithic circle of Stonehenge in its pristine days. Outside
and above the forty cups came a circle of forty smoke-jets from forty
clay pipes; outside the pipes the countenances of the forty
church-goers, supported at the back by a circle of forty chairs.
The conversation was not the conversation of week-days, but a thing
altogether finer in point and higher in tone. They invariably discussed
the sermon, dissecting it, weighing it, as above or below the
average—the general tendency being to regard it as a scientific feat or
performance which had no relation to their own lives, except as between
critics and the thing criticized. The bass-viol player and the clerk
usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account of their
official connection with the preacher.
Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchard as the place for
closing his long term of dramless years. He had so timed his entry as
to be well established in the large room by the time the forty
church-goers entered to their customary cups. The flush upon his face
proclaimed at once that the vow of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the
era of recklessness begun anew. He was seated on a small table, drawn
up to the side of the massive oak board reserved for the churchmen, a
few of whom nodded to him as they took their places and said, “How be
ye, Mr. Henchard? Quite a stranger here.”
Henchard did not take the trouble to reply for a few moments, and his
eyes rested on his stretched-out legs and boots. “Yes,” he said at
length; “that’s true. I’ve been down in spirit for weeks; some of ye
know the cause. I am better now, but not quite serene. I want you
fellows of the choir to strike up a tune; and what with that and this
brew of Stannidge’s, I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my
minor key.”
“With all my heart,” said the first fiddle. “We’ve let back our
strings, that’s true, but we can soon pull ’em up again. Sound A,
neighbours, and give the man a stave.”
“I don’t care a curse what the words be,” said Henchard. “Hymns,
ballets, or rantipole rubbish; the Rogue’s March or the cherubim’s
warble—’tis all the same to me if ’tis good harmony, and well put out.”
“Well—heh, heh—it may be we can do that, and not a man among us that
have sat in the gallery less than twenty year,” said the leader of the
band. “As ’tis Sunday, neighbours, suppose we raise the Fourth Psa’am,
to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by me?”
“Hang Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by thee!” said Henchard. “Chuck
across one of your psalters—old Wiltshire is the only tune worth
singing—the psalm-tune that would make my blood ebb and flow like the
sea when I was a steady chap. I’ll find some words to fit en.” He took
one of the psalters and began turning over the leaves.
Chancing to look out of the window at that moment he saw a flock of
people passing by, and perceived them to be the congregation of the
upper church, now just dismissed, their sermon having been a longer one
than that the lower parish was favoured with. Among the rest of the
leading inhabitants walked Mr. Councillor Farfrae with Lucetta upon his
arm, the observed and imitated of all the smaller tradesmen’s
womankind. Henchard’s mouth changed a little, and he continued to turn
over the leaves.
“Now then,” he said, “Psalm the Hundred-and-Ninth, to the tune of
Wiltshire: verses ten to fifteen. I gi’e ye the words:
“His seed shall orphans be, his wife
A widow plunged in grief;
His vagrant children beg their bread
Where none can give relief.
His ill-got riches shall be made
To usurers a prey;
The fruit of all his toil shall be
By strangers borne away.
None shall be found that to his wants
Their mercy will extend,
Or to his helpless orphan seed
The least assistance lend.
A swift destruction soon shall seize
On his unhappy race;
And the next age his hated name
Shall utterly deface.”
“I know the Psa’am—I know the Psa’am!” said the leader hastily; “but I
would as lief not sing it. ’Twasn’t made for singing. We chose it once
when the gipsy stole the pa’son’s mare, thinking to please him, but
pa’son were quite upset. Whatever Servant David were thinking about
when he made a Psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I
can’t fathom! Now then, the Fourth Psalm, to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as
improved by me.”
“’Od seize your sauce—I tell ye to sing the Hundred-and-Ninth to
Wiltshire, and sing it you shall!” roared Henchard. “Not a single one
of all the droning crew of ye goes out of this room till that Psalm is
sung!” He slipped off the table, seized the poker, and going to the
door placed his back against it. “Now then, go ahead, if you don’t wish
to have your cust pates broke!”
“Don’t ’ee, don’t ’ee take on so!—As ’tis the Sabbath-day, and ’tis
Servant David’s words and not ours, perhaps we don’t mind for once,
hey?” said one of the terrified choir, looking round upon the rest. So
the instruments were tuned and the comminatory verses sung.
“Thank ye, thank ye,” said Henchard in a softened voice, his eyes
growing downcast, and his manner that of a man much moved by the
strains. “Don’t you blame David,” he went on in low tones, shaking his
head without raising his eyes. “He knew what he was about when he wrote
that!... If I could afford it, be hanged if I wouldn’t keep a church
choir at my own expense to play and sing to me at these low, dark times
of my life. But the bitter thing is, that when I was rich I didn’t need
what I could have, and now I be poor I can’t have what I need!”
While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrae passed again, this time
homeward, it being their custom to take, like others, a short walk out
on the highway and back, between church and tea-time. “There’s the man
we’ve been singing about,” said Henchard.
The players and singers turned their heads and saw his meaning. “Heaven
forbid!” said the bass-player.
“’Tis the man,” repeated Henchard doggedly.
“Then if I’d known,” said the performer on the clarionet solemnly,
“that ’twas meant for a living man, nothing should have drawn out of my
wynd-pipe the breath for that Psalm, so help me!”
“Nor from mine,” said the first singer. “But, thought I, as it was made
so long ago perhaps there isn’t much in it, so I’ll oblige a neighbour;
for there’s nothing to be said against the tune.”
“Ah, my boys, you’ve sung it,” said Henchard triumphantly. “As for him,
it was partly by his songs that he got over me, and heaved me out.... I
could double him up like that—and yet I don’t.” He laid the poker
across his knee, bent it as if it were a twig, flung it down, and came
away from the door.
It was at this time that Elizabeth-Jane, having heard where her
stepfather was, entered the room with a pale and agonized countenance.
The choir and the rest of the company moved off, in accordance with
their half-pint regulation. Elizabeth-Jane went up to Henchard, and
entreated him to accompany her home.
By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature had burnt down, and
having drunk no great quantity as yet he was inclined to acquiesce. She
took his arm, and together they went on. Henchard walked blankly, like
a blind man, repeating to himself the last words of the singers—
“And the next age his hated name
Shall utterly deface.”
At length he said to her, “I am a man to my word. I have kept my oath
for twenty-one years; and now I can drink with a good conscience.... If
I don’t do for him—well, I am a fearful practical joker when I choose!
He has taken away everything from me, and by heavens, if I meet him I
won’t answer for my deeds!”
These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth—all the more by reason of
the still determination of Henchard’s mien.
“What will you do?” she asked cautiously, while trembling with
disquietude, and guessing Henchard’s allusion only too well.
Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had reached his
cottage. “May I come in?” she said.
“No, no; not to-day,” said Henchard; and she went away; feeling that to
caution Farfrae was almost her duty, as it was certainly her strong
desire.
As on the Sunday, so on the week-days, Farfrae and Lucetta might have
been seen flitting about the town like two butterflies—or rather like a
bee and a butterfly in league for life. She seemed to take no pleasure
in going anywhere except in her husband’s company; and hence when
business would not permit him to waste an afternoon she remained
indoors waiting for the time to pass till his return, her face being
visible to Elizabeth-Jane from her window aloft. The latter, however,
did not say to herself that Farfrae should be thankful for such
devotion, but, full of her reading, she cited Rosalind’s exclamation:
“Mistress, know yourself; down on your knees and thank Heaven fasting
for a good man’s love.”
She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One day he answered her inquiry
for his health by saying that he could not endure Abel Whittle’s
pitying eyes upon him while they worked together in the yard. “He is
such a fool,” said Henchard, “that he can never get out of his mind the
time when I was master there.”
“I’ll come and wimble for you instead of him, if you will allow me,”
said she. Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunity of
observing the general position of affairs on Farfrae’s premises now
that her stepfather was a workman there. Henchard’s threats had alarmed
her so much that she wished to see his behaviour when the two were face
to face.
For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make any
appearance. Then one afternoon the green door opened, and through came,
first Farfrae, and at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wife
forward without hesitation, it being obvious that he had no suspicion
whatever of any antecedents in common between her and the now
journeyman hay-trusser.
Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them
fixed on the bond he twisted, as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling
of delicacy, which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything that might
seem like triumphing over a fallen rival, led him to keep away from the
hay-barn where Henchard and his daughter were working, and to go on to
the corn department. Meanwhile Lucetta, never having been informed that
Henchard had entered her husband’s service, rambled straight on to the
barn, where she came suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little
“Oh!” which the happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear.
Henchard, with withering humility of demeanour, touched the brim of his
hat to her as Whittle and the rest had done, to which she breathed a
dead-alive “Good afternoon.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” said Henchard, as if he had not heard.
“I said good afternoon,” she faltered.
“O yes, good afternoon, ma’am,” he replied, touching his hat again. “I
am glad to see you, ma’am.” Lucetta looked embarrassed, and Henchard
continued: “For we humble workmen here feel it a great honour that a
lady should look in and take an interest in us.”
She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter, too
unendurable.
“Can you tell me the time, ma’am?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said hastily; “half-past four.”
“Thank ’ee. An hour and a half longer before we are released from work.
Ah, ma’am, we of the lower classes know nothing of the gay leisure that
such as you enjoy!”
As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him, nodded and smiled to
Elizabeth-Jane, and joined her husband at the other end of the