The Return of the Native
said Fairway.
They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared
about two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again.
Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz
went the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of
a falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a
thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The bucket was gone again.
“Damn the bucket!” said Fairway.
“Lower again,” said Sam.
“I’m as stiff as a ram’s horn stooping so long,” said Fairway, standing
up and stretching himself till his joints creaked.
“Rest a few minutes, Timothy,” said Yeobright. “I’ll take your place.”
The grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant water
reached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and
leaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round as
Fairway had done.
“Tie a rope round him—it is dangerous!” cried a soft and anxious voice
somewhere above them.
Everybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group
from an upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the
west. Her lips were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget
where she was.
The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded.
At the next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that
they had only secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket. The
tangled mass was thrown into the background. Humphrey took Yeobright’s
place, and the grapnel was lowered again.
Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood.
Of the identity between the lady’s voice and that of the melancholy
mummer he had not a moment’s doubt. “How thoughtful of her!” he said to
himself.
Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her
exclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the
window, though Yeobright scanned it wistfully. While he stood there the
men at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap.
One of them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what orders he
wished to give for mending the well-tackle. The captain proved to be
away from home, and Eustacia appeared at the door and came out. She had
lapsed into an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity
of life in her words of solicitude for Clym’s safety.
“Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?” she inquired.
“No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we can
do no more now we’ll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning.”
“No water,” she murmured, turning away.
“I can send you up some from Blooms-End,” said Clym, coming forward and
raising his hat as the men retired.
Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each
had in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene
was common to both. With the glance the calm fixity of her features
sublimed itself to an expression of refinement and warmth; it was like
garish noon rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.
“Thank you; it will hardly be necessary,” she replied.
“But if you have no water?”
“Well, it is what I call no water,” she said, blushing, and lifting her
long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring
consideration. “But my grandfather calls it water enough. I’ll show you
what I mean.”
She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the
corner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the
boundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange
after her listless movement towards the well. It incidentally showed
that her apparent languor did not arise from lack of force.
Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top
of the bank. “Ashes?” he said.
“Yes,” said Eustacia. “We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of
November, and those are the marks of it.”
On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.
“That’s the only kind of water we have,” she continued, tossing a stone
into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the white of
an eye without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve
appeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion there. “My
grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at sea on water
twice as bad as that,” she went on, “and considers it quite good enough
for us here on an emergency.”
“Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of
these pools at this time of the year. It has only just rained into
them.”
She shook her head. “I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I
cannot drink from a pond,” she said.
Clym looked towards the well, which was now deserted, the men having
gone home. “It is a long way to send for spring-water,” he said, after
a silence. “But since you don’t like this in the pond, I’ll try to get
you some myself.” He went back to the well. “Yes, I think I could do it
by tying on this pail.”
“But, since I would not trouble the men to get it, I cannot in
conscience let you.”
“I don’t mind the trouble at all.”
He made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel,
and allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip through his hands.
Before it had gone far, however, he checked it.
“I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole,” he said to
Eustacia, who had drawn near. “Could you hold this a moment, while I do
it—or shall I call your servant?”
“I can hold it,” said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her hands,
going then to search for the end.
“I suppose I may let it slip down?” she inquired.
“I would advise you not to let it go far,” said Clym. “It will get much
heavier, you will find.”
However, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried,
“I cannot stop it!”
Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by
twisting the loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a
jerk. “Has it hurt you?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Very much?”
“No; I think not.” She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding; the
rope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.
“You should have let go,” said Yeobright. “Why didn’t you?”
“You said I was to hold on.... This is the second time I have been
wounded today.”
“Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a
serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?”
There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym’s tone that Eustacia
slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright
red spot appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.
“There it is,” she said, putting her finger against the spot.
“It was dastardly of the woman,” said Clym. “Will not Captain Vye get
her punished?”
“He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I had
such a magic reputation.”
“And you fainted?” said Clym, looking at the scarlet little puncture as
if he would like to kiss it and make it well.
“Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time. And
now I shall not go again for ever so long—perhaps never. I cannot face
their eyes after this. Don’t you think it dreadfully humiliating? I
wished I was dead for hours after, but I don’t mind now.”
“I have come to clean away these cobwebs,” said Yeobright. “Would you
like to help me—by high-class teaching? We might benefit them much.”
“I don’t quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my
fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them.”
“Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an
interest in it. There is no use in hating people—if you hate anything,
you should hate what produced them.”
“Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear
your scheme at any time.”
The situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing was
for them to part. Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a move
of conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say.
Perhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have been uttered.
“We have met before,” he said, regarding her with rather more interest
than was necessary.
“I do not own it,” said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.
“But I may think what I like.”
“Yes.”
“You are lonely here.”
“I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath is a
cruel taskmaster to me.”
“Can you say so?” he asked. “To my mind it is most exhilarating, and
strengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these hills than
anywhere else in the world.”
“It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw.”
“And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there.” He threw
a pebble in the direction signified. “Do you often go to see it?”
“I was not even aware there existed any such curious druidical stone. I
am aware that there are boulevards in Paris.”
Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. “That means much,” he
said.
“It does indeed,” said Eustacia.
“I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years of
a great city would be a perfect cure for that.”
“Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and
plaster my wounded hand.”
They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She
seemed full of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun.
The effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till
some time after. During his walk home his most intelligible sensation
was that his scheme had somehow become glorified. A beautiful woman had
been intertwined with it.
On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his
study, and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books
from the boxes and arranging them on shelves. From another box he drew
a lamp and a can of oil. He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table, and
said, “Now, I am ready to begin.”
He rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the
light of his lamp—read all the morning, all the afternoon. Just when
the sun was going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his
chair.
His room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley of the
heath beyond. The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of
the house over the palings, across the grass margin of the heath, and
far up the vale, where the chimney outlines and those of the
surrounding tree-tops stretched forth in long dark prongs. Having been
seated at work all day, he decided to take a turn upon the hills before
it got dark; and, going out forthwith, he struck across the heath
towards Mistover.
It was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at the garden
gate. The shutters of the house were closed, and Christian Cantle, who
had been wheeling manure about the garden all day, had gone home. On
entering he found that his mother, after waiting a long time for him,
had finished her meal.
“Where have you been, Clym?” she immediately said. “Why didn’t you tell
me that you were going away at this time?”
“I have been on the heath.”
“You’ll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there.”
Clym paused a minute. “Yes, I met her this evening,” he said, as though
it were spoken under the sheer necessity of preserving honesty.
“I wondered if you had.”
“It was no appointment.”
“No; such meetings never are.”
“But you are not angry, Mother?”
“I can hardly say that I am not. Angry? No. But when I consider the
usual nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the
world I feel uneasy.”
“You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother. But I can assure you that
you need not be disturbed by it on my account.”