THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

Transcription

THE MAYOR OF
CASTERBRIDGE
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation
Thomas Hardy
PSAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship
Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT is a registered trademark of the College
Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE, AP and Advanced Placement are registered
trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT is a
registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book
nor endorses this book, LSAT is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither
sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.
The Mayor of
Casterbridge
Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®,
GMAT®, and AP® English Test Preparation
Thomas Hardy
PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered trademark of the
College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are
registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book,
GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated
with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council
which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.
ICON CLASSICS
Published by ICON Group International, Inc.
7404 Trade Street
San Diego, CA 92121 USA
www.icongrouponline.com
The Mayor of Casterbridge: Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT®, SAT®, GRE®, LSAT®, GMAT®,
and AP® English Test Preparation
This edition published by ICON Classics in 2005
Printed in the United States of America.
Copyright ©2005 by ICON Group International, Inc.
Edited by Philip M. Parker, Ph.D. (INSEAD); Copyright ©2005, all rights reserved.
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PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the
National Merit Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book;
SAT® is a registered trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses
this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the
Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT® is a
registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither
affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law
School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights
reserved.
ISBN 0-497-25324-0
iii
Contents
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR .......................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 1 ...................................................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................................... 23
CHAPTER 4 .................................................................................................................... 29
CHAPTER 5 .................................................................................................................... 37
CHAPTER 6 .................................................................................................................... 45
CHAPTER 7 .................................................................................................................... 51
CHAPTER 8 .................................................................................................................... 59
CHAPTER 9 .................................................................................................................... 67
CHAPTER 10................................................................................................................... 77
CHAPTER 11................................................................................................................... 83
CHAPTER 12................................................................................................................... 89
CHAPTER 13................................................................................................................... 95
CHAPTER 14................................................................................................................. 101
CHAPTER 15................................................................................................................. 111
CHAPTER 16................................................................................................................. 119
CHAPTER 17................................................................................................................. 127
CHAPTER 18................................................................................................................. 135
CHAPTER 19................................................................................................................. 141
CHAPTER 20................................................................................................................. 149
CHAPTER 21................................................................................................................. 161
CHAPTER 22................................................................................................................. 169
CHAPTER 23................................................................................................................. 181
CHAPTER 24................................................................................................................. 191
CHAPTER 25................................................................................................................. 201
CHAPTER 26................................................................................................................. 207
CHAPTER 27................................................................................................................. 219
CHAPTER 28................................................................................................................. 229
CHAPTER 29................................................................................................................. 235
CHAPTER 30................................................................................................................. 245
CHAPTER 31................................................................................................................. 251
iv
CHAPTER 32................................................................................................................. 257
CHAPTER 33................................................................................................................. 267
CHAPTER 34................................................................................................................. 277
CHAPTER 35................................................................................................................. 287
CHAPTER 36................................................................................................................. 293
CHAPTER 37................................................................................................................. 303
CHAPTER 38................................................................................................................. 311
CHAPTER 39................................................................................................................. 319
CHAPTER 40................................................................................................................. 327
CHAPTER 41................................................................................................................. 335
CHAPTER 42................................................................................................................. 347
CHAPTER 43................................................................................................................. 355
CHAPTER 44................................................................................................................. 365
CHAPTER 45................................................................................................................. 377
GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................... 385
Thomas Hardy
1
PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR
Designed for school districts, educators, and students seeking to maximize performance on
standardized tests, Webster’s paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently
assigned readings in English courses. By using a running thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this
edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy was edited for students who are actively
building their vocabularies in anticipation of taking PSAT®, SAT®, AP® (Advanced Placement®),
GRE®, LSAT®, GMAT® or similar examinations.1
Webster’s edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of
synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often ambiguous English words that are encountered in
other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations. Extremely rare or idiosyncratic
words and expressions are given lower priority in the notes compared to words which are “difficult,
and often encountered” in examinations. Rather than supply a single synonym, many are provided
for a variety of meanings, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of the English language,
and avoid using the notes as a pure crutch. Having the reader decipher a word’s meaning within
context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not
already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it
has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the
book; Synonyms and antonyms are extracted from Webster’s Online Dictionary.
Definitions of remaining terms as well as translations can be found at www.websters-onlinedictionary.org. Please send suggestions to websters@icongroupbooks.com
The Editor
Webster’s Online Dictionary
www.websters-online-dictionary.org
PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit
Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered trademark of the
College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are
registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book,
GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated
with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council
which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.
1
Thomas Hardy
3
CHAPTER 1
One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached onethird of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were
approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They
were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust which had
accumulated on their shoes and garments from an obviously long journey lent a
disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearance just now.%
The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed in
profile a facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular. He wore
a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which
was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of the same, tanned
leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with black glazed canvas. At his back he
carried by a looped strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the
crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also visible in the aperture.
His measured, springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct
from the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn and plant
of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical indifference personal to
himself, showing its presence even in the regularly interchanging fustian folds,
now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along.
Thesaurus
disadvantageous: (adj) adverse,
harmful, damaging, unfavorable,
inconvenient, prejudicial,
unfavourable, injurious, inimical,
inopportune, inexpedient.
ANTONYMS: (adj) favorable,
beneficial, helpful, opportune,
desirable.
fustian: (adj, n) rant, jargon; (adj)
bombastic, inflated, pompous,
grandiloquent, highfalutin, prose run
mad; (n) claptrap, blah, grandiosity.
hoar: (n) frost, rime, hoarfrost,
disrepair. ANTONYMS: (n) opulence,
hoariness; (adj) gray, hoary,
strength, decency, elegance.
shamble: (adv, v) hobble, limp; (v)
canescent, grizzly, greyish, frosty,
ancient.
drag, scuffle, stumble, lumber, dance;
looped: (adj) coiled, coiling, curly,
(adv) waddle, wabble, toddle, halt.
swarthy: (adj) dusky, black, swart,
intoxicated, curved, helical,
continuous, interminable, round,
sable, somber, dun, tawny, coloured,
colored, atramentous; (n) brunette.
whorled.
protruded: (adj) extant, outstanding.
ANTONYMS: (adj) fair, light.
shabbiness: (n) seediness, raggedness, wimble: (n) gimlet, auger, screw
decrepitude, fragility, weakness,
auger, borer, perforator, chisel, stylet,
inelegance, ruin, decay, collapse,
piercer.
4
The Mayor of Casterbridge
What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's progress, and would have
attracted the attention of any casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook
them, was the perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side in such a
way as to suggest afar off the low, easy, confidential chat of people full of
reciprocity; but on closer view it could be discerned that the man was reading, or
pretending to read, a ballad sheet which he kept before his eyes with some
difficulty by the hand that was passed through the basket strap. Whether this
apparent cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape
an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but himself could
have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed
no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone,
save for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow almost touched her
shoulder, for she kept as close to his side as was possible without actual contact,
but she seemed to have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it; and far
from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence she appeared to receive it as a
natural thing. If any word at all were uttered by the little group, it was an
occasional whisper of the woman to the child--a tiny girl in short clothes and
blue boots of knitted yarn--and the murmured babble of the child in reply.%
The chief--almost the only--attraction of the young woman's face was its
mobility. When she looked down sideways to the girl she became pretty, and
even handsome, particularly that in the action her features caught slantwise the
rays of the strongly coloured sun, which made transparencies of her eyelids and
nostrils and set fire on her lips. When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge,
silently thinking, she had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems
anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play.
The first phase was the work of Nature, the second probably of civilization.
That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the girl
in arms there could be little doubt. No other than such relationship would have
accounted for the atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along
with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.
Thesaurus
afar: (adv) off, away, far away,
distantly, beyond, Afar off, in the
distance, by far, apart; (adj) outlying,
far. ANTONYMS: (adv) close, nearby,
near; (prep) within.
babble: (n, v) drivel, gossip, chat,
burble, prattle; (v) ripple, gab, talk,
blab, smatter, bubble. ANTONYMS:
(n, v) stillness, quietness; (n) sense.
ballad: (n) song, folk song, carol,
poem, ballade, recitative, solfeggio,
pastoral, recitativo, ditty, bravura.
irksome: (adj, v) wearisome, tiresome; mutuality, reciprocation, interaction,
(adj) boring, dull, annoying, tedious,
interdependence, alternation,
trying, burdensome, bothersome,
interdependency, relation, exchange,
irritating, prosaic. ANTONYMS: (adj) interplay, similarity.
slantwise: (adv) diagonally, obliquely,
delightful, pleasant, refreshing,
soothing.
slantways, sideways, askew, awry,
nimbus: (adj, n, v) halo; (n, v) glory;
crosswise, crossways.
(adj, n) aureole; (n) aura, rain cloud, taciturnity: (n) reserve, silence,
aureola, messenger, gloriole; (adj)
uncommunicativeness, military
nimbose, honor; (v) flush.
reserve, modesty, secrecy, oblivion,
nostrils: (n) naris, nose.
substitute, pauciloquy, quietness,
reciprocity: (n) reciprocality,
muteness.
Thomas Hardy
5
The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with little interest--the
scene for that matter being one that might have been matched at almost any spot
in any county in England at this time of the year; a road neither straight nor
crooked, neither level nor hilly, bordered by hedges, trees, and other vegetation,
which had entered the blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves
pass through on their way to dingy, and yellow, and red. The grassy margin of
the bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were powdered by the dust that
had been stirred over them by hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on the road
deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the aforesaid total absence
of conversation, allowed every extraneous sound to be heard.%
For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak bird singing a
trite old evening song that might doubtless have been heard on the hill at the
same hour, and with the self-same trills, quavers, and breves, at any sunset of
that season for centuries untold. But as they approached the village sundry
distant shouts and rattles reached their ears from some elevated spot in that
direction, as yet screened from view by foliage. When the outlying houses of
Weydon- Priors could just be described, the family group was met by a turniphoer with his hoe on his shoulder, and his dinner- bag suspended from it. The
reader promptly glanced up.
"Any trade doing here?" he asked phlegmatically, designating the village in
his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking the labourer did not
understand him, he added, "Anything in the hay-trussing line?"
The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. "Why, save the man,
what wisdom's in him that 'a should come to Weydon for a job of that sort this
time o' year?"
"Then is there any house to let--a little small new cottage just a builded, or
such like?" asked the other.
The pessimist still maintained a negative. "Pulling down is more the nater of
Weydon. There were five houses cleared away last year, and three this; and the
volk nowhere to go-- no, not so much as a thatched hurdle; that's the way o'
Weydon-Priors."
Thesaurus
aforesaid: (adj) aforenamed, said,
foregoing, above-mentioned, same,
preceding, former, foresaid.
broadsheet: (n) bill, handbill, flyer,
broad-side, paper, pamphlet, stuffer,
sheet, throwaway, weekly, account.
deadening: (n) debasement,
degradation, damping, befooling,
constipation, damage, impairment;
(v) deaden; (adj) anesthetic, palliative,
irksome.
designating: (v) designate; (n) naming;
(adj) nominative, descriptive.
phlegmaticly; (adv) indifferently,
hedgerow: (n) fence, fencing.
stolidly, unconcernedly, impassively,
hilly: (adj) steep, rugged,
listlessly, sluggishly, passively,
mountainous, cragged, rough, rocky, inertly, carelessly, lackadaisically.
self-same: (adj) uniform, twin.
lofty, irregular, tumulous, knobby,
unsmooth. ANTONYM: (adj) flat.
trite: (adj) commonplace, banal, stock,
pessimist: (adj) croaker, alarmist,
prosaic, threadbare, timeworn,
pessimistic; (n) cynic, defeatist,
stereotyped, tired; (adj, v) stale,
skeptic, doomster, wet blanket,
common, familiar. ANTONYMS:
sceptic, washout; (v) optimism.
(adj) important, imaginative,
ANTONYM: (n) believer.
pertinent, relevant, fresh, exceptional,
phlegmatically: (adj, adv)
exciting.
6
The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some
superciliousness.
Looking towards the village, he continued, "There is
something going on here, however, is there not?"
"Ay. 'Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little more than the clatter
and scurry of getting away the money o' children and fools, for the real business
is done earlier than this. I've been working within sound o't all day, but I didn't
go up--not I. 'Twas no business of mine."
The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon entered the Fairfield, which showed standing-places and pens where many hundreds of horses
and sheep had been exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but were now in great
part taken away. At present, as their informant had observed, but little real
business remained on hand, the chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior
animals, that could not otherwise be disposed of, and had been absolutely
refused by the better class of traders, who came and went early. Yet the crowd
was denser now than during the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of
visitors, including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two come on
furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly flocked in; persons
whose activities found a congenial field among the peep-shows, toy-stands,
waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who travelled for the
public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and readers of Fate.%
Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things, and they looked
around for a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the down. Two,
which stood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed
almost equally inviting. One was formed of new, milk-hued canvas, and bore
red flags on its summit; it announced "Good Home- brewed Beer, Ale, and
Cyder." The other was less new; a little iron stove-pipe came out of it at the back
and in front appeared the placard, "Good Furmity Sold Hear." The man mentally
weighed the two inscriptions and inclined to the former tent.
"No--no--the other one," said the woman. "I always like furmity; and so does
Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is nourishing after a long hard day."
Thesaurus
brewed: (adj) alcoholic, done, meshed. (v) dismiss, terminate, force out, lay
clatter: (n, v) rattle, jingle, bang, clank, off; (adj) On leave.
clang, roll, clink; (v) clash, chatter; (n) nourishing: (adj) alimentary, healthy,
noise, racket. ANTONYM: (n) quiet.
nutrient, healthful, wholesome, rich,
expiring: (adj) moribund, failing.
nutritive, hearty, alimental, good,
ANTONYM: (adj) well.
beneficial. ANTONYMS: (adj)
forenoon: (n) morning, morn, am,
unhealthy, unwholesome, meager,
period, daybreak, break of the day,
insufficient.
morning time, first light, dayspring, ochreous: (adj) ocherous.
placard: (n) sign, card, poster,
a, cockcrow.
furlough: (n) vacation, leave, ticket of
advertisement, notice, handbill,
posting, broadside, tablet; (v)
leave, pass, time off, sabbatical year;
advertise, post.
scurry: (n, v) scamper, scramble, race;
(v) hasten, dash, rush, run, scuttle,
sprint, dart; (n) haste. ANTONYMS:
(v) amble, stroll.
superciliousness: (n) arrogance,
haughtiness, condescension,
disdainfulness, pride,
contemptuousness,
condescendingness, airs, conceit,
insult, loftiness. ANTONYMS: (n)
humility, respect.
Thomas Hardy
7
"I've never tasted it," said the man. However, he gave way to her
representations, and they entered the furmity booth forthwith.%
A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the long narrow
tables that ran down the tent on each side. At the upper end stood a stove,
containing a charcoal fire, over which hung a large three-legged crock,
sufficiently polished round the rim to show that it was made of bell- metal. A
haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a white apron, which as it threw an
air of respectability over her as far as it extended, was made so wide as to reach
nearly round her waist. She slowly stirred the contents of the pot. The dull
scrape of her large spoon was audible throughout the tent as she thus kept from
burning the mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins, currants, and what
not, that composed the antiquated slop in which she dealt. Vessels holding the
separate ingredients stood on a white-clothed table of boards and trestles close
by.
The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture, steaming
hot, and sat down to consume it at leisure. This was very well so far, for furmity,
as the woman had said, was nourishing, and as proper a food as could be
obtained within the four seas; though, to those not accustomed to it, the grains of
wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips, which floated on its surface, might have a
deterrent effect at first.
But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance; and the man,
with the instinct of a perverse character, scented it quickly. After a mincing
attack on his bowl, he watched the hag's proceedings from the corner of his eye,
and saw the game she played. He winked to her, and passed up his basin in
reply to her nod; when she took a bottle from under the table, slily measured out
a quantity of its contents, and tipped the same into the man's furmity. The liquor
poured in was rum. The man as slily sent back money in payment.
He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to his satisfaction
than it had been in its natural state. His wife had observed the proceeding with
much uneasiness; but he persuaded her to have hers laced also, and she agreed
to a milder allowance after some misgiving.
Thesaurus
antiquated: (adj) old, aged,
antediluvian, archaic, obsolete,
musty, old-fashioned, outdated,
dowdy, outmoded, antique.
ANTONYMS: (adj) new,
contemporary, fresh, modernistic,
recent, current.
concoction: (n) mixture, admixture,
commixture, mix, combination,
batter, medley, assortment,
confection, fabrication; (n, v)
digestion.
crock: (n) jar, vat, suede crock,
container, banger, urn, jalopy, bowl,
amphora; (v) begrime, smut.
laced: (adj) even, fastened, spiked,
drunk, decorated, alcoholic.
mincing: (adj) mince, prim, mannered,
twee, pretentious, foppish, affected,
la-di-da, simpering, nice, sentimental.
misgiving: (adj, n) apprehension, care;
(n) fear, dread, distrust, doubt,
hesitation, mistrust, suspicion,
uncertainty, scruple. ANTONYMS:
(n) confidence, certainty, trust.
seated: (adj) sat, sedentary.
slily: (adj) on the sly.
slop: (v) spill, splash, slosh, smudge;
(adj, n) filth; (n) pigwash, slops; (n, v)
swill; (adj) dabble, dirt, soil.
uneasiness: (n) disquiet, discomfort,
inquietude, anxiety, unease, malaise,
disquietude, apprehension, unrest,
impatience; (n, v) agitation.
ANTONYMS: (n) peace, calm,
confidence.
8
The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum being signalled
for in yet stronger proportion. The effect of it was soon apparent in his manner,
and his wife but too sadly perceived that in strenuously steering off the rocks of
the licensed liquor-tent she had only got into maelstrom depths here amongst
the smugglers.%
The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more than once said to
her husband, "Michael, how about our lodging? You know we may have trouble
in getting it if we don't go soon."
But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings. He talked loud to the
company. The child's black eyes, after slow, round, ruminating gazes at the
candles when they were lighted, fell together; then they opened, then shut again,
and she slept.
At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the second he
was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at the fourth, the qualities signified by the
shape of his face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery spark of his
dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; he was overbearing--even brilliantly
quarrelsome.
The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such occasions. The
ruin of good men by bad wives, and, more particularly, the frustration of many a
promising youth's high aims and hopes and the extinction of his energies by an
early imprudent marriage, was the theme.
"I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser with a contemplative
bitterness that was well-night resentful. "I married at eighteen, like the fool that I
was; and this is the consequence o't." He pointed at himself and family with a
wave of the hand intended to bring out the penuriousness of the exhibition.
The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such remarks, acted
as if she did not hear them, and continued her intermittent private words of
tender trifles to the sleeping and waking child, who was just big enough to be
placed for a moment on the bench beside her when she wished to ease her arms.
The man continued--
Thesaurus
clench: (n, v) clasp, grip, hold, clinch, maelstrom: (n, v) vortex, whirlpool; (v)
grasp, gripe; (v) embrace, grapple,
eddy, overflow, regurgitation, reflux;
tighten, ratify; (n) clamp.
(n) Charybdis, volcano, bedlam,
ANTONYMS: (v) release, flex, relax.
convolution, tumult.
don't: (adv) not; (n) taboo, prohibition. penuriousness: (n) impecuniousness,
imprudent: (adj) foolish, foolhardy,
penury, poverty, stinginess,
indiscreet, hasty, improvident,
meanness, miserliness, frugality,
impolitic, heedless, unadvised,
narrowness, insignificance,
injudicious, unwary, unwise.
indigence, inconsiderableness.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sensible, prudent, prattle: (n, v) gossip, babble, chat, gab,
jabber, chitchat; (adj, n, v) chatter,
cautious, wise, deliberate, discreet,
prate, palaver; (v) cackle, clack.
guarded, judicious, advisable.
quarrelsome: (adj) argumentative,
belligerent, combative, cantankerous,
aggressive, disputatious, ugly,
currish, termagant; (adj, n)
contentious; (adj, v) fretful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) agreeable,
peaceful, amiable.
risen: (v) uprise.
ruminating: (adj) pensive, ruminal,
ruminant; (n) abstraction.
trifles: (n) jests, nonsense, nugae,
trivia.
Thomas Hardy
9
"I haven't more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet I am a good
experienced hand in my line. I'd challenge England to beat me in the fodder
business; and if I were a free man again I'd be worth a thousand pound before I'd
done o't. But a fellow never knows these little things till all chance of acting
upon 'em is past."
The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside could be heard
saying, "Now this is the last lot--now who'll take the last lot for a song? Shall I
say forty shillings? 'Tis a very promising broodmare, a trifle over five years old,
and nothing the matter with the hoss at all, except that she's a little holler in the
back and had her left eye knocked out by the kick of another, her own sister,
coming along the road."
"For my part I don't see why men who have got wives and don't want 'em,
shouldn't get rid of 'em as these gipsy fellows do their old horses," said the man
in the tent. "Why shouldn't they put 'em up and sell 'em by auction to men who
are in need of such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I'd sell mine this minute if
anybody would buy her!"
"There's them that would do that," some of the guests replied, looking at the
woman, who was by no means ill-favoured.%
"True," said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine polish about the
collar, elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades that long-continued friction with
grimy surfaces will produce, and which is usually more desired on furniture
than on clothes. From his appearance he had possibly been in former time
groom or coachman to some neighbouring county family. "I've had my
breedings in as good circles, I may say, as any man," he added, "and I know true
cultivation, or nobody do; and I can declare she's got it--in the bone, mind ye, I
say--as much as any female in the fair--though it may want a little bringing out."
Then, crossing his legs, he resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjusted gaze at a
point in the air.
The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this unexpected
praise of his wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of his own attitude towards the
Thesaurus
auctioneer: (n) broker, agent, attorney, fuddled: (adj) tipsy, boozy, besotted,
secretary, solicitor, clerk, seller,
bewildered, confused, intoxicated,
pixilated, pissed, muddled; (n)
underwriter, proctor, commission
agent; (v) auction off.
merry, mellow. ANTONYM: (adj)
broodmare: (n) stud mare.
precise.
coachman: (n) teamster, cabman,
gipsy: (n) Gypsy, Romany, bohemian,
charioteer, carter, carman, Jehu,
warping end, tzigane, vagrant,
postboy, drayman, wagoner,
Rommany.
postilion; (v) whip.
grimy: (adj) dirty, filthy, grubby,
fodder: (n) food, hay, stover, alfalfa,
dingy, unclean, impure, nasty,
fare, chow; (v) provender, corn,
begrimed, squalid, messy, muddy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) pure, pleasant.
nurture, ration, provision.
groom: (n) equerry, bridegroom,
stableman, hostler; (v) prepare, dress,
arrange, train, coach, tidy, curry.
holler: (n, v) cry, scream, call, shout,
yell, bawl, hollo, shriek, bellow; (v)
exclaim, screech. ANTONYM: (v)
whisper.
trifle: (n, v) play; (adj, n, v) trinket; (v)
dally, fiddle, flirt, fool, frivol; (n)
nothing, triviality, detail; (adj, n)
bagatelle.
wives: (n) woman.
10
possessor of such qualities. But he speedily lapsed into his former conviction,
and said harshly-"Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for this gem o'
creation."
She turned to her husband and murmured, "Michael, you have talked this
nonsense in public places before. A joke is a joke, but you may make it once too
often, mind!"
"I know I've said it before; I meant it. All I want is a buyer."
At the moment a swallow, one among the last of the season, which had by
chance found its way through an opening into the upper part of the tent, flew to
and from quick curves above their heads, causing all eyes to follow it absently. In
watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled company neglected to
respond to the workman's offer, and the subject dropped.%
But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on lacing his furmity
more and more heavily, though he was either so strong-minded or such an
intrepid toper that he still appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain, as in
a musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the original theme. "Here--I am
waiting to know about this offer of mine. The woman is no good to me. Who'll
have her?"
The company had by this time decidedly degenerated, and the renewed
inquiry was received with a laugh of appreciation. The woman whispered; she
was imploring and anxious: "Come, come, it is getting dark, and this nonsense
won't do. If you don't come along, I shall go without you. Come!"
She waited and waited; yet he did not move. In ten minutes the man broke in
upon the desultory conversation of the furmity drinkers with. "I asked this
question, and nobody answered to 't. Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw among ye
buy my goods?"
The woman's manner changed, and her face assumed the grim shape and
colour of which mention has been made.
"Mike, Mike," she said; "this is getting serious. O!--too serious!"
Thesaurus
degenerated: (adj) kinky, shabby,
crumbly.
desultory: (adj) indiscriminate,
aimless, spasmodic, purposeless,
capricious, superficial, cursory,
random, rambling, immethodical,
fitful. ANTONYM: (adj)
wholehearted.
imploring: (adj) appealing, begging,
suppliant, pleading, entreating,
piteous, importunate, entreating
urgently; (v) supplicate, plead; (n)
prayer.
finished.
intrepid: (adj) daring, fearless, bold,
possessor: (n) owner, holder,
brave, dauntless, gallant, audacious,
proprietor, householder, occupant,
hardy, adventurous, heroic,
landowner, landholder, proprietary,
confident. ANTONYMS: (adj) fearful, somebody, someone, soul.
strong-minded: (adj) determined,
timid, cautious, feeble.
lacing: (n) seaming, shoelace, cord,
decisive, obstinate, hell-bent,
whipping, bootlace, beating, licking,
headstrong.
toper: (n, v) drunkard, sot; (n) drinker,
twist, lashing, flogging, string.
lapsed: (adj) fallen, elapsed, slip,
tippler, carouser, guzzler, bibber,
defunct, forgotten, invalid,
bacchant, imbiber, winebibber,
irreligious, lost, nonchurchgoing,
tosspot.
Thomas Hardy
11
"Will anybody buy her?" said the man.%
"I wish somebody would," said she firmly. "Her present owner is not at all to
her liking!"
"Nor you to mine," said he. "So we are agreed about that. Gentlemen, you
hear? It's an agreement to part. She shall take the girl if she wants to, and go her
ways. I'll take my tools, and go my ways. 'Tis simple as Scripture history. Now
then, stand up, Susan, and show yourself."
"Don't, my chiel," whispered a buxom staylace dealer in voluminous
petticoats, who sat near the woman; "yer good man don't know what he's
saying."
The woman, however, did stand up. "Now, who's auctioneer?" cried the haytrusser.
"I be," promptly answered a short man, with a nose resembling a copper
knob, a damp voice, and eyes like button-holes. "Who'll make an offer for this
lady?"
The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her position by a
supreme effort of will.
"Five shillings," said someone, at which there was a laugh.
"No insults," said the husband. "Who'll say a guinea?"
Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces interposed.
"Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven's love! Ah, what a cruelty is
the poor soul married to! Bed and board is dear at some figures 'pon my 'vation
'tis!"
"Set it higher, auctioneer," said the trusser.
"Two guineas!" said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
"If they don't take her for that, in ten seconds they'll have to give more," said
the husband. "Very well. Now auctioneer, add another."
"Three guineas--going for three guineas!" said the rheumy man.
Thesaurus
buxom: (adj) bosomy, chubby, bonny,
plump, sonsy, voluptuous,
curvaceous, shapely, full, crummy,
fat. ANTONYMS: (adj) skinny, bony.
copper: (n) brass, bull, cop, Cu,
constable, gold, fuzz, pig, cent,
bobby, coin.
cruelty: (n) brutality, cruelness,
oppression, barbarity, ferociousness,
tyranny, violence, atrocity, ferocity,
mercilessness, harshness.
ANTONYMS: (n) compassion,
gentleness, friendliness, humanity,
analogous, parallel, similar,
benevolence, sensitivity, liberty,
conformable, approximate,
semblative, other, probable; (prep)
decency.
gentlemen: (n) sirs, messieurs.
similar to, reminiscent of.
interposed: (adj) interjacent,
ANTONYM: (prep) unlike.
rheumy: (adj) creaky, rheumatic,
intercedent, intervenient,
parenthetical, intermediate colors,
rheumatoid.
voluminous: (adj) large, bulky, big,
mediate.
knob: (n) button, swelling, hump,
extensive, roomy, vast, spacious,
knop, protuberance, grip, nub, lump, capacious, considerable, full, massy.
node, bump; (adj, n) bulb.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cramped, small,
resembling: (adj, prep) like; (adj)
little, tiny.
12
"No bid?" said the husband. "Good Lord, why she's cost me fifty times the
money, if a penny. Go on."
"Four guineas!" cried the auctioneer.%
"I'll tell ye what--I won't sell her for less than five," said the husband, bringing
down his fist so that the basins danced. "I'll sell her for five guineas to any man
that will pay me the money, and treat her well; and he shall have her for ever,
and never hear aught o' me. But she shan't go for less. Now then--five guineas-and she's yours. Susan, you agree?"
She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
"Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or she'll be withdrawn. Do anybody give
it? The last time. Yes or no?"
"Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway.
All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening which formed the
door of the tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the rest, had arrived there
within the last two or three minutes. A dead silence followed his affirmation.
"You say you do?" asked the husband, staring at him.
"I say so," replied the sailor.
"Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where's the money?"
The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman, came in, unfolded
five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them down upon the tablecloth. They were
Bank-of-England notes for five pounds. Upon the face of this he clinked down
the shillings severally--one, two, three, four, five.
The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for the same
till then deemed slightly hypothetical had a great effect upon the spectators.
Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and then upon the
notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings, on the table.
Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted that the man, in
spite of his tantalizing declaration, was really in earnest. The spectators had
indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried to
Thesaurus
affirmation: (n) assertion, statement,
affirmance, admission, avowal,
certificate, claim, allegation,
evidence, declaration, testimony.
ANTONYMS: (n) refutation, reversal.
anew: (adv) again, newly, lately,
recently, over again, once more, once
again, new; (adj) only yesterday, the
other day, just now.
aught: (n) nil, zero, anything, ought,
cypher, nix, cipher, naught, null, zip;
(adj) any.
mirthful: (adj) gay, jolly, merry,
table linen.
festive, gleeful, glad, blithe, amusing, tantalizing: (adj) tempting, attractive,
jocund, laughable, comical.
inviting, tantalising, alluring,
riveted: (adj) immovable, immobile,
appealing, enticing, fine; (adj, v)
appetizing; (v) provoquant, spicy.
irremovable, rooted, wrapped up,
intent; (v) wrapped in, engrossed in, unobserved: (adj, v) unseen; (v)
rapt, absorbed, transfixed.
unheeded, unregarded, unthought of,
ANTONYM: (adj) detached.
unperceived; (adj) ignored, not
sailor: (n) seaman, seafarer, tar,
noticed, hidden, unmarked, unnoted;
(adv) secretly. ANTONYM: (adj)
bluejacket, gob, boatman, navigator,
navy man, lascar, Panama, leghorn.
evident.
tablecloth: (n) duster, napery, rag,
yours: (adj) own.
Thomas Hardy
13
extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he was, as a consequence,
out of temper with the world, and society, and his nearest kin. But with the
demand and response of real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed. A
lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and change the aspect of all therein. The
mirth-wrinkles left the listeners' faces, and they waited with parting lips.%
"Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry voice
sounded quite loud, "before you go further, Michael, listen to me. If you touch
that money, I and this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke no longer."
"A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband, his resentment
rising at her suggestion. "I take the money; the sailor takes you. That's plain
enough. It has been done elsewhere--and why not here?"
"'Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is willing," said the
sailor blandly. "I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world."
"Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But she is willing, provided she can have
the child. She said so only the other day when I talked o't!"
"That you swear?" said the sailor to her.
"I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and seeing no repentance
there.
"Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's complete," said the
trusser. He took the sailor's notes and deliberately folded them, and put them
with the shillings in a high remote pocket, with an air of finality.
The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. "Come along!" he said kindly.
"The little one too--the more the merrier!" She paused for an instant, with a close
glance at him. Then dropping her eyes again, and saying nothing, she took up
the child and followed him as he made towards the door. On reaching it, she
turned, and pulling off her wedding-ring, flung it across the booth in the haytrusser's face.
"Mike," she said, "I've lived with thee a couple of years, and had nothing but
temper! Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try my luck elsewhere. 'Twill be better for
me and Elizabeth- Jane, both. So good-bye!"
Thesaurus
blandly: (adv) dully, insipidly, mildly, uncertainty, doubt, indecisiveness.
frivolity: (n) flippancy, giddiness,
suavely, flatly, uninterestingly,
tamely, weakly, boringly,
flightiness, frivolousness, silliness,
flavorlessly, oily. ANTONYMS: (adv) triviality, frippery, prank; (adj, n)
trifling, inconsistency; (adj) folly.
meaningfully, interestingly,
ANTONYMS: (n) solemnity,
admirably.
extremes: (n) excess; (adv) overboard.
substance, importance, reliability,
finality: (n) determination, decision,
responsibility.
jovial: (adj, n) gay; (adj) jolly, genial,
definiteness, decisiveness,
conclusiveness, limit, final, ultimate,
glad, festive, joyful, gleeful, merry,
eventually, settlement, assuredness.
jocund, cheerful, blithe.
ANTONYMS: (n) indecision,
ANTONYMS: (adj) miserable,
gloomy, frosty, serious, hostile.
lurid: (adj) ghastly, grisly, gruesome,
loud, frightful, sharp, shocking,
gaudy, sensational, hideous, horrific.
ANTONYMS: (adj) subtle, muted,
bland, dull, modest.
repentance: (n) contrition, penance,
remorse, regret, compunction,
sorrow, guilt, contriteness, grief,
attrition, atonement. ANTONYMS:
(n) shamelessness, brazenness.
therein: (adv) in this, in there.
14
Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, and mounting the little girl on
her left, she went out of the tent sobbing bitterly.%
A stolid look of concern filled the husband's face, as if, after all, he had not
quite anticipated this ending; and some of the guests laughed.
"Is she gone?" he said.
"Faith, ay! she's gone clane enough," said some rustics near the door.
He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of one conscious of
his alcoholic load. Some others followed, and they stood looking into the
twilight. The difference between the peacefulness of inferior nature and the
wilful hostilities of mankind was very apparent at this place. In contrast with the
harshness of the act just ended within the tent was the sight of several horses
crossing their necks and rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in patience
to be harnessed for the homeward journey. Outside the fair, in the valleys and
woods, all was quiet. The sun had recently set, and the west heaven was hung
with rosy cloud, which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed. To watch it was
like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a darkened auditorium. In
presence of this scene after the other there was a natural instinct to abjure man as
the blot on an otherwise kindly universe; till it was remembered that all
terrestrial conditions were intermittent, and that mankind might some night be
innocently sleeping when these quiet objects were raging loud.
"Where do the sailor live?" asked a spectator, when they had vainly gazed
around.
"God knows that," replied the man who had seen high life. "He's without
doubt a stranger here."
"He came in about five minutes ago," said the furmity woman, joining the rest
with her hands on her hips. "And then 'a stepped back, and then 'a looked in
again. I'm not a penny the better for him."
"Serves the husband well be-right," said the staylace vendor. "A comely
respectable body like her--what can a man want more? I glory in the woman's
sperrit. I'd ha' done it myself--od send if I wouldn't, if a husband had behaved so
Thesaurus
abjure: (v) renounce, recant, abdicate,
deny, forswear, disavow, abandon,
reject, recall, repudiate, revoke.
auditorium: (n) hall, lecture room,
assembly hall, stalls, amphitheater,
boxes, gallery, parquet, pit, audience,
saloon.
comely: (adj) beautiful, good-looking,
decent, fair, attractive, decorous,
shapely, proper; (adj, adv, v) seemly;
(adj, adv) sightly, lovely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) repulsive,
homely, plain, revolting, unattractive,
ugly.
homeward: (adj) oriented, orientated.
hung: (n) hanging; (v) Heng; (adj)
fatigued, puzzled, decorated.
peacefulness: (n) calm, calmness,
peace of mind, serenity, tranquillity,
stillness, repose, quietness, ease,
hush, heartsease. ANTONYMS: (n)
bustle, wildness, upheaval, turmoil,
agitation, disturbance, harshness.
stagery: (n) performance, mise en
scene, jeu de theatre.
stolid: (adj) impassive, obtuse, stupid,
heavy, doltish, bovine, insulse,
expressionless, shallow, petty,
apathetic. ANTONYMS: (adj)
emotional, imaginative, exciting.
vainly: (adv) uselessly, futilely,
fruitlessly, conceitedly, in vain,
worthlessly, abortively, bootlessly,
arrogantly, unproductively; (adj, adv)
foolishly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
fruitfully, successfully, effectively.
Thomas Hardy
15
to me! I'd go, and 'a might call, and call, till his keacorn was raw; but I'd never
come back--no, not till the great trumpet, would I!"
"Well, the woman will be better off," said another of a more deliberative turn.
"For seafaring natures be very good shelter for shorn lambs, and the man do
seem to have plenty of money, which is what she's not been used to lately, by all
showings."
"Mark me--I'll not go after her!" said the trusser, returning doggedly to his
seat. "Let her go! If she's up to such vagaries she must suffer for 'em. She'd no
business to take the maid--'tis my maid; and if it were the doing again she
shouldn't have her!"
Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an indefensible
proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the customers thinned away from the
tent shortly after this episode. The man stretched his elbows forward on the
table leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to snore. The furmity seller
decided to close for the night, and after seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn,
raisins, etc., that remained on hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the man
reclined. She shook him, but could not wake him. As the tent was not to be
struck that night, the fair continuing for two or three days, she decided to let the
sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and his basket with
him. Extinguishing the last candle, and lowering the flap of the tent, she left it,
and drove away.%
Thesaurus
countenanced: (adj) aided.
customers: (n) trade.
deliberative: (v) contemplative,
introspective, studious,
philosophical, sedate, wistful,
museful, speculative, pensive,
reflective; (adj) platonic.
doggedly: (adv) stubbornly, firmly,
tenaciously, persistently, resolutely,
pertinaciously, perseveringly,
obdurately, steadfastly, untiringly,
steadily. ANTONYM: (adv)
hesitantly.
indefensible: (adj) unwarrantable,
unforgivable, unpardonable,
insupportable, unjustifiable,
unwarranted; (adj, v) untenable,
defenseless; (v) harmless, pregnable,
vincible. ANTONYMS: (adj)
understandable, justifiable,
excusable, watertight, valid,
defensible.
leant: (adj) inclined.
seafaring: (n) sailing, navigation,
boating, cabotage, travelling; (adj)
marine, naval, maritime, seagoing,
oceangoing, sea.
shorn: (adj) sheared, hairless, bald,
stubbed, Shearn, Sheard, shear,
clipped, not, Nott, shaven.
snore: (n) snoring; (v) snort, saw logs,
snooze, siesta, hibernation, breathe,
doze, saw wood, coma, dream.
thinned: (adj) dilute, gelded, hurt,
mown, slashed, split, watered down,
weakened, gashed, lessened, weak.
Thomas Hardy
17
CHAPTER 2
The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the canvas when the
man awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole atmosphere of the marquee, and
a single big blue fly buzzed musically round and round it. Besides the buzz of
the fly there was not a sound. He looked about--at the benches--at the table
supported by trestles--at his basket of tools--at the stove where the furmity had
been boiled--at the empty basins--at some shed grains of wheat--at the corks
which dotted the grassy floor. Among the odds and ends he discerned a little
shining object, and picked it up. It was his wife's ring.%
A confused picture of the events of the previous evening seemed to come
back to him, and he thrust his hand into his breast-pocket. A rustling revealed
the sailor's bank-notes thrust carelessly in.
This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he knew now they
were not dreams. He remained seated, looking on the ground for some time. "I
must get out of this as soon as I can," he said deliberately at last, with the air of
one who could not catch his thoughts without pronouncing them. "She's gone-to be sure she is--gone with that sailor who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane.
We walked here, and I had the furmity, and rum in it--and sold her. Yes, that's
what's happened and here am I. Now, what am I to do-- am I sober enough to
walk, I wonder?" He stood up, found that he was in fairly good condition for
Thesaurus
awoke: (adj) awakened.
buzzed: (n) woozy; (adj) intoxicated,
drunk.
carelessly: (adv) incautiously, hastily,
recklessly, heedlessly, casually,
sloppily, imprudently,
inconsiderately, rashly, negligently,
unwarily. ANTONYMS: (adv)
thoroughly, diligently, carefully,
warily, laboriously, thoughtfully,
attentively, daintily, methodically,
discreetly, economically.
grassy: (adj) verdant, gramineous,
weedy, herby, woody, fertile,
blossoming, abundant, leafy, lush,
flourishing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
grassless, urban, withering.
marquee: (n) pavilion, canopy, tent,
marquise, umbrella, parasol,
marchioness, sunshade, collapsible
shelter, cover, covering.
musically: (adv) harmoniously,
melodiously, sweetly, melodically,
dulcetly, euphoniously, pleasingly,
canorously, pleasantly, rhythmically,
metrically. ANTONYMS: (adv)
harshly, unmusically.
pronouncing: (v) pronounce; (n)
pronunciation, utterance.
rustling: (n) rustle, whispering,
whisper, larceny; (adj) murmurous,
susurrous, active, soughing.
streaming: (adj) flowing, flapping,
detached, incoherent, baggy, slack,
relaxed, loose, lax; (n) cyclosis; (v)
disheveled.
18
progress, unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool basket, and found he
could carry it. Then lifting the tent door he emerged into the open air.%
Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The freshness of the
September morning inspired and braced him as he stood. He and his family had
been weary when they arrived the night before, and they had observed but little
of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing. It exhibited itself as the top
of an open down, bounded on one extreme by a plantation, and approached by a
winding road. At the bottom stood the village which lent its name to the upland
and the annual fair that was held thereon. The spot stretched downward into
valleys, and onward to other uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched with
the remains of prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay under the rays of a newly
risen sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade of the heavily dewed grass,
whereon the shadows of the yellow and red vans were projected far away, those
thrown by the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape to the orbit of a
comet. All the gipsies and showmen who had remained on the ground lay snug
within their carts and tents or wrapped in horse-cloths under them, and were
silent and still as death, with the exception of an occasional snore that revealed
their presence. But the Seven Sleepers had a dog; and dogs of the mysterious
breeds that vagrants own, that are as much like cats as dogs and as much like
foxes as cats also lay about here. A little one started up under one of the carts,
barked as a matter of principle, and quickly lay down again. He was the only
positive spectator of the hay-trusser's exit from the Weydon Fair-field.
This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent thought,
unheeding the yellowhammers which flitted about the hedges with straws in
their bills, the crowns of the mushrooms, and the tinkling of local sheep-bells,
whose wearer had had the good fortune not to be included in the fair. When he
reached a lane, a good mile from the scene of the previous evening, the man
pitched his basket and leant upon a gate. A difficult problem or two occupied
his mind.
"Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn't I tell my name?" he said
to himself; and at last concluded that he did not. His general demeanour was
Thesaurus
beheld: (adj) visual.
braced: (adj) prepared, buttressed,
firm.
comet: (n) Ariel, iris, Dendrocometes,
celestial body.
demeanour: (n) behavior, behaviour,
conduct, demeanor, comportment,
deportment, manner, citizenship,
correctitude, carriage, attitude.
felloe: (n) felly, rim.
foxes: (n) dogs, Canidae, family
Canidae, Vulpes, genus Vulpes.
snug: (adj, v) cosy, trim; (adj) cozy,
unencumbered: (adj) disencumbered,
easy, comfy, tight, close, warm,
unembarrassed, disburdened, frank,
secure, homely; (v) neat.
candid, manifest, homely, agile,
ANTONYMS: (adj) baggy,
artless, clear; (v) unbound.
uncomfortable, unwelcoming, bleak, ANTONYM: (adj) logical.
unheeding: (adj) regardless, heedless,
formal, loose.
tents: (n) encampment.
inattentive, unmindful, unobservant,
thereon: (adv) on that, thereupon,
deaf to, unthinking, neglectful,
inadvertent; (adj, n) careless; (n)
afterward, at once, early,
incautious. ANTONYM: (adj)
immediately, therefore.
tinkling: (adj) clinking, tinkly,
heedful.
tintinnabulary, reverberant; (n) ting. wearer: (n) enjoyer.
Thomas Hardy
19
enough to show how he was surprised and nettled that his wife had taken him
so literally--as much could be seen in his face, and in the way he nibbled a straw
which he pulled from the hedge. He knew that she must have been somewhat
excited to do this; moreover, she must have believed that there was some sort of
binding force in the transaction. On this latter point he felt almost certain,
knowing her freedom from levity of character, and the extreme simplicity of her
intellect. There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment beneath
her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any momentary doubts. On a previous
occasion when he had declared during a fuddle that he would dispose of her as
he had done, she had replied that she would not hear him say that many times
more before it happened, in the resigned tones of a fatalist...."Yet she knows I am
not in my senses when I do that!" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about till I
find her....Seize her, why didn't she know better than bring me into this
disgrace!" he roared out. "She wasn't queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such
idiotic simplicity. Meek--that meekness has done me more harm than the
bitterest temper!"
When he was calmer he turned to his original conviction that he must
somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and put up with the shame as
best he could. It was of his own making, and he ought to bear it. But first he
resolved to register an oath, a greater oath than he had ever sworn before: and to
do it properly he required a fit place and imagery; for there was something
fetichistic in this man's beliefs.%
He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes inquisitively round
upon the landscape as he walked, and at the distance of three or four miles
perceived the roofs of a village and the tower of a church. He instantly made
towards the latter object. The village was quite still, it being that motionless hour
of rustic daily life which fills the interval between the departure of the fieldlabourers to their work, and the rising of their wives and daughters to prepare
the breakfast for their return. Hence he reached the church without observation,
and the door being only latched he entered. The hay-trusser deposited his
basket by the font, went up the nave till he reached the altar-rails, and opening
Thesaurus
calmer: (n) placid, quiet.
dissipated, bonded, barricaded,
doubts: (adj) doubting.
blockaded, colorfast, fastened,
fuddle: (v) bewilder, muddle, fluster,
degraded, secured.
levity: (n) flightiness, frivolity,
stupefy, befuddle, discombobulate,
drink, fox, bedevil, confound,
flippancy, buoyancy, lightness,
perplex.
giddiness, inconstancy, frivolousness,
inquisitively: (adv) pryingly, nosily,
humorousness, jocosity; (n, v)
fickleness. ANTONYMS: (n) gravity,
inquiringly, questioningly,
meddlesomely, speculatively,
seriousness.
meekness: (n) humbleness, modesty,
searchingly, meddlingly,
interestedly, interrogatively, eagerly. submission, obedience, compliance,
latched: (adj) barred, fast, bolted,
gentleness, tameness,
submissiveness, docility, lowliness,
tractability. ANTONYMS: (n)
arrogance, ferocity, wildness.
nettled: (adj) annoyed, harried, stung,
steamed, roiled, riled, pissed, peeved,
miffed, loaded, huffy. ANTONYM:
(adj) unconcerned.
placidity: (n) peace, equanimity, calm,
serenity, tranquility, calmness,
tranquillity, placidness, repose, quiet,
ataraxia.
walked: (adj) exempt; (v) yode.
20
the gate entered the sacrarium, where he seemed to feel a sense of the
strangeness for a moment; then he knelt upon the footpace. Dropping his head
upon the clamped book which lay on the Communion-table, he said aloud-"I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of September, do take
an oath before God here in this solemn place that I will avoid all strong liquors
for the space of twenty-one years to come, being a year for every year that I have
lived. And this I swear upon the book before me; and may I be strook dumb,
blind, and helpless, if I break this my oath!"
When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser arose, and
seemed relieved at having made a start in a new direction. While standing in the
porch a moment he saw a thick jet of wood smoke suddenly start up from the
red chimney of a cottage near, and knew that the occupant had just lit her fire.
He went round to the door, and the housewife agreed to prepare him some
breakfast for a trifling payment, which was done. Then he started on the search
for his wife and child.%
The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent soon enough.
Though he examined and inquired, and walked hither and thither day after day,
no such characters as those he described had anywhere been seen since the
evening of the fair. To add to the difficulty he could gain no sound of the sailor's
name. As money was short with him he decided, after some hesitation, to spend
the sailor's money in the prosecution of this search; but it was equally in vain.
The truth was that a certain shyness of revealing his conduct prevented Michael
Henchard from following up the investigation with the loud hue-and-cry such a
pursuit demanded to render it effectual; and it was probably for this reason that
he obtained no clue, though everything was done by him that did not involve an
explanation of the circumstances under which he had lost her.
Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on, maintaining himself
by small jobs of work in the intervals. By this time he had arrived at a seaport,
and there he derived intelligence that persons answering somewhat to his
description had emigrated a little time before. Then he said he would search no
Thesaurus
effectual: (adj, n) efficient, efficacious, embarrassing, intricate, complex,
point, in that respect, at that place, in
able; (adj) forceful, telling,
that location; (adj) further, ulterior,
baffling, complicated, bewildering,
knotty, troublesome; (adj, n) difficult. remoter, succeeding, more distant.
authoritative, operative, potent,
ANTONYMS: (adj) simple,
trifling: (adj) paltry, slight, petty,
adequate, impressive, powerful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ineffectual,
enlightening, soothing,
negligible, immaterial, worthless,
trivial, minor, small; (adj, v)
incapable, weak, impotent,
understandable, explicable.
porch: (n) lobby, hall, vestibule,
inconsequential; (adj, n) frivolity.
ineffective, unproductive,
ANTONYMS: (adj) significant,
unsuccessful, useless.
veranda, door, entrance, deck,
footpace: (n) gait, step, snail's pace.
gallery, portico, balcony, inlet.
worthwhile, major, considerable,
hither: (adv) here, whither,
seaport: (n) harbor, harbour, port, port crucial, enormous, great, mature,
profound, substantial; (n)
hitherward, thither.
of call, docks, oasis, coaling station.
perplexing: (adj) enigmatic, puzzling, thither: (adv) hither, whither, on that
importance.
Thomas Hardy
21
longer, and that he would go and settle in the district which he had had for some
time in his mind.%
Next day he started, journeying south-westward, and did not pause, except
for nights' lodgings, till he reached the town of Casterbridge, in a far distant
part of Wessex.
Thesaurus
distant: (adj) remote, aloof, chill,
domiciliation, lodging, billet,
detached, far, reserved, cool, long,
housing, quarters, residence, pad,
icy, removed; (adv) afar.
living quarters, launchpad.
ANTONYMS: (adj) close,
longer: (adj) longest, better, lengest;
neighboring, adjacent, friendly, near, (adv) farther; (n) yearner, thirster.
nights: (adj) nightly; (n) night.
nearby, warm, pending, intimate,
pause: (n, v) halt, interruption,
involved, alert.
journeying: (adj) itinerant, wayfaring, adjournment, delay, respite, stop;
vagabond; (n) excursion, digression,
(adj, n, v) rest; (n) intermission, gap;
(adj, v) discontinue; (v) hesitate.
expedition, travelling, movement,
ANTONYMS: (n) decisiveness,
outing, passage, pilgrimage.
lodgings: (n) digs, accommodation,
continuation, start; (v) proceed.
settle: (adj, n, v) fix, establish, confirm;
(n, v) place, set; (v) resolve, clarify,
pay, regulate, adjudicate, agree.
ANTONYMS: (v) float, wander,
prolong, owe, bungle, open, provoke,
rise, weaken, worsen, complicate.
started: (adv) happening, in progress,
ongoing; (v) stert, leaped.
till: (conj, prep) until, unto; (v) plow,
hoe, farm, dig; (adj) up to; (n) tiller,
drawer; (adv) so far; (prep) to.
Thomas Hardy
23
CHAPTER 3
The highroad into the village of Weydon-Priors was again carpeted with
dust. The trees had put on as of yore their aspect of dingy green, and where the
Henchard family of three had once walked along, two persons not unconnected
with the family walked now.%
The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous character, even to
the voices and rattle from the neighbouring village down, that it might for that
matter have been the afternoon following the previously recorded episode.
Change was only to be observed in details; but here it was obvious that a long
procession of years had passed by. One of the two who walked the road was she
who had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now
her face had lost much of its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural
change; and though her hair had not lost colour it was considerably thinner than
heretofore. She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her
companion, also in black, appeared as a well- formed young woman about
eighteen, completely possessed of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which
is itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.
A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard's
grown-up daughter. While life's middle summer had set its hardening mark on
the mother's face, her former spring-like specialities were transferred so
Thesaurus
dingy: (adj) dark, black, drab, dull,
muddy, impure, dim, seedy, dowdy,
unclean, grimy. ANTONYMS: (adj)
immaculate, spotless, sparkling,
bright, neat, brilliant, interesting,
smart.
ephemeral: (adj) passing, temporary,
transient, brief, momentary,
transitory, cursory, evanescent,
fugacious, fugitive, impermanent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lasting, enduring,
eternal, everlasting.
hardening: (v) harden; (n)
regardless, disregarding,
disregardless, irregardless; (adj)
solidification, curing, sclerosis,
callosity, calcification, symptom,
irrelative, unrelated, free, exclusive,
inurement, hardener; (adj)
easy, bold.
rotundity: (n) corpulence, rondure,
reprobation, perversion.
heretofore: (adv) formerly, as yet,
globularness, globosity, roundness,
before, so far, yet, already, until now, circularity, obesity, embonpoint,
previously, once, hereunto; (adv, n)
plumpness, fullness, corpulency.
yore: (n) past, history, past times,
hitherto.
highroad: (n) main road, trunk road, a yesteryear, old times, auld langsyne,
highway.
time out of mind, time immemorial,
irrespective: (adv) no matter,
the good old days, past tense.
24
dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child, that the absence of certain
facts within her mother's knowledge from the girl's mind would have seemed for
the moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection in
Nature's powers of continuity.%
They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was the
act of simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand a withy basket of
old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with her
black stuff gown.
Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same track as formerly,
and ascended to the fair. Here, too it was evident that the years had told.
Certain mechanical improvements might have been noticed in the roundabouts
and high-fliers, machines for testing rustic strength and weight, and in the
erections devoted to shooting for nuts. But the real business of the fair had
considerably dwindled. The new periodical great markets of neighbouring
towns were beginning to interfere seriously with the trade carried on here for
centuries. The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for horses, were about half as long as
they had been. The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers, and other
such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles were far less numerous.
The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some little distance, and then
stood still.
"Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to get
onward?" said the maiden.
"Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane," explained the other. "But I had a fancy for
looking up here."
"Why?"
"It was here I first met with Newson--on such a day as this."
"First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now he's
drowned and gone from us!" As she spoke the girl drew a card from her pocket
and looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with black, and inscribed within a
design resembling a mural tablet were the words, "In affectionate memory of
Thesaurus
dexterously: (adv) adroitly, skillfully,
expertly, craftily, skilfully,
dextrously, handily, cleverly,
proficiently, aptly; (adj, adv) readily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) ineptly,
incompetently, awkwardly.
edged: (adj) cutting, sharp, bordered,
pointed, bounded, keen, penetrating,
sharper, stinging, unkind, bleak.
hinder: (v) impede, resist, check,
hamper, obstruct, curb, handicap,
delay; (n, v) bar; (adj) posterior, hind.
ANTONYMS: (v) help, facilitate,
assist, prompt, encourage, promote,
allow, support, accelerate.
imperfection: (adj, n) frailty; (n) fault,
blemish, defect, deficiency, flaw,
weakness, disadvantage, vice, foible,
shortcoming. ANTONYMS: (n)
perfection, strength.
inscribed: (adj) etched, incised,
graven, written, carved, carven.
mural: (n) wall painting, painting.
periodical: (n) journal, magazine,
newspaper, review, organ,
publication, book; (adj) intermittent,
cyclic, recurrent, annual.
pursued: (n) hunted person.
roundabouts: (adv) in this area.
rustic: (n) countryman, peasant; (adj)
rural, pastoral, boorish, country,
bucolic, provincial, hick, agrestic,
countrified. ANTONYMS: (adj) town,
urbane, cultured, city, sophisticated.
withy: (n) osier, twig, with, branchlet,
sprig.
Thomas Hardy
25
Richard Newson, mariner, who was unfortunately lost at sea, in the month of
November 184--, aged forty-one years."
"And it was here," continued her mother, with more hesitation, "that I last
saw the relation we are going to look for--Mr. Michael Henchard."
"What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly had it told me."
"He is, or was--for he may be dead--a connection by marriage," said her
mother deliberately.%
"That's exactly what you have said a score of times before!" replied the young
woman, looking about her inattentively. "He's not a near relation, I suppose?"
"Not by any means."
"He was a hay-trusser, wasn't he, when you last heard of him?
"He was."
"I suppose he never knew me?" the girl innocently continued.
Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered un-easily, "Of course
not, Elizabeth-Jane. But come this way." She moved on to another part of the
field.
"It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should think," the daughter
observed, as she gazed round about. "People at fairs change like the leaves of
trees; and I daresay you are the only one here to-day who was here all those
years ago."
"I am not so sure of that," said Mrs. Newson, as she now called herself, keenly
eyeing something under a green bank a little way off. "See there."
The daughter looked in the direction signified. The object pointed out was a
tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from which hung a three-legged crock, kept
hot by a smouldering wood fire beneath. Over the pot stooped an old woman
haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags. She stirred the contents of the pot with a
large spoon, and occasionally croaked in a broken voice, "Good furmity sold
here!"
Thesaurus
daresay: (v) assume, deem.
attentively, considerately.
haggard: (adj) emaciated, gaunt,
inquiring: (adj) inquisitive, quizzical,
cadaverous, careworn, tired, worn,
interested, analytical, probing,
intrusive; (adj, n) questioning; (v)
lean, thin, wasted, pinched, squalid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) relaxed, carefree,
inquire; (n) enquiry, question,
examination. ANTONYM: (adj)
healthy.
inattentively: (adv) heedlessly,
uninquiring.
mariner: (n) sailor, gob, seafarer, tar,
carelessly, absently, negligently,
thoughtlessly, absentmindedly,
warrener, bosun, bargee, bargeman,
inadvertently, forgetfully, recklessly, boatswain, lighterman, sea dog.
signified: (n) common sense,
unobservantly, distractedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) alertly,
acceptation, good sense, horse sense,
mother wit, sensation, sense, sensory
faculty, sentience, sentiency; (adj)
implied.
smouldering: (adj) live, angry.
stooped: (adj) hunched, stoop,
stooping, crooked, bended, not
straight, inclined, not erect, arched,
asymmetrical, droopy.
trees: (n) foliage.
tripod: (n) triplopia, triangle, trionym,
easel, trident, triennium, trigon,
trisula, triskelion, triseme, trireme.
26
It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent--once thriving, cleanly,
white-aproned, and chinking with money-- now tentless, dirty, owning no tables
or benches, and having scarce any customers except two small whity-brown
boys, who came up and asked for "A ha'p'orth, please--good measure," which she
served in a couple of chipped yellow basins of commonest clay.%
"She was here at that time," resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to
draw nearer.
"Don't speak to her--it isn't respectable!" urged the other.
"I will just say a word--you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here."
The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints while her
mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latter's custom as soon as
she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's request for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six- pennyworths in her
younger days. When the soi-disant widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop
that stood for the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a little
basket behind the fire, and looking up slily, whispered, "Just a thought o' rum in
it?--smuggled, you know--say two penn'orth--'twill make it slip down like
cordial!"
Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old trick, and shook her
head with a meaning the old woman was far from translating. She pretended to
eat a little of the furmity with the leaden spoon offered, and as she did so said
blandly to the hag, "You've seen better days?"
"Ah, ma'am--well ye may say it!" responded the old woman, opening the
sluices of her heart forthwith. "I've stood in this fair-ground, maid, wife, and
widow, these nine-and- thirty years, and in that time have known what it was to
do business with the richest stomachs in the land! Ma'am you'd hardly believe
that I was once the owner of a great pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the
fair. Nobody could come, nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs.
Goodenough's furmity. I knew the clergy's taste, the dandy gent's taste; I knew
the town's taste, the country's taste. I even knowed the taste of the coarse
Thesaurus
alacrity: (n) rapidity, speed,
unadulteratedly.
drab, burdensome, livid.
ANTONYM: (adj) bright.
promptness, activity, preparedness, dandy: (n) beau, fop, coxcomb, dude,
buck, clipper, cockscomb; (adj) nifty, loth: (adj) disinclined, averse,
velocity, haste, swiftness, quickness,
expedition; (adj) life. ANTONYMS:
capital, fine, peachy. ANTONYMS:
reluctant, unwilling, indisposed,
(n) aversion, reservation, reluctance,
(adj) terrible, ghastly, awful, inferior. antipathetical, antipathetic, not
forthwith: (adv) directly, immediately, content, shy of, repugnant; (v) averse
indifference, hesitance, dullness,
disinclination, apathy, tardiness,
at once, now, instantly, straight,
from.
owning: (n) admission, avowal,
delay.
presently, straightaway,
benches: (n) bleachers.
incontinently; (adj, adv) quickly; (adj) confession, courteous recognition,
cleanly: (adj) clean; (adv) clearly, tidily, immediate.
acknowledgment.
translating: (n) communication,
purely, neatly, freshly, immaculately, leaden: (adj) heavy, gray, sluggish,
spotlessly, unsulliedly, fairly,
grey, inert, torpid, grave, languid,
movement.
Thomas Hardy
27
shameless females. But Lord's my life--the world's no memory; straightforward
dealings don't bring profit--'tis the sly and the underhand that get on in these
times!"%
Mrs. Newson glanced round--her daughter was still bending over the distant
stalls. "Can you call to mind," she said cautiously to the old woman, "the sale of
a wife by her husband in your tent eighteen years ago to-day?"
The hag reflected, and half shook her head. "If it had been a big thing I
should have minded it in a moment," she said. "I can mind every serious fight o'
married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-picking-leastwise large ones--that 't has been my lot to witness. But a selling? Was it done
quiet-like?"
"Well, yes. I think so."
The furmity woman half shook her head again. "And yet," she said, "I do. At
any rate, I can mind a man doing something o' the sort--a man in a cord jacket,
with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we don't gi'e it head-room, we don't,
such as that. The only reason why I can mind the man is that he came back here
to the next year's fair, and told me quite private-like that if a woman ever asked
for him I was to say he had gone to--where?--Casterbridge--yes--to Casterbridge,
said he. But, Lord's my life, I shouldn't ha' thought of it again!"
Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means
afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous
person's liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly thanked her
informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with, "Mother, do let's get
on--it was hardly respectable for you to buy refreshments there. I see none but
the lowest do."
"I have learned what I wanted, however," said her mother quietly. "The last
time our relative visited this fair he said he was living at Casterbridge. It is a
long, long way from here, and it was many years ago that he said it, but there I
think we'll go."
Thesaurus
borne: (adj) weak, wanting, spoony,
case, in any event.
minded: (prep) inclined; (adj, prep)
soft, sappy, shallow, little, limited.
degraded: (adj) debased, low, ignoble, disposed; (adj) willing, apt, ready,
debauched, depraved, abject, sordid, prone, orientated, favorable,
dishonored, corrupted, contemptible, oriented, prepared, partial.
base. ANTONYM: (adj) good.
shameless: (adj) bold, immodest,
informant: (n) betrayer, sneak,
profligate, depraved, audacious,
informer, squealer, deponent, author, blatant, barefaced, unscrupulous,
attestant, communicator, fink; (v)
impudent, unblushing; (adj, v)
graceless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
mouthpiece, teller.
leastwise: (adv) at least, at any rate,
restrained, abashed, ashamed,
anyway, anyhow, at the least, in any
discreet, prudish, apologetic.
underhand: (adj) stealthy, furtive,
clandestine, sly, underhanded,
sneaky, shifty, covert, crooked,
indirect; (adj, adv) underarm.
ANTONYMS: (adj) honest, overhand.
unscrupulous: (adj) dishonest,
unprincipled, unethical, immoral,
dishonorable, crooked, unfair,
unconscionable, sharp,
unconscientious, sly. ANTONYMS:
(adj) scrupulous, principled, ethical,
honest, moral.
28
With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to the village,
where they obtained a night's lodging.%
Thesaurus
descended: (v) extraught.
(adj) progressive. ANTONYM: (adv)
fair: (adj) clear, beautiful, sweet,
backward.
village: (n) neighborhood, settlement,
reasonable, dispassionate, average,
fine, impartial; (adj, v) bright; (adj,
city, community, kraal, thorp, dorp,
adv) clean; (n) blonde. ANTONYMS:
campong, pueblo, small town; (adv)
(adj) biased, unjust, exceptional, dark, town.
went: (v) walked, proceeded.
partial, mismatched, unwarranted,
where: (adv) there, here, wherever,
foul, imbalanced, prejudiced, poor.
obtained: (adj) fulfilled, derivative.
whither, in which, wherein, in what;
onward: (adv) ahead, forwards, before, (adv, pron) anywhere; (pron)
everywhere; (n) point, spot.
forth, onwards, along, in advance,
frontward, forrader; (adv, prep) on;
Thomas Hardy
29
CHAPTER 4
Henchard's wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in
difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her
daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had
been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than the girl
now beside her. But she had refrained. An innocent maiden had thus grown up
in the belief that the relations between the genial sailor and her mother were the
ordinary ones that they had always appeared to be. The risk of endangering a
child's strong affection by disturbing ideas which had grown with her growth
was to Mrs. Henchard too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had seemed, indeed
folly to think of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.%
But Susan Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved daughter's heart by a
revelation had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own part. Her
simplicity--the original ground of Henchard's contempt for her--had allowed her
to live on in the conviction that Newson had acquired a morally real and
justifiable right to her by his purchase-- though the exact bearings and legal
limits of that right were vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that
a sane young matron could believe in the seriousness of such a transfer; and
were there not numerous other instances of the same belief the thing might
scarcely be credited. But she was by no means the first or last peasant woman
who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural records show.
Thesaurus
appeared: (n) appearing.
reasonable, admissible, rightful,
bearings: (n) bearing, direction, crest,
warrantable, sound. ANTONYMS:
(adj) inexcusable, unreasonable,
position.
genial: (adj) cheerful, bright, affable,
invalid, gratuitous, unjustifiable,
cordial, amiable, nice, friendly,
illogical, unlawful, unworthy,
convivial, warm, agreeable, suave.
untenable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) disagreeable,
matron: (n) lady, head nurse, dame,
hostile, mean, discourteous, frosty,
housewife, dowager, woman, wife,
gloomy, reserved, unapproachable,
Donna Belle, matriarch, married
woman; (v) matronhood.
abominable.
justifiable: (adj) legitimate, defensible, ANTONYM: (n) patron.
religiously: (adv) conscientiously,
excusable, lawful, logical, legal,
spiritually, devoutly, reverently,
sacredly, holy, Godly, scrupulously,
devotedly, morally, devotionally.
sane: (adj, n) reasonable, lucid; (adj)
rational, judicious, right, sensible,
normal, wise, wholesome, sound,
prudent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unbalanced, insane, crazed, delirious,
unreasonable, irrational, foolish.
tragical: (v) ruinous, disastrous,
calamitous; (n) sadder; (adj)
tragedious, like tragedy, sad.
30
The history of Susan Henchard's adventures in the interim can be told in two
or three sentences. Absolutely helpless she had been taken off to Canada where
they had lived several years without any great worldly success, though she
worked as hard as any woman could to keep their cottage cheerful and wellprovided. When Elizabeth-Jane was about twelve years old the three returned to
England, and settled at Falmouth, where Newson made a living for a few years
as boatman and general handy shoreman.%
He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during this period
that Susan had an awakening. A friend to whom she confided her history
ridiculed her grave acceptance of her position; and all was over with her peace of
mind. When Newson came home at the end of one winter he saw that the
delusion he had so carefully sustained had vanished for ever.
There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her doubts if she
could live with him longer. Newson left home again on the Newfoundland trade
when the season came round. The vague news of his loss at sea a little later on
solved a problem which had become torture to her meek conscience. She saw
him no more.
Of Henchard they heard nothing. To the liege subjects of Labour, the
England of those days was a continent, and a mile a geographical degree.
Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness. One day a month or so
after receiving intelligence of Newson's death off the Bank of Newfoundland,
when the girl was about eighteen, she was sitting on a willow chair in the cottage
they still occupied, working twine nets for the fishermen. Her mother was in a
back corner of the same room engaged in the same labour, and dropping the
heavy wood needle she was filling she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully. The
sun shone in at the door upon the young woman's head and hair, which was
worn loose, so that the rays streamed into its depths as into a hazel copse. Her
face, though somewhat wan and incomplete, possessed the raw materials of
beauty in a promising degree. There was an under-handsomeness in it,
struggling to reveal itself through the provisional curves of immaturity, and the
casual disfigurements that resulted from the straitened circumstances of their
Thesaurus
boatman: (n) rower, ferryman,
gondolier, oarsman, boater,
longshoreman, lighterman, worker,
sailor, shipman, punter.
copse: (n) brush, coppice, brake,
brushwood, forest, underwood,
grove, spinney, thicket, undergrowth,
canebrake.
delusion: (n) hallucination, deception,
cheat, chimera, misunderstanding,
mirage, trick, fallacy, error,
aberration, falsehood. ANTONYMS:
(n) comprehension, fact, truth.
immaturity: (n) immatureness,
childhood, babyhood, adolescence,
puerility, crudity, youth, juvenility,
callowness, state, viridity.
ANTONYMS: (n) maturity,
adulthood, experience.
liege: (n) feudatory, liegeman, vassal,
lord, liege Lord, subject, Luik; (adj)
loyal, staunch, true, steady.
straitened: (n) necessitous, pinched,
distressed, put to it; (adj) narrow,
poor, destitute, selfish, narrow views,
exact, near.
twine: (n, v) coil; (n) string, rope, cord;
(v) lace, entwine, enlace, meander,
weave, intertwine, twist.
ANTONYMS: (v) untwine,
straighten, unwind.
well-provided: (adj) replete.
womanliness: (n) womanlike,
femaleness, femineity, feminity, sex,
womanishness, feminineness.
ANTONYM: (n) masculinity.
Thomas Hardy
31
lives. She was handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsome in the flesh. She
possibly might never be fully handsome, unless the carking accidents of her
daily existence could be evaded before the mobile parts of her countenance had
settled to their final mould.%
The sight of the girl made her mother sad--not vaguely but by logical
inference. They both were still in that strait- waistcoat of poverty from which she
had tried so many times to be delivered for the girl's sake. The woman had long
perceived how zealously and constantly the young mind of her companion was
struggling for enlargement; and yet now, in her eighteenth year, it still remained
but little unfolded. The desire--sober and repressed--of Elizabeth-Jane's heart
was indeed to see, to hear, and to understand. How could she become a woman
of wider knowledge, higher repute-- "better," as she termed it--this was her
constant inquiry of her mother. She sought further into things than other girls in
her position ever did, and her mother groaned as she felt she could not aid in the
search.
The sailor, drowned or no, was probably now lost to them; and Susan's
staunch, religious adherence to him as her husband in principle, till her views
had been disturbed by enlightenment, was demanded no more. She asked
herself whether the present moment, now that she was a free woman again, were
not as opportune a one as she would find in a world where everything had been
so inopportune, for making a desperate effort to advance Elizabeth. To pocket
her pride and search for the first husband seemed, wisely or not, the best
initiatory step. He had possibly drunk himself into his tomb. But he might, on
the other hand, have had too much sense to do so; for in her time with him he
had been given to bouts only, and was not a habitual drunkard.
At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, if he lived, was
unquestionable. The awkwardness of searching for him lay in enlightening
Elizabeth, a proceeding which her mother could not endure to contemplate. She
finally resolved to undertake the search without confiding to the girl her former
relations with Henchard, leaving it to him if they found him to take what steps
Thesaurus
carking: (v) bothering, tormenting,
educational, calming,
disadvantageous, unfitting, unapt,
worrying, pestering, teasing.
communicative, clarifying, useful,
unfortunate, untimely, untoward.
confiding: (adj) unsuspecting, trustful, taming, revealing. ANTONYMS: (adj) ANTONYMS: (adj) opportune,
artless, credulous, untutored, ingenu, mystifying, unedifying,
timely, appropriate, fortunate,
inartificial, lain, simple, unaffected,
unenlightening, unilluminating.
convenient, suitable.
initiatory: (adj) initiative, first,
whether: (pron) where.
unsophisticated.
drunkard: (n) alcoholic, drinker,
zealously: (adv) ardently, keenly,
inaugural, maiden, preliminary,
boozer, dipsomaniac, rummy,
introductory, inceptive, incipient,
heartily, vehemently, fervently,
inebriate, toper, sot, bibber, lush,
foremost, rudimentary, elementary.
earnestly, passionately, actively,
inopportune: (adj) inconvenient,
imbiber.
fierily, avidly, strongly.
enlightening: (adj) edifying,
ANTONYMS: (adv) halfheartedly,
inappropriate, improper,
instructive, illuminating, didactic,
inexpedient, awkward,
apathetically.
32
he might choose to that end. This will account for their conversation at the fair
and the half-informed state at which Elizabeth was led onward.%
In this attitude they proceeded on their journey, trusting solely to the dim
light afforded of Henchard's whereabouts by the furmity woman. The strictest
economy was indispensable. Sometimes they might have been seen on foot,
sometimes on farmers' waggons, sometimes in carriers' vans; and thus they drew
near to Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Jane discovered to her alarm that her mother's
health was not what it once had been, and there was ever and anon in her talk
that renunciatory tone which showed that, but for the girl, she would not be very
sorry to quit a life she was growing thoroughly weary of.
It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September and just before
dusk, that they reached the summit of a hill within a mile of the place they
sought. There were high banked hedges to the coach-road here, and they
mounted upon the green turf within, and sat down. The spot commanded a full
view of the town and its environs.
"What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!" said Elizabeth-Jane, while her
silent mother mused on other things than topography. "It is huddled all
together; and it is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden ground
by a box-edging."
Its squareness was, indeed, the characteristic which most struck the eye in
this antiquated borough, the borough of Casterbridge--at that time, recent as it
was, untouched by the faintest sprinkle of modernism. It was compact as a box
of dominoes. It had no suburbs--in the ordinary sense. Country and town met at
a mathematical line.
To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge must have appeared on this
fine evening as a mosaic-work of subdued reds, browns, greys, and crystals, held
together by a rectangular frame of deep green. To the level eye of humanity it
stood as an indistinct mass behind a dense stockade of limes and chestnuts, set
in the midst of miles of rotund down and concave field. The mass became
gradually dissected by the vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and casements,
Thesaurus
anon: (adv) directly, immediately,
compounder, cloven, bisulcate.
clear, slight, separate, certain, precise,
early, readily, soon, instantly, again, environs: (adj, n) purlieus; (n) vicinity, audible, strong, definite.
rotund: (adj) obese, chubby, round,
forthwith, promptly, shortly, rath.
confines, outskirts, environment,
chestnuts: (n) Castanopsis, Fagaceae,
entourage, precincts, scene,
plump, corpulent, circular, full,
surround, surroundings; (adj)
Castanea, genus Castanea, beech
orotund, rounded, globular,
overweight. ANTONYMS: (adj)
family.
vicinage.
concave: (n) indentation, depression, huddled: (adj) crouched, crouching,
gangling, slim, thin.
concavity; (adj) cavernous, biconcave, hunkered down, hunkered.
squareness: (n) rectangularity.
indistinct: (adj) indefinite, inarticulate, stockade: (n) fence, penal institution,
cupped, dipped, arched, indented;
(adj, n) crescent; (v) stove in.
faint, dull, fuzzy, indeterminate,
fortification, concentration camp,
ANTONYM: (adj) curved.
hazy, neutral; (adj, n) confused,
enclosure, penitentiary, prison,
dissected: (adj) compound,
cloudy, dark. ANTONYMS: (adj)
barricade, parapet, laager; (v) haha.
Thomas Hardy
33
the highest glazings shining bleared and bloodshot with the coppery fire they
caught from the belt of sunlit cloud in the west.%
From the centre of each side of this tree-bound square ran avenues east, west,
and south into the wide expanse of corn- land and coomb to the distance of a
mile or so. It was by one of these avenues that the pedestrians were about to
enter. Before they had risen to proceed two men passed outside the hedge,
engaged in argumentative conversation.
"Why, surely," said Elizabeth, as they receded, "those men mentioned the
name of Henchard in their talk--the name of our relative?"
"I thought so too," said Mrs. Newson.
"That seems a hint to us that he is still here."
"Yes."
"Shall I run after them, and ask them about him----"
"No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse, or in
the stocks, for all we know."
"Dear me--why should you think that, mother?"
"'Twas just something to say--that's all! But we must make private inquiries."
Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at evenfall. The
dense trees of the avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the open
land on each side was still under a faint daylight, in other words, they passed
down a midnight between two gloamings. The features of the town had a keen
interest for Elizabeth's mother, now that the human side came to the fore. As
soon as they had wandered about they could see that the stockade of gnarled
trees which framed in Casterbridge was itself an avenue, standing on a low green
bank or escarpment, with a ditch yet visible without. Within the avenue and
bank was a wall more or less discontinuous, and within the wall were packed
the abodes of the burghers.
Though the two women did not know it these external features were but the
ancient defences of the town, planted as a promenade.
Thesaurus
argumentative: (adj) quarrelsome,
noncontinuous, disjointed,
litigious, controversial, cantankerous, disconnected, broken off, gaping,
combative, forensic, hostile, polemic, precipitant, precipitate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) continuous,
disputative, contrary, ratiocinative.
ANTONYMS: (adj) amiable, friendly, constant, unbroken, uninterrupted.
escarpment: (n) escarp, cliff, bluff,
agreeable, conciliatory, passive,
gentle.
brae, fortification, precipice, bed,
bloodshot: (n) inflamed.
course, flag, layer; (adj) ledge.
coppery: (adj) copper Colored,
evenfall: (n) twilight, nightfall,
chromatic.
gloaming, hour, evening, downfall,
discontinuous: (adj) discrete,
declivity, downslope, drop, night,
intermittent, abrupt, irregular,
fall.
fore: (adv) ahead, before; (adj, adv)
forward; (n) bow, head, forefront,
stem; (adj, n) front; (adj) anterior,
foremost, frontal. ANTONYMS: (adv)
aft, behind, rear; (adj) back.
gnarled: (adj) knotty, knotted, gnarly,
asperous, crisp, deformed, crabbed,
roughhewn, wrinkled, unsmooth,
unpolished. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, unknotted, straight.
sunlit: (adj) bright, light, sunstruck,
lighter. ANTONYM: (adj) dark.
34
The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a
sense of great smugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same time the
unlighted country without strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering
its nearness to life. The difference between burgh and champaign was increased,
too, by sounds which now reached them above others--the notes of a brass band.
The travellers returned into the High Street, where there were timber houses
with overhanging stories, whose small-paned lattices were screened by dimity
curtains on a drawing- string, and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs waved
in the breeze. There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived their chief
support from those adjoining. There were slate roofs patched with tiles, and tile
roofs patched with slate, with occasionally a roof of thatch.%
The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the town
depended for its existence was shown by the class of objects displayed in the
shop windows. Scythes, reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks, spades, mattocks,
and hoes at the iron-monger's; bee-hives, butter-firkins, churns, milking stools
and pails, hay-rakes, field-flagons, and seed-lips at the cooper's; cart-ropes and
plough-harness at the saddler's; carts, wheel-barrows, and mill-gear at the
wheelwright's and machinist's, horse-embrocations at the chemist's; at the
glover's and leather-cutter's, hedging- gloves, thatchers' knee-caps, ploughmen's
leggings, villagers' pattens and clogs.
They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken
into the darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by the nearest lamps
sufficiently to show how completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework
had been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in the crevices
thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass almost as far up as the very
battlements. From this tower the clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began
to toll with a peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and
it was utilized by the inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No sooner
did the deep notes of the bell throb between the house-fronts than a clatter of
shutters arose through the whole length of the High Street. In a few minutes
business at Casterbridge was ended for the day.
Thesaurus
champaign: (n) plain, llano, steppe,
branch of knowledge, battleground,
battlefield, bailiwick, athletic field,
arena; (adj) Olympic, alluvial.
clang: (n, v) chime, clangor, ring, clash,
clank, clatter, sound; (adj, n, v) peal;
(v) boom, clink; (n) crash.
dimity: (n) cloth.
grizzled: (adj) grey, gray, old, brunet,
grisled, grayish, brunette.
hedging: (n) equivocation, evasion,
prevarication, hedgerow, exchange
risk cover, covering operation.
overhanging: (adj, v) projecting; (v)
beetling; (adj) covering, imminent,
impending, pendent, obumbrant,
hanging over, overspreading,
depending, hanging.
pails: (n) pail.
patched: (adj) mean, besmirched, old,
damaged, ragged, flyblown.
peremptory: (adj) imperious,
commanding, dictatorial,
overbearing, decisive, magisterial;
(adj, v) authoritative, dogmatic, flat,
absolute; (v) decided. ANTONYM:
(adj) polite.
smugness: (n) complacency, vanity,
pride, arrogance, complacence, selfsatisfaction, snobbery, provincialism,
bourgeois mentality, satisfaction,
Babbitry. ANTONYMS: (n) humility,
modesty, anxiety.
unlighted: (adj) dark, lightless, unlit.
ANTONYM: (adj) lighted.
utilized: (adj) occupied, applied.
Thomas Hardy
35
Other clocks struck eight from time to time--one gloomily from the gaol,
another from the gable of an almshouse, with a preparative creak of machinery,
more audible than the note of the bell; a row of tall, varnished case-clocks from
the interior of a clock-maker's shop joined in one after another just as the shutters
were enclosing them, like a row of actors delivering their final speeches before
the fall of the curtain; then chimes were heard stammering out the Sicilian
Mariners' Hymn; so that chronologists of the advanced school were appreciably
on their way to the next hour before the whole business of the old one was
satisfactorily wound up.%
In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves
rolled up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her skirt
tucked up through her pocket hole. She carried a load under her arm from
which she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some other women
who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled critically. The sight reminded
Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her daughter that they had an appetite; and they
inquired of the woman for the nearest baker's.
"Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in Casterbridge just
now," she said, after directing them. "They can blare their trumpets and thump
their drums, and have their roaring dinners"--waving her hand towards a point
further along the street, where the brass band could be seen standing in front of
an illuminated building--"but we must needs be put-to for want of a wholesome
crust. There's less good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now."
"And less good beer than swipes," said a man with his hands in his pockets.
"How does it happen there's no good bread?" asked Mrs. Henchard.
"Oh, 'tis the corn-factor--he's the man that our millers and bakers all deal wi',
and he has sold 'em growed wheat, which they didn't know was growed, so they
say, till the dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves be as
fiat as toads, and like suet pudden inside. I've been a wife, and I've been a
mother, and I never see such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.-But you must be a real stranger here not to know what's made all the poor volks'
insides plim like blowed bladders this week?"
Thesaurus
almshouse: (n) townhouse,
workhouse.
blare: (v) bellow; (n, v) sound, honk,
beep, hoot; (adj, n) boom; (n) din,
clamor, racket; (adj) peal, thunder.
ANTONYMS: (v) mute, stifle; (n)
silence.
blowed: (n) blowen, blowzy.
chimes: (n) bells, echo, refrain,
repetend, ritornello, glockenspiel.
plim: (v) swell.
preparative: (adj) preparatory,
introductory, propaedeutic,
blubber, cream, dripping, butter,
preparation, preceding.
edible fat.
quicksilver: (adj, n) hydrargyrum;
unprincipled: (adj) abandoned,
(adj) mercurial, fickle, cannon ball,
unscrupulous, depraved, dishonest,
moon, Proteus, chameleon, dart,
unethical, profligate, dissolute,
arrow, weathercock; (n) Hg.
shameless, unconscionable, vicious,
stammering: (n) hesitation, hesitancy, immoral. ANTONYMS: (adj) ethical,
psellism, indistinct pronunciation,
moral, honest, professional.
doubt; (adj) halting, hesitating,
varnished: (adj) sullied, polished,
inarticulate, incoherent, broken,
spotted, shiny, lustrous, smooth,
ashamed.
painted, besmirched, glossy, tainted,
suet: (n) tallow, grease, oil, lard,
flyblown. ANTONYM: (adj) dull.
36
"I am," said Elizabeth's mother shyly.%
Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her future in this
place, she withdrew with her daughter from the speaker's side. Getting a couple
of biscuits at the shop indicated as a temporary substitute for a meal, they next
bent their steps instinctively to where the music was playing.
Thesaurus
bent: (adj) curved, arched, deformed,
crooked; (n) propensity, inclination,
fancy, leaning, flair, gift, curvature.
ANTONYMS: (n) weakness, inability,
aversion; (adj) undetermined,
undecided, uncurved, uncaring,
rigid, unbent.
biscuits: (n) biscuit, cracker; (adj)
crackers.
indicated: (adj) numbered.
instinctively: (adv) involuntarily,
mechanically, spontaneously,
automatically, intuitively, inherently, makeshift; (v) change, replace, fill in.
temporary: (adj) ephemeral, acting,
automaticly, unconsciously,
impulsively, unthinkingly,
momentary, fleeting, provisional,
instinctually. ANTONYMS: (adv)
impermanent, transient, evanescent,
transitory, brief; (adj, v) temporal.
consciously, objectively.
observed: (adj) ascertained, empirical, ANTONYMS: (adj) continuous,
discovered, viewed, experimental,
enduring, eternal, everlasting,
experiential, determined, visual,
sustained, continued, lasting.
wishing: (n) wish, want, velleity,
disclosed.
substitute: (n) deputy, backup,
option, need, privation, lack,
delegate; (n, v) alternate, shift,
deprivation, deficiency, choice; (adj)
surrogate; (adj, n) alternative,
desirous.
Thomas Hardy
37
CHAPTER 5
A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town band was now
shaking the window-panes with the strains of "The Roast Beef of Old England."
The building before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was
the chief hotel in Casterbridge--namely, the King's Arms. A spacious bowwindow projected into the street over the main portico, and from the open
sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing of corks.
The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the whole interior of this room could
be surveyed from the top of a flight of stone steps to the road-waggon office
opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered there.%
"We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about-- our relation Mr.
Henchard," whispered Mrs. Newson who, since her entry into Casterbridge, had
seemed strangely weak and agitated, "And this, I think, would be a good place
for trying it--just to ask, you know, how he stands in the town-- if he is here, as I
think he must be. You, Elizabeth-Jane, had better be the one to do it. I'm too
worn out to do anything--pull down your fall first."
She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed her directions
and stood among the idlers.
"What's going on to-night?" asked the girl, after singling out an old man and
standing by him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right of converse.
Thesaurus
agitated: (adj) upset, excited, nervous,
restive, tumultuous, distressed, tense,
jumpy, overwrought, anxious,
alarmed. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
lethargic, tranquil, relaxed, assured,
cool, still.
converse: (n, v) chat, discourse, argue;
(v) confer, confabulate, speak; (n)
conversation, colloquy, contrast; (adj,
n) opposite; (adj) counter.
ANTONYMS: (adj, n) equal; (adj)
similar, complementary; (n)
similarity.
jingle: (n, v) ring, chime, ding, clank;
(v) clang, clink, tinkle, rattle, sound,
peal; (n) chink. ANTONYM: (n)
silence.
knot: (n) bow, cluster, lump, gang,
joint; (v) entangle, knit, bind; (n, v)
tie, loop, tangle. ANTONYMS: (v)
unravel, undo, unknot, disentangle.
neighbourly: (adj) amicable, friendly,
gracious, obliging, attentive, benign,
courteous, complaisant, helpful; (adv)
neighboringly.
pitched: (adj) oblique, thrown,
slanting, at an angle, leaning; (v)
fixed, pight, determined.
ANTONYM: (adj) level.
portico: (n) portal, arcade, entrance,
veranda, corridor, mouth, lips, inlet,
chops, balcony, orifice.
strains: (n) tension, tenseness.
unclosed: (v) ajar, unstopped; (adj)
sincere, public, plain, obvious, frank,
exposed, evident, artless, apparent.
38
"Well, ye must be a stranger sure," said the old man, without taking his eyes
from the window. "Why, 'tis a great public dinner of the gentle-people and such
like leading volk--wi' the Mayor in the chair. As we plainer fellows bain't
invited, they leave the winder-shutters open that we may get jist a sense o't out
here. If you mount the steps you can see em. That's Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at
the end of the table, a facing ye; and that's the Council men right and left....Ah,
lots of them when they begun life were no more than I be now!"
"Henchard!" said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means suspecting the
whole force of the revelation. She ascended to the top of the steps.%
Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught from the innwindow tones that strangely riveted her attention, before the old man's words,
"Mr. Henchard, the Mayor," reached her ears. She arose, and stepped up to her
daughter's side as soon as she could do so without showing exceptional
eagerness.
The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before her, with its
tables, and glass, and plate, and inmates. Facing the window, in the chair of
dignity, sat a man about forty years of age; of heavy frame, large features, and
commanding voice; his general build being rather coarse than compact. He had
a rich complexion, which verged on swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and dark,
bushy brows and hair. When he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some
remark among the guests, his large mouth parted so far back as to show to the
rays of the chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound white
teeth that he obviously still could boast of.
That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and hence it may have been
well that it was rarely heard. Many theories might have been built upon it. It fell
in well with conjectures of a temperament which would have no pity for
weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration to greatness and
strength. Its producer's personal goodness, if he had any, would be of a very
fitful cast--an occasional almost oppressive generosity rather than a mild and
constant kindness.
Thesaurus
brows: (n) brow.
ambition, fervor, avidness.
bigness, enormity, grandness,
bushy: (adj) dense, shagged, shaggy,
ANTONYMS: (n) indifference,
magnitude, fame. ANTONYMS: (n)
hairy, bearded, brushy, gross,
unwillingness, aloofness, disinterest, obscurity, austerity, commonness,
bushies, pilous, pappous, hispid.
lethargy, listlessness, patience,
mildness, moderation, simplicity.
ANTONYMS: (adj) bald, neat,
indulged: (adj) pet, privileged,
gloom, reluctance.
fitful: (adj) erratic, fickle, changeable,
unhealthy, tidy, thin, sparse, sleek.
cherished, admired.
chandelier: (n) candlestick, pendant,
swarthiness: (n) darkness, skin colour,
spasmodic, uncertain, intermittent,
candelabrum, sconce, lustre, luster,
irregular, variable, sporadic,
swarthness, skin color, shadow,
girandole, candelabra, gaselier.
desultory, flickering. ANTONYMS:
iniquity, dimness, dark, complexion,
eagerness: (n, v) desire, aspiration; (n) (adj) regular, unbroken.
complection.
greatness: (n) excellence, dimension, ungrudging: (adj) unsparing, selfless,
enthusiasm, avidity, cupidity,
readiness, passion, keenness,
dignity, bulk, size, enormousness,
magnanimous.
Thomas Hardy
39
Susan Henchard's husband--in law, at least--sat before them, matured in
shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined, thought-marked--in a
word, older. Elizabeth, encumbered with no recollections as her mother was,
regarded him with nothing more than the keen curiosity and interest which the
discovery of such unexpected social standing in the long-sought relative
naturally begot. He was dressed in an old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of
frilled shirt showing on his broad breast; jewelled studs, and a heavy gold
chain. Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to his wife's surprise, the two
for wine were empty, while the third, a tumbler, was half full of water.%
When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy jacket, fustian
waistcoat and breeches, and tanned leather leggings, with a basin of hot furmity
before him. Time, the magician, had wrought much here. Watching him, and
thus thinking of past days, she became so moved that she shrank back against
the jamb of the waggon-office doorway to which the steps gave access, the
shadow from it conveniently hiding her features. She forgot her daughter till a
touch from Elizabeth-Jane aroused her. "Have you seen him, mother?"
whispered the girl.
"Yes, yes," answered her companion hastily. "I have seen him, and it is
enough for me! Now I only want to go--pass away--die."
"Why--O what?" She drew closer, and whispered in her mother's ear, "Does
he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I thought he looked a generous man.
What a gentleman he is, isn't he? and how his diamond studs shine! How
strange that you should have said he might be in the stocks, or in the workhouse,
or dead! Did ever anything go more by contraries! Why do you feel so afraid of
him? I am not at all;I'll call upon him--he can but say he don't own such remote
kin."
"I don't know at all--I can't tell what to set about. I feel so down."
"Don't be that, mother, now we have got here and all! Rest there where you
be a little while--I will look on and find out more about him."
Thesaurus
befriend: (v) friend, help, assist,
sustain, promote, patronize, back,
uphold; (n, v) favor; (adj) friendly; (n)
take in hand. ANTONYMS: (v) shun,
ignore, neglect, reject.
begot: (v) beget.
breeches: (n) knickers, inexpressibles,
knickerbockers, brogues, short,
smalls, overalls, small clothes, pants,
trousers, pantaloons.
contraries: (n) contrary, oppositeness.
corduroy: (n) fabric, cloth.
encumbered: (adj) burdened,
burdensome, weighed down, heavy,
deep, clayey, cloggy. ANTONYM:
(adj) unencumbered.
frilled: (adj) frilly, ruffled.
jamb: (n) doorpost, abutment,
mullion, vertical, cheek, upright,
doorjamb, coaming, currant jam,
door jamb, beam.
jewelled: (adj) gemmed, bejewelled,
bejeweled, beady, beaded,
bespangled, spangly, sequined,
buttony, decorated, buttonlike.
leggings: (n) gramashes, pedal
pushers.
matured: (adj) ripe, experienced,
developed, old, adult, mellow,
maturer, ripened, ready, payable,
owing. ANTONYMS: (adj) unripe,
young.
studs: (n) jewelry.
tumbler: (n) acrobat, beaker, turner,
mime, roller, buffoon, tumbler
switch, cup, bowl, flute; (v) glass.
40
"I don't think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I thought he
would be--he overpowers me! I don't wish to see him any more."
"But wait a little time and consider."
Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her life as in
their present position, partly from the natural elation she felt at discovering
herself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the scene. The younger guests
were talking and eating with animation; their elders were searching for titbits,
and sniffing and grunting over their plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. Three
drinks seemed to be sacred to the company--port, sherry, and rum; outside
which old-established trinity few or no palates ranged.%
A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides, and each
primed with a spoon, was now placed down the table, and these were promptly
filled with grog at such high temperatures as to raise serious considerations for
the articles exposed to its vapours. But Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this
filling went on with great promptness up and down the table, nobody filled the
Mayor's glass, who still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler behind
the clump of crystal vessels intended for wine and spirits.
"They don't fill Mr. Henchard's wine-glasses," she ventured to say to her
elbow acquaintance, the old man.
"Ah, no; don't ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy of that
name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. O yes, he've
strong qualities that way. I have heard tell that he sware a gospel oath in bygone
times, and has bode by it ever since. So they don't press him, knowing it would
be unbecoming in the face of that: for yer gospel oath is a serious thing."
Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by inquiring,
"How much longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon Longways?"
"Another two year, they say. I don't know the why and the wherefore of his
fixing such a time, for 'a never has told anybody. But 'tis exactly two calendar
years longer, they say. A powerful mind to hold out so long!"
Thesaurus
abstaining: (adj) sober; (n)
nonparticipation, abstinence, denial.
bode: (v) augur, portend, presage,
foretell, foreshadow, betoken,
bespeak, predict, signal,
prognosticate, prophesy.
bygone: (adj) ancient, former, gone,
obsolete, outmoded, previous,
archaic, old, late; (n) preterite,
antique. ANTONYMS: (adj) future,
current, coming, modern.
discovering: (adj) observant, oracular.
grog: (n) liquor, grog grain, toddy,
bishop, rumbo; (v) blue ruin, port
wine, purl, wassail, negus.
grunting: (n) inarticulate, grunting
respiration, growl, grunt.
promptness: (n) promptitude, agility,
celerity, readiness, eagerness,
expedition, dispatch, rapidity,
alacrity, punctuality, speed.
ANTONYMS: (n) slowness,
sluggishness, tardiness, delay.
unbecoming: (adj) indecorous,
unseemly, inappropriate, indecent,
indelicate, untoward, unworthy,
unsuitable, shameful, unbefitting,
incongruous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
dignified, becoming, fitting, proper,
seemly, correct, decent, suitable.
vapours: (n) vapors, megrims, blue
devils, blues.
wherefore: (adv, conj) therefore; (adv,
n) why; (n) reason, proof; (adv)
accordingly, consequently, so,
wherefor, hence, whence; (conj) then.
Thomas Hardy
41
"True....But there's great strength in hope. Knowing that in four-and-twenty
months' time ye'll be out of your bondage, and able to make up for all you've
suffered, by partaking without stint--why, it keeps a man up, no doubt."
"No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And 'a must need such reflections-a lonely widow man," said Longways.%
"When did he lose his wife?" asked Elizabeth.
"I never knowed her. 'Twas afore he came to Casterbridge," Solomon
Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his ignorance of
Mrs. Henchard were sufficient to deprive her history of all interest. "But I know
that 'a's a banded teetotaller, and that if any of his men be ever so little overtook
by a drop he's down upon 'em as stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews."
"Has he many men, then?" said Elizabeth-Jane.
"Many! Why, my good maid, he's the powerfullest member of the Town
Council, and quite a principal man in the country round besides. Never a big
dealing in wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like but Henchard's got a
hand in it. Ay, and he'll go into other things too; and that's where he makes his
mistake. He worked his way up from nothing when 'a came here; and now he's a
pillar of the town. Not but what he's been shaken a little to-year about this bad
corn he has supplied in his contracts. I've seen the sun rise over Durnover Moor
these nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me
unfairly ever since I've worked for'n, seeing I be but a little small man, I must
say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as has been made from
Henchard's wheat lately. 'Tis that growed out that ye could a'most call it malt,
and there's a list at bottom o' the loaf as thick as the sole of one's shoe."
The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it was ended the
dinner was over, and speeches began to be made. The evening being calm, and
the windows still open, these orations could be distinctly heard. Henchard's
voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his hay- dealing experiences,
in which he had outwitted a sharper who had been bent upon outwitting him.
Thesaurus
afore: (adv) ahead, along, before,
forwards, formerly, beforehand,
previously; (adj) erewhile, aforehand,
theretofore, preceding.
banded: (adj) connected, striped,
agouti, with stripes, stripy, belted.
bondage: (n) thrall, thraldom,
thralldom, slavery, captivity,
enslavement, duress, restraint, yoke,
vassalage; (adj, n) villenage.
ANTONYMS: (n) independence,
emancipation, freedom.
cussed: (adj) contrary, accursed,
cursed, obstinate, obdurate, restive,
stubborn, ill-natured, hateful, vicious,
crabbed.
oats: (n) Avena, grain, millet, cereal,
cereal grass, common oats, genus
Avena, Haver, holder, maize,
buckwheat.
overtook: (v) overtake.
partaking: (n) input, contribution.
solomon: (n) solon, shining light,
Magnus Apollo, magi, luminary,
esprit fort, authority, Nestor.
teetotaller: (n) teetotalist, abstainer,
abstinent.
terminative: (adj) definitive,
terminatory.
unfairly: (adv) dishonestly, deceitfully,
partially, unequally, deceptively,
wrongly, wrongfully, unduly,
fraudulently; (adv, v) foully,
shamefully. ANTONYMS: (adv)
honestly, justly, reasonably, evenly,
genuinely.
42
"Ha-ha-ha!" responded his audience at the upshot of the story; and hilarity
was general till a new voice arose with, "This is all very well; but how about the
bad bread?"
It came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a group of minor
tradesmen who, although part of the company, appeared to be a little below the
social level of the others; and who seemed to nourish a certain independence of
opinion and carry on discussions not quite in harmony with those at the head;
just as the west end of a church is sometimes persistently found to sing out of
time and tune with the leading spirits in the chancel.%
This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite satisfaction to the
loungers outside, several of whom were in the mood which finds its pleasure in
others' discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely, "Hey! How about the
bad bread, Mr. Mayor?" Moreover, feeling none of the restraints of those who
shared the feast, they could afford to add, "You rather ought to tell the story o'
that, sir!"
The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it.
"Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly," he said. "But I was taken in in
buying it as much as the bakers who bought it o' me."
"And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no," said the inharmonious
man outside the window.
Henchard's face darkened. There was temper under the thin bland surface-the temper which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife nearly a score of
years before.
"You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business," he said.
"You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of that corn was
worse than we have known it for years. However, I have mended my
arrangements on account o't. Since I have found my business too large to be well
looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for a thorough good man as
manager of the corn department. When I've got him you will find these mistakes
will no longer occur--matters will be better looked into."
Thesaurus
arose: (v) happen, occur.
ANTONYMS: (n) contentment,
bought: (n) crook, hook.
honor.
compel: (v) force, coerce, pressure,
hilarity: (adj, n) mirth, merriment; (n)
necessitate, enforce, command,
delight, exhilaration, cheerfulness,
oblige, require, make, obligate, press. joy, jollity, gaiety, happiness,
ANTONYMS: (v) impede, deter,
laughter, fun. ANTONYMS: (n)
check, block, request, prevent.
boredom, despondency, misery.
discomfiture: (n) embarrassment,
inharmonious: (adj) dissonant,
confusion, perturbation, discomfort,
incompatible, unharmonious,
discomfit, disconcertion,
incongruous, jarring, improper,
discomposure, humiliation,
harsh, cacophonous, unmusical,
consternation; (adj) rebuff, rout.
tuneless, inconsistent.
intensified: (adj) intense, resonant,
furious.
nourish: (v) foster, keep, bring up,
nurture, sustain, aliment, cherish,
feed, maintain, cultivate; (n, v) cradle.
ANTONYMS: (v) starve, sap.
restraints: (n) manacles, fetters, chains.
tradesmen: (n) fellow tradesmen.
upshot: (n) result, conclusion,
consequence, outcome, issue,
aftermath, effect, event, corollary,
end, product.
Thomas Hardy
43
"But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?" inquired the man
who had before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker or miller. "Will you
replace the grown flour we've still got by sound grain?"%
Henchard's face had become still more stern at these interruptions, and he
drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain time. Instead of
vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed-"If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into wholesome wheat I'll
take it back with pleasure. But it can't be done."
Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said this, he sat down.
Thesaurus
drank: (v) absorb.
redeem. ANTONYM: (v) penalize.
loosely.
flour: (adj) meal, bran, spore, sporule, stern: (adj) rigid, rigorous, austere,
wheat: (n) corn, spelt, bulgur, emmer,
paddy, rice; (n) farina, foodstuff,
hard, strict, grim, solemn, rough; (adj, hard wheat, maize, bulghur, wheat
v) harsh; (n) back; (adj, n) rear.
wheat flour, flower, semolina.
berry, soft wheat, food grain, Indian
miller: (n) Henry miller, moth miller,
ANTONYMS: (adj) friendly,
corn.
wholesome: (adj) healthy, beneficial,
machine tool, Henry valentine miller, approving, lenient, funny, genial,
grain miller, Glenn miller, craftsman, gentle, kindly, lax, liberal, cheerful,
salubrious, healthful, salutary, sound,
artisan, artificer, Arthur miller, Alton flexible.
good, nutritious, nourishing, pure,
stiffly: (adv) firmly, stiff, awkwardly,
hale. ANTONYMS: (adj)
Glenn miller.
repay: (v) recompense, reward, pay,
unbendingly, difficultly, woodenly,
unwholesome, unhealthy, impure,
reimburse, compensate, refund,
strongly, formally, stringently,
indecent, sordid, warped, tainted,
clumsily, strictly. ANTONYM: (adv)
render, requite, remunerate, return,
decadent, deadly, unsavory.
Thomas Hardy
45
CHAPTER 6
Now the group outside the window had within the last few minutes been
reinforced by new arrivals, some of them respectable shopkeepers and their
assistants, who had come out for a whiff of air after putting up the shutters for
the night; some of them of a lower class. Distinct from either there appeared a
stranger--a young man of remarkably pleasant aspect--who carried in his hand a
carpet-bag of the smart floral pattern prevalent in such articles at that time.%
He was ruddy and of a fair countenance, bright-eyed, and slight in build. He
might possibly have passed by without stopping at all, or at most for half a
minute to glance in at the scene, had not his advent coincided with the discussion
on corn and bread, in which event this history had never been enacted. But the
subject seemed to arrest him, and he whispered some inquiries of the other
bystanders, and remained listening.
When he heard Henchard's closing words, "It can't be done," he smiled
impulsively, drew out his pocketbook, and wrote down a few words by the aid
of the light in the window. He tore out the leaf, folded and directed it, and
seemed about to throw it in through the open sash upon the dining-table; but, on
second thoughts, edged himself through the loiterers, till he reached the door of
the hotel, where one of the waiters who had been serving inside was now idly
leaning against the doorpost.
Thesaurus
assistants: (n) cabinet.
bright-eyed: (adj) well.
countenance: (n) aspect, expression,
brow, complexion; (n, v) face,
sanction, support, favor; (v) allow,
tolerate, uphold. ANTONYMS: (v)
reject, oppose, discourage,
disapprove, prohibit.
doorpost: (n) jamb, post.
floral: (adj) flowered, mossy, flower.
idly: (adj, adv) foolishly; (adv) vainly,
vaguely, listlessly, forgetfully,
distractedly; (adj) thoughtlessly.
ANTONYM: (adv) energetically.
impulsively: (adv) hastily, rashly,
spontaneously, capriciously,
suddenly, instinctively, intuitively,
carelessly, precipitately, hotheadedly,
anxiously. ANTONYMS: (adv) late,
predictably, deliberately, patiently,
sensibly.
pocketbook: (n) bag, handbag,
notebook, wallet, notecase, reticule,
billfold, jotter, finances, pocket book,
paperback.
ruddy: (adj) cherry, rubicund, rosy,
flushed, florid, sanguine, reddish,
glowing, blooming, crimson; (adj,
adv) blushing.
sash: (n) girdle, cincture, band,
cummerbund, baldric, framing,
waistband, framework, frame, fillet,
fascia.
whiff: (n, v) blow, smell, drag; (n)
scent, breath, aroma, odor, trace,
taste, touch; (v) sniff.
46
"Give this to the Mayor at once," he said, handing in his hasty note.%
Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard the words, which attracted
her both by their subject and by their accent--a strange one for those parts. It was
quaint and northerly.
The waiter took the note, while the young stranger continued-"And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that's a little more moderate than
this?"
The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street.
"They say the Three Mariners, just below here, is a very good place," he
languidly answered; "but I have never stayed there myself."
The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, and strolled on in the
direction of the Three Mariners aforesaid, apparently more concerned about the
question of an inn than about the fate of his note, now that the momentary
impulse of writing it was over. While he was disappearing slowly down the
street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth-Jane saw with some interest the note
brought into the dining-room and handed to the Mayor.
Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it with one hand, and glanced it
through. Thereupon it was curious to note an unexpected effect. The nettled,
clouded aspect which had held possession of his face since the subject of his
corn- dealings had been broached, changed itself into one of arrested attention.
He read the note slowly, and fell into thought, not moody, but fitfully intense, as
that of a man who has been captured by an idea.
By this time toasts and speeches had given place to songs, the wheat subject
being quite forgotten. Men were putting their heads together in twos and threes,
telling good stories, with pantomimic laughter which reached convulsive
grimace. Some were beginning to look as if they did not know how they had
come there, what they had come for, or how they were going to get home again;
and provisionally sat on with a dazed smile. Square-built men showed a
tendency to become hunchbacks; men with a dignified presence lost it in a
curious obliquity of figure, in which their features grew disarranged and one-
Thesaurus
broached: (adv) astir, afoot.
convulsive: (adj) spastic, galvanic,
fitful, paroxysmal, violent, choreic,
unsteady, hysterical; (v) unquiet,
restless, saltatory.
dining-room: (n) canteen, restaurant.
disarranged: (adj) disheveled,
disorderly, untidy, deranged,
disturbed, delirious, disordered,
unkempt, tousled, topsy-turvy,
mussy. ANTONYM: (adj) neat.
fitfully: (adv) intermittently,
spasmodically, inconstantly,
torpidly, indolently, impassively.
ANTONYMS: (adv) dynamically,
sporadically, unsteadily, unevenly,
uncertainly, randomly, interruptedly, vigorously.
obliquity: (n) inclination, crookedness,
flickeringly, occasionally.
ANTONYMS: (adv) recurrently,
slope, depravity, asynclitism,
peacefully.
meretriciousness, deceptiveness,
grimace: (n, v) scowl, glower, sneer,
grade, deviousness; (adj) pollution,
smile, roar; (n) face, mop, mouth,
pravity.
expression; (v) pull a face, wince.
pantomimic: (v) pathognomonic,
languidly: (adv) languorously,
symptomatic, representative,
symbolic, typical; (adj) pantomime,
listlessly, wearily, lethargically,
slowly, dreamily, limply, weakly,
emblematic, diagnostic, armorial.
Thomas Hardy
47
sided, whilst the heads of a few who had dined with extreme thoroughness were
somehow sinking into their shoulders, the corners of their mouth and eyes being
bent upwards by the subsidence. Only Henchard did not conform to these
flexuous changes; he remained stately and vertical, silently thinking.%
The clock struck nine. Elizabeth-Jane turned to her companion. "The evening
is drawing on, mother," she said. "What do you propose to do?"
She was surprised to find how irresolute her mother had become. "We must
get a place to lie down in," she murmured. "I have seen--Mr. Henchard; and
that's all I wanted to do."
"That's enough for to-night, at any rate," Elizabeth-Jane replied soothingly.
"We can think to-morrow what is best to do about him. The question now is--is it
not?--how shall we find a lodging?"
As her mother did not reply Elizabeth-Jane's mind reverted to the words of
the waiter, that the Three Mariners was an inn of moderate charges. A
recommendation good for one person was probably good for another. "Let's go
where the young man has gone to," she said. "He is respectable. What do you
say?"
Her mother assented, and down the street they went.
In the meantime the Mayor's thoughtfulness, engendered by the note as
stated, continued to hold him in abstraction; till, whispering to his neighbour to
take his place, he found opportunity to leave the chair. This was just after the
departure of his wife and Elizabeth.
Outside the door of the assembly-room he saw the waiter, and beckoning to
him asked who had brought the note which had been handed in a quarter of an
hour before.
"A young man, sir--a sort of traveller. He was a Scotchman seemingly."
"Did he say how he had got it?"
"He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outside the window."
"Oh--wrote it himself....Is the young man in the hotel?"
Thesaurus
beckoning: (adj) irresistible.
charges: (n) expenditure, dues.
corners: (adj) cornered.
flexuous: (adj, v) tortuous, sinuous;
(adj) anfractuous, winding, curved,
devious, undulant, flabby; (v)
rivulose, scolecoid, reclivate.
irresolute: (adj) hesitant, uncertain,
hesitating, infirm, spineless,
doubtful, weak, undecided, fickle,
fluctuating, inconstant. ANTONYMS:
(adj) resolute, firm, stubborn,
ANTONYM: (n) negligence.
unyielding, determined, decided,
thoughtfulness: (n) kindness, tact,
decisive, strong, confident.
reverted: (adj) inverse.
deliberation, attentiveness,
soothingly: (adv) softly, quietly,
contemplativeness, attention,
calmingly, lullingly, lightly, tenderly, introspection, meditation,
kindly, blandly, calmly,
pensiveness, reflection, reflexion.
ANTONYMS: (n) thoughtlessness,
comfortingly, sedatively.
thoroughness: (n) completeness,
carelessness, cruelty, rashness,
resolution, assiduousness,
unthoughtfulness, inconsideration,
determination, care, caution,
unkindness, selfishness, insensitivity,
comprehensiveness, detail, attention
neglect, cheerfulness.
to detail, resolve, meticulousness.
48
"No, sir. He went to the Three Mariners, I believe."
The mayor walked up and down the vestibule of the hotel with his hands
under his coat tails, as if he were merely seeking a cooler atmosphere than that of
the room he had quitted. But there could be no doubt that he was in reality still
possessed to the full by the new idea, whatever that might be. At length he went
back to the door of the dining-room, paused, and found that the songs, toasts,
and conversation were proceeding quite satisfactorily without his presence. The
Corporation, private residents, and major and minor tradesmen had, in fact,
gone in for comforting beverages to such an extent that they had quite forgotten,
not only the Mayor, but all those vast, political, religious, and social differences
which they felt necessary to maintain in the daytime, and which separated them
like iron grills. Seeing this the Mayor took his hat, and when the waiter had
helped him on with a thin holland overcoat, went out and stood under the
portico.%
Very few persons were now in the street; and his eyes, by a sort of attraction,
turned and dwelt upon a spot about a hundred yards further down. It was the
house to which the writer of the note had gone--the Three Mariners--whose two
prominent Elizabethan gables, bow-window, and passage-light could be seen
from where he stood. Having kept his eyes on it for a while he strolled in that
direction.
This ancient house of accommodation for man and beast, now, unfortunately,
pulled down, was built of mellow sandstone, with mullioned windows of the
same material, markedly out of perpendicular from the settlement of
foundations. The bay window projecting into the street, whose interior was so
popular among the frequenters of the inn, was closed with shutters, in each of
which appeared a heart-shaped aperture, somewhat more attenuated in the right
and left ventricles than is seen in Nature. Inside these illuminated holes, at a
distance of about three inches, were ranged at this hour, as every passer knew,
the ruddy polls of Billy Wills the glazier, Smart the shoemaker, Buzzford the
general dealer, and others of a secondary set of worthies, of a grade somewhat
below that of the diners at the King's Arms, each with his yard of clay.
Thesaurus
aperture: (n) breach, slit, puncture,
mellow: (adj, v) ripe, mollify, smooth,
gentle.
soften; (adj) gentle, luscious, mild,
projecting: (adj) projected, protruding,
opening, gap, cleft, perforation,
soft, juicy; (v) melt, ripen.
jutting, protrusive, pendent; (adj, v)
loophole, mouth, hiatus, outlet.
ANTONYM: (n) closure.
ANTONYMS: (adj) harsh, frantic,
overhanging, jutting over, salient; (v)
attenuated: (adj) weakened, shriveled, fresh, bright, strict, young, frenetic.
beetling, protuberant, convex.
shoemaker: (n) bootmaker,
rawboned, marcid, barebone, tabid, passer: (n) passerby, passenger,
extenuated, diminished, reduced,
forward passer, genus passer.
dressmaker, cordwainer, boot maker,
perpendicular: (adj) upright, vertical,
rare, decreased.
maker, shaper, souter, Crispin.
dwelt: (v) dwell, inhabit.
vestibule: (n) lobby, hall, foyer,
steep, plumb, straight, right, sheer,
glazier: (n) glasscutter, glazer,
orthogonal, normal, precipitous, true. antechamber, entrance hall, hallway,
journeyman, puttier, artificer, artisan, ANTONYMS: (adj) horizontal,
entry, porch, passage, anteroom,
craftsman, glass cutter.
parallel, inclined, oblique, prone,
threshold.
Thomas Hardy
49
A four-centred Tudor arch was over the entrance, and over the arch the
signboard, now visible in the rays of an opposite lamp. Hereon the Mariners,
who had been represented by the artist as persons of two dimensions only-- in
other words, flat as a shadow--were standing in a row in paralyzed attitudes.
Being on the sunny side of the street the three comrades had suffered largely
from warping, splitting, fading, and shrinkage, so that they were but a halfinvisible film upon the reality of the grain, and knots, and nails, which composed
the signboard. As a matter of fact, this state of things was not so much owing to
Stannidge the landlord's neglect, as from the lack of a painter in Casterbridge
who would undertake to reproduce the features of men so traditional.%
A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave access to the inn, within which
passage the horses going to their stalls at the back, and the coming and departing
human guests, rubbed shoulders indiscriminately, the latter running no slight
risk of having their toes trodden upon by the animals. The good stabling and
the good ale of the Mariners, though somewhat difficult to reach on account of
there being but this narrow way to both, were nevertheless perseveringly sought
out by the sagacious old heads who knew what was what in Casterbridge.
Henchard stood without the inn for a few instants; then lowering the dignity
of his presence as much as possible by buttoning the brown holland coat over his
shirt-front, and in other ways toning himself down to his ordinary everyday
appearance, he entered the inn door.
Thesaurus
guests: (n) guest, visitors.
discerning, keen, perspicacious,
paralyzed: (adj) palsied, crippled,
intelligent, shrewd. ANTONYMS:
disabled, helpless, torpid, powerless, (adj) foolish, stupid, dense.
prostrate, enervated, dead, impotent, shrinkage: (n) reduction, decrease,
inert.
decline, diminution, constriction,
perseveringly: (adv) patiently,
compression, ebb, condensation,
doggedly, tenaciously, persistently,
shrinking, shrink, decrement.
determinedly, constantly, resolutely, ANTONYMS: (n) increase, growth.
signboard: (n) sign, billboard, poster,
steadily, insistently, busily,
stubbornly.
placard, shingle, hoarding, label,
sagacious: (adj, v) judicious, prudent,
plate, tag, tablet, structure.
discreet; (adj) rational, astute, acute, stabling: (n) accommodation, livestock
housing, stalling.
toning: (adj) corresponding, matching,
constricting, balanced, astringent.
ANTONYM: (adj) unbalanced.
trodden: (adj) trampled, damaged,
beaten, compressed, packed down.
ANTONYM: (adj) loose.
warping: (n) warp, distortion,
deformation, warpage, buckling,
deflection, buckling of the
compression flange, beaming, buckle,
upthrust.
Thomas Hardy
51
CHAPTER 7
Elizabeth-Jane and her mother had arrived some twenty minutes earlier.
Outside the house they had stood and considered whether even this homely
place, though recommended as moderate, might not be too serious in its prices
for their light pockets. Finally, however, they had found courage to enter, and
duly met Stannidge the landlord, a silent man, who drew and carried frothing
measures to this room and to that, shoulder to shoulder with his waiting- maids-a stately slowness, however, entering into his ministrations by contrast with
theirs, as became one whose service was somewhat optional. It would have been
altogether optional but for the orders of the landlady, a person who sat in the
bar, corporeally motionless, but with a flitting eye and quick ear, with which she
observed and heard through the open door and hatchway the pressing needs of
customers whom her husband overlooked though close at hand. Elizabeth and
her mother were passively accepted as sojourners, and shown to a small
bedroom under one of the gables, where they sat down.%
The principle of the inn seemed to be to compensate for the antique
awkwardness, crookedness, and obscurity of the passages, floors, and windows,
by quantities of clean linen spread about everywhere, and this had a dazzling
effect upon the travellers.
Thesaurus
awkwardness: (n) embarrassment,
fleshly, really, humanly, animally,
effervescent, bubbly, spumous,
stiffness, unwieldiness,
concretely, carnally, incarnately.
spumy, effervescing, sudsy, agitated;
crookedness: (n) dishonesty,
(n) effervescence, scum.
inconvenience, gawkiness,
hatchway: (n) doorway, scuttle,
inelegance, troublesomeness,
contortion, indirectness, tortuosity,
ineptitude, ineptness, gaucherie; (adj, deviousness, corruption, deformity,
gangway, driveway, cellarway,
n) delicacy. ANTONYMS: (n)
perversion, unfairness, obliqueness;
gateway, door, first step, brood,
(adj) obliquity. ANTONYM: (n)
gracefulness, grace, comfort,
escape hatch, entryway.
landlady: (n) landlord, madam,
coordination, pride, urbanity, ease,
straightness.
flitting: (adj) fleeting, fugitive,
assurance, liveliness, confidence,
proprietor, hostess, innkeeper,
momentary, transient, ephemeral; (v) landholder, lady of the house.
cooperation.
corporeally: (adv) materially,
overlooked: (adj) ignored, neglected,
migration.
physically, substantially, somatically, frothing: (adj) foamy, bubbling,
unobserved, unnoted, unmarked.
52
"'Tis too good for us--we can't meet it!" said the elder woman, looking round
the apartment with misgiving as soon as they were left alone.%
"I fear it is, too," said Elizabeth. "But we must be respectable."
"We must pay our way even before we must be respectable," replied her
mother. "Mr. Henchard is too high for us to make ourselves known to him, I
much fear; so we've only our own pockets to depend on."
"I know what I'll do," said Elizabeth-Jane after an interval of waiting, during
which their needs seemed quite forgotten under the press of business below.
And leaving the room, she descended the stairs and penetrated to the bar.
If there was one good thing more than another which characterized this
single-hearted girl it was a willingness to sacrifice her personal comfort and
dignity to the common weal.
"As you seem busy here to-night, and mother's not well off, might I take out
part of our accommodation by helping?" she asked of the landlady.
The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she had been melted
into it when in a liquid state, and could not now be unstuck, looked the girl up
and down inquiringly, with her hands on the chair-arms. Such arrangements as
the one Elizabeth proposed were not uncommon in country villages; but, though
Casterbridge was old-fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsolete here. The
mistress of the house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made
no objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods and motions from
the taciturn landlord as to where she could find the different things, trotted up
and down stairs with materials for her own and her parent's meal.
While she was doing this the wood partition in the centre of the house
thrilled to its centre with the tugging of a bell- pull upstairs. A bell below
tinkled a note that was feebler in sound than the twanging of wires and cranks
that had produced it.
"'Tis the Scotch gentleman," said the landlady omnisciently; and turning her
eyes to Elizabeth, "Now then, can you go and see if his supper is on the tray? If it
is you can take it up to him. The front room over this."
Thesaurus
inquiringly: (adv) enquiringly,
inquisitively, nosily, curiously,
pryingly, interestedly, searchingly,
inquiring, quizzically, intrusively.
melted: (adj) molten, fluid, liquified,
dissolved, liquefied, baked, fluent,
touched, limpid, sorry, flowing.
obsolete: (adj) dead, archaic, ancient,
antique, outdated, extinct, oldfashioned, disused, outmoded, dated,
old. ANTONYMS: (adj) current,
contemporary, modern, trendy, new.
penetrated: (adj) perforated, entered.
overjoyed, elated, ecstatic, pleased,
single-hearted: (adj) sincere, singlethrillful, contented, grateful,
flattered. ANTONYMS: (adj) bored,
minded.
strangers: (n) stranger.
unhappy, depressed, desolate, sad,
taciturn: (adj) silent, quiet, reserved,
down, miserable.
unstuck: (adj) not done, sunk, ruined.
uncommunicative, speechless,
ANTONYM: (adj) stuck.
secretive, mute, withdrawn, distant,
weal: (n) wale, wheal, welt, prosperity,
mum, incommunicative.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wordy, voluble,
happiness, good, wealth, riches,
communicative, forthcoming, fluent, welfare, injury, trauma.
well-nigh: (adv) nearly, most; (adj)
open.
thrilled: (adj) jubilant, excited, happy, practically.
Thomas Hardy
53
Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly postponed serving herself awhile,
and applied to the cook in the kitchen whence she brought forth the tray of
supper viands, and proceeded with it upstairs to the apartment indicated. The
accommodation of the Three Mariners was far from spacious, despite the fair
area of ground it covered. The room demanded by intrusive beams and rafters,
partitions, passages, staircases, disused ovens, settles, and four- posters, left
comparatively small quarters for human beings. Moreover, this being at a time
before home-brewing was abandoned by the smaller victuallers, and a house in
which the twelve-bushel strength was still religiously adhered to by the landlord
in his ale, the quality of the liquor was the chief attraction of the premises, so that
everything had to make way for utensils and operations in connection
therewith. Thus Elizabeth found that the Scotchman was located in a room quite
close to the small one that had been allotted to herself and her mother.%
When she entered nobody was present but the young man himself--the same
whom she had seen lingering without the windows of the King's Arms Hotel.
He was now idly reading a copy of the local paper, and was hardly conscious of
her entry, so that she looked at him quite coolly, and saw how his forehead
shone where the light caught it, and how nicely his hair was cut, and the sort of
velvet-pile or down that was on the skin at the back of his neck, and how his
cheek was so truly curved as to be part of a globe, and how clearly drawn were
the lids and lashes which hid his bent eyes.
She set down the tray, spread his supper, and went away without a word.
On her arrival below the landlady, who was as kind as she was fat and lazy, saw
that Elizabeth-Jane was rather tired, though in her earnestness to be useful she
was waiving her own needs altogether. Mrs. Stannidge thereupon said with a
considerate peremptoriness that she and her mother had better take their own
suppers if they meant to have any.
Elizabeth fetched their simple provisions, as she had fetched the Scotchman's,
and went up to the little chamber where she had left her mother, noiselessly
pushing open the door with the edge of the tray. To her surprise her mother,
Thesaurus
allotted: (adj) agreed, chosen, fixed,
selected.
awhile: (adj) in transitu, en passant;
(adv) briefly.
earnestness: (n) seriousness, sincerity,
gravity, fervor, devotion, graveness,
staidness, honesty; (adj, n) ardor, zeal,
intentness. ANTONYMS: (n)
slackness, lightness, carelessness,
frivolousness, cheerfulness,
insincerity, flippancy.
noiselessly: (adv) silently, soundlessly,
stilly, softly, mutely, delicately,
therewithal, forthwith, with that,
wordlessly, gently, speechlessly; (adj, besides, wherewith.
adv) stealthily; (adj) noiseless.
utensils: (n) gear, equipment, tackle,
ANTONYMS: (adv) heavily, audibly. apparatus, hardware.
peremptoriness: (n) positiveness,
viands: (n) provender, victuals,
confidence, certainty, actualness.
provisions, food, sustenance,
suppers: (n) supper.
commissariat, larder, cates, diet,
thereupon: (adv) hereupon, next, then, nourishment, edible.
immediately, therefore, therewith, in whence: (adv) wherefrom, hence,
the sequel, close upon, upon which,
because, for, why, wherefore, how,
whereupon, accordingly.
then, then thence so, how comes it,
therewith: (adv) herewith, moreover,
how happens it.
54
instead of being reclined on the bed where she had left her was in an erect
position, with lips parted. At Elizabeth's entry she lifted her finger.%
The meaning of this was soon apparent. The room allotted to the two women
had at one time served as a dressing-room to the Scotchman's chamber, as was
evidenced by signs of a door of communication between them--now screwed up
and pasted over with the wall paper. But, as is frequently the case with hotels of
far higher pretensions than the Three Mariners, every word spoken in either of
these rooms was distinctly audible in the other. Such sounds came through now.
Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray, and her mother
whispered as she drew near, "'Tis he."
"Who?" said the girl.
"The Mayor."
The tremors in Susan Henchard's tone might have led any person but one so
perfectly unsuspicious of the truth as the girl was, to surmise some closer
connection than the admitted simple kinship as a means of accounting for them.
Two men were indeed talking in the adjoining chamber, the young
Scotchman and Henchard, who, having entered the inn while Elizabeth-Jane was
in the kitchen waiting for the supper, had been deferentially conducted upstairs
by host Stannidge himself. The girl noiselessly laid out their little meal, and
beckoned to her mother to join her, which Mrs. Henchard mechanically did, her
attention being fixed on the conversation through the door.
"I merely strolled in on my way home to ask you a question about something
that has excited my curiosity," said the Mayor, with careless geniality. "But I see
you have not finished supper."
"Ay, but I will be done in a little! Ye needn't go, sir. Take a seat. I've almost
done, and it makes no difference at all."
Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, and in a moment he resumed:
"Well, first I should ask, did you write this?" A rustling of paper followed.
"Yes, I did," said the Scotchman.
Thesaurus
conducted: (adj) directed, guided.
conjured: (adj) invented, made up,
pretended, untrue. ANTONYM: (adj)
factual.
deferentially: (adv) reverentially,
submissively, reverently, dutifully,
regardfully, obsequiously, meekly,
appreciatively, approvingly,
flatteringly, positively. ANTONYMS:
(adv) disapprovingly, irreverently,
disobediently.
drew: (n) move, John Drew.
evidenced: (adj) proven.
corned; (n) whittled.
geniality: (n) cordiality, amiability,
surmise: (n, v) guess; (v) suppose,
bonhomie, affability, goodness,
suspect, presume, imagine, divine,
doubt; (n) hypothesis, supposition,
hospitality, cheerfulness, kindness,
conviviality, warmth, amiableness.
speculation, assumption.
ANTONYMS: (n) nastiness,
ANTONYMS: (n) knowledge,
frostiness, meanness, hostility.
measurement.
pasted: (adj) affixed.
unsuspicious: (adj) innocent,
pretensions: (n) airs, affected manner, credulous, trustful, unwary,
mannerism.
confiding, honest, gullible, easy,
screwed: (adj) threaded, firm,
naive, not suspicious, that confides.
ANTONYM: (adj) wary.
maudlin, muddled, muzzy, raddled,
Thomas Hardy
55
"Then," said Henchard, "I am under the impression that we have met by
accident while waiting for the morning to keep an appointment with each other?
My name is Henchard, ha'n't you replied to an advertisement for a corn-factor's
manager that I put into the paper--ha'n't you come here to see me about it?"
"No," said the Scotchman, with some surprise.%
"Surely you are the man," went on Henchard insistingly, "who arranged to
come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp--Jopp-- what was his name?"
"You're wrong!" said the young man. "My name is Donald Farfrae. It is true I
am in the corren trade--but I have replied to no advertisement, and arranged to
see no one. I am on my way to Bristol--from there to the other side of the warrld,
to try my fortune in the great wheat-growing districts of the West! I have some
inventions useful to the trade, and there is no scope for developing them heere."
"To America--well, well," said Henchard, in a tone of disappointment, so
strong as to make itself felt like a damp atmosphere. "And yet I could have
sworn you were the man!"
The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a silence, till
Henchard resumed: "Then I am truly and sincerely obliged to you for the few
words you wrote on that paper."
"It was nothing, sir."
"Well, it has a great importance for me just now. This row about my grown
wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn't know to be bad till the people came
complaining, has put me to my wits' end. I've some hundreds of quarters of it
on hand; and if your renovating process will make it wholesome, why, you can
see what a quag 'twould get me out of. I saw in a moment there might be truth
in it. But I should like to have it proved; and of course you don't care to tell the
steps of the process sufficiently for me to do that, without my paying ye well for't
first."
The young man reflected a moment or two. "I don't know that I have any
objection," he said. "I'm going to another country, and curing bad corn is not the
line I'll take up there. Yes, I'll tell ye the whole of it--you'll make more out of it
Thesaurus
advertisement: (n) declaration, advert, corn: (n) clavus, cereals, Zea Mays,
suppress, retract, repress, disclaim,
bill, circular, proclamation, notice,
callus, wheat, Indian corn, callosity,
withhold, request, refute, block.
quag: (n) quagmire, swamp, mire, bog,
advertising, ad, publication, placard, grain; (v) feed, keep; (adj, n)
propaganda.
commonplace.
morass, marsh.
came: (v) arrive, come.
curing: (n) hardening, ageing, drying, sworn: (adj) extreme, mortal,
complaining: (adj) irritable, peevish,
rectification, vulcanization,
implacable, engaged, dedicated,
preservation; (adj) curative, remedial, committed, betrothed, bespoken,
petulant, whining, moaning,
complaintive, repining; (adj, v)
corrective, comforting, medicinal.
affianced, inveterate.
querulous; (n, v) lamenting; (adv)
declare: (v) advertise, assert, allege,
wits: (n) intellect, mind, wit, brains,
complainingly; (n) plaintive.
attest, aver, admit, acknowledge,
common sense, presence,
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
proclaim, avow; (n, v) affirm, say.
percipience, observation, mother wit,
ANTONYMS: (v) conceal, revoke,
uncomplaining, cheerful, willing.
right mind, judgment.
56
heere than I will in a foreign country. Just look heere a minute, sir. I can show
ye by a sample in my carpet-bag."
The click of a lock followed, and there was a sifting and rustling; then a
discussion about so many ounces to the bushel, and drying, and refrigerating,
and so on.%
"These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with," came in the young
fellow's voice; and after a pause, during which some operation seemed to be
intently watched by them both, he exclaimed, "There, now, do you taste that."
"It's complete!--quite restored, or--well--nearly."
"Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it," said the Scotchman.
"To fetch it back entirely is impossible; Nature won't stand so much as that, but
heere you go a great way towards it. Well, sir, that's the process, I don't value it,
for it can be but of little use in countries where the weather is more settled than
in ours; and I'll be only too glad if it's of service to you."
"But hearken to me," pleaded Henchard. "My business you know, is in corn
and in hay, but I was brought up as a hay- trusser simply, and hay is what I
understand best though I now do more in corn than in the other. If you'll accept
the place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely, and receive a commission
in addition to salary."
"You're liberal--very liberal, but no, no--I cannet!" the young man still replied,
with some distress in his accents.
"So be it!" said Henchard conclusively. "Now--to change the subject--one
good turn deserves another; don't stay to finish that miserable supper. Come to
my house, I can find something better for 'ee than cold ham and ale."
Donald Farfrae was grateful--said he feared he must decline-- that he wished
to leave early next day.
"Very well," said Henchard quickly, "please yourself. But I tell you, young
man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it has done for the sample, you have
saved my credit, stranger though you be. What shall I pay you for this
knowledge?"
Thesaurus
bushel: (v) repair, mend, fix, doctor;
(n) basket, handbasket, mountain,
filling; (adj) cargo, darned, filled.
click: (n, v) clack, tick; (n) catch, chink,
dog, detent, pawl, clink; (v) chatter,
beat, cluck.
conclusively: (adv) decisively,
convincingly, ultimately, definitively,
absolutely, lastly, concludingly,
determinately, categorically,
cogently, decidedly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) unconvincingly, questionably,
arguably.
countries: (n) country.
drying: (n) curing, desiccation,
seasoning, dryness, ventilation,
drying up, aeration, airing; (adj)
desiccative, siccative, parching.
fetch: (v) carry, bring, bring in,
convey, draw, elicit, deliver, catch,
get, attract; (adj, n) feint.
hearken: (v) hark, harken, attend,
listen, hear, heed, list, listen in, listen
to, regard, look out.
intently: (adv) fixedly, attentively,
seriously, raptly, intensely, closely,
steadily, eagerly, absorbedly, hard,
steadfastly. ANTONYM: (adv)
absently.
refrigerating: (adj) refrigerate, cold.
sifting: (n) winnowing, scrutiny, hunt,
judgment, winnow, separation; (v)
sift; (adj) inquisitive.
supper: (n) meal, tea, lunch, repast,
reception, mealtime, siesta, social
affair; (v) dejeuner, bever, whet.
Thomas Hardy
57
"Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may not prove necessary to ye to use it
often, and I don't value it at all. I thought I might just as well let ye know, as you
were in a difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye."
Henchard paused. "I shan't soon forget this," he said. "And from a
stranger!...I couldn't believe you were not the man I had engaged! Says I to
myself, 'He knows who I am, and recommends himself by this stroke.' And yet it
turns out, after all, that you are not the man who answered my advertisement,
but a stranger!"
"Ay, ay; that's so," said the young man.%
Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voice came thoughtfully:
"Your forehead, Farfrae, is something like my poor brother's--now dead and
gone; and the nose, too, isn't unlike his. You must be, what--five foot nine, I
reckon? I am six foot one and a half out of my shoes. But what of that? In my
business, 'tis true that strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and
knowledge are what keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae;
bad at figures--a rule o' thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse--I can see
that. I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet you are not for
me. Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young man I
thought you were, what's the difference? Can't ye stay just the same? Have you
really made up your mind about this American notion? I won't mince matters. I
feel you would be invaluable to me--that needn't be said--and if you will bide
and be my manager, I will make it worth your while."
"My plans are fixed," said the young man, in negative tones. "I have formed a
scheme, and so we need na say any more about it. But will you not drink with
me, sir? I find this Casterbridge ale warreming to the stomach."
"No, no; I fain would, but I can't," said Henchard gravely, the scraping of his
chair informing the listeners that he was rising to leave. "When I was a young
man I went in for that sort of thing too strong--far too strong--and was well- nigh
ruined by it! I did a deed on account of it which I shall be ashamed of to my
dying day. It made such an impression on me that I swore, there and then, that
I'd drink nothing stronger than tea for as many years as I was old that day. I
Thesaurus
bide: (v) abide, await, endure, bear,
remain, last, dwell; (adj, v) tarry, wait;
(adj) tolerate, stand. ANTONYMS: (v)
go, move, hurry.
bustle: (adj, n, v) hurry; (n, v) flurry,
ado, fuss, hustle; (adj, n) stir,
movement; (n) bother, commotion,
disorder; (adj, v) hasten.
ANTONYMS: (n) inactivity, stillness,
idleness; (v) laziness, relaxation.
fain: (adj) willing, prepared, ready,
favorable, heart and soul, prone; (adv)
gladly, lief, readily, willingly; (v)
information.
mince: (v) chop, hash, carve, dice, tone
optative.
gravely: (adv) seriously, soberly,
down, slice, moderate, soften, chop
up, grate; (adj) mincing.
severely, solemnly, badly, staidly,
nigh: (adj, adv, prep) near; (adj, adv)
momentously, heavily, earnestly,
weightily, grievously. ANTONYMS:
close, nearly, almost, nearby, most,
(adv) lightheartedly, mildly, slightly;
all but, about, adjacent; (prep) by; (adj)
(adj) soft.
approximate.
informing: (n) briefing, disclosure,
scraping: (n) scrape, scratching,
apprisal, warning, revelation, ratting, scratch, rub, sizing, rament, incision,
presentation, introduction; (v)
mark, prick; (v) rubbing; (adj) grating.
inform; (adj) intelligencing, giving
58
have kept my oath; and though, Farfrae, I am sometimes that dry in the dog days
that I could drink a quarter-barrel to the pitching, I think o' my oath, and touch
no strong drink at all."
"I'll no' press ye, sir--I'll no' press ye. I respect your vow.%
"Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt," said Henchard, with
strong feeling in his tones. "But it will be long before I see one that would suit
me so well!"
The young man appeared much moved by Henchard's warm convictions of
his value. He was silent till they reached the door. "I wish I could stay-sincerely I would like to," he replied. "But no--it cannet be! it cannet! I want to
see the warrld."
Thesaurus
kept: (adj) reserved, preserve,
respect: (adj, n, v) regard, worship; (n,
retained, remain, store, reserve, hold, v) esteem, heed, notice, reverence; (v)
observe, keep, appreciate; (n)
lodge, keep, retain, detained.
ANTONYM: (adj) broken.
homage, deference. ANTONYMS: (n,
oath: (n) expletive, malediction,
v) scorn, dishonor, disregard; (n)
imprecation, promise, affidavit, cuss, cheek, insolence, impudence, disdain;
(v) despise, humiliate, break, taint.
swearing, pledge, assurance,
asseveration; (v) swear.
silent: (adj, adv) motionless; (adj)
pitching: (n) cast, lurch, nosing
dumb, tacit, mute, noiseless,
motion, playing, slant, delivery,
reserved, placid, reticent, mum,
lunge, stone facing, pitch shot; (adj)
taciturn, hush. ANTONYMS: (adj)
inclined; (adv) headlong.
spoken, talkative, loud, explicit,
open, live, forthcoming, verbal,
audible, talking, moving.
suit: (adj, v) fit, please; (adj, n, v)
correspond; (n) lawsuit, plea, action,
case; (v) adapt, accommodate,
become; (n, v) answer. ANTONYM:
(v) clash.
touch: (v) hit, affect, border, adjoin,
strike, reach; (n, v) contact, stroke,
tinge, regard, tap. ANTONYMS: (v)
shrink, secrete, separate, diverge,
abstain, leave; (n) lot.
Thomas Hardy
59
CHAPTER 8
Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her mother remained each in her
thoughts over their meal, the mother's face being strangely bright since
Henchard's avowal of shame for a past action. The quivering of the partition to
its core presented denoted that Donald Farfrae had again rung his bell, no doubt
to have his supper removed; for humming a tune, and walking up and down, he
seemed to be attracted by the lively bursts of conversation and melody from the
general company below. He sauntered out upon the landing, and descended the
staircase.%
When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray, and also that used by
her mother and herself, she found the bustle of serving to be at its height below,
as it always was at this hour. The young woman shrank from having anything
to do with the ground-floor serving, and crept silently about observing the scene-so new to her, fresh from the seclusion of a seaside cottage. In the general
sitting-room, which was large, she remarked the two or three dozen strongbacked chairs that stood round against the wall, each fitted with its genial
occupant; the sanded floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise from the
wall within the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator of all that went on
without herself being particularly seen.
Thesaurus
avowal: (n) declaration, assertion,
occupant: (n) tenant, inhabitant,
quavering, shivering, tremulous.
ANTONYM: (adj) steady.
affirmation, admission, statement,
dweller, denizen, occupier, inmate,
rung: (n) rundle, grade, degree, stage,
recognition, acknowledgement,
holder, citizen, householder,
announcement, confession,
dalesman, coaster.
stair, spoke, stave, crosspiece, tread,
testimony; (n, v) profession.
partition: (n) wall, bulkhead, divider,
step; (adj) ringed.
chairs: (n) seats.
distribution, separation, screen; (n, v) seclusion: (n) retreat, segregation,
endwise: (adv) end on, erectly; (adj) a
part, split; (v) divide, apportion, deal. retirement, isolation, secrecy,
ANTONYMS: (v) join, reveal; (n)
plomb.
concealment, insulation, separation,
humming: (adj) droning, zippy,
hermitage; (adj, n) solitude,
union.
loneliness. ANTONYMS: (n)
reeking, bustling, grunting, stinking; quivering: (adj, n) trembling, tremor,
(n) buzzing, vocalizing, sound,
quaking, trepidation; (n) palpitation, company, closeness, inclusion.
quiver, vibration; (adj) flutter,
shrank: (v) minify.
murmur, growling.
60
The young Scotchman had just joined the guests. These, in addition to the
respectable master-tradesmen occupying the seats of privileges in the bowwindow and its neighbourhood, included an inferior set at the unlighted end,
whose seats were mere benches against the wall, and who drank from cups
instead of from glasses. Among the latter she noticed some of those personages
who had stood outside the windows of the King's Arms.%
Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel ventilator in one of the
panes, which would suddenly start off spinning with a jingling sound, as
suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again.
While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of a song greeted
her ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent of peculiar charm.
There had been some singing before she came down; and now the Scotchman
had made himself so soon at home that, at the request of some of the mastertradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a ditty.
Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing to listen; and
the longer she listened the more she was enraptured. She had never heard any
singing like this and it was evident that the majority of the audience had not
heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a much greater degree than
usual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nor dipped their pipe-stems in their
ale to moisten them, nor pushed the mug to their neighbours. The singer himself
grew emotional, till she could imagine a tear in his eye as the words went on:-"It's hame, and it's hame, hame fain would I be,
O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be
fain,
As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands
again;
When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,
The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!"
Thesaurus
bonnie: (adj) bonny, fair, beautiful,
becoming, comely, average.
dipped: (adj) immersed, unfit,
swaybacked, lordotic, curved in,
swayback.
ditty: (n) ballad, canzonet, canticle,
bravura, cantata, carol, tune, pastoral,
recitative, recitativo, solfeggio.
enraptured: (adj) rapt, rapturous,
captive, bewitched, rhapsodic,
ecstasy, confined, absorbed, jubilant,
joyous, enamored.
furtively: (adv) stealthily, covertly,
surreptitiously, sneakily,
clandestinely, secretively, sly,
sneakingly, underhandedly,
undercoverly, craftily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) deliberately, brazenly.
hame: (n) tack, saddlery, home,
haulm.
jingling: (adj) reverberant, clinking,
jingly.
lark: (n) joke, fun, trick, prank, antic,
caper, game; (n, v) romp, frolic,
gambol; (v) rollick.
moisten: (n, v) dampen; (v) water,
wash, humidify, dip, sprinkle, soften,
soak, wet, drench, drizzle.
occupying: (n) commencement,
employment, moving in, occupation.
panes: (n) Fauni.
ventilator: (n) vent, breathing
apparatus, respirator, ventiduct,
breathing device, breathing machine;
(v) air blower, air pump, blowpipe,
lungs, bellows.
Thomas Hardy
61
There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more
eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping of a pipestem too long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of those gathered
at the shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent act. Then the
ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off for a new spin, and the
pathos of Donald's song was temporarily effaced.%
"'Twas not amiss--not at all amiss!" muttered Christopher Coney, who was
also present. And removing his pipe a finger's breadth from his lips, he said
aloud, "Draw on with the next verse, young gentleman, please."
"Yes. Let's have it again, stranger," said the glazier, a stout, bucket-headed
man, with a white apron rolled up round his waist. "Folks don't lift up their
hearts like that in this part of the world." And turning aside, he said in
undertones, "Who is the young man?--Scotch, d'ye say?"
"Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe," replied Coney.
Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It was plain that nothing so pathetic
had been heard at the Three Mariners for a considerable time. The difference of
accent, the excitability of the singer, the intense local feeling, and the seriousness
with which he worked himself up to a climax, surprised this set of worthies, who
were only too prone to shut up their emotions with caustic words.
"Danged if our country down here is worth singing about like that!"
continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodized with a dying fall, "My
ain countree!" "When you take away from among us the fools and the rogues,
and the lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the slatterns, and such like,
there's cust few left to ornament a song with in Casterbridge, or the country
round."
"True," said Buzzford, the dealer, looking at the grain of the table.
"Casterbridge is a old, hoary place o' wickedness, by all account. 'Tis recorded in
history that we rebelled against the King one or two hundred years ago, in the
time of the Romans, and that lots of us was hanged on Gallows Hill, and
Thesaurus
apron: (n) skirt, proscenium, pall,
irreverent: (adj, v) profane; (adj)
spasmodically: (adv) convulsively,
pontificals, lawn sleeves, pinafore,
blasphemous, disrespectful,
fitfully, intermittently, irregularly,
petticoat, gathering head, wife, jupe,
irreligious, impertinent, impudent,
desultorily, brokenly, frequently,
farthingale.
pert, saucy, aweless, godless,
spastically, startingly. ANTONYM:
excitability: (n) irritability,
irreverend. ANTONYMS: (adj) pious, (adv) recurrently.
impetuosity, responsiveness,
reverent, deferential, mature, devout, wanton: (adj) loose, dissolute, light,
vehemence, petulance, choler,
approving, respectful.
licentious, unchaste, lewd,
pathos: (v) emotion, inspiration,
debauched, unprovoked; (v) dally; (n,
indiscretion, feeling, crossness,
impression, affection; (n) poignancy,
v) sport; (adj, v) flirt. ANTONYMS:
excitableness, nervousness.
hoary: (adj) ancient, hoar, old, white,
(adj) moral, wise, nice, kind, gentle,
pity, ruth, commiseration, grief,
grey, elderly, musty, dull, canescent, poignance, sympathy.
decent, clean, careful, observant,
snapping: (adj) noisy.
antique, archaic.
justifiable, involuntary.
62
quartered, and our different jints sent about the country like butcher's meat; and
for my part I can well believe it."
"What did ye come away from yer own country for, young maister, if ye be so
wownded about it?" inquired Christopher Coney, from the background, with the
tone of a man who preferred the original subject. "Faith, it wasn't worth your
while on our account, for as Maister Billy Wills says, we be bruckle folk here--the
best o' us hardly honest sometimes, what with hard winters, and so many
mouths to fill, and Goda'mighty sending his little taties so terrible small to fill
'em with. We don't think about flowers and fair faces, not we--except in the
shape o' cauliflowers and pigs' chaps."
"But, no!" said Donald Farfrae, gazing round into their faces with earnest
concern; "the best of ye hardly honest-- not that surely? None of ye has been
stealing what didn't belong to him?"
"Lord! no, no!" said Solomon Longways, smiling grimly. "That's only his
random way o' speaking. 'A was always such a man of underthoughts." (And
reprovingly towards Christopher): "Don't ye be so over-familiar with a
gentleman that ye know nothing of--and that's travelled a'most from the North
Pole."
Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could get no public sympathy, he
mumbled his feelings to himself: "Be dazed, if I loved my country half as well as
the young feller do, I'd live by claning my neighbour's pigsties afore I'd go away!
For my part I've no more love for my country than I have for Botany Bay!"
"Come," said Longways; "let the young man draw onward with his ballet, or
we shall be here all night."
"That's all of it," said the singer apologetically.%
"Soul of my body, then we'll have another!" said the general dealer.
"Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir?" inquired a fat woman with a figured
purple apron, the waiststring of which was overhung so far by her sides as to be
invisible.
Thesaurus
cauliflowers: (n) genus brassica.
dazed: (adj) bewildered, stunned,
dumbfounded, muzzy, stupefied,
dizzy, stupid, groggy, amazed,
astounded, bleary. ANTONYMS:
(adj) indifferent, unimpressed,
conscious.
earnest: (adj, v) devout; (adj) eager,
solemn, heartfelt, diligent, studious,
sincere, intense, ardent, staid; (n)
guarantee. ANTONYMS: (adj)
flippant, halfhearted, uncertain,
insincere, unimportant, nonchalant,
lethargic, apathetic, unenthusiastic,
indifferent, frivolous.
feller: (n) chap, faller, fella, fellow,
lumberjack, logger, dude, Dick,
woodcutter, guy, comrade.
figured: (adj) figurative, glyptic,
conjectural, implied.
flowers: (n) analecta, anthology.
gazing: (adj) fixed.
grimly: (adv) severely, harshly,
morosely, fiercely, drearily, sourly,
gloomily, dreadfully, hardly,
horridly, sullenly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) brightly, pleasantly, warmly.
mumbled: (adj) inaudible, faint,
broken, slurred, thick, garbled,
unintelligible, muffled, low,
incomprehensible. ANTONYMS:
(adj) clear, distinct.
quartered: (n) quartering, quarters.
silenced: (adj) mute, muffled,
disabled.
travelled: (adj) cosmopolitan.
Thomas Hardy
63
"Let him breathe--let him breathe, Mother Cuxsom. He hain't got his second
wind yet," said the master glazier.%
"Oh yes, but I have!" exclaimed the young man; and he at once rendered "O
Nannie" with faultless modulations, and another or two of the like sentiment,
winding up at their earnest request with "Auld Lang Syne."
By this time he had completely taken possession of the hearts of the Three
Mariners' inmates, including even old Coney. Notwithstanding an occasional
odd gravity which awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the moment, they
began to view him through a golden haze which the tone of his mind seemed to
raise around him. Casterbridge had sentiment--Casterbridge had romance; but
this stranger's sentiment was of differing quality. Or rather, perhaps, the
difference was mainly superficial; he was to them like the poet of a new school
who takes his contemporaries by storm; who is not really new, but is the first to
articulate what all his listeners have felt, though but dumbly till then.
The silent landlord came and leant over the settle while the young man sang;
and even Mrs. Stannidge managed to unstick herself from the framework of her
chair in the bar and get as far as the door-post, which movement she
accomplished by rolling herself round, as a cask is trundled on the chine by a
drayman without losing much of its perpendicular.
"And are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?" she asked.
"Ah--no!" said the Scotchman, with melancholy fatality in his voice, "I'm only
passing thirrough! I am on my way to Bristol, and on frae there to foreign parts."
"We be truly sorry to hear it," said Solomon Longways. "We can ill afford to
lose tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when they fall among us. And verily, to
mak' acquaintance with a man a-come from so far, from the land o' perpetual
snow, as we may say, where wolves and wild boars and other dangerous
animalcules be as common as blackbirds here-about--why, 'tis a thing we can't do
every day; and there's good sound information for bide-at-homes like we when
such a man opens his mouth."
Thesaurus
boars: (n) family Suidae, Suidae.
stupidly, soundlessly, foolishly,
blameworthy.
cask: (n) bucket, butt, tun, tub, drum,
listeners: (n) listener, viewers,
inarticulately, slowly.
fatality: (n) disaster, calamity, death,
vat, hogshead, keg, coffin,
spectators, addressees.
tuneful: (adj) musical, melodious,
containerful, vessel.
mishap, demise, misadventure,
chine: (n) ridge, backbone, crest,
lethality, adversity, loss, decease,
harmonious, melodic, sweet, tunable,
euphonious, dulcet, sonorous; (n)
rachis, spinal column, spine, nape,
dead.
occiput; (v) cut; (adj) mottle.
faultless: (adj) blameless, correct,
lyric, lyrical. ANTONYMS: (adj)
drayman: (n) wagoner, carter,
immaculate, clean, spotless, innocent, tuneless, harsh.
verily: (adj, adv) really; (adv) indeed, in
charioteer, Jehu, coachman, whip,
flawless, unblemished, absolute,
postilion, postboy.
infallible, consummate.
reality, genuinely, quitely, actually,
dumbly: (adv) densely, thickly,
ANTONYMS: (adj) blemished,
selfly, truely, identically, exactly;
(adv, int) in truth.
silently, speechlessly, obtusely, dully, imperfect, faulty, shameful, soiled,
64
"Nay, but ye mistake my country," said the young man, looking round upon
them with tragic fixity, till his eye lighted up and his cheek kindled with a
sudden enthusiasm to right their errors. "There are not perpetual snow and
wolves at all in it!--except snow in winter, and--well--a little in summer just
sometimes, and a 'gaberlunzie' or two stalking about here and there, if ye may
call them dangerous. Eh, but you should take a summer jarreny to Edinboro',
and Arthur's Seat, and all round there, and then go on to the lochs, and all the
Highland scenery--in May and June--and you would never say 'tis the land of
wolves and perpetual snow!"
"Of course not--it stands to reason," said Buzzford. "'Tis barren ignorance
that leads to such words. He's a simple home-spun man, that never was fit for
good company--think nothing of him, sir."
"And do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt, and your crock, and your bit
of chiney? or do ye go in bare bones, as I may say?" inquired Christopher
Coney.%
"I've sent on my luggage--though it isn't much; for the voyage is long."
Donald's eyes dropped into a remote gaze as he added: "But I said to myself,
'Never a one of the prizes of life will I come by unless I undertake it!' and I
decided to go."
A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Jane shared not least, made
itself apparent in the company. As she looked at Farfrae from the back of the
settle she decided that his statements showed him to be no less thoughtful than
his fascinating melodies revealed him to be cordial and impassioned. She
admired the serious light in which he looked at serious things. He had seen no
jest in ambiguities and roguery, as the Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and
rightly not--there was none.
She disliked those wretched humours of
Christopher Coney and his tribe; and he did not appreciate them. He seemed to
feel exactly as she felt about life and its surroundings--that they were a tragical
rather than a comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion, moments
of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actual drama. It was extraordinary
how similar their views were.
Thesaurus
comical: (adj) funny, comic, laughable, fixity: (n) fixedness, fastness, firmness, enthusiastic. ANTONYMS: (adj)
absurd, humorous, ridiculous, zany,
fixing, immutability, constancy,
impassive, indifferent, calm.
jest: (n) gag, gibe, quip, game; (n, v)
droll, jocose, grotesque, jocular.
inalterability, inflexibility,
ANTONYMS: (adj) tragic, sad, grave, immobility, stronghold, fixture.
jape; (v) banter, jeer, deride, gird,
gaiety: (n) fun, cheerfulness,
solemn, unfunny, dull, sensible.
sneer, clown.
cordial: (adj) genial, warm, affable,
exhilaration, mirth, glee, merriment, kindled: (adj) enkindled, lighted, lit,
amiable, friendly, genuine, ardent,
hilarity, happiness, joy, joviality,
burning.
unaffected, gracious, honest; (n)
jollity. ANTONYMS: (n) seriousness, roguery: (n) rascality,
liqueur. ANTONYMS: (adj)
misery, sadness.
mischievousness, devilment, devilry,
impassioned: (adj) fervent, fanatical,
unfriendly, stern, cold, cool,
shenanigan, roguishness, deviltry,
disagreeable, aloof, reserved, distant, fiery, burning, passionate, hot, torrid, maleficence, swindle, impishness;
vehement, keen, zealous; (adj, v)
(adj) knavery.
rude, uncordial, unpleasant.
Thomas Hardy
65
Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressed his wish to retire,
whereupon the landlady whispered to Elizabeth to run upstairs and turn down
his bed. She took a candlestick and proceeded on her mission, which was the act
of a few moments only. When, candle in hand, she reached the top of the stairs
on her way down again, Mr. Farfrae was at the foot coming up. She could not
very well retreat; they met and passed in the turn of the staircase.%
She must have appeared interesting in some way--notwithstanding her
plain dress--or rather, possibly, in consequence of it, for she was a girl
characterized by earnestness and soberness of mien, with which simple drapery
accorded well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight awkwardness of the meeting,
and she passed him with her eyes bent on the candle-flame that she carried just
below her nose. Thus it happened that when confronting her he smiled; and
then, with the manner of a temporarily light-hearted man, who has started
himself on a flight of song whose momentum he cannot readily check, he softly
tuned an old ditty that she seemed to suggest—
"As I came in by my bower door,
As day was waxin' wearie,
Oh wha came tripping down the stair
But bonnie Peg my dearie."
Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on; and the Scotchman's voice
died away, humming more of the same within the closed door of his room.
Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present. When soon after, the
girl rejoined her mother, the latter was still in thought--on quite another matter
than a young man's song.
"We've made a mistake," she whispered (that the Scotch-man might not
overhear). "On no account ought ye to have helped serve here to-night. Not
because of ourselves, but for the sake of him. If he should befriend us, and take
Thesaurus
bower: (n) arbour, alcove, pergola,
hermitage, grotto, framing,
framework, summer house; (v)
inclose, embower, enclose.
candlestick: (n) candelabra, sconce,
chandelier, candle holder, girandole,
candleholder, holder, electrolier,
gaselier, girandola, luster.
disconcerted: (adj) confused,
confounded, bewildered, blank,
embarrassed, disturbed, troubled,
worried, ashamed, discombobulated,
bemused. ANTONYMS: (adj)
composed, soothed, unabashed,
relaxed.
drapery: (n) drape, clothing, dress,
blind, raiment, costume, toilette,
furnishings, trim, guise, toilet.
hastened: (adj) careless.
mien: (n, v) deportment, carriage,
bearing, demeanor; (n) look,
countenance, appearance, guise,
manner, aspect, air.
soberness: (n) sobriety, abstinence,
moderation, seriousness, graveness,
gravity, temperance, abstemiousness,
solemnity, severity, earnestness.
tripping: (adj) easy, flowing,
lightsome, readable, swinging,
swingy, nimble, lilting, light, fluent;
(v) failing.
tuned: (adj) keyed, adjusted, musical,
tempered, melodious.
withstanding: (n) endurance,
resistance; (adj) recalcitrant,
defensive.
66
us up, and then find out what you did when staying here, 'twould grieve and
wound his natural pride as Mayor of the town."
Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmed at this than her
mother had she known the real relationship, was not much disturbed about it as
things stood. Her "he" was another man than her poor mother's. "For myself,"
she said, "I didn't at all mind waiting a little upon him. He's so respectable, and
educated--far above the rest of 'em in the inn. They thought him very simple not
to know their grim broad way of talking about themselves here. But of course he
didn't know--he was too refined in his mind to know such things!" Thus she
earnestly pleaded.%
Meanwhile, the "he" of her mother was not so far away as even they thought.
After leaving the Three Mariners he had sauntered up and down the empty High
Street, passing and repassing the inn in his promenade. When the Scotchman
sang his voice had reached Henchard's ears through the heart- shaped holes in
the window-shutters, and had led him to pause outside them a long while.
"To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow does draw me!" he had said to
himself. "I suppose 'tis because I'm so lonely. I'd have given him a third share in
the business to have stayed!"
Thesaurus
alarmed: (adj) afraid, scared,
frightened, apprehensive, horrified,
anxious, uneasy, agitated, shocked,
terrified, concerned. ANTONYM:
(adj) carefree.
earnestly: (adj, adv) seriously; (adv)
eagerly, intently, zealously, solemnly,
ardently, fervently, heartily, gravely,
warmly, passionately. ANTONYMS:
(adv) indifferently, insincerely,
unconcernedly, jokingly.
grieve: (n, v) distress, aggrieve, afflict,
sorrow, annoy; (v) trouble, lament,
polished, pure. ANTONYMS: (adj)
deplore, bemoan, fret, bewail.
unrefined, raw, uncouth, rough,
ANTONYMS: (v) rejoice, celebrate,
careless, crude, brute, boorish, plain,
encourage.
lowly, inelegant.
holes: (n) cavity, holes tow.
sang: (n) panax quinquefolius, sing,
promenade: (n, v) stroll, walk, amble,
herb, herbaceous plant.
ramble; (v) march, parade; (n)
shaped: (adj) formed, fashioned,
esplanade, perambulation, prom,
shapen, made, created, beaten,
ball, mall.
educated, featured, having features,
refined: (adj) delicate, cultured,
built, constructed.
staying: (n) stays, arrest; (adj)
graceful, polite, gentle, urbane,
courteous, courtly, cultivated; (adj, n) continual, old, left.
Thomas Hardy
67
CHAPTER 9
When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged casement next morning the mellow
air brought in the feel of imminent autumn almost as distinctly as if she had been
in the remotest hamlet. Casterbridge was the complement of the rural life
around, not its urban opposite. Bees and butterflies in the cornfields at the top
of the town, who desired to get to the meads at the bottom, took no circuitous
course, but flew straight down High Street without any apparent consciousness
that they were traversing strange latitudes. And in autumn airy spheres of
thistledown floated into the same street, lodged upon the shop fronts, blew into
drains, and innumerable tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along the pavement,
and stole through people's doorways into their passages with a hesitating
scratch on the floor, like the skirts of timid visitors.%
Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, she withdrew her head and
glanced from behind the window-curtains. Mr. Henchard--now habited no
longer as a great personage, but as a thriving man of business--was pausing on
his way up the middle of the street, and the Scotchman was looking from the
window adjoining her own. Henchard it appeared, had gone a little way past
the inn before he had noticed his acquaintance of the previous evening. He came
back a few steps, Donald Farfrae opening the window further.
"And you are off soon, I suppose?" said Henchard upwards.
Thesaurus
airy: (adj) light, windy, aery, aerial,
ethereal, insubstantial, sprightly,
perky, volatile, aeriform, aired.
ANTONYMS: (adj) airless, hot,
massive, wooden, weighty,
substantial, stifling, sluggish,
ponderous, musty, lumbering.
butterflies: (adj) anxious,
apprehensive, frightened; (n)
trepidation, nervousness, anxiety.
casement: (n) embrasure, casement
cloth.
circuitous: (adj) roundabout, winding,
devious, tortuous, meandering,
oblique, complicated, labyrinthine,
crooked, collateral, circumlocutional.
ANTONYMS: (adj) straight, direct.
habited: (adj) clothed, dressed, garbed.
hesitating: (adj) indecisive, irresolute,
undecided, doubtful, hesitate,
reluctant, faltering, unwilling,
hesitancy, backward, hesitatingly.
personage: (n) person, notable,
celebrity, personality, individual,
bigwig, figure, somebody, human,
character, being.
remotest: (adj) furthest, uttermost,
endmost, extreme, last, utmost.
skimmed: (v) flet, flotten.
tawny: (n) tan, buff; (adj, n) brown,
auburn; (adj) luteous, golden, sallow,
russet, chestnut, creamy, moderately
black.
traversing: (n) traverse,
perambulation, crossing; (adj)
moving.
68
"Yes--almost this moment, sir," said the other. "Maybe I'll walk on till the
coach makes up on me."
"Which way?"
"The way ye are going."
"Then shall we walk together to the top o' town?"
"If ye'll wait a minute," said the Scotchman.%
In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand. Henchard looked at the
bag as at an enemy. It showed there was no mistake about the young man's
departure. "Ah, my lad," he said, "you should have been a wise man, and have
stayed with me."
"Yes, yes--it might have been wiser," said Donald, looking microscopically at
the houses that were furthest off. "It is only telling ye the truth when I say my
plans are vague."
They had by this time passed on from the precincts of the inn, and ElizabethJane heard no more. She saw that they continued in conversation, Henchard
turning to the other occasionally, and emphasizing some remark with a gesture.
Thus they passed the King's Arms Hotel, the Market House, St. Peter's
churchyard wall, ascending to the upper end of the long street till they were
small as two grains of corn; when they bent suddenly to the right into the Bristol
Road, and were out of view.
"He was a good man--and he's gone," she said to herself. "I was nothing to
him, and there was no reason why he should have wished me good-bye."
The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight, had moulded itself out of
the following little fact: when the Scotchman came out at the door he had by
accident glanced up at her; and then he had looked away again without
nodding, or smiling, or saying a word.
"You are still thinking, mother," she said, when she turned inwards.
Thesaurus
ascending: (adj) uphill, rising,
assurgent, climbing, ascendent; (n)
ascension, ascent, rise, advance,
movement; (v) go up.
churchyard: (n) graveyard, burial
ground, yard, necropolis, cloisters,
kirkyard.
emphasizing: (n) accenting,
accentuation, accent, emphasise,
stressing, emphasize, action.
furthest: (adj) furthermost, extreme,
farthermost, remotest, ultimate,
utmost, uttermost, most remote, final,
outermost; (adv) most. ANTONYMS:
(adj) nearest, near.
inwards: (adv) in, indoors, inwardly,
within, at home, here; (n) gut; (adj)
inner, interior, domestic, intimate.
ANTONYMS: (adv) out, outward.
microscopically: (adv) infinitesimally,
tinily, smally, minusculely,
diminutively, molecularly,
negligibly.
nodding: (adj) cernuous, drooping,
dozy, dozing, somnolent, drugged,
pendulous, drowsing, droopy,
annuent, flagging. ANTONYM: (adj)
awake.
precincts: (n) entourage, arena,
outskirts, neighbourhood, walk,
neighborhood, proximity,
surroundings, vicinity, limitations,
suburbs.
stayed: (v) staid, serious, philosophic,
sedate, platonic, stoical; (n) stays;
(adj) late.
Thomas Hardy
69
"Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard's sudden liking for that young man. He
was always so. Now, surely, if he takes so warmly to people who are not related
to him at all, may he not take as warmly to his own kin?"
While they debated this question a procession of five large waggons went
past, laden with hay up to the bedroom windows. They came in from the
country, and the steaming horses had probably been travelling a great part of the
night. To the shaft of each hung a little board, on which was painted in white
letters, "Henchard, corn-factor and hay-merchant." The spectacle renewed his
wife's conviction that, for her daughter's sake, she should strain a point to rejoin
him.%
The discussion was continued during breakfast, and the end of it was that
Mrs. Henchard decided, for good or for ill, to send Elizabeth-Jane with a message
to Henchard, to the effect that his relative Susan, a sailor's widow, was in the
town; leaving it to him to say whether or not he would recognize her. What had
brought her to this determination were chiefly two things. He had been
described as a lonely widower; and he had expressed shame for a past
transaction of his life. There was promise in both.
"If he says no," she enjoined, as Elizabeth-Jane stood, bonnet on, ready to
depart; "if he thinks it does not become the good position he has reached to in the
town, to own--to let us call on him as--his distant kinfolk, say, 'Then, sir, we
would rather not intrude; we will leave Casterbridge as quietly as we have come,
and go back to our own country.'...I almost feel that I would rather he did say so,
as I have not seen him for so many years, and we are so-- little allied to him!"
"And if he say yes?" inquired the more sanguine one.
"In that case," answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, "ask him to write me a
note, saying when and how he will see us--or me."
Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing. "And tell him,"
continued her mother, "that I fully know I have no claim upon him--that I am
glad to find he is thriving; that I hope his life may be long and happy--there, go."
Thesaurus
bonnet: (n) cap, protection, chapeau,
ladened, filled, hampered, heavy,
charged, encumbered; (v) lade, load.
tile, wimple, beret, lid, cowling,
ANTONYMS: (adj) empty, lacking.
castor, poke bonnet, sunbonnet.
enjoined: (adj) lawful.
liking: (n, v) inclination; (n) fancy,
intrude: (v) interfere, trespass,
appetite, taste, fondness, predilection,
encroach, infringe, impose, obtrude,
affection, partiality, admiration,
disturb, interrupt, impinge, barge in, approval, appreciation.
butt in. ANTONYM: (v) disregard.
ANTONYMS: (n) dislike, aversion,
kinfolk: (n) kin, family, kinsfolk,
hatred, indifference, detachment,
relatives, house, Sept, dynasty, folk,
dissatisfaction, antipathy.
rejoin: (v) reply, retort, respond, join,
family line, parentage, pedigree.
laden: (adj) burdened, full, loaded,
return, come back, riposte, meet,
rebut, answer back, react.
sanguine: (adj) hopeful, optimistic,
bloody, rubicund, confident, crimson,
cheerful, buoyant, sanguineous; (adj,
n) red, florid. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pessimistic, gloomy, doubtful.
steaming: (adj) hot, sweltering,
roasting, baking, hot under the collar,
hazy, scorching; (adv) piping; (n)
fumigation.
widower: (n) adult male, widowman,
man.
70
Thus with a half-hearted willingness, a smothered reluctance, did the poor
forgiving woman start her unconscious daughter on this errand.%
It was about ten o'clock, and market-day, when Elizabeth paced up the High
Street, in no great hurry; for to herself her position was only that of a poor
relation deputed to hunt up a rich one. The front doors of the private houses
were mostly left open at this warm autumn time, no thought of umbrella stealers
disturbing the minds of the placid burgesses. Hence, through the long, straight,
entrance passages thus unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels, the mossy
gardens at the back, glowing with nasturtiums, fuchsias, scarlet geraniums,
"bloody warriors," snapdragons, and dahlias, this floral blaze being backed by
crusted grey stone-work remaining from a yet remoter Casterbridge than the
venerable one visible in the street. The old-fashioned fronts of these houses,
which had older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheer from the pavement, into
which the bow windows protruded like bastions, necessitating a pleasing
chassez-dechassez movement to the time-pressed pedestrian at every few yards.
He was bound also to evolve other Terpsichorean figures in respect of doorsteps, scrapers, cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging angles of
walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged and knock-kneed.
In addition to these fixed obstacles which spoke so cheerfully of individual
unrestraint as to boundaries, movables occupied the path and roadway to a
perplexing extent. First the vans of the carriers in and out of Casterbridge, who
hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury, The Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere,
Overcombe, and many other towns and villages round. Their owners were
numerous enough to be regarded as a tribe, and had almost distinctiveness
enough to be regarded as a race. Their vans had just arrived, and were drawn up
on each side of the street in close file, so as to form at places a wall between the
pavement and the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched out half its contents
upon trestles and boxes on the kerb, extending the display each week a little
further and further into the roadway, despite the expostulations of the two feeble
old constables, until there remained but a tortuous defile for carriages down the
centre of the street, which afforded fine opportunities for skill with the reins.
Thesaurus
buttresses: (n) ramparts, defenses.
crusted: (adj) crusty, encrusted,
covered, thick, crustlike, coated.
defile: (adj, v) debauch, pollute, stain,
sully; (v) corrupt, contaminate, foul,
taint, tarnish, infect; (n, v) soil.
ANTONYMS: (v) purify, consecrate,
conserve, honor, respect, sanctify,
cleanse, praise.
deputed: (prep) delegated; (adj)
delegate.
mossy: (adj) floral, mosslike, moldy,
tortuous: (adj) indirect, intricate,
hoary, musty, covered, musciform,
stodgy, hoar, chromatic, canescent.
circuitous, complex, knotty, winding,
movables: (n) effects, personalty,
convoluted, sinuous, involved,
furniture, chattels, personal property, devious, roundabout. ANTONYMS:
(adj) straightforward, straight,
belongings, personal estate,
efficiency, execution, expression,
uncomplicated, untwisted, easy,
force.
simple.
necessitating: (v) necessitate.
unrestraint: (n) intemperance,
remoter: (adj) ulterior, further, more
wantonness, unconstraint,
distant.
debauchery, license, release,
smothered: (adj) strangled, stifled,
dissipation, sottishness, setting free,
smothers, pent-up, covered.
freeing, dissoluteness.
Thomas Hardy
71
Over the pavement on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so constructed
as to give the passenger's hat a smart buffet off his head, as from the unseen
hands of Cranstoun's Goblin Page, celebrated in romantic lore.%
Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegs on the pavement, their hind
legs in the street, in which position they occasionally nipped little boys by the
shoulder who were passing to school. And any inviting recess in front of a house
that had been modestly kept back from the general line was utilized by pigdealers as a pen for their stock.
The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, who came to transact
business in these ancient streets, spoke in other ways than by articulation. Not to
hear the words of your interlocutor in metropolitan centres is to know nothing of
his meaning. Here the face, the arms, the hat, the stick, the body throughout
spoke equally with the tongue. To express satisfaction the Casterbridge marketman added to his utterance a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the eyes, a
throwing back of the shoulders, which was intelligible from the other end of the
street. If he wondered, though all Henchard's carts and waggons were rattling
past him, you knew it from perceiving the inside of his crimson mouth, and a
target-like circling of his eyes. Deliberation caused sundry attacks on the moss of
adjoining walls with the end of his stick, a change of his hat from the horizontal
to the less so; a sense of tediousness announced itself in a lowering of the person
by spreading the knees to a lozenge-shaped aperture and contorting the arms.
Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly a place in the streets of this honest borough to
all appearance; and it was said that the lawyers in the Court House hard by
occasionally threw in strong arguments for the other side out of pure generosity
(though apparently by mischance) when advancing their own.
Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole, focus, or nerve-knot of
the surrounding country life; differing from the many manufacturing towns
which are as foreign bodies set down, like boulders on a plain, in a green world
with which they have nothing in common. Casterbridge lived by agriculture at
one remove further from the fountainhead than the adjoining villages--no more.
The townsfolk understood every fluctuation in the rustic's condition, for it
Thesaurus
cheeks: (n) Gemini, twins, couple,
partner, middleman, contact; (v)
evasion, pretext, blind, artifice; (n, v)
posterior, pair, deuce, two, duet.
prolocutor.
shift.
fluctuation: (n) vicissitude, wavering, mischance: (n) calamity, mishap,
tediousness: (n) boredom, dullness,
deviation, wobble, swing,
disaster, accident, ill luck, bad luck,
monotony, flatness, ennui, dulness,
undulation, variance, oscillation,
misfortune, adversity, affliction, luck, prosiness, tediosity, tiresomeness,
irksomeness; (adj) wearisomeness.
hesitation, vibration, modification.
chance.
ANTONYM: (n) resolution.
perceiving: (n) feeling, sensing,
townsfolk: (n) borough, town,
fountainhead: (n) source, well, head,
hearing, looking at, recognition,
municipality.
thought, vision, lipreading; (adj)
transact: (v) perform, execute, do,
wellspring, beginning, root, spring,
headspring, origin, spring head,
conscious, percipient, reasonable.
manage, conduct, deal, bargain,
subterfuge: (adj, n) quibble; (n) excuse, negotiate, enact, sell, bank.
source or origin.
interlocutor: (n) conversational
ANTONYM: (v) deny.
pretense, deception, ruse, dodge,
72
affected their receipts as much as the labourer's; they entered into the troubles
and joys which moved the aristocratic families ten miles round--for the same
reason. And even at the dinner-parties of the professional families the subjects of
discussion were corn, cattle-disease, sowing and reaping, fencing and planting;
while politics were viewed by them less from their own standpoint of burgesses
with rights and privileges than from the standpoint of their country neighbours.%
All the venerable contrivances and confusions which delighted the eye by
their quaintness, and in a measure reasonableness, in this rare old market-town,
were metropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes of Elizabeth- Jane, fresh
from netting fish-seines in a seaside cottage. Very little inquiry was necessary to
guide her footsteps. Henchard's house was one of the best, faced with dull redand-grey old brick. The front door was open, and, as in other houses, she could
see through the passage to the end of the garden--nearly a quarter of a mile off.
Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard. She was conducted
into the mossy garden, and through a door in the wall, which was studded with
rusty nails speaking of generations of fruit-trees that had been trained there. The
door opened upon the yard, and here she was left to find him as she could. It
was a place flanked by hay-barns, into which tons of fodder, all in trusses, were
being packed from the waggons she had seen pass the inn that morning. On
other sides of the yard were wooden granaries on stone staddles, to which access
was given by Flemish ladders, and a store-house several floors high. Wherever
the doors of these places were open, a closely packed throng of bursting wheatsacks could be seen standing inside, with the air of awaiting a famine that would
not come.
She wandered about this place, uncomfortably conscious of the impending
interview, till she was quite weary of searching; she ventured to inquire of a boy
in what quarter Mr. Henchard could be found. He directed her to an office
which she had not seen before, and knocking at the door she was answered by a
cry of "Come in."
Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood before her, bending over some
sample-bags on a table, not the corn- merchant, but the young Scotchman Mr.
Thesaurus
inquire: (v) demand, ask, explore,
enquire, inspect, research, consult,
pry, request, wonder; (n, v) question.
ANTONYM: (v) answer.
ladders: (n) washboard.
netting: (n) mesh, gauze, network,
web, lattice, cheesecloth, meshwork,
plexus, grid, lace; (v) tissue.
novelties: (n) odds and ends.
quaintness: (n) strangeness,
unfamiliarity, oddity, abnormality,
mysteriousness, incongruity,
weirdness. ANTONYM: (n)
press; (n) multitude, host, horde,
normality.
mass, assembly, concourse.
reaping: (n) harvesting, crop,
ANTONYMS: (n) trickle, few; (v)
attainment, farming.
disperse.
sowing: (v) plowing, tilling; (n)
unpractised: (adj) inexperienced, raw,
insemination, semination.
green, fresh, unskilled.
studded: (adj) muricated, bristling,
venerable: (adj) ancient, reverend,
peopled, crowded, manifold,
estimable, August, respectable, aged,
multinominal, multiple, multiplied,
distinguished, sacred, worthy, of
multitudinous, populous; (v)
long standing, revered. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unworthy, unimpressive,
freckled.
throng: (n, v) swarm, herd, mob, flock, undignified, disreputable.
Thomas Hardy
73
Farfrae--in the act of pouring some grains of wheat from one hand to the other.
His hat hung on a peg behind him, and the roses of his carpet-bag glowed from
the corner of the room.%
Having toned her feelings and arranged words on her lips for Mr. Henchard,
and for him alone, she was for the moment confounded.
"Yes, what it is?" said the Scotchman, like a man who permanently ruled
there.
She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.
"Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He's engaged just now," said the young
man, apparently not recognizing her as the girl at the inn. He handed her a
chair, bade her sit down and turned to his sample-bags again. While ElizabethJane sits waiting in great amaze at the young man's presence we may briefly
explain how he came there.
When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sight that morning
towards the Bath and Bristol road they went on silently, except for a few
commonplaces, till they had gone down an avenue on the town walls called the
Chalk Walk, leading to an angle where the North and West escarpments met.
From this high corner of the square earthworks a vast extent of country could be
seen. A footpath ran steeply down the green slope, conducting from the shady
promenade on the walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp. It was by this path
the Scotchman had to descend.
"Well, here's success to 'ee," said Henchard, holding out his right hand and
leaning with his left upon the wicket which protected the descent. In the act
there was the inelegance of one whose feelings are nipped and wishes defeated.
"I shall often think of this time, and of how you came at the very moment to
throw a light upon my difficulty."
Still holding the young man's hand he paused, and then added deliberately:
"Now I am not the man to let a cause be lost for want of a word. And before ye
are gone for ever I'll speak. Once more, will ye stay? There it is, flat and plain.
You can see that it isn't all selfishness that makes me press 'ee; for my business is
Thesaurus
amaze: (adj, v) astonish, surprise; (v)
dumbfound, baffle, astound, stagger,
puzzle, dazzle, discombobulate,
alarm; (adj) astonished. ANTONYM:
(v) expect.
bade: (v) bid, command, bad.
confounded: (adj) bemused, accursed,
execrable, baffled, cursed, befuddled,
confused, puzzled, aghast, perplexed;
(adj, v) abashed.
inelegance: (n) awkwardness,
grossness, coarseness, gracelessness,
vulgarity, vulgarism, inelegancy,
individualism, self, selfness, selfish.
commonness, crudeness, homeliness; ANTONYMS: (n) altruism,
(adj) deformity. ANTONYMS: (n)
selflessness, sensitivity,
elegance, delicacy, tastefulness,
thoughtfulness, conformity,
grace.
generosity.
scarp: (n) escarpment, escarp,
shady: (adj) questionable, dark, fishy,
protective embankment, cliff,
doubtful, queer, suspicious, dim,
fortification; (v) rampart, battlement, uncertain, obscure, disreputable,
dishonest. ANTONYMS: (adj) sunny,
circumvallation, vallum.
selfishness: (n) greed, egotism,
trustworthy, bright, reputable,
greediness, meanness, individuality,
aboveboard.
toned: (adj) pastel.
opportunism, expedience,
74
not quite so scientific as to require an intellect entirely out of the common.
Others would do for the place without doubt. Some selfishness perhaps there is,
but there is more; it isn't for me to repeat what. Come bide with me--and name
your own terms. I'll agree to 'em willingly and 'ithout a word of gainsaying; for,
hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!"
The young man's hand remained steady in Henchard's for a moment or two.
He looked over the fertile country that stretched beneath them, then backward
along the shaded walk reaching to the top of the town. His face flushed.%
"I never expected this--I did not!" he said. "It's Providence! Should any one
go against it? No; I'll not go to America; I'll stay and be your man!"
His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard's, returned the latter's grasp.
"Done," said Henchard.
"Done," said Donald Farfrae.
The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth a satisfaction that was almost fierce
in its strength. "Now you are my friend!" he exclaimed. "Come back to my
house; let's clinch it at once by clear terms, so as to be comfortable in our minds."
Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the North-West Avenue in Henchard's
company as he had come. Henchard was all confidence now.
"I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don't care for a man," he
said. "But when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong. Now I am sure you can
eat another breakfast? You couldn't have eaten much so early, even if they had
anything at that place to gi'e thee, which they hadn't; so come to my house and
we will have a solid, staunch tuck-in, and settle terms in black-and-white if you
like; though my word's my bond. I can always make a good meal in the
morning. I've got a splendid cold pigeon-pie going just now. You can have
some home-brewed if you want to, you know."
"It is too airly in the morning for that," said Farfrae with a smile.
"Well, of course, I didn't know. I don't drink it because of my oath, but I am
obliged to brew for my work-people."
Thesaurus
clinch: (n, v) clutch, clench, grip, hold, (adj) negative, opposed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lively, stiff, alive,
embrace, clasp, grasp, gripe, squeeze; intellect: (n) mind, intelligence,
interesting, awake, moving, upright,
(adj, v) fasten; (v) clamp. ANTONYM: understanding, reason, brains, head,
bright, brilliant, firm, inspiring.
(v) unfasten.
shaded: (adj) dark, shads, sheltered,
intellectual, apprehension, psyche,
eaten: (v) eat.
genius, brainpower. ANTONYM: (n) shadowed, umbrageous, twilight,
forth: (adv) away, along, onward,
stupidity.
sunless, subdued, soft, colored,
lain: (adj) artless, unsophisticated,
darksome. ANTONYM: (adj)
ahead, before, on, off, on the high
road, on the road, on the way, under unaffected, naive, untutored, simple, unshaded.
staunch: (adj) faithful, loyal, constant,
way.
pure, natural, native, inartificial.
gainsaying: (n) censure, contrary
lifeless: (adj) inanimate, dull, insipid,
solid, resolute, devoted, stalwart,
secure, sturdy; (n, v) stanch; (adj, n)
declaration, contumely, detraction,
defunct, inactive, flat, exanimate,
hardy. ANTONYM: (adj) disloyal.
negation, obloquy, denial, calumny;
dreary, tedious, inert, lackluster.
Thomas Hardy
75
Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard's premises by the back
way or traffic entrance. Here the matter was settled over the breakfast, at which
Henchard heaped the young Scotchman's plate to a prodigal fulness. He would
not rest satisfied till Farfrae had written for his luggage from Bristol, and
dispatched the letter to the post-office. When it was done this man of strong
impulses declared that his new friend should take up his abode in his house--at
least till some suitable lodgings could be found.%
He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the stores of
grain, and other stock; and finally entered the offices where the younger of them
has already been discovered by Elizabeth.
Thesaurus
abode: (n) dwelling, house, residence, thick.
economical, cautious.
luggage: (n) baggage, bag, gear, grip, satisfied: (adj) happy, content, full,
place, domicile, lodge, abidance,
mansion, lodging, address, seat.
thing, goods, stuff, things, trunk,
pleased, confident, complacent,
dispatched: (adj) fulfilled, finished.
persuaded, fulfilled; (adj, v) certain,
suitcase, pack.
fulness: (n) fullness, entirety,
plate: (v) gild, cover, coat; (n, v) sheet, sure; (v) convinced. ANTONYMS:
dish, leaf; (n) home plate, home,
(adj) frustrated, anxious, disgruntled,
completeness, totality.
grain: (adj, n) crumb; (n) bit, berry,
engraving, lamella, disc.
hungry, insistent, pensive, unsure,
fragment, cereal, scrap, kernel, speck, prodigal: (adj) extravagant,
dissatisfied, ashamed.
stores: (n) provisions, materials,
atom, grist, character. ANTONYM:
improvident, generous, lavish,
(n) lot.
wasteful, excessive, exuberant,
provender, support, equipment,
heaped: (adj) dense, cumulative,
liberal, profuse, dissipated; (adj, n)
military issue, government issue,
profligate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
concentrated, collective, coacervate,
goods, food, commissariat.
Thomas Hardy
77
CHAPTER 10
While she still sat under the Scotchman's eyes a man came up to the door,
reaching it as Henchard opened the door of the inner office to admit Elizabeth.
The newcomer stepped forward like the quicker cripple at Bethesda, and
entered in her stead. She could hear his words to Henchard: "Joshua Jopp, sir-by appointment--the new manager."
"The new manager!--he's in his office," said Henchard bluntly.%
"In his office!" said the man, with a stultified air.
"I mentioned Thursday," said Henchard; "and as you did not keep your
appointment, I have engaged another manager. At first I thought he must be
you. Do you think I can wait when business is in question?"
"You said Thursday or Saturday, sir," said the newcomer, pulling out a letter.
"Well, you are too late," said the corn-factor. "I can say no more."
"You as good as engaged me," murmured the man.
"Subject to an interview," said Henchard. "I am sorry for you--very sorry
indeed. But it can't be helped."
There was no more to be said, and the man came out, encountering ElizabethJane in his passage. She could see that his mouth twitched with anger, and that
bitter disappointment was written in his face everywhere.
Thesaurus
cripple: (adj, v) maim, prostrate; (v)
satisfaction, boost, happiness,
mutilate, enfeeble, injure,
pleasure, hopefulness, fulfillment,
incapacitate, weaken, becripple; (n, v) comfort, idealism, climax, bonus,
damage; (n) invalid; (adj) paralyze.
gratification.
ANTONYMS: (v) support,
engaged: (adj) occupied, betrothed,
strengthen, invigorate, help, fortify,
employed, affianced, engrossed,
enable, aid.
reserved, absorbed, working,
disappointment: (n) anticlimax,
pledged, involved, committed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) free, unengaged,
failure, letdown, comedown,
frustration, shame, disillusionment,
unemployed, uncommitted,
annoyance, dismay, setback,
unattached, single, detached, idle.
misfortune. ANTONYMS: (n)
newcomer: (n) freshman, beginner,
fledgeling, neophyte, recruit,
immigrant, novice, arrival, entrant;
(adj, n) foreigner, stranger.
pulling: (n) pull, drawing, traction,
haulage, actuation, clout,
deracination, draughts, extirpation;
(adj) attracting, tractive.
quicker: (adv) more quickly, sooner,
earlier.
stead: (n) behalf, room, lieu, spot,
location, station, space, seat, position,
office, locality.
78
Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood before the master of the premises. His
dark pupils--which always seemed to have a red spark of light in them, though
this could hardly be a physical fact--turned indifferently round under his dark
brows until they rested on her figure. "Now then, what is it, my young woman?"
he said blandly.%
"Can I speak to you--not on business, sir?" said she.
"Yes--I suppose." He looked at her more thoughtfully.
"I am sent to tell you, sir," she innocently went on, "that a distant relative of
yours by marriage, Susan Newson, a sailor's widow, is in the town, and to ask
whether you would wish to see her."
The rich rouge-et-noir of his countenance underwent a slight change. "Oh-Susan is--still alive?" he asked with difficulty.
"Yes, sir."
"Are you her daughter?"
"Yes, sir--her only daughter."
"What--do you call yourself--your Christian name?"
"Elizabeth-Jane, sir."
"Newson?"
"Elizabeth-Jane Newson."
This at once suggested to Henchard that the transaction of his early married
life at Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the family history. It was more than he
could have expected. His wife had behaved kindly to him in return for his
unkindness, and had never proclaimed her wrong to her child or to the world.
"I am--a good deal interested in your news," he said. "And as this is not a
matter of business, but pleasure, suppose we go indoors."
It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to Elizabeth, that he
showed her out of the office and through the outer room, where Donald Farfrae
was overhauling bins and samples with the inquiring inspection of a beginner in
charge. Henchard preceded her through the door in the wall to the suddenly
Thesaurus
indifferently: (adv) carelessly, coldly,
nonchalantly, listlessly,
unconcernedly, uninterestedly,
neutrally, middlingly, casually,
unbiasedly, disinterestedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) passionately,
obsessively, carefully, eagerly,
energetically, warmly, anxiously,
enthusiastically, sympathetically.
innocently: (adv) innocuously,
ingenuously, inoffensively, naively,
purely, simplely, artlessly,
unsophisticatedly, blamelessly,
spotlessly, cleanly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) artfully, meaningfully,
indecently, immorally, illicitly,
intentionally, knowingly, unkindly,
suspiciously, offensively,
deliberately.
overhauling: (n) revision,
reconditioning, urban renewal, care,
maintenance, inspection and repair,
interim overhaul.
unkindness: (n) heartlessness,
callousness, thoughtlessness,
inconsideration, inconsiderateness,
diskindness, insensitivity,
unpleasantness, unfriendliness,
unkindliness, insensitiveness.
ANTONYMS: (n) goodwill,
diplomacy, gentleness, humanity,
thoughtfulness.
unrecorded: (adj) live, rebounds
readily, unwritten, unbooked,
springy, spoken, resilient, oral, lively,
hot, having life.
Thomas Hardy
79
changed scene of the garden and flowers, and onward into the house. The
dining-room to which he introduced her still exhibited the remnants of the
lavish breakfast laid for Farfrae. It was furnished to profusion with heavy
mahogany furniture of the deepest red-Spanish hues. Pembroke tables, with
leaves hanging so low that they well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the
walls on legs and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay three
huge folio volumes--a Family Bible, a "Josephus," and a "Whole Duty of Man."
In the chimney comer was a fire-grate with a fluted semicircular back, having
urns and festoons cast in relief thereon, and the chairs were of the kind which,
since that day, has cast lustre upon the names of Chippendale and Sheraton,
though, in point of fact, their patterns may have been such as those illustrious
carpenters never saw or heard of.%
"Sit down--Elizabeth-Jane--sit down," he said, with a shake in his voice as he
uttered her name, and sitting down himself he allowed his hands to hang
between his knees while he looked upon the carpet. "Your mother, then, is quite
well?"
"She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling."
"A sailor's widow--when did he die?"
"Father was lost last spring."
Henchard winced at the word "father," thus applied. "Do you and she come
from abroad--America or Australia?" he asked.
"No. We have been in England some years. I was twelve when we came here
from Canada."
"Ah; exactly." By such conversation he discovered the circumstances which
had enveloped his wife and her child in such total obscurity that he had long ago
believed them to be in their graves. These things being clear, he returned to the
present. "And where is your mother staying?"
"At the Three Mariners."
"And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?" repeated Henchard. He arose,
came close to her, and glanced in her face. "I think," he said, suddenly turning
Thesaurus
comer: (n) newcomer, arriver, traveler, sulcated.
lustre: (n) brilliance, gloss, brilliancy,
folio: (n) leaf, sheet, number, page
traveller, contender, competitor,
grandeur, splendour, effulgence,
competition, visitor, whiz kid, Young number, flyleaf, quarto, octavo,
splendor, shininess, shine, sheen,
Turk; (adj) fresh.
blade, foliage, number the folios,
brightness.
enveloped: (adj) convoluted, enclosed, book.
profusion: (n) opulence, abundance,
cover, bounded, Byzantine, clothed, illustrious: (adj, n) glorious,
prodigality, plenty, excess,
celebrated, excellent, grand; (adj)
involved, misty, swallowed,
cornucopia, plenitude, profuseness,
copiousness, exuberance; (adj)
vestured, emotionally involved.
famous, bright, eminent, famed,
exhibited: (adj) ostensible, avowed,
distinguished, brilliant, well-known. amplitude. ANTONYMS: (n)
ANTONYMS: (adj) unknown,
apparent, declared.
insufficiency, scarcity.
fluted: (adj) corrugated, grooved,
obscure, ordinary, undistinguished, semicircular: (adj) curved, semicircled,
gadrooned, canaliculated; (v) ribbed, lowly.
crescentic, crescent.
80
away with a wet eye, "you shall take a note from me to your mother. I should
like to see her....She is not left very well off by her late husband?" His eye fell on
Elizabeth's clothes, which, though a respectable suit of black, and her very best,
were decidedly old-fashioned even to Casterbridge eyes.%
"Not very well," she said, glad that he had divined this without her being
obliged to express it.
He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, next taking from his pocketbook a five-pound note, which he put in the envelope with the letter, adding to
it, as by an afterthought, five shillings. Sealing the whole up carefully, he
directed it to "Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners Inn," and handed the packet to
Elizabeth.
"Deliver it to her personally, please," said Henchard. "Well, I am glad to see
you here, Elizabeth-Jane--very glad. We must have a long talk together--but not
just now."
He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmly that she, who had known
so little friendship, was much affected, and tears rose to her aerial-grey eyes. The
instant that she was gone Henchard's state showed itself more distinctly; having
shut the door he sat in his dining-room stiffly erect, gazing at the opposite wall
as if he read his history there.
"Begad!" he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up. "I didn't think of that.
Perhaps these are impostors--and Susan and the child dead after all!"
However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assured him that, as regarded
her, at least, there could be little doubt. And a few hours would settle the
question of her mother's identity; for he had arranged in his note to see her that
evening.
"It never rains but it pours!" said Henchard. His keenly excited interest in his
new friend the Scotchman was now eclipsed by this event, and Donald Farfrae
saw so little of him during the rest of the day that he wondered at the
suddenness of his employer's moods.
Thesaurus
afterthought: (n) aftercome,
aftercourse, aftergrowth, afterpart,
afterpiece, second thought, reversal,
turnaround, turnabout, improver,
postscript. ANTONYMS: (n)
presupposition, forethought.
decidedly: (adv) clearly, positively,
definitely, absolutely, emphatically,
decisively, resolutely, firmly,
markedly, surely, determinedly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) uncertainly,
equivocally, slightly, vaguely.
jumping: (n) saltation, leaping,
header, start, propulsion; (adj)
moving, festive; (v) bounding, salient,
dancing; (adv) leapingly.
keenly: (adv) eagerly, zealously,
piercingly, acutely, cuttingly,
ardently, strongly, lively,
penetratingly, fervently, avidly.
ANTONYMS: (adv)
unenthusiastically, apathetically,
faintly, reluctantly, patiently,
passively, halfheartedly, vaguely.
parting: (n) adieu, division, leave,
departure, disunion, goodbye,
leaving, segregation, dying, rupture;
(adj) valedictory. ANTONYMS: (n)
joining, meeting, connection,
Reunion.
rains: (n) wet.
suddenness: (n) steepness, hastiness,
precipitance, precipitancy,
precipitateness, sudden, craggedness,
surprise, precipitousness,
brusqueness, curtness.
Thomas Hardy
81
In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn. Her mother, instead of
taking the note with the curiosity of a poor woman expecting assistance, was
much moved at sight of it. She did not read it at once, asking Elizabeth to
describe her reception, and the very words Mr. Henchard used. Elizabeth's back
was turned when her mother opened the letter. It ran thus:-"Meet me at eight o'clock this evening, if you can, at the Ring on the
Budmouth road. The place is easy to find. I can say no more now. The news
upsets me almost. The girl seems to be in ignorance. Keep her so till I have seen
you. M. H."
He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas. The amount was
significant; it may tacitly have said to her that he bought her back again. She
waited restlessly for the close of the day, telling Elizabeth-Jane that she was
invited to see Mr. Henchard; that she would go alone. But she said nothing to
show that the place of meeting was not at his house, nor did she hand the note to
Elizabeth.%
Thesaurus
curiosity: (n) curiousness, rarity,
ignorance: (n) illiteracy, nescience,
o'clock: (n) period, hours.
restlessly: (adv) fidgetily,
interest, curio, oddity, prying,
folly, unwisdom, innocence,
nosiness, peculiarity, novelty,
denseness, ignorancy, stupidity,
apprehensively, agitatedly, fretfully,
marvel; (adj, n) prodigy.
obtuseness, tabula rasa,
unquietly, sleeplessly, nervously,
ANTONYMS: (n) emotionlessness,
unawareness. ANTONYMS: (n)
restively, edgily, anxiously,
indifference, disinterest.
intelligence, acquaintance, education. disturbedly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
enclosure: (n) appendage, annex, cage, invited: (adj) welcomer, wanted,
peacefully, unconcernedly.
tacitly: (adv) unspokenly, implicitly,
appendix, addendum, barrier,
cherished.
enclosing, pen, yard, hedge, addition. meantime: (adv) meanwhile, in the
impliedly, wordlessly, stilly,
expecting: (adj) pregnant, confident,
meantime, simultaneously; (n)
voicelessly, assumedly,
with child, heavy, hopeful; (n) family interval, interlude, while, at times,
unexpressedly.
way.
whiles, mean, instrument.
Thomas Hardy
83
CHAPTER 11
The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of the finest
Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remaining in Britain.%
Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct. It
looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome. It was
impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town fields and
gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had
lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years. He
was mostly found lying on his side, in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken
in its shell; his knees drawn up to his chest; sometimes with the remains of his
spear against his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an
urn at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified
conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street boys
and men, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacle as they
passed by.
Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantness at the
discovery of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were quite
unmoved by these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their time was so
unlike the present, their hopes and motives were so widely removed from ours,
Thesaurus
bespoke: (adj) bespoken, custom,
having difficulties. ANTONYMS:
conspicuous, elaborate, flaunting,
(adj) enlightened, clear.
engaged, affianced, commissioned,
noticeable, loud, brash, obvious.
customized, made to measure, made precinct: (n) region, area, limit, bound, unpleasantness: (n) nastiness,
to order, modified, personalized,
frontier, boundary, neighborhood,
disagreeableness, horridness,
specially made.
confines, border, neighbourhood,
unkindness, awfulness, odiousness,
brooch: (n) broach, jewelry; (n, v)
compass.
discomfort, disagreeable, spite,
clasp; (v) fasten.
unobtrusive: (adj) unassuming,
offensiveness; (adj, n) ugliness.
knees: (n) knee.
ANTONYMS: (n)
discreet, inconspicuous, restrained,
mystified: (adj) metagrabolized,
unnoticeable, humble,
straightforwardness, kindness,
puzzled, perplexed, metagrobolized, unostentatious, diffident, reserved,
deliciousness, delightfulness,
bemused, unclear, at a loss,
unpretentious, subdued.
politeness, attractiveness.
metagrobolised, baffled, flummoxed, ANTONYMS: (adj) obtrusive,
84
that between them and the living there seemed to stretch a gulf too wide for even
a spirit to pass.
The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a notch at opposite
extremities of its diameter north and south. From its sloping internal form it
might have been called the spittoon of the Jotuns. It was to Casterbridge what
the ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was nearly of the same magnitude.
The dusk of evening was the proper hour at which a true impression of this
suggestive place could be received. Standing in the middle of the arena at that
time there by degrees became apparent its real vastness, which a cursory view
from the summit at noon-day was apt to obscure. Melancholy, impressive,
lonely, yet accessible from every part of the town, the historic circle was the
frequent spot for appointments of a furtive kind. Intrigues were arranged there;
tentative meetings were there experimented after divisions and feuds. But one
kind of appointment--in itself the most common of any--seldom had place in the
Amphitheatre: that of happy lovers.%
Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible, and sequestered
spot for interviews, the cheerfullest form of those occurrences never took kindly
to the soil of the ruin, would be a curious inquiry. Perhaps it was because its
associations had about them something sinister. Its history proved that. Apart
from the sanguinary nature of the games originally played therein, such
incidents attached to its past as these: that for scores of years the town- gallows
had stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman who had murdered her husband
was half-strangled and then burnt there in the presence of ten thousand
spectators. Tradition reports that at a certain stage of the burning her heart burst
and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all, and that not one of those ten
thousand people ever cared particularly for hot roast after that. In addition to
these old tragedies, pugilistic encounters almost to the death had come off down
to recent dates in that secluded arena, entirely invisible to the outside world save
by climbing to the top of the enclosure, which few towns-people in the daily
round of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So that, though close to the
turnpike-road, crimes might be perpetrated there unseen at mid-day.
Thesaurus
furtive: (adj) covert, stealthy,
surreptitious, secretive, concealed,
latent, cryptic, sneaky, backstairs,
secret, underhanded. ANTONYMS:
(adj) blatant, aboveboard, obvious,
overt, honest.
gallows: (n) gibbet, gallous, gallowsbitts, hanging, noose, scaffold, halter,
tree, rope, gallowstree, bough.
notch: (n, v) mark, dent, hack, nick,
score, nock, hollow, scratch; (n) gap,
incision; (v) indent. ANTONYM: (v)
fill.
solitude, privy.
pre-eminently: (adv) principally,
spittoon: (n) cuspidor, sputum bottle,
eminently.
spittoon mouth rinser, receptacle.
pugilistic: (n) coin, comminute, grind, suggestive: (adj, v) expressive; (adj)
gladiatorial.
obscene, spicy, allusive, graphic,
sanguinary: (adj) gory, bloodthirsty,
smutty, significative, narrative,
murderous, butcherly, sanguineous,
meaningful, epic, implicative.
vastness: (n) enormity, immensity,
slaughterous, cruel, ferocious, fell,
bloodstained; (v) sanguinolent.
immenseness, enormousness,
sequestered: (adj) retired, private,
grandeur, size, hugeness, bigness,
lonely, reclusive, cloistered, recluse,
extent, magnificence, grandness.
ANTONYM: (n) closeness.
quiet, withdrawn, monastic, seeking
Thomas Hardy
85
Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin by using the central
arena as a cricket-ground. But the game usually languished for the aforesaid
reason--the dismal privacy which the earthen circle enforced, shutting out every
appreciative passer's vision, every commendatory remark from outsiders-everything, except the sky; and to play at games in such circumstances was like
acting to an empty house. Possibly, too, the boys were timid, for some old
people said that at certain moments in the summer time, in broad daylight,
persons sitting with a book or dozing in the arena had, on lifting their eyes,
beheld the slopes lined with a gazing legion of Hadrian's soldiery as if watching
the gladiatorial combat; and had heard the roar of their excited voices, that the
scene would remain but a moment, like a lightning flash, and then disappear.%
It was related that there still remained under the south entrance excavated
cells for the reception of the wild animals and athletes who took part in the
games. The arena was still smooth and circular, as if used for its original
purpose not so very long ago. The sloping pathways by which spectators had
ascended to their seats were pathways yet. But the whole was grown over with
grass, which now, at the end of summer, was bearded with withered bents that
formed waves under the brush of the wind, returning to the attentive ear aeolian
modulations, and detaining for moments the flying globes of thistledown.
Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from observation which he
could think of for meeting his long- lost wife, and at the same time as one easily
to be found by a stranger after nightfall. As Mayor of the town, with a
reputation to keep up, he could not invite her to come to his house till some
definite course had been decided on.
Just before eight he approached the deserted earth-work and entered by the
south path which descended over the debris of the former dens. In a few
moments he could discern a female figure creeping in by the great north gap, or
public gateway. They met in the middle of the arena. Neither spoke just at first-there was no necessity for speech--and the poor woman leant against Henchard,
who supported her in his arms.
Thesaurus
aeolian: (adj, n) eolian; (adj) Aeolic.
bearded: (adj) barbate, awny,
whiskered, hairy, aristate, coniform,
calamiform, gladiate, pilous,
shagged, echinate.
commendatory: (adj) approbatory,
complimentary, laudatory,
recommendatory, encomiastic,
eulogistic, good, bestowing praise,
benedictory; (v) lavish of praise,
uncritical.
dozing: (adj) drowsy, dozy, nodding,
nightfall: (n) dusk, evening, twilight,
napping, asleep, sleepy, tired.
earthen: (adj) clay, ceramic,
sunset, gloaming, evenfall, dark,
earthenware.
eventide, sundown, darkness, fall.
gladiatorial: (v) polemic, pugilistic;
ANTONYMS: (n) daybreak, sunrise.
(adj) disputatious, combative,
soldiery: (n) troops, military
warlike, quarrelsome, militant,
personnel, serviceman, horse,
gladiatory.
garrison, cavalry, army, troop, the
impart: (v) give, convey, disclose,
army, military man, force.
withered: (adj) wizened, sear,
communicate, announce, grant,
reveal, hand, bestow, divulge, confer. shriveled, thin, shrunken, dry, dried
ANTONYMS: (v) withhold,
up, wilted, faded, wizen; (v) lame.
ANTONYM: (adj) plump.
withdraw.
86
"I don't drink," he said in a low, halting, apologetic voice. "You hear, Susan?-I don't drink now--I haven't since that night." Those were his first words.
He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that she understood. After a
minute or two he again began:
"If I had known you were living, Susan! But there was every reason to
suppose you and the child were dead and gone. I took every possible step to
find you--travelled--advertised. My opinion at last was that you had started for
some colony with that man, and had been drowned on your voyage. Why did
you keep silent like this?"
"O Michael! because of him--what other reason could there be? I thought I
owed him faithfulness to the end of one of our lives--foolishly I believed there
was something solemn and binding in the bargain; I thought that even in honour
I dared not desert him when he had paid so much for me in good faith. I meet
you now only as his widow--I consider myself that, and that I have no claim
upon you. Had he not died I should never have come--never! Of that you may
be sure."
"Ts-s-s! How could you be so simple?"
"I don't know. Yet it would have been very wicked--if I had not thought like
that!" said Susan, almost crying.%
"Yes--yes--so it would. It is only that which makes me feel 'ee an innocent
woman. But--to lead me into this!"
"What, Michael?" she asked, alarmed.
"Why, this difficulty about our living together again, and Elizabeth-Jane. She
cannot be told all--she would so despise us both that--I could not bear it!"
"That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you. I could not bear it
either."
"Well--we must talk of a plan for keeping her in her present belief, and
getting matters straight in spite of it. You have heard I am in a large way of
Thesaurus
acknowledgment: (n) admission,
acknowledgement, acceptance,
confession, greeting, credit,
allowance, declaration, agreement,
thanks, gratitude. ANTONYMS: (n)
rejection, ungratefulness, oversight,
snub, ignoring, invoice, blame,
defiance.
apologetic: (adj) regretful, sorry,
contrite, penitent, rueful, alleged,
ashamed, compunctious,
deprecatory, apologize, regret.
ANTONYMS: (adj) defensive,
defiant, glad, recalcitrant, stubborn,
unapologetic, unremorseful.
despise: (v) disdain, loathe,
depreciate, abhor, dislike, detest,
slight, hate; (n, v) contemn; (n)
contempt, deride. ANTONYMS: (v)
respect, love, adore, appreciate,
cherish, like, praise, accept.
drowned: (adj) prostrate, sunken; (v)
drenched, drent.
faithfulness: (n) devotion, constancy,
allegiance, truth, accuracy, loyalty,
dedication, faith, exactness,
adherence; (adj, n) honesty.
ANTONYMS: (n) disloyalty,
unfaithfulness, inaccuracy,
dishonesty, disobedience,
wickedness, indifference.
halting: (adj) halt, hesitant, broken,
crude, grotesque, barbarous; (adj, v)
lame, crippled; (adv) haltingly; (v)
drooping, flagging. ANTONYMS:
(adj) easy, firm.
Thomas Hardy
87
business%here--that I am Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and I don't
know what all?"
"Yes," she murmured.
"These things, as well as the dread of the girl discovering our disgrace, makes
it necessary to act with extreme caution. So that I don't see how you two can
return openly to my house as the wife and daughter I once treated badly, and
banished from me; and there's the rub o't."
"We'll go away at once. I only came to see--"
"No, no, Susan; you are not to go--you mistake me!" he said with kindly
severity. "I have thought of this plan: that you and Elizabeth take a cottage in the
town as the widow Mrs. Newson and her daughter; that I meet you, court you,
and marry you. Elizabeth-Jane coming to my house as my step-daughter. The
thing is so natural and easy that it is half done in thinking o't. This would leave
my shady, headstrong, disgraceful life as a young man absolutely unopened;
the secret would be yours and mine only; and I should have the pleasure of
seeing my own only child under my roof, as well as my wife."
"I am quite in your hands, Michael," she said meekly. "I came here for the
sake of Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell me to leave again to-morrow morning,
and never come near you more, I am content to go."
"Now, now; we don't want to hear that," said Henchard gently. "Of course
you won't leave again. Think over the plan I have proposed for a few hours; and
if you can't hit upon a better one we'll adopt it. I have to be away for a day or
two on business, unfortunately; but during that time you can get lodgings--the
only ones in the town fit for you are those over the china-shop in High Street-and you can also look for a cottage."
"If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I suppose?"
"Never mind--you must start genteel if our plan is to be carried out. Look to
me for money. Have you enough till I come back?"
"Quite," said she.
Thesaurus
churchwarden: (n) church officer,
ignominious, outrageous, black,
ease, calm.
ignoble. ANTONYMS: (adj)
genteel: (adj) elegant, polite, cultured,
cimeliarch.
disgrace: (adj, n, v) dishonor; (n, v)
admirable, honorable, reputable,
refined, graceful, courtly, courteous,
discredit, shame, stain, blemish, blot, exalted, commendable, respectable,
fashionable, nice, civil, ladylike.
slur, reproach; (v) degrade, debase;
ANTONYMS: (adj) uncouth,
noble, glorious.
(n) degradation. ANTONYMS: (n, v) dread: (n, v) apprehension, fear, panic; improper, vulgar.
respect, esteem, credit; (v) glorify,
(n) anxiety, awe, consternation,
meekly: (adv) humbly, submissively,
dignify, praise; (n) merit, grace,
alarm, trepidation, dismay,
tamely, compliantly, obediently,
pride, rise, worthiness.
foreboding, terror. ANTONYMS:
docilely, peacefully, lowly, modestly,
disgraceful: (adj) dishonorable,
(adj) pleasing, welcomed, pleasant;
placidly, kindly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
(v) welcome, want; (n) reassurance,
scandalous, shocking, degrading,
haughtily, harshly, wildly,
disreputable, infamous, base,
fearlessness, confidence, security,
arrogantly, assertively, brashly.
88
"And are you comfortable at the inn?"
"O yes."
"And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her case and ours?-that's what makes me most anxious of all."
"You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream of the truth.
How could she ever suppose such a thing?"
True!
"I like the idea of repeating our marriage," said Mrs. Henchard, after a pause.
"It seems the only right course, after all this. Now I think I must go back to
Elizabeth- Jane, and tell her that our kinsman, Mr. Henchard, kindly wishes us
to stay in the town."
"Very well--arrange that yourself. I'll go some way with you."
"No, no. Don't run any risk!" said his wife anxiously. "I can find my way
back--it is not late. Please let me go alone."
"Right," said Henchard. "But just one word. Do you forgive me, Susan?"
She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to frame her
answer.%
"Never mind--all in good time," said he. "Judge me by my future works-good-bye!"
He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the Amphitheatre while his wife
passed out through the lower way, and descended under the trees to the town.
Then Henchard himself went homeward, going so fast that by the time he
reached his door he was almost upon the heels of the unconscious woman from
whom he had just parted. He watched her up the street, and turned into his
house.
Thesaurus
anxiously: (adv) uneasily, restlessly,
castigate.
kinsman: (n) relation, relative, kin,
carefully, worriedly, fearfully,
nervously, concernedly, solicitously,
kindred, kinswoman, description,
timidly, keenly, enthusiastically.
forefather, countryman, detail,
ANTONYMS: (adv) calmly,
consanguinity; (v) confederate.
parted: (adj) divided, separate,
confidently, merrily, indifferently,
fearlessly, nonchalantly, patiently,
distributed, separated, divisible,
unconcernedly.
disunited, compounder, compound,
forgive: (v) absolve, excuse, acquit,
dividable.
repeating: (n) repeat, iteration,
remit, pardon, justify, to forgive,
exonerate, overlook, clear, to excuse. renewal, repetition, redundancy,
ANTONYMS: (v) condemn, punish,
copying, reduplication; (adj)
repetitious, iterating, iterative,
repetitive.
retreated: (adj) withdrawn, people.
unconscious: (adj) involuntary,
unaware, ignorant, unwitting,
subconscious, oblivious, automatic,
insensible, unintentional, instinctive,
senseless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
conscious, awake, deliberate, aware,
voluntary, intentional, alive, wary.
wishes: (n) desires, requirements,
requests, needs, will.
Thomas Hardy
89
CHAPTER 12
On entering his own door after watching his wife out of sight, the Mayor
walked on through the tunnel-shaped passage into the garden, and thence by the
back door towards the stores and granaries. A light shone from the officewindow, and there being no blind to screen the interior Henchard could see
Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left him, initiating himself into the
managerial work of the house by overhauling the books. Henchard entered,
merely observing, "Don't let me interrupt you, if ye will stay so late."
He stood behind Farfrae's chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up the
numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard's books as
almost to baffle even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The corn-factor's mien was
half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one
who could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was
mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had
in a modern sense received the education of Achilles, and found penmanship a
tantalizing art.%
"You shall do no more to-night," he said at length, spreading his great hand
over the paper. "There's time enough to-morrow. Come indoors with me and
have some supper. Now you shall! I am determined on't." He shut the accountbooks with friendly force.
Thesaurus
admiring: (adj) admire, admiringly,
loving, respectful, glowing,
affectionate, amatory, appreciative,
enthusiastic, flattering, approving.
ANTONYMS: (adj) defamatory,
critical, disdainful, disapproving,
disrespectful, uncomplimentary.
baffle: (v) discomfit, astonish,
bewilder, perplex, nonplus, mystify,
stump, puzzle, confound, foil,
frustrate. ANTONYMS: (v) explain,
aid, support, help, clarify, assist,
encourage.
dexterity: (n) agility, cleverness,
ability, aptitude, skill, deftness,
expertise; (adj, n) art, cunning; (n, v)
adroitness, address. ANTONYMS: (n)
clumsiness, awkwardness,
ineptitude, inability, uselessness,
inexperience, ineptness, inaccuracy.
grubbing: (adj) studious.
penmanship: (n) hand, pencraft,
handwriting, chirography,
autography, writing, script,
authorship, beautiful handwriting,
craftmanship.
perspicacity: (n) intelligence,
judgment, insight, discrimination,
astuteness, judgement, discernment,
shrewdness, perception, wisdom;
(adj) penetration. ANTONYMS: (n)
stupidity, dullness.
soiled: (adj) grubby, dirty, nasty,
grimy, unclean, filthy, muddy, black,
mucky, polluted, foul. ANTONYMS:
(adj) pure, immaculate.
90
Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw that his friend
and employer was a man who knew no moderation in his requests and impulses,
and he yielded gracefully.
He liked Henchard's warmth, even if it
inconvenienced him; the great difference in their characters adding to the liking.%
They locked up the office, and the young man followed his companion
through the private little door which, admitting directly into Henchard's garden,
permitted a passage from the utilitarian to the beautiful at one step. The garden
was silent, dewy, and full of perfume. It extended a long way back from the
house, first as lawn and flower-beds, then as fruit-garden, where the long-tied
espaliers, as old as the old house itself, had grown so stout, and cramped, and
gnarled that they had pulled their stakes out of the ground and stood distorted
and writhing in vegetable agony, like leafy Laocoons. The flowers which smelt
so sweetly were not discernible; and they passed through them into the house.
The hospitalities of the morning were repeated, and when they were over
Henchard said, "Pull your chair round to the fireplace, my dear fellow, and let's
make a blaze--there's nothing I hate like a black grate, even in September." He
applied a light to the laid-in fuel, and a cheerful radiance spread around.
"It is odd," said Henchard, "that two men should meet as we have done on a
purely business ground, and that at the end of the first day I should wish to
speak to 'ee on a family matter. But, damn it all, I am a lonely man, Farfrae: I
have nobody else to speak to; and why shouldn't I tell it to 'ee?"
"I'll be glad to hear it, if I can be of any service," said Donald, allowing his
eyes to travel over the intricate wood- carvings of the chimney-piece,
representing garlanded lyres, shields, and quivers, on either side of a draped oxskull, and flanked by heads of Apollo and Diana in low relief.
"I've not been always what I am now," continued Henchard, his firm deep
voice being ever so little shaken. He was plainly under that strange influence
which sometimes prompts men to confide to the new-found friend what they
will not tell to the old. "I began life as a working hay-trusser, and when I was
eighteen I married on the strength o' my calling. Would you think me a married
man?"
Thesaurus
confide: (v) commit, trust, entrust,
intrust, consign, rely, charge,
unbosom, whisper, lean, hope.
ANTONYMS: (v) suppress, keep,
conceal, retain.
dewy: (adj) wet, dank, bedewed,
humid, moist, damp, fresh, new,
roric, undried, rorid.
garlanded: (adj) decorated,
ornamented, festooned, decked,
bedecked, bejeweled, decked out.
grate: (v) grind, creak, scrape, abrade,
gall, gnash, fret, rub, aggravate,
provoke; (n) lattice.
leafy: (adj) green, verdant, lush,
foliose, foliate, leafed, luxuriant,
foliaceous, leaved, bowery,
flourishing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
leafless, urban, withering.
radiance: (n) gleam, glory, brilliance,
luster, lustre, beam, brightness,
effulgence, sparkle, light; (adj, n)
brilliancy. ANTONYMS: (n)
darkness, gloominess.
utilitarian: (adj) functional, practical,
pragmatic, philanthropic, utile,
serviceable, humanitarian, helpful,
convenient; (n) Benthamite,
philanthropist. ANTONYMS: (adj)
surrender, relinquish, soulful, luxury,
decorative, useless.
writhing: (adj, n) twisting; (adj)
wriggly, squirming, wiggling,
wiggly, twisty, tortuous, snaky,
winding, sinuous; (n) twist.
yielded: (v) yold, yolden.
Thomas Hardy
91
"I heard in the town that you were a widower."
"Ah, yes--you would naturally have heard that. Well, I lost my wife nineteen
years ago or so--by my own fault....This is how it came about. One summer
evening I was travelling for employment, and she was walking at my side,
carying the baby, our only child. We came to a booth in a country fair. I was a
drinking man at that time."
Henchard paused a moment, threw himself back so that his elbow rested on
the table, his forehead being shaded by his hand, which, however, did not hide
the marks of introspective inflexibility on his features as he narrated in fullest
detail the incidents of the transaction with the sailor. The tinge of indifference
which had at first been visible in the Scotchman now disappeared.%
Henchard went on to describe his attempts to find his wife; the oath he
swore; the solitary life he led during the years which followed. "I have kept my
oath for nineteen years," he went on; "I have risen to what you see me now."
"Ay!"
"Well--no wife could I hear of in all that time; and being by nature something
of a woman-hater, I have found it no hardship to keep mostly at a distance from
the sex. No wife could I hear of, I say, till this very day. And now--she has come
back."
"Come back, has she!"
"This morning--this very morning. And what's to be done?"
"Can ye no' take her and live with her, and make some amends?"
"That's what I've planned and proposed. But, Farfrae," said Henchard
gloomily, "by doing right with Susan I wrong another innocent woman."
"Ye don't say that?"
"In the nature of things, Farfrae, it is almost impossible that a man of my sort
should have the good fortune to tide through twenty years o' life without making
more blunders than one. It has been my custom for many years to run across to
Jersey in the the way of business, particularly in the potato and root season. I do
Thesaurus
booth: (n) stall, cubicle, stand, carrel,
severity, tenacity, stiffness,
hut, shed, cabin, chalet, cell, kiosk,
stubbornness, hardness, harshness.
ANTONYMS: (n) impressionability,
compartment.
gloomily: (adv) murkily, obscurely,
compliance, malleability, agility,
drearily, darkly, somberly, morosely, softness, weakness, limpness,
sadly, sorrowfully, despondently,
cooperation.
introspective: (adj, v) thoughtful,
unhappily, glumly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) brightly, favorably, happily,
reflective, pensive, meditative; (v)
optimistically, contentedly; (adj)
deliberative, philosophical; (adj)
auspiciously.
reflex, brooding, deep in thought,
inflexibility: (n) firmness, austerity,
directed back, dreamy.
narrated: (adj) oral, narrative.
obstinacy, inflexibleness, rigor,
rested: (adj) comfortable.
solitary: (adj) forlorn, only, alone,
single, lonely, lone, sole,
unaccompanied, isolated; (adj, n)
recluse; (n) hermit. ANTONYMS:
(adj) sociable, combined, common,
outgoing.
tinge: (n, v) color, hue, tint, dye, stain,
touch, tincture; (n) shade, cast,
undertone; (adj, n, v) dash.
ANTONYMS: (v) whiten, pale; (n)
white, information, pallor.
92
a large trade wi' them in that line. Well, one autumn when stopping there I fell
quite ill, and in my illness I sank into one of those gloomy fits I sometimes suffer
from, on account o' the loneliness of my domestic life, when the world seems to
have the blackness of hell, and, like Job, I could curse the day that gave me
birth."
"Ah, now, I never feel like it," said Farfrae.%
"Then pray to God that you never may, young man. While in this state I was
taken pity on by a woman--a young lady I should call her, for she was of good
family, well bred, and well educated--the daughter of some harum-scarum
military officer who had got into difficulties, and had his pay sequestrated. He
was dead now, and her mother too, and she was as lonely as I. This young
creature was staying at the boarding-house where I happened to have my
lodging; and when I was pulled down she took upon herself to nurse me. From
that she got to have a foolish liking for me. Heaven knows why, for I wasn't
worth it. But being together in the same house, and her feeling warm, we got
naturally intimate. I won't go into particulars of what our relations were. It is
enough to say that we honestly meant to marry. There arose a scandal, which
did me no harm, but was of course ruin to her. Though, Farfrae, between you
and me, as man and man, I solemnly declare that philandering with
womankind has neither been my vice nor my virtue. She was terribly careless of
appearances, and I was perhaps more, because o' my dreary state; and it was
through this that the scandal arose. At last I was well, and came away. When I
was gone she suffered much on my account, and didn't forget to tell me so in
letters one after another; till latterly, I felt I owed her something, and thought
that, as I had not heard of Susan for so long, I would make this other one the
only return I could make, and ask her if she would run the risk of Susan being
alive (very slight as I believed) and marry me, such as I was. She jumped for joy,
and we should no doubt soon have been married--but, behold, Susan appears!"
Donald showed his deep concern at a complication so far beyond the degree
of his simple experiences.
Thesaurus
behold: (v) see, view, contemplate,
regard, perceive, observe, look,
consider, discern, descry, watch.
ANTONYMS: (v) Miss, disregard,
ignore, overlook.
blackness: (n) black, darkness, sable,
gloom, nigritude, night, inkiness,
dark, murk, murkiness, obscurity.
dreary: (adj) depressing, drab, dull,
cheerless, drear, miserable, gloomy,
dark, dismal, stuffy, disconsolate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) interesting,
cheerful, sunny, brilliant, lively, light, residence, quarter, home, lodgement,
exciting, clear, cheery, pleasant,
address, hospice.
philandering: (adj) flirtatious,
exotic.
harum-scarum: (adj) unadvised,
unfaithful.
chaotic, devil-may-care, precipitous. solemnly: (adv) earnestly, gravely,
latterly: (adv) lately, lastly, late,
majestically, stately, sternly, staidly,
subsequently, finally, of late, newly,
thoughtfully, soberly, formally,
ultimately, secondly, freshly,
ceremoniously, importantly.
afterward. ANTONYM: (adv)
ANTONYMS: (adv) cheerfully,
initially.
flippantly.
lodging: (n) abode, apartment,
womankind: (n) womanhood, gentle
accommodation, housing, hostel,
sex, people.
Thomas Hardy
93
"Now see what injury a man may cause around him! Even after that wrongdoing at the fair when I was young, if I had never been so selfish as to let this
giddy girl devote herself to me over at Jersey, to the injury of her name, all might
now be well. Yet, as it stands, I must bitterly disappoint one of these women;
and it is the second. My first duty is to Susan--there's no doubt about that."
"They are both in a very melancholy position, and that's true!" murmured
Donald.%
"They are! For myself I don't care--'twill all end one way. But these two."
Henchard paused in reverie. "I feel I should like to treat the second, no less than
the first, as kindly as a man can in such a case."
"Ah, well, it cannet be helped!" said the other, with philosophic woefulness.
"You mun write to the young lady, and in your letter you must put it plain and
honest that it turns out she cannet be your wife, the first having come back; that
ye cannet see her more; and that--ye wish her weel."
"That won't do. 'Od seize it, I must do a little more than that! I must--though
she did always brag about her rich uncle or rich aunt, and her expectations from
'em--I must send a useful sum of money to her, I suppose--just as a little
recompense, poor girl....Now, will you help me in this, and draw up an
explanation to her of all I've told ye, breaking it as gently as you can? I'm so bad
at letters."
"And I will."
"Now, I haven't told you quite all yet. My wife Susan has my daughter with
her--the baby that was in her arms at the fair; and this girl knows nothing of me
beyond that I am some sort of relation by marriage. She has grown up in the
belief that the sailor to whom I made over her mother, and who is now dead, was
her father, and her mother's husband.
What her mother has always felt, she and I together feel now--that we can't
proclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting her know the truth. Now what would
you do?--I want your advice."
"I think I'd run the risk, and tell her the truth. She'll forgive ye both."
Thesaurus
brag: (n, v) bluster, vaunt, crow; (v)
featherbrained, light, fickle,
capricious; (adv) careless.
pride, gasconade, blow, show off,
rodomontade; (n) boasting, bragging; ANTONYMS: (adj) serious, dull.
(adj) great.
philosophic: (v) platonic, staid, stayed,
disappoint: (v) fail, defeat, balk, baffle, stoical; (adj) thoughtful, rational,
disenchant, betray, circumvent, bilk,
patient, learned, ideologic,
mock, foil; (n, v) put out.
ideological. ANTONYM: (adj)
ANTONYMS: (v) please, satisfy,
nonphilosophical.
encourage, fulfill, succeed, comfort, recompense: (n, v) pay, redress; (n)
inspire.
compensation, amends, atonement,
giddy: (adj, v) flighty; (adj) dizzy, faint, payment, consideration,
indemnification, indemnity; (v)
silly, changeable, vertiginous,
compensate, reimburse.
ANTONYMS: (v) penalize, receive;
(n) penalty.
reverie: (n) dream, fantasy, air castle,
brown study, revery, trance,
abstraction, castle in Spain, castle in
the air; (adj) preoccupation,
distraction. ANTONYM: (n) reality.
woefulness: (n) depression,
ruthfulness, suffering, direness,
terribleness, mournfulness, intense
mournfulness, sorrowfulness, horror.
94
"Never!" said Henchard. "I am not going to let her know the truth. Her
mother and I be going to marry again; and it will not only help us to keep our
child's respect, but it will be more proper. Susan looks upon herself as the
sailor's widow, and won't think o' living with me as formerly without another
religious ceremony--and she's right."
Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter to the young Jersey woman was
carefully framed by him, and the interview ended, Henchard saying, as the
Scotchman left, "I feel it a great relief, Farfrae, to tell some friend o' this! You see
now that the Mayor of Casterbridge is not so thriving in his mind as it seems he
might be from the state of his pocket."
"I do. And I'm sorry for ye!" said Farfrae.%
When he was gone Henchard copied the letter, and, enclosing a cheque, took
it to the post-office, from which he walked back thoughtfully.
"Can it be that it will go off so easily!" he said. "Poor thing--God knows!
Now then, to make amends to Susan!"
Thesaurus
amends: (n) atonement, compensation,
recompense, satisfaction, redress,
damages, reprisal, indemnity,
requital; (n, v) restitution, restoration.
copied: (adj) counterfeit, derivative,
sham, false, phony, mock, imitative,
forged, fake, ersatz, bogus.
ANTONYM: (adj) real.
enclosing: (n) enclose, inclosure,
boxing, encasement, introduction,
insertion, intromission, surrounding,
incasement, grip, envelopment.
framed: (adj) counterfeit, prepared,
cruelly.
thriving: (adj) successful, prosperous,
orderly, methodical, spurious.
ANTONYM: (adj) unframed.
prospering, booming, rich, affluent,
thoughtfully: (adv) considerately,
growing, lush, lucky, healthy,
luxuriant. ANTONYMS: (adj)
carefully, kindly, reflectively,
meditatively, attentively, solemnly,
declining, languishing, arid,
contemplatively, seriously,
moribund, dying, disappearing,
prudently, cautiously. ANTONYMS: poor, unwell.
(adv) unsympathetically,
widow: (n) woman, relict, widower,
unthinkingly, carelessly, contentedly, adult female, widow woman, war
widow, nobbled line; (adj) widowed,
rashly, inconsiderately, selfishly,
additional; (v) leave behind.
meanly, insensitively, tactlessly,
Thomas Hardy
95
CHAPTER 13
The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan under her
name of Newson--in pursuance of their plan--was in the upper or western part of
the town, near the Roman wall, and the avenue which overshadowed it. The
evening sun seemed to shine more yellowly there than anywhere else this
autumn-- stretching its rays, as the hours grew later, under the lowest sycamore
boughs, and steeping the ground-floor of the dwelling, with its green shutters, in
a substratum of radiance which the foliage screened from the upper parts.
Beneath these sycamores on the town walls could be seen from the sitting-room
the tumuli and earth forts of the distant uplands; making it altogether a pleasant
spot, with the usual touch of melancholy that a past-marked prospect lends.%
As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably installed, with a
white-aproned servant and all complete, Henchard paid them a visit, and
remained to tea. During the entertainment Elizabeth was carefully hoodwinked
by the very general tone of the conversation that prevailed--a proceeding which
seemed to afford some humour to Henchard, though his wife was not
particularly happy in it. The visit was repeated again and again with businesslike determination by the Mayor, who seemed to have schooled himself into a
course of strict mechanical rightness towards this woman of prior claim, at any
expense to the later one and to his own sentiments.
Thesaurus
melancholy: (adj, v) dreary; (adj, n)
gloom, melancholic; (adj) depressed,
dejected, dismal, gloomy, doleful; (n,
v) low spirits; (n) gloominess,
depression. ANTONYMS: (n)
happiness, cheerfulness, hopefulness,
optimism; (adj) happy, bright, cheery,
satisfied.
pursuance: (n) prosecution, execution,
pursuit, implementation, fulfillment,
achievement, search, quest,
fulfilment, exercise, chase.
rightness: (n) correctness,
groundwork, matter, body, layer,
appropriateness, propriety, justness,
principle, subsoil, element,
nicety, truth, morality, righteousness, substructure, brute matter.
justice, fairness, right. ANTONYMS: sycamore: (n) plane tree, maple, great
(n) wrongness, inappropriateness.
maple, mulberry fig, lacewood,
schooled: (adj) instructed, tutored,
buttonwood, platan, Scottish maple,
expert, sophisticated, full-fledged,
tree, wood, plane.
yellowly: (adv) amberly, fearfully,
taught, scholarly.
sentiments: (n) breast.
spinelessly, pusillanimously,
steeping: (n) steeping treatment, alum jaundicedly, cravenly,
cake, maceration.
chickenheartedly.
substratum: (adj, n) substance; (n) bed,
96
One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchard came, and he
said drily, "This is a very good opportunity for me to ask you to name the happy
day, Susan."
The poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy pleasantries on a situation
into which she had entered solely for the sake of her girl's reputation. She liked
them so little, indeed, that there was room for wonder why she had
countenanced deception at all, and had not bravely let the girl know her history.
But the flesh is weak; and the true explanation came in due course.%
"O Michael!" she said, "I am afraid all this is taking up your time and giving
trouble--when I did not expect any such thing!" And she looked at him and at his
dress as a man of affluence, and at the furniture he had provided for the room-ornate and lavish to her eyes.
"Not at all," said Henchard, in rough benignity. "This is only a cottage--it
costs me next to nothing. And as to taking up my time"--here his red and black
visage kindled with satisfaction--"I've a splendid fellow to superintend my
business now--a man whose like I've never been able to lay hands on before. I
shall soon be able to leave everything to him, and have more time to call my own
than I've had for these last twenty years."
Henchard's visits here grew so frequent and so regular that it soon became
whispered, and then openly discussed in Casterbridge that the masterful,
coercive Mayor of the town was raptured and enervated by the genteel widow
Mrs. Newson. His well-known haughty indifference to the society of
womankind, his silent avoidance of converse with the sex, contributed a
piquancy to what would otherwise have been an unromantic matter enough.
That such a poor fragile woman should be his choice was inexplicable, except on
the ground that the engagement was a family affair in which sentimental passion
had no place; for it was known that they were related in some way. Mrs.
Henchard was so pale that the boys called her "The Ghost." Sometimes
Henchard overheard this epithet when they passed together along the Walks--as
the avenues on the walls were named--at which his face would darken with an
Thesaurus
benignity: (n) kindliness, benignancy, appellation, denomination,
favor, graciousness, tenderness,
nickname, moniker, sobriquet, title,
friendliness, amiability, benefaction;
picture, byname, byword.
(adj, n) kindness, humanity; (adj)
masterful: (adj) consummate,
beneficence.
imperious, dictatorial, overbearing,
enervated: (adj) debilitated, limp,
masterly, Masterful beggar, skillful,
tired, lethargic, weak, languid, faint,
proficient, adept, perfect, expert.
ANTONYMS: (adj) incompetent,
colorless, adynamic, asthenic,
enfeebled. ANTONYMS: (adj)
meek, inept.
activated, invigorated, strengthened, piquancy: (n) pungency, zest, tang,
energized, strong.
flavour, spice, nip, taste, galvanism,
epithet: (n) name, cognomen,
flavor, bite; (adj) antithesis.
superintend: (v) oversee, manage,
direct, administer, control, run,
supervise, govern, handle, overlook,
inspect.
unromantic: (adj) unexaggerated,
unaffected, unflattering,
unimaginative, realistic, unloving,
practical, utilitarian, not romantic.
visage: (n) face, look, mug,
physiognomy, expression, kisser,
appearance, aspect, brow, smiler,
forehead.
Thomas Hardy
97
expression of destructiveness towards the speakers ominous to see; but he said
nothing.%
He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather reunion, with this
pale creature in a dogged, unflinching spirit which did credit to his
conscientiousness.
Nobody would have conceived from his outward
demeanour that there was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as
stimulant to the bustle going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing but three
large resolves--one, to make amends to his neglected Susan, another, to provide a
comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under his paternal eye; and a third, to
castigate himself with the thorns which these restitutory acts brought in their
train; among them the lowering of his dignity in public opinion by marrying so
comparatively humble a woman.
Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her life when she
stepped into the plain brougham which drew up at the door on the wedding-day
to take her and Elizabeth- Jane to church. It was a windless morning of warm
November rain, which floated down like meal, and lay in a powdery form on the
nap of hats and coats. Few people had gathered round the church door though
they were well packed within. The Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was
of course the only one present, beyond the chief actors, who knew the true
situation of the contracting parties. He, however, was too inexperienced, too
thoughtful, too judicial, too strongly conscious of the serious side of the business,
to enter into the scene in its dramatic aspect. That required the special genius of
Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, and their fellows. But they
knew nothing of the secret; though, as the time for coming out of church drew
on, they gathered on the pavement adjoining, and expounded the subject
according to their lights.
"'Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this here town," said
Coney; "but daze me if I ever see a man wait so long before to take so little!
There's a chance even for thee after this, Nance Mockridge." The remark was
addressed to a woman who stood behind his shoulder--the same who had
Thesaurus
amatory: (adj) amative, erotic, loving,
compliment, laud, pardon,
amatorial, amatorious, amatorian,
commend.
romantic, erotical. ANTONYMS: (adj) conscientiousness: (n) care,
indifferent, unfriendly, cool.
scrupulousness, meticulousness,
brougham: (n) rig, sedan, coach,
thoroughness, diligence, honesty,
landau, equipage, carriage, barouche, preciseness, precision,
break, curricle, mail phaeton,
productiveness, religion,
responsibility. ANTONYMS: (n)
phaeton.
castigate: (v) chastise, chasten,
unconscientiousness, sloth.
destructiveness: (n) vandalism,
reprimand, censure, scold, rebuke,
punish, penalize, chide, berate,
aggression, fatality, poison, violence.
correct. ANTONYMS: (v) praise,
ANTONYM: (n) constructiveness.
groomsman: (n) attendant.
marrying: (adj) married.
stimulant: (n) incentive, excitant,
goad, spur, impetus, stimulus, fillip,
stimulation, tonic; (adj) stimulative,
stimulating. ANTONYMS: (n)
deterrent, sedative.
unflinching: (adj) resolute, steadfast,
undaunted, firm, unfaltering,
determined, dauntless, intrepid,
undeviating, constant, unswerving.
windless: (v) breathless; (n) calmer.
98
exhibited Henchard's bad bread in public when Elizabeth and her mother
entered Casterbridge.%
"Be cust if I'd marry any such as he, or thee either," replied that lady. "As for
thee, Christopher, we know what ye be, and the less said the better. And as for
he--well, there--(lowering her voice) 'tis said 'a was a poor parish 'prentice--I
wouldn't say it for all the world--but 'a was a poor parish 'prentice, that began
life wi' no more belonging to 'en than a carrion crow."
"And now he's worth ever so much a minute," murmured Longways. "When
a man is said to be worth so much a minute, he's a man to be considered!"
Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases, and recognized the
smiling countenance of the fat woman who had asked for another song at the
Three Mariners. "Well, Mother Cuxsom," he said, "how's this? Here's Mrs.
Newson, a mere skellinton, has got another husband to keep her, while a woman
of your tonnage have not."
"I have not. Nor another to beat me....Ah, yes, Cuxsom's gone, and so shall
leather breeches!"
"Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go."
"'Tisn't worth my old while to think of another husband," continued Mrs.
Cuxsom. "And yet I'll lay my life I'm as respectable born as she."
"True; your mother was a very good woman--I can mind her. She were
rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having begot the greatest number of
healthy children without parish assistance, and other virtuous marvels."
"'Twas that that kept us so low upon ground--that great hungry family."
"Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin."
"And dostn't mind how mother would sing, Christopher?" continued Mrs.
Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; "and how we went with her to the party
at Mellstock, do ye mind?-- at old Dame Ledlow's, farmer Shinar's aunt, do ye
mind?-- she we used to call Toad-skin, because her face were so yaller and
freckled, do ye mind?"
Thesaurus
carrion: (n) carcass, offal, dead body,
corpse, filth, ket, any filth, caroigne;
(adj) garbage.
freckled: (adj) speckled, mottled,
discolored, freckly, flecked,
lentiginose, lentiginous, marked,
blemished, pitted; (v) studded.
ANTONYM: (adj) plain.
kindling: (n) combustion, firing,
ignition, lighting, tinder, fire,
firewood, dismissal; (v) ignite,
agitate, kindle.
reticulated: (adj, v) reticular; (adj)
ANTONYM: (adj) frustrated.
tonnage: (adj) capacity; (n) tunnage,
netted, webby, latticelike,
cancellated, webbed, clathrate,
registered tonnage, shipping, cargo,
interrelated, cancellate, latticed; (v)
duty, fleet, freight, navigation,
retiform.
portage, porterage.
retrospection: (n) memory,
virtuous: (adj) upright, pure,
reminiscence, remembering, revision, righteous, good, moral, just,
looking back, recurrence.
honorable, honest, respectable,
rewarded: (v) crowned, honored,
decent, pious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
excessive, consummated; (adj)
bad, sinful, corrupt, impure,
salaried, pleased, paid, happy,
unethical, decadent, degenerate,
satisfied, remunerated, content.
irreverent.
Thomas Hardy
99
"I do, hee-hee, I do!" said Christopher Coney.%
"And well do I--for I was getting up husband-high at that time--one-half girl,
and t'other half woman, as one may say. And canst mind"--she prodded
Solomon's shoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled between the
crevices of their lids--"canst mind the sherry-wine, and the zilver- snuffers, and
how Joan Dummett was took bad when we were coming home, and Jack Griggs
was forced to carry her through the mud; and how 'a let her fall in Dairyman
Sweet-apple's cow-barton, and we had to clane her gown wi' grass--never such a
mess as a' were in?"
"Ay--that I do--hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them ancient days, to
be sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then; and now I can hardly step over a
furrow!"
Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the reunited pair-Henchard looking round upon the idlers with that ambiguous gaze of his, which
at one moment seemed to mean satisfaction, and at another fiery disdain.
"Well--there's a difference between 'em, though he do call himself a
teetotaller," said Nance Mockridge. "She'll wish her cake dough afore she's done
of him. There's a blue- beardy look about 'en; and 'twill out in time."
"Stuff--he's well enough! Some folk want their luck buttered. If I had a
choice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn't wish for a better man. A poor
twanking woman like her--'tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair of jumps or
night-rail to her name."
The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, and the idlers dispersed.
"Well, we hardly know how to look at things in these times!" said Solomon.
"There was a man dropped down dead yesterday, not so very many miles from
here; and what wi' that, and this moist weather, 'tis scarce worth one's while to
begin any work o' consequence to-day. I'm in such a low key with drinking
nothing but small table ninepenny this last week or two that I shall call and
warm up at the Mar'ners as I pass along."
Thesaurus
beardy: (adj) bearded.
disdain: (n, v) despise, contemn,
slight, ridicule; (n) contempt,
derision, arrogance, haughtiness,
pride; (v) scoff, disparage.
ANTONYMS: (n) humility,
admiration, reverence, worship,
approval, regard; (v) approve,
admire, praise, accept, participate.
dispersed: (adj) sparse, spread,
distributed, scattered, diffused,
scatter, outspread, disseminated,
split, dissipated, separate.
dough: (n) cash, money, batter, kale,
lucre, pastry, pelf, shekels, gelt; (adj)
clay, butter.
godsend: (n) windfall, blessing, boon,
luck, fluke, bunce, bonus, blessings,
benefit, waif, incentive.
ANTONYMS: (n) disadvantage,
disaster, misfortune.
jumps: (n) fit, nervousness, tension,
anxiety, jitters.
miles: (adj) far.
moist: (adj) damp, wet, muggy,
clammy, dank, damps, dampish,
soggy, soppy, wettish, moisture.
ANTONYMS: (adj) dry, limp, fresh.
reminiscences: (n) memoirs.
scarce: (adj) rare, insufficient, deficient,
infrequent, uncommon, scant, scanty,
few, sparse; (adv) just, barely.
ANTONYMS: (adj) plentiful,
common, adequate, strong, usual,
extensive.
snuffers: (n) pair of scissors.
100
"I don't know but that I may as well go with 'ee, Solomon," said Christopher;
"I'm as clammy as a cockle-snail."%
Thesaurus
clammy: (adj) viscous, sweaty, sticky,
muggy, moist, humid, damp, viscid,
sultry, dank; (n) ropy. ANTONYMS:
(adj) arid, dried, fresh.
don't: (adv) not; (n) taboo, prohibition.
Thomas Hardy
101
CHAPTER 14
A Martinmas summer of Mrs. Henchard's life set in with her entry into her
husband's large house and respectable social orbit; and it was as bright as such
summers well can be. Lest she should pine for deeper affection than he could
give he made a point of showing some semblance of it in external action.
Among other things he had the iron railings, that had smiled sadly in dull rust
for the last eighty years, painted a bright green, and the heavy-barred, smallpaned Georgian sash windows enlivened with three coats of white. He was as
kind to her as a man, mayor, and churchwarden could possibly be. The house
was large, the rooms lofty, and the landings wide; and the two unassuming
women scarcely made a perceptible addition to its contents.%
To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most triumphant one. The freedom she
experienced, the indulgence with which she was treated, went beyond her
expectations. The reposeful, easy, affluent life to which her mother's marriage
had introduced her was, in truth, the beginning of a great change in Elizabeth.
She found she could have nice personal possessions and ornaments for the
asking, and, as the mediaeval saying puts it, "Take, have, and keep, are pleasant
words." With peace of mind came development, and with development beauty.
Knowledge--the result of great natural insight--she did not lack; learning,
accomplishment-- those, alas, she had not; but as the winter and spring passed
by her thin face and figure filled out in rounder and softer curves; the lines and
Thesaurus
enlivened: (adj) bouncy, active,
spirited, alive, bouncing.
landings: (n) landing.
mediaeval: (adj) medieval, knightly,
chivalric, nonmodern.
perceptible: (adj) conspicuous,
appreciable, evident, discernible,
obvious, visible, palpable, apparent,
detectable, manifest, observable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) intangible,
unclear, inaudible, inconspicuous,
obscure, undetectable, invisible.
railings: (n) railing, fencing, paling,
resemblance, appearance, look,
inclosure, lattice, enclosure.
aspect, air, image, similarity,
reposeful: (adj) restful, relaxing, calm, pretense, guise, pretext. ANTONYM:
(n) difference.
quieter.
rounder: (n) debauchee, debaucher,
unassuming: (adj) humble, retiring,
fornicator, libertine, philanderer,
unobtrusive, lowly, quiet, diffident,
blood, rake, adulterer, ravisher, rip,
unpretentious, meek, simple,
seducer.
inconspicuous, unaffected.
rust: (v) corrode, eat, oxidise, tarnish,
ANTONYMS: (adj) conspicuous,
oxidize, gnaw; (n) decay, corrosion,
elaborate, bold, confident,
fungus, oxidation; (adj) rusty.
presumptuous, pretentious, brash,
semblance: (adj, n) color; (n)
wild.
102
contractions upon her young brow went away; the muddiness of skin which she
had looked upon as her lot by nature departed with a change to abundance of
good things, and a bloom came upon her cheek. Perhaps, too, her grey,
thoughtful eyes revealed an arch gaiety sometimes; but this was infrequent; the
sort of wisdom which looked from their pupils did not readily keep company
with these lighter moods. Like all people who have known rough times, lightheartedness seemed to her too irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in
except as a reckless dram now and then; for she had been too early habituated to
anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly. She felt none of those ups and
downs of spirit which beset so many people without cause; never--to paraphrase
a recent poet--never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well knew how it
came there; and her present cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to her solid
guarantees for the same.%
It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming goodlooking, comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her life
commanding ready money, she would go and make a fool of herself by dress.
But no. The reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth did was nowhere
more conspicuous than in this question of clothes. To keep in the rear of
opportunity in matters of indulgence is as valuable a habit as to keep abreast of
opportunity in matters of enterprise. This unsophisticated girl did it by an innate
perceptiveness that was almost genius. Thus she refrained from bursting out
like a water-flower that spring, and clothing herself in puffings and knickknacks, as most of the Casterbridge girls would have done in her circumstances.
Her triumph was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse fear
of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the
thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression.
"I won't be too gay on any account," she would say to herself. "It would be
tempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, and afflict us again as He
used to do."
We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk spencer, dark
dress, and carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew the line at fringe,
Thesaurus
beset: (v) beleaguer, afflict, assault,
siege, molest, worry, attack, plague,
obsess, assail; (adv, v) surround.
circumspection: (n) care, wariness,
chariness, cautiousness, calculation,
precaution, vigilance, discernment,
judgment; (adj, n) discretion,
prudence. ANTONYM: (n)
recklessness.
circumstanced: (adj) conditioned.
coulter: (n) colter; (adj) plowshare.
habituated: (v) given to, addicted to,
attuned to; (adj, v) used to; (adj)
addicted, wont, trained, inured, used,
inveterate, hardened. ANTONYM:
(adj) untrained.
inconsequent: (adj) inconsequential,
irrelevant, unimportant, desultory,
incoherent, immaterial, discrepant,
petty, inconsistency, disjointed,
illegitimate.
light-heartedness: (n) cheerfulness,
happiness, levity.
muddiness: (n) turbidity, murkiness,
turbidness, mistiness, haziness, fog,
opacity, opaqueness, sloppiness,
dirtiness, obscurity. ANTONYMS: (n)
clarity, cleanliness, cleanness.
perceptiveness: (n) discernment,
perceptivity, delicacy, judgment,
discrimination, insight, culture,
connoisseurship, appreciation, taste,
perception.
sunshade: (n) awning, canopy,
parasol, shade, sunblind, marquee,
umbrella, tilt, blind, covering, tent.
Thomas Hardy
103
and had it plain edged, with a little ivory ring for keeping it closed. It was odd
about the necessity for that sunshade. She discovered that with the clarification
of her complexion and the birth of pink cheeks her skin had grown more
sensitive to the sun's rays. She protected those cheeks forthwith, deeming
spotlessness part of womanliness.%
Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more
frequently than with her mother now. Her appearance one day was so attractive
that he looked at her critically.
"I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up," she faltered, thinking
him perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright trimming she had donned for
the first time.
"Ay--of course--to be sure," he replied in his leonine way. "Do as you like--or
rather as your mother advises ye. 'Od send--I've nothing to say to't!"
Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that arched like a
white rainbow from ear to ear. All in front of this line was covered with a thick
encampment of curls; all behind was dressed smoothly, and drawn to a knob.
The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast one day, and
Henchard was looking silently, as he often did, at this head of hair, which in
colour was brown--rather light than dark. "I thought Elizabeth-Jane's hair--didn't
you tell me that Elizabeth-Jane's hair promised to be black when she was a
baby?" he said to his wife.
She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, "Did I?"
As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. "Begad,
I nearly forgot myself just now! What I meant was that the girl's hair certainly
looked as if it would be darker, when she was a baby."
"It did; but they alter so," replied Susan.
"Their hair gets darker, I know--but I wasn't aware it lightened ever?"
"O yes." And the same uneasy expression came out on her face, to which the
future held the key. It passed as Henchard went on:
Thesaurus
arched: (adj, v) bowed, arcuate; (adj)
bent, vaulted, convex, arciform,
arced, domed, hooked, hunched,
crooked.
complexion: (n, v) tint; (n) cast,
character, appearance, look, hue,
aspect, flush, glow, dye, fashion.
curls: (n) hair, tresses, ringlets.
deeming: (v) deem.
dissatisfied: (adj) discontent,
disgruntled, disappointed, put out,
displeased, malcontent, grumpy,
annoyed, disaffected; (adj, v)
thread, fascia, belt.
spotlessness: (n) immaculateness,
querulous, complaining.
ANTONYMS: (adj) content,
purity, innocence, cleanliness,
contented, happy, fulfilled, gratified, hygiene, wholesomeness, sanitation.
ANTONYMS: (n) dirtiness, impurity.
pleased, idealistic.
encampment: (n) camp, campsite,
trimming: (n) decoration, dressing,
bivouac, campground, camping site,
adornment, ornament, fringe, border,
camping ground, camping,
clipping, cutting, frill, edging, lace.
cantonment, barracks, camping area, warningly: (adv) exemplarily,
bivouacking.
threateningly, menacingly,
ribbon: (n) band, riband, tape, strip,
admonishingly, in a sinister way,
shred, decoration, medal, ribband,
forebodingly.
104
"Well, so much the better. Now Susan, I want to have her called Miss
Henchard--not Miss Newson. Lots o' people do it already in carelessness--it is
her legal name--so it may as well be made her usual name--I don't like t'other
name at all for my own flesh and blood. I'll advertise it in the Casterbridge
paper--that's the way they do it. She won't object."
"No. O no. But--"
"Well, then, I shall do it," he said, peremptorily. "Surely, if she's willing, you
must wish it as much as I?"
"O yes--if she agrees let us do it by all means," she replied.%
Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently; it might have been
called falsely, but that her manner was emotional and full of the earnestness of
one who wishes to do right at great hazard. She went to Elizabeth-Jane, whom
she found sewing in her own sitting-room upstairs, and told her what had been
proposed about her surname. "Can you agree--is it not a slight upon Newson-now he's dead and gone?"
Elizabeth reflected. "I'll think of it, mother," she answered.
When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she adverted to the matter at once,
in a way which showed that the line of feeling started by her mother had been
persevered in. "Do you wish this change so very much, sir?" she asked.
"Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, what an ado you women make about a
trifle! I proposed it--that's all. Now, 'Lizabeth-Jane, just please yourself. Curse
me if I care what you do. Now, you understand, don't 'ee go agreeing to it to
please me."
Here the subject dropped, and nothing more was said, and nothing was done,
and Elizabeth still passed as Miss Newson, and not by her legal name.
Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conducted by Henchard throve
under the management of Donald Farfrae as it had never thriven before. It had
formerly moved in jolts; now it went on oiled casters. The old crude viva voce
system of Henchard, in which everything depended upon his memory, and
bargains were made by the tongue alone, was swept away. Letters and ledgers
Thesaurus
elizabeth: (n) Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II. conflictingly, discrepantly,
falsely: (adv) incorrectly, fraudulently, inconstantly, incompatibly, unevenly,
preposterously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
deceptively, dishonestly, wrongly,
erroneously, misleadingly,
constantly, logically, systematically,
deceitfully, unfaithfully, spuriously,
reliably, steadily.
fictitiously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
oiled: (adj) intoxicated, oily.
ANTONYM: (adj) unoiled.
honestly, truthfully, faithfully,
peremptorily: (adv) absolutely,
authentically, correctly, naturally,
rightly.
positively, imperatively, flatly,
inconsistently: (adv) illogically,
dogmatically, magisterially,
irrationally, contradictorily,
commandingly, imperiously,
incongruously, irregularly,
authoritatively, decidedly, decisively.
sewing: (n) embroidery, sew,
needlecraft, stitch, stitching,
fancywork, mend, gather, patch,
gathering, binding.
surname: (n) cognomen, name,
sobriquet, family name, soubriquet,
last name, nickname, maiden name,
moniker, first name, agnomen.
swept: (adj) clean.
viva: (n) hail, encore, all hail,
Godspeed, honor be to, glory be to,
long life to, Ave, bis, oral, oral exam.
Thomas Hardy
105
took the place of "I'll do't," and "you shall hae't"; and, as in all such cases of
advance, the rugged picturesqueness of the old method disappeared with its
inconveniences.%
The position of Elizabeth-Jane's room--rather high in the house, so that it
commanded a view of the hay-stores and granaries across the garden--afforded
her opportunity for accurate observation of what went on there. She saw that
Donald and Mr. Henchard were inseparables. When walking together Henchard
would lay his arm familiarly on his manager's shoulder, as if Farfrae were a
younger brother, bearing so heavily that his slight frame bent under the weight.
Occasionally she would hear a perfect cannonade of laughter from Henchard,
arising from something Donald had said, the latter looking quite innocent and
not laughing at all. In Henchard's somewhat lonely life he evidently found the
young man as desirable for comradeship as he was useful for consultations.
Donald's brightness of intellect maintained in the corn-factor the admiration it
had won at the first hour of their meeting. The poor opinion, and but illconcealed, that he entertained of the slim Farfrae's physical girth, strength, and
dash was more than counterbalanced by the immense respect he had for his
brains.
Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard's tigerish affection for the younger
man, his constant liking to have Farfrae near him, now and then resulted in a
tendency to domineer, which, however, was checked in a moment when Donald
exhibited marks of real offence. One day, looking down on their figures from on
high, she heard the latter remark, as they stood in the doorway between the
garden and yard, that their habit of walking and driving about together rather
neutralized Farfrae's value as a second pair of eyes, which should be used in
places where the principal was not. "'Od damn it," cried Henchard, "what's all
the world! I like a fellow to talk to. Now come along and hae some supper, and
don't take too much thought about things, or ye'll drive me crazy."
When she walked with her mother, on the other hand, she often beheld the
Scotchman looking at them with a curious interest. The fact that he had met her
at the Three Mariners was insufficient to account for it, since on the occasions on
Thesaurus
arising: (n) emanation.
cannonade: (v) bombard, bomb, roll,
assail; (n) barrage, fire, storm,
thunder, siege, obsession, boom.
commanded: (adj) lawful.
comradeship: (adj, n) companionship;
(n) camaraderie, company,
friendship, society, fellowship,
comradery, amity, fraternity,
association, brotherhood.
ANTONYM: (n) animosity.
counterbalanced: (adj) counterpoised.
domineer: (v) browbeat, dominate,
intimidate, tyrannize, bluster, dictate,
swagger, threaten, predominate, lord,
command. ANTONYMS: (v) yield,
surrender, submit.
entertained: (adj) diverted, pleased.
familiarly: (adv) intimately, usually,
ordinarily, nearly, frequently,
commonly, regularly, informally,
closely, acquaintedly, conventionally.
ANTONYM: (adv) distantly.
girth: (n) width, belt, circumference,
fatness, bellyband; (n, v) cinch; (v)
begird, girdle, gird, encircle, enclose.
neutralized: (adj) safe, ineffective,
neutral.
rugged: (adj, n) rough, jagged, ragged;
(adj) difficult, rocky, tough, broken,
robust, hilly, strong, craggy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) delicate, easy,
smooth, flimsy, fragile, soft, weak,
feeble.
tigerish: (adj) ferocious, merciless,
fierce, unmerciful.
106
which she had entered his room he had never raised his eyes. Besides, it was at
her mother more particularly than at herself that he looked, to Elizabeth- Jane's
half-conscious, simple-minded, perhaps pardonable, disappointment. Thus she
could not account for this interest by her own attractiveness, and she decided
that it might be apparent only--a way of turning his eyes that Mr. Farfrae had.%
She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner, without personal
vanity, that was afforded by the fact of Donald being the depositary of
Henchard's confidence in respect of his past treatment of the pale, chastened
mother who walked by her side. Her conjectures on that past never went further
than faint ones based on things casually heard and seen--mere guesses that
Henchard and her mother might have been lovers in their younger days, who
had quarrelled and parted.
Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place deposited in the block upon a
corn-field.
There was no suburb in the modern sense, or transitional
intermixture of town and down. It stood, with regard to the wide fertile land
adjoining, clean-cut and distinct, like a chess-board on a green tablecloth. The
farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow and pitch a stone into the officewindow of the town-clerk; reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to
acquaintances standing on the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he
condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that floated
in at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at
executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the drop,
out of which the cows had been temporarily driven to give the spectators room.
The corn grown on the upland side of the borough was garnered by farmers
who lived in an eastern purlieu called Durnover. Here wheat-ricks overhung the
old Roman street, and thrust their eaves against the church tower; greenthatched barns, with doorways as high as the gates of Solomon's temple, opened
directly upon the main thoroughfare. Barns indeed were so numerous as to
alternate with every half-dozen houses along the way. Here lived burgesses who
daily walked the fallow; shepherds in an intra-mural squeeze. A street of
farmers' homesteads--a street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoing
Thesaurus
acquaintances: (n) associates.
unbroken, uncultivated, citrine,
chastened: (v) lamblike, resigned,
aureate, idle, unplanted, unseeded;
content; (adj) refined, reprimanded,
(n) tillage, tilth. ANTONYMS: (adj)
rebuked, reproved, subdued,
planted, fertile, cultivated, active,
contrite, remorseful.
prolific, creative.
clean-cut: (adj) express, good-looking, intermixture: (n) concoction,
distinct, definite, specific, explicit,
admixture, mix, mixture, alloy,
trim, crisp, handsome.
commixture, blend, filling, dough,
depositary: (n) depository, trustee,
commixion, batter.
pardonable: (adj, v) defensible; (adj)
consignee, keeper, committee,
deposit, storehouse, custodian.
forgivable, justifiable, venial,
fallow: (adj) dormant, yellow,
remissible, allowed, not heinous,
understandable, veniable, explicable.
ANTONYM: (adj) unpardonable.
purlieu: (n) skirt, suburb, fringe,
periphery, neighborhood, environs,
distance, land, limit, resort, hang-out.
simple-minded: (adj) silly, naive,
stupid, foolish, guileless, dumb,
plain, innocent, retarded, dull.
thoroughfare: (n) road, street,
highway, avenue, passage, way,
route, path, boulevard, track,
roadway.
Thomas Hardy
107
with the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, and the purr of the
milk into the pails--a street which had nothing urban in it whatever--this was the
Durnover end of Casterbridge.%
Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with this nursery or bed of small
farmers close at hand--and his waggons were often down that way. One day,
when arrangements were in progress for getting home corn from one of the
aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Jane received a note by hand, asking her to oblige the
writer by coming at once to a granary on Durnover Hill. As this was the granary
whose contents Henchard was removing, she thought the request had something
to do with his business, and proceeded thither as soon as she had put on her
bonnet. The granary was just within the farm-yard, and stood on stone staddles,
high enough for persons to walk under. The gates were open, but nobody was
within. However, she entered and waited. Presently she saw a figure
approaching the gate--that of Donald Farfrae. He looked up at the church clock,
and came in. By some unaccountable shyness, some wish not to meet him there
alone, she quickly ascended the step-ladder leading to the granary door, and
entered it before he had seen her. Farfrae advanced, imagining himself in
solitude, and a few drops of rain beginning to fall he moved and stood under the
shelter where she had just been standing. Here he leant against one of the
staddles, and gave himself up to patience. He, too, was plainly expecting some
one; could it be herself? If so, why? In a few minutes he looked at his watch, and
then pulled out a note, a duplicate of the one she had herself received.
This situation began to be very awkward, and the longer she waited the more
awkward it became. To emerge from a door just above his head and descend the
ladder, and show she had been in hiding there, would look so very foolish that
she still waited on. A winnowing machine stood close beside her, and to relieve
her suspense she gently moved the handle; whereupon a cloud of wheat husks
flew out into her face, and covered her clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur
of her victorine. He must have heard the slight movement for he looked up, and
then ascended the steps.
Thesaurus
flail: (n, v) maul, flutter, wave; (v)
thrash, flap, thresh, buffet, hit, beat
up, hurt; (n) hammer.
flutter: (adj, n, v) bustle, flurry; (n, v)
beat, palpitate, flap, wave, waver,
quiver; (v) flit, flitter; (n) excitement.
granary: (n) garner, warehouse,
storage, grange, store, storehouse,
cornloft, depot, farm, lathe, entrepot.
purr: (v) hum, whirr, birr, make
vibrant sounds, resonate, sing, whizz;
(n, v) drone, murmur; (n) whine,
buzz.
shyness: (n) diffidence, modesty,
bashfulness, humility, shame,
timidity, coyness, pudency,
timorousness, backwardness,
timidness. ANTONYMS: (n)
sociability, brashness, confidence,
urbanity, arrogance.
suspense: (n) doubt, expectancy,
anticipation, indecision, insecurity,
unrest, expectation, irresolution,
suspension, tension; (adj, n)
hesitation. ANTONYM: (n)
knowledge.
unaccountable: (adj)
incomprehensible, inexplicable,
strange, unintelligible, unexplainable,
mysterious, impenetrable,
undiscoverable, undecipherable,
unknowable, unnatural.
ANTONYMS: (adj) accountable,
explainable, responsible, explicable.
winnowing: (n) separation, sifting,
separate, swathing.
108
"Ah--it's Miss Newson," he said as soon as he could see into the granary. "I
didn't know you were there. I have kept the appointment, and am at your
service."
"O Mr. Farfrae," she faltered, "so have I. But I didn't know it was you who
wished to see me, otherwise I--"
"I wished to see you? O no--at least, that is, I am afraid there may be a
mistake."
"Didn't you ask me to come here? Didn't you write this?" Elizabeth held out
her note.%
"No. Indeed, at no hand would I have thought of it! And for you--didn't you
ask me? This is not your writing?" And he held up his.
"By no means."
"And is that really so! Then it's somebody wanting to see us both. Perhaps
we would do well to wait a little longer."
Acting on this consideration they lingered, Elizabeth-Jane's face being
arranged to an expression of preternatural composure, and the young Scot, at
every footstep in the street without, looking from under the granary to see if the
passer were about to enter and declare himself their summoner. They watched
individual drops of rain creeping down the thatch of the opposite rick--straw
after straw-- till they reached the bottom; but nobody came, and the granary roof
began to drip.
"The person is not likely to be coming," said Farfrae. "It's a trick perhaps, and
if so, it's a great pity to waste our time like this, and so much to be done."
"'Tis a great liberty," said Elizabeth.
"It's true, Miss Newson. We'll hear news of this some day depend on't, and
who it was that did it. I wouldn't stand for it hindering myself; but you, Miss
Newson----"
"I don't mind--much,' she replied.
"Neither do I."
Thesaurus
composure: (n) calmness, serenity,
poise, calm, equanimity, temper,
aplomb, tranquillity, peace,
temperament, disposition.
ANTONYMS: (n) panic,
discomposure, anger, nervousness,
perturbation, anxiety, agitation,
turbulence, awkwardness.
creeping: (n) creep, crawl, locomotion,
spreading; (v) lentor; (adj) reptile,
slow, reptant, reptatory, serpiginous,
moving.
drip: (n, v) drop, trickle, leak, escape;
impedition; (v) hinder.
(n) leakage; (v) distill, weep, seep,
preternatural: (adj) unearthly, occult,
trill, fall, percolate. ANTONYMS: (v) outlandish, miraculous, uncanny,
flow, pour, surge, flood.
transcendental, extraordinary,
drops: (n) tear.
abnormal, weird, nonnatural,
footstep: (n) pace, footfall, track,
otherworldly.
footmark, vestige, tread, trail, stride, summoner: (n) apparitor, Sumner,
degree; (n, v) step, action.
somner.
hindering: (adj) obstructive, clogging, thatch: (n) thatching, roof, Edward
preclusive, meddlesome,
thatch, teach, ceiling, Blackbeard, tile,
impedimental, counter, obstruent,
sea rover, roofing material, sea
blocking up; (n) hindrance,
robber, hair.
Thomas Hardy
109
They lapsed again into silence. "You are anxious to get back to Scotland, I
suppose, Mr. Farfrae?" she inquired.%
"O no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?"
"I only supposed you might be from the song you sang at the Three Mariners-about Scotland and home, I mean--which you seemed to feel so deep down in
your heart; so that we all felt for you."
"Ay--and I did sing there--I did----But, Miss Newson"--and Donald's voice
musically undulated between two semi-tones as it always did when he became
earnest--"it's well you feel a song for a few minutes, and your eyes they get quite
tearful; but you finish it, and for all you felt you don't mind it or think of it again
for a long while. O no, I don't want to go back! Yet I'll sing the song to you wi'
pleasure whenever you like. I could sing it now, and not mind at all?"
"Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go--rain or no."
"Ay! Then, Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and take
no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be civil to him or
her, as if you did not mind it--so you'll take the clever person's laugh away." In
speaking his eyes became fixed upon her dress, still sown with wheat husks.
"There's husks and dust on you. Perhaps you don't know it?" he said, in tones of
extreme delicacy. "And it's very bad to let rain come upon clothes when there's
chaff on them. It washes in and spoils them. Let me help you--blowing is the
best."
As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented Donald Farfrae began blowing
her back hair, and her side hair, and her neck, and the crown of her bonnet, and
the fur of her victorine, Elizabeth saying, "O, thank you," at every puff. At last
she was fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got over his first concern at the
situation, seemed in no manner of hurry to be gone.
"Ah--now I'll go and get ye an umbrella," he said.
She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone. Farfrae walked slowly
after, looking thoughtfully at her diminishing figure, and whistling in
undertones, "As I came down through Cannobie."
Thesaurus
chaff: (v) tease, jest, rally, mock, kid,
jolly, joke; (n) bran, raillery, husk; (n,
v) ridicule.
diminishing: (adj) abating, declining,
dwindling, lessening, waning; (n)
decrease, shrinking, reducing,
reduction; (adv) diminishingly; (v)
diminish. ANTONYMS: (adj)
increasing, growing, burgeoning.
heed: (n, v) consideration, concern,
regard, mind, attention, notice; (n)
caution, advertence, advertency; (v)
attend, hear. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
plunder, haul, swag, pickings,
disregard; (n) inattentiveness.
trophy, boodle, prize money,
hoax: (adj, n) fake; (v) dupe, defraud,
treasure.
gull, kid, bamboozle; (n) fraud,
tearful: (adj) dolorous, maudlin,
deceit; (n, v) humbug, swindle, trick. watery, weeping, teary, sad,
ANTONYM: (adj) real.
dolourous, wet, whimpering,
puff: (adj, n, v) gasp; (n, v) blow, whiff, sorrowful; (v) mournful.
gust, drag; (v) boast, inflate, huff,
ANTONYMS: (adj) cheerful, tearless.
undulated: (adj) undulatory.
heave, brag, distend.
sown: (adj) sowed, seeded, planted,
whistling: (n) whistle, sound, tin
sative.
whistle, music, pennywhistle, sign,
spoils: (n) prize, stolen goods, booty,
signal, signaling.
Thomas Hardy
111
CHAPTER 15
At first Miss Newson's budding beauty was not regarded with much interest
by anybody in Casterbridge. Donald Farfrae's gaze, it is true, was now attracted
by the Mayor's so-called step-daughter, but he was only one. The truth is that
she was but a poor illustrative instance of the prophet Baruch's sly definition:
"The virgin that loveth to go gay."%
When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied with an inner chamber
of ideas, and to have slight need for visible objects. She formed curious resolves
on checking gay fancies in the matter of clothes, because it was inconsistent with
her past life to blossom gaudily the moment she had become possessed of
money. But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere
fancies, and of wants from mere wishes. Henchard gave Elizabeth-Jane a box of
delicately-tinted gloves one spring day. She wanted to wear them to show her
appreciation of his kindness, but she had no bonnet that would harmonize. As
an artistic indulgence she thought she would have such a bonnet. When she had
a bonnet that would go with the gloves she had no dress that would go with the
bonnet. It was now absolutely necessary to finish; she ordered the requisite
article, and found that she had no sunshade to go with the dress. In for a penny
in for a pound; she bought the sunshade, and the whole structure was at last
complete.
Thesaurus
budding: (adj) blossoming, emergent,
green, juvenile, youthful, incipient,
puisne, sappy, under age,
flourishing; (n) shooting.
ANTONYMS: (adj) shrinking,
unlikely, withering.
fancies: (n) stock.
gaudily: (adv) tawdrily, showily,
ostentatiously, gaily, jazzily, loudly,
brightly, luridly, flashily, vividly,
colorfully. ANTONYM: (adv)
modestly.
harmonize: (n, v) correspond; (adj, v)
accord; (v) fit, blend, reconcile,
coincide, consort, adjust, concur,
accommodate, check. ANTONYMS:
(v) conflict, jar.
illustrative: (adj) demonstrative,
descriptive, representative,
expository, exemplary, instructive,
graphic, exemplifying, clarifying, in
point, explicatory.
insidious: (adj) cunning, crafty,
deceitful, deceptive, guileful, subtle,
treacherous, devious; (adj, v) sly,
wily, elusive. ANTONYMS: (adj)
straightforward, harmless.
objects: (n) things, stuff, matter,
material, substance.
requisite: (n) need, necessity,
requirement, must; (adj, n) necessary,
prerequisite; (adj) required,
mandatory, needful, compulsory,
obligatory. ANTONYMS: (adj)
voluntary, optional, dispensable; (n)
inessential, luxury.
112
Everybody was attracted, and some said that her bygone simplicity was the
art that conceals art, the "delicate imposition" of Rochefoucauld; she had
produced an effect, a contrast, and it had been done on purpose. As a matter of
fact this was not true, but it had its result; for as soon as Casterbridge thought
her artful it thought her worth notice. "It is the first time in my life that I have
been so much admired," she said to herself; "though perhaps it is by those whose
admiration is not worth having."
But Donald Farfrae admired her, too; and altogether the time was an exciting
one; sex had never before asserted itself in her so strongly, for in former days she
had perhaps been too impersonally human to be distinctively feminine. After an
unprecedented success one day she came indoors, went upstairs, and leant upon
her bed face downwards quite forgetting the possible creasing and damage.
"Good Heaven," she whispered, "can it be? Here am I setting up as the town
beauty!"
When she had thought it over, her usual fear of exaggerating appearances
engendered a deep sadness. "There is something wrong in all this," she mused.
"If they only knew what an unfinished girl I am--that I can't talk Italian, or use
globes, or show any of the accomplishments they learn at boarding schools, how
they would despise me! Better sell all this finery and buy myself grammarbooks and dictionaries and a history of all the philosophies!"
She looked from the window and saw Henchard and Farfrae in the hay-yard
talking, with that impetuous cordiality on the Mayor's part, and genial modesty
on the younger man's, that was now so generally observable in their intercourse.
Friendship between man and man; what a rugged strength there was in it, as
evinced by these two. And yet the seed that was to lift the foundation of this
friendship was at that moment taking root in a chink of its structure.%
It was about six o'clock; the men were dropping off homeward one by one.
The last to leave was a round-shouldered, blinking young man of nineteen or
twenty, whose mouth fell ajar on the slightest provocation, seemingly because
there was no chin to support it. Henchard called aloud to him as he went out of
the gate, "Here--Abel Whittle!"
Thesaurus
accomplishments: (n) benefit, actions, amity, kindness, amiability; (v)
heartiness. ANTONYMS: (n)
background, Comings and Goings,
deeds, events, happenings, activities. frostiness, disapproval,
artful: (adj) crafty, cunning, scheming, disapprobation, disagreement,
wily, shrewd, insidious, designing,
difference, misunderstanding,
sly, adroit, subtle, disingenuous.
hostility, rudeness.
ANTONYMS: (adj) artless, unskillful, creasing: (n) scoring.
finery: (n) regalia, clothing, attire,
inept, ingenuous, unskilled, open,
straight.
decoration, dress, pinchbeck,
cordiality: (adj, n) friendliness,
spangle, trimmings, gimcrack; (adj, n)
geniality, sympathy, sociability; (n)
tinsel, gewgaw. ANTONYM: (n) rags.
impersonally: (adv) indifferently,
hospitality, sincerity, affability,
objectively, impartially,
unemotionally, fairly, distantly,
disinterestedly, coldly, unbiasedly,
detachedly, callously. ANTONYM:
(adv) warmly.
impetuous: (adj) boisterous, hasty,
fiery, headlong, heady, hot, brash,
foolhardy, dashing, fierce; (adj, v)
impulsive. ANTONYMS: (adj)
considered, careful, slow, sensible,
patient.
nineteen: (adj, n) XIX; (n) large integer.
Thomas Hardy
113
Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. "Yes, sir," he said, in breathless
deprecation, as if he knew what was coming next.%
"Once more--be in time to-morrow morning. You see what's to be done, and
you hear what I say, and you know I'm not going to be trifled with any longer."
"Yes, sir." Then Abel Whittle left, and Henchard and Farfrae; and Elizabeth
saw no more of them.
Now there was good reason for this command on Henchard's part. Poor
Abel, as he was called, had an inveterate habit of over-sleeping himself and
coming late to his work. His anxious will was to be among the earliest; but if his
comrades omitted to pull the string that he always tied round his great toe and
left hanging out the window for that purpose, his will was as wind. He did not
arrive in time.
As he was often second hand at the hay-weighing, or at the crane which lifted
the sacks, or was one of those who had to accompany the waggons into the
country to fetch away stacks that had been purchased, this affliction of Abel's
was productive of much inconvenience. For two mornings in the present week
he had kept the others waiting nearly an hour; hence Henchard's threat. It now
remained to be seen what would happen to-morrow.
Six o'clock struck, and there was no Whittle. At half-past six Henchard
entered the yard; the waggon was horsed that Abel was to accompany; and the
other man had been waiting twenty minutes. Then Henchard swore, and Whittle
coming up breathless at that instant, the corn-factor turned on him, and declared
with an oath that this was the last time; that if he were behind once more, by
God, he would come and drag him out o' bed.
"There is sommit wrong in my make, your worshipful!" said Abel, "especially
in the inside, whereas my poor dumb brain gets as dead as a clot afore I've said
my few scrags of prayers. Yes--it came on as a stripling, just afore I'd got man's
wages, whereas I never enjoy my bed at all, for no sooner do I lie down than I be
asleep, and afore I be awake I be up. I've fretted my gizzard green about it,
Thesaurus
affliction: (n, v) adversity; (n) distress, denigration, calumny, aspersion,
regret, martyrdom, torment, curse,
censure, disfavour, denunciation,
blame, criticism. ANTONYMS: (n)
trial, bane, misadventure, sorrow,
agony. ANTONYMS: (n) gift,
approval, commendation.
fretted: (adj) latticed, haggard,
godsend, solace, blessing.
clot: (n, v) clod; (n) coagulum, gob,
magged, latticelike, reticulated,
mass; (v) congeal, clog, coagulate,
reticular, interlaced. ANTONYM:
(adj) unfretted.
clabber, cake, set, solidify.
ANTONYMS: (v) loose, thin, flow,
gizzard: (n) gastric mill, craw, crop,
homogenize, soften; (n) opening.
pocket, pouch, ventricle, breadbasket,
deprecation: (n) defamation,
paunch, ventriculus, maw, venter.
inveterate: (adj) incorrigible,
condemnation, disparagement,
confirmed, chronic, ingrained, old,
irredeemable; (adj, v) fixed; (v)
rooted, ingrafted, hackneyed; (n)
ineffaceable.
stripling: (n) lad, boy, adolescent,
teenager, youth, rocker, youngster,
young man, child, pachuco; (adj)
younker.
waggon: (n) wagon, cart, lorry, wain,
dray, station wagon, beach wagon,
beach waggon, station waggon,
bandwagon, milkwagon.
114
maister, but what can I do? Now last night, afore I went to bed, I only had a
scantling o' cheese and--"
"I don't want to hear it!" roared Henchard. "To-morrow the waggons must
start at four, and if you're not here, stand clear. I'll mortify thy flesh for thee!"
"But let me clear up my points, your worshipful----"
Henchard turned away.%
"He asked me and he questioned me, and then 'a wouldn't hear my points!"
said Abel, to the yard in general. "Now, I shall twitch like a moment-hand all
night to-night for fear o' him!"
The journey to be taken by the waggons next day was a long one into
Blackmoor Vale, and at four o'clock lanterns were moving about the yard. But
Abel was missing. Before either of the other men could run to Abel's and warn
him Henchard appeared in the garden doorway. "Where's Abel Whittle? Not
come after all I've said? Now I'll carry out my word, by my blessed fathers-nothing else will do him any good! I'm going up that way."
Henchard went off, entered Abel's house, a little cottage in Back Street, the
door of which was never locked because the inmates had nothing to lose.
Reaching Whittle's bedside the corn-factor shouted a bass note so vigorously that
Abel started up instantly, and beholding Henchard standing over him, was
galvanized into spasmodic movements which had not much relation to getting
on his clothes.
"Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, or you leave my employ to-day! 'Tis
to teach ye a lesson. March on; never mind your breeches!"
The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve waistcoat, and managed to get into
his boots at the bottom of the stairs, while Henchard thrust his hat over his head.
Whittle then trotted on down Back Street, Henchard walking sternly behind.
Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard's house to look for him,
came out of the back gate, and saw something white fluttering in the morning
gloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel's shirt that showed below his
waistcoat.
Thesaurus
beholding: (n) fusion, seeing, visual
perception, look.
fluttering: (adj) flying, palpitating,
flittering, flaring, aflare, waving; (n)
flutter, flapping, flicker, flitting; (adv)
flutteringly.
mortify: (v) humble, disgrace, abase,
crush, embarrass, degrade, shame,
demean, depress; (n, v) chagrin; (adj,
v) confuse.
scantling: (n) pattern, modicum,
model, prototype, ideal, bit, whit,
morsel, standard, mite; (adj) inch.
shouted: (adj) screamed, loud.
sleeve: (n) arm, liner, cover, cuff,
wristband, collar, socket, skin,
sheath; (v) plexus, skein.
spasmodic: (adj) spastic, convulsive,
intermittent, erratic, broken,
irregular, sporadic, desultory,
sudden, discontinuous; (v)
inconsonant. ANTONYM: (adj)
continuous.
sternly: (adv) severely, strictly,
austerely, harshly, rigidly, grimly,
rigorously, stringently, seriously,
relentlessly, solemnly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) leniently, lightheartedly, kindly,
warmly, cheerfully.
twitch: (n, v) twinge, pull, yank, pluck,
tug, tweak, wrench, pinch, start; (v)
draw, nip.
waistcoat: (n) CHUDDER, barbe,
garment, jerkin, jubbah, oilskins,
pilot jacket, pajamas, cardigan,
singlet, talma jacket.
Thomas Hardy
115
"For maircy's sake, what object's this?" said Farfrae, following Abel into the
yard, Henchard being some way in the rear by this time.%
"Ye see, Mr. Farfrae," gibbered Abel with a resigned smile of terror, "he said
he'd mortify my flesh if so be I didn't get up sooner, and now he's a-doing on't!
Ye see it can't be helped, Mr. Farfrae; things do happen queer sometimes! Yes-I'll go to Blackmoor Vale half naked as I be, since he do command; but I shall kill
myself afterwards; I can't outlive the disgrace, for the women-folk will be
looking out of their winders at my mortification all the way along, and laughing
me to scorn as a man 'ithout breeches! You know how I feel such things, Maister
Farfrae, and how forlorn thoughts get hold upon me. Yes--I shall do myself
harm--I feel it coming on!"
"Get back home, and slip on your breeches, and come to wark like a man! If
ye go not, you'll ha'e your death standing there!"
"I'm afeard I mustn't! Mr. Henchard said----"
"I don't care what Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else!
foolishness to do this. Go and dress yourself instantly Whittle."
"Hullo, hullo!" said Henchard, coming up behind.
back?"
'Tis simple
"Who's sending him
All the men looked towards Farfrae.
"I am," said Donald. "I say this joke has been carried far enough."
"And I say it hasn't! Get up in the waggon, Whittle."
"Not if I am manager," said Farfrae. "He either goes home, or I march out of
this yard for good."
Henchard looked at him with a face stern and red. But he paused for a
moment, and their eyes met. Donald went up to him, for he saw in Henchard's
look that he began to regret this.
"Come," said Donald quietly, "a man o' your position should ken better, sir!
It is tyrannical and no worthy of you."
Thesaurus
afeard: (adj) afraid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) happy, hopeful,
foolishness: (n) folly, fatuity,
fine.
hullo: (n) hi, hello, greeting, hallo,
craziness, nonsense, stupidity,
indiscretion, ineptitude, mistake,
salutation, hollo, Hawaii, aloha state.
fatuousness, irrationality; (adj, n)
mortification: (n) chagrin,
silliness. ANTONYMS: (n) prudence, embarrassment, shame, gangrene,
sense, sensibleness, understanding,
disappointment, disgrace, corruption,
necrosis, degradation; (adj, n)
forethought, responsibility.
forlorn: (adj) hopeless, desolate,
vexation; (adj) grievance.
outlive: (v) survive, live, endure,
despairing, unhappy, miserable,
deserted, disconsolate, downcast,
overlive, live through, make it,
cheerless, wretched, abject.
overbide, overcome, remain,
supervive, subsist.
queer: (adj) fantastic, odd, eccentric,
funny, curious, gay, peculiar, strange,
quaint, fishy, outlandish.
ANTONYMS: (adj) conventional,
normal, well.
tyrannical: (adj) domineering,
autocratic, despotic, dictatorial,
overbearing, authoritarian,
tyrannous, cruel, peremptory,
tyrannic, lordly. ANTONYMS: (adj)
liberal, libertarian.
116
"'Tis not tyrannical!" murmured Henchard, like a sullen boy. "It is to make
him remember!" He presently added, in a tone of one bitterly hurt: "Why did you
speak to me before them like that, Farfrae? You might have stopped till we were
alone. Ah--I know why! I've told ye the secret o' my life-- fool that I was to do't-and you take advantage of me!"
"I had forgot it," said Farfrae simply.%
Henchard looked on the ground, said nothing more, and turned away.
During the day Farfrae learnt from the men that Henchard had kept Abel's old
mother in coals and snuff all the previous winter, which made him less
antagonistic to the corn-factor. But Henchard continued moody and silent, and
when one of the men inquired of him if some oats should be hoisted to an upper
floor or not, he said shortly, "Ask Mr. Farfrae. He's master here!"
Morally he was; there could be no doubt of it. Henchard, who had hitherto
been the most admired man in his circle, was the most admired no longer. One
day the daughters of a deceased farmer in Durnover wanted an opinion of the
value of their haystack, and sent a messenger to ask Mr. Farfrae to oblige them
with one. The messenger, who was a child, met in the yard not Farfrae, but
Henchard.
"Very well," he said. "I'll come."
"But please will Mr. Farfrae come?" said the child.
"I am going that way....Why Mr. Farfrae?" said Henchard, with the fixed look
of thought. "Why do people always want Mr. Farfrae?"
"I suppose because they like him so--that's what they say."
"Oh--I see--that's what they say--hey? They like him because he's cleverer
than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more; and, in short, Mr. Henchard
can't hold a candle to him-- hey?"
"Yes--that's just it, sir--some of it."
"Oh, there's more? Of course there's more! What besides? Come, here's a
sixpence for a fairing."
Thesaurus
antagonistic: (adj) counter, opposite,
opposed, conflicting, averse, warlike,
inimical, unfriendly, repugnant,
contrary; (adj, v) adverse.
ANTONYMS: (adj) synergistic,
conciliating, peaceable, peaceful,
compatible, agreeable, sympathetic.
coals: (n) ashes, fire, residue, embers.
haystack: (n) rick, haycock, stack,
crick, cock, standing wave.
learnt: (adj) learned.
messenger: (n, v) herald; (n) harbinger,
runner, emissary, bearer,
hinder.
sixpence: (n) bender, coin, teston,
ambassador, precursor, courier,
carrier, apostle, errand.
testern.
moody: (adj) gloomy, dark, irritable,
snuff: (v) smell, kill, douse, slay, scent,
morose, capricious, glum, grumpy,
snuffle, bump off, smother, snort;
(adj) tobacco, nicotine.
fickle, petulant, dour, sullen.
ANTONYMS: (adj) equable, happy, sullen: (adj, n) morose, sulky, sour;
(adj) gloomy, gruff, glum, moody,
reliable, stable, calm.
oblige: (v) coerce, force, drive,
dark, cross, surly; (adj, v) grim.
constrain, make, bind, accommodate, ANTONYMS: (adj) bright, cheery; (n)
obligate, necessitate, enforce, impel.
cheeriness.
ANTONYMS: (v) displease, request,
Thomas Hardy
117
"'And he's better tempered, and Henchard's a fool to him,' they say. And
when some of the women were a-walking home they said, 'He's a diment--he's a
chap o' wax--he's the best--he's the horse for my money,' says they. And they
said, 'He's the most understanding man o' them two by long chalks. I wish he
was the master instead of Henchard,' they said."
"They'll talk any nonsense," Henchard replied with covered gloom. "Well,
you can go now. And I am coming to value the hay, d'ye hear?--I." The boy
departed, and Henchard murmured, "Wish he were master here, do they?"
He went towards Durnover. On his way he overtook Farfrae. They walked
on together, Henchard looking mostly on the ground.%
"You're no yoursel' the day?" Donald inquired.
"Yes, I am very well," said Henchard.
"But ye are a bit down--surely ye are down? Why, there's nothing to be angry
about! 'Tis splendid stuff that we've got from Blackmoor Vale. By the by, the
people in Durnover want their hay valued."
"Yes. I am going there."
"I'll go with ye."
As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a piece of music sotto voce, till,
getting near the bereaved people's door, he stopped himself with-"Ah, as their father is dead I won't go on with such as that. How could I
forget?"
"Do you care so very much about hurting folks' feelings?" observed
Henchard with a half sneer. "You do, I know-- especially mine!"
"I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir," replied Donald, standing still, with a
second expression of the same sentiment in the regretfulness of his face. "Why
should you say it--think it?"
The cloud lifted from Henchard's brow, and as Donald finished the cornmerchant turned to him, regarding his breast rather than his face.
Thesaurus
bereaved: (v) minus, cut off, deprive,
divest, denuded; (adj) grieving,
mourning, sad, sorrowing, orbate.
brow: (n) peak, brink, brows, height,
summit, forehead, eyebrow, edge,
crown, brim, border. ANTONYM: (n)
trough.
departed: (adj) dead, bygone, late,
former, bypast, defunct, past, left;
(adj, v) gone, extinct; (n) decedent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) remaining, alive.
folks: (n) people, folk, tribe, relations,
household, house, relatives, relative,
feeling, persuasion, opinion,
kindred, lineage, kin.
judgment, sense, judgement, attitude,
hurting: (adj) aching, painful, tender;
impression.
(n) hurt, ache, sting, pain, colic,
sneer: (n, v) deride, jeer, scorn, flout,
dysmenorrhea, agony; (v) causing
ridicule, scoff, mock, leer, grimace,
pain. ANTONYM: (adj) painless.
gird; (n) smirk.
practised: (adj) practiced, expert,
tempered: (adj) attempered,
adept, good, trained, proficient,
temperate, moderated, toughened,
seasoned, skilful, skilled, skillful,
subdued, set, enured, proportioned,
versed.
properly adapted, emotionally
regretfulness: (n) nostalgia.
hardened, treated. ANTONYM: (adj)
sentiment: (n) emotion, mind, notion, untempered.
118
"I have been hearing things that vexed me," he said. "'Twas that made me
short in my manner--made me overlook what you really are. Now, I don't want
to go in here about this hay-- Farfrae, you can do it better than I. They sent for
'ee, too. I have to attend a meeting of the Town Council at eleven, and 'tis
drawing on for't."
They parted thus in renewed friendship, Donald forbearing to ask Henchard
for meanings that were not very plain to him. On Henchard's part there was now
again repose; and yet, whenever he thought of Farfrae, it was with a dim dread;
and he often regretted that he had told the young man his whole heart, and
confided to him the secrets of his life.%
Thesaurus
eleven: (adj, n) xi; (n) eight, squad,
animosity, antagonism, conflict,
football team, team.
formality, rivalry, hatred,
forbearing: (adj) patient, clement,
detachment, distance, isolation.
overlook: (v) disregard, excuse, omit,
tolerant, lenient, easy, indulgent,
permissive, charitable, merciful,
ignore, forget, fail, command,
compassionate, meek. ANTONYMS: dominate, oversee, control, miss.
(adj) impatient, unforgiving.
ANTONYMS: (v) remember, notice,
friendship: (n) association, familiarity, spot, acknowledge, see, accept,
affection, companionship,
punish.
renewed: (adj) changed, born again,
friendliness, intimacy, company,
attachment, relationship; (n, v) amity, new, fresh, redintegrate,
concord. ANTONYMS: (n) hostility,
rehabilitated, transformed,
regenerate, reformed, Renate.
repose: (n, v) recline, peace, lie, calm;
(n) composure, ease, quiet, leisure,
recreation, relaxation; (v) lay.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) work; (n)
activity, panic, agitation.
secrets: (n) secrecy.
vexed: (adj) troubled, irritated, angry,
pestered, peeved, harassed, sore,
harried, uneasy, cross, offended.
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
uncomplicated.
Thomas Hardy
119
CHAPTER 16
On this account Henchard's manner towards Farfrae insensibly became more
reserved. He was courteous--too courteous--and Farfrae was quite surprised at
the good breeding which now for the first time showed itself among the qualities
of a man he had hitherto thought undisciplined, if warm and sincere. The cornfactor seldom or never again put his arm upon the young man's shoulder so as to
nearly weigh him down with the pressure of mechanized friendship. He left off
coming to Donald's lodgings and shouting into the passage. "Hoy, Farfrae, boy,
come and have some dinner with us! Don't sit here in solitary confinement!" But
in the daily routine of their business there was little change.%
Thus their lives rolled on till a day of public rejoicing was suggested to the
country at large in celebration of a national event that had recently taken place.
For some time Casterbridge, by nature slow, made no response. Then one
day Donald Farfrae broached the subject to Henchard by asking if he would have
any objection to lend some rick-cloths to himself and a few others, who
contemplated getting up an entertainment of some sort on the day named, and
required a shelter for the same, to which they might charge admission at the rate
of so much a head.
"Have as many cloths as you like," Henchard replied.
Thesaurus
contemplated: (adj) intended, willful. rejoicing: (n) exultation, jubilation,
unbelievable.
insensibly: (adv) imperceptibly,
undisciplined: (adj) disorderly,
happiness, joy, mirth, pleasure,
elation; (adj) jubilant, exultant; (v)
apathetically, numbly, motionlessly,
intractable, insubordinate, unruly,
rejoice; (adv) rejoicingly. ANTONYM: untrained, wild, uncorrected,
inertly.
lend: (v) grant, give, advance, impart,
(n) sadness.
uncontrolled, raw, recalcitrant; (v)
sincere: (adj, v) earnest, devout; (adj)
heedless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bestow, contribute, borrow, bring,
add, confer; (n) lending.
genuine, faithful, heartfelt, honest,
regimented, biddable, manageable.
mechanized: (adj) mechanical,
serious, open, artless, candid; (adj, n) weigh: (v) press, study, measure,
motorized, automatic, computerized, cordial. ANTONYMS: (adj) insincere, matter, consider, count, deliberate,
contemplate, assess; (n, v) balance,
automated, developed,
dishonest, guarded, flippant,
poise. ANTONYMS: (v) ignore,
industrialized, industrial, robotic,
affected, disingenuous, hypocritical,
mobile.
cunning, unfaithful, unenthusiastic,
neglect.
120
When his manager had gone about the business Henchard was fired with
emulation. It certainly had been very remiss of him, as Mayor, he thought, to
call no meeting ere this, to discuss what should be done on this holiday. But
Farfrae had been so cursed quick in his movements as to give old- fashioned
people in authority no chance of the initiative. However, it was not too late; and
on second thoughts he determined to take upon his own shoulders the
responsibility of organizing some amusements, if the other Councilmen would
leave the matter in his hands. To this they quite readily agreed, the majority
being fine old crusted characters who had a decided taste for living without
worry.%
So Henchard set about his preparations for a really brilliant thing--such as
should be worthy of the venerable town. As for Farfrae's little affair, Henchard
nearly forgot it; except once now and then when, on it coming into his mind, he
said to himself, "Charge admission at so much a head--just like a Scotchman!-who is going to pay anything a head?" The diversions which the Mayor intended
to provide were to be entirely free.
He had grown so dependent upon Donald that he could scarcely resist calling
him in to consult. But by sheer self- coercion he refrained. No, he thought,
Farfrae would be suggesting such improvements in his damned luminous way
that in spite of himself he, Henchard, would sink to the position of second
fiddle, and only scrape harmonies to his manager's talents.
Everybody applauded the Mayor's proposed entertainment, especially when
it became known that he meant to pay for it all himself.
Close to the town was an elevated green spot surrounded by an ancient
square earthwork--earthworks square and not square, were as common as
blackberries hereabout--a spot whereon the Casterbridge people usually held
any kind of merry-making, meeting, or sheep-fair that required more space than
the streets would afford. On one side it sloped to the river Froom, and from any
point a view was obtained of the country round for many miles. This pleasant
upland was to be the scene of Henchard's exploit.
Thesaurus
applauded: (adj) famous, highly
scrape: (n, v) scratch, graze, score,
lustrous, lucent, sunny, lambent,
radiant, light, aglow; (adj, n) lucid,
mark; (v) rub, pare, rake, grate, chafe,
praised, commended.
emulation: (n) mimicry, rivalry,
clear. ANTONYMS: (adj) dark,
abrade; (n) abrasion.
sloped: (adj) slanting, oblique, sloping,
contest, simulation, contention, strife, obscure.
conflict, ambition, emulate, compete, organizing: (v) organise; (n)
inclined, aslope, diagonal, aslant,
imitating.
organization, adjustment, regulation. leaned, leant, colored, biased.
fashioned: (adj) formed, featured,
remiss: (adj) neglectful, careless,
spite: (n) malice, grudge, hatred,
fictitious, intentional, bent, wrought. inattentive, delinquent, lazy, lax,
malevolence, rancour, venom, rancor,
fiddle: (n, v) con, cheat, trick; (v)
maliciousness, ill will, animosity; (n,
derelict, heedless, backward, slow,
v) pique. ANTONYMS: (v) please; (n)
tamper, play, diddle, meddle, tinker; laggard. ANTONYMS: (adj, v)
(n) kit, swindle, fraud.
diligent; (v) careful, painstaking; (adj) benevolence, goodwill, love,
luminous: (adj) glowing, brilliant,
prompt.
affection, harmony.
Thomas Hardy
121
He advertised about the town, in long posters of a pink colour, that games of
all sorts would take place here; and set to work a little battalion of men under his
own eye. They erected greasy-poles for climbing, with smoked hams and local
cheeses at the top. They placed hurdles in rows for jumping over; across the
river they laid a slippery pole, with a live pig of the neighbourhood tied at the
other end, to become the property of the man who could walk over and get it.
There were also provided wheelbarrows for racing, donkeys for the same, a stage
for boxing, wrestling, and drawing blood generally; sacks for jumping in.
Moreover, not forgetting his principles, Henchard provided a mammoth tea, of
which everybody who lived in the borough was invited to partake without
payment. The tables were laid parallel with the inner slope of the rampart, and
awnings were stretched overhead.%
Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of Farfrae's
erection in the West Walk, rick-cloths of different sizes and colours being hung
up to the arching trees without any regard to appearance. He was easy in his
mind now, for his own preparations far transcended these.
The morning came. The sky, which had been remarkably clear down to
within a day or two, was overcast, and the weather threatening, the wind having
an unmistakable hint of water in it. Henchard wished he had not been quite so
sure about the continuance of a fair season. But it was too late to modify or
postpone, and the proceedings went on. At twelve o'clock the rain began to fall,
small and steady, commencing and increasing so insensibly that it was difficult
to state exactly when dry weather ended or wet established itself. In an hour the
slight moisture resolved itself into a monotonous smiting of earth by heaven, in
torrents to which no end could be prognosticated.
A number of people had heroically gathered in the field but by three o'clock
Henchard discerned that his project was doomed to end in failure. The hams at
the top of the poles dripped watered smoke in the form of a brown liquor, the
pig shivered in the wind, the grain of the deal tables showed through the sticking
tablecloths, for the awning allowed the rain to drift under at its will, and to
enclose the sides at this hour seemed a useless undertaking. The landscape over
Thesaurus
arching: (adj) arced, curved, bowed,
arciform, arcuate; (n) hogging,
curvature, upthrust.
awning: (n) screen, shade, tilt,
sunblind, marquee, umbrella, blind,
canopy, cover, tarpaulin, shelter.
began: (v) Gan.
continuance: (n) duration, abidance,
existence, endurance, protraction,
adjournment, resumption,
prolongation, time, standing,
perseverance. ANTONYMS: (n)
discontinuation, destruction.
heroically: (adj, adv) courageously,
daringly; (adv) intrepidly, fearlessly,
gallantly, boldly, grandly, nobly,
resolutely, splendidly, chivalrously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) halfheartedly,
fearfully, execrably.
hurdles: (n) hurdling.
overcast: (adj) dark, cloudy, dim, dull,
gloomy, heavy, muddy, dismal; (n, v)
cloud; (adj, v) obscure; (v) darken.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sunny, clear.
partake: (v) deal, touch, share,
consume, attend, eat, taste, receive,
communicate, join, have.
ANTONYM: (v) refrain.
rampart: (n) wall, fortification,
earthwork, guard, embankment,
barricade, defense, barrier; (v)
battlement, circumvallation; (n, v)
vallum.
torrents: (n) white water, rapids.
watered: (adj) irriguous, dewy,
watermarked, moist.
122
the river disappeared; the wind played on the tent-cords in aeolian
improvisations, and at length rose to such a pitch that the whole erection slanted
to the ground those who had taken shelter within it having to crawl out on their
hands and knees.%
But towards six the storm abated, and a drier breeze shook the moisture from
the grass bents. It seemed possible to carry out the programme after all. The
awning was set up again; the band was called out from its shelter, and ordered to
begin, and where the tables had stood a place was cleared for dancing.
"But where are the folk?" said Henchard, after the lapse of half-an-hour,
during which time only two men and a woman had stood up to dance. "The
shops are all shut. Why don't they come?"
"They are at Farfrae's affair in the West Walk," answered a Councilman who
stood in the field with the Mayor.
"A few, I suppose. But where are the body o 'em?"
"All out of doors are there."
"Then the more fools they!"
Henchard walked away moodily. One or two young fellows gallantly came
to climb the poles, to save the hams from being wasted; but as there were no
spectators, and the whole scene presented the most melancholy appearance
Henchard gave orders that the proceedings were to be suspended, and the
entertainment closed, the food to be distributed among the poor people of the
town. In a short time nothing was left in the field but a few hurdles, the tents,
and the poles.
Henchard returned to his house, had tea with his wife and daughter, and
then walked out. It was now dusk. He soon saw that the tendency of all
promenaders was towards a particular spot in the Walks, and eventually
proceeded thither himself. The notes of a stringed band came from the enclosure
that Farfrae had erected--the pavilion as he called it--and when the Mayor
reached it he perceived that a gigantic tent had been ingeniously constructed
without poles or ropes. The densest point of the avenue of sycamores had been
Thesaurus
abated: (adj) slack.
resourcefully, shrewdly,
petulantly, saturninely, crossly,
drier: (n) dryer, drying agent, kiln,
erratically. ANTONYM: (adv)
imaginatively, cunningly, craftily,
artistically. ANTONYM: (adv)
clothes dryer, desiccant, core carrier,
cheerily.
appliance, exsiccator; (adj) dried.
pavilion: (n) marquee, kiosk, tent,
ineptly.
gallantly: (adv) courageously,
lapse: (n, v) decline, drop, mistake;
porch, pergola, gazebo, hall, canopy,
(adj, n, v) fall; (v) expire, elapse,
intrepidly, chivalrously, splendidly,
booth, place, rus in urbe.
collapse, go by; (n) oversight, error, proceeded: (v) proceed, yode.
valiantly, heroically, fearlessly,
fault. ANTONYMS: (v) behave, start, slanted: (adj) slanting, diagonal,
finely, doughtily, pluckily,
courteously. ANTONYMS: (adv)
rise, renew, improve.
lopsided, tilted, sloped, sloping,
moodily: (adv) morosely, peevishly,
unchivalrously, poorly, timidly.
oblique, skewed, aslant, askew,
ingeniously: (adv) artfully, cleverly,
aslope. ANTONYMS: (adj) straight,
glumly, sulkily, grumpily,
adroitly, skillfully, inventively,
capriciously, temperamentally,
balanced, impartial, level, upright.
Thomas Hardy
123
selected, where the boughs made a closely interlaced vault overhead; to these
boughs the canvas had been hung, and a barrel roof was the result. The end
towards the wind was enclosed, the other end was open. Henchard went round
and saw the interior.%
In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed, but the
scene within was anything but devotional. A reel or fling of some sort was in
progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of the other dancers in
the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself about and spinning to the
tune. For a moment Henchard could not help laughing. Then he perceived the
immense admiration for the Scotchman that revealed itself in the women's faces;
and when this exhibition was over, and a new dance proposed, and Donald had
disappeared for a time to return in his natural garments, he had an unlimited
choice of partners, every girl being in a coming-on disposition towards one who
so thoroughly understood the poetry of motion as he.
All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of a ballroom never
having occurred to the inhabitants before. Among the rest of the onlookers were
Elizabeth and her mother--the former thoughtful yet much interested, her eyes
beaming with a longing lingering light, as if Nature had been advised by
Correggio in their creation. The dancing progressed with unabated spirit, and
Henchard walked and waited till his wife should be disposed to go home. He
did not care to keep in the light, and when he went into the dark it was worse,
for there he heard remarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent:
"Mr. Henchard's rejoicings couldn't say good morning to this," said one. "A
man must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk would go up to that bleak place
to-day."
The other answered that people said it was not only in such things as those
that the Mayor was wanting. "Where would his business be if it were not for this
young fellow? 'Twas verily Fortune sent him to Henchard. His accounts were
like a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came. He used to reckon his sacks by
chalk strokes all in a row like garden-palings, measure his ricks by stretching
with his arms, weigh his trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw, and settle the
Thesaurus
chaw: (n, v) bite; (n) quid, bit,
mastication, cud; (v) manducate,
munch, masticate, deliberate, gnaw,
crunch.
devotional: (adj) prayerful, religious,
holy, pious, solemn, godly,
reverential, reverent, conscientious;
(v) devout, pure.
flinging: (n) casting, cast.
gable: (n) pediment, gable end, wall,
gable wall, William Clark gable, bell
gable, corbie gable, gavel, Clark
gable.
headstrong: (adj) intractable, dogged,
obstinate, disobedient, unruly,
willful, wayward, froward, rash,
headlong; (adj, v) ungovernable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) tractable,
compliant, amenable, docile,
malleable, agreeable, cautious.
interlaced: (adj) interfretted,
reticulated, reticulate, reticular,
latticed, having frets, complicated,
latticelike.
onlookers: (n) attendance, gallery.
partners: (n) associates, team.
sedate: (adj, v) calm, serious, quiet,
demure; (adj) staid, composed,
solemn, sober, earnest, cool, heavy.
ANTONYMS: (v) stimulate; (adj)
wild, frenetic, bold, boisterous,
frivolous.
unabated: (adj) unreduced,
unrestricted, unmitigated,
unflagging, relentless, intense,
unrelenting.
124
price with a curse. But now this accomplished young man does it all by
ciphering and mensuration. Then the wheat-- that sometimes used to taste so
strong o' mice when made into bread that people could fairly tell the breed-Farfrae has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would dream the smallest fourlegged beast had walked over it once. O yes, everybody is full of him, and the
care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to be sure!" concluded this gentleman.%
"But he won't do it for long, good-now," said the other.
"No!" said Henchard to himself behind the tree. "Or if he do, he'll be
honeycombed clean out of all the character and standing that he's built up in
these eighteen year!"
He went back to the dancing pavilion. Farfrae was footing a quaint little
dance with Elizabeth-Jane--an old country thing, the only one she knew, and
though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her demurer gait,
the pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of his boots became familiar to
the eyes of every bystander. The tune had enticed her into it; being a tune of a
busy, vaulting, leaping sort--some low notes on the silver string of each fiddle,
then a skipping on the small, like running up and down ladders--"Miss M'Leod
of Ayr" was its name, so Mr. Farfrae had said, and that it was very popular in his
own country.
It was soon over, and the girl looked at Henchard for approval; but he did
not give it. He seemed not to see her. "Look here, Farfrae," he said, like one
whose mind was elsewhere, "I'll go to Port-Bredy Great Market to-morrow
myself. You can stay and put things right in your clothes- box, and recover
strength to your knees after your vagaries." He planted on Donald an
antagonistic glare that had begun as a smile.
Some other townsmen came up, and Donald drew aside. "What's this,
Henchard," said Alderman Tubber, applying his thumb to the corn-factor like a
cheese-taster. "An opposition randy to yours, eh? Jack's as good as his master,
eh? Cut ye out quite, hasn't he?"
Thesaurus
bystander: (n) spectator, witness,
thoughtlessly, tactlessly,
eyewitness, observer, beholder,
inconsiderately, uncooperatively,
looker-on, viewer, watcher, passer
cruelly, harshly, insensitively.
enticed: (adj) interested.
by, outsider, looker.
ciphering: (n) estimation,
honeycombed: (adj) pitted, cavitied,
computation, reckoning.
faveolate, alveolate, cellular,
considerately: (adv) thoughtfully,
cavernous; (v) follicular, cribriform,
attentively, politely, obligingly,
infundibular, riddled.
mensuration: (n) measure, measuring,
discreetly, solicitously, humanely,
circumspectly, courteously,
admeasurement, surveying, scaling,
graciously, sympathetically.
densitometry, calorimetry,
ANTONYMS: (adv) unkindly, rudely, bathymetry, audiometry,
actinometry, gravimetry.
purifying: (adj) purging, purgatorial,
antiseptic, expurgatory, ablutionary,
remedial; (v) cathartic, abstergent; (n)
purification.
skipping: (n) jumping, leaping,
absenteeism; (adv) skippingly,
leapingly.
soles: (n) family Soleidae.
vaulting: (v) aspiring; (n) curvet,
construction, dressage, fan vaulting,
gymnastics; (adj) overreaching.
Thomas Hardy
125
"You see, Mr. Henchard," said the lawyer, another good- natured friend,
"where you made the mistake was in going so far afield. You should have taken
a leaf out of his book, and have had your sports in a sheltered place like this. But
you didn't think of it, you see; and he did, and that's where he's beat you."
"He'll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore him," added jocular
Mr. Tubber.%
"No," said Henchard gloomily. "He won't be that, because he's shortly going
to leave me." He looked towards Donald, who had come near. "Mr. Farfrae's
time as my manager is drawing to a close--isn't it, Farfrae?"
The young man, who could now read the lines and folds of Henchard's
strongly-traced face as if they were clear verbal inscriptions, quietly assented;
and when people deplored the fact, and asked why it was, he simply replied that
Mr. Henchard no longer required his help.
Henchard went home, apparently satisfied. But in the morning, when his
jealous temper had passed away, his heart sank within him at what he had said
and done. He was the more disturbed when he found that this time Farfrae was
determined to take him at his word.
Thesaurus
afield: (adj) astray, awry; (adv) aboard,
on board, at home, everywhere, here,
there, wrong, amiss, where.
folds: (n) laps.
jealous: (adj) distrustful, envious,
covetous, suspicious, jealousy,
resentful, invidious, green, grudging,
jaundiced, attentive. ANTONYM:
(adj) trusting.
jocular: (adj) jocose, amusing, comical,
facetious, funny, cheerful, jesting,
hilarious, droll, frolicsome, bright.
ANTONYMS: (adj) solemn, gloomy.
leaf: (n) page, folio, foliage, petal,
frond, leafage, slip, verdure, leaflet;
(n, v) sheet; (v) leave.
sheltered: (adj) secure, comfortable,
screened, safe, secluded, cozy, snug,
covered, shaded; (adj, v) private; (v)
covert. ANTONYMS: (adj)
vulnerable, sunny, exposed, public,
harsh, bleak.
sports: (n) athletics; (adj) sporting.
temper: (adj, v) moderate, soften,
mitigate, harden; (n) character,
disposition, humor, nature; (v)
modify, season, qualify.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) upset; (v) soften,
agitate, excite, flex, bend, increase; (n)
composure, happiness, wrath,
equanimity.
verbal: (adj) oral, literal, unwritten,
vocal, wordy, talkative, lexical,
nominal, oral law, oral testimony,
prolix. ANTONYMS: (adj) numerical,
silent.
Thomas Hardy
127
CHAPTER 17
Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard's manner that in assenting to
dance she had made a mistake of some kind. In her simplicity she did not know
what it was till a hint from a nodding acquaintance enlightened her. As the
Mayor's step-daughter, she learnt, she had not been quite in her place in treading
a measure amid such a mixed throng as filled the dancing pavilion.%
Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals at the dawning of
the idea that her tastes were not good enough for her position, and would bring
her into disgrace.
This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her mother; but Mrs.
Henchard, who had less idea of conventionality than Elizabeth herself, had gone
away, leaving her daughter to return at her own pleasure. The latter moved on
into the dark dense old avenues, or rather vaults of living woodwork, which ran
along the town boundary, and stood reflecting.
A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards the shine from
the tent he recognized her. It was Farfrae-- just come from the dialogue with
Henchard which had signified his dismissal.
"And it's you, Miss Newson?--and I've been looking for ye everywhere!" he
said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the estrangement with the cornmerchant. "May I walk on with you as far as your street-corner?"
Thesaurus
assenting: (adj) assentient, consenting, beginning, aurora, cockcrow,
traditional; (n) uninitiate.
acquiescent, unanimous, in accord,
dayspring, morning, birth, first light, estrangement: (n) disaffection,
favorable; (n) agreement, accession,
break of day. ANTONYM: (n) sunset. separation, rift, coolness, isolation,
confession; (adv) consentingly; (v)
ears: (n) antenna.
break, split, rupture, withdrawal,
agree. ANTONYM: (adj) conflicting. enlightened: (adj) liberal,
breach; (v) estrange. ANTONYMS:
conventionality: (n, v) convention; (n) disillusioned, progressive, cultured,
(n) reconciliation, propitiation,
conventionalism, conformity,
aware, informed, learned, lettered;
conciliation.
(adj, v) wise; (n, v) savant; (v) shrewd. overcoming: (adj) fortunate.
orthodoxy, formality, unoriginality,
ANTONYMS: (adj) puzzled,
woodwork: (n) woodworking, joinery,
formula, pattern, usage, beauty,
decency. ANTONYM: (n)
unenlightened, uninformed,
cabinetwork, millwork,
unconventionality.
confounded, confused, ignorant,
cabinetmaking, work, trade, craft,
dawning: (n) daybreak, sunrise, start,
perplexed, wild, reactionary,
wainscot, skirting board, lining.
128
She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did not utter any
objection. So together they went on, first down the West Walk, and then into the
Bowling Walk, till Farfrae said, "It's like that I'm going to leave you soon."
She faltered, "Why?"
"Oh--as a mere matter of business--nothing more. But we'll not concern
ourselves about it--it is for the best. I hoped to have another dance with you."
She said she could not dance--in any proper way.%
"Nay, but you do! It's the feeling for it rather than the learning of steps that
makes pleasant dancers....I fear I offended your father by getting up this! And
now, perhaps, I'll have to go to another part o' the warrld altogether!"
This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane breathed a sigh-letting it off in fragments that he might not hear her. But darkness makes
people truthful, and the Scotchman went on impulsively--perhaps he had heard
her after all:
"I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had not been
offended, I would ask you something in a short time--yes, I would ask you tonight. But that's not for me!"
What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of encouraging
him she remained incompetently silent. Thus afraid one of another they
continued their promenade along the walls till they got near the bottom of the
Bowling Walk; twenty steps further and the trees would end, and the streetcorner and lamps appear. In consciousness of this they stopped.
"I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover granary on a fool's
errand that day," said Donald, in his undulating tones. "Did ye ever know
yourself, Miss Newson?"
"Never," said she.
"I wonder why they did it!"
"For fun, perhaps."
Thesaurus
breathed: (adj) unvoiced, inaudible,
aggrieved, pained, wronged,
false, wrong, evasive.
undulating: (adj) sinuous, waved,
breathing, aphonic.
annoyed, insulted, shocked, vexed,
errand: (n) chore, mission, job, task,
resentful, injured. ANTONYMS: (adj) undulant, undulatory, curly,
assignment, embassy, duty, charge,
indifferent, proud, unconcerned.
apprenticed, zigzag, crimped, curvy,
stepfather: (n) father-in-law,
messenger, communication, work.
indented, intended. ANTONYMS:
incompetently: (adv) inadequately,
(adj) steep, straight.
stepparent.
inexpertly, impotently, unqualifiedly, truthful: (adj) honest, genuine, frank, utter: (v) say, state, speak, breathe,
ineptly, unskilledly, inaptly,
real, candid, sincere, guileless,
articulate, deliver, voice, pronounce;
ineffectively, clumsily, insufficiently, realistic, reliable, faithful, honorable. (adj, n, v) express, declare; (adj, v) tell.
badly. ANTONYMS: (adv) capably,
ANTONYMS: (adj) dishonest,
ANTONYMS: (adj) qualified,
superbly, expertly, efficiently.
inaccurate, fictional, guarded, lying,
incomplete, uncertain, rather, slight;
offended: (adj) angry, affronted,
(v) conceal, hide, block.
improbable, deceptive, deceitful,
Thomas Hardy
129
"Perhaps it was not for fun. It might have been that they thought they would
like us to stay waiting there, talking to one another? Ay, well! I hope you
Casterbridge folk will not forget me if I go."
"That I'm sure we won't!" she said earnestly. "I--wish you wouldn't go at all."
They had got into the lamplight. "Now, I'll think over that," said Donald
Farfrae. "And I'll not come up to your door; but part from you here; lest it make
your father more angry still."
They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk, and ElizabethJane going up the street. Without any consciousness of what she was doing she
started running with all her might till she reached her father's door. "O dear me-what am I at?" she thought, as she pulled up breathless.%
Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae's enigmatic words
about not daring to ask her what he fain would. Elizabeth, that silent observing
woman, had long noted how he was rising in favour among the townspeople;
and knowing Henchard's nature now she had feared that Farfrae's days as
manager were numbered, so that the announcement gave her little surprise.
Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge despite his words and her father's
dismissal? His occult breathings to her might be solvable by his course in that
respect.
The next day was windy--so windy that walking in the garden she picked up
a portion of the draft of a letter on business in Donald Farfrae's writing, which
had flown over the wall from the office. The useless scrap she took indoors, and
began to copy the calligraphy, which she much admired. The letter began "Dear
Sir," and presently writing on a loose slip "Elizabeth-Jane," she laid the latter over
"Sir," making the phrase "Dear Elizabeth-Jane." When she saw the effect a quick
red ran up her face and warmed her through, though nobody was there to see
what she had done. She quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away. After this
she grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and laughed again;
not joyfully, but distressfully rather.
Thesaurus
calligraphy: (n) script, writing,
ANTONYMS: (adj) clear,
penmanship, lettering, chirography,
straightforward, obvious, known,
handwriting, letters, pencraft,
plain, explicable.
indoors: (adv) at home, inwards,
beautiful handwriting, print.
distressfully: (adv) distressingly,
within, inwardly, internally, deep
unfortunately, worryingly,
down, at heart, at bottom, in reality,
arrived, here. ANTONYMS: (adv)
disturbingly, troublingly,
worrisomely, perturbingly.
out, outdoors.
enigmatic: (adj) incomprehensible,
joyfully: (adv) joyously, merrily, gaily,
inscrutable, impenetrable, obscure,
gleefully, buoyantly, cheerily,
puzzling, mysterious, unfathomable, jubilantly, pleasantly, mirthfully;
(adv, v) happily; (adj, adv) cheerfully.
cryptic, dark, abstruse, secretive.
ANTONYMS: (adv) joylessly,
miserably, despondently.
occult: (adj) hidden, obscure,
mysterious, cryptic, cryptical, dark,
esoteric, magical, unseen,
confidential; (adj, n, v) secret.
solvable: (adj) resolvable, dissoluble,
resoluble, solvent.
tore: (v) tare; (n) moulding, molding.
townspeople: (n) town, borough,
township, municipality.
warmed: (adj) warmer, warm, baked.
130
It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and Henchard had decided
to dispense with each other. Elizabeth-Jane's anxiety to know if Farfrae were
going away from the town reached a pitch that disturbed her, for she could no
longer conceal from herself the cause. At length the news reached her that he
was not going to leave the place. A man following the same trade as Henchard,
but on a very small scale, had sold his business to Farfrae, who was forthwith
about to start as corn and hay merchant on his own account.%
Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald's, proving that he
meant to remain; and yet, would a man who cared one little bit for her have
endangered his suit by setting up a business in opposition to Mr. Henchard's?
Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse only which had led him to
address her so softly.
To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening of the dance
were such as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she dressed herself up
exactly as she had dressed then--the muslin, the spencer, the sandals, the parasol--and looked in the mirror The picture glassed back was in her opinion,
precisely of such a kind as to inspire that fleeting regard, and no more--"just
enough to make him silly, and not enough to keep him so," she said luminously;
and Elizabeth thought, in a much lower key, that by this time he had discovered
how plain and homely was the informing spirit of that pretty outside.
Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would say to herself
with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache with it, "No, no, Elizabeth-Jane-such dreams are not for you!" She tried to prevent herself from seeing him, and
thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in the former attempt, in the latter not so
completely.
Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not mean to put up
with his temper any longer, was incensed beyond measure when he learnt what
the young man had done as an alternative. It was in the town-hall, after a
council meeting, that he first became aware of Farfrae's coup for establishing
himself independently in the town; and his voice might have been heard as far as
the town-pump expressing his feelings to his fellow councilmen. These tones
Thesaurus
dispense: (v) allot, deal, administer,
homely: (adj) plain, common, rustic,
assign, deal out, apportion, dole out, artless, home, snug, homelike,
domestic; (adj, adv) ugly; (adv)
give, issue, diffuse, furnish.
ANTONYMS: (v) prohibit, receive,
plainly, simplely. ANTONYMS: (adj)
withhold.
sophisticated, striking,
fleeting: (adj) brief, momentary,
uncomfortable, bleak.
ephemeral, passing, transient, short, incensed: (adj) angry, exasperated,
fugitive, evanescent, transitory,
enraged, indignant, irate, infuriated,
temporal, short-lived. ANTONYMS:
irritated, mad, livid, angered,
(adj) permanent, lasting, enduring,
aggravated. ANTONYM: (adj)
unforgettable, thorough, lengthy,
pleased.
luminously: (adv) brilliantly,
long, slow.
radiantly, resplendently,
transparently, shiningly, clearly,
lustrously, vividly, dazzlingly,
perspicuously, lucently.
muslin: (v) linen, cloth; (n)
mousseline, organdy, cambric, crash,
fabric, nainsook, organdie.
pleasantry: (n) joke, wit, jocularity,
jest, fancy, waggery, drollery, esprit,
banter, sport, jocosity.
sandals: (n) beach sandals, thongs.
spencer: (n) surtout.
Thomas Hardy
131
showed that, though under a long reign of self-control he had become Mayor and
churchwarden and what not, there was still the same unruly volcanic stuff
beneath the rind of Michael Henchard as when he had sold his wife at Weydon
Fair.%
"Well, he's a friend of mine, and I'm a friend of his--or if we are not, what are
we? 'Od send, if I've not been his friend, who has, I should like to know? Didn't
he come here without a sound shoe to his voot? Didn't I keep him here-- help
him to a living? Didn't I help him to money, or whatever he wanted? I stuck out
for no terms--I said 'Name your own price.' I'd have shared my last crust with
that young fellow at one time, I liked him so well. And now he's defied me! But
damn him, I'll have a tussle with him now--at fair buying and selling, mind--at
fair buying and selling! And if I can't overbid such a stripling as he, then I'm not
wo'th a varden! We'll show that we know our business as well as one here and
there!"
His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond. Henchard was less
popular now than he had been when nearly two years before, they had voted
him to the chief magistracy on account of his amazing energy. While they had
collectively profited by this quality of the corn-factor's they had been made to
wince individually on more than one occasion. So he went out of the hall and
down the street alone.
Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour satisfaction.
He called Elizabeth-Jane. Seeing how he looked when she entered she appeared
alarmed.
"Nothing to find fault with," he said, observing her concern. "Only I want to
caution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae--it is about him. I've seen him talking
to you two or three times--he danced with 'ee at the rejoicings, and came home
with 'ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just harken: Have you made him any
foolish promise? Gone the least bit beyond sniff and snaff at all?"
"No. I have promised him nothing."
Thesaurus
crust: (n) skin, peel, bark, cheekiness,
refresh, retrieve. ANTONYM: (v)
unruly: (adj) boisterous,
gall, impertinence, covering, shell,
forget.
insubordinate, disobedient,
rind: (n) bark, crust, cortex, husk, coat, intractable, headstrong,
cortex, coating, encrustation.
harken: (v) listen, hearken, hear, listen hull, paring, fur, hide, surface; (n, v)
uncontrollable, wayward,
in, listen to.
skin.
rambunctious, ungovernable,
magistracy: (n) post, situation, spot,
sniff: (v) nose, inhale, smell, breathe,
lawless, rebellious. ANTONYMS:
(adj) manageable, obedient, yielding,
position, office, place, jurisdiction,
breathe in, sniffle, smoke, smell out,
despise; (n, v) snuff, whiff.
berth.
biddable, compliant, loyal, gentle,
overbid: (v) outbid; (n) bidding.
tussle: (n, v) scuffle, fight, struggle,
peaceful, placid, restrained.
recollect: (v) recall, remember,
brawl, clash; (n) hassle, combat,
wince: (v) shrink, cringe, quail, cower,
scramble, skirmish, conflict; (v)
jump, contract; (n, v) flinch, start,
recognize, call to mind, remind,
winch; (adj) bear ill; (n) sit on thorns.
mind, think, call up, reminisce,
grapple.
132
"Good. All's well that ends well. I particularly wish you not to see him
again."
"Very well, sir."
"You promise?"
She hesitated for a moment, and then said-"Yes, if you much wish it."
"I do. He's an enemy to our house!"
When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to Farfrae thus:-SIR,-I make request that henceforth you and my step- daughter be as
strangers to each other. She on her part has promised to welcome no
more addresses from you; and I trust, therefore, you will not attempt to
force them upon her.%
M. HENCHARD
One would almost have supposed Henchard to have had policy to see that no
better modus vivendi could be arrived at with Farfrae than by encouraging him to
become his son-in- law. But such a scheme for buying over a rival had nothing
to recommend it to the Mayor's headstrong faculties. With all domestic finesse
of that kind he was hopelessly at variance. Loving a man or hating him, his
diplomacy was as wrongheaded as a buffalo's; and his wife had not ventured to
suggest the course which she, for many reasons, would have welcomed gladly.
Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerce on his own
account at a spot on Durnover Hill--as far as possible from Henchard's stores,
and with every intention of keeping clear of his former friend and employer's
customers. There was, it seemed to the younger man, room for both of them and
to spare. The town was small, but the corn and hay-trade was proportionately
large, and with his native sagacity he saw opportunity for a share of it.
Thesaurus
addresses: (n) wooing, suit, courtship.
ends: (n) tops, crook, band, bend,
bind, limits, clippings, curve,
trimmings, boundaries.
faculties: (n) mother wit.
finesse: (n) artifice, diplomacy,
delicacy, refinement, dexterity,
daintiness, ability, skill; (n, v)
maneuver; (adj) intrigue; (v)
circumvent. ANTONYMS: (n)
ignorance, tactlessness, coarseness.
gates: (n) bill Gates.
gladly: (adv, v) happily; (adv) gleefully,
contentedly, cheerfully, fain, joyfully,
jovially, cheerily, delightedly,
gladsomely, readily. ANTONYMS:
(adv) reluctantly, unwillingly, sadly,
resentfully, miserably.
hating: (adj) loathful, abhorring,
disgusting, misanthropic, vengeful;
(n) venom.
henceforth: (adv) hence, in future,
after this; (adj) following.
modus: (n) system.
proportionately: (adv) relatively, pro
rata, in proportion, correspondingly,
symmetrically, commensurately,
adequately, balancedly, equally,
harmoniously, appropriately.
sagacity: (n, v) discernment, judgment,
penetration; (n) judiciousness, sense,
prudence, gumption, acumen,
perspicacity; (adj, n) discretion,
wisdom. ANTONYM: (n) foolishness.
wrongheaded: (adj) wronghead,
perverse, contrary, wrong, wronger.
Thomas Hardy
133
So determined was he to do nothing which should seem like tradeantagonism to the Mayor that he refused his first customer--a large farmer of
good repute--because Henchard and this man had dealt together within the
preceding three months.%
"He was once my friend," said Farfrae, "and it's not for me to take business
from him. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot hurt the trade of a man
who's been so kind to me."
In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman's trade increased.
Whether it were that his northern energy was an overmastering force among the
easy-going Wessex worthies, or whether it was sheer luck, the fact remained that
whatever he touched he prospered in. Like Jacob in Padan-Aram, he would no
sooner humbly limit himself to the ringstraked-and- spotted exceptions of trade
than the ringstraked-and-spotted would multiply and prevail.
But most probably luck had little to do with it. Character is Fate, said
Novalis, and Farfrae's character was just the reverse of Henchard's, who might
not inaptly be described as Faust has been described--as a vehement gloomy
being who had quitted the ways of vulgar men without light to guide him on a
better way.
Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions to Elizabeth-Jane.
His acts of that kind had been so slight that the request was almost superfluous.
Yet he had felt a considerable interest in her, and after some cogitation he
decided that it would be as well to enact no Romeo part just then--for the young
girl's sake no less than his own. Thus the incipient attachment was stifled down.
A time came when, avoid collision with his former friend as he might, Farfrae
was compelled, in sheer self-defence, to close with Henchard in mortal
commercial combat. He could no longer parry the fierce attacks of the latter by
simple avoidance. As soon as their war of prices began everybody was
interested, and some few guessed the end. It was, in some degree, Northern
insight matched against Southern doggedness--the dirk against the cudgel--and
Henchard's weapon was one which, if it did not deal ruin at the first or second
stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh at his antagonist's mercy.
Thesaurus
cogitation: (n) thought, cerebration,
unaptly, ineptly, inexpertly,
creditable, good, deserving,
consideration, thinking,
improperly, unfitly, awkwardly,
honorable, applaudable, exemplary;
(adj, n) excellent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
contemplation, deliberation,
clumsily, unbecomingly.
incipient: (adj) initial, budding,
speculation, study, mentation,
blameworthy, disgraceful,
cogitations, reasoning.
nascent, imperfectly formed,
despicable, dishonorable, poor,
discontinue: (v) stop, break, abandon, commencing, first, undeveloped; (adj, unworthy.
v) introductory; (v) inceptive; (n)
self-defence: (n) self-defense.
desist, break off, terminate, cut off,
quit, give up, interrupt; (n, v) drop.
vehement: (adj) fierce, intense, violent,
beginning.
ANTONYMS: (v) continue, restart,
overmastering: (adj) deeply felt, deep, strong, furious, passionate, ferocious,
resume, start, open, maintain, begin.
lowly, profound.
eager, hot, fervent, fervid.
inaptly: (adv) inappropriately,
praiseworthy: (adj, v) laudable; (adj)
ANTONYMS: (adj) impassionate,
inadequately, incompetently,
admirable, meritorious, worthy,
indifferent, mild, calm.
134
Almost every Saturday they encountered each other amid the crowd of
farmers which thronged about the market-place in the weekly course of their
business. Donald was always ready, and even anxious, to say a few friendly
words, but the Mayor invariably gazed stormfully past him, like one who had
endured and lost on his account, and could in no sense forgive the wrong; nor
did Farfrae's snubbed manner of perplexity at all appease him. The large
farmers, corn- merchants, millers, auctioneers, and others had each an official
stall in the corn-market room, with their names painted thereon; and when to the
familiar series of "Henchard," "Everdene," "Shiner," "Darton," and so on, was
added one inscribed "Farfrae," in staring new letters, Henchard was stung into
bitterness; like Bellerophon, he wandered away from the crowd, cankered in
soul.%
From that day Donald Farfrae's name was seldom mentioned in Henchard's
house. If at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth- Jane's mother inadvertently alluded to
her favourite's movements, the girl would implore her by a look to be silent; and
her husband would say, "What--are you, too, my enemy?"
Thesaurus
appease: (n, v) allay, alleviate; (adj, v)
complication, enigma; (adj, n)
idealism, affection.
pacify, still; (v) placate, quiet,
cankered: (adj) malignant, blighted,
difficulty, distress. ANTONYM: (n)
splenetic; (v) mangy, contaminated,
conciliate, calm, mollify, abate,
understanding.
reconcile. ANTONYMS: (v) provoke, crumbling, leprous, moldering,
snubbed: (adj) upset, hurt, affronted,
annoy, antagonize, enrage,
morbid, peccant, wasted.
offended, slighted.
exacerbate, excite, irritate, intensify. implore: (v) beg, beseech, supplicate, stung: (adj) sting, bit, annoyed, roiled,
bitterness: (n) acerbity, animosity,
ask, conjure, crave, pray, importune, irritated, nettled, peeved, pissed,
gall, malice, resentment, enmity,
appeal, plead, solicit. ANTONYMS:
riled, stings, thrust.
(v) demand, grant, reject.
thronged: (adj) throng, busy,
acridity, acidity, bitter, rancor,
sharpness. ANTONYMS: (n) joy,
perplexity: (n) confusion, dilemma,
populous, brisk, teeming, swarming,
happiness, harmony, kindness,
bewilderment, maze, labyrinth,
sprightly, sensitive, replete,
overflowing; (n) persistent.
blandness, friendliness, goodwill,
embarrassment, quandary,
Thomas Hardy
135
CHAPTER 18
There came a shock which had been foreseen for some time by Elizabeth, as
the box passenger foresees the approaching jerk from some channel across the
highway.%
Her mother was ill--too unwell to leave her room. Henchard, who treated
her kindly, except in moments of irritation, sent at once for the richest, busiest
doctor, whom he supposed to be the best. Bedtime came, and they burnt a light
all night. In a day or two she rallied.
Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did not appear at breakfast on the
second morning, and Henchard sat down alone. He was startled to see a letter
for him from Jersey in a writing he knew too well, and had expected least to
behold again. He took it up in his hands and looked at it as at a picture, a vision,
a vista of past enactments; and then he read it as an unimportant finale to
conjecture.
The writer said that she at length perceived how impossible it would be for
any further communications to proceed between them now that his re-marriage
had taken place. That such reunion had been the only straightforward course
open to him she was bound to admit.
"On calm reflection, therefore," she went on, "I quite forgive you for landing
me in such a dilemma, remembering that you concealed nothing before our ill-
Thesaurus
conjecture: (n) supposition,
(adj) envisioned, foretold, contingent, (adj) important, significant, major,
speculation, assumption, surmise,
concourse, coming, casual,
crucial, relevant, serious, powerful,
hypothesis; (v) suppose, believe,
adventitious, accidental, predictable. connected, central, profound,
anticipate, assume, speculate; (n, v)
jerk: (n, v) jump, yank, shake, twitch,
considerable.
estimate. ANTONYMS: (n) certainty; jar, tug, bump, heave, pull; (v) fling, unwell: (adj) sick, ill, poorly, ailing,
(v) demonstrate, know, learn, prove.
flip. ANTONYM: (v) ease.
sickly, unhealthy, seedy, bad,
finale: (n) close, end, ending, finish,
perceived: (adj) sensed, apparent,
diseased, frail; (adj, v) indisposed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) healthy, well, fit.
finis, termination, catastrophe, last,
supposed, professed, ostensible.
unimportant: (adj) insignificant,
vista: (n) outlook, panorama, horizon,
epilogue, closing, denouement.
ANTONYMS: (n) start, introduction, frivolous, inconsequential, irrelevant, aspect, scene, landscape, scenery,
prelude.
trifling, slight, petty, little, negligible, picture, alley; (adj, n) view,
foreseen: (v) foresee, long expected;
immaterial, minor. ANTONYMS:
perspective.
136
advised acquaintance; and that you really did set before me in your grim way the
fact of there being a certain risk in intimacy with you, slight as it seemed to be
after fifteen or sixteen years of silence on your wife's part. I thus look upon the
whole as a misfortune of mine, and not a fault of yours.%
"So that, Michael, I must ask you to overlook those letters with which I
pestered you day after day in the heat of my feelings. They were written whilst I
thought your conduct to me cruel; but now I know more particulars of the
position you were in I see how inconsiderate my reproaches were.
"Now you will, I am sure, perceive that the one condition which will make
any future happiness possible for me is that the past connection between our
lives be kept secret outside this isle. Speak of it I know you will not; and I can
trust you not to write of it. One safe-guard more remains to be mentioned--that
no writings of mine, or trifling articles belonging to me, should be left in your
possession through neglect or forgetfulness. To this end may I request you to
return to me any such you may have, particularly the letters written in the first
abandonment of feeling.
"For the handsome sum you forwarded to me as a plaster to the wound I
heartily thank you.
"I am now on my way to Bristol, to see my only relative. She is rich, and I
hope will do something for me. I shall return through Casterbridge and
Budmouth, where I shall take the packet-boat. Can you meet me with the letters
and other trifles? I shall be in the coach which changes horses at the Antelope
Hotel at half-past five Wednesday evening; I shall be wearing a Paisley shawl
with a red centre, and thus may easily be found. I should prefer this plan of
receiving them to having them sent.--I remain still, yours; ever, Lucetta.
Henchard breathed heavily. "Poor thing--better you had not known me!
Upon my heart and soul, if ever I should be left in a position to carry out that
marriage with thee, I ought to do it--I ought to do it, indeed!"
The contingency that he had in his mind was, of course, the death of Mrs.
Henchard.
Thesaurus
forgetfulness: (n) neglect, amnesia,
obliviousness, inattention, memory
loss, omission, unknowingness,
unawareness, Lethe, carelessness,
loss of memory. ANTONYMS: (n)
awareness, concentration,
remembering, attention.
heartily: (adv) cordially, sincerely,
enthusiastically, warmly, strongly,
earnestly, vigorously, ardently,
soundly, devoutly, eagerly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) feebly,
languorously.
inconsiderate: (adj) headlong,
unadvised, unthinking, unkind,
indiscreet, negligent, tactless,
incautious, imprudent, heedless; (adj,
adv) thoughtless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
thoughtful, considerate, altruism,
altruistic, caring, cautious,
constructive, gentle, polite, tactful.
misfortune: (n) accident, hardship,
misadventure, disaster, calamity,
mischance, catastrophe, mishap, bad
luck, misery, affliction. ANTONYMS:
(n) joy, bonus, opportunity, privilege,
success, happiness.
pestered: (adj) harassed, harried,
vexed, peeved, nettled, irritated,
much disputed, miffed.
shawl: (n) wrap, mantle, cape, muffler,
scarf, pall, mantlet Mantua, wrapper,
kerchief, headscarf, stole.
sixteen: (n) large integer.
writings: (n) papers, Hagiographa,
Ketubim.
Thomas Hardy
137
As requested, he sealed up Lucetta's letters, and put the parcel aside till the
day she had appointed; this plan of returning them by hand being apparently a
little ruse of the young lady for exchanging a word or two with him on past
times. He would have preferred not to see her; but deeming that there could be
no great harm in acquiescing thus far, he went at dusk and stood opposite the
coach-office.%
The evening was chilly, and the coach was late. Henchard crossed over to it
while the horses were being changed; but there was no Lucetta inside or out.
Concluding that something had happened to modify her arrangements he gave
the matter up and went home, not without a sense of relief. Meanwhile Mrs.
Henchard was weakening visibly. She could not go out of doors any more. One
day, after much thinking which seemed to distress her, she said she wanted to
write something. A desk was put upon her bed with pen and paper, and at her
request she was left alone. She remained writing for a short time, folded her
paper carefully, called Elizabeth-Jane to bring a taper and wax, and then, still
refusing assistance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and locked it in her desk. She
had directed it in these words:-"Mr. Michael Henchard. Not to be opened till Elizabeth- Jane's weddingday."
The latter sat up with her mother to the utmost of her strength night after
night. To learn to take the universe seriously there is no quicker way than to
watch--to be a "waker," as the country-people call it. Between the hours at which
the last toss-pot went by and the first sparrow shook himself, the silence in
Casterbridge--barring the rare sound of the watchman--was broken in Elizabeth's
ear only by the time-piece in the bedroom ticking frantically against the clock on
the stairs; ticking harder and harder till it seemed to clang like a gong; and all
this while the subtle- souled girl asking herself why she was born, why sitting in
a room, and blinking at the candle; why things around her had taken the shape
they wore in preference to every other possible shape. Why they stared at her so
helplessly, as if waiting for the touch of some wand that should release them
from terrestrial constraint; what that chaos called consciousness, which spun in
Thesaurus
blinking: (adj) flickering, bally,
handbell, English painter, doorbell,
blooming; (adj, n) winking; (n)
bell shape, Alexander Graham Bell.
ruse: (n) guile, artifice, deceit,
shimmer, blink, wink, twinkling,
nictation, blink of an eye, nictitation.
maneuver, plot, deception, trick,
chilly: (adj, adv) unfriendly; (adv)
device, dodge, scheme, ploy.
coolly, frigidly; (adj) cool, bleak,
sparrow: (n) hedge sparrow, sparrows,
algid, freezing, frozen, icy, frosty;
passerine, house sparrow, accentor,
(adj, n) cold. ANTONYMS: (adj) hot,
true sparrow, spur, snag, passeriform
tropical, responsive, mild,
bird, incitement.
taper: (n) candle, taper hole, bougie,
welcoming, friendly, balmy, torrid.
gong: (n) bell, carillon, chime, cymbal, rushlight, taper ratio; (v) sharpen,
medal, Alexander Melville Bell,
point, acuminate, diminish, lessen,
reduce. ANTONYMS: (v) rise, widen.
terrestrial: (adj) earthly, mundane,
worldly, terrene, sublunary,
sublunar, telluric, planetary,
tellurian, land, global. ANTONYMS:
(adj) otherworldly, amphibious,
cosmic, heavenly, spiritual.
ticking: (n) tick, cloth, fabric, ticken;
(adj) living.
wand: (n, v) stick, rod; (n) scepter,
verge, mace, pole, baton, sceptre,
fasces, rod of empire; (v) staff.
138
her at this moment like a top, tended to, and began in. Her eyes fell together; she
was awake, yet she was asleep.%
A word from her mother roused her. Without preface, and as the
continuation of a scene already progressing in her mind, Mrs. Henchard said:
"You remember the note sent to you and Mr. Farfrae--asking you to meet some
one in Durnover Barton-- and that you thought it was a trick to make fools of
you?"
"Yes."
"It was not to make fools of you--it was done to bring you together. 'Twas I
did it."
"Why?" said Elizabeth, with a start.
"I--wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae."
"O mother!" Elizabeth-Jane bent down her head so much that she looked
quite into her own lap. But as her mother did not go on, she said, "What reason?"
"Well, I had a reason. 'Twill out one day. I wish it could have been in my
time! But there--nothing is as you wish it! Henchard hates him."
"Perhaps they'll be friends again," murmured the girl.
"I don't know--I don't know." After this her mother was silent, and dozed;
and she spoke on the subject no more.
Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard's house on a Sunday
morning, when he observed that the blinds were all down. He rang the bell so
softly that it only sounded a single full note and a small one; and then he was
informed that Mrs. Henchard was dead--just dead--that very hour.
At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few old
inhabitants, who came there for water whenever they had, as at present, spare
time to fetch it, because it was purer from that original fount than from their own
wells. Mrs. Cuxsom, who had been standing there for an indefinite time with
her pitcher, was describing the incidents of Mrs. Henchard's death, as she had
learnt them from the nurse.
Thesaurus
continuation: (n) continuance, sequel,
resumption, maintenance, elongation,
continuing, sequence, postscript,
abidance, duration, prolongation.
ANTONYMS: (n) end, extinction,
termination, break, discontinuation,
prelude, destruction.
fount: (n) fountain, well, source,
origin, beginning, type, typeface,
black letter, face; (n, v) spring; (v)
Artesian well.
indefinite: (adj, v) ambiguous, vague;
(adj) uncertain, boundless, hazy,
introduce, precede, premise.
ANTONYMS: (n) addendum,
equivocal, unlimited, doubtful,
dubious, imprecise, indecisive.
conclusion, postscript.
ANTONYMS: (adj) definite, limited, progressing: (n) expediting; (adj)
fixed, constrained, specific, distinct,
thriving, ongoing, moving, coming,
forward, better; (adv) succeeding,
known, precise, clear, exact.
pitcher: (n) jar, ewer, mug, pot, hurler, making headway, ahead, moving
creamer, container, pail, bucket,
ahead.
roused: (adj) excited, awake,
flagon, tankard.
preface: (n, v) prelude, preamble,
susceptible, emotional, elated,
proem; (n) beginning, introduction,
interested.
preliminary, exordium, overture; (v) wells: (n) spring.
Thomas Hardy
139
"And she was white as marble-stone," said Mrs. Cuxsom. "And likewise such
a thoughtful woman, too--ah, poor soul--that a' minded every little thing that
wanted tending. 'Yes,' says she, 'when I'm gone, and my last breath's blowed,
look in the top drawer o' the chest in the back room by the window, and you'll
find all my coffin clothes, a piece of flannel--that's to put under me, and the little
piece is to put under my head; and my new stockings for my feet--they are
folded alongside, and all my other things. And there's four ounce pennies, the
heaviest I could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights--two for my right eye
and two for my left,' she said. 'And when you've used 'em, and my eyes don't
open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don't ye go spending 'em, for I
shouldn't like it. And open the windows as soon as I am carried out, and make it
as cheerful as you can for Elizabeth-Jane.'"
"Ah, poor heart!"
"Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ounce pennies in the garden. But if
ye'll believe words, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug 'em up, and
spent 'em at the Three Mariners. 'Faith,' he said, 'why should death rob life o'
fourpence? Death's not of such good report that we should respect 'en to that
extent,' says he."
"'Twas a cannibal deed!" deprecated her listeners.%
"Gad, then I won't quite ha'e it," said Solomon Longways. "I say it to-day, and
'tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn't speak wrongfully for a zilver zixpence at
such a time. I don't see noo harm in it. To respect the dead is sound doxology;
and I wouldn't sell skellintons--leastwise respectable skellintons--to be varnished
for 'natomies, except I were out o' work. But money is scarce, and throats get
dry. Why should death rob life o' fourpence? I say there was no treason in it."
"Well, poor soul; she's helpless to hinder that or anything now," answered
Mother Cuxsom. "And all her shining keys will be took from her, and her
cupboards opened; and little things a' didn't wish seen, anybody will see; and
her wishes and ways will all be as nothing!"
Thesaurus
bits: (n) odds and ends, scraps, debris. shred, little, a few; (adj, n) grain.
cannibal: (n) savage, barbarian,
pennies: (n) change.
anthropophagus, brute; (adj)
tending: (n) care, hairdressing, aid,
anthropophagous, carnivorous.
treatment, attention, babysitting,
doxology: (n) hosanna, hymn, grace,
incubation; (adj) apt, conducive,
praise, glorification, anthem.
prone, disposed.
fourpence: (n) coin.
thoughtful: (adj, v) serious, solemn,
linen: (n) fabric, flax, lingerie, doily,
grave; (adj) kind, careful, pensive,
doyley, doyly, cambric, underwear,
heedful, attentive, discreet, sensible,
underclothes, hemp; (v) muslin.
courteous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
ounce: (n) crumb, modicum, atom,
thoughtless, careless, heedless,
morsel, bit, Oz, apothecaries' ounce,
uncaring, unkind, tactless,
superficial, stupid, negligent, idiotic,
unthinking.
treason: (n) treachery, perfidy, high
treason, sabotage, lese majesty,
traitorousness, subversiveness,
duplicity; (adj, n) disloyalty, sedition,
prodition. ANTONYMS: (n) loyalty,
faithfulness, fidelity.
wrongfully: (adv) unjustly, injuriously,
de jure, legally, lawfully, wrongly,
mischievously, hurtfully, unlawfully,
lawlessly, illegally.
Thomas Hardy
141
CHAPTER 19
Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire. It was three weeks after
Mrs. Henchard's funeral, the candles were not lighted, and a restless, acrobatic
flame, poised on a coal, called from the shady walls the smiles of all shapes that
could respond--the old pier-glass, with gilt columns and huge entablature, the
picture-frames, sundry knobs and handles, and the brass rosette at the bottom of
each riband bell-pull on either side of the chimney-piece.%
"Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?" said Henchard.
"Yes, sir; often," she said.
"Who do you put in your pictures of 'em?"
"Mother and father--nobody else hardly."
Henchard always looked like one bent on resisting pain when Elizabeth-Jane
spoke of Richard Newson as "father." "Ah! I am out of all that, am I not?" he
said...."Was Newson a kind father?"
"Yes, sir; very."
Henchard's face settled into an expression of stolid loneliness which
gradually modulated into something softer. "Suppose I had been your real
father?" he said. "Would you have cared for me as much as you cared for
Richard Newson?"
Thesaurus
acrobatic: (adj) gymnastic, athletic,
ignite, kindled, lighten.
ribband, spill, slip, shred, strip,
poised: (adj) balanced, calm,
active.
wreath, medal, list.
entablature: (n) cornice, architrave,
rosette: (n) roset, little potato, rose
composed, steady, equanimous,
capital, coping stone, structure,
assured, urbane, serene, stable,
window, window, rose, knot, love
massed, gathered. ANTONYMS: (adj) knot, bow, russet scab, star, stem
epistyle, entablement, construction,
zoophorus, sconce, pediment.
awkward, unprepared, coarse.
canker.
gilt: (n) gilding, plating, money,
resisting: (adj) tough, tenacious,
sundry: (adj) several, different,
decoration; (adj) aureate, golden,
sequacious, stringy, tough as
diverse, assorted, miscellaneous,
gold, florid; (v) tesselated, ornate,
whitleather, resistant, recalcitrant,
many, varied, mixed, divers, various;
(n) sundries. ANTONYMS: (adj)
rich.
opposing, making resistance, loath;
lighted: (adj) illuminated, lit, light,
(v) resist.
uniform, homogeneous.
ablaze, bright, ignited, burn, burning, riband: (n) ribbon, fascia, band,
142
"I can't think it," she said quickly. "I can think of no other as my father,
except my father."
Henchard's wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper
Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him that only
one of them could possibly be recalled, and that was the girl. His mind began
vibrating between the wish to reveal himself to her and the policy of leaving
well alone, till he could no longer sit still. He walked up and down, and then he
came and stood behind her chair, looking down upon the top of her head. He
could no longer restrain his impulse. "What did your mother tell you about me-my history?" he asked.%
"That you were related by marriage."
"She should have told more--before you knew me! Then my task would not
have been such a hard one....Elizabeth, it is I who am your father, and not
Richard Newson. Shame alone prevented your wretched parents from owning
this to you while both of 'em were alive."
The back of Elizabeth's head remained still, and her shoulders did not denote
even the movements of breathing. Henchard went on: "I'd rather have your
scorn, your fear, anything than your ignorance; 'tis that I hate! Your mother and
I were man and wife when we were young. What you saw was our second
marriage. Your mother was too honest. We had thought each other dead--and-Newson became her husband."
This was the nearest approach Henchard could make to the full truth. As far
as he personally was concerned he would have screened nothing; but he showed
a respect for the young girl's sex and years worthy of a better man.
When he had gone on to give details which a whole series of slight and
unregarded incidents in her past life strangely corroborated; when, in short, she
believed his story to be true, she became greatly agitated, and turning round to
the table flung her face upon it weeping.
"Don't cry--don't cry!" said Henchard, with vehement pathos, "I can't bear it, I
won't bear it. I am your father; why should you cry? Am I so dreadful, so hateful
Thesaurus
corroborated: (adj) corroborate,
screened: (adj) covered, shielded,
supporter, colleague, auxiliary,
coadjutor. ANTONYMS: (n)
substantiated, verified.
sheltered, concealed, isolated, select,
denote: (adj, n, v) declare; (adj, v)
detractor, enemy.
invisible, shady, hazy, secluded, not
express; (v) indicate, imply, mean,
prevented: (adj) disallowed, barred,
exposed.
banned. ANTONYM: (adj) legitimate. unregarded: (v) unnoticed, unnoted,
point, demonstrate, stand for, spell;
(n, v) betoken, signify. ANTONYM: scorn: (v) despise, contemn, reject; (n,
unobserved, unmarked, unattended
(v) connote.
v) ridicule, neglect, disregard, deride, to, unperceived, unseen, unthought
dissevered: (adj) assuring liberty, at
slight; (n) contempt, derision,
of; (adj) disregarded.
mockery. ANTONYMS: (n, v) respect, vibrating: (adj) tremulous, vibratory,
liberty, charming, clear, free,
praise; (v) appreciate, revere, value,
communicative.
vibrant, swinging, hollow, moving,
helper: (n, v) assistant, aid, assistance; approve, admire, accept; (n)
oscillating, that oscillates, resonant;
(n) acolyte, attendant, ally, associate, admiration, commendation, humility. (n) shaking system.
Thomas Hardy
143
to 'ee? Don't take against me, Elizabeth-Jane!" he cried, grasping her wet hand.
"Don't take against me--though I was a drinking man once, and used your
mother roughly--I'll be kinder to you than he was! I'll do anything, if you will
only look upon me as your father!"
She tried to stand up and comfort him trustfully; but she could not; she was
troubled at his presence, like the brethren at the avowal of Joseph.%
"I don't want you to come to me all of a sudden," said Henchard in jerks, and
moving like a great tree in a wind. "No, Elizabeth, I don't. I'll go away and not
see you till to-morrow, or when you like, and then I'll show 'ee papers to prove
my words. There, I am gone, and won't disturb you any more....'Twas I that
chose your name, my daughter; your mother wanted it Susan. There, don't
forget 'twas I gave you your name!" He went out at the door and shut her softly
in, and she heard him go away into the garden. But he had not done. Before she
had moved, or in any way recovered from the effect of his disclosure, he
reappeared.
"One word more, Elizabeth," he said. "You'll take my surname now--hey?
Your mother was against it, but it will be much more pleasant to me. 'Tis legally
yours, you know. But nobody need know that. You shall take it as if by choice.
I'll talk to my lawyer--I don't know the law of it exactly; but will you do this--let
me put a few lines into the newspaper that such is to be your name?"
"If it is my name I must have it, mustn't I?" she asked.
"Well, well; usage is everything in these matters."
"I wonder why mother didn't wish it?"
"Oh, some whim of the poor soul's. Now get a bit of paper and draw up a
paragraph as I shall tell you. But let's have a light."
"I can see by the firelight," she answered. "Yes--I'd rather."
"Very well."
She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fender wrote at his dictation
words which he had evidently got by heart from some advertisement or other--
Thesaurus
bending: (n) bow, bend, deflection,
disconcert, distress, perturb, disquiet, rapacious, grabby, mercenary, stingy;
(n) seizing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
deflexion, refraction, flexure, crook;
distract, discompose, disrupt, upset,
(adj) flexible, supple, winding, pliant. concern. ANTONYMS: (v) calm,
generous, altruistic.
ANTONYM: (adj) stiff.
heard: (n) hearing.
please, soothe, smooth, order,
brethren: (n) congregation, assembly,
trustfully: (adv) trustingly, showing
reassure, sort, settle, respect, quiet,
brother, people, laity, family, flock,
organize.
trust, unsuspectingly,
fender: (n) wing, cushion, barrier,
unsuspiciously. ANTONYM: (adv)
fold.
dictation: (n) command, bidding, bid, mudguard, dashboard, guard,
distrustfully.
whim: (n, v) fancy, vagary, humor,
dictate, control, behest, charge,
mudguard seat, cowcatcher,
freak; (n) notion, impulse, fad, mood,
commission, order, direction,
framework, sheer log, framing.
grasping: (adj) avaricious, covetous,
commandment.
whimsy, thought, idea. ANTONYMS:
disturb: (v) trouble, disorder,
(n) plan, reality, aversion.
acquisitive, greedy, avid, voracious,
144
words to the effect that she, the writer, hitherto known as Elizabeth-Jane
Newson, was going to call herself Elizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith. It was
done, and fastened up, and directed to the office of the Casterbridge Chronicle.%
"Now," said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he always emitted
when he had carried his point--though tenderness softened it this time--"I'll go
upstairs and hunt for some documents that will prove it all to you. But I won't
trouble you with them till to-morrow. Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!"
He was gone before the bewildered girl could realize what it all meant, or
adjust her filial sense to the new center of gravity. She was thankful that he had
left her to herself for the evening, and sat down over the fire. Here she remained
in silence, and wept--not for her mother now, but for the genial sailor Richard
Newson, to whom she seemed doing a wrong.
Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature he
kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he unlocked. Before turning them
over he leant back and indulged in reposeful thought. Elizabeth was his at last
and she was a girl of such good sense and kind heart that she would be sure to
like him. He was the kind of man to whom some human object for pouring out
his heart upon--were it emotive or were it choleric--was almost a necessity. The
craving for his heart for the re-establishment of this tenderest human tie had
been great during his wife's lifetime, and now he had submitted to its mastery
without reluctance and without fear. He bent over the drawer again, and
proceeded in his search.
Among the other papers had been placed the contents of his wife's little desk,
the keys of which had been handed to him at her request. Here was the letter
addressed to him with the restriction, "Not to be opened till Elizabeth-Jane's
wedding-day."
Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband, had been no practical
hand at anything. In sealing up the sheet, which was folded and tucked in
without an envelope, in the old-fashioned way, she had overlaid the junction
with a large mass of wax without the requisite under-touch of the same. The seal
had cracked, and the letter was open. Henchard had no reason to suppose the
Thesaurus
craving: (n) appetite, addiction,
appetence, eagerness, hankering, yen,
hunger; (n, v) desire, appetency; (adj,
n) longing; (adj) eager. ANTONYMS:
(n) disgust, hatred, distaste,
repulsion, aversion, apathy,
disinclination; (adj) unconcerned,
disinterested.
emotive: (adj) affective, touching,
moving, affecting, affectional,
poignant, rousing, pathetic, stirring,
sensitive, exciting. ANTONYM: (adj)
uninspiring.
packing, seal, weatherstrip,
fastened: (adj) tied, fast, buttoned,
waterproofing, protection, aerosol
closed, tight, secure, pinned, binding, closure, leakproofing, cementation,
empight, steady, firm. ANTONYMS: welding.
(adj) unfastened, unbuttoned.
softened: (adj) diffused, muffled,
filial: (adj) dutiful.
muted, quiet, slow, touched,
mastery: (n) dominance, dominion,
sluggish, soften, pultaceous,
command, domination, ascendancy,
subdued, low-key.
unlocked: (adj) unbarred, unlatched,
ascendency, control, authority,
mastership, supremacy, ascendance.
unbolted, not closed, loose,
re-establishment: (n) redress.
unsecured, ajar, wide open,
sealing: (n) Spiritual wife, jointing,
unguaranteed.
Thomas Hardy
145
restriction one of serious weight, and his feeling for his late wife had not been of
the nature of deep respect. "Some trifling fancy or other of poor Susan's, I
suppose," he said; and without curiosity he allowed his eyes to scan the letter:-MY DEAR MICHAEL,-For the good of all three of us I have kept one thing a secret from you
till now. I hope you will understand why; I think you will; though
perhaps you may not forgive me. But, dear Michael, I have done it for
the best. I shall be in my grave when you read this, and Elizabeth- Jane
will have a home. Don't curse me Mike--think of how I was situated. I
can hardly write it, but here it is. Elizabeth-Jane is not your ElizabethJane--the child who was in my arms when you sold me. No; she died
three months after that, and this living one is my other husband's. I
christened her by the same name we had given to the first, and she filled
up the ache I felt at the other's loss. Michael, I am dying, and I might
have held my tongue; but I could not. Tell her husband of this or not, as
you may judge; and forgive, if you can, a woman you once deeply
wronged, as she forgives you.%
SUSAN HENCHARD
Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane through which
he saw for miles. His lips twitched, and he seemed to compress his frame, as if
to bear better. His usual habit was not to consider whether destiny were hard
upon him or not--the shape of his ideals in cases of affliction being simply a
moody "I am to suffer, I perceive." "This much scourging, then, it is for me." But
now through his passionate head there stormed this thought-- that the blasting
disclosure was what he had deserved.
His wife's extreme reluctance to have the girl's name altered from Newson to
Henchard was now accounted for fully. It furnished another illustration of that
honesty in dishonesty which had characterized her in other things.
Thesaurus
ache: (n, v) hunger, pain, hurt, yen; (n) constrict, pinch. ANTONYMS: (v)
treachery, deviousness, duplicity,
twinge, thirst; (v) long, yearn, itch,
expand, extend, increase, enlarge,
falsehood, racket, trick.
smart, pine. ANTONYMS: (v) help,
ANTONYMS: (n) frankness,
relax, stretch, pull.
assist; (n) comfort, ease, health, relief, curse: (n, v) blight, plague; (n)
sincerity, truthfulness, honestness,
joy.
anathema, blasphemy, malediction,
reliability.
blasting: (adj) ruinous, blaring, cold,
denunciation; (adj, v) beshrew; (v)
furnished: (adj) fitted, arranged,
destructive; (n) grit blasting, burst,
swear, ban, damn, vituperate.
privileged, instruct, carrying
ANTONYMS: (n) blessing,
weapons, equipt, enlightened; (v)
explosion, excavation, mining,
benediction, making; (v)
getting, advertising.
provide, furnish, begone, beset.
compress: (v) compact, abridge,
scourging: (n) flagellation.
communicate.
dishonesty: (n) corruption, betrayal,
wronged: (adj) upset, hurt, indignant,
squeeze, condense, contract, pack,
abbreviate, stuff, concentrate,
crookedness, injustice, deceitfulness, offended.
146
He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a couple of hours; till he
suddenly said, "Ah--I wonder if it is true!"
He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers, and went with a candle
to the door of Elizabeth-Jane's room, where he put his ear to the keyhole and
listened. She was breathing profoundly. Henchard softly turned the handle,
entered, and shading the light, approached the bedside. Gradually bringing the
light from behind a screening curtain he held it in such a manner that it fell
slantwise on her face without shining on her eyes. He steadfastly regarded her
features.%
They were fair: his were dark. But this was an unimportant preliminary. In
sleep there come to the surface buried genealogical facts, ancestral curves, dead
men's traits, which the mobility of daytime animation screens and overwhelms.
In the present statuesque repose of the young girl's countenance Richard
Newson's was unmistakably reflected. He could not endure the sight of her, and
hastened away.
Misery taught him nothing more than defiant endurance of it. His wife was
dead, and the first impulse for revenge died with the thought that she was
beyond him. He looked out at the night as at a fiend. Henchard, like all his kind,
was superstitious, and he could not help thinking that the concatenation of
events this evening had produced was the scheme of some sinister intelligence
bent on punishing him. Yet they had developed naturally. If he had not revealed
his past history to Elizabeth he would not have searched the drawer for papers,
and so on. The mockery was, that he should have no sooner taught a girl to
claim the shelter of his paternity than he discovered her to have no kinship with
him.
This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish trick from a
fellow-creature. Like Prester John's, his table had been spread, and infernal
harpies had snatched up the food. He went out of the house, and moved sullenly
onward down the pavement till he came to the bridge at the bottom of the High
Street. Here he turned in upon a bypath on the river bank, skirting the northeastern limits of the town.
Thesaurus
bypath: (n) byway, detour, pathway,
route, road, footpath, crossroad,
diverticle, walk.
concatenation: (adj) catenation; (n)
linkage, union, train, junction, string,
continuity, sequence, chains; (v)
communication, anastomosis.
ANTONYMS: (n) disintegration,
dispersion.
impish: (adj) playful, wicked, naughty,
elfish, puckish, prankish, bad, badly
behaved, sly, frolicsome, kittenish.
ANTONYM: (adj) good.
random, objectless, nonsensical,
infernal: (adj) devilish, fiendish,
designless; (adj, adv) aimless,
diabolical, demonic, damned, cursed, directionless. ANTONYM: (adj)
blasted, unholy, wicked; (adj, v)
meaningful.
statuesque: (adj) shapely, Junoesque,
diabolic, satanic.
paternity: (n) parenthood, source,
noble, imposing, monumental, trim,
authorship, origin, beginning,
tall, formal, elegant, courtly,
relationship, parentage, genesis,
beautiful.
unnerved: (v) relaxed; (adj) enervated,
provenance, consanguinity, family
relationship.
afraid, alarmed, anxious, fearful,
purposeless: (adj) meaningless,
hysterical, scared, tense, terrified,
timid. ANTONYM: (adj) confident.
senseless, useless, driftless, empty,
Thomas Hardy
147
These precincts embodied the mournful phases of Casterbridge life, as the
south avenues embodied its cheerful moods. The whole way along here was
sunless, even in summer time; in spring, white frosts lingered here when other
places were steaming with warmth; while in winter it was the seed-field of all
the aches, rheumatisms, and torturing cramps of the year. The Casterbridge
doctors must have pined away for want of sufficient nourishment but for the
configuration of the landscape on the north-eastern side.%
The river--slow, noiseless, and dark--the Schwarzwasser of Casterbridge--ran
beneath a low cliff, the two together forming a defence which had rendered walls
and artificial earthworks on this side unnecessary. Here were ruins of a
Franciscan priory, and a mill attached to the same, the water of which roared
down a back-hatch like the voice of desolation. Above the cliff, and behind the
river, rose a pile of buildings, and in the front of the pile a square mass cut into
the sky. It was like a pedestal lacking its statue. This missing feature, without
which the design remained incomplete, was, in truth, the corpse of a man, for the
square mass formed the base of the gallows, the extensive buildings at the back
being the county gaol. In the meadow where Henchard now walked the mob
were wont to gather whenever an execution took place, and there to the tune of
the roaring weir they stood and watched the spectacle.
The exaggeration which darkness imparted to the glooms of this region
impressed Henchard more than he had expected. The lugubrious harmony of
the spot with his domestic situation was too perfect for him, impatient of effects
scenes, and adumbrations. It reduced his heartburning to melancholy, and he
exclaimed, "Why the deuce did I come here!" He went on past the cottage in
which the old local hangman had lived and died, in times before that calling was
monopolized over all England by a single gentleman; and climbed up by a steep
back lane into the town.
For the sufferings of that night, engendered by his bitter disappointment, he
might well have been pitied. He was like one who had half fainted, and could
neither recover nor complete the swoon. In words he could blame his wife, but
not in his heart; and had he obeyed the wise directions outside her letter this
Thesaurus
cramps: (n) spasm.
swoon: (adj, n, v) faint; (adj, n)
grievous, somber, dolorous,
deuce: (n) devil, couple, two, dyad,
collapse; (n) fainting, syncope,
plaintive, miserable. ANTONYM:
(adj) cheerful.
prostration, deliquium; (v) conk,
demon, duo, duet, Twain, Dickens,
noiseless: (adj) quiet, silent, soundless, black out, pass out, die; (adj) puff.
brace, craps.
hangman: (n) executioner, headsman, hushed, voiceless, mute, stealthy,
torturing: (n) torture, excruciation,
hanger, tormentor, tiger, boggle,
dumb, soft, calm, tranquil.
crucifixion, torment, agony, anguish,
ANTONYM: (adj) heavy.
dismemberment; (adj) harrowing,
crossword puzzle, scrabble, wild
places: (n) chairs, seating, spaces.
beast, hyena.
agonizing, torturesome, agonising.
heartburning: (n) jealousy, rancor,
sunless: (adj) cloudy, dark, cheerless, wont: (adj, n) use, custom, usage; (n)
rancour, resentment.
clouded, lightless, gloomy,
practice, tradition, cleanliness,
lugubrious: (adj) dismal, gloomy,
tenebrous, mentally disordered,
assuetude, assuefaction, convention,
rut; (v) practise.
doleful, dark, funereal, melancholy,
blurred.
148
pain would have been spared him for long--possibly for ever, Elizabeth-Jane
seeming to show no ambition to quit her safe and secluded maiden courses for
the speculative path of matrimony.%
The morning came after this night of unrest, and with it the necessity for a
plan. He was far too self-willed to recede from a position, especially as it would
involve humiliation. His daughter he had asserted her to be, and his daughter
she should always think herself, no matter what hyprocrisy it involved.
But he was ill-prepared for the first step in this new situation. The moment
he came into the breakfast-room Elizabeth advanced with open confidence to
him and took him by the arm.
"I have thought and thought all night of it," she said frankly. "And I see that
everything must be as you say. And I am going to look upon you as the father
that you are, and not to call you Mr. Henchard any more. It is so plain to me
now. Indeed, father, it is. For, of course, you would not have done half the
things you have done for me, and let me have my own way so entirely, and
bought me presents, if I had only been your step-daughter! He--Mr. Newson-whom my poor mother married by such a strange mistake" (Henchard was glad
that he had disguised matters here), "was very kind--O so kind!" (she spoke with
tears in her eyes); "but that is not the same thing as being one's real father after
all. Now, father, breakfast is ready!" she said cheerfully.
Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The moment and the act he had
prefigured for weeks with a thrill of pleasure; yet it was no less than a miserable
insipidity to him now that it had come. His reinstation of her mother had been
chiefly for the girl's sake, and the fruition of the whole scheme was such dust
and ashes as this.
Thesaurus
disguised: (adj) cloaked, concealed,
masked, secret, hidden, veiled, in
disguise, incognito, blind; (adj, v)
private; (n) groggy. ANTONYMS:
(adj) recognizable, unmasked,
uncovered, uncloaked, revealed,
open, obvious.
fruition: (n) enjoyment, pleasure,
gratification, delight,
accomplishment, realization,
realisation, consummation, success,
completion, achievement.
insipidity: (n) flatness, insipidness,
appear, level.
reinstation: (n) reinstatement.
blandness, insulsity, jargon,
secluded: (adj) remote, secret,
platitude, depression, dejection,
boredom, idiocy.
reclusive, privy, cloistered, isolated,
maiden: (n) maid, girl, demoiselle,
lonely, retired, sequestered, solitary;
damosel, wench, fille, lass, miss; (adj) (adj, v) hidden. ANTONYMS: (adj)
first, initiatory, unmarried.
nearby, near, exposed, busy,
recede: (v) decline, withdraw, retire,
accessible.
self-willed: (adj) stubborn, wilful,
fall back, diminish, retreat, abate,
give, draw back, decrease, lose.
wayward, obstinate, headstrong,
ANTONYMS: (v) approach, gain,
perverse, intractable, masterful, pigproceed, surge, stay, increase,
headed, wild, deaf.
Thomas Hardy
149
CHAPTER 20
Of all the enigmas which ever confronted a girl there can have been seldom
one like that which followed Henchard's announcement of himself to Elizabeth
as her father. He had done it in an ardour and an agitation which had half
carried the point of affection with her; yet, behold, from the next morning
onwards his manner was constrained as she had never seen it before.%
The coldness soon broke out into open chiding. One grievous failing of
Elizabeth's was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect words--those
terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.
It was dinner-time--they never met except at meals--and she happened to say
when he was rising from table, wishing to show him something, "If you'll bide
where you be a minute, father, I'll get it."
"'Bide where you be,'" he echoed sharply, "Good God, are you only fit to carry
wash to a pig-trough, that ye use such words as those?"
She reddened with shame and sadness.
"I meant 'Stay where you are,' father," she said, in a low, humble voice. "I
ought to have been more careful."
He made no reply, and went out of the room.
Thesaurus
agitation: (n) disturbance, excitement, reprehension, rap, censure,
tumult, stirring, convulsion, stir,
upbraiding, wigging, brawl,
admonition; (adv) scoldingly.
commotion, emotion, unrest, shake,
turmoil. ANTONYMS: (n) serenity,
coldness: (n) chilliness, coolness,
calm, equanimity, rest, peace,
indifference, distance, apathy, iciness,
deterrent.
reserve, frost, frigidity, unconcern;
ardour: (n) fervency, fervidness,
(adj, n) cold. ANTONYMS: (n)
fervor, fervour, fire, elan, zeal,
friendliness, sympathy, sensitivity,
violence, ardency, assiduity,
hotness, heat, responsiveness,
application.
concern, brightness, kindness.
carried: (adj) conveyed, imported.
dialect: (n) language, speech,
chiding: (n) scolding, rebuke, blame,
vernacular, tongue, accent, lingo,
conversation, say, talk, patois,
phraseology.
grievous: (adj) bitter, dolorous,
dreadful, deplorable, sad, tough,
pitiful, atrocious, regrettable,
sorrowful, sorry. ANTONYM: (adj)
successful.
reddened: (adj) red, ablaze, aflame,
flushed, crimson, inflamed, blazing,
aroused, blemished, red as scarlet,
spotty.
150
The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and in time it came to pass that
for "fay" she said "succeed"; that she no longer spoke of "dumbledores" but of
"humble bees"; no longer said of young men and women that they "walked
together," but that they were "engaged"; that she grew to talk of "greggles" as
"wild hyacinths"; that when she had not slept she did not quaintly tell the
servants next morning that she had been "hag-rid," but that she had "suffered
from indigestion."
These improvements, however, are somewhat in advance of the story.
Henchard, being uncultivated himself, was the bitterest critic the fair girl could
possibly have had of her own lapses--really slight now, for she read
omnivorously. A gratuitous ordeal was in store for her in the matter of her
handwriting. She was passing the dining- room door one evening, and had
occasion to go in for something. It was not till she had opened the door that she
knew the Mayor was there in the company of a man with whom he transacted
business.%
"Here, Elizabeth-Jane," he said, looking round at her, "just write down what I
tell you--a few words of an agreement for me and this gentleman to sign. I am a
poor tool with a pen."
"Be jowned, and so be I," said the gentleman.
She brought forward blotting-book, paper, and ink, and sat down.
"Now then--'An agreement entered into this sixteenth day of October'--write
that first."
She started the pen in an elephantine march across the sheet. It was a
splendid round, bold hand of her own conception, a style that would have
stamped a woman as Minerva's own in more recent days. But other ideas
reigned then: Henchard's creed was that proper young girls wrote ladies'-hand-nay, he believed that bristling characters were as innate and inseparable a part of
refined womanhood as sex itself. Hence when, instead of scribbling, like the
Princess Ida,--
Thesaurus
bristling: (n) brisling; (adj) thorny,
approve; (n) commendation,
costless, free of charge, unfounded;
(adj, v) voluntary. ANTONYMS: (adj) compliment, approval, reward.
muricated, pectinated, studded,
thistly, bristled, bushy, teeming,
necessary, paid, provoked, justified. uncultivated: (adj) savage, ignorant,
quaintly: (adv) unusually, oddly,
horrid, horrent.
uneducated, wild, fresh, uncivilized,
dining: (n) feeding, eating; (v) eat.
curiously, weirdly, singularly,
rude, untutored, uncultured, artless,
elephantine: (adj) jumbo, gargantuan, peculiarly, queerly, strangely,
lowbrow. ANTONYMS: (adj)
giant, ponderous, huge, mammoth,
outlandishly, charmingly, pleasingly. cultivated, familiar, refined.
reprimand: (n, v) censure, reproach,
womanhood: (n) muliebrity,
heavy, gigantic, immense, massive,
lecture, blame, reproof; (v) chide,
monstrous.
femininity, adulthood, maturity,
gratuitous: (adj) complimentary,
castigate, chastise; (n) chastisement,
manhood, womankind, wifehood,
unnecessary, needless, superfluous,
admonition, castigation.
softness, social class, majority, adult
ANTONYMS: (v) commend,
for nothing, gratis, unwarranted,
female.
Thomas Hardy
151
"In such a hand as when a field of corn
Bows all its ears before the roaring East,"
Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot and sand-bags, he reddened in
angry shame for her, and, peremptorily saying, "Never mind--I'll finish it,"
dismissed her there and then.%
Her considerate disposition became a pitfall to her now. She was, it must be
admitted, sometimes provokingly and unnecessarily willing to saddle herself
with manual labours. She would go to the kitchen instead of ringing, "Not to
make Phoebe come up twice." She went down on her knees, shovel in hand,
when the cat overturned the coal-scuttle; moreover, she would persistently thank
the parlour-maid for everything, till one day, as soon as the girl was gone from
the room, Henchard broke out with, "Good God, why dostn't leave off thanking
that girl as if she were a goddess-born! Don't I pay her a dozen pound a year to
do things for 'ee?" Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the exclamation that he became
sorry a few minutes after, and said that he did not mean to be rough.
These domestic exhibitions were the small protruding needlerocks which
suggested rather than revealed what was underneath. But his passion had less
terror for her than his coldness. The increasing frequency of the latter mood told
her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing dislike. The more
interesting that her appearance and manners became under the softening
influences which she could now command, and in her wisdom did command,
the more she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she caught him looking at her
with a louring invidiousness that she could hardly bear. Not knowing his secret
it was cruel mockery that she should for the first time excite his animosity when
she had taken his surname.
But the most terrible ordeal was to come. Elizabeth had latterly been
accustomed of an afternoon to present a cup of cider or ale and bread-and-cheese
to Nance Mockridge, who worked in the yard wimbling hay-bonds. Nance
accepted this offering thankfully at first; afterwards as a matter of course. On a
day when Henchard was on the premises he saw his step-daughter enter the
Thesaurus
dismissed: (adj) discharged,
unemployed, clear, convalescent.
dozen: (adj, n) XII; (n) dozens, boxcars.
estrange: (v) disaffect, alien, separate,
wean, divide, dissociate; (adj, v) set
against; (adj) rile, incense, repel, sow
dissension. ANTONYMS: (v) involve,
engage, espouse, reconcile, unite,
conciliate.
exclamation: (n) clamor, ejaculation,
exclaiming, utterance, whoop,
interjection, shout, expletive, deuce,
Dickens, ecphonesis.
vexatiously.
invidiousness: (n) hatred.
shovel: (v) dig, rake, broom, delve,
pitfall: (n) mesh, trap, noose, ambush, mop; (n) excavator, digger, shovelful,
decoy, gin, snare, difficulty, booby
dipper, power shovel, poker.
softening: (adj) emollient, salving,
trap, peril, danger.
protruding: (adj) obtrusive, projecting, relaxing; (v) soften; (adj, n) soothing;
jutting, protrusive, salient, projected, (n) maceration, mitigation, easement,
bulging, protuberant, noticeable,
mollification, inteneration,
sticking out, proposed.
encouragement.
provokingly: (adv) annoyingly,
thanking: (n) curtain call,
maddeningly, exasperatingly,
appreciation, acknowledgement,
irritatingly, aggravatingly, gallingly,
blessing.
152
hay-barn on this errand; and, as there was no clear spot on which to deposit the
provisions, she at once set to work arranging two trusses of hay as a table,
Mockridge meanwhile standing with her hands on her hips, easefully looking at
the preparations on her behalf.%
"Elizabeth, come here!" said Henchard; and she obeyed.
"Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?" he said with suppressed
passion. "Haven't I told you o't fifty times? Hey? Making yourself a drudge for a
common workwoman of such a character as hers! Why, ye'll disgrace me to the
dust!"
Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance inside the barn
door, who fired up immediately at the slur upon her personal character. Coming
to the door she cried regardless of consequences, "Come to that, Mr. Henchard, I
can let 'ee know she've waited on worse!"
"Then she must have had more charity than sense," said Henchard.
"O no, she hadn't. 'Twere not for charity but for hire; and at a public-house in
this town!"
"It is not true!" cried Henchard indignantly.
"Just ask her," said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a manner that she
could comfortably scratch her elbows.
Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now pink and white
from confinement, lost nearly all of the former colour. "What does this mean?"
he said to her. "Anything or nothing?"
"It is true," said Elizabeth-Jane. "But it was only--"
"Did you do it, or didn't you? Where was it?"
"At the Three Mariners; one evening for a little while, when we were staying
there."
Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, and sailed into the barn; for
assuming that she was to be discharged on the instant she had resolved to make
the most of her victory. Henchard, however, said nothing about discharging her.
Thesaurus
confinement: (n, v) childbirth,
delivery; (n) detention, custody,
restraint, internment, prison, labor,
containment, incarceration, arrest.
ANTONYMS: (n) release, death,
liberation.
discharging: (n) unloading, discharge,
fulfillment, acquittal; (v) unload.
drudge: (n, v) slave, work; (v) toil, fag,
moil, dig, grub, sweat, plod, grind;
(n) hack. ANTONYMS: (v) dawdle,
putter, loaf, idle, lounge.
folding: (n) foldaway, plication,
foldable, bend, crease, bending,
flexure, pleating, collapsable,
collapsible, doubling.
indignantly: (adv) irately, angrily,
wrathfully, enragedly, sorely,
acrimoniously, cynically, sulkily,
hotly, exasperatedly, furiously.
nance: (n) fag, hassock, for smoking,
female monarch, female cat, fairy,
butt, faggot, pansy, faery, faerie.
slur: (adj, n) blot, brand, stigma,
reproach; (n, v) libel, disgrace, insult,
vilify; (n) affront, defamation; (adj, v)
blur. ANTONYMS: (v) focus,
compliment; (n) praise.
triumphantly: (adv) exultantly,
winningly, jubilantly, elatedly,
proudly, successfully, triumphally,
conqueringly, gleefully, delightedly,
gloriously.
workwoman: (n) worker, roustabout,
female worker, employee, working
woman.
Thomas Hardy
153
Unduly sensitive on such points by reason of his own past, he had the look of
one completely ground down to the last indignity. Elizabeth followed him to the
house like a culprit; but when she got inside she could not see him. Nor did she
see him again that day.%
Convinced of the scathing damage to his local repute and position that must
have been caused by such a fact, though it had never before reached his own
ears, Henchard showed a positive distaste for the presence of this girl not his
own, whenever he encountered her. He mostly dined with the farmers at the
market-room of one of the two chief hotels, leaving her in utter solitude. Could
he have seen how she made use of those silent hours he might have found reason
to reserve his judgment on her quality. She read and took notes incessantly,
mastering facts with painful laboriousness, but never flinching from her selfimposed task. She began the study of Latin, incited by the Roman characteristics
of the town she lived in. "If I am not well-informed it shall be by no fault of my
own," she would say to herself through the tears that would occasionally glide
down her peachy cheeks when she was fairly baffled by the portentous obscurity
of many of these educational works.
Thus she lived on, a dumb, deep-feeling, great-eyed creature, construed by
not a single contiguous being; quenching with patient fortitude her incipient
interest in Farfrae, because it seemed to be one-sided, unmaidenly, and unwise.
True, that for reasons best known to herself, she had, since Farfrae's dismissal,
shifted her quarters from the back room affording a view of the yard (which she
had occupied with such zest) to a front chamber overlooking the street; but as for
the young man, whenever he passed the house he seldom or never turned his
head.
Winter had almost come, and unsettled weather made her still more
dependent upon indoor resources. But there were certain early winter days in
Casterbridge--days of firmamental exhaustion which followed angry southwesterly tempests--when, if the sun shone, the air was like velvet. She seized on
these days for her periodical visits to the spot where her mother lay buried--the
still-used burial- ground of the old Roman-British city, whose curious feature
Thesaurus
flinching: (adj) diffident.
fortitude: (n) bravery, endurance, grit,
pluck, backbone, determination,
tenacity, firmness, strength; (adj, n)
guts, spunk. ANTONYMS: (n)
cowardice, frailty, impatience.
incited: (adj) encouraged, impelled,
driven.
laboriousness: (n) diligence,
arduousness, effortfulness, pedantry,
painfulness, operosity, operoseness,
literalism, industry, circumstantiality,
circumlocution. ANTONYM: (n)
ease.
mastering: (adj) victorious.
peachy: (adj) neat, swell, bully, great,
groovy, cracking, nifty, exquisite,
admirable, wonderful, fabulous.
portentous: (adj) fateful,
extraordinary, pompous, amazing,
pontifical, prodigious, grandiloquent,
sinister, unusual, foreboding,
astonishing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
modest, promising.
quenching: (n) extinguishing,
extinction, quench, dampen out,
cooling, chilling, extermination,
stamp out, hardening, appeasement,
deactivation.
repute: (n, v) reputation, report,
esteem, respect, honor; (n) name,
character, celebrity, standing; (v)
count, regard as.
well-informed: (adj) educated,
conversant, knowing, wise,
intelligent, studious, versed.
154
was this, its continuity as a place of sepulture. Mrs. Henchard's dust mingled
with the dust of women who lay ornamented with glass hair-pins and amber
necklaces, and men who held in their mouths coins of Hadrian, Posthumus, and
the Constantines.%
Half-past ten in the morning was about her hour for seeking this spot--a time
when the town avenues were deserted as the avenues of Karnac. Business had
long since passed down them into its daily cells, and Leisure had not arrived
there. So Elizabeth-Jane walked and read, or looked over the edge of the book to
think, and thus reached the churchyard.
There, approaching her mother's grave she saw a solitary dark figure in the
middle of the gravel-walk. This figure, too, was reading; but not from a book:
the words which engrossed it being the inscription on Mrs. Henchard's
tombstone. The personage was in mourning like herself, was about her age and
size, and might have been her wraith or double, but for the fact that it was a lady
much more beautifully dressed than she. Indeed, comparatively indifferent as
Elizabeth-Jane was to dress, unless for some temporary whim or purpose, her
eyes were arrested by the artistic perfection of the lady's appearance. Her gait,
too, had a flexuousness about it, which seemed to avoid angularity. It was a
revelation to Elizabeth that human beings could reach this stage of external
development--she had never suspected it. She felt all the freshness and grace to
be stolen from herself on the instant by the neighbourhood of such a stranger.
And this was in face of the fact that Elizabeth could now have been writ
handsome, while the young lady was simply pretty.
Had she been envious she might have hated the woman; but she did not do
that--she allowed herself the pleasure of feeling fascinated. She wondered where
the lady had come from. The stumpy and practical walk of honest homeliness
which mostly prevailed there, the two styles of dress thereabout, the simple and
the mistaken, equally avouched that this figure was no Casterbridge woman's,
even if a book in her hand resembling a guide-book had not also suggested it.
The stranger presently moved from the tombstone of Mrs. Henchard, and
vanished behind the corner of the wall. Elizabeth went to the tomb herself;
Thesaurus
angularity: (n) angular, angularness,
bend, triangularity, rectangularity,
plication, oblongness, jog, furcation,
fold, crease.
gait: (n, v) pace, step, tread, footstep,
rate, stride, action; (n) walk, carriage,
movement, velocity.
homeliness: (n) drabness, dowdiness,
inelegance, austerity, simplicity,
ugliness, eyesore, appearance; (adj)
lowness.
mingled: (adj) miscellaneous, complex,
indiscriminate, heterogeneous,
medley, confused, eclectic, motley,
different; (v) blended, blent.
necklaces: (n) costume jewelry, jewels,
ornaments, trinkets.
ornamented: (adj) embellished,
beautified, fancy, flowery, ornate,
adorned, bedecked, decked,
festooned, feathered, florid.
sepulture: (n, v) interment,
inhumation; (n) sepulchre,
entombment, grave, mausoleum,
funeral, sepulcher, burial chamber,
repository, monument.
stumpy: (adj) squat, stocky, podgy,
short, chunky, stubby, squatty,
dumpy, thick, squab, thickset.
ANTONYM: (adj) slender.
thereabout: (adv) thereby, by that.
tombstone: (n) headstone, monument,
stone, memorial, marker, keystone.
wraith: (n) shade, specter, phantom,
spook, apparition, spectre, spirit,
vision, shadow, comb, fetch.
Thomas Hardy
155
beside it were two footprints distinct in the soil, signifying that the lady had
stood there a long time. She returned homeward, musing on what she had seen,
as she might have mused on a rainbow or the Northern Lights, a rare butterfly or
a cameo.%
Interesting as things had been out of doors, at home it turned out to be one of
her bad days. Henchard, whose two years' mayoralty was ending, had been
made aware that he was not to be chosen to fill a vacancy in the list of aldermen;
and that Farfrae was likely to become one of the Council. This caused the
unfortunate discovery that she had played the waiting-maid in the town of
which he was Mayor to rankle in his mind yet more poisonously. He had learnt
by personal inquiry at the time that it was to Donald Farfrae--that treacherous
upstart--that she had thus humiliated herself. And though Mrs. Stannidge
seemed to attach no great importance to the incident--the cheerful souls at the
Three Mariners having exhausted its aspects long ago--such was Henchard's
haughty spirit that the simple thrifty deed was regarded as little less than a
social catastrophe by him.
Ever since the evening of his wife's arrival with her daughter there had been
something in the air which had changed his luck. That dinner at the King's Arms
with his friends had been Henchard's Austerlitz: he had had his successes since,
but his course had not been upward. He was not to be numbered among the
aldermen--that Peerage of burghers--as he had expected to be, and the
consciousness of this soured him to-day.
"Well, where have you been?" he said to her with offhand laconism.
"I've been strolling in the Walks and churchyard, father, till I feel quite leery."
She clapped her hand to her mouth, but too late.
This was just enough to incense Henchard after the other crosses of the day.
"I won't have you talk like that!" he thundered. "'Leery,' indeed. One would
think you worked upon a farm! One day I learn that you lend a hand in publichouses. Then I hear you talk like a clodhopper. I'm burned, if it goes on, this
house can't hold us two."
Thesaurus
aspects: (adj) moods, features.
cogitation.
banefully, noisomely, maliciously,
clodhopper: (n) boor, yokel, brogue,
offhand: (adj, adv) impromptu,
spitefully, deadly, deleteriously.
extemporaneous, extempore; (adj)
rankle: (v) grate, fret, chafe, irritate,
brogan, clod, churl, rustic, chuff,
shoe, clown, farmer.
casual, extemporary, careless,
gnaw, bother, annoy, exasperate, vex;
laconism: (adj) brevity, the soul of wit; cavalier, nonchalant, brusque,
(adj) putrefy, ferment.
(n) laconic, terseness, silence.
regarded: (adj) reputed.
abrupt, improvised. ANTONYMS:
mayoralty: (n) situation, office, place,
(adj) careful, considerate, warm,
thrifty: (adj) careful, economical,
post, spot, position, berth.
serious, civil, cautious, conscientious, provident, sparing, prudent, stingy,
musing: (adj) contemplative,
concerned, caring, intended,
saving, spare, parsimonious, chary,
meditative, thoughtful, pensive; (n)
scotch. ANTONYMS: (adj) wasteful,
prepared.
meditation, consideration, reflection, poisonously: (adv) toxically, badly,
spendthrift, profligate, extravagant,
rumination, reverie, thought,
noxiously, viciously, virulently,
generous.
156
The only way of getting a single pleasant thought to go to sleep upon after
this was by recalling the lady she had seen that day, and hoping she might see
her again.%
Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, thinking over his jealous folly in
forbidding Farfrae to pay his addresses to this girl who did not belong to him,
when if he had allowed them to go on he might not have been encumbered with
her. At last he said to himself with satisfaction as he jumped up and went to the
writing-table: "Ah! he'll think it means peace, and a marriage portion--not that I
don't want my house to be troubled with her, and no portion at all!" He wrote as
follows:-Sir,-On consideration, I don't wish to interfere with your courtship of
Elizabeth-Jane, if you care for her. I therefore withdraw my objection;
excepting in this--that the business be not carried on in my house.-Yours,
M. HENCHARD
Mr. Fairfrae.
The morrow, being fairly fine, found Elizabeth-Jane again in the churchyard,
but while looking for the lady she was startled by the apparition of Farfrae, who
passed outside the gate. He glanced up for a moment from a pocket-book in
which he appeared to be making figures as he went; whether or not he saw her
he took no notice, and disappeared.
Unduly depressed by a sense of her own superfluity she thought he probably
scorned her; and quite broken in spirit sat down on a bench. She fell into painful
thought on her position, which ended with her saying quite loud, "O, I wish I
was dead with dear mother!"
Behind the bench was a little promenade under the wall where people
sometimes walked instead of on the gravel. The bench seemed to be touched by
Thesaurus
apparition: (n) ghost, phantom, spirit,
spectre, hallucination, spook, shade,
eidolon, wraith, advent; (n, v) vision.
bench: (n) banquette, chair,
workbench, court, terrace, bank, bar,
judicatory, Ottoman, board, form.
courtship: (n) courting, wooing, love,
bundling, the soft impeachment,
prayer, entreaty, gallantry, addresses,
cause, affection.
excepting: (conj, prep) but, bar; (n, prep)
except for, exclusive of; (prep) aside
recalling: (adj) revocatory; (n)
from, besides, apart from, barring,
excluding, with the exception of; (v)
recognition.
saving. ANTONYM: (prep) including. scorned: (adj) detested, hated, abject,
forbidding: (adj) grim, ominous,
neglected, contemptuous, despicable,
dismal, dour, austere, abominable,
insolent, undesirable, unloved,
ugly, hard, repulsive, redoubtable;
unpopular, mean.
(n) banning. ANTONYMS: (adj)
superfluity: (n) plethora, redundancy,
alluring, inviting, pleasant,
superabundance, nimiety,
hospitable, friendly, favorable,
overabundance, overplus,
comforting.
embarrassment, redundance,
morrow: (n) morning, future, mean
extravagance, surplus, glut.
ANTONYM: (n) shortfall.
solar day, day.
Thomas Hardy
157
something, she looked round, and a face was bending over her, veiled, but still
distinct, the face of the young woman she had seen yesterday.%
Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a moment, knowing she had been
overheard, though there was pleasure in her confusion. "Yes, I heard you," said
the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering her look. "What can have happened?"
"I don't--I can't tell you," said Elizabeth, putting her hand to her face to hide a
quick flush that had come.
There was no movement or word for a few seconds; then the girl felt that the
young lady was sitting down beside her.
"I guess how it is with you," said the latter. "That was your mother." She
waved her hand towards the tombstone. Elizabeth looked up at her as if
inquiring of herself whether there should be confidence. The lady's manner was
so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decided there should be confidence. "It was
my mother," she said, "my only friend."
"But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?"
"Yes, he is living," said Elizabeth-Jane.
"Is he not kind to you?"
"I've no wish to complain of him."
"There has been a disagreement?"
"A little."
"Perhaps you were to blame," suggested the stranger.
"I was--in many ways," sighed the meek Elizabeth. "I swept up the coals
when the servants ought to have done it; and I said I was leery;--and he was
angry with me."
The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply. "Do you know the
impression your words give me?" she said ingenuously. "That he is a hottempered man--a little proud--perhaps ambitious; but not a bad man." Her
anxiety not to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabeth was curious.
Thesaurus
desirous: (adj) wistful, avid,
ambitious, greedy, longing, eager,
hungry, covetous, envious, agog; (adj,
v) willing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
undesirous, reluctant, undesiring,
unconcerned.
hot-tempered: (adj) quick-tempered,
impatient, irascible, irritable,
peppery, passionate, fiery, choleric,
hotheaded, violent, brash.
ingenuously: (adv) artlessly, sincerely,
innocently, candidly, naively,
siding: (n) weatherboard,
frankly, outspokenly, plainly,
naturally, unsophisticatedly,
weatherboarding, railroad siding,
straightforwardly. ANTONYMS:
clapboard, shunt, turnout, switch,
(adv) artfully, dishonestly,
railway, building material, falsehood,
pretentiously.
spur.
meek: (adj) lowly, docile, gentle, tame, vivacious: (adj) lively, animated,
low, submissive, compliant, mild,
sprightly, vibrant, spry, effervescent,
gay; (adj, v) cheerful, active, buoyant,
modest, quiet, kind. ANTONYMS:
(adj) assertive, bossy, haughty,
brisk. ANTONYMS: (adj) dull,
arrogant, overbearing, rebellious,
lethargic, listless, compliment,
disobedient, wild, harsh, brash.
inactive, praise, languid, lifeless,
servants: (n) staff, suite.
serious, sluggish.
158
"O no; certainly not bad," agreed the honest girl. "And he has not even been
unkind to me till lately--since mother died. But it has been very much to bear
while it has lasted. All is owing to my defects, I daresay; and my defects are
owing to my history."
"What is your history?"
Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner. She found that her
questioner was looking at her, turned her eyes down; and then seemed
compelled to look back again. "My history is not gay or attractive," she said.
"And yet I can tell it, if you really want to know."
The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereupon Elizabeth-Jane
told the tale of her life as she understood it, which was in general the true one,
except that the sale at the fair had no part therein.%
Contrary to the girl's expectation her new friend was not shocked. This
cheered her; and it was not till she thought of returning to that home in which
she had been treated so roughly of late that her spirits fell.
"I don't know how to return," she murmured. "I think of going away. But
what can I do? Where can I go?"
"Perhaps it will be better soon," said her friend gently. "So I would not go far.
Now what do you think of this: I shall soon want somebody to live in my house,
partly as housekeeper, partly as companion; would you mind coming to me? But
perhaps--"
"O yes," cried Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes. "I would, indeed--I would do
anything to be independent; for then perhaps my father might get to love me.
But, ah!"
"What?"
"I am no accomplished person. And a companion to you must be that."
"O, not necessarily."
"Not? But I can't help using rural words sometimes, when I don't mean to."
"Never mind, I shall like to know them."
Thesaurus
compelled: (adj) forced, obligate,
enforced, constrained, responsible,
answerable, unwilling, destined.
housekeeper: (n) factotum, mistress,
shepherd, householder, housewife,
domestic, cleaning woman, croupier,
domestic help, seneschal, house
servant.
owing: (adj) due, unpaid, unsettled,
outstanding, overdue, owed, payable,
undischarged, indebted, fulfilling
obligation, lawful. ANTONYM: (adj)
settled.
questioner: (n) inquirer, interrogator,
enquirer, interviewer, querist,
investigator, examiner, asker,
doubter, talker, speaker.
tale: (n) account, narrative, narration,
recital, fib, fable, report, fiction, lie,
relation, yarn. ANTONYM: (n) fact.
unkind: (adj) cruel, harsh, unfeeling,
inconsiderate, pitiless, heartless,
inhuman, hard, thoughtless, brutal,
mean. ANTONYMS: (adj) kind,
considerate, pleasant, friendly,
thoughtful, tactful, mild, gentle,
generous, flattering, compassionate.
whereupon: (adv) thereupon,
hereupon, upon which, at what, at
which.
wistfully: (adv) pensively,
meditatively, desirously, longingly,
yearningly, broodingly, reflectively,
wishfully, melancholy, thoughtfully,
nostalgically. ANTONYM: (adv)
contentedly.
Thomas Hardy
159
"And--O, I know I shan't do!"--she cried with a distressful laugh. "I
accidentally learned to write round hand instead of ladies'-hand. And, of
course, you want some one who can write that?"
"Well, no."
"What, not necessary to write ladies'-hand?" cried the joyous Elizabeth.%
"Not at all."
"But where do you live?"
"In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be living here after twelve o'clock to-day."
Elizabeth expressed her astonishment.
"I have been staying at Budmouth for a few days while my house was getting
ready. The house I am going into is that one they call High-Place Hall--the old
stone one looking down the lane to the market. Two or three rooms are fit for
occupation, though not all: I sleep there to-night for the first time. Now will you
think over my proposal, and meet me here the first fine day next week, and say if
you are still in the same mind?"
Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of a change from an unbearable
position, joyfully assented; and the two parted at the gate of the churchyard.
Thesaurus
accidentally: (adv) incidentally,
casually, fortuitously, by chance,
coincidentally, adventitiously,
unintentionally, contingently,
haphazardly, occasionally,
inadvertently. ANTONYMS: (adv)
deliberately, knowingly, purposely,
unfortunately, correctly.
astonishment: (n) admiration,
wonder, wonderment, surprise,
marvel, stupefaction, confusion,
consternation, awe, alarm, startle.
ANTONYMS: (n) calmness, belief,
glowing; (adj, n) lucid, resplendent,
clear; (v) shine. ANTONYMS: (adj)
contempt.
distressful: (adj) calamitous, dismal,
dull, pale, blemished.
unbearable: (adj) insufferable,
disastrous, dreary, grievous,
lamentable, sad, sorrowful, sorry,
excruciating, insupportable,
unfortunate, unhappy.
unendurable, hateful, unacceptable,
joyous: (adj) happy, gleeful, elated,
repugnant, impossible, grievous,
jolly, glad, gay, jovial, merry, festive, enormous, dreadful. ANTONYMS:
cheerful, jocund. ANTONYMS: (adj)
(adj) bearable, manageable,
despairing, joyless, miserable.
imperceptible, tolerable, wonderful,
shining: (adj, v) brilliant; (adj) lustrous, lovable, nice, pleasant.
radiant, glossy, luminous, glorious,
Thomas Hardy
161
CHAPTER 21
As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains practically unmarked
till some mature experience enforces it, so did this High-Place Hall now for the
first time really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her ears had heard its name
on a hundred occasions.%
Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the stranger, and the house, and her
own chance of living there, all the rest of the day. In the afternoon she had
occasion to pay a few bills in the town and do a little shopping when she learnt
that what was a new discovery to herself had become a common topic about the
streets. High-Place Hall was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to live
shortly; all the shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance of
her being a customer.
Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so new to
her in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.
When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render
chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a lover's feeling,
thought she would like to look at the outside of High-Place Hall. She went up
the street in that direction.
The Hall, with its grey facade and parapet, was the only residence of its sort
so near the centre of the town. It had, in the first place, the characteristics of a
Thesaurus
bills: (n) currency, folding money.
glibly: (adv) smoothly, slipperily,
battlement, wall, banister, handrail,
capping: (n) capsuling, surfacing; (adj) easily, fluently, superficially,
earthwork; (v) sunk fence.
render: (v) interpret, explain, give,
corking.
frivolously, eloquently, flippantly,
chimneys: (n) chimney.
effortlessly, confidently, facetiously.
offer, furnish, pay, construe, return,
discounted: (adj) economical, not
ANTONYMS: (adv) hesitantly,
provide, impart, translate.
expensive. ANTONYM: (adj)
streets: (n) street.
awkwardly.
maxim: (adj, n) aphorism, adage; (n)
unmarked: (adj) overlooked,
expensive.
facade: (n) appearance, outside, face,
byword, apothegm, rule, saying,
unidentified, blank, unblemished,
principle, proverb, motto, gnome; (n, without a scratch, without a number;
front, veneer, pretense, disguise,
v) saw.
(adj, v) unnoted; (v) unheeded,
surface, guise, semblance,
frontispiece. ANTONYMS: (n)
parapet: (n) bulwark, breastwork,
unthought of, unregarded, unmissed.
ANTONYMS: (adj) injured, old.
interior, substance, rear, genuine.
fortification, railing, bastion,
162
country mansion--birds' nests in its chimneys, damp nooks where fungi grew
and irregularities of surface direct from Nature's trowel. At night the forms of
passengers were patterned by the lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.%
This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of the premises
having been in that lawless condition which accompanies the entry of a new
tenant. The house was entirely of stone, and formed an example of dignity
without great size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still less consequential, yet
the old-fashioned stranger instinctively said "Blood built it, and Wealth enjoys it"
however vague his opinions of those accessories might be.
Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been wrong, for until
this very evening, when the new lady had arrived, the house had been empty for
a year or two while before that interval its occupancy had been irregular. The
reason of its unpopularity was soon made manifest. Some of its rooms
overlooked the market-place; and such a prospect from such a house was not
considered desirable or seemly by its would-be occupiers.
Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights there. The lady had
obviously arrived. The impression that this woman of comparatively practised
manner had made upon the studious girl's mind was so deep that she enjoyed
standing under an opposite archway merely to think that the charming lady was
inside the confronting walls, and to wonder what she was doing. Her
admiration for the architecture of that front was entirely on account of the
inmate it screened. Though for that matter the architecture deserved admiration,
or at least study, on its own account. It was Palladian, and like most architecture
erected since the Gothic age was a compilation rather than a design. But its
reasonableness made it impressive. It was not rich, but rich enough. A timely
consciousness of the ultimate vanity of human architecture, no less than of other
human things, had prevented artistic superfluity.
Men had still quite recently been going in and out with parcels and packingcases, rendering the door and hall within like a public thoroughfare. Elizabeth
trotted through the open door in the dusk, but becoming alarmed at her own
temerity she went quickly out again by another which stood open in the lofty
Thesaurus
inmate: (n) captive, convict, gaolbird,
denizen, prisoner, con, patient,
jailbird, lodger, occupant, resident.
ANTONYM: (n) outpatient.
lawless: (adj) disorderly, illicit,
anarchical, illegitimate, anarchic,
unlawful, unruly, illegal, mutinous,
wrongful, seditious. ANTONYM:
(adj) orderly.
seemly: (adj, v) befitting, becoming;
(adj, adv) comely; (adj) respectable,
decorous, decent, fitting, fit,
appropriate; (adv) becomingly,
properly. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unseemly, unbecoming, unsuitable,
inappropriate.
studious: (adj) scholarly, bookish,
academic, assiduous, erudite,
diligent, learned, careful, deliberate;
(adj, v) thoughtful, reflective.
ANTONYM: (adj) negligent.
temerity: (n) nerve, effrontery,
hardihood, boldness, rashness,
imprudence, audaciousness,
carelessness, assurance, indiscretion,
venturesomeness. ANTONYMS: (n)
caution, care, reticence.
trowel: (n) spatula, watch glass,
dipper, transplanter, thimble,
tablespoon, pointing trowel,
plastering trowel, brick trowel,
garden trowel; (v) delve.
unpopularity: (n) disrepute, quality,
disfavor. ANTONYMS: (n)
popularity, approval.
would-be: (adj) quasi, aspiring.
Thomas Hardy
163
wall of the back court. To her surprise she found herself in one of the little-used
alleys of the town. Looking round at the door which had given her egress, by
the light of the solitary lamp fixed in the alley, she saw that it was arched and
old--older even than the house itself. The door was studded, and the keystone of
the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a comic leer, as could
still be discerned; but generations of Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the
mask, aiming at its open mouth; and the blows thereon had chipped off the lips
and jaws as if they had been eaten away by disease. The appearance was so
ghastly by the weakly lamp-glimmer that she could not bear to look at it--the
first unpleasant feature of her visit.%
The position of the queer old door and the odd presence of the leering mask
suggested one thing above all others as appertaining to the mansion's past
history--intrigue. By the alley it had been possible to come unseen from all sorts
of quarters in the town--the old play-house, the old bull- stake, the old cock-pit,
the pool wherein nameless infants had been used to disappear. High-Place Hall
could boast of its conveniences undoubtedly.
She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward, which was
down the alley, but hearing footsteps approaching in that quarter, and having no
great wish to be found in such a place at such a time she quickly retreated. There
being no other way out she stood behind a brick pier till the intruder should
have gone his ways.
Had she watched she would have been surprised. She would have seen that
the pedestrian on coming up made straight for the arched doorway: that as he
paused with his hand upon the latch the lamplight fell upon the face of
Henchard.
But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her nook that she discerned nothing of
this. Henchard passed in, as ignorant of her presence as she was ignorant of his
identity, and disappeared in the darkness. Elizabeth came out a second time into
the alley, and made the best of her way home.
Henchard's chiding, by begetting in her a nervous fear of doing anything
definable as unladylike, had operated thus curiously in keeping them unknown
Thesaurus
appertaining: (adj) appertinent.
conveniences: (n) creature comforts,
comforts, convenience, living,
support, livelihood, keep, sustenance,
facility, facilities, device.
definable: (adj) finite.
egress: (n) exit, egression, outlet, door,
emergence, departure, emersion,
emission, way out, dissilience; (v)
emerge. ANTONYMS: (n) entry,
ingress.
infants: (n) brood.
keystone: (n) keynote, headstone,
basis, foundation, key, quoin,
cornerstone, coigne, coign, base,
groundwork.
latch: (v) bar, fasten, grab; (n, v) bolt;
(adj, n, v) lock; (n) hasp, clasp, door
latch, hook; (adj) link, yoke.
leer: (n, v) glance; (n) grin, wink,
smirk, look, gaze, nudge, shrug, tip
the wink; (v) simper, ogle.
nameless: (adj) unknown, unnamed,
unidentified, unsung,
undistinguished, unspecified,
inexpressible, strange, indescribable,
obscure, unspeakable. ANTONYM:
(adj) famous.
nook: (n) angle, niche, recess, hole,
coign, bay, compartment, oriel, cove,
refuge, haven.
operated: (adj) driven.
unladylike: (adj) ribald, unfeminine,
unrefined.
wherein: (adv) in what, in which,
where.
164
to each other at a critical moment. Much might have resulted from recognition-at the least a query on either side in one and the self- same form: What could he
or she possibly be doing there?
Henchard, whatever his business at the lady's house, reached his own home
only a few minutes later than Elizabeth-Jane. Her plan was to broach the
question of leaving his roof this evening; the events of the day had urged her to
the course. But its execution depended upon his mood, and she anxiously
awaited his manner towards her. She found that it had changed. He showed no
further tendency to be angry; he showed something worse.
Absolute
indifference had taken the place of irritability; and his coldness was such that it
encouraged her to departure, even more than hot temper could have done.%
"Father, have you any objection to my going away?" she asked.
"Going away! No--none whatever. Where are you going?"
She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to say anything at present about
her destination to one who took so little interest in her. He would know that
soon enough. "I have heard of an opportunity of getting more cultivated and
finished, and being less idle," she answered, with hesitation. "A chance of a place
in a household where I can have advantages of study, and seeing refined life."
"Then make the best of it, in Heaven's name--if you can't get cultivated where
you are."
"You don't object?"
"Object--I? Ho--no! Not at all." After a pause he said, "But you won't have
enough money for this lively scheme without help, you know? If you like I
should be willing to make you an allowance, so that you not be bound to live
upon the starvation wages refined folk are likely to pay 'ee."
She thanked him for this offer.
"It had better be done properly," he added after a pause. "A small annuity is
what I should like you to have--so as to be independent of me--and so that I may
be independent of you. Would that please ye?"
Thesaurus
annuity: (n) rente, allowance, revenue, tame, educated, sophisticated,
testiness; (adj, n) petulance.
ANTONYMS: (n) cheerfulness,
payment, income, tontine,
elegant, urbane, polished,
acquisition, bond issue without fixed accomplished, civil, polite.
equanimity, cheeriness.
ANTONYMS: (adj) wild, untamed,
query: (n, v) doubt, inquire, quiz; (n)
maturity, annual instalment, annual
inquiry, interrogative; (v) interrogate,
repayment, retirement fund.
uncouth, coarse, graceless.
awaited: (adj) expected, appointed,
destination: (n) goal, aim, address,
ask, examine, interpellate, wonder,
scheduled, forthcoming, prospective. haven, doom, butt, destiny, terminus, challenge. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
broach: (v) bring up, mention, raise,
answer; (n) certainty; (v) trust, accept.
target, finish, purpose. ANTONYM:
suggest, tap, open; (n, v) propose,
(n) start.
starvation: (n) inanition, famine,
utter; (n) advance, drift, propound.
irritability: (n) irascibility, tetchiness,
famishment, hungriness, privation,
ANTONYMS: (v) close, suppress.
choler, touchiness, temper, anger,
starving, malnutrition, dearth,
cultivated: (adj) cultured, refined,
irritation, peevishness, pettishness,
poverty, scarcity, esurience.
Thomas Hardy
165
Certainly.%
"Then I'll see about it this very day." He seemed relieved to get her off his
hands by this arrangement, and as far as they were concerned the matter was
settled. She now simply waited to see the lady again.
The day and the hour came; but a drizzling rain fell. Elizabeth-Jane having
now changed her orbit from one of gay independence to laborious self-help,
thought the weather good enough for such declined glory as hers, if her friend
would only face it--a matter of doubt. She went to the boot-room where her
pattens had hung ever since her apotheosis; took them down, had their
mildewed leathers blacked, and put them on as she had done in old times. Thus
mounted, and with cloak and umbrella, she went off to the place of appointment-intending, if the lady were not there, to call at the house.
One side of the churchyard--the side towards the weather-- was sheltered by
an ancient thatched mud wall whose eaves overhung as much as one or two feet.
At the back of the wall was a corn-yard with its granary and barns--the place
wherein she had met Farfrae many months earlier. Under the projection of the
thatch she saw a figure. The young lady had come.
Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl's utmost hopes that she
almost feared her good fortune. Fancies find rooms in the strongest minds. Here,
in a churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of weathers, was a strange
woman of curious fascinations never seen elsewhere: there might be some
devilry about her presence. However, Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on
whose summit the rope of a flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus she came to
the wall.
The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that Elizabeth forgot her
fancy. "Well," said the lady, a little of the whiteness of her teeth appearing with
the word through the black fleece that protected her face, "have you decided?"
"Yes, quite," said the other eagerly.
"Your father is willing?"
"Yes."
Thesaurus
apotheosis: (n) deification, exaltation,
ideal, paragon, canonization,
worship, glorification, embodiment,
epitome, angel, crackerjack.
devilry: (n) mischief, devilment, evil,
atrocity, roguery, rascality, blaze,
brutality, heartless, ruthless,
ferocious.
drizzle: (n, v) rain, spray, mist; (v)
drip, dribble, splosh; (n) rainfall, light
rain, wet, plash; (adj) drizzling.
ANTONYM: (v) deluge.
drizzling: (adj) drizzle, sprinkle,
pouring, disgusting, drizzly, nasty,
disagreeable, rainy, showery, raining,
descending.
eaves: (n) arch, balcony, cupola, dome,
penthouse, eave, overhang, attic, loft,
projection, roof space.
flagstaff: (adj, n) pole; (n) staff, beacon,
cairn, post, hand, pointer, vane,
weathercock, mast, telegraph.
fleece: (v) extort, bilk, pluck, deceive,
rip off, swindle, strip, pigeon, shear;
(adj, v) bleed; (n) wool.
mildewed: (v) moldy, rusty, seedy,
spotted, decayed; (adj, v) fusty; (adj)
trite.
substantiated: (adj) verified,
vindicated, incarnate, well-founded,
experimentally verified, empirically
true.
whiteness: (n) paleness, ivory, chalk,
pearl, bone, bleach, alabaster,
frostiness, hoariness, pallor,
innocence. ANTONYM: (n) black.
166
"Then come along."
"When?"
"Now--as soon as you like. I had a good mind to send to you to come to my
house, thinking you might not venture up here in the wind. But as I like getting
out of doors, I thought I would come and see first."
"It was my own thought."
"That shows we shall agree. Then can you come to-day? My house is so
hollow and dismal that I want some living thing there."
"I think I might be able to," said the girl, reflecting.%
Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind and raindrops
from the other side of the wall. There came such words as "sacks," "quarters,"
"threshing," "tailing," "next Saturday's market," each sentence being disorganized
by the gusts like a face in a cracked mirror. Both the women listened.
"Who are those?" said the lady.
"One is my father. He rents that yard and barn."
The lady seemed to forget the immediate business in listening to the
technicalities of the corn trade. At last she said suddenly, "Did you tell him
where you were going to?"
"No."
"O--how was that?"
"I thought it safer to get away first--as he is so uncertain in his temper."
"Perhaps you are right....Besides, I have never told you my name. It is Miss
Templeman....Are they gone--on the other side?"
"No. They have only gone up into the granary."
"Well, it is getting damp here. I shall expect you to-day-- this evening, say, at
six."
"Which way shall I come, ma'am?"
"The front way--round by the gate. There is no other that I have noticed."
Thesaurus
cracked: (adj) nutty, batty, crazy,
chapped, balmy, wacky, dotty,
crackled, deranged, loony, crackers.
ANTONYMS: (adj) resonant, sane.
dismal: (adj) cheerless, dejected,
dreary, gloomy, desolate,
disconsolate, depressing, melancholy,
black, dim, dull. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bright, happy, lively, uplifting,
sunny, pleasant, light, cheery, strong,
soulful, wonderful.
disorganized: (adj) chaotic, confused,
messy, disorganised, disorderly,
hump, bump, hill, lump.
instant: (adj, n) present; (adj)
jumbled, muddled, untidy,
immediate, prompt; (n) flash, minute,
haphazard, pell-mell, random.
ANTONYMS: (adj) methodical, neat, jiffy, point, second; (adj, v) exigent;
(adj, n, v) pressing, urgent.
tidy, systematic, prepared, ordered,
ANTONYMS: (n) age, eternity; (adj)
coherent, efficient, orderly.
hollow: (adj, n) blank; (n) cavity,
considered, delayed, slow.
depression, cave, dell; (adj) empty,
raindrops: (n) rain, raindrop.
false; (adj, n, v) concave; (n, v)
rents: (n) quad, board walk, close,
excavate, dent, scoop. ANTONYMS:
embankment, esplanade, lane,
(adj) convex, sincere, true, full,
parade, alley, place, Alameda,
meaningful, cramped, valid; (n)
quadrangle.
Thomas Hardy
167
Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley.%
"Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you may as well keep
silent upon it till you are clear off. Who knows but that he may alter his mind?"
Elizabeth-Jane shook her head. "On consideration I don't fear it," she said
sadly. "He has grown quite cold to me."
"Very well. Six o'clock then."
When they had emerged upon the open road and parted, they found enough
to do in holding their bowed umbrellas to the wind. Nevertheless the lady
looked in at the corn-yard gates as she passed them, and paused on one foot for a
moment. But nothing was visible there save the ricks, and the humpbacked barn
cushioned with moss, and the granary rising against the church-tower behind,
where the smacking of the rope against the flag-staff still went on.
Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion that Elizabeth- Jane's
movement was to be so prompt. Hence when, just before six, he reached home
and saw a fly at the door from the King's Arms, and his step-daughter, with all
her little bags and boxes, getting into it, he was taken by surprise.
"But you said I might go, father?" she explained through the carriage
window.
"Said!--yes. But I thought you meant next month, or next year. 'Od, seize it-you take time by the forelock! This, then, is how you be going to treat me for all
my trouble about ye?"
"O father! how can you speak like that? It is unjust of you!" she said with
spirit.
"Well, well, have your own way," he replied. He entered the house, and,
seeing that all her things had not yet been brought down, went up to her room to
look on. He had never been there since she had occupied it. Evidences of her
care, of her endeavours for improvement, were visible all around, in the form of
books, sketches, maps, and little arrangements for tasteful effects. Henchard had
known nothing of these efforts. He gazed at them, turned suddenly about, and
came down to the door.
Thesaurus
cushioned: (adj) spongy, cushiony.
forelock: (n) foretop, hair, ringlet,
whorl, cotter, lock, quiff, curl, key.
humpbacked: (adj) hunchbacked,
gibbous, humped, hunchback,
crookbacked, round-backed,
kyphotic, deformed, gibbose, unfit.
moss: (n) lichen, marsh, bog, morass,
marish, fen, bryophyte, quagmire,
swamp, Bryace; (adj) byssus.
prompt: (adj) agile, quick, nimble,
punctual, expeditious; (v) actuate,
incite, inspire, move, instigate; (adj, v) tasteful: (adj) refined, neat, graceful,
fleet. ANTONYMS: (adj) late,
savory, tasty, delicious, dainty,
uncertain; (v) discourage, hinder,
discriminating, clean, appreciate,
artistic. ANTONYMS: (adj) vulgar,
halt.
seize: (v) catch, capture, grab, arrest,
cheap, garish, offensive, unstylish,
clutch, get, apprehend, receive,
unrefined, unfashionable, loud,
annex, clasp; (n, v) grapple.
obvious, tacky.
ANTONYMS: (v) baulk, relinquish, unjust: (adj) partial, injurious, wrong,
restore, surrender, give, remove.
inequitable, unrighteous, wicked,
smacking: (n) smack, brisk, shit, scag, foul, wrongful, improper, unmerited,
unjustified. ANTONYMS: (adj) just,
savor, beating, h, savour,
diacetylmorphine, heroin, horse.
equitable, rightful, reasonable, good.
168
"Look here," he said, in an altered voice--he never called her by name now-"don't 'ee go away from me. It may be I've spoke roughly to you--but I've been
grieved beyond everything by you--there's something that caused it."
"By me?" she said, with deep concern. "What have I done?"
"I can't tell you now. But if you'll stop, and go on living as my daughter, I'll
tell you all in time."
But the proposal had come ten minutes too late. She was in the fly--was
already, in imagination, at the house of the lady whose manner had such charms
for her. "Father," she said, as considerately as she could, "I think it best for us
that I go on now. I need not stay long; I shall not be far away, and if you want
me badly I can soon come back again."
He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and no more. "You
are not going far, you say. What will be your address, in case I wish to write to
you? Or am I not to know?"
"Oh yes--certainly. It is only in the town--High-Place Hall!"
"Where?" said Henchard, his face stilling.%
She repeated the words. He neither moved nor spoke, and waving her hand
to him in utmost friendliness she signified to the flyman to drive up the street.
Thesaurus
altered: (adj) transformed, changed,
cruelty, aloofness, nastiness, hostility, revenue, certificate, profit; (v)
acknowledge. ANTONYMS: (n)
diversified, varied, distorted,
aggression, resistance, resentment,
affected, castrated, malformed,
frostiness, formality, contention,
rejection, invoice.
misrepresented, misshapen; (v)
utmost: (adj, n) maximum, extreme,
belligerence.
battered. ANTONYMS: (adj)
grieved: (adj) sore, sad, sorry,
uttermost, furthermost, best, highest;
(adj, adv) farthest; (adj, v) supreme;
unaltered, unadjusted.
sorrowful, upset, woeful, pained,
charms: (n) trinkets, jewelry, jewels.
(adj) last, furthest; (adj, n, v) greatest.
affected, brokenhearted.
friendliness: (n) friendship, geniality, neither: (conj) either, no-one, not
ANTONYMS: (adj) moderate, worst.
waving: (adj) flying, aflare, fluttering,
amiability, affability, amicability,
either, nor, nother.
receipt: (n) acknowledgment,
affection, hospitality, cordiality,
flaring, flared, curly, burning,
blazing, billowy, palpitating; (n)
brotherhood, amicableness,
acknowledgement, acceptance,
accessibility. ANTONYMS: (n)
acquittance, ticket, check, recipe,
wafture.
Thomas Hardy
169
CHAPTER 22
We go back for a moment to the preceding night, to account for Henchard's
attitude.%
At the hour when Elizabeth-Jane was contemplating her stealthy
reconnoitring excursion to the abode of the lady of her fancy, he had been not a
little amazed at receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta's well-known characters.
The self-repression, the resignation of her previous communication had vanished
from her mood; she wrote with some of the natural lightness which had marked
her in their early acquaintance.
HIGH-PLACE HALL
MY DEAR MR. HENCHARD,-Don't be surprised. It is for your good and mine, as I hope, that I
have come to live at Casterbridge--for how long I cannot tell. That
depends upon another; and he is a man, and a merchant, and a Mayor,
and one who has the first right to my affections.
Seriously, mon ami, I am not so light-hearted as I may seem to be
from this. I have come here in consequence of hearing of the death of
your wife--whom you used to think of as dead so many years before!
Poor woman, she seems to have been a sufferer, though uncomplaining,
Thesaurus
affections: (n) bosom.
nimbleness, flippancy. ANTONYMS: diseased person, sick person,
excursion: (n) expedition, jaunt,
(n) darkness, gravity, weight,
rheumatic, diabetic, neurotic.
uncomplaining: (adj) patient,
outing, digression, drive, tour, airing, harshness, seriousness.
voyage, deviation, stroll; (n, v)
reconnoitring: (n) exploratory survey, enduring, tolerant, unmurmuring,
journey.
scouting.
submissive, unwearied, compliant,
light-hearted: (adj) merry, blithe,
stealthy: (adj) clandestine, secret,
acquiescent, resigned, forbearing.
sunny, cheerful, vivacious, bright,
surreptitious, sneaky, covert, private, ANTONYMS: (adj) impatient,
backstairs, concealed, feline; (adj, v)
festive, airy, buoyant, lighthearted,
intolerant.
sly, insidious. ANTONYM: (adj)
well-known: (adj) noted, prominent,
light.
lightness: (n) brightness, buoyancy,
blatant.
renowned, celebrated, distinguished,
sufferer: (n) victim, martyr, prey,
frivolity, flightiness, delicacy,
known, familiar, eminent, notorious,
airiness, agility, levity, light,
casualty, invalid, depressive,
reputable, outstanding.
170
and though weak in intellect not an imbecile. I am glad you acted fairly
by her. As soon as I knew she was no more, it was brought home to me
very forcibly by my conscience that I ought to endeavour to disperse the
shade which my etourderie flung over my name, by asking you to carry
out your promise to me. I hope you are of the same mind, and that you
will take steps to this end. As, however, I did not know how you were
situated, or what had happened since our separation, I decided to come
and establish myself here before communicating with you.%
You probably feel as I do about this. I shall be able to see you in a
day or two. Till then, farewell.--Yours,
LUCETTA
P.S.--I was unable to keep my appointment to meet you for a moment
or two in passing through Casterbridge the other day. My plans were
altered by a family event, which it will surprise you to hear of.
Henchard had already heard that High-Place Hall was being prepared for a
tenant. He said with a puzzled air to the first person he encountered, "Who is
coming to live at the Hall?"
"A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir," said his informant.
Henchard thought it over. "Lucetta is related to her, I suppose," he said to
himself. "Yes, I must put her in her proper position, undoubtedly."
It was by no means with the oppression that would once have accompanied
the thought that he regarded the moral necessity now; it was, indeed, with
interest, if not warmth. His bitter disappointment at finding Elizabeth-Jane to be
none of his, and himself a childless man, had left an emotional void in Henchard
that he unconsciously craved to fill. In this frame of mind, though without
strong feeling, he had strolled up the alley and into High-Place Hall by the
postern at which Elizabeth had so nearly encountered him. He had gone on
thence into the court, and inquired of a man whom he saw unpacking china from
Thesaurus
childless: (adj) sterile, unfruitful,
issueless, infertile, bare, bereaved,
bleak, unkind, unproductive, orbate.
craved: (adj) coveted.
disperse: (v) dispel, spread, circulate,
break up, disband, scatter, dissipate,
diffuse, dispense, disseminate, break.
ANTONYMS: (v) gather, collect,
converge, centralize, capture,
congregate, garner, concentrate,
swarm, crowd, aggravate.
forcibly: (adv) forcefully, emphatically,
powerfully, by force, mightily, under thence: (adv) therefore, thus,
protest, cogently, hard, strongly,
therefrom, thereof, consequently,
convincingly, clearly. ANTONYMS:
then, so, thereafter, thenceforth,
(adv) voluntarily, weakly, gently.
since, on account of.
imbecile: (adj) foolish, idiotic, fatuous, unconsciously: (adv) instinctively,
dumb, imbecilic, simple; (n) idiot,
unintentionally, unthinkingly,
moron, cretin, ass, oaf. ANTONYM:
unwittingly, ignorantly, innocently,
(adj) genius.
comatosely, automatically,
postern: (n) gate, ostiary, portal,
obliviously, unsuspectingly,
inadvertently. ANTONYMS: (adv)
porch, wicket, vestibule, trapdoor,
threshold, back door; (adj, n) rear;
consciously, deliberately, knowingly,
(adj) side.
purposely.
Thomas Hardy
171
a crate if Miss Le Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the name
under which he had known Lucetta--or "Lucette," as she had called herself at that
time.%
The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templeman only had come.
Henchard went away, concluding that Lucetta had not as yet settled in.
He was in this interested stage of the inquiry when he witnessed ElizabethJane's departure the next day. On hearing her announce the address there
suddenly took possession of him the strange thought that Lucetta and Miss
Templeman were one and the same person, for he could recall that in her season
of intimacy with him the name of the rich relative whom he had deemed
somewhat a mythical personage had been given as Templeman. Though he was
not a fortune- hunter, the possibility that Lucetta had been sublimed into a lady
of means by some munificent testament on the part of this relative lent a charm
to her image which it might not otherwise have acquired. He was getting on
towards the dead level of middle age, when material things increasingly possess
the mind.
But Henchard was not left long in suspense. Lucetta was rather addicted to
scribbling, as had been shown by the torrent of letters after the fiasco in their
marriage arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth gone away when another note
came to the Mayor's house from High-Place Hall.
"I am in residence," she said, "and comfortable, though getting here has been
a wearisome undertaking. You probably know what I am going to tell you, or
do you not? My good Aunt Templeman, the banker's widow, whose very
existence you used to doubt, much more her affluence, has lately died, and
bequeathed some of her property to me. I will not enter into details except to
say that I have taken her name--as a means of escape from mine, and its wrongs.
"I am now my own mistress, and have chosen to reside in Casterbridge--to be
tenant of High-Place Hall, that at least you may be put to no trouble if you wish
to see me. My first intention was to keep you in ignorance of the changes in my
life till you should meet me in the street; but I have thought better of this.
Thesaurus
addicted: (adj) habituated, dedicated,
habitual, hooked, devoted,
accustomed, captivated, devote,
obsessive, obsessed; (v) dedicate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unaccustomed,
averse, disinclined, independent,
opposed, unenthusiastic, occasional.
affluence: (n) wealth, fortune,
amplitude, luxury, ease, opulence,
prosperity, richness, afflux, plenty;
(adj, n) riches. ANTONYMS: (n)
shortage, neediness.
bequeathed: (adj) hereditary.
mythical: (adj) fabulous, fanciful,
fiasco: (n) disaster, failure, flop,
unreal, mythological, imaginary,
disappointment, catastrophe,
fictitious, fabled, legendary, untrue,
washout, breakdown, abortion, farce; fictional, magical. ANTONYMS: (adj)
(adj, n) mess; (v) fizzle. ANTONYMS: true, historical, truthful, factual, real.
(n) success, hit.
wearisome: (adj, v) tiresome, irksome,
lent: (n) Quadragesima, Lententide.
troublesome; (adj) tedious, dull,
munificent: (adj) liberal, bountiful,
monotonous, boring, laborious,
lavish, free, bounteous, prodigal,
trying, slow, annoying. ANTONYMS:
beneficent, magnanimous, unstinted, (adj) satisfying, soothing, exciting,
unsparing, princely. ANTONYMS:
refreshing, easy.
(adj) mean, tightfisted, malevolent.
wrongs: (n) mala.
172
"You probably are aware of my arrangement with your daughter, and have
doubtless laughed at the--what shall I call it?--practical joke (in all affection) of
my getting her to live with me. But my first meeting with her was purely an
accident. Do you see, Michael, partly why I have done it?--why, to give you an
excuse for coming here as if to visit her, and thus to form my acquaintance
naturally. She is a dear, good girl, and she thinks you have treated her with
undue severity. You may have done so in your haste, but not deliberately, I am
sure. As the result has been to bring her to me I am not disposed to upbraid
you.--In haste, yours always, Lucetta.%
The excitement which these announcements produced in Henchard's gloomy
soul was to him most pleasurable. He sat over his dining-table long and
dreamily, and by an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments which had run to
waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfrae gathered
around Lucetta before they had grown dry. She was plainly in a very coming-on
disposition for marriage. But what else could a poor woman be who had given
her time and her heart to him so thoughtlessly, at that former time, as to lose her
credit by it? Probably conscience no less than affection had brought her here. On
the whole he did not blame her.
"The artful little woman!" he said, smiling (with reference to Lucetta's adroit
and pleasant manoeuvre with Elizabeth- Jane).
To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was with Henchard to start for her
house. He put on his hat and went. It was between eight and nine o'clock when
he reached her door. The answer brought him was that Miss Templeman was
engaged for that evening; but that she would be happy to see him the next day.
"That's rather like giving herself airs!" he thought. "And considering what
we--" But after all, she plainly had not expected him, and he took the refusal
quietly. Nevertheless he resolved not to go next day. "These cursed women-there's not an inch of straight grain in 'em!" he said.
Let us follow the train of Mr. Henchard's thought as if it were a clue line, and
view the interior of High-Place Hall on this particular evening.
Thesaurus
adroit: (adj) dexterous, ingenious,
slick, intelligent, expert, artful, able,
clever, adept, politic, sharp.
ANTONYMS: (adj) awkward,
maladroit, dim, inept, bumbling,
stupid, unskilled, dense, fumbling,
naive, incompetent.
dreamily: (adv) languorously,
moonily, pensively, sleepily,
dreamfully, vaguely, visionarily,
slowly, shadowily, idealistically,
lethargically. ANTONYMS: (adv)
vigorously, alertly, calmly, carefully. thoughtlessly: (adv) carelessly,
haste: (n, v) hurry, dash, dispatch,
inconsiderately, heedlessly, rashly,
rush; (n) celerity, expedition,
imprudently, inattentively, hastily,
rapidity, speed, bustle, hastiness,
negligently, indiscreetly,
quickness. ANTONYMS: (n) delay,
unheedingly; (adj, adv) foolishly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) considerately,
patience, forethought, caution.
pleasurable: (adj, v) pleasant; (adj)
carefully, cautiously, prudently,
enjoyable, delectable, delightful,
sensibly, wisely.
entertaining, nice, gratifying, merry, took: (adj) taken; (v) receive.
upbraid: (v) rebuke, censure, blame,
agreeable, lovely, joyful.
ANTONYMS: (adj) boring,
scold, chide, reprimand, condemn,
berate, objurgate, rate; (n, v) revile.
disagreeable, dull, miserable.
Thomas Hardy
173
On Elizabeth-Jane's arrival she had been phlegmatically asked by an elderly
woman to go upstairs and take off her things. She replied with great earnestness
that she would not think of giving that trouble, and on the instant divested
herself of her bonnet and cloak in the passage. She was then conducted to the
first floor on the landing, and left to find her way further alone.%
The room disclosed was prettily furnished as a boudoir or small drawingroom, and on a sofa with two cylindrical pillows reclined a dark-haired, largeeyed, pretty woman, of unmistakably French extraction on one side or the other.
She was probably some years older than Elizabeth, and had a sparkling light in
her eye. In front of the sofa was a small table, with a pack of cards scattered
upon it faces upward.
The attitude had been so full of abandonment that she bounded up like a
spring on hearing the door open.
Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed into ease, and came across to her
with a reckless skip that innate grace only prevented from being boisterous.
"Why, you are late," she said, taking hold of Elizabeth- Jane's hands.
"There were so many little things to put up."
"And you seem dead-alive and tired. Let me try to enliven you by some
wonderful tricks I have learnt, to kill time. Sit there and don't move." She
gathered up the pack of cards, pulled the table in front of her, and began to deal
them rapidly, telling Elizabeth to choose some.
"Well, have you chosen?" she asked flinging down the last card.
"No," stammered Elizabeth, arousing herself from a reverie. "I forgot, I was
thinking of--you, and me--and how strange it is that I am here."
Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane with interest, and laid down the
cards. "Ah! never mind," she said. "I'll lie here while you sit by me; and we'll
talk."
Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of the sofa, but with obvious pleasure.
It could be seen that though in years she was younger than her entertainer in
Thesaurus
arousing: (adj, n) stirring; (adj)
moving, stimulating, affecting,
animating, hopeful, pitiful, poignant;
(n) awakening, start, beginning.
boisterous: (adj, n) rough; (adj) furious,
loud, noisy, fierce, raucous, wild,
rude, vociferous; (adj, v)
tempestuous, rampant. ANTONYMS:
(adj) restrained, orderly, calm,
dignified, silent, tranquil, gentle,
placid.
boudoir: (n) bedchamber, bedroom,
prettily: (adv) beautifully, charmingly,
master bedroom.
divested: (adj) bereft, destitute, naked. pleasantly, handsomely, finely,
enliven: (v) animate, inspire, refresh,
neatly, gracefully, picturesquely,
encourage, exhilarate, elate, liven up, elegantly, delightfully, pleasingly.
stimulate, invigorate, energize; (adj,
ANTONYMS: (adv) unattractively,
v) brighten. ANTONYMS: (v) bore,
unpleasantly.
unmistakably: (adv) undoubtedly,
subdue, tire, spoil, dull, deflate,
dampen, deaden, exhaust, depress.
manifestly, decidedly, signally,
entertainer: (n) host, performer,
remarkably, evidently, apparently,
comedian, actor, humorist, artist,
visibly, palpably, unambiguously,
musician, bombshell, busker, artiste,
markedly.
comic.
174
manner and general vision she seemed more of the sage. Miss Templeman
deposited herself on the sofa in her former flexuous position, and throwing her
arm above her brow--somewhat in the pose of a well-known conception of
Titian's--talked up at Elizabeth-Jane invertedly across her forehead and arm.%
"I must tell you something," she said. "I wonder if you have suspected it. I
have only been mistress of a large house and fortune a little while."
"Oh--only a little while?" murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her countenance slightly
falling.
"As a girl I lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere with my father, till I
was quite flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in the army. I should not
have mentioned this had I not thought it best you should know the truth."
"Yes, yes." She looked thoughtfully round the room--at the little square piano
with brass inlayings, at the windowcurtains, at the lamp, at the fair and dark
kings and queens on the card-table, and finally at the inverted face of Lucetta
Templeman, whose large lustrous eyes had such an odd effect upside down.
Elizabeth's mind ran on acquirements to an almost morbid degree. "You
speak French and Italian fluently, no doubt," she said. "I have not been able to
get beyond a wretched bit of Latin yet."
"Well, for that matter, in my native isle speaking French does not go for
much. It is rather the other way."
"Where is your native isle?"
It was with rather more reluctance that Miss Templeman said, "Jersey. There
they speak French on one side of the street and English on the other, and a mixed
tongue in the middle of the road. But it is a long time since I was there. Bath is
where my people really belong to, though my ancestors in Jersey were as good as
anybody in England. They were the Le Sueurs, an old family who have done
great things in their time. I went back and lived there after my father's death.
But I don't value such past matters, and am quite an English person in my
feelings and tastes."
Thesaurus
flighty: (adj) frivolous, light,
capricious, volatile, irresponsible,
scatterbrained, flippant, changeable,
skittish, unstable, mercurial.
ANTONYMS: (adj) serious,
dependable.
fluently: (adv) easily, glibly,
eloquently, liquidly, flowingly,
articulately, clearly, persuasively,
verbosely, talkatively, fluidly.
ANTONYM: (adv) awkwardly.
invertedly: (adv) inversely.
lustrous: (adj, v) bright, splendent;
unsettled: (adj) changeable,
(adj) glossy, brilliant, lucid, shiny,
undecided, doubtful, uneasy,
shining, light, luminous, sleek,
outstanding, variable, unpaid,
radiant. ANTONYM: (adj) unhealthy. unresolved; (adj, v) unfixed,
morbid: (adj) diseased, gruesome,
indefinite, undetermined.
ANTONYMS: (adj) confident,
macabre, corrupt, pathologic,
unwholesome, peccant, sick,
definite, decided, well, sure, happy,
unhealthy, pathological; (adj, v)
constant, conclusive, certain, calmed,
sickly.
calm.
sofa: (n) couch, lounge, divan, bench, upside: (n) crest, crown, poll, top side,
davenport, seat, squab, chair, form,
upper side, pate, round top, acme,
convertible, daybed.
summit, superlative, teetotum.
Thomas Hardy
175
Lucetta's tongue had for a moment outrun her discretion. She had arrived at
Casterbridge as a Bath lady, and there were obvious reasons why Jersey should
drop out of her life. But Elizabeth had tempted her to make free, and a
deliberately formed resolve had been broken.%
It could not, however, have been broken in safer company. Lucetta's words
went no further, and after this day she was so much upon her guard that there
appeared no chance of her identification with the young Jersey woman who had
been Henchard's dear comrade at a critical time. Not the least amusing of her
safeguards was her resolute avoidance of a French word if one by accident came
to her tongue more readily than its English equivalent. She shirked it with the
suddenness of the weak Apostle at the accusation, "Thy speech bewrayeth thee!"
Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the next morning. She dressed herself
for Mr. Henchard, and restlessly awaited his call before mid-day; as he did not
come she waited on through the afternoon. But she did not tell Elizabeth that the
person expected was the girl's stepfather.
They sat in adjoining windows of the same room in Lucetta's great stone
mansion, netting, and looking out upon the market, which formed an animated
scene. Elizabeth could see the crown of her stepfather's hat among the rest
beneath, and was not aware that Lucetta watched the same object with yet
intenser interest. He moved about amid the throng, at this point lively as an anthill; elsewhere more reposeful, and broken up by stalls of fruit and vegetables.
The farmers as a rule preferred the open carrefour for their transactions,
despite its inconvenient jostlings and the danger from crossing vehicles, to the
gloomy sheltered market-room provided for them. Here they surged on this one
day of the week, forming a little world of leggings, switches, and sample-bags;
men of extensive stomachs, sloping like mountain sides; men whose heads in
walking swayed as the trees in November gales; who in conversing varied their
attitudes much, lowering themselves by spreading their knees, and thrusting
their hands into the pockets of remote inner jackets. Their faces radiated tropical
warmth; for though when at home their countenances varied with the seasons,
their market-faces all the year round were glowing little fires.
Thesaurus
carrefour: (n) crossroad, corner,
outrun: (v) surpass, outdo, exceed,
undecided.
sloping: (adj, v) oblique, slope; (adj)
crossway, intersection, crossing.
outride, outstep, outleap, outjump,
inconvenient: (adj) inopportune,
outgo, outdistance, beat, distance.
slanting, inclined, slanted, diagonal,
radiated: (adj) radial, stellular,
leaning, sloped; (adj, adv) aslope,
awkward, disadvantageous,
aslant; (v) slant. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bothersome, improper, unfavorable,
stelliform, penciled, diffuse.
troublesome, hard, inapt, untoward, resolute: (adj, n) constant, firm, fixed,
horizontal, upright.
unfortunate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
steady; (adj, v) determined; (adj)
swayed: (adj) persuaded, susceptible,
convenient, suitable, opportune,
inflexible, brave, adamant, dogged,
touched, convinced. ANTONYM:
(adj) doubtful.
timely, advantageous.
unbending, courageous.
lowering: (adj) heavy, dismal, gloomy, ANTONYMS: (adj) weak, uncertain, thrusting: (n) thrust, push, jab, poke,
threatening, dark, glum, murky; (n)
uncommitted, timid, fickle, feeble,
jabbing, stab, driving force, scoke,
fall, drop, cut, decline.
indecisive, flexible, flippant, hesitant, sack, punch, Phytolacca Americana.
176
All over-clothes here were worn as if they were an inconvenience, a
hampering necessity. Some men were well dressed; but the majority were
careless in that respect, appearing in suits which were historical records of their
wearer's deeds, sun-scorchings, and daily struggles for many years past. Yet
many carried ruffled cheque-books in their pockets which regulated at the bank
hard by a balance of never less than four figures. In fact, what these gibbous
human shapes specially represented was ready money--money insistently
ready--not ready next year like a nobleman's-- often not merely ready at the bank
like a professional man's, but ready in their large plump hands.%
It happened that to-day there rose in the midst of them all two or three tall
apple-trees standing as if they grew on the spot; till it was perceived that they
were held by men from the cider-districts who came here to sell them, bringing
the clay of their county on their boots. Elizabeth-Jane, who had often observed
them, said, "I wonder if the same trees come every week?"
"What trees?" said Lucetta, absorbed in watching for Henchard.
Elizabeth replied vaguely, for an incident checked her. Behind one of the
trees stood Farfrae, briskly discussing a sample-bag with a farmer. Henchard
had come up, accidentally encountering the young man, whose face seemed to
inquire, "Do we speak to each other?"
She saw her stepfather throw a shine into his eye which answered "No!"
Elizabeth-Jane sighed.
"Are you particularly interested in anybody out there?" said Lucetta.
"O, no," said her companion, a quick red shooting over her face.
Luckily Farfrae's figure was immediately covered by the apple-tree.
Lucetta looked hard at her. "Quite sure?" she said.
"O yes," said Elizabeth-Jane.
Again Lucetta looked out. "They are all farmers, I suppose?" she said.
"No. There's Mr. Bulge--he's a wine merchant; there's Benjamin Brownlet--a
horse dealer; and Kitson, the pig breeder; and Yopper, the auctioneer; besides
Thesaurus
breeder: (n) stockman, farmer,
humped, protuberant, crookbacked,
livestock farmer, fast breeder reactor, unfit, crookback, hulchy, hunchback.
stock breeder, plant breeder; (v)
inconvenience: (n, v) trouble,
incommode; (v) discommode,
trainer.
briskly: (adv) busily, energetically,
disoblige, annoy, disturb, disquiet;
vigorously, quickly, freshly, actively, (n) disadvantage, difficulty, nuisance,
unsuitableness. ANTONYMS: (n)
sharply, rapidly, vividly, brightly,
merrily. ANTONYMS: (adv)
expediency, advantage; (v) help,
seriously, laboriously, civilly,
please.
insistently: (adv) stubbornly,
pleasantly, languorously.
gibbous: (adj) convex, bulging,
obstinately, forcefully, unrelentingly,
hunchbacked, humpbacked,
doggedly, importunately, resolutely,
pressingly, assertively, urgently,
uncompromisingly.
plump: (adj) chubby, corpulent, stout,
round, obese, overweight, gross,
buxom, pudgy; (adj, n) fleshy; (v)
fatten. ANTONYMS: (adj) thin,
emaciated, skinny, slim, slender.
ruffled: (adj) rippled, frilly, frilled,
upset, disordered, excited,
disconcerted, decorated, tousled,
tangled, turbulent.
Thomas Hardy
177
maltsters, and millers--and so on." Farfrae stood out quite distinctly now; but
she did not mention him.%
The Saturday afternoon slipped on thus desultorily. The market changed
from the sample-showing hour to the idle hour before starting homewards,
when tales were told. Henchard had not called on Lucetta though he had stood
so near. He must have been too busy, she thought. He would come on Sunday
or Monday.
The days came but not the visitor, though Lucetta repeated her dressing with
scrupulous care. She got disheartened. It may at once be declared that Lucetta
no longer bore towards Henchard all that warm allegiance which had
characterized her in their first acquaintance, the then unfortunate issue of things
had chilled pure love considerably. But there remained a conscientious wish to
bring about her union with him, now that there was nothing to hinder it--to right
her position--which in itself was a happiness to sigh for. With strong social
reasons on her side why their marriage should take place there had ceased to be
any worldly reason on his why it should be postponed, since she had succeeded
to fortune.
Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair. At breakfast she said to ElizabethJane quite coolly: "I imagine your father may call to see you to-day. I suppose he
stands close by in the market-place with the rest of the corn-dealers?"
She shook her head. "He won't come."
"Why?"
"He has taken against me," she said in a husky voice.
"You have quarreled more deeply than I know of."
Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believed to be her father from any
charge of unnatural dislike, said "Yes."
"Then where you are is, of all places, the one he will avoid?"
Elizabeth nodded sadly.
Thesaurus
desultorily: (adv) disconnectedly,
ramblingly, irregularly,
immethodically, erratically,
indiscriminately, spasmodically,
discursively, fitfully, purposelessly,
capriciously.
disheartened: (adj) dejected,
depressed, despondent, dispirited,
demoralized, disappointed, sad,
downcast, down, low, daunted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cheerful,
enthusiastic, happy, positive,
ANTONYMS: (adj) sloppy,
hopeful.
homewards: (adv) toward home,
unscrupulous, slapdash, relaxed,
home, to your house.
guilty, deceitful.
husky: (adj) hoarse, gruff, burly, big, worldly: (adj, adv) earthly; (adj)
dry, raucous, beefy, strapping,
mundane, secular, terrestrial,
brawny, sturdy; (n) Eskimo dog.
temporal, carnal, sophisticated, lay,
ANTONYMS: (adj) high, puny, small, profane; (adv) mundanely,
temporally. ANTONYMS: (adj)
smooth, soft.
scrupulous: (adj) careful, punctilious,
spiritual, naive, cloistered, religious,
exact, conscientious, particular,
unsophisticated, unworldly,
painstaking, accurate, prudent,
unrefined, otherworldly, low,
meticulous, rigorous, cautious.
heavenly, immaterial.
178
Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrows and lip, and burst
into hysterical sobs. Here was a disaster-- her ingenious scheme completely
stultified.%
"O, my dear Miss Templeman--what's the matter?" cried her companion.
"I like your company much!" said Lucetta, as soon as she could speak.
"Yes, yes--and so do I yours!" Elizabeth chimed in soothingly.
"But--but--" She could not finish the sentence, which was, naturally, that if
Henchard had such a rooted dislike for the girl as now seemed to be the case,
Elizabeth-Jane would have to be got rid of--a disagreeable necessity.
A provisional resource suggested itself. "Miss Henchard-- will you go on an
errand for me as soon as breakfast is over?--Ah, that's very good of you. Will
you go and order-- " Here she enumerated several commissions at sundry shops,
which would occupy Elizabeth's time for the next hour or two, at least.
"And have you ever seen the Museum?"
Elizabeth-Jane had not.
"Then you should do so at once. You can finish the morning by going there.
It is an old house in a back street--I forget where--but you'll find out--and there
are crowds of interesting things--skeletons, teeth, old pots and pans, ancient
boots and shoes, birds' eggs--all charmingly instructive. You'll be sure to stay
till you get quite hungry."
Elizabeth hastily put on her things and departed. "I wonder why she wants
to get rid of me to-day!" she said sorrowfully as she went. That her absence,
rather than her services or instruction, was in request, had been readily apparent
to Elizabeth-Jane, simple as she seemed, and difficult as it was to attribute a
motive for the desire.
She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta's servants was sent
to Henchard's with a note. The contents were briefly:-DEAR MICHAEL,--
Thesaurus
boots: (n) Bootes, bell boy, bootblack,
abhorrent, horrible, bad, painful.
illuminating, informatory, didactic,
ANTONYMS: (adj) pleasant, friendly, educational, edifying, advisory,
counterjumper, boy, shoeblack,
footwear.
amiable, inoffensive, acceptable,
instructional, clarifying, illustrative,
charmingly: (adv) pleasingly, prettily, desirable, easygoing, happy,
admonitory. ANTONYMS: (adj)
alluringly, attractively, fascinatingly, pleasing, sweet, nice.
unenlightening, uninstructive.
sorrowfully: (adv) dolefully,
pleasantly, enchantingly, temptingly, enumerated: (adj) detailed.
hysterical: (adj, n) feverish; (adj) wild,
engagingly, sweetly, beautifully.
mournfully, gloomily, woefully,
ANTONYMS: (adv) unpleasantly,
violent, eccentric, frenzied,
unhappily, sorrily, ruefully,
emotional, fitful, febrile, erratic; (n)
unattractively, horribly, awkwardly.
dejectedly, grievously, forlornly,
disagreeable: (adj) nasty, offensive,
contritely. ANTONYMS: (adv)
fanatical, hysterics. ANTONYMS:
(adj) relaxed, composed, restrained.
uncomfortable, distasteful,
happily, unrepentantly, joyfully,
instructive: (adj) enlightening,
cantankerous, cross, ungrateful,
cheerfully.
Thomas Hardy
179
You will be standing in view of my house to- day for two or three hours
in the course of your business, so do please call and see me. I am sadly
disappointed that you have not come before, for can I help anxiety about
my own equivocal relation to you?--especially now my aunt's fortune
has brought me more prominently before society? Your daughter's
presence here may be the cause of your neglect; and I have therefore sent
her away for the morning. Say you come on business--I shall be quite
alone.%
LUCETTA.
When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions that if a
gentleman called he was to be admitted at once, and sat down to await results.
Sentimentally she did not much care to see him--his delays had wearied her,
but it was necessary; and with a sigh she arranged herself picturesquely in the
chair; first this way, then that; next so that the light fell over her head. Next she
flung herself on the couch in the cyma-recta curve which so became her, and
with her arm over her brow looked towards the door. This, she decided, was the
best position after all, and thus she remained till a man's step was heard on the
stairs. Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her curve (for Nature was too strong for
Art as yet), jumped up and ran and hid herself behind one of the windowcurtains in a freak of timidity. In spite of the waning of passion the situation
was an agitating one--she had not seen Henchard since his (supposed)
temporary parting from her in Jersey.
She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the room, shutting the
door upon him, and leaving as if to go and look for her mistress. Lucetta flung
back the curtain with a nervous greeting. The man before her was not Henchard.
Thesaurus
agitating: (adj) stirring, provoking,
picturesquely: (adv) prettily, quaintly,
poignant, vexatious, sensational,
charmingly, vividly, graphically,
provocative, afflictive, terrific.
pictorially, graphicly, beautifully,
equivocal: (adj) ambiguous, indefinite, strikingly, attractively, appealingly.
sentimentally: (adv) romanticly,
doubtful, dubious, questionable,
elusive, cryptic, precarious,
romantically, gushingly, mushily,
problematic, apocryphal, double.
slushily, effusively, softly, maudlinly,
ANTONYMS: (adj) clear,
silly, tenderly, mawkishly.
unequivocal, definite, obvious, plain, timidity: (n) shyness, fear,
unquestionable, certain, direct.
bashfulness, nervousness, reserve,
forgetting: (v) forget; (adj) oblivious;
cowardice, fearfulness, timidness,
(n) disregard.
modesty, humility, coyness.
ANTONYMS: (n) confidence,
boastfulness, swagger, brashness,
security.
waning: (n) decrease, decline,
lessening, ebb, failure; (adj) run to
seed, ripe, mellow, diminishing,
abating, moribund. ANTONYMS:
(adj) growing, thriving, waxing,
increasing; (n) improvement.
wearied: (adj) jaded, tired, spent,
fatigued, weary, prostrate, limp,
haggard, shattered, worn, fatigate.
Thomas Hardy
181
CHAPTER 23
A conjecture that her visitor might be some other person had, indeed, flashed
through Lucetta's mind when she was on the point of bursting out; but it was just
too late to recede.%
He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge; fair, fresh, and
slenderly handsome. He wore genteel cloth leggings with white buttons,
polished boots with infinite lace holes, light cord breeches under a black
velveteen coat and waistcoat; and he had a silver-topped switch in his hand.
Lucetta blushed, and said with a curious mixture of pout and laugh on her face-"O, I've made a mistake!"
The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle.
"But I'm very sorry!" he said, in deprecating tones. "I came and I inquired for
Miss Henchard, and they showed me up here, and in no case would I have
caught ye so unmannerly if I had known!"
"I was the unmannerly one," she said.
"But is it that I have come to the wrong house, madam?" said Mr. Farfrae,
blinking a little in his bewilderment and nervously tapping his legging with his
switch.
Thesaurus
bewilderment: (n) astonishment,
legging: (n) puttee, chap, leg covering, unmannerly: (adj) impolite,
quandary, confusion, surprise,
spat, veldtschoen, stogy, rubbers,
unmannered, uncivil, impertinent,
wonder, bemusement, maze, chaos,
legin, leg warmer, leg guard, chaps.
insolent, ill-mannered, discourteous,
jumble, mess; (adj, n) perplexity.
pout: (v) brood, sulk; (adj, v) frown,
ungracious, rustic, disrespectful,
ANTONYMS: (n) order, clarity.
protrude; (adj) lower, glower, scowl,
churlish.
cord: (n) band, bond, tie, twine, tape,
gloam, look downcast; (n) eelpout,
velveteen: (adj) velumen, textile,
whipcord, thread, yarn, lace, rope,
hornpout.
material, fabric, cloth.
slenderly: (adv) slightly, thinly,
wrinkle: (n, v) crease, crinkle, fold,
leash.
deprecating: (adj) deprecatory,
rumple, crumple, furrow, pucker; (v)
sparely, meagerly, tenuously,
ruffle; (n) gather, line; (adj, v) curl.
belittling, ironic, deprecative,
sveltely, scantily, flimsily, lithely,
ANTONYMS: (v) unfold, straighten;
slighting, deadpan, critical, captious, gauntly, frailly. ANTONYM: (adv)
(n) smoothness.
depreciatory, depreciative, insulting. amply.
182
"O no, sir,--sit down. You must come and sit down now you are here,"
replied Lucetta kindly, to relieve his embarrassment. "Miss Henchard will be
here directly."
Now this was not strictly true; but that something about the young man--that
hyperborean crispness, stringency, and charm, as of a well-braced musical
instrument, which had awakened the interest of Henchard, and of Elizabeth-Jane
and of the Three Mariners' jovial crew, at sight, made his unexpected presence
here attractive to Lucetta. He hesitated, looked at the chair, thought there was no
danger in it (though there was), and sat down.%
Farfrae's sudden entry was simply the result of Henchard's permission to him
to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo her. At first he had taken no notice of
Henchard's brusque letter; but an exceptionally fortunate business transaction
put him on good terms with everybody, and revealed to him that he could
undeniably marry if he chose. Then who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in
every way as Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personal recommendations a
reconciliation with his former friend Henchard would, in the natural course of
things, flow from such a union. He therefore forgave the Mayor his curtness;
and this morning on his way to the fair he had called at her house, where he
learnt that she was staying at Miss Templeman's. A little stimulated at not
finding her ready and waiting--so fanciful are men!--he hastened on to HighPlace Hall to encounter no Elizabeth but its mistress herself.
"The fair to-day seems a large one," she said when, by natural deviation, their
eyes sought the busy scene without. "Your numerous fairs and markets keep me
interested. How many things I think of while I watch from here!"
He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble without reached them as
they sat--voices as of wavelets on a looping sea, one ever and anon rising above
the rest. "Do you look out often?" he asked.
"Yes--very often."
"Do you look for any one you know?"
Why should she have answered as she did?
Thesaurus
awakened: (adj) excited, aroused,
awakens, awoke, interested.
brusque: (adj) blunt, curt,
discourteous, short, gruff, surly,
brief, bluff, rude, uncouth, hasty.
ANTONYMS: (adj) gracious,
courteous, considerate, kind, civil,
gentle, friendly, rambling, hesitant.
crispness: (n) chill, crispiness, brevity,
terseness, freshness, sharpness,
flakiness, breakableness.
curtness: (n) brevity, gruffness,
shortness, brusqueness, costiveness,
bluntness, discourtesy, rudeness,
severity, harshness, roughness.
ANTONYM: (n) pleasantness.
forgave: (v) to excuse.
hyperborean: (adj) northern,
hyperboreal, cold, antipodean.
looping: (v) circulate; (n) iteration.
stimulated: (adj) excited, ablaze,
intoxicated, aroused, roused,
motivated, affected, aflame, angry,
angry waves, randy.
stringency: (n) strictness, severity,
austerity, rigidity, rigour, sternness,
hardness, tightness, deficiency,
scarcity, asperity. ANTONYM: (n)
flexibility.
undeniably: (adv) certainly, clearly,
positively, unarguably, easily,
incontrovertibly, without doubt,
without a doubt, unquestionably,
unmistakably, unavoidably.
ANTONYMS: (adv) arguably,
possibly, unclearly.
Thomas Hardy
183
"I look as at a picture merely. But," she went on, turning pleasantly to him, "I
may do so now--I may look for you. You are always there, are you not? Ah--I
don't mean it seriously! But it is amusing to look for somebody one knows in a
crowd, even if one does not want him. It takes off the terrible oppressiveness of
being surrounded by a throng, and having no point of junction with it through a
single individual."%
"Ay! Maybe you'll be very lonely, ma'am?"
"Nobody knows how lonely."
"But you are rich, they say?"
"If so, I don't know how to enjoy my riches. I came to Casterbridge thinking I
should like to live here. But I wonder if I shall."
"Where did ye come from, ma'am?"
"The neighbourhood of Bath."
"And I from near Edinboro'," he murmured. "It's better to stay at home, and
that's true; but a man must live where his money is made. It is a great pity, but
it's always so! Yet I've done very well this year. O yes," he went on with
ingenuous enthusiasm. "You see that man with the drab kerseymere coat? I
bought largely of him in the autumn when wheat was down, and then
afterwards when it rose a little I sold off all I had! It brought only a small profit
to me; while the farmers kept theirs, expecting higher figures-- yes, though the
rats were gnawing the ricks hollow. Just when I sold the markets went lower,
and I bought up the corn of those who had been holding back at less price than
my first purchases. And then," cried Farfrae impetuously, his face alight, "I sold
it a few weeks after, when it happened to go up again! And so, by contenting
mysel' with small profits frequently repeated, I soon made five hundred pounds-yes!"--(bringing down his hand upon the table, and quite forgetting where he
was)--"while the others by keeping theirs in hand made nothing at all!"
Lucetta regarded him with a critical interest. He was quite a new type of
person to her. At last his eye fell upon the lady's and their glances met.
"Ay, now, I'm wearying you!" he exclaimed.
Thesaurus
drab: (adj) dreary, gloomy, dingy,
cheerless, somber, boring, dowdy,
dark, colorless, dull, depressing.
ANTONYMS: (adj) colorful, vivid,
brilliant, chic, flashy, interesting,
cheerful, distinctive, smart, strong.
gnawing: (v) corroding, biting; (n)
arrosion.
impetuously: (adv) rashly,
impulsively, vehemently,
precipitately, fiercely, headily,
passionately, intensely, fierily,
spontaneously, thoughtlessly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) deliberately,
sensibly, patiently.
ingenuous: (adj, n) frank; (adj) naive,
guileless, honest, forthright, innocent,
straight, artless, downright, green,
hearty. ANTONYMS: (adj)
disingenuous, dishonest, cunning,
sophisticated, scheming, worldly,
jaded, hesitant, experienced.
kerseymere: (n) cassimere.
oppressiveness: (n) burdensomeness,
onerousness, depression, nearness,
narrowness, literalness, intimacy,
humidity, closeness, difficulty,
difficultness.
riches: (n, v) money; (n) affluence,
abundance, fortune, opulence, plenty,
prosperity, exuberance, treasure,
resources; (v) gold.
wearying: (adj) exhausting, wearing,
monotonous, tiring, fatiguing, trying,
boring, dull, wearisome, deadly,
effortful.
184
She said, "No, indeed," colouring a shade.%
"What then?"
"Quite otherwise. You are most interesting."
It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink.
"I mean all you Scotchmen," she added in hasty correction. "So free from
Southern extremes. We common people are all one way or the other--warm or
cold, passionate or frigid. You have both temperatures going on in you at the
same time."
"But how do you mean that? Ye were best to explain clearly, ma'am."
"You are animated--then you are thinking of getting on. You are sad the next
moment--then you are thinking of Scotland and friends."
"Yes. I think of home sometimes!" he said simply.
"So do I--as far as I can. But it was an old house where I was born, and they
pulled it down for improvements, so I seem hardly to have any home to think of
now."
Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, that the house was in St. Helier,
and not in Bath.
"But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks, they are there! And don't
they seem like home?"
She shook her head.
"They do to me--they do to me," he murmured. And his mind could be seen
flying away northwards. Whether its origin were national or personal, it was
quite true what Lucetta had said, that the curious double strands in Farfrae's
thread of life--the commercial and the romantic--were very distinct at times. Like
the colours in a variegated cord those contrasts could be seen intertwisted, yet
not mingling.
"You are wishing you were back again," she said.
"Ah, no, ma'am," said Farfrae, suddenly recalling himself.
Thesaurus
colouring: (n) coloration, painting,
colour, coloring, color, tincture, tint,
hue, colouration, dyeing, exterior
condition.
correction: (n) amendment,
adjustment, alteration, chastisement,
discipline, redress, castigation,
modification, punishment,
improvement, emendation.
ANTONYMS: (n) fabrication, reward,
award, persuasion.
frigid: (adj, n) cold, chilly, dull,
distant; (adj) chill, freezing, icy, cool,
arctic, frosty, bleak. ANTONYMS:
(adj) friendly, hot, burning, torrid.
hasty: (adj) fast, abrupt, cursory, fleet,
sudden, rash, impetuous, careless,
speedy, hurried, quick. ANTONYMS:
(adj) deliberate, considered, leisurely,
sensible, gradual, thorough, cautious,
careful, roundabout, prudent,
patient.
mingling: (adj) blending, merging,
confluent, blended; (n) mixture,
mixing, commixtion, interchange,
exchange, commixture; (adv)
minglingly.
northwards: (adv) northward,
northerly, north, in the north, to the
north.
variegated: (adj) mottled, dappled,
varicolored, varicoloured, various,
piebald, speckled, assorted, different,
multicolored, pied. ANTONYM: (adj)
uniform.
Thomas Hardy
185
The fair without the windows was now raging thick and loud. It was the
chief hiring fair of the year, and differed quite from the market of a few days
earlier. In substance it was a whitey-brown crowd flecked with white--this
being the body of labourers waiting for places. The long bonnets of the women,
like waggon-tilts, their cotton gowns and checked shawls, mixed with the carters'
smockfrocks; for they, too, entered into the hiring. Among the rest, at the corner
of the pavement, stood an old shepherd, who attracted the eyes of Lucetta and
Farfrae by his stillness. He was evidently a chastened man. The battle of life had
been a sharp one with him, for, to begin with, he was a man of small frame. He
was now so bowed by hard work and years that, approaching from behind, a
person could hardly see his head. He had planted the stem of his crook in the
gutter and was resting upon the bow, which was polished to silver brightness by
the long friction of his hands. He had quite forgotten where he was, and what he
had come for, his eyes being bent on the ground. A little way off negotiations
were proceeding which had reference to him; but he did not hear them, and there
seemed to be passing through his mind pleasant visions of the hiring successes of
his prime, when his skill laid open to him any farm for the asking.%
The negotiations were between a farmer from a distant county and the old
man's son. In these there was a difficulty. The farmer would not take the crust
without the crumb of the bargain, in other words, the old man without the
younger; and the son had a sweetheart on his present farm, who stood by,
waiting the issue with pale lips.
"I'm sorry to leave ye, Nelly," said the young man with emotion. "But, you
see, I can't starve father, and he's out o' work at Lady-day. 'Tis only thirty-five
mile."
The girl's lips quivered. "Thirty-five mile!" she murmured. "Ah! 'tis enough!
I shall never see 'ee again!" It was, indeed, a hopeless length of traction for Dan
Cupid's magnet; for young men were young men at Casterbridge as elsewhere.
"O! no, no--I never shall," she insisted, when he pressed her hand; and she
turned her face to Lucetta's wall to hide her weeping. The farmer said he would
Thesaurus
crook: (adj, n, v) bend, curve; (n)
criminal, cheat, scoundrel, gangster,
robber; (n, v) turn, hook; (v) bow,
wind.
crumb: (adj, n) morsel, seed; (n)
fragment, speck, scrap, grain, atom,
trace, spot, iota; (adj) scantling.
ANTONYMS: (n) pile, mass, lot,
heap, chunk.
flecked: (adj) speckled, dappled,
spotted, mottled, stippled,
multicolored, stained, freckled,
variegated, rainbow; (v) fleckered.
starve: (v) fast, crave, lust, hunger,
ANTONYMS: (adj) unblemished,
thirst, perish, be hungry, deprive,
benumb; (adj, v) pinch; (adj) gripe.
plain, uniform.
hiring: (n) employment, engagement,
ANTONYMS: (v) feed, eat.
sweetheart: (n) dear, girl, darling,
staffing, booking.
planted: (adj) ingrained, established,
mistress, flame, beloved, boyfriend,
love, steady; (adj, n) beau, admirer.
set, concealed.
raging: (adj) hot, angry, fierce, irate,
ANTONYMS: (n) foe, enemy.
wild, infuriated, enraged, vehement, traction: (n) grip, adhesive friction,
heated; (adj, n) mad, rabid.
friction, draught, tension, drawing,
ANTONYMS: (adj) calm, mild,
propulsion, attraction, pulling, privy;
(v) tug. ANTONYM: (n) slipperiness.
contained.
186
give the young man half-an-hour for his answer, and went away, leaving the
group sorrowing.%
Lucetta's eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae's. His, too, to her surprise, were
moist at the scene.
"It is very hard," she said with strong feelings. "Lovers ought not to be parted
like that! O, if I had my wish, I'd let people live and love at their pleasure!"
"Maybe I can manage that they'll not be parted," said Farfrae. "I want a
young carter; and perhaps I'll take the old man too--yes; he'll not be very
expensive, and doubtless he will answer my pairrpose somehow."
"O, you are so good!" she cried, delighted. "Go and tell them, and let me
know if you have succeeded!"
Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to the group. The eyes of all
brightened; the bargain was soon struck. Farfrae returned to her immediately it
was concluded.
"It is kind-hearted of you, indeed," said Lucetta. "For my part, I have
resolved that all my servants shall have lovers if they want them! Do make the
same resolve!"
Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a half turn. "I must be a little
stricter than that," he said.
"Why?"
"You are a--a thriving woman; and I am a struggling hay-and- corn
merchant."
"I am a very ambitious woman."
"Ah, well, I cannet explain. I don't know how to talk to ladies, ambitious or
no; and that's true," said Donald with grave regret. "I try to be civil to a' folk--no
more!"
"I see you are as you say," replied she, sensibly getting the upper hand in
these exchanges of sentiment. Under this revelation of insight Farfrae again
looked out of the window into the thick of the fair.
Thesaurus
bargain: (adj, n, v) cheap; (n, v)
doubt, presumably; (adj) sure; (adv, v)
covenant, deal; (n) agreement, treaty, questionless; (adj, adv) no doubt, to be
arrangement, buy, chaffer; (v)
sure. ANTONYMS: (adj) improbably,
exchange, stipulate, agree.
uncertain, unlikely, questionable.
ANTONYM: (adj) inflated.
exchanges: (n) communications,
carter: (n) whip, carrier, coachman,
relations, interactions.
kind-hearted: (adj) good-natured,
Jehu, drayman, wagoner, teamster,
delivery service, cartman, hauler,
good, kindly, clement, benevolent,
charioteer.
humane, kindhearted, philanthropic,
doubtless: (adv) assuredly,
sympathetic, tolerant, warm.
revelation: (n) discovery, exposure,
undoubtedly, probably,
unquestionably, clearly, without
display, revealing, manifestation,
betrayal, apocalypse, expose,
inspiration, publication; (v) reveal.
ANTONYM: (n) concealment.
sensibly: (adv) sanely, intelligently,
rationally, pragmatically,
realistically, cleverly, politically,
perceptibly, soundly, noticeably,
wisely. ANTONYMS: (adv) foolishly,
ludicrously, ridiculously,
unreasonably, illogically, madly,
irrationally, hastily, stupidly,
irresponsibly, immaturely.
Thomas Hardy
187
Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite near the window their
remarks could be heard as others' had been.%
"Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this morning?" asked one. "He promised
to meet me here at the stroke of twelve; but I've gone athwart and about the fair
half-a-dozen times, and never a sign of him: though he's mostly a man to his
word."
"I quite forgot the engagement," murmured Farfrae.
"Now you must go," said she; "must you not?"
"Yes," he replied. But he still remained.
"You had better go," she urged. "You will lose a customer.
"Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry," exclaimed Farfrae.
"Then suppose you don't go; but stay a little longer?"
He looked anxiously at the farmer who was seeking him and who just then
ominously walked across to where Henchard was standing, and he looked into
the room and at her. "I like staying; but I fear I must go!" he said. "Business
ought not to be neglected, ought it?
"Not for a single minute."
"It's true. I'll come another time--if I may, ma'am?"
"Certainly," she said. "What has happened to us to-day is very curious."
"Something to think over when we are alone, it's like to be?"
"Oh, I don't know that. It is commonplace after all."
"No, I'll not say that. O no!"
"Well, whatever it has been, it is now over; and the market calls you to be
gone."
"Yes, yes. Market--business! I wish there were no business in the warrld."
Lucetta almost laughed--she would quite have laughed--but that there was a
little emotion going in her at the time. "How you change!" she said. "You should
not change like this.
Thesaurus
athwart: (adj, adv, n, prep) across; (adv, deepness, profundity, profoundness. salubrious.
prep) aslant, cross; (adj, adv, prep)
emotion: (n) love, feeling, passion,
ominously: (adv) inauspiciously,
thwart; (adj, adv) crosswise; (adv)
heart, commotion, mood, pathos,
portentously, forbiddingly, balefully,
excitement, sensibility; (n, v)
sideways, obliquely, transversely,
threateningly, menacingly, blackly,
sensation; (v) impression.
direly; (adj, adv) gloomily, fatefully,
traverse, overthwart, crossways.
commonplace: (adj, v) trite,
ANTONYMS: (n) detachment,
unpromisingly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
hackneyed; (adj) banal, ordinary,
coldness, unfeelingness, calmness.
favorably, innocently.
remarks: (n) commentary,
humdrum, common, average, plain, neglected: (adj) dilapidated,
mundane, dull; (n) platitude.
disregarded, ignored, deserted,
explanation.
ANTONYMS: (adj) extraordinary,
stroke: (adj, n) blow; (n, v) touch,
derelict, forsaken, obsolete,
caress, mark, buffet, lick, pat; (n) beat,
unusual, exceptional, infrequent,
antiquated, antique, shabby,
rare, romantic, uncommon, weird; (n) unnoticed. ANTONYM: (adj)
hit, knock, bang.
188
"I have never wished such things before," said the Scotchman, with a simple,
shamed, apologetic look for his weakness. "It is only since coming here and
seeing you!"
"If that's the case, you had better not look at me any longer. Dear me, I feel I
have quite demoralized you!"
"But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts. Well, I'll go--thank you
for the pleasure of this visit."
"Thank you for staying."
"Maybe I'll get into my market-mind when I've been out a few minutes," he
murmured. "But I don't know--I don't know!"
As he went she said eagerly, "You may hear them speak of me in
Casterbridge as time goes on. If they tell you I'm a coquette, which some may,
because of the incidents of my life, don't believe it, for I am not."
"I swear I will not!" he said fervidly.%
Thus the two. She had enkindled the young man's enthusiasm till he was
quite brimming with sentiment; while he from merely affording her a new form
of idleness, had gone on to wake her serious solicitude. Why was this? They
could not have told.
Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked at a tradesman. But her
ups and downs, capped by her indiscretions with Henchard had made her
uncritical as to station. In her poverty she had met with repulse from the society
to which she had belonged, and she had no great zest for renewing an attempt
upon it now. Her heart longed for some ark into which it could fly and be at rest.
Rough or smooth she did not care so long as it was warm.
Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escaped him that he had called to
see Elizabeth. Lucetta at the window watched him threading the maze of
farmers and farmers' men. She could see by his gait that he was conscious of her
eyes, and her heart went out to him for his modesty--pleaded with her sense of
his unfitness that he might be allowed to come again. He entered the markethouse, and she could see him no more.
Thesaurus
capped: (adj) crowned.
nauseate, disgust, drive back, revolt,
negligence, serenity, thoughtlessness.
coquette: (n) vamp, jilt, minx, woman; reject, refuse, beat back; (n) refusal.
tradesman: (n) shopkeeper, dealer,
(v) coquet, dally, romance, chat up,
ANTONYMS: (v) attract, accept,
merchant, market keeper, cleaner,
delight, yield, please; (n, v) welcome. florist, hosier, retailer, tradespeople,
puritan, speak, prude.
demoralized: (adj) demoralised,
shamed: (adj) dishonored, ashamed,
businessman, retail dealer.
unfitness: (n) disqualification,
disheartened, broken, depraved,
hangdog, guilty, discredited,
browbeaten, balked, baffled, vicious, abashed, sheepish, embarrassed,
disability, incompetence,
anxious; (v) dead beat, done up.
shamefaced, bullied, cowed.
incompetency, incapability,
ANTONYM: (adj) optimistic.
solicitude: (n) care, consideration,
inaptitude, inadequacy, insufficiency,
enkindled: (adj) ignited, lighted,
anxiety, thought, apprehension,
ineptitude, incapacity, feebleness.
kindled, burning; (prep) inflamed.
ANTONYMS: (n) fitness, ability.
regard, attention, fear, disquietude,
repulse: (n, v) rebuff, defeat; (v) repel, heed, fret. ANTONYMS: (n)
Thomas Hardy
189
Three minutes later, when she had left the window, knocks, not of multitude
but of strength, sounded through the house, and the waiting-maid tripped up.%
"The Mayor," she said.
Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was looking dreamily through her
fingers. She did not answer at once, and the maid repeated the information with
the addition, "And he's afraid he hasn't much time to spare, he says."
"Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headache I won't detain him to-day."
The message was taken down, and she heard the door close.
Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard's feelings with
regard to her. She had quickened them, and now she was indifferent to the
achievement.
Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbing element changed, and
she no longer felt strongly the necessity of getting rid of the girl for her
stepfather's sake. When the young woman came in, sweetly unconscious of the
turn in the tide, Lucetta went up to her, and said quite sincerely-"I'm so glad you've come. You'll live with me a long time, won't you?"
Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off--what a new idea. Yet it was
not unpleasing. Henchard had neglected her all these days, after compromising
her indescribably in the past. The least he could have done when he found
himself free, and herself affluent, would have been to respond heartily and
promptly to her invitation.
Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild surmise at their
suddenness; and so passed Lucetta's experiences of that day.
Thesaurus
compromising: (adj) conciliatory,
incredibly, inconceivably, beyond
moderate, vulnerable, awkward,
words, unbelievably, unutterably,
intermediate, flexible, inculpatory;
unthinkably.
(adv) halfway.
multitude: (n) flock, horde, crowd,
detain: (v) arrest, confine, catch,
host, throng, concourse, mob, masses,
mass, herd, swarm. ANTONYM: (n)
capture, apprehend, stay, keep, jail,
imprison, incarcerate, retard.
trickle.
ANTONYMS: (v) free, liberate, rush. quicken: (v) accelerate, hasten, hurry,
emotions: (n) reputation, emotion,
dispatch, animate, expedite, advance,
enliven, precipitate; (n, v) forward,
feeling, temperament, personality,
character, disposition, breast, bosom. speed. ANTONYMS: (v) decelerate,
indescribably: (adv) unspeakably,
delay.
quickened: (adj) hasty, rapid,
passionate, intoxicated.
sweetly: (adv) pleasantly, sweet,
mildly, melodically, melodiously,
softly, syrupily, beautifully,
pleasingly, dulcetly, fairly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) discordantly,
horribly, sharply, harshly, unkindly.
unpleasing: (adj) displeasing,
graceless, ungracious, unpleasant,
disagreeable, wicked, not grateful,
offensive, perturbed, restless, stiff.
Thomas Hardy
191
CHAPTER 24
Poor Elizabeth-Jane, little thinking what her malignant star had done to blast
the budding attentions she had won from Donald Farfrae, was glad to hear
Lucetta's words about remaining.%
For in addition to Lucetta's house being a home, that raking view of the
market-place which it afforded had as much attraction for her as for Lucetta. The
carrefour was like the regulation Open Place in spectacular dramas, where the
incidents that occur always happen to bear on the lives of the adjoining
residents. Farmers, merchants, dairymen, quacks, hawkers, appeared there from
week to week, and disappeared as the afternoon wasted away. It was the node
of all orbits.
From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day with the two young
women now. In an emotional sense they did not live at all during the intervals.
Wherever they might go wandering on other days, on market-day they were
sure to be at home. Both stole sly glances out of the window at Farfrae's
shoulders and poll. His face they seldom saw, for, either through shyness, or not
to disturb his mercantile mood, he avoided looking towards their quarters.
Thus things went on, till a certain market-morning brought a new sensation.
Elizabeth and Lucetta were sitting at breakfast when a parcel containing two
dresses arrived for the latter from London. She called Elizabeth from her
Thesaurus
adjoining: (adj) contiguous, neighbor,
near, abutting, touching,
conterminous, neighboring,
immediate, next, vicinal; (adj, v) close.
ANTONYMS: (adj) separate, divided,
detached, apart, far.
avoided: (adj) unpopular.
blast: (adj, n, v) discharge, explosion,
burst; (n, v) attack, slam, smash,
boom, blight, roar; (adj, v) blow up;
(v) detonate.
malignant: (adj) malevolent,
malicious, evil, malefic, fatal, spiteful,
virulent, sinister, mischievous,
pernicious, venomous.
mercantile: (adj) commercial, business,
trade, mercenary, economic,
merchant, trading, moneymaking,
commercial relations, for profit,
industrial.
node: (n) lump, joint, connection,
section, bulge, nub, nodule, nodosity,
nodal point, knot, bump.
parcel: (n) bale, pack, bundle, package,
packet, section, division, batch; (n, v)
portion; (v) distribute, apportion.
residents: (n) population, citizens,
populace, people, community.
stole: (n) wrap, stolen, scarf, stolon,
stealing, robe, alb, tunicle, surplice,
alba, cassock.
wandering: (adj) itinerant, nomadic,
erratic, rambling, errant, migratory;
(adj, v) stray, vagrant, vagabond,
unsettled; (n) peregrination.
ANTONYM: (adj) resident.
192
breakfast, and entering her friend's bedroom Elizabeth saw the gowns spread out
on the bed, one of a deep cherry colour, the other lighter--a glove lying at the end
of each sleeve, a bonnet at the top of each neck, and parasols across the gloves,
Lucetta standing beside the suggested human figure in an attitude of
contemplation.%
"I wouldn't think so hard about it," said Elizabeth, marking the intensity with
which Lucetta was alternating the question whether this or that would suit best.
"But settling upon new clothes is so trying," said Lucetta. "You are that
person" (pointing to one of the arrangements), "or you are that totally different
person" (pointing to the other), "for the whole of the coming spring and one of
the two, you don't know which, may turn out to be very objectionable."
It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be the cherrycoloured person at all hazards. The dress was pronounced to be a fit, and
Lucetta walked with it into the front room, Elizabeth following her.
The morning was exceptionally bright for the time of year. The sun fell so flat
on the houses and pavement opposite Lucetta's residence that they poured their
brightness into her rooms. Suddenly, after a rumbling of wheels, there were
added to this steady light a fantastic series of circling irradiations upon the
ceiling, and the companions turned to the window. Immediately opposite a
vehicle of strange description had come to a standstill, as if it had been placed
there for exhibition.
It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement called a horse-drill, till then
unknown, in its modern shape, in this part of the country, where the venerable
seed-lip was still used for sowing as in the days of the Heptarchy. Its arrival
created about as much sensation in the corn-market as a flying machine would
create at Charing Cross. The farmers crowded round it, women drew near it,
children crept under and into it. The machine was painted in bright hues of
green, yellow, and red, and it resembled as a whole a compound of hornet,
grasshopper, and shrimp, magnified enormously. Or it might have been
likened to an upright musical instrument with the front gone. That was how it
struck Lucetta. "Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano," she said.
Thesaurus
alternating: (adj) intermittent,
recurrent, irregular, regular, every
other, blinking, successive; (adv) back
and forth. ANTONYM: (adj) direct.
circling: (v) snaky, serpentine; (adj)
rotating, spinning, circular, spiral,
moving; (n) circulation, circuit,
cycling; (adv) around.
companions: (n) circle, entourage,
people.
glove: (n) boxing glove, gloves, mitt,
mitten, baseball mitt, baseball glove,
handwear, wristband, sleeve,
mittens, batting glove.
grasshopper: (n) goat, frog, chamois,
orthopteron, orthopteran, cricket,
locust, cocktail, acridid, flea.
hornet: (n) wasp, giant hornet,
cockatrice, vespid, scorpion.
magnified: (adj) enlarged, inflated,
enlarge, hyperbolic, hypertrophied,
increased, overblown, overstated,
puffed up, made larger.
new-fashioned: (adj) newfangled,
modern, novel.
rumbling: (adj, n) grumbling; (n)
grumble, noise, boom, thunder, roll,
roar; (adj) hollow, low; (v)
bombination, berloque.
shrimp: (n) runt, dwarf, peewee; (adj)
midge, mite, gnat, fly, insect, monad,
emmet, animalcule.
standstill: (n) impasse, deadlock,
cessation, pause, halt, stagnation,
inaction, stay, stop, interruption; (adj,
n) stand. ANTONYM: (n) progress.
Thomas Hardy
193
"It has something to do with corn," said Elizabeth.%
"I wonder who thought of introducing it here?"
Donald Farfrae was in the minds of both as the innovator, for though not a
farmer he was closely leagued with farming operations. And as if in response to
their thought he came up at that moment, looked at the machine, walked round
it, and handled it as if he knew something about its make. The two watchers had
inwardly started at his coming, and Elizabeth left the window, went to the back
of the room, and stood as if absorbed in the panelling of the wall. She hardly
knew that she had done this till Lucetta, animated by the conjunction of her new
attire with the sight of Farfrae, spoke out: "Let us go and look at the instrument,
whatever it is."
Elizabeth-Jane's bonnet and shawl were pitchforked on in a moment, and
they went out. Among all the agriculturists gathered round the only appropriate
possessor of the new machine seemed to be Lucetta, because she alone rivalled it
in colour.
They examined it curiously; observing the rows of trumpet- shaped tubes one
within the other, the little scoops, like revolving salt-spoons, which tossed the
seed into the upper ends of the tubes that conducted it to the ground; till
somebody said, "Good morning, Elizabeth-Jane." She looked up, and there was
her stepfather.
His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous, and Elizabeth-Jane,
embarrassed out of her equanimity, stammered at random, "This is the lady I
live with, father--Miss Templeman."
Henchard put his hand to his hat, which he brought down with a great wave
till it met his body at the knee. Miss Templeman bowed. "I am happy to become
acquainted with you, Mr. Henchard," she said. "This is a curious machine."
"Yes," Henchard replied; and he proceeded to explain it, and still more
forcibly to ridicule it.
"Who brought it here?" said Lucetta.
Thesaurus
acquainted: (adj) knowledgeable,
informed, aware, cognizant,
conversant, hand and glove, intimate,
thick; (adv) abreast; (v) inform,
acquaint.
attire: (n, v) array, garb, apparel, wear;
(n) costume, garment, outfit, clothes;
(v) enrobe, clothe, dress up.
ANTONYMS: (v) disrobe, bare, strip,
unclothe; (n) nakedness.
equanimity: (n) aplomb, poise,
calmness, calm, temper, peace,
imperturbability, temperament,
confederate, allied.
serenity, tranquility; (adj, n) stoicism. panelling: (n) paneling, lining, panel,
ANTONYMS: (n) panic, anger,
dado, pane of glass, wainscot,
excitableness, fear, hysteria,
wainscoting, fairing.
revolving: (adj) turning, rotating,
nervousness, agitation, anxiety.
innovator: (n) renovator, novator,
vertiginous, rotary, gyratory,
leader, novelist, pacemaker,
wheeling, rotative, rotatory,
rotational; (n) revolution; (v) revolve.
pacesetter, rebel, conceiver,
thunderous: (adj) earsplitting,
groundbreaker.
leagued: (v) brief, dense, firm,
deafening, loud, booming, roaring,
compact, confederated, not verbose,
terrific, shrill, boisterous,
not diffuse, solid, pithy; (adj)
unpropitious, turbulent, thriving.
194
"Oh, don't ask me, ma'am!" said Henchard. "The thing--why 'tis impossible it
should act. 'Twas brought here by one of our machinists on the recommendation
of a jumped-up jackanapes of a fellow who thinks----" His eye caught ElizabethJane's imploring face, and he stopped, probably thinking that the suit might be
progressing.%
He turned to go away. Then something seemed to occur which his
stepdaughter fancied must really be a hallucination of hers. A murmur
apparently came from Henchard's lips in which she detected the words, "You
refused to see me!" reproachfully addressed to Lucetta. She could not believe
that they had been uttered by her stepfather; unless, indeed, they might have
been spoken to one of the yellow- gaitered farmers near them. Yet Lucetta
seemed silent, and then all thought of the incident was dissipated by the
humming of a song, which sounded as though from the interior of the machine.
Henchard had by this time vanished into the market-house, and both the women
glanced towards the corn- drill. They could see behind it the bent back of a man
who was pushing his head into the internal works to master their simple secrets.
The hummed song went on—
"'Tw--s on a s--m--r aftern--n,
A wee be--re the s--n w--nt d--n,
When Kitty wi' a braw n--w g—wn
C--me ow're the h--lls to Gowrie."
Elizabeth-Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment, and looked guilty
of she did not know what. Lucetta next recognized him, and more mistress of
herself said archly, "The 'Lass of Gowrie' from inside of a seed-drill--what a
phenomenon!"
Satisfied at last with his investigation the young man stood upright, and met
their eyes across the summit.
Thesaurus
apprehended: (adj) arrested, seized,
drone; (v) complain, bubble, breathe.
prodigal, gay, rakish, degenerate,
reproachfully: (adv) critically,
understood, under arrest, in custody, squandered, licentious.
ANTONYMS: (adj) upright, moral.
detained, appreciated,
abusively, admonitorily,
hallucination: (n) illusion, dream,
comprehended.
vituperatively, disapprovingly,
archly: (adv) mischievously, sly,
apparition, vision, fantasy, phantom, wearily, contemptuously,
wickedly, playfully, waggishly,
delirium, aberration, optical illusion, disparagingly, disdainfully,
roguishly, shrewdly, wily,
mirage, nightmare.
witheringly, shamefully.
jackanapes: (n) saucebox, brat, minx,
ANTONYMS: (adv) approvingly,
consummately, roundly, craftily.
braw: (adj) bransle, jolly, audacious,
nobody, nonentity, coxcomb, ape,
hopefully.
gay, colorful.
monkey, cypher, lightweight, cipher. uttered: (adj) expressed, express,
dissipated: (adj, v) fast; (adj) dissolute, murmur: (n, v) grumble, mumble,
verbalised, verbalized, vocal, explicit,
immoral, abandoned, profligate,
hum, whisper, mutter, whine, babble, oral; (v) spoke, quoth, said.
Thomas Hardy
195
"We are looking at the wonderful new drill," Miss Templeman said. "But
practically it is a stupid thing--is it not?" she added, on the strength of
Henchard's information.%
"Stupid? O no!" said Farfrae gravely. "It will revolutionize sowing
heerabout! No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast, so that some
falls by the wayside and some among thorns, and all that. Each grain will go
straight to its intended place, and nowhere else whatever!"
"Then the romance of the sower is gone for good," observed Elizabeth-Jane,
who felt herself at one with Farfrae in Bible-reading at least. "'He that observeth
the wind shall not sow,' so the Preacher said; but his words will not be to the
point any more. How things change!"
"Ay; ay....It must be so!" Donald admitted, his gaze fixing itself on a blank
point far away. "But the machines are already very common in the East and
North of England," he added apologetically.
Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her acquaintance with
the Scriptures being somewhat limited. "Is the machine yours?" she asked of
Farfrae.
"O no, madam," said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential at the sound
of her voice, though with Elizabeth Jane he was quite at his ease. No, no--I
merely recommended that it should be got."
In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared only conscious of her; to have
passed from perception of Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of existence than she
appertained to. Lucetta, discerning that he was much mixed that day, partly in
his mercantile mood and partly in his romantic one, said gaily to him-"Well, don't forsake the machine for us," and went indoors with her
companion.
The latter felt that she had been in the way, though why was unaccountable
to her. Lucetta explained the matter somewhat by saying when they were again
in the sitting-room--
Thesaurus
apologetically: (adv) contritely,
penitently, regretfully, repentantly,
ruefully, sorrily, ashamedly,
compunctiously.
deferential: (adj, v) respectful; (adj)
dutiful, deferent, reverential,
regardful, reverent, obedient,
submissive, subservient, complaisant,
humble. ANTONYMS: (adj)
disobedient, inconsiderate,
irreverent, patronizing, rude,
noncompliant, assertive,
uncomplimentary.
discerning: (adj) apprehensive,
perceptive, acute, shrewd,
discriminating, discreet, penetrating,
refined, judicious, sharp, conscious.
ANTONYMS: (adj) indiscriminate,
undiscriminating, disregardful,
negligent, overlooking, undiscerning,
unobservant, unperceptive,
insensitive, obtuse, tasteless.
forsake: (v) abandon, ditch, relinquish,
abdicate, fail, leave, forgo, chuck,
disclaim; (n, v) drop; (adj, v) quit.
ANTONYM: (v) support.
passed: (adj) accepted, approved,
legal, gone.
revolutionize: (v) change,
revolutionise, alter, overthrow,
overturn, infect, bring down, inspire,
subvert, reorganize, knock over.
sower: (n) seeder, farmer, sodbuster,
husbandman, granger, seed drill.
wayside: (n) edge, curb, verge,
margin, shoulder, border.
196
"I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and so I knew him this
morning."
Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day. Together they saw the
market thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline of the sun
towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street endways and enfilading
the long thoroughfare from top to bottom. The gigs and vans disappeared one
by one till there was not a vehicle in the street. The time of the riding world was
over the pedestrian world held sway. Field labourers and their wives and
children trooped in from the villages for their weekly shopping, and instead of a
rattle of wheels and a tramp of horses ruling the sound as earlier, there was
nothing but the shuffle of many feet. All the implements were gone; all the
farmers; all the moneyed class. The character of the town's trading had changed
from bulk to multiplicity and pence were handled now as pounds had been
handled earlier in the day.%
Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for though it was night and the
street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed. In the faint
blink of the fire they spoke more freely.
"Your father was distant with you," said Lucetta.
"Yes." And having forgotten the momentary mystery of Henchard's seeming
speech to Lucetta she continued, "It is because he does not think I am respectable.
I have tried to be so more than you can imagine, but in vain! My mother's
separation from my father was unfortunate for me. You don't know what it is to
have shadows like that upon your life."
Lucetta seemed to wince. "I do not--of that kind precisely," she said, "but you
may feel a--sense of disgrace--shame--in other ways."
"Have you ever had any such feeling?" said the younger innocently.
"O no," said Lucetta quickly. "I was thinking of--what happens sometimes
when women get themselves in strange positions in the eyes of the world from
no fault of their own."
"It must make them very unhappy afterwards."
Thesaurus
blink: (v) twinkle, flicker, blench,
ANTONYMS: (adj) lasting, lengthy, shuffle: (v) mingle, blend, hobble,
shirk, nictate, shine; (n, v) flash; (n)
long.
muddle, drag, scuff, equivocate,
prevaricate, ruffle, mix; (n, v)
blinking, instant, winking, glimmer. moneyed: (adj) wealthy, rich, loaded,
ANTONYM: (v) attend.
shamble. ANTONYMS: (v) remain,
flush, opulent, monied, prosperous,
endways: (adv) end on, lengthwise.
well-off, worth much, rolling in it,
tidy, leave.
implements: (n) equipment,
prodigal. ANTONYMS: (adj) poor,
thicken: (adj, v) condense, gel; (v) clot,
apparatus, gear, tackle, rigging,
impoverished, moneyless.
set, coagulate, stiffen, reduce,
multiplicity: (n) diversity, abundance, incrassate, gather, jell; (n, v) curdle.
outfit, hardware, trappings.
momentary: (adj) brief, fugitive,
ANTONYMS: (v) dilute, soften,
plurality, much, multeity,
transient, short, instantaneous,
manifoldness, lot, profusion, number, liquefy, melt, narrow.
multitude, array. ANTONYMS: (n)
wheels: (n) vehicle, truck, car, brush,
ephemeral, passing, momentaneous,
temporary, impermanent, temporal.
uniformity, likeness.
force.
Thomas Hardy
197
"It makes them anxious; for might not other women despise them?"
"Not altogether despise them. Yet not quite like or respect them."
Lucetta winced again. Her past was by no means secure from investigation,
even in Casterbridge. For one thing Henchard had never returned to her the
cloud of letters she had written and sent him in her first excitement. Possibly
they were destroyed; but she could have wished that they had never been
written.%
The rencounter with Farfrae and his bearings towards Lucetta had made the
reflective Elizabeth more observant of her brilliant and amiable companion. A
few days afterwards, when her eyes met Lucetta's as the latter was going out, she
somehow knew that Miss Templeman was nourishing a hope of seeing the
attractive Scotchman. The fact was printed large all over Lucetta's cheeks and
eyes to any one who could read her as Elizabeth-Jane was beginning to do.
Lucetta passed on and closed the street door.
A seer's spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her to sit down by the
fire and divine events so surely from data already her own that they could be
held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thus mentally--saw her encounter
Donald somewhere as if by chance--saw him wear his special look when meeting
women, with an added intensity because this one was Lucetta. She depicted his
impassioned manner; beheld the indecision of both between their lothness to
separate and their desire not to be observed; depicted their shaking of hands;
how they probably parted with frigidity in their general contour and
movements, only in the smaller features showing the spark of passion, thus
invisible to all but themselves. This discerning silent witch had not done
thinking of these things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and made her
start.
It was all true as she had pictured--she could have sworn it. Lucetta had a
heightened luminousness in her eye over and above the advanced colour of her
cheeks.
"You've seen Mr. Farfrae," said Elizabeth demurely.
Thesaurus
contour: (n) contour line, outline,
form, profile, shape, line,
configuration, silhouette, curve,
circuit, edge. ANTONYM: (n) core.
demurely: (adv) soberly, primly,
virtuously, staidly, reservedly,
solemnly, sedately, bashfully,
seriously, gravely, properly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) improperly,
brazenly, brashly, boldly.
frigidity: (n) cold, coldness, coolness,
chill, iciness, indifference, frostiness,
chilliness, distance, frigidness, sang
source, clearness, flawlessness, Christ
Within. ANTONYM: (n) dirtiness.
Froid.
heightened: (adj) excited, intense,
observant: (adj) mindful, watchful,
irritate, keen, resonant, sensitive.
alert, cautious, circumspect, careful,
impelling: (adj) communicating force, aware, heedful, vigilant, awake, keen.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unobservant,
driving, impellent, effective, active,
efficacious, exciting, moving,
dreaming, insensitive, unprepared,
persuasive, urgent; (n) constraint.
oblivious.
knew: (adj) known; (v) recognize, wist. rencounter: (n, v) encounter; (n)
luminousness: (n) illumination,
meeting, conflict, appulse, syzygy,
luminescence, glow, light, brightness, engagement, combat, fight, contest,
incandescence, luminance, light
collision, assault.
198
"Yes," said Lucetta. "How did you know?"
She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend's hands excitedly in her
own. But after all she did not say when or how she had seen him or what he had
said.%
That night she became restless; in the morning she was feverish; and at
breakfast-time she told her companion that she had something on her mind-something which concerned a person in whom she was interested much.
Elizabeth was earnest to listen and sympathize.
"This person--a lady--once admired a man much--very much," she said
tentatively.
"Ah," said Elizabeth-Jane.
"They were intimate--rather. He did not think so deeply of her as she did of
him. But in an impulsive moment, purely out of reparation, he proposed to
make her his wife. She agreed. But there was an unsuspected hitch in the
proceedings; though she had been so far compromised with him that she felt she
could never belong to another man, as a pure matter of conscience, even if she
should wish to. After that they were much apart, heard nothing of each other for
a long time, and she felt her life quite closed up for her."
"Ah--poor girl!"
"She suffered much on account of him; though I should add that he could not
altogether be blamed for what had happened. At last the obstacle which
separated them was providentially removed; and he came to marry her."
"How delightful!"
"But in the interval she--my poor friend--had seen a man, she liked better
than him. Now comes the point: Could she in honour dismiss the first?"
"A new man she liked better--that's bad!"
"Yes," said Lucetta, looking pained at a boy who was swinging the town
pump-handle. "It is bad! Though you must remember that she was forced into
an equivocal position with the first man by an accident--that he was not so well
Thesaurus
feverish: (adj) febrile, feverous, fiery,
frenzied, fevered, excited, sick,
fanatical; (adj, v) hot, flushed; (adj, n)
hysterical. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
afebrile, collected, composed,
mellow.
hitch: (v) fasten, attach; (n, v) catch,
limp, hobble, arrest; (n) hindrance,
drawback, barrier, difficulty, check.
ANTONYMS: (n) advantage, ease,
help; (v) detach, undo.
pained: (adj) offended, aggrieved,
distressed, displeased, sore, grieved,
compensation, repair, remuneration,
miserable, injured, wounded,
restitution.
worried, upset. ANTONYM: (adj)
suffered: (adj) permitted, permissive.
sympathize: (v) pity, understand,
unaffected.
providentially: (adv) fortunately,
condole, compassionate, feel,
luckily, fortuitously, auspiciously,
sympathise, identify with, empathize,
opportunely, propitiously, timely,
have compassion, feel sorry for, feel
for. ANTONYMS: (v) disapprove,
divinely, prudently. ANTONYM:
(adv) unfortunately.
disregard.
reparation: (n) redress, recompense,
unsuspected: (v) unspied; (adj)
atonement, indemnity, correction,
unimagined, covert, adventitious,
restoration; (n, v) indemnification,
unseen, unanticipated.
Thomas Hardy
199
educated or refined as the second, and that she had discovered some qualities in
the first that rendered him less desirable as a husband than she had at first
thought him to be."
"I cannot answer," said Elizabeth-Jane thoughtfully. "It is so difficult. It
wants a Pope to settle that!"
"You prefer not to perhaps?" Lucetta showed in her appealing tone how
much she leant on Elizabeth's judgment.%
"Yes, Miss Templeman," admitted Elizabeth. "I would rather not say."
Nevertheless, Lucetta seemed relieved by the simple fact of having opened
out the situation a little, and was slowly convalescent of her headache. "Bring
me a looking-glass. How do I appear to people?" she said languidly.
"Well--a little worn," answered Elizabeth, eyeing her as a critic eyes a
doubtful painting; fetching the glass she enabled Lucetta to survey herself in it,
which Lucetta anxiously did.
"I wonder if I wear well, as times go!" she observed after a while.
"Yes--fairly.
"Where am I worst?"
"Under your eyes--I notice a little brownness there."
"Yes. That is my worst place, I know. How many years more do you think I
shall last before I get hopelessly plain?"
There was something curious in the way in which Elizabeth, though the
younger, had come to play the part of experienced sage in these discussions. "It
may be five years," she said judicially. "Or, with a quiet life, as many as ten.
With no love you might calculate on ten."
Lucetta seemed to reflect on this as on an unalterable, impartial verdict. She
told Elizabeth-Jane no more of the past attachment she had roughly adumbrated
as the experiences of a third person; and Elizabeth, who in spite of her
philosophy was very tender-hearted, sighed that night in bed at the thought that
her pretty, rich Lucetta did not treat her to the full confidence of names and dates
Thesaurus
brownness: (n) buff, caramel, umber, hopelessly: (adv) despairingly,
learned, profound, knowing; (adj, v)
grave; (n) philosopher, scholar.
chocolate, coffee, puce, sepia.
forlornly, despondently, uselessly,
convalescent: (n) sufferer, invalid,
tender-hearted: (adj) kind, merciful,
desolately, futilely, wretchedly,
patient; (adj) healing, convalesced,
lostly, sadly, dejectedly, dispiritedly. benevolent, kind-hearted, soft,
recovering, better; (v) redivivus.
tender.
ANTONYMS: (adj) regressing, sickly, effectively, slightly.
unalterable: (adj) constant, inalterable,
judicially: (adv) legally, forensically,
weak, worsening.
immutable, permanent, invariable,
fetching: (adj) attractive, engaging,
judicial, judiciarily, dispassionately,
firm, changeless, rigid, stable,
tempting, winning, fetch, charming,
magisterially, juristically, impartially, irrevocable, unchangeable.
officially. ANTONYM: (adv) stupidly. ANTONYMS: (adj) alterable,
catching, catchy, taking, fetchingly,
fascinating. ANTONYMS: (adj)
sage: (adj) sagacious, discerning,
impermanent, temporary, fluid,
unattractive, repulsive, ugly.
intelligent, prudent, judicious,
flexible.
200
in %her confessions. For by the "she" of Lucetta's story Elizabeth had not been
beguiled.
Thesaurus
beguiled: (adj) entranced, rapt,
fascinated, infatuated, enchanted,
delighted, charmed, captive,
captivated.
confessions: (n) confession, life,
journal, fortunes, personal narrative,
memoir, experiences, biography.
story: (n, v) history, tale, narrative; (n)
recital, narration, report, account,
level, legend, novel, stage.
ANTONYM: (n) fact.
Thomas Hardy
201
CHAPTER 25
The next phase of the supersession of Henchard in Lucetta's heart was an
experiment in calling on her performed by Farfrae with some apparent
trepidation. Conventionally speaking he conversed with both Miss Templeman
and her companion; but in fact it was rather that Elizabeth sat invisible in the
room. Donald appeared not to see her at all, and answered her wise little
remarks with curtly indifferent monosyllables, his looks and faculties hanging on
the woman who could boast of a more Protean variety in her phases, moods,
opinions, and also principles, than could Elizabeth. Lucetta had persisted in
dragging her into the circle; but she had remained like an awkward third point
which that circle would not touch.%
Susan Henchard's daughter bore up against the frosty ache of the treatment,
as she had borne up under worse things, and contrived as soon as possible to get
out of the inharmonious room without being missed. The Scotchman seemed
hardly the same Farfrae who had danced with her and walked with her in a
delicate poise between love and friendship--that period in the history of a love
when alone it can be said to be unalloyed with pain.
She stoically looked from her bedroom window, and contemplated her fate
as if it were written on the top of the church-tower hard by. "Yes," she said at
Thesaurus
contrived: (adj) affected, unnatural,
freezing, wintry, arctic, chill, frozen,
replacing, replacement.
chilly, bleak, cool. ANTONYMS: (adj) trepidation: (n) fear, tremor, alarm,
false, forced, labored, spurious,
feigned, unreal, strained, built,
friendly, pleasant, hot, torrid,
apprehension, fright, terror, dread,
artificially formal. ANTONYM: (adj)
tropical, balmy, approachable.
dismay, consternation, perturbation,
poise: (n) equilibrium, equanimity,
disquiet. ANTONYMS: (n)
sincere.
curtly: (adv) abruptly, brusquely,
composure, assurance, parity,
contentment, calm, confidence,
bearing, calmness, cool, aplomb; (v)
briefly, tersely, rudely, gruffly,
equanimity, bravery, reassurance.
hover, brace. ANTONYMS: (n)
unalloyed: (adj) pure, unadulterated,
snappishly, sharply, succinctly,
offhandly, laconically. ANTONYMS: unsteadiness, timidity, clumsiness,
genuine, unsophisticated, solid,
(adv) kindly, pleasantly, politely,
unfortified, untinged, sheer, true; (v)
awkwardness, agitation, panic.
stoically: (adv) indifferently, patiently. painless, without alloy.
verbosely, civilly.
frosty: (adj, v) icy, glacial; (adj) frigid, supersession: (n) supersedure,
202
last, bringing down her palm upon the sill with a pat: "he is the second man of
that story she told me!"
All this time Henchard's smouldering sentiments towards Lucetta had been
fanned into higher and higher inflammation by the circumstances of the case. He
was discovering that the young woman for whom he once felt a pitying warmth
which had been almost chilled out of him by reflection, was, when now qualified
with a slight inaccessibility and a more matured beauty, the very being to make
him satisfied with life. Day after day proved to him, by her silence, that it was
no use to think of bringing her round by holding aloof; so he gave in, and called
upon her again, Elizabeth-Jane being absent.%
He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of some awkwardness, his
strong, warm gaze upon her--like the sun beside the moon in comparison with
Farfrae's modest look-- and with something of a hail-fellow bearing, as, indeed,
was not unnatural. But she seemed so transubstantiated by her change of
position, and held out her hand to him in such cool friendship, that he became
deferential, and sat down with a perceptible loss of power. He understood but
little of fashion in dress, yet enough to feel himself inadequate in appearance
beside her whom he had hitherto been dreaming of as almost his property. She
said something very polite about his being good enough to call. This caused him
to recover balance. He looked her oddly in the face, losing his awe.
"Why, of course I have called, Lucetta," he said. "What does that nonsense
mean? You know I couldn't have helped myself if I had wished--that is, if I had
any kindness at all. I've called to say that I am ready, as soon as custom will
permit, to give you my name in return for your devotion and what you lost by it
in thinking too little of yourself and too much of me; to say that you can fix the
day or month, with my full consent, whenever in your opinion it would be
seemly: you know more of these things than I."
"It is full early yet," she said evasively.
"Yes, yes; I suppose it is. But you know, Lucetta, I felt directly my poor illused Susan died, and when I could not bear the idea of marrying again, that after
what had happened between us it was my duty not to let any unnecessary delay
Thesaurus
aloof: (adj) distant, reserved, cool,
evasively: (adv) shiftily, deceptively,
standoffish, unconcerned, indifferent, elusively, indirectly, deceitfully,
unfriendly, frigid, arrogant, cold;
shufflingly, falsely, misleadingly,
(adv) afar. ANTONYMS: (adj)
ambiguously, cautiously, carefully.
ANTONYM: (adv) carelessly.
friendly, involved, approachable,
inaccessibility: (n) distance,
sociable, outgoing, open,
enthusiastic, relaxed, communicative, detachment, seclusion, reserve,
affable, respectful.
solitude, isolation, unavailability,
chilled: (adj) frozen, freezing, cool,
aloofness. ANTONYMS: (n)
refrigerated, icy, inhibited,
handiness, approachability,
restrained, confined, shivering, iced,
closeness.
pitying: (adj) sympathetic, merciful,
stiff.
pity, pityingly, gloomy, meritless,
pitiful, sorry, sorry for, humane,
dreary.
sill: (n) ledge, threshold, doorstep,
rung, step, round, stone, cornerstone,
sole, window sill, windowsill.
unnatural: (adj) affected, artificial,
grotesque, supernatural, forced,
abnormal, eccentric, uncanny, stilted,
mannered, anomalous. ANTONYMS:
(adj) natural, normal, real, unaffected,
commonplace, genuine, sincere.
Thomas Hardy
203
occur before putting things to rights. Still, I wouldn't call in a hurry, because-well, you can guess how this money you've come into made me feel." His voice
slowly fell; he was conscious that in this room his accents and manner wore a
roughness not observable in the street. He looked about the room at the novel
hangings and ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself.%
"Upon my life I didn't know such furniture as this could be bought in
Casterbridge," he said.
"Nor can it be " said she. "Nor will it till fifty years more of civilization have
passed over the town. It took a waggon and four horses to get it here."
"H'm. It looks as if you were living on capital."
"O no, I am not."
"So much the better. But the fact is, your setting up like this makes my
beaming towards you rather awkward."
"Why?"
An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one. "Well," he went
on, "there's nobody in the world I would have wished to see enter into this
wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody, I am sure, who will become it more."
He turned to her with congratulatory admiration so fervid that she shrank
somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so well.
"I am greatly obliged to you for all that," said she, rather with an air of
speaking ritual. The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived, and Henchard
showed chagrin at once-- nobody was more quick to show that than he.
"You may be obliged or not for't. Though the things I say may not have the
polish of what you've lately learnt to expect for the first time in your life, they are
real, my lady Lucetta."
"That's rather a rude way of speaking to me," pouted Lucetta, with stormy
eyes.
Thesaurus
beaming: (adj) bright, radiant,
glowing, glad, beamy, cheerful,
refulgent, sunny, luminous,
resplendent, incandescent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) gloomy, dark,
dusky, frowning, sad, sullen,
tenebrous.
chagrin: (n) mortification, vexation,
annoyance, shame, disappointment,
letdown, humiliation; (n, v) disquiet,
gangrene; (v) disappoint, mortify.
ANTONYMS: (v) please, delight; (n)
pride, satisfaction.
congratulatory: (adj) gratulatory,
festive, congratulant, triumphant,
prideful, glowing, fulsome, admiring,
felicitous, commemorative,
appreciative.
fervid: (adj) ardent, burning, hot,
vehement, eager, passionate,
impassioned, fiery, enthusiastic; (adj,
v) warm, glowing.
hangings: (n) long curtains.
roughness: (n) harshness, asperity,
crudeness, hoarseness, rigor,
unevenness, disorderliness,
gruffness, huskiness, inclemency,
crudity. ANTONYMS: (n) softness,
complexity, gentleness, mildness,
evenness, exactness, friendliness,
orderliness, grace, lenience.
stint: (v) skimp, curtail, pinch, scrimp;
(adj, v) begrudge, grudge; (n)
restriction, extent, job, assignment,
degree.
204
"Not at all!" replied Henchard hotly. "But there, there, I don't wish to quarrel
with 'ee. I come with an honest proposal for silencing your Jersey enemies, and
you ought to be thankful."
"How can you speak so!" she answered, firing quickly. "Knowing that my
only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with too little
regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called
me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I suffered enough at that worrying
time, when you wrote to tell me of your wife's return and my consequent
dismissal, and if I am a little independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!"
"Yes, it is," he said. "But it is not by what is, in this life, but by what appears,
that you are judged; and I therefore think you ought to accept me--for your own
good name's sake. What is known in your native Jersey may get known here."
"How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!"
"Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?"
For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move; and yet she was
backward. "For the present let things be," she said with some embarrassment.
"Treat me as an acquaintance, and I'll treat you as one. Time will--" She stopped;
and he said nothing to fill the gap for awhile, there being no pressure of half
acquaintance to drive them into speech if they were not minded for it.%
"That's the way the wind blows, is it?" he said at last grimly, nodding an
affirmative to his own thoughts.
A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the room for a few instants. It was
produced by the passing of a load of newly trussed hay from the country, in a
waggon marked with Farfrae's name. Beside it rode Farfrae himself on horseback. Lucetta's face became--as a woman's face becomes when the man she loves
rises upon her gaze like an apparition.
A turn of the eye by Henchard, a glance from the window, and the secret of
her inaccessibility would have been revealed. But Henchard in estimating her
tone was looking down so plumb-straight that he did not note the warm
consciousness upon Lucetta's face.
Thesaurus
affirmative: (adj) positive, affirmatory, brilliant, bold.
fervidly, fervently, pepperily,
assertive, ratifying, concurring; (adv) correctness: (n) appropriateness,
sultrily, intensely, sharply, torridly;
yes; (n) affirmation, avowal,
precision, exactness, truth, rightness, (adj, adv) violently, vehemently.
assenting; (adj, v) predicatory,
ANTONYMS: (adv) impassively,
properness, fitness, propriety,
declaratory. ANTONYMS: (adj)
justness, correctitude, veracity.
mildly.
dissenting; (n) no.
ANTONYMS: (n) vagueness,
indulging: (n) pampering, excess,
backward: (adj, adv) late, behindhand; informality, impropriety,
indulgence, orgy, folly, foolery,
(adj) tardy, retarded, reluctant, coy,
misconduct, wrongness,
gratification.
slow, laggard, dilatory; (adv) behind, inappropriateness, inaccuracy, error, judged: (n) judging; (adj) guilty,
backwardly. ANTONYMS: (adj, adv)
abandon, unsuitability, immorality.
deliberate, legal, lawful.
ahead; (adv) onward; (adj) quick,
estimating: (n) estimation.
trussed: (adj) bound, fastened, laced,
hotly: (adv) heatedly, passionately,
developing, advanced, confident,
even.
Thomas Hardy
205
"I shouldn't have thought it--I shouldn't have thought it of women!" he said
emphatically by-and-by, rising and shaking himself into activity; while Lucetta
was so anxious to divert him from any suspicion of the truth that she asked him
to be in no hurry. Bringing him some apples she insisted upon paring one for
him.%
He would not take it. "No, no; such is not for me," he said drily, and moved
to the door. At going out he turned his eye upon her.
"You came to live in Casterbridge entirely on my account," he said. "Yet now
you are here you won't have anything to say to my offer!"
He had hardly gone down the staircase when she dropped upon the sofa and
jumped up again in a fit of desperation. "I will love him!" she cried passionately;
"as for him-- he's hot-tempered and stern, and it would be madness to bind
myself to him knowing that. I won't be a slave to the past-- I'll love where I
choose!"
Yet having decided to break away from Henchard one might have supposed
her capable of aiming higher than Farfrae. But Lucetta reasoned nothing: she
feared hard words from the people with whom she had been earlier associated;
she had no relatives left; and with native lightness of heart took kindly to what
fate offered.
Elizabeth-Jane, surveying the position of Lucetta between her two lovers
from the crystalline sphere of a straightforward mind, did not fail to perceive
that her father, as she called him, and Donald Farfrae became more desperately
enamoured of her friend every day. On Farfrae's side it was the unforced
passion of youth. On Henchard's the artificially stimulated coveting of maturer
age.
The pain she experienced from the almost absolute obliviousness to her
existence that was shown by the pair of them became at times half dissipated by
her sense of its humourousness. When Lucetta had pricked her finger they were
as deeply concerned as if she were dying; when she herself had been seriously
sick or in danger they uttered a conventional word of sympathy at the news, and
Thesaurus
coveting: (n) longing, envy; (adj)
envious.
crystalline: (adj) limpid, transparent,
lucid, crystal, serene, pellucid, crystal
clear, vitreous, translucent,
perspicuous; (v) crystallizable.
ANTONYM: (adj) noncrystalline.
emphatically: (adv) decidedly,
definitely, positively, categorically,
flatly, distinctly, absolutely,
explicitly, forcefully, firmly,
expressly.
enamoured: (adj) enamored, smitten,
infatuated, mad, captivated,
bewitched, charmed.
maturer: (adj) overripe, ripe, ripened.
obliviousness: (n) forgetfulness,
Lethe, limbo.
paring: (adj) clipping, driblet, shiver;
(n) shaving, splinter, chip, rind,
flinders, grazing; (adj, n) sliver; (v)
pare.
reasoned: (adj) coherent, rational,
sound, logical, valid, reasonable,
carefully considered, intelligent,
heavy, healthy, good. ANTONYM:
(adj) confused.
surveying: (n) mensuration,
measurement, investigation,
triangulation; (v) inspect, examine;
(adj) observant.
unforced: (adj) voluntary, unassailed,
easy, spontaneous, willing,
uncoerced, uncompelled, optional,
not forced, unstrained, effortless.
ANTONYM: (adj) strenuous.
206
forgot all about it immediately. But, as regarded Henchard, this perception of
hers also caused her some filial grief; she could not help asking what she had
done to be neglected so, after the professions of solicitude he had made. As
regarded Farfrae, she thought, after honest reflection, that it was quite natural.
What was she beside Lucetta?--as one of the "meaner beauties of the night," when
the moon had risen in the skies.%
She had learnt the lesson of renunciation, and was as familiar with the wreck
of each day's wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun. If her earthly career
had taught her few book philosophies it had at least well practised her in this.
Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of pure disappointments than in
a series of substitutions. Continually it had happened that what she had desired
had not been granted her, and that what had been granted her she had not
desired. So she viewed with an approach to equanimity the new cancelled days
when Donald had been her undeclared lover, and wondered what unwishedfor thing Heaven might send her in place of him.
Thesaurus
cancelled: (adj) off, undone, voided.
impossible, improbable,
implied, clandestine, silent.
desired: (adj) coveted, desirable,
ANTONYMS: (adj) explicit, open.
inconceivable, celestial.
unwished: (adj) undesirable,
favorite, wanted, welcome, needed, hers: (pron) she, his; (adj) own.
beloved, required, most wanted; (adj, renunciation: (n) denial, resignation,
unattractive, unalluring, undesired,
v) chosen; (v) consenting.
abnegation, disclaimer, rejection,
uncared for, unwanted, unvalued, all
diurnal: (adj) journal, quotidian, diary, renouncement, abandonment,
one to, not welcome.
wreck: (n, v) smash, shipwreck, wrack;
everyday, cyclical, cyclic, ephemeral. waiver, desertion, defection,
earthly: (adj, n) terrestrial; (adj) carnal, relinquishment. ANTONYMS: (n)
(v) damage, spoil, demolish, destroy,
devastate; (n) crash, ruins,
worldly, conceivable, human, geotic, confirmation, assertion, reassertion,
destruction. ANTONYMS: (v) build,
secular, terrene, temporal, telluric,
acceptance.
sublunary. ANTONYMS: (adj)
undeclared: (adj) implicit, understood, preserve, create, repair, assist; (n)
spiritual, divine, ethereal, immortal,
secret, unsaid, secretive, private,
creation.
Thomas Hardy
207
CHAPTER 26
It chanced that on a fine spring morning Henchard and Farfrae met in the
chestnut-walk which ran along the south wall of the town. Each had just come
out from his early breakfast, and there was not another soul near. Henchard
was reading a letter from Lucetta, sent in answer to a note from him, in which
she made some excuse for not immediately granting him a second interview that
he had desired.%
Donald had no wish to enter into conversation with his former friend on their
present constrained terms; neither would he pass him in scowling silence. He
nodded, and Henchard did the same. They receded from each other several
paces when a voice cried "Farfrae!" It was Henchard's, who stood regarding him.
"Do you remember," said Henchard, as if it were the presence of the thought
and not of the man which made him speak, "do you remember my story of that
second woman--who suffered for her thoughtless intimacy with me?"
"I do," said Farfrae.
"Do you remember my telling 'ee how it all began and how it ended?
"Yes."
"Well, I have offered to marry her now that I can; but she won't marry me.
Now what would you think of her--I put it to you?"
Thesaurus
breakfast: (n) repast, banquet,
granting: (n) concession, conceding,
dejeuner, mealtime, feast, meal; (v)
yielding, surrendering, issue,
agreement; (conj) although.
sup, take tea, eat, have a meal, dine.
constrained: (adj) forced, bound, stiff, intimacy: (adj, n) familiarity,
acquaintance; (n) closeness,
strained, awkward, compelled,
limited, affected, stilted, rigid,
fellowship, association, friendship,
unnatural. ANTONYMS: (adj)
intercourse, affair, camaraderie,
unrestricted, liberated, natural, open. conversance, confidence.
ended: (adj) concluded, finished, over, ANTONYMS: (n) distance, formality.
regarding: (prep) about, as regards, for,
done, completed, closed, through,
on, towards, apropos; (adj, prep) with
terminated, consummate, all over;
(adj, v) past.
regard to, with reference to; (adj) as
to, in regard to, in relation to.
scowling: (adj) frowning, angry, dire,
frowny, grim, threatening, ugly,
unfriendly, dark.
thoughtless: (adj, v) careless, heedless,
rash, improvident; (adj) reckless,
inattentive, hasty, unthinking,
negligent, neglectful, imprudent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) considerate,
considered, heedful, prudent, kind,
cautious, mindful, responsible,
attentive, observant, sensible.
208
"Well, ye owe her nothing more now," said Farfrae heartily.%
"It is true," said Henchard, and went on.
That he had looked up from a letter to ask his questions completely shut out
from Farfrae's mind all vision of Lucetta as the culprit. Indeed, her present
position was so different from that of the young woman of Henchard's story as of
itself to be sufficient to blind him absolutely to her identity. As for Henchard, he
was reassured by Farfrae's words and manner against a suspicion which had
crossed his mind. They were not those of a conscious rival.
Yet that there was rivalry by some one he was firmly persuaded. He could
feel it in the air around Lucetta, see it in the turn of her pen. There was an
antagonistic force in exercise, so that when he had tried to hang near her he
seemed standing in a refluent current. That it was not innate caprice he was
more and more certain. Her windows gleamed as if they did not want him; her
curtains seem to hang slily, as if they screened an ousting presence. To discover
whose presence that was--whether really Farfrae's after all, or another's--he
exerted himself to the utmost to see her again; and at length succeeded.
At the interview, when she offered him tea, he made it a point to launch a
cautious inquiry if she knew Mr. Farfrae.
O yes, she knew him, she declared; she could not help knowing almost
everybody in Casterbridge, living in such a gazebo over the centre and arena of
the town.
"Pleasant young fellow," said Henchard.
"Yes," said Lucetta.
"We both know him," said kind Elizabeth-Jane, to relieve her companion's
divined embarrassment.
There was a knock at the door; literally, three full knocks and a little one at
the end.
Thesaurus
arena: (n) theater, battlefield, sphere, gazebo: (n) summerhouse, loophole,
field, amphitheater, area, platform,
watchtower, bower, pavilion,
amphitheatre, hippodrome, region,
pergola, exhibition area, edifice,
scene.
building, tent, porch.
caprice: (n) fancy, fantasy, humor,
innate: (adj) inherent, congenital,
quirk, freak, notion, impulse, fit,
inbred, indigenous, instinctive,
capriccio, fad, vagary. ANTONYMS: natural, intrinsic, constitutional,
(n) plan, strategy, blueprint, reality.
essential, ingrained; (adj, v) born.
culprit: (adj, n) convict; (n) delinquent, ANTONYMS: (adj) learned,
accused, malefactor, perpetrator,
conditioned, acquired, trained,
transgressor, prisoner, sinner,
spiritual.
offender; (adj) guilty, felon.
ousting: (n) ouster, deposition,
dethronement, exclusion, riddance,
amotion, ejector, ejection.
reassured: (adj) hopeful, reinsured,
secure, confident.
refluent: (v) resilient, repercussive,
regressive; (adj) recidivous,
recalcitrant; (n) reflex.
rivalry: (n) contest, contention,
opposition, antagonism, race,
emulation, match, conflict,
contestation, envy, rivalship.
ANTONYM: (n) friendship.
Thomas Hardy
209
"That kind of knock means half-and-half--somebody between gentle and
simple," said the corn-merchant to himself. "I shouldn't wonder therefore if it is
he." In a few seconds surely enough Donald walked in.%
Lucetta was full of little fidgets and flutters, which increased Henchard's
suspicions without affording any special proof of their correctness. He was wellnigh ferocious at the sense of the queer situation in which he stood towards this
woman. One who had reproached him for deserting her when calumniated,
who had urged claims upon his consideration on that account, who had lived
waiting for him, who at the first decent opportunity had come to ask him to
rectify, by making her his, the false position into which she had placed herself
for his sake; such she had been. And now he sat at her tea-table eager to gain her
attention, and in his amatory rage feeling the other man present to be a villain,
just as any young fool of a lover might feel.
They sat stiffly side by side at the darkening table, like some Tuscan painting
of the two disciples supping at Emmaus. Lucetta, forming the third and haloed
figure, was opposite them; Elizabeth-Jane, being out of the game, and out of the
group, could observe all from afar, like the evangelist who had to write it down:
that there were long spaces of taciturnity, when all exterior circumstances were
subdued to the touch of spoons and china, the click of a heel on the pavement
under the window, the passing of a wheelbarrow or cart, the whistling of the
carter, the gush of water into householders' buckets at the town-pump opposite,
the exchange of greetings among their neighbours, and the rattle of the yokes by
which they carried off their evening supply.
"More bread-and-butter?" said Lucetta to Henchard and Farfrae equally,
holding out between them a plateful of long slices. Henchard took a slice by one
end and Donald by the other; each feeling certain he was the man meant; neither
let go, and the slice came in two.
"Oh--I am so sorry!" cried Lucetta, with a nervous titter. Farfrae tried to
laugh; but he was too much in love to see the incident in any but a tragic light.
"How ridiculous of all three of them!" said Elizabeth to herself.
Thesaurus
calumniated: (adj) aspersed.
darkening: (adj) dark, blue, gloomy,
causing dejection; (v) darken; (n)
change of color, eclipse.
evangelist: (n) revivalist, gospeller,
missionary, apostle, saint,
sermonizer, evangelical, disciple,
John, Luke, mark.
fidgets: (n) jitters, nervousness,
fidgetiness, anxiety.
gush: (n, v) flood, flow, spurt, jet,
discharge, stream, rush, surge; (n)
burst, effusion; (v) course.
plateful: (n) helping, portion, home,
crustal plate, serving, collection plate,
catcher, photographic plate, home
plate, containerful, denture.
rattle: (n, v) jingle, jangle, clatter; (n)
click, clang, clack; (v) bang, confuse,
shake, patter, disconcert.
rectify: (v) amend, improve, better,
adjust, refine, reform, mend, emend,
remedy, redress; (adj, v) straighten.
supping: (n) eating.
titter: (n, v) laugh, chuckle, snigger,
chortle, twitter, gurgle, snort, guffaw;
(v) snicker; (n) laughter, quiet
laughter.
villain: (n) rascal, scoundrel, rogue,
knave, miscreant, criminal, bandit,
crook, reprobate, varlet, rapscallion.
ANTONYMS: (n) heroine, hero.
wheelbarrow: (n) barrow, handcart,
pushcart, lawn cart, garden cart,
tumulus, burial mound, truck,
barrowful, grave mound.
210
Henchard left the house with a ton of conjecture, though without a grain of
proof, that the counterattraction was Farfrae; and therefore he would not make
up his mind. Yet to Elizabeth-Jane it was plain as the town-pump that Donald
and Lucetta were incipient lovers. More than once, in spite of her care, Lucetta
had been unable to restrain her glance from flitting across into Farfrae's eyes like
a bird to its nest. But Henchard was constructed upon too large a scale to discern
such minutiae as these by an evening light, which to him were as the notes of an
insect that lie above the compass of the human ear.%
But he was disturbed. And the sense of occult rivalry in suitorship was so
much superadded to the palpable rivalry of their business lives. To the coarse
materiality of that rivalry it added an inflaming soul.
The thus vitalized antagonism took the form of action by Henchard sending
for Jopp, the manager originally displaced by Farfrae's arrival. Henchard had
frequently met this man about the streets, observed that his clothing spoke of
neediness, heard that he lived in Mixen Lane--a back slum of the town, the pis
aller of Casterbridge domiciliation-- itself almost a proof that a man had reached
a stage when he would not stick at trifles.
Jopp came after dark, by the gates of the storeyard, and felt his way through
the hay and straw to the office where Henchard sat in solitude awaiting him.
"I am again out of a foreman," said the corn-factor. "Are you in a place?"
"Not so much as a beggar's, sir."
"How much do you ask?"
Jopp named his price, which was very moderate.
"When can you come?"
"At this hour and moment, sir," said Jopp, who, standing hands-pocketed at
the street corner till the sun had faded the shoulders of his coat to scarecrow
green, had regularly watched Henchard in the market-place, measured him, and
learnt him, by virtue of the power which the still man has in his stillness of
knowing the busy one better than he knows himself. Jopp too, had had a
convenient experience; he was the only one in Casterbridge besides Henchard
Thesaurus
aller: (adj) alder.
fine points, workings, consideration, imaginary, intangible, impalpable,
counterattraction: (n) attraction.
ins and outs, information; (adj) small doubtful, furtive, imperceptible,
inflaming: (adj) burning, consuming,
fry.
insignificant, obscure, unclear.
neediness: (n) want, destitution,
scarecrow: (n) hobgoblin, bugaboo,
inflammatory, excessively hot,
exciting, fiery; (n) arousal.
indigence, distress, poverty,
simulacrum, malkin, frump, ogre,
materiality: (n) corporeality,
hardship, deprivation, beggary,
jackstraw, shewel, goblin,
ragamuffin; (adj) octopus.
substantiality, concreteness,
famine, misery, privation.
ANTONYMS: (n) affluence, luxury. slum: (n) skid row, inner city, city
importance, tangibility, reality,
palpable: (adj) tangible, obvious,
element, essential nature,
district, dump, hovel, rookery,
groundwork, vital part, materialness. evident, apparent, clear, transparent, quarter, shantytown, slum area; (adj)
ANTONYM: (n) immateriality.
indubitable, noticeable, lucid, patent, slummy, sordid.
minutiae: (n) particulars, trivia, facts,
perceptible. ANTONYMS: (adj)
Thomas Hardy
211
and the close-lipped Elizabeth who knew that Lucetta came truly from Jersey,
and but proximately from Bath. "I know Jersey too, sir," he said. "Was living
there when you used to do business that way. O yes--have often seen ye there."
"Indeed! Very good. Then the thing is settled. The testimonials you showed
me when you first tried for't are sufficient.%
That characters deteriorated in time of need possibly did not occur to,
Henchard. Jopp said, "Thank you," and stood more firmly, in the consciousness
that at last he officially belonged to that spot.
"Now," said Henchard, digging his strong eyes into Jopp's face, "one thing is
necessary to me, as the biggest corn- and-hay dealer in these parts. The
Scotchman, who's taking the town trade so bold into his hands, must be cut out.
D'ye hear? We two can't live side by side--that's clear and certain."
"I've seen it all," said Jopp.
"By fair competition I mean, of course," Henchard continued. "But as hard,
keen, and unflinching as fair--rather more so. By such a desperate bid against
him for the farmers' custom as will grind him into the ground--starve him out.
I've capital, mind ye, and I can do it."
"I'm all that way of thinking," said the new foreman. Jopp's dislike of Farfrae
as the man who had once ursurped his place, while it made him a willing tool,
made him, at the same time, commercially as unsafe a colleague as Henchard
could have chosen.
"I sometimes think," he added, "that he must have some glass that he sees
next year in. He has such a knack of making everything bring him fortune."
"He's deep beyond all honest men's discerning, but we must make him
shallower. We'll undersell him, and over-buy him, and so snuff him out."
They then entered into specific details of the process by which this would be
accomplished, and parted at a late hour.
Elizabeth-Jane heard by accident that Jopp had been engaged by her
stepfather. She was so fully convinced that he was not the right man for the
Thesaurus
close-lipped: (adj) close.
straw boss, foreperson, leader,
commercially: (adv) mercantilely,
foremen. ANTONYM: (n) worker.
tradingly, economically, mercenarily, grind: (n, v) labor, toil, comminute,
drudge; (v) grate, crunch, abrade,
merchantly, industrially, businessly,
chew, scrape, mash; (n) mill.
materialistically, monetarily,
ANTONYMS: (v) blunt, smooth.
pecuniarily, financially.
deteriorated: (adj) worn out, worn,
knack: (adj, n) facility, craft,
proficiency; (n) gift, ability, art,
enervated, adulterate, disrepair,
crumbly, shabby, debauched,
aptitude, dexterity, artifice, mastery,
know-how. ANTONYM: (n)
decrepit, degraded, base.
foreman: (n) boss, master, overseer,
incompetence.
gaffer, supervisor, ganger, craftsman, proximately: (adv) immediately,
closely, nearly, directly,
subsequently, nextly, instantly,
adjacently, contiguously, proximally,
early.
undersell: (v) undercut, discount, sell.
unsafe: (adj) dangerous, perilous,
insecure, hazardous, treacherous,
uncertain, precarious, shaky,
unreliable, harmful, chancy.
ANTONYMS: (adj) safe, secure,
harmless, protected, reliable,
sensible, stable.
212
place that, at the risk of making Henchard angry, she expressed her
apprehension to him when they met. But it was done to no purpose. Henchard
shut up her argument with a sharp rebuff.%
The season's weather seemed to favour their scheme. The time was in the
years immediately before foreign competition had revolutionized the trade in
grain; when still, as from the earliest ages, the wheat quotations from month to
month depended entirely upon the home harvest. A bad harvest, or the prospect
of one, would double the price of corn in a few weeks; and the promise of a good
yield would lower it as rapidly. Prices were like the roads of the period, steep in
gradient, reflecting in their phases the local conditions, without engineering,
levellings, or averages.
The farmer's income was ruled by the wheat-crop within his own horizon,
and the wheat-crop by the weather. Thus in person, he became a sort of fleshbarometer, with feelers always directed to the sky and wind around him. The
local atmosphere was everything to him; the atmospheres of other countries a
matter of indifference. The people, too, who were not farmers, the rural
multitude, saw in the god of the weather a more important personage than they
do now. Indeed, the feeling of the peasantry in this matter was so intense as to be
almost unrealizable in these equable days. Their impulse was well-nigh to
prostrate themselves in lamentation before untimely rains and tempests, which
came as the Alastor of those households whose crime it was to be poor.
After midsummer they watched the weather-cocks as men waiting in
antechambers watch the lackey. Sun elated them; quiet rain sobered them;
weeks of watery tempest stupefied them. That aspect of the sky which they now
regard as disagreeable they then beheld as maleficent.
It was June, and the weather was very unfavourable. Casterbridge, being as it
were the bell-board on which all the adjacent hamlets and villages sounded their
notes, was decidedly dull. Instead of new articles in the shop-windows those
that had been rejected in the foregoing summer were brought out again;
superseded reap-hooks, badly-shaped rakes, shop-worn leggings, and timestiffened water-tights reappeared, furbished up as near to new as possible.
Thesaurus
equable: (adj) equal, temperate, stable,
mild, balanced, peaceful, halcyon,
placid, pacific, sedate, moderate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) spasmodic,
vacillating, variable, unequal,
irregular, intemperate, fluctuating,
inequable, jumpy, senseless.
feelers: (n) feeler.
lackey: (n) flunkey, sycophant, butler,
attendant, bootlicker, toady, truckler,
waiter, servant, footman, flatterer.
lamentation: (n) dirge, grief,
fatigue; (v) fell, overwhelm,
mourning, plaint, regret, complaint,
overcome, floor, overthrow; (adj)
cry, crying, wail, moan, condolence.
ANTONYM: (n) celebration.
deject, knock down. ANTONYM:
maleficent: (adj) malign, pernicious,
(adj) upright.
venomous, mischievous, malevolent, stupefied: (adj) stunned, amazed,
malefic, baneful, baleful, harmful,
astonished, bewildered, astounded,
ominous, galling. ANTONYM: (adj)
dumbfounded, stupid, confused,
beneficent.
flabbergasted, dumfounded, groggy.
midsummer: (n) summer, solstice,
ANTONYMS: (adj) precise,
June solstice, June.
unimpressed.
peasantry: (n) farmers.
unrealizable: (adj) unattainable,
prostrate: (adj, v) prone, exhaust, level, undoable, inaccessible, impossible.
Thomas Hardy
213
Henchard, backed by Jopp, read a disastrous garnering, and resolved to base
his strategy against Farfrae upon that reading. But before acting he wished-what so many have wished--that he could know for certain what was at present
only strong probability. He was superstitious--as such head-strong natures often
are--and he nourished in his mind an idea bearing on the matter; an idea he
shrank from disclosing even to Jopp.%
In a lonely hamlet a few miles from the town--so lonely that what are called
lonely villages were teeming by comparison-- there lived a man of curious
repute as a forecaster or weather-prophet. The way to his house was crooked
and miry-- even difficult in the present unpropitious season. One evening when
it was raining so heavily that ivy and laurel resounded like distant musketry,
and an out-door man could be excused for shrouding himself to his ears and
eyes, such a shrouded figure on foot might have been perceived travelling in the
direction of the hazel-copse which dripped over the prophet's cot. The turnpikeroad became a lane, the lane a cart-track, the cart-track a bridle-path, the bridlepath a foot-way, the foot-way overgrown. The solitary walker slipped here and
there, and stumbled over the natural springes formed by the brambles, till at
length he reached the house, which, with its garden, was surrounded with a
high, dense hedge. The cottage, comparatively a large one, had been built of
mud by the occupier's own hands, and thatched also by himself. Here he had
always lived, and here it was assumed he would die.
He existed on unseen supplies; for it was an anomalous thing that while there
was hardly a soul in the neighbourhood but affected to laugh at this man's
assertions, uttering the formula, "There's nothing in 'em," with full assurance on
the surface of their faces, very few of them were unbelievers in their secret
hearts. Whenever they consulted him they did it "for a fancy." When they paid
him they said, "Just a trifle for Christmas," or "Candlemas," as the case might be.
He would have preferred more honesty in his clients, and less sham ridicule;
but fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony. As stated, he was
enabled to live; people supported him with their backs turned. He was
Thesaurus
disclosing: (n) confession,
communication.
excused: (adj) privileged, immune.
forecaster: (n) predictor, soothsayer,
astrologer, illusionist, visionary,
prophet, seer, diviner, fortuneteller,
astrologist, chiromancer.
garnering: (n) compilation.
laurel: (n) bays, honor, rose-laurel,
cassia, cinnamon, sweet bay, Daphne,
bay tree, palm, garland, fame.
musketry: (n) proficiency, rifle,
musket, facility, army unit.
nourished: (adj) fostered.
ridicule: (n, v) laugh at, deride, banter,
insult, taunt, scorn, scoff; (n) derision,
mockery; (adj, n) irony; (v) jeer.
ANTONYMS: (n, v) praise, respect;
(v) approve; (n) approval,
admiration.
shrouded: (adj) hidden, covered,
veiled, cloaked, secret, wearing a veil,
unseen, ulterior, masked, enclosed,
misty.
shrouding: (v) envelop.
teeming: (adj) abundant, profuse,
swarming, crowded, overflowing,
exuberant, copious, plentiful,
productive, prolific, multitudinous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) deserted, lacking,
needing, wanting, clear, scarce,
scanty.
unpropitious: (adj) inauspicious,
adverse, unlucky, unfavorable,
inopportune, evil, sinister, disastrous,
infelicitous; (adj, v) cross, hostile.
214
sometimes astonished that men could profess so little and believe so much at his
house, when at church they professed so much and believed so little.%
Behind his back he was called "Wide-oh," on account of his reputation; to his
face "Mr." Fall.
The hedge of his garden formed an arch over the entrance, and a door was
inserted as in a wall. Outside the door the tall traveller stopped, bandaged his
face with a handkerchief as if he were suffering from toothache, and went up the
path. The window shutters were not closed, and he could see the prophet
within, preparing his supper.
In answer to the knock Fall came to the door, candle in hand. The visitor
stepped back a little from the light, and said, "Can I speak to 'ee?" in significant
tones. The other's invitation to come in was responded to by the country
formula, "This will do, thank 'ee," after which the householder had no alternative
but to come out. He placed the candle on the corner of the dresser, took his hat
from a nail, and joined the stranger in the porch, shutting the door behind him.
"I've long heard that you can--do things of a sort?" began the other,
repressing his individuality as much as he could.
"Maybe so, Mr. Henchard," said the weather-caster.
"Ah--why do you call me that?" asked the visitor with a start.
"Because it's your name. Feeling you'd come I've waited for 'ee; and thinking
you might be leery from your walk I laid two supper plates--look ye here." He
threw open the door and disclosed the supper-table, at which appeared a second
chair, knife and fork, plate and mug, as he had declared.
Henchard felt like Saul at his reception by Samuel; he remained in silence for
a few moments, then throwing off the disguise of frigidity which he had hitherto
preserved he said, "Then I have not come in vain....Now, for instance, can ye
charm away warts?"
"Without trouble."
"Cure the evil?"
Thesaurus
bandaged: (adj) articled, apprenticed.
dresser: (n) cabinet, chest of drawers,
bureau, commode, chest, sideboard,
chiffonier, toilet table, assistant,
dressing table, table.
householder: (n) sojourner,
incumbent, locum tenens, lodger,
inmate, housekeeper, owner,
possessor, resident, tenant, lady of
the house.
leery: (v) astute, canny; (adj) wary,
distrustful, suspicious, mistrustful,
chary, guarded, skeptical,
discouraging, aggressively haughty,
disbelieving, prudent. ANTONYM:
overbearing, arrogant, dictatorial,
(adj) trusting.
domineering, restrictive, repressive,
profess: (v) assert, feign, affirm, avow, overpowering.
state, pretend, claim, confess, allege, shutting: (n) closing, conclusion, end,
aver; (n, v) protest. ANTONYM: (v)
closure, ending, finish, mop up,
culmination, closedown; (adj)
repress.
professed: (adj) alleged, declared,
confining, claudent. ANTONYM: (n)
apparent, avowed, pretended,
opening.
seeming, supposed, affected, feigned, stepped: (v) advanced, gone, stopen.
toothache: (v) tic douloureux,
so-called, purported.
repressing: (adj) inhibiting, insolent,
torticollis, tormina; (n) aerodontalgia.
Thomas Hardy
215
"That I've done--with consideration--if they will wear the toad-bag by night
as well as by day."
"Forecast the weather?"
"With labour and time."
"Then take this," said Henchard. "'Tis a crownpiece.
harvest fortnight to be? When can I know?'
Now, what is the
"I've worked it out already, and you can know at once." (The fact was that
five farmers had already been there on the same errand from different parts of
the country.) "By the sun, moon, and stars, by the clouds, the winds, the trees,
and grass, the candle-flame and swallows, the smell of the herbs; likewise by the
cats' eyes, the ravens, the leeches, the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last
fortnight in August will be--rain and tempest."
"You are not certain, of course?"
"As one can be in a world where all's unsure. 'Twill be more like living in
Revelations this autumn than in England.%
Shall I sketch it out for 'ee in a scheme?"
"O no, no," said Henchard. "I don't altogether believe in forecasts, come to
second thoughts on such. But I--"
"You don't--you don't--'tis quite understood," said Wide-oh, without a sound
of scorn. "You have given me a crown because you've one too many. But won't
you join me at supper, now 'tis waiting and all?"
Henchard would gladly have joined; for the savour of the stew had floated
from the cottage into the porch with such appetizing distinctness that the meat,
the onions, the pepper, and the herbs could be severally recognized by his nose.
But as sitting down to hob-and-nob there would have seemed to mark him too
implicitly as the weather-caster's apostle, he declined, and went his way.
The next Saturday Henchard bought grain to such an enormous extent that
there was quite a talk about his purchases among his neighbours the lawyer, the
wine merchant, and the doctor; also on the next, and on all available days. When
Thesaurus
apostle: (n) disciple, follower,
revolting, unappealing.
distinctness: (n) clearness, sharpness,
propagandist, believer, missionary,
adherent, advocate, proselyte, saint,
definition, otherness, perspicuity,
munshi, messenger. ANTONYM: (n) discreteness, articulate sound,
opponent.
separation, uncloudedness,
appetizing: (adj) delectable, delicious, dissimilarity; (adj) conspicuousness.
ANTONYM: (n) indistinctness.
appetising, luscious, savory,
leeches: (n) cupping, bleeding,
palatable, scrumptious, alluring,
exquisite; (adj, v) tantalizing, spicy.
venesection, phylum Annelida,
ANTONYMS: (adj) tasteless,
Annelida, phlebotomy.
savour: (n, v) relish; (v) taste, enjoy,
unsavory, sickening, nauseating,
devour; (n) flavour, flavor, sapidity,
inedible, distasteful, repulsive,
gusto, piquancy, tang, smack.
severally: (adv) separately,
respectively, singly, variously,
sundrily, independently, particularly,
several, distinctly, apart; (adj, adv)
one by one.
spiders: (n) horseshoe crabs, Araneida,
order Araneae, order Araneida,
scorpions, Araneae.
swallows: (n) sparrows, rooks, robins,
Passeriformes, Hirundinidae, etc,
order Passeriformes.
216
his granaries were full to choking all the weather-cocks of Casterbridge creaked
and set their faces in another direction, as if tired of the south-west. The weather
changed; the sunlight, which had been like tin for weeks, assumed the hues of
topaz. The temperament of the welkin passed from the phlegmatic to the
sanguine; an excellent harvest was almost a certainty; and as a consequence
prices rushed down.%
All these transformations, lovely to the outsider, to the wrong-headed corndealer were terrible. He was reminded of what he had well known before, that a
man might gamble upon the square green areas of fields as readily as upon those
of a card-room.
Henchard had backed bad weather, and apparently lost. He had mistaken
the turn of the flood for the turn of the ebb. His dealings had been so extensive
that settlement could not long be postponed, and to settle he was obliged to sell
off corn that he had bought only a few weeks before at figures higher by many
shillings a quarter. Much of the corn he had never seen; it had not even been
moved from the ricks in which it lay stacked miles away. Thus he lost heavily.
In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfrae in the market-place.
Farfrae knew of his dealings (though he did not guess their intended bearing on
himself) and commiserated him; for since their exchange of words in the South
Walk they had been on stiffly speaking terms. Henchard for the moment
appeared to resent the sympathy; but he suddenly took a careless turn.
"Ho, no, no!--nothing serious, man!" he cried with fierce gaiety. "These things
always happen, don't they? I know it has been said that figures have touched me
tight lately; but is that anything rare? The case is not so bad as folk make out
perhaps. And dammy, a man must be a fool to mind the common hazards of
trade!"
But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that day for reasons which had
never before sent him there--and to sit a long time in the partners' room with a
constrained bearing. It was rumoured soon after that much real property as well
as vast stores of produce, which had stood in Henchard's name in the town and
neighbourhood, was actually the possession of his bankers.
Thesaurus
blaze: (n, v) flash, glare, flame, mark,
stolid, unconcerned, phlegmatical,
scintillation; (n) fire, light, burning,
lethargic, passive, inert, nonchalant,
inflammation, sheen; (adj, v) burn.
cold, careless. ANTONYM: (adj)
choking: (n) strangulation, throttling,
demonstrative.
slugging, asphyxiation; (adj)
reasons: (n) proof.
suffocative, suffocating, smothering, resent: (v) resentful, envy, grudge,
breathless, clogging, bitter, blinding.
begrudge, embittered, angry, abhor,
gamble: (n, v) risk, bet, hazard, wager; take offense, take umbrage, take
(v) stake, adventure, venture, run a
exception, loathe. ANTONYMS: (v)
risk, take a chance; (n) game,
welcome, wish, accept.
stacked: (adj) buxom, curvaceous,
speculation.
phlegmatic: (adj) indifferent, listless,
prepared, shapely, voluptuous.
temperament: (n) character, nature,
disposition, constitution, personality,
quality, spirit, humor, equanimity,
composure, mettle.
topaz: (adj) crocus, saffron; (n)
common topaz, tan, false topaz,
sunburn, burn, light brown, quartz,
tangent, suntan.
welkin: (n) sphere, empyrean,
firmament, heavens, sky, vault of
heaven, celestial sphere, heaven,
orbit, sphere of influence, surface.
Thomas Hardy
217
Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jopp. The gloomy
transactions just completed within had added fever to the original sting of
Farfrae's sympathy that morning, which Henchard fancied might be a satire
disguised so that Jopp met with anything but a bland reception. The latter was
in the act of taking off his hat to wipe his forehead, and saying, "A fine hot day,"
to an acquaintance.%
"You can wipe and wipe, and say, 'A fine hot day,' can ye!" cried Henchard in
a savage undertone, imprisoning Jopp between himself and the bank wall. "If it
hadn't been for your blasted advice it might have been a fine day enough! Why
did ye let me go on, hey?--when a word of doubt from you or anybody would
have made me think twice! For you can never be sure of weather till 'tis past."
"My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best."
"A useful fellow! And the sooner you help somebody else in that way the
better!" Henchard continued his address to Jopp in similar terms till it ended in
Jopp s dismissal there and then, Henchard turning upon his heel and leaving
him.
"You shall be sorry for this, sir; sorry as a man can be!" said Jopp, standing
pale, and looking after the corn- merchant as he disappeared in the crowd of
market-men hard by.
Thesaurus
bland: (adj) insipid, vapid, tasteless,
satire: (n) sarcasm, lampoon, mockery,
fabricated, preferred, assumed,
tame, mild, moderate, flat, balmy,
illusory, imagined, ideal.
parody, ridicule, caricature,
gloomy: (adj) black, desolate, dejected, burlesque, quip, spoof, derision; (v)
oily, gentle, smooth. ANTONYMS:
(adj) spicy, strong, exciting, jaunty,
cheerless, depressing, dismal,
squib.
explicit, caustic, colorful,
downcast, disconsolate, melancholy, sting: (n, v) bite, hurt, con, pain; (v)
conspicuous, delicious, bitter, dull.
funereal, downhearted.
prick, itch, irritate, prickle, goad,
blasted: (adj) cursed, infernal,
ANTONYMS: (adj) encouraging,
provoke, smart. ANTONYMS: (v)
calm; (n) honesty.
damned, goddamn, darned, damn,
cheery, cheerful, bright, hopeful,
undertone: (n) undercurrent, murmur,
goddamned, blessed, deuced, blame, light, promising, uplifting, joyful,
blamed.
sunny, clear.
tinge, nuance, whisper, suggestion,
fancied: (adj) unreal, chimerical,
imprisoning: (n) penalizing,
implication, connotation, overtone,
fictional, fanciful, fictitious,
punishing, fining, disciplining.
association, hint.
Thomas Hardy
219
CHAPTER 27
It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfrae was buying. As was
usual, after reckoning too surely on famine weather the local farmers had flown
to the other extreme, and (in Farfrae's opinion) were selling off too recklessly-calculating with just a trifle too much certainty upon an abundant yield. So he
went on buying old corn at its comparatively ridiculous price: for the produce of
the previous year, though not large, had been of excellent quality.%
When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way, and got rid of
his burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss, the harvest began. There were
three days of excellent weather, and then--"What if that curst conjuror should be
right after all!" said Henchard.
The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begun to play than the
atmosphere suddenly felt as if cress would grow in it without other
nourishment. It rubbed people's cheeks like damp flannel when they walked
abroad. There was a gusty, high, warm wind; isolated raindrops starred the
window-panes at remote distances: the sunlight would flap out like a quickly
opened fan, throw the pattern of the window upon the floor of the room in a
milky, colourless shine, and withdraw as suddenly as it had appeared.
From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be so successful an
ingathering after all. If Henchard had only waited long enough he might at least
Thesaurus
begun: (adj) present.
burdensome: (adj) weighty, heavy,
arduous, cumbrous, oppressive,
difficult, severe, unwieldy,
troublesome, grave; (adj, v)
cumbersome. ANTONYMS: (adj)
helpful, relieving, manageable,
frivolous.
colourless: (adj) colorless, drab, pale,
neutral, wan, pallid, ashen, clear,
white, washy, bloodless.
ANTONYM: (adj) colorful.
conjuror: (n) magician, seer,
illusionist, prestidigitator, conjure
man, jockey, performer, wizard,
witch, trickster, necromancer.
cress: (n) bittercress, common garden
cress, common scurvy grass, cress
plant, pepperwort, bitter cress.
curst: (adj) darned, damned, deuced,
goddam, goddamn, goddamned,
maledict, everlasting, damnable,
damn, accursed.
gusty: (adj) blustery, stormy, windy,
blowy, tempestuous, squally, dirty,
blustering, blusterous, airy,
inclement. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
airless.
ingathering: (n) gathering, levy,
harvest, appeal, compilation, crop,
harvesting, assemblage, muster,
compendium, entreaty.
nourishment: (n) food, alimentation,
meal, meat, diet, feeding, nutrition,
repast, sustenance, edible, fuel.
starred: (adj) marked.
220
have avoided loss though he had not made a profit. But the momentum of his
character knew no patience. At this turn of the scales he remained silent. The
movements of his mind seemed to tend to the thought that some power was
working against him.%
"I wonder," he asked himself with eerie misgiving; "I wonder if it can be that
somebody has been roasting a waxen image of me, or stirring an unholy brew to
confound me! I don't believe in such power; and yet--what if they should ha'
been doing it!" Even he could not admit that the perpetrator, if any, might be
Farfrae. These isolated hours of superstition came to Henchard in time of moody
depression, when all his practical largeness of view had oozed out of him.
Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prospered. He had purchased in so depressed a
market that the present moderate stiffness of prices was sufficient to pile for him
a large heap of gold where a little one had been.
"Why, he'll soon be Mayor!" said Henchard. It was indeed hard that the
speaker should, of all others, have to follow the triumphal chariot of this man to
the Capitol.
The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.
September-night shades had fallen upon Casterbridge; the clocks had struck
half-past eight, and the moon had risen. The streets of the town were curiously
silent for such a comparatively early hour. A sound of jangling horse-bells and
heavy wheels passed up the street. These were followed by angry voices outside
Lucetta's house, which led her and Elizabeth-Jane to run to the windows, and
pull up the blinds.
The neighbouring Market House and Town Hall abutted against its next
neighbour the Church except in the lower storey, where an arched thoroughfare
gave admittance to a large square called Bull Stake. A stone post rose in the
midst, to which the oxen had formerly been tied for baiting with dogs to make
them tender before they were killed in the adjoining shambles. In a corner stood
the stocks.
Thesaurus
admittance: (n) access, accession,
introduction, door, matriculation,
inlet, permit, entrance, entree, entry,
input.
baiting: (n) harassment, lure,
chumming, bating.
confound: (v) bewilder, baffle,
nonplus, perplex, astonish, puzzle,
amaze, astound, mistake; (adj, v)
confuse, stupefy. ANTONYMS: (v)
explain, clarify, comfort, lose,
distinguish; (n) understanding.
jangling: (n) janglery; (adj) harsh,
dissonant, discordant, strident,
cacophonic, cacophonous.
largeness: (n) size, bigness, vastness,
fullness, ampleness, bulkiness,
immensity, grandness, extent,
magnitude, volume. ANTONYMS:
(n) compactness, shortness.
oxen: (n) bull, ox, cows, cow, cattle,
Bos Taurus, bullock, kine, milker,
beef, dairy cow.
perpetrator: (n) offender, doer,
criminal, performer, actor, agent,
delinquent, malefactor, crook,
wrongdoer, hoodlum.
unholy: (adj) wicked, sinful,
unhallowed, profane, fiendish,
impious, diabolic, infernal,
unsanctified, evil; (adv) wickedly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) reasonable, pious,
godly, sensible, religious.
waxen: (adj) pale, waxy, white,
colorless, wan, ashen, yielding, soft,
gray, drawn, cereous.
Thomas Hardy
221
The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blocked by two four-horse
waggons and horses, one laden with hay-trusses, the leaders having already
passed each other, and become entangled head to tail. The passage of the
vehicles might have been practicable if empty; but built up with hay to the
bedroom windows as one was, it was impossible.%
"You must have done it a' purpose!" said Farfrae's waggoner. "You can hear
my horses' bells half-a-mile such a night as this!"
"If ye'd been minding your business instead of zwailing along in such a
gawk-hammer way, you would have zeed me!" retorted the wroth representative
of Henchard.
However, according to the strict rule of the road it appeared that Henchard's
man was most in the wrong, he therefore attempted to back into the High Street.
In doing this the near hind-wheel rose against the churchyard wall and the
whole mountainous load went over, two of the four wheels rising in the air, and
the legs of the thill horse.
Instead of considering how to gather up the load the two men closed in a
fight with their fists. Before the first round was quite over Henchard came upon
the spot, somebody having run for him.
Henchard sent the two men staggering in contrary directions by collaring
one with each hand, turned to the horse that was down, and extricated him after
some trouble. He then inquired into the circumstances; and seeing the state of
his waggon and its load began hotly rating Farfrae's man.
Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane had by this time run down to the street corner,
whence they watched the bright heap of new hay lying in the moon's rays, and
passed and repassed by the forms of Henchard and the waggoners. The women
had witnessed what nobody else had seen--the origin of the mishap; and Lucetta
spoke.
"I saw it all, Mr. Henchard," she cried; "and your man was most in the
wrong!"
Thesaurus
according: (adj) pursuant, consonant,
equal, agreeable, harmonious,
conformable, consistent,
corresponding, respondent; (adv)
correspondingly, accordingly.
collaring: (v) to collar.
entangled: (adj) complicated, intricate,
embroiled, complex, foul, confused,
matted, tangled, inextricable, knotty;
(v) entangle.
extricated: (adj) free, disengaged, freer,
emancipated, freed.
minding: (adj) intent.
mishap: (n) adversity, misfortune,
casualty, mischance, misery,
calamity, misadventure, disaster, ill,
bad luck, catastrophe.
mountainous: (adj) colossal,
gargantuan, huge, hilly, giant, alpine,
enormous, large, rugged, gigantic,
cragged. ANTONYMS: (adj) flat, tiny.
rating: (n) mark, evaluation, grade,
appraisal, estimate, rebuke, rate,
rank, estimation, dressing, ratings.
staggering: (adj) astounding, amazing,
incredible, inconceivable, prodigious,
marvelous, startling, ghastly,
shocking, remarkable, extraordinary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unremarkable,
normal, lovely, comforting.
thill: (n) shaft, post, pillar, pilaster,
column.
waggoner: (n) driver.
wroth: (adj) wrathful, angry, irate,
indignant, raging, furious, hot,
enraged, incensed, choleric, fury.
222
Henchard paused in his harangue and turned. "Oh, I didn't notice you, Miss
Templeman," said he. "My man in the wrong? Ah, to be sure; to be sure! But I
beg your pardon notwithstanding. The other's is the empty waggon, and he
must have been most to blame for coming on."
"No; I saw it, too," said Elizabeth-Jane. "And I can assure you he couldn't
help it."
"You can't trust their senses!" murmured Henchard's man.%
"Why not?" asked Henchard sharply.
"Why, you see, sir, all the women side with Farfrae--being a damn young
dand--of the sort that he is--one that creeps into a maid's heart like the giddying
worm into a sheep's brain--making crooked seem straight to their eyes!"
"But do you know who that lady is you talk about in such a fashion? Do you
know that I pay my attentions to her, and have for some time? Just be careful!"
"Not I. I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a week."
"And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it? He's sharp in trade, but he wouldn't
do anything so underhand as what you hint at."
Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue, or not her white figure
disappeared from her doorway inward, and the door was shut before Henchard
could reach it to converse with her further. This disappointed him, for he had
been sufficiently disturbed by what the man had said to wish to speak to her
more closely. While pausing the old constable came up.
"Just see that nobody drives against that hay and waggon to- night,
Stubberd," said the corn-merchant. "It must bide till the morning, for all hands
are in the field still. And if any coach or road-waggon wants to come along, tell
'em they must go round by the back street, and be hanged to 'em....Any case
tomorrow up in Hall?"
"Yes, sir. One in number, sir."
"Oh, what's that?"
Thesaurus
assure: (n, v) certify, warrant, vouch;
indirect. ANTONYMS: (adj) straight, interior, intestine, inherent, domestic;
(v) secure, persuade, satisfy, reassure, honest, principled, even, aboveboard, (adv) inwardly, inwards, in; (n)
affirm, promise, ascertain; (adj, v)
innards. ANTONYMS: (adj, adv)
lawful, level, moral, flat, aligned,
ensure. ANTONYMS: (v) alarm,
outward; (adj) outgoing, external.
honorable.
doorway: (n) door, entrance, entry,
notwithstanding: (adv, conj)
disclaim, deny, disbelieve,
undermine.
passage, entryway, way in, access,
nevertheless, although, even though,
creeps: (n) fear, dread, fright, animal
yet, but; (conj) albeit; (adv)
driveway, gate, gateway, lobby.
harangue: (v) declaim; (n) rant, screed, nonetheless, though, still, all the
disease, trepidation, nervousness,
same; (prep) despite.
anxiety.
address, tirade, oration, diatribe,
crooked: (adj) bent, corrupt, dishonest, sermon; (n, v) lecture, discourse,
worm: (v) squirm, wriggle, twist,
curved, unfair, deformed; (adj, n, v)
spiral, helix, writhe; (n) helminth,
stump.
awry; (adj, v) irregular, askew, wry, inward: (adj) inner, intrinsic, internal,
maggot; (adj) emmet, midge, fly.
Thomas Hardy
223
"An old flagrant female, sir, swearing and committing a nuisance in a
horrible profane manner against the church wall, sir, as if 'twere no more than a
pot-house! That's all, sir."
"Oh. The Mayor's out o' town, isn't he?"
"He is, sir."
"Very well, then I'll be there. Don't forget to keep an eye on that hay. Good
night t' 'ee."
During those moments Henchard had determined to follow up Lucetta
notwithstanding her elusiveness, and he knocked for admission.%
The answer he received was an expression of Miss Templeman's sorrow at
being unable to see him again that evening because she had an engagement to go
out.
Henchard walked away from the door to the opposite side of the street, and
stood by his hay in a lonely reverie, the constable having strolled elsewhere, and
the horses being removed. Though the moon was not bright as yet there were no
lamps lighted, and he entered the shadow of one of the projecting jambs which
formed the thoroughfare to Bull Stake; here he watched Lucetta's door.
Candle-lights were flitting in and out of her bedroom, and it was obvious that
she was dressing for the appointment, whatever the nature of that might be at
such an hour. The lights disappeared, the clock struck nine, and almost at the
moment Farfrae came round the opposite corner and knocked. That she had been
waiting just inside for him was certain, for she instantly opened the door herself.
They went together by the way of a back lane westward, avoiding the front
street; guessing where they were going he determined to follow.
The harvest had been so delayed by the capricious weather that whenever a
fine day occurred all sinews were strained to save what could be saved of the
damaged crops. On account of the rapid shortening of the days the harvesters
worked by moonlight. Hence to-night the wheat-fields abutting on the two sides
of the square formed by Casterbridge town were animated by the gathering
hands. Their shouts and laughter had reached Henchard at the Market House,
Thesaurus
abutting: (adj) contiguous,
profane: (v) desecrate, abuse, violate,
serious.
elusiveness: (n) vagueness, shiftiness, defile, outrage, debauch; (adj)
conterminous, adjacent, bordering,
next, near, close, coterminous,
indirectness, imprecision,
irreverent, impious, sacrilegious,
connected; (prep) touching, at the side equivocation, crookedness,
unholy; (adj, v) foul. ANTONYMS:
(adj) devout, sacred, moral, religious,
of.
ambiguity, caginess, slipperiness,
capricious: (adj) fanciful, whimsical,
ambiguousness, escape. ANTONYM: reverent.
(n) precision.
shortening: (n) contraction,
irregular, freakish, arbitrary, fickle,
flagrant: (adj) blatant, conspicuous,
changeable, impulsive, volatile,
abridgement, reduction, shrinkage,
variable, unpredictable.
crying, glaring, atrocious, obvious,
curtailment, abridgment, limitation,
ANTONYMS: (adj) dependable,
rank, gross, heinous, flagitious, open. edible fat, diminution; (adj)
ANTONYMS: (adj) unobtrusive,
abridging; (v) shorten. ANTONYMS:
predictable, stable, steady, steadfast,
(n) extension, expansion.
placid, logical, fixed, consistent,
slight, ashamed, doubtful, veiled.
224
while he stood there waiting, and he had little doubt from the turn which Farfrae
and Lucetta had taken that they were bound for the spot.%
Nearly the whole town had gone into the fields. The Casterbridge populace
still retained the primitive habit of helping one another in time of need; and thus,
though the corn belonged to the farming section of the little community--that
inhabiting the Durnover quarter--the remainder was no less interested in the
labour of getting it home.
Reaching the top of the lane Henchard crossed the shaded avenue on the
walls, slid down the green rampart, and stood amongst the stubble. The
"stitches" or shocks rose like tents about the yellow expanse, those in the distance
becoming lost in the moonlit hazes.
He had entered at a point removed from the scene of immediate operations;
but two others had entered at that place, and he could see them winding among
the shocks. They were paying no regard to the direction of their walk, whose
vague serpentining soon began to bear down towards Henchard. A meeting
promised to be awkward, and he therefore stepped into the hollow of the nearest
shock, and sat down.
"You have my leave," Lucetta was saying gaily. "Speak what you like."
"Well, then," replied Farfrae, with the unmistakable inflection of the lover
pure, which Henchard had never heard in full resonance of his lips before, "you
are sure to be much sought after for your position, wealth, talents, and beauty.
But will ye resist the temptation to be one of those ladies with lots of admirers-ay--and be content to have only a homely one?"
"And he the speaker?" said she, laughing. "Very well, sir, what next?"
"Ah! I'm afraid that what I feel will make me forget my manners!"
"Then I hope you'll never have any, if you lack them only for that cause."
After some broken words which Henchard lost she added, "Are you sure you
won't be jealous?"
Farfrae seemed to assure her that he would not, by taking her hand.
Thesaurus
expanse: (n) breadth, expansion,
space, region, compass, extent, orbit,
latitude, acreage, dilation, length.
ANTONYM: (n) closeness.
gaily: (adv, v) happily; (adv) gladly,
jovially, joyfully, cheerfully,
mirthfully, joyously, gleefully,
sunnily, blithely, lively.
ANTONYMS: (adv) sadly, anxiously,
dully, despondently.
inflection: (n) accent, inflexion,
flection, modulation, flexion,
intonation, declension, bending,
plangency, timbre, timber, noise,
conjugation, accentuation, emphasis. ring, accord. ANTONYM: (n)
inhabiting: (adj) inhabited; (n)
weakness.
commorant; (v) occupying.
stubble: (n) stalk, shuck, chaff, husk,
moonlit: (adj) moony, dreamy, bright. bran, straw, shackle, leavings, pale
ANTONYM: (adj) moonless.
yellow, result, stalking.
populace: (n) multitude, masses,
winding: (n) twist, wind, turn; (adj)
inhabitants, public, commonalty,
indirect, crooked, circuitous,
meandering, twisty, wandering; (adj,
mob, crowd, population, nation,
n) twisting, twisted. ANTONYMS:
man, country.
resonance: (n) ringing, sonority,
(adj) direct, unbent.
vibration, reverberation, echo,
Thomas Hardy
225
"You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobody else," she presently said. "But
I should wish to have my own way in some things."
"In everything! What special thing did you mean?"
"If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge, for instance, upon finding that
I should not be happy here?"
Henchard did not hear the reply; he might have done so and much more, but
he did not care to play the eavesdropper. They went on towards the scene of
activity, where the sheaves were being handed, a dozen a minute, upon the carts
and waggons which carried them away.%
Lucetta insisted on parting from Farfrae when they drew near the
workpeople. He had some business with them and, thought he entreated her to
wait a few minutes, she was inexorable, and tripped off homeward alone.
Henchard thereupon left the field and followed her. His state of mind was
such that on reaching Lucetta's door he did not knock but opened it, and walked
straight up to her sitting-room, expecting to find her there. But the room was
empty, and he perceived that in his haste he had somehow passed her on the
way hither. He had not to wait many minutes, however, for he soon heard her
dress rustling in the hall, followed by a soft closing of the door. In a moment she
appeared.
The light was so low that she did not notice Henchard at first. As soon as she
saw him she uttered a little cry, almost of terror.
"How can you frighten me so?" she exclaimed, with a flushed face. "It is past
ten o'clock, and you have no right to surprise me here at such a time."
"I don't know that I've not the right. At any rate I have the excuse. Is it so
necessary that I should stop to think of manners and customs?"
"It is too late for propriety, and might injure me."
"I called an hour ago, and you would not see me, and I thought you were in
when I called now. It is you, Lucetta, who are doing wrong. It is not proper in
Thesaurus
eavesdropper: (v) auditor, hearer,
informer, listener; (n) snooper,
tapper, snoop, quidnunc, Paul Pry,
newsmonger, delator.
flushed: (adj, n) red, sanguine; (adj)
feverish, glowing, aroused, aflame,
burning, exultant, exulting; (n) flush,
elated. ANTONYM: (adj) cool.
frighten: (v) cow, alarm, daunt, terrify,
appall, scare, affright, intimidate,
terrorize, appal; (n, v) fright.
ANTONYMS: (v) comfort, reassure,
soothe, calm.
illustration, sample, affair, pattern,
inexorable: (adj) adamant,
chance, cause; (v) exemplify,
unrelenting, stern, cruel, relentless,
illustrate.
propriety: (adj, n) decency, modesty,
austere, adamantine, inflexible,
remorseless, stiff; (adj, v) inevitable.
correctness, aptitude; (n) decorum,
ANTONYM: (adj) gentle.
fitness, etiquette, civility, grace,
injure: (n, v) damage, harm, impair;
politeness, manners. ANTONYMS:
(v) contuse, disfigure, maim, bruise,
(n) impropriety, rudeness,
blemish, wound, insult; (adj, v) abuse. unsuitableness, indecorum,
ANTONYMS: (v) heal, enable, repair, decadence, tactlessness, corruption,
protect, help.
vulgarity, indecency.
instance: (n) exemplar, case, time,
workpeople: (n) working class.
226
'ee to throw me over like this. I have a little matter to remind you of, which you
seem to forget."
She sank into a chair, and turned pale.%
"I don't want to hear it--I don't want to hear it!" she said through her hands,
as he, standing close to the edge of her gown, began to allude to the Jersey days.
"But you ought to hear it," said he.
"It came to nothing; and through you. Then why not leave me the freedom
that I gained with such sorrow! Had I found that you proposed to marry me for
pure love I might have felt bound now. But I soon learnt that you had planned it
out of mere charity--almost as an unpleasant duty--because I had nursed you,
and compromised myself, and you thought you must repay me. After that I did
not care for you so deeply as before."
"Why did you come here to find me, then?"
"I thought I ought to marry you for conscience' sake, since you were free,
even though I--did not like you so well."
"And why then don't you think so now?"
She was silent. It was only too obvious that conscience had ruled well
enough till new love had intervened and usurped that rule. In feeling this she
herself forgot for the moment her partially justifying argument--that having
discovered Henchard's infirmities of temper, she had some excuse for not risking
her happiness in his hands after once escaping them. The only thing she could
say was, "I was a poor girl then; and now my circumstances have altered, so I am
hardly the same person."
"That's true. And it makes the case awkward for me. But I don't want to
touch your money. I am quite willing that every penny of your property shall
remain to your personal use. Besides, that argument has nothing in it. The man
you are thinking of is no better than I."
"If you were as good as he you would leave me!" she cried passionately.
Thesaurus
allude: (v) advert, refer, hint, glance,
intimate, suggest, touch, bring up,
mean, notice, pertain.
escaping: (n) evasion, getaway, break,
breakout, running away, running off,
run-around; (adj) fugitive.
gown: (n) robe, clothing, cassock,
vestment, wrapper, overclothes,
outerwear, uniform, tunic, clothes; (v)
clothe.
justifying: (adj) extenuating,
mitigating; (n) justification, defense.
nursed: (adj) care, suckled.
perfecta, place bet, exacta.
passionately: (adv) fervently,
ruled: (adj) lined, lawful, subordinate,
vehemently, violently, fiercely,
subject.
sorrow: (n, v) regret, lament, grieve;
eagerly, zealously, fervidly, fierily,
(v) mourn; (n) mourning, heartache,
enthusiastically, heatedly, stormily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) mildly,
repentance, remorse; (adj, n) sadness,
misery; (adj, n, v) distress.
apathetically, calmly, halfheartedly,
ANTONYMS: (n) joy, delight,
impassively, jokingly, gently.
remind: (v) recollect, prompt, recall,
happiness, peace, hopefulness,
commemorate, call up, memorialize,
cheerfulness, shamelessness, calm,
hint, jog, inform, think; (n, v) mind.
content; (v) rejoice.
risking: (n) daily double, gaming,
usurped: (adj) tortious.
Thomas Hardy
227
This unluckily aroused Henchard. "You cannot in honour refuse me," he
said. "And unless you give me your promise this very night to be my wife,
before a witness, I'll reveal our intimacy--in common fairness to other men!"
A look of resignation settled upon her. Henchard saw its bitterness; and had
Lucetta's heart been given to any other man in the world than Farfrae he would
probably have had pity upon her at that moment. But the supplanter was the
upstart (as Henchard called him) who had mounted into prominence upon his
shoulders, and he could bring himself to show no mercy.%
Without another word she rang the bell, and directed that Elizabeth-Jane
should be fetched from her room. The latter appeared, surprised in the midst of
her lucubrations. As soon as she saw Henchard she went across to him
dutifully.
"Elizabeth-Jane," he said, taking her hand, "I want you to hear this." And
turning to Lucetta: "Will you, or will you not, marry me?
"If you--wish it, I must agree!"
"You say yes?"
"I do."
No sooner had she given the promise than she fell back in a fainting state.
"What dreadful thing drives her to say this, father, when it is such a pain to
her?" asked Elizabeth, kneeling down by Lucetta. "Don't compel her to do
anything against her will! I have lived with her, and know that she cannot bear
much."
"Don't be a no'thern simpleton!" said Henchard drily. "This promise will
leave him free for you, if you want him, won't it?"
At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon with a start.
"Him? Who are you talking about?" she said wildly.
"Nobody, as far as I am concerned," said Elizabeth firmly.
"Oh--well. Then it is my mistake," said Henchard. "But the business is
between me and Miss Templeman. She agrees to be my wife."
Thesaurus
drily: (adv) parchedly, thirstily,
waterlessly, monotonously, stalely,
driedly, sharply, sardonically,
tediously, hardly, plainly.
dutifully: (adv) submissively,
obediently, deferentially,
compliantly, conscientiously,
devotedly, duteously, docilely,
loyally, respectfully, meekly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) carelessly,
irresponsibly, unfaithfully,
assertively.
fainting: (n) swoon, syncope,
deliquium, lipothymy, prostration,
stupor; (adj) lipothymic.
kneeling: (n) homage, kowtow,
kneelingly, prostration, genuflexion,
genuflection, curtsy, courtesy,
obeisance.
mounted: (adj) equestrian, mounting,
mounts, set, firm, affixed, decorated.
ANTONYM: (adj) unmounted.
sooner: (adj, adv) rather, earlier, before,
preferably, instead; (adv) first, before
now, faster, previously, beforehand;
(adj) prior.
supplanter: (n) usurper.
unluckily: (adv) unfortunately,
inauspiciously, lucklessly, unhappily,
untowardly, unsuccessfully, alas,
regrettably, ill-fatedly, tragically,
haplessly. ANTONYM: (adv) luckily.
upstart: (n) mushroom, nouveau riche,
skipjack, climber, arriviste, social
climber, unknown, smart aleck, sleep;
(adj) parvenue, cockhorse.
228
"But don't dwell on it just now," entreated Elizabeth, holding Lucetta's hand.
"I don't wish to, if she promises," said Henchard.%
"I have, I have," groaned Lucetta, her limbs hanging like fluid, from very
misery and faintness. "Michael, please don't argue it any more!"
"I will not," he said. And taking up his hat he went away.
Elizabeth-Jane continued to kneel by Lucetta. "What is this?" she said. "You
called my father 'Michael' as if you knew him well? And how is it he has got this
power over you, that you promise to marry him against your will? Ah--you have
many many secrets from me!"
"Perhaps you have some from me," Lucetta murmured with closed eyes, little
thinking, however, so unsuspicious was she, that the secret of Elizabeth's heart
concerned the young man who had caused this damage to her own.
"I would not--do anything against you at all!" stammered Elizabeth, keeping
in all signs of emotion till she was ready to burst. "I cannot understand how my
father can command you so; I don't sympathize with him in it at all. I'll go to him
and ask him to release you."
"No, no," said Lucetta. "Let it all be."
Thesaurus
dwell: (adj, v) inhabit; (v) reside, bide,
changeable, smooth, fluent, mobile,
movement.
misery: (adj, n) grief; (n, v) distress; (n)
live, stay, lodge, delay, occupy,
runny, versatile, juicy, uncertain,
continue, be, settle. ANTONYM: (v)
unstable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
affliction, agony, anguish, woe,
wander.
unchangeable, ugly, fixed, defined,
hardship, evil, ill, infelicity, suffering.
faintness: (n) weakness, debility,
ANTONYMS: (n) joy, ecstasy,
set, constant, stilted, jerky.
hanging: (n) execution, curtain, arras,
indistinctness, languor, fuzziness,
cheerfulness, fun, hopefulness, peace,
wall hanging; (adj) suspended,
blurriness, fogginess, dullness,
contentment, pleasure, wealth, sport,
ambiguity, lassitude, infirmity.
pendent, pendant, pendulous, hung, cheer.
ANTONYMS: (n) acuteness, strength, pending; (n, v) suspension.
promise: (n, v) covenant, guarantee,
kneel: (v) genuflect, cringe, stoop, bob, contract, vow, bargain; (v) augur,
harshness, clearness, loudness,
assure; (n) engagement, assurance,
clarity.
cry for quarter, dip, duck, humble
fluid: (adj) flowing, unsettled,
oneself; (n) kneeling, knee,
plight, word.
Thomas Hardy
229
CHAPTER 28
The next morning Henchard went to the Town Hall below Lucetta's house, to
attend Petty Sessions, being still a magistrate for the year by virtue of his late
position as Mayor. In passing he looked up at her windows, but nothing of her
was to be seen.%
Henchard as a Justice of the Peace may at first seem to be an even greater
incongruity than Shallow and Silence themselves. But his rough and ready
perceptions, his sledge-hammer directness, had often served him better than nice
legal knowledge in despatching such simple business as fell to his hands in this
Court. To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the Mayor for the year, being absent, the cornmerchant took the big chair, his eyes still abstractedly stretching out of the
window to the ashlar front of High-Place Hall.
There was one case only, and the offender stood before him. She was an old
woman of mottled countenance, attired in a shawl of that nameless tertiary hue
which comes, but cannot be made--a hue neither tawny, russet, hazel, nor ash; a
sticky black bonnet that seemed to have been worn in the country of the Psalmist
where the clouds drop fatness; and an apron that had been white in time so
comparatively recent as still to contrast visibly with the rest of her clothes. The
steeped aspect of the woman as a whole showed her to be no native of the
country-side or even of a country-town.
Thesaurus
abstractedly: (adv) absently,
incongruity: (n) disharmony,
plainness, honesty, immediacy,
distractedly, distantly, pensively,
straightforwardness, forthrightness,
contradiction, disagreement,
separately, preoccupiedly, abstractly, openness, freedom, ingenuousness,
incongruence, disparity, discrepancy,
outspokenness. ANTONYMS: (n)
removedly, dreamily, absentdiscord, unconformity,
mindedly, scatterbrainedly.
vagueness, obliqueness,
disproportion, absurdity, paradox.
ANTONYMS: (adv) carefully, clearly, circuitousness, reticence, delicacy,
ANTONYMS: (n) congruity,
calmly.
caution, dishonesty.
normality, agreement.
ashlar: (n) hewn stone.
fatness: (n) adiposity, fleshiness,
russet: (adj, n) auburn; (adj) tan, dun,
attired: (adj) clad, appareled, clothed,
avoirdupois, heaviness, adiposeness, drab, leaden, livid, pearly, dingy,
garbed, habilimented, robed; (adj,
obesity, greasiness, stoutness,
brunette, bay, russety.
prep) garmented.
steeped: (adj) seasoned, experienced.
fattiness, size, corpulence.
directness: (n) candor, frankness,
ANTONYMS: (n) leanness, thinness.
230
She looked cursorily at Henchard and the second magistrate, and Henchard
looked at her, with a momentary pause, as if she had reminded him indistinctly
of somebody or something which passed from his mind as quickly as it had
come. "Well, and what has she been doing?" he said, looking down at the charge
sheet.%
"She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderly female and nuisance,"
whispered Stubberd.
"Where did she do that?" said the other magistrate.
"By the church, sir, of all the horrible places in the world!--I caught her in the
act, your worship."
"Stand back then," said Henchard, "and let's hear what you've got to say."
Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate's clerk dipped his pen, Henchard
being no note-taker himself, and the constable began-"Hearing a' illegal noise I went down the street at twenty- five minutes past
eleven P.M. on the night of the fifth instinct, Hannah Dominy. When I had-"Don't go so fast, Stubberd," said the clerk.
The constable waited, with his eyes on the clerk's pen, till the latter stopped
scratching and said, "yes." Stubberd continued: "When I had proceeded to the
spot I saw defendant at another spot, namely, the gutter." He paused, watching
the point of the clerk's pen again.
"Gutter, yes, Stubberd."
"Spot measuring twelve feet nine inches or thereabouts from where I--" Still
careful not to outrun the clerk's penmanship Stubberd pulled up again; for
having got his evidence by heart it was immaterial to him whereabouts he broke
off.
"I object to that," spoke up the old woman, "'spot measuring twelve feet nine
or thereabouts from where I,' is not sound testimony!"
The magistrates consulted, and the second one said that the bench was of
opinion that twelve feet nine inches from a man on his oath was admissible.
Thesaurus
cursorily: (adv) rapidly, quickly,
hastily, shallowly, speedily, sketchily,
casually, fleetingly, carelessly,
passingly, perfunctorily.
ANTONYMS: (adv) slowly,
thoroughly.
disorderly: (adj) wild, disordered,
chaotic, boisterous, jumbled,
disorganized, unruly, rowdy, untidy,
irregular; (adj, v) lawless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) orderly, neat,
arranged, peaceful, organized,
systematized, conforming, ordered,
restrained, behaved, coherent.
immaterial: (adj) insignificant,
inconsequential, irrelevant,
disembodied, incorporeal, trivial,
bodiless, spiritual, unimportant,
extraneous, psychic. ANTONYMS:
(adj) significant, material, corporeal,
physical, tangible, important.
indistinctly: (adv) vaguely, dimly,
hazily, mistily, inarticulately,
shadowily, obscurely, unclearly,
fuzzily, confusedly, ambiguously.
ANTONYMS: (adv) precisely,
audibly, coherently, distinctly.
scratching: (n) scrape, scraping,
abrasion, mark, scar, poor
handwriting, incision, excoriation,
chicken feed; (adj) hoarse, abrasive.
thereabouts: (adj, adv) about; (adv)
nearly, generally, around,
approximately, in the region of, more
or less, something like, almost, so;
(adv, n) hereabouts.
Thomas Hardy
231
Stubberd, with a suppressed gaze of victorious rectitude at the old woman,
continued: "Was standing myself. She was wambling about quite dangerous to
the thoroughfare and when I approached to draw near she committed the
nuisance, and insulted me."
"'Insulted me.'...Yes, what did she say?"
"She said, 'Put away that dee lantern,' she says."
"Yes."
"Says she, 'Dost hear, old turmit-head? Put away that dee lantern. I have
floored fellows a dee sight finer-looking than a dee fool like thee, you son of a
bee, dee me if I haint,' she says.%
"I object to that conversation!" interposed the old woman. "I was not capable
enough to hear what I said, and what is said out of my hearing is not evidence."
There was another stoppage for consultation, a book was referred to, and
finally Stubberd was allowed to go on again. The truth was that the old woman
had appeared in court so many more times than the magistrates themselves, that
they were obliged to keep a sharp look-out upon their procedure. However,
when Stubberd had rambled on a little further Henchard broke out impatiently,
"Come--we don't want to hear any more of them cust dees and bees! Say the
words out like a man, and don't be so modest, Stubberd; or else leave it alone!"
Turning to the woman, "Now then, have you any questions to ask him, or
anything to say?"
"Yes," she replied with a twinkle in her eye; and the clerk dipped his pen.
"Twenty years ago or thereabout I was selling of furmity in a tent at Weydon
Fair----"
"'Twenty years ago'--well, that's beginning at the beginning; suppose you go
back to the Creation!" said the clerk, not without satire.
But Henchard stared, and quite forgot what was evidence and what was not.
"A man and a woman with a little child came into my tent," the woman
continued. "They sat down and had a basin apiece. Ah, Lord's my life! I was of a
Thesaurus
apiece: (adj, adv) each; (adj) one by one;
(pron) all, both, each one; (adv)
individually, singly, for each, for
each one, from each one, to each one.
ANTONYM: (adv) together.
floored: (adj) floors, flooring,
dumbfounded, bewildered.
ANTONYM: (adj) ceilinged.
insulted: (adj) affronted, offended,
injured, huffy.
lantern: (n) beacon, light, dormer,
tube, lighting fitting, bedside light,
street light, street lamp, oil lamp,
continuation, start, help.
twinkle: (n, v) flash, gleam, shimmer,
lime light, lanthorn.
rectitude: (adj, n) justice, honesty,
glimmer, glisten, glitter, scintillate,
equity; (n) integrity, veracity, virtue,
wink; (adj, n, v) flicker; (v) shine,
uprightness, morality, purity,
blink.
propriety; (adj) fidelity.
victorious: (adj) triumphant,
ANTONYMS: (n) immorality,
successful, winning, jubilant, victor,
fortunate, lifted up; (adj, v)
incorrectness, wickedness.
stoppage: (n, v) arrest, stop, closure,
triumphal, exultant, triumphing, on
hindrance; (n) obstruction,
top. ANTONYMS: (adj) beaten,
interruption, block, standstill, check,
unsuccessful, failing, losing,
prevention, pause. ANTONYMS: (n) sorrowful.
232
more respectable station in the world then than I am now, being a land smuggler
in a large way of business; and I used to season my furmity with rum for them
who asked for't. I did it for the man; and then he had more and more; till at last
he quarrelled with his wife, and offered to sell her to the highest bidder. A sailor
came in and bid five guineas, and paid the money, and led her away. And the
man who sold his wife in that fashion is the man sitting there in the great big
chair." The speaker concluded by nodding her head at Henchard and folding her
arms.%
Everybody looked at Henchard. His face seemed strange, and in tint as if it
had been powdered over with ashes. "We don't want to hear your life and
adventures," said the second magistrate sharply, filling the pause which
followed. "You've been asked if you've anything to say bearing on the case."
"That bears on the case. It proves that he's no better than I, and has no right
to sit there in judgment upon me."
"'Tis a concocted story," said the clerk. "So hold your tongue!"
"No--'tis true." The words came from Henchard. "'Tis as true as the light," he
said slowly. "And upon my soul it does prove that I'm no better than she! And
to keep out of any temptation to treat her hard for her revenge, I'll leave her to
you."
The sensation in the court was indescribably great. Henchard left the chair,
and came out, passing through a group of people on the steps and outside that
was much larger than usual; for it seemed that the old furmity dealer had
mysteriously hinted to the denizens of the lane in which she had been lodging
since her arrival, that she knew a queer thing or two about their great local man
Mr. Henchard, if she chose to tell it. This had brought them hither.
"Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?" said Lucetta to
her servant when the case was over. She had risen late, and had just looked out
of the window.
Thesaurus
ashes: (n) dust, cinders, remains,
adjudicator, beak, official, provost,
reprisal, retaliation, repayment,
grudge, punishment; (v) retaliate,
cinder, clay, earth, embers, clinker;
recorder, archon, doge, chancellor.
(adj) scoriae, mother, precipitate.
mysteriously: (adv) enigmatically,
repay, requite, vindicate.
bidder: (n) aspirant, candidate, hand,
smuggler: (n) contrabandist,
strangely, obscurely, secretly,
applier, claimant, competitor, offeror, uncannily, mystically, darkly,
mooncurser, gunrunner, offset,
postulant, suitor, opponent,
puzzlingly, weirdly, abstrusely,
poacher, outlaw, rumrunner,
occultly. ANTONYM: (adv) normally. malefactor, racer, felon, detective.
applicant.
concocted: (adj) unnatural, trumped
powdered: (adj) powdery, fine,
tint: (n, v) color, tinge, hue, stain, dye,
tinct; (n) shade, tincture, tone, cast;
up, hypothetical, fake, false.
crushed, milled, ground, broken up,
hinted: (adj) veiled, roundabout, not
finer, minced, pulverised; (n)
(v) paint. ANTONYMS: (n) white,
pallor; (v) whiten, pale.
explicit, implicit, coded, oblique.
punctated, milk.
magistrate: (n) judge, jurist, justiciary, revenge: (n) retribution, vengeance,
Thomas Hardy
233
"Oh, please, ma'am, 'tis this larry about Mr. Henchard. A woman has proved
that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five guineas in a booth at
a fair."
In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the separation from his
wife Susan for so many years, of his belief in her death, and so on, he had never
clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of that separation. The story
she now heard for the first time.%
A gradual misery overspread Lucetta's face as she dwelt upon the promise
wrung from her the night before. At bottom, then, Henchard was this. How
terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself to his care.
During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places, not coming in
till nearly dusk. As soon as she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return indoors she
told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the seaside for a few
days--to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.
Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed, encouraged her in the
idea, thinking a change would afford her relief. She could not help suspecting
that the gloom which seemed to have come over Casterbridge in Lucetta's eyes
might be partially owing to the fact that Farfrae was away from home.
Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took charge of HighPlace Hall till her return. After two or three days of solitude and incessant rain
Henchard called at the house. He seemed disappointed to hear of Lucetta's
absence and though he nodded with outward indifference he went away
handling his beard with a nettled mien.
The next day he called again. "Is she come now?" he asked.
"Yes. She returned this morning," replied his step- daughter. "But she is not
indoors. She has gone for a walk along the turnpike-road to Port-Bredy. She will
be home by dusk."
After a few words, which only served to reveal his restless impatience, he left
the house again.
Thesaurus
accounts: (n) financial statement.
contingency: (n) possibility,
eventuality, chance, circumstance,
adventure, casualty, case, incident,
occurrence, condition; (adj)
dependency.
depart: (v) go, deviate, decease,
diverge, start, stray, wander, leave,
die, vary, part. ANTONYMS: (v) stay,
arrive, enter, come, abide, conform,
continue, remain, appear, converge,
return.
impatience: (n) annoyance, eagerness, broken, finite.
overspread: (v) cover, spread,
anger, intolerance, restlessness,
fidget, nervousness, fidgetiness,
disseminate, distribute, scatter,
enthusiasm, edginess; (adj)
diffuse, disperse, broadcast, overlay,
nonendurance. ANTONYMS: (n)
mantle, clothe.
solitude: (n) desolation, loneliness,
calmness, endurance, apathy.
incessant: (adj) endless, continual,
seclusion, privacy, aloneness,
everlasting, eternal, constant,
isolation, retirement, lonesomeness,
continuous, perpetual, unremitting,
retreat, desert, solitariness.
interminable, persistent; (adj, v)
ANTONYMS: (n) companionship,
frequent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
closeness.
intermittent, occasional, sporadic,
Thomas Hardy
235
CHAPTER 29
At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Port- Bredy just as
Elizabeth had announced. That she had chosen for her afternoon walk the road
along which she had returned to Casterbridge three hours earlier in a carriage
was curious--if anything should be called curious in concatenations of
phenomena wherein each is known to have its accounting cause. It was the day
of the chief market-- Saturday--and Farfrae for once had been missed from his
corn-stand in the dealers' room. Nevertheless, it was known that he would be
home that night--"for Sunday," as Casterbridge expressed it.%
Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the end of the ranked
trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions out of the town.
This end marked a mile; and here she stopped.
The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the road, still
adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched onward straight as a surveyor's line
till lost to sight on the most distant ridge. There was neither hedge nor tree in
the prospect now, the road clinging to the stubby expanse of corn-land like a
strip to an undulating garment. Near her was a barn--the single building of any
kind within her horizon.
Thesaurus
adhering: (adj, v) adhesive; (n)
adherence; (adj) partisan; (prep) on;
(v) cohesive.
bordered: (adj) fringed, edged,
delimited, surrounded.
bounding: (n) jumping, confinement;
(v) confine, salient; (adj) terminal,
moving, subsultory.
clinging: (adj) adhering, sticky,
adherent, devoted, adhering closely,
affectionate, dependent, tenacious,
osculant; (n) coherence.
garment: (n, v) garb, apparel; (n)
habiliment, habit, gown, vest, things,
guise; (v) clothe, tog, raiment.
hedge: (v) fudge, dodge, elude, evade,
skirt, duck, avoid, circumvent,
equivocate; (n) barrier, hedging.
ANTONYM: (v) confront.
highway: (n) highroad, way, path,
route, street, thoroughfare, course,
main road, expressway, bus, freeway.
ranked: (adj) stratified, hierarchal,
graveled, hierarchical, bedded,
hierarchic.
ridge: (n) ledge, bank, hill, shelf, dune,
swelling, projection, ridgepole, peak,
ghat; (n, v) crease. ANTONYMS: (n)
channel, depression, base.
stubby: (adj) short, stocky, chunky,
squat, thickset, stumpy, thick, bristly,
dumpy, podgy, obtuse. ANTONYM:
(adj) tall.
vale: (n) dale, glen, hollow, ravine,
dingle, vail, valediction, earth, holler,
dell, gully. ANTONYM: (n) hill.
236
She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing appeared thereon-not so much as a speck. She sighed one word--"Donald!" and turned her face to
the town for retreat.%
Here the case was different. A single figure was approaching her--ElizabethJane's.
Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed. Elizabeth's face, as
soon as she recognized her friend, shaped itself into affectionate lines while yet
beyond speaking distance. "I suddenly thought I would come and meet you,"
she said, smiling.
Lucetta's reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion. A byroad on her right hand descended from the fields into the highway at the point
where she stood, and down the track a bull was rambling uncertainly towards
her and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did not observe him.
In the latter quarter of each year cattle were at once the mainstay and the
terror of families about Casterbridge and its neighbourhood, where breeding
was carried on with Abrahamic success. The head of stock driven into and out of
the town at this season to be sold by the local auctioneer was very large; and all
these horned beasts, in travelling to and fro, sent women and children to shelter
as nothing else could do. In the main the animals would have walked along
quietly enough; but the Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it was
indispensable that hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures, should
be used, large sticks flourished, stray dogs called in, and in general everything
done that was likely to infuriate the viciously disposed and terrify the mild.
Nothing was commoner than for a house-holder on going out of his parlour to
find his hall or passage full of little children, nursemaids, aged women, or a
ladies' school, who apologized for their presence by saying, "A bull passing
down street from the sale."
Lucetta and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt, he meanwhile drawing
vaguely towards them. It was a large specimen of the breed, in colour rich dun,
though disfigured at present by splotches of mud about his seamy sides. His
horns were thick and tipped with brass; his two nostrils like the Thames Tunnel
Thesaurus
antics: (n) sport, monkey business.
beasts: (n) stock.
disfigured: (adj) crooked, ugly, spoil,
damage, deform, shabby, hurt,
shapeless, dishonest, stained,
blemished.
families: (n) family.
horned: (adj) cornuted, somm, horny,
sharp, cuckolded, cornigerous,
bearing horns, having horns.
ANTONYM: (adj) hornless.
infuriate: (v) enrage, incense, anger,
irritate, rile, provoke, outrage,
scruffy, flyblown, enfeebled,
furious, inflame; (adj, v) aggravate,
disreputable, debilitated.
exacerbate. ANTONYMS: (v) please,
ANTONYMS: (adj) salubrious,
pacify, soothe, placate.
respectable, wholesome.
lessening: (n) diminution, cutback,
speck: (adj, n) point, atom, particle; (n)
alleviation, contraction, abatement,
blot, flaw, smudge, blotch, blemish,
mitigation, shrinking, reduction, cut; grain, mote, dot. ANTONYM: (n) lot.
(adj) decreasing, diminishing.
terrify: (n, v) frighten, alarm, fright,
ANTONYMS: (n) growth,
affright; (v) panic, dismay, startle,
restoration; (adj) increasing.
horrify, intimidate, terrorize, daunt.
seamy: (adj) sordid, squalid, crummy, ANTONYMS: (v) please, delight,
dirty, morally degraded, infirm,
calm, soothe, comfort.
Thomas Hardy
237
as seen in the perspective toys of yore. Between them, through the gristle of his
nose, was a stout copper ring, welded on, and irremovable as Gurth's collar of
brass. To the ring was attached an ash staff about a yard long, which the bull
with the motions of his head flung about like a flail.%
It was not till they observed this dangling stick that the young women were
really alarmed; for it revealed to them that the bull was an old one, too savage to
be driven, which had in some way escaped, the staff being the means by which
the drover controlled him and kept his horns at arms' length.
They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place, and thought of the barn
hard by. As long as they had kept their eyes on the bull he had shown some
deference in his manner of approach; but no sooner did they turn their backs to
seek the barn than he tossed his head and decided to thoroughly terrify them.
This caused the two helpless girls to run wildly, whereupon the bull advanced in
a deliberate charge.
The barn stood behind a green slimy pond, and it was closed save as to one
of the usual pair of doors facing them, which had been propped open by a
hurdle-stick, and for this opening they made. The interior had been cleared by a
recent bout of threshing except at one end, where there was a stack of dry clover.
Elizabeth-Jane took in the situation. "We must climb up there," she said.
But before they had even approached it they heard the bull scampering
through the pond without, and in a second he dashed into the barn, knocking
down the hurdle-stake in passing; the heavy door slammed behind him; and all
three were imprisoned in the barn together. The mistaken creature saw them,
and stalked towards the end of the barn into which they had fled. The girls
doubled so adroitly that their pursuer was against the wall when the fugitives
were already half way to the other end. By the time that his length would allow
him to turn and follow them thither they had crossed over; thus the pursuit went
on, the hot air from his nostrils blowing over them like a sirocco, and not a
moment being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open the door.
What might have happened had their situation continued cannot be said; but in a
few moments a rattling of the door distracted their adversary's attention, and a
Thesaurus
adroitly: (adv) aptly, dexterously,
deftly, ingeniously, cleverly, agilely,
craftily, skillfully, proficiently, neatly,
handily. ANTONYMS: (adv)
maladroitly, ineptly, incompetently,
awkwardly.
attainable: (adj) possible, obtainable,
gettable, available, feasible,
approachable, accessible, viable,
doable, realistic, open. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unattainable, unachievable,
impossible.
clover: (n) trefoil, shamrock, herb,
Dutch clover, claver, riches, wealth,
success, prosperity, good life, fat city.
drover: (n) cowboy, driver, swineherd,
herder, goatherd, cattleman; (v)
grazier.
gristle: (n) fibrocartilage, arytenoid,
animal tissue, meniscus, arytaenoid,
arytenoid cartilage; (v) bone.
irremovable: (adj) riveted, rooted.
pursuer: (n) follower, plaintiff,
petitioner, persecutor, hunter,
disciple, accuser, prosecutor,
attendant, beau, driver.
scampering: (n) running.
sirocco: (n) harmattan, sandstorm,
monsoon, tramontane, trade wind,
simoom, siroc, mistral, levanter,
duster, bise.
slimy: (adj) greasy, slippery, muddy,
sludgy, squalid, oily, oozy, ropy,
viscous, slimed, sordid. ANTONYM:
(adj) reputable.
threshing: (n) farming, separation.
238
man appeared. He ran forward towards the leading-staff, seized it, and
wrenched the animal's head as if he would snap it off. The wrench was in reality
so violent that the thick neck seemed to have lost its stiffness and to become halfparalyzed, whilst the nose dropped blood.
The premeditated human
contrivance of the nose-ring was too cunning for impulsive brute force, and the
creature flinched.%
The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framed and unhesitating.
He led the bull to the door, and the light revealed Henchard. He made the bull
fast without, and re- entered to the succour of Lucetta; for he had not perceived
Elizabeth, who had climbed on to the clover-heap. Lucetta was hysterical, and
Henchard took her in his arms and carried her to the door.
"You--have saved me!" she cried, as soon as she could speak.
"I have returned your kindness," he responded tenderly. "You once saved
me."
"How--comes it to be you--you?" she asked, not heeding his reply.
"I came out here to look for you. I have been wanting to tell you something
these two or three days; but you have been away, and I could not. Perhaps you
cannot talk now?"
"Oh--no! Where is Elizabeth?"
"Here am I!" cried the missing one cheerfully; and without waiting for the
ladder to be placed she slid down the face of the clover-stack to the floor.
Henchard supporting Lucetta on one side, and Elizabeth-Jane on the other,
they went slowly along the rising road. They had reached the top and were
descending again when Lucetta, now much recovered, recollected that she had
dropped her muff in the barn.
"I'll run back," said Elizabeth-Jane. "I don't mind it at all, as I am not tired as
you are." She thereupon hastened down again to the barn, the others pursuing
their way.
Thesaurus
contrivance: (n) device, appliance,
gadget, artifice, plot, dodge, resource,
plan, contraption, machine,
apparatus.
impulsive: (adj) capricious, hasty,
driving, rash, instinctive, changeable,
hotheaded, quick-tempered,
impellent, headlong, passionate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) cautious,
considered, predictable, unflappable,
prepared, sensible, gradual, overdue,
patient, placid, premeditated.
muff: (n, v) blunder, mollycoddle, slip;
(v) bungle, botch, miss, flub, muck
up, bobble, fail, spoil.
premeditated: (adj) intentional,
planned, designed, conscious,
calculated, studied, intended,
prearranged; (v) prepense; (adj, v)
aforethought, premeditate.
ANTONYMS: (adj) accidental,
ingenuous, spontaneous,
unintentional, unpremeditated,
automatic, casual.
succour: (n, v) succor; (n) consolation,
relief, ministration, mercy, assistance,
helping, ease, embossment; (v)
relieve, further.
unhesitating: (adj) resolute, decided,
determined, unfaltering, decisive,
expeditious; (adj, v) sure, assured,
certain; (v) unshrinking, positive.
wrench: (n, v) pull, jerk, strain, turn,
twist, tug, yank; (n) spanner; (v)
distort, contort, force.
wrenched: (adj) strained, weakened.
Thomas Hardy
239
Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article being by no means small at
that time. Coming out she paused to look for a moment at the bull, now rather to
be pitied with his bleeding nose, having perhaps rather intended a practical joke
than a murder. Henchard had secured him by jamming the staff into the hinge
of the barn-door, and wedging it there with a stake. At length she turned to
hasten onward after her contemplation, when she saw a green-and-black gig
approaching from the contrary direction, the vehicle being driven by Farfrae.%
His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta's walk that way. Donald saw
her, drew up, and was hastily made acquainted with what had occurred. At
Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized, he
exhibited an agitation different in kind no less than in intensity from any she had
seen in him before. He became so absorbed in the circumstance that he scarcely
had sufficient knowledge of what he was doing to think of helping her up beside
him.
"She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?" he inquired at last.
"Yes. He is taking her home. They are almost there by this time."
"And you are sure she can get home?"
Elizabeth-Jane was quite sure.
"Your stepfather saved her?"
"Entirely."
Farfrae checked his horse's pace; she guessed why. He was thinking that it
would be best not to intrude on the other two just now. Henchard had saved
Lucetta, and to provoke a possible exhibition of her deeper affection for himself
was as ungenerous as it was unwise.
The immediate subject of their talk being exhausted she felt more
embarrassed at sitting thus beside her past lover; but soon the two figures of the
others were visible at the entrance to the town. The face of the woman was
frequently turned back, but Farfrae did not whip on the horse. When these
reached the town walls Henchard and his companion had disappeared down the
Thesaurus
circumstance: (n) affair, incident,
rush; (n, v) further, forward,
stingy, parsimonious, miserly, cheap,
dispatch. ANTONYMS: (v) linger,
matter, event, occasion, chance,
uncharitable, close, narrow,
accident, opportunity, adventure,
retard, amble.
tightfisted, closefisted, penurious.
hinge: (n, v) joint; (n) axis, axle,
ANTONYMS: (adj) generous, kind.
casualty, fact.
contemplation: (n) consideration,
unwise: (adj, n) silly, stupid, absurd,
articulation, spindle, crux, fulcrum,
arbor, flexible joint; (v) depend,
indiscreet; (adj) imprudent,
reflection, thought, attention,
cogitation, musing, introspection,
juncture.
injudicious, ridiculous, senseless,
speculation, animus, deliberation; (n, jamming: (n) interference, electronic
inadvisable, impolitic, unreasonable.
v) study.
ANTONYMS: (adj) sensible, prudent,
jamming, disturbance, obstruction,
guessed: (adj) rude, inscrutable.
blocking, overcrowding, hole, fix,
thoughtful, sagacious, judicious,
hasten: (adj, n, v) speed, quicken; (v)
crush, canting; (adj) extemporaneous. advisable.
wedging: (n) chocking.
expedite, advance, hurry, hie, dash, ungenerous: (adj, v) illiberal; (adj)
240
street; Farfrae set down Elizabeth-Jane on her expressing a particular wish to
alight there, and drove round to the stables at the back of his lodgings.%
On this account he entered the house through his garden, and going up to his
apartments found them in a particularly disturbed state, his boxes being hauled
out upon the landing, and his bookcase standing in three pieces. These
phenomena, however, seemed to cause him not the least surprise. "When will
everything be sent up?" he said to the mistress of the house, who was
superintending.
"I am afraid not before eight, sir," said she. "You see we wasn't aware till this
morning that you were going to move, or we could have been forwarder."
"A--well, never mind, never mind!" said Farfrae cheerily. "Eight o'clock will
do well enough if it be not later. Now, don't ye be standing here talking, or it
will be twelve, I doubt." Thus speaking he went out by the front door and up the
street.
During this interval Henchard and Lucetta had had experiences of a different
kind. After Elizabeth's departure for the muff the corn-merchant opened himself
frankly, holding her hand within his arm, though she would fain have
withdrawn it. "Dear Lucetta, I have been very, very anxious to see you these two
or three days," he said, "ever since I saw you last! I have thought over the way I
got your promise that night. You said to me, 'If I were a man I should not insist.'
That cut me deep. I felt that there was some truth in it. I don't want to make you
wretched; and to marry me just now would do that as nothing else could--it is
but too plain. Therefore I agree to an indefinite engagement--to put off all
thought of marriage for a year or two."
"But--but--can I do nothing of a different kind?" said Lucetta. "I am full of
gratitude to you--you have saved my life. And your care of me is like coals of
fire on my head! I am a monied person now. Surely I can do something in return
for your goodness--something practical?"
Henchard remained in thought. He had evidently not expected this. "There
is one thing you might do, Lucetta," he said. "But not exactly of that kind."
Thesaurus
alight: (v) light, land, perch, dismount, sulkily, seriously, miserably, sadly.
expressing: (adj) significant; (n)
get down, settle, get off, descend;
(adj) ablaze, burning, blazing.
speech.
ANTONYM: (v) mount.
gratitude: (n) appreciation, thanks,
bookcase: (n) bookshelf, cupboard,
thank, acknowledgement,
library, closet, furniture, cabinet,
acknowledgment, appreciativeness,
secretaire, article of furniture,
feeling, appreciate, grateful,
davenport, till, sideboard.
thanksgiving, kindness.
cheerily: (adv) merrily, pleasantly,
ANTONYMS: (n) ingratitude,
cheerfully, joyfully, gaily, brightly,
ungratefulness.
happily, mirthfully, jovially, sunnily, monied: (adj) affluent, rich, worth
blithely. ANTONYMS: (adv) nastily,
much, wealthy, flush, loaded,
opulent.
saved: (adj) protected, economized,
rescued, blessed.
superintending: (adj) administrative,
overseeing, superintendent.
wretched: (adj) unfortunate, pitiful,
sad, pitiable, woeful, pathetic,
piteous, lamentable; (adj, v) poor,
unhappy, forlorn. ANTONYMS: (adj)
fine, strong, fortunate, overjoyed,
nice, admirable, good, cheery, joyous,
lucky, comfortable.
Thomas Hardy
241
"Then of what kind is it?" she asked with renewed misgiving.%
"I must tell you a secret to ask it.--You may have heard that I have been
unlucky this year? I did what I have never done before--speculated rashly; and I
lost. That's just put me in a strait.
"And you would wish me to advance some money?"
"No, no!" said Henchard, almost in anger. "I'm not the man to sponge on a
woman, even though she may be so nearly my own as you. No, Lucetta; what
you can do is this and it would save me. My great creditor is Grower, and it is at
his hands I shall suffer if at anybody's; while a fortnight's forbearance on his part
would be enough to allow me to pull through. This may be got out of him in one
way-- that you would let it be known to him that you are my intended--that we
are to be quietly married in the next fortnight.--Now stop, you haven't heard all!
Let him have this story, without, of course, any prejudice to the fact that the
actual engagement between us is to be a long one. Nobody else need know: you
could go with me to Mr. Grower and just let me speak to 'ee before him as if we
were on such terms. We'll ask him to keep it secret. He will willingly wait then.
At the fortnight's end I shall be able to face him; and I can coolly tell him all is
postponed between us for a year or two. Not a soul in the town need know how
you've helped me. Since you wish to be of use, there's your way."
It being now what the people called the "pinking in" of the day, that is, the
quarter-hour just before dusk, he did not at first observe the result of his own
words upon her.
"If it were anything else," she began, and the dryness of her lips was
represented in her voice.
"But it is such a little thing!" he said, with a deep reproach. "Less than you
have offered--just the beginning of what you have so lately promised! I could
have told him as much myself, but he would not have believed me."
"It is not because I won't--it is because I absolutely can't," she said, with rising
distress.
Thesaurus
dryness: (n) drought, aridity,
intolerance.
grower: (n) cultivator, farmer, raiser,
dehydration, aridness, thirst,
desiccation, barrenness, monotony,
planter, agriculturist, husbandman,
status, drying, insensibility.
sodbuster, producer, granger.
ANTONYMS: (n) damp, humidity,
rashly: (adj, adv) hastily, headlong;
(adv) thoughtlessly, recklessly,
wetness, moisture, succulence,
exaggeration, juiciness.
impetuously, imprudently,
forbearance: (n) patience, clemency,
carelessly, indiscreetly, headily,
pardon, abstention, abstinence,
heedlessly, wildly. ANTONYMS:
(adv) thoughtfully, prudently, late,
mercy, longanimity, avoidance,
postponement, indulgence, restraint. pensively, sensibly, responsibly,
ANTONYMS: (n) impatience,
cautiously, deliberately, patiently.
reproach: (n, v) blame, rebuke, charge,
abuse, disgrace, reprimand,
invective; (v) accuse, chide, condemn;
(n) condemnation. ANTONYMS: (n,
v) praise; (v) commend, approve; (n)
compliment, commendation,
approval.
strait: (adj) narrow; (n) pinch, pass,
inlet, need, channel, crisis, poverty,
difficulty; (adj, n) quandary; (n, v)
dilemma.
242
"You are provoking!" he burst out. "It is enough to make me force you to
carry out at once what you have promised."
"I cannot!" she insisted desperately.%
"Why? When I have only within these few minutes released you from your
promise to do the thing offhand."
"Because--he was a witness!"
"Witness? Of what?
"If I must tell you----. Don't, don't upbraid me!"
"Well! Let's hear what you mean?"
"Witness of my marriage--Mr. Grower was!"
"Marriage?"
"Yes. With Mr. Farfrae. O Michael! I am already his wife. We were married
this week at Port-Bredy. There were reasons against our doing it here. Mr.
Grower was a witness because he happened to be at Port-Bredy at the time."
Henchard stood as if idiotized. She was so alarmed at his silence that she
murmured something about lending him sufficient money to tide over the
perilous fortnight.
"Married him?" said Henchard at length.
whilst--bound to marry me?"
"My good--what, married him
"It was like this," she explained, with tears in her eyes and quavers in her
voice; "don't--don't be cruel! I loved him so much, and I thought you might tell
him of the past-- and that grieved me! And then, when I had promised you, I
learnt of the rumour that you had--sold your first wife at a fair like a horse or
cow! How could I keep my promise after hearing that? I could not risk myself in
your hands; it would have been letting myself down to take your name after
such a scandal. But I knew I should lose Donald if I did not secure him at once-for you would carry out your threat of telling him of our former acquaintance, as
long as there was a chance of keeping me for yourself by doing so. But you will
not do so now, will you, Michael? for it is too late to separate us."
Thesaurus
acquaintance: (n) connection, friend,
acquaintanceship, mate, awareness,
associate, buddy, friendship,
intercourse, companion; (n, v)
knowledge. ANTONYMS: (n)
ignorance, inexperience,
unfamiliarity, animosity, enemy.
cruel: (adj, v) hard, harsh, sharp,
severe; (adj) barbarous, unkind,
brutal, bloody, bitter, savage,
atrocious. ANTONYMS: (adj)
merciful, gentle, sympathetic,
rumour: (n, v) rumor; (n) hearsay,
humane, liberal, compassionate,
charitable, friendly, caring,
fame, news, story, reputation,
scuttlebutt, tale; (v) bruit.
considerate, libertarian.
fortnight: (n) two weeks, period,
scandal: (n) disgrace, dishonor, gossip,
amount of time.
outrage, discredit, rumor, infamy,
lending: (n) lend, loaning, borrowing, disrepute, ignominy, detraction,
usury, disposal, disposition.
shame.
perilous: (adj, v) dangerous,
tide: (n, v) wave, flood, surge; (n)
hazardous; (adj) insecure, unsafe,
stream, flow, course, drift, time, high
parlous, precarious, risky,
tide, run, piping times. ANTONYM:
(v) ebb.
treacherous, dicey, critical, dodgy.
ANTONYM: (adj) secure.
Thomas Hardy
243
The notes of St. Peter's bells in full peal had been wafted to them while he
spoke, and now the genial thumping of the town band, renowned for its
unstinted use of the drum-stick, throbbed down the street.%
"Then this racket they are making is on account of it, I suppose?" said he.
"Yes--I think he has told them, or else Mr. Grower has....May I leave you
now? My--he was detained at Port- Bredy to-day, and sent me on a few hours
before him."
"Then it is his wife's life I have saved this afternoon."
"Yes--and he will be for ever grateful to you."
"I am much obliged to him....O you false woman!" burst from Henchard.
"You promised me!"
"Yes, yes! But it was under compulsion, and I did not know all your past----"
"And now I've a mind to punish you as you deserve! One word to this brannew husband of how you courted me, and your precious happiness is blown to
atoms!"
"Michael--pity me, and be generous!"
"You don't deserve pity! You did; but you don't now."
"I'll help you to pay off your debt."
"A pensioner of Farfrae's wife--not I! Don't stay with me longer--I shall say
something worse. Go home!"
She disappeared under the trees of the south walk as the band came round
the corner, awaking the echoes of every stock and stone in celebration of her
happiness. Lucetta took no heed, but ran up the back street and reached her own
home unperceived.
Thesaurus
awaking: (n) waking, awakening.
blast; (v) chime, knell, toll, echo; (adj, roaring, thudding, lubberly,
compulsion: (n) force, enforcement,
n) swell; (n, v) bang.
walloping, lumpish, gaunt; (n) thud,
urge, constraint, pressure, restraint, punish: (v) amerce, discipline,
thump, clump.
necessity, duress, obligation,
castigate, chasten, chastise, penalize, unperceived: (v) unheeded, unthought
of, unregarded; (adj) unremarked,
requirement, oppression.
strike, avenge, pay, beat, execute.
ANTONYMS: (n) persuasion,
ANTONYMS: (v) excuse, exonerate,
unnoted, unobserved, unmarked,
coaxing, disinclination.
pardon, reward, commend.
unknown, stealthy, sly, secret.
detained: (adj) seized, locked up,
racket: (n) noise, din, disturbance,
unstinted: (adj) lavish, generous,
commotion, uproar; (n, v) hubbub,
jailed, intransitive, tardy, inside,
overgenerous, unsparing, munificent,
caged, captive, behind bars; (n) in
riot; (v) fuss, bustle, brawl, clutter.
profuse, not forbearing, spendthrift,
ANTONYMS: (n) silence, peace.
prison, under arrest.
ruthless, recklessly wasteful,
peal: (n) ding, noise, clang, dingdong, thumping: (adj) spanking, whacking,
untiring. ANTONYM: (adj) scarce.
Thomas Hardy
245
CHAPTER 30
Farfrae's words to his landlady had referred to the removal of his boxes and
other effects from his late lodgings to Lucetta's house. The work was not heavy,
but it had been much hindered on account of the frequent pauses necessitated by
exclamations of surprise at the event, of which the good woman had been briefly
informed by letter a few hours earlier.%
At the last moment of leaving Port-Bredy, Farfrae, like John Gilpin, had been
detained by important customers, whom, even in the exceptional circumstances,
he was not the man to neglect. Moreover, there was a convenience in Lucetta
arriving first at her house. Nobody there as yet knew what had happened; and
she was best in a position to break the news to the inmates, and give directions
for her husband's accommodation. He had, therefore, sent on his two-days'
bride in a hired brougham, whilst he went across the country to a certain group
of wheat and barley ricks a few miles off, telling her the hour at which he might
be expected the same evening. This accounted for her trotting out to meet him
after their separation of four hours.
By a strenuous effort, after leaving Henchard she calmed herself in readiness
to receive Donald at High-Place Hall when he came on from his lodgings. One
supreme fact empowered her to this, the sense that, come what would, she had
secured him. Half-an-hour after her arrival he walked in, and she met him with
Thesaurus
barley: (n) barleycorn, bear, bere, oats, appliance, availability; (adj)
frustrated.
convenient. ANTONYMS: (n)
readiness: (n) facility, ease, expedition,
cereal, grain, barley fodder.
bride: (n) fiance, Bridget, Brigid, saint uselessness, distance, hardship,
preparation, promptness, knack,
Brigid, saint Bridget, honeymooner,
unsuitability, clumsiness,
dexterity, eagerness, quickness,
fitness; (adj, n) alacrity. ANTONYMS:
prioress, newlywed, participant,
remoteness.
wife, bridegroom. ANTONYMS: (n) empowered: (adj) authorised,
(n) reluctance, delay.
strenuous: (adj) arduous, energetic,
bridegroom, groom.
accredited, entitled, privileged,
calmed: (adj) composed, thankful.
sceptered, sceptred.
hard, grueling, active, keen, tough,
ANTONYM: (adj) worried.
hindered: (adj) obstructed, blocked,
eager, dynamic, forward, difficult.
convenience: (n) contrivance,
delayed, stalled, slowed down, slow, ANTONYMS: (adj) weak,
accommodation, opportunity, utility, in an inferior position, in a weak
undemanding, refreshing, effortless,
occasion, fitness, comfort, leisure,
position, impedite, thwarted,
feeble, light.
246
a relieved gladness, which a month's perilous absence could not have
intensified.%
"There is one thing I have not done; and yet it is important," she said
earnestly, when she had finished talking about the adventure with the bull.
"That is, broken the news of our marriage to my dear Elizabeth-Jane."
"Ah, and you have not?" he said thoughtfully. "I gave her a lift from the barn
homewards; but I did not tell her either; for I thought she might have heard of it
in the town, and was keeping back her congratulations from shyness, and all
that."
"She can hardly have heard of it. But I'll find out; I'll go to her now. And,
Donald, you don't mind her living on with me just the same as before? She is so
quiet and unassuming."
"O no, indeed I don't," Farfrae answered with, perhaps, a faint awkwardness.
"But I wonder if she would care to?"
"O yes!" said Lucetta eagerly. "I am sure she would like to. Besides, poor
thing, she has no other home."
Farfrae looked at her and saw that she did not suspect the secret of her more
reserved friend. He liked her all the better for the blindness. "Arrange as you
like with her by all means," he said. "It is I who have come to your house, not
you to mine."
"I'll run and speak to her," said Lucetta.
When she got upstairs to Elizabeth-Jane's room the latter had taken off her
out-door things, and was resting over a book. Lucetta found in a moment that
she had not yet learnt the news.
"I did not come down to you, Miss Templeman," she said simply. "I was
coming to ask if you had quite recovered from your fright, but I found you had a
visitor. What are the bells ringing for, I wonder? And the band, too, is playing.
Somebody must be married; or else they are practising for Christmas."
Thesaurus
blindness: (n) cecity, sightlessness,
keenly, fervently, avidly, greedily,
delight, bliss, glee, happiness,
ablepsy, ignorance, prestriction,
enthusiastically, intently, earnestly,
exhilaration, joyfulness, mirth,
excecation, cataract, fog, anopia; (adj, impatiently, actively. ANTONYMS:
cheerfulness. ANTONYMS: (n)
n) darkness; (adj) anopsy.
(adv) apathetically, nonchalantly,
unhappiness, dismay, displeasure.
congratulations: (n) congratulation,
grudgingly, patiently, halfheartedly, liked: (adj) popular, loved, favorite,
preferred. ANTONYM: (adj) disliked.
recommendation, praise, pean,
reluctantly, unenthusiastically.
fright: (n, v) dismay, alarm, scare,
practising: (adj) practicing,
kudos, eulogy, encomium,
commendation, approval; (int) well
affright; (n) awe, fear, dread, terror,
churchgoing.
done, bravo. ANTONYMS: (n)
horror, consternation, apprehension. ringing: (n) buzz, peal, resonance,
ANTONYMS: (n) calm, fearlessness,
ring, sound; (adj) reverberant,
condemnation, criticism, rebuke;
(intj) commiserations.
courage, confidence, security.
jingling, loud, resounding, tinkling,
eagerly: (adv) zealously, readily,
gladness: (n) joy, gaiety, pleasure,
hollow.
Thomas Hardy
247
Lucetta uttered a vague "Yes," and seating herself by the other young woman
looked musingly at her. "What a lonely creature you are," she presently said;
"never knowing what's going on, or what people are talking about everywhere
with keen interest. You should get out, and gossip about as other women do,
and then you wouldn't be obliged to ask me a question of that kind. Well, now, I
have something to tell you.%
Elizabeth-Jane said she was so glad, and made herself receptive.
"I must go rather a long way back," said Lucetta, the difficulty of explaining
herself satisfactorily to the pondering one beside her growing more apparent at
each syllable. "You remember that trying case of conscience I told you of some
time ago--about the first lover and the second lover?" She let out in jerky phrases
a leading word or two of the story she had told.
"O yes--I remember the story of your friend," said Elizabeth drily, regarding
the irises of Lucetta's eyes as though to catch their exact shade. "The two lovers-the old one and the new: how she wanted to marry the second, but felt she ought
to marry the first; so that she neglected the better course to follow the evil, like
the poet Ovid I've just been construing: 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora
sequor.'"
"O no; she didn't follow evil exactly!" said Lucetta hastily.
"But you said that she--or as I may say you"--answered Elizabeth, dropping
the mask, "were in honour and conscience bound to marry the first?"
Lucetta's blush at being seen through came and went again before she
replied anxiously, "You will never breathe this, will you, Elizabeth-Jane?"
"Certainly not, if you say not.
"Then I will tell you that the case is more complicated-- worse, in fact--than it
seemed in my story. I and the first man were thrown together in a strange way,
and felt that we ought to be united, as the world had talked of us. He was a
widower, as he supposed. He had not heard of his first wife for many years. But
the wife returned, and we parted. She is now dead, and the husband comes
paying me addresses again, saying, 'Now we'll complete our purposes.' But,
Thesaurus
blush: (n, v) glow, color; (v) redden,
meat, meat. ANTONYMS: (adj)
crimson; (n) red, bloom, rosiness,
smooth, graceful.
ruddiness, redness; (adj) bashful;
musingly: (adv) thoughtfully,
(adv) blushingly. ANTONYMS: (v)
ponderingly, meditatively,
blanch, pale, blench; (n) paleness.
contemplatively, reflectively,
gossip: (n, v) chatter, rumor, chitchat,
ruminatively, broodingly, deep in
gab, talk, babble, natter, tattle; (n)
thought. ANTONYM: (adv)
chatterbox, conversation, small talk.
unthinkingly.
ANTONYM: (n) truth.
pondering: (adj) pensive, musing,
jerky: (adj) uneven, abrupt, rough,
meditative, contemplative,
thoughtful, reflective; (n)
unsteady, jerking, arrhythmic,
spasmodic, shaky; (n) biltong, jerked consideration, deliberation,
cogitation, reflection, lucubration.
receptive: (adj) responsive,
susceptible, impressionable,
hospitable, sensitive, approachable,
friendly, sympathetic, recipient,
vulnerable, perceptive. ANTONYMS:
(adj) resistant, unreceptive,
unresponsive, hostile, indifferent,
slow, standoffish.
seating: (n) room, circle, parterre,
parquet, orchestra, service, way, base,
footing, housing, stand.
248
Elizabeth-Jane, all this amounts to a new courtship of me by him; I was absolved
from all vows by the return of the other woman."
"Have you not lately renewed your promise?" said the younger with quiet
surmise. She had divined Man Number One.%
"That was wrung from me by a threat."
"Yes, it was. But I think when any one gets coupled up with a man in the
past so unfortunately as you have done she ought to become his wife if she can,
even if she were not the sinning party."
Lucetta's countenance lost its sparkle. "He turned out to be a man I should
be afraid to marry," she pleaded. "Really afraid! And it was not till after my
renewed promise that I knew it."
"Then there is only one course left to honesty. You must remain a single
woman."
"But think again! Do consider----"
"I am certain," interrupted her companion hardily. "I have guessed very well
who the man is. My father; and I say it is him or nobody for you."
Any suspicion of impropriety was to Elizabeth-Jane like a red rag to a bull.
Her craving for correctness of procedure was, indeed, almost vicious. Owing to
her early troubles with regard to her mother a semblance of irregularity had
terrors for her which those whose names are safeguarded from suspicion know
nothing of. "You ought to marry Mr. Henchard or nobody--certainly not another
man!" she went on with a quivering lip in whose movement two passions shared.
"I don't admit that!" said Lucetta passionately.
"Admit it or not, it is true!"
Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as if she could plead no more,
holding out her left to Elizabeth-Jane.
"Why, you have married him!" cried the latter, jumping up with pleasure after
a glance at Lucetta's fingers. "When did you do it? Why did you not tell me,
instead of teasing me like this? How very honourable of you! He did treat my
Thesaurus
absolved: (adj) exculpated, exempt,
inaptitude. ANTONYMS: (n)
exonerated, cleared, vindicated,
decency, correctness.
guiltless; (v) quit.
irregularity: (n) abnormality, anomaly,
gets: (n) getting.
eccentricity, inequality, deviation,
hardily: (adv) robustly, vigorously,
aberration, constipation, exception,
unevenness, variation; (adj, n)
stoutly, courageously, hardly,
deformity. ANTONYMS: (n)
intrepidly, strongly, powerfully,
ruggedly, sturdily, toughly.
symmetry, normality, regularity,
impropriety: (n) barbarism, obscenity, dependability, equality, frequency,
indecorum, error, rudeness,
evenness, consistency, predictability,
indelicacy, incorrectness, solecism,
smoothness.
wrongness; (adj) immorality,
plead: (v) entreat, implore, beg, adjure,
petition, ask, appeal, defend, invoke,
sue; (n, v) allege. ANTONYMS: (v)
answer, demand.
safeguarded: (adj) secured, defended,
shielded, safe, watched over.
sinning: (n) sin, hell, evildoing,
original sin, mortal sin; (adj) errant,
corrupt, faulty, morbid, peccant, evil.
sparkle: (n, v) flicker, flash, shimmer,
spark, shine, blaze, fizz, gleam,
glitter; (v) blink, glare. ANTONYMS:
(n) apathy, dullness, lifelessness.
Thomas Hardy
249
mother badly once, it seems, in a moment of intoxication. And it is true that he is
stern sometimes. But you will rule him entirely, I am sure, with your beauty and
wealth and accomplishments. You are the woman he will adore, and we shall all
three be happy together now!"
"O, my Elizabeth-Jane!" cried Lucetta distressfully. "'Tis somebody else that I
have married! I was so desperate--so afraid of being forced to anything else--so
afraid of revelations that would quench his love for me, that I resolved to do it
offhand, come what might, and purchase a week of happiness at any cost!"
"You--have--married Mr. Farfrae!" cried Elizabeth-Jane, in Nathan tones
Lucetta bowed. She had recovered herself.%
"The bells are ringing on that account," she said. "My husband is downstairs.
He will live here till a more suitable house is ready for us; and I have told him
that I want you to stay with me just as before."
"Let me think of it alone," the girl quickly replied, corking up the turmoil of
her feeling with grand control.
"You shall. I am sure we shall be happy together."
Lucetta departed to join Donald below, a vague uneasiness floating over her
joy at seeing him quite at home there. Not on account of her friend Elizabeth did
she feel it: for of the bearings of Elizabeth-Jane's emotions she had not the least
suspicion; but on Henchard's alone.
Now the instant decision of Susan Henchard's daughter was to dwell in that
house no more. Apart from her estimate of the propriety of Lucetta's conduct,
Farfrae had been so nearly her avowed lover that she felt she could not abide
there.
It was still early in the evening when she hastily put on her things and went
out. In a few minutes, knowing the ground, she had found a suitable lodging,
and arranged to enter it that night. Returning and entering noiselessly she took
off her pretty dress and arrayed herself in a plain one, packing up the other to
keep as her best; for she would have to be very economical now. She wrote a
note to leave for Lucetta, who was closely shut up in the drawing-room with
Thesaurus
abide: (v) endure, bide, undergo,
tolerate, take, suffer, stomach, bear,
brook; (adj, v) stay, dwell.
ANTONYMS: (v) check, depart,
disallow, disapprove, disbelieve,
journey, dodge, leave, migrate, move,
pass.
adore: (v) worship, idolize, admire,
glorify, cherish, appreciate; (n, v)
honor; (adj) adoring, worshipping,
worshiping; (adv) adoringly.
ANTONYMS: (v) detest, despise,
condemn, loathe, disrespect, abhor, intoxication: (n) inebriation, inebriety,
scorn.
poisoning, tipsiness, fascination,
arrayed: (adj) armored, panoplied,
grogginess, ecstasy, daze, excitement,
clothed, clad, armed; (v) habited,
euphoria, wine.
quench: (adj, v) extinguish, allay,
accustomed.
avowed: (adj) acknowledged, attested, slake; (v) appease, quash, put out,
ostensible, sworn, stated, confirmed, destroy, assuage, annihilate, calm,
chill. ANTONYMS: (v) stimulate,
declared, pretended, known,
authenticated, apparent.
light.
corking: (adj) swell, smashing, bully, revelations: (n) gospels, acts,
cracking, neat, dandy, great, capital,
apocalypse, Epistles.
exquisite, keen, nifty.
250
Farfrae; and then Elizabeth-Jane called a man with a wheel-barrow; and seeing
her boxes put into it she trotted off down the street to her rooms. They were in
the street in which Henchard lived, and almost opposite his door.%
Here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence. The little
annual sum settled on her by her stepfather would keep body and soul together.
A wonderful skill in netting of all sorts--acquired in childhood by making seines
in Newson's home--might serve her in good stead; and her studies, which were
pursued unremittingly, might serve her in still better.
By this time the marriage that had taken place was known throughout
Casterbridge; had been discussed noisily on kerbstones, confidentially behind
counters, and jovially at the Three Mariners. Whether Farfrae would sell his
business and set up for a gentleman on his wife's money, or whether he would
show independence enough to stick to his trade in spite of his brilliant alliance,
was a great point of interest.
Thesaurus
boxes: (n) auditory, pit, parquet,
happily.
gallery, box, case, front of the house, noisily: (adv) clamorously,
bleachers, stalls.
boisterously, vociferously, riotously,
confidentially: (adv) privately, closely, raucously, uproariously, loudly,
privily, intimately, familiarly,
blatantly, rowdily, stridently, vocally.
personally, clandestinely, in secret, in ANTONYMS: (adv) noiselessly,
private, surreptitiously, occultly.
silently, calmly, peacefully, softly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) publicly, openly, settled: (adj) definite, set, firm,
familiarly, commonly.
permanent, certain, calm, established,
jovially: (adv) merrily, gaily, gleefully, decided, formed, defined, finished.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unsettled,
cheerfully, jolly, gladly, pleasantly,
convivially, cheerily, lively; (adv, v)
exciting, temporary.
subsistence: (n) existence, life, entity,
maintenance, food, support,
sustenance, living, livelihood, esse,
ens.
unremittingly: (adv) constantly,
incessantly, unendingly,
continuously, ceaselessly,
unceasingly, endlessly, unfailingly,
unrelentingly, insistently,
persistently. ANTONYMS: (adv)
inconsistently, sporadically.
Thomas Hardy
251
CHAPTER 31
The retort of the furmity-woman before the magistrates had spread; and in
four-and-twenty hours there was not a person in Casterbridge who remained
unacquainted with the story of Henchard's mad freak at Weydon-Priors Fair,
long years before. The amends he had made in after life were lost sight of in the
dramatic glare of the original act. Had the incident been well known of old and
always, it might by this time have grown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall
wild oat, but well-nigh the single one, of a young man with whom the steady
and mature (if somewhat headstrong) burgher of to-day had scarcely a point in
common. But the act having lain as dead and buried ever since, the interspace of
years was unperceived; and the black spot of his youth wore the aspect of a
recent crime.%
Small as the police-court incident had been in itself, it formed the edge or
turn in the incline of Henchard's fortunes. On that day--almost at that minute-he passed the ridge of prosperity and honour, and began to descend rapidly on
the other side. It was strange how soon he sank in esteem. Socially he had
received a startling fillip downwards; and, having already lost commercial
buoyancy from rash transactions, the velocity of his descent in both aspects
became accelerated every hour.
Thesaurus
buoyancy: (n) animation, buoyance,
magistrates: (n) bench, courts, judges.
whet.
retort: (n, v) answer, return, riposte;
cheerfulness, levity, lightness, spring, freak: (n, v) crotchet, caprice; (adj, n)
eccentric; (n) oddity, crank, fanatic,
(n) response, rejoinder, repartee,
floatage, enthusiasm, sprightliness,
comeback; (v) respond, repay, rejoin,
floatability, elasticity. ANTONYMS:
nut, monster, fit, whim, fad.
(n) depression, dejection, defeatism, incline: (v) cant, dispose, bend; (n, v)
alembic.
slope, bias, dip, tilt; (n) ascent,
unacquainted: (adj) unaware,
pessimism.
burgher: (n) burgess, citizen, cockney, gradient, grade, inclination.
unaccustomed, strange, oblivious,
ANTONYMS: (v) indispose, level; (n) ignorant, unapprized, unapprised,
oppidan, townsman, commoner, cit,
Anthony burgess.
hollow, descent.
unweeting, inexperienced, innocent,
fillip: (n) incentive, incitement, spur, interspace: (n) interval, subsoil,
not learned. ANTONYMS: (adj)
bonus, rowel, whip, provocation,
substratum, distance, hiatus, lacuna,
accustomed, knowledgeable,
encouragement; (v) quicken, irritate,
space, backspace.
conscious, informed.
252
He now gazed more at the pavements and less at the house- fronts when he
walked about; more at the feet and leggings of men, and less into the pupils of
their eyes with the blazing regard which formerly had made them blink.%
New events combined to undo him. It had been a bad year for others besides
himself, and the heavy failure of a debtor whom he had trusted generously
completed the overthrow of his tottering credit. And now, in his desperation, he
failed to preserve that strict correspondence between bulk and sample which is
the soul of commerce in grain. For this, one of his men was mainly to blame; that
worthy, in his great unwisdom, having picked over the sample of an enormous
quantity of second-rate corn which Henchard had in hand, and removed the
pinched, blasted, and smutted grains in great numbers. The produce if honestly
offered would have created no scandal; but the blunder of misrepresentation,
coming at such a moment, dragged Henchard's name into the ditch.
The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind. One day Elizabeth-Jane
was passing the King's Arms, when she saw people bustling in and out more
than usual where there was no market. A bystander informed her, with some
surprise at her ignorance, that it was a meeting of the Commissioners under Mr.
Henchard's bankruptcy. She felt quite tearful, and when she heard that he was
present in the hotel she wished to go in and see him, but was advised not to
intrude that day.
The room in which debtor and creditors had assembled was a front one, and
Henchard, looking out of the window, had caught sight of Elizabeth-Jane
through the wire blind. His examination had closed, and the creditors were
leaving. The appearance of Elizabeth threw him into a reverie, till, turning his
face from the window, and towering above all the rest, he called their attention
for a moment more. His countenance had somewhat changed from its flush of
prosperity; the black hair and whiskers were the same as ever, but a film of ash
was over the rest.
"Gentlemen," he said, "over and above the assets that we've been talking
about, and that appear on the balance-sheet, there be these. It all belongs to ye,
as much as everything else I've got, and I don't wish to keep it from you, not I."
Thesaurus
blunder: (n, v) mistake, stumble, slip,
botch; (adj, n) fault; (n) error, gaffe,
trip; (v) fail, fumble; (adj, n, v) miss.
ANTONYMS: (v) succeed, correct,
accomplish, achieve; (n) achievement.
bustling: (adj) lively, busy, boisterous,
buzzing, brisk, alive, vibrant, noisy,
tumultuous; (v) stirring, full of
incident. ANTONYM: (adj) inactive.
misrepresentation: (n) deceit, falsity,
falsification, false statement,
misstatement, falsehood, forgery, lie,
exaggeration, fraudulence, deception.
ANTONYM: (n) correction.
second-rate: (adj) second-class,
mediocre, secondary, mean,
ordinary, lousy, unimportant,
shoddy, low, poor; (n) second best.
smutted: (adj) obscene, smutty.
tottering: (adj) unsteady, ramshackle,
easily shaken, tottery, sick, rocky,
broken, trembling, cracked; (v)
drooping; (n) convulsion.
undo: (v) loosen, open, annul, cancel,
separate, disentangle, untie, unfold,
reverse, disconnect, nullify.
ANTONYMS: (v) attach, close, do,
wrap, tangle, validate, knot, lock,
permit, unite, approve.
unwisdom: (n) folly, ignorance,
unintelligence.
whiskers: (n) fuzz, goatee, hair,
imperial, face fungus, beaver,
mustache, moustache, sideburns,
facial hair, sideboards.
Thomas Hardy
253
Saying this, he took his gold watch from his pocket and laid it on the table; then
his purse--the yellow canvas money- bag, such as was carried by all farmers and
dealers--untying it, and shaking the money out upon the table beside the watch.
The latter he drew back quickly for an instant, to remove the hair-guard made
and given him by Lucetta. "There, now you have all I've got in the world," he
said. "And I wish for your sakes 'twas more."
The creditors, farmers almost to a man, looked at the watch, and at the
money, and into the street; when Farmer James Everdene of Weatherbury
spoke.%
"No, no, Henchard," he said warmly. "We don't want that. 'Tis honourable in
ye; but keep it. What do you say, neighbours--do ye agree?"
"Ay, sure: we don't wish it at all," said Grower, another creditor.
"Let him keep it, of course," murmured another in the background--a silent,
reserved young man named Boldwood; and the rest responded unanimously.
"Well," said the senior Commissioner, addressing Henchard, "though the case
is a desperate one, I am bound to admit that I have never met a debtor who
behaved more fairly. I've proved the balance-sheet to be as honestly made out as
it could possibly be; we have had no trouble; there have been no evasions and no
concealments. The rashness of dealing which led to this unhappy situation is
obvious enough; but as far as I can see every attempt has been made to avoid
wronging anybody."
Henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them perceive, and
he turned aside to the window again. A general murmur of agreement followed
the Commissioner's words, and the meeting dispersed. When they were gone
Henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him. "'Tisn't mine by rights,"
he said to himself. "Why the devil didn't they take it?--I don't want what don't
belong to me!" Moved by a recollection he took the watch to the maker's just
opposite, sold it there and then for what the tradesman offered, and went with
the proceeds to one among the smaller of his creditors, a cottager of Durnover in
straitened circumstances, to whom he handed the money.
Thesaurus
cottager: (n) cottar, denizen, dweller,
indiscretion, carelessness,
nemine contradicente, nem con,
adventurism. ANTONYMS: (n)
inhabitant, peasant, cottier, cotter.
solidly, commonly, generally,
creditor: (n) holder of a claim, debtee,
caution, consideration, deliberation,
completely, accordantly.
warmly: (adv) cordially, ardently,
claimant, lender, lessor, loaner, credit patience, discretion, carefulness,
giver, mortgagee.
forethought.
hotly, genially, affectionately,
debtor: (n) obligor, defaulter,
recollection: (n, v) mind; (n)
vigorously, fervently, zealously,
borrower, debitor, bankrupt,
reminiscence, recall, anamnesis,
eagerly, strongly, pleasantly.
deadbeat, debit, welsher, levanter,
remembrance, recognition, memento, ANTONYMS: (adv) coolly,
lame duck, stag.
memorial, commemoration, memoir, inhospitably, sourly, disagreeably,
rashness: (n) temerity, precipitation,
retrospect.
indifferently, frostily, roughly,
recklessness, hastiness, imprudence, unanimously: (adv) harmoniously, in
rudely, apathetically.
wronging: (n) tribulation.
heedlessness, folly, precipitancy,
chorus, consentiently, collectively,
254
When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned, and the auctions
were in progress, there was quite a sympathetic reaction in the town, which till
then for some time past had done nothing but condemn him. Now that
Henchard's whole career was pictured distinctly to his neighbours, and they
could see how admirably he had used his one talent of energy to create a
position of affluence out of absolutely nothing-- which was really all he could
show when he came to the town as a journeyman hay-trusser, with his wimble
and knife in his basket--they wondered and regretted his fall.%
Try as she might, Elizabeth could never meet with him. She believed in him
still, though nobody else did; and she wanted to be allowed to forgive him for his
roughness to her, and to help him in his trouble.
She wrote to him; he did not reply. She then went to his house--the great
house she had lived in so happily for a time--with its front of dun brick, vitrified
here and there and its heavy sash-bars--but Henchard was to be found there no
more. The ex-Mayor had left the home of his prosperity, and gone into Jopp's
cottage by the Priory Mill--the sad purlieu to which he had wandered on the
night of his discovery that she was not his daughter. Thither she went.
Elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on this spot to retire to, but
assumed that necessity had no choice. Trees which seemed old enough to have
been planted by the friars still stood around, and the back hatch of the original
mill yet formed a cascade which had raised its terrific roar for centuries. The
cottage itself was built of old stones from the long dismantled Priory, scraps of
tracery, moulded window-jambs, and arch-labels, being mixed in with the
rubble of the walls.
In this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms, Jopp, whom Henchard had
employed, abused, cajoled, and dismissed by turns, being the householder. But
even here her stepfather could not be seen.
"Not by his daughter?" pleaded Elizabeth.
"By nobody--at present: that's his order," she was informed.
Thesaurus
admirably: (adv) superbly, perfectly,
castigate, attaint, deplore, sentence,
excellently, admirable, marvellously, excoriate, upbraid, knock, doom,
heroically, bravely, brilliantly, nicely, criticize. ANTONYMS: (v) praise,
creditably, ably. ANTONYMS: (adv)
approve, commend, free, pardon,
badly, inadequately, dishonorably,
absolve, acquit, clear, exonerate,
execrably, incompetently, poorly.
release, support.
cascade: (n) torrent, deluge, shower,
dismantled: (adj) razed, destroyed.
falls, cataract; (n, v) fall, stream,
journeyman: (n) artificer, artisan,
spout, overflow; (v) gush, flow.
Wright, mechanic, hack, man, glazier,
ANTONYMS: (n, v) trickle, dribble;
goldbeater, day laborer, hairdresser,
(v) drip, seep, drizzle; (n) drought.
diesinker.
condemn: (v) censure, reproach,
neighbours: (n) neighborhood.
rubble: (n) junk, detritus, rubbish,
wreckage, garbage, dust; (adj, n)
waste, trash; (adj) refuse,
offscourings, orts.
scraps: (n) garbage, odds and ends,
scrap, bits, food waste, leftover, trash,
waste, oddments, leftovers, residue.
tracery: (v) grille, lattice, gridiron,
grating, plait, trellis; (n) design,
decoration, molding, mesh, listel.
vitrified: (adj) glazed, vitreous, shiny,
thick.
Thomas Hardy
255
Afterwards she was passing by the corn-stores and hay-barns which had
been the headquarters of his business. She knew that he ruled there no longer;
but it was with amazement that she regarded the familiar gateway. A smear of
decisive lead-coloured paint had been laid on to obliterate Henchard's name,
though its letters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog. Over these, in fresh
white, spread the name of Farfrae.%
Abel Whittle was edging his skeleton in at the wicket, and she said, "Mr.
Farfrae is master here?"
"Yaas, Miss Henchet," he said, "Mr. Farfrae have bought the concern and all
of we work-folk with it; and 'tis better for us than 'twas--though I shouldn't say
that to you as a daughter-law. We work harder, but we bain't made afeard now.
It was fear made my few poor hairs so thin! No busting out, no slamming of
doors, no meddling with yer eternal soul and all that; and though 'tis a shilling a
week less I'm the richer man; for what's all the world if yer mind is always in a
larry, Miss Henchet?"
The intelligence was in a general sense true; and Henchard's stores, which
had remained in a paralyzed condition during the settlement of his bankruptcy,
were stirred into activity again when the new tenant had possession.
Thenceforward the full sacks, looped with the shining chain, went scurrying up
and down under the cat-head, hairy arms were thrust out from the different
door-ways, and the grain was hauled in; trusses of hay were tossed anew in and
out of the barns, and the wimbles creaked; while the scales and steel-yards began
to be busy where guess-work had formerly been the rule.
Thesaurus
dimly: (adv) obscurely, darkly, faintly,
dully, duskily, vaguely, shadowily,
hazily, gloomily, somberly; (adj, adv)
palely. ANTONYMS: (adv) clearly,
strongly, distinctly.
edging: (n) border, edge, brim, brink,
lace, trimming, boundary, galloon,
hem, list, frame.
hairy: (adj) hirsute, bushy, dangerous,
downy, woolly, bristly, fleecy, rough,
fuzzy, shaggy, fluffy. ANTONYMS:
(adj) hairless, safe, tidy, sleek.
meddling: (adj) busy, inquisitive,
curious, meddlesome, intrusive,
officious, nosy, dabbling,
impertinent, busybodied; (adj, n)
prying.
obliterate: (v) annihilate, extinguish,
eradicate, expunge, efface, wipe out,
kill, destroy, cancel, blot out; (adj, v)
abolish. ANTONYMS: (v) create,
build, protect, engrave, insert.
scurrying: (adj) faster, fast.
shilling: (n) York shilling, Tanzanian
shilling, British shilling, Kenyan
shilling, Ugandan shilling, Somalian
shilling, dock, cork, farthing, coin,
cheat.
smear: (adj, n, v) blot, smudge; (n, v)
slur, libel, slander, stain; (adj, v) blur;
(v) malign, anoint; (n) blotch,
aspersion. ANTONYMS: (v) praise,
compliment, remove.
wicket: (n) lattice, hatch, door, grille,
portal, hoop, ostiary, postern, porch,
grill, vestibule.
Thomas Hardy
257
CHAPTER 32
Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town. The first, of
weather-stained brick, was immediately at the end of High Street, where a
diverging branch from that thoroughfare ran round to the low-lying Durnover
lanes; so that the precincts of the bridge formed the merging point of
respectability and indigence. The second bridge, of stone, was further out on the
highway--in fact, fairly in the meadows, though still within the town boundary.%
These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each was
worn down to obtuseness, partly by weather, more by friction from generations
of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year made restless
movements against these parapets, as they had stood there meditating on the
aspect of affairs. In the case of the more friable bricks and stones even the flat
faces were worn into hollows by the same mixed mechanism. The masonry of
the top was clamped with iron at each joint; since it had been no uncommon
thing for desperate men to wrench the coping off and throw it down the river, in
reckless defiance of the magistrates.
For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of the town; those who
had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in crime. Why the unhappy
hereabout usually chose the bridges for their meditations in preference to a
railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so clear.
Thesaurus
diverging: (adj) branching,
divergingly, centrifugal, divaricate,
oblique.
friable: (adj) crumbly, crisp, brittle,
frail, breakable, powdery, loose,
short, dusty, light, arenaceous.
indigence: (n) need, poverty, beggary,
penury, pauperism, neediness,
misery, impoverishment, necessity;
(n, v) destitution, want.
ANTONYMS: (n) luxury, wealth.
low-lying: (adj) low.
masonry: (n) brickwork, stonework,
railing: (n) balustrade, rail, barrier,
construction, bricklaying, structure,
guardrail, banister, fence, pale,
trade, dry masonry, craft, freemasons paling, breastwork, handrail; (adj, n)
collectively.
invective.
meditating: (n) conception.
sobriety: (n) temperance, seriousness,
meditations: (n) contemplation,
soberness, graveness, abstinence,
consideration, cogitation.
earnestness, composure, sedateness,
obtuseness: (n) bluntness, dulness,
staidness; (adj, n) gravity; (adj)
rationality. ANTONYMS: (n) excess,
stupidity, dimness, ignorance,
stolidity, density, heaviness,
drunkenness, flippancy.
stile: (n) bar, flight of stairs, upright,
drowsiness, impenetrability,
obtusity. ANTONYM: (n) acuteness.
vertical, step, barrier, montant.
258
There was a marked difference of quality between the personages who
haunted the near bridge of brick and the personages who haunted the far one of
stone. Those of lowest character preferred the former, adjoining the town; they
did not mind the glare of the public eye. They had been of comparatively no
account during their successes; and though they might feel dispirited, they had
no particular sense of shame in their ruin. Their hands were mostly kept in their
pockets; they wore a leather strap round their hips or knees, and boots that
required a great deal of lacing, but seemed never to get any. Instead of sighing at
their adversities they spat, and instead of saying the iron had entered into their
souls they said they were down on their luck. Jopp in his time of distress had
often stood here; so had Mother Cuxsom, Christopher Coney, and poor Abel
Whittle.%
The miserables who would pause on the remoter bridge were of a politer
stamp. They included bankrupts, hypochondriacs, persons who were what is
called "out of a situation" from fault or lucklessness, the inefficient of the
professional class--shabby-genteel men, who did not know how to get rid of the
weary time between breakfast and dinner, and the yet more weary time between
dinner and dark. The eye of this species were mostly directed over the parapet
upon the running water below. A man seen there looking thus fixedly into the
river was pretty sure to be one whom the world did not treat kindly for some
reason or other. While one in straits on the townward bridge did not mind who
saw him so, and kept his back to the parapet to survey the passers-by, one in
straits on this never faced the road, never turned his head at coming footsteps,
but, sensitive to his own condition, watched the current whenever a stranger
approached, as if some strange fish interested him, though every finned thing
had been poached out of the river years before.
There and thus they would muse; if their grief were the grief of oppression
they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were poverty, wish themselves
millionaires; if sin, they would wish they were saints or angels; if despised love,
that they were some much-courted Adonis of county fame. Some had been
known to stand and think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually
Thesaurus
despised: (adj) scorned, despicable,
fixedly: (adv) steadily, steadfastly,
hated, abject, disparaged, mean,
regularly, intently, stably, setly,
attaching disgrace, unpopular,
permanently, rigidly, unwaveringly,
unloved, reviled, opprobrious.
surely, resolutely.
dispirited: (adj) depressed,
haunted: (adj) ghostly, ghostlike,
disconsolate, downcast, discouraged, phantom, taken up, preoccupied,
blue, crestfallen, dismal, down,
possessed, unearthly, magical, mad,
downhearted, disheartened,
infatuated, concerned.
melancholy. ANTONYMS: (adj)
muse: (v) meditate, ponder, deliberate,
cheerful, optimistic, euphoric,
consider, cogitate, reflect, brood,
enthused, heartened, happy,
ruminate, speculate, think, mull.
ANTONYM: (v) wander.
enthusiastic, positive.
poached: (adj) boiled, stewed.
spat: (n, v) squabble, altercation, tiff,
bicker, dispute, wrangle, row; (n)
gaiter, argument, bickering, fuss.
ANTONYM: (n) agreement.
straits: (n) pass, head, distress, sound,
isthmus, dire straits, destitution,
point, crack, chief, caput.
strap: (n, v) lash, whip; (n) strop, leash,
rein, shoulder strap, band, bar; (v)
bind, flog; (adj, n) tie. ANTONYM: (v)
untie.
Thomas Hardy
259
they had allowed their poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were
discovered the next morning out of reach of their troubles, either here or in the
deep pool called Blackwater, a little higher up the river.%
To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunates had come before him,
his way thither being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of the town. Here
he was standing one windy afternoon when Durnover church clock struck five.
While the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears across the damp intervening
flat a man passed behind him and greeted Henchard by name. Henchard turned
slightly and saw that the corner was Jopp, his old foreman, now employed
elsewhere, to whom, though he hated him, he had gone for lodgings because
Jopp was the one man in Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen
corn-merchant despised to the point of indifference.
Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp stopped.
"He and she are gone into their new house to-day," said Jopp.
"Oh," said Henchard absently. "Which house is that?"
"Your old one."
"Gone into my house?" And starting up Henchard added, " my house of all
others in the town!"
"Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn't, it can do 'ee no
harm that he's the man."
It was quite true: he felt that it was doing him no harm. Farfrae, who had
already taken the yards and stores, had acquired possession of the house for the
obvious convenience of its contiguity. And yet this act of his taking up residence
within those roomy chambers while he, their former tenant, lived in a cottage,
galled Henchard indescribably.
Jopp continued: "And you heard of that fellow who bought all the best
furniture at your sale? He was bidding for no other than Farfrae all the while! It
has never been moved out of the house, as he'd already got the lease."
"My furniture too! Surely he'll buy my body and soul likewise!"
Thesaurus
absently: (adv) absentmindedly,
missingly, lackingly, inattentively,
wantingly, offly, deficiently, lostly,
removedly, preoccupiedly, outly.
bidding: (n) behest, order, dictate,
charge, bid, request, call, dictation,
direction, fiat; (adj) imperative.
contiguity: (n) contact, vicinity,
contiguousness, touch, closeness,
proximity, abuttal, neighborhood,
propinquity, approximation, liaison.
galled: (adj) chafed, uncomfortable,
chilly, bleak, bare, bald, angry,
painful.
intervening: (adj) middle, interstitial,
intervene, interposed, intermediate
colors, mediate, mesne; (adj, v)
intercurrent, interjacent; (v)
intervenient; (n) middler.
ANTONYM: (adj) permanent.
riverside: (n) riverbank, waterfront,
shore, river bank, riverfront, harbor,
sea front.
roomy: (adj, n) capacious; (adj) broad,
extensive, large, commodious, ample,
voluminous, expansive, big, rangy,
comprehensive. ANTONYMS: (adj)
small, narrow, airless, tiny, tight.
windy: (adj) gusty, verbose, blowy,
flatulent, wordy, breezy,
tempestuous, empty, airy, prolix,
bombastic. ANTONYMS: (adj) calm,
still, straight, uncommunicative,
unresponsive, airless, pleasant,
direct.
260
"There's no saying he won't, if you be willing to sell." And having planted
these wounds in the heart of his once imperious master Jopp went on his way;
while Henchard stared and stared into the racing river till the bridge seemed
moving backward with him.%
The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey, When the landscape
looked like a picture blotted in with ink, another traveller approached the great
stone bridge. He was driving a gig, his direction being also townwards. On the
round of the middle of the arch the gig stopped. "Mr Henchard?" came from it in
the voice of Farfrae. Henchard turned his face.
Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told the man who accompanied
him to drive home; while he alighted and went up to his former friend.
"I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?" he said. "Is it
true? I have a real reason for asking."
Henchard withheld his answer for several instants, and then said, "Yes; it is
true. I am going where you were going to a few years ago, when I prevented
you and got you to bide here. 'Tis turn and turn about, isn't it! Do ye mind how
we stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I persuaded 'ee to stay? You then
stood without a chattel to your name, and I was the master of the house in corn
Street. But now I stand without a stick or a rag, and the master of that house is
you."
"Yes, yes; that's so! It's the way o' the warrld," said Farfrae.
"Ha, ha, true!" cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of jocularity.
"Up and down! I'm used to it. What's the odds after all!"
"Now listen to me, if it's no taking up your time," said Farfrae, "just as I
listened to you. Don't go. Stay at home."
"But I can do nothing else, man!" said Henchard scornfully. "The little money
I have will just keep body and soul together for a few weeks, and no more. I
have not felt inclined to go back to journey-work yet; but I can't stay doing
nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere."
Thesaurus
arch: (n, v) curve, bow, bend; (n)
dome, curvature, acute; (adj) wily,
shrewd, sly; (v) vault; (adj, n, v)
round. ANTONYMS: (adj) smallest,
petty, modest, minor, frank, least,
lesser, inferior, forthright, guileless,
humble.
chattel: (n) movables, slave, personal,
personal estate, personal property,
personalty, movable, labor,
commodity, personal chattel.
emigrating: (adj) migrant, transient.
imperious: (adj) haughty,
derogatorily, condescendingly,
domineering, authoritative, arbitrary, contumeliously, sneeringly,
imperative, masterful, dictatorial,
arrogantly, sarcastically, derisively,
mockingly. ANTONYM: (adv)
commanding, lordly, magisterial,
despotic. ANTONYM: (adj)
humbly.
townwards: (adv) townward.
subservient.
jocularity: (n) jest, jocosity, waggery, traveller: (n) passenger, tourist,
humorousness, joke, pleasantry,
wanderer, voyager, wayfarer, mover,
facetiousness, drollery, play,
itinerant, courier, entrant, swimmer,
recreation, jocoseness.
outlander.
scornfully: (adv) disdainfully,
withheld: (adj) hidden, uncommitted.
ANTONYM: (adj) ongoing.
disparagingly, haughtily,
Thomas Hardy
261
"No; but what I propose is this--if ye will listen. Come and live in your old
house. We can spare some rooms very well--I am sure my wife would not mind
it at all--until there's an opening for ye."
Henchard started. Probably the picture drawn by the unsuspecting Donald
of himself under the same roof with Lucetta was too striking to be received with
equanimity. "No, no," he said gruffly; "we should quarrel."
"You should hae a part to yourself," said Farfrae; "and nobody to interfere wi'
you. It will be a deal healthier than down there by the river where you live
now."
Still Henchard refused. "You don't know what you ask," he said. "However,
I can do no less than thank 'ee."
They walked into the town together side by side, as they had done when
Henchard persuaded the young Scotchman to remain. "Will you come in and
have some supper?" said Farfrae when they reached the middle of the town,
where their paths diverged right and left.%
"No, no."
"By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot. I bought a good deal of your furniture.
"So I have heard."
"Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself; but I wish ye to
pick out all that you care to have--such things as may be endeared to ye by
associations, or particularly suited to your use. And take them to your own
house--it will not be depriving me, we can do with less very well, and I will have
plenty of opportunities of getting more."
"What--give it to me for nothing?" said Henchard. "But you paid the creditors
for it!"
"Ah, yes; but maybe it's worth more to you than it is to me."
Henchard was a little moved. "I--sometimes think I've wronged 'ee!" he said,
in tones which showed the disquietude that the night shades hid in his face. He
shook Farfrae abruptly by the hand, and hastened away as if unwilling to betray
Thesaurus
depriving: (adj) scanty, privative,
grudging, causing privation, stingy.
disquietude: (n) anxiety, agitation,
uneasiness, concern, alarm,
apprehension, commotion, fear,
unrest, turmoil; (adj, n) inquietude.
endeared: (adj) dear.
gruffly: (adv) sullenly, hoarsely,
harshly, abruptly, roughly, huskily,
bluffly, grumpily, throatily, coarsely,
rudely. ANTONYMS: (adv) kindly,
politely, gently, smoothly, tactfully.
healthier: (adj) fitter. ANTONYM: (adj)
worse.
shades: (n) shade, sunglasses, dark
glasses, shadow, glasses, blind,
awning, roller blind, eyeglasses.
suited: (adj, v) proper, fit, fitted,
adapted, convenient; (adj)
appropriate, good, apt, eligible,
capable, useful. ANTONYMS: (adj)
incompatible, wrong, inappropriate.
unsuspecting: (adj) gullible, naive,
innocent, unsuspicious, credulous,
unaware, trustful, unconscious,
unwary, not suspicious, unwitting.
ANTONYMS: (adj) suspicious,
shrewd, prepared, expecting,
conscious, realizing.
unwilling: (adj) involuntary, loath,
disinclined, averse, recalcitrant,
backward, indisposed, grudging,
loth, adverse, forced. ANTONYMS:
(adj) inclined, amenable, keen,
prepared, ready, eager, disposed,
agreeable, accepting, happy.
262
himself further. Farfrae saw him turn through the thoroughfare into Bull Stake
and vanish down towards the Priory Mill.%
Meanwhile Elizabeth-Jane, in an upper room no larger than the Prophet's
chamber, and with the silk attire of her palmy days packed away in a box, was
netting with great industry between the hours which she devoted to studying
such books as she could get hold of.
Her lodgings being nearly opposite her stepfather's former residence, now
Farfrae's, she could see Donald and Lucetta speeding in and out of their door
with all the bounding enthusiasm of their situation. She avoided looking that
way as much as possible, but it was hardly in human nature to keep the eyes
averted when the door slammed.
While living on thus quietly she heard the news that Henchard had caught
cold and was confined to his room-- possibly a result of standing about the
meads in damp weather. She went off to his house at once. This time she was
determined not to be denied admittance, and made her way upstairs. He was
sitting up in the bed with a greatcoat round him, and at first resented her
intrusion. "Go away-- go away," he said. "I don't like to see 'ee!"
"But, father--"
"I don't like to see 'ee," he repeated.
However, the ice was broken, and she remained. She made the room more
comfortable, gave directions to the people below, and by the time she went away
had reconciled her stepfather to her visiting him.
The effect, either of her ministrations or of her mere presence, was a rapid
recovery. He soon was well enough to go out; and now things seemed to wear a
new colour in his eyes. He no longer thought of emigration, and thought more
of Elizabeth. The having nothing to do made him more dreary than any other
circumstance; and one day, with better views of Farfrae than he had held for
some time, and a sense that honest work was not a thing to be ashamed of, he
stoically went down to Farfrae's yard and asked to be taken on as a journeyman
hay-trusser. He was engaged at once. This hiring of Henchard was done
Thesaurus
damp: (adj) moist, muggy, clammy,
cool, dank; (v) check, chill, deaden,
break; (n) moisture, dampness.
ANTONYMS: (n) dryness; (adj)
parched, arid, dried, fresh, hard.
emigration: (n) migration, exodus,
demigration, evacuation,
immigration, mass departure; (v)
intermigration, remigration.
greatcoat: (n) coat, topcoat, capote,
chesterfield, surcoat, Ulster.
intrusion: (n) infringement,
encroachment, disturbance,
interruption, inroad, trespass,
invasion, violation, incursion,
disruption, entry.
palmy: (adj) booming, flourishing,
prosperous, successful, thriving,
halcyon, palmary, auspicious, lucky,
favourable, bright.
reconciled: (adj) consistent, resigned,
serene, meet; (v) made friends,
affriended. ANTONYM: (adj)
unreconciled.
slammed: (adj) tight.
speeding: (n) acceleration, quickening,
hurrying, fastness, f number,
scudding, focal ratio, amphetamine;
(adj) active, hastening; (adv) faster.
studying: (n) poring over, perusal,
study, learning, reading, speculation.
vanish: (n, v) disappear; (adj, v) fade;
(v) disperse, pass, go, die, dissipate,
evaporate, depart, flee, melt away.
ANTONYMS: (v) come, arrive, wax,
stay.
Thomas Hardy
263
through a foreman, Farfrae feeling that it was undesirable to come personally in
contact with the ex-corn-factor more than was absolutely necessary. While
anxious to help him he was well aware by this time of his uncertain temper, and
thought reserved relations best. For the same reason his orders to Henchard to
proceed to this and that country farm trussing in the usual way were always
given through a third person.%
For a time these arrangements worked well, it being the custom to truss in
the respective stack-yards, before bringing it away, the hay bought at the
different farms about the neighbourhood; so that Henchard was often absent at
such places the whole week long. When this was all done, and Henchard had
become in a measure broken in, he came to work daily on the home premises like
the rest. And thus the once flourishing merchant and Mayor and what not stood
as a day-labourer in the barns and granaries he formerly had owned.
"I have worked as a journeyman before now, ha'n't I?" he would say in his
defiant way; "and why shouldn't I do it again?" But he looked a far different
journeyman from the one he had been in his earlier days. Then he had worn
clean, suitable clothes, light and cheerful in hue; leggings yellow as marigolds,
corduroys immaculate as new flax, and a neckerchief like a flower-garden. Now
he wore the remains of an old blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty
silk hat, and a once black satin stock, soiled and shabby. Clad thus he went to
and fro, still comparatively an active man--for he was not much over forty--and
saw with the other men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in and out the green
door that led to the garden, and the big house, and Lucetta.
At the beginning of the winter it was rumoured about Casterbridge that Mr.
Farfrae, already in the Town Council, was to be proposed for Mayor in a year or
two.
"Yes, she was wise, she was wise in her generation!" said Henchard to himself
when he heard of this one day on his way to Farfrae's hay-barn. He thought it
over as he wimbled his bonds, and the piece of news acted as a reviviscent breath
to that old view of his--of Donald Farfrae as his triumphant rival who rode
rough-shod over him.
Thesaurus
clad: (adj) dressed, attired, clothed,
coated, garbed; (n) cladding; (prep)
gowned; (v) costume, shod, dress,
attire. ANTONYMS: (adj) undressed,
unclothed.
defiant: (adj) bold, rebellious,
audacious, resistant, brazen,
stubborn, unruly, mutinous, rude,
recalcitrant, obstinate. ANTONYMS:
(adj) submissive, respectful,
accepting, acquiescent, compliant,
conforming, cooperative, loyal, meek,
amenable.
mannerly, genteel, gentle, well-bred;
flax: (n) hemp, lint, line, feature,
(n) gentleman. ANTONYMS: (adj)
clothesline, flex, figure, boundary; (v) rude, unbecoming.
neckerchief: (n) kerchief, neckcloth,
hit, trounce, flog.
flourishing: (adj) thriving, palmy,
scarf, shawl.
rusty: (adj) ancient, out of practice,
healthy, successful, luxuriant,
booming, verdant, lush, auspicious,
intractable, old, corroded, deaf to
favorable, rich. ANTONYMS: (adj)
reason, exceptious, cantankerous; (v)
arid, declining, fading, poor,
moldy, raw, mildewed.
truss: (v) bandage, bind, fasten,
unhealthy.
gentlemanly: (adj) courteous, polite,
bundle, tie up; (n, v) pack, prop; (n)
frame, stay, fagot; (adj) pinion.
chivalrous, refined, gallant, suave,
264
"A fellow of his age going to be Mayor, indeed!" he murmured with a cornerdrawn smile on his mouth. "But 'tis her money that floats en upward. Ha-ha-how cust odd it is! Here be I, his former master, working for him as man, and he
the man standing as master, with my house and my furniture and my what-youmay-call wife all his own."
He repeated these things a hundred times a day. During the whole period of
his acquaintance with Lucetta he had never wished to claim her as his own so
desperately as he now regretted her loss. It was no mercenary hankering after
her fortune that moved him, though that fortune had been the means of making
her so much the more desired by giving her the air of independence and
sauciness which attracts men of his composition. It had given her servants,
house, and fine clothing--a setting that invested Lucetta with a startling novelty
in the eyes of him who had known her in her narrow days.%
He accordingly lapsed into moodiness, and at every allusion to the
possibility of Farfrae's near election to the municipal chair his former hatred of
the Scotchman returned. Concurrently with this he underwent a moral change.
It resulted in his significantly saying every now and then, in tones of
recklessness, "Only a fortnight more!"--"Only a dozen days!" and so forth,
lessening his figures day by day.
"Why d'ye say only a dozen days?" asked Solomon Longways as he worked
beside Henchard in the granary weighing oats.
"Because in twelve days I shall be released from my oath."
"What oath?"
"The oath to drink no spirituous liquid. In twelve days it will be twenty-one
years since I swore it, and then I mean to enjoy myself, please God!"
Elizabeth-Jane sat at her window one Sunday, and while there she heard in
the street below a conversation which introduced Henchard's name. She was
wondering what was the matter, when a third person who was passing by asked
the question in her mind.
Thesaurus
allusion: (n) innuendo, reference, cue, ANTONYMS: (adj) altruistic,
audacity, neglect. ANTONYMS: (n)
suggestion, mention, intimation,
philanthropic.
care, carefulness, consideration,
moodiness: (n) temperament,
pointer, insinuation, implication,
forethought, parsimony, deliberation,
indication, clue.
depression, capriciousness,
discretion, regard, restraint,
hankering: (n) craving, desire, wish,
grumpiness, petulance, sullenness,
thoughtfulness.
eagerness, yen, thirst, avidity,
humorousness, ill humor, ill humour, sauciness: (n) pertness, impudence,
appetite, yearning, urge, hunger.
jocularity, unhappiness. ANTONYM: insolence, gall, cheek, flippancy,
ANTONYMS: (n) aversion, dislike.
(n) cheeriness.
perkiness, archness, cheekiness,
mercenary: (adj, n) hireling; (adj, v)
recklessness: (n, v) imprudence; (n)
effrontery, sauce.
sordid; (adj) mercantile, materialistic, rashness, carelessness, desperation, spirituous: (adj) spiritous, intoxicating,
covetous, commercial, greedy, venal, extravagance, heedlessness,
heady.
avaricious, selfish; (v) illiberal.
underwent: (v) endure, tolerate.
negligence, temerity, adventurism,
Thomas Hardy
265
"Michael Henchard have busted out drinking after taking nothing for
twenty-one years!"%
Elizabeth-Jane jumped up, put on her things, and went out.
Thesaurus
busted: (v) broke, out of commission;
everything, some; (n) all.
(adj) broken down, damaged, burst, taking: (adj) fetching, attractive,
ruined, not working, destitute,
contagious, winning, catching,
fascinating, captivating; (n) capture,
disrepair, had it, impaired.
drinking: (n) consumption, ingestion, receipt, angry mood, acharnement.
ANTONYM: (n) rejection.
intake, potation, drunkenness,
things: (n) gear, belongings,
crapulence, boozing, drinkable,
uptake, intemperateness, booze.
equipment, garb, garment, clothes,
nothing: (adv, n) naught; (adj, n) nil,
paraphernalia, goods, life, property,
null; (n) nobody, cipher, nihil,
palliament.
nonentity, trifle, nix, aught, cypher. went: (v) walked, proceeded.
ANTONYMS: (pron) anything,
Thomas Hardy
267
CHAPTER 33
At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivial custom--scarcely
recognized as such, yet none the less established. On the afternoon of every
Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridge journeymen--steady church- goers
and sedate characters--having attended service, filed from the church doors
across the way to the Three Mariners Inn. The rear was usually brought up by
the choir, with their bass-viols, fiddles, and flutes under their arms.%
The great point, the point of honour, on these sacred occasions was for each
man to strictly limit himself to half-a-pint of liquor. This scrupulosity was so
well understood by the landlord that the whole company was served in cups of
that measure. They were all exactly alike-- straight-sided, with two leafless limetrees done in eel- brown on the sides--one towards the drinker's lips, the other
confronting his 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.
Thesaurus
choir: (n) quire, chancel, choral
convivial: (adj) companionable,
schnapps; (n, v) drink; (adj, n) liquid.
monolithic: (adj) monumental,
society, choral group, crypt,
happy, friendly, frolicsome, genial,
Golgotha, nave, transept, vestry,
social, sociable, pleasant, hospitable,
uniform, largest, monolithal, biggest,
gregarious, jovial. ANTONYMS: (adj) bigger, concrete, big, totalitarian,
chorister, ensemble.
comrade: (n) colleague, chum, buddy, solemn, taciturn, sober, serious, grim, unvaried, large.
pristine: (adj) original, primordial,
fellow, compeer, partner, brother,
dull, unfriendly, antisocial,
mate, familiar; (adj, n) associate, ally. unwelcoming, frosty, shy.
primeval, primary, pure, clean,
ANTONYMS: (n) stranger, enemy,
leafless: (adj) bald, bare, aphyllous,
ancient, fresh, former, old, first.
leaveless, hairless. ANTONYM: (adj) ANTONYMS: (adj) used, torn,
foe, opponent.
confronting: (n) braving, facing,
leafy.
tattered, ragged, decrepit, shabby,
liquor: (n) fluid, broth, alcohol, booze, flawed, soiled, dirty.
tackling, opposition, grappling,
coping with; (adj) opposed.
scrupulosity: (n) precision.
brew, brandy, arrack, spirits,
268
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?"
Thesaurus
brew: (n) beer, drink, concoction,
blend, mixture, ale; (v) concoct, make,
saturate, prepare, knead.
ANTONYM: (v) erupt.
feat: (n) deed, accomplishment,
achievement, act, effort, performance,
action, triumph, attainment, trick;
(adj) fetis . ANTONYM: (n) inaction.
finer: (adj) superior, advanced, bigger,
higher, more, greater.
flush: (adj, n, v) blush, glow; (adj) flat,
affluent, rich; (adj, v) even, smooth,
level; (n) bloom; (n, v) color; (v)
scatterbrained, harsh, boisterous,
redden. ANTONYMS: (n) pallor; (v)
excited, disturbed.
blanch, blench; (adj) empty, low,
sermon: (n) discourse, oration, speech,
poor.
address, homily, preachment,
proclaimed: (adj) announced,
harangue, preaching, exhortation,
predication; (n, v) lecture.
indictive, declared publicly.
rantipole: (adj) wild.
weighing: (n) deliberation,
serene: (adj) peaceful, calm, quiet,
consideration, think, advisement,
placid, composed, impassive, clear,
speculation, quantify, weigh,
pacific, gentle, cool; (adj, v) tranquil.
unhurriedness, study, slowness,
ANTONYMS: (adj) agitated, anxious, ponderation.
noisy, nervous, impatient, excitable,
Thomas Hardy
269
"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
Thesaurus
congregation: (n) assembly, gathering,
meeting, collection, fold, flock,
crowd, convocation, congregating,
company; (n, v) assemblage.
flock: (n, v) crowd, cluster, pack, mass;
(adj, n) bevy; (adj, n, v) swarm; (n)
band, horde, congregation, herd; (v)
assemble. ANTONYM: (v) disperse.
helpless: (adj, v) forlorn, destitute,
abandoned; (adj) powerless, weak,
defenseless, disabled, impotent,
feeble, hopeless, unable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong,
leisurely, sluggish, gradual, delayed,
independent, capable, invulnerable,
clumsy.
toil: (n, v) labor, work, drudge, sweat,
armed, powerful, impervious.
imitated: (adj) mimical.
drudgery, grind, labour, travail; (v)
orphan: (n) waif, caterpillar, nymph,
plod; (n) effort, exertion.
ANTONYMS: (n) pastime,
nympha, cocoon, Aurelia, tyke,
staddle, youngster, shaver; (adj)
entertainment, fun, relaxation; (v)
orphaned.
laze, neglect.
swift: (adj, adv, v) fast; (adj) quick,
vagrant: (adj, v) stray, roving, itinerant,
Peripatetic, rambling; (n) tramp,
fleet, speedy, alert, nimble, hasty,
prompt, sudden, hurried; (adj, v)
hobo, drifter, wanderer; (v) unsettled,
rapid. ANTONYMS: (adj) considered, erratic. ANTONYM: (n) resident.
270
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.
Thesaurus
comminatory: (adj) denunciatory,
droning: (adj) buzzing, humming,
(adj) glad, acceptable.
comminate, inculpative, inculpatory, abuzz, booming, monotonous, noisy; mare: (n) Maria, Money makes the
(n) bourdon, dawdler, drone pipe,
threatening, abusive.
mare go, broodmare, doe, hen, bitch,
disgracing: (adj) opprobrious,
idleness, monotone. ANTONYM:
horse, region, part, jennet, roe.
disgracive; (n) dehonestation.
(adj) varied.
poker: (n) draw, lotto, nap, fire hook,
downcast: (adj) depressed, dejected,
fathom: (n, v) plumb; (v) penetrate,
monte, reversis, shovel, squeezers,
dispirited, blue, desolate,
discern, bottom, understand,
tongs, trivet, rake.
terrified: (adj) afraid, frightened,
disconsolate, gloomy, low, sad,
comprehend, know, make out,
measure; (n) probe, gauge.
downhearted, discouraged.
fearful, panicky, panicked, aghast,
ANTONYMS: (adj) cheerful,
ANTONYMS: (v) confuse,
timid, timorous, apprehensive,
startled, alarmed. ANTONYMS: (adj)
vivacious, cheery, elated, joyous, up, misunderstand, Miss.
lief: (adj, v) leef; (adv) fain, willingly;
positive.
fearless, brave.
Thomas Hardy
271
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!"
Thesaurus
accordance: (n) harmony, agreement,
conformity, unison, concordance,
coincidence, accordancy, admission,
fitness, consensus, concent.
acquiesce: (v) assent, accept, agree,
consent, acknowledge, yield, submit,
concur, permit, surrender, defer.
ANTONYMS: (v) resist, disagree,
dissent, protest, object, fight,
challenge, rebuff.
agonized: (adj) distressed, painful,
woeful, tormented, suffering,
miserable, hurt.
welkin, sphere, atmosphere, celestial
blankly: (adj, adv) inanely, vacuously, sphere, space, skies, area, vault of
expressionlessly; (adv) emptily,
heaven.
joker: (n) comic, comedian, wit, clown,
hollowly, voidly, cleanly,
impassively, stupidly, whitely,
buffoon, trickster, zany, tease, wild
inexpressively. ANTONYM: (adv)
card; (v) humorist; (n, v) wag.
performer: (n) musician, doer, artiste,
brightly.
half-pint: (adj) puny, stunted; (n) lad,
comedian, player, conjurer, juggler,
boy.
magician, executant, thespian, agent.
having: (n) estate, possession,
twig: (n) sprig, bough, limb, shoot,
acceptance, enjoyment.
offshoot, spray, branchlet, scion,
heavens: (n) firmament, heaven, sky,
stalk; (n, v) stick; (v) grasp.
272
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
Thesaurus
aloft: (adj, adv) overhead; (adv) up, on
(n, v) bear, suffer, stand, be; (v)
approximation, supposition, gibe,
high, over, aloof, upwards, uphill,
accept, undergo, allow, stay, tolerate. shot, blastoff, barb, estimation, dig.
above ground; (prep) upon; (adj)
ANTONYMS: (v) perish, die, break, thankful: (adj) appreciative, indebted,
eminent, lofty.
fall, discontinue, crumble, end, enjoy, beholden, obliged, contented,
butterfly: (adj, n) peacock; (n)
resign, quit, collapse.
pleased, gratified, relieved, under
lepidopteron, lepidopteran, tortoise fasting: (n) abstinence, white sheet,
obligation, appreciatory, welcome.
shell, girl, pierid, iris; (v) flirt, dally,
ANTONYMS: (adj) worried,
shrift, sackcloth and ashes,
kiss, bray.
maceration, lustration, flagellation,
unappreciative, unthankful, sorry.
cottage: (n) cabin, bungalow, crib, hut, watching one's weight, hunger strike, workman: (n) laborer, working man,
penance; (v) calorie counting.
villa, lodge, shanty, chalet, country
worker, employee, hand, operative,
guessing: (adv) guessingly; (n) dead
house, house, cot.
artisan, working person, lather,
endure: (adj, n, v) continue, support;
reckoning, guesswork,
mechanic, artificer.
Thomas Hardy
273
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 rivel, 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 ElizabethJane, and joined her husband at the other end of the enclosure, where she could
be seen leading him away by the outer gates, so as to avoid passing Henchard
again. That she had been taken by surprise was obvious. The result of this casual
Thesaurus
antecedents: (n) history, colony.
ANTONYMS: (n) haughtiness,
unendurable: (adj) intolerable,
brim: (n) rim, periphery, verge, edge,
affectation, conceit, arrogance.
insufferable, insupportable,
rivel: (n, v) double, crease, wrinkle,
lip, hem, rand, margin, perimeter,
excruciating, impossible,
brink, limit.
rumple, fold, crinkle, crankle, ruffle;
unsupportable, uneasy, teasing,
classes: (n) lessons.
(v) plicate; (n) furrow, flexure.
passionate, not patient, intolerant.
entreatingly: (adv) imploringly,
sarcasm: (adj, n) irony, ridicule, satire, ANTONYM: (adj) bearable.
humor; (n) gibe, bitterness, jeer,
withering: (adj) devastating,
suppliantly, pleadingly,
scorn, insinuation, taunt; (adj)
extortionate, grinding; (v) dry,
importunately.
humility: (n) diffidence, modesty,
sarcastic. ANTONYM: (n) kindness.
sarcastic, sharp, severe, satirical,
triumphing: (n) boast, gloriation; (v)
sardonic, cutting; (n) shrinkage.
submission, shyness, meekness,
ANTONYM: (adj) hopeful.
lowliness, timidity, trait, humiliation, triumphal, celebrating victory,
resignation; (adj) veneration.
exultant.
274
rencounter was that the next morning a note was put into Henchard's hand by
the postman.%
"Will you," said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she could put into a small
communication, "will you kindly undertake not to speak to me in the biting
undertones you used to-day, if I walk through the yard at any time? I bear you
no ill-will, and I am only too glad that you should have employment of my dear
husband; but in common fairness treat me as his wife, and do not try to make me
wretched by covert sneers. I have committed no crime, and done you no injury.
"Poor fool!" said Henchard with fond savagery, holding out the note. "To
know no better than commit herself in writing like this! Why, if I were to show
that to her dear husband-- pooh!" He threw the letter into the fire.
Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would
rather have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such close
quarters a second time. The gulf between them was growing wider every day.
Farfrae was always considerate to his fallen acquaintance; but it was impossible
that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard the ex-corn-merchant as more
than one of his other workmen. Henchard saw this, and concealed his feelings
under a cover of stolidity, fortifying his heart by drinking more freely at the
Three Mariners every evening.
Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his taking other
liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at five o'clock. Arriving one day on this
errand she found her stepfather was measuring up clover-seed and rape-seed in
the corn-stores on the top floor, and she ascended to him. Each floor had a door
opening into the air under a cat-head, from which a chain dangled for hoisting
the sacks.
When Elizabeth's head rose through the trap she perceived that the upper
door was open, and that her stepfather and Farfrae stood just within it in
conversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge, and Henchard a little way
behind. Not to interrupt them she remained on the steps without raising her
head any higher. While waiting thus she saw--or fancied she saw, for she had a
terror of feeling certain-- her stepfather slowly raise his hand to a level behind
Thesaurus
considerate: (adj, n) thoughtful,
concealment, covering. ANTONYMS:
benevolent, nice, gentle, sympathetic, (adj) open, aboveboard, unconcealed,
humane; (adj) magnanimous, kind,
public, blatant.
dizzy: (adj) giddy, silly, faint,
polite, delicate, discreet.
ANTONYMS: (adj) uncaring,
frivolous, light, vertiginous,
thoughtless, tactless, inconsiderate,
brainsick, featherbrained, flighty,
muzzy; (v) daze. ANTONYMS: (adj)
selfish, rude, unkind, unforgiving,
offhand, disrespectful,
alert, balanced, intelligent, poised,
unsympathetic.
rational, steady, sober, serious.
covert: (adj) clandestine, hidden,
fortifying: (adj) fortify, healthy,
concealed, secret, underground,
hopeful, cold, invigorating,
undercover; (n) cover, blind, refuge,
stimulating, revitalizing, refreshing,
bracing, restorative, brisk.
hoisting: (n) winding.
ill-will: (n) enmity.
savagery: (n) atrocity, barbarism,
barbarity, ferociousness, savageness,
cruelty, ferocity, inhumanity,
viciousness, harshness, violence.
stolidity: (n) indifference, phlegm,
impassiveness, impassivity,
emotionlessness, stoicism, lethargy,
languor, obtuseness, inactivity; (adj)
stupidity.
Thomas Hardy
275
Farfrae's shoulders, a curious expression taking possession of his face. The
young man was quite unconscious of the action, which was so indirect that, if
Farfrae had observed it, he might almost have regarded it as an idle
outstretching of the arm. But it would have been possible, by a comparatively
light touch, to push Farfrae off his balance, and send him head over heels into the
air.%
Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this might have meant.
As soon as they turned she mechanically took the tea to Henchard, left it, and
went away. Reflecting, she endeavoured to assure herself that the movement
was an idle eccentricity, and no more. Yet, on the other hand, his subordinate
position in an establishment where he once had been master might be acting on
him like an irritant poison; and she finally resolved to caution Donald.
Thesaurus
eccentricity: (n) abnormality,
idiosyncrasy, oddness, peculiarity,
anomaly, crankiness, irregularity,
quirk, strangeness, weirdness,
curiousness. ANTONYMS: (n)
usualness, normalcy, conventionality,
concentricity, conformity.
idle: (adj) lazy, indolent, inactive, free,
unfounded, fruitless, baseless,
groundless, frivolous, empty,
disengaged. ANTONYMS: (adj)
active, employed, industrious,
ANTONYMS: (adv) manually,
energetic, meaningful, productive,
worthwhile, diligent; (v) change, run, consciously.
subordinate: (adj, n) inferior,
work.
irritant: (n) nuisance, bother, pest,
subaltern; (adj) dependent,
annoyance, irritation, stimulus; (adj)
secondary, lower, petty, lowly, lesser,
minor, junior; (n) assistant.
provocative, excitant, exasperating,
irritating; (v) irritate.
ANTONYMS: (adj, n) chief, superior,
mechanically: (adv) mechanistically,
major; (adj) senior, dominant,
instinctively, routinely, involuntarily, independent, insubordinate, higher,
main; (n) central.
industrially, unconsciously,
automaticly, intuitively, impulsively,
technically, technologically.
Thomas Hardy
277
CHAPTER 34
Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o'clock and went into the street.
It was not yet light; a dense fog prevailed, and the town was as silent as it was
dark, except that from the rectangular avenues which framed in the borough
there came a chorus of tiny rappings, caused by the fall of water-drops
condensed on the boughs; now it was wafted from the West Walk, now from the
South Walk; and then from both quarters simultaneously. She moved on to the
bottom of corn Street, and, knowing his time well, waited only a few minutes
before she heard the familiar bang of his door, and then his quick walk towards
her. She met him at the point where the last tree of the engirding avenue flanked
the last house in the street.%
He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly, he said, "What--Miss
Henchard--and are ye up so airly?"
She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at such an unseemly time.
"But I am anxious to mention something," she said. "And I wished not to alarm
Mrs. Farfrae by calling."
"Yes?" said he, with the cheeriness of a superior. "And what may it be? It's
very kind of ye, I'm sure."
She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mind the exact aspect of
possibilities in her own. But she somehow began, and introduced Henchard's
Thesaurus
cheeriness: (n) happiness, optimism, conveying: (n) conveyance, delivery,
joyfulness, joy, buoyancy, jollity,
conveyancing, conveyance of title,
jolliness, fun, good cheer, geniality,
transference, transmission, convey,
cheer. ANTONYMS: (n) sulkiness,
transmit, assigning, transfer,
gloominess, misery.
delegation.
condensed: (adj) concise, compressed, discern: (v) differentiate, see,
concentrated, succinct, compact,
comprehend, detect, distinguish,
make out, perceive, find, note; (n, v)
summary, compendious, short,
shortened; (adj, v) condense; (n)
descry; (adj, v) recognize.
tabloid. ANTONYMS: (adj) loose,
ANTONYMS: (v) Miss, neglect,
uncondensed, diluted, expanded,
disregard, observe, overlook.
rectangular: (adj) orthogonal, oblong,
convoluted, long.
square, rectangled, rectangle,
multilateral, angular; (n) rectangular
wave.
unseemly: (adj) indecent, unbecoming,
indelicate, inappropriate, gross,
impolite, unbefitting; (adj, v)
indecorous; (adj, adv) uncomely; (adv)
indecently, unbecomingly.
ANTONYMS: (adj) proper,
appropriate, dignified, due, fitting,
polite, suitable, correct, decent,
sensitive.
278
name. "I sometimes fear," she said with an effort, "that he may be betrayed into
some attempt to--insult you, sir.%
"But we are the best of friends?"
"Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir. Remember that he has been
hardly used."
"But we are quite friendly?"
"Or to do something--that would injure you--hurt you--wound you." Every
word cost her twice its length of pain. And she could see that Farfrae was still
incredulous. Henchard, a poor man in his employ, was not to Farfrae's view the
Henchard who had ruled him. Yet he was not only the same man, but that man
with his sinister qualities, formerly latent, quickened into life by his buffetings.
Farfrae, happy, and thinking no evil, persisted in making light of her fears.
Thus they parted, and she went homeward, journeymen now being in the street,
waggoners going to the harness-makers for articles left to be repaired, farmhorses going to the shoeing-smiths, and the sons of labour showing themselves
generally on the move. Elizabeth entered her lodging unhappily, thinking she
had done no good, and only made herself appear foolish by her weak note of
warning.
But Donald Farfrae was one of those men upon whom an incident is never
absolutely lost. He revised impressions from a subsequent point of view, and
the impulsive judgment of the moment was not always his permanent one. The
vision of Elizabeth's earnest face in the rimy dawn came back to him several
times during the day. Knowing the solidity of her character he did not treat her
hints altogether as idle sounds.
But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henchard's account that
engaged him just then; and when he met Lawyer Joyce, the town-clerk, later in
the day, he spoke of it as if nothing had occurred to damp it.
"About that little seedsman's shop," he said, "the shop overlooking the
churchyard, which is to let. It is not for myself I want it, but for our unlucky
fellow-townsman Henchard. It would be a new beginning for him, if a small
Thesaurus
desist: (v) abstain, discontinue, refrain, ANTONYM: (adj) convinced.
avoid, leave, knock off, halt, forbear, repaired: (adj) reconditioned,
end, stop, quit. ANTONYMS: (v)
maintained, mended, fastened,
continue, consume, persevere, go.
serviced, intent, frozen, flat,
fears: (n) worries, uncertainties,
serviceable.
rimy: (adj) frosted, rimed, cold, icy,
doubts, qualms, misgivings.
impressions: (n) impersonation,
nipping, nippy, parky, rhyming,
imitation.
riming, rhymed, glacial.
incredulous: (adj) dubious, doubtful, solidity: (n) consistency, firmness,
suspicious, unbelieving, faithless,
density, compactness, reliability,
skeptical, doubting, lacking faith,
rigidity, substance, consistence,
hardness; (adj, n) stiffness,
questioning, cynical, mistrustful.
soundness. ANTONYMS: (n)
softness, hollowness, porosity,
looseness, instability, slenderness,
lightness, clearness, limpness.
unhappily: (adv) wretchedly,
unluckily, disconsolately, badly,
woefully, forlornly, sorrowfully,
unfortunately, dismally, dejectedly,
despondently. ANTONYMS: (adv)
cheerfully, contentedly, luckily,
willingly, enthusiastically,
fortunately.
Thomas Hardy
279
one; and I have told the Council that I would head a private subscription among
them to set him up in it--that I would be fifty pounds, if they would make up the
other fifty among them."
"Yes, yes; so I've heard; and there's nothing to say against it for that matter,"
the town-clerk replied, in his plain, frank way. "But, Farfrae, others see what you
don't. Henchard hates 'ee--ay, hates 'ee; and 'tis right that you should know it.
To my knowledge he was at the Three Mariners last night, saying in public that
about you which a man ought not to say about another."
"Is that so--ah, is that so?" said Farfrae, looking down. "Why should he do it?"
added the young man bitterly; "what harm have I done him that he should try to
wrong me?"
"God only knows," said Joyce, lifting his eyebrows. "It shows much longsuffering in you to put up with him, and keep him in your employ."
"But I cannet discharge a man who was once a good friend to me. How can I
forget that when I came here 'twas he enabled me to make a footing for mysel'?
No, no. As long as I've a day's work to offer he shall do it if he chooses. 'Tis not I
who will deny him such a little as that. But I'll drop the idea of establishing him
in a shop till I can think more about it."
It grieved Farfrae much to give up this scheme. But a damp having been
thrown over it by these and other voices in the air, he went and countermanded
his orders. The then occupier of the shop was in it when Farfrae spoke to him
and feeling it necessary to give some explanation of his withdrawal from the
negotiation Donald mentioned Henchard's name, and stated that the intentions
of the Council had been changed.%
The occupier was much disappointed, and straight-way informed Henchard,
as soon as he saw him, that a scheme of the Council for setting him up in a shop
had been knocked on the head by Farfrae. And thus out of error enmity grew.
When Farfrae got indoors that evening the tea-kettle was singing on the high
hob of the semi-egg-shaped grate. Lucetta, light as a sylph, ran forward and
seized his hands, whereupon Farfrae duly kissed her.
Thesaurus
duly: (adv) rightfully, correctly,
punctually, proper, precisely, well, ex
officio, accordingly, fairly,
appropriately, properly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) improperly,
unsuitable, unlawfully.
enmity: (n, v) animosity; (n)
antagonism, animus, hostility,
aggression, rancor, ill will, antipathy,
hatred, war, dislike. ANTONYMS:
(n) friendship, friendliness, affinity,
love, kindness, affection, adoration,
amity, cooperation, goodwill.
passive, meek, resigned, stoic.
footing: (n) foothold, base, bottom,
occupier: (n) tenant, inhabitant,
foundation, status, rank, foot,
resident, dweller, denizen, inmate,
pedestal, situation, relation, root.
metropolitan, coaster, colonial,
ANTONYM: (n) top.
dalesman, holder.
lifting: (n) rising, hoisting, plagiarism, subscription: (n) donation, agreement,
restyling, copying, jacking; (adj)
approval, offering, reservation,
registration, gift, entry; (v) allowance,
elating, enlivening, exciting,
invigorating, thrilling.
subvention, subsidy.
long-suffering: (n) long-sufferance,
sylph: (n) woman, imaginary being,
patience, endurance; (adj) forbearing, adult female, fairy, imaginary
tolerant, enduring, persevering,
creature, nymph.
280
"Oh!" she cried playfully, turning to the window. "See--the blinds are not
drawn down, and the people can look in--what a scandal!"
When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn, and the twain sat at tea,
she noticed that he looked serious. Without directly inquiring why she let her
eyes linger solicitously on his face.%
"Who has called?" he absently asked. "Any folk for me?"
"No," said Lucetta. "What's the matter, Donald?"
"Well--nothing worth talking of," he responded sadly.
"Then, never mind it. You will get through it, Scotchmen are always lucky."
"No--not always!" he said, shaking his head gloomily as he contemplated a
crumb on the table. "I know many who have not been so! There was Sandy
Macfarlane, who started to America to try his fortune, and he was drowned; and
Archibald Leith, he was murdered! And poor Willie Dunbleeze and Maitland
Macfreeze--they fell into bad courses, and went the way of all such!"
"Why--you old goosey--I was only speaking in a general sense, of course!
You are always so literal. Now when we have finished tea, sing me that funny
song about high-heeled shoon and siller tags, and the one-and-forty wooers."
"No, no. I couldna sing to-night! It's Henchard--he hates me; so that I may
not be his friend if I would. I would understand why there should be a wee bit
of envy; but I cannet see a reason for the whole intensity of what he feels. Now,
can you, Lucetta? It is more like old-fashioned rivalry in love than just a bit of
rivalry in trade."
Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. "No," she replied.
"I give him employment--I cannet refuse it. But neither can I blind myself to
the fact that with a man of passions such as his, there is no safeguard for
conduct!"
"What have you heard--O Donald, dearest?" said Lucetta in alarm. The
words on her lips were "anything about me?"--but she did not utter them. She
could not, however, suppress her agitation, and her eyes filled with tears.
Thesaurus
linger: (v) loiter, delay, dally, hover,
stay, hesitate, hang around,
procrastinate, dawdle, tarry, saunter.
ANTONYMS: (v) hurry, end, rush,
depart, lead.
literal: (adj) exact, bare, verbal,
accurate, genuine, faithful, actual,
plain, true; (n) misprint, erratum.
ANTONYMS: (adj) figurative,
symbolic, loose, imprecise,
metaphorical, broad, approximate,
false.
noticed: (adj) noted.
kindly, apprehensively, attentively,
playfully: (adv) sportively, jocularly,
caringly, politely, jealously, earnestly.
suppress: (v) subdue, silence, quell,
puckishly, impishly, merrily,
naughtily, roguishly, frolicsomely,
check, stifle, restrain, subjugate, curb,
lightheartedly, archly, skittishly.
crush, strangle, oppress.
safeguard: (v) preserve, ensure, cover, ANTONYMS: (v) encourage,
protect, defend; (n) protection, care,
stimulate, incite, expose, declare,
precaution, security; (n, v) shield,
resist, confess, divulge, surrender,
shelter. ANTONYMS: (v) jeopardize, advertise, acknowledge.
twain: (n) pair, brace, dyad, deuce,
expose, destroy, endanger.
solicitously: (adv) considerately,
twosome, duo, straddle, bitstock,
concernedly, carefully, uneasily,
coupling, braces, yoke.
Thomas Hardy
281
"No, no--it is not so serious as ye fancy," declared Farfrae soothingly; though
he did not know its seriousness so well as she.%
"I wish you would do what we have talked of," mournfully remarked
Lucetta. "Give up business, and go away from here. We have plenty of money,
and why should we stay?"
Farfrae seemed seriously disposed to discuss this move, and they talked
thereon till a visitor was announced. Their neighbour Alderman Vatt came in.
"You've heard, I suppose of poor Doctor Chalkfield's death? Yes--died this
afternoon at five," said Mr. Vatt Chalkfield was the Councilman who had
succeeded to the Mayoralty in the preceding November.
Farfrae was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vatt continued: "Well, we know
he's been going some days, and as his family is well provided for we must take it
all as it is. Now I have called to ask 'ee this--quite privately. If I should
nominate 'ee to succeed him, and there should be no particular opposition, will
'ee accept the chair?"
"But there are folk whose turn is before mine; and I'm over young, and may
be thought pushing!" said Farfrae after a pause.
"Not at all. I don't speak for myself only, several have named it. You won't
refuse?"
"We thought of going away," interposed Lucetta, looking at Farfrae
anxiously.
"It was only a fancy," Farfrae murmured. "I wouldna refuse if it is the wish of
a respectable majority in the Council."
"Very well, then, look upon yourself as elected. We have had older men long
enough."
When he was gone Farfrae said musingly, "See now how it's ourselves that
are ruled by the Powers above us! We plan this, but we do that. If they want to
make me Mayor I will stay, and Henchard must rave as he will."
Thesaurus
announced: (adj) proclaimed,
declared.
disposed: (adj) prone, apt, ready,
subject, prepared, liable, game,
inclined, fain, likely, minded.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ailing,
indisposed, unlikely, disinclined,
reluctant, impervious.
mournfully: (adv) sadly, sorrowfully,
glumly, woefully, unhappily,
plaintively, grievously, funereally,
dejectedly, dolorously, poignantly.
joyfully.
nominate: (n, v) appoint, designate,
name, call; (v) constitute, establish,
make, institute, assign; (n) entitle,
nomination.
preceding: (adj, adv) anterior, earlier;
(adj) foregoing, former, previous,
prior, past, precedent, prevenient;
(adv) forward; (prep) before.
ANTONYMS: (adj) following,
succeeding, next, present.
rave: (adj, n, v) fume; (n, v) rant; (adj, n)
foam; (v) wander, jabber, gush,
storm, tear, bluster; (adj, v) boil; (adj)
flame. ANTONYM: (v) criticize.
seriousness: (n) earnest, earnestness,
graveness, importance, staidness,
solemnity, sincerity, consequence,
sobriety, austerity, soberness.
ANTONYMS: (n) flippancy,
insignificance, frivolity, giddiness,
jollity, triviality, cheerfulness, joking,
joviality, unimportance, playfulness.
282
From this evening onward Lucetta was very uneasy. If she had not been
imprudence incarnate she would not have acted as she did when she met
Henchard by accident a day or two later. It was in the bustle of the market,
when no one could readily notice their discourse.%
"Michael," said she, "I must again ask you what I asked you months ago--to
return me any letters or papers of mine that you may have--unless you have
destroyed them? You must see how desirable it is that the time at Jersey should
be blotted out, for the good of all parties."
"Why, bless the woman!--I packed up every scrap of your handwriting to
give you in the coach--but you never appeared."
She explained how the death of her aunt had prevented her taking the
journey on that day. "And what became of the parcel then?" she asked.
He could not say--he would consider. When she was gone he recollected that
he had left a heap of useless papers in his former dining-room safe--built up in
the wall of his old house--now occupied by Farfrae. The letters might have been
amongst them.
A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henchard's face.
opened?
Had that safe been
On the very evening which followed this there was a great ringing of bells in
Casterbridge, and the combined brass, wood, catgut, and leather bands played
round the town with more prodigality of percussion-notes than ever. Farfrae
was Mayor--the two-hundredth odd of a series forming an elective dynasty
dating back to the days of Charles I--and the fair Lucetta was the courted of the
town....But, Ah! the worm i' the bud--Henchard; what he could tell!
He, in the meantime, festering with indignation at some erroneous
intelligence of Farfrae's opposition to the scheme for installing him in the little
seed-shop, was greeted with the news of the municipal election (which, by
reason of Farfrae's comparative youth and his Scottish nativity--a thing
unprecedented in the case--had an interest far beyond the ordinary). The bellringing and the band-playing, loud as Tamerlane's trumpet, goaded the
Thesaurus
catgut: (n) gut, Tephrosia virginiana, festering: (adj) rotten, infected, rotting,
pussy, septic; (n) pus, festerment,
hoary pea, cord, wild sweet pea,
bowel.
suppuration, bodily fluid, activity,
dynasty: (n) family, regime, house,
sanies. ANTONYM: (adj) healthy.
dominion, folk, government, kinfolk, goaded: (adj) provoked, forced,
kinsfolk, phratry, Sept, sovereignty.
motivated, unvoluntary, aggravated,
erroneous: (adj) incorrect, inaccurate,
compulsive, determined,
false, untrue, wrongful, improper,
involuntary.
imprudence: (n) carelessness,
fallacious, amiss, unsound, faulty;
(adj, v) mistaken. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indiscretion, folly, improvidence,
valid, right, accurate, true, reliable,
hastiness, flippancy, recklessness,
injudiciousness, rashness, haste; (adj,
real, wise, logical.
n) temerity. ANTONYMS: (n)
discretion, forethought, wariness,
wisdom.
incarnate: (adj) embodied, bodied,
material, corporeal; (v) materialize,
typify, actualize, substantiate,
personify, be, body forth.
prodigality: (n) dissipation,
lavishness, squander, waste,
exuberance, plenty, abundance,
excess, extravagancy, improvidence,
profligacy.
Thomas Hardy
283
downfallen Henchard indescribably: the ousting now seemed to him to be
complete.%
The next morning he went to the corn-yard as usual, and about eleven o'clock
Donald entered through the green door, with no trace of the worshipful about
him. The yet more emphatic change of places between him and Henchard which
this election had established renewed a slight embarrassment in the manner of
the modest young man; but Henchard showed the front of one who had
overlooked all this; and Farfrae met his amenities half-way at once.
"I was going to ask you," said Henchard, "about a packet that I may possibly
have left in my old safe in the dining- room." He added particulars.
"If so, it is there now," said Farfrae. "I have never opened the safe at all as yet;
for I keep ma papers at the bank, to sleep easy o' nights."
"It was not of much consequence--to me," said Henchard. "But I'll call for it
this evening, if you don't mind?"
It was quite late when he fulfilled his promise. He had primed himself with
grog, as he did very frequently now, and a curl of sardonic humour hung on his
lip as he approached the house, as though he were contemplating some terrible
form of amusement. Whatever it was, the incident of his entry did not diminish
its force, this being his first visit to the house since he had lived there as owner.
The ring of the bell spoke to him like the voice of a familiar drudge who had
been bribed to forsake him; the movements of the doors were revivals of dead
days.
Farfrae invited him into the dining-room, where he at once unlocked the iron
safe built into the wall, his, Henchard's safe, made by an ingenious locksmith
under his direction. Farfrae drew thence the parcel, and other papers, with
apologies for not having returned them.
"Never mind," said Henchard drily. "The fact is they are letters mostly....Yes,"
he went on, sitting down and unfolding Lucetta's passionate bundle, "here they
be. That ever I should see 'em again! I hope Mrs. Farfrae is well after her
exertions of yesterday?"
Thesaurus
amenities: (n) creature comforts,
assertive, loud, important,
emphatical, insistent; (adj, v)
living, support, sustenance,
livelihood, keep, courtesy, propriety, absolute. ANTONYMS: (adj)
etiquette, public services, manners.
insignificant, unassertive,
bribed: (prep) bought.
understated, unemphatic,
curl: (n, v) crimp, loop, kink, roll,
halfhearted.
wave; (adj, v) bow; (adj, n) lock, tress; locksmith: (n) wheelwright, smith,
(v) crinkle, fold; (adj) crisp.
sailmaker.
ANTONYMS: (v) align, straighten,
primed: (adj) fitted, fit for, efficient,
uncurl, unwind.
ready, capable, initiated, competent,
emphatic: (adj) decided, categorical,
up to the mark; (n) raddled, sewed
expressive, forceful, pronounced,
up, whittled.
sardonic: (adj) dry, wry, cynical,
ironic, ironical, cutting, biting, bitter,
derisive, mocking; (adj, v) satirical.
ANTONYM: (adj) approving.
unfolding: (n) development, growth,
flowering, display, recitation, dawn,
process, solution, disclosure; (adj)
ongoing, duration.
worshipful: (adj, v) great; (v)
honorable, noble, proud, dignified;
(adj) reverential, godly, adoring,
venerable, divine, doting.
284
"She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bed airly on that account.%
Henchard returned to the letters, sorting them over with interest, Farfrae
being seated at the other end of the dining-table. "You don't forget, of course," he
resumed, "that curious chapter in the history of my past which I told you of, and
that you gave me some assistance in? These letters are, in fact, related to that
unhappy business. Though, thank God, it is all over now."
"What became of the poor woman?" asked Farfrae.
"Luckily she married, and married well," said Henchard. "So that these
reproaches she poured out on me do not now cause me any twinges, as they
might otherwise have done....Just listen to what an angry woman will say!"
Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quite uninterested, and
bursting with yawns, gave well-mannered attention.
"'For me,'" Henchard read, "'there is practically no future. A creature too
unconventionally devoted to you--who feels it impossible that she can be the
wife of any other man; and who is yet no more to you than the first woman you
meet in the street--such am I. I quite acquit you of any intention to wrong me,
yet you are the door through which wrong has come to me. That in the event of
your present wife's death you will place me in her position is a consolation so far
as it goes--but how far does it go? Thus I sit here, forsaken by my few
acquaintance, and forsaken by you!'"
"That's how she went on to me," said Henchard, "acres of words like that,
when what had happened was what I could not cure."
"Yes," said Farfrae absently, "it is the way wi' women." But the fact was that
he knew very little of the sex; yet detecting a sort of resemblance in style
between the effusions of the woman he worshipped and those of the supposed
stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever spoke thus, whosesoever the
personality she assumed.
Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it through likewise, stopping at
the subscription as before. "Her name I don't give," he said blandly. "As I didn't
marry her, and another man did, I can scarcely do that in fairness to her."
Thesaurus
acquit: (adj, v) release; (v) exculpate,
exonerate, discharge, excuse, clear,
pardon, free, conduct, forgive,
vindicate. ANTONYMS: (v)
condemn, damn, censure, blame,
sentence.
detecting: (n) spotting, investigation,
catching, detective work, sleuthing,
police investigation, hearing; (adj)
observant.
forsaken: (adj) deserted, abandoned,
lonely, forlorn, derelict, desert,
empty, solitary, friendless; (adj, v)
jilted; (v) crossed in love.
ANTONYM: (adj) unforsaken.
poured: (adj) concrete.
unconventionally: (adv) originally,
freely, strangely, oddly, eccentricly,
eccentrically, unorthodoxly,
differently, peculiarly, crazily,
improperly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
conservatively, normally.
uninterested: (adj) apathetic, listless,
unconcerned, cool, unenthusiastic,
blas, lukewarm, unbiased, languid,
disinterested; (v) used up.
ANTONYMS: (adj) enthusiastic,
interested, caring, fanatical,
committed, keen, concerned,
energetic.
well-mannered: (adj) courteous,
mannerly, civil, respectful, urbane,
well-bred, gentlemanly, good,
genteel, gracious, ladylike.
worshipped: (adj) adored, idolized,
venerable.
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285
"Tr-rue, tr-rue," said Farfrae. "But why didn't you marry her when your wife
Susan died?" Farfrae asked this and the other questions in the comfortably
indifferent tone of one whom the matter very remotely concerned.%
"Ah--well you may ask that!" said Henchard, the new-moon- shaped grin
adumbrating itself again upon his mouth. "In spite of all her protestations, when
I came forward to do so, as in generosity bound, she was not the woman for me."
"She had already married another--maybe?"
Henchard seemed to think it would be sailing too near the wind to descend
further into particulars, and he answered "Yes."
"The young lady must have had a heart that bore transplanting very readily!"
"She had, she had," said Henchard emphatically.
He opened a third and fourth letter, and read. This time he approached the
conclusion as if the signature were indeed coming with the rest. But again he
stopped short. The truth was that, as may be divined, he had quite intended to
effect a grand catastrophe at the end of this drama by reading out the name, he
had come to the house with no other thought. But sitting here in cold blood he
could not do it.
Such a wrecking of hearts appalled even him. His quality was such that he
could have annihilated them both in the heat of action; but to accomplish the
deed by oral poison was beyond the nerve of his enmity.
Thesaurus
accomplish: (v) perform, reach, do,
(adj) indifferent.
remotely: (adv) slightly, afar, far, far
compass, perfect, attain, make, fulfill, catastrophe: (n) disaster, adversity,
away, secludedly, removedly, smally,
realize, execute, carry out.
tragedy, cataclysm, misfortune, bale, slimly, widely, coolly, coldly.
ANTONYMS: (v) abandon, neglect,
ANTONYMS: (adv) closely, warmly,
denouement, misery, misadventure,
woe, finale. ANTONYMS: (n) joy,
choke, blow, lose.
nearby.
annihilated: (adj) exterminated, lost,
transplanting: (n) transplantation,
miracle, wonder, success.
uncreated, wiped out, annihilate; (v) descend: (v) settle, condescend, down, transplant, movement, graft, organ
perished.
drop, deign, subside, go down,
transplant, planting, colonization.
appalled: (adj) dismayed, scared,
wrecking: (n) destruction, ruin,
dismount, derive, get off, come
down. ANTONYMS: (v) ascend,
shocked, horrified, afraid, fright,
demolition, sabotage, devastation,
amazed, astonished, stunned,
climb, float, scale, increase, level,
laying waste, ruination, ruining,
outraged, scandalized. ANTONYM:
mount.
razing, demolishing, tearing down.
Thomas Hardy
287
CHAPTER 35
As Donald stated, Lucetta had retired early to her room because of fatigue.
She had, however, not gone to rest, but sat in the bedside chair reading and
thinking over the events of the day. At the ringing of the door-bell by Henchard
she wondered who it should be that would call at that comparatively late hour.
The dining-room was almost under her bed-room; she could hear that somebody
was admitted there, and presently the indistinct murmur of a person reading
became audible.%
The usual time for Donald's arrival upstairs came and passed, yet still the
reading and conversation went on. This was very singular. She could think of
nothing but that some extraordinary crime had been committed, and that the
visitor, whoever he might be, was reading an account of it from a special edition
of the Casterbridge Chronicle. At last she left the room, and descended the stairs.
The dining-room door was ajar, and in the silence of the resting household the
voice and the words were recognizable before she reached the lower flight. She
stood transfixed. Her own words greeted her in Henchard's voice, like spirits
from the grave.
Lucetta leant upon the banister with her cheek against the smooth hand-rail,
as if she would make a friend of it in her misery. Rigid in this position, more and
more words fell successively upon her ear. But what amazed her most was the
Thesaurus
ajar: (v) dissentient, unclosed,
unstopped, wide open, out of tune;
(adj) open, gaping, partly open, not
closed.
amazed: (adj) astounded, astonished,
stunned, dumbfounded,
flabbergasted, shocked, staggered,
bewildered, surprised,
thunderstruck, aghast.
banister: (n) baluster, bar, handrail,
parapet, bannister, rail, railing,
balusters, breastwork, stanchion,
guardrail.
recognizable: (adj) perceptible,
identifiable, clear, familiar, distinct,
placeable, obvious, cognizable,
discernible, distinguishable,
acknowledged. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unknown, imperceptible.
singular: (adj, n) extraordinary; (adj)
odd, individual, particular, peculiar,
phenomenal, rare, queer, single,
quaint, exceptional. ANTONYMS:
(adj) ordinary, normal, together,
usual, customary.
successively: (adv) in turn, one after
the other, in succession, sequentially,
serially, running, in order, gradually,
subsequently, repeatedly, one after
another.
transfixed: (adj) fascinated,
hypnotized, mesmerised,
mesmerized, hypnotised, stranded;
(v) engrossed in, wrapped in,
absorbed, rapt; (adv) aground.
288
tone of her husband. He spoke merely in the accents of a man who made a
present of his time.%
"One word," he was saying, as the crackling of paper denoted that Henchard
was unfolding yet another sheet. "Is it quite fair to this young woman's memory
to read at such length to a stranger what was intended for your eye alone?"
"Well, yes," said Henchard. "By not giving her name I make it an example of
all womankind, and not a scandal to one."
"If I were you I would destroy them," said Farfrae, giving more thought to the
letters than he had hitherto done. "As another man's wife it would injure the
woman if it were known.
"No, I shall not destroy them," murmured Henchard, putting the letters away.
Then he arose, and Lucetta heard no more.
She went back to her bedroom in a semi-paralyzed state. For very fear she
could not undress, but sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Would Henchard let
out the secret in his parting words? Her suspense was terrible. Had she
confessed all to Donald in their early acquaintance he might possibly have got
over it, and married her just the same--unlikely as it had once seemed; but for her
or any one else to tell him now would be fatal.
The door slammed; she could hear her husband bolting it. After looking
round in his customary way he came leisurely up the stairs. The spark in her
eyes well-nigh went out when he appeared round the bedroom door. Her gaze
hung doubtful for a moment, then to her joyous amazement she saw that he
looked at her with the rallying smile of one who had just been relieved of a scene
that was irksome. She could hold out no longer, and sobbed hysterically.
When he had restored her Farfrae naturally enough spoke of Henchard. "Of
all men he was the least desirable as a visitor," he said; "but it is my belief that
he's just a bit crazed. He has been reading to me a long lot of letters relating to
his past life; and I could do no less than indulge him by listening.
Thesaurus
bolting: (n) sifting.
wildly, violently, turbulently,
crackling: (adj, n) crisp; (adj) snapping, excitedly, emotionally, passionately,
crepitant, cheerful, brittle, noisy; (n)
stormily. ANTONYM: (adv)
crepitation, decrepitation,
peacefully.
indulge: (n, v) gratify, humor; (v)
crackleware, crackle China,
bohemian crackle.
coddle, cosset, baby, pamper, spoil,
crazed: (adj) deranged, crazy, wild,
satisfy, please, mollycoddle, cocker.
ANTONYMS: (v) frustrate, deprive,
mad, insane, crackled, loopy, non
compos mentis, lunatic, demented,
stifle, neglect, deny, displease, fast.
leisurely: (adj) slow, deliberate,
barmy.
hysterically: (adv) feverishly,
easygoing, leisure, at ease, unhurried,
measured, idle; (adv) deliberately,
frantically, agitatedly, worriedly,
slowly, at leisure. ANTONYMS: (adj)
rushed, hurried, formal, vigorous,
speedy, fast; (adv) formally, quickly.
rallying: (n) effort, mobilization,
mobilisation, mass meeting, feat,
deed, exchange; (adj) moving,
encouraging, convalescent.
undress: (v) strip, unclothe, divest,
discase, doff, unrobe, strip down,
uncase; (n) dishabille, disarray,
morning dress. ANTONYMS: (v)
dress, clothe.
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289
This was sufficient. Henchard, then, had not told. Henchard's last words to
Farfrae, in short, as he stood on the doorstep, had been these: "Well--I'm obliged
to 'ee for listening. I may tell more about her some day."
Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard's motives in opening
the matter at all; for in such cases we attribute to an enemy a power of consistent
action which we never find in ourselves or in our friends; and forget that
abortive efforts from want of heart are as possible to revenge as to generosity.%
Next morning Lucetta remained in bed, meditating how to parry this
incipient attack. The bold stroke of telling Donald the truth, dimly conceived,
was yet too bold; for she dreaded lest in doing so he, like the rest of the world,
should believe that the episode was rather her fault than her misfortune. She
decided to employ persuasion--not with Donald but with the enemy himself. It
seemed the only practicable weapon left her as a woman. Having laid her plan
she rose, and wrote to him who kept her on these tenterhooks:-"I overheard your interview with my husband last night, and saw the drift of
your revenge. The very thought of it crushes me! Have pity on a distressed
woman! If you could see me you would relent. You do not know how anxiety
has told upon me lately. I will be at the Ring at the time you leave work--just
before the sun goes down. Please come that way. I cannot rest till I have seen
you face to face, and heard from your mouth that you will carry this horse-play
no further."
To herself she said, on closing up her appeal: "If ever tears and pleadings
have served the weak to fight the strong, let them do so now!"
With this view she made a toilette which differed from all she had ever
attempted before. To heighten her natural attraction had hitherto been the
unvarying endeavour of her adult life, and one in which she was no novice. But
now she neglected this, and even proceeded to impair the natural presentation.
Beyond a natural reason for her slightly drawn look, she had not slept all the
previous night, and this had produced upon her pretty though slightly worn
features the aspect of a countenance ageing prematurely from extreme sorrow.
Thesaurus
conceived: (adj) formed.
capitulate; (adj) remit. ANTONYMS:
help, purify.
doorstep: (n) threshold, sill, brink,
parry: (v) evade, dodge, fend off,
(v) worsen, strengthen, resist, stand.
toilette: (n) dress, costume, attire,
door, curbside.
avoid, deflect, duck, hedge, block,
heighten: (v) amplify, enlarge,
circumvent, elude; (n, v) counter.
raiment, drapery, guise, trim, John,
perplexed: (adj) confused, puzzled,
aggravate, raise, deepen, elevate,
lavatory, privy, bathroom.
unvarying: (adj) unchanging,
boost, grow, expand, compound,
baffled, confounded, doubtful,
advance. ANTONYMS: (v) alleviate,
distracted, disconcerted; (adj, v)
invariable, constant, steady, uniform,
damage, decrease, improve, lessen.
intricate, complicated, lost, involved. invariant, changeless, consistent,
impair: (v) blemish, mar, corrupt,
ANTONYMS: (adj) unperplexed,
unvaried, unchanged, equal.
ANTONYMS: (adj) irregular,
disfigure, deface, debase, harm,
assured, clear, knowing.
enervate, vitiate; (n, v) degrade, hurt. relent: (v) give, give in, melt, soften,
multiform, varied, dynamic, erratic,
ANTONYMS: (v) improve, fortify,
moderate, ease, submit, cede, relax,
unequal.
290
She selected--as much from want of spirit as design--her poorest, plainest and
longest discarded attire.%
To avoid the contingency of being recognized she veiled herself, and slipped
out of the house quickly. The sun was resting on the hill like a drop of blood on
an eyelid by the time she had got up the road opposite the amphitheatre, which
she speedily entered. The interior was shadowy, and emphatic of the absence of
every living thing.
She was not disappointed in the fearful hope with which she awaited him.
Henchard came over the top, descended and Lucetta waited breathlessly. But
having reached the arena she saw a change in his bearing: he stood still at a little
distance from her; she could not think why.
Nor could any one else have known. The truth was that in appointing this
spot, and this hour, for the rendezvous, Lucetta had unwittingly backed up her
entreaty by the strongest argument she could have used outside words, with this
man of moods, glooms, and superstitions. Her figure in the midst of the huge
enclosure, the unusual plainness of her dress, her attitude of hope and appeal, so
strongly revived in his soul the memory of another ill-used woman who had
stood there and thus in bygone days, and had now passed away into her rest,
that he was unmanned, and his heart smote him for having attempted reprisals
on one of a sex so weak. When he approached her, and before she had spoken a
word, her point was half gained.
His manner as he had come down had been one of cynical carelessness; but
he now put away his grim half-smile, and said in a kindly subdued tone,
"Goodnight t'ye. Of course I in glad to come if you want me."
"O, thank you," she said apprehensively.
"I am sorry to see 'ee looking so ill," he stammered with unconcealed
compunction.
She shook her head.
deliberately cause it?"
"How can you be sorry," she asked, "when you
Thesaurus
amphitheatre: (n) amphitheater, arena,
stadium, gallery, bowl, coliseum,
colosseum.
appointing: (adj) appointed.
apprehensively: (adv) uneasily,
fearfully, worriedly, solicitously,
timidly, restlessly, nervously,
timorously, suspiciously, uncertainly,
hesitantly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
calmly, fearlessly, trustingly,
unconcernedly.
compunction: (n) repentance, remorse,
contrition, qualm, penance, regret,
compassion, rue, scruple, sorrow,
guilt. ANTONYMS: (n) hardness,
indifference, meanness,
remorselessness.
entreaty: (n) plea, prayer, request,
petition, adjuration, supplication,
suit, demand, desire, invocation; (v)
solicitation.
eyelid: (n) lid, palpebra, chapeau.
plainness: (n) perspicuity, clearness,
homeliness, austerity, simplicity,
lucidity, perspicuousness, directness,
bareness, drabness, chasteness.
ANTONYMS: (n) warmth, splendor.
poorest: (adj) lowest, least, worst.
smote: (v) smite.
unconcealed: (adj) open, overt,
obvious, frank, exposed, naked,
patent, plain, barefaced, evident,
conspicuous. ANTONYMS: (adj)
hidden, contained, furtive.
unmanned: (adj) emasculate; (v)
unnerved.
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291
"What!" said Henchard uneasily. "Is it anything I have done that has pulled
you down like that?"
"It is all your doing," she said. "I have no other grief. My happiness would be
secure enough but for your threats. O Michael! don't wreck me like this! You
might think that you have done enough! When I came here I was a young
woman; now I am rapidly becoming an old one. Neither my husband nor any
other man will regard me with interest long."
Henchard was disarmed. His old feeling of supercilious pity for womankind
in general was intensified by this suppliant appearing here as the double of the
first. Moreover that thoughtless want of foresight which had led to all her
trouble remained with poor Lucetta still; she had come to meet him here in this
compromising way without perceiving the risk. Such a woman was very small
deer to hunt; he felt ashamed, lost all zest and desire to humiliate Lucetta there
and then, and no longer envied Farfrae his bargain. He had married money, but
nothing more. Henchard was anxious to wash his hands of the game.%
"Well, what do you want me to do?" he said gently. "I am sure I shall be very
willing. My reading of those letters was only a sort of practical joke, and I
revealed nothing."
"To give me back the letters and any papers you may have that breathe of
matrimony or worse."
"So be it. Every scrap shall be yours....But, between you and me, Lucetta, he
is sure to find out something of the matter, sooner or later.
"Ah!" she said with eager tremulousness; "but not till I have proved myself a
faithful and deserving wife to him, and then he may forgive me everything!"
Henchard silently looked at her: he almost envied Farfrae such love as that,
even now. "H'm--I hope so," he said. "But you shall have the letters without fail.
And your secret shall be kept. I swear it."
"How good you are!--how shall I get them?"
He reflected, and said he would send them the next morning. "Now don't
doubt me," he added. "I can keep my word.
Thesaurus
deer: (n) caribou, buck, fawn, stag,
demean, mortify, insult, embarrass,
arrogant, scornful, high and mighty.
snub, lower. ANTONYMS: (v)
ANTONYMS: (adj) modest, affable.
reynard, brocket, cervid, ruminant,
suppliant: (n) petitioner, applicant,
roe, roebuck, hart.
acknowledge, glorify, aggrandize,
disarmed: (adj) harmless, prostrate.
exalt, dignify, boost, uplift, praise.
besieger, postulant, prayer, lover,
foresight: (n) prevision, forecast,
matrimony: (n) wedding, union,
suer; (adj) beseeching, supplicatory,
caution, prospicience, calculation,
marriage ceremony, nuptials,
imploring, humbly entreating.
zest: (n) gusto, taste, savor, flavor,
prescience, prediction, precaution,
endogamy, bigamy, intermixture,
vision, foresightedness; (n, v)
alloyage, exogamy, intermarriage; (n, enthusiasm, piquancy, energy,
expectation. ANTONYM: (n)
v) wedlock.
enjoyment, tang, appetite; (n, v) spice.
supercilious: (adj) proud, haughty,
ANTONYMS: (n) lethargy,
hindsight.
humiliate: (n, v) degrade, debase,
disdainful, lofty, contemptuous,
blandness, dullness, indifference.
disgrace, abase; (adj, n, v) humble; (v) contumelious, cavalier, lordly,
Thomas Hardy
293
CHAPTER 36
Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by the lamp
nearest to her own door. When she stopped to go in he came and spoke to her.
It was Jopp.%
He begged her pardon for addressing her. But he had heard that Mr. Farfrae
had been applied to by a neighbouring corn- merchant to recommend a working
partner; if so he wished to offer himself. He could give good security, and had
stated as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter; but he would feel much obliged if
Lucetta would say a word in his favour to her husband.
"It is a thing I know nothing about," said Lucetta coldly.
"But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than anybody, ma'am," said
Jopp. "I was in Jersey several years, and knew you there by sight."
"Indeed," she replied. "But I knew nothing of you."
"I think, ma'am, that a word or two from you would secure for me what I
covet very much," he persisted.
She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair, and cutting him
short, because of her anxiety to get indoors before her husband should miss her,
left him on the pavement.
Thesaurus
coldly: (adv) frigidly, icily, coolly,
indifferently, frostily, distantly,
gelidly, reservedly, bleakly, wintrily,
frozenly. ANTONYMS: (adv) warmly,
affectionately, sympathetically,
sensitively, kindly, cheerfully,
emotionally.
covet: (v) envy, begrudge, long, crave,
aspire, grudge, hanker, want, wish
for, long for, wish. ANTONYMS: (v)
spurn, renounce, reject, ignore,
forswear.
lamp: (n) light, lantern, beacon,
headlight, flashbulb, flashgun, table
lamp, oil lamp, storm lantern; (n, v)
look; (v) behold.
ma'am: (n) lady, madam,
gentlewoman, milady, woman,
madame, Grande dame, doll, chick,
brothel keeper, bird.
neighbouring: (adj) adjoining,
contiguous, vicinal, abutting; (v)
adjoin.
refused: (adj) forbidden, refuse,
prohibited, hence.
testify: (v) declare, certify, affirm,
evidence, protest, prove,
demonstrate, manifest, express,
show, vouch.
trustworthiness: (n) reliability,
faithfulness, credibility,
responsibility, honesty, trustiness,
loyalty, constancy, devotion,
dependence, creditworthiness.
ANTONYMS: (n) untrustworthiness,
disloyalty, infidelity, dishonesty.
294
He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home. When he got
there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner looking at the iron dogs, and the
wood laid across them for heating the morning kettle. A movement upstairs
disturbed him, and Henchard came down from his bedroom, where he seemed
to have been rummaging boxes.%
"I wish," said Henchard, "you would do me a service, Jopp, now--to-night, I
mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfrae's for her. I should take it myself, of
course, but I don't wish to be seen there."
He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchard had been as good as
his word. Immediately on coming indoors he had searched over his few
belongings, and every scrap of Lucetta's writing that he possessed was here.
Jopp indifferently expressed his willingness.
"Well, how have ye got on to-day?" his lodger asked. "Any prospect of an
opening?"
"I am afraid not," said Jopp, who had not told the other of his application to
Farfrae.
"There never will be in Casterbridge," declared Henchard decisively. "You
must roam further afield." He said goodnight to Jopp, and returned to his own
part of the house.
Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of the candle-snuff on
the wall, and looking at the original he found that it had formed itself into a head
like a red-hot cauliflower. Henchard's packet next met his gaze. He knew there
had been something of the nature of wooing between Henchard and the now
Mrs. Farfrae; and his vague ideas on the subject narrowed themselves down to
these: Henchard had a parcel belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he had reasons for
not returning that parcel to her in person. What could be inside it? So he went on
and on till, animated by resentment at Lucetta's haughtiness, as he thought it,
and curiosity to learn if there were any weak sides to this transaction with
Henchard, he examined the package. The pen and all its relations being
awkward tools in Henchard's hands he had affixed the seals without an
Thesaurus
affixed: (adj) additional.
examined: (adj) qualified, studied,
cauliflower: (n) crucifer, broccoli,
considered.
haughtiness: (n) pride, disdain,
Brussels sprouts, colliflower,
cruciferous vegetable, krausen.
condescension, conceit, snobbishness,
decisively: (adv) resolutely,
lordliness, imperiousness, hauteur,
conclusively, firmly, finally, fatefully, contempt, superiority, arrogant.
ANTONYMS: (n) humility,
crucially, definitively, positively,
absolutely, definitely, flatly.
humbleness.
ANTONYMS: (adv) irresolutely,
lodger: (n) inhabitant, boarder, renter,
unconvincingly, indecisively,
tenant, resident, guest, lessee, inmate,
aimlessly, insignificantly,
householder, occupant, sojourner.
ANTONYM: (n) landlord.
halfheartedly, hesitantly.
red-hot: (adj) impassioned, flaming,
burning, fiery, incandescent, torrid,
enthusiastic, boiling, up-to-date,
sultry, contemporary.
roam: (adj, v) stray; (v) wander,
gallivant, meander, range, gad, walk,
drift, tramp, journey, stroll.
ANTONYMS: (v) rush, settle.
wooing: (n) courting, suit, bundling,
suit of clothes, the soft impeachment,
entreaty, prayer, cause, causa, case;
(adj) amatory.
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295
impression, it never occurring to him that the efficacy of such a fastening
depended on this. Jopp was far less of a tyro; he lifted one of the seals with his
penknife, peeped in at the end thus opened, saw that the bundle consisted of
letters; and, having satisfied himself thus far, sealed up the end again by simply
softening the wax with the candle, and went off with the parcel as requested.%
His path was by the river-side at the foot of the town. Coming into the light at
the bridge which stood at the end of High Street he beheld lounging thereon
Mother Cuxsom and Nance Mockridge.
"We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to look into Peter's finger afore
creeping to bed," said Mrs. Cuxsom. "There's a fiddle and tambourine going on
there. Lord, what's all the world--do ye come along too, Jopp--'twon't hinder ye
five minutes."
Jopp had mostly kept himself out of this company, but present circumstances
made him somewhat more reckless than usual, and without many words he
decided to go to his destination that way.
Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composed of a curious
congeries of barns and farm-steads, there was a less picturesque side to the
parish. This was Mixen Lane, now in great part pulled down.
Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surrounding villages. It was the
hiding-place of those who were in distress, and in debt, and trouble of every
kind. Farm-labourers and other peasants, who combined a little poaching with
their farming, and a little brawling and bibbing with their poaching, found
themselves sooner or later in Mixen Lane. Rural mechanics too idle to
mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to serve, drifted or were forced into
Mixen Lane.
The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottages stretched out like a
spit into the moist and misty lowland. Much that was sad, much that was low,
some things that were baneful, could be seen in Mixen Lane. Vice ran freely in
and out certain of the doors in the neighbourhood; recklessness dwelt under the
roof with the crooked chimney; shame in some bow-windows; theft (in times of
Thesaurus
baneful: (adj) harmful, deadly,
pestilent, ruinous, hurtful, baleful,
poisonous, injurious, pernicious,
maleficent, malignant. ANTONYMS:
(adj) helpful, beneficial,
advantageous.
brawling: (adj) quarrelsome, blatant,
noisy, boisterous, active, belligerent,
bawling, disorderly, pugnacious; (n)
affray.
congeries: (n) stack, sum,
conglomeration, heap, aggregate,
(adj) cutlery, edge tool, whittle, razor.
collection, pyramid, tissue, rouleau,
poaching: (n) trespass, illicit fishing,
hill, lump.
mechanize: (v) motorize, outfit,
cooking, cookery, contraband; (adj)
mechanizing, automate, equip, make raiding.
tambourine: (n) drum, tympan,
monotonous, motorise, make
mechanical, fit, alter, change.
timbrel, tamburin, tambourin,
mixen: (adj) dunghill, sink, privy,
membranophone.
tyro: (n) novice, apprentice, learner,
mixed, jakes, laystall, midden, bog.
occurring: (adj) going on.
neophyte, newcomer, greenhorn,
penknife: (adj, n) blade; (n)
fledgling, freshman, tiro, entrant,
switchblade, pocketknife, clasp knife, pupil.
pocket knife, carving knife, stiletto;
296
privation) in the thatched and mud-walled houses by the sallows. Even
slaughter had not been altogether unknown here. In a block of cottages up an
alley there might have been erected an altar to disease in years gone by. Such
was Mixen Lane in the times when Henchard and Farfrae were Mayors.%
Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Casterbridge plant lay
close to the open country; not a hundred yards from a row of noble elms, and
commanding a view across the moor of airy uplands and corn-fields, and
mansions of the great. A brook divided the moor from the tenements, and to
outward view there was no way across it-- no way to the houses but round about
by the road. But under every householder's stairs there was kept a mysterious
plank nine inches wide; which plank was a secret bridge.
If you, as one of those refugee householders, came in from business after
dark--and this was the business time here-- you stealthily crossed the moor,
approached the border of the aforesaid brook, and whistled opposite the house
to which you belonged. A shape thereupon made its appearance on the other
side bearing the bridge on end against the sky; it was lowered; you crossed, and
a hand helped you to land yourself, together with the pheasants and hares
gathered from neighbouring manors. You sold them slily the next morning, and
the day after you stood before the magistrates with the eyes of all your
sympathizing neighbours concentrated on your back. You disappeared for a
time; then you were again found quietly living in Mixen Lane.
Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struck by two or three
peculiar features therein. One was an intermittent rumbling from the back
premises of the inn half-way up; this meant a skittle alley. Another was the
extensive prevalence of whistling in the various domiciles--a piped note of some
kind coming from nearly every open door. Another was the frequency of white
aprons over dingy gowns among the women around the doorways. A white
apron is a suspicious vesture in situations where spotlessness is difficult;
moreover, the industry and cleanliness which the white apron expressed were
belied by the postures and gaits of the women who wore it--their knuckles being
mostly on their hips (an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-handled
Thesaurus
cleanliness: (n) tidiness, neatness,
chastity, wont, trait, hygiene,
sanitation, purity, clarity.
ANTONYMS: (n) dirtiness, impurity,
squalor, uncleanliness, grime.
hares: (n) Lagomorpha.
knuckles: (n) brass knuckles, knuckle
duster, weapon, arm, knucks, hand.
pheasants: (n) Phasianidae, brush
turkeys, chickens, curassows, family
Phasianidae, Galliformes, grouse,
hoatzins, order Galliformes,
partridges.
plank: (n) timber, beam, slat, girder,
panel, parachute, matchboard,
footbridge, hardboard; (v) flump; (n,
v) planch.
privation: (n) hardship, need,
deprivation, necessity, poverty,
deficiency, misery, impoverishment,
destitution, dearth; (n, v) loss.
ANTONYM: (n) affluence.
situations: (n) circumstance.
skittle: (n) skittle pin, bowling pin.
stealthily: (adv) furtively, sneakily,
surreptitiously, covertly,
clandestinely, underhandly,
underhandedly, in secret, privately,
sneakingly; (adj, adv) noiselessly.
ANTONYM: (adv) brazenly.
sympathizing: (adj) gentle, mild,
merciful, humane, compassionate,
benevolent, pitiful, kind.
vesture: (n) clothing, raiment, dress,
clothes, apparel, garment, vestment,
garb, attire, array, togs.
Thomas Hardy
297
mugs), and their shoulders against door-posts; while there was a curious alacrity
in the turn of each honest woman's head upon her neck and in the twirl of her
honest eyes, at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along the lane.%
Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectability also found a home.
Under some of the roofs abode pure and virtuous souls whose presence there
was due to the iron hand of necessity, and to that alone. Families from decayed
villages--families of that once bulky, but now nearly extinct, section of village
society called "liviers," or lifeholders--copyholders and others, whose roof-trees
had fallen for some reason or other, compelling them to quit the rural spot that
had been their home for generations--came here, unless they chose to lie under a
hedge by the wayside.
The inn called Peter's finger was the church of Mixen Lane.
It was centrally situate, as such places should be, and bore about the same
social relation to the Three Mariners as the latter bore to the King's Arms. At first
sight the inn was so respectable as to be puzzling. The front door was kept shut,
and the step was so clean that evidently but few persons entered over its sanded
surface. But at the corner of the public-house was an alley, a mere slit, dividing it
from the next building. Half-way up the alley was a narrow door, shiny and
paintless from the rub of infinite hands and shoulders. This was the actual
entrance to the inn.
A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen Lane; and
then, in a moment, he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like Ashton at the
disappearance of Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian had edged into the
slit by the adroit fillip of his person sideways; from the slit he edged into the
tavern by a similar exercise of skill.
The company at the Three Mariners were persons of quality in comparison
with the company which gathered here; though it must be admitted that the
lowest fringe of the Mariner's party touched the crest of Peter's at points. Waifs
and strays of all sorts loitered about here. The landlady was a virtuous woman
who years ago had been unjustly sent to gaol as an accessory to something or
other after the fact. She underwent her twelvemonth, and had worn a martyr's
Thesaurus
abstracted: (adj) absentminded,
dilapidated, rank, rusty, rotting,
decaying, rotted, putrid; (adj, v)
separate, absent-minded, abstract,
wasted; (v) stale. ANTONYMS: (adj)
distrait, inattentive, pensive,
preoccupied, remote, lost, vacant.
matured, restored, strengthened.
ANTONYM: (adj) alert.
footfall: (n, v) tread, pace; (v) gait,
accessory: (n) accomplice, abettor,
velocity, stride; (n) footstep, tramp;
abetter, confederate, attachment; (adj, (adj) fault, claudication, slip, trip.
v) ancillary, subservient; (adj, n)
situate: (v) place, locate, put, lay,
auxiliary, adjunct; (adj) appurtenant,
position, posit, deposit, lodge,
subsidiary. ANTONYMS: (n)
localize, post; (adj, v) set.
twelvemonth: (n) calendar year, civil
instigator, leader, principal.
decayed: (adj) spoiled, corrupt,
year, financial year, common year,
amount of time, time period, period
of time, bissextile year, class, yr,
period.
twirl: (n, v) twist, turn, roll, coil, whirl,
curl, wheel, swirl; (v) twiddle, pivot;
(n) rotation.
unjustly: (adv) wrongly, wrongfully,
wickedly, iniquitously, inequitably,
undeservedly, illegally, foully,
injuriously, unrighteously,
unjustifiedly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
rightly, reasonably.
298
countenance ever since, except at times of meeting the constable who
apprehended her, when she winked her eye.%
To this house Jopp and his acquaintances had arrived. The settles on which
they sat down were thin and tall, their tops being guyed by pieces of twine to
hooks in the ceiling; for when the guests grew boisterous the settles would rock
and overturn without some such security. The thunder of bowls echoed from
the backyard; swingels hung behind the blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers
and ex-gamekeepers, whom squires had persecuted without a cause, sat
elbowing each other--men who in past times had met in fights under the moon,
till lapse of sentences on the one part, and loss of favour and expulsion from
service on the other, brought them here together to a common level, where they
sat calmly discussing old times.
"Dost mind how you could jerk a trout ashore with a bramble, and not ruffle
the stream, Charl?" a deposed keeper was saying. "'Twas at that I caught 'ee
once, if you can mind?"
"That I can. But the worst larry for me was that pheasant business at Yalbury
Wood. Your wife swore false that time, Joe--O, by Gad, she did--there's no
denying it."
"How was that?" asked Jopp.
"Why--Joe closed wi' me, and we rolled down together, close to his garden
hedge. Hearing the noise, out ran his wife with the oven pyle, and it being dark
under the trees she couldn't see which was uppermost. 'Where beest thee, Joe,
under or top?' she screeched. 'O--under, by Gad!' says he. She then began to rap
down upon my skull, back, and ribs with the pyle till we'd roll over again.
'Where beest now, dear Joe, under or top?' she'd scream again. By George, 'twas
through her I was took! And then when we got up in hall she sware that the
cock pheasant was one of her rearing, when 'twas not your bird at all, Joe; 'twas
Squire Brown's bird--that's whose 'twas--one that we'd picked off as we passed
his wood, an hour afore. It did hurt my feelings to be so wronged!...Ah well--'tis
over now."
Thesaurus
backyard: (n) patio, courtyard, yard,
annul, bring down, reverse, topple,
fostering, upbringing, background,
overrule. ANTONYMS: (v) right,
fosterage, nursing; (adj) rampant.
back garden, lawn.
blower: (n) bellows, blast, cetacean,
ribs: (n) dinner, chest, bosom.
assist, accept, submit.
persecuted: (adj) downtrodden,
ruffle: (n, v) crinkle, ruff, crumple,
feeder, device, supercharger, hair
wrinkle, fold; (v) agitate, discompose,
dryer, prostitute, blowing machine,
aggrieved, laden, mistreated,
traction motor blower; (v) bluffer.
fret; (adj, n) perturbation; (n) flounce,
wronged.
bramble: (n) nettle, thorn, blackberry pheasant: (n) monal, afropavo,
frill. ANTONYMS: (v) smooth, calm.
bush, briar, sting, bush, tang; (adj, n)
uppermost: (adj) top, upmost, upper,
peafowl, wildfowl, bird of Juno,
thistle; (adj) brier, beard, porcupine.
golden pheasant, monaul, phasianid, highest, chief, maximum, supreme,
hooks: (n) maulers, meat hooks.
greatest, major, outermost; (n) main.
Argus pheasant, Argus.
overturn: (n, v) capsize, upset, overset; rearing: (n) breeding, nurture,
ANTONYMS: (adj) bottom, lowest,
(v) knock over, subvert, destroy,
education, bringing up, raising,
trivial, lower.
Thomas Hardy
299
"I might have had 'ee days afore that," said the keeper. "I was within a few
yards of 'ee dozens of times, with a sight more of birds than that poor one."
"Yes--'tis not our greatest doings that the world gets wind of," said the
furmity-woman, who, lately settled in this purlieu, sat among the rest. Having
travelled a great deal in her time she spoke with cosmopolitan largeness of idea.
It was she who presently asked Jopp what was the parcel he kept so snugly
under his arm.%
"Ah, therein lies a grand secret," said Jopp. "It is the passion of love. To think
that a woman should love one man so well, and hate another so unmercifully."
"Who's the object of your meditation, sir?"
"One that stands high in this town. I'd like to shame her! Upon my life,
'twould be as good as a play to read her love- letters, the proud piece of silk and
wax-work! For 'tis her love-letters that I've got here."
"Love letters? then let's hear 'em, good soul," said Mother Cuxsom. "Lord, do
ye mind, Richard, what fools we used to be when we were younger? Getting a
schoolboy to write ours for us; and giving him a penny, do ye mind, not to tell
other folks what he'd put inside, do ye mind?"
By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under the seals, and unfastened the
letters, tumbling them over and picking up one here and there at random, which
he read aloud. These passages soon began to uncover the secret which Lucetta
had so earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the epistles, being allusive only,
did not make it altogether plain.
"Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!" said Nance Mockridge. "'Tis a humbling thing for
us, as respectable women, that one of the same sex could do it. And now she's
avowed herself to another man!"
"So much the better for her," said the aged furmity-woman. "Ah, I saved her
from a real bad marriage, and she's never been the one to thank me."
"I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride," said Nance.
Thesaurus
allusive: (adj, v) expressive; (adj)
allegorical, anagogical, metaphorical,
meaningful, indirect, typical,
tralatitious; (v) comparable, covert,
muffled.
cosmopolitan: (adj) universal,
international, sophisticated, global,
Catholic, ecumenical, planetary,
widely distributed, oecumenical; (adj,
n) cosmopolite; (n) creeping wood
sorrel. ANTONYMS: (adj) insular,
country, endemic, parochial, rustic.
doings: (n) conduct, behavior,
aquatic mammal, signet, suborder
behaviour, deportment, demeanour,
Pinnipedia, sea Lions.
proceeding, episode, traffic; (v) act,
snugly: (adv) cozily, cosily,
deed, job.
comfortably, closely, tightly,
epistles: (n) revelations, gospels,
pleasantly, compactly, neatly,
apocalypse, evangelists.
conveniently, homely, trimly.
humbling: (adj) humiliating,
unfastened: (adj) open, movable,
demeaning, abject, amazing,
loose, unbuttoned, overt, opened,
astounding, awesome, breathtaking,
opened out, slack, undecided,
critical, embarrassing; (n) comedown, undetermined, assailable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) buttoned, fixed,
debasement.
seals: (n) Pinnipedia, key, talisman,
shut, tied.
300
"True," said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. "'Tis as good a ground for a skimmityride as ever I knowed; and it ought not to be wasted. The last one seen in
Casterbridge must have been ten years ago, if a day."
At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the man
who had been called Charl, "'Tis Jim coming in. Would ye go and let down the
bridge for me?"
Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a lantern
from her went out at the back door and down the garden-path, which ended
abruptly at the edge of the stream already mentioned. Beyond the stream was
the open moor, from which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces as they
advanced. Taking up the board that had lain in readiness one of them lowered it
across the water, and the instant its further end touched the ground footsteps
entered upon it, and there appeared from the shade a stalwart man with straps
round his knees, a double-barrelled gun under his arm and some birds slung up
behind him. They asked him if he had had much luck.%
"Not much," he said indifferently. "All safe inside?"
Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards, the others
withdrawing the bridge and beginning to retreat in his rear. Before, however,
they had entered the house a cry of "Ahoy" from the moor led them to pause.
The cry was repeated. They pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and went
back to the brink of the stream.
"Ahoy--is this the way to Casterbridge?" said some one from the other side.
"Not in particular," said Charl. "There's a river afore 'ee."
"I don't care--here's for through it!" said the man in the moor. "I've had
travelling enough for to-day."
"Stop a minute, then," said Charl, finding that the man was no enemy. "Joe,
bring the plank and lantern; here's somebody that's lost his way. You should
have kept along the turnpike road, friend, and not have strook across here."
Thesaurus
brink: (n, v) edge; (n) border, hem,
threshold, boundary, brim, shore,
periphery, lip, margin, limit.
ANTONYMS: (n) middle, interior,
end.
footsteps: (n) road, footprints, way,
trail, path, track, footpath.
moor: (v) berth, fasten, dock, secure,
tie up; (adj, v) tie, picket, hitch; (n)
marsh, wilderness, wasteland.
outhouse: (n) outbuilding, privy,
jakes, barn, penthouse, bathroom,
can, John, lav, lavatory.
uncommitted.
replying: (adj) respondent, responsive. turnpike: (n) superhighway,
shrill: (adj) piercing, penetrating,
motorway, freeway, expressway,
strident, keen, shrewd; (v) shriek,
road, pike, highway, hayfork, pick,
screech, scream, yell; (adj, v) high,
royal road, state highway.
sharp. ANTONYMS: (adj) low, quiet, whistle: (v) sing, twitter, hiss, warble,
tweet, cheep, chirp, wheeze; (n, v)
resonant.
stalwart: (adj) brawny, brave, sturdy,
cry; (n) whistling, tin whistle.
strapping, resolute, hardy, powerful, withdrawing: (adj) receding, outgoing,
sinewy, firm, stout, courageous.
retiring, moving back, modest, lowly;
ANTONYMS: (adj) unreliable, weak, (n) departure, privacy, seclusion,
inconstant, feeble, delicate, cowardly, cancellation.
Thomas Hardy
301
"I should--as I see now. But I saw a light here, and says I to myself, that's an
outlying house, depend on't."
The plank was now lowered; and the stranger's form shaped itself from the
darkness. He was a middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers prematurely grey,
and a broad and genial face. He had crossed on the plank without hesitation,
and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit. He thanked them, and walked
between them up the garden. "What place is this?" he asked, when they reached
the door.%
"A public-house."
"Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at. Now then, come in and wet your
whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me."
They followed him into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him as
one who would stand higher in an estimate by the eye than in one by the ear. He
was dressed with a certain clumsy richness--his coat being furred, and his head
covered by a cap of seal-skin, which, though the nights were chilly, must have
been warm for the daytime, spring being somewhat advanced. In his hand he
carried a small mahogany case, strapped, and clamped with brass.
Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted him through
the kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea of putting up at the house; but
taking the situation lightly, he called for glasses of the best, paid for them as he
stood in the passage, and turned to proceed on his way by the front door. This
was barred, and while the landlady was unfastening it the conversation about
the skimmington was continued in the sitting-room, and reached his ears.
"What do they mean by a 'skimmity-ride'?" he asked.
"O, sir!" said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with deprecating
modesty; "'tis a' old foolish thing they do in these parts when a man's wife is-well, not too particularly his own. But as a respectable householder I don't
encourage it.
"Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I suppose?"
Thesaurus
barred: (adj) prohibited, forbidden,
barricaded, barry, banned, illicit,
streaked; (v) striated, areolar, veined;
(n) Bart. ANTONYMS: (adj)
admissible, legitimate, eligible, open.
earrings: (n) charms, bracelets, rings,
ornaments, necklaces, jewels, jewelry,
costume jewelry, trinkets.
furred: (adj) hairy, hirsute, fur lined,
wooly, fuzzy.
lowered: (adj) lower, reduced, cheap,
bated, humbled. ANTONYM: (adj)
secluded. ANTONYMS: (adj) central,
raised.
modesty: (n) reserve, bashfulness,
metropolitan, nearby, neighboring.
prematurely: (adv) early,
humility, diffidence, humbleness,
demureness, coyness, gentleness,
inopportunely, hastily, precipitately,
continence; (adj, n) decency, honesty. unripely, previously, rashly,
ANTONYMS: (n) arrogance,
immaturely, precociously, forwardly,
immodesty, spectacle, flamboyance,
beforehand.
abandon, bigheadedness, pretension, strapped: (adj) impecunious, poor,
decadence, boldness.
penniless, late, poverty-stricken,
outlying: (adj) faraway, remote, far,
short of money, impoverished,
outer, isolated, outdoor, outward,
destitute, insolvent, indigent.
unfastening: (n) loosening, untying.
exterior, peripheral, outstanding,
302
"Well, sir!" she simpered. And then, bursting into naturalness, and glancing
from the corner of her eye, "'Tis the funniest thing under the sun! And it costs
money."
"Ah! I remember hearing of some such thing. Now I shall be in Casterbridge
for two or three weeks to come, and should not mind seeing the performance.
Wait a moment." He turned back, entered the sitting-room, and said, "Here,
good folks; I should like to see the old custom you are talking of, and I don't
mind being something towards it-- take that." He threw a sovereign on the table
and returned to the landlady at the door, of whom, having inquired the way into
the town, he took his leave.%
"There were more where that one came from," said Charl when the sovereign
had been taken up and handed to the landlady for safe keeping. "By George! we
ought to have got a few more while we had him here."
"No, no," answered the landlady. "This is a respectable house, thank God!
And I'll have nothing done but what's honourable."
"Well," said Jopp; "now we'll consider the business begun, and will soon get it
in train."
"We will!" said Nance. "A good laugh warms my heart more than a cordial,
and that's the truth on't."
Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhat late he did not
attempt to call at Farfrae's with them that night. He reached home, sealed them
up as before, and delivered the parcel at its address next morning. Within an
hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who, poor soul! was inclined
to fall down on her knees in thankfulness that at last no evidence remained of
the unlucky episode with Henchard in her past. For though hers had been rather
the laxity of inadvertence than of intention, that episode, if known, was not the
less likely to operate fatally between herself and her husband.
Thesaurus
bursting: (adj) explosive, teeming,
chock-full, full, complete,
paroxysmal, exploding, disruptive,
detonating, crowded; (n) outbreak.
ANTONYM: (adj) hungry.
fatally: (adv) lethally, fatefully,
perniciously, disastrously,
destructively, terminally, deadly,
pestilently, killingly, calamitously;
(adj, adv) dangerously.
glancing: (adj) passing.
inadvertence: (n) disregard,
inadvertency, oversight, inattention, naturalness: (n) familiarity,
omission, neglect, mistake,
artlessness, innocence, naturalization,
superintendence, supervision, error;
ingenuousness, quality,
(adj) nonobservance. ANTONYM: (n) unaffectedness, naturality,
mindfulness.
informality, nature, naiveness.
laxity: (n) laxness, relaxation,
ANTONYMS: (n) affectedness,
carelessness, remissness, laches,
insincerity.
evasion, failure, feebleness; (adj)
shall: (n) must, necessity; (v) require,
flaccidity, immorality, debasement.
bequeath, leave.
ANTONYMS: (n) intervention,
thankfulness: (n) appreciation,
strictness, vigilance, severity,
gratefulness, appreciativeness,
attention.
thanks, credit, merit, recognition.
Thomas Hardy
303
CHAPTER 37
Such was the state of things when the current affairs of Casterbridge were
interrupted by an event of such magnitude that its influence reached to the
lowest social stratum there, stirring the depths of its society simultaneously with
the preparations for the skimmington. It was one of those excitements which,
when they move a country town, leave permanent mark upon its chronicles, as a
warm summer permanently marks the ring in the tree-trunk corresponding to its
date.%
A Royal Personage was about to pass through the borough on his course
further west, to inaugurate an immense engineering work out that way. He had
consented to halt half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receive an address from
the corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a representative centre of husbandry,
wished thus to express its sense of the great services he had rendered to
agricultural science and economics, by his zealous promotion of designs for
placing the art of farming on a more scientific footing.
Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since the days of the third King
George, and then only by candlelight for a few minutes, when that monarch, on
a night-journey, had stopped to change horses at the King's Arms. The
inhabitants therefore decided to make a thorough fete carillonee of the
unwonted occasion. Half-an-hour's pause was not long, it is true; but much
Thesaurus
candlelight: (adj) rushlight, firelight,
introduce, commence, enter,
unusual, unused, infrequent,
starlight; (n) candlelighting.
originate, institute, open, start,
uncustomary, singular,
chronicles: (n) archives, history,
induct. ANTONYMS: (v) end,
extraordinary, scarce, unaccountable,
archive, records.
terminate, disband.
remarkable.
fete: (n) feast, festival, carnival, party, royalty: (n) regality, payment,
zealous: (adj) keen, enthusiastic,
banquet, celebration, gala, festivity,
kingship, royal line, royal house,
fervent, ardent, avid, devoted,
fiesta, eisteddfod; (v) celebrate.
royal family, fee, tax, nobility,
strenuous, vehement, glowing, fiery;
husbandry: (n) cultivation, farming,
(adj, n) passionate. ANTONYMS:
loyalty, majesty.
stratum: (n) layer, bed, level, seam,
(adj) indifferent, apathetic,
economy, frugality, culture,
conservation, thrift, tillage, dairying, floor, ply, stage, story, horizon, class, unenthusiastic, cool, halfhearted,
horticulture, gardening.
plane.
moderate.
inaugurate: (v) initiate, begin, launch, unwonted: (adj) unaccustomed, rare,
304
might be done in it by a judicious grouping of incidents, above all, if the weather
were fine.%
The address was prepared on parchment by an artist who was handy at
ornamental lettering, and was laid on with the best gold-leaf and colours that the
sign-painter had in his shop. The Council had met on the Tuesday before the
appointed day, to arrange the details of the procedure. While they were sitting,
the door of the Council Chamber standing open, they heard a heavy footstep
coming up the stairs. It advanced along the passage, and Henchard entered the
room, in clothes of frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the very clothes which he
had used to wear in the primal days when he had sat among them.
"I have a feeling," he said, advancing to the table and laying his hand upon
the green cloth, "that I should like to join ye in this reception of our illustrious
visitor. I suppose I could walk with the rest?"
Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the Council and Grower nearly ate
the end of his quill-pen off, so gnawed he it during the silence. Farfrae the
young Mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in the large chair, intuitively caught
the sense of the meeting, and as spokesman was obliged to utter it, glad as he
would have been that the duty should have fallen to another tongue.
"I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard," said he. "The Council
are the Council, and as ye are no longer one of the body, there would be an
irregularity in the proceeding. If ye were included, why not others?"
"I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the ceremony."
Farfrae looked round. "I think I have expressed the feeling of the Council," he
said.
"Yes, yes," from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and several more.
"Then I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it officially?"
"I am afraid so; it is out of the question, indeed. But of course you can see the
doings full well, such as they are to be, like the rest of the spectators."
Thesaurus
frayed: (adj) threadbare, shabby,
ragged, tattered, thin, torn; (adj, v)
dilapidated; (v) secondhand, wilted,
shaken, stale. ANTONYMS: (adj)
pristine, new, smart.
gnawed: (v) gnow, eroded.
intuitively: (adv) impulsively,
viscerally, unconsciously,
automatically, mechanically,
inbornly, inherently, innately,
involuntarily, nonrationally,
perceptively.
judicious: (adj, v) discreet; (adj)
(v) foolscap, tablet, table, slate, pillar.
careful, discerning, sensible, prudent, primal: (adj) primordial, primitive,
rational, sagacious, sound, cautious,
fundamental, primaeval, cardinal,
reasonable, advisable. ANTONYMS: central, key, aboriginal, early, first,
(adj) stupid, tactless, indiscriminate,
initial. ANTONYM: (adj) modern.
reckless, illogical, extreme, untimely. threadbare: (adj, v) stale, shabby,
lettering: (n) print, epigraph, script,
dilapidated, bald, frayed, faded; (adj)
superscription, writing, type,
hackneyed, worn, banal, trite,
tattered. ANTONYMS: (adj) new,
dedication, epitaph, typeface, font,
handwriting.
unused, reliable, fresh, unworn,
parchment: (n) vellum, sheepskin,
pristine, original.
lambskin, diploma, testament, will;
Thomas Hardy
305
Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion, and, turning on his
heel, went away.%
It had been only a passing fancy of his, but opposition crystallized it into a
determination. "I'll welcome his Royal Highness, or nobody shall!" he went
about saying. "I am not going to be sat upon by Farfrae, or any of the rest of the
paltry crew! You shall see."
The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sun confronting early windowgazers eastward, and all perceived (for they were practised in weather-lore) that
there was permanence in the glow. Visitors soon began to flock in from county
houses, villages, remote copses, and lonely uplands, the latter in oiled boots and
tilt bonnets, to see the reception, or if not to see it, at any rate to be near it. There
was hardly a workman in the town who did not put a clean shirt on. Solomon
Longways, Christopher Coney, Buzzford, and the rest of that fraternity, showed
their sense of the occasion by advancing their customary eleven o'clock pint to
half-past ten; from which they found a difficulty in getting back to the proper
hour for several days.
Henchard had determined to do no work that day. He primed himself in the
morning with a glass of rum, and walking down the street met Elizabeth-Jane,
whom he had not seen for a week. "It was lucky," he said to her, "my twenty-one
years had expired before this came on, or I should never have had the nerve to
carry it out."
"Carry out what?" said she, alarmed.
"This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor."
She was perplexed. "Shall we go and see it together?" she said.
"See it! I have other fish to fry. You see it. It will be worth seeing!"
She could do nothing to elucidate this, and decked herself out with a heavy
heart. As the appointed time drew near she got sight again of her stepfather.
She thought he was going to the Three Mariners; but no, he elbowed his way
through the gay throng to the shop of Woolfrey, the draper. She waited in the
crowd without.
Thesaurus
crystallized: (adj) crystalized, candied, solve, clear. ANTONYMS: (v)
crystalline. ANTONYM: (adj)
obfuscate, muddy, obscure.
eventful: (adj) fateful, weighty, lively,
uncrystallized.
decked: (adj) bedecked, decked out,
important, momentous, memorable,
notable, hectic, significant; (n)
ornamented, decorated, festooned.
draper: (n) monger, haberdasher, linen stirring; (v) full of incident.
ANTONYMS: (adj) dull, insignificant,
draper, mercer, dealer, bargainer.
eastward: (adj) eastbound, eastern;
ordinary, slow, empty.
(adv) eastwards.
fraternity: (adj, n) brotherhood; (n)
elucidate: (v) clear up, clarify,
association, company, club,
enlighten, explain, illuminate,
fellowship, society, companionship,
expound, decipher, brighten, resolve, clan, circle, community, organization.
paltry: (adj, n) mean; (adj)
contemptible, measly, trifling, abject,
insignificant, inconsiderable, puny,
little, trivial, low. ANTONYMS: (adj)
generous, substantial, plentiful,
enormous, important, profound.
permanence: (n) constancy, stability,
endurance, strength, immortality,
firmness, perdurability, lastingness,
duration, perpetuity; (adj, n)
continuance. ANTONYMS: (n)
interruption, flimsiness, instability.
306
In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a brilliant rosette,
while more surprising still, in his hand he carried a flag of somewhat homely
construction, formed by tacking one of the small Union Jacks, which abounded
in the town to-day, to the end of a deal wand--probably the roller from a piece of
calico. Henchard rolled up his flag on the doorstep, put it under his arm, and
went down the street.%
Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned their heads, and the shorter
stood on tiptoe. It was said that the Royal cortege approached. The railway had
stretched out an arm towards Casterbridge at this time, but had not reached it by
several miles as yet; so that the intervening distance, as well as the remainder of
the journey, was to be traversed by road in the old fashion. People thus waited-the county families in their carriages, the masses on foot-- and watched the farstretching London highway to the ringing of bells and chatter of tongues.
From the background Elizabeth-Jane watched the scene. Some seats had
been arranged from which ladies could witness the spectacle, and the front seat
was occupied by Lucetta, the Mayor's wife, just at present. In the road under her
eyes stood Henchard. She appeared so bright and pretty that, as it seemed, he
was experiencing the momentary weakness of wishing for her notice. But he was
far from attractive to a woman's eye, ruled as that is so largely by the superficies
of things. He was not only a journeyman, unable to appear as he formerly had
appeared, but he disdained to appear as well as he might. Everybody else, from
the Mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture according to means; but
Henchard had doggedly retained the fretted and weather-beaten garments of
bygone years.
Hence, alas, this occurred: Lucetta's eyes slid over him to this side and to that
without anchoring on his features--as gaily dressed women's eyes will too often
do on such occasions. Her manner signified quite plainly that she meant to
know him in public no more.
But she was never tired of watching Donald, as he stood in animated
converse with his friends a few yards off, wearing round his young neck the
official gold chain with great square links, like that round the Royal unicorn.
Thesaurus
anchoring: (n) mooring, gripping.
calico: (n) cambric, fabric, cashmere,
chintz, cloth; (adj) motley,
varicoloured, pied, assorted.
carriages: (n) carriage.
chatter: (n, v) babble, gossip, prattle,
gab, cackle, natter; (adj, n, v) jabber;
(adj, v) prate, palaver; (v) blabber,
patter. ANTONYM: (v) drawl.
cortege: (adj, n) retinue; (n) suite,
escort, entourage, train, court,
gathering; (n, v) procession; (v)
cavalcade, caravan; (adj) rank and
file.
roller: (n) cylinder, billow, wheel,
wave, platen, curler, castor, brace,
ground ball, hair curler, surge.
superficies: (n) surface, exterior,
appearance, exteriority, top, size,
compass, externality, length,
superfice, proportion.
tacking: (n) basting, baste, tack
welding, stitch, stable gear, shroud,
sheet, saddlery, mainsheet, going
about, change of course.
tiptoe: (v) tip, tippytoe, creep, patter,
skirt, skip, tilt, sidle, lean; (adj) alert;
(n) quieter. ANTONYM: (v) clump.
unicorn: (n) trap, dogcart, imaginary
being, imaginary creature,
monoceros, tandem, Whitechapel,
random.
washerwoman: (n) laundrywoman,
washwoman, washer, washerman,
dhobi, launder, laundryman.
weather-beaten: (adj) gnarled, rugged.
Thomas Hardy
307
Every trifling emotion that her husband showed as he talked had its reflex on
her face and lips, which moved in little duplicates to his. She was living his part
rather than her own, and cared for no one's situation but Farfrae's that day.%
At length a man stationed at the furthest turn of the high road, namely, on
the second bridge of which mention has been made, gave a signal, and the
Corporation in their robes proceeded from the front of the Town Hall to the
archway erected at the entrance to the town. The carriages containing the Royal
visitor and his suite arrived at the spot in a cloud of dust, a procession was
formed, and the whole came on to the Town Hall at a walking pace.
This spot was the centre of interest. There were a few clear yards in front of
the Royal carriage, sanded; and into this space a man stepped before any one
could prevent him. It was Henchard. He had unrolled his private flag, and
removing his hat he staggered to the side of the slowing vehicle, waving the
Union Jack to and fro with his left hand while he blandly held out his right to the
Illustrious Personage.
All the ladies said with bated breath, "O, look there!" and Lucetta was ready
to faint. Elizabeth-Jane peeped through the shoulders of those in front, saw what
it was, and was terrified; and then her interest in the spectacle as a strange
phenomenon got the better of her fear.
Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately rose to the occasion. He seized
Henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly to be off.
Henchard's eyes met his, and Farfrae observed the fierce light in them despite his
excitement and irritation. For a moment Henchard stood his ground rigidly;
then by an unaccountable impulse gave way and retired. Farfrae glanced to the
ladies' gallery, and saw that his Calphurnia's cheek was pale.
"Why--it is your husband's old patron!" said Mrs. Blowbody, a lady of the
neighbourhood who sat beside Lucetta.
"Patron!" said Donald's wife with quick indignation.
Thesaurus
archway: (n) arcade, entry,
entranceway, entryway, entree,
doorway, entrance.
bated: (adj) weak, faint, decreased.
containing: (adj) including,
comprehensive.
indignation: (n) anger, resentment,
displeasure, grudge, umbrage, rage,
outrage, exasperation, choler,
dudgeon; (adj, n) wrath.
ANTONYMS: (n) contentment,
pleasure.
reflex: (adj) involuntary, instinctive,
amenably.
unconscious, catoptric; (v) reflection, robes: (n) garb, fine clothes, costume,
reflexion, resilient; (n) reaction,
best clothes.
slowing: (n) deceleration, slowness,
burping, eructation, physiological
reaction. ANTONYMS: (adj)
slowdown, mental retardation, lag,
voluntary, deliberate.
fastness, backwardness. ANTONYM:
removing: (adj) departing.
(n) acceleration.
rigidly: (adv) severely, sternly, strictly, staggered: (adj) dumbfounded,
firmly, stringently, unbendingly,
astonished, flabbergasted, astounded,
rigorously, uncompromisingly,
stunned, bewildered, surprised,
stubbornly, unyieldingly, strongly.
thunderstruck, angular, dizzy, taken
ANTONYMS: (adv) loosely,
aback.
308
"Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr. Farfrae's?" observed Mrs.
Bath, the physician's wife, a new-comer to the town through her recent marriage
with the doctor.%
"He works for my husband," said Lucetta.
"Oh--is that all? They have been saying to me that it was through him your
husband first got a footing in Casterbridge. What stories people will tell!"
"They will indeed. It was not so at all. Donald's genius would have enabled
him to get a footing anywhere, without anybody's help! He would have been
just the same if there had been no Henchard in the world!"
It was partly Lucetta's ignorance of the circumstances of Donald's arrival
which led her to speak thus, partly the sensation that everybody seemed bent on
snubbing her at this triumphant time. The incident had occupied but a few
moments, but it was necessarily witnessed by the Royal Personage, who,
however, with practised tact affected not to have noticed anything unusual. He
alighted, the Mayor advanced, the address was read; the Illustrious Personage
replied, then said a few words to Farfrae, and shook hands with Lucetta as the
Mayor's wife. The ceremony occupied but a few minutes, and the carriages
rattled heavily as Pharaoh's chariots down Corn Street and out upon the
Budmouth Road, in continuation of the journey coastward.
In the crowd stood Coney, Buzzford, and Longways "Some difference
between him now and when he zung at the Dree Mariners," said the first. "'Tis
wonderful how he could get a lady of her quality to go snacks wi' en in such
quick time."
"True. Yet how folk do worship fine clothes! Now there's a better-looking
woman than she that nobody notices at all, because she's akin to that hontish
fellow Henchard."
"I could worship ye, Buzz, for saying that," remarked Nance Mockridge. "I
do like to see the trimming pulled off such Christmas candles. I am quite
unequal to the part of villain myself, or I'd gi'e all my small silver to see that lady
toppered....And perhaps I shall soon," she added significantly.
Thesaurus
akin: (adj) near, like, allied, equivalent, hotchpot, food and drink.
stories: (n) tale.
alike, similar, analogous, parallel,
tact: (n) diplomacy, delicacy, finesse,
cognate, kindred, corresponding.
ANTONYMS: (adj) unconnected,
address, discretion, skill,
alien, disconnected, dissimilar,
consideration, refinement, grace,
different.
thoughtfulness, tactfulness.
rattled: (adj) hot and bothered,
ANTONYMS: (n) frankness,
perturbed, upset, unsettled, puzzled, carelessness, thoughtlessness,
disconcerted, discomposed,
insensitivity, clumsiness.
bewildered, beside oneself, abashed, triumphant: (adj) victorious,
addled. ANTONYM: (adj) calm.
successful, triumphal, exulting,
snacks: (n) coportion, junk food,
winning, joyful, rejoicing, elated,
conquering, prideful; (adj, v) exultant.
ANTONYMS: (adj) disappointed,
failing, losing, defeated, miserable,
sorrowful.
unequal: (adj) different, unlike,
uneven, rough, lopsided, unfair,
inadequate, disparate,
disproportionate, unbalanced,
unsymmetrical. ANTONYMS: (adj)
equal, even, fair, identical, similar,
same, level, constant, balanced, like,
corresponding.
Thomas Hardy
309
"That's not a noble passiont for a 'oman to keep up," said Longways.%
Nance did not reply, but every one knew what she meant. The ideas
diffused by the reading of Lucetta's letters at Peter's finger had condensed into a
scandal, which was spreading like a miasmatic fog through Mixen Lane, and
thence up the back streets of Casterbridge.
The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each other presently fell apart into
two bands by a process of natural selection, the frequenters of Peter's Finger
going off Mixen Lane- wards, where most of them lived, while Coney, Buzzford,
Longways, and that connection remained in the street.
"You know what's brewing down there, I suppose?" said Buzzford
mysteriously to the others.
Coney looked at him. "Not the skimmity-ride?"
Buzzford nodded.
"I have my doubts if it will be carried out," said Longways. "If they are
getting it up they are keeping it mighty close.
"I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all events."
"If I were sure o't I'd lay information," said Longways emphatically. "'Tis too
rough a joke, and apt to wake riots in towns. We know that the Scotchman is a
right enough man, and that his lady has been a right enough 'oman since she
came here, and if there was anything wrong about her afore, that's their business,
not ours."
Coney reflected. Farfrae was still liked in the community; but it must be
owned that, as the Mayor and man of money, engrossed with affairs and
ambitions, he had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants something of that
wondrous charm which he had had for them as a light-hearted penniless young
man, who sang ditties as readily as the birds in the trees. Hence the anxiety to
keep him from annoyance showed not quite the ardour that would have
animated it in former days.
Thesaurus
assemblage: (n) meeting, collection,
engrossed: (adj) rapt, engaged, intent, containing miasma, catching,
congregation, set, multitude, crew,
occupied, preoccupied, busy,
pernicious.
penniless: (adj) indigent, needy, poor,
confluence, gathering, gang,
fascinated, obsessed, thoughtful,
hooked; (adj, v) immersed.
convention, convocation.
destitute, moneyless, broke,
ANTONYMS: (v) dispersal,
ANTONYMS: (adj) disinterested,
miserable, impoverished, insolvent,
scattering.
bored, distracted, indifferent,
penurious, hard up. ANTONYMS:
coney: (n) rabbit, cony, leporid,
(adj) solvent, wealthy, affluent.
unconcerned, uninterested,
wondrous: (adj) marvelous,
lagomorph, grouper, rock hyrax,
inattentive, carefree.
joke: (n, v) banter; (n) hoax, fun, quip, miraculous, marvellous, astonishing,
lapin, collared pika, rock rabbit,
bunny rabbit, cottontail.
gag, caper, game, antic, prank,
tremendous, fantastic, phenomenal,
diffused: (adj) spread, dispersed, dim, humor; (v) tease.
extraordinary, rattling; (adv)
miasmatic: (adj) miasmal, poisonous,
distributed, softened.
wonderfully, marvellously.
310
"Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher," continued Longways;
"and if we find there's really anything in it, drop a letter to them most concerned,
and advise 'em to keep out of the way?"%
This course was decided on, and the group separated, Buzzford saying to
Coney, "Come, my ancient friend; let's move on. There's nothing more to see
here."
These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known
how ripe the great jocular plot really was. "Yes, to-night," Jopp had said to the
Peter's party at the corner of Mixen Lane. "As a wind-up to the Royal visit the
hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great elevation to-day."
To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.
Thesaurus
advise: (v) recommend, propose,
plot: (n, v) plan, intrigue, cabal, plat,
v) mellow. ANTONYMS: (adj) green,
scheme, design, chart; (n) lot, patch,
warn, inform, acquaint, suggest,
unripe, immature, dry, poisonous,
graph; (v) conspire.
notify, announce, tell, offer,
young, unsuitable, sweet.
forewarn. ANTONYMS: (v) betray,
retaliation: (n) reprisal, revenge,
separated: (adj, prep) separate, isolated,
deceive, delude, fool, trick.
requital, vengeance, payment, return, disjoined, distinct; (adj, adv) apart;
elevation: (n) height, highness,
talion, repayment, reciprocation; (v)
(adj) detached, divided, disjointed,
retortion; (adv, n) measure for
exaltation, ascent, climb, hill,
free, disjunct, discrete. ANTONYMS:
measure. ANTONYM: (n)
(adj) attached, connected.
aggrandizement, raise, El, Alt,
stature. ANTONYMS: (n)
well-intentioned: (adj) innocent,
acceptance.
ripe: (adj) adult, ready, advanced,
degradation, descent, levelness,
sympathetic.
wind-up: (n) finish, end, termination.
depression, downgrading, demotion, prepared, good, grown, perfect,
matured, finished, consummate; (adj,
drop, depth.
Thomas Hardy
311
CHAPTER 38
The proceedings had been brief--too brief--to Lucetta whom an intoxicating
Weltlust had fairly mastered; but they had brought her a great triumph
nevertheless. The shake of the Royal hand still lingered in her fingers; and the
chitchat she had overheard, that her husband might possibly receive the
honour of knighthood, though idle to a degree, seemed not the wildest vision;
stranger things had occurred to men so good and captivating as her Scotchman
was.%
After the collision with the Mayor, Henchard had withdrawn behind the
ladies' stand; and there he stood, regarding with a stare of abstraction the spot on
the lapel of his coat where Farfrae's hand had seized it. He put his own hand
there, as if he could hardly realize such an outrage from one whom it had once
been his wont to treat with ardent generosity. While pausing in this halfstupefied state the conversation of Lucetta with the other ladies reached his ears;
and he distinctly heard her deny him--deny that he had assisted Donald, that he
was anything more than a common journeyman.
He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the Bull Stake. "So
you've had a snub," said Jopp.
"And what if I have?" answered Henchard sternly.
Thesaurus
ardent: (adj, n) enthusiastic, glowing;
(adj, v) burning, fervent,
impassioned; (adj) keen, vehement,
eager, warm, acute, fervid.
ANTONYMS: (adj) apathetic, cool,
unenthusiastic, traitorous, mild,
frigid, dispassionate, cold, disloyal,
impassive, calm.
assisted: (adj) aided.
captivating: (adj, v) enchanting,
charming, engaging; (adj) attractive,
absorbing, alluring, bewitching,
delightful, engrossing, lovely,
impetuous, inebriant, inebrious,
enthralling. ANTONYMS: (adj)
powerful, provocative, forcible.
ANTONYMS: (adj) soft, weak.
repellent, boring, unpleasant,
unappealing, forgettable, annoying. knighthood: (n) chivalry, knight,
chit: (n) check, bill, chick, bairn, brat,
nobility, aristocracy.
lapel: (n) flap, collar, overlap, cuff,
receipt, tab, voucher, ticket,
memorandum; (adj) Liliputian.
neck, revers, lap, revere, rimple, rivel,
collision: (n) clash, hit, conflict, crash, ruffle.
stare: (n, v) gaze, look; (v) gape, glare,
smash, clashing, accident,
peer, squint, goggle, see, outface; (n)
rencounter, jar, striking, hitting.
intoxicating: (adj) intoxicant, strong,
regard, contemplation. ANTONYM:
(v) glance.
alcoholic, effective, exciting,
312
"Why, I've had one too, so we are both under the same cold shade." He
briefly related his attempt to win Lucetta's intercession.
Henchard merely heard his story, without taking it deeply in. His own
relation to Farfrae and Lucetta overshadowed all kindred ones. He went on
saying brokenly to himself, "She has supplicated to me in her time; and now her
tongue won't own me nor her eyes see me!...And he--how angry he looked. He
drove me back as if I were a bull breaking fence....I took it like a lamb, for I saw it
could not be settled there. He can rub brine on a green wound!...But he shall pay
for it, and she shall be sorry. It must come to a tussle--face to face; and then we'll
see how a coxcomb can front a man!"
Without further reflection the fallen merchant, bent on some wild purpose,
ate a hasty dinner and went forth to find Farfrae. After being injured by him as a
rival, and snubbed by him as a journeyman, the crowning degradation had been
reserved for this day--that he should be shaken at the collar by him as a
vagabond in the face of the whole town.%
The crowds had dispersed. But for the green arches which still stood as they
were erected Casterbridge life had resumed its ordinary shape. Henchard went
down corn Street till he came to Farfrae's house, where he knocked, and left a
message that he would be glad to see his employer at the granaries as soon as he
conveniently could come there. Having done this he proceeded round to the
back and entered the yard.
Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, the labourers and carters
were enjoying a half-holiday on account of the events of the morning--though the
carters would have to return for a short time later on, to feed and litter down the
horses. He had reached the granary steps and was about to ascend, when he
said to himself aloud, "I'm stronger than he."
Henchard returned to a shed, where he selected a short piece of rope from
several pieces that were lying about; hitching one end of this to a nail, he took the
other in his right hand and turned himself bodily round, while keeping his arm
against his side; by this contrivance he pinioned the arm effectively. He now
went up the ladders to the top floor of the corn-stores.
Thesaurus
ascend: (n, v) mount; (v) arise, scale,
tamely, intermittently, ruggedly,
interference, arbitration,
uprise, climb, go up, come up,
discontinuously, defectively.
interposition, invocation, prayer,
increase, elevate; (n) ascending,
coxcomb: (n) cockscomb, fop, beau,
supplication, intermediation,
ascent. ANTONYMS: (v) descend,
dandy, exquisite, dude, blood, buck,
atonement, agency, protest.
kindred: (adj) cognate, akin, similar,
drop, decline, fall, lower, set, sink.
comb, crest, sheik.
brine: (n) deep, sea, ocean, salt water, crowning: (adj) top, ultimate, topmost, allied, related; (n) kin, consanguinity,
complementary, final; (adj, v)
saltwater, seawater, non freeze
relation, folk, folks, kin group.
liquid, watery waste, solution; (adj, v) paramount, supreme; (n) tapering,
vagabond: (n, v) tramp; (adj, n)
pickle; (v) souse.
coronation, finishing piece; (v)
vagrant; (v) roam, stray, wander,
brokenly: (adv) interruptedly,
preeminent. ANTONYMS: (adj)
range, ramble; (n) outcast, bum,
wanderer, nomad. ANTONYMS: (n)
disconnectedly, crackedly,
bathetic, indecisive.
intercession: (n) intervention,
inhabitant, resident; (adj) settled.
irregularly, faultily, fragmentarily,
Thomas Hardy
313
It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end was the door often
mentioned, opening under the cathead and chain that hoisted the sacks. He
fixed the door open and looked over the sill. There was a depth of thirty or forty
feet to the ground; here was the spot on which he had been standing with Farfrae
when Elizabeth-Jane had seen him lift his arm, with many misgivings as to what
the movement portended.%
He retired a few steps into the loft and waited. From this elevated perch his
eyes could sweep the roofs round about, the upper parts of the luxurious
chestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a week's age, and the drooping boughs
of the lines; Farfrae's garden and the green door leading therefrom. In course of
time--he could not say how long-- that green door opened and Farfrae came
through. He was dressed as if for a journey. The low light of the nearing
evening caught his head and face when he emerged from the shadow of the wall,
warming them to a complexion of flame- colour. Henchard watched him with
his mouth firmly set the squareness of his jaw and the verticality of his profile
being unduly marked.
Farfrae came on with one hand in his pocket, and humming a tune in a way
which told that the words were most in his mind. They were those of the song
he had sung when he arrived years before at the Three Mariners, a poor young
man, adventuring for life and fortune, and scarcely knowing witherward:-"And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine."
Nothing moved Henchard like an old melody. He sank back. "No; I can't do
it!" he gasped. "Why does the infernal fool begin that now!"
At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard looked out of the loft door. "Will
ye come up here?" he said.
"Ay, man," said Farfrae. "I couldn't see ye. What's wrang?"
Thesaurus
drooping: (adj) flabby, pendulous,
limp, flaccid, cernuous, flagging,
languid, floppy, lax, tired; (n) droop.
ANTONYMS: (adj) taut, firm.
elevated: (adj) exalted, towering,
noble, lofty, grand, great, majestic,
tall, elated, magnanimous; (adj, v)
steep. ANTONYMS: (adj) base, lowly,
decreased, humble, inferior, lessened,
low, sunken, undignified, lowered.
mentioned: (adj) spoken.
misgivings: (n) anxiety, doubt,
hence; (adj) redundance, strictly,
misgiving, apprehension, fear,
suspicion, doubts, concern,
exact, expected, likeness, deportment,
consternation, disbelief, foreboding.
coincidence, accurate.
ANTONYM: (n) equanimity.
trusty: (adj) trustworthy, honest,
nearing: (n) approach; (adj)
faithful, dependable, responsible,
impending, forthcoming, oncoming,
constant, loyal, true, authentic, solid,
coming, imminent, looming; (prep) on sure. ANTONYMS: (adj)
the verge of, toward.
untrustworthy, inconstant, corrupt,
perch: (adj, n, v) roost; (v) light, settle,
disloyal.
sit, alight, squat, land; (adj, v) lodge, verticality: (n) erectness, uprightness,
abide, dwell; (n) pole.
rectitude, position, spatial relation.
therefrom: (adv) therefore, thereof,
314
A minute later Henchard heard his feet on the lowest ladder. He heard him
land on the first floor, ascend and land on the second, begin the ascent to the
third. And then his head rose through the trap behind.
"What are you doing up here at this time?" he asked, coming forward. "Why
didn't ye take your holiday like the rest of the men?" He spoke in a tone which
had just severity enough in it to show that he remembered the untoward event of
the forenoon, and his conviction that Henchard had been drinking.%
Henchard said nothing; but going back he closed the stair hatchway, and
stamped upon it so that it went tight into its frame; he next turned to the
wondering young man, who by this time observed that one of Henchard's arms
was bound to his side.
"Now," said Henchard quietly, "we stand face to face--man and man. Your
money and your fine wife no longer lift 'ee above me as they did but now, and
my poverty does not press me down."
"What does it all mean?" asked Farfrae simply.
"Wait a bit, my lad. You should ha' thought twice before you affronted to
extremes a man who had nothing to lose. I've stood your rivalry, which ruined
me, and your snubbing, which humbled me; but your hustling, that disgraced
me, I won't stand!"
Farfrae warmed a little at this. "Ye'd no business there," he said.
"As much as any one among ye! What, you forward stripling, tell a man of
my age he'd no business there!" The anger-vein swelled in his forehead as he
spoke.
"You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and 'twas my duty, as the chief magistrate,
to stop you."
"Royalty be damned," said Henchard. "I am as loyal as you, come to that!"
"I am not here to argue. Wait till you cool doon, wait till you cool; and you
will see things the same way as I do."
Thesaurus
affronted: (adj) insulted, hurt, slighted,
embarrassed, angry, ashamed,
horrified, humiliated, piqued,
annoyed. ANTONYM: (adj)
unconcerned.
ascent: (n) ascension, climb,
ascending, elevation, hill, incline,
advance, grade; (n, v) rise; (v) ascend,
uprise. ANTONYMS: (n) fall, drop,
declivity.
disgraced: (adj) shamed, dishonored,
abashed, ashamed, damaged,
dishonest, humiliated, mortified,
disfigured.
humbled: (adj) humble, humiliated,
crushed, depressed, dispirited,
abased, broken in, abject, ashamed;
(n) humbler; (v) apart.
hustling: (n) jostlement, haste,
crowding; (adj) enterprising.
stair: (n) stage, degree, footstep, rank,
stairway, staircase, corbiestep,
ladder, pace, steps, support.
stamped: (adj) beaten, marked,
pressed, printed; (v) fixed, engraved.
swelled: (adj) big, inflated, bloated,
swollen, adult, boastful, bighearted,
bad, fully grown, crowing, elder.
untoward: (adj) unlucky, unfortunate,
inauspicious, unbecoming,
inopportune, indecent, unfavorable,
unseemly, improper, clumsy,
stubborn. ANTONYMS: (adj)
auspicious, suitable, lucky,
acceptable, happy, fortunate.
Thomas Hardy
315
"You may be the one to cool first," said Henchard grimly. "Now this is the
case. Here be we, in this four-square loft, to finish out that little wrestle you
began this morning. There's the door, forty foot above ground. One of us two
puts the other out by that door--the master stays inside. If he likes he may go
down afterwards and give the alarm that the other has fallen out by accident--or
he may tell the truth--that's his business. As the strongest man I've tied one arm
to take no advantage of 'ee. D'ye understand? Then here's at 'ee!"
There was no time for Farfrae to do aught but one thing, to close with
Henchard, for the latter had come on at once. It was a wrestling match, the
object of each being to give his antagonist a back fall; and on Henchard's part,
unquestionably, that it should be through the door.%
At the outset Henchard's hold by his only free hand, the right, was on the left
side of Farfrae's collar, which he firmly grappled, the latter holding Henchard by
his collar with the contrary hand. With his right he endeavoured to get hold of
his antagonist's left arm, which, however, he could not do, so adroitly did
Henchard keep it in the rear as he gazed upon the lowered eyes of his fair and
slim antagonist.
Henchard planted the first toe forward, Farfrae crossing him with his; and
thus far the struggle had very much the appearance of the ordinary wrestling of
those parts. Several minutes were passed by them in this attitude, the pair
rocking and writhing like trees in a gale, both preserving an absolute silence. By
this time their breathing could be heard. Then Farfrae tried to get hold of the
other side of Henchard's collar, which was resisted by the larger man exerting all
his force in a wrenching movement, and this part of the struggle ended by his
forcing Farfrae down on his knees by sheer pressure of one of his muscular arms.
Hampered as he was, however, he could not keep him there, and Farfrae finding
his feet again the struggle proceeded as before.
By a whirl Henchard brought Donald dangerously near the precipice; seeing
his position the Scotchman for the first time locked himself to his adversary, and
all the efforts of that infuriated Prince of Darkness--as he might have been called
from his appearance just now--were inadequate to lift or loosen Farfrae for a
Thesaurus
antagonist: (n) opponent, adversary, precipice: (n) abyss, chasm,
enemy, foe, rival, match, opposition,
escarpment, gulf, steep, crag, verge,
opposer, assailant, opposite,
brink, abysm, ravine, drop.
competitor. ANTONYMS: (n)
rocking: (adj) vivacious, merry,
spirited, spry, festive; (n) metalling,
supporter, advocate, colleague,
synergist, ally, defender.
convulsion.
exerting: (n) push.
unquestionably: (adv) certainly,
infuriated: (adj, v) enraged; (adj)
definitely, indubitably, decidedly,
furious, incensed, angered, mad,
indisputably, positively, surely, of
exasperated, provoked, boiling, livid, course, assuredly, no doubt; (adj)
wrathful, annoyed. ANTONYM: (adj) doubtless. ANTONYMS: (adv)
pleased.
doubtfully, possibly, arguably.
whirl: (n, v) spin, turn, eddy, roll,
wheel, twist, swirl; (v) reel, gyrate; (n)
go, fling.
wrenching: (n) extraction; (adj)
painful.
wrestle: (v) struggle, scuffle, fight,
strive, battle, wrench, tussle, contest,
scramble, clash; (n, v) grapple.
wrestling: (n) grapple, grappling,
rassling, bout, event, clamshell,
athletics, boxing, braving, pugilism;
(adj) fighting.
316
time. By an extraordinary effort he succeeded at last, though not until they had
got far back again from the fatal door. In doing so Henchard contrived to turn
Farfrae a complete somersault. Had Henchard's other arm been free it would
have been all over with Farfrae then. But again he regained his feet, wrenching
Henchard's arm considerably, and causing him sharp pain, as could be seen from
the twitching of his face. He instantly delivered the younger man an
annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as it used to be expressed, and following
up his advantage thrust him towards the door, never loosening his hold till
Farfrae's fair head was hanging over the window-sill, and his arm dangling
down outside the wall.%
"Now," said Henchard between his gasps, "this is the end of what you began
this morning. Your life is in my hands."
"Then take it, take it!" said Farfrae. "Ye've wished to long enough!"
Henchard looked down upon him in silence, and their eyes met. "O Farfrae!-that's not true!" he said bitterly. "God is my witness that no man ever loved
another as I did thee at one time....And now--though I came here to kill 'ee, I
cannot hurt thee! Go and give me in charge--do what you will--I care nothing for
what comes of me!"
He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosened his arm, and flung himself
in a corner upon some sacks, in the abandonment of remorse. Farfrae regarded
him in silence; then went to the hatch and descended through it. Henchard
would fain have recalled him, but his tongue failed in its task, and the young
man's steps died on his ear.
Henchard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach. The scenes of his
first acquaintance with Farfrae rushed back upon him--that time when the
curious mixture of romance and thrift in the young man's composition so
commanded his heart that Farfrae could play upon him as on an instrument. So
thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on the sacks in a crouching
attitude, unusual for a man, and for such a man. Its womanliness sat tragically
on the figure of so stern a piece of virility. He heard a conversation below, the
Thesaurus
annihilating: (adj) crushing,
repentance, regret, guilt, penance,
prudence, thriftiness,
annihilative, destructive, withering,
sorrow, grief, qualm, ruefulness,
parsimoniousness, sea pink, welfare;
compassion. ANTONYM: (n)
(v) gain. ANTONYMS: (n) generosity,
disrespectful.
crouching: (adj) sneaking, huddled,
shamelessness.
spending, waste.
self-reproach: (n) regret, repentance, twitching: (n) tic, fibrillation, cramp,
obsequious, squat, hunkered,
cowering, hunkered down; (v)
shame, penitence, contrition, guilt.
fasciculation, spasm, contraction,
somersault: (n) somersaulting,
submissive, resigned.
vellication, spasmodic tic.
loosening: (n) relaxation, unfastening, sommerset, handspring, vault,
virility: (n) manliness, potency,
somerset, forward roll, pass, salto; (v) masculinity, fertility, manfulness,
ease, undoing, liberalization,
adjustment, alteration, liberalisation, jump, roll over.
vigour, strength, vitality, energy,
easiness; (adj) solutive, laxative.
thrift: (n) economy, parsimony,
maleness, prime.
remorse: (n) penitence, contrition,
husbandry, frugalness, prosperity,
Thomas Hardy
317
opening of the coach-house door, and the putting in of a horse, but took no
notice.
Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaque obscurity, and the
loft-door became an oblong of gray light-- the only visible shape around. At
length he arose, shook the dust from his clothes wearily, felt his way to the hatch,
and gropingly descended the steps till he stood in the yard.%
"He thought highly of me once," he murmured. "Now he'll hate me and
despise me for ever!"
He became possessed by an overpowering wish to see Farfrae again that
night, and by some desperate pleading to attempt the well-nigh impossible task
of winning pardon for his late mad attack. But as he walked towards Farfrae's
door he recalled the unheeded doings in the yard while he had lain above in a
sort of stupor. Farfrae he remembered had gone to the stable and put the horse
into the gig; while doing so Whittle had brought him a letter; Farfrae had then
said that he would not go towards Budmouth as he had intended--that he was
unexpectedly summoned to Weatherbury, and meant to call at Mellstock on his
way thither, that place lying but one or two miles out of his course.
He must have come prepared for a journey when he first arrived in the yard,
unsuspecting enmity; and he must have driven off (though in a changed
direction) without saying a word to any one on what had occurred between
themselves.
It would therefore be useless to call at Farfrae's house till very late.
There was no help for it but to wait till his return, though waiting was almost
torture to his restless and self-accusing soul. He walked about the streets and
outskirts of the town, lingering here and there till he reached the stone bridge of
which mention has been made, an accustomed halting-place with him now.
Here he spent a long time, the purl of waters through the weirs meeting his ear,
and the Casterbridge lights glimmering at no great distance off.
While leaning thus upon the parapet his listless attention was awakened by
sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town quarter. They were a confusion
Thesaurus
glimmering: (n) inkling, ghost,
luminosity, light, hint, apparition,
radiance; (adj) glittering, glimmery,
crepusculous, sciolism.
gropingly: (adv) groping, hesitantly.
lights: (n) illumination, burn, lung,
spacing material.
listless: (adj) indifferent, dull,
indolent, careless, languid, inert,
inattentive, dispirited, slow,
uninterested, spiritless.
ANTONYMS: (adj) lively, animated,
energetic, strong, spirited.
guggle, whirl, embroider, swirl,
oblong: (adj) oval, elliptical,
whirlpool, whisper; (n) purl stitch.
rectangular, rounded; (v)
stupor: (n) lethargy, stupefaction,
longitudinal; (n) block, quadrangle.
coma, shock, insensibility,
overpowering: (adj) overwhelming,
unconsciousness, trance,
oppressive, resistless, compelling,
sluggishness, torpor, haze,
grogginess. ANTONYMS: (n)
intense, heavy, strong, onerous,
devastating, uncontrollable,
alertness, awareness, wakefulness.
depressing. ANTONYMS: (adj) light, unheeded: (adj) unnoticed, neglected,
disregarded, ignored; (v) unthought
subtle, imperceptible, insignificant,
shallow, weak, faint, bland.
of, unseen, unperceived, unobserved,
purl: (v) babble, eddy, bubble, flip,
unnoted, unmarked, unmissed.
318
of rhythmical noises, to which the streets added yet more confusion by
encumbering them with echoes. His first incurious thought that the clangour
arose from the town band, engaged in an attempt to round off a memorable day
in a burst of evening harmony, was contradicted by certain peculiarities of
reverberation. % But inexplicability did not rouse him to more than a cursory
heed; his sense of degradation was too strong for the admission of foreign ideas;
and he leant against the parapet as before.
Thesaurus
clangour: (n, v) clang, clangor; (n)
uninterested, negligent, unconcerned,
clank, clash, crash, clangoring, brush. casual, detached, nonchalant, aloof,
cursory: (adj) careless, passing,
lackadaisical, apathetic, vacant.
inexplicability: (n) inconceivability,
fleeting, perfunctory, ephemeral,
superficial, slapdash, facile,
incomprehensibleness,
evanescent, sketchy, shallow.
inexplicableness.
ANTONYMS: (adj) complete,
reverberation: (n) echo, rebound,
comprehensive, meticulous, long.
noise, peal, replication, reaction,
encumbering: (adj) unwieldy,
recoil, boom, reflectivity; (n, v)
reflection; (v) reflexion. ANTONYM:
burdensome, meddlesome,
(n) silence.
pesterous.
incurious: (adj) uninquisitive,
rhythmical: (n) measured, rhythmics;
(adj) numerose, cyclical, recurrent,
cadenced, periodic, serial, diatonic,
poetic, numerous. ANTONYM: (adj)
unrhythmical.
rouse: (v) provoke, excite, arouse,
kindle, awaken, instigate, actuate,
disturb, move, agitate, incite.
ANTONYMS: (v) dampen,
dishearten, suppress, douse, inhibit,
stifle, quench.
Thomas Hardy
319
CHAPTER 39
When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his encounter with
Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself. He arrived at the yard
with the intention of putting the horse into the gig himself (all the men having a
holiday), and driving to a village on the Budmouth Road. Despite the fearful
struggle he decided still to persevere in his journey, so as to recover himself
before going indoors and meeting the eyes of Lucetta. He wished to consider his
course in a case so serious.%
When he was just on the point of driving off Whittle arrived with a note
badly addressed, and bearing the word "immediate" upon the outside. On
opening it he was surprised to see that it was unsigned. It contained a brief
request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening about some business
which he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothing that could make it
pressing; but as he was bent upon going out he yielded to the anonymous
request, particularly as he had a call to make at Mellstock which could be
included in the same tour. Thereupon he told Whittle of his change of direction,
in words which Henchard had overheard, and set out on his way. Farfrae had
not directed his man to take the message indoors, and Whittle had not been
supposed to do so on his own responsibility.
Thesaurus
anonymous: (adj) unknown,
unnamed, unidentified, authorless,
unacknowledged, undisclosed,
unspecified, incognito, unfamiliar,
faceless; (n) anonymity.
ANTONYMS: (adj) showcased,
spotlighted, onymous, identified,
named, extraordinary, distinctive.
breathless: (adj, adv) out of breath;
(adj) panting, inanimate,
breathtaking, winded, choking,
puffing; (v) all agog, aghast; (adj, n)
eager; (n) in hysterics. ANTONYMS: wonderful.
(adj) dull, expected, boring.
loft: (n) garret, cockloft, hayloft, upper
conducting: (n) administration,
story, story, storey, farmhouse, igloo,
cottage; (v) propel, impel.
conduct, directing, managing,
persevere: (v) persist, continue,
direction, management.
fearful: (adj, n) afraid; (adj, v) dreadful, endure, abide, go on, hang on, hold
cowardly; (adj) terrible,
on, follow, keep, remain, pursue.
apprehensive, awful, timid, anxious, ANTONYMS: (v) surrender, stop,
craven, frightful, eerie. ANTONYMS: quit.
(adj) rational, calm, confident, bold,
unsigned: (adj) unnamed, nameless,
unidentified. ANTONYM: (adj)
unimpressed, charming, fearless,
courageous, reassuring, unafraid,
signed.
320
Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance of
Longways and other of Farfrae's men to get him out of the way for the evening,
in order that the satirical mummery should fall flat, if it were attempted. By
giving open information they would have brought down upon their heads the
vengeance of those among their comrades who enjoyed these boisterous old
games; and therefore the plan of sending a letter recommended itself by its
indirectness.%
For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing with the majority
there was some truth in the scandal, which she would have to bear as she best
might.
It was about eight o'clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawing-room alone.
Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had the candles
lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting for him by the
firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of the window-sashes a little
way open that the sound of his wheels might reach her ears early. She was
leaning back in the chair, in a more hopeful mood than she had enjoyed since her
marriage. The day had been such a success, and the temporary uneasiness which
Henchard's show of effrontery had wrought in her disappeared with the quiet
disappearance of Henchard himself under her husband's reproof. The floating
evidences of her absurd passion for him, and its consequences, had been
destroyed, and she really seemed to have no cause for fear.
The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by a
hubbub in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not greatly
surprise her, the afternoon having been given up to recreation by a majority of
the populace since the passage of the Royal equipages. But her attention was at
once riveted to the matter by the voice of a maid-servant next door, who spoke
from an upper window across the street to some other maid even more elevated
than she.
"Which way be they going now?" inquired the first with interest.
"I can't be sure for a moment," said the second, "because of the malter's
chimbley. O yes--I can see 'em. Well, I declare, I declare!
Thesaurus
attempted: (adj) unsuccessful.
brawl. ANTONYM: (n) calm.
sardonic, derisive; (adj, n) keen; (n)
effrontery: (n) audacity, brass,
mummery: (adj) tomfoolery, vagary;
ironical. ANTONYM: (adj)
(n) flummery, pleasantry, nonsense,
presumption, face, boldness,
sympathetic.
insolence, nerve, impertinence,
nonsensicality, masque, false colors, vengeance: (n) retribution, reprisal,
impudence, rudeness, assurance.
sport, joke, escapade.
retaliation, requital, avengement,
ANTONYMS: (n) timidity, deference, reproof: (n, v) reprimand, censure,
wrath, vendetta, spite, revengeance;
rebuke, lecture; (n) reproach,
(n, v) avenge, resentment.
courtesy.
firelight: (adj) light, rushlight,
ANTONYMS: (n) forgiveness,
admonition, reprehension, blame,
starlight.
condemnation, objurgation,
acceptance.
hubbub: (n) commotion, uproar,
wrought: (adj) shaped, done, worked,
castigation.
satirical: (adj) satiric, cutting, mordant, worked up, formed.
disorder, din, noise, bustle, tumult,
bedlam, brouhaha; (n, v) racket,
mocking, ironic, biting, scornful,
Thomas Hardy
321
"What, what?" from the first, more enthusiastically.%
"They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!"
"What--two of 'em--are there two figures?"
"Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows tied to one
another's! She's facing the head, and he's facing the tail."
"Is it meant for anybody in particular?"
"Well--it mid be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere leggings; he
has black whiskers, and a reddish face. 'Tis a stuffed figure, with a falseface."
The din was increasing now--then it lessened a little.
"There--I shan't see, after all!" cried the disappointed first maid.
"They have gone into a back street--that's all," said the one who occupied the
enviable position in the attic. "There--now I have got 'em all endways nicely!"
"What's the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if 'tis meant for
one I've in mind."
"My--why--'tis dressed just as she dressed when she sat in the front seat at the
time the play-actors came to the Town Hall!"
Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the door of the room was
quickly and softly opened. Elizabeth- Jane advanced into the firelight.
"I have come to see you," she said breathlessly. "I did not stop to knock-forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the window is open."
Without waiting for Lucetta's reply she crossed quickly to the window and
pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side. "Let it be--hush!" she
said perempority, in a dry voice, while she seized Elizabeth-Jane by the hand,
and held up her finger. Their intercourse had been so low and hurried that not a
word had been lost of the conversation without, which had thus proceeded:-"Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back- comb in place;
she's got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured shoes."
Thesaurus
attic: (adj) chaste, pure, elegant,
(n) crest, combing, caruncle,
classical, correct, artistic; (n) cockloft, currycomb.
donkey: (n) ass, idiot, fool, moke,
loft, clerestory, house top, upper
story.
dicky, simpleton, jackass, dizzard,
bands: (n) cords, stripes.
domestic ass, donkeys, hinny.
breathlessly: (adv) pantingly, eagerly, enviable: (adj) invidious,
windedly, deadly, inanimately,
advantageous, envious, happy,
breathtakingly, impatiently,
pleasing, attractive. ANTONYMS:
(adj) unwelcomed, undesirable,
animatedly, hungrily, chokingly,
pulselessly.
undesired, unpleasant.
comb: (v) brush, ransack, search,
lessened: (adj) diminished, hurt,
dress, eliminate, groom; (adj) weed;
lower, mitigated, pointed, tapering,
vitiated, atrophied, short, attenuate,
attenuated.
puce: (adj) lavender; (n) brown, red,
brownness.
reddish: (adj) ruddy, rosy, crimson,
cherry, rufescent, rufous, rubicund,
scarlet, rubedinous, ruby, colorful.
uncovered: (adj) naked, open, bare,
nude, unclothed, bald, unreserved,
unprotected, evident, frank, manifest.
ANTONYMS: (adj) indoor, concealed.
322
Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held her by
main force.%
"'Tis me!" she said, with a face pale as death. "A procession--a scandal--an
effigy of me, and him!"
The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already.
"Let us shut it out," coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid wildness of
Lucetta's features was growing yet more rigid and wild with the meaning of the
noise and laughter. "Let us shut it out!"
"It is of no use!" she shrieked. "He will see it, won't he? Donald will see it!
He is just coming home--and it will break his heart--he will never love me any
more--and O, it will kill me--kill me!"
Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. "O, can't something be done to stop it?" she
cried. "Is there nobody to do it--not one?"
She relinquished Lucetta's hands, and ran to the door. Lucetta herself, saying
recklessly "I will see it!" turned to the window, threw up the sash, and went out
upon the balcony. Elizabeth immediately followed, and put her arm round her
to pull her in. Lucetta's eyes were straight upon the spectacle of the uncanny
revel, now dancing rapidly. The numerous lights round the two effigies threw
them up into lurid distinctness; it was impossible to mistake the pair for other
than the intended victims.
"Come in, come in," implored Elizabeth; "and let me shut the window!"
"She's me--she's me--even to the parasol--my green parasol!" cried Lucetta
with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She stood motionless for one second--then
fell heavily to the floor.
Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington ceased.
The roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the trampling died out
like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only indirectly conscious of this;
she had rung the bell, and was bending over Lucetta, who remained convulsed
on the carpet in the paroxysms of an epileptic seizure. She rang again and again,
Thesaurus
ceased: (adj) finished.
negligently, foolhardily,
mourning.
effigies: (n) likeness, counterpart,
rustle: (n, v) whisper; (v) lift, buzz,
inattentively, wildly, wantonly,
neglectfully. ANTONYMS: (adv)
copy, facsimile.
steal, pilfer, whiz, pinch, abstract,
effigy: (n) likeness, figure, copy, idol,
thieve, purloin; (n) rustling.
prudently, responsibly, calmly,
trampling: (n) trample; (adj) moving.
simulacrum, picture, effigies,
discreetly, sensibly, cautiously.
relinquished: (adj) forsaken, deserted, wildness: (n) fierceness, ferocity,
dummy, appearance, semblance,
graven image.
derelict, unoccupied, given,
savageness, abandon, rage,
epileptic: (adj) epileptical; (n) diseased surrendered.
extravagance, ferociousness,
revel: (n, v) frolic; (v) drink, celebrate,
intensity, vehemence; (v) wilderness;
person.
noting: (adj) conscious.
exult, wallow, rejoice, bask, riot; (n)
(n, v) waste. ANTONYMS: (n)
recklessly: (adv) rashly, carelessly,
carousal, orgy; (adj) luxuriate.
tameness, order, meekness,
ANTONYMS: (v) mourn; (n)
imprudently, hastily, heedlessly,
gentleness, caution, orderliness.
Thomas Hardy
323
in vain; the probability being that the servants had all run out of the house to see
more of the Daemonic Sabbath than they could see within.%
At last Farfrae's man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up; then
the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite closed, a light
was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man sent off for a doctor.
While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered consciousness; but as soon as
she remembered what had passed the fit returned.
The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing at
his door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as he saw the
unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth's mute appeal, "This is serious."
"It is a fit," Elizabeth said.
"Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You must
send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?"
"He has driven into the country, sir," said the parlour- maid; "to some place
on the Budmouth Road. He's likely to be back soon."
"Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not hurry." The doctor
returned to the bedside again. The man was despatched, and they soon heard
him clattering out of the yard at the back.
Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of whom mention
has been already made, hearing the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines, kits,
crouds, humstrums, serpents, rams'-horns, and other historical kinds of music as
he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat and gone out to learn the
cause. He came to the corner above Farfrae's, and soon guessed the nature of the
proceedings; for being a native of the town he had witnessed such rough jests
before. His first move was to search hither and thither for the constables, there
were two in the town, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hiding up an
alley yet more shrivelled than usual, having some not ungrounded fears that
they might be roughly handled if seen.
"What can we two poor lammigers do against such a multitude!"
expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower's chiding. "'Tis tempting 'em to
Thesaurus
agape: (adj, v) aghast; (adj, n) gaping;
(adj) spellbound, open, bewildered,
dumbfounded; (n) Holy Thursday,
Good Friday, fellow feeling; (v)
breathless, all agog.
burgess: (n) citizen, cit, townsman,
bourgeois, oppidan, cockney.
clattering: (n) crash; (adj) clattery.
cleavers: (n) clivers, Galium aparine,
bedstraw, Galium, spring cleavers,
scratchweed, goose grass, genus
Galium; (adj) bur, burr, awn.
mute: (adj) dumb, silent, inarticulate, tongs: (n) forceps, pincers, pliers,
dummy, tongueless; (v) muffle,
nippers, poker, lifter, pair of tongs,
dampen, deaden, hush; (adj, v) quiet, trivet, vice, ice tongs; (v) clutches.
dull. ANTONYMS: (adj) talkative,
ungrounded: (adj) groundless, devoid
speaking, spoken; (v) amplify.
of truth, erroneous, apocryphal, false,
promptitude: (n) expedition, speed,
baseless, unwarranted, unreal,
readiness, promptness, velocity,
flimsy, untrue, nonexistent.
uproar: (adj, n, v) hubbub, disturbance,
haste, agility, rapidity, celerity,
tumult; (n) din, noise, turmoil,
hurry, dispatch.
shrivelled: (adj) shriveled, withered,
commotion, disorder, confusion; (adj,
n) row; (n, v) brawl. ANTONYMS: (n)
wizened, shrunken, sere, sear, thin,
lean, dry, shrunk, dryer.
calm, peace, serenity, order.
324
commit felo-de-se upon us, and that would be the death of the perpetrator; and
we wouldn't be the cause of a fellow-creature's death on no account, not we!"
"Get some help, then! Here, I'll come with you. We'll see what a few words
of authority can do. Quick now; have you got your staves?"
"We didn't want the folk to notice us as law officers, being so short-handed,
sir; so we pushed our Gover'ment staves up this water-pipe.%
"Out with 'em, and come along, for Heaven's sake! Ah, here's Mr. Blowbody;
that's lucky." (Blowbody was the third of the three borough magistrates.)
"Well, what's the row?" said Blowbody. "Got their names-- hey?"
"No. Now," said Grower to one of the constables, "you go with Mr.
Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the street; and I'll go with
Stubberd straight forward. By this plan we shall have 'em between us. Get their
names only: no attack or interruption."
Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced into Corn
Street, whence the sounds had proceeded, they were surprised that no
procession could be seen. They passed Farfrae's, and looked to the end of the
street. The lamp flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few loungers stood
about with their hands in their pockets. Everything was as usual.
"Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?" Grower said
magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who smoked a short pipe and
wore straps round his knees.
"Beg yer pardon, sir?" blandly said the person addressed, who was no other
than Charl, of Peter's finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words.
Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance. "No; we haven't seen
anything; have we, Joe? And you was here afore I."
Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.
"H'm--that's odd," said Mr. Grower. "Ah--here's a respectable man coming
that I know by sight. Have you," he inquired, addressing the nearing shape of
Thesaurus
childlike: (adj) ingenuous, simple,
respectable: (adj) considerable,
overbearingly, imperatively,
babyish, young, innocent, pure,
domineeringly, dogmatically,
decorous, fair, estimable, decent,
unsophisticated, juvenile, immature, authoritarianly, commandingly.
honorable, good, proper, creditable,
childly, childish. ANTONYMS: (adj) motley: (adj) miscellaneous, mottled,
passable, honest. ANTONYMS: (adj)
old, untrusting, experienced,
assorted, colorful, heterogeneous,
bad, small, sordid, scruffy,
multicolored, checkered; (n) medley, inadequate, unrespectable, paltry,
cunning, complicated, jaded,
worldly.
miscellany, mixture, assortment.
discourteous, inappropriate, sinful,
flames: (n) fire, blaze, firestorm,
ANTONYM: (adj) homogeneous.
unacceptable.
procession: (n) march, convoy,
hellhole.
magisterially: (adv) authoritatively,
cortege, cavalcade, file, string,
dictatorially, imperiously,
pageant, series, sequence, progress,
autocratically, peremptorily,
column.
Thomas Hardy
325
Jopp, "have you seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a noise-skimmington riding, or something of the sort?"
"O no--nothing, sir," Jopp replied, as if receiving the most singular news.
"But I've not been far tonight, so perhaps-- "
"Oh, 'twas here--just here," said the magistrate.%
"Now I've noticed, come to think o't that the wind in the Walk trees makes a
peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night, sir; more than common; so perhaps 'twas
that?" Jopp suggested, as he rearranged his hand in his greatcoat pocket (where it
ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen tongs and a cow's horn, thrust up under
his waistcoat).
"No, no, no--d'ye think I'm a fool? Constable, come this way. They must have
gone into the back street."
Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the disturbers be
perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who came up at this time,
brought similar intelligence.
Effigies, donkey, lanterns, band, all had
disappeared like the crew of Comus.
"Now," said Mr. Grower, "there's only one thing more we can do. Get ye halfa-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter's finger. I'm
much mistaken if you don't find a clue to the perpetrators there."
The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance as soon as they
could, and the whole party marched off to the lane of notoriety. It was no rapid
matter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmer of any sort offering itself to
light the way, except an occasional pale radiance through some window-curtain,
or through the chink of some door which could not be closed because of the
smoky chimney within. At last they entered the inn boldly, by the till then
bolted front-door, after a prolonged knocking of loudness commensurate with
the importance of their standing.
In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by cords as usual for
stability, an ordinary group sat drinking and smoking with statuesque quiet of
demeanour. The landlady looked mildly at the invaders, saying in honest
Thesaurus
bolted: (adj) barred, Bolten, secured,
firm, barricaded, blockaded, bolted
attachment, fast, fastened, latched,
tight.
chink: (v) jingle, tinkle; (n) cleft,
crevice, Chinaman, aperture, hiatus,
scissure, blunt; (n, v) clink, break.
commensurate: (adj) equal, sufficient,
commensurable, proportionate,
equivalent, comparable, coextensive,
tangible, valid, level, competent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) inappropriate,
inconsistent, incommensurate,
intensity, crescendo, tawdriness,
divergent, inadequate.
forte, flashiness, glitz. ANTONYMS:
cords: (n) trousers, bands, line, strings, (n) softness, restraint.
notoriety: (n) publicity, reputation,
corduroys, raised bands.
fellows: (n) fellow, membership,
fame, infamy, disrepute, note,
faculty.
notability, prominence, flagrancy,
glimmer: (adj, n, v) flicker, twinkle; (n, distinction; (adj, n) renown.
v) gleam, shimmer, flash, sparkle,
ANTONYM: (n) obscurity.
beam, glow, shine; (v) blink; (n)
smoky: (adj) murky, hazy, fumid,
gleaming.
vaporous, opaque, muddy, famish,
loudness: (n) gaudiness, brashness,
burnt; (v) sooty, smutty, dusty.
ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, fresh, clear.
tastelessness, noisiness, volume,
326
accents, "Good evening, gentlemen; there's plenty of room. I hope there's nothing
amiss?"
They looked round the room. "Surely," said Stubberd to one of the men, "I
saw you by now in Corn Street--Mr. Grower spoke to 'ee?"
The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently. "I've been here this last
hour, hain't I, Nance?" he said to the woman who meditatively sipped her ale
near him.%
"Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet supper- time half-pint, and you
were here then, as well as all the rest."
The other constable was facing the clock-case, where he saw reflected in the
glass a quick motion by the landlady. Turning sharply, he caught her closing the
oven-door.
"Something curious about that oven, ma'am!" he observed advancing,
opening it, and drawing out a tambourine.
"Ah," she said apologetically, "that's what we keep here to use when there's a
little quiet dancing. You see damp weather spoils it, so I put it there to keep it
dry."
The constable nodded knowingly, but what he knew was nothing. Nohow
could anything be elicited from this mute and inoffensive assembly. In a few
minutes the investigators went out, and joining those of their auxiliaries who had
been left at the door they pursued their way elsewhither.
Thesaurus
advancing: (adj) progressive, moving
forward, increasing, moving,
processive, thriving, ongoing,
aggressive; (n) advancement,
progression, proceeding.
dancing: (n) choreography,
Terpsichore, saltation, break dancing,
ceremonial dance, galloping, hoofing,
Pavan; (adj) morrice; (adv) adance; (v)
saltant.
elicited: (adj) evoked, elicit.
inoffensive: (adj, n) harmless,
innocent; (adj) innocuous, innoxious, unintentionally, unwittingly, openly.
meditatively: (adv) thoughtfully,
safe, unoffending, euphemistic,
hurtless, pleasant, gentle, tame.
reflectively, wistfully, musingly,
ANTONYMS: (adj) rude, unsavory,
contemplatively, ponderingly,
unpleasant, harmful, dysphemistic,
ruminatively, broodingly, thinkingly,
malicious, exciting.
broodily, musefully. ANTONYMS:
knowingly: (adj, adv, v) wittingly;
(adv) unthinkingly, rashly.
(adv) intentionally, consciously,
oven: (n) furnace, stove, fireplace,
designedly, shrewdly, on purpose,
hearth, broiler, heater, bakery, range,
purposely, wisely, wilfully,
kitchen appliance, boiler, coke oven
ingeniously; (adv, v) by design.
chamber.
ANTONYMS: (adv) accidentally,
Thomas Hardy
327
CHAPTER 40
Long before this time Henchard, weary of his ruminations on the bridge, had
repaired towards the town. When he stood at the bottom of the street a
procession burst upon his view, in the act of turning out of an alley just above
him. The lanterns, horns, and multitude startled him; he saw the mounted
images, and knew what it all meant.%
They crossed the way, entered another street, and disappeared. He turned
back a few steps and was lost in grave reflection, finally wending his way
homeward by the obscure river-side path. Unable to rest there he went to his
step-daughter's lodging, and was told that Elizabeth- Jane had gone to Mr.
Farfrae's. Like one acting in obedience to a charm, and with a nameless
apprehension, he followed in the same direction in the hope of meeting her, the
roysterers having vanished. Disappointed in this he gave the gentlest of pulls to
the door-bell, and then learnt particulars of what had occurred, together with the
doctor's imperative orders that Farfrae should be brought home, and how they
had set out to meet him on the Budmouth Road.
"But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!" exclaimed Henchard, now
unspeakably grieved. "Not Budmouth way at all."
But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name. They would not believe
him, taking his words but as the frothy utterances of recklessness. Though
Thesaurus
alley: (n) track, road, passage, lane,
alleyway, aisle, path, runway,
pathway, street, back street.
apprehension: (n) alarm,
comprehension, dread, misgiving,
understanding, capture, foreboding,
arrest, trepidation; (n, v) doubt,
appreciation. ANTONYMS: (n)
release, confidence, calmness,
tranquility, freeing,
misunderstanding, peace, relief,
bravery, calm, equanimity.
frothy: (adj, v) effervescent; (adj) light, particulars: (n) specification, data,
flimsy, foaming, frivolous, flatulent,
nicety, minutiae, terms,
spumy, bubbly, effervescing, beaten; consideration, workings, fine points,
(v) nappy. ANTONYMS: (adj) flat,
ins and outs.
roysterers: (n) confusion, revelry.
weighty.
imperative: (adj) essential, imperious, unspeakably: (adv) indescribably,
exigent, absolute, pressing,
horrifically, horrifyingly,
peremptory, vital, commanding,
staggeringly, inexcusably,
urgent; (adj, v) necessary; (adj, n)
unbearably, unkindly, unpleasantly,
prerequisite. ANTONYMS: (adj)
unutterably, offensively,
horrendously. ANTONYM: (adv)
trivial, unimportant, optional,
submissive, beseeching; (n) option.
pleasantly.
328
Lucetta's life seemed at that moment to depend upon her husband's return (she
being in great mental agony lest he should never know the unexaggerated truth
of her past relations with Henchard), no messenger was despatched towards
Weatherbury. Henchard, in a state of bitter anxiety and contrition, determined
to seek Farfrae himself.%
To this end he hastened down the town, ran along the eastern road over
Durnover Moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward in the moderate darkness
of this spring night till he had reached a second and almost a third hill about
three miles distant. In Yalbury Bottom, or Plain, at the foot of the hill, he
listened. At first nothing, beyond his own heart- throbs, was to be heard but the
slow wind making its moan among the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury
Wood which clothed the heights on either hand; but presently there came the
sound of light wheels whetting their felloes against the newly stoned patches of
road, accompanied by the distant glimmer of lights.
He knew it was Farfrae's gig descending the hill from an indescribable
personality in its noise, the vehicle having been his own till bought by the
Scotchman at the sale of his effects. Henchard thereupon retraced his steps along
Yalbury Plain, the gig coming up with him as its driver slackened speed between
two plantations.
It was a point in the highway near which the road to Mellstock branched off
from the homeward direction. By diverging to that village, as he had intended to
do, Farfrae might probably delay his return by a couple of hours. It soon
appeared that his intention was to do so still, the light swerving towards Cuckoo
Lane, the by-road aforesaid. Farfrae's off gig-lamp flashed in Henchard's face. At
the same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist.
"Farfrae--Mr. Farfrae!" cried the breathless Henchard, holding up his hand.
Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the branch lane before he
pulled up. He then drew rein, and said "Yes?" over his shoulder, as one would
towards a pronounced enemy.
Thesaurus
branched: (adj) bifurcate, branching,
ramous, ramose, divided, biramous,
branchy, prongy, bearing branches,
split, pronged.
clothed: (adj) dressed, wrapped,
cloaked, robed, covered, attired,
vested, absorbed, decent; (v)
accustomed, arrayed. ANTONYM:
(adj) unclothed.
contrition: (n) compunction,
repentance, regret, remorse,
contriteness, penance, sorrow, shame,
abrasion, attrition; (v) confrication.
ANTONYMS: (n) pride, apathy,
indifference, shamelessness.
indescribable: (adj) indefinable,
ineffable, unutterable, vague, beyond
expression, nameless, inexpressible,
nondescript, terrible, intangible,
termless. ANTONYMS: (adj)
explainable, conceivable, concrete.
larch: (n) wood, larches, tamarack,
black larch, coniferous tree, larch
tree.
rein: (n) bridle, curb, restraint, check,
strap; (v) leash, harness, contain, rule,
rein in, confine.
slackened: (adj) leisurely.
stoned: (adj) intoxicated, drugged,
tight, zonked, drunken, inebriate,
inebriated, ecstatic, rabid, high,
unconscious.
swerving: (n) veering.
unexaggerated: (adj) unaffected,
unflattering, unromantic, literal.
Thomas Hardy
329
"Come back to Casterbridge at once!" Henchard said. "There's something
wrong at your house--requiring your return. I've run all the way here on
purpose to tell ye."
Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard's soul sank within him. Why
had he not, before this, thought of what was only too obvious? He who, four
hours earlier, had enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle stood now in the
darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, inviting him to come a particular
way, where an assailant might have confederates, instead of going his purposed
way, where there might be a better opportunity of guarding himself from attack.
Henchard could almost feel this view of things in course of passage through
Farfrae's mind.%
"I have to go to Mellstock," said Farfrae coldly, as he loosened his reins to
move on.
"But," implored Henchard, "the matter is more serious than your business at
Mellstock. It is--your wife! She is ill. I can tell you particulars as we go along."
The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased Farfrae's suspicion
that this was a ruse to decoy him on to the next wood, where might be
effectually compassed what, from policy or want of nerve, Henchard had failed
to do earlier in the day. He started the horse.
"I know what you think," deprecated Henchard running after, almost bowed
down with despair as he perceived the image of unscrupulous villainy that he
assumed in his former friend's eyes. "But I am not what you think!" he cried
hoarsely. "Believe me, Farfrae; I have come entirely on your own and your wife's
account. She is in danger. I know no more; and they want you to come. Your
man has gone the other way in a mistake. O Farfrae! don't mistrust me--I am a
wretched man; but my heart is true to you still!"
Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly. He knew his wife was with child,
but he had left her not long ago in perfect health; and Henchard's treachery was
more credible than his story. He had in his time heard bitter ironies from
Henchard's lips, and there might be ironies now. He quickened the horse's pace,
Thesaurus
abruptness: (n) gradient, shortness,
slope, brusqueness, curtness,
steepness, haste, hurriedness,
rudeness, brevity, hastiness.
ANTONYMS: (n) gradualness,
courtesy, friendliness, gentleness,
pleasantness.
assailant: (n) raider, attacker,
assaulter, invader, enemy, fighter,
opponent, antagonist, foe, mugger;
(adj) aggressive.
compassed: (adj) fulfilled, finished,
done, complete, confined.
raucously, gruffly, throatily,
decoy: (n, v) trap, lure, attract; (n) bait, gratingly, stridently, gutturally,
device; (v) entice, tempt, allure,
thickly, croakily, raggedly.
ANTONYM: (adv) smoothly.
seduce, entrap, coax. ANTONYMS:
(v) repulse, dissuade.
purposed: (adj, v) intended; (adj)
effectually: (adv) efficaciously,
deliberate, designed, forcible,
effectively, validly, adequately,
betrothed, made tense, extended,
undesigned; (v) free, not accidental,
potently, tellingly, strongly,
decisively; (adj) nicely, fully, head
voluntary.
and shoulders. ANTONYM: (adv)
villainy: (n) evil, infamy, crime,
ineffectually.
villany, misdeed, baseness, enormity,
hoarsely: (adv) roughly, huskily,
atrocity, evildoing, evilness, injustice.
330
and had soon risen into the high country lying between there and Mellstock,
Henchard's spasmodic run after him lending yet more substance to his thought
of evil purposes.%
The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in Henchard's eyes; his
exertions for Farfrae's good had been in vain. Over this repentant sinner, at
least, there was to be no joy in heaven. He cursed himself like a less scrupulous
Job, as a vehement man will do when he loses self-respect, the last mental prop
under poverty. To this he had come after a time of emotional darkness of which
the adjoining woodland shade afforded inadequate illustration. Presently he
began to walk back again along the way by which he had arrived. Farfrae
should at all events have no reason for delay upon the road by seeing him there
when he took his journey homeward later on.
Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae's house to make
inquiries. As soon as the door opened anxious faces confronted his from the
staircase, hall, and landing; and they all said in grievous disappointment, "O--it
is not he!" The manservant, finding his mistake, had long since returned, and all
hopes had centred upon Henchard.
"But haven't you found him?" said the doctor.
"Yes....I cannot tell 'ee!" Henchard replied as he sank down on a chair within
the entrance. "He can't be home for two hours."
"H'm," said the surgeon, returning upstairs.
"How is she?" asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of the group.
"In great danger, father. Her anxiety to see her husband makes her fearfully
restless. Poor woman--I fear they have killed her!"
Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants as if she struck
him in a new light, then, without further remark, went out of the door and
onward to his lonely cottage. So much for man's rivalry, he thought. Death was
to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself the shells. But about Elizabeth-lane;
in the midst of his gloom she seemed to him as a pin-point of light. He had liked
the look on her face as she answered him from the stairs. There had been
Thesaurus
fearfully: (adv) timidly, timorously,
awfully, apprehensively,
horrendously, hideously, anxiously,
appallingly, terribly; (adj, adv)
shockingly, dreadfully. ANTONYMS:
(adv) bravely, calmly, confidently,
wonderfully, rationally,
unconcernedly.
killed: (n) casualty; (adj) fallen.
manservant: (n) man, butler, valet,
gentleman, lackey, domestic, men,
gillie, menial, servitor, servant.
oyster: (v) clam, ostracize, frumenty,
sinner: (n) criminal, miscreant, culprit,
oatmeal, chowder, damper; (n)
sinful, trespasser, transgressor,
huitre, shellfish, blue point, capiz,
evildoer, magdalen, rascal, villain,
bluepoint.
sinners.
repentant: (adj) contrite, remorseful,
vain: (adj) proud, arrogant, conceited,
regretful, sorry, apologetic, ashamed, fruitless, idle, empty, abortive,
compunctious, penitential, rueful,
ineffectual, unproductive,
narcissistic; (adj, v) useless.
humble, doing penance.
ANTONYMS: (adj) impenitent,
ANTONYMS: (adj) shy, successful,
unremorseful, glad.
possible, persuasive, selfless, fruitful,
self-respect: (n) pride, self-esteem,
humble, useful, responsible,
dignity, face, honesty.
worthwhile, effective.
Thomas Hardy
331
affection in it, and above all things what he desired now was affection from
anything that was good and pure. She was not his own, yet, for the first time, he
had a faint dream that he might get to like her as his own,--if she would only
continue to love him.%
Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home. As the latter entered
the door Jopp said, "This is rather bad about Mrs. Farfrae's illness."
"Yes," said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of Jopp s complicity in
the night's harlequinade, and raising his eyes just sufficiently to observe that
Jopp's face was lined with anxiety.
"Somebody has called for you," continued Jopp, when Henchard was
shutting himself into his own apartment. "A kind of traveller, or sea-captain of
some sort."
"Oh?--who could he be?"
"He seemed a well-be-doing man--had grey hair and a broadish face; but he
gave no name, and no message."
"Nor do I gi'e him any attention." And, saying this, Henchard closed his
door.
The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae's return very nearly the two
hours of Henchard's estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his presence
had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician;
and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state bordering on
distraction at his misconception of Henchard's motives.
A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had grown; the night
wore on, and the other doctor came in the small hours. Lucetta had been much
soothed by Donald's arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and when,
immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to him the secret which so
oppressed her, he checked her feeble words, lest talking should be dangerous,
assuring her there was plenty of time to tell him everything.
Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride. The dangerous
illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was soon rumoured through the town,
Thesaurus
assuring: (adj) ensuring, insure,
insuring, assure, ensure, giving
confidence, securing, likely,
promising.
bordering: (adj) abutting, adjoining,
conterminous, contiguous, frontier,
next, neighboring, nearby, near,
approximate, fringent.
complicity: (n) collusion, guilt,
guiltiness, conspiracy, agreement,
connivance, participation,
involvement, implication,
accomplice, plot.
harlequinade: (n) clowning, frivolity,
comedy, tomfoolery, indulgence,
divertissement, farce, fluff, foolery,
frippery, frivolousness.
lisp: (v) enunciate, mince, enounce,
breathe, lipse.
miscarriage: (n, v) failure; (n) flop,
fiasco, spontaneous abortion, defeat,
disappointment, failing, balk,
frustration; (v) fail, fault.
misconception: (n) misapprehension,
error, mistake, fallacy, delusion,
illusion, mirage, fantasy, fancy,
misinterpretation, paralogism.
ANTONYMS: (n) concept, fact.
oppressed: (adj) laden, persecuted,
broken, burdened, drawn, gloomy,
aggrieved, downcast, heavy, ladened,
loaded.
physician: (n) doctor, medico, doc,
medic, quack, surgeon, leech,
houseman, MD, allergist, intern.
soothed: (adj) composed.
332
and an apprehensive guess having been given as to its cause by the leaders in the
exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over all particulars of their
orgie; while those immediately around Lucetta would not venture to add to her
husband's distress by alluding to the subject.%
What, and how much, Farfrae's wife ultimately explained to him of her past
entanglement with Henchard, when they were alone in the solitude of that sad
night, cannot be told. That she informed him of the bare facts of her peculiar
intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from Farfrae's own statements.
But in respect of her subsequent conduct-- her motive in coming to Casterbridge
to unite herself with Henchard--her assumed justification in abandoning him
when she discovered reasons for fearing him (though in truth her inconsequent
passion for another man at first sight had most to do with that abandonment)-her method of reconciling to her conscience a marriage with the second when
she was in a measure committed to the first: to what extent she spoke of these
things remained Farfrae's secret alone.
Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in Casterbridge that
night there walked a figure up and down corn Street hardly less frequently. It
was Henchard's, whose retiring to rest had proved itself a futility as soon as
attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and thither, and make inquiries about
the patient every now and then. He called as much on Farfrae's account as on
Lucetta's, and on Elizabeth-Jane's even more than on either's. Shorn one by one
of all other interests, his life seemed centring on the personality of the
stepdaughter whose presence but recently he could not endure. To see her on
each occasion of his inquiry at Lucetta's was a comfort to him.
The last of his calls was made about four o'clock in the morning, in the steely
light of dawn. Lucifer was fading into day across Durnover Moor, the sparrows
were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle from the
outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae's he saw the door gently opened,
and a servant raise her hand to the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had
muffled it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the
road-litter, so little did they believe in human aggression at so early a time.
Thesaurus
cackle: (n, v) giggle, snicker, chatter;
(adj) irresolute.
detractor, hatemonger.
(v) gaggle, crow, chortle; (adj) prattle, reconciling: (adj) accommodative,
untie: (v) disentangle, unfasten, free,
prate; (n) laugh, yack, laughter.
peacemaking, gentle, mild,
loosen, release, loose, disengage,
centring: (n) centering, centres.
conciliatory, peaceful, cooperative,
untangle, open, unlace, unbind.
entanglement: (n) snarl, complexity,
quiet; (n) integration, merging,
ANTONYMS: (v) fasten, bind,
embarrassment, implication, mesh,
reconciliation.
tighten, tie, entangle, enslave, close,
sparrows: (n) sparrow, finches, order
knot, tangle, web, perplexity, hitch;
fetter.
(adj, n) involution. ANTONYMS: (n)
Passeriformes, Passeriformes, robins, watchman: (n) lookout, sentinel,
simplification, extrication.
rooks, etc.
sentry, warden, guard, watcher,
knocker: (n) boob, tit, breast,
steely: (adj) stern, rocky, inexorable,
security guard, keeper, caretaker,
doorknocker, nipple, knock, doorstony, icy, unbending, stiff, iron,
custodian, watchdog.
knocker, depreciator, disparager,
austere, rugged, tough. ANTONYM:
Thomas Hardy
333
"Why do you take off that?" said Henchard.%
She turned in some surprise at his presence, and did not answer for an
instant or two. Recognizing him, she said, "Because they may knock as loud as
they will; she will never hear it any more."
Thesaurus
answer: (n, v) respond, retort; (v)
tap, strike, whack, bash, punch, cuff; bearing, carriage, figure, air,
counter, serve, resolve, acknowledge, (n) crash. ANTONYMS: (n)
comportment, demeanor, company;
correspond; (n) solution, defence,
improvement, boost; (v) encourage,
(n, v) attendance. ANTONYMS: (n)
return, reaction. ANTONYMS: (n, v)
bolster, approve.
absence, nonattendance.
question; (v) ask, differ, fail, ignore; loud: (adj) flashy, garish, gaudy,
surprise: (n) fright, amazement,
(n) request, problem, invitation,
wonder, astonishment; (n, v) alarm,
blatant, brassy, boisterous, high,
jazzy, brazen, piercing; (adj, adv)
shock, jolt; (v) amaze, startle,
poison.
hear: (int, v) attend; (v) find out,
forte. ANTONYMS: (adj) tasteful,
astonish, stun. ANTONYMS: (n)
expectation; (v) encourage, comfort.
discover, understand, apprehend,
gentle, quiet, subtle, subdued, low,
hark, learn, try, examine, listen; (adj)
muted, weak, tranquil, thin; (adv)
heard.
softly.
knock: (n, v) hit, blow, bang, bump,
presence: (n) front, manner, mien,
Thomas Hardy
335
CHAPTER 41
Henchard went home. The morning having now fully broke he lit his fire,
and sat abstractedly beside it. He had not sat there long when a gentle footstep
approached the house and entered the passage, a finger tapping lightly at the
door. Henchard's face brightened, for he knew the motions to be Elizabeth's.
She came into his room, looking wan and sad.%
"Have you heard?" she asked. "Mrs. Farfrae! She is--dead! Yes, indeed-about an hour ago!"
"I know it," said Henchard. "I have but lately come in from there. It is so
very good of 'ee, Elizabeth, to come and tell me. You must be so tired out, too,
with sitting up. Now do you bide here with me this morning. You can go and
rest in the other room; and I will call 'ee when breakfast is ready."
To please him, and herself--for his recent kindliness was winning a surprised
gratitude from the lonely girl--she did as he bade her, and lay down on a sort of
couch which Henchard had rigged up out of a settle in the adjoining room. She
could hear him moving about in his preparations; but her mind ran most
strongly on Lucetta, whose death in such fulness of life and amid such cheerful
hopes of maternity was appallingly unexpected. Presently she fell asleep.
Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the breakfast in
readiness; but finding that she dozed he would not call her; he waited on,
Thesaurus
appallingly: (adv) dreadfully,
amiability, grace, benignancy, mercy, maternities, parentage, origin,
shockingly, fearfully, frightfully,
tenderness, compassion, charity,
maternal quality, fatherliness.
outer: (adj) exterior, outward, outside,
ghastly, hideously, badly,
consideration, helpfulness.
ANTONYMS: (n) indifference,
horrifically, horrifyingly,
extrinsic, outdoor, outlying,
gruesomely, direly. ANTONYMS:
reserve, cruelty.
peripheral, surface, utter, extraneous,
(adv) pleasantly, wonderfully,
lately: (adv) tardily, newly, freshly,
outmost. ANTONYMS: (adj) internal,
fortunately, superbly, mildly,
belatedly, slowly, latterly, deadly;
inner, interior, inward, inside.
(adj, adv) anew, late, afresh; (adj)
rigged: (adj) prepared, premeditated.
laudably, humanely, well.
couch: (n) bed, sofa, settee, divan; (adj, recent.
tapping: (n) draining of the furnace,
v) lie; (v) express, put, frame, lower, maternity: (n) motherhood,
paracentesis, to tap, tick, tapotement,
repose; (adj) recline.
motherliness, parenthood,
sound, patter, drainage, clapping,
kindliness: (n) friendliness, geniality,
relationship, pregnancy, gestation,
casting, restriking.
336
looking into the fire and keeping the kettle boiling with house-wifely care, as if it
were an honour to have her in his house. In truth, a great change had come over
him with regard to her, and he was developing the dream of a future lit by her
filial presence, as though that way alone could happiness lie.%
He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to open it, rather
deprecating a call from anybody just then. A stoutly built man stood on the
doorstep, with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure and bearing--an air
which might have been called colonial by people of cosmopolitan experience. It
was the man who had asked the way at Peter's finger. Henchard nodded, and
looked inquiry.
"Good morning, good morning," said the stranger with profuse heartiness.
"Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?"
"My name is Henchard."
"Then I've caught 'ee at home--that's right. Morning's the time for business,
says I. Can I have a few words with you?"
"By all means," Henchard answered, showing the way in.
"You may remember me?" said his visitor, seating himself.
Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.
"Well--perhaps you may not. My name is Newson."
Henchard's face and eyes seemed to die. The other did not notice it. "I know
the name well," Henchard said at last, looking on the floor.
"I make no doubt of that. Well, the fact is, I've been looking for 'ee this
fortnight past. I landed at Havenpool and went through Casterbridge on my
way to Falmouth, and when I got there, they told me you had some years before
been living at Casterbridge. Back came I again, and by long and by late I got
here by coach, ten minutes ago. 'He lives down by the mill,' says they. So here I
am. Now--that transaction between us some twenty years agone--'tis that I've
called about. 'Twas a curious business. I was younger then than I am now, and
perhaps the less said about it, in one sense, the better."
Thesaurus
alien: (n) foreigner, outsider; (adj)
strange, extrinsic, remote, exotic,
extraneous, unfamiliar; (n, v) alienate;
(adj, n) unknown; (v) estrange.
ANTONYMS: (adj) familiar, akin,
ordinary; (adj, n) native; (n) citizen,
local.
boiling: (adj) hot, ebullient, heated,
burning, scalding, torrid, humid; (adj,
v) effervescent; (v) seethe, effervesce;
(n) ebullience. ANTONYMS: (adj)
cold, happy, frozen, cooled, cool,
stoutly: (adv) sturdily, robustly,
collected, calm, fresh, airy.
heartiness: (n) eagerness, fervor,
strongly, solidly, lustily, vigorously,
geniality, zeal, sincerity,
toughly, resolutely, stockily, portly,
obstinately. ANTONYM: (adv) feebly.
wholeheartedness, inwardness,
ardor, avidity, craving; (adj, n)
unfamiliar: (adj) strange, new,
hospitality.
unaccustomed, unacquainted,
profuse: (adj, n) generous, liberal; (adj) uncommon, novel, mysterious,
plentiful, ample, copious, lavish,
foreign, unidentified, inexperienced,
bounteous, exuberant, excessive, full, unusual. ANTONYMS: (adj) familiar,
prodigal. ANTONYMS: (adj) sparse,
recognizable, known, usual,
meager, thin, scanty, restrained,
experienced, versed, accustomed.
unhealthy, small.
Thomas Hardy
337
"Curious business! 'Twas worse than curious. I cannot even allow that I'm
the man you met then. I was not in my senses, and a man's senses are himself."
"We were young and thoughtless," said Newson. "However, I've come to
mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor Susan--hers was a strange
experience."
"She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not what they call
shrewd or sharp at all--better she had been."
"She was not."
"As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough to think that
the sale was in a way binding. She was as guiltless o' wrong-doing in that
particular as a saint in the clouds."
"I know it, I know it. I found it out directly," said Henchard, still with
averted eyes. "There lay the sting o't to me. If she had seen it as what it was she
would never have left me. Never! But how should she be expected to know?
What advantages had she? None. She could write her own name, and no more.%
"Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed was done," said
the sailor of former days. "I thought, and there was not much vanity in thinking
it, that she would be happier with me. She was fairly happy, and I never would
have undeceived her till the day of her death. Your child died; she had another,
and all went well. But a time came-- mind me, a time always does come. A time
came--it was some while after she and I and the child returned from America-when somebody she had confided her history to, told her my claim to her was a
mockery, and made a jest of her belief in my right. After that she was never
happy with me. She pined and pined, and socked and sighed. She said she must
leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a man advised me how
to act, and I did it, for I thought it was best. I left her at Falmouth, and went off
to sea. When I got to the other side of the Atlantic there was a storm, and it was
supposed that a lot of us, including myself, had been washed overboard. I got
ashore at Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do.
Thesaurus
ashore: (adv, pron) aground; (adj)
beached, stranded; (adv) aland, on
land, onto land, toward land.
guiltless: (adj) innocent, clean,
irreproachable, clear, faultless,
unsullied, stainless, pure, inculpable,
immaculate, spotless.
mend: (adj, v) improve; (v) correct,
cure, heal, doctor, better, amend,
restore, convalesce; (n, v) fix, patch.
ANTONYMS: (v) worsen, tear,
smash, decline, deteriorate; (n)
fracture.
conceitedness, pretension,
mockery: (n) gibe, jeer, irony, farce,
pomposity; (adj, n) amour propre.
ANTONYMS: (n) selflessness,
charade, derision, parody, mock,
scorn, imitation, burlesque.
humility, importance, value,
ANTONYM: (n) approval.
effectiveness.
overboard: (adj) exorbitant, rabid.
warm-hearted: (adj) warm,
undeceive: (v) unbeguile, unbefool,
affectionate, cordial, amiable,
disabuse, inform.
benevolent, compassionate,
undeceived: (adj) disillusioned,
demonstrative, genial, good-natured,
disenchanted.
kind-hearted, loving.
vanity: (n) egotism, pride, emptiness, washed: (adj) wash, cleaner, colored,
arrogance, futility, inanity, vainglory, refined, wet, watery.
338
"'Since I'm here, here I'll bide,' I thought to myself; ''twill be most kindness to
her, now she's taken against me, to let her believe me lost, for,' I thought, 'while
she supposes us both alive she'll be miserable; but if she thinks me dead she'll go
back to him, and the child will have a home.' I've never returned to this country
till a month ago, and I found that, as I supposed, she went to you, and my
daughter with her. They told me in Falmouth that Susan was dead. But my
Elizabeth-Jane--where is she?"
"Dead likewise," said Henchard doggedly. "Surely you learnt that too?"
The sailor started up, and took an enervated pace or two down the room.
"Dead!" he said, in a low voice. "Then what's the use of my money to me?"
Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were rather a
question for Newson himself than for him.%
"Where is she buried?" the traveller inquired.
"Beside her mother," said Henchard, in the same stolid tones.
"When did she die?"
"A year ago and more," replied the other without hesitation.
The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up from the floor. At
last Newson said: "My journey hither has been for nothing! I may as well go as I
came! It has served me right. I'll trouble you no longer."
Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the sanded floor,
the mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow opening and closing of the door that
was natural to a baulked or dejected man; but he did not turn his head.
Newson's shadow passed the window. He was gone.
Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, rose from his
seat amazed at what he had done. It had been the impulse of a moment. The
regard he had lately acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung hope of his
loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he could feel as proud
as of the actual daughter she still believed herself to be, had been stimulated by
the unexpected coming of Newson to a greedy exclusiveness in relation to her;
Thesaurus
dejected: (adj) sad, depressed, low,
downhearted, gloomy, down,
unhappy, spiritless, sorrowful,
miserable, melancholy. ANTONYMS:
(adj) elated, happy, euphoric, joyous,
encouraged, positive, enthusiastic,
hopeful.
exclusiveness: (n) clannishness,
cliquishness, snobbishness,
exclusivity, stylishness,
sophistication, refinement, insularity,
elegance, exclusivism.
greedy: (adj) avid, gluttonous,
desirous, grasping, acquisitive,
glutton, piggish, voracious, selfish;
(adj, v) avaricious, covetous.
ANTONYMS: (adj) temperate,
ascetic, unconcerned, abstemious,
moderate.
impulse: (n) pulse, urge, impulsion,
force, motive, whim, drive, goad,
motivation, momentum, incentive.
ANTONYMS: (n) aversion,
disincentive, disinclination.
loneliness: (n) desolation, aloneness,
isolation, solitariness, lonesomeness,
bleakness, forlornness, desolateness,
temperament, unhappiness; (adj, n)
solitude. ANTONYMS: (n) inclusion,
cheerfulness, hopefulness.
retreating: (n) flight; (adj) moving
back.
supposes: (adj) ridiculous, regulation,
project, preposterous, plainly,
suggestion, notions, irrational,
absurd, fatuity, foolish.
Thomas Hardy
339
so that the sudden prospect of her loss had caused him to speak mad lies like a
child, in pure mockery of consequences. He had expected questions to close in
round him, and unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet such questioning
had not come. But surely they would come; Newson's departure could be but
momentary; he would learn all by inquiries in the town; and return to curse him,
and carry his last treasure away!
He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the direction that Newson had
taken. Newson's back was soon visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake.
Henchard followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King's Arms, where the
morning coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour for another coach
which crossed there. The coach Newson had come by was now about to move
again. Newson mounted, his luggage was put in, and in a few minutes the
vehicle disappeared with him.%
He had not so much as turned his head. It was an act of simple faith in
Henchard's words--faith so simple as to be almost sublime. The young sailor
who had taken Susan Henchard on the spur of the moment and on the faith of a
glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was still living and acting
under the form of the grizzled traveller who had taken Henchard's words on
trust so absolute as to shame him as he stood.
Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of this hardy invention of a
moment? "Perhaps not for long," said he. Newson might converse with his
fellow-travellers, some of whom might be Casterbridge people; and the trick
would be discovered.
This probability threw Henchard into a defensive attitude, and instead of
considering how best to right the wrong, and acquaint Elizabeth's father with the
truth at once, he bethought himself of ways to keep the position he had
accidentally won. Towards the young woman herself his affection grew more
jealously strong with each new hazard to which his claim to her was exposed.
He watched the distant highway expecting to see Newson return on foot,
enlightened and indignant, to claim his child. But no figure appeared. Possibly
he had spoken to nobody on the coach, but buried his grief in his own heart.
Thesaurus
acquaint: (v) inform, familiarize, tell, hazard: (n, v) chance, venture,
solicitously, vigilantly, greedily,
advise, present, introduce, warn,
endanger, peril, adventure, bet,
grudgingly, spitefully, avariciously,
wager; (n) danger, fortune, jeopardy, zealously.
bring out, report, accustom,
communicate. ANTONYMS: (v) hide, accident. ANTONYMS: (n) safety,
sublime: (adj, v) majestic; (adj)
security; (v) protect.
mislead, misrepresent, withhold,
dignified, grand, lofty, magnificent,
indignant: (adj) angry, incensed,
elevated, noble, exalted, glorious; (v)
falsify, conceal.
fabrication: (n) construction, fiction,
sacred, sublimate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
furious, enraged, wrathful, hurt,
fable, assembly, creation, formation,
rage, provoked, hot, anger, irate.
poor, ridiculous.
falsehood, production, lie; (n, v)
ANTONYMS: (adj) cool, content,
unmask: (v) uncloak, expose, reveal,
invention, forgery. ANTONYMS: (n) unaffected.
debunk, uncover, unfold, unkennel,
honesty, fact, correction, dismantling, jealously: (adv) covetously,
detect, disclose, unseal, bare.
ANTONYMS: (v) mask, conceal.
dismantlement.
resentfully, greenly, suspiciously,
340
His grief!--what was it, after all, to that which he, Henchard, would feel at the
loss of her? Newson's affection cooled by years, could not equal his who had
been constantly in her presence. And thus his jealous soul speciously argued to
excuse the separation of father and child.%
He returned to the house half expecting that she would have vanished. No;
there she was--just coming out from the inner room, the marks of sleep upon her
eyelids, and exhibiting a generally refreshed air.
"O father!" she said smiling. "I had no sooner lain down than I napped,
though I did not mean to. I wonder I did not dream about poor Mrs. Farfrae,
after thinking of her so; but I did not. How strange it is that we do not often
dream of latest events, absorbing as they may be."
"I am glad you have been able to sleep," he said, taking her hand with
anxious proprietorship--an act which gave her a pleasant surprise.
They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane's thoughts reverted to
Lucetta. Their sadness added charm to a countenance whose beauty had ever
lain in its meditative soberness.
"Father," she said, as soon as she recalled herself to the outspread meal, "it is
so kind of you to get this nice breakfast with your own hands, and I idly asleep
the while."
"I do it every day," he replied. "You have left me; everybody has left me; how
should I live but by my own hands."
"You are very lonely, are you not?"
"Ay, child--to a degree that you know nothing of! It is my own fault. You are
the only one who has been near me for weeks. And you will come no more."
"Why do you say that? Indeed I will, if you would like to see me."
Henchard signified dubiousness. Though he had so lately hoped that
Elizabeth-Jane might again live in his house as daughter, he would not ask her to
do so now. Newson might return at any moment, and what Elizabeth would
think of him for his deception it were best to bear apart from her.
Thesaurus
cooled: (adj) refrigerated, frozen; (n)
pensive; (adj) wistful, reflective,
cooler.
broody, museful, ruminative,
dubiousness: (n) doubtfulness,
musing, brooding; (v) philosophical,
dubiety, uncertainness, disbelief,
sedate.
napped: (adj) fleecy, brushed, fuzzy,
misgiving, incertitude, suspense,
uncertainty, distrust, suspiciousness, grazed against.
question. ANTONYMS: (n)
outspread: (adj) spread, extended,
reliability, honesty, probability,
widespread, dispersed, outstretched,
stretched, broad, wide; (v) unfold.
certitude.
exhibiting: (n) advertising; (adj)
refreshed: (adj) invigorated,
exhibitory, ostensive.
rejuvenated, reinvigorated, new,
meditative: (adj, v) thoughtful,
novel, revived, impudent, energizing,
overbold, energising, clean.
ANTONYM: (adj) tired.
speciously: (adv) spuriously, falsely,
deceptively, irrationally, hollowly,
presumptively, wrongly, incorrectly,
evasively, unscientifically,
inaccurately.
vanished: (adj, v) extinct, lost; (adj)
disappeared, departed, missing, died
out, absent, dead, wiped out, bygone;
(v) exhausted. ANTONYMS: (adj)
found, living.
Thomas Hardy
341
When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered, till the moment
arrived at which Henchard was accustomed to go to his daily work. Then she
arose, and with assurance of coming again soon went up the hill in the morning
sunlight.%
"At this moment her heart is as warm towards me as mine is towards her, she
would live with me here in this humble cottage for the asking! Yet before the
evening probably he will have come, and then she will scorn me!"
This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard to himself, accompanied
him everywhere through the day. His mood was no longer that of the rebellious,
ironical, reckless misadventurer; but the leaden gloom of one who has lost all
that can make life interesting, or even tolerable. There would remain nobody for
him to be proud of, nobody to fortify him; for Elizabeth-Jane would soon be but
as a stranger, and worse. Susan, Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth-- all had gone from
him, one after one, either by his fault or by his misfortune.
In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire. If he could have
summoned music to his aid his existence might even now have been borne; for
with Henchard music was of regal power. The merest trumpet or organ tone
was enough to move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him. But hard
fate had ordained that he should be unable to call up this Divine spirit in his
need.
The whole land ahead of him was as darkness itself; there was nothing to
come, nothing to wait for. Yet in the natural course of life he might possibly
have to linger on earth another thirty or forty years--scoffed at; at best pitied.
The thought of it was unendurable.
To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadows through which much
water flowed. The wanderer in this direction who should stand still for a few
moments on a quiet night, might hear singular symphonies from these waters, as
from a lampless orchestra, all playing in their sundry tones from near and far
parts of the moor. At a hole in a rotten weir they executed a recitative; where a
tributary brook fell over a stone breastwork they trilled cheerily; under an arch
Thesaurus
breastwork: (n) balustrade, parapet,
ironical: (adj) sarcastic, satirical, dry,
bastion, banister, handrail, railing,
burlesque, wry, sardonic, satiric,
rampart; (v) mantlet, redan, ravelin,
derisive, caustic, quizzical; (n)
curtain.
humorous.
executed: (adj) finished, fulfilled,
recitative: (n) arioso, ballad, bravura,
complete.
cantata, canticle, canzonet, carol,
fortify: (n, v) brace, nerve, invigorate;
ditty, pastoral, solfeggio, passage.
(v) build up, confirm, consolidate,
tributary: (n) feeder, branch, affluent,
secure, buttress, encourage, reinforce, arm, stream, brook, watercourse; (adj)
enhance. ANTONYMS: (v) subdue,
secondary, subsidiary, contributory,
subordinate. ANTONYMS: (adj)
disarm, enfeeble, demoralize,
undermine.
original, primary, source.
trilled: (adj) rolling, involute, furled,
billowing, reverberating, resounding,
resonating, resonant, pronounceable,
reverberative.
trumpet: (n) horn, cornet, bugle,
clarion, trump, brass, trombone; (v)
proclaim, promulgate, show off,
blare.
wanderer: (n) vagabond, roamer,
tramp, nomad, drifter, traveler,
wayfarer, stranger, hobo, traveller;
(n, v) rambler.
342
they performed a metallic cymballing, and at Durnover Hole they hissed. The
spot at which their instrumentation rose loudest was a place called Ten Hatches,
whence during high springs there proceeded a very fugue of sounds.%
The river here was deep and strong at all times, and the hatches on this
account were raised and lowered by cogs and a winch. A patch led from the
second bridge over the highway (so often mentioned) to these Hatches, crossing
the stream at their head by a narrow plank-bridge. But after night-fall human
beings were seldom found going that way, the path leading only to a deep reach
of the stream called Blackwater, and the passage being dangerous.
Henchard, however, leaving the town by the east road, proceeded to the
second, or stone bridge, and thence struck into this path of solitude, following its
course beside the stream till the dark shapes of the Ten Hatches cut the sheen
thrown upon the river by the weak lustre that still lingered in the west. In a
second or two he stood beside the weir- hole where the water was at its deepest.
He looked backwards and forwards, and no creature appeared in view. He then
took off his coat and hat, and stood on the brink of the stream with his hands
clasped in front of him.
While his eyes were bent on the water beneath there slowly became visible a
something floating in the circular pool formed by the wash of centuries; the pool
he was intending to make his death-bed. At first it was indistinct by reason of
the shadow from the bank; but it emerged thence and took shape, which was that
of a human body, lying stiff and stark upon the surface of the stream.
In the circular current imparted by the central flow the form was brought
forward, till it passed under his eyes; and then he perceived with a sense of
horror that it was himself. Not a man somewhat resembling him, but one in all
respects his counterpart, his actual double, was floating as if dead in Ten Hatches
Hole.
The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappy man, and he
turned away as one might have done in the actual presence of an appalling
miracle. He covered his eyes and bowed his head. Without looking again into
the stream he took his coat and hat, and went slowly away.
Thesaurus
cogs: (n) teeth, moving parts,
instrumentality, arrangement,
workings, works, mechanism, device, ceramic, equipment, implement,
cost of goods sold.
furnishings, performance,
deepest: (adj) inmost, center, cordial,
implementation, dart thrower.
metallic: (adj) metal, harsh, metalline,
earnest, genuine, hearty, warm,
sincere, innermost. ANTONYM: (adj) metallics, hard, basic, actual,
outermost.
absolute, certain, chalybeate, clearly
fugue: (n) notturno, serenade,
expressed. ANTONYM: (adj) soft.
sheen: (n, v) shine, gleam; (n) polish,
psychogenic fugue, forgetfulness,
flight, canon, classical music,
gloss, light, glow, lustre, glitter,
brightness, brilliance; (v) burnish.
dithyramb.
instrumentation: (n) hardware, arms,
ANTONYM: (n) dullness.
supernatural: (adj) mystical,
preternatural, weird, superhuman,
eerie, uncanny, unnatural,
mysterious, ghostly, divine; (n)
occult. ANTONYM: (adj) normal.
weir: (n) dam, boom, dike, dyke, levee,
penstock, barrage, wall, block,
barrier, fencing.
winch: (v) capstan, crane; (n, v)
windlass, derrick, wince; (n) crank,
hoist, pinion, pulley, spindle, the
redwing.
Thomas Hardy
343
Presently he found himself by the door of his own dwelling. To his surprise
Elizabeth-Jane was standing there. She came forward, spoke, called him "father"
just as before. Newson, then, had not even yet returned.%
"I thought you seemed very sad this morning," she said, "so I have come
again to see you. Not that I am anything but sad myself. But everybody and
everything seem against you so, and I know you must be suffering.
How this woman divined things!
extremity.
Yet she had not divined their whole
He said to her, "Are miracles still worked, do ye think, Elizabeth? I am not a
read man. I don't know so much as I could wish. I have tried to peruse and
learn all my life; but the more I try to know the more ignorant I seem."
"I don't quite think there are any miracles nowadays," she said.
"No interference in the case of desperate intentions, for instance? Well,
perhaps not, in a direct way. Perhaps not. But will you come and walk with me,
and I will show 'ee what I mean."
She agreed willingly, and he took her over the highway, and by the lonely
path to Ten Hatches. He walked restlessly, as if some haunting shade, unseen of
her, hovered round him and troubled his glance. She would gladly have talked
of Lucetta, but feared to disturb him. When they got near the weir he stood still,
and asked her to go forward and look into the pool, and tell him what she saw.
She went, and soon returned to him. "Nothing," she said.
"Go again," said Henchard, "and look narrowly."
She proceeded to the river brink a second time. On her return, after some
delay, she told him that she saw something floating round and round there; but
what it was she could not discern. It seemed to be a bundle of old clothes.
"Are they like mine?" asked Henchard.
"Well--they are. Dear me--I wonder if--Father, let us go away!"
"Go and look once more; and then we will get home."
Thesaurus
bundle: (n, v) pack, cluster, clump,
average, minimum, head, leniency.
invisible, concealed, hidden,
wad; (n) sheaf, pile, batch, stack,
haunting: (adj) moving, memorable,
unobserved, secret, veiled, latent; (v)
unheeded, unperceived; (n) spiritual
package, group, heap. ANTONYMS: unforgettable, beguiling, attractive,
(v) scatter, separate, disperse, divide. ominous, weird, treasured, evocative, world. ANTONYMS: (adj) seen,
dwelling: (n) domicile, home,
etched in your mind, deep.
visible, open, famous, noticeable.
ANTONYMS: (adj) forgettable,
willingly: (adv) readily, voluntarily,
residence, house, place,
accommodation, address, building,
unremarkable.
cheerfully, spontaneously, helpfully,
lodge, habitation; (adj, n) dwell.
peruse: (v) examine, look through,
disposedly, actively, openly,
extremity: (n) end, member,
obligingly, eagerly; (adj, adv) freely.
inspect, study, leaf, flip, flick, learn,
boundary, bound, close, appendage,
review, to read, browse. ANTONYM: ANTONYMS: (adv) grudgingly,
(v) skim.
limit, limb, ending, fringe,
reluctantly, uncooperatively,
conclusion. ANTONYMS: (n) trunk, unseen: (adj, v) unknown; (adj)
unenthusiastically.
344
She went back, and he could see her stoop till her head was close to the
margin of the pool. She started up, and hastened back to his side.%
"Well," said Henchard; "what do you say now?"
"Let us go home."
"But tell me--do--what is it floating there?"
"The effigy," she answered hastily. "They must have thrown it into the river
higher up amongst the willows at Blackwater, to get rid of it in their alarm at
discovery by the magistrates, and it must have floated down here."
"Ah--to be sure--the image o' me! But where is the other? Why that one
only?...That performance of theirs killed her, but kept me alive!"
Elizabeth-Jane thought and thought of these words "kept me alive," as they
slowly retraced their way to the town, and at length guessed their meaning.
"Father!--I will not leave you alone like this!" she cried. "May I live with you, and
tend upon you as I used to do? I do not mind your being poor. I would have
agreed to come this morning, but you did not ask me."
"May you come to me?" he cried bitterly. "Elizabeth, don't mock me! If you
only would come!"
"I will," said she.
"How will you forgive all my roughness in former days? You cannot!"
"I have forgotten it. Talk of that no more."
Thus she assured him, and arranged their plans for reunion; and at length
each went home. Then Henchard shaved for the first time during many days,
and put on clean linen, and combed his hair; and was as a man resuscitated
thenceforward.
The next morning the fact turned out to be as Elizabeth-Jane had stated; the
effigy was discovered by a cowherd, and that of Lucetta a little higher up in the
same stream. But as little as possible was said of the matter, and the figures were
privately destroyed.
Thesaurus
cowherd: (n, v) neatherd; (n) cowboy,
(adv) carefully, unhurriedly,
unification, reunification,
cowhand, cowman, buckaroo,
industriously, sensibly, prudently,
appeasement, pacification, levee,
gathering, uniting. ANTONYMS: (n)
herdsman, puncher, cowgirl,
late, calmly, thoroughly, patiently,
cowpuncher, cowpoke, roper.
gradually, cautiously.
departure, segregation, incitement.
floating: (adv) afloat; (adj, v) buoyant; mock: (adj, v) counterfeit; (n, v)
shaved: (adj) shave, lacking hair,
(adj, adv) aimless; (adj) current, loose, ridicule, jeer, gibe, laugh at, flout;
hairless, beardless, shiny on top,
(adj, n, v) burlesque, sham; (v) mimic, bald, smooth on top, whiskerless.
moving, fluid, in circulation, going
ape, taunt. ANTONYMS: (adj) real,
ANTONYM: (adj) unshaven.
about, flying, light.
hastily: (adv) hurriedly, rapidly,
natural; (v) praise, applaud, respect, stoop: (v) crouch, bend, deign,
quickly, rashly, promptly, suddenly, approve.
condescend, descend, squat, couch,
cringe, lean, lower oneself; (n) porch.
thoughtlessly, impetuously, swiftly, reunion: (n) reconciliation,
ANTONYM: (v) straighten.
imprudently, speedily. ANTONYMS: convention, assembly, homecoming,
Thomas Hardy
345
Despite this natural solution of the mystery Henchard no less regarded it as
an intervention that the figure should have been floating there. Elizabeth-Jane
heard him say, "Who is such a reprobate as I! And yet it seems that even I be in
Somebody's hand!"%
Thesaurus
figure: (n, v) form, design, cast,
estimate, shape, image; (v) count,
cipher; (adj, n) appearance; (n)
character, cost. ANTONYM: (v)
estimate.
intervention: (adj, n) intercession,
mediation, interposition; (n)
intervene, intermediation, arbitration,
hindrance, intermission, medium,
vehicle; (v) interfere. ANTONYM: (n)
provocation.
mystery: (n) arcanum, enigma,
mysteriousness, secrecy, puzzle,
strained.
craft, perplexity, poser, inscrutability, reprobate: (adj, n) profligate,
whodunit; (adj, n) secret.
miscreant; (adj) depraved, immoral,
ANTONYMS: (n) explanation,
corrupt, dissolute; (v) censure,
condemn, reproach; (adj, v)
openness.
natural: (adj) inherent, innate,
perverted; (n) scoundrel.
solution: (n) dissolution, resolution,
unaffected, instinctive, artless,
congenital, inborn, normal, intrinsic,
dilution, answer, settlement, resolve,
essential, native. ANTONYMS: (adj)
determination, key, result,
affected, refined, false, cultivated,
explanation, remedy. ANTONYMS:
unnatural, paranormal, supernatural, (n) quandary, solid, poison, problem.
abnormal, forced, exceptional,
Thomas Hardy
347
CHAPTER 42
But the emotional conviction that he was in Somebody's hand began to die
out of Henchard's breast as time slowly removed into distance the event which
had given that feeling birth. The apparition of Newson haunted him. He would
surely return.%
Yet Newson did not arrive. Lucetta had been borne along the churchyard
path; Casterbridge had for the last time turned its regard upon her, before
proceeding to its work as if she had never lived. But Elizabeth remained
undisturbed in the belief of her relationship to Henchard, and now shared his
home. Perhaps, after all, Newson was gone for ever.
In due time the bereaved Farfrae had learnt the, at least, proximate cause of
Lucetta's illness and death, and his first impulse was naturally enough to wreak
vengeance in the name of the law upon the perpetrators of the mischief. He
resolved to wait till the funeral was over ere he moved in the matter. The time
having come he reflected. Disastrous as the result had been, it was obviously in
no way foreseen or intended by the thoughtless crew who arranged the motley
procession. The tempting prospect of putting to the blush people who stand at
the head of affairs--that supreme and piquant enjoyment of those who writhe
under the heel of the same--had alone animated them, so far as he could see; for
he knew nothing of Jopp's incitements. Other considerations were also involved.
Thesaurus
animated: (adj) alive, lively, animate, piquant: (adj) peppery, spicy,
undisturbed: (adj) peaceful, quiet,
perky, spirited, sprightly, brisk,
engaging, tasty, salty, strong, sharp,
tranquil, serene, placid, still, easy,
gamy; (adj, n) pungent, racy,
cheerful, quick, vivacious, airy.
smooth, uninterrupted, untroubled,
ANTONYMS: (adj) lethargic, dull,
trenchant. ANTONYMS: (adj) bland,
composed. ANTONYMS: (adj) tense,
blank, lifeless, spiritless, stiff,
dull, insipid, faint.
anxious, agitated, bothered,
proximate: (adj) close, immediate,
unanimated, bored, impassive,
disordered, disturbed, noisy, scared.
unexciting, dead.
next, approximate, proximal, direct, wreak: (v) bring, work, avenge,
mischief: (adj, n) evil, hurt, harm; (n)
nearby, contiguous, adjacent; (adj, v)
impose, make, make for, play, cause,
fetch; (n) wretch; (adj) tyrannize.
damage, ill, detriment, disadvantage, subsequent; (v) consequent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) ultimate, distant. writhe: (adj, v) distort, wrest; (v)
devilry, caper, devilment,
maleficence. ANTONYMS: (n)
reflected: (adj) reflecting, reverberant, contort, wriggle, squirm, wrench,
obedience, beneficence, help.
reflectent.
worm, coil, wiggle, thrash, warp.
348
Lucetta had confessed everything to him before her death, and it was not
altogether desirable to make much ado about her history, alike for her sake, for
Henchard's, and for his own. To regard the event as an untoward accident
seemed, to Farfrae, truest consideration for the dead one's memory, as well as
best philosophy.%
Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet. For Elizabeth's sake the
former had fettered his pride sufficiently to accept the small seed and root
business which some of the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, had purchased to
afford him a new opening. Had he been only personally concerned Henchard,
without doubt, would have declined assistance even remotely brought about by
the man whom he had so fiercely assailed. But the sympathy of the girl seemed
necessary to his very existence; and on her account pride itself wore the
garments of humility.
Here they settled themselves; and on each day of their lives Henchard
anticipated her every wish with a watchfulness in which paternal regard was
heightened by a burning jealous dread of rivalry. Yet that Newson would ever
now return to Casterbridge to claim her as a daughter there was little reason to
suppose. He was a wanderer and a stranger, almost an alien; he had not seen his
daughter for several years; his affection for her could not in the nature of things
be keen; other interests would probably soon obscure his recollections of her,
and prevent any such renewal of inquiry into the past as would lead to a
discovery that she was still a creature of the present. To satisfy his conscience
somewhat Henchard repeated to himself that the lie which had retained for him
the coveted treasure had not been deliberately told to that end, but had come
from him as the last defiant word of a despair which took no thought of
consequences. Furthermore he pleaded within himself that no Newson could
love her as he loved her, or would tend her to his life's extremity as he was
prepared to do cheerfully.
Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard, and nothing
occurred to mark their days during the remainder of the year. Going out but
seldom, and never on a market- day, they saw Donald Farfrae only at rarest
Thesaurus
cheerfully: (adj, adv) gladly; (adv, v)
happily; (adv) merrily, readily,
brightly, jovially, cheerily, genially,
chirpily, lively, blithely.
ANTONYMS: (adv) bleakly, dismally,
grimly, sullenly, unhappily,
somberly, sadly, grudgingly,
gloomily, dourly, forlornly.
confessed: (adj) known.
coveted: (adj) sought after, desirable,
in demand. ANTONYM: (adj)
unpopular.
declined: (adj) less.
maternal, agnatic, concerned,
fettered: (adj) bound, in fetters, in
solicitous, patrimonial, ancestral,
bonds, responsible.
fatherlike, racial, fraternal.
garments: (n) attire, clothing, dress,
ANTONYMS: (adj) filial, motherly.
recollections: (n) memories,
apparel, raiment, outfit, costume,
garb, array, gear, anything worthless. reminiscences, recollection,
mutually: (adv) jointly, commonly,
biography.
watchfulness: (n) care, caution,
together, mutual, collectively,
publically, unitedly, publicly,
alertness, heed, wariness, jealousy,
bilaterally, communally, sharedly.
attentiveness, attention, solicitude,
ANTONYM: (adv) alone.
concern, anxiety. ANTONYMS: (n)
paternal: (adj) parental, agnate,
recklessness, inattentiveness.
Thomas Hardy
349
intervals, and then mostly as a transitory object in the distance of the street. Yet
he was pursuing his ordinary avocations, smiling mechanically to fellowtradesmen, and arguing with bargainers--as bereaved men do after a while.%
Time, "in his own grey style," taught Farfrae how to estimate his experience
of Lucetta--all that it was, and all that it was not. There are men whose hearts
insist upon a dogged fidelity to some image or cause thrown by chance into their
keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it no rarity--even the reverse,
indeed, and without them the band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was
not of those. It was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and rapidity of his
nature should take him out of the dead blank which his loss threw about him.
He could not but perceive that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged a
looming misery for a simple sorrow. After that revelation of her history, which
must have come sooner or later in any circumstances, it was hard to believe that
life with her would have been productive of further happiness.
But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions, Lucetta's image still
lived on with him, her weaknesses provoking only the gentlest criticism, and her
sufferings attenuating wrath at her concealments to a momentary spark now and
then.
By the end of a year Henchard's little retail seed and grain shop, not much
larger than a cupboard, had developed its trade considerably, and the stepfather
and daughter enjoyed much serenity in the pleasant, sunny corner in which it
stood. The quiet bearing of one who brimmed with an inner activity
characterized Elizabeth-Jane at this period. She took long walks into the country
two or three times a week, mostly in the direction of Budmouth. Sometimes it
occurred to him that when she sat with him in the evening after those
invigorating walks she was civil rather than affectionate; and he was troubled;
one more bitter regret being added to those he had already experienced at
having, by his severe censorship, frozen up her precious affection when
originally offered.
She had her own way in everything now. In going and coming, in buying
and selling, her word was law.
Thesaurus
briskness: (n) quickness, rapidity,
provoking: (adj) provocative,
quietness, equanimity, calmness,
quietude, repose; (adj, n) composure,
animation, agility, liveliness,
annoying, aggravating, galling,
sprightliness, speed, haste, activity,
maddening, vexatious, agitative,
tranquility, placidity. ANTONYMS:
promptness, alertness. ANTONYMS: tempting, agitating; (adj, v) irritating, (n) anxiety, uproar, chaos, anger,
(n) warmth, tardiness; (adv) seriously. insulting. ANTONYMS: (adj)
panic, bustle, disturbance,
hearts: (n) Black Maria, spades.
conciliatory, courteous, satisfying.
impatience, turbulence, turmoil.
invigorating: (adj) exhilarating, fresh, rapidity: (n) expedition, quickness,
transitory: (adj) transient, temporary,
tonic, brisk, healthy, wholesome,
promptness, dispatch, celerity, haste, fleeting, momentary, brief,
cordial, benign, curative, crisp,
velocity, pace, fleetness,
ephemeral, temporal, fugacious,
fascinating. ANTONYMS: (adj)
promptitude, speed. ANTONYM: (n) impermanent, fugitive, transitive.
ANTONYMS: (adj) permanent,
soporific, soothing, relaxing, tiring,
tardiness.
serenity: (n) quiet, peace, calm,
dull, debilitating, deadly.
lasting.
350
"You have got a new muff, Elizabeth," he said to her one day quite humbly.%
"Yes; I bought it," she said.
He looked at it again as it lay on an adjoining table. The fur was of a glossy
brown, and, though he was no judge of such articles, he thought it seemed an
unusually good one for her to possess.
"Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?" he hazarded.
"It was rather above my figure," she said quietly. "But it is not showy."
"O no," said the netted lion, anxious not to pique her in the least.
Some little time after, when the year had advanced into another spring, he
paused opposite her empty bedroom in passing it. He thought of the time when
she had cleared out of his then large and handsome house in corn Street, in
consequence of his dislike and harshness, and he had looked into her chamber in
just the same way. The present room was much humbler, but what struck him
about it was the abundance of books lying everywhere. Their number and
quality made the meagre furniture that supported them seem absurdly
disproportionate. Some, indeed many, must have been recently purchased; and
though he encouraged her to buy in reason, he had no notion that she indulged
her innate passion so extensively in proportion to the narrowness of their
income. For the first time he felt a little hurt by what he thought her
extravagance, and resolved to say a word to her about it. But, before he had
found the courage to speak an event happened which set his thoughts flying in
quite another direction.
The busy time of the seed trade was over, and the quiet weeks that preceded
the hay-season had come--setting their special stamp upon Casterbridge by
thronging the market with wood rakes, new waggons in yellow, green, and red,
formidable scythes, and pitchforks of prong sufficient to skewer up a small
family. Henchard, contrary to his wont, went out one Saturday afternoon
towards the market-place from a curious feeling that he would like to pass a few
minutes on the spot of his former triumphs. Farfrae, to whom he was still a
comparative stranger, stood a few steps below the Corn Exchange door--a usual
Thesaurus
absurdly: (adv) ridiculously, foolishly, leniency, quietness, flexibility,
reticulate, netty, meshy, weblike,
ludicrously, nonsensically,
kindness, mercy, sweetness,
webbed, webby, lacelike.
pique: (v) nettle, insult, outrage,
idiotically, silly, stupidly,
melodiousness, brightness,
irritate, fret; (n) grudge, annoyance,
inconsistently, comically, illogically,
smoothness, lenience.
irrationally. ANTONYMS: (adv)
narrowness: (n) thinness, width,
umbrage, irritation; (n, v) anger,
solemnly, impressively, rationally,
intolerance, illiberality, tightness,
spite.
prong: (n, v) fork; (n) point, arm, tine,
harmoniously.
smallness, pettiness, sheerness,
harshness: (n) austerity, asperity,
slimness, meanness, skinniness.
branch, barb, tang, claw, nib, tooth;
ANTONYMS: (n) wideness,
(v) stab.
severity, acrimony, brutality,
skewer: (v) spit, impale, spike, spear,
hardness, roughness, rigor,
stoutness, thickness, width,
inclemency, hoarseness; (adj, n)
pierce, transfix, prick; (n) corking pin,
coarseness, inaccuracy.
strictness. ANTONYMS: (n) softness, netted: (adj) reticulated, reticular, lacy, nail, brad, staple.
Thomas Hardy
351
position with him at this hour--and he appeared lost in thought about something
he was looking at a little way off.%
Henchard's eyes followed Farfrae's, and he saw that the object of his gaze was
no sample-showing farmer, but his own stepdaughter, who had just come out of
a shop over the way. She, on her part, was quite unconscious of his attention, and
in this was less fortunate than those young women whose very plumes, like
those of Juno's bird, are set with Argus eyes whenever possible admirers are
within ken.
Henchard went away, thinking that perhaps there was nothing significant
after all in Farfrae's look at Elizabeth-Jane at that juncture. Yet he could not
forget that the Scotchman had once shown a tender interest in her, of a fleeting
kind. Thereupon promptly came to the surface that idiosyncrasy of Henchard's
which had ruled his courses from the beginning and had mainly made him what
he was. Instead of thinking that a union between his cherished step-daughter
and the energetic thriving Donald was a thing to be desired for her good and his
own, he hated the very possibility.
Time had been when such instinctive opposition would have taken shape in
action. But he was not now the Henchard of former days. He schooled himself
to accept her will, in this as in other matters, as absolute and unquestionable.
He dreaded lest an antagonistic word should lose for him such regard as he had
regained from her by his devotion, feeling that to retain this under separation
was better than to incur her dislike by keeping her near.
But the mere thought of such separation fevered his spirit much, and in the
evening he said, with the stillness of suspense: "Have you seen Mr. Farfrae today, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it was with some confusion that
she replied "No."
"Oh--that's right--that's right....It was only that I saw him in the street when
we both were there." He was wondering if her embarrassment justified him in a
new suspicion--that the long walks which she had latterly been taking, that the
Thesaurus
cherished: (adj) dear, precious, loved,
oddity, feature, attribute, personality, quiet, peace, still. ANTONYMS: (n)
quirk, diathesis; (adj, n) individuality. bustle, movement, uproar, motion,
treasured, prized, intimate, wanted,
incur: (n, v) contract; (v) catch, get,
valued, pet, valuable, close.
turbulence, turmoil, vigor,
ANTONYMS: (adj) unremarkable,
incite, begin, cause, encounter,
disturbance, chaos, agitation.
unquestionable: (adj) incontrovertible,
hated, distant.
experience, obtain, suffer, receive.
dreaded: (adj) awful, terrible,
juncture: (n, v) joint; (adj, n) crisis; (n)
indisputable, sure, incontestable,
cowardly, causing horror, dire,
articulation, event, junction,
indubitable, certain, unequivocal,
irrefutable, undoubted, definite; (v)
direful, desperate, dreadful, fearful,
connection, affair, point, time,
fearsome; (v) drad.
conjuncture; (v) joining.
unimpeachable. ANTONYMS: (adj)
fevered: (adj) febrile, hectic, hot, fiery. stillness: (n) hush, calmness,
dubious, uncertain, doubtful,
idiosyncrasy: (n) mannerism,
immobility, serenity, silence,
indefinite, tenuous, provisional,
quietness, peacefulness; (adj, n) calm, debatable, disputable.
eccentricity, foible, peculiarity,
352
new books which had so surprised him, had anything to do with the young man.
She did not enlighten him, and lest silence should allow her to shape thoughts
unfavourable to their present friendly relations, he diverted the discourse into
another channel.%
Henchard was, by original make, the last man to act stealthily, for good or for
evil. But the solicitus timor of his love--the dependence upon Elizabeth's regard
into which he had declined (or, in another sense, to which he had advanced)-denaturalized him. He would often weigh and consider for hours together the
meaning of such and such a deed or phrase of hers, when a blunt settling
question would formerly have been his first instinct. And now, uneasy at the
thought of a passion for Farfrae which should entirely displace her mild filial
sympathy with himself, he observed her going and coming more narrowly.
There was nothing secret in Elizabeth-Jane's movements beyond what
habitual reserve induced, and it may at once be owned on her account that she
was guilty of occasional conversations with Donald when they chanced to meet.
Whatever the origin of her walks on the Budmouth Road, her return from those
walks was often coincident with Farfrae's emergence from corn Street for a
twenty minutes' blow on that rather windy highway--just to winnow the seeds
and chaff out of him before sitting down to tea, as he said. Henchard became
aware of this by going to the Ring, and, screened by its enclosure, keeping his
eye upon the road till he saw them meet. His face assumed an expression of
extreme anguish.
"Of her, too, he means to rob me!" he whispered. "But he has the right. I do
not wish to interfere."
The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind, and matters were by no
means so far advanced between the young people as Henchard's jealous grief
inferred. Could he have heard such conversation as passed he would have been
enlightened thus much:-He.--"You like walking this way, Miss Henchard--and is it not so?" (uttered in
his undulatory accents, and with an appraising, pondering gaze at her).
Thesaurus
coincident: (adj) concurrent,
enlighten: (v) advise, edify, educate,
simultaneous, consistent,
inform, clarify, apprise, instruct,
illuminate, clear, notify; (adj, v)
coincidental, identical, congruent,
accordant, concomitant, coexisting, at lighten. ANTONYMS: (v) puzzle,
the same time, corresponding.
obfuscate, mystify, confound, cloud,
ANTONYM: (adj) inconsistent.
brutalize, bewilder, muddle.
displace: (v) dismiss, dislocate,
habitual: (adj, n) common, frequent,
usual; (adj) chronic, conventional,
dislodge, depose, bump, shift,
uproot, remove, cashier, evacuate,
confirmed, accustomed, natural,
disturb. ANTONYMS: (v) replace,
commonplace, everyday, ordinary.
ANTONYMS: (adj) occasional,
restore, reinstate, wedge, straighten,
remain.
infrequent, mild, irregular,
exceptional, erratic, abnormal,
innovative.
undulatory: (v) undated; (adj) rolling,
undulated, undulating, wavy,
libratory, pulsatory, rectilinear,
undulating ground, undulative,
undulous.
winnow: (adj, n, v) sift; (v) cull,
eliminate, separate, pick, glean,
strain; (n, v) ventilate; (n) separation,
winnowing, sifting.
Thomas Hardy
353
She.--"O yes. I have chosen this road latterly. I have no great reason for it."
He.--"But that may make a reason for others."
She (reddening).--"I don't know that. My reason, however, such as it is, is that
I wish to get a glimpse of the sea every day.%
He.--"Is it a secret why?"
She ( reluctantly ).--"Yes."
He (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).--"Ah, I doubt there will be
any good in secrets! A secret cast a deep shadow over my life. And well you
know what it was."
Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrained from confessing why the
sea attracted her. She could not herself account for it fully, not knowing the
secret possibly to be that, in addition to early marine associations, her blood was
a sailor's.
"Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae," she added shyly. "I wonder if
I ought to accept so many!"
"Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you, than you to
have them!"
"It cannot."
They proceeded along the road together till they reached the town, and their
paths diverged.
Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their own devices, put nothing
in the way of their courses, whatever they might mean. If he were doomed to be
bereft of her, so it must be. In the situation which their marriage would create he
could see no locus standi for himself at all. Farfrae would never recognize him
more than superciliously; his poverty ensured that, no less than his past
conduct. And so Elizabeth would grow to be a stranger to him, and the end of
his life would be friendless solitude.
With such a possibility impending he could not help watchfulness. Indeed,
within certain lines, he had the right to keep an eye upon her as his charge. The
Thesaurus
bereft: (adj, v) cut off; (adj) destitute,
devoid, forlorn, void, deprived,
lovelorn, grieving, deserted,
insufficient; (v) reft. ANTONYMS:
(adj) fulfilled, supplied, happy,
consoled, satisfied.
confessing: (v) confess.
ensured: (adj) certain, constitutional.
friendless: (adj) alone, lonely,
abandoned, solitary, helpless,
lonesome, forsaken, unfriended,
deserted, introverted, unwanted.
ANTONYM: (adj) sociable.
embarrassedly, clumsily, uncertainly,
impending: (adj) forthcoming, close,
tentatively, unremarkably.
ANTONYMS: (adv) boldly, brashly,
future, coming, approaching, near,
prospective, pending, at hand,
brazenly, urbanely, conspicuously,
upcoming, threatening.
confidently, decisively.
ANTONYMS: (adj) distant, unlikely, superciliously: (adv) arrogantly,
past.
disdainfully, proudly, conceitedly,
locus: (n) position, spot, location,
snootily, snidely, sneeringly,
venue, place, point, orbit, post, scene, contumeliously, pompously,
situation, space.
bumptiously, overbearingly.
shyly: (adv) timidly, shily, coyly,
vowed: (v) promised, named,
diffidently, timorously, with reserve, benempt.
354
meetings seemed to become matters of course with them on special days of the
week.%
At last full proof was given him. He was standing behind a wall close to the
place at which Farfrae encountered her. He heard the young man address her as
"Dearest Elizabeth- Jane," and then kiss her, the girl looking quickly round to
assure herself that nobody was near.
When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the wall, and
mournfully followed them to Casterbridge. The chief looming trouble in this
engagement had not decreased. Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, unlike the rest
of the people, must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual daughter, from his own
assertion while he himself had the same belief; and though Farfrae must have so
far forgiven him as to have no objection to own him as a father-in-law, intimate
they could never be. Thus would the girl, who was his only friend, be
withdrawn from him by degrees through her husband's influence, and learn to
despise him.
Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than the one he had
rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in days before his spirit was broken,
Henchard would have said, "I am content." But content with the prospect as now
depicted was hard to acquire.
There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts unowned,
unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimes allowed to wander for a
moment prior to being sent off whence they came. One of these thoughts sailed
into Henchard's ken now.
Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his betrothed was
not the child of Michael Henchard at all-- legally, nobody's child; how would
that correct and leading townsman receive the information? He might possibly
forsake Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her step-sire's own again.
Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, "God forbid such a thing! Why should
I still be subject to these visitations of the devil, when I try so hard to keep him
away?"
Thesaurus
betrothed: (adj) affianced, intended,
looming: (adj) threatening, impending,
menacing, pending; (v) illusion,
bespoken, busy, occupied,
contracted, attached, bargained for;
anamorphosis, false light, distortion,
(n) fiance, fiancee; (v) engage.
phasma, appear, mirage.
depicted: (adj) pictured, represented,
ANTONYM: (adj) distant.
graphic, delineated; (v) depict.
noxious: (adj) injurious, deleterious,
forbid: (v) prohibit, ban, disallow, bar, harmful, deadly, evil, inimical,
obstruct, exclude, deny, avert,
noisome, destructive, poisonous,
venomous, lethal. ANTONYMS: (adj)
frustrate, to prohibit, enjoin.
ANTONYMS: (v) allow, let, approve, innocuous, pleasant, healthy.
townsman: (n) burgher, burgess,
authorize, stand.
forgiven: (v) conciliatory, placable.
towner, cockney, oppidan, cit,
townie, compeer, equal, knobstick,
match.
unowned: (adj) ownerless, unculled,
unattended, abandoned,
unappropriated. ANTONYM: (adj)
owned.
unsolicited: (adj) unsought, uninvited,
undesirable, not desired, not
requested, undesired, unasked for,
annoying, unwanted, unwelcome,
unasked. ANTONYMS: (adj)
solicited, asked, invited, requested.
Thomas Hardy
355
CHAPTER 43
What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at a little later
date by other people. That Mr. Farfrae "walked with that bankrupt Henchard's
step-daughter, of all women," became a common topic in the town, the simple
perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a wooing; and the nineteen
superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who had each looked upon herself as the
only woman capable of making the merchant Councilman happy, indignantly
left off going to the church Farfrae attended, left off conscious mannerisms, left
off putting him in their prayers at night amongst their blood relations; in short,
reverted to their normal courses.%
Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this looming choice of the
Scotchman's gave unmixed satisfaction were the members of the philosophic
party, which included Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy Wills, Mr. Buzzford,
and the like. The Three Mariners having been, years before, the house in which
they had witnessed the young man and woman's first and humble appearance
on the Casterbridge stage, they took a kindly interest in their career, not
unconnected, perhaps, with visions of festive treatment at their hands hereafter.
Mrs. Stannidge, having rolled into the large parlour one evening and said that it
was a wonder such a man as Mr. Farfrae, "a pillow of the town," who might have
chosen one of the daughters of the professional men or private residents, should
stoop so low, Coney ventured to disagree with her.
Thesaurus
bankrupt: (v) ruin, break, impoverish, on, hence, henceforth, hereinafter,
unconnected: (adj) detached,
deprive; (adj) broke, destitute, poor,
afterwards; (n) afterlife, futurity, time disjointed, incoherent, unrelated,
impoverished; (n) bankruptcy,
to come, great beyond, future life.
illogical, confused, irrelevant,
members: (n) convention, personnel.
incongruous; (adj, prep) separate,
failure, insolvency. ANTONYMS:
(adj) rich, profiting, flourishing,
parlour: (n) living room, parlor, sitting separated; (v) unattached.
wealthy; (v) enrich.
ANTONYMS: (adj) attached,
room, front room, livingroom, room
festive: (adj) convivial, festal, merry,
to meet guests, parlours, parlors,
pertinent, relevant, together.
unmixed: (adj, v) simple, sheer, mere,
cheery, joyous, jovial, gala, gay,
salon, reception room, room.
downright; (adj) absolute, unmingled,
blithe, solemn, joyful. ANTONYMS: signify: (n, v) intend, mark; (adj, n, v)
(adj) depressed, gloomy, somber,
import; (v) imply, indicate, denote,
undiluted, straight, uncompounded,
single, plain. ANTONYM: (adj)
dreary.
point, stand for, express, intimate,
hereafter: (adv) thereafter, from now
matter.
impure.
356
"No, ma'am, no wonder at all. 'Tis she that's a stooping to he--that's my
opinion. A widow man--whose first wife was no credit to him--what is it for a
young perusing woman that's her own mistress and well liked? But as a neat
patching up of things I see much good in it. When a man have put up a tomb of
best marble-stone to the other one, as he've done, and weeped his fill, and
thought it all over, and said to hisself, 'T'other took me in, I knowed this one first;
she's a sensible piece for a partner, and there's no faithful woman in high life
now';--well, he may do worse than not to take her, if she's tender-inclined."
Thus they talked at the Mariners. But we must guard against a too liberal use
of the conventional declaration that a great sensation was caused by the
prospective event, that all the gossips' tongues were set wagging thereby, and
soon, even though such a declaration might lend some eclat to the career of our
poor only heroine. When all has been said about busy rumourers, a superficial
and temporary thing is the interest of anybody in affairs which do not directly
touch them. It would be a truer representation to say that Casterbridge (ever
excepting the nineteen young ladies) looked up for a moment at the news, and
withdrawing its attention, went on labouring and victualling, bringing up its
children, and burying its dead, without caring a tittle for Farfrae's domestic
plans.%
Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfather by Elizabeth herself
or by Farfrae either. Reasoning on the cause of their reticence he concluded that,
estimating him by his past, the throbbing pair were afraid to broach the subject,
and looked upon him as an irksome obstacle whom they would be heartily glad
to get out of the way. Embittered as he was against society, this moody view of
himself took deeper and deeper hold of Henchard, till the daily necessity of
facing mankind, and of them particularly Elizabeth-Jane, became well-nigh more
than he could endure. His health declined; he became morbidly sensitive. He
wished he could escape those who did not want him, and hide his head for ever.
But what if he were mistaken in his views, and there were no necessity that
his own absolute separation from her should be involved in the incident of her
marriage?
Thesaurus
burying: (n) entombment, inhumation.
eclat: (n) acclamation, celebrity,
brilliance, elegance, grandness,
vogue, magnificence; (v)
commendation, praise, laud; (n, v)
acclaim.
embittered: (adj) bitter, disillusioned,
sour, indignant, disappointed,
crestfallen, dissatisfied, frustrated,
disenchanted; (v) resent. ANTONYM:
(adj) idealistic.
labouring: (adj) drudging, work,
working, busy, toiling.
morbidly: (adv) sickly, unhealthily,
diseasedly, frightfully,
unwholesomely, ghoulishly,
corruptly, macabrely, gruesomely,
ghastly, ailingly.
patching: (n) patch, tiling, fix, repair,
reparation, plugging, connection,
burning, fixing.
perusing: (n) poring over, studying.
reticence: (n) reserve, reservation,
uncommunicativeness, taciturnity,
silence, reticency, restraint, secrecy,
reservedness, muteness, humility.
ANTONYMS: (n) chattiness, honesty,
nerve, boldness, openness, arrogance,
brashness.
stooping: (adj) hunched, crooked,
asymmetrical, not erect, not straight,
corrupt; (n) patronage.
thereby: (adv) whereby, hereby.
tittle: (n) scintilla, point, jot, smidgeon,
shred, smidgen, smidgin; (adj, n)
whit; (adj) idea, look, soupcon.
Thomas Hardy
357
He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative--himself living like a
fangless lion about the back rooms of a house in which his stepdaughter was
mistress, an inoffensive old man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth, and goodnaturedly tolerated by her husband. It was terrible to his pride to think of
descending so low; and yet, for the girl's sake he might put up with anything;
even from Farfrae; even snubbings and masterful tongue-scourgings. The
privilege of being in the house she occupied would almost outweigh the
personal humiliation.%
Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the courtship--which it
evidently now was--had an absorbing interest for him.
Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walks on the Budmouth Road, and
Farfrae as often made it convenient to create an accidental meeting with her
there. Two miles out, a quarter of a mile from the highway, was the prehistoric
fort called Mai Dun, of huge dimensions and many ramparts, within or upon
whose enclosures a human being as seen from the road, was but an insignificant
speck. Hitherward Henchard often resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the
hedgeless Via--for it was the original track laid out by the legions of the Empire-to a distance of two or three miles, his object being to read the progress of affairs
between Farfrae and his charmer.
One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure came along the
road from Budmouth, and lingered. Applying his telescope to his eye Henchard
expected that Farfrae's features would be disclosed as usual. But the lenses
revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane's lover.
It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as he turned in the scrutiny of
the road he revealed his face. Henchard lived a lifetime the moment he saw it.
The face was Newson's.
Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds made no other
movement. Newson waited, and Henchard waited--if that could be called a
waiting which was a transfixture. But Elizabeth-Jane did not come. Something
or other had caused her to neglect her customary walk that day. Perhaps Farfrae
and she had chosen another road for variety's sake. But what did that amount
Thesaurus
absorbing: (adj) fascinating,
engrossing, charming, enthralling,
gripping, captivating, riveting,
absorbent, attractive, readable; (adj, v)
exciting. ANTONYMS: (adj) dull,
irksome, tedious, repellent,
uninteresting.
charmer: (n) warlock, enchanter,
sorcerer, person, mortal, soul,
someone, somebody, phony, mage,
individual.
good-naturedly: (adv) friendly,
obligingly, graciously, nicely, kindcounterbalance, outstrip,
heartedly, genially, agreeably.
predominate, exceed, prevail,
insignificant: (adj) inconsequential,
surpass, outmatch; (adj) outdo.
ramparts: (n) rampart, fortification.
inconsiderable, humble, poor,
tenderly: (adv) softly, kindly,
immaterial, trivial, unimportant,
light, infinitesimal, indifferent, small. delicately, affectionately, fondly,
ANTONYMS: (adj) significant,
warmly, painfully, sensitively,
enormous, major, important, huge,
caringly, sympathetically, gently.
ANTONYMS: (adv) roughly,
substantial, considerable, great,
colossal, valuable, influential.
severely, disapprovingly, harshly.
outweigh: (v) preponderate,
tolerated: (adj) permissive, permitted,
overshadow, overbalance,
permitting, suffered, admissible.
358
to? She might be here to- morrow, and in any case Newson, if bent on a private
meeting and a revelation of the truth to her, would soon make his opportunity.%
Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the ruse by which he
had been once sent away. Elizabeth's strict nature would cause her for the first
time to despise her stepfather, would root out his image as that of an archdeceiver, and Newson would reign in her heart in his stead.
But Newson did not see anything of her that morning. Having stood still
awhile he at last retraced his steps, and Henchard felt like a condemned man
who has a few hours' respite. When he reached his own house he found her
there.
"O father!" she said innocently. "I have had a letter--a strange one--not
signed. Somebody has asked me to meet him, either on the Budmouth Road at
noon today, or in the evening at Mr. Farfrae's. He says he came to see me some
time ago, but a trick was played him, so that he did not see me. I don't
understand it; but between you and me I think Donald is at the bottom of the
mystery, and that it is a relation of his who wants to pass an opinion on his
choice. But I did not like to go till I had seen you. Shall I go?"
Henchard replied heavily, "Yes; go."
The question of his remaining in Casterbridge was for ever disposed of by
this closing in of Newson on the scene. Henchard was not the man to stand the
certainty of condemnation on a matter so near his heart. And being an old hand
at bearing anguish in silence, and haughty withal, he resolved to make as light
as he could of his intentions, while immediately taking his measures.
He surprised the young woman whom he had looked upon as his all in this
world by saying to her, as if he did not care about her more: "I am going to leave
Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane."
"Leave Casterbridge!" she cried, "and leave--me?"
"Yes, this little shop can be managed by you alone as well as by us both; I
don't care about shops and streets and folk--I would rather get into the country
by myself, out of sight, and follow my own ways, and leave you to yours."
Thesaurus
anguish: (n, v) pain, ache; (n) torment, (n) praise, absolution, approbation,
agony, torture, distress, misery,
confirmation, commendation,
suffering, despair, grief, sorrow.
defense, support.
ANTONYMS: (n) pleasure,
deceiver: (n) trickster, impostor,
happiness, calm, euphoria,
cheater, hypocrite, liar, fraud,
joyfulness, ecstasy, content, peace,
swindler, chiseler, counterfeiter,
hopefulness.
bluffer, dodger.
condemnation: (n) animadversion,
haughty: (adj) supercilious, arrogant,
anathema, conviction, blame, rebuke, assuming, contemptuous, proud,
judgment, disapprobation,
lordly, cavalier, vain, contumelious,
deprecation, disapproval; (n, v)
grand; (n) boastful. ANTONYMS:
doom; (v) condemn. ANTONYMS:
(adj) modest, meek, subservient,
unassuming, considerate, deferential.
respite: (n, v) pause, rest, lull; (n)
repose, intermission, recess, break,
remission, relief, cessation,
interruption.
wants: (n) need, necessities.
withal: (adv) nevertheless,
notwithstanding, however, even so,
all the same, nonetheless, with; (adj)
likewise; (n) sufficiency, adequacy,
enough.
Thomas Hardy
359
She looked down and her tears fell silently. It seemed to her that this resolve
of his had come on account of her attachment and its probable result. She
showed her devotion to Farfrae, however, by mastering her emotion and
speaking out.%
"I am sorry you have decided on this," she said with difficult firmness. "For I
thought it probable--possible-- that I might marry Mr. Farfrae some little time
hence, and I did not know that you disapproved of the step!"
"I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy," said Henchard huskily. "If I
did not approve it would be no matter! I wish to go away. My presence might
make things awkward in the future, and, in short, it is best that I go."
Nothing that her affection could urge would induce him to reconsider his
determination; for she could not urge what she did not know--that when she
should learn he was not related to her other than as a step-parent she would
refrain from despising him, and that when she knew what he had done to keep
her in ignorance she would refrain from hating him. It was his conviction that
she would not so refrain; and there existed as yet neither word nor event which
could argue it away.
"Then," she said at last, "you will not be able to come to my wedding; and
that is not as it ought to be."
"I don't want to see it--I don't want to see it!" he exclaimed; adding more
softly, "but think of me sometimes in your future life--you'll do that, Izzy?--think
of me when you are living as the wife of the richest, the foremost man in the
town, and don't let my sins, when you know them all, cause 'ee to quite forget that
though I loved 'ee late I loved 'ee well."
"It is because of Donald!" she sobbed.
"I don't forbid you to marry him," said Henchard. "Promise not to quite
forget me when----" He meant when Newson should come.
She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and the same evening at dusk
Henchard left the town, to whose development he had been one of the chief
stimulants for many years. During the day he had bought a new tool-basket,
Thesaurus
despising: (n) despisal, contempt,
firmness: (adj, n) constancy; (n)
sturdily, powerfully. ANTONYMS:
despisement; (adj) disdainful.
determination, resolution, assurance, (adv) softly, gently.
devotion: (n) allegiance, attachment,
consistency, obstinacy, steadfastness, reconsider: (v) revise, consider,
dedication, loyalty, worship,
resolve, confidence, courage,
reassess, consider again, go over,
backbone. ANTONYMS: (n) softness, retrace, return, redeliberate, reckon;
affection, enthusiasm, fondness,
devotedness; (adj, n) veneration,
(n) criticism, critique.
instability, vacillation, unsteadiness,
passion. ANTONYMS: (n) disloyalty, yielding, irresoluteness, droopiness, refrain: (v) desist, cease, fast, avoid,
leave off, withhold, stop, spare; (adj,
negligence, apathy, disobedience,
indefiniteness, indecisiveness,
v) forbear; (n) chorus, hold.
neglect, hatred, separation,
indecision, leniency.
huskily: (adv) raucously, gruffly,
ANTONYMS: (v) participate, act,
dishonesty, infidelity.
disapproved: (adj) old-fashioned,
harshly, throatily, stoutly, strongly,
consume, persist.
contraband, chid.
roughly, strappingly, beefily,
360
cleaned up his old hay-knife and wimble, set himself up in fresh leggings,
kneenaps and corduroys, and in other ways gone back to the working clothes of
his young manhood, discarding for ever the shabby-genteel suit of cloth and
rusty silk hat that since his decline had characterized him in the Casterbridge
street as a man who had seen better days.%
He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the many who had known him
being aware of his departure. Elizabeth-Jane accompanied him as far as the
second bridge on the highway-- for the hour of her appointment with the
unguessed visitor at Farfrae's had not yet arrived--and parted from him with
unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him back a minute or two before finally
letting him go. She watched his form diminish across the moor, the yellow rushbasket at his back moving up and down with each tread, and the creases behind
his knees coming and going alternately till she could no longer see them.
Though she did not know it Henchard formed at this moment much the same
picture as he had presented when entering Casterbridge for the first time nearly
a quarter of a century before; except, to be sure, that the serious addition to his
years had considerably lessened the spring to his stride, that his state of
hopelessness had weakened him, and imparted to his shoulders, as weighted by
the basket, a perceptible bend.
He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood in the bank, half
way up a steep hill. He rested his basket on the top of the stone, placed his
elbows on it, and gave way to a convulsive twitch, which was worse than a sob,
because it was so hard and so dry.
"If I had only got her with me--if I only had!" he said. "Hard work would be
nothing to me then! But that was not to be. I--Cain--go alone as I deserve--an
outcast and a vagabond. But my punishment is not greater than I can bear!"
He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket, and went on.
Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh, recovered her
equanimity, and turned her face to Casterbridge. Before she had reached the first
house she was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was evidently not their
first meeting that day; they joined hands without ceremony, and Farfrae
Thesaurus
alternately: (adv) alternatively, by
turns, in turn, secondarily,
reciprocally, mutually, off-and-on,
rather, anthemwise, secondly; (adj,
adv) on and off.
discarding: (n) disposal, throwing
away, dumping, departure, neglect,
removal, leaving.
hopelessness: (n) despair,
despondency, discouragement,
depression, desolation, sadness,
dismay, hopeless, gloominess, gloom,
dissatisfaction. ANTONYMS: (n)
capability, power, worth,
cheerfulness, effectiveness, joy,
possibility, competence, happiness.
manhood: (n) majority, maturity,
valor, resolution, personality,
humanity, integrity, bravery; (adj)
manliness, ripe age, maturity full age.
milestone: (n) landmark, event,
marker, breakthrough, happening,
age, juncture, occasion, incident; (adj)
milliary.
outcast: (n) exile, castaway, leper,
expatriate, outlaw, vagabond, lown,
loon, refugee; (adj, n) derelict; (adj)
homeless. ANTONYM: (n) native.
unfeigned: (adj) sincere, true, genuine,
honest, unaffected, heartfelt, truthful,
frank, hearty, straight, natural.
weighted: (adj) laden, leaden,
adjusted, plodding, impure, unfair,
prejudiced, gray, loaded,
opinionated, grey. ANTONYM: (adj)
impartial.
Thomas Hardy
361
anxiously asked, "And is he gone-- and did you tell him?--I mean of the other
matter--not of ours."
"He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend. Donald, who is he?"
"Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that. And Mr. Henchard will
hear of it if he does not go far."
"He will go far--he's bent upon getting out of sight and sound!"
She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the Crossways, or Bow,
turned with him into Corn Street instead of going straight on to her own door.
At Farfrae's house they stopped and went in.%
Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting- room, saying, "There
he is waiting for you," and Elizabeth entered. In the arm-chair sat the broadfaced genial man who had called on Henchard on a memorable morning
between one and two years before this time, and whom the latter had seen
mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of his arrival. It was Richard
Newson. The meeting with the light-hearted father from whom she had been
separated half- a-dozen years, as if by death, need hardly be detailed. It was an
affecting one, apart from the question of paternity. Henchard's departure was in
a moment explained. When the true facts came to be handled the difficulty of
restoring her to her old belief in Newson was not so great as might have seemed
likely, for Henchard's conduct itself was a proof that those facts were true.
Moreover, she had grown up under Newson's paternal care; and even had
Henchard been her father in nature, this father in early domiciliation might
almost have carried the point against him, when the incidents of her parting with
Henchard had a little worn off.
Newson's pride in what she had grown up to be was more than he could
express. He kissed her again and again.
"I've saved you the trouble to come and meet me--ha-ha!" said Newson. "The
fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said, 'Come up and stop with me for a day or two,
Captain Newson, and I'll bring her round.' 'Faith,' says I, 'so I will'; and here I
am."
Thesaurus
affecting: (adj) poignant, emotional,
lodgings.
lover: (n) dear, darling, fan, devotee,
moving, stirring, pathetic, emotive,
piteous, pitiful, heartbreaking,
beau, buff, love, admirer, beloved,
mournful; (adj, v) sad. ANTONYMS:
amorist, man.
(adj) emotionless, unemotional.
memorable: (adj) extraordinary,
called: (adj) named, titled, chosen,
unforgettable, signal, eventful,
known as; (v) nempt, ycleped.
monumental, impressive,
dearie: (n) deary, chosen, lover, pet,
noteworthy, momentous, striking,
mollycoddle, favorite, ducky, Darling catchy, lasting. ANTONYMS: (adj)
River, favourite.
unremarkable, unfamiliar,
domiciliation: (n) diggings, digs,
commonplace.
mount: (n, v) rise, climb, frame; (v)
quarters, abode, pad, residence,
board, arise, advance, jump, increase;
(n) hill, mountain; (adj, v) ride.
ANTONYMS: (v) drop, decrease,
wane, dismount; (n) valley, hollow.
restoring: (n) reinstatement,
restoration; (adj) grateful, refective,
comforting, refreshing.
worn: (adj) haggard, tired, tattered,
threadbare, ragged, drawn, jaded,
fatigued, exhausted, faded, wasted.
ANTONYMS: (adj) new, smart,
unused, unworn, pristine, original.
362
"Well, Henchard is gone," said Farfrae, shutting the door. "He has done it all
voluntarily, and, as I gather from Elizabeth, he has been very nice with her. I
was got rather uneasy; but all is as it should be, and we will have no more
deefficulties at all."
"Now, that's very much as I thought," said Newson, looking into the face of
each by turns. "I said to myself, ay, a hundred times, when I tried to get a peep
at her unknown to herself--'Depend upon it, 'tis best that I should live on quiet
for a few days like this till something turns up for the better.' I now know you are
all right, and what can I wish for more?"
"Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every day now, since it
can do no harm," said Farfrae. "And what I've been thinking is that the wedding
may as well be kept under my own roof, the house being large, and you being in
lodgings by yourself--so that a great deal of trouble and expense would be saved
ye?--and 'tis a convenience when a couple's married not to hae far to go to get
home!"
"With all my heart," said Captain Newson; "since, as ye say, it can do no
harm, now poor Henchard's gone; though I wouldn't have done it otherwise, or
put myself in his way at all; for I've already in my lifetime been an intruder into
his family quite as far as politeness can be expected to put up with. But what do
the young woman say herself about it? Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to
what we be talking about, and not bide staring out o' the window as if ye didn't
hear.'
"Donald and you must settle it," murmured Elizabeth, still keeping up a
scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the street.%
"Well, then," continued Newson, turning anew to Farfrae with a face
expressing thorough entry into the subject, "that's how we'll have it. And, Mr.
Farfrae, as you provide so much, and houseroom, and all that, I'll do my part in
the drinkables, and see to the rum and schiedam--maybe a dozen jars will be
sufficient?--as many of the folk will be ladies, and perhaps they won't drink hard
enough to make a high average in the reckoning? But you know best. I've
provided for men and shipmates times enough, but I'm as ignorant as a child
Thesaurus
houseroom: (n) way, crash pad, elbow
room.
intruder: (n) trespasser, interloper,
encroacher, raider, invader,
aggressor, go between, gatecrasher,
stalker, boarder; (adj, n) stranger.
lifetime: (n) life, life span, lifespan, life
expectancy, generation, hour, decade,
day, time, animation; (adj) lifelong.
peep: (n, v) glance, peek, look, gaze,
glint, squeal; (n) glimpse, cheep; (v)
chirp, peer, pry. ANTONYMS: (v)
stare, gaze; (n) examination.
thoroughly, inquisitive, searching,
politeness: (n) civility, courteousness, penetrating.
voluntarily: (adv) spontaneously,
courtliness, manners, decorum,
gentility, good manners, niceness,
willingly, intentionally, willfully,
refinement, gallantry, decency.
volunteerly, deliberately,
ANTONYMS: (n) vulgarity,
gratuitously, readily, optionally,
rudeness, incivility, neglect.
independently, unforcedly.
reckoning: (n) calculation,
ANTONYMS: (adv) obligatory,
computation, bill, score, computing,
reluctantly, forced, grudgingly,
liquidation, clearance; (n, v) count,
unwillingly.
enumeration, account, estimation.
scrutinizing: (adj) exploring
Thomas Hardy
363
how many glasses of grog a woman, that's not a drinking woman, is expected to
consume at these ceremonies?"
"Oh, none--we'll no want much of that--O no!" said Farfrae, shaking his head
with appalled gravity. "Do you leave all to me."
When they had gone a little further in these particulars Newson, leaning
back in his chair and smiling reflectively at the ceiling, said, "I've never told ye,
or have I, Mr. Farfrae, how Henchard put me off the scent that time?"
He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to.%
"Ah, I thought I hadn't. I resolved that I would not, I remember, not to hurt
the man's name. But now he's gone I can tell ye. Why, I came to Casterbridge
nine or ten months before that day last week that I found ye out. I had been here
twice before then. The first time I passed through the town on my way
westward, not knowing Elizabeth lived here. Then hearing at some place--I
forget where--that a man of the name of Henchard had been mayor here, I came
back, and called at his house one morning. The old rascal!--he said ElizabethJane had died years ago."
Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.
"Now, it never crossed my mind that the man was selling me a packet,"
contiued Newson. "And, if you'll believe me, I was that upset, that I went back
to the coach that had brought me, and took passage onward without lying in the
town half- an-hour. Ha-ha!--'twas a good joke, and well carried out, and I give
the man credit for't!"
Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence. "A joke?--O no!" she cried.
"Then he kept you from me, father, all those months, when you might have been
here?"
The father admitted that such was the case.
"He ought not to have done it!" said Farfrae.
Elizabeth sighed. "I said I would never forget him. But O! I think I ought to
forget him now!"
Thesaurus
consume: (v) exhaust, absorb,
dissipate, use, squander, fritter,
expend, eat, swallow, burn; (adj, v)
waste. ANTONYMS: (v) save,
abstain, conserve, make, store,
accumulate, produce, manufacture,
hoard, gather, fast.
gravity: (n) solemnity, earnestness,
gravitation, graveness, gravitational
attraction, weight, seriousness,
significance, severity, sedateness; (n,
v) poise. ANTONYMS: (n)
scent: (n, v) fragrance, smell, odor,
insignificance, lightheartedness,
essence, nose; (n) aroma, bouquet,
triviality, cheerfulness, levity.
leaning: (adj, n) bent, disposition,
redolence, odour; (adj, n) savor,
partiality; (n) propensity, bias,
flavor. ANTONYMS: (n) stench,
tendency, incline, lean; (adj) tilted,
stink.
canted, inclined. ANTONYMS: (n)
shaking: (adj, n) quivering, tremor,
antipathy, dislike; (adj) upright.
jarring; (n) quiver, palpitation, quake;
reflectively: (adv) contemplatively,
(adj) quaking, shaky, flutter,
meditatively, wistfully, thoughtfully, unsteady, shivering.
westward: (adv) west, westwards; (adj,
speculatively, ruminatively,
adv) westerly; (adj) westbound,
studiously, regretfully, sadly,
western; (v) to the west.
longingly, reflexively.
364
Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners among strange men and
strange moralities, failed to perceive the enormity of Henchard's crime,
notwithstanding that he himself had been the chief sufferer therefrom. Indeed,
the attack upon the absent culprit waxing serious, he began to take Henchard's
part.%
"Well, 'twas not ten words that he said, after all," Newson pleaded. "And
how could he know that I should be such a simpleton as to believe him? 'Twas as
much my fault as his, poor fellow!"
"No," said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in her revulsion of feeling. "He knew your
disposition--you always were so trusting, father; I've heard my mother say so
hundreds of times--and he did it to wrong you. After weaning me from you
these five years by saying he was my father, he should not have done this."
Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set before Elizabeth any
extenuation of the absent one's deceit. Even had he been present Henchard
might scarce have pleaded it, so little did he value himself or his good name.
"Well, well--never mind--it is all over and past," said Newson goodnaturedly. "Now, about this wedding again."
Thesaurus
deceit: (n) guile, artifice, deception,
tininess, virtue, goodness,
falsehood, ruse, pretense, fraud,
diminutiveness, remissibility,
trickery; (adj, n) cunning, craft, art.
smallness, mildness, insignificance.
ANTONYMS: (n) sincerity,
extenuation: (n, v) excuse, apology; (n)
truthfulness, fairness, frankness,
palliation, mitigation, diminution,
loyalty, straightforwardness,
justification, extenuating
uprightness, truth.
circumstances, extenuating excuse,
enormity: (n) magnitude, size,
easement, abatement, alleviation.
failed: (adj) unsuccessful, failing,
greatness, vileness, immensity,
outrage, vastness, seriousness, crime, abortive, bankrupt, fruitless, futile,
evil, indecency. ANTONYMS: (n)
declining, deteriorating, ineffective,
minuteness, veniality, unimportance, insolvent.
revulsion: (n) horror, hatred, aversion,
repulsion, repugnance, hate, distaste,
dislike, detestation, abomination,
abhorrence. ANTONYMS: (n) love,
attraction, delight, liking, adoration.
simpleton: (n) fool, blockhead, dolt,
dunce, numskull, ninny,
nincompoop, booby, sap, dummy,
dullard.
waxing: (n) application, covering,
coating. ANTONYM: (adj) waning.
weaning: (n) exchange, substitution.
Thomas Hardy
365
CHAPTER 44
Meanwhile, the man of their talk had pursued his solitary way eastward till
weariness overtook him, and he looked about for a place of rest. His heart was
so exacerbated at parting from the girl that he could not face an inn, or even a
household of the most humble kind; and entering a field he lay down under a
wheatrick, feeling no want of food. The very heaviness of his soul caused him to
sleep profoundly.%
The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes across the stubble awoke him
the next morning early. He opened his basket and ate for his breakfast what he
had packed for his supper; and in doing so overhauled the remainder of his kit.
Although everything he brought necessitated carriage at his own back, he had
secreted among his tools a few of Elizabeth-Jane's cast-off belongings, in the
shape of gloves, shoes, a scrap of her handwriting, and the like, and in his
pocket he carried a curl of her hair. Having looked at these things he closed
them up again, and went onward.
During five consecutive days Henchard's rush basket rode along upon his
shoulder between the highway hedges, the new yellow of the rushes catching the
eye of an occasional field-labourer as he glanced through the quickset, together
with the wayfarer's hat and head, and down-turned face, over which the twig
shadows moved in endless procession. It now became apparent that the
Thesaurus
autumn: (n) fall, season, downfall,
descent, declivity, harvest.
belongings: (n) property, luggage,
baggage, wealth, assets, gear,
chattels, personal property,
possessions, possession, equipment.
consecutive: (adj) sequential,
uninterrupted, serial, straight,
continuous, continual, sequent,
following, seriate, subsequent,
connected. ANTONYMS: (adj)
random, irregular, interrupted,
intermittent, discontinuous, alternate.
exacerbated: (adj) angry.
gloves: (n) gauntlet, mitten, mittens,
gauntlets, scarf, ornament, handbag,
belt, batting glove, boxing glove,
baseball mitt.
handwriting: (n) calligraphy, writing,
fist, script, penmanship, longhand,
chirography, cursive, cacography,
book, ability.
heaviness: (n) dullness, fatness,
sadness, ponderosity,
ponderousness, weightiness, weight,
darkness, gloom, wideness, pressure.
ANTONYMS: (n) slenderness,
nimbleness, weightlessness.
quickset: (n) hedge, slip, cutting.
rushes: (n) rush, grasses.
secreted: (adj) hidden, unseen, out of
sight.
weariness: (n) exhaustion, tiredness,
lassitude, languor, asthenopia,
defatigation, grogginess, listlessness,
boredom, ennui, prostration.
366
direction of his journey was Weydon Priors, which he reached on the afternoon
of the sixth day.%
The renowned hill whereon the annual fair had been held for so many
generations was now bare of human beings, and almost of aught besides. A few
sheep grazed thereabout, but these ran off when Henchard halted upon the
summit. He deposited his basket upon the turf, and looked about with sad
curiosity; till he discovered the road by which his wife and himself had entered
on the upland so memorable to both, five-and-twenty years before.
"Yes, we came up that way," he said, after ascertaining his bearings. "She was
carrying the baby, and I was reading a ballet-sheet. Then we crossed about here-she so sad and weary, and I speaking to her hardly at all, because of my cursed
pride and mortification at being poor. Then we saw the tent--that must have
stood more this way." He walked to another spot, it was not really where the
tent had stood but it seemed so to him. "Here we went in, and here we sat down.
I faced this way. Then I drank, and committed my crime. It must have been just
on that very pixy-ring that she was standing when she said her last words to me
before going off with him; I can hear their sound now, and the sound of her sobs:
'O Mike! I've lived with thee all this while, and had nothing but temper. Now
I'm no more to 'ee-- I'll try my luck elsewhere.'"
He experienced not only the bitterness of a man who finds, in looking back
upon an ambitious course, that what he has sacrificed in sentiment was worth as
much as what he has gained in substance; but the superadded bitterness of
seeing his very recantation nullified. He had been sorry for all this long ago; but
his attempts to replace ambition by love had been as fully foiled as his ambition
itself. His wronged wife had foiled them by a fraud so grandly simple as to be
almost a virtue. It was an odd sequence that out of all this tampering with social
law came that flower of Nature, Elizabeth. Part of his wish to wash his hands of
life arose from his perception of its contrarious inconsistencies--of Nature's
jaunty readiness to support unorthodox social principles.
He intended to go on from this place--visited as an act of penance--into
another part of the country altogether. But he could not help thinking of
Thesaurus
contrarious: (adj) contrariant,
stubborn.
foiled: (adj) frustrated, disappointed,
discomfited, defeated,
disappointingly unsuccessful, done
for, embarrassed, balked, baffled,
unsuccessful, discouraged.
generations: (n) generation, family.
grandly: (adv) splendidly, gorgeously,
magnificently, regally, majestically,
beautifully, stately, grandiosely,
illustriously, superbly, greatly.
ANTONYMS: (adv) simply, humbly.
disclaimer.
grazed: (adj) hurt.
tampering: (n) meddling, change of
jaunty: (adj) dapper, dashing,
state, interference; (adj) meddlesome,
debonair, breezy, perky, carefree,
curious.
chipper, smart, bright, buoyant; (adj, unorthodox: (adj) unconventional,
n) janty. ANTONYMS: (adj)
heretical, unusual, nonconformist,
depressed, melancholy.
maverick, unscriptural,
nullified: (adj) null and void, invalid.
nonconforming, dissident,
recantation: (n) retraction,
uncommon, improper, heterodox.
ANTONYMS: (adj) orthodox,
withdrawal, revocation, repeal,
rescission, disavowal, backdown,
conventional, conformist, normal,
abolition, retractation, abandonment, proper.
Thomas Hardy
367
Elizabeth, and the quarter of the horizon in which she lived. Out of this it
happened that the centrifugal tendency imparted by weariness of the world was
counteracted by the centripetal influence of his love for his stepdaughter. As a
consequence, instead of following a straight course yet further away from
Casterbridge, Henchard gradually, almost unconsciously, deflected from that
right line of his first intention; till, by degrees, his wandering, like that of the
Canadian woodsman, became part of a circle of which Casterbridge formed the
centre. In ascending any particular hill he ascertained the bearings as nearly as
he could by means of the sun, moon, or stars, and settled in his mind the exact
direction in which Casterbridge and Elizabeth-Jane lay. Sneering at himself for
his weakness he yet every hour--nay, every few minutes--conjectured her actions
for the time being--her sitting down and rising up, her goings and comings, till
thought of Newson's and Farfrae's counter- influence would pass like a cold blast
over a pool, and efface her image. And then he would say to himself, "O you
fool! All this about a daughter who is no daughter of thine!"
At length he obtained employment at his own occupation of hay-trusser,
work of that sort being in demand at this autumn time. The scene of his hiring
was a pastoral farm near the old western highway, whose course was the
channel of all such communications as passed between the busy centres of
novelty and the remote Wessex boroughs. He had chosen the neighbourhood of
this artery from a sense that, situated here, though at a distance of fifty miles, he
was virtually nearer to her whose welfare was so dear than he would be at a
roadless spot only half as remote.%
And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise standing which he
had occupied a quarter of a century before. Externally there was nothing to
hinder his making another start on the upward slope, and by his new lights
achieving higher things than his soul in its half- formed state had been able to
accomplish. But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing
human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum--which arranges that wisdom
to do shall come pari passu with the departure of zest for doing--stood in the
Thesaurus
amelioration: (n) betterment, advance,
improvement, melioration,
enhancement, reformation,
advancement, correction, progress,
reform, relief.
ascertained: (adj) discovered,
determined; (v) absolute, recognized,
received, noted, notorious, decisive,
unmistakable, unequivocal, positive.
centrifugal: (n) reel; (adj) motor,
motorial; (v) radiant, divergent.
ANTONYMS: (adj) centripetal,
centralizing, consolidating.
trackless, unaccessible, untracked,
centripetal: (adj) sensory, unifying,
untrod.
sneering: (adj) contemptuous,
receptive, centralizing, acropetal.
deflected: (adj) inflected.
disdainful, sarcastic, mocking, snide,
efface: (v) cancel, erase, obliterate,
scornful, disparaging, disapproving;
(n) mockery, disdain; (adv)
destroy, expunge, wipe out,
suppress, sponge, blot out, blur, raze. sneeringly. ANTONYMS: (adj)
nearer: (adj) adjacent, narre, hither;
respectful, admiring.
(adv) more rapidly, sooner, quicker, woodsman: (n) woodman,
nigher, NER, faster, earlier, Neer.
cabinetmaker, carpenter, carver,
roadless: (adj) pathless, untrodden,
journeyman, rustic, artisan,
lacking pathways, inaccessible,
Bushman, joiner, artificer, craftsman.
368
way of all that. He had no wish to make an arena a second time of a world that
had become a mere painted scene to him.%
Very often, as his hay-knife crunched down among the sweet- smelling
grassy stems, he would survey mankind and say to himself: "Here and
everywhere be folk dying before their time like frosted leaves, though wanted by
their families, the country, and the world; while I, an outcast, an encumberer of
the ground, wanted by nobody, and despised by all, live on against my will!"
He often kept an eager ear upon the conversation of those who passed along
the road--not from a general curiosity by any means--but in the hope that among
these travellers between Casterbridge and London some would, sooner or later,
speak of the former place. The distance, however, was too great to lend much
probability to his desire; and the highest result of his attention to wayside words
was that he did indeed hear the name "Casterbridge" uttered one day by the
driver of a road-waggon. Henchard ran to the gate of the field he worked in, and
hailed the speaker, who was a stranger.
"Yes--I've come from there, maister," he said, in answer to Henchard's
inquiry. "I trade up and down, ye know; though, what with this travelling
without horses that's getting so common, my work will soon be done."
"Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?"
"All the same as usual."
"I've heard that Mr. Farfrae, the late mayor, is thinking of getting married.
Now is that true or not?"
"I couldn't say for the life o' me. O no, I should think not."
"But yes, John--you forget," said a woman inside the waggon- tilt. "What
were them packages we carr'd there at the beginning o' the week? Surely they
said a wedding was coming off soon--on Martin's Day?"
The man declared he remembered nothing about it; and the waggon went on
jangling over the hill.
Thesaurus
eager: (adj) avid, ardent, agog, acute,
zealous, enthusiastic, keen,
ambitious, industrious, studious; (adj,
n) earnest. ANTONYMS: (adj)
indifferent, unconcerned, apathetic,
disinterested, unwilling,
unenthusiastic, lukewarm, patient,
reluctant, listless, bored.
frosted: (adj) rimy, frozen, nacreous,
opaque, iced, icy, white, pearly,
milky, frigid, crisp.
mankind: (n) world, humanity,
smell; (adj) redolent, scented,
humankind, human race, humans,
person, flesh, mortality, people,
odorous, stinking, rotten.
stranger: (n) foreigner, outsider,
human beings, humanness.
packages: (n) correspondence, freight, newcomer, outlander, immigrant,
letters.
intruder, unknown, tramontane,
probability: (n) likelihood, chance,
trespasser; (adj) foreign, strange.
ANTONYMS: (n) pal, native,
possibility, likeliness, opportunity,
expectation, eventuality, prospect,
associate, resident, familiar.
expectancy, contingency; (adj, n)
tilt: (n, v) slant, slope, lean, list, rock,
odds. ANTONYM: (n) improbability. careen, sway; (v) pitch, tip, cant,
smelling: (n) smell, flavor, scent,
lurch. ANTONYMS: (n, v) surrender;
(n) agreement; (v) yield.
olfactory modality, sensing, sense of
Thomas Hardy
369
Henchard was convinced that the woman's memory served her well. The
date was an extremely probable one, there being no reason for delay on either
side. He might, for that matter, write and inquire of Elizabeth; but his instinct for
sequestration had made the course difficult. Yet before he left her she had said
that for him to be absent from her wedding was not as she wished it to be.%
The remembrance would continually revive in him now that it was not
Elizabeth and Farfrae who had driven him away from them, but his own
haughty sense that his presence was no longer desired. He had assumed the
return of Newson without absolute proof that the Captain meant to return; still
less that Elizabeth-Jane would welcome him; and with no proof whatever that if
he did return he would stay. What if he had been mistaken in his views; if there
had been no necessity that his own absolute separation from her he loved should
be involved in these untoward incidents? To make one more attempt to be near
her: to go back, to see her, to plead his cause before her, to ask forgiveness for his
fraud, to endeavour strenuously to hold his own in her love; it was worth the
risk of repulse, ay, of life itself.
But how to initiate this reversal of all his former resolves without causing
husband and wife to despise him for his inconsistency was a question which
made him tremble and brood.
He cut and cut his trusses two days more, and then he concluded his
hesitancies by a sudden reckless determination to go to the wedding festivity.
Neither writing nor message would be expected of him. She had regretted his
decision to be absent--his unanticipated presence would fill the little unsatisfied
corner that would probably have place in her just heart without him.
To intrude as little of his personality as possible upon a gay event with which
that personality could show nothing in keeping, he decided not to make his
appearance till evening-- when stiffness would have worn off, and a gentle wish
to let bygones be bygones would exercise its sway in all hearts.
He started on foot, two mornings before St. Martin's-tide, allowing himself
about sixteen miles to perform for each of the three days' journey, reckoning the
wedding-day as one. There were only two towns, Melchester and Shottsford, of
Thesaurus
allowing: (adj) permissive; (n)
acknowledgment.
festivity: (n) feast, festival, celebration,
joy, conviviality, mirth, party, gala,
banquet; (adj, n) jollity; (adj) joviality.
remembrance: (n, v) recollection,
mind; (n) commemoration, memorial,
recall, relic, monument, keepsake,
reminiscence, recognition; (adj, n)
memento.
sequestration: (n) separation,
confiscation, requisition, damages,
deodand, escheat, seclusion, retreat, unanticipated: (adj) unforeseen,
withdrawal, separatism, privacy.
sudden, surprising, amazing,
ANTONYM: (n) restoration.
startling, shocking, serendipitous;
strenuously: (adv) energetically,
(adj, adv) out of the blue; (v) unhoped
for, unlooked for; (adj, v)
zealously, arduously, severely,
forcefully, earnestly, laboriously,
unpredicted.
busily, toilsomely, forwardly, hardly. unsatisfied: (adj) dissatisfied,
tremble: (adj, n, v) shiver; (n, v) quiver, disgruntled, unsatiated, unsated,
shudder, thrill, palpitate; (adj, v)
ungratified, restless, discontent,
totter, quake; (n) throb; (v) flutter,
fidgety, fretful, unsatiable; (v)
quail, falter. ANTONYMS: (v) steady, unslaked. ANTONYMS: (adj)
calm.
pleased, happy.
370
any importance along his course, and at the latter he stopped on the second
night, not only to rest, but to prepare himself for the next evening.%
Possessing no clothes but the working suit he stood in--now stained and
distorted by their two months of hard usage, he entered a shop to make some
purchases which should put him, externally at any rate, a little in harmony with
the prevailing tone of the morrow. A rough yet respectable coat and hat, a new
shirt and neck-cloth, were the chief of these; and having satisfied himself that in
appearance at least he would not now offend her, he proceeded to the more
interesting particular of buying her some present.
What should that present be? He walked up and down the street, regarding
dubiously the display in the shop windows, from a gloomy sense that what he
might most like to give her would be beyond his miserable pocket. At length a
caged goldfinch met his eye. The cage was a plain and small one, the shop
humble, and on inquiry he concluded he could afford the modest sum asked. A
sheet of newspaper was tied round the little creature's wire prison, and with the
wrapped up cage in his hand Henchard sought a lodging for the night.
Next day he set out upon the last stage, and was soon within the district
which had been his dealing ground in bygone years. Part of the distance he
travelled by carrier, seating himself in the darkest corner at the back of that
trader's van; and as the other passengers, mainly women going short journeys,
mounted and alighted in front of Henchard, they talked over much local news,
not the least portion of this being the wedding then in course of celebration at the
town they were nearing. It appeared from their accounts that the town band had
been hired for the evening party, and, lest the convivial instincts of that body
should get the better of their skill, the further step had been taken of engaging
the string band from Budmouth, so that there would be a reserve of harmony to
fall back upon in case of need.
He heard, however, but few particulars beyond those known to him already,
the incident of the deepest interest on the journey being the soft pealing of the
Casterbridge bells, which reached the travellers' ears while the van paused on
Thesaurus
caged: (adj) jailed, imprisoned,
interesting, lovable, delightful,
appealing, pleasant, captivating; (adv)
incarcerated, confined, enslaved, in
engagingly. ANTONYMS: (adj)
prison, behind bars, restrained,
trapped, locked up.
repulsive, loathsome, repellant,
dubiously: (adv) suspiciously,
unattractive, undesirable, unlikable,
uncertainly, problematically, fishily,
dull, unpleasant, repellent.
vaguely, incredulously, skeptically, externally: (adv) superficially,
equivocally, distrustfully,
exteriorly, outsidely, outerly,
questionably, undecidedly.
without, foreignly, extrinsically,
ANTONYMS: (adv) clearly, certainly. surfacely, extraneously, peripherally,
engaging: (adj, v) charming, inviting,
outlyingly. ANTONYM: (adv)
prepossessing; (adj) attractive,
internally.
goldfinch: (n) new world goldfinch,
Carduelis Carduelis, Spinus tristis,
Dendroica petechia, finch, golden
warbler.
offend: (v) irritate, affront, insult,
contravene, injure, disgust, infringe,
displease, abuse, wound, anger.
ANTONYMS: (v) please, delight,
praise, attract.
pealing: (n) axial motion, roll, coil,
thunder, curl, curlicue, drum roll,
gyre, paradiddle, cast; (adj) loud.
Thomas Hardy
371
the top of Yalbury Hill to have the drag lowered. The time was just after twelve
o'clock.%
Those notes were a signal that all had gone well; that there had been no slip
'twixt cup and lip in this case; that Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfrae were man
and wife.
Henchard did not care to ride any further with his chattering companions
after hearing this sound. Indeed, it quite unmanned him; and in pursuance of his
plan of not showing himself in Casterbridge street till evening, lest he should
mortify Farfrae and his bride, he alighted here, with his bundle and bird-cage,
and was soon left as a lonely figure on the broad white highway.
It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae, almost two years
earlier, to tell him of the serious illness of his wife Lucetta. The place was
unchanged; the same larches sighed the same notes; but Farfrae had another
wife-- and, as Henchard knew, a better one. He only hoped that Elizabeth-Jane
had obtained a better home than had been hers at the former time.
He passed the remainder of the afternoon in a curious high- strung condition,
unable to do much but think of the approaching meeting with her, and sadly
satirize himself for his emotions thereon, as a Samson shorn. Such an innovation
on Casterbridge customs as a flitting of bridegroom and bride from the town
immediately after the ceremony, was not likely, but if it should have taken place
he would wait till their return. To assure himself on this point he asked a
market-man when near the borough if the newly-married couple had gone away,
and was promptly informed that they had not; they were at that hour, according
to all accounts, entertaining a houseful of guests at their home in Corn Street.
Henchard dusted his boots, washed his hands at the riverside, and proceeded
up the town under the feeble lamps. He need have made no inquiries
beforehand, for on drawing near Farfrae's residence it was plain to the least
observant that festivity prevailed within, and that Donald himself shared it, his
voice being distinctly audible in the street, giving strong expression to a song of
his dear native country that he loved so well as never to have revisited it. Idlers
Thesaurus
audible: (adj) plain, hearable, distinct, bridegroom: (v) bride; (n)
detectable, sounding, sharp, sonic,
honeymooner, newlywed,
definite, discernible, perceptible,
participant, fiance, husband.
sensory. ANTONYMS: (adj)
ANTONYM: (n) wife.
chattering: (n) chatter, cackle, yak,
inaudible, unintelligible,
grabbing, claver; (adj) talkative,
undetectable, silent, faint.
beforehand: (adv) previously, ahead,
loquacious, noisy, gabby, garrulous;
in advance, in anticipation, first; (adj, (v) natter.
adv) early, aforehand; (adj) advance, feeble: (adj) delicate, decrepit, ailing,
already, afore; (n) prior.
helpless, powerless, poor, mild, lax,
ANTONYMS: (adv) afterwards,
thin; (adj, v) faint, debilitated.
ANTONYMS: (adj) strong, vigorous,
afterward, later, late, subsequently.
hearty, tough, effective, powerful,
unrelenting, robust, potent,
persuasive, able.
inquiries: (n) investigation,
examination, study, enquiries,
enquiry, inquiry, exploration.
larches: (n) Larix, genus Larix.
satirize: (v) mock, ridicule, satirise,
deride, lash, caricature, take off,
burlesque, banter, parody, make fun
of.
372
were standing on the pavement in front; and wishing to escape the notice of
these Henchard passed quickly on to the door.%
It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly, and people were going
up and down the stairs. His courage failed him; to enter footsore, laden, and
poorly dressed into the midst of such resplendency was to bring needless
humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court repulse from her husband.
Accordingly he went round into the street at the back that he knew so well,
entered the garden, and came quietly into the house through the kitchen,
temporarily depositing the bird and cage under a bush outside, to lessen the
awkwardness of his arrival.
Solitude and sadness had so emolliated Henchard that he now feared
circumstances he would formerly have scorned, and he began to wish that he
had not taken upon himself to arrive at such a juncture. However, his progress
was made unexpectedly easy by his discovering alone in the kitchen an elderly
woman who seemed to be acting as provisional housekeeper during the
convulsions from which Farfrae's establishment was just then suffering. She was
one of those people whom nothing surprises, and though to her, a total stranger,
his request must have seemed odd, she willingly volunteered to go up and
inform the master and mistress of the house that "a humble old friend" had come.
On second thought she said that he had better not wait in the kitchen, but
come up into the little back-parlour, which was empty. He thereupon followed
her thither, and she left him. Just as she got across the landing to the door of the
best parlour a dance was struck up, and she returned to say that she would wait
till that was over before announcing him--Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having both
joined in the figure.
The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to give more space,
and that of the room Henchard sat in being ajar, he could see fractional parts of
the dancers whenever their gyrations brought them near the doorway, chiefly in
the shape of the skirts of dresses and streaming curls of hair; together with about
three-fifths of the band in profile, including the restless shadow of a fiddler's
elbow, and the tip of the bass-viol bow.
Thesaurus
convulsions: (n) convulsion, spasm,
epilepsy, eclampsia, mirth.
extravagantly: (adv) excessively,
immoderately, inordinately,
luxuriously, prodigally, wastefully,
profligately, profusely,
ostentatiously, improvidently,
unrestrainedly. ANTONYMS: (adv)
economically, stingily, reasonably,
meagerly, cheaply, modestly,
humbly.
footsore: (adj) tired, fatigued; (v)
toilworn.
fractional: (adj) slight, small, little,
incomplete, tiny, fragmentary,
complementary, aliquot, divisible,
partial, petty. ANTONYM: (adj)
whole.
lessen: (v) decrease, abate, fall,
decline, dwindle, assuage, allay,
alleviate; (adj, v) abridge, curtail,
contract. ANTONYMS: (v) increase,
exacerbate, intensify, raise, grow,
aggravate, accelerate, bolster,
worsen, strengthen, rise.
needless: (adj, v) unnecessary,
superfluous; (adj) futile, dispensable,
bootless, excessive, preventable,
meaningless, pointless, wanton,
unavailing. ANTONYMS: (adj)
essential, worthwhile, inevitable,
justifiable.
resplendency: (n) glory, lustre,
splendor, glorification, nimbus, halo,
beauty, aura.
Thomas Hardy
373
The gaiety jarred upon Henchard's spirits; and he could not quite understand
why Farfrae, a much-sobered man, and a widower, who had had his trials,
should have cared for it all, notwithstanding the fact that he was quite a young
man still, and quickly kindled to enthusiasm by dance and song. That the quiet
Elizabeth, who had long ago appraised life at a moderate value, and who knew
in spite of her maidenhood that marriage was as a rule no dancing matter,
should have had zest for this revelry surprised him still more. However, young
people could not be quite old people, he con

THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

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