prompt:
Chapter: <CHAPTER>
7--A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness

The old captain's prevailing indifference to his granddaughter's
movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so
happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why
she had walked out so late.

"Only in search of events, Grandfather," she said, looking out of the
window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force
behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.

"Search of events--one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at
one-and-twenty."

"It is lonely here."

"So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be
taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home
when I returned from the Woman."

"I won't conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with the
mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight."

"No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn't expect it of you, Eustacia."

"It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I
have told you--and remember it is a secret."

"Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy, how 'twould
have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.
You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you don't
bother me; but no figuring in breeches again."

"You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa."

Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia's moral training never exceeding
in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable
to good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts
soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and
indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she
went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as
Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when
she beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in
advance--dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to
signify Diggory Venn.

When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during
the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied,
"On Egdon Heath." Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since
Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than
with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were
to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his
reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent. The
position was central and occasionally desirable. But the sale of reddle
was not Diggory's primary object in remaining on the heath, particularly
at so late a period of the year, when most travellers of his class had
gone into winter quarters.

Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last
meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready
and anxious to take his place as Thomasin's betrothed. His figure
was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his
intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better if
he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin
would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin like
Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely
indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs. Yeobright,
in her anxiety for her niece's future, had mentioned this lover to
stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side of the
Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt's desire.

"Good morning, miss," said the reddleman, taking off his cap of
hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of
their last meeting.

"Good morning, reddleman," she said, hardly troubling to lift her
heavily shaded eyes to his. "I did not know you were so near. Is your
van here too?"

Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of
purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to
form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter
in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their
leaves.

The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed behind the tracery and
tangles of the brake.

"You remain near this part?" she asked with more interest.

"Yes, I have business here."

"Not altogether the selling of reddle?"

"It has nothing to do with that."

"It has to do with Miss Yeobright?"

Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said
frankly, "Yes, miss; it is on account of her."

"On account of your approaching marriage with her?"

Venn flushed through his stain. "Don't make sport of me, Miss Vye," he
said.

"It isn't true?"

"Certainly not."

She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs.
Yeobright's mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his
promotion to that lowly standing. "It was a mere notion of mine," she
said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when,
looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure
serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top
where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back
was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that
man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, "Would you allow
me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting
on."

"Certainly, miss; I'll make a place for you."

She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling
into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the
door.

"That is the best I can do for you," he said, stepping down and retiring
to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up
and down.

Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from
view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of
other feet than the reddleman's, a not very friendly "Good day"
uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the
foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her
neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders;
and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the
sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all
in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who
is beloved no more.

When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.
"That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss," he said slowly, and expressed
by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting
unseen.

"Yes, I saw him coming up the hill," replied Eustacia. "Why should
you tell me that?" It was a bold question, considering the reddleman's
knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power to
repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.

"I am glad to hear that you can ask it," said the reddleman bluntly.
"And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night."

"Ah--what was that?" Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.

"Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who
didn't come."

"You waited too, it seems?"

"Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there
again tonight."

"To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so
far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin's marriage with Mr.
Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it."

Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it
clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from
expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two
removes and upwards. "Indeed, miss," he replied.

"How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again
tonight?" she asked.

"I heard him say to himself that he would. He's in a regular temper."

Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting
her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, "I wish I knew what to do. I don't
want to be uncivil to him; but I don't wish to see him again; and I have
some few little things to return to him."

"If you choose to send 'em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you
wish to say no more to him, I'll take it for you quite privately. That
would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind."

"Very well," said Eustacia. "Come towards my house, and I will bring it
out to you."

She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the
shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail.
She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the
horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she
entered the house alone.

In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in
placing them in his hand, "Why are you so ready to take these for me?"

"Can you ask that?"

"I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as
anxious as ever to help on her marriage?"

Venn was a little moved. "I would sooner have married her myself," he
said in a low voice. "But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy
without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man
ought."

Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What
a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of
selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion,
and sometimes its only one! The reddleman's disinterestedness was so
well deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely
comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.

"Then we are both of one mind at last," she said.

"Yes," replied Venn gloomily. "But if you would tell me, miss, why you
take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and
strange."

Eustacia appeared at a loss. "I cannot tell you that, reddleman," she
said coldly.

Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went
away.

Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the
long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from
the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia's emissary.
He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and
ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel's spear.

"The meeting is always at eight o'clock, at this place," said Venn, "and
here we are--we three."

"We three?" said Wildeve, looking quickly round.

"Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she." He held up the letter and
parcel.

Wildeve took them wonderingly. "I don't quite see what this means," he
said. "How do you come here? There must be some mistake."

"It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter.
Lanterns for one." The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of
tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.

"Who are you?" said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure
rubicundity of person in his companion. "You are the reddleman I saw on
the hill this morning--why, you are the man who----"

"Please read the letter."

"If you had come from the other one I shouldn't have been surprised,"
murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew
serious.

TO MR. WILDEVE.

After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold
no further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am
convinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been
uniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have
some ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider
what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I passively put
up with your courtship of another without once interfering, you will, I
think, own that I have a right to consult my own feelings when you come
back to me again. That these are not what they were towards you may,
perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach
me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.

The little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship are
returned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have been
sent back when I first heard of your engagement to her.

EUSTACIA.

By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he
had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. "I
am made a great fool of, one way and another," he said pettishly. "Do
you know what is in this letter?"

The reddleman hummed a tune.

"Can't you answer me?" asked Wildeve warmly.

"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang the reddleman.

Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn's feet, till he allowed
his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory's form, as illuminated by the
candle, to his head and face. "Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it,
considering how I have played with them both," he said at last, as much
to himself as to Venn. "But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the
oddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to
bring this to me."

"My interests?"

"Certainly. 'Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me
courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you--or something like it.
Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. 'Tisn't true, then?"

"Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn't believe it. When did she
say so?"

Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.

"I don't believe it now," cried Venn.

"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang Wildeve.

"O Lord--how we can imitate!" said Venn contemptuously. "I'll have this
out. I'll go straight to her."

Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve's eye passing over his
form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-cropper.
When the reddleman's figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself
descended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.

To lose the two women--he who had been the well-beloved of both--was too
ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save himself
by Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia's repentance, he
thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It was no wonder that
Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the scene, should have
supposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe that the letter was
not the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave
him up to Thomasin, would have required previous knowledge of her
transfiguration by that man's influence. Who was to know that she had
grown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one
cousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to
appropriate she gave way?

Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the proud
girl, Wildeve went his way.

Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking
thoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him. But,
however promising Mrs. Yeobright's views of him might be as a candidate
for her niece's hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour of
Thomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his present wild mode
of life. In this he saw little difficulty.

He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin and
detailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet operations,
pulled a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about twenty minutes
stood before the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing but his face, the
vermilion shades of which were not to be removed in a day. Closing the
door and fastening it with a padlock, Venn set off towards Blooms-End.

He had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when
the door of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female form
had glided in. At the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing
with the woman in the porch, came forward from the house till he was
face to face with Venn. It was Wildeve again.

"Man alive, you've been quick at it," said Diggory sarcastically.

"And you slow, as you will find," said Wildeve. "And," lowering his
voice, "you may as well go back again now. I've claimed her, and got
her. Good night, reddleman!" Thereupon Wildeve walked away.

Venn's heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high.
He stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly a
quarter of an hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked
for Mrs. Yeobright.

Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse
was carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of ten
minutes or more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and Venn
sadly retraced his steps into the heath. When he had again regained his
van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at once began to pull
off his best clothes, till in the course of a few minutes he reappeared
as the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before.

</CHAPTER>
<CHAPTER>
8--Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart

On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and comfortable,
had been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home. Since the
Christmas party he had gone on a few days' visit to a friend about ten
miles off.

The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and
quickly withdraw into the house, was Thomasin's. On entering she threw
down a cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came
forward to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table,
drawn up within the settle, so that part of it projected into the
chimney-corner.

"I don't like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin," said her aunt
quietly, without looking up from her work.

"I have only been just outside the door."

"Well?" inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
Thomasin's voice, and observing her. Thomasin's cheek was flushed to a
pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and her
eyes glittered.

"It was HE who knocked," she said.

"I thought as much."

"He wishes the marriage to be at once."

"Indeed! What--is he anxious?" Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching look
upon her niece. "Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?"

"He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would
like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the
church of his parish--not at ours."

"Oh! And what did you say?"

"I agreed to it," Thomasin answered firmly. "I am a practical woman
now. I don't believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any
circumstances since--since Clym's letter."

A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright's work-basket, and at Thomasin's
words her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that
day:--

What is the meaning of this silly story that people are circulating
about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call such a scandal humiliating
if there was the least chance of its being true. How could such a gross
falsehood have arisen? It is said that one should go abroad to hear news
of home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I contradict the
tale everywhere; but it is very vexing, and I wonder how it could have
originated. It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so
mortify us as to get jilted on the wedding day. What has she done?

"Yes," Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. "If you
think you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to be
unceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in your
own hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you
left this house to go with him to Anglebury." She continued, half in
bitterness, "I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at
all? If you had gone and married him without saying a word to me, I
could hardly have been angry--simply because, poor girl, you can't do a
better thing."

"Don't say that and dishearten me."

"You are right--I will not."

"I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a
blind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don't
now. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the
best."

"And so do I, and we will both continue to," said Mrs. Yeobright, rising
and kissing her. "Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be on the
morning of the very day Clym comes home?"

"Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that you
can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will matter
nothing."

Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently said,
"Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake that, you
know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once forbidding the banns I
think I can do no less."

"I don't think I will ask you to come," said Thomasin reluctantly, but
with decision. "It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let
there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I
would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch
your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were
there, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no
necessity why you should concern yourself more about me."

"Well, he has beaten us," her aunt said. "It really seems as if he had
been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him as I
did by standing up against him at first."

"O no, Aunt," murmured Thomasin.

They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn's knock came soon
after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him in
the porch, carelessly observed, "Another lover has come to ask for you."

"No?"

"Yes, that queer young man Venn."

"Asks to pay his addresses to me?"

"Yes; and I told him he was too late."

Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. "Poor Diggory!" she
said, and then aroused herself to other things.

The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both
the women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the
emotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other
articles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic
details were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings
about her future as Wildeve's wife.

The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that he
should meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant curiosity
which might have affected them had they been seen walking off together
in the usual country way.

Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was
dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin's
hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a
calendar system--the more important the day the more numerous the
strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes;
on ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings, gipsyings, and the like,
she braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she married
she would braid it in sevens. She had braided it in sevens today.

"I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all," she
said. "It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad
about the time. I mean," she added, anxious to correct any wrong
impression, "not sad in itself, but in its having had great
disappointment and trouble before it."

Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh. "I
almost wish Clym had been at home," she said. "Of course you chose the
time because of his absence."

"Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him
all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry out
the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was clear."

"You are a practical little woman," said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling. "I
wish you and he--no, I don't wish anything. There, it is nine o'clock,"
she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.

"I told Damon I would leave at nine," said Thomasin, hastening out of
the room.

Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from the
door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her, and
said, "It is a shame to let you go alone."

"It is necessary," said Thomasin.

"At any rate," added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, "I shall
call upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has
returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr.
Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well,
God bless you! There, I don't believe in old superstitions, but I'll
do it." She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who
turned, smiled, and went on again.

A few steps further, and she looked back. "Did you call me, Aunt?" she
tremulously inquired. "Good-bye!"

Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright's
worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met
again. "O--Tamsie," said the elder, weeping, "I don't like to let you
go."

"I--I am--" Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her
grief, she said "Good-bye!" again and went on.

Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between the
scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley--a pale-blue
spot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and undefended except by
the power of her own hope.

But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the
landscape; it was the man.

The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so
timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin
Clym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth
of what he had heard would be distressing as long as the humiliating
position resulting from the event was unimproved. It was only after a
second and successful journey to the altar that she could lift up her
head and prove the failure of the first attempt a pure accident.

She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when
Yeobright came by the meads from the other direction and entered the
house.

"I had an early breakfast," he said to his mother after greeting her.
"Now I could eat a little more."

They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious
voice, apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,
"What's this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?"

"It is true in many points," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; "but it is all
right now, I hope." She looked at the clock.

"True?"

"Thomasin is gone to him today."

Clym pushed away his breakfast. "Then there is a scandal of some sort,
and that's what's the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that made her
ill?"

"Yes. Not a scandal--a misfortune. I will tell you all about it, Clym.
You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you'll find that what we
have done has been done for the best."

She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the affair
before he returned from Paris was that there had existed an
attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first
discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin,
looked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore,
proceeded to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled.

"And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came
back," said Mrs. Yeobright, "that there might be no chance of her
meeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That's why she has
gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning."

"But I can't understand it," said Yeobright, rising. "'Tis so unlike
her. I can see why you did not write to me after her unfortunate return
home. But why didn't you let me know when the wedding was going to
be--the first time?"

"Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be
obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed
that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my
niece after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no
interest in it, and should not bother you about it either."

"It wouldn't have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong."

"I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because of
it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time in a
proper manner, I should have told you at once."

"Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!"

"Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It
may, considering he's the same man."

"Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose Wildeve
is really a bad fellow?"

"Then he won't come, and she'll come home again."

"You should have looked more into it."

"It is useless to say that," his mother answered with an impatient look
of sorrow. "You don't know how bad it has been here with us all these
weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of that sort
is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've had in this
house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since
that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again.
Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look
anybody in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only
thing that can be done to set that trouble straight."

"No," he said slowly. "Upon the whole I don't blame you. But just
consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and
then I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well,
I suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, Mother," he
continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own
past history, "I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I did. How
odd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she seemed so
much more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded of those
days, particularly on the night of the party, when she was unwell. We
had the party just the same--was not that rather cruel to her?"

"It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not worth
while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting ourselves
up and telling you of Tamsin's misfortunes would have been a poor sort
of welcome."

Clym remained thinking. "I almost wish you had not had that party," he
said; "and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two. We
must think of Tamsin now."

They lapsed into silence. "I'll tell you what," said Yeobright again,
in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. "I don't think it
kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of us there
to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn't disgraced
herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough that the
wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our keeping away
from it in addition. Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame. I'll go."

"It is over by this time," said his mother with a sigh; "unless they
were late, or he--"

"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don't quite like
your keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope he
has failed to meet her!"

"And ruined her character?"

"Nonsense--that wouldn't ruin Thomasin."

He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked
rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long
left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his company
came Diggory Venn.

"I find there isn't time for me to get there," said Clym.

"Is she married?" Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman a
face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was apparent.

Venn bowed. "She is, ma'am."

"How strange it sounds," murmured Clym.

"And he didn't disappoint her this time?" said Mrs. Yeobright.

"He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening
ath'art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there."

"How came you to be there? How did you know it?" she asked.

"I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go in,"
said the reddleman. "Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as the clock.
I didn't expect it of him." He did not add, as he might have added, that
how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by accident; that,
since Wildeve's resumption of his right to Thomasin, Venn, with the
thoroughness which was part of his character, had determined to see the
end of the episode.

"Who was there?" said Mrs. Yeobright.

"Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see me."
The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden.

"Who gave her away?"

"Miss Vye."

"How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I
suppose?"

"Who's Miss Vye?" said Clym.

"Captain Vye's granddaughter, of Mistover Knap."

"A proud girl from Budmouth," said Mrs. Yeobright. "One not much to my
liking. People say she's a witch, but of course that's absurd."

The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair personage,
and also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch her, in
accordance with a promise he had given as soon as he learnt that the
marriage was to take place. He merely said, in continuation of the
story----

"I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one
way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts,
looking at the headstones. As soon as they had gone in I went to the
door, feeling I should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I pulled
off my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into the gallery. I
saw then that the parson and clerk were already there."

"How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on a
walk that way?"

"Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just before
me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before beginning, and
as she was the only one near he beckoned to her, and she went up to the
rails. After that, when it came to signing the book, she pushed up her
veil and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank her for her kindness." The
reddleman told the tale thoughtfully for there lingered upon his vision
the changing colour of Wildeve, when Eustacia lifted the thick veil
which had concealed her from recognition and looked calmly into his
face. "And then," said Diggory sadly, "I came away, for her history as
Tamsin Yeobright was over."

"I offered to go," said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. "But she said it was
not necessary."

"Well, it is no matter," said the reddleman. "The thing is done at last
as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now I'll
wish you good morning."

He placed his cap on his head and went out.

From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright's door, the reddleman was
seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He
vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been
standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign
remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a
little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of
rain.

The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as it
went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped him
through his being at some distance back in the church. When Thomasin
was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards
Eustacia a glance that said plainly, "I have punished you now." She had
replied in a low tone--and he little thought how truly--"You mistake; it
gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today."

</CHAPTER>

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Clym's wedding takes place in the parish church in Mistover. Thomasin attends the wedding, but Wildeve does not. Mrs. Yeobright sits at home torturing herself and feeling resentful. While Thomasin is at the wedding, Wildeve calls upon Mrs. Yeobright to pick up a package for his wife. Since the package contains money for her niece, Mrs. Yeobright refuses to give it to Wildeve, not trusting that Thomasin will ever see it. Instead, she entrusts Christian Cantle with money for both Thomasin and Clym and asks him to deliver it safely into the hands of her relatives, who are both in Mistover. On the way to Mistover, Christian stops by the Quiet Woman Inn and is surprised when he wins a raffle there. Seeing his childish fascination with the dice with which he has won the raffle, Wildeve gives them to Christian to keep. Wildeve then leaves with Christian to accompany him to Mistover. On the way, Christian reveals that he is carrying money for Thomasin. Seething with rage and humiliation that Mrs. Yeobright has refused to trust him with the money over Christian, Wildeve plays a dice game with Christian, gambling for guineas. Wildeve manages to win all the money, both that belonging to Thomasin and to Clym. Only later does Wildeve discover that half the money belongs to Clym. Diggory Venn suddenly appears out of the shadows from where he has been watching and challenges Wildeve to continue the game. One of the dice gets lost in the surrounding darkness, and on one occasion the candle get extinguished, owing to a blundering moth. But the two men play on by the light of thirteen imprisoned glow worms. Finally Venn wins back all the money. Not knowing that part of it was meant for Clym, Venn meets Thomasin on her way back from the wedding and presents it all to her.


prompt:
Chapter: <CHAPTER>
BOOK FOUR -- THE CLOSED DOOR
1--The Rencounter by the Pool

The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet.
It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season,
in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the
second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes
which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern
period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the
heathbells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in
turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.

Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East
Egdon, were living on with a monotony which was delightful to them. The
heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for
the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid
from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all
things the character of light. When it rained they were charmed, because
they could remain indoors together all day with such a show of reason;
when it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit together on
the hills. They were like those double stars which revolve round and
round each other, and from a distance appear to be one. The absolute
solitude in which they lived intensified their reciprocal thoughts; yet
some might have said that it had the disadvantage of consuming their
mutual affections at a fearfully prodigal rate. Yeobright did not fear
for his own part; but recollection of Eustacia's old speech about the
evanescence of love, now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused
him to ask himself a question; and he recoiled at the thought that the
quality of finiteness was not foreign to Eden.

When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed his
reading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied indefatigably,
for he wished to enter his new profession with the least possible delay.

Now, Eustacia's dream had always been that, once married to Clym,
she would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had
carefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against
her coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on the
probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth,
to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home. Her hopes
were bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their marriage,
when Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and the lines of
her face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even while in the
act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books, indicating a
future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck her with a positively
painful jar. She was hoping for the time when, as the mistress of some
pretty establishment, however small, near a Parisian Boulevard, she
would be passing her days on the skirts at least of the gay world, and
catching stray wafts from those town pleasures she was so well fitted
to enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm in the contrary intention as if
the tendency of marriage were rather to develop the fantasies of young
philanthropy than to sweep them away.

Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym's
undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on the
subject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident helped
her. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their union, and
arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of Venn of the
fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.

A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note to
her aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of the
amount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down to her
late uncle's generosity. She had been strictly charged by her aunt to
say nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was natural
enough, had not brought himself to mention to his wife a single
particular of the midnight scene in the heath. Christian's terror,
in like manner, had tied his tongue on the share he took in that
proceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the money had gone
to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without giving
details.

Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began to
wonder why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the present;
and to add gloom to her perplexity came the possibility that resentment
might be the cause of his silence. She could hardly believe as much, but
why did he not write? She questioned Christian, and the confusion in his
answers would at once have led her to believe that something was wrong,
had not one-half of his story been corroborated by Thomasin's note.

Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed
one morning that her son's wife was visiting her grandfather at
Mistover. She determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and
ascertain from her daughter-in-law's lips whether the family guineas,
which were to Mrs. Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier
dowagers, had miscarried or not.

When Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its
height. At the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no longer,
and, confessing to the gambling, told her the truth as far as he knew
it--that the guineas had been won by Wildeve.

"What, is he going to keep them?" Mrs. Yeobright cried.

"I hope and trust not!" moaned Christian. "He's a good man, and perhaps
will do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr. Clym's share to
Eustacia, and that's perhaps what he'll do himself."

To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much
likelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would
really appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate course
of giving it to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve's
fancy. But it filled the mother with anger none the less. That Wildeve
should have got command of the guineas after all, and should rearrange
the disposal of them, placing Clym's share in Clym's wife's hands,
because she had been his own sweetheart, and might be so still, was as
irritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had ever borne.

She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his
conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do
without him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer
if he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less
promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half an
hour earlier, when planning her journey. At that time it was to inquire
in a friendly spirit if there had been any accidental loss; now it was
to ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given her money which had been
intended as a sacred gift to Clym.

She started at two o'clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened
by the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which
bordered her grandfather's premises, where she stood surveying the
scene, and perhaps thinking of the romantic enactments it had witnessed
in past days. When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her with
the calm stare of a stranger.

The mother-in-law was the first to speak. "I was coming to see you," she
said.

"Indeed!" said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to the
girl's mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding. "I did
not at all expect you."

"I was coming on business only," said the visitor, more coldly than at
first. "Will you excuse my asking this--Have you received a gift from
Thomasin's husband?"

"A gift?"

"I mean money!"

"What--I myself?"

"Well, I meant yourself, privately--though I was not going to put it in
that way."

"Money from Mr. Wildeve? No--never! Madam, what do you mean by that?"
Eustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of the old
attachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the conclusion
that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come to accuse her
of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.

"I simply ask the question," said Mrs. Yeobright. "I have been----"

"You ought to have better opinions of me--I feared you were against me
from the first!" exclaimed Eustacia.

"No. I was simply for Clym," replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much
emphasis in her earnestness. "It is the instinct of everyone to look
after their own."

"How can you imply that he required guarding against me?" cried
Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. "I have not injured him by
marrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me?
You had no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged
you."

"I only did what was fair under the circumstances," said Mrs. Yeobright
more softly. "I would rather not have gone into this question at
present, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you the honest
truth. I was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry you--therefore
I tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power. But it is done
now, and I have no idea of complaining any more. I am ready to welcome
you."

"Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of view,"
murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. "But why should you
think there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have a spirit
as well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be. It was a
condescension in me to be Clym's wife, and not a manoeuvre, let me
remind you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer whom it
becomes necessary to bear with because she has crept into the family."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her anger. "I
have never heard anything to show that my son's lineage is not as
good as the Vyes'--perhaps better. It is amusing to hear you talk of
condescension."

"It was condescension, nevertheless," said Eustacia vehemently. "And if
I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this wild
heath a month after my marriage, I--I should have thought twice before
agreeing."

"It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I
am not aware that any deception was used on his part--I know there was
not--whatever might have been the case on the other side."

"This is too exasperating!" answered the younger woman huskily, her face
crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. "How can you dare to speak to me
like that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I known that my life
would from my marriage up to this time have been as it is, I should have
said NO. I don't complain. I have never uttered a sound of such a thing
to him; but it is true. I hope therefore that in the future you will be
silent on my eagerness. If you injure me now you injure yourself."

"Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?"

"You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of
secretly favouring another man for money!"

"I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you outside
my house."

"You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse."

"I did my duty."

"And I'll do mine."

"A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It is
always so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it before
me!"

"I understand you," said Eustacia, breathless with emotion. "You
think me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife who
encourages a lover, and poisons her husband's mind against his relative?
Yet that is now the character given to me. Will you not come and drag
him out of my hands?"

Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.

"Don't rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not worth
the injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only a poor
old woman who has lost a son."

"If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still."
Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. "You have
brought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never be
healed!"

"I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I
can bear."

"It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak of
my husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know that I
have spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will you go away
from me? You are no friend!"

"I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come here to
question you without good grounds for it, that person speaks untruly.
If anyone says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any but honest
means, that person, too, does not speak the truth. I have fallen on an
evil time; God has been unjust to me in letting you insult me! Probably
my son's happiness does not lie on this side of the grave, for he is a
foolish man who neglects the advice of his parent. You, Eustacia, stand
on the edge of a precipice without knowing it. Only show my son one-half
the temper you have shown me today--and you may before long--and you
will find that though he is as gentle as a child with you now, he can be
as hard as steel!"

The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking
into the pool.

</CHAPTER>
<CHAPTER>
2--He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song

The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead
of passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home to
Clym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.

She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing
traces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he had
never seen her in any way approaching to that state before. She
passed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was so
concerned that he immediately followed her.

"What is the matter, Eustacia?" he said. She was standing on the
hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in
front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer;
and then she replied in a low voice--

"I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!"

A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia
had arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish
that she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-
law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring about a
reconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for much.

"Why is this?" he asked.

"I cannot tell--I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will never
meet her again."

"Why?"

"What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won't have wicked opinions
passed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I
had received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of the
sort--I don't exactly know what!"

"How could she have asked you that?"

"She did."

"Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say
besides?"

"I don't know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both said
words which can never be forgiven!"

"Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her
meaning was not made clear?"

"I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the
circumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym--I cannot
help expressing it--this is an unpleasant position that you have placed
me in. But you must improve it--yes, say you will--for I hate it all
now! Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! I
don't mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris,
and not Egdon Heath."

"But I have quite given up that idea," said Yeobright, with surprise.
"Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?"

"I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, and
that one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am your
wife and the sharer of your doom?"

"Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussion;
and I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement."

"Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear," she said in a low voice; and her
eyes drooped, and she turned away.

This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia's bosom
disconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confronted
the fact of the indirectness of a woman's movement towards her desire.
But his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All the
effect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself more
closely than ever to his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to appeal
to substantial results from another course in arguing against her whim.

Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them
a hurried visit, and Clym's share was delivered up to him by her own
hands. Eustacia was not present at the time.

"Then this is what my mother meant," exclaimed Clym. "Thomasin, do you
know that they have had a bitter quarrel?"

There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin's manner
towards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in several
directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one. "Your mother
told me," she said quietly. "She came back to my house after seeing
Eustacia."

"The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbed
when she came to you, Thomasin?"

"Yes."

"Very much indeed?"

"Yes."

Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his
eyes with his hand.

"Don't trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends."

He shook his head. "Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs.
Well, what must be will be."

"One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost."

"I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen."

Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
indispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress in his
scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours during
many nights.

One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a
strange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the
window-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged
him to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look about
him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriating
tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a bandage over his brow
while dressing; and during the day it could not be abandoned. Eustacia
was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case was no better the next
morning they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon.

Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute
inflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of a
cold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.

Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so
anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut
up in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition would
have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by the
glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be over;
but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay that although
he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course of a
month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of any
description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.

One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the
gloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, but
she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose
he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial to
her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling among
the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere into
substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day passed
by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournful
groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep
despairing tears.

Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he
would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;
and the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likely
to learn the news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring to
take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he waited on till the
third week had arrived, when he went into the open air for the first
time since the attack. The surgeon visited him again at this stage, and
Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The young man learnt with
added surprise that the date at which he might expect to resume his
labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar state
which, though affording him sight enough for walking about, would not
admit of their being strained upon any definite object without incurring
the risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.

Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet
firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not
to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world through
smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to any
kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the face
of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart from
Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could be
made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottage
night-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his
spirit as it might otherwise have done.

He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with
which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.
He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,
and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a
man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright
learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.

Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added, "Now, if
yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
same."

"Yes, I could," said Yeobright musingly. "How much do you get for
cutting these faggots?"

"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well on
the wages."

During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lost in
reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up to
the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went across
to her.

"Darling," he said, "I am much happier. And if my mother were reconciled
to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite."

"I fear that will never be," she said, looking afar with her beautiful
stormy eyes. "How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?"

"It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and get
a living at, in this time of misfortune."

"Yes?"

"I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter."

"No, Clym!" she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in her
face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.

"Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the
little money we've got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest
occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but that
in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?"

"But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance."

"We don't require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well
off."

"In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such
people!" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did not
see. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt no
absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.

The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed of
him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be
able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new
fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the
furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling. His
sight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his grand
purpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a little
practice should have hardened his palms against blistering he would be
able to work with ease.

Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went
off to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four
o'clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was at
its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming
out again and working till dusk at nine.

This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,
and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his
closest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was a
brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing
more. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work,
owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother's estrangement,
when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.

His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being
limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars were
creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band.
Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the
heath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh them
down to the sod. The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon
produced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath of
his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with the
glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down. Tribes of
emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on
their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance might
rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds
with silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders and
wire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without
knowing that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided
in their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season
immediately following the shedding of their old skins, when their
colours are brightest. Litters of young rabbits came out from their
forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through the
delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a blood-red
transparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them feared
him.

The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself
a pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of
homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly have
allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded.
Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany
Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his
companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so while
away the time.

On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the
direction of Yeobright's place of work. He was busily chopping away
at the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his
position representing the labour of the day. He did not observe her
approach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of
song. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning
money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but to
hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, however
satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated lady-
wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still went
on singing:--

            "Le point du jour
          A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;
            Flore est plus belle a son retour;
            L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour;
            Tout celebre dans la nature
              Le point du jour.

            "Le point du jour
          Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme;
            Que l'espace des nuits est court
            Pour le berger brulant d'amour,
            Force de quitter ce qu'il aime
              Au point du jour!"

It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about
social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sick
despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that mood
and condition in him. Then she came forward.

"I would starve rather than do it!" she exclaimed vehemently. "And you
can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!"

"Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving," he
said gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and
took her hand. "Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a
little old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now
just applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died, then,
because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?"

"Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me not
love you."

"Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?"

"Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't give in to mine when
I wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you
dislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife,
and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!"

"I know what that tone means."

"What tone?"

"The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant, 'Your wife,
worse luck.'"

"It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have
reason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt 'worse luck,' it
was no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you see that at
any rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we were
married, I warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?"

"You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble
course would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,
Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you."

"You are my husband. Does not that content you?"

"Not unless you are my wife without regret."

"I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious
matter on your hands."

"Yes, I saw that."

"Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any such
thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I won't like your speaking so
at all."

"Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret doing so. How
cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a
warmer heart than yours."

"Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you," she sighed
mournfully. "And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never tired
of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have thought
then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours,
nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it possible? Yes,
'tis too true!"

"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopeful
sign."

"No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh for,
or any other woman in my place."

"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an
unfortunate man?"

"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
much as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! It
would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a cloud
as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would astonish
and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt careless
about your own affliction, you might have refrained from singing out
of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I would
curse rather than sing."

Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. "Now, don't you suppose, my
inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,
against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and
smoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of
life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great in
its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of
furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to us
are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship when
they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time. Have you indeed lost
all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?"

"I have still some tenderness left for you."

"Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with good
fortune!"

"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly," she said in a
broken voice. "I will go home."

</CHAPTER>

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Clym and Eustacia are living in their little house at Alderworth, and Clym spends his time studying. Eustacia is still hopeful that he will decide to return to Paris. Mrs. Yeobright is puzzled as to why Clym has said nothing to her about the money she has sent him. Then she learns from Christian that he has lost it all to Wildeve. When Mrs. Yeobright is in Mistover Knap, she visits Eustacia and asks a lot of questions. Eustacia grows irritated at the quizzing, and they wind up fighting with one another. Eustacia longs to leave the heath more than ever. When she tells Clym about her argument with his mother, she again asks Clym to consider going back to Paris. Clym's reading results in an "acute inflammation" of the eye, which puts an end to his study. To keep his mind and body busy, Clym takes up furze cutting with Humphrey. Eustacia is bothered by this kind of work, but Clym seems to enjoy it. One day Eustacia hears him singing while at work, and they have a quarrel. It is apparent to both of them that their feelings for one another are beginning to change.