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Chapter: <CHAPTER>
7--The Morning and the Evening of a Day

The wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined from appearances
that Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day. A solemn
stillness prevailed around the house of Clym's mother, and there was no
more animation indoors. Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to attend the
ceremony, sat by the breakfast table in the old room which communicated
immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed towards the
open door. It was the room in which, six months earlier, the merry
Christmas party had met, to which Eustacia came secretly and as a
stranger. The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow; and
seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the
room, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the
pot-flowers. This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released the
bird, and went to the door. She was expecting Thomasin, who had written
the night before to state that the time had come when she would wish to
have the money and that she would if possible call this day.

Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright's thoughts but slightly as she
looked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with
grasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered chorus.
A domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being made a mile
or two off, was but little less vividly present to her eyes than if
enacted before her. She tried to dismiss the vision, and walked about
the garden plot; but her eyes ever and anon sought out the direction
of the parish church to which Mistover belonged, and her excited fancy
clove the hills which divided the building from her eyes. The morning
wore away. Eleven o'clock struck--could it be that the wedding was
then in progress? It must be so. She went on imagining the scene at
the church, which he had by this time approached with his bride. She
pictured the little group of children by the gate as the pony carriage
drove up in which, as Thomasin had learnt, they were going to perform
the short journey. Then she saw them enter and proceed to the chancel
and kneel; and the service seemed to go on.

She covered her face with her hands. "O, it is a mistake!" she groaned.
"And he will rue it some day, and think of me!"

While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock
indoors whizzed forth twelve strokes. Soon after, faint sounds floated
to her ear from afar over the hills. The breeze came from that quarter,
and it had brought with it the notes of distant bells, gaily starting
off in a peal: one, two, three, four, five. The ringers at East Egdon
were announcing the nuptials of Eustacia and her son.

"Then it is over," she murmured. "Well, well! and life too will be over
soon. And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry about one
thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece.
And yet we say, 'a time to laugh!'"

Towards evening Wildeve came. Since Thomasin's marriage Mrs. Yeobright
had shown him that grim friendliness which at last arises in all such
cases of undesired affinity. The vision of what ought to have been
is thrown aside in sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour
listlessly makes the best of the fact that is. Wildeve, to do him
justice, had behaved very courteously to his wife's aunt; and it was
with no surprise that she saw him enter now.

"Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do," he replied
to her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that her niece was
badly in want of money. "The captain came down last night and
personally pressed her to join them today. So, not to be unpleasant,
she determined to go. They fetched her in the pony-chaise, and are
going to bring her back."

"Then it is done," said Mrs. Yeobright. "Have they gone to their new
home?"

"I don't know. I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left to
go."

"You did not go with her?" said she, as if there might be good reasons
why.

"I could not," said Wildeve, reddening slightly. "We could not both
leave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury
Great Market. I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If you
like, I will take it."

Mrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the
something was. "Did she tell you of this?" she inquired.

"Not particularly. She casually dropped a remark about having arranged
to fetch some article or other."

"It is hardly necessary to send it. She can have it whenever she chooses
to come."

"That won't be yet. In the present state of her health she must not go
on walking so much as she has done." He added, with a faint twang of
sarcasm, "What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to take?"

"Nothing worth troubling you with."

"One would think you doubted my honesty," he said, with a laugh, though
his colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.

"You need think no such thing," said she drily. "It is simply that I,
in common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain things
which had better be done by certain people than by others."

"As you like, as you like," said Wildeve laconically. "It is not worth
arguing about. Well, I think I must turn homeward again, as the inn must
not be left long in charge of the lad and the maid only."

He went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous as his
greeting. But Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly by this time, and took
little notice of his manner, good or bad.

When Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered what would be
the best course to adopt with regard to the guineas, which she had not
liked to entrust to Wildeve. It was hardly credible that Thomasin had
told him to ask for them, when the necessity for them had arisen
from the difficulty of obtaining money at his hands. At the same time
Thomasin really wanted them, and might be unable to come to Blooms-End
for another week at least. To take or send the money to her at the inn
would be impolite, since Wildeve would pretty surely be present, or
would discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt suspected, he
treated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated, he might
then get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. But on this particular
evening Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to
her there without the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the
opportunity was worth taking advantage of.

Her son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more
proper moment to render him his share of the money than the present.
And the chance that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift,
of showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad
mother's heart.

She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of
which she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there
many a year. There were a hundred in all, and she divided them into two
heaps, fifty in each. Tying up these in small canvas bags, she went down
to the garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was loitering about in
hope of a supper which was not really owed him. Mrs. Yeobright gave
him the moneybags, charged him to go to Mistover, and on no account
to deliver them into any one's hands save her son's and Thomasin's. On
further thought she deemed it advisable to tell Christian precisely
what the two bags contained, that he might be fully impressed with their
importance. Christian pocketed the moneybags, promised the greatest
carefulness, and set out on his way.

"You need not hurry," said Mrs. Yeobright. "It will be better not to get
there till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back here
to supper, if it is not too late."

It was nearly nine o'clock when he began to ascend the vale towards
Mistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first
obscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At
this point of his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they
proceeded from a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow
ahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible.

He paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too early
even for Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he took
a precaution which ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever he
carried more than two or three shillings upon his person--a precaution
somewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when filled with
similar misgivings. He took off his boots, untied the guineas, and
emptied the contents of one little bag into the right boot, and of
the other into the left, spreading them as flatly as possible over the
bottom of each, which was really a spacious coffer by no means limited
to the size of the foot. Pulling them on again and lacing them to the
very top, he proceeded on his way, more easy in his head than under his
soles.

His path converged towards that of the noisy company, and on coming
nearer he found to his relief that they were several Egdon people whom
he knew very well, while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.

"What! Christian going too?" said Fairway as soon as he recognized the
newcomer. "You've got no young woman nor wife to your name to gie a
gown-piece to, I'm sure."

"What d'ye mean?" said Christian.

"Why, the raffle. The one we go to every year. Going to the raffle as
well as ourselves?"

"Never knew a word o't. Is it like cudgel playing or other sportful
forms of bloodshed? I don't want to go, thank you, Mister Fairway, and
no offence."

"Christian don't know the fun o't, and 'twould be a fine sight for him,"
said a buxom woman. "There's no danger at all, Christian. Every man
puts in a shilling apiece, and one wins a gown-piece for his wife or
sweetheart if he's got one."

"Well, as that's not my fortune there's no meaning in it to me. But I
should like to see the fun, if there's nothing of the black art in it,
and if a man may look on without cost or getting into any dangerous
wrangle?"

"There will be no uproar at all," said Timothy. "Sure, Christian, if
you'd like to come we'll see there's no harm done."

"And no ba'dy gaieties, I suppose? You see, neighbours, if so, it
would be setting father a bad example, as he is so light moral'd. But
a gown-piece for a shilling, and no black art--'tis worth looking in to
see, and it wouldn't hinder me half an hour. Yes, I'll come, if you'll
step a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards, supposing night
should have closed in, and nobody else is going that way?"

One or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his direct path,
turned round to the right with his companions towards the Quiet Woman.

When they entered the large common room of the inn they found assembled
there about ten men from among the neighbouring population, and the
group was increased by the new contingent to double that number. Most of
them were sitting round the room in seats divided by wooden elbows like
those of crude cathedral stalls, which were carved with the initials of
many an illustrious drunkard of former times who had passed his days
and his nights between them, and now lay as an alcoholic cinder in the
nearest churchyard. Among the cups on the long table before the
sitters lay an open parcel of light drapery--the gown-piece, as it was
called--which was to be raffled for. Wildeve was standing with his back
to the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the promoter of the raffle, a
packman from a distant town, was expatiating upon the value of the
fabric as material for a summer dress.

"Now, gentlemen," he continued, as the newcomers drew up to the table,
"there's five have entered, and we want four more to make up the number.
I think, by the faces of those gentlemen who have just come in, that
they are shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare opportunity of
beautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense."

Fairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings on the table, and the
man turned to Christian.

"No, sir," said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze of misgiving.
"I am only a poor chap come to look on, an it please ye, sir. I don't
so much as know how you do it. If so be I was sure of getting it I would
put down the shilling; but I couldn't otherwise."

"I think you might almost be sure," said the pedlar. "In fact, now I
look into your face, even if I can't say you are sure to win, I can say
that I never saw anything look more like winning in my life."

"You'll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us," said Sam.

"And the extra luck of being the last comer," said another.

"And I was born wi' a caul, and perhaps can be no more ruined than
drowned?" Christian added, beginning to give way.

Ultimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began, and the
dice went round. When it came to Christian's turn he took the box with a
trembling hand, shook it fearfully, and threw a pair-royal. Three of the
others had thrown common low pairs, and all the rest mere points.

"The gentleman looked like winning, as I said," observed the chapman
blandly. "Take it, sir; the article is yours."

"Haw-haw-haw!" said Fairway. "I'm damned if this isn't the quarest start
that ever I knowed!"

"Mine?" asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his target eyes. "I--I
haven't got neither maid, wife, nor widder belonging to me at all, and
I'm afeard it will make me laughed at to ha'e it, Master Traveller. What
with being curious to join in I never thought of that! What shall I do
wi' a woman's clothes in MY bedroom, and not lose my decency!"

"Keep 'em, to be sure," said Fairway, "if it is only for luck. Perhaps
'twill tempt some woman that thy poor carcase had no power over when
standing empty-handed."

"Keep it, certainly," said Wildeve, who had idly watched the scene from
a distance.

The table was then cleared of the articles, and the men began to drink.

"Well, to be sure!" said Christian, half to himself. "To think I should
have been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out until now!
What curious creatures these dice be--powerful rulers of us all, and
yet at my command! I am sure I never need be afeared of anything after
this." He handled the dice fondly one by one. "Why, sir," he said in a
confidential whisper to Wildeve, who was near his left hand, "if I could
only use this power that's in me of multiplying money I might do some
good to a near relation of yours, seeing what I've got about me of
hers--eh?" He tapped one of his money-laden boots upon the floor.

"What do you mean?" said Wildeve.

"That's a secret. Well, I must be going now." He looked anxiously
towards Fairway.

"Where are you going?" Wildeve asked.

"To Mistover Knap. I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there--that's all."

"I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve. We can walk together."

Wildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward illumination came
into his eyes. It was money for his wife that Mrs. Yeobright could not
trust him with. "Yet she could trust this fellow," he said to himself.
"Why doesn't that which belongs to the wife belong to the husband too?"

He called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said, "Now,
Christian, I am ready."

"Mr. Wildeve," said Christian timidly, as he turned to leave the room,
"would you mind lending me them wonderful little things that carry my
luck inside 'em, that I might practise a bit by myself, you know?" He
looked wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece.

"Certainly," said Wildeve carelessly. "They were only cut out by some
lad with his knife, and are worth nothing." And Christian went back and
privately pocketed them.

Wildeve opened the door and looked out. The night was warm and cloudy.
"By Gad! 'tis dark," he continued. "But I suppose we shall find our
way."

"If we should lose the path it might be awkward," said Christian. "A
lantern is the only shield that will make it safe for us."

"Let's have a lantern by all means." The stable lantern was fetched and
lighted. Christian took up his gownpiece, and the two set out to ascend
the hill.

Within the room the men fell into chat till their attention was for a
moment drawn to the chimney-corner. This was large, and, in addition
to its proper recess, contained within its jambs, like many on Egdon, a
receding seat, so that a person might sit there absolutely unobserved,
provided there was no fire to light him up, as was the case now and
throughout the summer. From the niche a single object protruded into the
light from the candles on the table. It was a clay pipe, and its colour
was reddish. The men had been attracted to this object by a voice behind
the pipe asking for a light.

"Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!" said Fairway,
handing a candle. "Oh--'tis the reddleman! You've kept a quiet tongue,
young man."

"Yes, I had nothing to say," observed Venn. In a few minutes he arose
and wished the company good night.

Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.

It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy perfumes
of new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among these particularly
the scent of the fern. The lantern, dangling from Christian's hand,
brushed the feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing moths and other
winged insects, which flew out and alighted upon its horny panes.

"So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?" said Christian's
companion, after a silence. "Don't you think it very odd that it
shouldn't be given to me?"

"As man and wife be one flesh, 'twould have been all the same, I should
think," said Christian. "But my strict documents was, to give the money
into Mrs. Wildeve's hand--and 'tis well to do things right."

"No doubt," said Wildeve. Any person who had known the circumstances
might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery that
the matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at
Blooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women
themselves. Mrs. Yeobright's refusal implied that his honour was not
considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer bearer
of his wife's property.

"How very warm it is tonight, Christian!" he said, panting, when they
were nearly under Rainbarrow. "Let us sit down for a few minutes, for
Heaven's sake."

Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing the
lantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped position
hard by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently thrust one
hand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about.

"What are you rattling in there?" said Wildeve.

"Only the dice, sir," said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.
"What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! 'Tis a
game I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking 'em out and
looking at 'em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn't like
to look close before the other men, for fear they should think it bad
manners in me." Christian took them out and examined them in the hollow
of his hand by the lantern light. "That these little things should carry
such luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in 'em,
passes all I ever heard or zeed," he went on, with a fascinated gaze at
the dice, which, as is frequently the case in country places, were made
of wood, the points being burnt upon each face with the end of a wire.

"They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?"

"Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil's playthings, Mr. Wildeve?
If so, 'tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man."

"You ought to win some money, now that you've got them. Any woman would
marry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would recommend you
not to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are not. I belong to
the latter class."

"Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?"

"O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table with
only a louis, (that's a foreign sovereign), in his pocket. He played on
for twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the
bank he had played against. Then there was another man who had lost a
thousand pounds, and went to the broker's next day to sell stock, that
he might pay the debt. The man to whom he owed the money went with him
in a hackney-coach; and to pass the time they tossed who should pay
the fare. The ruined man won, and the other was tempted to continue the
game, and they played all the way. When the coachman stopped he was told
to drive home again: the whole thousand pounds had been won back by the
man who was going to sell."

"Ha--ha--splendid!" exclaimed Christian. "Go on--go on!"

"Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White's
clubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher and
higher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India, and rose
to be Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of Parliament,
and the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the children."

"Wonderful! wonderful!"

"And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had lost
his last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as before;
staked his umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again; staked his
coat and stood in his shirt-sleeves, lost again. Began taking off his
breeches, and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. With
this he won. Won back his coat, won back his hat, won back his umbrella,
his watch, his money, and went out of the door a rich man."

"Oh, 'tis too good--it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I think I will
try another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no danger can
come o't, and you can afford to lose."

"Very well," said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the lantern, he
found a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and Christian,
and sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more light, and it's
rays directed upon the stone. Christian put down a shilling, Wildeve
another, and each threw. Christian won. They played for two, Christian
won again.

"Let us try four," said Wildeve. They played for four. This time the
stakes were won by Wildeve.

"Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the
luckiest man," he observed.

"And now I have no more money!" explained Christian excitedly. "And yet,
if I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish this was
mine." He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the guineas chinked
within.

"What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve's money there?"

"Yes. 'Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married lady's
money when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her her
own all the same; and if t'other man wins, her money will go to the
lawful owner?"

"None at all."

Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean estimation
in which he was held by his wife's friends; and it cut his heart
severely. As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a
revengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.
This was to teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;
in other words, to show her if he could that her niece's husband was the
proper guardian of her niece's money.

"Well, here goes!" said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot. "I
shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always swear
my flesh don't crawl when I think o't!"

He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin's
precious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on
the stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and Christian
ventured another, winning himself this time. The game fluctuated, but
the average was in Wildeve's favour. Both men became so absorbed in
the game that they took no heed of anything but the pigmy objects
immediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern, the
dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under the light,
were the whole world to them.

At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the
whole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his
adversary.

"I don't care--I don't care!" he moaned, and desperately set about
untying his left boot to get at the other fifty. "The devil will toss me
into the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night's work, I know!
But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I'll get a wife to sit up with
me o' nights and I won't be afeard, I won't! Here's another for'ee, my
man!" He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the dice-box
was rattled again.

Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.
When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than
a bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly
or otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt's
presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn
from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and
it was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been
reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that
of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer
gambling for his wife's money, but for Yeobright's; though of this fact
Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.

It was nearly eleven o'clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
placed Yeobright's last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty
seconds it had gone the way of its companions.

Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of
remorse, "O, what shall I do with my wretched self?" he groaned. "What
shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?"

"Do? Live on just the same."

"I won't live on just the same! I'll die! I say you are a--a----"

"A man sharper than my neighbour."

"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!"

"Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly."

"I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You've got money
that isn't your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym's."

"How's that?"

"Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so."

"Oh?... Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her to have given them
to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now."

Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be
heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered
away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to
the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife,
who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel. While he was
closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring
bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the reddleman
approaching.

</CHAPTER>
<CHAPTER>
8--A New Force Disturbs the Current

Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word
being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been
seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid
it on the stone.

"You have been watching us from behind that bush?" said Wildeve.

The reddleman nodded. "Down with your stake," he said. "Or haven't you
pluck enough to go on?"

Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun
with full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in
a cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the
excitement of his recent success carried him completely away. He placed
one of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman's sovereign. "Mine is
a guinea," he said.

"A guinea that's not your own," said Venn sarcastically.

"It is my own," answered Wildeve haughtily. "It is my wife's, and what
is hers is mine."

"Very well; let's make a beginning." He shook the box, and threw eight,
ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.

This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted
to forty-five.

Down went another of the reddleman's sovereigns against his first one
which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no
pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed
the stakes.

"Here you are again," said Wildeve contemptuously. "Double the stakes."
He laid two of Thomasin's guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds.
Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers
proceeded as before.

Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning
to tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat, and the
beating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips impassively
closed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles; he scarcely
appeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an automaton; he
would have been like a red sandstone statue but for the motion of his
arm with the dice-box.

The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other,
without any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty minutes
were passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time attracted
heath-flies, moths, and other winged creatures of night, which floated
round the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about the faces of the
two players.

But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes
being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an
arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had
come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty
guineas--Thomasin's fifty, and ten of Clym's--had passed into his hands.
Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.

"'Won back his coat,'" said Venn slily.

Another throw, and the money went the same way.

"'Won back his hat,'" continued Venn.

"Oh, oh!" said Wildeve.

"'Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door a
rich man,'" added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake passed
over to him.

"Five more!" shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. "And three casts
be hanged--one shall decide."

The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed
his example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and five
points. He clapped his hands; "I have done it this time--hurrah!"

"There are two playing, and only one has thrown," said the reddleman,
quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently
converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible,
like rays in a fog.

Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.

Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes
Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the darkness,
uttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began stamping up and
down like a madman.

"It is all over, then?" said Venn.

"No, no!" cried Wildeve. "I mean to have another chance yet. I must!"

"But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?"

"I threw them away--it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am!
Here--come and help me to look for them--we must find them again."

Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the
furze and fern.

"You are not likely to find them there," said Venn, following. "What did
you do such a crazy thing as that for? Here's the box. The dice can't be
far off."

Wildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn had found
the box, and mauled the herbage right and left. In the course of a few
minutes one of the dice was found. They searched on for some time, but
no other was to be seen.

"Never mind," said Wildeve; "let's play with one."

"Agreed," said Venn.

Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and the
play went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love
with the reddleman tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of
fourteen more of the gold pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas
were his, Wildeve possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two
opponents was now singular. Apart from motions, a complete diorama
of the fluctuations of the game went on in their eyes. A diminutive
candle-flame was mirrored in each pupil, and it would have been possible
to distinguish therein between the moods of hope and the moods of
abandonment, even as regards the reddleman, though his facial muscles
betrayed nothing at all. Wildeve played on with the recklessness of
despair.

"What's that?" he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle; and they both
looked up.

They were surrounded by dusky forms between four and five feet high,
standing a few paces beyond the rays of the lantern. A moment's
inspection revealed that the encircling figures were heath-croppers,
their heads being all towards the players, at whom they gazed intently.

"Hoosh!" said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals at once
turned and galloped away. Play was again resumed.

Ten minutes passed away. Then a large death's head moth advanced from
the obscure outer air, wheeled twice round the lantern, flew straight
at the candle, and extinguished it by the force of the blow. Wildeve had
just thrown, but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast; and now
it was impossible.

"What the infernal!" he shrieked. "Now, what shall we do? Perhaps I have
thrown six--have you any matches?"

"None," said Venn.

"Christian had some--I wonder where he is. Christian!"

But there was no reply to Wildeve's shout, save a mournful whining
from the herons which were nesting lower down the vale. Both men looked
blankly round without rising. As their eyes grew accustomed to the
darkness they perceived faint greenish points of light among the
grass and fern. These lights dotted the hillside like stars of a low
magnitude.

"Ah--glowworms," said Wildeve. "Wait a minute. We can continue the
game."

Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had
gathered thirteen glowworms--as many as he could find in a space of four
or five minutes--upon a fox-glove leaf which he pulled for the purpose.
The reddleman vented a low humorous laugh when he saw his adversary
return with these. "Determined to go on, then?" he said drily.

"I always am!" said Wildeve angrily. And shaking the glowworms from
the leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the stone,
leaving a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box, over
which the thirteen tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine. The game
was again renewed. It happened to be that season of the year at which
glowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy, and the light they
yielded was more than ample for the purpose, since it is possible on
such nights to read the handwriting of a letter by the light of two or
three.

The incongruity between the men's deeds and their environment was great.
Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat, the
motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas,
the rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless players.

Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and the
solitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.

"I won't play any more--you've been tampering with the dice," he
shouted.

"How--when they were your own?" said the reddleman.

"We'll change the game: the lowest point shall win the stake--it may cut
off my ill luck. Do you refuse?"

"No--go on," said Venn.

"O, there they are again--damn them!" cried Wildeve, looking up. The
heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect
heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they
were wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in these
haunts at this untoward hour.

"What a plague those creatures are--staring at me so!" he said, and
flung a stone, which scattered them; when the game was continued as
before.

Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. Wildeve threw
three points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. The other seized the
die, and clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would bite
it in pieces. "Never give in--here are my last five!" he cried, throwing
them down. "Hang the glowworms--they are going out. Why don't you burn,
you little fools? Stir them up with a thorn."

He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over, till
the bright side of their tails was upwards.

"There's light enough. Throw on," said Venn.

Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked
eagerly. He had thrown ace. "Well done!--I said it would turn, and it
has turned." Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.

He threw ace also.

"O!" said Wildeve. "Curse me!"

The die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn looked
gloomy, threw--the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft
sides uppermost.

"I've thrown nothing at all," he said.

"Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth. Here--take your money.
Blank is less than one."

"I don't wish it."

"Take it, I say--you've won it!" And Wildeve threw the stakes against
the reddleman's chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew from
the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.

When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished
lantern in his hand, went towards the highroad. On reaching it he stood
still. The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one
direction; and that was towards Mistover. There he could hear the noise
of light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending the
hill. Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.

The vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage,
and behind the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat
Eustacia and Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist.
They turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards the temporary home
which Clym had hired and furnished, about five miles to the eastward.

Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love,
whose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical progression
with each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless division.
Brimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable of feeling, he
followed the opposite way towards the inn.

About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also
had reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing
the same wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up. When
he saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting a minute
or two, during which interval the carriage rolled on, he crossed the
road, and took a short cut through the furze and heath to a point where
the turnpike road bent round in ascending a hill. He was now again in
front of the carriage, which presently came up at a walking pace. Venn
stepped forward and showed himself.

Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym's arm was
involuntarily withdrawn from her waist. He said, "What, Diggory? You are
having a lonely walk."

"Yes--I beg your pardon for stopping you," said Venn. "But I am
waiting about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something to give her from Mrs.
Yeobright. Can you tell me if she's gone home from the party yet?"

"No. But she will be leaving soon. You may possibly meet her at the
corner."

Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his former position,
where the byroad from Mistover joined the highway. Here he remained
fixed for nearly half an hour, and then another pair of lights came down
the hill. It was the old-fashioned wheeled nondescript belonging to the
captain, and Thomasin sat in it alone, driven by Charley.

The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. "I beg pardon
for stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve," he said. "But I have something to
give you privately from Mrs. Yeobright." He handed a small parcel; it
consisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in
a piece of paper.

Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet. "That's all,
ma'am--I wish you good night," he said, and vanished from her view.

Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin's
hands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but also
the fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been based upon
Wildeve's words at the opening of the game, when he indignantly denied
that the guinea was not his own. It had not been comprehended by the
reddleman that at halfway through the performance the game was continued
with the money of another person; and it was an error which afterwards
helped to cause more misfortune than treble the loss in money value
could have done.

The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper into the
heath, till he came to a ravine where his van was standing--a spot
not more than two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout. He
entered this movable home of his, lit his lantern, and, before closing
his door for the night, stood reflecting on the circumstances of the
preceding hours. While he stood the dawn grew visible in the northeast
quarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared off, was bright
with a soft sheen at this midsummer time, though it was only between one
and two o'clock. Venn, thoroughly weary, then shut his door and flung
himself down to sleep.

</CHAPTER>

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

completion: While the marriage of Clym and Eustacia takes place, Mrs. Yeobright stays at home, miserable and unable to avoid thinking about it. When Wildeve calls to pick up something Thomasin was going to get from her aunt, though he doesn't know it is money , Mrs. Yeobright refuses to send the coins with him but decides it would be a good time to send them to Thomasin and Clym, both of whom are at Mistover. She trusts Christian Cantle with their delivery. Christian falls in with a group going to a raffle at the Quiet Woman Inn and after, to his surprise winning it, walks with Wildeve toward Mistover Knap to deliver the money. On the way when they pause for a rest, Christian is so fascinated by a pair of dice, with which he won the raffle and which Wildeve then gave him, that he wants to gamble with the innkeeper. When Wildeve discovers that Christian is carrying money for Thomasin, the innkeeper decides to win it all, at first to get back at Mrs. Yeobright, but later to benefit himself personally. After he has won all the money from Christian, Wildeve discovers that half of it was intended for Clym. Having watched the game from the shadows, Venn appears and challenges Wildeve to continue. The reddleman succeeds in winning back all the money from Wildeve, though they must finish the game with light from glowworms and only one die. Not realizing that half of the money is Clym's, Venn stops Thomasin on her way home from the wedding celebration and gives her the 100 guineas.


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 live a secluded life in the house at Alderworth, and he resumes his study, though she still hopes he will eventually take her to Paris. Mrs. Yeobright, puzzled because Clym has never acknowledged receipt of the guineas and then learning from Christian that Wildeve won them in gambling, visits Eustacia while she is at Mistover Knap. Eustacia misunderstands the older woman's questions, and they quarrel bitterly. When Eustacia tells Clym of the occasion, she brings up Paris again. Quite unexpectedly, Clym experiences severe eye trouble, an "acute inflammation" caused by too many hours of reading, and is told that it may be months before it clears up. Eustacia is greatly depressed, but Clym decides to take up furze cutting with Hymphrey. On an occasion when Eustacia discovers Clym singing while he works, they have a conversation that is bitter under the surface, both seeming to admit they no longer feel about each other as they once did.