CHAPTER XXXIII

IN THE SUN—A HARBINGER

A week passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there

any explanation of her Gilpin’s rig.

Then a note came for Maryann, stating that the business which had

called her mistress to Bath still detained her there; but that she

hoped to return in the course of another week.

Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were

a-field under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air and

short shadows of noon. Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning

of blue-bottle flies; out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss

of tressy oat-ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of

amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath. Every drop of moisture not in

the men’s bottles and flagons in the form of cider was raining as

perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. Drought was everywhere

else.

They were about to withdraw for a while into the charitable shade of a

tree in the fence, when Coggan saw a figure in a blue coat and brass

buttons running to them across the field.

“I wonder who that is?” he said.

“I hope nothing is wrong about mistress,” said Maryann, who with some

other women was tying the bundles (oats being always sheafed on this

farm), “but an unlucky token came to me indoors this morning. I went to

unlock the door and dropped the key, and it fell upon the stone floor

and broke into two pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful bodement. I

wish mis’ess was home.”

“’Tis Cain Ball,” said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his reaphook.

Oak was not bound by his agreement to assist in the corn-field; but the

harvest month is an anxious time for a farmer, and the corn was

Bathsheba’s, so he lent a hand.

“He’s dressed up in his best clothes,” said Matthew Moon. “He hev been

away from home for a few days, since he’s had that felon upon his

finger; for ’a said, since I can’t work I’ll have a hollerday.”

“A good time for one—a’ excellent time,” said Joseph Poorgrass,

straightening his back; for he, like some of the others, had a way of

resting a while from his labour on such hot days for reasons

preternaturally small; of which Cain Ball’s advent on a week-day in his

Sunday-clothes was one of the first magnitude. “’Twas a bad leg allowed

me to read the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and Mark Clark learnt All-Fours in

a whitlow.”

“Ay, and my father put his arm out of joint to have time to go

courting,” said Jan Coggan, in an eclipsing tone, wiping his face with

his shirt-sleeve and thrusting back his hat upon the nape of his neck.

By this time Cainy was nearing the group of harvesters, and was

perceived to be carrying a large slice of bread and ham in one hand,

from which he took mouthfuls as he ran, the other being wrapped in a

bandage. When he came close, his mouth assumed the bell shape, and he

began to cough violently.

“Now, Cainy!” said Gabriel, sternly. “How many more times must I tell

you to keep from running so fast when you be eating? You’ll choke

yourself some day, that’s what you’ll do, Cain Ball.”

“Hok-hok-hok!” replied Cain. “A crumb of my victuals went the wrong

way—hok-hok! That’s what ’tis, Mister Oak! And I’ve been visiting to

Bath because I had a felon on my thumb; yes, and I’ve seen—ahok-hok!”

Directly Cain mentioned Bath, they all threw down their hooks and forks

and drew round him. Unfortunately the erratic crumb did not improve his

narrative powers, and a supplementary hindrance was that of a sneeze,

jerking from his pocket his rather large watch, which dangled in front

of the young man pendulum-wise.

“Yes,” he continued, directing his thoughts to Bath and letting his

eyes follow, “I’ve seed the world at last—yes—and I’ve seed our

mis’ess—ahok-hok-hok!”

“Bother the boy!” said Gabriel. “Something is always going the wrong

way down your throat, so that you can’t tell what’s necessary to be

told.”

“Ahok! there! Please, Mister Oak, a gnat have just fleed into my

stomach and brought the cough on again!”

“Yes, that’s just it. Your mouth is always open, you young rascal!”

“’Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly down yer throat, pore boy!” said

Matthew Moon.

“Well, at Bath you saw—” prompted Gabriel.

“I saw our mistress,” continued the junior shepherd, “and a sojer,

walking along. And bymeby they got closer and closer, and then they

went arm-in-crook, like courting complete—hok-hok! like courting

complete—hok!—courting complete—” Losing the thread of his narrative at

this point simultaneously with his loss of breath, their informant

looked up and down the field apparently for some clue to it. “Well, I

see our mis’ess and a soldier—a-ha-a-wk!”

“Damn the boy!” said Gabriel.

“’Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if ye’ll excuse it,” said Cain Ball,

looking reproachfully at Oak, with eyes drenched in their own dew.

“Here’s some cider for him—that’ll cure his throat,” said Jan Coggan,

lifting a flagon of cider, pulling out the cork, and applying the hole

to Cainy’s mouth; Joseph Poorgrass in the meantime beginning to think

apprehensively of the serious consequences that would follow Cainy

Ball’s strangulation in his cough, and the history of his Bath

adventures dying with him.

“For my poor self, I always say ‘please God’ afore I do anything,” said

Joseph, in an unboastful voice; “and so should you, Cain Ball. ’Tis a

great safeguard, and might perhaps save you from being choked to death

some day.”

Mr. Coggan poured the liquor with unstinted liberality at the suffering

Cain’s circular mouth; half of it running down the side of the flagon,

and half of what reached his mouth running down outside his throat, and

half of what ran in going the wrong way, and being coughed and sneezed

around the persons of the gathered reapers in the form of a cider fog,

which for a moment hung in the sunny air like a small exhalation.

“There’s a great clumsy sneeze! Why can’t ye have better manners, you

young dog!” said Coggan, withdrawing the flagon.

“The cider went up my nose!” cried Cainy, as soon as he could speak;

“and now ’tis gone down my neck, and into my poor dumb felon, and over

my shiny buttons and all my best cloze!”

“The poor lad’s cough is terrible unfortunate,” said Matthew Moon. “And

a great history on hand, too. Bump his back, shepherd.”

“’Tis my nater,” mourned Cain. “Mother says I always was so excitable

when my feelings were worked up to a point!”

“True, true,” said Joseph Poorgrass. “The Balls were always a very

excitable family. I knowed the boy’s grandfather—a truly nervous and

modest man, even to genteel refinery. ’Twas blush, blush with him,

almost as much as ’tis with me—not but that ’tis a fault in me!”

“Not at all, Master Poorgrass,” said Coggan. “’Tis a very noble quality

in ye.”

“Heh-heh! well, I wish to noise nothing abroad—nothing at all,”

murmured Poorgrass, diffidently. “But we be born to things—that’s true.

Yet I would rather my trifle were hid; though, perhaps, a high nater is

a little high, and at my birth all things were possible to my Maker,

and he may have begrudged no gifts.... But under your bushel, Joseph!

under your bushel with ’ee! A strange desire, neighbours, this desire

to hide, and no praise due. Yet there is a Sermon on the Mount with a

calendar of the blessed at the head, and certain meek men may be named

therein.”

“Cainy’s grandfather was a very clever man,” said Matthew Moon.

“Invented a’ apple-tree out of his own head, which is called by his

name to this day—the Early Ball. You know ’em, Jan? A Quarrenden

grafted on a Tom Putt, and a Rathe-ripe upon top o’ that again. ’Tis

trew ’a used to bide about in a public-house wi’ a ’ooman in a way he

had no business to by rights, but there—’a were a clever man in the

sense of the term.”

“Now then,” said Gabriel, impatiently, “what did you see, Cain?”

“I seed our mis’ess go into a sort of a park place, where there’s

seats, and shrubs and flowers, arm-in-crook with a sojer,” continued

Cainy, firmly, and with a dim sense that his words were very effective

as regarded Gabriel’s emotions. “And I think the sojer was Sergeant

Troy. And they sat there together for more than half-an-hour, talking

moving things, and she once was crying a’most to death. And when they

came out her eyes were shining and she was as white as a lily; and they

looked into one another’s faces, as far-gone friendly as a man and

woman can be.”

Gabriel’s features seemed to get thinner. “Well, what did you see

besides?”

“Oh, all sorts.”

“White as a lily? You are sure ’twas she?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what besides?”

“Great glass windows to the shops, and great clouds in the sky, full of

rain, and old wooden trees in the country round.”

“You stun-poll! What will ye say next?” said Coggan.

“Let en alone,” interposed Joseph Poorgrass. “The boy’s meaning is that

the sky and the earth in the kingdom of Bath is not altogether

different from ours here. ’Tis for our good to gain knowledge of

strange cities, and as such the boy’s words should be suffered, so to

speak it.”

“And the people of Bath,” continued Cain, “never need to light their

fires except as a luxury, for the water springs up out of the earth

ready boiled for use.”

“’Tis true as the light,” testified Matthew Moon. “I’ve heard other

navigators say the same thing.”

“They drink nothing else there,” said Cain, “and seem to enjoy it, to

see how they swaller it down.”

“Well, it seems a barbarian practice enough to us, but I daresay the

natives think nothing o’ it,” said Matthew.

“And don’t victuals spring up as well as drink?” asked Coggan, twirling

his eye.

“No—I own to a blot there in Bath—a true blot. God didn’t provide ’em

with victuals as well as drink, and ’twas a drawback I couldn’t get

over at all.”

“Well, ’tis a curious place, to say the least,” observed Moon; “and it

must be a curious people that live therein.”

“Miss Everdene and the soldier were walking about together, you say?”

said Gabriel, returning to the group.

“Ay, and she wore a beautiful gold-colour silk gown, trimmed with black

lace, that would have stood alone ’ithout legs inside if required.

’Twas a very winsome sight; and her hair was brushed splendid. And when

the sun shone upon the bright gown and his red coat—my! how handsome

they looked. You could see ’em all the length of the street.”

“And what then?” murmured Gabriel.

“And then I went into Griffin’s to hae my boots hobbed, and then I went

to Riggs’s batty-cake shop, and asked ’em for a penneth of the cheapest

and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy, but not quite. And

whilst I was chawing ’em down I walked on and seed a clock with a face

as big as a baking trendle—”

“But that’s nothing to do with mistress!”

“I’m coming to that, if you’ll leave me alone, Mister Oak!”

remonstrated Cainy. “If you excites me, perhaps you’ll bring on my

cough, and then I shan’t be able to tell ye nothing.”

“Yes—let him tell it his own way,” said Coggan.

Gabriel settled into a despairing attitude of patience, and Cainy went

on:—

“And there were great large houses, and more people all the week long

than at Weatherbury club-walking on White Tuesdays. And I went to grand

churches and chapels. And how the parson would pray! Yes; he would

kneel down and put up his hands together, and make the holy gold rings

on his fingers gleam and twinkle in yer eyes, that he’d earned by

praying so excellent well!—Ah yes, I wish I lived there.”

“Our poor Parson Thirdly can’t get no money to buy such rings,” said

Matthew Moon, thoughtfully. “And as good a man as ever walked. I don’t

believe poor Thirdly have a single one, even of humblest tin or copper.

Such a great ornament as they’d be to him on a dull afternoon, when

he’s up in the pulpit lighted by the wax candles! But ’tis impossible,

poor man. Ah, to think how unequal things be.”

“Perhaps he’s made of different stuff than to wear ’em,” said Gabriel,

grimly. “Well, that’s enough of this. Go on, Cainy—quick.”

“Oh—and the new style of parsons wear moustaches and long beards,”

continued the illustrious traveller, “and look like Moses and Aaron

complete, and make we fokes in the congregation feel all over like the

children of Israel.”

“A very right feeling—very,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“And there’s two religions going on in the nation now—High Church and

High Chapel. And, thinks I, I’ll play fair; so I went to High Church in

the morning, and High Chapel in the afternoon.”

“A right and proper boy,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“Well, at High Church they pray singing, and worship all the colours of

the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray preaching, and worship drab

and whitewash only. And then—I didn’t see no more of Miss Everdene at

all.”

“Why didn’t you say so afore, then?” exclaimed Oak, with much

disappointment.

“Ah,” said Matthew Moon, “she’ll wish her cake dough if so be she’s

over intimate with that man.”

“She’s not over intimate with him,” said Gabriel, indignantly.

“She would know better,” said Coggan. “Our mis’ess has too much sense

under they knots of black hair to do such a mad thing.”

“You see, he’s not a coarse, ignorant man, for he was well brought up,”

said Matthew, dubiously. “’Twas only wildness that made him a soldier,

and maids rather like your man of sin.”

“Now, Cain Ball,” said Gabriel restlessly, “can you swear in the most

awful form that the woman you saw was Miss Everdene?”

“Cain Ball, you be no longer a babe and suckling,” said Joseph in the

sepulchral tone the circumstances demanded, “and you know what taking

an oath is. ’Tis a horrible testament mind ye, which you say and seal

with your blood-stone, and the prophet Matthew tells us that on

whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now, before all

the work-folk here assembled, can you swear to your words as the

shepherd asks ye?”

“Please no, Mister Oak!” said Cainy, looking from one to the other with

great uneasiness at the spiritual magnitude of the position. “I don’t

mind saying ’tis true, but I don’t like to say ’tis damn true, if

that’s what you mane.”

“Cain, Cain, how can you!” asked Joseph sternly. “You be asked to swear

in a holy manner, and you swear like wicked Shimei, the son of Gera,

who cursed as he came. Young man, fie!”

“No, I don’t! ’Tis you want to squander a pore boy’s soul, Joseph

Poorgrass—that’s what ’tis!” said Cain, beginning to cry. “All I mane

is that in common truth ’twas Miss Everdene and Sergeant Troy, but in

the horrible so-help-me truth that ye want to make of it perhaps ’twas

somebody else!”

“There’s no getting at the rights of it,” said Gabriel, turning to his

work.

“Cain Ball, you’ll come to a bit of bread!” groaned Joseph Poorgrass.

Then the reapers’ hooks were flourished again, and the old sounds went

on. Gabriel, without making any pretence of being lively, did nothing

to show that he was particularly dull. However, Coggan knew pretty

nearly how the land lay, and when they were in a nook together he said—

“Don’t take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose

sweetheart she is, since she can’t be yours?”

“That’s the very thing I say to myself,” said Gabriel.