Under the Greenwood Tree

PREFACE This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west-gallery musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar officials in _Two on a Tower, A Few Crust...

MELLSTOCK-LANE To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly ...

THE TRANTER’S It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the middle of the ridge and another a...

THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE William Dewy—otherwise grandfather William—was now about seventy; yet an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his face, which remind...

GOING THE ROUNDS Shortly after ten o’clock the singing-boys arrived at the tranter’s house, which was invariably the place of meeting, and preparations were made for the start. Th...

THE LISTENERS When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had nearly died out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible in one of the windows of the up...

CHRISTMAS MORNING The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the parish. Dick’s slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining for rest, were disturbed ...

THE TRANTER’S PARTY During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the precincts of tranter Dewy’s house. The flagstone floor was swept of dust, and a sprinkling ...

THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of country-dances, opening with six-hands-round. “Before we begin,” said the tranter, “my proposa...

DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the holiday weeks at home, returned again to Mellstock. Every spare minute of the week follow...

PASSING BY THE SCHOOL It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much more frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was continually finding that his...

A MEETING OF THE QUIRE It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun appeared as a nebulous blaze of amber light, its outline being lost in cloudy masses hanging rou...

A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION “I’m afraid Dick’s a lost man,” said the tranter. “What?—no!” said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far commoner thing for his ears to report w...

THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR At six o’clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir emerged from the tranter’s door, and advanced with a firm step down the lane. This dig...

RETURNING HOME WARD “‘A took it very well, then?” said Mail, as they all walked up the hill. “He behaved like a man, ’a did so,” said the tranter. “And I’m glad we’ve let en know...

YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER’S HOUSE A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick’s on the following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter holidays...

DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL The effect of Geoffrey’s incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to restrain a considerable flow of spontaneous chat that would otherwise have burst from ...

DICK MEETS HIS FATHER For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of reflection so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that the road and scener...

DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles of dark-brown hair; light fall of little feet; pretty devices on the skirt of the dres...

FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD Dick’s spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the whip; and on Smart’s neck, not far behind his...

A CONFESSION It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering dews, when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias were laden till eleven o’clock...

AN ARRANGEMENT “That _is_ serious,” said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken for a long time. The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter’s continued wal...

GOING NUTTING Dick, dressed in his ‘second-best’ suit, burst into Fancy’s sitting-room with a glow of pleasure on his face. It was two o’clock on Friday, the day before her conte...

HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, according to the arrangement with Fancy. The landscape being concave, at the going...

FANCY IN THE RAIN The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, and Fancy Day is discovered walking from her father’s home towards Mellstock. A single vast gr...

THE SPELL Mrs. Endorfield’s advice was duly followed. “I be proper sorry that your daughter isn’t so well as she might be,” said a Mellstock man to Geoffrey one morning. “But is...

AFTER GAINING HER POINT The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might have been expected to pass off when it was the first day of smooth experience in a hither...

INTO TEMPTATION The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About five o’clock it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind she wandered into the schoolroom...

SECOND THOUGHTS The next morning the vicar rose early. The first thing he did was to write a long and careful letter to his friend in Yorkshire. Then, eating a little breakfast, h...

‘THE KNOT THERE’S NO UNTYING’ The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in the development of the seasons when country people go to bed among nearly naked t...

UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day’s premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous extent, though hav...