Chapter Chapter 33 · Chapter XXXIII

At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivial

custom—scarcely recognized as such, yet none the less established. On

the afternoon of every Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridge

journeymen—steady churchgoers and sedate characters—having attended

service, filed from the church doors across the way to the Three

Mariners Inn. The rear was usually brought up by the choir, with their

bass-viols, fiddles, and flutes under their arms.

The great point, the point of honour, on these sacred occasions was for

each man to strictly limit himself to half-a-pint of liquor. This

scrupulosity was so well understood by the landlord that the whole

company was served in cups of that measure. They were all exactly

alike—straight-sided, with two leafless lime-trees done in eel-brown on

the sides—one towards the drinker’s lips, the other confronting his

comrade. To wonder how many of these cups the landlord possessed

altogether was a favourite exercise of children in the marvellous.

Forty at least might have been seen at these times in the large room,

forming a ring round the margin of the great sixteen-legged oak table,

like the monolithic circle of Stonehenge in its pristine days. Outside

and above the forty cups came a circle of forty smoke-jets from forty

clay pipes; outside the pipes the countenances of the forty

church-goers, supported at the back by a circle of forty chairs.

The conversation was not the conversation of week-days, but a thing

altogether finer in point and higher in tone. They invariably discussed

the sermon, dissecting it, weighing it, as above or below the

average—the general tendency being to regard it as a scientific feat or

performance which had no relation to their own lives, except as between

critics and the thing criticized. The bass-viol player and the clerk

usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account of their

official connection with the preacher.

Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchard as the place for

closing his long term of dramless years. He had so timed his entry as

to be well established in the large room by the time the forty

church-goers entered to their customary cups. The flush upon his face

proclaimed at once that the vow of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the

era of recklessness begun anew. He was seated on a small table, drawn

up to the side of the massive oak board reserved for the churchmen, a

few of whom nodded to him as they took their places and said, “How be

ye, Mr. Henchard? Quite a stranger here.”

Henchard did not take the trouble to reply for a few moments, and his

eyes rested on his stretched-out legs and boots. “Yes,” he said at

length; “that’s true. I’ve been down in spirit for weeks; some of ye

know the cause. I am better now, but not quite serene. I want you

fellows of the choir to strike up a tune; and what with that and this

brew of Stannidge’s, I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my

minor key.”

“With all my heart,” said the first fiddle. “We’ve let back our

strings, that’s true, but we can soon pull ’em up again. Sound A,

neighbours, and give the man a stave.”

“I don’t care a curse what the words be,” said Henchard. “Hymns,

ballets, or rantipole rubbish; the Rogue’s March or the cherubim’s

warble—’tis all the same to me if ’tis good harmony, and well put out.”

“Well—heh, heh—it may be we can do that, and not a man among us that

have sat in the gallery less than twenty year,” said the leader of the

band. “As ’tis Sunday, neighbours, suppose we raise the Fourth Psa’am,

to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by me?”

“Hang Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by thee!” said Henchard. “Chuck

across one of your psalters—old Wiltshire is the only tune worth

singing—the psalm-tune that would make my blood ebb and flow like the

sea when I was a steady chap. I’ll find some words to fit en.” He took

one of the psalters and began turning over the leaves.

Chancing to look out of the window at that moment he saw a flock of

people passing by, and perceived them to be the congregation of the

upper church, now just dismissed, their sermon having been a longer one

than that the lower parish was favoured with. Among the rest of the

leading inhabitants walked Mr. Councillor Farfrae with Lucetta upon his

arm, the observed and imitated of all the smaller tradesmen’s

womankind. Henchard’s mouth changed a little, and he continued to turn

over the leaves.

“Now then,” he said, “Psalm the Hundred-and-Ninth, to the tune of

Wiltshire: verses ten to fifteen. I gi’e ye the words:

“His seed shall orphans be, his wife

A widow plunged in grief;

His vagrant children beg their bread

Where none can give relief.

His ill-got riches shall be made

To usurers a prey;

The fruit of all his toil shall be

By strangers borne away.

None shall be found that to his wants

Their mercy will extend,

Or to his helpless orphan seed

The least assistance lend.

A swift destruction soon shall seize

On his unhappy race;

And the next age his hated name

Shall utterly deface.”

“I know the Psa’am—I know the Psa’am!” said the leader hastily; “but I

would as lief not sing it. ’Twasn’t made for singing. We chose it once

when the gipsy stole the pa’son’s mare, thinking to please him, but

pa’son were quite upset. Whatever Servant David were thinking about

when he made a Psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I

can’t fathom! Now then, the Fourth Psalm, to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as

improved by me.”

“’Od seize your sauce—I tell ye to sing the Hundred-and-Ninth to

Wiltshire, and sing it you shall!” roared Henchard. “Not a single one

of all the droning crew of ye goes out of this room till that Psalm is

sung!” He slipped off the table, seized the poker, and going to the

door placed his back against it. “Now then, go ahead, if you don’t wish

to have your cust pates broke!”

“Don’t ’ee, don’t ’ee take on so!—As ’tis the Sabbath-day, and ’tis

Servant David’s words and not ours, perhaps we don’t mind for once,

hey?” said one of the terrified choir, looking round upon the rest. So

the instruments were tuned and the comminatory verses sung.

“Thank ye, thank ye,” said Henchard in a softened voice, his eyes

growing downcast, and his manner that of a man much moved by the

strains. “Don’t you blame David,” he went on in low tones, shaking his

head without raising his eyes. “He knew what he was about when he wrote

that!... If I could afford it, be hanged if I wouldn’t keep a church

choir at my own expense to play and sing to me at these low, dark times

of my life. But the bitter thing is, that when I was rich I didn’t need

what I could have, and now I be poor I can’t have what I need!”

While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrae passed again, this time

homeward, it being their custom to take, like others, a short walk out

on the highway and back, between church and tea-time. “There’s the man

we’ve been singing about,” said Henchard.

The players and singers turned their heads and saw his meaning. “Heaven

forbid!” said the bass-player.

“’Tis the man,” repeated Henchard doggedly.

“Then if I’d known,” said the performer on the clarionet solemnly,

“that ’twas meant for a living man, nothing should have drawn out of my

wynd-pipe the breath for that Psalm, so help me!”

“Nor from mine,” said the first singer. “But, thought I, as it was made

so long ago perhaps there isn’t much in it, so I’ll oblige a neighbour;

for there’s nothing to be said against the tune.”

“Ah, my boys, you’ve sung it,” said Henchard triumphantly. “As for him,

it was partly by his songs that he got over me, and heaved me out.... I

could double him up like that—and yet I don’t.” He laid the poker

across his knee, bent it as if it were a twig, flung it down, and came

away from the door.

It was at this time that Elizabeth-Jane, having heard where her

stepfather was, entered the room with a pale and agonized countenance.

The choir and the rest of the company moved off, in accordance with

their half-pint regulation. Elizabeth-Jane went up to Henchard, and

entreated him to accompany her home.

By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature had burnt down, and

having drunk no great quantity as yet he was inclined to acquiesce. She

took his arm, and together they went on. Henchard walked blankly, like

a blind man, repeating to himself the last words of the singers—

“And the next age his hated name

Shall utterly deface.”

At length he said to her, “I am a man to my word. I have kept my oath

for twenty-one years; and now I can drink with a good conscience.... If

I don’t do for him—well, I am a fearful practical joker when I choose!

He has taken away everything from me, and by heavens, if I meet him I

won’t answer for my deeds!”

These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth—all the more by reason of

the still determination of Henchard’s mien.

“What will you do?” she asked cautiously, while trembling with

disquietude, and guessing Henchard’s allusion only too well.

Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had reached his

cottage. “May I come in?” she said.

“No, no; not to-day,” said Henchard; and she went away; feeling that to

caution Farfrae was almost her duty, as it was certainly her strong

desire.

As on the Sunday, so on the week-days, Farfrae and Lucetta might have

been seen flitting about the town like two butterflies—or rather like a

bee and a butterfly in league for life. She seemed to take no pleasure

in going anywhere except in her husband’s company; and hence when

business would not permit him to waste an afternoon she remained

indoors waiting for the time to pass till his return, her face being

visible to Elizabeth-Jane from her window aloft. The latter, however,

did not say to herself that Farfrae should be thankful for such

devotion, but, full of her reading, she cited Rosalind’s exclamation:

“Mistress, know yourself; down on your knees and thank Heaven fasting

for a good man’s love.”

She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One day he answered her inquiry

for his health by saying that he could not endure Abel Whittle’s

pitying eyes upon him while they worked together in the yard. “He is

such a fool,” said Henchard, “that he can never get out of his mind the

time when I was master there.”

“I’ll come and wimble for you instead of him, if you will allow me,”

said she. Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunity of

observing the general position of affairs on Farfrae’s premises now

that her stepfather was a workman there. Henchard’s threats had alarmed

her so much that she wished to see his behaviour when the two were face

to face.

For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make any

appearance. Then one afternoon the green door opened, and through came,

first Farfrae, and at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wife

forward without hesitation, it being obvious that he had no suspicion

whatever of any antecedents in common between her and the now

journeyman hay-trusser.

Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them

fixed on the bond he twisted, as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling

of delicacy, which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything that might

seem like triumphing over a fallen rival, led him to keep away from the

hay-barn where Henchard and his daughter were working, and to go on to

the corn department. Meanwhile Lucetta, never having been informed that

Henchard had entered her husband’s service, rambled straight on to the

barn, where she came suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little

“Oh!” which the happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear.

Henchard, with withering humility of demeanour, touched the brim of his

hat to her as Whittle and the rest had done, to which she breathed a

dead-alive “Good afternoon.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” said Henchard, as if he had not heard.

“I said good afternoon,” she faltered.

“O yes, good afternoon, ma’am,” he replied, touching his hat again. “I

am glad to see you, ma’am.” Lucetta looked embarrassed, and Henchard

continued: “For we humble workmen here feel it a great honour that a

lady should look in and take an interest in us.”

She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter, too

unendurable.

“Can you tell me the time, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said hastily; “half-past four.”

“Thank ’ee. An hour and a half longer before we are released from work.

Ah, ma’am, we of the lower classes know nothing of the gay leisure that

such as you enjoy!”

As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him, nodded and smiled to

Elizabeth-Jane, and joined her husband at the other end of the

enclosure, where she could be seen leading him away by the outer gates,

so as to avoid passing Henchard again. That she had been taken by

surprise was obvious. The result of this casual rencounter was that the

next morning a note was put into Henchard’s hand by the postman.

“Will you,” said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she could put into

a small communication, “will you kindly undertake not to speak to me in

the biting undertones you used to-day, if I walk through the yard at

any time? I bear you no ill-will, and I am only too glad that you

should have employment of my dear husband; but in common fairness treat

me as his wife, and do not try to make me wretched by covert sneers. I

have committed no crime, and done you no injury.”

“Poor fool!” said Henchard with fond savagery, holding out the note.

“To know no better than commit herself in writing like this! Why, if I

were to show that to her dear husband—pooh!” He threw the letter into

the fire.

Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would

rather have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such

close quarters a second time. The gulf between them was growing wider

every day. Farfrae was always considerate to his fallen acquaintance;

but it was impossible that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard

the ex-corn-merchant as more than one of his other workmen. Henchard

saw this, and concealed his feelings under a cover of stolidity,

fortifying his heart by drinking more freely at the Three Mariners

every evening.

Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his taking other

liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at five o’clock. Arriving

one day on this errand she found her stepfather was measuring up

clover-seed and rape-seed in the corn-stores on the top floor, and she

ascended to him. Each floor had a door opening into the air under a

cat-head, from which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks.

When Elizabeth’s head rose through the trap she perceived that the

upper door was open, and that her stepfather and Farfrae stood just

within it in conversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge, and

Henchard a little way behind. Not to interrupt them she remained on the

steps without raising her head any higher. While waiting thus she

saw—or fancied she saw, for she had a terror of feeling certain—her

stepfather slowly raise his hand to a level behind Farfrae’s shoulders,

a curious expression taking possession of his face. The young man was

quite unconscious of the action, which was so indirect that, if Farfrae

had observed it, he might almost have regarded it as an idle

outstretching of the arm. But it would have been possible, by a

comparatively light touch, to push Farfrae off his balance, and send

him head over heels into the air.

Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this _might_

have meant. As soon as they turned she mechanically took the tea to

Henchard, left it, and went away. Reflecting, she endeavoured to assure

herself that the movement was an idle eccentricity, and no more. Yet,

on the other hand, his subordinate position in an establishment where

he once had been master might be acting on him like an irritant poison;

and she finally resolved to caution Donald.