บทที่ บทที่ 39 · Chapter XXXIX

When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his encounter

with Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself. He arrived

at the yard with the intention of putting the horse into the gig

himself (all the men having a holiday), and driving to a village on the

Budmouth Road. Despite the fearful struggle he decided still to

persevere in his journey, so as to recover himself before going indoors

and meeting the eyes of Lucetta. He wished to consider his course in a

case so serious.

When he was just on the point of driving off Whittle arrived with a

note badly addressed, and bearing the word “immediate” upon the

outside. On opening it he was surprised to see that it was unsigned. It

contained a brief request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening

about some business which he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothing

that could make it pressing; but as he was bent upon going out he

yielded to the anonymous request, particularly as he had a call to make

at Mellstock which could be included in the same tour. Thereupon he

told Whittle of his change of direction, in words which Henchard had

overheard, and set out on his way. Farfrae had not directed his man to

take the message indoors, and Whittle had not been supposed to do so on

his own responsibility.

Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance

of Longways and other of Farfrae’s men to get him out of the way for

the evening, in order that the satirical mummery should fall flat, if

it were attempted. By giving open information they would have brought

down upon their heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who

enjoyed these boisterous old games; and therefore the plan of sending a

letter recommended itself by its indirectness.

For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing with the

majority there was some truth in the scandal, which she would have to

bear as she best might.

It was about eight o’clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawing-room

alone. Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had

the candles lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting

for him by the firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of

the window-sashes a little way open that the sound of his wheels might

reach her ears early. She was leaning back in the chair, in a more

hopeful mood than she had enjoyed since her marriage. The day had been

such a success, and the temporary uneasiness which Henchard’s show of

effrontery had wrought in her disappeared with the quiet disappearance

of Henchard himself under her husband’s reproof. The floating evidences

of her absurd passion for him, and its consequences, had been

destroyed, and she really seemed to have no cause for fear.

The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by

a hubbub in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not

greatly surprise her, the afternoon having been given up to recreation

by a majority of the populace since the passage of the Royal equipages.

But her attention was at once riveted to the matter by the voice of a

maid-servant next door, who spoke from an upper window across the

street to some other maid even more elevated than she.

“Which way be they going now?” inquired the first with interest.

“I can’t be sure for a moment,” said the second, “because of the

malter’s chimbley. O yes—I can see ’em. Well, I declare, I declare!”

“What, what?” from the first, more enthusiastically.

“They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!”

“What—two of ’em—are there two figures?”

“Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows tied to one

another’s! She’s facing the head, and he’s facing the tail.”

“Is it meant for anybody in particular?”

“Well—it mid be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere

leggings; he has black whiskers, and a reddish face. ’Tis a stuffed

figure, with a falseface.”

The din was increasing now—then it lessened a little.

“There—I shan’t see, after all!” cried the disappointed first maid.

“They have gone into a back street—that’s all,” said the one who

occupied the enviable position in the attic. “There—now I have got ’em

all endways nicely!”

“What’s the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if ’tis

meant for one I’ve in mind.”

“My—why—’tis dressed just as _she_ was dressed when she sat in the

front seat at the time the play-actors came to the Town Hall!”

Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the door of the

room was quickly and softly opened. Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the

firelight.

“I have come to see you,” she said breathlessly. “I did not stop to

knock—forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the window

is open.”

Without waiting for Lucetta’s reply she crossed quickly to the window

and pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side. “Let it

be—hush!” she said peremptorily, in a dry voice, while she seized

Elizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger. Their intercourse

had been so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the

conversation without, which had thus proceeded:—

“Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-comb in

place; she’s got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured

shoes.”

Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held

her by main force.

“’Tis me!” she said, with a face pale as death. “A procession—a

scandal—an effigy of me, and him!”

The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already.

“Let us shut it out,” coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid

wildness of Lucetta’s features was growing yet more rigid and wild with

the meaning of the noise and laughter. “Let us shut it out!”

“It is of no use!” she shrieked. “He will see it, won’t he? Donald will

see it! He is just coming home—and it will break his heart—he will

never love me any more—and O, it will kill me—kill me!”

Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. “O, can’t something be done to stop

it?” she cried. “Is there nobody to do it—not one?”

She relinquished Lucetta’s hands, and ran to the door. Lucetta herself,

saying recklessly “I will see it!” turned to the window, threw up the

sash, and went out upon the balcony. Elizabeth immediately followed,

and put her arm round her to pull her in. Lucetta’s eyes were straight

upon the spectacle of the uncanny revel, now dancing rapidly. The

numerous lights round the two effigies threw them up into lurid

distinctness; it was impossible to mistake the pair for other than the

intended victims.

“Come in, come in,” implored Elizabeth; “and let me shut the window!”

“She’s me—she’s me—even to the parasol—my green parasol!” cried Lucetta

with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She stood motionless for one

second—then fell heavily to the floor.

Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington

ceased. The roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the

trampling died out like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only

indirectly conscious of this; she had rung the bell, and was bending

over Lucetta, who remained convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of

an epileptic seizure. She rang again and again, in vain; the

probability being that the servants had all run out of the house to see

more of the Demoniac Sabbath than they could see within.

At last Farfrae’s man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up;

then the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite

closed, a light was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man

sent off for a doctor. While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered

consciousness; but as soon as she remembered what had passed the fit

returned.

The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing

at his door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as

he saw the unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth’s mute

appeal, “This is serious.”

“It is a fit,” Elizabeth said.

“Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You

must send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?”

“He has driven into the country, sir,” said the parlour-maid; “to some

place on the Budmouth Road. He’s likely to be back soon.”

“Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not hurry.” The

doctor returned to the bedside again. The man was despatched, and they

soon heard him clattering out of the yard at the back.

Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of whom mention

has been already made, hearing the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines,

kits, crouds, humstrums, serpents, rams’-horns, and other historical

kinds of music as he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat

and gone out to learn the cause. He came to the corner above Farfrae’s,

and soon guessed the nature of the proceedings; for being a native of

the town he had witnessed such rough jests before. His first move was

to search hither and thither for the constables, there were two in the

town, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hiding up an alley yet

more shrivelled than usual, having some not ungrounded fears that they

might be roughly handled if seen.

“What can we two poor lammigers do against such a multitude!”

expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower’s chiding. “’Tis

tempting ’em to commit _felo de se_ upon us, and that would be the

death of the perpetrator; and we wouldn’t be the cause of a

fellow-creature’s death on no account, not we!”

“Get some help, then! Here, I’ll come with you. We’ll see what a few

words of authority can do. Quick now; have you got your staves?”

“We didn’t want the folk to notice us as law officers, being so

short-handed, sir; so we pushed our Gover’ment staves up this

water-pipe.”

“Out with ’em, and come along, for Heaven’s sake! Ah, here’s Mr.

Blowbody; that’s lucky.” (Blowbody was the third of the three borough

magistrates.)

“Well, what’s the row?” said Blowbody. “Got their names—hey?”

“No. Now,” said Grower to one of the constables, “you go with Mr.

Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the street; and I’ll go with

Stubberd straight forward. By this plan we shall have ’em between us.

Get their names only: no attack or interruption.”

Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced into Corn

Street, whence the sounds had proceeded, they were surprised that no

procession could be seen. They passed Farfrae’s, and looked to the end

of the street. The lamp flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few

loungers stood about with their hands in their pockets. Everything was

as usual.

“Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?” Grower said

magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who smoked a short

pipe and wore straps round his knees.

“Beg yer pardon, sir?” blandly said the person addressed, who was no

other than Charl, of Peter’s Finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words.

Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance. “No; we

haven’t seen anything; have we, Joe? And you was here afore I.”

Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.

“H’m—that’s odd,” said Mr. Grower. “Ah—here’s a respectable man coming

that I know by sight. Have you,” he inquired, addressing the nearing

shape of Jopp, “have you seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a

noise—skimmington riding, or something of the sort?”

“O no—nothing, sir,” Jopp replied, as if receiving the most singular

news. “But I’ve not been far tonight, so perhaps—”

“Oh, ’twas here—just here,” said the magistrate.

“Now I’ve noticed, come to think o’t that the wind in the Walk trees

makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night, sir; more than common;

so perhaps ’twas that?” Jopp suggested, as he rearranged his hand in

his greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen

tongs and a cow’s horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).

“No, no, no—d’ye think I’m a fool? Constable, come this way. They must

have gone into the back street.”

Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the

disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who

came up at this time, brought similar intelligence. Effigies, donkey,

lanterns, band, all had disappeared like the crew of _Comus_.

“Now,” said Mr. Grower, “there’s only one thing more we can do. Get ye

half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter’s

Finger. I’m much mistaken if you don’t find a clue to the perpetrators

there.”

The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance as soon as

they could, and the whole party marched off to the lane of notoriety.

It was no rapid matter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmer of

any sort offering itself to light the way, except an occasional pale

radiance through some window-curtain, or through the chink of some door

which could not be closed because of the smoky chimney within. At last

they entered the inn boldly, by the till then bolted front-door, after

a prolonged knocking of loudness commensurate with the importance of

their standing.

In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by cords as

usual for stability, an ordinary group sat drinking and smoking with

statuesque quiet of demeanour. The landlady looked mildly at the

invaders, saying in honest accents, “Good evening, gentlemen; there’s

plenty of room. I hope there’s nothing amiss?”

They looked round the room. “Surely,” said Stubberd to one of the men,

“I saw you by now in Corn Street—Mr. Grower spoke to ’ee?”

The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently. “I’ve been here this

last hour, hain’t I, Nance?” he said to the woman who meditatively

sipped her ale near him.

“Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet suppertime half-pint, and

you were here then, as well as all the rest.”

The other constable was facing the clock-case, where he saw reflected

in the glass a quick motion by the landlady. Turning sharply, he caught

her closing the oven-door.

“Something curious about that oven, ma’am!” he observed advancing,

opening it, and drawing out a tambourine.

“Ah,” she said apologetically, “that’s what we keep here to use when

there’s a little quiet dancing. You see damp weather spoils it, so I

put it there to keep it dry.”

The constable nodded knowingly, but what he knew was nothing. Nohow

could anything be elicited from this mute and inoffensive assembly. In

a few minutes the investigators went out, and joining those of their

auxiliaries who had been left at the door they pursued their way

elsewhither.