The Mayor of Casterbridge. Томас Харди
and drying, and refrigerating, and so on.
‘These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with,’ came in the young fellow’s voice; and after a pause, during which some operation seemed to be intently watched by them both, he exclaimed, ‘There, now, do you taste that.’
‘It’s complete!—quite restored, or—well—nearly.’
‘Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it,’ said the Scotchman. ‘To fetch it back entirely is impossible; Nature won’t stand so much as that, but heere you go a great way towards it. Well, sir, that’s the process; I don’t value it, for it can be but of little use in countries where the weather is more settled than in ours; and I’ll be only too glad if it’s of service to you.’
‘But hearken to me,’ pleaded Henchard. ‘My business, you know, is in corn and in hay; but I was brought up as a hay-trusser simply, and hay is what I understand best, though I now do more in corn than in the other. If you’ll accept the place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely, and receive a commission in addition to salary.’
‘You’re liberal—very liberal; but no, no—I cannet!’ the young man still replied, with some distress in his accents.
‘So be it!’ said Henchard conclusively. ‘Now—to change the subject—one good turn deserves another; don’t stay to finish that miserable supper. Come to my house; I can find something better for ’ee than cold ham and ale.’
Donald Farfrae was grateful—said he feared he must decline—that he wished to leave early next day.
‘Very well,’ said Henchard quickly, ‘please yourself. But I tell you, young man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it has done for the sample, you have saved my credit, stranger though you be. What shall I pay you for this knowledge?’
‘Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may not prove necessary to ye to use if often, and I don’t value it at all. I thought I might just as well let ye know, as you were in a difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye.’
Henchard paused. ‘I shan’t soon forget this,’ he said. ‘And from a stranger! … I couldn’t believe you were not the man I had engaged! Says I to myself “He knows who I am, and recommends himself by this stroke.” And yet it turns out, after all, that you are not the man who answered my advertisement, but a stranger!’
‘Ay, ay; that’s so,’ said the young man.
Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voice came thoughtfully: ‘Your forehead, Farfrae, is something like my poor brother’s—now dead and gone; and the nose, too, isn’t unlike his. You must be, what—five foot nine, I reckon? I am six foot one and a half out of my shoes. But what of that? In my business, ’tis true that strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgement and knowledge are what keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae; bad at figures—a rule o’ thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse—I can see that. I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet you are not for me. Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young man I thought you were, what’s the difference? Can’t ye stay just the same: Have you really made up your mind about this American notion? I won’t mince matters. I feel you would be invaluable to me—that needn’t be said—and if you bide and be my manager, I will make it worth your while.’
‘My plans are fixed,’ said the young man, in negative tones. ‘I have formed a scheme, and so we need na say any more about it. But will you not drink with me, sir? I find this Casterbridge ale warreming to the stomach.’
‘No, no; I fain would, but I can’t,’ said Henchard gravely, the scraping of his chair informing the listeners that he was rising to leave. ‘When I was a young man I went in for that sort of thing too strong—far too strong—and was well-nigh ruined by it! I did a deed on account of it which I shall be ashamed of to my dying day. I made such an impression on me that I swore, there and then, that I’d drink nothing stronger than tea for as many years as I was old that day. I have kept my oath; and though, Farfrae, I am sometimes that dry in the dog days that I could drink a quarter-barrel to the pitching, I think o’ my oath, and touch no strong drink at all.’
‘I’ll no’ press ye, sir—I’ll no’ press ye. I respect your vow.’
‘Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt,’ said Henchard, with strong feeling in his tones. ‘But it will be long before I see one that would suit me so well!’
The young man appeared much moved by Henchard’s warm convictions of his value. He was silent till they reached the door. ‘I wish I could stay—sincerely I would like to,’ he replied. ‘But no—it cannet be! it cannet! I want to see the warrld.’
Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her mother remained each in her thoughts over their meal, the mother’s face being strangely bright since Henchard’s avowal of shame for a past action. The quivering of the partition to its core presently denoted that Donald Farfrae had again rung his bell, no doubt to have his supper removed; for humming a tune, and walking up and down, he seemed to be attracted by the lively burst of conversation and melody from the general company below. He sauntered out upon the landing, and descended the staircase.
When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray, and also that used by her mother and herself, she found the bustle of serving to be at its height below, as it always was at this hour. The young woman shrank from having anything to do with the ground-floor serving, and crept silently about observing the scene—so new to her, fresh from the seclusion of a seaside cottage. In the general sitting-room, which was large, she remarked the two or three dozen strong-backed chairs that stood round against the wall, each fitted with its genial occupant; the sanded floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise from the wall within the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator of all that went on without herself being particularly seen.
The young Scotchman had just joined the guests. These, in addition to the respectable master-tradesmen occupying the seats of privilege in the bow-window and its neighbourhood, included an inferior set at the unlighted end, whose seats were mere benches against the wall, and who drank from cups instead of from glasses. Among the latter she noticed some of those personages who had stood outside the windows of the King’s Arms.
Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel ventilator in one of the panes, which would suddenly start off spinning with a jingling sound, as suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again.
While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of a song greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent of peculiar charm. There had been some singing before she came down; and now the Scotchman had made himself so soon at home that, at the request of some of the master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a ditty.
Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing to listen; and the longer she listened the more she was enraptured. She had never heard any singing like this; and it was evident that the majority of the audience had not heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a much greater degree than usual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nor dipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten them, nor pushed the mug to their neighbours. The singer himself grew emotional, till she could imagine a tear in his eye as the words went on:—
‘It’s hame, and its’s hame, hame fain would I be,
O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
There’s an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,
As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again;
When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,
The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!’
There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping