Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (288 page)

Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would soon be well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume was wafted across his path, and he stood still for a moment to inhale the familiar scent. It was the place at which, four hours earlier, his mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered with shepherd’s-thyme. While he stood a sound between a breathing and a moan suddenly reached his ears.

He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there save the verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an unbroken line. He moved a few steps in that direction, and now he perceived a recumbent figure almost close to his feet.

Among the different possibilities as to the person’s individuality there did not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of his own family. Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of doors at these times, to save a long journey homeward and back again; but Clym remembered the moan and looked closer, and saw that the form was feminine; and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave. But he was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother till he stooped and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.

His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish which would have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary interval that elapsed before he became conscious that something must be done all sense of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and his mother were as when he was a child with her many years ago on this heath at hours similar to the present. Then he awoke to activity; and bending yet lower he found that she still breathed, and that her breath though feeble was regular, except when disturbed by an occasional gasp.

“O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill — you are not dying?” he cried, pressing his lips to her face. “I am your Clym. How did you come here? What does it all mean?”

At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia had caused was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present joined continuously with that friendly past that had been their experience before the division.

She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and then Clym strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be necessary to get her away from the spot before the dews were intense. He was able-bodied, and his mother was thin. He clasped his arms round her, lifted her a little, and said, “Does that hurt you?”

She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went onward with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever he passed over a sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation there was reflected from its surface into his face the heat which it had imbibed during the day. At the beginning of his undertaking he had thought but little of the distance which yet would have to be traversed before Blooms-End could be reached; but though he had slept that afternoon he soon began to feel the weight of his burden. Thus he proceeded, like Aeneas with his father; the bats circling round his head, nightjars flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not a human being within call.

While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited signs of restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if his arms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked around. The point they had now reached, though far from any road, was not more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages occupied by Fairway, Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut, built of clods and covered with thin turves, but now entirely disused. The simple outline of the lonely shed was visible, and thither he determined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived he laid her down carefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with his pocketknife an armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within the shed, which was entirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon; then he ran with all his might towards the dwelling of Fairway.

Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken breathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the line between heath and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with Fairway, Humphrey, and Susan Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at Fairway’s, Christian and Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter behind. They had brought a lantern and matches, water, a pillow, and a few other articles which had occurred to their minds in the hurry of the moment. Sam had been despatched back again for brandy, and a boy brought Fairway’s pony, upon which he rode off to the nearest medical man, with directions to call at Wildeve’s on his way, and inform Thomasin that her aunt was unwell.

Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light of the lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to signify by signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at length understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was swollen and red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a more livid colour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a pea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose above the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.

“I know what it is,” cried Sam. “She has been stung by an adder!”

“Yes,” said Clym instantly. “I remember when I was a child seeing just such a bite. O, my poor mother!”

“It was my father who was bit,” said Sam. “And there’s only one way to cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and the only way to get that is by frying them. That’s what they did for him.”

“‘Tis an old remedy,” said Clym distrustfully, “and I have doubts about it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes.”

“‘Tis a sure cure,” said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. “I’ve used it when I used to go out nursing.”

“Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them,” said Clym gloomily.

“I will see what I can do,” said Sam.

He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it.

“I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be,” said Sam. “These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as they don’t die till the sun goes down they can’t be very stale meat.”

The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature, and the creature saw her — she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes.

“Look at that,” murmured Christian Cantle. “Neighbours, how do we know but that something of the old serpent in God’s garden, that gied the apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes still? Look at his eye — for all the world like a villainous sort of black currant. ‘Tis to be hoped he can’t ill-wish us! There’s folks in heath who’ve been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder as long as I live.”

“Well, ‘tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can’t help it,” said Grandfer Cantle. “‘Twould have saved me many a brave danger in my time.”

“I fancy I heard something outside the shed,” said Christian. “I wish troubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his courage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he should see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!”

“Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do that,” said Sam.

“Well, there’s calamities where we least expect it, whether or no. Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d’ye think we should be took up and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?”

“No, they couldn’t bring it in as that,” said Sam, “unless they could prove we had been poachers at some time of our lives. But she’ll fetch round.”

“Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a day’s work for’t,” said Grandfer Cantle. “Such is my spirit when I am on my mettle. But perhaps ‘tis natural in a man trained for war. Yes, I’ve gone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me after I joined the Locals in four.” He shook his head and smiled at a mental picture of himself in uniform. “I was always first in the most galliantest scrapes in my younger days!”

“I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool afore,” said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it with his breath.

“D’ye think so, Timothy?” said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward to Fairway’s side with sudden depression in his face. “Then a man may feel for years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about himself after all?”

“Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some more sticks. ‘Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life and death’s in mangling.”

“Yes, yes,” said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. “Well, this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I shouldn’t have the heart to play tunes upon ‘em now.”

Susan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed and the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into lengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing and crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the carcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the liquid and anointed the wound.

CHAPTER 8

Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil

In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth, had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The consequences which might result from Clym’s discovery that his mother had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable, and this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the dreadful.

To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any time, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of the excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into restlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by the probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion between Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation, and her slumbering activities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she had opened the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake, and the excuse would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing could save her from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock. Yet, instead of blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had framed her situation and ruled her lot.

At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by day, and when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved to go out in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his return. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching, and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his car.

“I can’t stay a minute, thank ye,” he answered to her greeting. “I am driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the news. Perhaps you have heard — about Mr. Wildeve’s fortune?”

“No,” said Eustacia blankly.

“Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds — uncle died in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending home, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come into everything, without in the least expecting it.”

Eustacia stood motionless awhile. “How long has he known of this?” she asked.

“Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten o’clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man. What a fool you were, Eustacia!”

“In what way?” she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.

“Why, in not sticking to him when you had him.”

“Had him, indeed!”

“I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately; and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had known; but since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why the deuce didn’t you stick to him?”

Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon that subject as he if she chose.

“And how is your poor purblind husband?” continued the old man. “Not a bad fellow either, as far as he goes.”

“He is quite well.”

“It is a good thing for his cousin what-d’ye-call-her? By George, you ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you want any assistance? What’s mine is yours, you know.”

“Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present,” she said coldly. “Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime, because he can do nothing else.”

“He is paid for his pastime, isn’t he? Three shillings a hundred, I heard.”