But how live in that city? At present he had no income at all. He

had no trade or calling of any dignity or stability whatever on which

he could subsist while carrying out an intellectual labour which

might spread over many years.

What was most required by citizens? Food, clothing, and shelter.

An income from any work in preparing the first would be too meagre;

for making the second he felt a distaste; the preparation of the

third requisite he inclined to. They built in a city; therefore he

would learn to build. He thought of his unknown uncle, his cousin

Susanna's father, an ecclesiastical worker in metal, and somehow

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mediaeval art in any material was a trade for which he had rather a

fancy. He could not go far wrong in following his uncle's footsteps,

and engaging himself awhile with the carcases that contained the

scholar souls.

As a preliminary he obtained some small blocks of freestone, metal

not being available, and suspending his studies awhile, occupied his

spare half-hours in copying the heads and capitals in his parish

church.

There was a stone-mason of a humble kind in Alfredston, and as

soon as he had found a substitute for himself in his aunt's little

business, he offered his services to this man for a trifling wage.

Here Jude had the opportunity of learning at least the rudiments of

freestone-working. Some time later he went to a church-builder in

the same place, and under the architect's direction became handy at

restoring the dilapidated masonries of several village churches round

about.

Not forgetting that he was only following up this handicraft as

a prop to lean on while he prepared those greater engines which

he flattered himself would be better fitted for him, he yet was

interested in his pursuit on its own account. He now had lodgings

during the week in the little town, whence he returned to Marygreen

village every Saturday evening. And thus he reached and passed his

nineteenth year.

VI

At this memorable date of his life he was, one Saturday, returning

from Alfredston to Marygreen about three o'clock in the afternoon.

It was fine, warm, and soft summer weather, and he walked with his

tools at his back, his little chisels clinking faintly against the

larger ones in his basket. It being the end of the week he had left

work early, and had come out of the town by a round-about route which

he did not usually frequent, having promised to call at a flour-mill

near Cresscombe to execute a commission for his aunt.

He was in an enthusiastic mood. He seemed to see his way to living

comfortably in Christminster in the course of a year or two, and

knocking at the doors of one of those strongholds of learning of

which he had dreamed so much. He might, of course, have gone there

now, in some capacity or other, but he preferred to enter the city

with a little more assurance as to means than he could be said to

feel at present. A warm self-content suffused him when he considered

what he had already done. Now and then as he went along he turned

to face the peeps of country on either side of him. But he hardly

saw them; the act was an automatic repetition of what he had been

accustomed to do when less occupied; and the one matter which really

engaged him was the mental estimate of his progress thus far.




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