Noting her dissembled distress Jude kissed her, and said it was time
to go and see if the lodgings were ready. He would go on with the
boy, and fetch her soon.
When she was left alone she waited patiently, but Jude did not come
back. At last she started, the coast being clear, and on passing the
poulterer's shop, not far off, she saw her pigeons in a hamper by the
door. An emotion at sight of them, assisted by the growing dusk of
evening, caused her to act on impulse, and first looking around her
quickly, she pulled out the peg which fastened down the cover, and
went on. The cover was lifted from within, and the pigeons flew
away with a clatter that brought the chagrined poulterer cursing and
swearing to the door.
Sue reached the lodging trembling, and found Jude and the boy making
it comfortable for her. "Do the buyers pay before they bring away
the things?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes, I think. Why?"
"Because, then, I've done such a wicked thing!" And she explained,
in bitter contrition.
"I shall have to pay the poulterer for them, if he doesn't catch
them," said Jude. "But never mind. Don't fret about it, dear."
"It was so foolish of me! Oh why should Nature's law be mutual
butchery!"
"Is it so, Mother?" asked the boy intently.
"Yes!" said Sue vehemently.
"Well, they must take their chance, now, poor things," said Jude.
"As soon as the sale-account is wound up, and our bills paid, we go."
"Where do we go to?" asked Time, in suspense.
"We must sail under sealed orders, that nobody may trace us... We
mustn't go to Alfredston, or to Melchester, or to Shaston, or to
Christminster. Apart from those we may go anywhere."
"Why mustn't we go there, Father?"
"Because of a cloud that has gathered over us; though 'we have
wronged no man, corrupted no man, defrauded no man!' Though perhaps
we have 'done that which was right in our own eyes.'"
VII
From that week Jude Fawley and Sue walked no more in the town of
Aldbrickham.
Whither they had gone nobody knew, chiefly because nobody cared
to know. Any one sufficiently curious to trace the steps of such
an obscure pair might have discovered without great trouble that
they had taken advantage of his adaptive craftsmanship to enter
on a shifting, almost nomadic, life, which was not without its
pleasantness for a time.