XXXII

This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day. The

beginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he

asked her at the most tempting times. But Tess's desire seemed to be

for a perpetual betrothal in which everything should remain as it was

then. The meads were changing now; but it was still warm enough in early

afternoons before milking to idle there awhile, and the state of

dairy-work at this time of year allowed a spare hour for idling.

Looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun, a glistening

ripple of gossamer webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary,

Advertisement..

like the track of moonlight on the sea. Gnats, knowing nothing

of their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of this

pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out

of its line, and were quite extinct. In the presence of these things

he would remind her that the date was still the question. Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her on some mission

invented by Mrs Crick to give him the opportunity. This was mostly a

journey to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire how

the advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they

were relegated. For it was a time of the year that brought great

changes to the world of kine. Batches of the animals were sent away

daily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived on straw till their

calves were born, after which event, and as soon as the calf could

walk, mother and offspring were driven back to the dairy. In the

interval which elapsed before the calves were sold there was, of

course, little milking to be done, but as soon as the calf had been

taken away the milkmaids would have to set to work as usual.

Returning from one of these dark walks they reached a great

gravel-cliff immediately over the levels, where they stood still and

listened. The water was now high in the streams, squirting through

the weirs, and tinkling under culverts; the smallest gullies were all

full; there was no taking short cuts anywhere, and foot-passengers

were compelled to follow the permanent ways. From the whole extent

of the invisible vale came a multitudinous intonation; it forced upon

their fancy that a great city lay below them, and that the murmur was

the vociferation of its populace. "It seems like tens of thousands of them," said Tess; "holding

public-meetings in their market-places, arguing, preaching,

quarrelling, sobbing, groaning, praying, and cursing."




Most Popular