It grew later, and neither father nor mother reappeared. Tess looked

out of the door, and took a mental journey through Marlott. The

village was shutting its eyes. Candles and lamps were being put

out everywhere: she could inwardly behold the extinguisher and the

extended hand.

Her mother's fetching simply meant one more to fetch. Tess began to

perceive that a man in indifferent health, who proposed to start on a

journey before one in the morning, ought not to be at an inn at this

late hour celebrating his ancient blood.

"Abraham," she said to her little brother, "do you put on your

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hat--you bain't afraid?--and go up to Rolliver's, and see what has

gone wi' father and mother."

The boy jumped promptly from his seat, and opened the door, and the

night swallowed him up. Half an hour passed yet again; neither man,

woman, nor child returned. Abraham, like his parents, seemed to have

been limed and caught by the ensnaring inn.

"I must go myself," she said.

'Liza-Lu then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, started on

her way up the dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty

progress; a street laid out before inches of land had value, and when

one-handed clocks sufficiently subdivided the day.

.IV

Rolliver's inn, the single alehouse at this end of the long and

broken village, could only boast of an off-licence; hence, as

nobody could legally drink on the premises, the amount of overt

accommodation for consumers was strictly limited to a little board

about six inches wide and two yards long, fixed to the garden palings

by pieces of wire, so as to form a ledge. On this board thirsty

strangers deposited their cups as they stood in the road and drank,

and threw the dregs on the dusty ground to the pattern of Polynesia,

and wished they could have a restful seat inside.

Thus the strangers. But there were also local customers who felt the

same wish; and where there's a will there's a way.

In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly

curtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the

landlady, Mrs Rolliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen

persons, all seeking beatitude; all old inhabitants of the nearer

end of Marlott, and frequenters of this retreat. Not only did the

distance to the The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the

further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation

practically unavailable for dwellers at this end; but the far more

serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent

opinion that it was better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the

housetop than with the other landlord in a wide house.




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