"I? I shall be all right in an hour or two," said Durbeyfield.

It was eleven o'clock before the family were all in bed, and

two o'clock next morning was the latest hour for starting with

the beehives if they were to be delivered to the retailers in

Casterbridge before the Saturday market began, the way thither lying

by bad roads over a distance of between twenty and thirty miles, and

the horse and waggon being of the slowest. At half-past one Mrs

Durbeyfield came into the large bedroom where Tess and all her

little brothers and sisters slept.

"The poor man can't go," she said to her eldest daughter, whose great

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eyes had opened the moment her mother's hand touched the door.

Tess sat up in bed, lost in a vague interspace between a dream and

this information. "But somebody must go," she replied. "It is late for the hives

already. Swarming will soon be over for the year; and it we put off

taking 'em till next week's market the call for 'em will be past, and

they'll be thrown on our hands." Mrs Durbeyfield looked unequal to the emergency.

"Some young feller,

perhaps, would go? One of them who were so much after dancing with

'ee yesterday," she presently suggested.

"O no--I wouldn't have it for the world!" declared Tess proudly.

"And letting everybody know the reason--such a thing to be ashamed

of! I think I could go if Abraham could go with me to kip me

company." Her mother at length agreed to this arrangement. Little Abraham was

aroused from his deep sleep in a corner of the same apartment, and

made to put on his clothes while still mentally in the other world.

Meanwhile Tess had hastily dressed herself; and the twain, lighting

a lantern, went out to the stable. The rickety little waggon was

already laden, and the girl led out the horse, Prince, only a degree

less rickety than the vehicle.

The poor creature looked wonderingly round at the night, at the

lantern, at their two figures, as if he could not believe that at

that hour, when every living thing was intended to be in shelter and

at rest, he was called upon to go out and labour. They put a stock

of candle-ends into the lantern, hung the latter to the off-side of

the load, and directed the horse onward, walking at his shoulder at

first during the uphill parts of the way, in order not to overload

an animal of so little vigour. To cheer themselves as well as they

could, they made an artificial morning with the lantern, some bread

and butter, and their own conversation, the real morning being far

from come. Abraham, as he more fully awoke (for he had moved in a

sort of trance so far), began to talk of the strange shapes assumed

by the various dark objects against the sky; of this tree that looked

like a raging tiger springing from a lair; of that which resembled a

giant's head. When they had passed the little town of Stourcastle, dumbly somnolent

under its thick brown thatch, they reached higher ground. Still

higher, on their left, the elevation called Bulbarrow, or Bealbarrow,

well-nigh the highest in South Wessex, swelled into the sky,

engirdled by its earthen trenches. From hereabout the long road was

fairly level for some distance onward. They mounted in front of the

waggon, and Abraham grew reflective.




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