XVI

On a thyme-scented, bird-hatching morning in May, between two and

three years after the return from Trantridge--silent, reconstructive

years for Tess Durbeyfield--she left her home for the second time.

Having packed up her luggage so that it could be sent to her later,

she started in a hired trap for the little town of Stourcastle,

through which it was necessary to pass on her journey, now in a

direction almost opposite to that of her first adventuring. On the

curve of the nearest hill she looked back regretfully at Marlott and

her father's house, although she had been so anxious to get away.

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Her kindred dwelling there would probably continue their daily

lives as heretofore, with no great diminution of pleasure in their

consciousness, although she would be far off, and they deprived of

her smile. In a few days the children would engage in their games as

merrily as ever, without the sense of any gap left by her departure.

This leaving of the younger children she had decided to be for the

best; were she to remain they would probably gain less good by her

precepts than harm by her example.

She went through Stourcastle without pausing and onward to a junction

of highways, where she could await a carrier's van that ran to the

south-west; for the railways which engirdled this interior tract of

country had never yet struck across it. While waiting, however,

there came along a farmer in his spring cart, driving approximately

in the direction that she wished to pursue. Though he was a stranger

to her she accepted his offer of a seat beside him, ignoring that

its motive was a mere tribute to her countenance. He was going to

Weatherbury, and by accompanying him thither she could walk the

remainder of the distance instead of travelling in the van by way of

Casterbridge. Tess did not stop at Weatherbury, after this long drive, further than

to make a slight nondescript meal at noon at a cottage to which the

farmer recommended her. Thence she started on foot, basket in hand,

to reach the wide upland of heath dividing this district from the

low-lying meads of a further valley in which the dairy stood that was

the aim and end of her day's pilgrimage.

Tess had never before visited this part of the country, and yet she

felt akin to the landscape. Not so very far to the left of her she

could discern a dark patch in the scenery, which inquiry confirmed

her in supposing to be trees marking the environs of Kingsbere--in

the church of which parish the bones of her ancestors--her useless

ancestors--lay entombed.




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