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CAME ON DECK TO FIND THE GHOST heading up close on the port tack and cutting in to windward of a familiar sprit-sail close-hauled on the same tack ahead of us. All hands were on deck, for they knew that something was to happen when Leach and Johnson were dragged aboard. ¡¡¡¡It was four bells. Louis came aft to relieve the wheel. There was a dampness in the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins. ¡¡¡¡'What are we going to have?' I asked him. ¡¡¡¡'A healthy young slip of a gale from the breath of it, sir,' he answered, 'with a splatter of rain just to wet our gills an' no more.' ¡¡¡¡'Too bad we sighted them,' I said, as the Ghost's bow was flung off a point by a large sea, and the boat leaped for a moment past the jibs and into our line of vision. ¡¡¡¡Louis turned a spoke of the wheel and temporized. ¡¡¡¡'They'd never of made the land, sir, I'm thinkin'.'

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'Think not?' I queried. ¡¡¡¡'No, sir. Did you feel that?' A puff had caught the schooner, and he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out of the wind. ''T is no eggshell'll float on this sea an hour come. An' it's a stroke of luck for them we're here to pick 'em up.' ¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen strode aft from amidships, where he had been talking with the rescued men. The cat-like springiness in his tread was a little more pronounced than usual, and his eyes were bright and snappy. ¡¡¡¡'Three oilers and a fourth engineer,' was his greeting. 'But we'll make sailors out of them, or boat-pullers, at any rate. Now, what of the lady?' ¡¡¡¡I knew not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang, like the cut of a knife, when he mentioned her. I thought it a certain silly fastidiousness on my part, but it persisted in spite of me, and I merely shrugged my shoulders in answer.

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¡'A go,' I answered. ¡¡¡¡His hand went out to mine, and as I shook it heartily I could have sworn I saw the mocking devil shine up for a moment in his eyes. ¡¡¡¡We strolled across the poop to the lee side. The boat was close at hand now and in desperate plight. Johnson was steering, Leach bailing. We overhauled them about two feet to their one. Wolf Larsen motioned Louis to keep off slightly, and we dashed abreast of the boat not a score of feet to windward. ¡¡¡¡It was at this moment that Leach and Johnson looked up into the faces of their shipmates who lined the rail amidships. There was no greeting. They were as dead men in their comrades' eyes, and between them was the gulf that parts the living and the dead. ¡¡¡¡The next instant they were opposite the poop, where stood Wolf Larsen and I. We were falling in the trough, and they were rising on the surge. Johnson looked at

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Wolf Larsen pursed his lips in a long quizzical whistle. ¡¡¡¡'What's her name, then?' he demanded. ¡¡¡¡'I don't know,' I replied. 'She is asleep. She was very tired. In fact, I am waiting to hear the news from you. What vessel was it?' ¡¡¡¡'Mail-steamer,' he answered shortly. 'The City of Tokio, from 'Frisco, bound for Yokohama. Disabled in that typhoon. Old tub. Opened up top and bottom like a sieve. They were adrift four days. And you don't know who or what she is, eh- maid, wife, or widow? Well, well.' ¡¡¡¡He shook his head in a bantering way and regarded me with laughing eyes. ¡¡¡¡'Are you- ' I began. It was on the verge of my tongue to ask if he were going to take the castaways in to Yokohama. 'Am I what?' he asked. ¡¡¡¡'What do you intend doing with Leach and Johnson?' ¡¡¡¡He shook his head. ¡¡¡¡'Really, Hump, I don't know. You see, with these additions I've about all the crew I want.' ¡¡¡¡'And they've about all the escaping they want,' I said. 'Why not give them a change of treatment? Take them aboard and deal gently with them. Whatever they have done, they have been hounded into doing.'

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'By me?' ¡¡¡¡'By you,' I answered steadily. 'And I give you warning, Wolf Larsen, that I may forget the love of my own life in the desire to kill you if you go too far in maltreating those poor wretches.' ¡¡¡¡'Bravo!' he cried. 'You do me proud, Hump! You've found your legs with a vengeance. You're quite an individual. You were unfortunate in having your life cast in easy places, but you're developing, and I like you the better for it.' ¡¡¡¡His voice and expression changed. His face was serious. 'Do you believe in promises?' he asked. 'Are they sacred things?' ¡¡¡¡'Of course,' I answered. ¡¡¡¡'Then here's a compact,' he went on, consummate actor that he was. 'If I promise not to lay hands upon Leach and Johnson, will you promise, in turn, not to attempt to kill me? Oh, not that I'm afraid of you, not that I'm afraid of you,' he hastened to add. ¡¡¡¡I could hardly believe my ears. What was coming over the man?

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then the wheel would reappear, and Wolf Larsen's broad shoulders, his hands gripping the spokes and holding the schooner to the course of his will, himself an earth-god, dominating the storm, flinging its descending waters from him, and riding it to his own ends. And oh, the marvel of it, the marvel of it, that tiny men should live and breathe and work, and drive so frail a contrivance of wood and cloth through so tremendous an elemental strife! ¡¡¡¡As before, the Ghost swung out of the trough, lifting her deck again out of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. It was now half-past five, and half an hour later, when the last of the day lost itself in a dim and furious twilight, I sighted a third boat. It was bottom up, and there was no sign of its crew. Wolf Larsen repeated his maneuver, holding off and then rounding up to windward and drifting down upon it. But this time he missed by forty feet, the boat passing astern. ¡¡¡¡'No. 4 boat!' Oofty-Oofty cried, his keen eyes reading its number in the one second when it lifted clear of the foam and upside down.

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It was Henderson's boat, and with him had been lost Holyoak and Williams, another of the deep-water crowd. Lost they indubitably were; but the boat remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless effort to recover it. I had come down to the deck, and I saw Horner and Kerfoot vainly protest against the attempt. ¡¡¡¡'By God, I'll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that ever blew out of hell!' he shouted, and though we four stood with our heads together that we might hear, his voice seemed faint and far, as though removed from us an immense distance. ¡¡¡¡'Mr. Van Weyden,' he cried, and I heard through the tumult as one might hear a whisper, 'stand by that jib with Johnson and Oofty! The rest of you tail aft to the main-sheet! Lively now, or I'll sail you all into kingdom come! Understand?' ¡¡¡¡And when he put the wheel hard over and the Ghost's bow swung off, there was nothing for the hunters to do but obey and make the best of a risky chance. How great the risk I realized when I was once more buried beneath the pounding seas and clinging for life to the pin-rail at the foot of the foremast. My fingers were to

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loose, and I was swept across to the side and over the side into the sea. I could not swim, but before I could sink I was swept back again. A strong hand gripped me, and when the Ghost finally emerged I found that I owed my life to Johnson. I saw him looking anxiously about him, and noted that Kelly, who had come forward at the last moment, was missing. ¡¡¡¡This time, having missed the boat, and not being in the same position as in the previous instances, Wolf Larsen was compelled to resort to a different maneuver. Running off before the wind with everything to starboard, he came about and returned close-hauled on the port tack. ¡¡¡¡'Grand!' Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came through the attendant deluge; and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen's seamanship, but to the performance of the Ghost herself. ¡¡¡¡It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat; but Wolf Larsen held back through the frightful turmoil as if guided by unerring instinct. This time, though we were continually half-buried, there was no trough in which to be swept, and we drifted squarely down upon the upturned boat, badly smashing it as it was heaved inboard.

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Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of us- two hunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen, and I- reefed, first one and then the other, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this short canvas, our decks were comparatively free of water, while the Ghost bobbed and ducked among the combers like a cork. ¡¡¡¡I had burst open the ends of my fingers at the very first, and during the reefing I had worked with tears of pain running down my cheeks. And when all was done, I gave up like a woman and rolled. upon the deck in the agony of exhaustion. ¡¡¡¡In the meantime, Thomas Mugridge, like a drowned rat, was being dragged out from under the forecastle head, where he had cravenly ensconced himself. I saw him pulled aft to the cabin, and noted with a shock of surprise that the galley had disappeared. A clean space of deck showed where it had stood. ¡¡¡¡In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well, and while coffee was being cooked over the small stove we drank whiskey and crunched hardtack. Never in my life had food been so welcome, and never had hot coffee tasted so good. So violently did the Ghost pitch and toss and tumble that it was impossible for even the

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sailors to move about without holding on, and several times, after a cry of 'Now she takes it!' we were heaped upon the wall of the port cabin as though it had been the deck. ¡¡¡¡'To- with a lookout,' I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had eaten and drunk our fill. 'There's nothing can be done on deck. If anything's going to run us down, we couldn't get out of its way. Turn in, all hands, and get some sleep.' ¡¡¡¡The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, while the two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being deemed advisable to open the slide to the steerage companionway. Wolf Larsen and I, between us, cut off Kerfoot's crushed finger and sewed up the stump. Mugridge, who, during all the time he had been compelled to cook and serve coffee and keep the fire going, had complained of internal pains, now swore that he had a broken rib or two. On examination we found that he had three. But his case was deferred to next day, principally for the reason that I did not know anything about broken ribs, and would first have to read it up.

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It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. His big fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson. I noticed a black discoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen's eye, a mark of the thrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor. For the first time I began to divine that something terrible was about to be enacted- what, I could not imagine. ¡¡¡¡'Do you know what happens to men who say what you've said about my slop-chest and me?' Wolf Larsen was demanding. ¡¡¡¡'I know, sir,' was the answer. ¡¡¡¡'What?' Wolf Larsen demanded sharply and imperatively. ¡¡¡¡'What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir.' ¡¡¡¡At this Larsen sprang from the sitting posture like a wild animal, a tiger, and like a tiger covered the intervening space in an avalanche of fury that Johnson strove vainly to fend off. He threw one arm down to protect the stomach, the other arm up to protect the head; but Wolf Larsen's fist drove midway between, on the chest,

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with a crushing, resounding impact. Johnson's breath, suddenly expelled, shot from his mouth, and as suddenly checked, with the forced, audible expiration of a man wielding an ax. He almost fell backward, and swayed from side to side in an effort to recover his balance. ¡¡¡¡Johnson fought bravely enough, but he was no match for Wolf Larsen, much less for Wolf Larsen and the mate. It was frightful. I had not imagined a human being could endure so much and still live and struggle on. And struggle on Johnson did. Of course there was no hope for him, not the slightest, and he knew it as well as I, but by the manhood that was in him he could not cease from fighting for that manhood. ¡¡¡¡It was too much for me to witness. I felt that I should lose my mind, and I ran up the companion-stairs to open the doors and escape on deck. But Wolf Larsen, leaving his victim for the moment, and with one of his tremendous springs, gained my side, and flung me into the far corner of the cabin.

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'The phenomenon of life, Hump,' he girded at me. 'Stay and watch it. You may gather data on the immortality of the soul. Besides, you know, we can't hurt Johnson's soul. It's only the fleeting form we may demolish.' ¡¡¡¡It seemed centuries, possibly it was no more than ten minutes, that the beating continued. And when Johnson could no longer rise, they still continued to beat and kick him where he lay. ¡¡¡¡'Easy, Johansen; easy as she goes,' Wolf Larsen finally said. ¡¡¡¡But the beast in the mate was up and rampant, and Wolf Larsen was compelled to brush him away with a back-handed sweep of the arm, gentle enough, apparently, but which hurled Johansen back like a cork, driving his head against the wall with a crash. He fell to the floor, half stunned for the moment, breathing heavily and blinking his eyes in a stupid sort of way. ¡¡¡¡'Jerk open the doors, Hump,' Larsen commanded. ¡¡¡¡I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a sack of rubbish and hove him clear up the companion-stairs, through the narrow doors, and out on deck. Louis, his boat-mate, gave a turn of the wheel and gazed imperturbably into the binnacle.

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Leach went on, indicting Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted before. The sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the forecastle scuttle, and watched and listened. The hunters piled pell-mell out of the steerage, but as Leach's tirade continued I saw that there was no levity in their faces. Even they were frightened, not at the boy's terrible words, but at his terrible audacity. It did not seem possible that any living creature could thus beard Wolf Larsen to his teeth. I know for myself that I was shocked into admiration of the boy, and I saw in him the splendid invincibleness of immortality rising above the flesh and the fears of the flesh, as in the prophets of old, to condemn unrighteousness. ¡¡¡¡And such condemnation! He haled forth Wolf Larsen's soul naked to the scorn of men. He rained upon it curses from God and high heaven, and withered it with a heat of invective that savored of a medieval excommunication of the Catholic Church. He ran the gamut of denunciation, rising to heights of wrath, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the most indecent abuse.

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Not so George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. Fore and aft there was nothing that could have surprised us more than his consequent behavior. He it was that came up on the poop, without orders, and dragged Johnson forward, where he set about dressing his wounds as well as he could and making him comfortable. ¡¡¡¡I had come up on deck for a breath of fresh air and to try to get some repose for my overwrought nerves. Wolf Larsen was smoking a cigar and examining the patent log which the Ghost usually towed astern, but which had been hauled in for some purpose. Suddenly Leach's voice came to my ears. It was tense and hoarse with an overmastering rage. I turned and saw him standing just beneath the break of the poop on the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed and white, his eyes were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead, as the boy hurled his imprecations recklessly full in the face of the captain, who had sauntered slowly forward to the break of the poop, and leaning his elbow on the corner of the cabin, gazed down thoughtfully and curiously at the excited boy

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I threw up my hands with helpless disapproval of his inveterate materialism, and went about making the bed. He continued copying lines and figures upon the transparent scale. It was a task requiring the utmost nicety and precision, and I could not but admire the way he tempered his strength to the fineness and delicacy of the need. ¡¡¡¡When I had finished the bed, I caught myself looking at him in a fascinated sort of way. He was certainly a handsome man- beautiful in the masculine sense. And again, with never-failing wonder, I remarked the total lack of viciousness, or wickedness, or sinfulness, in his face. It was the face, I am convinced, of a man who did no wrong. And by this I do not wish to be misunderstood. What I mean is that it was the face of a man who either did nothing contrary to the dictates of his conscience, or who had no conscience. I incline to the latter way of accounting for it. He was a magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive that he was of the type that came into the world before the development of the moral nature. He was not immoral, but merely unmoral.

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As I have said, in the masculine sense his was a beautiful face. Smooth-shaven, every line was distinct, and it was cut as clear and sharp as a cameo; while sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair skin to a dark bronze which bespoke struggle and battle, and added to both his savagery and his beauty. The lips were full, yet possessed of the firmness, almost harshness, which is characteristic of thin lips. The set of his mouth, his chin, his jaw, was likewise firm or harsh, with all the fierceness and indomitableness of the male; the nose also. It was the nose of a being born to conquer and command. It just hinted of the eagle beak. It might have been Grecian, it might have been Roman, only it was a shade too massive for the one, a shade too delicate for the other. And while the whole face was the incarnation of fierceness and strength, the primal melancholy from which he suffered seemed to greaten the lines of mouth and eye and brow, seemed to give a largeness and completeness which otherwise the face would have lacked.

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And so I caught myself standing idly and studying him. I cannot say how greatly the man had come to interest me. Who was he? What was he? How had he happened to be? All powers seemed his, all potentialities; why, then, was he no more than the obscure master of a seal-hunting schooner, with a reputation for frightful brutality among the men who hunted seals? ¡¡¡¡My curiosity burst from me in a flood of speech: ¡¡¡¡'Why is it that you have not done great things in this world? With the power that is yours you might have risen to any height. Unpossessed of conscience or moral instinct, you might have mastered the world, broken it to your hand. And yet here you are, at the top of your life, where diminishing and dying begin, living an obscure and sordid existence hunting sea-animals for the satisfaction of woman's vanity and love of decoration, reveling in a piggishness, to use your own words, which is anything and everything except splendid. Why, with all that wonderful strength, have you not done something? There was nothing to stop you, nothing that could stop

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you. What was wrong? Did you lack ambition? Did you fall under temptation? What was the matter? What was the matter?' ¡¡¡¡He had lifted his eyes to me at the beginning of my outburst and followed me complacently until I had done and stood before him breathless and dismayed. He waited a moment, as though seeing where to begin, and then said: ¡¡¡¡'Hump, do you know the parable of the sower who went forth to sow? If you will remember, some of the seed fell upon stony places, where there was not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them.' ¡¡¡¡'Well?' I said. ¡¡¡¡'Well?' he queried half petulantly. 'It was not well. I was one of those seeds.' ¡¡¡¡He dropped his head to the scale and resumed the copying. I finished my work, and had opened the door to leave, when he spoke to me.

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'Hump, if you will look on the west coast of the map of Norway you will see an indentation called Romsdal Fiord. I was born within a hundred miles of that stretch of water. But I was not born Norwegian. I am a Dane. My father and mother were Danes, and how they ever came to that bleak bight of land on the west coast I do not know. I never heard. Outside of that, there is nothing mysterious. They were poor people and unlettered. They came of generations of poor, unlettered people- peasants of the sea who sowed their sons on the waves as has been their custom since time began. There is no more to tell.' ¡¡¡¡'But there is,' I objected. 'It is still obscure to me.' ¡¡¡¡'What can I tell you,' he demanded, with a recrudescence of fierceness, 'of the meagerness of a child's life- of fish diet and coarse living; of going out with the boats from the time I could crawl; of my brothers, who went away one by one to the deep-sea farming and never came back; of myself, unable to read or write, cabin-boy at the mature age of ten on the coastwise, old-country ships; of the rough fare and rougher usage, where kicks and blows were bed and breakfast and took the place of

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¡¡¡¡It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge's erratic soul brought him into the scene. He had been listening at the galley door, but he now came out, ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, but obviously to see the killing he was certain would take place. He smirked greasily up into the face of Wolf Larsen, who seemed not to see him. But the Cockney was unabashed, and turned to Leach, saying: ¡¡¡¡'Such language! Shockin'!' ¡¡¡¡Leach's rage was no longer impotent. Here at last was something ready to hand, and for the first time since the stabbing the Cockney had appeared outside the galley without his knife. The words had barely left his mouth when he was knocked down by Leach. Three times he struggled to his feet, striving to gain the galley, and each time was knocked down.

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But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day's program. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other, and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by a stampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column of thick, acrid smoke, the kind always made by black powder, was arising through the open companion-way, and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen. The sound of blows and scuffling came to our ears. Both men were wounded, and he was thrashing them both for having disobeyed his orders and crippled themselves in advance of the hunting season. In fact, they were badly wounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded to operate upon them in a rough surgical fashion and to dress their wounds. I served as assistant while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the bullets, and I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anesthetics and with no more to uphold them than a stiff tumbler of whiskey.

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'Oh, Lord!' he cried. ''Elp! 'Elp! Tyke 'im aw'y, carn't yer? Tyke 'im aw'y!' ¡¡¡¡The hunters laughed from sheer relief. Tragedy had dwindled, the farce had begun. The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning and shuffling, to watch the pommeling of the hated Cockney. And even I felt a great joy surge up within me. I confess that I delighted in this beating Leach was giving to Thomas Mugridge, though it was as terrible, almost, as the one Mugridge had caused to be given to Johnson. But the expression of Wolf Larsen's face did not change,- nor did his position. For all his pragmatic certitude, it seemed as if he watched the play and movement of life in the hope of discovering something more about it. And no one interfered. Leach could have killed the Cockney, but, having evidently filled the measure of his vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering and wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward.

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¡¡¡¡Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle. It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale-bearing that had been the cause of Johnson's beating, and from the noise we heard, and from the sight of the bruised men next day, it was patent that half the forecastle had soundly drubbed the other half. ¡¡¡¡The second dog-watch and the day wound up with a fight between Johansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. It was caused by some remarks of Latimer's concerning the noises made by the mate in his sleep, and though Johansen was whipped, he kept the steerage awake for the rest of the night while he blissfully slumbered and fought the fight over and over again. ¡¡¡TER THIRTEEN. ¡¡¡¡FOR THREE DAYS I DID MY OWN work and Thomas Mugridge's too, and I flatter myself that I did his work well. I know that it won Wolf Larsen's approval, while the sailors beamed with satisfaction during the brief time my regime lasted.

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'The first clean bite since I come aboard Harrison said to me at the galley door, as he returned the dinner pots and pans from the forecastle. 'Somehow, Tommy's grub always tastes of grease,- stale grease,- and I reckon he ain't changed his shirt since he left 'Frisco.' ¡¡¡¡'I know he hasn't,' I answered. ¡¡¡¡'And I'll bet he sleeps in it,' Harrison added. ¡¡¡¡'And you won't lose,' I agreed. 'The same shirt, and he hasn't had it off once in all this time.' ¡¡¡¡But three days were all Wolf Larsen allowed him in which to recover from the effects of the beating. On the fourth day, lame and sore, scarcely able to see, so closed were his eyes, he was haled from his bunk by the nape of the neck and set to his duty. He sniffled and wept, but Wolf Larsen was pitiless. ¡¡¡¡'And see that you serve no more slops,' was his parting injunction. 'No more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, or you'll get a tow over the side. Understand?'

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'Brutishness,' I suggested. ¡¡¡¡'Yes, thank you for the word- all my brutishness; but he can scarcely read or write.' ¡¡¡¡'And he has never philosophized on life,' I added. ¡¡¡¡'No,' Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air of sadness. 'And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy living it to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening the books.' ¡¡¡¡¡CHAPTER ELEVEN. ¡¡¡¡THE GHOST HAS ATTAINED the southernmost point of the arc she is describing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edge away to the west and north toward some lone island, it is rumored, where she will fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season's hunt along the coast of Japan. The hunters have experimented and practiced with their rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied, and the boat-pullers and steerers have made their sprit-sails, bound the oars and rowlocks in leather and sennit so that they will make no noise when creeping on the seals, and put their boats in apple-pie order, to use Leach's homely phrase.

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His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain all his life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and is afraid to venture on deck after dark. There are two or three standing quarrels in the forecastle. Louis tells me that the gossip of the sailors finds its way aft, and that two of the telltales have been badly beaten by their mates. He shakes his head dubiously over the outlook for the man Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same boat with him. Johnson has been guilty of speaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or three times with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name. Johansen he thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time the mate has called him by his proper name. But of course it is out of the question that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen. ¡¡¡¡Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, which tallies with the captain's brief description. We may expect to meet Death Larsen on the Japan coast. 'And look out for squalls,' is Louis's prophecy, 'for they hate one another like the wolf-whelps they are.' Death Larsen is in command of the only sealing

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uple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen reading the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate's sea-chest. I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to me from Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he was speaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and his voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin, charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but he certainly knows how to express the significance of the written word. I can hear him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrant in his voice, as he read from Ecclesiastes the passage beginning: 'I gathered me also silver and gold.' ¡¡¡¡'There you have it, Hump,' he said, closing the book upon his finger and looking up at me. 'The Preacher who was king over Israel in Jerusalem thought as I think.

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steamer in the fleet, which carries fourteen boats, where the schooners carry only six. There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and of strange raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium-smuggling into the States and arms-smuggling into China, to black-birding and open piracy. Yet I cannot but believe Louis, for I have never yet caught him in a lie, while he has a cyclopedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the sealing-fleets. ¡¡¡¡As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft, on this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle ferociously for one another's lives. The hunters are looking for a shooting scrape at any moment between Smoke and Henderson, whose old quarrel has not healed, while Wolf Larsen says positively that he will kill the survivor of the affair if such affair comes off. He frankly states that the position he takes is based on no moral grounds, that all the hunters could kill and eat one

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another, so far as he is concerned, were it not that he needs them alive for the hunting. If they will only hold their hands until the season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can be settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. I think even the hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness. Wicked men though they be, they are certainly very much afraid of him. ¡¡¡¡Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go about in secret dread of him. His is the courage of fear, a strange thing I know well of myself, and at any moment it may master the fear and impel him to the taking of my life. My knee is much better, though it often aches for long periods, and the stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen squeezed. Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in splendid condition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing in size. My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. Also, I am suffering from boils, due to the diet most likely, for I was never so afflicted before.

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The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned encouragingly at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in the direction of the man who paced up and down by the hatchway. Thus I was given to understand that he was the captain, the 'Old Man,' in the cook's vernacular, the person whom I must interview and put to the trouble of somehow getting me ashore. I had half started forward, to get over with what I was certain would be a stormy quarter of an hour, when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate person who was lying on his back. He writhed about convulsively. The chin, with the damp black beard, pointed higher in the air as the back muscles stiffened and the chest swelled in an unconscious and instinctive effort to get more air.

Samson And Delilah

¡¡¡¡The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing, and gazed down at the dying man. So fierce had this final struggle become that the sailor paused in the act of flinging more water over him, and stared curiously, the canvas bucket partly tilted and dripping its contents to the deck. The dying man beat a tattoo on the hatch with his heels, straightened out his legs, stiffened in one great, tense effort, and rolled his head from side to side. Then the muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, as of profound relief, floated upward from his lips. The jaw dropped, the upper lip lifted, and two rows of tobacco-discolored teeth appeared. It seemed as though his features had frozen into a diabolical grin at the world he had left and outwitted. Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose upon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips in a continuous stream. And they

The Abduction of Psyche

were not namby-pamby oaths, or mere expressions of indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, and there were many words. They crisped and crackled like electric sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors. The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San Francisco, and then had the poor taste to die at the beginning of the voyage and leave Wolf Larsen short-handed. It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends, that I was shocked. Oaths and vile language of any sort had always been unutterably repellent to me. I felt a wilting sensation, a sinking at the heart, and, I might just as well say, a giddiness. To me death had always been invested with solemnity and dignity. It had been

The Kitchen Maid

peaceful in its occurrence, sacred in its ceremonial. But death in its more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I had been unacquainted till now. As I say, while I appreciated the power of the terrific denunciation that swept out of Wolf Larsen's mouth, I was inexpressibly shocked. But the dead man continued to grin unconcernedly with a sardonic humor, a cynical mockery and defiance. He was master of the situation. ¡¡CHAPTER THREE. ¡¡¡¡WOLF LARSEN CEASED SWEARING as suddenly as he had begun. He relighted his cigar and glanced around. His eyes chanced upon the cook. ¡¡¡¡'Well, Cooky?' he began, with a suaveness that was cold and of the temper of steel. ¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' the cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing and apologetic servility. ¡¡¡¡'Don't you think you've stretched that neck of yours just about enough? It's unhealthy, you know. The mate's gone, so I can't afford to lose you, too. You must be very, very careful of your health, Cooky. Understand?'

The Nut Gatherers

His last word, in striking contrast with the smoothness of his previous utterance, snapped like the lash of a whip. The cook quailed under it. ¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' was the meek reply, as the offending head disappeared into the galley. ¡¡¡¡At this rebuke the rest of the crew became uninterested and fell to work at one task or another. A number of men, however, who were lounging about a companionway between the galley and the hatch, and who did not seem to be sailors, continued talking in low tones with one another. These, I afterward learned, were the hunters, the men who shot the seals, and a very superior breed to common sailor-folk. ¡¡¡¡'Johansen!' Wolf Larsen called out. A sailor stepped forward obediently. 'Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. You'll find some old canvas in the sail-locker. Make it do.' ¡¡¡¡'What'll I put on his feet, sir?' the man asked, after the customary 'Aye, aye, sir.'

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edges of the hole in the side of the cabin, through which the gray fog swirled and eddied; the empty upholstered seats, littered with all the evidences of sudden flight, such as packages, hand-satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout gentleman who had been reading my essay, incased in cork and canvas, the magazine still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence if I thought there was any danger; the red-faced man stumping gallantly around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all comers; and, finally, the screaming bedlam of womenThis it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves. It must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I have another picture which will never fade from my mind. The stout gentleman is stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket and looking on curiously. A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white faces and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls; and the red-faced man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with arms extended overhead, as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is shouting, 'Shut up! Oh, shut up!'

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'One of them daredevil launches,' he said. 'I almost wish we'd sunk him, the little rip! They're the cause of more trouble. And what good are they? Any jackass gets aboard one and thinks he can run it, blowin' his whistle to beat the band and tellin' the rest of the world to look out for him because he's comin' and can't look out for himself. Because he's comin'! And you've got to look out, too. Right of way! Common decency! They don't know the meanin' of it!' ¡¡¡¡I felt quite amused at his unwarranted choler, and while he stumped moodily up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the fog. And romantic it certainly was- the fog, like the gray shadow of infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the unseen, and clamoring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude and fear.

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The voice of my companion brought me back to myself with a laugh. I, too, had been groping and floundering, the while I thought I rode clear-eyed through the mystery. ¡¡¡¡'Hello! Somebody comin' our way,' he was saying. 'And d'ye hear that? He's comin' fast. Walkin' right along. Guess he don't hear us yet. Wind's in wrong direction.' ¡¡¡¡The fresh breeze was blowing right down upon us, and I could hear the whistle plainly, off to one side and a little ahead. ¡¡¡¡'Ferryboat?' I asked. ¡¡¡¡He nodded, then added: 'Or he wouldn't be keepin' up such a clip.' He gave a short chuckle. 'They're gettin' anxious up there.' ¡¡¡¡I glanced up. The captain had thrust his head and shoulders out of the pilot-house and was staring intently into the fog, as though by sheer force of will he could penetrate it. His face was anxious, as was the face of my companion, who had stumped over to the rail and was gazing with a like intentness in the direction of the invisible danger.

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Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. The fog seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on each side like seaweed on the snout of Leviathan. I could see the pilot-house and a white-bearded man leaning partly out of it, on his elbows. He was clad in a blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he was. His quietness, under the circumstances, was terrible. He accepted Destiny, marched hand in hand with it, and coolly measured the stroke. As he leaned there, he ran a calm and speculative eye over us, as though to determine the precise point of the collision, and took no notice whatever when our pilot, white with rage, shouted, 'Now you've done it!' 'Grab hold of something and hang on!' the red-faced man said to me. All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of preternatural calm. 'And listen to the women scream,' he said grimly, almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been through the experience before.

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The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We must have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. The Martinez heeled over sharply, and there was a crashing and rending of timber. I was thrown flat on the wet deck, and before I could scramble to my feet I heard the screams of the women. This it was, I am certain,- the most indescribable of bloodcurdling sounds,- that threw me into a panic. I remembered the life-preservers stored in the cabin, but was met at the door and swept backward by a wild rush of men and women. What happened in the next few minutes I do not recollect, though I have a clear remembrance of pulling down life-preservers from the overhead racks while the red-faced man fastened them about the bodies of an hysterical group of women. This memory is as distinct and sharp as that of any picture I have seen. It is a picture, and I can see it now- the jagged

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That man!' she said proudly. `I should think not!' ¡¡¡¡`Who, then?' ¡¡¡¡`Do not ask what I do not wish to tell!' she begged, and flashed her appeal to him from her upturned face and lash-shadowed eyes. ¡¡¡¡D'Urberville was disturbed. ¡¡¡¡`But I only asked for your sake!' he retorted hotly. `Angels of heaven! - God forgive me for such an expression - I came here, I swear, as I thought for your good. Tess - don't look at me so - I cannot stand your looks! There never were such eyes, surely, before Christianity or since! There - I won't lose my head; I dare not. I own that the sight of you has waked up my love for You, which, I believed, was extinguished with all such feelings. But I thought that our marriage might be a sanctification for us both. The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband," I said to myself. But my plan is dashed from me; and I must bear the disappointment!'

Nighthawks Hopper

He moodily reflected with his eyes on the ground. `Married. Married! - Well, that being so,' he added, quite calmly, tearing the licence slowly into halves and putting them in his pocket; `that being prevented, I should like to do some good to you and your husband, whoever he may be. There are many questions that I am tempted to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in opposition to your wishes. Though, if I could know your husband, I might more easily benefit him and you. Is he on this farm?' ¡¡¡¡`No,' she murmured. `He is far away.' ¡¡¡¡`Far away? From you? What sort of husband can he be?' ¡¡¡¡`O, do not speak against him! It was through you! He found out------' ¡¡¡¡`Ah, is it so! - . That's sad, Tess!' ¡¡¡¡`Yes.' ¡¡¡¡`But to stay away from you - to leave you to work like this!' ¡¡¡¡`He does not leave me to work!' she cried, springing to the defence of the absent one with all her fervour. `He don't know it! It is by my own arrangement.' ¡¡¡¡`Then, does he write?' ¡¡¡¡`I - I cannot tell you. There are things which are private to ourselves.'

Red Hat Girl

Of course that means that he does not. You are a deserted wife, my fair Tess!' ¡¡¡¡In an impulse he turned suddenly to take her hand; the buff-glove was on it, and he seized only the rough leather fingers which did not express the life or shape of those within. ¡¡¡¡`You must not - you must not!' she cried fearfully, slipping her hand from the glove as from a pocket, and leaving it in his grasp. `O, will you go away - for the sake of me and my husband - go, in the name of your own Christianity!' ¡¡¡¡`Yes, yes; I will,' he said abruptly, and thrusting the glove back to her turned to leave. Facing round, however, he said, `Tess, as God is my judge, I meant no humbug in taking your hand!' ¡¡¡¡A pattering of hoofs on the soil of the field, which they had not noticed in their preoccupation, ceased close behind them; and a voice reached her ear: ¡¡¡¡`What the devil are you doing away from your work at this time o' day?' ¡¡¡¡Farmer Groby had espied the two figures from the distance, and had inquisitively ridden across, to learn what was their business in his field. ¡¡¡¡`Don't speak like that to her!' said d'Urberville, his face blackening with something that was not Christianity. ¡¡¡¡`Indeed, Mister! And what mid Methodist parsons have to do with she?'

Rembrandt The Jewish Bride

Who is the fellow?' asked d'Urberville, turning to Tess. ¡¡¡¡She went close up to him. ¡¡¡¡`Go - I do beg you!' she said. ¡¡¡¡`What! And leave you to that tyrant? I can see in his face what a churl he is.' ¡¡¡¡`He won't hurt me. He's not in love with me. I can leave at Lady-Day.' ¡¡¡¡`Well, I have no right but to obey, I suppose. But - well, good-bye!' ¡¡¡¡Her defender, whom she dreaded more than her assailant, having reluctantly disappeared, the farmer continued his reprimand, which Tess took with the greatest coolness, that sort of attack being independent of sex. To have as a master this man of stone, who would have cuffed her if he had dared, was almost a relief after her former experiences. She silently walked back towards the summit of the field that was the scene of her labour, so absorbed in the interview which had Just taken place that she was hardly aware that the nose of Groby's horse almost touched her shoulders.

Spring Breeze

If so be you make an agreement to work for me till Lady-Day, I'll see that you carry it out,' he growled. `'Od rot the women - now 'tis one thing, and then 'tis another. But I'll put up with it no longer!' ¡¡¡¡Knowing very well that he did not harass the other women of the farm as he harassed her out of spite for the flooring he had once received, she did for one moment picture what might have been the result if she had been free to accept the offer just made her of being the monied Alec's wife. It would have lifted her completely out of subjection, not only to her present oppressive employer, but to a whole world who seemed to despise her. `But no, no!' she said breathlessly; `I could not have married him now! He is so unpleasant to me.' ¡¡¡¡That very night she began an appealing letter to Clare, concealing from him her hardships, and assuring him of her undying affection. Any one who had been in a position to read between the lines would have seen that at the back of her great love was some monstrous fear - almost a desperation - as to some secret

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brown horse-droppings which dotted its cold aridity here and there. While slowly breasting this ascent Tess became conscious of footsteps behind her, and turning she saw approaching that well-known form - so strangely accoutred as the Methodist - the one personage in all the world she wished not to encounter alone on this side of the grave. ¡¡¡¡There was not much time, however, for thought or elusion, and she yielded as calmly as she could to the necessity of letting him overtake her. She saw that he was excited, less by the speed of his walk than by the feelings within him. ¡¡¡¡`Tess!' he said. ¡¡¡¡She slackened speed without looking round. ¡¡¡¡`Tess!' he repeated. `It is I - Alec d'Urberville.' ¡¡¡¡She then looked back at him, and he came up. ¡¡¡¡`I see it is,' she answered coldly.

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¡¡¡¡`Well - is that all? Yet I deserve no more! Of course,' he added, with a slight laugh, `there is something of the ridiculous to your eyes in seeing me like this. But - I must put up with that... . I heard you had gone away, nobody, knew where. Tess, you wonder why I have followed you?' ¡¡¡¡`I do, rather; and I would that you had not, with all my heart!' ¡¡¡¡`Yes - you may well say it,' he returned grimly, as they moved onward together, she with unwilling tread. `But don't mistake me; I beg this because you may have been led to do so in noticing - if you did notice it - how your sudden appearance unnerved me down there. It was but a momentary faltering; and considering what you had been to me, it was natural enough. But will helped me through it - though perhaps you think me a humbug for saying it - and immediately afterwards I felt that, of

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persons in the world whom it was my duty and desire to save from the wrath to come - sneer if you like - the woman whom I had so grievously wronged was that person. I have come with that sole purpose in view - nothing more.' ¡¡¡¡There was the smallest vein of scorn in her words of rejoinder: `Have you saved yourself? Charity begins at home, they say.' ¡¡¡¡`I have done nothing!' said he indifferently. `Heaven, as I have been telling my hearers, has done all. No amount of contempt that you can pour upon me, Tess, will equal what I have poured upon myself - the old Adam of my former years! Well, it is a strange story; believe it or not; but I can tell you the means by which my conversion was brought about, and I hope you will be interested enough at least to listen. Have you ever heard the name of the parson of Emminster - you must have done so? - old Mr Clare; one of the most earnest of his school; one of the few intense men left in the Church; not so intense as the extreme wing of Christian believers

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with which I have thrown in my lot, but quite an exception among the Established clergy, the younger of whom are gradually attenuating the true doctrines by their sophistries, till they are but the shadow of what they were. I only differ from him on the question of Church and State - the interpretation of the text, "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord" - that's all. He is one who, I firmly believe, has been the humble means of saving more souls in this country than any other man you can name. You have heard of him?' ¡¡¡¡`I have,' she said. ¡¡¡¡`He came to Trantridge two or three years ago to preach on behalf of some missionary society, and I, wretched fellow that I was, insulted him when, in his disinterestedness, he tried to reason with me and show me the way. He did not resent my conduct, he simply said that some day I should receive the first-fruits of the Spirit - that those who came to scoff sometimes remained to pray. There was a strange magic in his words. They sank into my mind. But the loss of my mother hit me

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most; and by degrees I was brought to see daylight. Since then my one desire has been to hand on the true view to others, and that is what I was trying to do to-day; though it is only lately that I have preached hereabout. The first months of my ministry have been spent in the North of England among strangers, where I preferred to make my earliest clumsy attempts, so as to acquire courage before undergoing that severest of all tests of one's sincerity, addressing those who have known one, and have been one's companions in the days of darkness. If you could only know, Tess, the pleasure of having a good slap at yourself, I am sure------' ¡¡¡¡`Don't go on with it!' she cried passionately, as she turned away from him to a stile by the wayside, on which she bent herself. `I can't believe in such sudden things! I feel indignant with you for talking to me like this, when you know - when you know what harm you've done me! You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted! Out upon such - I don't believe in you - I hate it!'

Madonna Litta

know it - I know - I know!' she gasped through her sobs. `But, O my mother, I could not help it! He was so good - and I felt the wickedness of trying to blind him as to what had happened! If - if - it were to be done again - I should do the same. I could not - I dared not - so sin - against him!' ¡¡¡¡`But you sinned enough to marry him first!' ¡¡¡¡`Yes, yes; that's where my misery do lie! But I thought he could get rid o' me by law if he were determined not to overlook it. And O, if you knew - if you could only half know how I loved him how anxious I was to have him - and how wrung I was between caring so much for him and my wish to be fair to him!' ¡¡¡¡Tess was so shaken that she could get no further, and sank a helpless thing into a chair. ¡¡¡¡`Well, well; what's done can't be undone! I'm sure I don't know why children o' my bringing forth should all be bigger simpletons than other people's - not to know

Naiade oil painting

better than to blab such a thing as that, when he couldn't ha' found it out till too late!' Here Mrs Durbeyfield began shedding tears on her own account as a mother to be pitied. `What your father will say I don't know,' she continued: `for he's been talking about the wedding up at Roliver's and The Pure Drop every day since, and about his family getting back to their rightful position through you - poor silly man! - and now you've made this mess of it! The Lord-a-Lord!' ¡¡¡¡As if to bring matters to a focus, Tess's father was heard approaching at that moment. He did not however, enter immediately, and Mrs Durbeyfield said that she would break the bad news to him herself, Tess keeping out of sight for the present. After her first burst of disappointment Joan began to take the mishap as she had taken Tess's original trouble, as she would have taken a wet holiday or failure in the potato-crop; as a thing which had come upon them irrespective of desert or folly; a chance external impingement to be borne with; not a lesson.

precious time

¡¡¡¡Tess retreated upstairs, and beheld casually that the beds had been shifted, and new arrangements made. Her old bed had been adapted for two younger children. There was no place here for her now. ¡¡¡¡The room below being unceiled she could hear most of what went on there. Presently her father entered, apparently carrying a live hen. He was a foot-haggler now, having been obliged to sell his second horse, and he travelled with his basket on his arm. The hen had been carried about this morning as it was often carried, to show people that he was in his work, though it had lain, with its legs tied, under the table at Rolliver's for more than an hour. ¡¡¡¡`We've just had up a story about--' Durbeyfield began, and thereupon related in detail to his wife a discussion which had arisen at the inn about the clergy, originated by the fact of his daughter having married into a clerical family. `They was formerly styled "sir", like my own ancestry,' he said, `though nowadays their true st

Rembrandt Biblical Scene

strictly speaking, is "clerk" only.' As Tess had wished that no great publicity should be given to the event, he had mentioned no particulars. He hoped she would remove that prohibition soon. He proposed that the couple should take Tess's own name, d'Urberville, as uncorrupted. It was better than her husband's. He asked if any letter had come from her that day. ¡¡¡¡Then Mrs Durbeyfield informed him that no letter had come, but Tess unfortunately had come herself. ¡¡¡¡When at length the collapse was explained to him a sullen mortification, not usual with Durbeyfield, overpowered the influence of the cheering glass. Yet the intrinsic quality of the event moved his touchy sensitiveness less than its conjectured effect upon the minds of others. ¡¡¡¡`To think, now, that this was to be the end o't!' said Sir John. `And I with a family vault under that there church of Kingsbere as big as Squire Jollard's ale-cellar, and my folk lying there in sixes and sevens, as genuine county bones and marrow as any recorded in history. And now to be sure what they fellers at Rolliver's and

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The Pure Drop will say to me! How they'll squint and glane, and say, "This is yer mighty match is it; this is yer getting back to the true level of yer forefathers in King Norman's time!" I feel this is too much, Joan; I shall put an end to myself, title and all - I can bear it no longer!... . But she can make him keep her if he's married her?' ¡¡¡¡`Why, yes. But she won't think o' doing that.' ¡¡¡¡`D'ye think he really have married her? - or is it like the first--' ¡¡¡¡Poor Tess, who had heard as far as this, could not bear to hear more. The perception that her word could be doubted even here, in her own parental house, set her mind against the spot as nothing else could have done. How unexpected were the attacks of destiny! And if her father doubted her a little, would not neighbours and acquaintance doubt her much? O, she could not live long at home!

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¡¡¡¡However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the support of the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips - lips in the daytime scorned. Then he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and descended the staircase. The creak of the loose stair did not awaken him, and they reached the ground-floor safely. Freeing one of his hands from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar and passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge of the door. But this he seemed not to mind, and, having room for extension in the open air, he lifted her against his shoulder, so that he could carry her with ease, the absence of clothes taking much from his burden. Thus he bore her off the premises in the direction of the river a few yards distant. His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet divined; and she found herself conjecturing on the matter as a third person might have done.

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she delivered her whole being up to him that it pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute possession, to dispose of as he should choose. It was consoling, under the hovering terror of to-morrow's separation, to feel that he really recognized her now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off, even if in that recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself the right of harming her. ¡¡¡¡Ah! now she knew what he was dreaming of - that Sunday morning when he had borne her along through the water with the other dairymaids, who had loved him nearly as much as she, if that were possible, which Tess could hardly admit. Clare did not cross the bridge with her, but proceeding several paces on the same side towards the adjoining mill, at length stood still on the brink of the river. ¡¡¡¡Its waters, in creeping down these miles of meadow-land, frequently divided, serpentining in purposeless curves, looping themselves around littl

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name, returning and re-embodying themselves as a broad main stream further on. Opposite the spot to which he had brought her was such a general confluence, and the river was proportionately voluminous and deep. Across it was a narrow foot-bridge; but now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away, leaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the speeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads; and Tess had noticed from the window of the house in the daytime young men walking across upon it as a feat in balancing. Her husband had possibly observed the same performance; anyhow, he now mounted the plank, and, sliding one foot forward, advanced along it. Was he going to drown her? Probably he was. The spot was lonely, the river deep and wide enough to make such a purpose easy of accomplishment. He might drown her if he would; It would be better than parting to-morrow to lead severed lives

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¡¡¡¡The swift stream raced and gyrated under them, tossing, distorting, and splitting the moon's reflected face. Spots of froth travelled past, and intercepted weeds waved behind the piles. If they could both fall together into the current now, their arms would be so tightly clasped together that they could not be saved; they would go out of the world almost painlessly, and there would be no more reproach to her, or to him for marrying her. His last half-hour with her would have been a loving one, while if they lived till he awoke his daytime aversion would return, and this hour would remain to be contemplated only as a transient dream. ¡¡¡¡The impulse stirred in her, yet she dared not indulge it, to make a movement that would have precipitated them both into the gulf. How she valued her own life had been proved; but his - she had no right to tamper with it. He reached the other side with her in safety.

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¡¡¡¡Here they were within a plantation which formed the Abbey grounds, and taking a new hold of her he went onward a few steps till they reached the ruined choir of the Abbey-church. Against the north wall was the empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with a turn for grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself. In this Clare carefully laid Tess. Having kissed her lips a second time he breathed deeply, as if a greatly desired end were attained. Clare then lay down on the ground alongside, when he immediately fell into the deep dead slumber of exhaustion, and remained motionless as a log. The spurt of mental excitement which had produced the effort was now over. ¡¡¡¡Tess sat up in the coffin. The night, though dry and mild for the season, was more than sufficiently cold to make it dangerous for him to remain here long, in his half-clothed state. If he were left to himself he would in all probability stay there till the morning, and be chilled to certain death. She had heard of such deaths after sleep-walking. But how could she dare to awaken him, and let him know what he had been doing, when it would mortify him to discover his folly in respect of h

Madonna Litta

Despite Angel Clare's plausible representations to himself and to Tess of the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in truth an element of precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a later date. He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for him. He had entertained no notion, when doomed as he had thought to an unintellectual bucolic life, that such charms as he beheld in this idyllic creature would be found behind the scenes. Unsophistication was a thing to talk of; but he had not known how it really struck one until he came here. Yet he was very far from seeing his future track clearly, and it might be a year or two before he would be able to consider himself fairly started in life. The secret lay in the tinge of recklessness imparted to his career and character by the sense that he had been made to miss his true destiny through the prejudices of his family.

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Don't you think 'twould have been better for us to wait till you were quite settled in your midland farm?' she once asked timidly. (A midland farm was the idea just then.) ¡¡¡¡`To tell the truth, my Tess, I don't like you to be left anywhere away from my protection and sympathy.' ¡¡¡¡The reason was a good one, so far as it went. His influence over her had been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits, his speech and phrases, his likings and his aversions. And to leave her in farmland would be to let her slip back again out of accord with him. He wished to have her under his charge for another reason. His parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he carried her off to a distant settlement, English or colonial; and as no opinion of theirs was to be allowed to change his intention, he judged that a couple of months' life with him in lodgings whilst seeking for an advantageous opening would be of some social assistance to her at what she might feel to be a trying ordeal - her presentation to his mother at the Vicarage

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a little of the working of a flour-mill, having an idea that he might combine the use of one with corn-growing. The proprietor of a large old water-mill at Wellbridge - once the mill of an Abbey - had offered him the inspection of his time-honoured mode of procedure, and a hand in the operations for a few days, whenever he should choose to come. Clare paid a visit to the place, some few miles distant, one day at this time, to inquire particulars, and returned to Talbothays in the evening. She found him determined to spend a short time at the Wellbridge flour-mills. And what had determined him? Less the opportunity of an insight into grinding and bolting than the casual fact that lodgings were to be obtained in that very farmhouse which, before its mutilation, had been the mansion of a branch of the d'Urberville family. This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by a sentiment which had nothing to do with them. They decided to go immediately after the wedding, and remain for a fortnight, instead of journeying to towns and inns.

Rembrandt Biblical Scene

Then we will start off to examine some farms on the other side of London that I have heard of,' he said, `and by March or April we will pay a visit to my father and mother.' ¡¡¡¡Questions of procedure such as these arose and passed, and the day, the incredible day, on which she was to become his, loomed large in the near future. The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, was the date. His wife, she said to herself. Could it ever be? Their two selves together, nothing to divide them, every incident shared by them; why not? And yet why? ¡¡¡¡One Sunday morning Izz Huett returned from church, and spoke privately to Tess. ¡¡¡¡`You was not called home this morning.' ¡¡¡¡`What?' ¡¡¡¡`It should ha' been the first time of asking to-day,' she answered, looking quietly at Tess. `You meant to be married New Year's Eve, deary?' ¡¡¡¡The other returned a quick affirmative.

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And there must be three times of asking. And now there be only two Sundays left between.' ¡¡¡¡Tess felt her cheek paling; Izz was right; of course there must be three. Perhaps he had forgotten! If so, there must be a week's postponement, and that was unlucky. How could she remind her lover? She who had been so backward was suddenly fired with impatience and alarm lest she should lose her dear prize. ¡¡¡¡A natural incident relieved her anxiety. Izz mentioned the omission of the banns to Mrs Crick, and Mrs Crick assumed a matron's privilege of speaking to Angel on the point. ¡¡¡¡`Have ye forgot 'em, Mr Clare? The banns, I mean.' ¡¡¡¡`No, I have not forgot 'em,' says Clare. ¡¡¡¡As soon as he caught Tess alone he assured her: ¡¡¡¡`Don't let them tease you about the banns. A licence will be quieter for us, and I have decided on a licence without consulting you. So if you go to church on Sunday morning you will not hear your own name, if you wished to.' ¡¡¡¡`I didn't wish to hear it, dearest,' she said proudly.

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Clare hardily kept his arm round her waist in sight of these watermen, with the air of a man who was accustomed to public dalliance, though actually as shy as she who, with lips parted and eyes askance on the labourers, wore the look of a wary animal the while. ¡¡¡¡`You are not ashamed of owning me as yours before them!' she said gladly. ¡¡¡¡`O no!' ¡¡¡¡`But if it should reach the ears of your friends at Emminster that you are walking about like this with me, a milkmaid--' ¡¡¡¡`The most bewitching milkmaid ever seen.' ¡¡¡¡`They might feel it a hurt to their dignity.' ¡¡¡¡`My dear girl - a d'Urberville hurt the dignity of a Clare! It is a grand card to play - that of your belonging to such a family, and I am reserving it for a grand effect when we are married, and have the proofs of your descent from Parson Tringham. Apart from that, my future is to be totally foreign to my family - it will not affect even the surface of their lives. We shall leave this part of England - perhaps England itself - and what does it matter how people regard us here. You will like going, will you not?'

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horizontal as the mead itself, formed a pollen of radiance over the landscape. They saw tiny blue fogs in the shadows of trees and hedges, all the time that there was bright sunshine elsewhere. The sun was so near the ground, and the sward so flat, that the shadows of Clare and Tess would stretch a quarter of a mile ahead of them, like two long fingers pointing afar to where the green alluvial reaches abutted against the sloping sides of the vale. ¡¡¡¡Men were at work here and there - for it was the season for `taking up' the meadows, or digging the little waterways clear for the winter irrigation, and mending their banks where trodden down by the cows. The shovelfuls of loam, black as `et, brought there by the river when it was as wide as the whole valley, were an essence of soils, pounded champaigns of the past, steeped, refined, and subtilized to extraordinary richness, out of which came all the fertility of the mead, and of the cattle grazing there.

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She could answer no more than a bare affirmative, so great was the emotion aroused in her at the thought of going through the world with him as his own familiar friend. Her feelings almost filled her ears like a babble of waves, and surged up to her eyes. She put her hand in his, and thus they went on, to a place where the reflected sun glared up from the river, under a bridge, with a molten-metallic glow that dazzled their eyes, though the sun itself was hidden by the bridge. They stood still, whereupon little furred and feathered heads popped up from the smooth surface of the water; but, finding that the disturbing presences had paused, and not passed by, they disappeared again. Upon this river-brink they lingered till the fog began to close round them - which was very early in the evening at this time of the year - settling on the lashes of her eyes, where it rested like crystals, and on his brows and hair.

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They walked later on Sundays, when it was quite dark. Some of the dairy-people, who were also out of doors on the first Sunday evening after their engagement, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to fragments, though they were too far off to hear the words discoursed; noted the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken into syllables by the leapings of her heart, as she walked leaning on his arm; her contented pauses, the occasional little laugh upon which her soul seemed to ride - the laugh of a woman in company with the man she loves and has won from all other women - unlike anything else in nature. They marked the buoyancy of her tread, like the skim of a bird which has not quite alighted. ¡¡¡¡Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her - doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.

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A spiritual forgetfulness coexisted with an intellectual remembrance. She walked in brightness, but she knew that in the background those shapes of darkness were always spread. They might be receding, or they might be approaching, one or the other, a little every day. ¡¡¡¡One evening Tess and Clare were obliged to sit indoors keeping house, all the other occupants of the domicile being away. As they talked she looked thoughtfully up at him, and met his two appreciative eyes. ¡¡¡¡`I am not worthy of you - no, I am not!' she burst out, jumping up from her low stool as though appalled at his homage, and the fulness of her own joy thereat. ¡¡¡¡Clare, deeming the whole basis of her excitement to be that which was only the smaller part of it, said-- ¡¡¡¡`I won't have you speak like it, dear Tess! Distinction does not consist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conventions, but in being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report - as you are, my Tess.'

Nude on the Beach

r used to go to Conjuror Mynterne, out at Owlscombe, and a clever man a' were, so I've heard grandf'er say, continued Mr Crick. `But there's no such genuine folk about nowadays!' ¡¡¡¡Mrs Crick's mind kept nearer to the matter in hand. ¡¡¡¡`Perhaps somebody in the house is in love,' she said tentatively. `I've heard tell in my younger days that that will cause it. Why, Crick - that maid we had years ago, do ye mind, and how the butter didn't come then--' ¡¡¡¡`Ah yes, yes! - but that isn't the rights o't. It had nothing to do with the love-making. I can mind all about it--'twas the damage to the churn.' ¡¡¡¡He turned to Clare. ¡¡¡¡`Jack Dollop, a 'hore's-bird of a fellow we had here as milker at one time, sir, courted a young woman over at Mellstock, and deceived her as he had deceived many afore. But he had another sort o' woman to reckon wi' this time, and it was not the girl herself. One Holy Thursday, of all days in the almanack, we was where

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mid be now, only there was no churning in hand, when we zid the girl's mother coming up to the door, wi' a great brass-mounted umbrella in her hand that would ha' felled an ox, and saying "Do Jack Dollop work here? - because I want him! I have a big bone to pick with he, I can assure 'n!" And some way behind her mother walked Jack's young woman, crying bitterly into her handkercher. "O Lard, here's a time!" said jack, looking out o' winder at 'em. "She'll murder me! Where shall I get-where shall I - ? Don't tell her where I be!" And with that he scrambled into the churn through the trap-door, and shut himself inside, just as the young woman's mother busted into the milk-house. "The villain - where is he?" says she, "I'll claw his face for'n, let me only catch him!" Well, she hunted about everywhere, ballyragging Jack by side and by seam, Jack lying a'most stifled inside the churn, and the poor maid - or young woman rather - standing at the door crying her eyes out. I shall never forget it, never! 'Twould have melted a marble stone! But she couldn't find him nowhere at all.'

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The dairyman paused, and one or two words of comment came from the listeners. ¡¡¡¡Dairyman Crick's stories often seemed to be ended when they were not really so, and strangers were betrayed into premature interjections of finality; though old friends knew better. The narrator went on-- ¡¡¡¡`Well, how the old woman should have had the wit to guess it I could never tell, but she found out that he was inside that there churn. Without saying a word she took hold of the winch (it was turned by handpower then), and round she swung him, and jack began to flop about inside. "O Lard! stop the churn! let me out!" says he, popping out his head, "I shall be churned into a pummy!" (he was a cowardly chap in his heart, as such men mostly be). "Not till ye make amends for ravaging her virgin innocence!" says the old woman. "Stop the churn, you old witch!" screams he. "You call me old witch, do ye, you deceiver!" says she, "when ye ought to ha' been calling me mother-law these last five months!" And on went the churn, and Jack's bones rattled round again. Well, none of us ventured to interfere; and at last 'a promised to make it right wi' her. "Yes - I'll be as good as my word!" he said. And so it ended that day.'

Sweet Nothings

While the listeners were smiling their comments there was a quick movement behind their backs, and they looked round. Tess, pale-faced, had gone to the door. ¡¡¡¡`How warm 'tis to-day!' she said, almost inaudibly. ¡¡¡¡It was warm, and none of them connected her withdrawal with the reminiscences of the dairyman. He went forward, and opened the door for her, saying with tender raillery-- ¡¡¡¡`Why, maidy' (he frequently, with unconscious irony, gave her this pet name), `the prettiest milker I've got in my dairy; you mustn't get so fagged as this at the first breath of summer weather, or we shall be finely put to for want of 'ee by dog-days, shan't we, Mr Clare?' ¡¡¡¡`I was faint - and - I think I am better out o' doors,' she said mechanically; and disappeared outside. ¡¡¡¡Fortunately for her the milk in the revolving churn at that moment changed its squashing for a decided flick-flack. ¡¡¡¡`'Tis coming!' cried Mrs Crick, and the attention of all was called off from Tess.

The Jewel Casket

That fair sufferer soon recovered herself externally, but she remained much depressed all the afternoon. When the evening milking was done she did not care to be with the rest of them, and went out of doors wandering along she knew not whither. She was wretched - O so wretched - at the perception that to her companions the dairyman's story had been rather a humorous narration than otherwise; none of them but herself seemed to see the sorrow of it; to a certainty, not one knew how cruelly it touched the tender place in her experience. The evening sun was now ugly to her, like a great inflamed wound in the sky. Only a solitary cracked-voiced reed-sparrow greeted her from the bushes by the river, in a sad, machine-made tone, resembling that of a past friend whose friendship she had outworn. ¡¡¡¡In these long June days the milkmaids, and, indeed, most of the household, went to bed at sunset or sooner, the morning work before milking being so early and heavy at a time of full pails. Tess usually accompanied her fellows upstairs. To-night, however, she was the first to go to their common chamber; and she had dozed

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Tess was conscious of neither time nor space. The exaltation which she had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star, came now without any determination of hers; she undulated upon the thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like breezes through her, bringing tears into her eyes. The floating pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility. Though near nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not close for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of sound. ¡¡¡¡The light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere. He concluded his plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun. But, tired of playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling up behind her. Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if hardly moving at all

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Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low tones reaching her, though he was some distance off. ¡¡¡¡`What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?' said he. `Are you afraid?' ¡¡¡¡`Oh no, sir... not of outdoor things; especially just now when the apple-blooth is failing, and everything so green.' ¡¡¡¡`But you have your indoor fears - eh?' ¡¡¡¡`Well - yes, sir.' ¡¡¡¡`What of?, ¡¡¡¡`I couldn't quite say.' ¡¡¡¡`The milk turning sour?' ¡¡¡¡`No.' ¡¡¡¡`Life in general?' ¡¡¡¡`Yes, sir.' ¡¡¡¡`Ah - so have I, very often. This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?' ¡¡¡¡`It is - now you put it that way.' ¡¡¡¡`All the same, I shouldn't have expected a young girl like you to see it so just yet. How is it you do?' ¡¡¡¡She maintained a hesitating silence. ¡¡¡¡`Come, Tess, tell me in confidence.'

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She thought that he meant what were the aspects of things to her, and replied shyly-- ¡¡¡¡`The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they? - that is, seem as if they had. And the river says, - "Why do ye trouble me with your looks?" And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand farther away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, "I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!"... But you, sir, can raise up dreams with your music, and drive all such horrid fancies away!' ¡¡¡¡He was surprised to find this young woman - who though but a milkmaid had just that touch of rarity about her which might make her the envied of her housemates - shaping such sad imaginings. She was expressing in her own native phrases - assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training - feelings which might almost have been called those of the age - the ache of modernism. The perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition - a more accurate expression, by words in logy and ism, of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries

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Still, it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so young; more than strange; it was impressive, interesting, pathetic. Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration. Tess's passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest. ¡¡¡¡Tess, on her part, could not understand why a man of clerical family and good education, and above physical want, should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. For the unhappy pilgrim herself there was very good reason. But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have descended into the Valley of Humiliation, have felt with the man of Uz - as she herself had felt two or three years ago - `My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway.' ¡¡¡¡It was true that he was at present out of his class. But she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright's yard, he was studying what he wanted to know. He did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows, but because he was learning how to be a rich and prosperous dairyman, landowner

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agriculturist, and breeder of cattle. He would become an American or Australian Abraham, commanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds, his spotted and his ring-stroked, his men-servants and his maids. At times, nevertheless, it did seem unaccountable to her that a decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer, and not a clergyman, like his father and brothers. ¡¡¡¡Thus, neither having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and moods without attempting to pry into each other's history. ¡¡¡¡Every day, every hour, brought to him one more little stroke of her nature, and to her one more of his. Tess was trying to lead a repressed life, but she little divined the strength of her own vitality. ¡¡¡¡At first Tess seemed to regard Angel Clare as an intelligence rather than as a man. As such she compared him with herself; and at every discovery of the abundance of his illuminations, of the distance between her own modest mental standpoint and the unmeasurable, Andean altitude of his, she became quite dejected, disheartened from all further effort on her own part whatever.

A Greek Beauty

day when, their covert shrinking to a more and more horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the harvesters. ¡¡¡¡The reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf; and upon these the active binders in the rear laid their hands - mainly women, but some of them men in print shirts, and trousers supported round their waists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back. But those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company of binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times. A field-man is a personality afield; a field-woman is a portion of the field; she has somehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and assimilated herself with it.

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The women - or rather girls, for they were mostly young - wore drawn cotton bonnets with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun, and gloves to prevent their hands being wounded by the stubble. There was one wearing a pale pink jacket, another in a cream-coloured tight-sleeved gown, another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the reaping-machine; and others, older, in the brown-rough `wropper' or over-all-the old-established and most appropriate dress of the field-woman, which the young ones were abandoning. This morning the eye returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she being the most flexuous and finely-drawn figure of them all. But her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is disclosed while she binds, though her complexion may be guessed from a stray twine or two of dark brown hair which extends below the curtain of her bonnet. Perhaps one reason why she seduces casual attention is that she never courts it, though the other women often gaze around them.

Dance Me to the End of Love

Her binding proceeds with clock-like monotony. From the sheaf last finished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her left palm to bring them even. Then stooping low she moves forward, gathering the corn with both hands against her knees, and pushing her left gloved hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other side, holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover. She brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on its feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble, and bleeds. ¡¡¡¡At intervals she stands up to rest, and to retie her disarranged apron, or to pull her bonnet straight. Then one can see the oval face of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes and long heavy clinging tresses, which seem to clasp in a beseeching way anything they fall against. The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular, the red lips thinner than is usual in a country-bred girl.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may

irl with a pearl earring vermeer Gustav Klimt Kiss painting Head of Christ
It is Tess Durbeyfield, otherwise d'Urberville, somewhat changed - the same, but not the same; at the present stage of her existence living as a stranger and an alien here, though it was no strange land that she was in. After a long seclusion she had come to a resolve to undertake outdoor work in her native village, the busiest season of the year in the agricultural world having arrived, and nothing that she could do within the house being so remunerative for the time as harvesting in the fields. ¡¡¡¡The movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tess's, the whole bevy of them drawing together like dancers in a quadrille at the completion of a sheaf by each, every one placing her sheaf on end against those of the rest, till a shock, or `stitch' as it was here called, of ten or a dozen was formed

Hylas and the Nymphs

They went to breakfast, and came again, and the work proceeded as before. As the hour of eleven drew near a person watching her might have noticed that every now and then Tess's glance flitted wistfully to the brow of the hill, though she did not pause in her sheafing. On the verge of the hour the heads of a group of children, of ages ranging from six to fourteen, rose above the stubbly convexity of the hill. ¡¡¡¡The face of Tess flushed slightly, but still she did not pause. ¡¡¡¡The eldest of the comers, a girl who wore a triangular shawl, its corner draggling on the stubble, carried in her arms what at first sight seemed to be a doll, but proved to be an infant in long clothes. Another brought some lunch. The harvesters ceased working, took their provisions, and sat down against one of the shocks. Here they fell to, the men plying a stone jar freely, and passing round a cup.

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Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule, in her large and impulsive nature. ¡¡¡¡`I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not - I cannot! I should be your creature to go on doing that, and I won't!' ¡¡¡¡`One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition to a true and original d'Urberville - ha! ha! Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more. I suppose I am a bad fellow - a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability. But, upon my lost soul, I won't be bad towards you again, Tess. And if certain circumstances should arise - you understand - in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty, send me one line, and you shall have by, return whatever you require. I may not be at Trantridge - I am going to London for a time - I can't stand the old woman. But all letters will be forwarded.' ¡¡¡¡She said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they stopped lust under the clump of trees. D'Urberville alighted, and lifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her. She bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his; and then she turned to take the parcels for departure

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igar, bent towards her, and said-- ¡¡¡¡`You are not going to turn away like that, dear? Come!' ¡¡¡¡`If you wish,' she answered indifferently. `See how you've mastered me!' ¡¡¡¡She thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, and remained like a marble term while he imprinted a kiss upon her cheek-half perfunctorily, half as if zest had not yet quite died out. Her eyes vaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was given, as though she were nearly unconscious of what he did. ¡¡¡¡`Now the other side, for old acquaintance' sake.' ¡¡¡¡She turned her head in the same passive way, as one might turn at the request of a sketcher or hairdresser, and he kissed the other side, his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the mushrooms in the fields around.

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You don't give me your mouth and kiss me back. You never willingly do that - you'll never love me, I fear.' ¡¡¡¡`I have said so, often. It is true. I have never really and truly loved you, and I think I never can.' She added mournfully, `Perhaps, of all things, a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now; but I have honour enough left, little as 'tis, not to tell that lie. If I did love you I may have the best o' causes for letting you know it. But I don't.' ¡¡¡¡He emitted a laboured breath, as if the scene were getting rather oppressive to his heart, or to his conscience, or to his gentility. ¡¡¡¡`Well, you are absurdly melancholy, Tess. I have no reason for flattering you now, and I can say plainly that you need not be so sad. You can hold your own for beauty against any woman of these parts, gentle or simple; I say, it to you as a practical man and well-wisher. If you are wise you will it to the world more than you do before it fades... And yet, Tess, will you come back to me? Upon my soul I don't like to let you go like this!' ¡¡¡¡`Never, never! I made up my mind as soon as I saw - what I ought to have seen sooner; and I won't come.' ¡¡¡¡`Then good morning, my four months' cousin - good-bye!'

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He leapt up lightly, arranged the reins, and was gone between the tall red-berried hedges. ¡¡¡¡Tess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the crooked lane. It was still early, and though the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that lane. ¡¡¡¡As she walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said `Good morning' before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked in a business-like manner if he should take her basket, which she permitted him to do, walking beside him. ¡¡¡¡`It is early to be astir this Sabbath morn!' he said cheerfully. ¡¡¡¡`Yes,' said Tess. ¡¡¡¡`When most people are at rest from their week's work.'

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She also assented to this. ¡¡¡¡`Though I do more real work to-day than all the week besides.' ¡¡¡¡`Do you?' ¡¡¡¡`All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the glory of God. That's more real than the other - hey? I have a little to do here at this stile.' The man turned as he spoke to an opening at the roadside leading into a pasture.'If you'll wait a moment,'he added, `I shall not be long.' ¡¡¡¡As he had her basket she could not well do otherwise; and she waited, observing him. He set down her basket and the tin pot, and stirring the paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square letters on the middle board of the three composing the stile, placing a comma after each word, as if to give pause while that word was driven well home to the reader's heart--
THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. Against the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints of the copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened stile-boards, these staring vermilion words shone forth. They seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmosphere ring. Some people might have cried `Alas, poor Theology!' at the hideous defacement - the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time. But the words entered Tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this man had known her recent history; yet he was a total stranger.

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¡¡¡¡It was in the economy of this régime that Tess Durbeyfield had undertaken to fill a place. Her first day's experiences were fairly typical of those which followed through many succeeding days. A familiarity with Alec d'Urberville's presence - which that young man carefully cultivated in her by playful dialogue, and by lastingly calling her his cousin when they were alone - removed much of her original shyness of him, without, however, implanting any feeling which could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind. But she was more pliable under his hands than a mere companionship would have made her, owing to her unavoidable dependence upon his mother, and, through that lady's comparative helplessness, upon him. ¡¡¡¡She soon found that whistling to the bullfinches in Mrs d'Urberville's room was no such onerous business when she had regained the art, for she had caught from her musical mother numerous airs that suited those songsters admirably. A far more satisfactory time than when she practised in the garden was this whistling by the cages each morning. Unrestrained by the young man's presence she threw up her mouth, put her lips near the bars, and piped away in easeful grace to the attentive listeners.

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¡¡¡¡Mrs d'Urberville slept in a large four-post bedstead hung with heavy damask curtains, and the bullfinches occupied the same apartment, where they flitted about freely at certain hours, and made little white spots on the furniture and upholstery. Once while Tess was at the window where the cages were ranged, giving her lesson as usual, she thought she heard a rustling behind the bed. The old lady was not present, and turning round the girl had an impression that the toes of a pair of boots were visible below the fringe of the curtains. Thereupon her whistling became so disjointed that the listener, if such there were, must have discovered her suspicion of his presence. She searched the curtains every morning after that, but never found anybody within them. Alec d'Urberville had evidently thought better of his freak to terrify her by an ambush of that

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idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own code of morality. The levity of some of the younger women in and about Trantridge was marked, and was perhaps symptomatic of the choice spirit who ruled The Slopes in that vicinity. The place had also a more abiding defect; it drank hard. The staple conversation on the farms around was on the uselessness of saving money; and smock-frocked arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or hoes, would enter into calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief was a fuller provision for a man in his old age than any which could result from savings out of their wages during a whole lifetime. ¡¡¡¡The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday night, when work was done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market town two or three miles distant; and, returning in the small hours of the next morning, to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects of the curious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the once independent inns.

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For a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages. But under pressure from matrons not much older than herself - for a fieldman's wages being as high at twenty one as at forty, marriage was early here - Tess at length consented to go. Her first experience of the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected, the hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her monotonous attention to the poultry-farm all the week. She went again and again. Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the momentary threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her some shy regards from loungers in the streets of Chaseborough; hence, though sometimes her journey to the town was made independently, she always searched for her fellows at nightfall, to have the protection of their companionship homeward.

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This had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in September, on which a fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims from Trantridge sought double delights at the inns on that account. Tess's occupations made her late in setting out, so that her comrades reached the town long before her. It was a fine September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hair-like lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance in it. Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked leisurely along. ¡¡¡¡She did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till she had reached the place, by which time it was close upon dusk. Her limited marketing was soon completed; and then as usual she began to look about for some of the Trantridge cottagers.

Hylas and the Nymphs

Ever since the accident with her father's horse Tess Durbeyfield, courageous as she naturally was, had been exceedingly timid on wheels; the least irregularity of motion startled her. She began to get uneasy at a certain recklessness in her conductor's driving. ¡¡¡¡`You will go down slow, sir, I suppose?' she said with attempted unconcern. ¡¡¡¡D'Urberville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar with the tips of his large white centre-teeth, and allowed his lips to smile slowly of themselves. ¡¡¡¡`Why, Tess,' he answered, after another whiff or two, `it isn't a brave bouncing girl like you who asks that? Why, I always go down at full gallop. There's nothing like it for raising your spirits.' ¡¡¡¡`But perhaps you need not now?' Ah,' he said, shaking his head, `there are two to be reckoned with. It is not me alone. Tib has to be considered, and she has a very queer temper.' ¡¡¡¡`Who?' ¡¡¡¡`Why, this mare. I fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way `just then. Didn't you notice it?' ¡¡¡¡`Don't try to frighten me, sir,' said Tess stiffly.

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Mrs Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child. Then she looked down, then stared again. Could she be deceived as to the meaning of this? ¡¡¡¡`Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who'll make Sissy a lady?' asked the youngest child. ¡¡¡¡Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still, undecided, beside this turnout, whose owner was talking to her. Her seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was misgiving. She would have preferred the humble cart. The young man dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend. She turned her face down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group. Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the thought that she had killed Prince. She suddenly stepped up; he mounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse. In a moment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill.

Dance Me to the End of Love

Directly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a drama was at an end, the little ones' eyes filled with tears. The youngest child said, `I wish poor, poor Tess wasn't gone away to be a lady!' and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying. The new point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise, and then the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud. ¡¡¡¡There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she turned to go home. But by the time she had got back to the village she was passively trusting to the favour of accident. However, in bed that night she sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter. ¡¡¡¡`Oh, I don't know exactly,' she said. `I was thinking that perhaps it would ha' been better if Tess had not gone.' ¡¡¡¡`Oughtn't ye to have thought of that before?'