Wessex Tales Series: 18 Novels & Stories (Complete Collection). Томас ХардиЧитать онлайн книгу.
to yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to brain. But no — O no!”
“A strange old piece, ye say!” interposed the maltster, in a querulous voice. “At the same time ye be no old man worth naming — no old man at all. Yer teeth bain’t half gone yet; and what’s a old man’s standing if so be his teeth bain’t gone? Weren’t I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? ’Tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there’s people far past four-score — a boast’weak as water.”
It was the unvaying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differences when the maltster had to be pacified.
“Weak as-water! yes,” said Jan Coggan. “Malter, we feel ye to be a wonderful veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it.”
“Nobody,” said Joseph Poorgrass. “Ye be a very rare old spectacle, malter, and we all admire ye for that gift.”
“Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in prosperity, I was likewise liked by a good-few who knowed me,” said the maltster.
“‘Ithout doubt you was — ‘ithout doubt.”
The bent and hoary ‘man was satisfied, and so apparently was Henery Frag. That matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils — notably some of Nicholas Poussin’s:—
“Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or any second-hand fellow at all that would do for poor me?” said Maryann. “A perfect one I don’t expect to at my time of life. If I could hear of such a thing twould do me more good than toast and ale.”
Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on with his shearing, and said not another word. Pestilent moods had come, and teased away his quiet. Bathsheba had shown indications of anointing him above his fellows by installing him as the bailiff that the farm imperatively required. He did not covet the post relatively to the farm: in relation to herself, as beloved by him and unmarried to another, he had coveted it. His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one of the absurdest mistakes. Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she had trifled with himself in thus feigning that she had trifled with another. He was inwardly convinced that, in accordance with the anticipations of his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that day would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss Everdene. Gabriel at this time of his life had out-grown the instinctive dislike which every Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite frequently, and he inwardly said, “I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets!” This was mere exclamation — the froth of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same.
“We workfolk shall have some lordly-junketing to-night,” said Cainy Ball, casting forth his thoughts in a new direction. “This morning I see’em making the great puddens in the milking-pails — lumps of fat as big as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I’ve never seed such splendid large knobs of fat before in the days of my life — they never used to be bigger then a horse-bean. And there was a great black crock upon the brandish with his legs a-sticking out, but I don’t know what was in within.”
“And there’s two bushels of biffins for apple-pies,” said Maryann.
“Well, I hope to do my duty by it all,” said Joseph Poorgrass, in a pleasant, masticating manner of anticipation. “Yes; victuals and drink is a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to the nerveless, if the form of words may be used. ’Tis the gospel of the body, without which we perish, so to speak it.”
Chapter 23
Eventide — A Second Declaration
For the shearing-supper a long table was placed on the grass-plot beside the house, the end of the table being thrust over the sill of the wide parlour window and a foot or two into the room. Miss Everdene sat inside the window, facing down the table. She was thus at the head without mingling with the men.
This evening Bathsheba was unusually excited, her red cheeks and lips contrasting lustrously with the mazy skeins of her shadowy hair. She seemed to expect assistance, and the seat at the bottom of the table was at her request left vacant until after they had begun the meal. She then asked Gabriel to take the place and the duties appertaining to that end, which he did with great readiness.
At this moment Mr. Boldwood came in at the gate, and crossed the green to Bathsheba at the window. He apologized for his lateness: his arrival was evidently by arrangement.
“Gabriel,” said she, “will you move again, please, and let Mr. Boldwood come there?”
Oak moved in silence back to his original seat.
The gentleman-farmer was dressed in cheerful style, in a new coat and white waistcoat, quite contrasting with his usual sober suits of grey. Inwardy, too, he was blithe, and consequently chatty to an exceptional degree. So also was Bathsheba now that he had come, though the uninvited presence of Pennyways, the bailiff who had been dismissed for theft, disturbed her equanimity for a while.
Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own private account, without reference to listeners:—
I’ve lost my love, and I care not, I’ve lost my love, and I care not; I shall soon have another That’s better than t’other; I’ve lost my love, and I care not.
This lyric, when concluded, was received with a silently appreciative gaze at the table, implying that the performance, like a work by those established authors who are independent of notices in the papers, was a well-known delight which required no applause.
“Now, Master Poorgrass, your song!” said Coggan.
“I be all but in liquor, and the gift is wanting in me,” said Joseph, diminishing himself.
“Nonsense; wou’st never be so ungrateful, Joseph — never!” said Coggan, expressing hurt feelings by an inflection of voice. “And mistress is looking hard at ye, as much as to say, ‘Sing at once, Joseph Poorgrass.’”
“Faith, so she is; well, I must suffer it! . . . Just eye my features, and see if the tell-tale blood overheats me much, neighbours?”
“No, yer blushes be quite reasonable,” said Coggan.
“I always tries to keep my colours from rising when a beauty’s eyes get fixed on me,” said Joseph, differently; “but if so be ’tis willed they do, they must.”
“Now, Joseph, your song, please,” said Bathsheba, from the window.
“Well, really, ma’am,” he replied, in a yielding tone, “I don’t know what to say. It would be a poor plain ballet of my own composure.”
“Hear, hear!” said the supper-party.
Poorgrass, thus assured, trilled forth a flickering yet commendable piece of sentiment, the tune of which consisted of the key-note and another, the latter being the sound chiefly dwelt upon. This was so successful that he rashly plunged into a second in the same breath, after a few false starts:—
I sow’-ed th’-e . . . . . I sow’-ed . . . . . I sow’-ed the’-e seeds’ of love’,
I-it was’ all’ i’-in the’-e spring’,
I-in A’-pril’, Ma’-ay, a’-nd sun’-ny’ June’,
When sma’-all bi’-irds they’ do’ sing.
“Well put out of hand,” said Coggan, at the end of the verse. ‘They do sing’ was a very taking paragraph.”
“Ay; and there was a pretty place at “seeds of love.” and ’twas well heaved out. Though “love” is a nasty high corner when a man’s voice is getting crazed. Next verse, Master Poorgrass.”