16
On a thyme-scented, b ird-hatching morning in May, between two an dthree y ears after the re turn fro m T rantridge—silent reconstr uctive y ears for Tess Durbeyfield—she left her home for the second time.
Having packed up her luggage so that it could be sent to her later, she started in a hired trap for the little town of S tourcastle, through which it was necessary to pass on her journey, now in a d irection almost opposite to that of her f irst adventuring.On the cur ve of the n earest hill s he lo oked back regretfully at Marlott and her father's house, although she had been so anxious to get away.
Her kindred dwelling there would probably continue their daily lives as heretofore, with no gr eat diminu tion of pleasure in their consciousn ess, although she would be far off, and they deprived of her smile.In a few days the children would engage in their games as merrily as ever without the sense of any gap left by her dep arture.This leaving of the y ounger child ren she had decided to b e for the bes t; were she to remain they would pro bably gain les s good by her precepts than harm by her example.
She went through Stourcastle without pausing, and onward to a junction of highways, where she could await a carrier's van that ran to the south-west; for the railways which engirdled this interior tract of country had never y et struck across it.While waiting, however, there came along a farmer in his spring cart, driving approximately in the directio n that sh e wished to pursue.Though he was a stranger to her she accep ted his offer of a seat beside him, ignoring that its motive was a mere tribute to her countenance.He was going to Weatherbury, and by accompanying him thither she could walk the remainder of the distance instead of travelling in the van by way of Casterbridge.
Tess did not stop at Weatherbury, after this long drive, further than to make a sligh t no nde meal a t noo n at a co ttage to which th e far mer recommended her.Thence she started on foot, basket in hand, to reach the wide upland of h eath d ividing this d istrict fro m the low-lying meads of a fur ther valley in w hich the dairy stood th at was the aim and end of her day's pilgrimage.
Tess had never before visited this part of the country, and yet she felt akin to the lands cape.Not so very far to the lef t of h er she cou ld discern a d ark patch in the scenery, which inquiry confir med her in supp osing to be trees marking the environs of Kingsbere—in the church of which parish the bones of her ancestors—her useless ancestors—lay entombed.
She had no admiration f or them now; she almost hated them for the dancethey had led her; not a thing of all that had been theirs did she retain but the old seal and spoon.“Pooh—I have as much of mother as fa ther in me！”she said.“All my prettiness comes from her, and she was only a dairymaid.”
The journey over th e intervening uplands and lo wlands of Egdon, when she reached them, was a m ore troublesome walk than she had anticipated, the distance being actually but a few miles.It was two hours, o wing to sun dry wrong turnings, ere she found herself on a summitcommanding thelong-sought-for vale, the Valley of the Great Dairies, the valley in which milk and butter grew to ran kness, and were produced more p rofusely, if less delicately, than at her home—the verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom.
It was in trinsically different from the Vale of Little Dairies, Blackmoor Vale, which, save during her disastrous sojou rn at Trantridge, she had exclusively known tillno w.The world was drawn to a larger pattern here.The enclosures n umbered fif ty acres instead of ten, the f armsteads were more extended, th e groups of cattle for med tribes hereabout; th ere only families.These myriads of cows stretching u nder her ey es from the f ar east to the far west outnumbered any she had ev er seen at one g lance before.The gre en lea was speckled as thickly with them as a canvas by Van Alsloot or Sallaert with burghers.The ripe hue of the r ed and dun kine absorbed the evening sunlight, which the w hite-coated animals retur ned to th e eye in ray s alm ost dazzling, even at the distant elevation on which she stood.
The b ird's-eye perspective befor e h er was not so luxur iantly beautifu l, perhaps, as that other one which she knew so well; yet it was more cheering, it lacked the intensely blue atm osphere of the riv al vale, and its heavy soils an d scents; th e new air wa s cle ar, bra cing, eth ereal.The riv er itself, which nourished the grass and cows of thes e renowned dairies, flowed not like the streams in Blackmoor.Those were slow, silent, often turbid; flowing over beds of mud into which the incautious wader might sink and van ish unawares.The Froom water s were clear as th e pure River of Life shown to the Evangelist, rapid as the shadow of a cloud, with pebbly shallows that prattled to the sky all day long.There the water-flower was the lily; the crowfoot here.
Either the change in the quality of the air from heavy to light, or the senseof being amid new scenes where ther e were no invidious eyes upon her, set up her spirits wonderfully.Her hopes mingled with th e sunshine in an idea l photosphere which surrounded her as she bounded along against the soft south wind.She heard a pleas ant voice in every breeze, and in ev ery bird's note seemed to lurk a joy.
Her face had latterly changed with changing states of mind, continua lly fluctuating b etween b eauty and ordin ariness, according as the thoughts w ere gay or grave.One day she was pink and flaw less; another pale and tr agical.When she was pink she was feelin g less than when pale; her more pe rfect beauty accorded with her less elevated mood; her more intense mood with her less perfect beauty.It was her best face physically that was now set against the south wind.
The irr esistible, un iversal, au tomatic tend ency to find sweet p leasure somewhere, which pervades all life, from the mean-est to the highest, h ad at length mastered Tess.Being even now only a young woman of twenty, one who mentally and sentimentally had not finished gro wing, it was im possible that any event should have left upon her an impression that was not in time capable of transmutation.
And thus her spirits, and her thankfulness, and her hopes, rose higher and higher.She tried several ballads, but found them inadequate; till, recollecting the psalter that her ey es had so often wandered over of a Sunday m orning before she h ad eaten of the tree of knowledge, s he chanted：“O ye Sun a nd Moon……O ye Stars……ye Green Things upon the Earth……ye Fowls of the Air……Beasts and Cattle Children of Men……bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever！”
She suddenly stopped and murmured：“But perhaps I don't quite know the Lord as yet.”
And probably the half-unconscious rhapsody was a Fetichistic utterance in a Monotheis tic s etting; women whose chief co mpanions are the forms and forces of ou tdoor Nature retain in their souls far more of th e Pagan fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the systematized religion taught their race at later date.However, Tess found at least approximate expression for her feelings in the old Benedicite that she had lisped from infancy; and it was enough.Such
high contentment with such a slight initial performance as that of having started towards a means of independent living was a part of the Durbey field temperament.Tess really wished to walk uprightly, while her father did nothing of the kind; but she resembled him in being content with immediate and small achievements, and in having no mind for labor ious effort towards such petty social advancement as could alone be effected by a fa mily so heavily handic-apped as the once powerful d'Urbervilles were now.
There was, it might be said, the energy of her mother's unexpended family, as well as the na tural e nergy of Tess's y ears, rekindled af ter the exper ience which had so overwhelmed her for the time.Let the tr uth be told—women do as a rule live through such humiliatio ns, and regain their spirits, and again look about them with an interes ted eye.While th ere's life th ere's hope is a conviction not so entirely unknown to the“betrayed”as some amiable theorists would have us believe.
Tess Durbeyfield, then, in good hear t, and full of zest for life, descended the Egdon slopes lower and lower towards the dairy of her pilgrimage.
The marked difference, in the final particular, between the rival vales now showed itself.The secre t of Black moor was best discover ed from the heights around; to read aright the valley before her it was necessary to descend into its midst.When Tess had acco mplished this feat she f ound herself to be stand ing on a carpeted level, which stretched to the east and west as far as the eye could reach.
The river had stolen from the higher tracts and brought in particles to the vale all this horizontal land; and no w, exhausted, aged, and atten uated, lay serpentining along through the midst of its former spoils.
Not quite sure of her direction Tess stood still up on the hemmed expanse of verdant flatness, like a fly on a billiard-table of indefinite length, and of no more conseq uence to the surrounding s than that f ly.The sole ef fect of h er presence upon the placid valley so far had been to excite the mind of a solitary heron, which, after descending to the ground not far from her path, stood with neck erect, looking at her.
Suddenly there arose from all parts of the lowland a prolonged and repeated call—
“Waow！waow！waow！”
From the furthest east to the furthest west the cries spread as if by contagion, accompanied in some cases by the barking of a do g.It was not th e expression of the valley's consciousness that beautiful Tess had arrived, but the ordinary an nouncement of milking-time—half-past four o'clock, when the dairymen set about getting in the cows.
The red and white h erd nearest at hand, which h ad been phlegmatically waiting for the call, now trooped towards the steading in the background, their great bags of milk swinging under them as they walked.Tess followed slowly in their rear, and enter ed the barto n by the open gate th rough which they had entered befo re her.Long thatch ed sh eds stretch ed round the enclosure, their slopes encrusted with v ivid green moss, and their eaves supp orted by wooden posts rubbed to a glossy smoothness by the flank s of in finite cows and calves of bygone years, now passed to an o blivion almost inconceivable in its pr ofu-ndity.Between the posts were ranged the milchers, each exhibiting herself at the present moment to a whimsical eye in the rea r as a circ le on two stal ks, down the center of wh ich a switch m oved pen dulum-wise; while the sun, lowering itself behind this patient row, threw their shadows accurately inwards upon th e wall.Thus it threw shado ws of these obscure and ho mely fig ures every evening with as much care over each contour as if it had been the profile of a Court b eauty on a palac e wall; copied them as diligently as it had cop ied Olympian s hapes on marble facades long ago, or the ou tline of Alexan der, Caesar, and the Pharaohs.
They were the less restf ul cows that were stalled.Those that would stand still of the ir own will were milked in the middle of the yard, where many of such better behaved ones stood waiting now—all prime milchers, such as were seldom seen out of this valley, and not alway s with in it; n ourished by th e succulent feed which the water-meads supplied at this prime season of the year.Those of them that were spotted with white ref lected the sunshine in dazzling brilliancy, and the polished brass knobs on their horns glittered with something of military display.Their large-veined udders hung ponderous as sandbags, the teats sticking out like th e legs of a gipsy's crock; and as each animal lingered for her turn to arrive the milk oozed forth and fell in drops to the ground.
17
The dairymaids and men had flocked down from their cottages and out of the dairy-house with the arr ival of th e cows fro m the meads; the maids walking in pattens, not on account of the weather, but to keep their shoes above the mulch of the barton.Each girl sat down on her three-legged stool, her face sideways, her right ch eek resting ag ainst the cow; and looked musingly along the animal's flank at Tess as she approached.Th e male milkers, with hat-brims turned down, resting f lat on their for eheads and gazing on th e ground, did not observe her.
One of these was a sturdy middle-aged man—whose long white“pinner”was somewhat finer and cleaner than the wraps of the others, and whose jacket underneath had a presentable mark eting aspect—the master-dairyman, of whom she was in quest, h is doub le character as a work ing milker and butter-maker here dur ing six day s, and on the s eventh as a man in sh ining broad-cloth in his family pew at church, being so marked as to have inspired a rhyme—
Dairyman Dick
All the week：—
On Sundays Mister Richard Crick.
Seeing Tess standing at gaze he went across to her.
The majority of dairy men have a cross manner at milkingtime, but it happened that Mr.Crick was glad to get a new h and—for the days were busy ones now—and he received her warmly; inquiring for h er mother and the rest of the family—（though this as a matter of form merely, for in reality he had not been aware of Mrs.Durbey field's existence till a pprised of th e fact by a brie f business-letter about Tess）.
“Oh—ay, as a lad I knowed your parto'the country very well, ”he said terminatively.“Though I've never been th ere since.And a aged wo man of ninety that used to live nigh here, but is dead and gone long ago, told me that a family of so me such name as yours in Blackmoor Vale came originally from these parts, and that‘twere a old an cient race that had all but perished off the earth—though the new generations didn't know it.But, Lord, I took no notice of the old woman's ramblings, not I.”
“Oh no—it is nothing, ”said Tess.
Then the talk was of business only.
“You can milk'em clean, my maidy?I don't want my cows going azew at this time o'year.”
She reassured him on th at point, and he survey ed her up and down.She had been staying indoors a good deal, and her complexion had grown delicate.
“Quite sure you can stand it?'Tis comfortable enough here for rough folk; but we don't live in a cowcumber frame.”
She declared that she could stand it, and her zest and willingness seemed to win him over.
“Well, I suppose y ou'll want a dish o'tay, or victuals of so me sort, hey?Not yet?Well, do as ye like about it.But faith, if'twas I, I should be as dry as a kex wi'travelling so far.”
“I'll begin milking now, to get my hand in, ”said Tess.
She drank a little milk as temporary refreshment—to the surprise—indeed, slight contempt—of Dairyman Crick, to whose mind it had apparently never occurred that milk was good as a beverage.
“Oh, if ye can swaller th at, be it so, ”he said indifferently, while one he ld up the pail that she sipp ed from.“'Tis what I hain't touched f or years—not I.Rot the stuff; it would lie in my innerds like lead.You can try your hand upon she, ”he pursued, nodding to the nearest cow.“Not but what she do milk rather hard.We've hard ones an d we've easy ones, like other folks.However, you'll find out that soon enough.”
When Tess had changed her bonnet for a hood, and was really on her stool under the cow, and the milk was squirting fro m her fists into th e pail, she appeared to feel that she really had laid a new fo undation for her future.The conviction bred serenity, her pulse slowed, and she was able to look about her.
The milkers formed qui te a li ttle b attalion of men and maids, the men operating on the hard-teated animals, the maids on the kindlier natures.It was a large dairy.There were nearly a hun dred milchers under Crick's management, all told; and of the herd the master-dairyman milked six or eight with his'own hands, unless away from home.These were the cows that milked hardest of all; for his journeymilkmen being more or less casually hired, he would not entrustthis half-dozen to their treatment, lest, from indifference, they should not milk them fully; nor to the maids, lest th ey should fail in the same way for lack of finger-grip; with th e result that in course of ti me the cows would”go a zew”—that is, dry up.It was no t the loss for the moment that made slack milking so serious, but that with the decline of demand there came decline, and ultimately cessation, of supply.
After Tess had settled down to her cow there was for a ti me no talk in the barton, and not a sound interfer ed with the pu rr of th e milkjets into the numerous pails, except a momentary exclamation to one or other of the beasts requesting her to turn round or stand still.Th e only movements were thos e of the milkers'hands up and down, and the swing of the cows'tails.Thus they all worked on, encompassed by the vast flat mead which extended to either slope of the valley—a level landscape compounded of old landscapes long forgotten, and, no dou bt, dif fering in character very greatly from th e landscap e they composed now.
“To my thinking, ”said the dairyman, rising sudd enly from a cow he had just finished off, snatching up his three-legged stool in one hand and the pail in the o ther, and moving on to the n ext h ard-yielder in h is vicinity; “to my thinking, the cows don't gie down their milk today as usual.Upon my life, if Winker do begin keeping back lik e this, she'll not be worth going under by mid-summer.”
“'Tis because ther e's a new hand co me a mong u s, ”said Jon athan Ka il.“I've noticed such things afore.”
“To be sure.It may be so.I didn't think o't.”
“I've been told th at it g oes up in to their horns at such times, ”said a dairymaid.
“Well, as to going up into their horns, ”replied Dairyman Crick dubiously, as though even witch craft might b e limited by anato mical possibilities, “I couldn't say; I certainly could not.But as nott cows will keep it back as well as the horned ones, I don't quite agree to it.Do ye know that riddle about the nott cows, Jonathan?Why do nott cows give less milk in a year than horned?”
“I don't！”interposed the milkmaid.“Why do they?”
“Because there bain't so many of'em, ”said the dairyman.“Howsomever, these gam'sters do certainly keep back their milk today.Folks, we must lift up a stave or two—that's the only cure for't.”
Songs were often resor ted to in dairies hereabou t as an enticement to the cows when they showed signs of withholding their usual yield; and the band of milkers at this request burst into melody—in purely business-like tones, it is true, and with no great s pontaneity; the result, according to their own belief, being a decided improvement during the song's continuance.When they had gone through fourteen o r fifteen ver ses of a cheerful ballad about a murderer who was afraid to g o to bed in th e dark because he saw certain b rimstone flames around him, one of the male milkers said—
“I wish singing on the s toop didn't use up so much of a man's wind！You should get your harp, sir; not but what a fiddle is best.”
Tess, who had given ear to th is, thought the words were addressed to th e dairyman, but she was wrong.A reply, in the shape of“Why?”came as it were out of th e b elly of a du n cow in th e stal ls; it h ad been spo ken by a mi lker behind the animal, whom she had not hitherto perceived.
“Oh yes; there's nothing like a f iddle, ”said the dairyman.“Though I d o think tha t b ulls are more moved by a tune than cows—at least th at's my experience.Once there was a old aged man over at Mellstock—William Dewy by name—one of the family that used to do a good deal of business as tranters over there, J onathan, do ye mind?—I knowed the man by sig ht as well as I know my own brother, in a manner of speaking.Well, this man was a comin g home-along from a wed ding where he had b een play ing h is fiddle, on e fine moonlight night, and for shortn ess'sake h e took a cut acros s Forty-acres, a field lying that way, where a bu ll was out to grass.The bull seed William, and took after him, horns aground, begad; and though William funned his best, and hadn't much drink in him（considering'twas a wedding, and the folks well off）, he found he'd never reach the fence and get over in time to sav e himself.Well, as a last thought, he pu lled out his f iddle as he r unned, and s truck up a jig, turning to the bull, and backing towards the cor ner.The bull softened down, and stood still, looking hard at William Dewy, who fiddled on and on; till a sort of a smile stole over the bull's face.But no sooner did William stop his playing and turn to get over hedge than the bull would stop his smiling and lower hishorns towards the seat of William's breeches.Well, William had to turn about and play on, willy-nilly; and'twas only three o'clock in th e world, an d'a knowed that nobody would come that way for hours, and he so leery and tired that'a didn't know what to do.When he had scraped till about four o'clock he felt th at h e verily would have to g ive ov er so on, and h e said to himself, ‘There's only this last tune between me and eternal welfare！Heaven save me, or I'm a done man.'Well, then he called to mind how he'd seen the cattle kneel o'Christmas Eves in the dead o'night.It was no t Christmas Eve then, but it came into his head to play a trick upon the bull So he broke into the'Tivity Hymn, just as at Chr istmas carol-singing; when, low and behold, down went the bull on h is bended knees, in his ig norance, just as if'twere the true'Tivity night and h our.As soon as his hor ned frien d were down, W illiam turned, clinked off like a long-dog, and jumped safe over hedge, bef ore th e pray ing bull had go t on his feet again to take after him.William used to say that he'd seen a man look a fool a good many times, but never such a f ool as that b ull looked when he found his pious feelings had been play ed upon, and'twas not Christmas Eve……Yes, William Dewy, that was the man's name; and I can tell yon to a foot where's he a-ly ing in Mells tock Churchy ard at th is very moment—just between the second yew-tree and the north aisle.”
“It's a curious story; it carries us back to mediaeval times, when faith was a living thing！”
The remark, singular for a dairy-yard, was murmured by the voice behind the dun cow; but as nob ody understood the reference no no tice was tak en, except that the narrator seemed to think it might imply scepticism as to his tale.
“Well, 'tis quite true, sir, whether or no.I knowed the man well.”
“Oh yes; I have no doubt of it, ”said the person behind the dun cow.
Tess's attention was thus attracted to the dairyman's interlocutor, of whom she could s ee but the merest p atch, owing to his bury ing his head so persistently in the flank of the milcher.She could not understand why he should be addressed as“sir”even by the dairy man himself.But no explanatio n was discernible; he remain ed under the cow long en ough to h ave milked thr ee, uttering a private ejaculation now and then, as if he could not get on.