I fully expected you would have been home when I returned from the Woman.""I won't conceal what I did.I wanted an adventure, and I went with the mummers.I played the part of the Turkish Knight.""No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn't expect it of you, Eustacia.""It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last.Now I have told you--and remember it is a secret.""Of course.But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy, how 'twould have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you don't bother me;but no figuring in breeches again."
"You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa."Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia's moral training never exceeding in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable to good works, would be a result not dear at the price.But her thoughts soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as Ahasuerus the Jew.
She was about half a mile from her residence when she beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in advance--dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to signify Diggory Venn.
When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied, "On Egdon Heath."Day after day the answer was the same.Now, since Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent.
The position was central and occasionally desirable.
But the sale of reddle was not Diggory's primary object in remaining on the heath, particularly at so late a period of the year, when most travellers of his class had gone into winter quarters.
Eustacia looked at the lonely man.Wildeve had told her at their last meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs.Yeobright as one ready and anxious to take his place as Thomasin's betrothed.His figure was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better if he chose.But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin like Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely indifferent.
Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs.Yeobright, in her anxiety for her niece's future, had mentioned this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other.
Eustacia was on the side of the Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt's desire.
"Good morning, miss," said the reddleman, taking off his cap of hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of their last meeting.
"Good morning, reddleman," she said, hardly troubling to lift her heavily shaded eyes to his."I did not know you were so near.Is your van here too?"Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to form a dell.Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves.
The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed behind the tracery and tangles of the brake.
"You remain near this part?" she asked with more interest.
"Yes, I have business here."
"Not altogether the selling of reddle?"
"It has nothing to do with that."
"It has to do with Miss Yeobright?"
Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said frankly, "Yes, miss; it is on account of her.""On account of your approaching marriage with her?"Venn flushed through his stain."Don't make sport of me, Miss Vye," he said.
"It isn't true?"
"Certainly not."
She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs.Yeobright's mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his promotion to that lowly standing."It was a mere notion of mine,"she said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when, looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top where she stood.
Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back was at present towards them.She glanced quickly round;to escape that man there was only one way.Turning to Venn, she said, "Would you allow me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting on.""Certainly, miss; I'll make a place for you."She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the door.
"That is the best I can do for you," he said, stepping down and retiring to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up and down.
Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from view on the side towards the trackway.
Soon she heard the brushing of other feet than the reddleman's, a not very friendly "Good day" uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards.
Eustacia stretched her neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders; and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why.
It was the sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who is beloved no more.
When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near."That was Mr.Wildeve who passed, miss," he said slowly, and expressed by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting unseen.
"Yes, I saw him coming up the hill," replied Eustacia.
