The Mayor of Casterbridge | Page 2

year; a road neither straight nor crooked, neither level nor hilly,
bordered by hedges, trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the
blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass through
on their way to dingy, and yellow, and red. The grassy margin of the
bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were powdered by the dust that
had been stirred over them by hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on
the road deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the

aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every extraneous
sound to be heard.
For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak bird
singing a trite old evening song that might doubtless have been heard
on the hill at the same hour, and with the self-same trills, quavers, and
breves, at any sunset of that season for centuries untold. But as they
approached the village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached their
ears from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened from
view by foliage. When the outlying houses of Weydon-Priors could just
be described, the family group was met by a turnip-hoer with his hoe
on his shoulder, and his dinner-bag suspended from it. The reader
promptly glanced up.
"Any trade doing here?" he asked phlegmatically, designating the
village in his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking the
labourer did not understand him, he added, "Anything in the
hay-trussing line?"
The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. "Why, save the
man, what wisdom's in him that 'a should come to Weydon for a job of
that sort this time o' year?"
"Then is there any house to let--a little small new cottage just a builded,
or such like?" asked the other.
The pessimist still maintained a negative. "Pulling down is more the
nater of Weydon. There were five houses cleared away last year, and
three this; and the volk nowhere to go--no, not so much as a thatched
hurdle; that's the way o' Weydon-Priors."
The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some
superciliousness. Looking towards the village, he continued, "There is
something going on here, however, is there not?"
"Ay. 'Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little more than the
clatter and scurry of getting away the money o' children and fools, for
the real business is done earlier than this. I've been working within

sound o't all day, but I didn't go up--not I. 'Twas no business of mine."
The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon entered the
Fair-field, which showed standing-places and pens where many
hundreds of horses and sheep had been exhibited and sold in the
forenoon, but were now in great part taken away. At present, as their
informant had observed, but little real business remained on hand, the
chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior animals, that could not
otherwise be disposed of, and had been absolutely refused by the better
class of traders, who came and went early. Yet the crowd was denser
now than during the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors,
including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two come on
furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly flocked in;
persons whose activities found a congenial field among the peep-shows,
toy-stands, waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested medical men
who travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors,
and readers of Fate.
Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things, and they
looked around for a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the
down. Two, which stood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of
expiring sunlight, seemed almost equally inviting. One was formed of
new, milk-hued canvas, and bore red flags on its summit; it announced
"Good Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder." The other was less new; a
little iron stove-pipe came out of it at the back and in front appeared the
placard, "Good Furmity Sold Hear." The man mentally weighed the
two inscriptions and inclined to the former tent.
"No--no--the other one," said the woman. "I always like furmity; and so
does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is nourishing after a long hard
day."
"I've never tasted it," said the man. However, he gave way to her
representations, and they entered the furmity booth forthwith.
A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the long narrow
tables that ran down the tent on each side. At the upper end stood a
stove, containing a charcoal fire, over which hung a large three-legged

crock, sufficiently polished round the rim to show that it was made of
bell-metal. A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a white apron,
which as it threw an air of respectability over her as far