The Woodlanders | Page 3

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THE WOODLANDERS by Thomas Hardy
CHAPTER I.
The rambler who, for old association or other reasons, should trace the
forsaken coach-road running almost in a meridional line from Bristol to
the south shore of England, would find himself during the latter half of
his journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands, interspersed
with apple-orchards. Here the trees, timber or fruit-bearing, as the case
may be, make the way- side hedges ragged by their drip and shade,
stretching over the road with easeful horizontality, as if they found the
unsubstantial air an adequate support for their limbs. At one place,
where a hill is crossed, the largest of the woods shows itself bisected by
the high-way, as the head of thick hair is bisected by the white line of
its parting. The spot is lonely.
The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree
that is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like
stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools. The contrast of
what is with what might be probably accounts for this. To step, for
instance, at the place under notice, from the hedge of the plantation into

the adjoining pale thoroughfare, and pause amid its emptiness for a
moment, was to exchange by the act of a single stride the simple
absence of human companionship for an incubus of the forlorn.
At this spot, on the lowering evening of a by-gone winter's day, there
stood a man who had entered upon the scene much in the aforesaid
manner. Alighting into the road from a stile hard by, he, though by no
means a "chosen vessel" for impressions, was temporarily influenced
by some such feeling of being suddenly more alone than before he had
emerged upon the highway.
It could be seen by a glance at his rather finical style of dress that he
did not belong to the country proper; and from his air, after a while,
that though there might be a sombre beauty in the scenery, music in the
breeze, and a wan procession of coaching ghosts in the sentiment of
this old turnpike-road, he was mainly puzzled about the way. The dead
men's work that had been expended in climbing that hill, the blistered
soles that had trodden it, and the tears that had wetted it, were not his
concern; for fate had given him no time for any but practical things.
He looked north and south, and mechanically prodded the ground with
his walking-stick. A closer glance at his face corroborated the
testimony of his clothes. It was self-complacent, yet there was small
apparent ground for such complacence. Nothing irradiated it; to the eye
of the magician in character, if not to the ordinary observer, the
expression enthroned there was absolute submission to and belief in a
little assortment of forms and habitudes.
At first not a soul appeared who could enlighten him as he desired, or
seemed likely to appear that night. But presently a slight noise of
laboring wheels and the steady dig of a horse's shoe-tips became
audible; and there loomed in the notch of the hill and plantation that the
road formed here at the summit a carrier's van drawn by a single horse.
When it got nearer, he said, with some relief to himself, "'Tis Mrs.
Dollery's--this will help me."
The vehicle was half full of passengers, mostly women. He held up his
stick at its approach, and the woman who was driving drew rein.

"I've been trying to find a short way to Little Hintock this last half-hour,
Mrs. Dollery," he said. "But though I've been to Great Hintock and
Hintock House half a dozen times I am at fault about the small village.
You can help me, I dare say?"
She assured him that she could--that as she went to Great Hintock her
van passed near it--that it was only up the lane that branched out of the
lane into which she was about to turn--just ahead. "Though," continued
Mrs. Dollery, "'tis such a little small place that, as a town gentleman,
you'd