The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (books under 200 pages .txt) 📕

the back of the room, and stood as if absorbed in the panelling of the wall. She hardly knew that she had done this till Lucetta, animated by the conjunction of her new attire with the sight of Farfrae, spoke out: “Let us go and look at the instrument, whatever it is.”

Elizabeth-Jane’s bonnet and shawl were pitchforked on in a moment, and they went out. Among all the agriculturists gathered round the only appropriate possessor of the new machine seemed to be Lucetta, because she alone rivalled it in colour.

They examined it curiously; observing the rows of trumpet-shaped tubes one within the other, the little scoops, like revolving salt-spoons, which tossed the seed into the upper ends of the tubes that conducted it to the ground; till somebody said, “Good morning, Elizabeth-Jane.” She looked up, and there was her stepfather.

His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous, and Elizabeth-Jane, embarrassed out of her equanimity, stammered at random, “This is the lady I live with, father⁠—Miss Templeman.”

Henchard put his hand to his hat, which he brought down with a great wave till it met his body at the knee. Miss Templeman bowed. “I am happy to become acquainted with you, Mr. Henchard,” she said. “This is a curious machine.”

“Yes,” Henchard replied; and he proceeded to explain it, and still more forcibly to ridicule it.

“Who brought it here?” said Lucetta.

“Oh, don’t ask me, ma’am!” said Henchard. “The thing⁠—why ’tis impossible it should act. ’Twas brought here by one of our machinists on the recommendation of a jumped-up jackanapes of a fellow who thinks⁠—” His eye caught Elizabeth-Jane’s imploring face, and he stopped, probably thinking that the suit might be progressing.

He turned to go away. Then something seemed to occur which his stepdaughter fancied must really be a hallucination of hers. A murmur apparently came from Henchard’s lips in which she detected the words, “You refused to see me!” reproachfully addressed to Lucetta. She could not believe that they had been uttered by her stepfather; unless, indeed, they might have been spoken to one of the yellow-gaitered farmers near them. Yet Lucetta seemed silent, and then all thought of the incident was dissipated by the humming of a song, which sounded as though from the interior of the machine. Henchard had by this time vanished into the market-house, and both the women glanced towards the corn-drill. They could see behind it the bent back of a man who was pushing his head into the internal works to master their simple secrets. The hummed song went on⁠—

’Tw⁠—s on a s⁠—m⁠—r aftern⁠—n,
A wee be⁠—re the s⁠—n w⁠—nt d⁠—n,
When Kitty wi’ a braw n⁠—w g⁠—wn
C⁠—me ow’re the h⁠—lls to Gowrie.

Elizabeth-Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment, and looked guilty of she did not know what. Lucetta next recognized him, and more mistress of herself said archly, “The ‘Lass of Gowrie’ from inside of a seed-drill⁠—what a phenomenon!”

Satisfied at last with his investigation, the young man stood upright, and met their eyes across the summit.

“We are looking at the wonderful new drill,” Miss Templeman said. “But practically it is a stupid thing⁠—is it not?” she added, on the strength of Henchard’s information.

“Stupid? O no!” said Farfrae gravely. “It will revolutionize sowing heerabout! No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast, so that some falls by the wayside and some among thorns, and all that. Each grain will go straight to its intended place, and nowhere else whatever!”

“Then the romance of the sower is gone for good,” observed Elizabeth-Jane, who felt herself at one with Farfrae in Bible-reading at least. “ ‘He that observeth the wind shall not sow,’ so the Preacher said; but his words will not be to the point any more. How things change!”

“Ay; ay.⁠ ⁠… It must be so!” Donald admitted, his gaze fixing itself on a blank point far away. “But the machines are already very common in the East and North of England,” he added apologetically.

Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her acquaintance with the Scriptures being somewhat limited. “Is the machine yours?” she asked of Farfrae.

“O no, madam,” said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential at the sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth Jane he was quite at his ease. “No, no⁠—I merely recommended that it should be got.”

In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared only conscious of her; to have passed from perception of Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of existence than she appertained to. Lucetta, discerning that he was much mixed that day, partly in his mercantile mood and partly in his romantic one, said gaily to him⁠—

“Well, don’t forsake the machine for us,” and went indoors with her companion.

The latter felt that she had been in the way, though why was unaccountable to her. Lucetta explained the matter somewhat by saying when they were again in the sitting-room⁠—

“I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and so I knew him this morning.”

Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day. Together they saw the market thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline of the sun towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street endways and enfilading the long thoroughfare from top to bottom. The gigs and vans disappeared one by one till there was not a vehicle in the street. The time of the riding world was over; the pedestrian world held sway. Field labourers and their wives and children trooped in from the villages for their weekly shopping, and instead of a rattle of wheels and a tramp of horses ruling the sound as earlier, there was nothing but the shuffle of many feet. All the implements were gone; all the farmers; all the moneyed class. The character of the town’s trading had changed from bulk to multiplicity and pence were handled now as pounds had been handled earlier in the day.

Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for though it was night and the street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed. In