we couldn’t think of letting the day pass without a note of admiration of some sort. If ye could send a drop of som’at down to Warren’s, why so it is. Here’s long life and happiness to neighbour Oak and his comely bride!”
“Thank ye; thank ye all,” said Gabriel. “A bit and a drop shall be sent to Warren’s for ye at once. I had a thought that we might very likely get a salute of some sort from our old friends, and I was saying so to my wife but now.”
“Faith,” said Coggan, in a critical tone, turning to his companions, “the man hev learnt to say ‘my wife’ in a wonderful naterel way, considering how very youthful he is in wedlock as yet — hey, neighbours all?”
“I never heerd a skilful old married feller of twenty years’ standing pipe ‘my wife’ in a more used note than ‘a did,” said Jacob Smallbury. “It might have been a little more true to nater if’t had been spoke a little chillier, but that wasn’t to be expected just now.”
“That improvement will come wi’ time,” said Jan, twirling his eye.
Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily now), and their friends turned to go.
“Yes; I suppose that’s the size o’t,” said Joseph Poorgrass with a cheerful sigh as they moved away; “and I wish him joy o’ her; though I were once or twice upon saying to-day with holy Hosea, in my scripture manner, which is my second nature. ‘Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.’ But since ’tis as ’tis why, it might have been worse, and I feel my thanks accordingly.”
The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy
Book One — The Three Women
1. A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression
2. Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
3. The Custom of the Country
4. The Halt on the Turnpike Road
5. Perplexity among Honest People
6. The Figure against the Sky
7. Queen of Night
8. Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
9. Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
10. A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
11. The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
Book Two — The Arrival
1. Tidings of the Comer
2. The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
3. How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
4. Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure
5. Through the Moonlight
6. The Two Stand Face to Face
7. A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
8. Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
Book Three — The Fascination
1. “My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is”
2. The New Course Causes Disappointment
3. The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
4. An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
5. Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
6. Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
7. The Morning and the Evening of a Day
8. A New Force Disturbs the Current
Book Four — The Closed Door
1. The Rencounter by the Pool
2. He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song
3. She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
4. Rough Coercion Is Employed
5. The Journey across the Heath
6. A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
7. The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
8. Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
Book Five — The Discovery
1. “Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery”
2. A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding
3. Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
4. The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
5. An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
6. Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
7. The Night of the Sixth of November
8. Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
9. Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
Book Six — Aftercourses
1. The Inevitable Movement Onward
2. Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
3. The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
4. Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His Vocation
Preface
