in autumn or snowdrops in spring. They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the actors themselves. It was a phase of cheerfulness which was, as a matter of course, to be passed through every Christmas; and there was no more to be said.
They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all the dead men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like the ghosts of Napoleon’s soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards the door opened, and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by Christian and another. They had been waiting outside for the conclusion of the play, as the players had waited for the conclusion of the dance.
“Come in, come in,” said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to welcome them. “How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been here ever so long, and we thought you’d have come with him, as you live so near one another.”
“Well, I should have come earlier,” Mr. Fairway said and paused to look along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but, finding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all the nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at last relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between the candle-box and the head of the clock-case. “I should have come earlier, ma’am,” he resumed, with a more composed air, “but I know what parties be, and how there’s none too much room in folks’ houses at such times, so I thought I wouldn’t come till you’d got settled a bit.”
“And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright,” said Christian earnestly, “but Father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left home almost afore ’twas dark. I told him ’twas barely decent in a’ old man to come so oversoon; but words be wind.”
“Klk! I wasn’t going to bide waiting about, till half the game was over! I’m as light as a kite when anything’s going on!” crowed Grandfer Cantle from the chimneyseat.
Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. “Now, you may not believe it,” he said to the rest of the room, “but I should never have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere off his own he’th — he’s altered so much.”
“You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy,” said Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.
“Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better, haven’t I, hey?” said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself something above half a foot from Clym’s eye, to induce the most searching criticism.
“To be sure we will,” said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it over the surface of the Grandfer’s countenance, the subject of his scrutiny irradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and giving himself jerks of juvenility.
“You haven’t changed much,” said Yeobright.
“If there’s any difference, Grandfer is younger,” appended Fairway decisively.
“And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it,” said the pleased ancient. “But I can’t be cured of my vagaries; them I plead guilty to. Yes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am nothing by the side of you, Mister Clym.”
“Nor any o’ us,” said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of admiration, not intended to reach anybody’s ears.
“Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as decent second to him, or even third, if I hadn’t been a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called for our smartness),” said Grandfer Cantle. “And even as ’tis we all look a little scammish beside him. But in the year four ’twas said there wasn’t a finer figure in the whole South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the shop-winders with the rest of our company on the day we ran out o’ Budmouth because it was thoughted that Boney had landed round the point. There was I, straight as a young poplar, wi’ my firelock, and my bagnet, and my spatterdashes, and my stock sawing my jaws off, and my accoutrements sheening like the seven stars! Yes, neighbours, I was a pretty sight in my soldiering days. You ought to have seen me in four!”
“’Tis his mother’s side where Master Clym’s figure comes from, bless ye,” said Timothy. “I know’d her brothers well. Longer coffins were never made in the whole country of South Wessex, and ’tis said that poor George’s knees were crumpled up a little e’en as ’twas.”
“Coffins, where?” inquired Christian, drawing nearer. “Have the ghost of one appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?”
“No, no. Don’t let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and be a man,” said Timothy reproachfully.
“I will.” said Christian. “But now I think o’t my shadder last night seemed just the shape of a coffin. What is it a sign of when your shade’s like a coffin, neighbours? It can’t be nothing to be afeared of, I suppose?”
“Afeared, no!” said the Grandfer. “Faith, I was never afeard of nothing except Boney, or I shouldn’t ha’ been the soldier I was. Yes, ’tis a thousand pities you didn’t see me in four!”
By this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright stopped them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To this invitation Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily agreed.
Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer. The cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the lingering was not without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want of room in the larger apartment, placed a bench for the mummers halfway through the pantry door, which opened from the sitting-room. Here they seated themselves in a row, the door being left open — thus they were still virtually in the same apartment. Mrs. Yeobright now murmured a few words to her son, who crossed the room to the pantry door, striking his head against the mistletoe as he passed, and brought the mummers beef and bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the waiting being done by him and his mother, that the little maid-servant might sit as guest. The mummers doffed their helmets, and began to eat and drink.
“But you will surely have some?” said Clym to the Turkish Knight, as he stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons which covered her face.
“None, thank you,” replied Eustacia.
“He’s quite a youngster,” said the Saracen apologetically, “and you must excuse him. He’s not one of the old set, but have jined us because t’other couldn’t come.”
“But he will take something?” persisted Yeobright. “Try a glass of mead or elder-wine.”
“Yes, you had better try that,” said the Saracen. “It will keep the cold out going home-along.”
Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could drink easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was accordingly accepted, and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.
At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about the security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of attentions paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary person, by the first man she had ever been inclined to adore, complicated her emotions indescribably. She had loved him partly because he was exceptional in this scene, partly because she had determined to love him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of loving somebody after wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must love him in spite of herself, she had been influenced after the fashion of the second Lord Lyttleton and other persons, who have dreamed that they were to die on a certain day, and by stress
