“Whoo-whoo-whoo!” as owls do, you know, shepherd’ (Gabriel nodded), ‘and Joseph, all in a tremble, said, “Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!”’
‘No, no, now – that’s too much!’ said the timid man, becoming a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. ‘I didn’t say sir. I’ll take my oath I didn’t say “Joseph Poorgrass o’ Weatherbury, sir”. No, no; what’s right is right, and I never said sir to the bird, knowing very well that no man of a gentleman’s rank would be hollering there at that time o’ night. “Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury”, – that’s every word I said, and I shouldn’t ha’ said that if ’t hadn’t been for Keeper Day’s metheglin . . . There, ’twas a merciful thing it ended where it did.’
The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the company, Jan went on meditatively: –
‘And he’s the fearfullest man, bain’t ye, Joseph? Ay, another time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren’t ye, Joseph?’
‘I was,’ replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one.
‘Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would not open, try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil’s hand in it, he kneeled down.’
‘Ay,’ said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of the fire, the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities of the experience alluded to. ‘My heart died within me, that time; but I kneeled down and said the Lord’s Prayer, and then the Belief right through, and then the Ten Commandments, in earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn’t open; and then I went on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and, thinks I, this makes four, and ’tis all I know out of book, and if this don’t do it nothing will, and I’m a lost man. Well, when I got to Saying After Me, I rose from my knees and found the gate would open – yes, neighbours, the gate opened the same as ever.’
A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all, and during its continuance each directed his vision into the ashpit, which glowed like a desert in the tropics under a vertical sun, shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of the light, partly from the depth of the subject discussed.
Gabriel broke the silence. ‘What sort of a place is this to live at, and what sort of a mis’ess is she to work under?’ Gabriel’s bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the assembly the innermost subject of his heart.
‘We d’know little of her – nothing. She only showed herself a few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor was called with his world-wide skill; but he couldn’t save the man. As I take it, she’s going to keep on the farm.’
‘That’s about the shape o’t, ’a b’lieve,’ said Jan Coggan. ‘Ay, ’tis a very good family. I’d as soon be under ’em as under one here and there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of man. Did ye know en, shepherd – a bachelor-man?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife, Charlotte, who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were Farmer Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was allowed to call and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but not to carry away any – outside my skin I mane, of course.’
‘Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning.’
‘And so you see ’twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as to drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting the man’s generosity –’
‘True, Master Coggan, ’twould so,’ corroborated Mark Clark.
‘– And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and then by the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket – so thorough dry that that ale would slip down – ah, ’twould slip down sweet! Happy times! heavenly times! Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house! You can mind, Jacob? You used to go wi’ me sometimes.’
‘I can – I can,’ said Jacob. ‘That one, too, that we had at Buck’s Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple.’
‘’Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you no nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun, there was none like those in Farmer Everdene’s kitchen. Not a single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good old word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great relief to a merry soul.’
‘True,’ said the maltster. ‘Nater requires her swearing at the regular times, or she’s not herself; and unholy exclamations is a necessity of life.’
‘But Charlotte,’ continued Coggan – ‘not a word of the sort would Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain . . . Ay, poor Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good fortune to get into Heaven when ’a died! But ’a was never much in luck’s way and perhaps ’a went downwards after all, poor soul.’
‘And did any of you know Miss Everdene’s father and mother?’ inquired the shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversation in the desired channel.
‘I knew them a little,’ said Jacob Smallbury; ‘but they were townsfolk, and didn’t live here. They’ve been dead for years. Father, what sort of people were mis’ess’ father and mother?’
‘Well,’ said the maltster, ‘he wasn’t much to look at; but she was a lovely woman. He was fond enough of her as his sweetheart.’
‘Used to kiss her scores and long-hundreds o’ times, so ’twas said,’ observed Coggan.
‘He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as I’ve been told,’ said the maltster.
‘Ay,’ said Coggan. ‘He admired her so much that he used to light the candle three times a night to look at her.’
‘Boundless love; I shouldn’t have supposed it in the universe!’ murmured Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale in his moral reflections.
‘Well, to be sure,’ said Gabriel.
‘Oh, ’tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both well. Levi Everdene – that was the man’s name, sure. “Man”, saith I in my hurry, but he were of a higher circle of life than that – ’a was a gentleman-tailor really, worth scores of pounds. And he became a very celebrated bankrupt two or three times.’
‘Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!’ said Joseph.
‘O no, no! That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold and silver.’
The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr Coggan, after absently scrutinizing a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative, with a private twirl of his eye: –
‘Well, now, you’d hardly believe it, but that man – our Miss Everdene’s father – was one of the ficklest husbands alive, after a while. Understand, ’a didn’t want to be fickle, but he couldn’t help it. The poor feller were faithful and true enough to her in his wish, but his heart would rove, do what he would. He spoke to me in real tribulation about it once. “Coggan,” he said, “I could never wish for a handsomer woman than I’ve got, but feeling she’s ticketed as my lawful wife, I can’t help my wicked heart wandering,
