第41章

night.It was not Christmas Eve then, but it came into his head to play a trick upon the bull.So he broke into the 'Tivity Hymn, just as at Christmas carol-singing; when, lo and behold, down went the bull on his bended knees, in his ignorance, just as if 'twere the true 'Tivity night and hour.As soon as his horned friend were down, William turned, clinked off like a long-dog, and jumped safe over hedge, before the praying bull had got on his feet again to take after him.William used to say that he'd seen a man look a fool a good many times, but never such a fool as that bull looked when he found his pious feelings had been played upon, and 'twas not Christmas Eve...Yes, William Dewy, that was the man's name; and I can tell you to a foot where's he a-lying in Mellstock Churchyard at this very moment -just between the second yew-tree and the north aisle.'

`It's a curious story; it carries us sack to medieval times, when faith was a living thing!'

The remark, singular for a dairy-yard, was murmured by the voice behind the dun cow; but as nobody understood the reference no notice was taken, except that the narrator seemed to think it might imply scepticism as to his tale.

`Well, 'tis quite true, sir, whether or no.I knowed the man well.'

`Oh yes; I have no doubt of it,' said the person behind the dun cow.

Tess's attention was thus attracted to the dairyman's interlocutor, of whom she could see but the merest patch, owing to his burying his head so persistently in the flank of the milcher.She could not understand why he should be addressed as `sir' even by the dairyman himself.But no explanation was discernible; he remained under the cow long enough to have milked three, uttering a private ejaculation now and then, as if he could not get on.

`Take it gentle, sir; take it gentle,' said the dairyman.`'Tis knack, not strength that does it.'

`So I find,' said the other, standing up at last and stretching his arms.`I think I have finished her, however, though she made my fingers ache.'

Tess could then see him at full length.He wore the ordinary white pinner and leather leggings of a dairy-farmer when milking, and his boots were clogged with the mulch of the yard; but this was all his local livery.

Beneath it was something educated, reserved, subtle, sad, differing.

But the details of his aspect were temporarily thrust aside by the discovery that he was one whom she had seen before.Such vicissitudes had Tess passed through since that time that for a moment she could not remember where she had met him; and then it flashed upon her that he was the pedestrian who had joined in the club-dance at Marlott - the passing stranger who had come she knew not whence, had danced with others but not with her, had slightingly left her, and gone on his way with his friends.

The flood of memories brought back by this revival of an incident anterior to her troubles produced a momentary dismay lest, recognizing her also, he should by some means discover her story.But it passed away when she found no sign of remembrance in him.She saw by degrees that since their first and only encounter his mobile face had grown more thoughtful, and had acquired a young man's shapely moustache and beard - the latter of the palest straw colour where it began upon his cheeks, and deepening to a warm brown farther from its root.Under his linen milking-pinner he wore a dark velveteen jacket, cord breeches and gaiters, and a starched white shirt.Without the milking-gear nobody could have guessed what he was.

He might with equal probability have been an eccentric landowner or a gentlemanly ploughman.That he was but a novice at dairy-work she had realized in a moment, from the time he had spent upon the milking of one cow.

Meanwhile many of the milkmaids had said to one another of the new-comer, `How pretty she is!' with something of real generosity and admiration, though with a half hope that the auditors would qualify the assertion -which, strictly speaking, they might have done, prettiness being an inexact definition of what struck the eye in Tess.When the milking was finished for the evening they straggled indoors, where Mrs Crick, the dairyman's wife - who was too respectable to go out milking herself, and wore a hot stuff gown in warm weather because the dairymaids wore prints - was giving an eye to the leads and things.

Only two or three of the maids, Tess learnt, slept in the dairy-house besides herself; most of the helpers going to their homes.She saw nothing at supper-time of the superior milker who had commented on the story, and asked no questions about him, the remainder of the evening being occupied in arranging her place in the bed-chamber.It was a large room over the milk-house, some thirty feet long; the sleeping-cots of the other three indoor milkmaids being in the same apartment.They were blooming young women, and, except one, rather older than herself.By bedtime Tess was thoroughly tired, and fell asleep immediately.

But one of the girls who occupied an adjoining bed was more wakeful than Tess, and would insist upon relating to the latter various particulars of the homestead into which she had just entered.The girl's whispered words mingled with the shades, and, to Tess's drowsy mind, they seemed to be generated by the darkness in which they floated.

`Mr Angel Clare - he that is learning milking, and that plays the harp -never says much to us.He is a pa'son's son, and is too much taken up wi' his own thoughts to notice girls.He is the dairyman's pupil - learning farming in all its branches.He has learnt sheep-farming at another place, and he's now mastering dairy-work...Yes, he is quite the gentleman-born.

His father is the Reverent Mr Clare at Emminster - a good many miles from here.'

`Oh - I have heard of him,' said her companion, now awake.`A very earnest clergyman, is he not?'

`Yes - that he is - the earnestest man in all Wessex, they say the last of the old Low Church sort, they tell me - for all about here be what they call High.All his sons, except our Mr Clare, be made pa'sons too.'