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"No doubt he would be, if he could," returned the landlord, "but he can't.
And again, for anything I knew, the proffered information might have some important bearing on the flight itself.
Further, one of those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his iron.
The contention came, after all, to this;--the secret was such an old one now, had so grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it away.
I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a T, from tar to toast and tub.
The Constables and the Bow Street men from London--for, this happened in the days of the extinct red-waistcoated police--were about the house for a week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like authorities doing in other such cases.
But, there was one remarkable piece of evidence on the spot.
We told him why we wanted him to come into the kitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching out, with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly distinguished him.
Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house.
Then I bethought me of a crutch, the shape being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and displayed it to my sister with considerable confidence.
Biddy looked thoughtfully at it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his initial letter), and ran into the forge, followed by Joe and me.
Now, as to Orlick; he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we picked him up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the evening, he had been in divers companies in several public-houses, and he had come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle.
She had lost his name, and could only signify him by his hammer.
I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I was disappointed by the different result.
She had been struck with something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable violence, as she lay on her face.
The fire had not then burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long; the candle, however, had been blown out.
It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise.
The hue and cry going off to the Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion was corroborated.
But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began to reconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I took another view of the case, which was more reasonable.
For months afterwards, I every day settled the question finally in the negative, and reopened and reargued it next morning.
Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here.
They took up several obviously wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances.
Also, they stood about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with knowing and reserved looks that filled the whole neighborhood with admiration; and they had a mysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good as taking the culprit.
Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very ill in bed.
"My poor dear Handel," he replied, holding his head, "I am too stunned to think."
Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and fro together, studying the carpet.
"This is an ignorant, determined man, who has long had one fixed idea.
That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven's name, and we'll see it out together, dear old boy."
When he had spoken some sound words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the question, What was to be done?
"Let me tell you what evidence I have seen of it." And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that encounter with the other convict.
I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that even if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should be wretched as the cause, however innocently.
I had the wildest dreams concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned transport.
"After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up.
Herbert said, "Certainly," but looked as if there were no specific consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed.
Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing more?"
And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection."
He was full of plans "for his gentleman's coming out strong, and like a gentleman," and urged me to begin speedily upon the pocket-book which he had left in my possession.
You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's house, small as it is.
More than that, he seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce character."
Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it.
Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, I had always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in bringing him back; and I looked about me now.
It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again, with only that done.
He is intent upon various new expenses,--horses, and carriages, and lavish appearances of all kinds.
He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative.
He comes here at the peril of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea.
But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done?
Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so blessedly what it is to have a friend.
You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced to go."
And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us, and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite established in his own mind.
Ask him," said Herbert, "when we sit at breakfast in the morning." For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would come to breakfast with us.
"But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?"
The few who were passing passed on their several ways, and the street was empty when I turned back into the Temple.
We were anxious for the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us together, but he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat late.
"I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night of his arrival.
Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his putting himself in the way of being taken."
It is strange to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to tell last night.
Then you must get him out of England before you stir a finger to extricate yourself.
Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! Besides, it's absurd.
"And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he has risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from throwing it away.
He had no occasion to say after that that he had conceived an aversion for my patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own.
Yes; even though I was so wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would ever have come to this!
Nobody had come out at the gate with us, nobody went in at the gate with me.
I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my chair, but began pacing to and fro.
"Then you may rely upon it," said Herbert, "that there would be great danger of his doing it.
He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat down to his meal.
It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days in my childhood!"
When it closed upon him, I experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of his arrival.
Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may count upon me always having a gen-teel muzzle on.
In the moment of realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?"
"I don't altogether think I ought to go," said Tess thoughtfully. "Who wrote the letter?
"Perhaps to show his diamond ring," murmured Sir John, dreamily, from his chair.
"But do let her go, Jacky," coaxed his poor witless wife.
"I would rather stay here with father and you," she said.
She was not quite sure that she did not feel proud enough, after the visitor's remarks, to say a good deal.
Hardly had she crossed the threshold before one of the children danced across the room, saying, "The gentleman's been here!"
When the passengers were not looking she stealthily removed the more prominent blooms from her hat and placed them in the basket, where she covered them with her handkerchief.
"It is very good of him to think that," she murmured; "and if I was quite sure how it would be living there, I would go any-when."
She had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise.
Then she fell to reflecting again, and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast accidentally pricked her chin.
Tess then remembered that there would have been time for this.
"Well, perhaps that's what young Mr d'Urberville means," he admitted; "and sure enough he mid have serious thoughts about improving his blood by linking on to the old line.
Tess seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that she had won such high opinion from a stranger when, in her own esteem, she had sunk so low.
Having at last taken her course Tess was less restless and abstracted, going about her business with some self-assurance in the thought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation which would not be onerous.
A week afterwards she came in one evening from an unavailing search for some light occupation in the immediate neighbourhood.
Tess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited to take her seat in the van returning from Chaseborough to Shaston. She did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered, though she answered them; and when they had started anew she rode along with an inward and not an outward eye.
Being mentally older than her mother she did not regard Mrs Durbeyfield's matrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment.
Her mother chimed in to the same tune: a certain way she had of making her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by prolonging them indefinitely, also weighed in the argument.
She was duly informed that Mrs d'Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a spring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top of the Vale on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself prepared to start.
"I don't quite like my children going away from home," said the haggler.
And have she really paid 'em a visit to such an end as this?"
"And we shan't have a nice new horse, and lots o' golden money to buy fairlings!
She blushed, and said confusedly that the flowers had been given to her.
"Yes," said little Abraham, brightly, from the window-bench; "and I seed it! and it did twinkle when he put his hand up to his mistarshers.
Besides, that's only just a show of something for you to do, that you midn't feel beholden."
For such a pretty maid as 'tis, this is a fine chance!"
"Mr d'Urberville says you must be a good girl if you are at all as you appear; he knows you must be worth your weight in gold.
Her mother hastened to explain, smiles breaking from every inch of her person.
Her idea had been to get together sufficient money during the summer to purchase another horse.
The van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were several miles of pedestrian descent from that mountain-town into the vale to Marlott.
Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision: roses at her breasts; roses in her hat; roses and strawberries in her basket to the brim.