"Come to that, is it? Turk! won't thy mother be in a taking! Well, she's ready, I don't doubt?"

"I didn't ask her anything about having me; and if you'll let me speak, I'll tell 'ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care about me?"

"Piph-ph-ph!"

"And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said she didn't know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the meaning of that speech?" The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn't care for the ridicule of all the fathers in creation.

"The meaning of that speech is," the tranter replied deliberately, "that the meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, d.i.c.k, as an honest father to thee, I don't pretend to deny what you d'know well enough; that is, that her father being rather better in the pocket than we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be somebody."

"But what d'ye think she really did mean?" said the unsatisfied d.i.c.k.

"I'm afeard I am not o' much account in guessing, especially as I was not there when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the only 'ooman I ever cam' into such close quarters as that with."

"And what did mother say to you when you asked her?" said d.i.c.k musingly.

"I don't see that that will help 'ee."

"The principle is the same."

"Well--ay: what did she say? Let's see. I was oiling my working-day boots without taking 'em off, and wi' my head hanging down, when she just brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. 'Ann,' I said, says I, and then,--but, d.i.c.k I'm afeard 'twill be no help to thee; for we were such a rum couple, your mother and I, leastways one half was, that is myself--and your mother's charms was more in the manner than the material."

"Never mind! 'Ann,' said you."

"'Ann,' said I, as I was saying . . . 'Ann,' I said to her when I was oiling my working-day boots wi' my head hanging down, 'Woot hae me?' . .

. What came next I can't quite call up at this distance o' time. Perhaps your mother would know,--she's got a better memory for her little triumphs than I. However, the long and the short o' the story is that we were married somehow, as I found afterwards. 'Twas on White Tuesday,--Mellstock Club walked the same day, every man two and two, and a fine day 'twas,--hot as fire,--how the sun did strike down upon my back going to church! I well can mind what a bath o' sweating I was in, body and soul! But Fance will ha' thee, d.i.c.k--she won't walk with another chap--no such good luck."

"I don't know about that," said d.i.c.k, whipping at Smart's flank in a fanciful way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection with going on. "There's Pa'son Maybold, too--that's all against me."

"What about he? She's never been stuffing into thy innocent heart that he's in hove with her? Lord, the vanity o' maidens!"

"No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at me in such a way--quite different the ways were,--and as I was coming off, there was he hanging up her birdcage."

"Well, why shouldn't the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it all, what's that got to do wi' it? d.i.c.k, that thou beest a white-lyvered chap I don't say, but if thou beestn't as mad as a cappel-faced bull, let me smile no more."

"O, ay."

"And what's think now, d.i.c.k?"

"I don't know."

"Here's another pretty kettle o' fish for thee. Who d'ye think's the bitter weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell 'ee?"

"No. Why, Pa'son Maybold, I suppose."

"Shiner,--because he's in love with thy young woman, and d'want to see her young figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her young fingers rum-strumming upon the keys."

A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in d.i.c.k during this communication from his father. "Shiner's a fool!--no, that's not it; I don't believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never take a bold step like that, unless she'd been a little made up to, and had taken it kindly. Pooh!"

"Who's to say she didn't?"

"I do."

"The more fool you."

"Why, father of me?"

"Has she ever done more to thee?"

"No."

"Then she has done as much to he--rot 'em! Now, d.i.c.k, this is how a maid is. She'll swear she's dying for thee, and she is dying for thee, and she will die for thee; but she'll fling a look over t'other shoulder at another young feller, though never leaving off dying for thee just the same."

"She's not dying for me, and so she didn't fling a look at him."

"But she may be dying for him, for she looked at thee."

"I don't know what to make of it at all," said d.i.c.k gloomily.

"All I can make of it is," the tranter said, raising his whip, arranging his different joints and muscles, and motioning to the horse to move on, "that if you can't read a maid's mind by her motions, nature d'seem to say thou'st ought to be a bachelor. Clk, clk! Smiler!" And the tranter moved on.

d.i.c.k held Smart's rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, and man remained rooted in the lane. How long this condition would have lasted is unknown, had not d.i.c.k's thoughts, after adding up numerous items of misery, gradually wandered round to the fact that as something must be done, it could not be done by staying there all night.

Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he were going to be seen no more in this life, and taking a sheet of paper and uncorking the ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the writer's mind was so powerfully apparent in every line of this effusion that it obscured the logical sequence of facts and intentions to an appreciable degree; and it was not at all clear to a reader whether he there and then left off loving Miss Fancy Day; whether he had never loved her seriously, and never meant to; whether he had been dying up to the present moment, and now intended to get well again; or whether he had hitherto been in good health, and intended to die for her forthwith.

He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a stern handwriting of straight dashes--easy flourishes being rigorously excluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane in strides not an inch less than three feet long. Reaching her gate he put on a resolute expression--then put it off again, turned back homeward, tore up his letter, and sat down.

That letter was altogether in a wrong tone--that he must own. A heartless man-of-the-world tone was what the juncture required. That he rather wanted her, and rather did not want her--the latter for choice; but that as a member of society he didn't mind making a query in jaunty terms, which could only be answered in the same way: did she mean anything by her bearing towards him, or did she not?

This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being put into the hands of a little boy, and the order given that he was to run with it to the school, he was told in addition not to look behind him if d.i.c.k called after him to bring it back, but to run along with it just the same. Having taken this precaution against vacillation, d.i.c.k watched his messenger down the road, and turned into the house whistling an air in such ghastly jerks and starts, that whistling seemed to be the act the very furthest removed from that which was instinctive in such a youth.

The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and pa.s.sed--and no answer. The next. The next. Friday night came. d.i.c.k resolved that if no answer or sign were given by her the next day, on Sunday he would meet her face to face, and have it all out by word of mouth.

"d.i.c.k," said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment--in each hand a hive of bees tied in a cloth to prevent their egress--"I think you'd better take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. Maybold's to- morrow, instead o' me, and I'll go wi' Smiler and the wagon."

It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar's mother, who had just taken into her head a fancy for keeping bees (pleasantly disguised under the pretence of its being an economical wish to produce her own honey), lived near the watering-place of Budmouth-Regis, ten miles off, and the business of transporting the hives thither would occupy the whole day, and to some extent annihilate the vacant time between this evening and the coming Sunday. The best spring-cart was washed throughout, the axles oiled, and the bees placed therein for the journey.

PART THE THIRD--SUMMER

CHAPTER I: DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH

An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles of dark-brown hair; light fall of little feet; pretty devices on the skirt of the dress; clear deep eyes; in short, a bunch of sweets: it was Fancy!

d.i.c.k's heart went round to her with a rush.