2--The New Course Causes Disappointment
Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most menwas knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence. Hewished to raise the class at the expense of individuals rather thanindividuals at the expense of the class. What was more, he was ready atonce to be the first unit sacrificed.
In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediatestages are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of thosestages is almost sure to be worldly advanced. We can hardly imaginebucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without imaginingsocial aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright's local peculiarity wasthat in striving at high thinking he still cleaved to plain living--nay,wild and meagre living in many respects, and brotherliness with clowns.
He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentancefor his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was inmany points abreast with the central town thinkers of his date. Much ofthis development he may have owed to his studious life in Paris, wherehe had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at the time.
In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright mighthave been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him. Aman should be only partially before his time--to be completely to thevanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son beenintellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization withoutbloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed, butnobody would have heard of an Alexander.
In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in thecapacity to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeededbecause the doctrine they bring into form is that which their listenershave for some time felt without being able to shape. A man who advocatesaesthetic effort and deprecates social effort is only likely to beunderstood by a class to which social effort has become a stale matter.To argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury to the bucolicworld may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt to disturb a sequenceto which humanity has been long accustomed. Yeobright preaching tothe Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene comprehensivenesswithout going through the process of enriching themselves was not unlikearguing to ancient Chaldeans that in ascending from earth to the pureempyrean it was not necessary to pass first into the intervening heavenof ether.
Was Yeobright's mind well-proportioned? No. A well proportioned mind isone which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say thatit will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as aheretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that itwill never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest,or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.It produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraftof North, the spiritual guidance of Tomline; enabling its possessors tofind their way to wealth, to wind up well, to step with dignity off thestage, to die comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent monumentwhich, in many cases, they deserve. It never would have allowedYeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business tobenefit his fellow-creatures.
He walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone knewthe heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes, with itssubstance, and with its odours. He might be said to be its product. Hiseyes had first opened thereon with its appearance all the first imagesof his memory were mingled, his estimate of life had been coloured byit: his toys had been the flint knives and arrow-heads which he foundthere, wondering why stones should grow to such odd shapes; hisflowers, the purple bells and yellow furze: his animal kingdom, thesnakes and croppers; his society, its human haunters. Take all thevarying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath, and translatethem into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He gazed upon the wideprospect as he walked, and was glad.
To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of itscentury generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this.It was an obsolete thing, and few cared to study it. How could thisbe otherwise in the days of square fields, plashed hedges, and meadowswatered on a plan so rectangular that on a fine day they looked likesilver gridirons? The farmer, in his ride, who could smile at artificialgrasses, look with solicitude at the coming corn, and sigh with sadnessat the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon the distant upland of heathnothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright, when he lookedfrom the heights on his way he could not help indulging in a barbaroussatisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts at reclamationfrom the waste, tillage, after holding on for a year or two, had recededagain in despair, the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly reassertingthemselves.
He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at Blooms-End.His mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants. She lookedup at him as if she did not understand the meaning of his long stay withher; her face had worn that look for several days. He could perceivethat the curiosity which had been shown by the hair-cutting groupamounted in his mother to concern. But she had asked no question withher lips, even when the arrival of his trunk suggested that he was notgoing to leave her soon. Her silence besought an explanation of him moreloudly than words.
I am not going back to Paris again, Mother, he said. At least, in myold capacity. I have given up the business.
Mrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise. I thought something wasamiss, because of the boxes. I wonder you did not tell me sooner.
I ought to have done it. But I have been in doubt whether you would bepleased with my plan. I was not quite clear on a few points myself. I amgoing to take an entirely new course.
I am astonished, Clym. How can you want to do better than you've beendoing?
Very easily. But I shall not do better in the way you mean; I supposeit will be called doing worse. But I hate that business of mine, and Iwant to do some worthy thing before I die. As a schoolmaster I thinkto do it--a school-master to the poor and ignorant, to teach them whatnobody else will.
After all the trouble that has been taken to give you a start, and whenthere is nothing to do but to keep straight on towards affluence, yousay you will be a poor man's schoolmaster. Your fancies will be yourruin, Clym.
Mrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling behind the wordswas but too apparent to one who knew her as well as her son did. He didnot answer. There was in his face that hopelessness of being understoodwhich comes when the objector is constitutionally beyond the reach ofa logic that, even under favouring conditions, is almost too coarse avehicle for the subtlety of the argument.
No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. His mother thenbegan, as if there had been no interval since the morning. It disturbsme, Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those. Ihadn't the least idea that you meant to go backward in the world by yourown free choice. Of course, I have always supposed you were going topush straight on, as other men do--all who deserve the name--when theyhave been put in a good way of doing well.
I cannot help it, said Clym, in a troubled tone. Mother, I hatethe flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any mandeserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he seeshalf the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and teachthem how to breast the misery they are born to? I get up every morningand see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, as St. Paulsays, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering splendours withwealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering to the meanestvanities--I, who have health and strength enough for anything. I havebeen troubled in my mind about it all the year, and the end is that Icannot do it any more.
Why can't you do it as well as others?
I don't know, except that there are many things other people care forwhich I don't; and that's partly why I think I ought to do this. For onething, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy delicacies;good things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn that defect toadvantage, and by being able to do without what other people require Ican spend what such things cost upon anybody else.
Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from thewoman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her throughher feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for hisgood. She spoke with less assurance. And yet you might have been awealthy man if you had only persevered. Manager to that large diamondestablishment--what better can a man wish for? What a post of trustand respect! I suppose you will be like your father; like him, you aregetting weary of doing well.
No, said her son, I am not weary of that, though I am weary of whatyou mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?
Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with readydefinitions, and, like the What is wisdom? of Plato's Socrates, andthe What is truth? of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright's burning questionreceived no answer.
The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at thedoor, and its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room in hisSunday clothes.
It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story beforeabsolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of thenarrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face. Christianhad been saying to them while the door was leaving its latch, To thinkthat I, who go from home but once in a while, and hardly then, shouldhave been there this morning!
'Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian? said Mrs. Yeobright.
Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o' day; for, saysI, 'I must go and tell 'em, though they won't have half done dinner.' Iassure ye it made me shake like a driven leaf. Do ye think any harm willcome o't?
Well--what?
This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa'son said,'Let us pray.' 'Well,' thinks I, 'one may as well kneel as stand'; sodown I went; and, more than that, all the rest were as willing to obligethe man as I. We hadn't been hard at it for more than a minute when amost terrible screech sounded through church, as if somebody had justgied up their heart's blood. All the folk jumped up and then we foundthat Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long stocking-needle, asshe had threatened to do as soon as ever she could get the young lady tochurch, where she don't come very often. She've waited for this chancefor weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an end to the bewitching ofSusan's children that has been carried on so long. Sue followed her intochurch, sat next to her, and as soon as she could find a chance in wentthe stocking-needle into my lady's arm.
Good heaven, how horrid! said Mrs. Yeobright.
Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away; and as I wasafeard there might be some tumult among us, I got behind the bass violand didn't see no more. But they carried her out into the air, 'tissaid; but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. What a screamthat girl gied, poor thing! There were the pa'son in his surpliceholding up his hand and saying, 'Sit down, my good people, sit down!'But the deuce a bit would they sit down. O, and what d'ye think Ifound out, Mrs. Yeobright? The pa'son wears a suit of clothes under hissurplice!--I could see his black sleeves when he held up his arm.
'Tis a cruel thing, said Yeobright.
Yes, said his mother.
The nation ought to look into it, said Christian. Here's Humphreycoming, I think.
In came Humphrey. Well, have ye heard the news? But I see you have.'Tis a very strange thing that whenever one of Egdon folk goes to churchsome rum job or other is sure to be doing. The last time one of us wasthere was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall; and that was the dayyou forbad the banns, Mrs. Yeobright.
Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home? said Clym.
They say she got better, and went home very well. And now I've told itI must be moving homeward myself.
And I, said Humphrey. Truly now we shall see if there's anything inwhat folks say about her.
When they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said quietly to hismother, Do you think I have turned teacher too soon?
It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, andall such men, she replied. But it is right, too, that I should try tolift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should notcome back again, and be as if I had not tried at all.
Later in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. I've come a-borrowing,Mrs. Yeobright. I suppose you have heard what's been happening to thebeauty on the hill?
Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us.
Beauty? said Clym.
Yes, tolerably well-favoured, Sam replied. Lord! all the country ownsthat 'tis one of the strangest things in the world that such a womanshould have come to live up there.
Dark or fair?
Now, though I've seen her twenty times, that's a thing I cannot call tomind.
Darker than Tamsin, murmured Mrs. Yeobright.
A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say.
She is melancholy, then? inquired Clym.
She mopes about by herself, and don't mix in with the people.
Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?
Not to my knowledge.
Doesn't join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort ofexcitement in this lonely place?
No.
Mumming, for instance?
No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were faraway from here, with lords and ladies she'll never know, and mansionsshe'll never see again.
Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright saidrather uneasily to Sam, You see more in her than most of us do. MissVye is to my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard thatshe is of any use to herself or to other people. Good girls don't gettreated as witches even on Egdon.
Nonsense--that proves nothing either way, said Yeobright.
Well, of course I don't understand such niceties, said Sam,withdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument; and what she is wemust wait for time to tell us. The business that I have really calledabout is this, to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. Thecaptain's bucket has dropped into the well, and they are in want ofwater; and as all the chaps are at home today we think we can get it outfor him. We have three cart-ropes already, but they won't reach to thebottom.
Mrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes he could findin the outhouse, and Sam went out to search. When he passed by the doorClym joined him, and accompanied him to the gate.
Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover? he asked.
I should say so.
What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered greatly--morein mind than in body.
'Twas a graceless trick--such a handsome girl, too. You ought to seeher, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a littlemore to show for your years than most of us.
Do you think she would like to teach children? said Clym.
Sam shook his head. Quite a different sort of body from that, Ireckon.
O, it was merely something which occurred to me. It would of course benecessary to see her and talk it over--not an easy thing, by the way,for my family and hers are not very friendly.
I'll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright, said Sam. We aregoing to grapple for the bucket at six o'clock tonight at her house, andyou could lend a hand. There's five or six coming, but the well is deep,and another might be useful, if you don't mind appearing in that shape.She's sure to be walking round.
I'll think of it, said Yeobright; and they parted.
He thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was said about Eustaciainside the house at that time. Whether this romantic martyr tosuperstition and the melancholy mummer he had conversed with under thefull moon were one and the same person remained as yet a problem.