5--The Journey across the Heath
Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days duringwhich snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were treats;when cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called earthquakes byapprehensive children; when loose spokes were discovered in the wheelsof carts and carriages; and when stinging insects haunted the air, theearth, and every drop of water that was to be found.
In Mrs. Yeobright's garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind flaggedby ten o'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and evenstiff cabbages were limp by noon.
It was about eleven o'clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright startedacross the heath towards her son's house, to do her best in gettingreconciled with him and Eustacia, in conformity with her words to thereddleman. She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before the heatof the day was at its highest, but after setting out she found that thiswas not to be done. The sun had branded the whole heath with its mark,even the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownness under the dryblazes of the few preceding days. Every valley was filled with air likethat of a kiln, and the clean quartz sand of the winter water-courses,which formed summer paths, had undergone a species of incineration sincethe drought had set in.
In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found no inconveniencein walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attack made the journeya heavy undertaking for a woman past middle age; and at the end of thethird mile she wished that she had hired Fairway to drive her a portionat least of the distance. But from the point at which she had arrived itwas as easy to reach Clym's house as to get home again. So she went on,the air around her pulsating silently, and oppressing the earth withlassitude. She looked at the sky overhead, and saw that the sapphirinehue of the zenith in spring and early summer had been replaced by ametallic violet.
Occasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds of ephemeronswere passing their time in mad carousal, some in the air, some on thehot ground and vegetation, some in the tepid and stringy water of anearly dried pool. All the shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporousmud amid which the maggoty shapes of innumerable obscure creatures couldbe indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing with enjoyment. Being awoman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat down under herumbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certain hopefulnessas to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and betweenimportant thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal matterwhich caught her eyes.
Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son's house, and its exactposition was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path and another,and found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, she came againto an open level, where she perceived at a distance a man at work. Shewent towards him and inquired the way.
The labourer pointed out the direction, and added, Do you see thatfurze-cutter, ma'am, going up that footpath yond?
Mrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said that she did perceivehim.
Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He's going to the sameplace, ma'am.
She followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue, not moredistinguishable from the scene around him than the green caterpillarfrom the leaf it feeds on. His progress when actually walking was morerapid than Mrs. Yeobright's; but she was enabled to keep at an equabledistance from him by his habit of stopping whenever he came to a brakeof brambles, where he paused awhile. On coming in her turn to each ofthese spots she found half a dozen long limp brambles which he had cutfrom the bush during his halt and laid out straight beside the path.They were evidently intended for furze-faggot bonds which he meant tocollect on his return.
The silent being who thus occupied himself seemed to be of no moreaccount in life than an insect. He appeared as a mere parasite ofthe heath, fretting its surface in his daily labour as a moth frets agarment, entirely engrossed with its products, having no knowledge ofanything in the world but fern, furze, heath, lichens, and moss.
The furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his journey that henever turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted form atlength became to her as nothing more than a moving handpost to show herthe way. Suddenly she was attracted to his individuality by observingpeculiarities in his walk. It was a gait she had seen somewhere before;and the gait revealed the man to her, as the gait of Ahimaaz in thedistant plain made him known to the watchman of the king. His walkis exactly as my husband's used to be, she said; and then the thoughtburst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son.
She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strange reality.She had been told that Clym was in the habit of cutting furze, but shehad supposed that he occupied himself with the labour only at odd times,by way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him as a furze-cutter andnothing more--wearing the regulation dress of the craft, and thinkingthe regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions. Planning a dozen hastyschemes for at once preserving him and Eustacia from this mode of life,she throbbingly followed the way, and saw him enter his own door.
At one side of Clym's house was a knoll, and on the top of the knoll aclump of fir trees so highly thrust up into the sky that their foliagefrom a distance appeared as a black spot in the air above the crownof the hill. On reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt distressinglyagitated, weary, and unwell. She ascended, and sat down under theirshade to recover herself, and to consider how best to break the groundwith Eustacia, so as not to irritate a woman underneath whose apparentindolence lurked passions even stronger and more active than her own.
The trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered, rude, andwild, and for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright dismissed thoughts of her ownstorm-broken and exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not a bough inthe nine trees which composed the group but was splintered, lopped,and distorted by the fierce weather that there held them at its mercywhenever it prevailed. Some were blasted and split as if by lightning,black stains as from fire marking their sides, while the ground at theirfeet was strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps of cones blown down inthe gales of past years. The place was called the Devil's Bellows, andit was only necessary to come there on a March or November night todiscover the forcible reasons for that name. On the present heatedafternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept up aperpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be caused by the air.
Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summon resolutionto go down to the door, her courage being lowered to zero by herphysical lassitude. To any other person than a mother it might haveseemed a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women, shouldbe the first to make advances. But Mrs. Yeobright had well consideredall that, and she only thought how best to make her visit appear toEustacia not abject but wise.
From her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roofof the house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of thelittle domicile. And now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second manapproaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not thatof a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyed the housewith interest, and then walked round and scanned the outer boundaryof the garden, as one might have done had it been the birthplace ofShakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Chateau of Hougomont.After passing round and again reaching the gate he went in. Mrs.Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her son and hiswife by themselves; but a moment's thought showed her that thepresence of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of her firstappearance in the house, by confining the talk to general matters untilshe had begun to feel comfortable with them. She came down the hill tothe gate, and looked into the hot garden.
There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds,rugs, and carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hunglike half-closed umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, andfoliage with a smooth surface glared like metallic mirrors. A smallapple tree, of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate, theonly one which throve in the garden, by reason of the lightness ofthe soil; and among the fallen apples on the ground beneath were waspsrolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the little caves in eachfruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness. By thedoor lay Clym's furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bonds she hadseen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as he enteredthe house.