V
The Journey across the Heath
Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of daysduring which snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts weretreats; when cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called"earthquakes" by apprehensive children; when loose spokes werediscovered in the wheels of carts and carriages; and when stinginginsects haunted the air, the earth, and every drop of water that wasto be found.
In Mrs. Yeobright's garden large-leaved plants of a tender kindflagged by ten o'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward ateleven; and even stiff 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 theheat of the day was at its highest, but after setting out she foundthat this was not to be done. The sun had branded the whole heathwith his mark, even the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownnessunder the dry blazes of the few preceding days. Every valley wasfilled with air like that of a kiln, and the clean quartz sand ofthe winter water-courses, which formed summer paths, had undergonea species of incineration since the drought had set in.
In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found noinconvenience in walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attackmade the journey a heavy undertaking for a woman past middle age; andat the end of the third mile she wished that she had hired Fairway todrive her a portion at least of the distance. But from the point atwhich she had arrived it was as easy to reach Clym's house as to gethome again. So she went on, the air around her pulsating silently,and oppressing the earth with lassitude. She looked at the skyoverhead, and saw that the sapphirine hue of the zenith in spring andearly summer had been replaced by a metallic violet.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 creaturescould be indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing with enjoyment.Being a woman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat downunder her umbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certainhopefulness as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, andbetween important thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimalmatter which caught her eyes.
Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son's house, and itsexact position was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path andanother, and found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, shecame again to an open level, where she perceived at a distance a manat work. She went 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 didperceive him.
"Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He's going to thesame place, ma'am."
She followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue,not more distinguishable from the scene around him than the greencaterpillar from the leaf it feeds on. His progress when actuallywalking was more rapid than Mrs. Yeobright's; but she was enabled tokeep at an equable distance from him by his habit of stopping wheneverhe came to a brake of brambles, where he paused awhile. On comingin her turn to each of these spots she found half a dozen long limpbrambles which he had cut from the bush during his halt and laidout straight beside the path. They were evidently intended forfurze-faggot bonds which he meant to collect 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 of theheath, 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 thathe never turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted format length became to her as nothing more than a moving handpost toshow her the way. Suddenly she was attracted to his individualityby observing peculiarities in his walk. It was a gait she had seensomewhere before; and the gait revealed the man to her, as the gaitof Ahimaaz in the distant plain made him known to the watchman of theking. "His walk is exactly as my husband's used to be," she said; andthen the thought burst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son.
She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strangereality. She had been told that Clym was in the habit of cuttingfurze, but she had supposed that he occupied himself with the labouronly at odd times, by way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him asa furze-cutter and nothing more--wearing the regulation dress of thecraft, and thinking the regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions.Planning a dozen hasty schemes for at once preserving him and Eustaciafrom this mode of life she throbbingly followed the way, and saw himenter 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 herown storm-broken and exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not abough in the nine trees which composed the group but was splintered,lopped, and distorted by the fierce weather that there held them atits mercy whenever it prevailed. Some were blasted and split as if bylightning, black stains as from fire marking their sides, while theground at their feet was strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps ofcones blown down in the gales of past years. The place was called theDevil's Bellows, and it was only necessary to come there on a March orNovember night to discover the forcible reasons for that name. On thepresent heated afternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, thetrees kept up a perpetual moan which one could hardly believe to becaused by the air.
Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summonresolution to go down to the door, her courage being lowered to zeroby her physical lassitude. To any other person than a mother it mighthave seemed a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women,should be the first to make advances. But Mrs. Yeobright had wellconsidered all that, and she only thought how best to make her visitappear to Eustacia 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 secondman approaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, andnot that of a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyedthe house with interest, and then walked round and scanned the outerboundary of the garden, as one might have done had it been thebirthplace of Shakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Chateauof Hougomont. After passing round and again reaching the gate he wentin. Mrs. Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding herson and his wife by themselves; but a moment's thought showed her thatthe presence of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness ofher first appearance in the house, by confining the talk to generalmatters until she had begun to feel comfortable with them. She camedown the hill to the 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, o
f the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate,the only 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 ineach fruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness.By the door lay Clym's furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bondsshe had seen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as heentered the house.