Chapter: 11 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

RETURNING from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by the lamp nearest to

her own door. When she stopped to go in he came and spoke to her. It was Jopp.

He begged her pardon for addressing her. But he had heard that Mr. Farfrae had been

applied to by a neighbouring corn-merchant to recommend a working partner, if so, he

wished to offer himself. He could give good security, and had stated as much to Mr.

Farfrae in a letter; but he would feel much obliged if Lucetta would say a word in his

favour to her husband.

"It is a thing I know nothing about," said Lucetta coldly.

"But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than anybody, ma'am," said Jopp. "I

was in Jersey several years, and knew you there by sight." "Indeed," she replied. "But I

knew nothing of you." "I think, ma'am, that a word or two from you would secure for

me what I covet very much," he persisted.

She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair, and, cutting him short,

because of her anxiety to get indoors before her husband should miss her, left him on

the pavement.

He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home. When he got there he sat

down in the fireless chimney corner looking at the iron dogs, and the wood laid across

them for heating the morning kettle. A movement upstairs disturbed him, and

Henchard came down from his bed-room, where he seemed to have been rummaging

boxes.

"I wish," said Henchard, "you would do me a service, Jopp, now- tonight, I mean, if

you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfrae's for her. I should take it myself, of course, but I

don't wish to be seen there." He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchard

had been as good as his word. Immediately on coming indoors he had searched over

his few belongings; and every scrap of Lucetta's writing that he possessed was here.

Jopp indifferently expressed his willingness.

"Well, how have ye got on today?" his lodger asked. "Any prospect of an opening?" "I

am afraid not," said Jopp, who had not told the other of his application to Farfrae.

"There never will be in Casterbridge," declared Henchard decisively. "You must roam

further afield." He said good-night to Jopp, and returned to his own part of the house.

Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of the candle-snuff on the wall,

and looking at the original he found that it had formed itself into a head like a red-hot

cauliflower. Henchard's packet next met his gaze. He knew there had been something

of the nature of wooing between Henchard and the now Mrs. Farfrae; and his vague

ideas on the subject narrowed themselves down to these: Henchard had a parcel

belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he had reasons for not returning that parcel to her in

person. What could be inside it? So he went on and on till, animated by resentment atLucetta's haughtiness, as he thought it, and curiosity to learn if there were any weak

sides to this transaction with Henchard, he examined the package. The pen and all its

relations being awkward tools in Henchard's hands, he had affixed the seals without an

impression, it never occurring to him that the efficacy of such a fastening depended on

this. Jopp was far less of a tyro; he lifted one of the seals with his penknife, peeped in at

the end thus opened, saw that the bundle consisted of letters; and, having satisfied

himself thus far, sealed up the end again by simply softening the wax with the candle,

and went off with the parcel as requested.

His path was by the river-side at the foot of the town. Coming into the light at the

bridge which stood at the end of High Street, he beheld lounging thereon Mother

Cuxsom and Nance Mockridge.

"We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to look into Peter's Finger afore creeping to

bed," said Mrs. Cuxsom. "There's a fiddle and tambourine going on there. Lord, what's

all the world- do ye come along too, Jopp- 'twon't hinder ye five minutes." Jopp had

mostly kept himself out of this company, but present circumstances made him

somewhat more reckless than usual, and without many words he decided to go to his

destination that way.

Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composed of a curious congeries of

barns and farmsteads, there was a less picturesque side to the parish. This was Mixen

Lane, now in great part pulled down.

Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surrounding villages. It was the hiding-place of

those who were in distress, and in debt, and trouble of every kind.

Farm-labourers and other peasants, who combined a little poaching with their farming,

and a little brawling and bibbing with their poaching, found themselves sooner or later

in Mixen Lane. Rural mechanics too idle to mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to

serve, drifted or were forced into Mixen Lane.

The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottages stretched out like a spit into

the moist and misty lowland. Much that was sad, much that was low, some things that

were baneful, could be seen in Mixen Lane. Vice ran freely in and out certain of the

doors of the neighbourhood; recklessness dwelt under the roof with the crooked

chimney; shame in some bow-windows; theft (in times of privation) in the thatched and

mud-walled houses by the sallows. Even slaughter had not been altogether unknown

here. In a block of cottages up an alley there might have been erected an altar to disease

in years gone by. Such was Mixen Lane in the times when Henchard and Farfrae were

Mayors.

Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Casterbridge plant lay close to the

open country; not a hundred yards from a row of noble elms, and commanding a view

across the moor of airy uplands and corn-fields, and mansions of the great. A brook

divided the moor from the tenements, and to outward view there was no way across it-

no way to the houses but round about by the road. But under every householder'sstairs there was kept a mysterious plank nine inches wide; which plank was a secret

bridge.

If you, as one of those refugee householders, came in from business after darkand this

was the business time here- you stealthily crossed the moor, approached the border of

the aforesaid brook, and whistled opposite the house to which you belonged. A shape

thereupon made its appearance on the other side bearing the bridge on end against the

sky; it was lowered; you crossed, and a hand helped you to land yourself, together with

the pheasants and hares gathered from neighbouring manors. You sold them slily the

next morning, and the day after you stood before the magistrates, with the eyes of all

your sympathizing neighbours concentrated on your back. You disappeared for a time;

then you were again found quietly living in Mixen Lane.

Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struck by two or three peculiar

features therein. One was an intermittent rumbling from the back premises of the inn

half-way up; this meant a skittle alley. Another was the extensive prevalence of

whistling in the various domiciles- a piped note of some kind coming from nearly

every open door. Another was the frequency of white aprons over dingy gowns among

the women around the doorways. A white apron is a suspicious vesture in situations

where spotlessness is difficult; moreover, the industry and cleanliness which the white

apron expressed were belied by the postures and gaits of the women who wore it- their

knuckles being mostly on their hips (an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-

handled mugs), and their shoulders against door-posts; while there was a curious

alacrity in the turn of each honest woman's head upon her neck, and in the twirl of her

honest eyes, at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along the lane.

Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectability also found a home. Under some of

the roofs abode pure and virtuous souls whose presence there was due to the iron hand

of necessity, and to that alone. Families from decayed villages- families of that once

bulky, but now nearly extinct, section of village society called "liviers," or lifeholders-

copy-holders and others, whose roof-trees had fallen for some reason or other,

compelling them to quit the rural spot that had been their home for generations- came

here, unless they chose to be under a hedge by the wayside.

The inn called Peter's Finger was the church of Mixen Lane.

It was centrally situated, as such places should be, and bore about the same social

relation to the Three Mariners as the latter bore to the King's Arms. At first sight the inn

was so respectable as to be puzzling. The front door was kept shut, and the step was so

clean that evidently but few persons entered over its sanded surface. But at the corner

of the public-house was an alley, a mere slit, dividing it from the next building. Half-

way up the alley was a narrow door, shiny and paintless from the rub of infinite hands

and shoulders. This was the actual entrance to the inn.

A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen Lane; and then, in a

moment, he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like Ashton at the disappearanceof Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian had edged into the slit by the adroit fillip of

his person sideways; from the slit he edged into the tavern by a similar exercise of skill.

The company at the Three Mariners were persons of quality in comparison with the

company which gathered here; though it must be admitted that the lowest fringe of the

Mariner's party touched the crest of Peter's at points. Waifs and strays of all sorts

loitered about here. The landlady was a virtuous woman, who had been unjustly sent

to gaol as an accessory to something or other after the fact.

She underwent her year, and had worn a martyr's countenance ever since, except at

times of meeting the constable who apprehended her, when she winked her eye.

To this house Jopp and his acquaintances had arrived The settles on which they sat

down were thin and tall, their tops being guyed by pieces of twine to hooks in the

ceiling; for when the guests grew boisterous the settles would rock and overturn

without some such security. The thunder of bowls echoed from the backyard; swingels

hung behind the blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers, whom

squires had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each other- men who in past

times had met in fights under the moon, till lapse of sentences on the one part, and loss

of favour and expulsion from service on the other, brought them here together to a

common level, where they sat calmly discussing old times.

"Dos't mind how you could jerk a trout ashore with a bramble, and not ruffle the

stream, Charl?" a deposed keeper was saying. "'Twas at that I caught 'ee once, if you

can mind?" "That can I. But the worst larry for me was that pheasant business at

Yalbury Wood. Your wife swore false that time, Joe- oh, by Gad, she did- there's no

denying it." "How was that?" asked Jopp.

"Why- Joe closed wi' me, and we rolled down together, close to his garden hedge.

Hearing the noise, out ran his wife with the oven pyle, and it being dark under the

trees she couldn't see which was uppermost. 'Where beest thee, Joe, under or top?' she

screeched. 'Oh- under, by Gad!' says he. She then began to rap down upon my skull,

back, and ribs, with the pyle till we'd roll over again.

'Where beest now, dear Joe, under or top?' she'd scream again. By George, 'twas

through her I was took! And then when we got up in hall she sware that the cock

pheasant was one of her rearing, when 'twas not your bird at all, Joe; 'twas Squire

Brown's bird- that's whose 'twas- one that we'd picked off as we passed his wood, an

hour afore. It did hurt my feelings to be so wronged!... Ah well- 'tis over now." "I

might have had ye days afore that," said the keeper. "I was within a few yards of ye

dozens of times, with a sight more of birds than that poor one."

"Yes- 'tis not our greatest doings that the world gets wind of," said the furmity-woman,

who, lately settled in this purlieu, sat among the rest. Having travelled a great deal in

her time, she spoke with cosmopolitan largeness of idea. It was she who presently

asked Jopp what was the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm."Ah, therein lies a grand secret," said Jopp. "It is the passion of love. To think that a

woman should love one man so well, and hate another so unmercifully." "Who's the

object of your meditation, sir?" "One that stands high in this town. I'd like to shame

her! Upon my life, 'twould be as good as a play to read her love-letters, the proud piece

of silk and wax-work! For 'tis her love-letters that I've got here." "Love-letters? then

let's hear 'em, good soul," said Mother Cuxsom. "Lord, do ye mind, Richard, what

fools we used to be when we were younger? Getting a schoolboy to write ours for us;

and giving him a penny, do ye mind, not to tell other folks what he'd put inside, do ye

mind?" By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under the seals, and unfastened the

letters, tumbling them over and picking up one here and there at random, which he

read aloud. These passages soon began to uncover the secret which Lucetta had so

earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the epistles, being allusive only, did not make

it altogether plain.

"Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!" said Nance Mockridge. "'Tis a humbling thing for us, as

respectable women, that one of the same sex could do it. And now she's vowed herself

to another man!" "So much the better for her," said the aged furmity-woman. "Ah, I

saved her from a real bad marriage, and she's never been the one to thank me." "I say,

what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride," said Nance.

"True," said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. "'Tis as good a ground for a skimmityride as ever

I knowed; and it ought not to be wasted. The last one seen in Casterbridge must have

been ten years ago, if a day.

"At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the man who had

been called Charl, "'Tis Jim coming in. Would ye go and let down the bridge for me?"

Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a lantern from her

went out at the back door and down the garden-path, which ended abruptly at the

edge of the stream already mentioned. Beyond the stream was the open moor, from

which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces as they advanced. Taking up the board

that had lain in readiness, one of them lowered it across the water, and the instant its

further end touched the ground footsteps entered upon it, and there appeared from the

shade a stalwart man with straps round his knees, a double-barrelled gun under his

arm and some birds slung up behind him. They asked him if he had had much luck.

"Not much," he said indifferently. "All safe inside?" Receiving a reply in the

affirmative, he went on inwards, the others withdrawing the bridge and beginning to

retreat in his rear. Before, however, they had entered the house a cry of "Ahoy" from

the moor led them to pause.

The cry was repeated. They pushed the lantern into an out-house, and went back to the

brink of the stream.

"Ahoy- is this the way to Casterbridge?" said some one from the other side.

"Not in particular," said Charl. "There's a river afore ye." "I don't care- here's for

through it!" said the man in the moor. "I've had travelling enough for today." "Stop a

minute, then," said Charl, finding that the man was no enemy. "Joe, bring the plankand lantern; here's somebody that's lost his way. You should have kept along the

turnpike road, friend, and not have strook across here." "I should- as I see now. But I

saw a light here, and says I to myself, that's a short cut, depend on't." The plank was

now lowered; and the stranger's form shaped itself from the darkness. He was a

middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers prematurely grey, and a broad and genial

face. He had crossed on the plank without hesitation, and seemed to see nothing odd in

the transit. He thanked them, and walked between them up the garden. "What place is

this?" he asked, when they reached the door.

"A public-house." "Ah. Perhaps it will suit me to put up at. Now then, come in and wet

your whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me." They followed him

into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him as one who would stand higher in

an estimate by the eye than in one by the ear. He was dressed with a certain clumsy

richness- his coat being furred, and his head covered by a cap of sealskin, which,

though the nights were chilly, must have been warm for the day time, spring being

somewhat advanced. In his hand he carried a small mahogany case, strapped, and

clamped with brass.

Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted him through the

kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea of putting up at the house; but taking the

situation lightly, he called for glasses of the best, paid for them as he stood in the

passage, and turned to proceed on his way by the front door. This was barred, and

while the landlady was unfastening it the conversation about the skimmington was

continued in the sitting-room, and reached his ears.

"What do they mean by, a 'skimmity-ride'?" he asked.

"Oh, sir!" said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with deprecating modesty;

"'tis a' old foolish thing they do in these parts when a man's wife is-well, not too

particularly his own. But as a respectable householder I don't encourage it." "Still, are

they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I suppose?"

"Well, sir!" she simpered. And then, bursting into naturalness, and glancing from the

corner of her eye, "'Tis the funniest thing under the sun! And it costs money." "Ah! I

remember hearing of some such thing. Now I shall be in Casterbridge for two or three

weeks to come, and should not mind seeing the performance.

Wait a moment." He turned back, entered the sitting room, and said, "Here, good folks;

I should like to see the old custom you are talking of, and I don't mind being something

towards it- take that." He threw a sovereign on the table and returned to the landlady

at the door, of whom, having inquired the way into the town, he took his leave.

"There were more where that one came from," said Charl, when the soverein had been

taken up and handed to the landlady for safe keeping. "By George! we ought to have

got a few more while we had him here." "No, no," answered the landlady. "This is a

respectable house, thank God! And I'll have nothing done but what's honourable."

"Well," said Jopp; "now we'll consider the business begun, and will soon get it in

train." "We will!" said Nance. "A good laugh warms my heart more than a cordial, andthat's the truth on't." Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhat late, he

did not attempt to call at Farfrae's with them that night. He reached home, sealed them

up as before, and delivered the parcel at its address next morning. Within an hour its

contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who, poor soul! was inclined to fall down

on her knees in thankfulness that at last no evidence remained of the unlucky episode

with Henchard in her past. For though hers had been rather the laxity of inadvertence

than of intention, that episode, if known, was not the less likely to operate fatally

between herself and her husband.....!!!!!