1. MARCH THE TWENTY-NINTH. NOON
Exactly seven days after Edward Springrove had seen the man with the bundle of straw walking down the streets of Casterbridge, old Farmer Springrove was standing on the edge of the same pavement, talking to his friend, Farmer Baker.
There was a pause in their discourse. Mr. Springrove was looking down the street at some object which had attracted his attention.
'Ah, 'tis what we shall all come to!' he murmured.
The other looked in the same direction. 'True, neighbour Springrove; true.'
Two men, advancing one behind the other in the middle of the road, were what the farmers referred to. They were carpenters, and bore on their shoulders an empty coffin, covered by a thin black cloth.
'I always feel a satisfaction at being breasted by such a sight as that,' said Springrove, still regarding the men's sad burden. 'I call it a sort of medicine.'
'And it is medicine. . . . I have not heard of any body being ill up this way lately? D'seem as if the person died suddenly.'
'May be so. Ah, Baker, we say sudden death, don't we? But there's no difference in their nature between sudden death and death of any other sort. There's no such thing as a random snapping off of what was laid down to last longer. We only suddenly light upon an end--thoughtfully formed as any other--which has been existing at that very same point from the beginning, though unseen by us to be so soon.'
'It is just a discovery to your own mind, and not an alteration in the Lord's.'
'That's it. Unexpected is not as to the thing, but as to our sight.'
'Now you'll hardly believe me, neighbour, but this little scene in front of us makes me feel less anxious about pushing on wi' that threshing and winnowing next week, that I was speaking about. Why should we not stand still, says I to myself, and fling a quiet eye upon the Whys and the Wherefores, before the end o' it all, and we go down into the mouldering-place, and are forgotten?'
''Tis a feeling that will come. But 'twont bear looking into.
There's a back'ard current in the world, and we must do our utmost to advance in order just to bide where we be. But, Baker, they are turning in here with the coffin, look.'
The two carpenters had borne their load into a narrow way close at hand. The farmers, in common with others, turned and watched them along the way.
''Tis a man's coffin, and a tall man's, too,' continued Farmer Springrove. 'His was a fine frame, whoever he was.'
'A very plain box for the poor soul--just the rough elm, you see.'
The corner of the cloth had blown aside.
'Yes, for a very poor man. Well, death's all the less insult to him. I have often thought how much smaller the richer class are made to look than the poor at last pinches like this. Perhaps the greatest of all the reconcilers of a thoughtful man to poverty--and I speak from experience--is the grand quiet it fills him with when the uncertainty of his life shows itself more than usual.'
As Springrove finished speaking, the bearers of the coffin went across a gravelled square facing the two men and approached a grim and heavy archway. They paused beneath it, rang a bell, and waited.
Over the archway was written in Egyptian capitals, 'COUNTY GAOL.'
The small rectangular wicket, which was constructed in one of the two iron-studded doors, was opened from the inside. The men severally stepped over the threshold, the coffin dragged its melancholy length through the aperture, and both entered the court, and were covered from sight.
'Somebody in the gaol, then?'
'Yes, one of the prisoners,' said a boy, scudding by at the moment, who passed on whistling.
'Do you know the name of the man who is dead?' inquired Baker of a third bystander.
'Yes, 'tis all over town--surely you know, Mr. Springrove? Why, Manston, Miss Aldclyffe's steward. He was found dead the first thing this morning. He had hung himself behind the door of his cell, in some way, by a handkerchief and some strips of his clothes.
The turnkey says his features were scarcely changed, as he looked at 'em with the early sun a-shining in at the grating upon him. He has left a full account of the murder, and all that led to it. So there's an end of him.'
It was perfectly true: Manston was dead.
The previous day he had been allowed the use of writing-materials, and had occupied himself for nearly seven hours in preparing the following confession:--'LAST WORDS.
'Having found man's life to be a wretchedly conceived scheme, I renounce it, and, to cause no further trouble, I write down the facts connected with my past proceedings.
'After thanking God, on first entering my house, on the night of the fire at Carriford, for my release from bondage to a woman I detested, I went, a second time, to the scene of the disaster, and, finding that nothing could be done by remaining there, shortly afterwards I returned home again in the company of Mr. Raunham.
'He parted from me at the steps of my porch, and went back towards the rectory. Whilst I still stood at the door, musing on my strange deliverance, I saw a figure advance from beneath the shadow of the park trees. It was the figure of a woman.
'When she came near, the twilight was sufficient to show me her attire: it was a cloak reaching to the bottom of her dress, and a thick veil covering her face. These features, together with her size and gait, aided also by a flash of perception as to the chain of events which had saved her life, told me that she was my wife Eunice.
'I gnashed my teeth in a frenzy of despair; I had lost Cytherea; I had gained one whose beauty had departed, whose utterance was complaint, whose mind was shallow, and who drank brandy every day.
The revulsion of feeling was terrible. Providence, whom I had just thanked, seemed a mocking tormentor laughing at me. I felt like a madman.
'She came close--started at seeing me outside--then spoke to me.
