Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Froom
Vale, at a season when the rush of juices could almost
be heard below the hiss of fertilization, it was impossible
that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate.
The ready bosoms existing there were impregnated
by their surroundings.
July passed over their heads, and the Thermidorean
weather which came in its wake seemed an effort on
the part of Nature to match the state of hearts at
Talbothays Dairy. The air of the place, so fresh
in the spring and early summer, was stagnant and enervating
now. Its heavy scents weighed upon them, and
at mid-day the landscape seemed lying in a swoon.
Ethiopic scorchings browned the upper slopes of the
pastures, but there was still bright green herbage
here where the watercourses purled. And as Clare
was oppressed by the outward heats, so was he burdened
inwardly by waxing fervour of passion for the soft
and silent Tess.
The rains having passed, the uplands were dry.
The wheels of the dairyman’s spring-cart, as
he sped home from market, licked up the pulverized
surface of the highway, and were followed by white
ribands of dust, as if they had set a thin powder-train
on fire. The cows jumped wildly over the five-barred
barton-gate, maddened by the gad-fly; Dairyman Crick
kept his shirt-sleeves permanently rolled up from
Monday to Saturday; open windows had no effect in ventilation
without open doors, and in the dairy-garden the blackbirds
and thrushes crept about under the currant-bushes,
rather in the manner of quadrupeds than of winged
creatures. The flies in the kitchen were lazy,
teasing, and familiar, crawling about in the unwonted
places, on the floors, into drawers, and over the backs
of the milkmaids’ hands. Conversations
were concerning sunstroke; while butter-making, and
still more butter-keeping, was a despair.
They milked entirely in the meads for coolness and
convenience, without driving in the cows. During
the day the animals obsequiously followed the shadow
of the smallest tree as it moved round the stem with
the diurnal roll; and when the milkers came they could
hardly stand still for the flies.
On one of these afternoons four or five unmilked cows
chanced to stand apart from the general herd, behind
the corner of a hedge, among them being Dumpling and
Old Pretty, who loved Tess’s hands above those
of any other maid. When she rose from her stool
under a finished cow, Angel Clare, who had been observing
her for some time, asked her if she would take the
aforesaid creatures next. She silently assented,
and with her stool at arm’s length, and the pail
against her knee, went round to where they stood.
Soon the sound of Old Pretty’s milk fizzing
into the pail came through the hedge, and then Angel
felt inclined to go round the corner also, to finish
off a hard-yielding milcher who had strayed there,
he being now as capable of this as the dairyman himself.
