This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day.
The beginning of November found its date still in
abeyance, though he asked her at the most tempting
times. But Tess’s desire seemed to be
for a perpetual betrothal in which everything should
remain as it was then.
The meads were changing now; but it was still warm
enough in early afternoons before milking to idle
there awhile, and the state of dairy-work at this
time of year allowed a spare hour for idling.
Looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun,
a glistening ripple of gossamer webs was visible to
their eyes under the luminary, like the track of moonlight
on the sea. Gnats, knowing nothing of their
brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of
this pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within
them, then passed out of its line, and were quite
extinct. In the presence of these things he
would remind her that the date was still the question.
Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied
her on some mission invented by Mrs Crick to give
him the opportunity. This was mostly a journey
to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire
how the advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton
to which they were relegated. For it was a time
of the year that brought great changes to the world
of kine. Batches of the animals were sent away
daily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived on
straw till their calves were born, after which event,
and as soon as the calf could walk, mother and offspring
were driven back to the dairy. In the interval
which elapsed before the calves were sold there was,
of course, little milking to be done, but as soon
as the calf had been taken away the milkmaids would
have to set to work as usual.
Returning from one of these dark walks they reached
a great gravel-cliff immediately over the levels,
where they stood still and listened. The water
was now high in the streams, squirting through the
weirs, and tinkling under culverts; the smallest gullies
were all full; there was no taking short cuts anywhere,
and foot-passengers were compelled to follow the permanent
ways. From the whole extent of the invisible
vale came a multitudinous intonation; it forced upon
their fancy that a great city lay below them, and that
the murmur was the vociferation of its populace.
“It seems like tens of thousands of them,”
said Tess; “holding public-meetings in their
market-places, arguing, preaching, quarrelling, sobbing,
groaning, praying, and cursing.”
Clare was not particularly heeding.
“Did Crick speak to you to-day, dear, about
his not wanting much assistance during the winter
months?”
“No.”
“The cows are going dry rapidly.”
“Yes. Six or seven went to the straw-barton
yesterday, and three the day before, making nearly
twenty in the straw already. Ah—is
it that the farmer don’t want my help for the
calving? O, I am not wanted here any more!
And I have tried so hard to—”
