The sheaf-pitchers and feeders had now worked the rick so low that people on the ground could talk to them.  To Tess’s surprise Farmer Groby came up on the machine to her, and said that if she desired to join her friend he did not wish her to keep on any longer, and would send somebody else to take her place.  The “friend” was d’Urberville, she knew, and also that this concession had been granted in obedience to the request of that friend, or enemy.  She shook her head and toiled on.

The time for the rat-catching arrived at last, and the hunt began.  The creatures had crept downwards with the subsidence of the rick till they were all together at the bottom, and being now uncovered from their last refuge, they ran across the open ground in all directions, a loud shriek from the by-this-time half-tipsy Marian informing her companions that one of the rats had invaded her person—­a terror which the rest of the women had guarded against by various schemes of skirt-tucking and self-elevation.  The rat was at last dislodged, and, amid the barking of dogs, masculine shouts, feminine screams, oaths, stampings, and confusion as of Pandemonium, Tess untied her last sheaf; the drum slowed, the whizzing ceased, and she stepped from the machine to the ground.

Her lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, was promptly at her side.

“What—­after all—­my insulting slap, too!” said she in an underbreath.  She was so utterly exhausted that she had not strength to speak louder.

“I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything you say or do,” he answered, in the seductive voice of the Trantridge time.  “How the little limbs tremble!  You are as weak as a bled calf, you know you are; and yet you need have done nothing since I arrived.  How could you be so obstinate?  However, I have told the farmer that he has no right to employ women at steam-threshing.  It is not proper work for them; and on all the better class of farms it has been given up, as he knows very well.  I will walk with you as far as your home.”

“O yes,” she answered with a jaded gait.  “Walk wi’ me if you will!  I do bear in mind that you came to marry me before you knew o’ my state.  Perhaps—­perhaps you are a little better and kinder than I have been thinking you were.  Whatever is meant as kindness I am grateful for; whatever is meant in any other way I am angered at.  I cannot sense your meaning sometimes.”

“If I cannot legitimize our former relations at least I can assist you.  And I will do it with much more regard for your feelings than I formerly showed.  My religious mania, or whatever it was, is over.  But I retain a little good nature; I hope I do.  Now, Tess, by all that’s tender and strong between man and woman, trust me!  I have enough and more than enough to put you out of anxiety, both for yourself and your parents and sisters.  I can make them all comfortable if you will only show confidence in me.”