by Thomas Hardy
1.
One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth
century had reached one-third of its span, a young
man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching
the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex,
on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad, though
the thick hoar of dust which had accumulated on their
shoes and garments from an obviously long journey
lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearance
just now.
The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in
aspect; and he showed in profile a facial angle so
slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular.
He wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than
the remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoat
with white horn buttons, breeches of the same, tanned
leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with black glazed
canvas. At his back he carried by a looped strap
a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the
crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being
also visible in the aperture. His measured, springless
walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct
from the desultory shamble of the general labourer;
while in the turn and plant of each foot there was,
further, a dogged and cynical indifference personal
to himself, showing its presence even in the regularly
interchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, now
in the right, as he paced along.
What was really peculiar, however, in this couple’s
progress, and would have attracted the attention of
any casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook
them, was the perfect silence they preserved.
They walked side by side in such a way as to suggest
afar off the low, easy, confidential chat of people
full of reciprocity; but on closer view it could be
discerned that the man was reading, or pretending to
read, a ballad sheet which he kept before his eyes
with some difficulty by the hand that was passed through
the basket strap. Whether this apparent cause
were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed
one to escape an intercourse that would have been
irksome to him, nobody but himself could have said
precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the
woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence.
Virtually she walked the highway alone, save for the
child she bore. Sometimes the man’s bent
elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as
close to his side as was possible without actual contact,
but she seemed to have no idea of taking his arm,
nor he of offering it; and far from exhibiting surprise
at his ignoring silence she appeared to receive it
as a natural thing. If any word at all were uttered
by the little group, it was an occasional whisper
of the woman to the child—a tiny girl in
short clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn—and
the murmured babble of the child in reply.
