“Eh!” she said to her husband, as they
set off in the cart, “I’d sooner ha’
brewin’ day and washin’ day together than
one o’ these pleasurin’ days. There’s
no work so tirin’ as danglin’ about an’
starin’ an’ not rightly knowin’
what you’re goin’ to do next; and keepin’
your face i’ smilin’ order like a grocer
o’ market-day for fear people shouldna think
you civil enough. An’ you’ve nothing
to show for’t when it’s done, if it isn’t
a yallow face wi’ eatin’ things as disagree.”
“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who was in
his merriest mood, and felt that he had had a great
day, “a bit o’ pleasuring’s good
for thee sometimes. An’ thee danc’st
as well as any of ’em, for I’ll back thee
against all the wives i’ the parish for a light
foot an’ ankle. An’ it was a great
honour for the young squire to ask thee first—I
reckon it was because I sat at th’ head o’
the table an’ made the speech. An’
Hetty too—she never had such a partner
before—a fine young gentleman in reg’mentals.
It’ll serve you to talk on, Hetty, when you’re
an old woman—how you danced wi’ th’
young squire the day he come o’ age.”
Book Four
Chapter XXVII
A crisis
It was beyond the middle of August—nearly
three weeks after the birthday feast. The reaping
of the wheat had begun in our north midland county
of Loamshire, but the harvest was likely still to be
retarded by the heavy rains, which were causing inundations
and much damage throughout the country. From
this last trouble the Broxton and Hayslope farmers,
on their pleasant uplands and in their brook-watered
valleys, had not suffered, and as I cannot pretend
that they were such exceptional farmers as to love
the general good better than their own, you will infer
that they were not in very low spirits about the rapid
rise in the price of bread, so long as there was hope
of gathering in their own corn undamaged; and occasional
days of sunshine and drying winds flattered this hope.
The eighteenth of August was one of these days when
the sunshine looked brighter in all eyes for the gloom
that went before. Grand masses of cloud were
hurried across the blue, and the great round hills
behind the Chase seemed alive with their flying shadows;
the sun was hidden for a moment, and then shone out
warm again like a recovered joy; the leaves, still
green, were tossed off the hedgerow trees by the wind;
around the farmhouses there was a sound of clapping
doors; the apples fell in the orchards; and the stray
horses on the green sides of the lanes and on the
common had their manes blown about their faces.
And yet the wind seemed only part of the general gladness
because the sun was shining. A merry day for
the children, who ran and shouted to see if they could
top the wind with their voices; and the grown-up people
too were in good spirits, inclined to believe in yet
finer days, when the wind had fallen. If only
the corn were not ripe enough to be blown out of the
husk and scattered as untimely seed!
