By this time the marriage that had taken place was known throughout Casterbridge; had been discussed noisily on kerbstones, confidentially behind counters, and jovially at the Three Mariners.  Whether Farfrae would sell his business and set up for a gentleman on his wife’s money, or whether he would show independence enough to stick to his trade in spite of his brilliant alliance, was a great point of interest.

31.

The retort of the furmity-woman before the magistrates had spread; and in four-and-twenty hours there was not a person in Casterbridge who remained unacquainted with the story of Henchard’s mad freak at Weydon-Priors Fair, long years before.  The amends he had made in after life were lost sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act.  Had the incident been well known of old and always, it might by this time have grown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall wild oat, but well-nigh the single one, of a young man with whom the steady and mature (if somewhat headstrong) burgher of to-day had scarcely a point in common.  But the act having lain as dead and buried ever since, the interspace of years was unperceived; and the black spot of his youth wore the aspect of a recent crime.

Small as the police-court incident had been in itself, it formed the edge or turn in the incline of Henchard’s fortunes.  On that day—­almost at that minute—­he passed the ridge of prosperity and honour, and began to descend rapidly on the other side.  It was strange how soon he sank in esteem.  Socially he had received a startling fillip downwards; and, having already lost commercial buoyancy from rash transactions, the velocity of his descent in both aspects became accelerated every hour.

He now gazed more at the pavements and less at the house-fronts when he walked about; more at the feet and leggings of men, and less into the pupils of their eyes with the blazing regard which formerly had made them blink.

New events combined to undo him.  It had been a bad year for others besides himself, and the heavy failure of a debtor whom he had trusted generously completed the overthrow of his tottering credit.  And now, in his desperation, he failed to preserve that strict correspondence between bulk and sample which is the soul of commerce in grain.  For this, one of his men was mainly to blame; that worthy, in his great unwisdom, having picked over the sample of an enormous quantity of second-rate corn which Henchard had in hand, and removed the pinched, blasted, and smutted grains in great numbers.  The produce if honestly offered would have created no scandal; but the blunder of misrepresentation, coming at such a moment, dragged Henchard’s name into the ditch.

The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind.  One day Elizabeth-Jane was passing the King’s Arms, when she saw people bustling in and out more than usual where there was no market.  A bystander informed her, with some surprise at her ignorance, that it was a meeting of the Commissioners under Mr. Henchard’s bankruptcy.  She felt quite tearful, and when she heard that he was present in the hotel she wished to go in and see him, but was advised not to intrude that day.