Jopp continued:  “And you heard of that fellow who bought all the best furniture at your sale?  He was bidding for no other than Farfrae all the while!  It has never been moved out of the house, as he’d already got the lease.”

“My furniture too!  Surely he’ll buy my body and soul likewise!”

“There’s no saying he won’t, if you be willing to sell.”  And having planted these wounds in the heart of his once imperious master Jopp went on his way; while Henchard stared and stared into the racing river till the bridge seemed moving backward with him.

The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey, When the landscape looked like a picture blotted in with ink, another traveller approached the great stone bridge.  He was driving a gig, his direction being also townwards.  On the round of the middle of the arch the gig stopped.  “Mr Henchard?” came from it in the voice of Farfrae.  Henchard turned his face.

Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told the man who accompanied him to drive home; while he alighted and went up to his former friend.

“I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?” he said.  “Is it true?  I have a real reason for asking.”

Henchard withheld his answer for several instants, and then said, “Yes; it is true.  I am going where you were going to a few years ago, when I prevented you and got you to bide here.  ’Tis turn and turn about, isn’t it!  Do ye mind how we stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I persuaded ’ee to stay?  You then stood without a chattel to your name, and I was the master of the house in corn Street.  But now I stand without a stick or a rag, and the master of that house is you.”

“Yes, yes; that’s so!  It’s the way o’ the warrld,” said Farfrae.

“Ha, ha, true!” cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of jocularity.  “Up and down!  I’m used to it.  What’s the odds after all!”

“Now listen to me, if it’s no taking up your time,” said Farfrae, “just as I listened to you.  Don’t go.  Stay at home.”

“But I can do nothing else, man!” said Henchard scornfully.  “The little money I have will just keep body and soul together for a few weeks, and no more.  I have not felt inclined to go back to journey-work yet; but I can’t stay doing nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere.”

“No; but what I propose is this—­if ye will listen.  Come and live in your old house.  We can spare some rooms very well—­I am sure my wife would not mind it at all—­until there’s an opening for ye.”

Henchard started.  Probably the picture drawn by the unsuspecting Donald of himself under the same roof with Lucetta was too striking to be received with equanimity.  “No, no,” he said gruffly; “we should quarrel.”

“You should hae a part to yourself,” said Farfrae; “and nobody to interfere wi’ you.  It will be a deal healthier than down there by the river where you live now.”