“So much the better for her,” said the aged furmity-woman.  “Ah, I saved her from a real bad marriage, and she’s never been the one to thank me.”

“I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride,” said Nance.

“True,” said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. “’Tis as good a ground for a skimmity-ride as ever I knowed; and it ought not to be wasted.  The last one seen in Casterbridge must have been ten years ago, if a day.”

At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the man who had been called Charl, “’Tis Jim coming in.  Would ye go and let down the bridge for me?”

Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a lantern from her went out at the back door and down the garden-path, which ended abruptly at the edge of the stream already mentioned.  Beyond the stream was the open moor, from which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces as they advanced.  Taking up the board that had lain in readiness one of them lowered it across the water, and the instant its further end touched the ground footsteps entered upon it, and there appeared from the shade a stalwart man with straps round his knees, a double-barrelled gun under his arm and some birds slung up behind him.  They asked him if he had had much luck.

“Not much,” he said indifferently.  “All safe inside?”

Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards, the others withdrawing the bridge and beginning to retreat in his rear.  Before, however, they had entered the house a cry of “Ahoy” from the moor led them to pause.

The cry was repeated.  They pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and went back to the brink of the stream.

“Ahoy—­is this the way to Casterbridge?” said some one from the other side.

“Not in particular,” said Charl.  “There’s a river afore ’ee.”

“I don’t care—­here’s for through it!” said the man in the moor.  “I’ve had travelling enough for to-day.”

“Stop a minute, then,” said Charl, finding that the man was no enemy.  “Joe, bring the plank and lantern; here’s somebody that’s lost his way.  You should have kept along the turnpike road, friend, and not have strook across here.”

“I should—­as I see now.  But I saw a light here, and says I to myself, that’s an outlying house, depend on’t.”

The plank was now lowered; and the stranger’s form shaped itself from the darkness.  He was a middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers prematurely grey, and a broad and genial face.  He had crossed on the plank without hesitation, and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit.  He thanked them, and walked between them up the garden.  “What place is this?” he asked, when they reached the door.

“A public-house.”

“Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at.  Now then, come in and wet your whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me.”

They followed him into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him as one who would stand higher in an estimate by the eye than in one by the ear.  He was dressed with a certain clumsy richness—­his coat being furred, and his head covered by a cap of seal-skin, which, though the nights were chilly, must have been warm for the daytime, spring being somewhat advanced.  In his hand he carried a small mahogany case, strapped, and clamped with brass.