In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed, but the scene within was anything but devotional.  A reel or fling of some sort was in progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of the other dancers in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself about and spinning to the tune.  For a moment Henchard could not help laughing.  Then he perceived the immense admiration for the Scotchman that revealed itself in the women’s faces; and when this exhibition was over, and a new dance proposed, and Donald had disappeared for a time to return in his natural garments, he had an unlimited choice of partners, every girl being in a coming-on disposition towards one who so thoroughly understood the poetry of motion as he.

All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of a ballroom never having occurred to the inhabitants before.  Among the rest of the onlookers were Elizabeth and her mother—­the former thoughtful yet much interested, her eyes beaming with a longing lingering light, as if Nature had been advised by Correggio in their creation.  The dancing progressed with unabated spirit, and Henchard walked and waited till his wife should be disposed to go home.  He did not care to keep in the light, and when he went into the dark it was worse, for there he heard remarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent: 

“Mr. Henchard’s rejoicings couldn’t say good morning to this,” said one.  “A man must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk would go up to that bleak place to-day.”

The other answered that people said it was not only in such things as those that the Mayor was wanting.  “Where would his business be if it were not for this young fellow?  ’Twas verily Fortune sent him to Henchard.  His accounts were like a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came.  He used to reckon his sacks by chalk strokes all in a row like garden-palings, measure his ricks by stretching with his arms, weigh his trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw, and settle the price with a curse.  But now this accomplished young man does it all by ciphering and mensuration.  Then the wheat—­that sometimes used to taste so strong o’ mice when made into bread that people could fairly tell the breed—­Farfrae has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would dream the smallest four-legged beast had walked over it once.  O yes, everybody is full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to be sure!” concluded this gentleman.

“But he won’t do it for long, good-now,” said the other.

“No!” said Henchard to himself behind the tree.  “Or if he do, he’ll be honeycombed clean out of all the character and standing that he’s built up in these eighteen year!”