The miserables who would pause on the remoter bridge were of a politer stamp. They included bankrupts, hypochondriacs, persons who were what is called “out of a situation” from fault or lucklessness, the inefficient of the professional class—shabby-genteel men, who did not know how to get rid of the weary time between breakfast and dinner, and the yet more weary time between dinner and dark. The eye of this species were mostly directed over the parapet upon the running water below. A man seen there looking thus fixedly into the river was pretty sure to be one whom the world did not treat kindly for some reason or other. While one in straits on the townward bridge did not mind who saw him so, and kept his back to the parapet to survey the passers-by, one in straits on this never faced the road, never turned his head at coming footsteps, but, sensitive to his own condition, watched the current whenever a stranger approached, as if some strange fish interested him, though every finned thing had been poached out of the river years before.
There and thus they would muse; if their grief were the grief of oppression they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were poverty, wish themselves millionaires; if sin, they would wish they were saints or angels; if despised love, that they were some much-courted Adonis of county fame. Some had been known to stand and think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had allowed their poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were discovered the next morning out of reach of their troubles, either here or in the deep pool called Blackwater, a little higher up the river.
To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunates had come before him, his way thither being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of the town. Here he was standing one windy afternoon when Durnover church clock struck five. While the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears across the damp intervening flat a man passed behind him and greeted Henchard by name. Henchard turned slightly and saw that the corner was Jopp, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to whom, though he hated him, he had gone for lodgings because Jopp was the one man in Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen corn-merchant despised to the point of indifference.
Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp stopped.
“He and she are gone into their new house to-day,” said Jopp.
“Oh,” said Henchard absently. “Which house is that?”
“Your old one.”
“Gone into my house?” And starting up Henchard added, ” MY house of all others in the town!”
“Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn’t, it can do ‘ee no harm that he’s the man.”
It was quite true: he felt that it was doing him no harm. Farfrae, who had already taken the yards and stores, had acquired possession of the house for the obvious convenience of its contiguity. And yet this act of his taking up residence within those roomy chambers while he, their former tenant, lived in a cottage, galled Henchard indescribably.
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.”
Still Henchard refused. “You don’t know what you ask,” he said. “However, I can do no less than thank ‘ee.”
They walked into the town together side by side, as they had done when Henchard persuaded the young Scotchman to remain. “Will you come in and have some supper?” said Farfrae when they reached the middle of the town, where their paths diverged right and left.
“No, no.”
“By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot. I bought a good deal of your furniture.
“So I have heard.”
“Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself; but I wish ye to pick out all that you care to have—such things as may be endeared to ye by associations, or particularly suited to your use. And take them to your own house—it will not be depriving me, we can do with less very well, and I will have plenty of opportunities of getting more.”
“What—give it to me for nothing?” said Henchard. “But you paid the creditors for it!”
“Ah, yes; but maybe it’s worth more to you than it is to me.”
Henchard was a little moved. “I—sometimes think I’ve wronged ‘ee!” he said, in tones which showed the disquietude that the night shades hid in his face. He shook Farfrae abruptly by the hand, and hastened away as if unwilling to betray himself further. Farfrae saw him turn through the thoroughfare into Bull Stake and vanish down towards the Priory Mill.
Meanwhile Elizabeth-Jane, in an upper room no larger than the Prophet’s chamber, and with the silk attire of her palmy days packed away in a box, was netting with great industry between the hours which she devoted to studying such books as she could get hold of.