第57章 A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS(2)

The silence which followed seemed to imply a doubt of the truth of the new-comer's assertion.'I was speaking of Upper Longpuddle more particular,'continued the carrier hardily,'and I think I know most faces of that valley.'

'I was born at Longpuddle,and nursed at Longpuddle,and my father and grandfather before me,'said the passenger quietly.

'Why,to be sure,'said the aged groceress in the background,'it isn't John Lackland's son--never--it can't be--he who went to foreign parts five-and-thirty years ago with his wife and family?Yet--what do I hear?--that's his father's voice!'

'That's the man,'replied the stranger.'John Lackland was my father,and I am John Lackland's son.Five-and-thirty years ago,when I was a boy of eleven,my parents emigrated across the seas,taking me and my sister with them.Kytes's boy Tony was the one who drove us and our belongings to Casterbridge on the morning we left;and his was the last Longpuddle face I saw.We sailed the same week across the ocean,and there we've been ever since,and there I've left those I went with--all three.'

'Alive or dead?'

'Dead,'he replied in a low voice.'And I have come back to the old place,having nourished a thought--not a definite intention,but just a thought--that I should like to return here in a year or two,to spend the remainder of my days.'

'Married man,Mr.Lackland?'

'No.'

'And have the world used 'ee well,sir--or rather John,knowing 'ee as a child?In these rich new countries that we hear of so much,you've got rich with the rest?'

'I am not very rich,'Mr.Lackland said.'Even in new countries,you know,there are failures.The race is not always to the swift,nor the battle to the strong;and even if it sometimes is,you may be neither swift nor strong.However,that's enough about me.Now,having answered your inquiries,you must answer mine;for being in London,I have come down here entirely to discover what Longpuddle is looking like,and who are living there.That was why I preferred a seat in your van to hiring a carriage for driving across.'

'Well,as for Longpuddle,we rub on there much as usual.Old figures have dropped out o'their frames,so to speak it,and new ones have been put in their places.You mentioned Tony Kytes as having been the one to drive your family and your goods to Casterbridge in his father's waggon when you left.Tony is,I believe,living still,but not at Longpuddle.He went away and settled at Lewgate,near Mellstock,after his marriage.Ah,Tony was a sort o'man!'

'His character had hardly come out when I knew him.'

'No.But 'twas well enough,as far as that goes--except as to women.

I shall never forget his courting--never!'

The returned villager waited silently,and the carrier went on:-TONY KYTES,THE ARCH-DECEIVER

'I shall never forget Tony's face.'Twas a little,round,firm,tight face,with a seam here and there left by the smallpox,but not enough to hurt his looks in a woman's eye,though he'd had it badish when he was a boy.So very serious looking and unsmiling 'a was,that young man,that it really seemed as if he couldn't laugh at all without great pain to his conscience.He looked very hard at a small speck in your eye when talking to 'ee.And there was no more sign of a whisker or beard on Tony Kytes's face than on the palm of my hand.

He used to sing "The Tailor's Breeches"with a religious manner,as if it were a hymn:-"O the petticoats went off,and the breeches they went on!"and all the rest of the scandalous stuff.He was quite the women's favourite,and in return for their likings he loved 'em in shoals.

'But in course of time Tony got fixed down to one in particular,Milly Richards,a nice,light,small,tender little thing;and it was soon said that they were engaged to be married.One Saturday he had been to market to do business for his father,and was driving home the waggon in the afternoon.When he reached the foot of the very hill we shall be going over in ten minutes who should he see waiting for him at the top but Unity Sallet,a handsome girl,one of the young women he'd been very tender toward before he'd got engaged to Milly.

'As soon as Tony came up to her she said,"My dear Tony,will you give me a lift home?""That I will,darling,"said Tony."You don't suppose I could refuse 'ee?"'She smiled a smile,and up she hopped,and on drove Tony.

"Tony,"she says,in a sort of tender chide,"why did ye desert me for that other one?In what is she better than I?I should have made 'ee a finer wife,and a more loving one too.'Tisn't girls that are so easily won at first that are the best.Think how long we've known each other--ever since we were children almost--now haven't we,Tony?""Yes,that we have,"says Tony,a-struck with the truth o't.

"And you've never seen anything in me to complain of,have ye,Tony?

Now tell the truth to me?"

"I never have,upon my life,"says Tony.

"And--can you say I'm not pretty,Tony?Now look at me!"'He let his eyes light upon her for a long while."I really can't,"says he."In fact,I never knowed you was so pretty before!""Prettier than she?"

'What Tony would have said to that nobody knows,for before he could speak,what should he see ahead,over the hedge past the turning,but a feather he knew well--the feather in Milly's hat--she to whom he had been thinking of putting the question as to giving out the banns that very week.