Under the Greenwood Tree

T >> Thomas Hardy >> Under the Greenwood Tree


"They only say it on purpose to tease 'ee, my dear," said Mrs. Dewy.

"'Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put
to," came again from downstairs. "Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my
brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty
year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another--'tis quite
heart-rending--enough to make your hair stand on end."

"Those things don't happen very often, I know," said Fancy, with
smouldering uneasiness.

"Well, really 'tis time Dick was here," said the tranter.

"Don't keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down
there!" Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. "I am sure I shall
die, or do something, if you do!"

"Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!" cried Nat Callcome, the
best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through the
chinks of the floor as the others had done. "'Tis all right; Dick's
coming on like a wild feller; he'll be here in a minute. The hive o'
bees his mother gie'd en for his new garden swarmed jist as he was
starting, and he said, 'I can't afford to lose a stock o' bees; no, that
I can't, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn't wish it on any account.'
So he jist stopped to ting to 'em and shake 'em."

"A genuine wise man," said Geoffrey.

"To be sure, what a day's work we had yesterday!" Mr. Callcome continued,
lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to include
those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote corner
of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face. "To be sure!"

"Things so heavy, I suppose," said Geoffrey, as if reading through the
chimney-window from the far end of the vista.

"Ay," said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had
been removed. "And so awkward to carry, too. 'Twas ath'art and across
Dick's garden; in and out Dick's door; up and down Dick's stairs; round
and round Dick's chammers till legs were worn to stumps: and Dick is so
particular, too. And the stores of victuals and drink that lad has laid
in: why, 'tis enough for Noah's ark! I'm sure I never wish to see a
choicer half-dozen of hams than he's got there in his chimley; and the
cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, indeed;--none could desire a
prettier cider."

"They be for the love and the stalled ox both. Ah, the greedy martels!"
said grandfather James.

"Well, may-be they be. Surely," says I, "that couple between 'em have
heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would think they
were going to take hold the big end of married life first, and begin wi'
a grown-up family. Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to be
sure, a-getting that furniture in order!"

"I do so wish the room below was ceiled," said Fancy, as the dressing
went on; "we can hear all they say and do down there."

"Hark! Who's that?" exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also assisted
this morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down the stairs,
and peeped round the banister. "O, you should, you should, you should!"
she exclaimed, scrambling up to the room again.

"What?" said Fancy.

"See the bridesmaids! They've just a come! 'Tis wonderful, really! 'tis
wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don't look a bit
like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o' theirs that nobody
knew they had!"

"Make 'em come up to me, make 'em come up!" cried Fancy ecstatically; and
the four damsels appointed, namely, Miss Susan Dewy, Miss Bessie Dewy,
Miss Vashti Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, surged upstairs, and floated
along the passage.

"I wish Dick would come!" was again the burden of Fancy.

The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside the
door flew in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, "Ready,
Fancy dearest?"

"There he is, he is!" cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and breathing
as it were for the first time that morning.

The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the
direction pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as
one:--not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see him,
but with an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers of the
will of that apotheosised being--the Bride.

"He looks very taking!" said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who blushed
cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons.

Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining cloth,
primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of newness,
and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, and hair cut
to an unwonted shortness in honour of the occasion.

"Now, I'll run down," said Fancy, looking at herself over her shoulder in
the glass, and flitting off.

"O Dick!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you are come! I knew you would,
of course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn't!"

"Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I to-day! Why,
what's possessing your little soul? You never used to mind such things a
bit."

"Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn't hoisted my colours and committed myself then!"
said Fancy.

"'Tis a pity I can't marry the whole five of ye!" said Dick, surveying
them all round.

"Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately touched
Dick and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to assure herself
that he was there in flesh and blood as her own property.

"Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?" said Dick, taking off
his hat, sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members of the
company.

The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their opinion
nobody could have thought such a thing, whatever it was.

"That my bees should ha' swarmed just then, of all times and seasons!"
continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net over the whole
auditory. "And 'tis a fine swarm, too: I haven't seen such a fine swarm
for these ten years."

"A' excellent sign," said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. "A'
excellent sign."

"I am glad everything seems so right," said Fancy with a breath of
relief.

"And so am I," said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy.

"Well, bees can't be put off," observed the inharmonious grandfather
James. "Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a
swarm o' bees won't come for the asking."

Dick fanned himself with his hat. "I can't think," he said thoughtfully,
"whatever 'twas I did to offend Mr. Maybold, a man I like so much too. He
rather took to me when he came first, and used to say he should like to
see me married, and that he'd marry me, whether the young woman I chose
lived in his parish or no. I just hinted to him of it when I put in the
banns, but he didn't seem to take kindly to the notion now, and so I said
no more. I wonder how it was."

"I wonder!" said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful eyes of
hers--too refined and beautiful for a tranter's wife; but, perhaps, not
too good.

"Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose," said the tranter. "Well,
my sonnies, there'll be a good strong party looking at us to-day as we go
along."

"And the body of the church," said Geoffrey, "will be lined with females,
and a row of young fellers' heads, as far down as the eyes, will be
noticed just above the sills of the chancel-winders."

"Ay, you've been through it twice," said Reuben, "and well mid know."

"I can put up with it for once," said Dick, "or twice either, or a dozen
times."

"O Dick!" said Fancy reproachfully.

"Why, dear, that's nothing,--only just a bit of a flourish. You be as
nervous as a cat to-day."

"And then, of course, when 'tis all over," continued the tranter, "we
shall march two and two round the parish."

"Yes, sure," said Mr. Penny: "two and two: every man hitched up to his
woman, 'a b'lieve."

"I never can make a show of myself in that way!" said Fancy, looking at
Dick to ascertain if he could.

"I'm agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!" said Mr.
Richard Dewy heartily.

"Why, we did when we were married, didn't we, Ann?" said the tranter;
"and so do everybody, my sonnies."

"And so did we," said Fancy's father.

"And so did Penny and I," said Mrs. Penny: "I wore my best Bath clogs, I
remember, and Penny was cross because it made me look so tall."

"And so did father and mother," said Miss Mercy Onmey.

"And I mean to, come next Christmas!" said Nat the groomsman vigorously,
and looking towards the person of Miss Vashti Sniff.

"Respectable people don't nowadays," said Fancy. "Still, since poor
mother did, I will."

"Ay," resumed the tranter, "'twas on a White Tuesday when I committed it.
Mellstock Club walked the same day, and we new-married folk went a-gaying
round the parish behind 'em. Everybody used to wear something white at
Whitsuntide in them days. My sonnies, I've got the very white trousers
that I wore, at home in box now. Ha'n't I, Ann?"

"You had till I cut 'em up for Jimmy," said Mrs. Dewy.

"And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round Higher and
Lower Mellstock, and call at Viney's, and so work our way hither again
across He'th," said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the matter in hand.
"Dairyman Viney is a very respectable man, and so is Farmer Kex, and we
ought to show ourselves to them."

"True," said the tranter, "we ought to go round Mellstock to do the thing
well. We shall form a very striking object walking along in rotation,
good-now, neighbours?"

"That we shall: a proper pretty sight for the nation," said Mrs. Penny.

"Hullo!" said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular human
figure standing in the doorway, and wearing a long smock-frock of pillow-
case cut and of snowy whiteness. "Why, Leaf! whatever dost thou do
here?"

"I've come to know if so be I can come to the wedding--hee-hee!" said
Leaf in a voice of timidity.

"Now, Leaf," said the tranter reproachfully, "you know we don't want 'ee
here to-day: we've got no room for ye, Leaf."

"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf, fie upon ye for prying!" said old William.

"I know I've got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a clane
shirt and smock-frock, I might just call," said Leaf, turning away
disappointed and trembling.

"Poor feller!" said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. "Suppose we must
let en come? His looks are rather against en, and he is terrible silly;
but 'a have never been in jail, and 'a won't do no harm."

Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and then
anxiously at Geoffrey, to see what effect they would have in helping his
cause.

"Ay, let en come," said Geoffrey decisively. "Leaf, th'rt welcome, 'st
know;" and Leaf accordingly remained.

They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a
procession in the following order: Fancy and her father, Dick and Susan
Dewy, Nat Callcome and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy Onmey, and
Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These formed the executive, and all appeared in
strict wedding attire. Then came the tranter and Mrs. Dewy, and last of
all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;--the tranter conspicuous by his enormous gloves,
size eleven and three-quarters, which appeared at a distance like boxing
gloves bleached, and sat rather awkwardly upon his brown hands; this hall-
mark of respectability having been set upon himself to-day (by Fancy's
special request) for the first time in his life.

"The proper way is for the bridesmaids to walk together," suggested
Fancy.

"What? 'Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my
time!" said Geoffrey, astounded.

"And in mine!" said the tranter.

"And in ours!" said Mr. and Mrs. Penny.

"Never heard o' such a thing as woman and woman!" said old William; who,
with grandfather James and Mrs. Day, was to stay at home.

"Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!" said Dick, who, being
on the point of securing his right to Fancy, seemed willing to renounce
all other rights in the world with the greatest pleasure. The decision
was left to Fancy.

"Well, I think I'd rather have it the way mother had it," she said, and
the couples moved along under the trees, every man to his maid.

"Ah!" said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, "I
wonder which she thinks most about, Dick or her wedding raiment!"

"Well, 'tis their nature," said grandfather William. "Remember the words
of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her
attire?'"

Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a
cathedral; now through a hazel copse, matted with primroses and wild
hyacinths; now under broad beeches in bright young leaves they threaded
their way into the high road over Yalbury Hill, which dipped at that
point directly into the village of Geoffrey Day's parish; and in the
space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found herself to be Mrs. Richard
Dewy, though, much to her surprise, feeling no other than Fancy Day
still.

On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid much
chattering and laughter, especially when they came to stiles, Dick
discerned a brown spot far up a turnip field.

"Why, 'tis Enoch!" he said to Fancy. "I thought I missed him at the
house this morning. How is it he's left you?"

"He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him in
Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was obliged to get somebody else for a
day or two, and Enoch hasn't had anything to do with the woods since."

"We might ask him to call down to-night. Stocks are nothing for once,
considering 'tis our wedding day." The bridal party was ordered to halt.

"Eno-o-o-o-ch!" cried Dick at the top of his voice.

"Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!" said Enoch from the distance.

"D'ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?"

"No-o-o-o-o-o-o!"

"Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!"

"O-h-h-h-h-h!"

"Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!"

"O-h-h-h-h-h!"

"This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!" (holding her up to Enoch's view as if
she had been a nosegay.)

"O-h-h-h-h-h!"

"Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!"

"Ca-a-a-a-a-an't!"

"Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?"

"Don't work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!"

"Not nice of Master Enoch," said Dick, as they resumed their walk.

"You mustn't blame en," said Geoffrey; "the man's not hisself now; he's
in his morning frame of mind. When he's had a gallon o' cider or ale, or
a pint or two of mead, the man's well enough, and his manners be as good
as anybody's in the kingdom."



CHAPTER II: UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE


The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's
premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous
extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of
birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes of
rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; quaint tufts
of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and countless
families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots. Beneath and
beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended grass-plot, its purpose being
to supply a healthy exercise-ground for young chickens and pheasants; the
hens, their mothers, being enclosed in coops placed upon the same green
flooring.

All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon advanced,
the guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and the singing of
songs went forward with great spirit throughout the evening. The
propriety of every one was intense by reason of the influence of Fancy,
who, as an additional precaution in this direction, had strictly charged
her father and the tranter to carefully avoid saying 'thee' and 'thou' in
their conversation, on the plea that those ancient words sounded so very
humiliating to persons of newer taste; also that they were never to be
seen drawing the back of the hand across the mouth after drinking--a
local English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but stated by Fancy to
be decidedly dying out among the better classes of society.

In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough
knowledge of the tambourine was invited from the village of Tantrum
Clangley,--a place long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants as
performers on instruments of percussion. These important members of the
assembly were relegated to a height of two or three feet from the ground,
upon a temporary erection of planks supported by barrels. Whilst the
dancing progressed the older persons sat in a group under the trunk of
the tree,--the space being allotted to them somewhat grudgingly by the
young ones, who were greedy of pirouetting room,--and fortified by a
table against the heels of the dancers. Here the gaffers and gammers,
whose dancing days were over, told stories of great impressiveness, and
at intervals surveyed the advancing and retiring couples from the same
retreat, as people on shore might be supposed to survey a naval
engagement in the bay beyond; returning again to their tales when the
pause was over. Those of the whirling throng, who, during the rests
between each figure, turned their eyes in the direction of these seated
ones, were only able to discover, on account of the music and bustle,
that a very striking circumstance was in course of narration--denoted by
an emphatic sweep of the hand, snapping of the fingers, close of the
lips, and fixed look into the centre of the listener's eye for the space
of a quarter of a minute, which raised in that listener such a
reciprocating working of face as to sometimes make the distant dancers
half wish to know what such an interesting tale could refer to.

Fancy caused her looks to wear as much matronly expression as was
obtainable out of six hours' experience as a wife, in order that the
contrast between her own state of life and that of the unmarried young
women present might be duly impressed upon the company: occasionally
stealing glances of admiration at her left hand, but this quite
privately; for her ostensible bearing concerning the matter was intended
to show that, though she undoubtedly occupied the most wondrous position
in the eyes of the world that had ever been attained, she was almost
unconscious of the circumstance, and that the somewhat prominent position
in which that wonderfully-emblazoned left hand was continually found to
be placed, when handing cups and saucers, knives, forks, and glasses, was
quite the result of accident. As to wishing to excite envy in the bosoms
of her maiden companions, by the exhibition of the shining ring, every
one was to know it was quite foreign to the dignity of such an
experienced married woman. Dick's imagination in the meantime was far
less capable of drawing so much wontedness from his new condition. He
had been for two or three hours trying to feel himself merely a newly-
married man, but had been able to get no further in the attempt than to
realize that he was Dick Dewy, the tranter's son, at a party given by
Lord Wessex's head man-in-charge, on the outlying Yalbury estate, dancing
and chatting with Fancy Day.

Five country dances, including 'Haste to the Wedding,' two reels, and
three fragments of horn-pipes, brought them to the time for supper,
which, on account of the dampness of the grass from the immaturity of the
summer season, was spread indoors. At the conclusion of the meal Dick
went out to put the horse in; and Fancy, with the elder half of the four
bridesmaids, retired upstairs to dress for the journey to Dick's new
cottage near Mellstock.

"How long will you be putting on your bonnet, Fancy?" Dick inquired at
the foot of the staircase. Being now a man of business and married, he
was strong on the importance of time, and doubled the emphasis of his
words in conversing, and added vigour to his nods.

"Only a minute."

"How long is that?"

"Well, dear, five."

"Ah, sonnies!" said the tranter, as Dick retired, "'tis a talent of the
female race that low numbers should stand for high, more especially in
matters of waiting, matters of age, and matters of money."

"True, true, upon my body," said Geoffrey.

"Ye spak with feeling, Geoffrey, seemingly."

"Anybody that d'know my experience might guess that."

"What's she doing now, Geoffrey?"

"Claning out all the upstairs drawers and cupboards, and dusting the
second-best chainey--a thing that's only done once a year. 'If there's
work to be done I must do it,' says she, 'wedding or no.'"

"'Tis my belief she's a very good woman at bottom."

"She's terrible deep, then."

Mrs. Penny turned round. "Well, 'tis humps and hollers with the best of
us; but still and for all that, Dick and Fancy stand as fair a chance of
having a bit of sunsheen as any married pair in the land."

"Ay, there's no gainsaying it."

Mrs. Dewy came up, talking to one person and looking at another. "Happy,
yes," she said. "'Tis always so when a couple is so exactly in tune with
one another as Dick and she."

"When they be'n't too poor to have time to sing," said grandfather James.

"I tell ye, neighbours, when the pinch comes," said the tranter: "when
the oldest daughter's boots be only a size less than her mother's, and
the rest o' the flock close behind her. A sharp time for a man that, my
sonnies; a very sharp time! Chanticleer's comb is a-cut then, 'a
believe."

"That's about the form o't," said Mr. Penny. "That'll put the stuns upon
a man, when you must measure mother and daughter's lasts to tell 'em
apart."

"You've no cause to complain, Reuben, of such a close-coming flock," said
Mrs. Dewy; "for ours was a straggling lot enough, God knows!"

"I d'know it, I d'know it," said the tranter. "You be a well-enough
woman, Ann."

Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile, and put it back again
without smiling.

"And if they come together, they go together," said Mrs. Penny, whose
family had been the reverse of the tranter's; "and a little money will
make either fate tolerable. And money can be made by our young couple, I
know."

"Yes, that it can!" said the impulsive voice of Leaf, who had hitherto
humbly admired the proceedings from a corner. "It can be done--all
that's wanted is a few pounds to begin with. That's all! I know a story
about it!"

"Let's hear thy story, Leaf," said the tranter. "I never knew you were
clever enough to tell a story. Silence, all of ye! Mr. Leaf will tell a
story."

"Tell your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William in the tone of a
schoolmaster.

"Once," said the delighted Leaf, in an uncertain voice, "there was a man
who lived in a house! Well, this man went thinking and thinking night
and day. At last, he said to himself, as I might, 'If I had only ten
pound, I'd make a fortune.' At last by hook or by crook, behold he got
the ten pounds!"

"Only think of that!" said Nat Callcome satirically.

"Silence!" said the tranter.

"Well, now comes the interesting part of the story! In a little time he
made that ten pounds twenty. Then a little time after that he doubled
it, and made it forty. Well, he went on, and a good while after that he
made it eighty, and on to a hundred. Well, by-and-by he made it two
hundred! Well, you'd never believe it, but--he went on and made it four
hundred! He went on, and what did he do? Why, he made it eight hundred!
Yes, he did," continued Leaf, in the highest pitch of excitement,
bringing down his fist upon his knee with such force that he quivered
with the pain; "yes, and he went on and made it A THOUSAND!"

"Hear, hear!" said the tranter. "Better than the history of England, my
sonnies!"

"Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William; and
then Leaf gradually sank into nothingness again.

Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elder-wine, Dick and his bride
took their departure, side by side in the excellent new spring-cart which
the young tranter now possessed. The moon was just over the full,
rendering any light from lamps or their own beauties quite unnecessary to
the pair. They drove slowly along Yalbury Bottom, where the road passed
between two copses. Dick was talking to his companion.

"Fancy," he said, "why we are so happy is because there is such full
confidence between us. Ever since that time you confessed to that little
flirtation with Shiner by the river (which was really no flirtation at
all), I have thought how artless and good you must be to tell me o' such
a trifling thing, and to be so frightened about it as you were. It has
won me to tell you my every deed and word since then. We'll have no
secrets from each other, darling, will we ever?--no secret at all."

"None from to-day," said Fancy. "Hark! what's that?"

From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud,
musical, and liquid voice--

"Tippiwit! swe-e-et! ki-ki-ki! Come hither, come hither, come hither!"

"O, 'tis the nightingale," murmured she, and thought of a secret she
would never tell.




Footnotes:


{1} This, a local expression, must be a corruption of something less
questionable.