The Return of the Native

re again

ng he might have recognized her as the woman who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approach of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the red coals of the perishing fire greeted her like livin

d cornerwise fashion, and her head in a large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and place. Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the north-west; but wh

betokened among other things an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered from that sinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year to get clear of its glooms before t

north-west, and when each one of them raced past the sound of its progress resolved into three. Treble, tenor, and bass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the whole over pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next there could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force, above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove h

en. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the material minutiae in which it originated could b

y just emerged from silence, and the myriads of the whole declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many afloat to-night could have such power to impress a listener

od might have ended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that the left-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, o

ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and the bushes, and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did the woman; and her art

asmodic abandonment about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound. the woman's brain had authorized what it could not re

it, had more to do with the woman's sigh than had either her own actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her left hand, which held a closed teles

d upwards from the tomb to form an image like neither but suggesting both. This, however, was mere superficiality. In respect of character a face may make certain admissions by its outline; but it fully confesses only in its changes. So much is this the case that what

en a more than usually smart gust brushed over their faces and raised a fitful glow which came and went like the blush of a girl. She stooped over the si

t faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a small object, which turned out to be an hourglas

said, as i

had disclosed of her face. That consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still e

for it at midnight. The whole secret of following these incipient paths, when there was not light enough in the atmosphere to show a turnpike-road, lay in the development of the sense of touch in the feet, which comes with yea

at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her presence as she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a score of the small

rt, and checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening along, she yielded herself up to the pull, and stood passively still.

n to glow upon her face, and the fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the level ground, but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction of two converging bank fences. Out

ed heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with spars and other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the dark clouds whenever the

small human hand, in the act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire; but for all that could be seen the hand, like that wh

dock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having once been tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and were re

fest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of wood, cleft and sawn-the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in twos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay in the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner th

acia," he said, with a sigh of reli

little way for a walk. I have

ed the sad boy. "And you

d to have a bonfire. Are you not mu

's nobody here

y has come while

doors once for 'ee. I told him you were walking

ood

ar him coming

had overtaken the reddleman on the road that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at the

ed out. Surely 'tis somewhat childish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and wasting such fuel. My pre

d Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was absolute queen here. "Grandfath

at her and murmured, "I don't

ished she said in a tone of pique to the child, "Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me? Never shall y

, I do, miss," and continued t

ree minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if

Eust

Vye,

Vy-s

Now put in on

oving and speaking by the wayward Eustacia's will. He might have been the brass statue which Alber

the homestead, and protected it from the lawless state of the world without, was formed of thick square clods, dug from the ditch on the outside, and built up with a slight batter or incline, which forms no slight defense where hedges will not grow because of the wind and the wilderness, and where w

d petulant words every now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden listenings between her sighs

intervals of a few minut

into the pond y

tacia," the c

be going in, and then I will give you th

strolled away from the fire, but this time not towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and

he figure of the little child. She idly watched him as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood beside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, an

he boy's form visibly started: he slid down t

said E

mped into the pond.

You will not be afraid?" She spoke hurriedly, as if h

shall hae the c

t that way-through the garden here. No other bo

with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her telescope and hour-glass by the

e. Had the child been there he would have said that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people t

aid, and hel

her. A low laugh escaped her-the third utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight. The first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; the second, on the ridge,

e me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening." The words were not without emotio

"Of course you have seen my fire," she answered with languid calmness, artificially maintaine

t was mea

chose her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely

me place you lighted exactly such a fire as a signal for me to come and see you? Why sh

peaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to say words I would not wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not to t

make you think that?"

uldn't do it... Damon, you have been cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive you. I d

call me up here only to repr

give you now that you have not mar

that I had not

oming home he overtook some person who told him of a broken-

ybody el

id not think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become

t was evident that he

ve such ill thoughts of me! Damon, you are not worthy of me: I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind, let it go-I must bear your mean opinion as best I may... It is true, i

en said by myself if by anybody, and comes with an ill grace from you. However, the curse of inflammability is upon me, and I must live under it, and take any snub fro

firelight shone full upon her face and throat, said with a sm

rself to such a position without

the shoulders

pleasing and

r a long look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth: "Must I go on weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to conceal; and o

I caused you

get gloomy," she archly added. "It is in my nature t

hondri

happy enough at Budmouth. O the times, O the days

he consequence of this recall to me, my old darling? I

rse you

ere tonight I intended, after this on

subterranean heat. "You may come again to Rainbarrow if you like, but you won't see me; and you

s as yours don't so easily adhere to their words. Nei

ge warring takes place in my mind occasionally. I think when I become calm after your woundings, 'Do I embrace a clou

e counted twenty, and said, as if he did not much mind al

e wedding is broken off b

said Wildeve, smiling. "You would get to

tel

u k

is sh

o you. I have not yet married her; I have com

er you as the Witch of Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you have come! I have shown my power. A mi

which I don't know; and that hot little bosom couldn't play such a coldblooded trick to save its life. I saw

learly in Wildeve now; and he leant forward a

ng to the other side of the decaye

may kiss

ou may

ay shake

N

ht without caring for eit

w of a dancing-master he vanished on th

shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and she loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on. She scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up to her bedroom without a light.