第84章 THE CLOSED DOOR(5)

"Surely I shall.Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the little money we've got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but that in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?""But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance.""We don't require it.If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well off.""In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such people!" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did not see.There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt no absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.

The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed of him leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be able to purchase some for himself.

Then he sallied forth with his new fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling.

His sight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his grand purpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a little practice should have hardened his palms against blistering he would be able to work with ease.

Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went off to the rendezvous with Humphrey.His custom was to work from four o'clock in the morning till noon;then, when the heat of the day was at its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming out again and working till dusk at nine.

This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements, and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his closest friend might have passed by without recognizing him.He was a brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing more.Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work, owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother's estrangement, when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.

His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person.His familiars were creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band.

Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the heath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh them down to the sod.

The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon produced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath of his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with the glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down.Tribes of emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance might rule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds with silent ones of homely hue.

Huge flies, ignorant of larders and wire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without knowing that he was a man.In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided in their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season immediately following the shedding of their old skins, when their colours are brightest.

Litters of young rabbits came out from their forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through the delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a blood-red transparency in which the veins could be seen.None of them feared him.The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself a pleasure.

A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly have allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded.Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so while away the time.

On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the direction of Yeobright's place of work.He was busily chopping away at the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his position representing the labour of the day.He did not observe her approach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of song.

It shocked her.To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but to hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, however satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated lady-wife, wounded her through.Unconscious of her presence, he still went on singing:--"Le point du jour A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;Flore est plus belle a son retour;

L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour;

Tout celebre dans la nature Le point du jour.

"Le point du jour Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme;Que l'espace des nuits est court Pour le berger brulant d'amour, Force de quitter ce qu'il aime Au point du jour!"It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sick despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that mood and condition in him.

Then she came forward.

"I would starve rather than do it!" she exclaimed vehemently.

"And you can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!""Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving," he said gently.He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and took her hand.