DA £76 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE IMEBUBfVtf&f-imitt PRINTED IN U. 9. A. (Of CAT, NO. 23233 Cornell University Library DA 670.D7W76 Wessex of Thomas Hardy / 3 1924 028 032 427 * j -J v»s *z Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028032427 THE WESSEX OF THOMAS HARDY CASTERBRIDGE FROM THE LONDON ROAD THE WESSEX OF THOMAS HARDY ■/* Written by ->\^ BERTRAM C.° A^WINDLE, F.R.S., F.S.A. Illustrated by EDMUND H. NEW %%%&%% JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD LONDON AND NEW YORK, MCMII. ' } \ '■ vnW7c k.vV\S ^a- £-*c* LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. To THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF THIS WESSEX THOMAS HARDY THESE PREFACE SOME ten or more years ago the writer of these pages, who had been for a much longer period an admirer of Mr. Hardy's novels, commenced, as a purely private and personal pastime, the exploration of Wessex, with the object of finding out for himself the localities of the tales. This task, undertaken in the days when there were no "Wessex Maps" to assist the investigator, lent an added zest to many a holiday. At last, through articles in papers, through books, and through other channels, the writer began to learn that other persons were interested in the same pursuit as himself. Later on it fell to his lot to have the privilege of editing a new issue of a well-known Handbook dealing with Wessex, and whilst carrying out this task he accumulated a mass of information about Wessex, its people, its customs, and its novels, which, it seemed, might be of use to other students of Mr. Hardy's works. It was his great good fortune to discover that his friend Mr. New had ix b Preface long cherished the design of issuing a series of drawings of a district which he, too, had learnt to love from the perusal of the Wessex novels. It seemed that the intentions of both might be carried out by a book such as this — a book which its writer most humbly admits would have lost the larger share of such attractions as it may possess had it appeared without Mr. New's charm- ing pictures of the places with which it is concerned. It was obviously possible to take the country as the basis, and deal with the incidents of the novels as each place was visited, or to consider the novels seriatim, sketching the topography of each separately. The latter plan seemed to involve too much re- petition, and it was, therefore, decided to adopt the former. In the concluding chapters of the book, however, a resume of the topography of each novel has been given in completion of the scheme of treatment. For obvious reasons, the writer has desired to take his readers to the scenes of the novels, and, when arrived there, to allow Mr. Hardy to describe them himself. Thus the pictures which he has given in his books have been freely quoted here. Of the unquoted remainder, the writer can only say to those readers who are unacquainted with the novels, if any such he may chance to have, Pulchra qua videntur^ longe pulcherrima qua ignorantur. Various books and papers on the subject of the x Preface Wessex novels have been consulted, and here the writer has to express his regret that, owing to some strange accident, the charming little book of Miss Macdonnell on Thomas Hardy did not come into his hands until these pages were actually written. Had it done so earlier, he would have been saved several fruitless expeditions. But he has preferred to trust to his own observations rather than to books, and has personally visited every place of which he has written, with one insignificant and exceedingly out-of-the-way exception. He has to thank Mr. Moule, the courteous and learned curator of the Dorset County Museum, for kind assistance ; but above all, the writer and the illustrator of this book have* to express their acknowledgments to the author of the Wessex novels for the kindness which he has shown them, and for the sympathy which he has exhibited in their work. Without Mr. Hardy's generous assistance, these pages must have been much less complete than it is hoped they will be found to be. Nor, without the same generous assistance, would the writer have been able to speak with such certainty as to the identification of certain of the spots. B. C. A. W. Weatherbury, Harborne, July 30, 1 90 1. XI LIST OF CHAPTERS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory . ..... 3 30 M 63 80 II. Casterbridge . . III. Casterbridge (continued) . IV. Casterbridge [concluded) . V. Casterbridge to Kingsbere VI. Casterbridge to Kingsbere {continued) VII. Casterbridge to Anglebury by the Main Road 95 VIII. Casterbridge to Anglebury by Way of Egdon Heath ...... IX. Casterbridge to Sherton Abbas X. Casterbridge to Sherton Abbas {continued) XI. Casterbridge to Shaston by Way of Shotts ford Forum . . . XII. Casterbridge to Ivell . XIII. Casterbridge to Budmouth XIV. The Isle of Slingers, and other Places between Budmouth and Port Bredy XV. Budmouth to Lulstead .... • ■ ■ Xlll no 133 147 161 180 212 230 List of Chapters CHAPTER PAGE XVI. Some Places near Anglebury . . . 245 XVII. Warborne to Melchester . . • • 259 XVIII. The Novels. "Desperate Remedies" — "Under the Greenwood Tree" — "A Pair of Blue Eyes " — " Far from the Madding Crowd " — " The Hand of Ethelberta " — " The Return of the Native" . . . . .275 XIX. The Novels. " The Trumpet- Major "— " The Laodicean" — "Two on a Tower" — "The Mayor of Casterbridge " — "The Wood- landers" — "The Wessex Tales" . . 291 XX. The Novels. "A Group of Noble Dames" — "Life's Little Ironies" — "Some Crusted Characters" — "Tess of the D'Urbervilles " — "Jude the Obscure" — "The Well- Beloved" — "The Wessex Poems" . . 304 XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS MAPS i. The Wessex of Thomas Hardy's Novels and Poems .... To face Chapter L n. A Map of Casterbridge . . . To face Page 18 \s in. Map of the Principal Towns, etc., of South Wessex . . . Folding Plate at end of volume ^ FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS Casterbridge from the London Road . . . Frontispiece From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Reigate " Casterbridge was the complement of the rural life around ; not its urban opposite " PAGE i. Rainbarrow ....... 9 ' ' This bossy projection of earth above its natural level occupied the loftiest ground of the loneliest height that the heath contained " ii. Maumbury . ... 31 " The Amphitheatre . . . was to Casterbridge what the Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was nearly of the same magnitude " in. Casterbridge — St. Peter's Church ... 49 "A grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken into the darkening sky " XV List of Illustrations xiii. Sherton Abbas — The Abbey and the Monk's Conduit ....... From a photograph by Messrs, Frith, Reigate xvi PAGE iv. Weatherbury Church. The porch in which Troy slept on the night after Fanny Robin's burial . ..... 65 v. Kingsbere Church — The D'Urberville Tombs and Window . . . • ■ .81 « • i' V e — got — gr't — family— vault— at — Kingsbere — and --knighted — forefathers— in— lead— coffins— there " (John Durbey field) vi. Wellbridge and the D'Urberville Manor-House 97 " The great Elizabethan bridge " vii. Anglebury. At which we find ourselves at the commencement of " The Hand of Ethel berta " 103 viii. Mellstock Church . . . . . .111 "William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow, late at plough, Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's, And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock church- yard now " ix. Knapwater House . . . . . .117 "The house was regularly and substantially built of clean grey freestone throughout, in that plainer fashion of Greek classicism which prevailed at the end of the last century " x. Talbothays and the Vale of Great Dairies . 123 By kind permission from a water-colour drawing by Mr. H. jf. Moule, in the possession of Mr. Hardy "The verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom " xi. Abbot's Cernel . . . . . 135 " 'Twice we met by accident,' pleaded Betty. 'Once at Abbot's Cernel'" xii. Abbot's Cernel — The Abbey Gateway . . 141 "To this fair creation of the great Middle Age the Dissolution was the death-knell " I49 List of Illustrations PAGE xiv. Sherton Abbas — The Abbey. The Cathedral of the Woodlanders' Country . . 155 xv. Shaston — Cold Hill . . . . .163 "Shaston, the ancient British Palladour, . . . was, and is, in itself the city of a dream " xvi. Hintock House . . . . . .169 From the engraving in Hutchin's " Dorsetshire " " To describe it as standing in a hollow would not express the situation of the manor-house ; it stood in a hole. But the hole was full of beauty " xvii. Marlott — "The Pure Drop" . . 173 From a photograph kindly lent by Mr. Hardy ' ' There's a very pretty brew in tap at the Pure Drop, though, to be sure, not so good as at Rollivers " (John Durbeyfield) xviii. Little Hintock . . . . . .181 "Gardens and orchards sunk in a concave, and, as it were, snipped out of the woodland — a self-contained spot " xix. King's Hintock Court . . . . .191 ' ' One of the most imposing of the mansions that over- look our beautiful Blackmoor or Blakemore Vale " xx. budmouth and the isle of slingers dlstant View . . . . . . . .197 " Budmouth is a wonderful place — wonderful — a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like a bow " xxi. Budmouth — The Old Town . . . .205 ' ' The houses of the merchants, some ancient structures of solid stone, others green-shuttered with heavy bow- windows " xxii. The Isle of Slingers . . . . -213 From a photograph by Messrs. Valentine & Sons, Ltd. " A solid block of limestone four miles long " xxiii. Port Bredy. The inland part of the town where the " Fellow-Townsmen " lived . .225 xvii List of Illustrations XXIV. OVERCOMBE ... . "The large smooth mill-pond, over-full, and intruding into the hedge and into the road " xxv. Oxwell Manor ...... "The arched gateway which screened the main front; over it was the porter's lodge reached by a spiral staircase " XXVI. CORVESGATE CaSTLE ...... "The towers of the notable ruin rose out of the further- most shoulder of the upland, its site being the slope and crest of a smoothly nibbled mound at the toe of the ridge " xxvii. Melchester Cathedral . ' ' The thin steeple That tops the fair fane of Poore's olden Episcopal see " xxvm. Stonehenge ....... "The heathen temple . . . older than the centuries; older than the D'Urbervilles " Castle Boterel ...... " Pre-eminently the region of dream and mystery " Enkworth ....... From a photograph by Mr. Walter Pouncy, Dorchester "A house in which Pugin would have torn his hair " Stancy Castle ....... From a photograph by Mr. J. Crocker, Dunster ' ' Over all rose the keep, a square solid tower apparently not much injured by wars or weather " xxxii. Marygreen — The Church From a photograph by Mr. Tom Revely, Wantage "A tall new building of German-Gothic design, un- familiar to English eyes " XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXIII. XXXIV. Melchester — The Market-Place. Where Raye met Anna, whilst "on the Western Ciicuit " . Shaston — Old Grove's House. Once the home of Phillotson and Sue . * ■ • • From a photograph kindly lent by Mr. Hardy xviii PAGE 231 237 247 26l 271 277 287 293 305 309 315 List of Illustrations 6. Casterbridge — The West Avenue "Inform it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed " 7. The Hangman's Cottage — Casterbridge. To which the victim of " The Withered Arm " went to seek I C11C1 •••••«•*» PAGE 12 VIGNETTES 1. Sheep-down near Weatherbury "The zwellen downs, wi' chalky tracks A-climmen up their zunny backs."— W. Barnes 2. Stile near Mellstock \t "Against the peaceful landscape, ... and the lichened stileboards, the staring vermilion words shone forth " 3. Casterbridge, from the Weatherbury Road 17 " It is huddled all together ; and it is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden ground by a box- edging" 1 4. Mask over the Back Door of Lucetta's House „ 30 "The door was studded and the key-stone of the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a comic leer, as still could be discerned " 5. Casterbridge — Market- Place and Pump . . 37 From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Retgate " Like the regulation Open Place in spectacular dramas " 39 42 8. Durnover — The Ten Hatches .... 47 " The river here ran deep and strong at all times " 9. Durnover — The Church . . . . 61 "The still-used burial-ground of the old Roman city, whose curious feature was this, its continuity as a place of sepulture " 10. Casterbridge — Bridge over the Frome. The resort of the Casterbridge loafer . . . . .63 xix List of Illustrations 1 8. Wellbridge . " The five gaping arches of the great bridge outside the house" 20. Anglebury. Full of recollections of the squirrel- haired Ethelberta ... PAGE ii. Yalbury Great Wood and the Weatherbury Road near Mellstock Hill 7° Fanny Robin " thus progressed till descending Mellstock Hill another milestone appeared, and soon the beginning of an iron-railed fence came into view " 12. Weatherbury — The Church . . . • 73 "The tower of Weatherbury Church was a square erection of the fourteenth century date " 13. Weatherbury Church — The Gallery ... 75 From a photograph by the Author ' ' The gallery looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remotest peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive information about it " 14. The D'Urberville Arms ..... 79 "A ramping lion on a shield " 15. Kingsbere ........ 80 "A little blinking, one-eyed place" 16. Kingsbere — Exterior of the D'Urberville Aisle 89 From a photograph by the Author ' ' ' Isn't your family vault your own freehold ? ' said Tess's mother " 17. Greenhill ........ 91 ' ' Greenhill was the Nijni Novgorod of South Wessex '* 95 19. The D'Urberville Manor-House . . . 105 From a photograph by the Author " Once portion of a fine manorial residence, and the property and seat of a D'Urberville, but since its partial demolition a farmhouse " 107 XX List of Illustrations PAGE zi. Bindon — The Abbot's Coffin . . . .108 "The empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with a turn for grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself" 22. Mellstock — The Village School . . .110 '■ Under the greenwood tree " 23. Mistover Knap . . . . . . .127 "A spot" where "a remote blue tinge on the horizon between the hills, visible from the cottage door, was traditionally believed to be the English Channel" 24. Wolfeton . . . . . . . 133 "An ivied manor house, flanked by battlemented towers, and more than usually distinguished by the size of its many mullioned windows " 25. Gargoyle on Abbot's Cernel Church . . .146 "The creature had for four hundred years laughed at the surrounding landscape, voicelessly in dry weather, and in wet with a gurgling and snorting sound " 26. Sherton Abbas — The Castle . . . .147 " In the time of the great Civil War ... the Parliamentary forces sat down before Sherton Castle " 27. The "Victory" 161 From a photograph by Messrs. Frith, Reigate ' ' She is the best sailer in the service, and she carries a hundred guns " 28. Budmouth — The Beach . . . . .180 "The bathing-machines, the digging children, and other common objects of the seashore " 29. Batcombe Down — The " Cross-in-Hand ' . .1 84 "A strange rude monolith, from a stratum unknown in any local quarry, on which was roughly carved a human hand " 30. King's Hintock Church . From a photograph by the Author 1 ' The little church in the shrubbery of King's Hintock Court " xxi 188 List of Illustrations PAGE 31. Bathing-Machine used by George III. at Wey- mouth . . . . . . • .195 From a contemporary print kindly lent by Mr. Courtenay, of Weymouth 32. Maidon Castle. A fragment of the earthworks . 196 "Grim Mai-don" 33. BlNCOMBE ........ 201 From a: photograph by the Author The burial-place of the Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion 34. Gloucester Lodge. The Weymouth residence of George III. ....... 208 35. Budmouth — The Harbour . . . . .212 36. Sandsfoot Castle. ...... 215 " Henry the Eighth's Castle above the sands" 37. Portland Beal . . . . . . .219 "The wild, herbless, weatherworn promontory" 38. Po'sham. The home of Captain Hardy of the Victory . ..... 221 39. Captain Hardy's House ..... 222 " The old-fashioned house which was the family residence of the Hardy s " 40. Emminster ........ 228 From a photograph by Mr, W. Shephard> East Street, Bridport "Sweet Be'mi'ster, that bist a-bound, By green and woody hills all around."— W. Barnes 41. Overcombe — The Ancient Bridge .... 230 From a photograph by the Author The hiding-place of Bob Loveday. xxii List of Illustrations 43. Lulstead Cove "The Three-quarter-round Cove, screened from every mortal eye " PAGE 42. Figure of George III. cut out on the Hillside 235 "The king's head is to be as big as our mill-pond, and his body as big as this garden ; and he and his horse will cover more than an acre " 39 44. Knollsea 245 From a photograph by Mr. Walter Pouncy, Dorchester ' ' A seaside village lying snug between two headlands as between a finger and a thumb " 45. Anglebury and Corvesgate Castle (in the Dis- tance) from the Rising Ground on the Road to Kingsbere ....... 246 46. Rings-Hill Speer ... ... 259 "A tower in the form of a classical column, which, though partly immersed in the plantation, rose above the tree-tops to a considerable height " 47. Chene Manor ....... 260 "An imposing edifice — or rather congeries of edifices" 48. Bathsheba Everdene's House . . . .275 From a photograph by the Author ' ' A hoary building of the Jacobean Age of Classic Renaissance " 49. Mellstock Church. The scene of the marriage of Tess and Angel Clare . . . . . .285 50. Port Bredy — The Harbour . . . .291 "A rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the chief features of the settlement " 5 1 . Nether Mynton — The Church Tower. Where Mrs. Lizzie Newbury's tubs were hidden . . . 302 xxiii List of Illustrations PAGE 52. Dole's Ash Farm. ....•• 3°4 From a photograph by the Author " A starve-acre place " 53. The Brown House . . . . • 3*8 From a photograph kindly lent by Mr. Hardy 1 ' A weather-beaten old barn of reddish-gray brick and tile " 54.. Sylvania Castle ....... 322 "A private mansion of comparatively modern date, in whose grounds stood the single plantation of trees of which the isle could boast " XXIV THE WESSEX OF THOMAS HARDY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY "XXTTHILST Thackeray was engaged upon his \\/ story "The Virginians," he confided to * * Motley that " he intended to write a novel of the time of Henry V., which would be his capo d y opera, in which the ancestors of all his present characters, Warringtons, Pendennises, and the rest, should be introduced. It would be a most mag- nificent performance," he said, rTO ■ jfcjrfm , » 5* £ H A/- SHEEP-DOWN NEAR WEATHERBURY. story-writer and not a guide-book maker, an artist and not a photographer. 77 /ra/^ m# bien ou il le trouve ; and if he fails to find, in the village in which the scene of his story is laid, some adequate house for its centrepiece, he does not scruple to import one which falls in with his idea and the needs of the story from a greater or less distance. # Thus the house from which the description of Bathsheba's farm is taken is not to be found in Puddletown, the 12 Introductory Weatherbury of " Far from the Madding Crowd," but at a spot some two miles distant from that place ; and Great Hintock House, Mrs. Charmond's residence, is not in the country of "The Wood- landers," but in quite another part of the county. Again, some places are of the nature of composite pictures, such as the Tower in "Two on a Tower," which has features borrowed, as Mr. Hardy himself has pointed out in the introduction to the last edition of that novel, from two of the several obelisks and towers which are to be found in the county of Dorset. But in every case — or in almost every case — the houses described are real edifices, whether they occupy the sites allotted to them in the novels or not, and are drawn for us, as a general rule, with that architectural accuracy which Mr. Hardy's early studies in that profession have enabled him to impart to them. With regard to natural scenery the case is different. Here the descriptions paint for us the scenes as they are, and as we should wish to describe them, when we see them, were we endowed with the pen of a master. Instances of this may be found in the pictures of the Vale of Blackmore, the valley of the Frome as seen by Tess on her way to Talbothays, and the various accounts of Egdon Heath. In certain cases Mr. Hardy has given an easy clue to the place which he ' had in his mind when writing, by transferring the name of the locality to his hero or some other character in the book. Thus Fawley, Jude's surname, is the real name of the 13 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy village which figures in the book as Marygreen ; Melbury, the timber-merchant of " The Wood- landers/* takes his name from the real appellation of one of the Hintocks ; and Phillotson's friend and fellow-schoolmaster, Gillingham, is called after the place in which he taught, the Leddenton of the tale. True to his devotion to Wessex, the names of many, perhaps of most, of Mr. Hardy's characters — to diverge for a moment into a bypath — are taken from the names of villages in the district, or will be found on tombstones, over shop-doors, or in pedi- grees belonging to the same region. Thus the Chickerells are villages near Weymouth ; the name of Tullidge, that hero who " fout at Valencien," and showed his ruined arm to Maidy Anne in "The Trumpet-Major/' is on a tombstone at Abbotsbury ; Derriman presides over a shop at Cerne Abbas ; and Keyte finds a place in the pedigree of those descended from the old Jerseyman, Thomas Hardy, of whose stock are the novelist and that other celebrated Thomas Hardy, who sailed the ship which carried Nelson to death and glory at Trafalgar. The visitor to Dorsetshire, who knows his Wessex novels, will constantly be struck with the small touches betraying the intimate knowledge which its novelist possesses of his country. Many of these will be alluded to in subsequent pages, and one only need here be mentioned as an example. It will be remembered that Tess, on her journey to 14 Introductory Marlott, after her betrayal by Stoke-D'Urberville, met with a man whose simple method of evangeliza- tion was to paint texts, mostly of a denunciatory character, on the top bars of gates and stiles and other such places. Many such inscriptions may be STILE NEAR MELLSTOCK. found in the country around Dorchester, though the present writer, with a fair knowledge of rural England, has never come across them elsewhere. Thus, on a stile near Stinsford, as Mr. New shows in his picture, is inscribed, " Speak Evil of No Man ;" J 5 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy and on a gate near Maiden Newton — one of several inscriptions in that part of the world — is, " Prepare TO MEET THY GOD." A general summary of the larger areas of Wessex may now be given, and we shall then be free to pass to the more particular consideration of the several localities. Dorsetshire, in which the scene of by far the greater number of the novels is laid, is called " South Wessex ; " Somerset, " Outer or Nether Wessex;' Devon (and with it might perhaps be included Cornwall), " Lower Wessex ; " Wilts, " Mid-Wessex ; " and Berks, " North Wessex." 16 -E-7/W- CASTERBRIDGE, FROM THE WEATHERBURY ROAD. CHAPTER II CASTERBRIDGE DORCHESTER, called villa regalis in Athel- stan's charter to Milton Abbey, in order to distinguish it from its namesake of Oxford- shire, the villa episcopalis, is the centre and heart of Wessex, and the best place with which to commence its study. In spite of its modern appearance, the causes of which will be shortly discussed, it is a place of hoary antiquity, whose history reaches back beyond the days of Roman Britain to that Celtic period, as to which so much is surmise, so little ascertained fact. One thing seems tolerably clear, that the early his- tory of Dorchester is inseparably connected with that of the two great earthworks in its neighbour- hood, Maiden Castle and Poundbury or Pommery. Of the former, more will have to be said in a later 17 c The Wessex of Thomas Hardy chapter ; for the present let it suffice that it is a huge triple-ramparted oval earthwork, two or three miles out from Dorchester on the Weymouth road. Earlier antiquaries have considered it to be of British origin — an opinion which is probably- correct, though there can be no doubt that it was modified and occupied by the Romans. It must have been an important city in its day, and it seems to be far from improbable that it was the Dunium spoken of by Ptolemy, the celebrated astronomer and geographer, who flourished in Alex- andria a.d. 139. Poundbury, the " square Pum- merie ' of " My Cicely,'* and the spot where the Mayor of Casterbridge designed his ill-fated out-of- door entertainment, is much nearer to Dorchester, and has been assigned by different authorities to a British, a Roman, and a Danish origin. The last of these hypotheses may with some certainty be dis- missed, and the two former may both be true in the same sense that they are of Maiden Castle. In any case the British predecessor of Dorchester, whether one of these earthworks or one occupying the actual site of the present town, was a place of importance, the chief town of the Durotriges, and possessed of a name which is believed to have been Dwrinwyr. When the Romans took possession of the district they Latinized this name into the word Durnovaria, and with the name they imparted to it that indelible structural stamp of their occupation which it bears to this day. 18 5 ° S .•/ «H '*" CASTERBRIDGE — THE WEST AVENUE. EHW the left side, a narrow passage, Glydepath Street, should next be followed. Before many yards have been traversed, an archway, now bricked up, whose keystone is a quaint stone mask much worn by time and the assaults of boys, will be seen on the left. It belongs to a building, known as Colyton House, 39 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy and it was from it that the idea of Lucetta's back door was taken. Those who see it will at once recognize the accuracy of the description in the novel : "The keystone of the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a comic leer, as could still be discerned ; but generations of Caster- bridge boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open mouth ; and the blows thereat had chipped off the lips and jaws as if they had been eaten away by disease.' T The house to which this adornment belongs was originally the town dwelling of a family of Churchills, believed to be connected i with that from which the Marlborough family originated. Beyond this house the road slopes gradually down until a sharp little hill brings one to the level of the Frome, which here winds round between the town and the meadows which so closely approach it. By the river is a small grey cottage with a thatched roof, which was the official resi- dence of the hangman of Dorchester, whilst such a functionary still existed. For, in the days when hanging was a much more frequent penalty than it now is, many, perhaps all, of the counties maintained their own hangmen, who, in the intervals of leisure from their professional engagements, earned their bread by some other and less noticeable avocation. Monsieur de Dorchester was triply a functionary; for, besides being hangman, he was also public whipper — a germane occupation- — and such time as he could spare from these ministrations of the law 40 Casterbridge was devoted to the duties of his third office, that of scavenger to the town. In the wall of the cottage, on the left-hand side of the doorway, are still to be seen the holes in which were fixed the stanchions which supported the outside staircase by which the hangman reached his upper room, and on which he paused to reply to the questions of Gertrude Lodge, seeking for a cure for her withered arm. The river flows onwards past the meadows in which hundreds of persons used formerly to congregate to watch the hangings, and under the high ground on which this portion of Dorchester rests, a part of which is occupied now, as then, by the prison. This is by no means so prominent an object as it was when Gertrude passed under it in the dusk and " discerned on the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines against the sky " — the beams of the gallows for the next morning s execution. For it was on the top of the lodge, where, as Savage tells us, there was a flat roof covered with copper, that the executions took place in view of all the criminal prisoners. " What time is the execution?" asked Gertrude. "The same as usual — twelve o'clock, or as soon after as the London mail-coach gets in. We always wait for that, in case of a reprieve." This is an exact state- ment of the system by which executions at the time were regulated. The hangman, it will be remem- bered, supposed that his visitor had come to him for the purpose of inducing him to be so merciful to his victim as to mitigate his sufferings by giving him a 4i The Wessex of Thomas Hardy speedy passage from this to another world, for in those days the sentence, " to be hung by the neck until you are dead," bore a very different significance from that which it possesses in these times of the : : v* -C. »r? • tig ••; r< «~- J£-H-Af THE HANGMAN S COTTAGE — CASTERBRIDGE. u long-drop." So that friends and relatives, who had been unable to secure the acquittal of a prisoner, used to make interest with his executioner to lessen his sufferings as much as possible. In the Museum, 42 Casterbridge which is shortly to be visited, there will be seen a singular example of the methods which were adopted with this end in view — a sort of dawning of mercy towards the end of the night of judicial cruelty which so long brooded over the criminal code of this land. There are two lumps of lead in the collection just mentioned, about the size of a clock-weight, but quadrilateral and not round, each of which is inscribed in large letters, "mercy." These weights were provided by a kind-hearted governor of the gaol, to be attached to the legs of a prisoner condemned to death for arson, who, being of very slight build, was, he feared, likely to linger a long time in agony before the purpose of the law was achieved. The gaol has been much altered since the date of the story of "The Withered Arm," and the little side door through which Gertrude entered it has disappeared, together with " the classic archway of ashlar, bearing the inscription, 'covnty jail: 1793.' The prison, however, or its predecessor, is full of memories of the Wessex Tales, for besides the incidents connected with the tale of " The Withered Arm," it was the place of imprisonment of Boldwood and of iEneas Marston ; and it was from here that the courageous watch- maker of Shottsford escaped to meet his natural foe, the hangman, in the cottage of Higher Crow- stairs. Returning to High West Street and keeping down the left-hand side, a small inn called the 43 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy Old Ship will be seen on the opposite side, and recognized from the drawing in the Poems as the place where the story of Leipzig was told by " Old Norbert with the flat blue cap — A German said to be." The next place of interest to be reached is the Dorset County Museum : not that which Lucetta recommended Elizabeth Jane to visit, declaring that it contained "crowds of interesting things — skeletons, teeth, old pots and pans, ancient boots and shoes, birds' eggs — all charmingly instructive ; ' nor that in which the fire " threw a cheerful shine upon the varnished skulls, urns, penates, tessarae, costumes, coats-of-mail, weapons, and missals, animated the fossilized ichthyosaurus and iguanodon ; while the dead eyes of the stuffed birds — those never absent familiars in such collec- tions, though murdered to extinction out-of-doors — flashed as they had flashed to the rising sun above the neighbouring moors on the fatal morning when the trigger was pulled which ended their little flight." That building, in a back street, sacred to the memory of the tellers of the tales which make up the collection known as " A Group of Noble Dames," has been replaced by the present handsome and well-planned edifice, at the ashlaring of which Jude the Obscure assisted during his peregrinations through Wessex, and which contains a most interesting collection of objects of local interest, 44 Casterbridge presided over by a gentleman who might himself unfold the tales of many Noble Dames and Crusted Characters, if he chose to put pen to paper for that purpose. It is no part of the object of these pages to draw attention to things unconnected with the Wessex novels, so that the visitor must be left to himself to discover, as he will have no difficulty in doing, the other treasures in the Museum. But beyond the weights alluded to above, he should not miss seeing the man-traps, which will remind him of the episode at the end of the " Woodlanders," where Grace was caught in one of these engines, set for the purpose of injuring her husband, and which he can study in the light of Mr. Hardy's description of the various breeds of these bygone implements of destruction. "The toothless variety used by the softer-hearted landlords — quite contemptible in their clemency. The jaws of these resembled the jaws of an old woman to whom time has left nothing but gums. There were also the intermediate or half-toothed sorts, probably devised by the middle- natured squires, or those under the influence of their wives : two inches of mercy, two inches of cruelty, two inches of mere nip, two inches of probe, and so on, through the whole extent of the jaws. There were also, as a class apart, the bruisers, which did not lacerate the flesh, but only crushed the bone. The sight of one of these gins, when set, produced a vivid impression that it was endowed with life. It exhibited the combined aspects of a 45 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy shark, a crocodile, and a scorpion. Each tooth was in the form of a tapering spine, two and a quarter inches long, which, when the jaws were closed, stood in alternation from this side and from that. When they were open, the two halves formed a complete circle between two and three feet in diameter, the plate or treading place in the midst being about a foot square, while from beneath extended in opposite directions the soul of the apparatus, the pair of springs, each one being of a stiffness to render necessary a lever or the whole weight of the body when forcing it down." Before leaving the Museum, the visitor must not fail to see the unsurpassed collection of glass beads, pins, and ornaments which formerly decked the head of some Roman lady, and were laid with her to rest in the great cemetery at Ford- ington, to be discovered under circumstances to be described when we reach that spot in the course of our perambulation. 4 6 *a&.^ X/V/v I! -/- < -"-i'^ , ,'.t,.«^-\ .Tad -wTOoft % ii ft J.~ 1 ' I| p l. .. ; ". 11 i 1 r P'lijfte I I. .' '///I ' DURNOVER — THE TEN HATCHES. CHAPTER IV CASTERBRIDGE concluded EMERGING from the Museum, the visitor finds himself in the centre of Dorchester, and, on the proper days, will see the rows of carriers' vans, hailing " from Mellstock, Weather- bury, The Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere, Overcombe, and many other towns and villages around," whose " owners were numerous enough to be regarded as a tribe, and had almost distinctive- ness enough to be regarded as a race." Here he may picture to himself the busy scene of the hiring-fair, and Gabriel Oak, in the days of this distress, earning a pocketful of coppers by playing " Jockey at the Fair." Just beyond the Museum is St. Peter's Church, one of the few pieces of antiquity spared to Dor- chester by devastating conflagrations from which it has suffered. Outside it is the statue of the 47 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy Rev. William Barnes, whose memory must not be forgotten in any work dealing with the Wessex of Thomas Hardy. Both of them were of the county of Dorset, and their works are racy of its soil ; they were friends, though their points of view were so different, and the survivor was the author of a tribute to the memory of his dead companion, which has been reprinted at the end of Mr. Lionel Johnson's " Art of Thomas Hardy." Here the poet is described, much as he appears now in bronze, as "an aged clergyman, quaintly attired in caped cloak, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes, with a leather satchel slung over his shoulders, and a stout staff in his hand/' He sprang from the Vale of Blackmore, that exquisite spot which Mr. Hardy has immortalized in several of his novels, and which became " the abiding-place of the people whose daily doings, sayings, and emotions have been crystallized in the poet's verse." " Occasionally," Mr. Hardy proceeds, " it is true, we find among the men and women presented in Mr. Barnes's volumes some who are housed in hamlets lying nominally beyond the Vale, but to my mind these characters are in a great measure Blackmore people away from home, bearing with them still the well-marked traits which distinguish the Vale population from that of the neighbouring uplands. The same may be said of his backgrounds and scenery. Moreover, when, moved by the pervading instinct of the nineteenth century, he 48 XHMEXv - CASTERBRIDGE — ST, PETER S CHURCH. Casterbridge gives us whole poems of still life, unaffected and realistic as a Dutch picture, the slow green river of the Stour of the same valley, with its deep pools, whence leaps the may-fly undisturbed by anglers, is found to be the stream dearest to his memory, and the inspirer of some of his happiest effusions." For a large part of his life Mr. Barnes was a schoolmaster, and, in spite of his erudition and the modernness of some of his methods, not pecuniarily a successful one. Indeed, it is recorded in the life which appeared from the pen of his daughter, who is best known under her pseudonym of Leader Scott, that on a day when some empty honour was paid to his learning, whilst he himself was in great pecuniary straits — not a solitary occurrence in the lives of literary men — he exclaimed, "What a mockery is life ! They praise me and take away my bread ! They might be putting up a statue to me some day when I am dead, while all I want now is leave to live. I asked for bread, and they gave me a stone ! " Gazing upon the statue which we have now reached, he seems to have attained at that moment to a prophetic strain, though it is pleasant to remember that his latter days were passed in comfort in the little parish of Winterborne Came, which we have yet to visit. Lovers of Dorsetshire will scarcely need to be . advised to study Barnes's poems, though the casual reader may find himself at first, to some extent, deterred by the fact that they are written in 51 E 2 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy dialect, always a somewhat discouraging discovery to those who are not to the manner born. But the slight difficulties, if indeed that term can be applied to them, are soon to be surmounted, and the labour thus expended is not in vain. The way- farer forgets the slight toil which it has cost him to reach the summit of High Stoy when he gazes upon the misty loveliness of the Vale of White Hart which lies at his feet, and the experience of the reader will be the same when he contemplates the lives of its inhabitants as revealed to him in the pages of its poet and its son. " Unlike Burns, Beranger, and other poets of the people," says Mr. Hardy, in the criticism from which I have already quoted, " Mr. Barnes never assumed the high conventional style ; and he entirely leaves alone ambition, pride, despair, defiance, and other of the grander passions which move mankind, great and small. His rustics are, as a rule, happy people, and very seldom feel the sting of the rest of modern mankind — the disproportion between the desire for serenity and the power of obtaining it. One naturally thinks of Crabbe in this connection ; but though they touch at points, Crabbe goes much further than Barnes in questioning the justice of circumstance. Their pathos, after all, is the attri- bute upon which the poems must depend for their endurance ; and the incidents which embody it are those of everyday cottage life, tinged through- out with that 'light that never was/ which the 52 Casterbridge emotional art of the lyrist can project upon the commonest things. It is impossible to prophesy, but surely much English literature will be forgotten when c Woak Hill' is still read for its intense pathos, c Blackmore Maidens ' for its blitheness, and c In the Spring : for its Arcadian ecstasy." The statue of Barnes stands within the railings of St. Peter's Church, which the visitor should enter if only for the purpose of reading the tablet to the memory of the ancestor of the Dorsetshire Hardys, which will be found on the wall to the left of the door as it is entered. The inscription runs : " To the memorye of Thomas Hardy, of Melcombe Regis, in the Covnty of Dorsett, esqvier whoe endowed this Burrovghe w th a yearely revenew of 50 L ; & appoynted ovt of it, to be employed for y e better mayntenance of a preacher 20 L ; a schoolmaster twenty Powndes ; an husher twenty nobles ; the alms women five markes. The Bay- lives & Burgisses of Dorchester, in testimony of their gratitvde, & to commend to posterity an example soe worthy of imitation, have erected this monvment. He dyed the 15th. of October, Anno : Do : (1599). The jvst shall be had in everlasting remembrance." The monument also bears the Hardy arms — sable, on a chevron between three escallops or, as many dragons' heads erased of the first ; a crescent for difference. This worthy appears to have been a scion of the ancient family of Le Hardie of Jersey, and from him have descended 53 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy two other Thomas Hardys whose names the world will not soon forget — Nelson's flag-captain, and the author of the Wessex Novels. St. Peter's is the edifice described in "The Mayor of Caster- bridge ' as " a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken into the darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by the nearest lamps sufficiently to show how completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework had been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in the crevices thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass almost as far up as the very battlements." Beyond the church is the North Street, formerly the narrow alley in which Henchard's waggon was upset on the night before the secret of his life was revealed to the people of Casterbridge by the furmity-seller. This street widens into what was formerly known as the Bullstake, from which one would conclude that it was the spot where the bull-baiting took place, though tradition seems to assign the amphitheatre as the scene of that amuse- ment. The stocks, at any rate, stood here until a comparatively recent period. Further on, the road slopes down to the Frome, passing close to the prison and to the mill, near which was the cottage, "built of old stones from the long dismantled Priory, scraps of tracery, moulded window-jambs, and arch-labels, being mixed in with the rubble of the walls," in which Henchard hid his head after 54 Casterbridge his bankruptcy. The Priory here mentioned, of which, as far as the visitor can see, every trace has disappeared, belonged to the Franciscan Order, and was founded in 1364, though it seems likely that another house of the same Order may have preceded it on the same spot. It was suppressed in 1536, but great portions of it must have remained long after that date, for in 1784 the prison was built from its remains. On the other side of North Street from St. Peter's Church is the Corn Exchange, where, though this building is later than the date of the story, the visitor may be permitted to conjure up a vision of Bathsheba, moving about amongst the burly frames of the farmers " as a chaise between carts, 1 ' and exhibiting her samples of corn, " holding up the grains in her narrow palm for inspection, in perfect Casterbridge manner." Below the Corn Exchange is High East Street, which contains four places of entertainment, if all must be brought into a common category, associated with the Wessex series. The first and most important stands on the right-hand side of the road, and is that fine and most comfort- able of country hotels, the King's Arms, whose spacious bow window, projecting into the street over the main portico, gives light to the room in which the dinner was held at which we first make the acquaintance of the Mayor of Casterbridge. Here, too, it was that Boldwood carried the fainting Bath- sheba, after she had received the false news of Troy's 55 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy death by drowning. On the same side, but lower down, a plain inn of a different stamp, still much frequented by the military, is the Phoenix, the scene of Jenny's last dance. <: 'Twas Christmas, and the Phoenix Inn Was lit by tapers tall, For thirty of the trooper men Had vowed to give a ball, As ' Theirs ' had done (fame handed down) When lying in the selfsame town, Ere Buonaparte's fall." On the other side of the street one would naturally look for the Three Mariners, dearer still to the early lovers of the novel under the title of the King of Prussia ; but, alas ! no " ancient house of accommodation for man and beast, built of mellow sandstone, with mullioned windows of the same material, markedly out of perpendicular from the settlement of foundations," is there to be seen. In the collected edition of his works, Mr. Hardy not only gives this inn its real name, but reveals the fact that it is no longer in existence, having most unfortunately been pulled down ; but those who, like the present writer, made search for the inn before being thus enlightened, may have lost, as he has done, a good deal of valuable time in the chase. There is, it is true, an inn which stands upon its site, which bears its name, and which is said to have a portion of its fabric incorporated into it somewhere in the back premises ; but the true Hardy pilgrim 56 Casterbridge will carefully avert his eyes as he passes that lurid edifice, and refuse to believe that it has anything to do with that well-beloved spot where Farfrae sang, where Elizabeth Jane waited on him, and where Henchard, at the end of his twenty years' vow of temperance, insisted upon the choir singing one of " servant David's " most militant psalms, applying the words to his rival in business and love. The last of all the inns, and in some ways the most picturesque, is the White Hart, which is situated at the far end of the street on the left-hand side, and close to the first bridge over the Frome. Here the carrier to Longpuddle set oiF with his cargo of Crusted Characters, and here also Gertrude Lodge stopped whilst waiting to make her fearful experi- ment within the walls of the prison. The bridge just mentioned, of which more will be said in another place, marks the end of Dorchester in this direction, and the close of our perambulation in the town proper ; but there are still some objects to be seen in that suburb or purlieu known as Fordington, the Durnover of " The Mayor of Casterbridge." At the bridge just mentioned we may commence its exploration, taking the road which Dick Dewey followed, when he left Mr. Maybold on that same bridge to watch, " without heeding, how the water came rapidly from beneath the arches, glided down a little steep, then spread itself over a pool in which dace, trout, and minnows sported at ease among the SI The Wessex of Thomas Hardy long green locks of weed that lay heaving and sink- ing with their roots towards the current," and finally to tear up the letter which was to have arranged his future and that of Fancy Day on such very different lines from those which they ultimately followed. Turning up Fordington Hill on the opposite side of the road to the White Hart, we pass through the street in which Farfrae set up his business after he had parted from Henchard, and keeping as straight on as we can we reach Mill Lane, the original of Mixen Lane in the story, "the Adullam of all the surrounding villages, the hiding- place of those who were in distress, and in debt, and trouble of every kind. Farm-labourers and other peasants, who combined a little poaching with their farming, and a little brawling and bibbing with their poaching, found themselves sooner or later in Mixen Lane. Rural mechanics too idle to mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to serve, drifted or were forced into Mixen Lane." Much of " this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Casterbridge plant ' has now disappeared, but the place, perhaps only to the eye which sees it, as it were, through the stained- glass window of the novel, still seems to bear some- thing of its ancient reputation. The present writer is firmly of opinion that he has seen Joe and Charl there discussing the prospects of the next night's expedition, and the extensive white apron over the dingy gown, which Mr. Hardy regards as a " sus- picious vesture in situations where spotlessness is 58 Casterbridge difficult,' 1 is certainly to be seen there with consider- able frequency. Amongst other things which have disappeared is the Peter's Finger, the real name of which was the King's Head. Strangers may doubtless suppose that the former extraordinary name is a pure invention, and may wonder how it arose even in the fecund brain of its author. But it is the genuine name of an inn at Lytchett Minster, on the signboard of which, now half obliterated, is a figure of the Prince of the Apostles holding up his hand, from which blood is dripping. Conjecture at one time had it that the name was a corruption of St. Peter's figure or picture, but its real explanation is curious, and, in a sense, a vestige of the feudal system of holding land. August the ist, Lammas-day, known in the calendar of the Catholic Church as St. Peter ad Vincula, was one of the days on which praedial service had to be done for the lord of certain manors, as a condition of tenure by the occupants. Such lands were called St. Peter-ad-Vincula lands, a term which easily got corrupted into St. Peter's Finger, a name which a small tract between Salisbury and Alderbury rejoices in to this day. From this follows the sign of the inn. As the inn of this name in Mixen Lane was the place where the Skimmington ride was arranged, it may perhaps be permissible here to say a word in respect to that form of popular protest. In a 59 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy i note in " The Fortunes of Nigel," Scott says that tc the Skimmington, which in some degree re- sembled the proceedings of Mumbo Jumbo in an African village, has long been discontinued in England, apparently because female rule has become either milder or less frequent than among our ancestors." Scott derived his information on the subject largely from Mr. Roberts, of Lyme Regis, who gives a long account of the custom and its significance in his " Social History of the Southern Counties," where he states that the principal causes for riding the Skimmington are, " when a man and his wife quarrel, and he gives up to her ; when a woman is unfaithful to her husband, and he patiently submits without resenting her conduct ; or on account of any grossly licentious conduct on the part of married persons." But Scott was wrong in supposing that, the custom had long been discontinued in his day, for within the last twenty years a case was reported in the columns of the Dorset County Chronicle as having occurred at Whitchurch Canonicorum, a large but isolated parish between Bridport and Lyme. The centre of the procession consisted of a male and two female effigies carried on donkeys' backs. " One of the females was represented as having an extraordinary long tongue, which was tied back to the neck, whilst in one hand she held some notepaper, and in the other pen and holder." The procession was escorted by a number of persons dressed in various queer and 60 Casterbridge eccentric costumes, and the proceedings terminated by the hanging of the effigies on an extemporized gallows, the whole being finally burnt. The last thing to see in Fordington is the fine old church of St. George, with the very remarkable Norman tympanum over its south doorway. This church was placed right in the centre of an immense **lkA'*MK.r .**■*. . I* , % +it) J, tlinv -..li lii ..... .^•.■•uinajii}„,:ti^f.|}ii«»>',it'iiu,.., tlJ ,.^_. , .'jiiiu -•■'• . '.* : (uj'^ ^.ifl.Uw" . . M/.' ' t •i\> .-iv.it.m. ' , ^NUl«Vfl, , ||j, l |i.",n» i '|i|.|'J(). JC U.\' DURNOVER — THE CHURCH. Roman burying-ground, and the glass ornaments, to which attention has been already called in the Museum, were found here a number of years ago, when the road was being lowered in order to provide work for labourers during an unusually hard winter. On the breast of another of the many bodies which have been found here, was discovered a coin of Hadrian, struck in brass, which appeared to have 61 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy been enclosed in linen, or some other perishable material, which turned to powder when touched. The sternum on which the much-worn coin lay was tinged green by the corrosion of the metal. It was in the burial-ground of this church that "Mrs. Henchard's dust mingled with the dust of women who lay ornamented with glass hairpins and amber necklaces, and men who held in their mouths coins of Hadrian, Posthumus, and the Constantines." Here, too, it was that Elizabeth Jane, whilst visiting her mother's grave, first made the acquaintance of Lucetta. The indications which have been given in this and the preceding chapters will show how closely Dorchester is connected with the incidents of many of the Wessex novels, and particularly, of course, with the story of the Man of Character, who was its mayor. But there are one or two other con- nections, not specially associated with particular places in the town, which may here be grouped together. At Casterbridge it was that Stephen Smith's grandfather lived, and here he commenced those architectural studies which eventually brought him into contact with the changeful Elfrida, the possessor of the pair of blue eyes. Here also Bob Loveday, brother to the Trumpet-Major, came to meet his Matilda ; and here Raye sat in the court and thought upon the Anna whom he had left behind him in Melchester as he went the Western Circuit. 62 mm CASTERBRIDGE — BRIDGE OVER THE FROME. CHAPTER V CASTERBRIDGE TO KINGSBERE HAVING concluded our survey of Dorchester, we may now proceed to explore the ad- jacent country, nor does it greatly matter which of the four main roads leading forth from it we choose, for in all directions there are plenty of places beautiful and interesting in themselves, and endowed with the additional charm of having been selected by Mr. Hardy as the haunts of the characters of his novels. But as one must make a beginning somewhere, perhaps the London Road will serve as 63 The Wessex of Thomas Hardy well as another, so we may descend the slope of High East Street and make for the bridge just beyond the White Hart. Standing on this and looking down the road, there can be seen a second bridge, but of stone, a few hundred yards further down. This more distant viaduct, known as Grey's Bridge, was that towards which Bob Loveday's eyes were directed in search of the London coach which was to bring the fair Matilda to his arms. Mr. Hardy compares these bridges with one another in "The Mayor of Casterbridge," contrasting the different classes of persons that congregate upon them and lean or sit upon their parapets. "Two bridges," he writes, "stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town. The first, of weather- stained brick, was immediately at the end of High Street, where a diverging branch from that thorough- fare ran round to the low-lying Durnover lanes ; so that the precincts of the bridge formed the merging point of respectability and indigence. The second bridge, of stone, was further out on the highway — in fact, fairly in the meadows, though still within the town boundary. These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each was worn down to obtuse- ness, partly by weather, more by friction from gene- rations of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year made restless movements against these parapets, as they had stood there meditating on the aspect of affairs. In the case of the more friable bricks and stones, even the flat faces were worn 6 4 WEATHERBURY CHURCH. Casterbridge to Kingsbere into hollows by the same mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at each joint ; since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate men to wrench the coping off and throw it into the river, in reckless defiance of the magistrates. For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the- failures of the town ; those who had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in crime. Why the unhappy here- about usually chose the bridges for their meditations in preference to a railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so clear.