Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy [top 100 novels of all time TXT] 📗

“O you don’t know⁠—you don’t!” said Sarah, the third girl.

“On my word I don’t!⁠—No further, that is, than by plain courting, and taking care he don’t go too far!”

The third girl looked at the second. “She don’t know!”

“ ’Tis clear she don’t!” said Anny.

“And having lived in a town, too, as one may say! Well, we can teach ’ee som’at then, as well as you us.”

“Yes. And how do you mean⁠—a sure way to gain a man? Take me for an innocent, and have done wi’ it!”

“As a husband.”

“As a husband.”

“A countryman that’s honourable and serious-minded such as he; God forbid that I should say a sojer, or sailor, or commercial gent from the towns, or any of them that be slippery with poor women! I’d do no friend that harm!”

“Well, such as he, of course!”

Arabella’s companions looked at each other, and turning up their eyes in drollery began smirking. Then one went up close to Arabella, and, although nobody was near, imparted some information in a low tone, the other observing curiously the effect upon Arabella.

“Ah!” said the last-named slowly. “I own I didn’t think of that way!⁠ ⁠… But suppose he isn’t honourable? A woman had better not have tried it!”

“Nothing venture nothing have! Besides, you make sure that he’s honourable before you begin. You’d be safe enough with yours. I wish I had the chance! Lots of girls do it; or do you think they’d get married at all?”

Arabella pursued her way in silent thought. “I’ll try it!” she whispered; but not to them.

One week’s end Jude was as usual walking out to his aunt’s at Marygreen from his lodging in Alfredston, a walk which now had large attractions for him quite other than his desire to see his aged and morose relative. He diverged to the right before ascending the hill with the single purpose of gaining, on his way, a glimpse of Arabella that should not come into the reckoning of regular appointments. Before quite reaching the homestead his alert eye perceived the top of her head moving quickly hither and thither over the garden hedge. Entering the gate he found that three young unfattened pigs had escaped from their sty by leaping clean over the top, and that she was endeavouring unassisted to drive them in through the door which she had set open. The lines of her countenance changed from the rigidity of business to the softness of love when she saw Jude, and she bent her eyes languishingly upon him. The animals took advantage of the pause by doubling and bolting out of the way.

“They were only put in this morning!” she cried, stimulated to pursue in spite of her lover’s presence. “They were drove from Spaddleholt Farm only yesterday, where father bought ’em at a stiff price enough. They are wanting to get home again, the stupid toads! Will you shut the garden gate, dear, and help me to get ’em in? There are no men-folk at home, only mother, and they’ll be lost if we don’t mind.”

He set himself to assist, and dodged this way and that over the potato rows and the cabbages. Every now and then they ran together, when he caught her for a moment and kissed her. The first pig was got back promptly; the second with some difficulty; the third, a long-legged creature, was more obstinate and agile. He plunged through a hole in the garden hedge, and into the lane.

“He’ll be lost if I don’t follow ’n!” said she. “Come along with me!”

She rushed in full pursuit out of the garden, Jude alongside her, barely contriving to keep the fugitive in sight. Occasionally they would shout to some boy to stop the animal, but he always wriggled past and ran on as before.

“Let me take your hand, darling,” said Jude. “You are getting out of breath.” She gave him her now hot hand with apparent willingness, and they trotted along together.

“This comes of driving ’em home,” she remarked. “They always know the way back if you do that. They ought to have been carted over.”

By this time the pig had reached an unfastened gate admitting to the open down, across which he sped with all the agility his little legs afforded. As soon as the pursuers had entered and ascended to the top of the high ground it became apparent that they would have to run all the way to the farmer’s if they wished to get at him. From this summit he could be seen as a minute speck, following an unerring line towards his old home.

“It is no good!” cried Arabella. “He’ll be there long before we get there. It don’t matter now we know he’s not lost or stolen on the way. They’ll see it is ours, and send un back. O dear, how hot I be!”

Without relinquishing her hold of Jude’s hand she swerved aside and flung herself down on the sod under a stunted thorn, precipitately pulling Jude on to his knees at the same time.

“O, I ask pardon⁠—I nearly threw you down, didn’t I! But I am so tired!”

She lay supine, and straight as an arrow, on the sloping sod of this hilltop, gazing up into the blue miles of sky, and still retaining her warm hold of Jude’s hand. He reclined on his elbow near her.

“We’ve run all this way for nothing,” she went on, her form heaving and falling in quick pants, her face flushed, her full red lips parted, and a fine dew of perspiration on her skin. “Well⁠—why don’t you speak, deary?”

“I’m blown too. It was all up hill.”

They were in absolute solitude⁠—the most apparent of all solitudes, that of empty surrounding space. Nobody could be nearer than a mile to them without their seeing him. They were, in fact, on one of the summits of the county, and the distant landscape around Christminster could be discerned from where they lay. But Jude did not think of