Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy [best ereader for pdf txt] 📗

before. His spirits were oozing out of him quite. He turned the horse’s head to the green bank, and entered the hostel for a mug of ale.

Going down into the kitchen of the inn, the floor of which was a step below the passage, which in its turn was a step below the road outside, what should Joseph see to gladden his eyes but two copper-coloured discs, in the form of the countenances of Mr. Jan Coggan and Mr. Mark Clark. These owners of the two most appreciative throats in the neighbourhood, within the pale of respectability, were now sitting face to face over a three-legged circular table, having an iron rim to keep cups and pots from being accidentally elbowed off; they might have been said to resemble the setting sun and the full moon shining vis-à-vis across the globe.

“Why, ’tis neighbour Poorgrass!” said Mark Clark. “I’m sure your face don’t praise your mistress’s table, Joseph.”

“I’ve had a very pale companion for the last four miles,” said Joseph, indulging in a shudder toned down by resignation. “And to speak the truth, ’twas beginning to tell upon me. I assure ye, I ha’n’t seed the colour of victuals or drink since breakfast time this morning, and that was no more than a dew-bit afield.”

“Then drink, Joseph, and don’t restrain yourself!” said Coggan, handing him a hooped mug three-quarters full.

Joseph drank for a moderately long time, then for a longer time, saying, as he lowered the jug, “ ’Tis pretty drinking⁠—very pretty drinking, and is more than cheerful on my melancholy errand, so to speak it.”

“True, drink is a pleasant delight,” said Jan, as one who repeated a truism so familiar to his brain that he hardly noticed its passage over his tongue; and, lifting the cup, Coggan tilted his head gradually backwards, with closed eyes, that his expectant soul might not be diverted for one instant from its bliss by irrelevant surroundings.

“Well, I must be on again,” said Poorgrass. “Not but that I should like another nip with ye; but the parish might lose confidence in me if I was seed here.”

“Where be ye trading o’t to today, then, Joseph?”

“Back to Weatherbury. I’ve got poor little Fanny Robin in my wagon outside, and I must be at the churchyard gates at a quarter to five with her.”

“Ay⁠—I’ve heard of it. And so she’s nailed up in parish boards after all, and nobody to pay the bell shilling and the grave half-crown.”

“The parish pays the grave half-crown, but not the bell shilling, because the bell’s a luxery: but ’a can hardly do without the grave, poor body. However, I expect our mistress will pay all.”

“A pretty maid as ever I see! But what’s yer hurry, Joseph? The pore woman’s dead, and you can’t bring her to life, and you may as well sit down comfortable, and finish another with us.”

“I don’t mind taking just the least thimbleful ye can dream of more with ye, sonnies. But only a few minutes, because ’tis as ’tis.”

“Of course, you’ll have another drop. A man’s twice the man afterwards. You feel so warm and glorious, and you whop and slap at your work without any trouble, and everything goes on like sticks a-breaking. Too much liquor is bad, and leads us to that horned man in the smoky house; but after all, many people haven’t the gift of enjoying a wet, and since we be highly favoured with a power that way, we should make the most o’t.”

“True,” said Mark Clark. “ ’Tis a talent the Lord has mercifully bestowed upon us, and we ought not to neglect it. But, what with the parsons and clerks and school-people and serious tea-parties, the merry old ways of good life have gone to the dogs⁠—upon my carcase, they have!”

“Well, really, I must be onward again now,” said Joseph.

“Now, now, Joseph; nonsense! The poor woman is dead, isn’t she, and what’s your hurry?”

“Well, I hope Providence won’t be in a way with me for my doings,” said Joseph, again sitting down. “I’ve been troubled with weak moments lately, ’tis true. I’ve been drinky once this month already, and I did not go to church a-Sunday, and I dropped a curse or two yesterday; so I don’t want to go too far for my safety. Your next world is your next world, and not to be squandered offhand.”

“I believe ye to be a chapelmember, Joseph. That I do.”

“Oh, no, no! I don’t go so far as that.”

“For my part,” said Coggan, “I’m staunch Church of England.”

“Ay, and faith, so be I,” said Mark Clark.

“I won’t say much for myself; I don’t wish to,” Coggan continued, with that tendency to talk on principles which is characteristic of the barley-corn. “But I’ve never changed a single doctrine: I’ve stuck like a plaster to the old faith I was born in. Yes; there’s this to be said for the Church, a man can belong to the Church and bide in his cheerful old inn, and never trouble or worry his mind about doctrines at all. But to be a meetinger, you must go to chapel in all winds and weathers, and make yerself as frantic as a skit. Not but that chapel members be clever chaps enough in their way. They can lift up beautiful prayers out of their own heads, all about their families and shipwrecks in the newspaper.”

“They can⁠—they can,” said Mark Clark, with corroborative feeling; “but we Churchmen, you see, must have it all printed aforehand, or, dang it all, we should no more know what to say to a great gaffer like the Lord than babes unborn.”

“Chapelfolk be more hand-in-glove with them above than we,” said Joseph, thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said Coggan. “We know very well that if anybody do go to heaven, they will. They’ve worked hard for it, and they deserve to have it, such as ’tis. I bain’t such a fool as to pretend that we who stick to the Church have the same chance as they, because we know we