The Return of the Native (Penguin Classics) by Hardy Thomas

Author:Hardy, Thomas [Hardy, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 1999-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

One day just before this time, Wildeve was standing at the door of the Quiet Woman. In addition to the upward path through the heath to Blackbarrow and Mistover, there was a road which branched from the highway a short distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a circuitous and easy incline. This was the only route for vehicles to the Captain’s retreat. A light cart from the nearest town descended the road, and the lad who was driving pulled up in front of the inn for something to drink.

‘You come from Mistover?’ said Wildeve.

‘Yes. They are taking in good things up there. Going to be a wedding.’ And the driver buried his face in his mug.

Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden expression of pain overspread his face. He turned for a moment into the passage to hide it. Then he came back again.

‘Do you mean Miss Vye?’ he said. ‘How is it – that she can be married so soon?’

‘By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose.’

‘You don’t mean, Mr. Yeobright?’

‘Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring.’

‘I suppose – she is immensely taken with him?’

‘She is crazy about him, so their general servant of all work tells me. And that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze about it. The stun-poll has got fond-like of her.’

‘Is she lively – is she glad? Going to be married so soon – well.’

‘It isn’t so very soon.’

‘No; not so very soon.’

Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heart-ache within him. He rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand. When Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what he had heard. The old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his soul; and it was mainly because he had discovered that it was another man’s intention to possess her.

To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of what offered; to care for the remote, to dislike the near: it was Wildeve’s nature always. This is the true mark of the man of sentiment. Though Wildeve’s fevered feeling had not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it was of the standard sort. He might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon. 2

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