Forty Two: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy - Joseph & His Burden: Buck's Head

A wall bounded the site of Casterbridge Union House. A long portion of the site was unwalled at the end. Here stood a gable, and it was covered by ivy, and a small door stood beyond the expanse of dark green leaves. The sill of the door was three or four feet above the ground. The ruts on the ground beneath indicated that the door was meant for vehicles carrying goods and passengers; it was not for pedestrians.  The entry and exit by the door was only at rare intervals: tufts of grass were growing undisturbed in the chinks of the sill.

The clock on the tower of St George's Church pointed at three minutes to three, and a blue spring wagon, picked out with red [1] containing boughs and flowers turned from the highroad and halted on this side of the gable.  The chimes were yet stammering out a shattered form of Malbrook [2]; Joseph Poorgrass rang the bell, and received direction to back his wagon against the high door under the gable. The door then opened, and a plain elm coffin was slowly thrust forth, and laid by two men in fustian along the middle of the wagon.  One of the two men then stepped up beside it, took from his pocket a lump of chalk, and wrote upon the cover Fanny Robin and child in a large scrawling hand.  He covered the whole with a black cloth, threadbare, but decent. The tailboard of the wagon was returned, one of the men handed a certificate of registry to Joseph Poorgrass, and both entered the door, closing it behind them.

Joseph Poorgrass then placed the flowers as enjoined, and the evergreens around the flowers, till it was difficult to divine  what the wagon contained; he smacked his whip, and the rather pleasing funeral car crept up the hill, and along the road to Weatherbury.  The afternoon drew apace, and, looking to the left towards the sea as he walked beside the horse, he saw strange clouds and scrolls of mist rolling over the high hills which girt the landscape in that quarter.  They came in greater volume, and crept across the swamps and river banks.  Their dark spongy forms closed in upon the sky.  It was a sudden overgrowth of atmospheric fungi, which had their roots in the neighbouring sea; and by the time the wagon entered Yalbury Great Wood they were completely enveloped by the fungi.  The atmosphere was changed. No motion in the air, no water fell upon a

leaf of beeches, birches and firs.  Only the crunching of wagon wheels and small rustle.

Joseph Poorgrass was alone and he wished he had the community of a dog.  The dead silence was broken by a heavy particle falling from a tree through the evergreens and alighting with a smart rap upon the coffin.

The fog had saturated, and water dropped from the overbrimming  leaves of trees.  The hollow echo of its fall reminded the wagoner painfully of the grim Leveller. Gradually the drops increased upon the dead leaves, the road and the travellers.  Small drops of mist beaded the boughs; rusty leaves of beeches were hung with drops, like diamonds on reddish brown hair.

A mile and half from Weatherbury stood Buck's Head, an old inn where many coaches and riders changed their horses. The inn stood away from the road, but a signboard hanging down from a horizontal bough of elm tree signified its existence.

Buck's Head was an old inn.  The travellers who used to visit the inn remember the peculiarities in which they conduct the business:

Rap with the bottom of your pint for more liquor.

Shout for tobacco.

Call the girl in waiting, "Maid!" 

Call the landlady, "Old Soul !" 

It was a relief to Joseph Poorgrass when he saw the sign board, and he instantly stopped his horse beneath it. He turned the horse's head to green bank and entered the inn for a mug of ale. Going down to the kitchen he saw Mr Jan Coggan and Mr Mark Clark sitting face to face over a three legged circular table. To Joseph they seemed a setting sun and a full moon shining visa-a-vis across the globe.

"Why, 'tis neighbour Poorgrass!" said Mark Clark.  "I am sure your face don't praise your mistress's table , Joseph." 

"I have had a very pale companion for the last five miles," said Joseph, indulging in a shudder toned down by resignation.  "And to speak the truth 't was beginning to tell upon me. Indeed, I haven't seen the colour of victuals or drink since breakfast time this morning, and that was no more than a dew-bit afield [3]

"Then drink Joseph, don't restrain yourself!" said Coggan, handing him a hooped mug, three quarters full.

Joseph drank for a moderately long time, then for longer time, saying,  as he lowered the mug, 'ts 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 coming to his tongue, and, lifting the cup, Coggan tilted his head gradually backwards, with closed eyes, that his soul might not be diverted from its bliss by irrelevant surroundings.

"Well, I must be on again," said Poorgrass, not that I should like another nip with you, but the coin might lose confidence in me if I was seen here." 

"Where you be trading on today, then?" 

"Back to Weatherbury.  I have got poor little Fanny Robin in my wagon outside, and I must be at churchyard gates at quarter to five with her." 

"The parish pays the grave half corn, but not the bell shilling, because bell is a luxurious, but she 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 your hurry, Joseph? The poor woman is 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 merest thimbleful of imagination more with you sonnies.  But only a few minutes because it's as it's."

"Of course you will have another drop.  A man is twice the man afterwards.  You feel so warm and glorious and you whop and slop at your work without any trouble and everything goes on like sticks a-breaking.  Too much liquor is bad, and leads us to horned man in the smoky house; but afterall many people have the gift enjoying a soak, and since we are having that power, we should make most of it."

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

"Well, really, I must be onward again," said Joseph Poorgrass.

"Now, now, Joseph, nonsense!  The poor woman is dead, isn't she, 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 have been drinking 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 lightly."

"I believe you to be a chapel member, Joseph, that you do."

"Oh, no, no!  I don't go so far as that." 

"For my part," said Coggan, "I am a stanch Church of England.

"Aye, 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 barley corn. "But I've never changed a single doctrine: I was born in a faith and I stuck to that faith.  A man can belong to a church, and bide in his cheerful old inn, and never bother the doctrines.

You must go to chapel in all winds and winter.  Chapel members can lift up beautiful prayers, all about their families and shipwrecks in news papers." 

"They can --- they can," said Mark Clark, "but we church going people must have printed all beforehand, dang it all, we should no more know what to say to a great person like Providence." 

"Chapel folk be more hand-in-glove with them," said Joseph, thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Coggan, "if anybody goes to heaven, let them go.  We have no chance. But I hate a fellow who changes his doctrine for the sake of heaven.  When everyone of my taties were frosted, our parson gave me a sack of seeds, though he hardly had one for his own use, and no money to buy them.  Do you think I would turn after that?  Never."

"Well said, very well said," observed Joseph Poorgrass.  "Folks, I must be moving now.  Parson Thirdly will be waiting at the church gate, and there's the woman a-biding outside in the wagon."

"Joseph Poorgrass, don't be so miserable, Parson Thirdly won't mind.  Sit down." 

The longer Joseph Poorgrass remained, the lesser he was troubled by dereliction of his duty. The minutes glided by, and evening shade began to deepen and the eyes of three were sparkling points in the darkness.  Coggan's watch struck.six from his pocket in usual small tones.

Hasty steps were heard at the entrance, and the door opened, and Gabriel Oak followed by a maid bearing a candle entered.  He stared sternly at the group around the round table.  Joseph Poorgrass blinked and shrank back.

"Upon my soul, I am ashamed of you; it's disgraceful, Joseph, disgraceful!" said Gabriel, indignantly.  "Coggan you call yourself a man, and don't know better than this!" 

Coggan looked up indefinitely at Oak, one or other of his eyes occasionally opening and closing of its own accord.

"Don't take on so, shepherd!" said Mr Mark Clark, looking reproachfully at the candle.

"Nobody can hurt a dead woman," at length said Coggan, with the precision of a machine.  "All that could be done for her is done --- she is beyond us.  And why should you put in a tearing hurry for lifeless clay that can neither feel nor see, and don't know what you do with her at all?  If she had been alive I would have been the first to help her.  Drink, shepherd, and be friends, for tomorrow we may be like her." 

"We may," added Mark Clark, emphatically at once, drinking himself.  Jan Coggan meanwhile merged his thoughts of tomorrow in a song:-

"To-mor-row, to-mor-row! And while Peace and plenty I find at my board

A heart free from sick and sorrow 

I share what today may afford, and 

Let them spread the table tomorrow 

To-- mor ---row, tomorrow ----

"Hold your horning Jan!" said Gabriel Oak.  And he turned upon Poorgrass, "As for you, Joseph Poorgrass, who do your wicked deeds in such a bafflingly holy ways, you are as drunk as you can stand." 

"No, shepherd Oak, no!  Listen to reason, shepherd.  All that is the matter with me is the affliction called a multiplying eye, and that is how it is I look double to you --- mean you look double to me." 

Gabriel saw that neither of the three was fit to take charge of the wagon, made no reply, closed the door again upon them and went to the wagon. It stood indistinct in the fog and gloom.  He pulled the horse's head from.the large patch of turf, readjusted the bough over the coffin and drove along through the unwholesome night.

By the time Gabriel had reached the old manor house, it was quite dark.  A man came from the gate  and said through the fog, which hung between them like blown flour "Is that Poorgrass with the corpse?"  Gabriel recognised the voice of the parson.  "The corpse is here, sir," said Gabriel.

"I have to inquire of Mrs Troy, if she could tell me the reason of the delay. I am afraid it is too late now for the funeral to be performed with proper decency. Have you the registrar's certificate?

"No." Gabriel said.  "I expect it  must be with Poorgrass. He is at Buck's Head inn."

"Then that settles the matter.  We will put off the funeral till tomorrow morning.  The body may be brought on to the church, or it may be left here at the farm and fetched by the bearers in the morning.  They waited more than an hour, and have now gone home."

Fanny had been an inmate of the Everdene house for several years in the lifetime of Bathsheba's uncle.  He went indoors to inquire of his mistress what were her wishes on the subject.  He found her in an unusual mood: her eyes as she looked upon him were suspicious and perplexed.  Troy had not yet returned.  At first Bathsheba agreed to accompany the coffin to the church, though she was not much enthusiastic about it. But later she asked Gabriel to to take the girl into the house.  Oak suggested the convenience of leaving her in the wagon, just as she lay now with her flowers and green leaves about her, merely wheeling the vehicle into the coach house till the morning.  But she said, "it is unkind and uncivilized to leave the poor girl in a coach all the night." 

"Very well then," said the parson, "and I will see that the funeral shall take place early morning.  Perhaps Mrs Troy is right." 

Gabriel brought three other men to assist him, and they bore the coffin indoors, and placed it in the middle of the sitting room next to the hall.

Everyone except Gabriel, then took leave. Suddenly, Gabriel noticed the chalk writing upon the coffin: "Fanny Robin and child" Gabriel took his handkerchief and carefully rubbed out "and child".  He then left the room and went quietly by the front door.

           END OF THE CHAPTER 

 

Notes:-

1.  A blue spring wagon picked out with red means a horse drawn spring wagon with a primary blue body, with wheels, pinstripes and undercarriage in bright red.

2. Malbrook: A popular French folk song dating back to the early 18th century.

3. Straight from the fiel with very little food.