While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an
animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt,
the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having
seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of
the event, and indulging in predictions of his future.
"And who's he?" asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy
entered.
"Well ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. He's my great-nephew--come since
you was last this way." The old inhabitant who answered was a tall,
gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and
gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. "He come
from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year ago--worse luck
for 'n, Belinda" (turning to the right) "where his father was living,
and was took wi' the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you
know, Caroline" (turning to the left). "It would ha' been a blessing
if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wi' thy mother and father, poor
useless boy! But I've got him here to stay with me till I can see
what's to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any
penny he can. Just now he's a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.
It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?" she
continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps
upon his face, moved aside.
The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of
Miss or Mrs. Fawley's (as they called her indifferently) to have him
with her--"to kip 'ee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet
the winder-shetters o' nights, and help in the bit o' baking."
Miss Fawley doubted it.... "Why didn't ye get the schoolmaster to
take 'ee to Christminster wi' un, and make a scholar of 'ee," she
continued, in frowning pleasantry. "I'm sure he couldn't ha' took a
better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our
family rather. His cousin Sue is just the same--so I've heard; but
I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this
place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her
husband, after they were married, didn' get a house of their own for
some year or more; and then they only had one till--Well, I won't go
into that. Jude, my child, don't you ever marry. 'Tisn't for the
Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like
a child o' my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little
maid should know such changes!"