Tess of the dUrbervilles - Page 43/283

A few minutes later the chimneys of The Slopes appeared in view, and

in a snug nook to the right the poultry-farm and cottage of Tess'

destination.

IX

The community of fowls to which Tess had been appointed as

supervisor, purveyor, nurse, surgeon, and friend made its

headquarters in an old thatched cottage standing in an enclosure that

had once been a garden, but was now a trampled and sanded square.

The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the

boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower. The lower

rooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked about them

with a proprietary air, as though the place had been built by

themselves, and not by certain dusty copyholders who now lay east

and west in the churchyard. The descendants of these bygone owners

felt it almost as a slight to their family when the house which had

so much of their affection, had cost so much of their forefathers'

money, and had been in their possession for several generations

before the d'Urbervilles came and built here, was indifferently

turned into a fowl-house by Mrs Stoke-d'Urberville as soon as the

property fell into hand according to law. "'Twas good enough for

Christians in grandfather's time," they said.

The rooms wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now

resounded with the tapping of nascent chicks. Distracted hens in

coops occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting sedate

agriculturists. The chimney-corner and once-blazing hearth was now

filled with inverted beehives, in which the hens laid their eggs;

while out of doors the plots that each succeeding householder had

carefully shaped with his spade were torn by the cocks in wildest

fashion. The garden in which the cottage stood was surrounded by a wall, and

could only be entered through a door.

When Tess had occupied herself about an hour the next morning in

altering and improving the arrangements, according to her skilled

ideas as the daughter of a professed poulterer, the door in the wall

opened and a servant in white cap and apron entered. She had come

from the manor-house. "Mrs d'Urberville wants the fowls as usual," she said; but perceiving

that Tess did not quite understand, she explained, "Mis'ess is a old

lady, and blind." "Blind!" said Tess.

Almost before her misgiving at the news could find time to shape

itself she took, under her companion's direction, two of the

most beautiful of the Hamburghs in her arms, and followed the

maid-servant, who had likewise taken two, to the adjacent mansion,

which, though ornate and imposing, showed traces everywhere on this

side that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love of

dumb creatures--feathers floating within view of the front, and

hen-coops standing on the grass.