The train did not stop at the petty roadside station that lay nearest to Stickleford,and the trio went on to Casterbridge.Ned thought it a good opportunity to make a few preliminary inquiries for employment at workshops in the borough where he had been known;and feeling cold from her journey,and it being dry underfoot and only dusk as yet,with a moon on the point of rising,Car'line and her little girl walked on toward Stickleford,leaving Ned to follow at a quicker pace,and pick her up at a certain half-way house,widely known as an inn.
The woman and child pursued the well-remembered way comfortably enough,though they were both becoming wearied.In the course of three miles they had passed Heedless-William's Pond,the familiar landmark by Bloom's End,and were drawing near the Quiet Woman Inn,a lone roadside hostel on the lower verge of the Egdon Heath,since and for many years abolished.In stepping up towards it Car'line heard more voices within than had formerly been customary at such an hour,and she learned that an auction of fat stock had been held near the spot that afternoon.The child would be the better for a rest as well as herself,she thought,and she entered.
The guests and customers overflowed into the passage,and Car'line had no sooner crossed the threshold than a man whom she remembered by sight came forward with glass and mug in his hands towards a friend leaning against the wall;but,seeing her,very gallantly offered her a drink of the liquor,which was gin-and-beer hot,pouring her out a tumblerful and saying,in a moment or two:'Surely,'tis little Car'line Aspent that was--down at Stickleford?'
She assented,and,though she did not exactly want this beverage,she drank it since it was offered,and her entertainer begged her to come in farther and sit down.Once within the room she found that all the persons present were seated close against the walls,and there being a chair vacant she did the same.An explanation of their position occurred the next moment.In the opposite corner stood Mop,rosining his bow and looking just the same as ever.The company had cleared the middle of the room for dancing,and they were about to dance again.As she wore a veil to keep off the wind she did not think he had recognized her,or could possibly guess the identity of the child;and to her satisfied surprise she found that she could confront him quite calmly--mistress of herself in the dignity her London life had given her.Before she had quite emptied her glass the dance was called,the dancers formed in two lines,the music sounded,and the figure began.
Then matters changed for Car'line.A tremor quickened itself to life in her,and her hand so shook that she could hardly set down her glass.It was not the dance nor the dancers,but the notes of that old violin which thrilled the London wife,these having still all the witchery that she had so well known of yore,and under which she had used to lose her power of independent will.How it all came back!
There was the fiddling figure against the wall;the large,oily,mop-like head of him,and beneath the mop the face with closed eyes.
After the first moments of paralyzed reverie the familiar tune in the familiar rendering made her laugh and shed tears simultaneously.
Then a man at the bottom of the dance,whose partner had dropped away,stretched out his hand and beckoned to her to take the place.
She did not want to dance;she entreated by signs to be left where she was,but she was entreating of the tune and its player rather than of the dancing man.The saltatory tendency which the fiddler and his cunning instrument had ever been able to start in her was seizing Car'line just as it had done in earlier years,possibly assisted by the gin-and-beer hot.Tired as she was she grasped her little girl by the hand,and plunging in at the bottom of the figure,whirled about with the rest.She found that her companions were mostly people of the neighbouring hamlets and farms--Bloom's End,Mellstock,Lewgate,and elsewhere;and by degrees she was recognized as she convulsively danced on,wishing that Mop would cease and let her heart rest from the aching he caused,and her feet also.
After long and many minutes the dance ended,when she was urged to fortify herself with more gin-and-beer;which she did,feeling very weak and overpowered with hysteric emotion.She refrained from unveiling,to keep Mop in ignorance of her presence,if possible.
Several of the guests having left,Car'line hastily wiped her lips and also turned to go;but,according to the account of some who remained,at that very moment a five-handed reel was proposed,in which two or three begged her to join.
She declined on the plea of being tired and having to walk to Stickleford,when Mop began aggressively tweedling 'My Fancy-Lad,'in D major,as the air to which the reel was to be footed.He must have recognized her,though she did not know it,for it was the strain of all seductive strains which she was least able to resist--the one he had played when she was leaning over the bridge at the date of their first acquaintance.Car'line stepped despairingly into the middle of the room with the other four.
