ENTER A DRAGOON
I lately had a melancholy experience (said the gentleman who is
answerable for the truth of this story). It was that of going over a
doomed house with whose outside aspect I had long been familiar--a
house, that is, which by reason of age and dilapidation was to be
pulled down during the following week. Some of the thatch, brown and
rotten as the gills of old mushrooms, had, indeed, been removed
before I walked over the building. Seeing that it was only a very
small house--which is usually called a 'cottage-residence'--situated
in a remote hamlet, and that it was not more than a hundred years
old, if so much, I was led to think in my progress through the hollow
rooms, with their cracked walls and sloping floors, what an
exceptional number of abrupt family incidents had taken place
therein--to reckon only those which had come to my own knowledge.
And no doubt there were many more of which I had never heard.
It stood at the top of a garden stretching down to the lane or street
that ran through a hermit-group of dwellings in Mellstock parish.
From a green gate at the lower entrance, over which the thorn hedge
had been shaped to an arch by constant clippings, a gravel path
ascended between the box edges of once trim raspberry, strawberry,
and vegetable plots, towards the front door. This was in colour an
ancient and bleached green that could be rubbed off with the finger,
and it bore a small long-featured brass knocker covered with
verdigris in its crevices. For some years before this eve of
demolition the homestead had degenerated, and been divided into two
tenements to serve as cottages for farm labourers; but in its prime
it had indisputable claim to be considered neat, pretty, and genteel.
The variety of incidents above alluded to was mainly owing to the
nature of the tenure, whereby the place had been occupied by families
not quite of the kind customary in such spots--people whose
circumstances, position, or antecedents were more or less of a
critical happy-go-lucky cast. And of these residents the family
whose term comprised the story I wish to relate was that of Mr. Jacob
Paddock the market-gardener, who dwelt there for some years with his
wife and grown-up daughter.
I
An evident commotion was agitating the premises, which jerked busy
sounds across the front plot, resembling those of a disturbed hive.
If a member of the household appeared at the door it was with a
countenance of abstraction and concern.
Evening began to bend over the scene; and the other inhabitants of
the hamlet came out to draw water, their common well being in the
public road opposite the garden and house of the Paddocks. Having
wound up their bucketsfull respectively they lingered, and spoke
significantly together. From their words any casual listener might
have gathered information of what had occurred.
The woodman who lived nearest the site of the story told most of the
tale. Selina, the daughter of the Paddocks opposite, had been
surprised that afternoon by receiving a letter from her once intended
husband, then a corporal, but now a sergeant-major of dragoons, whom
she had hitherto supposed to be one of the slain in the Battle of the
Alma two or three years before.
'She picked up wi'en against her father's wish, as we know, and
before he got his stripes,' their informant continued. 'Not but that
the man was as hearty a feller as you'd meet this side o' London.
But Jacob, you see, wished her to do better, and one can understand
it. However, she was determined to stick to him at that time; and
for what happened she was not much to blame, so near as they were to
matrimony when the war broke out and spoiled all.'
'Even the very pig had been killed for the wedding,' said a woman,
'and the barrel o' beer ordered in. O, the man meant honourable
enough. But to be off in two days to fight in a foreign country--
'twas natural of her father to say they should wait till he got
back.'
'And he never came,' murmured one in the shade.
'The war ended but her man never turned up again. She was not sure
he was killed, but was too proud, or too timid, to go and hunt for
him.'
'One reason why her father forgave her when he found out how matters
stood was, as he said plain at the time, that he liked the man, and
could see that he meant to act straight. So the old folks made the
best of what they couldn't mend, and kept her there with 'em, when
some wouldn't. Time has proved seemingly that he did mean to act
straight, now that he has writ to her that he's coming. She'd have
stuck to him all through the time, 'tis my belief; if t'other hadn't
come along.'
'At the time of the courtship,' resumed the woodman, 'the regiment
was quartered in Casterbridge Barracks, and he and she got acquainted
by his calling to buy a penn'orth of rathe-ripes off that tree yonder
in her father's orchard--though 'twas said he seed HER over hedge as
well as the apples. He declared 'twas a kind of apple he much
fancied; and he called for a penn'orth every day till the tree was
cleared. It ended in his calling for her.'
''Twas a thousand pities they didn't jine up at once and ha' done wi'
it.
'Well; better late than never, if so be he'll have her now. But,
Lord, she'd that faith in 'en that she'd no more belief that he was
alive, when a' didn't come, than that the undermost man in our
churchyard was alive. She'd never have thought of another but for
that--O no!'
''Tis awkward, altogether, for her now.'
'Still she hadn't married wi' the new man. Though to be sure she
would have committed it next week, even the licence being got, they
say, for she'd have no banns this time, the first being so
unfortunate.'
'Perhaps the sergeant-major will think he's released, and go as he
came.'
'O, not as I reckon. Soldiers bain't particular, and she's a tidy
piece o' furniture still. What will happen is that she'll have her
soldier, and break off with the master-wheelwright, licence or no--
daze me if she won't.'
In the progress of these desultory conjectures the form of another
neighbour arose in the gloom. She nodded to the people at the well,
who replied 'G'd night, Mrs. Stone,' as she passed through Mr.
Paddock's gate towards his door. She was an intimate friend of the
latter's household, and the group followed her with their eyes up the
path and past the windows, which were now lighted up by candles
inside.
