LIX
The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime
capital of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave
downlands in all the brightness and warmth of a July
morning. The gabled brick, tile, and freestone houses
had almost dried off for the season their integument of
lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the
sloping High Street, from the West Gateway to the
mediaeval cross, and from the mediaeval cross to the
bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping was in
progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned
market-day.
From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every
Wintoncestrian knows, ascends a long and regular
incline of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving
the houses gradually behind. Up this road from the
precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly,
as if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious
through preoccupation and not through buoyancy. They
had emerged upon this road through a narrow barred
wicket in a high wall a little lower down. They seemed
anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and of
their kind, and this road appeared to offer the
quickest means of doing so. Though they were young
they walked with bowed heads, which gait of grief the
sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.
One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall
budding creature--half girl, half woman--a
spiritualized image of Tess, slighter than she, but
with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's sister-in-law,
'Liza-Lu. Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk to
half their natural size. They moved on hand in hand,
and never spoke a word, the drooping of their heads
being that of Giotto's "Two Apostles".
When they had nearly reached the top of the great West
Hill the clocks in the town struck eight. Each gave a
start at the notes, and, walking onward yet a few
steps, they reached the first milestone, standing
whitely on the green margin of the grass, and backed by
the down, which here was open to the road. They
entered upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that
seemed to overrule their will, suddenly stood still,
turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense beside the
stone.
The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited.
In the valley beneath lay the city they had just left,
its more prominent buildings showing as in an isometric
drawing--among them the broad cathedral tower, with
its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and
nave, the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of
the College, and, more to the right, the tower and
gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the
pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale. Behind
the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's
Hill; further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the
horizon was lost in the radiance of the sun hanging
above it.
Against these far stretches of country rose, in front
of the other city edifices, a large red-brick building,
with level gray roofs, and rows of short barred windows
bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by
its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the
Gothic erections. It was somewhat disguised from the
road in passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it
was visible enough up here. The wicket from which the
pair had lately emerged was in the wall of this
structure. From the middle of the building an ugly
flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east
horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its shady side
and against the light, it seemed the one blot on the
city's beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with
the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.
Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed.
Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the
hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff,
and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag.
"Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals,
in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.
And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in
their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent
themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and
remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the
flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had
strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
