Chapter 1

One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century
had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman,
the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large
village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They
were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust
which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an
obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to
their appearance just now.

The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect;
and he showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined
as to be almost perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of
brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which
was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of
the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with
black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped
strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the
crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also
visible in the aperture. His measured, springless walk was
the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from the
desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn
and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and
cynical indifference personal to himself, showing its
presence even in the regularly interchanging fustian folds,
now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along.

What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's
progress, and would have attracted the attention of any
casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook them, was the
perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side in
such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy,
confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on
closer view it could be discerned that the man was reading,
or pretending to read, a ballad sheet which he kept before
his eyes with some difficulty by the hand that was passed
through the basket strap. Whether this apparent cause were
the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape
an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody
but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity
was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from
his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone, save
for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow
almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his
side as was possible without actual contact, but she seemed
to have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it;
and far from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence she
appeared to receive it as a natural thing. If any word at
all were uttered by the little group, it was an occasional
whisper of the woman to the child--a tiny girl in short
clothes and