Chapter 11 - Page 2

sanguinary nature of
the games originally played therein, such incidents attached
to its past as these: that for scores of years the town-
gallows had stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman who
had murdered her husband was half-strangled and then burnt
there in the presence of ten thousand spectators. Tradition
reports that at a certain stage of the burning her heart
burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all,
and that not one of those ten thousand people ever cared
particularly for hot roast after that. In addition to these
old tragedies, pugilistic encounters almost to the death had
come off down to recent dates in that secluded arena,
entirely invisible to the outside world save by climbing to
the top of the enclosure, which few towns-people in the
daily round of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So
that, though close to the turnpike-road, crimes might be
perpetrated there unseen at mid-day.

Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin by
using the central arena as a cricket-ground. But the game
usually languished for the aforesaid reason--the dismal
privacy which the earthen circle enforced, shutting out
every appreciative passer's vision, every commendatory
remark from outsiders--everything, except the sky; and to
play at games in such circumstances was like acting to an
empty house. Possibly, too, the boys were timid, for some
old people said that at certain moments in the summer time,
in broad daylight, persons sitting with a book or dozing in
the arena had, on lifting their eyes, beheld the slopes
lined with a gazing legion of Hadrian's soldiery as if
watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heard the roar of
their excited voices, that the scene would remain but a
moment, like a lightning flash, and then disappear.

It was related that there still remained under the south
entrance excavated cells for the reception of the wild
animals and athletes who took part in the games. The arena
was still smooth and circular, as if used for its original
purpose not so very long ago. The sloping pathways by which
spectators had ascended to their seats were pathways yet.
But the whole was grown over with grass, which now, at the
end of summer, was bearded with withered bents that formed
waves under the brush of the wind, returning to the
attentive ear aeolian modulations, and detaining for moments
the flying globes of thistledown.

Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from
observation which he could think of for meeting his long-
lost wife, and at the same time as one easily to be found by
a stranger after nightfall. As Mayor of the town, with a
reputation to keep up, he could not invite her to come to
his