Chapter 27

It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfrae was
buying. As was usual, after reckoning too surely on famine
weather the local farmers had flown to the other extreme,
and (in Farfrae's opinion) were selling off too recklessly--
calculating with just a trifle too much certainty upon an
abundant yield. So he went on buying old corn at its
comparatively ridiculous price: for the produce of the
previous year, though not large, had been of excellent
quality.

When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way,
and got rid of his burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss,
the harvest began. There were three days of excellent
weather, and then--"What if that curst conjuror should be
right after all!" said Henchard.

The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begun to play
than the atmosphere suddenly felt as if cress would grow in
it without other nourishment. It rubbed people's cheeks
like damp flannel when they walked abroad. There was a
gusty, high, warm wind; isolated raindrops starred the
window-panes at remote distances: the sunlight would flap
out like a quickly opened fan, throw the pattern of the
window upon the floor of the room in a milky, colourless
shine, and withdraw as suddenly as it had appeared.

From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be
so successful an ingathering after all. If Henchard had
only waited long enough he might at least have avoided loss
though he had not made a profit. But the momentum of his
character knew no patience. At this turn of the scales he
remained silent. The movements of his mind seemed to tend
to the thought that some power was working against him.

"I wonder," he asked himself with eerie misgiving; "I wonder
if it can be that somebody has been roasting a waxen image
of me, or stirring an unholy brew to confound me! I don't
believe in such power; and yet--what if they should ha' been
doing it!" Even he could not admit that the perpetrator, if
any, might be Farfrae. These isolated hours of superstition
came to Henchard in time of moody depression, when all his
practical largeness of view had oozed out of him.

Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prospered. He had purchased in so
depressed a market that the present moderate stiffness of
prices was sufficient to pile for him a large heap of gold
where a little one had been.

"Why, he'll soon be Mayor!" said Henchard. It was indeed
hard that the speaker should, of all others, have to follow
the triumphal chariot of this man to the Capitol.

The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.

September-night shades had fallen upon Casterbridge; the
clocks had struck half-past eight, and the moon had risen.
The streets of the