The old men on the rising straw-rick talked of the past days when they had been accustomed to thresh with flails on the oaken barn-floor; when everything, even to winnowing, was effected by hand-labour, which, to their thinking, though slow, produced better results.Those, too, on the corn-rick talked a little; but the perspiring ones at the machine, including Tess, could not lighten their duties by the exchange of many words.It was the ceaselessness of the work which tried her so severely, and began to make her wish that she had never come to Flintcomb-Ash.The women on the corn-rick - Marian, who was one of them, in particular - could stop to drink ale or cold tea from the flagon now and then, or to exchange a few gossiping remarks while they wiped their faces or cleared the fragments of straw and husk from their clothing; but for Tess there was no respite; for, as the drum never stopped, the man who fed it could not stop, and she, who had to supply the man with untied sheaves, could not stop either, unless Marian changed places with her, which she sometimes did for half an hour in spite of Groby's objection that she was too slow-handed for a feeder.
For some probably economical reason it was usually a woman who was chosen for this particular duty, and Groby gave as his motive in selecting Tess that she was one of those who best combined strength with quickness in untying, and both with staying power, and this may have been true.The hum of the thresher, which prevented speech, increased to a raving whenever the supply of corn fell short of the regular quantity.As Tess and the man who fed could never turn their heads she did not know that just before the dinner-hour a person had come silently into the field by the gate, and had been standing under a second rick watching the scene, and Tess in particular.He was dressed in a tweed suit of fashionable pattern, and he twirled a gay walking-cane.
`Who is that?' said Izz Huett to Marian.She had at first addressed the inquiry to Tess, but the latter could not hear it.
`Somebody's fancy-man, I s'pose,' said Marian laconically.
`I'll lay a guinea he's after Tess.'
`O no.'Tis a ranter parson who's been sniffing after her lately; not a dandy like this.'
`Well - this is the same man.'
`The same man as the preacher? But he's quite different!'
`He hev left off his black coat and white neckercher, and hev cut off his whiskers; but he's the same man for all that.'
`D'ye really think so? Then I'll tell her,' said Marian.
`Don't.She'll see him soon enough, good-now.'
`Well, I don't think it at all right for him to join his preaching to courting a married woman, even though her husband mid be abroad, and she, in a sense, a widow.'
`Oh - he can do her no harm,' said Izz drily.`Her mind can no more be heaved from that one place where it do bide than a stooded waggon from the hole he's in.Lord love 'ee, neither court-paying, nor preaching, nor the seven thunders themselves, can wean a woman when 'twould be better for her that she should be weaned.'
Dinner-time came, and the whirling ceased; whereupon Tess left her post, her knees trembling so wretchedly with the shaking of the machine that she could scarcely walk.
`You ought to het a quart o' drink into 'ee, as I've done,' said Marian.
`You wouldn't look so white then.Why, souls above us, your face is as if you'd been hagrode!'
It occurred to the good-natured Marian that, as Tess was so tired, her discovery of her visitor's presence might have the bad effect of taking away her appetite; and Marian was thinking of inducing Tess to descend by a ladder on the further side of the stack when the gentleman came forward and looked up.
Tess uttered a short little `Oh!' And a moment after she said, quickly, `I shall eat my dinner here - right on the rick.'
Sometimes, when they were so far from their cottages, they all did this;but as there was rather a keen wind going to-day, Marian and the rest descended, and sat under the straw-stack.
The new-comer was, indeed, Alec d'Urberville, the late Evangelist, despite his changed attire and aspect.It was obvious at a glance that the original Weltlust had come back; that he had restored himself, as nearly as a man could do who had grown three or four years older, to the old jaunty, slap-dash guise under which Tess had first known her admirer, and cousin so-called.Having decided to remain where she was, Tess sat down among the bundles, out of sight of the ground, and began her meal; till, by-and-by, she heard footsteps on the ladder, and immediately after Alec appeared upon the stack - now an oblong and level platform of sheaves.He strode across them, and sat down opposite to her without a word.
Tess continued to eat her modest dinner, a slice of thick pancake which she had brought with her.The other workfolk were by this time all gathered under the rick, where the loose straw formed a comfortable retreat.
`I am here again, as you see,' said d'Urberville.
`Why do you trouble me so!' she cried, reproach flashing from her very finger-ends.
`I trouble you ? I think I may ask, why do you trouble me?'
`Sure, I don't trouble you any-when!'
`You say you don't? But you do! You haunt me.Those very eyes that you turned upon me with such a bitter flash a moment ago, they come to me just as you showed them then, in the night and in the day! Tess, ever since you told me of that child of ours, it is lust as if my feelings, which have been flowing in a strong puritanical stream, had suddenly found a way open in the direction of you, and had all at once gushed through.The religious channel is left dry forthwith; and it is you who have done it!'
She gazed in silence.
`What - you have given up your preaching entirely?' she asked.
She had gathered from Angel sufficient of the incredulity of modern thought to despise flash enthusiams; but, as a woman, she was somewhat appalled.
