Free Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) by Thomas Hardy Page B

would entail, and to accept weekly wages which to one with his expectations would be considered merely nominal, the post would give him an opportunity for learning a few more details of the profession.
    ‘It is a beginning, and, above all, an abiding-place, away from the shadow of the cloud which hangs over us here — I will go,’ said Owen.
    Cytherea’s plan for her future, an intensely simple one, owing to the even greater narrowness of her resources, was already marked out. One advantage had accrued to her through her mother’s possession of a fair share of personal property, and perhaps only one. She had been carefully educated. Upon this consideration her plan was based. She was to take up her abode in her brother’s lodging at Budmouth, when she would immediately advertise for a situation as governess, having obtained the consent of a lawyer at Aldbrickham who was winding up her father’s affairs, and who knew the history of her position, to allow himself to be referred to in the matter of her past life and respectability.
    Early one morning they departed from their native town, leaving behind them scarcely a trace of their footsteps.
    Then the town pitied their want of wisdom in taking such a step. ‘Rashness; they would have made a better income in Hocbridge, where they are known! There is no doubt that they would.’
    But what is Wisdom really? A steady handling of any means to bring about any end necessary to happiness.
    Yet whether one’s end be the usual end — a wealthy position in life — or no, the name of wisdom is seldom applied but to the means to that usual end.
     

II. THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT
     
    1. THE NINTH OF JULY
     
    The day of their departure was one of the most glowing that the climax of a long series of summer heats could evolve. The wide expanse of landscape quivered up and down like the flame of a taper, as they steamed along through the midst of it. Placid flocks of sheep reclining under trees a little way off appeared of a pale blue colour. Clover fields were livid with the brightness of the sun upon their deep red flowers. All waggons and carts were moved to the shade by their careful owners, rain-water butts fell to pieces; well-buckets were lowered inside the covers of the well-hole, to preserve them from the fate of the butts, and generally, water seemed scarcer in the country than the beer and cider of the peasantry who toiled or idled there.
    To see persons looking with children’s eyes at any ordinary scenery, is a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new sensations from an old experience — a healthy sign, rare in these feverish days — the mark of an imperishable brightness of nature.
    Both brother and sister could do this; Cytherea more noticeably. They watched the undulating corn-lands, monotonous to all their companions; the stony and clayey prospect succeeding those, with its angular and abrupt hills. Boggy moors came next, now withered and dry — the spots upon which pools usually spread their waters showing themselves as circles of smooth bare soil, over-run by a net-work of innumerable little fissures. Then arose plantations of firs, abruptly terminating beside meadows cleanly mown, in which high-hipped, rich-coloured cows, with backs horizontal and straight as the ridge of a house, stood motionless or lazily fed. Glimpses of the sea now interested them, which became more and more frequent till the train finally drew up beside the platform at Budmouth.
    ‘The whole town is looking out for us,’ had been Graye’s impression throughout the day. He called upon Mr. Gradfield — the only man who had been directly informed of his coming — and found that Mr. Gradfield had forgotten it.
    However, arrangements were made with this gentleman — a stout, active, grey-bearded burgher of sixty — by which Owen was to commence work in his office the following week.
    The same day Cytherea drew up and sent off the advertisement appended: —
      ‘A