“Poor darlings—­to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o’ such misery as yours!” she exclaimed, her tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly.  “And not a twinge of bodily pain about me!  I be not mangled, and I be not bleeding, and I have two hands to feed and clothe me.”  She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society which had no foundation in Nature.

XLII

It was now broad day, and she started again, emerging cautiously upon the highway.  But there was no need for caution; not a soul was at hand, and Tess went onward with fortitude, her recollection of the birds’ silent endurance of their night of agony impressing upon her the relativity of sorrows and the tolerable nature of her own, if she could once rise high enough to despise opinion.  But that she could not do so long as it was held by Clare.

She reached Chalk-Newton, and breakfasted at an inn, where several young men were troublesomely complimentary to her good looks.  Somehow she felt hopeful, for was it not possible that her husband also might say these same things to her even yet?  She was bound to take care of herself on the chance of it, and keep off these casual lovers.  To this end Tess resolved to run no further risks from her appearance.  As soon as she got out of the village she entered a thicket and took from her basket one of the oldest field-gowns, which she had never put on even at the dairy—­never since she had worked among the stubble at Marlott.  She also, by a felicitous thought, took a handkerchief from her bundle and tied it round her face under her bonnet, covering her chin and half her cheeks and temples, as if she were suffering from toothache.  Then with her little scissors, by the aid of a pocket looking-glass, she mercilessly nipped her eyebrows off, and thus insured against aggressive admiration, she went on her uneven way.

“What a mommet of a maid!” said the next man who met her to a companion.

Tears came into her eyes for very pity of herself as she heard him.

“But I don’t care!” she said.  “O no—­I don’t care!  I’ll always be ugly now, because Angel is not here, and I have nobody to take care of me.  My husband that was is gone away, and never will love me any more; but I love him just the same, and hate all other men, and like to make ’em think scornfully of me!”

Thus Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the landscape; a fieldwoman pure and simple, in winter guise; a gray serge cape, a red woollen cravat, a stuff skirt covered by a whitey-brown rough wrapper, and buff-leather gloves.  Every thread of that old attire has become faded and thin under the stroke of raindrops, the burn of sunbeams, and the stress of winds.  There is no sign of young passion in her now—­