“So ’twould, neighbour Fairway.”

“‘Be damned if there isn’t Mis’ess Yeobright a-standing up,’ I said,” the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same passionless severity of face as before, which proved how entirely necessity and not gusto had to do with the iteration.  “And the next thing I heard was, ‘I forbid the banns,’ from her.  ’I’ll speak to you after the service,’ said the parson, in quite a homely way—­yes, turning all at once into a common man no holier than you or I. Ah, her face was pale!  Maybe you can call to mind that monument in Weatherbury church—­the cross-legged soldier that have had his arm knocked away by the school-children?  Well, he would about have matched that woman’s face, when she said, ‘I forbid the banns.’”

The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time to weigh the moral of the story.

“I’m sure when I heard they’d been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody had gied me sixpence,” said an earnest voice—­that of Olly Dowden, a woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms.  Her nature was to be civil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the world for letting her remain alive.

“And now the maid have married him just the same,” said Humphrey.

“After that Mis’ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,” Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were no appendage to Humphrey’s, but the result of independent reflection.

“Supposing they were ashamed, I don’t see why they shouldn’t have done it here-right,” said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked like shoes whenever she stooped or turned. “’Tis well to call the neighbours together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it may as well be when there’s a wedding as at tide-times.  I don’t care for close ways.”

“Ah, now, you’d hardly believe it, but I don’t care for gay weddings,” said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round.  “I hardly blame Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if I must own it.  A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by the hour; and they do a man’s legs no good when he’s over forty.”

“True.  Once at the woman’s house you can hardly say nay to being one in a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth your victuals.”

“You be bound to dance at Christmas because ‘tis the time o’ year; you must dance at weddings because ‘tis the time o’ life.  At christenings folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if ’tis no further on than the first or second chiel.  And this is not naming the songs you’ve got to sing...  For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.  You’ve as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties, and even better.  And it don’t wear your legs to stumps in talking over a poor fellow’s ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes.”