She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned within.  At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo denied to others around.  She had something of an estranged mien; the solitude exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that had risen from it.  The air with which she looked at the heathmen betokened a certain unconcern at their presence, or at what might be their opinions of her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour, this indirectly implying that in some respect or other they were not up to her level.  The explanation lay in the fact that though her husband had been a small farmer she herself was a curate’s daughter, who had once dreamt of doing better things.

Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who entered now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own tone into a company.  Her normal manner among the heathfolk had that reticence which results from the consciousness of superior communicative power.  But the effect of coming into society and light after lonely wandering in darkness is a sociability in the comer above its usual pitch, expressed in the features even more than in words.

“Why, ’tis Mis’ess Yeobright,” said Fairway.  “Mis’ess Yeobright, not ten minutes ago a man was here asking for you—­a reddleman.”

“What did he want?” said she.

“He didn’t tell us.”

“Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to understand.”

“I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas, ma’am,” said Sam, the turf-cutter.  “What a dog he used to be for bonfires!”

“Yes.  I believe he is coming,” she said.

“He must be a fine fellow by this time,” said Fairway.

“He is a man now,” she replied quietly.

“’Tis very lonesome for ’ee in the heth tonight, mis’ess,” said Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained.  “Mind you don’t get lost.  Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in, and the winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard ’em afore.  Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times.”

“Is that you, Christian?” said Mrs. Yeobright.  “What made you hide away from me?”

“’Twas that I didn’t know you in this light, mis’ess; and being a man of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that’s all.  Oftentimes if you could see how terrible down I get in my mind, ’twould make ’ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my hand.”

“You don’t take after your father,” said Mrs. Yeobright, looking towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality, was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.

“Now, Grandfer,” said Timothy Fairway, “we are ashamed of ye.  A reverent old patriarch man as you be—­seventy if a day—­to go hornpiping like that by yourself!”