The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian army, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the Turkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George himself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen.  The guisers themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of persons, could not afford to offend those by whose assistance they so largely profited, and the innovations were allowed to stand.

There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity.  The Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact:  his darker habiliments, peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his arm, could never be mistaken.  And the same might be said of the conventional figure of Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an older man, who accompanied the band as general protector in long night journeys from parish to parish, and was bearer of the purse.

Seven o’clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuel-house.  To dissipate in some trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life she went to the “linhay” or lean-to-shed, which formed the root-store of their dwelling and abutted on the fuel-house.  Here was a small rough hole in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which the interior of the next shed could be viewed.  A light came from it now; and Eustacia stepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.

On a ledge in the fuel-house stood three tall rush-lights and by the light of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and confusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.  Humphrey and Sam, the furze and turf cutters, were there looking on, so also was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted the boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and anecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon mummers-elect that these lads were now.

“Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be,” he said.  “Not that such mumming would have passed in our time.  Harry as the Saracen should strut a bit more, and John needn’t holler his inside out.  Beyond that perhaps you’ll do.  Have you got all your clothes ready?”

“We shall by Monday.”

“Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?”

“Yes.  At Mrs. Yeobright’s.”

“Oh, Mrs. Yeobright’s.  What makes her want to see ye?  I should think a middle-aged woman was tired of mumming.”

“She’s got up a bit of a party, because ’tis the first Christmas that her son Clym has been home for a long time.”

“To be sure, to be sure—­her party!  I am going myself.  I almost forgot it, upon my life.”

Eustacia’s face flagged.  There was to be a party at the Yeobrights’; she, naturally, had nothing to do with it.  She was a stranger to all such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely appertaining to her sphere.  But had she been going, what an opportunity would have been afforded her of seeing the man whose influence was penetrating her like summer sun!  To increase that influence was coveted excitement; to cast it off might be to regain serenity; to leave it as it stood was tantalizing.