Having changed her dress, and before she had eaten or drunk—­for she could not take her ease till she had ascertained some particulars—­Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the water-side to the cottage indicated.  Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she discerned on the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines against the sky, where the specks had been moving in her distant view; she recognized what the erection was, and passed quickly on.  Another hundred yards brought her to the executioner’s house, which a boy pointed out It stood close to the same stream, and was hard by a weir, the waters of which emitted a steady roar.

While she stood hesitating the door opened, and an old man came forth shading a candle with one hand.  Locking the door on the outside, he turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end of the cottage, and began to ascend them, this being evidently the staircase to his bedroom.  Gertrude hastened forward, but by the time she reached the foot of the ladder he was at the top.  She called to him loudly enough to be heard above the roar of the weir; he looked down and said, ’What d’ye want here?’

‘To speak to you a minute.’

The candle-light, such as it was, fell upon her imploring, pale, upturned face, and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down the ladder.  ’I was just going to bed,’ he said; ’"Early to bed and early to rise,” but I don’t mind stopping a minute for such a one as you.  Come into house.’  He reopened the door, and preceded her to the room within.

The implements of his daily work, which was that of a jobbing gardener, stood in a corner, and seeing probably that she looked rural, he said, ’If you want me to undertake country work I can’t come, for I never leave Casterbridge for gentle nor simple—­not I. My real calling is officer of justice,’ he added formally.

‘Yes, yes!  That’s it.  To-morrow!’

’Ah!  I thought so.  Well, what’s the matter about that?  ’Tis no use to come here about the knot—­folks do come continually, but I tell ’em one knot is as merciful as another if ye keep it under the ear.  Is the unfortunate man a relation; or, I should say, perhaps’ (looking at her dress) ‘a person who’s been in your employ?’

‘No.  What time is the execution?’

’The same as usual—­twelve o’clock, or as soon after as the London mail-coach gets in.  We always wait for that, in case of a reprieve.’

‘O—­a reprieve—­I hope not!’ she said involuntarily,

’Well,—­hee, hee!—­as a matter of business, so do I!  But still, if ever a young fellow deserved to be let off, this one does; only just turned eighteen, and only present by chance when the rick was fired.  Howsomever, there’s not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make an example of him, there having been so much destruction of property that way lately.’

‘I mean,’ she explained, ’that I want to touch him for a charm, a cure of an affliction, by the advice of a man who has proved the virtue of the remedy.’