“Eh!” she said to her husband, as they set off in the cart, “I’d sooner ha’ brewin’ day and washin’ day together than one o’ these pleasurin’ days.  There’s no work so tirin’ as danglin’ about an’ starin’ an’ not rightly knowin’ what you’re goin’ to do next; and keepin’ your face i’ smilin’ order like a grocer o’ market-day for fear people shouldna think you civil enough.  An’ you’ve nothing to show for’t when it’s done, if it isn’t a yallow face wi’ eatin’ things as disagree.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who was in his merriest mood, and felt that he had had a great day, “a bit o’ pleasuring’s good for thee sometimes.  An’ thee danc’st as well as any of ’em, for I’ll back thee against all the wives i’ the parish for a light foot an’ ankle.  An’ it was a great honour for the young squire to ask thee first—­I reckon it was because I sat at th’ head o’ the table an’ made the speech.  An’ Hetty too—­she never had such a partner before—­a fine young gentleman in reg’mentals.  It’ll serve you to talk on, Hetty, when you’re an old woman—­how you danced wi’ th’ young squire the day he come o’ age.”

Book Four

Chapter XXVII

A crisis

It was beyond the middle of August—­nearly three weeks after the birthday feast.  The reaping of the wheat had begun in our north midland county of Loamshire, but the harvest was likely still to be retarded by the heavy rains, which were causing inundations and much damage throughout the country.  From this last trouble the Broxton and Hayslope farmers, on their pleasant uplands and in their brook-watered valleys, had not suffered, and as I cannot pretend that they were such exceptional farmers as to love the general good better than their own, you will infer that they were not in very low spirits about the rapid rise in the price of bread, so long as there was hope of gathering in their own corn undamaged; and occasional days of sunshine and drying winds flattered this hope.

The eighteenth of August was one of these days when the sunshine looked brighter in all eyes for the gloom that went before.  Grand masses of cloud were hurried across the blue, and the great round hills behind the Chase seemed alive with their flying shadows; the sun was hidden for a moment, and then shone out warm again like a recovered joy; the leaves, still green, were tossed off the hedgerow trees by the wind; around the farmhouses there was a sound of clapping doors; the apples fell in the orchards; and the stray horses on the green sides of the lanes and on the common had their manes blown about their faces.  And yet the wind seemed only part of the general gladness because the sun was shining.  A merry day for the children, who ran and shouted to see if they could top the wind with their voices; and the grown-up people too were in good spirits, inclined to believe in yet finer days, when the wind had fallen.  If only the corn were not ripe enough to be blown out of the husk and scattered as untimely seed!