"I hear something."
Maryann suspended the brush.
The tramp of a horse was apparent, approaching the front of the building. The paces slackened, turned in at the wicket, and, what was most unusual, came up the mossy path close to the door.
The door was tapped with the end of a crop or stick.
"What impertinence!" said Liddy, in a low voice.
"To ride up the footpath like that!
Why didn't he stop at the gate?
Lord! 'Tis a gentleman!
I see the top of his hat."
"Be quiet!" said Bathsheba.
The further expression of Liddy's concern was con- tinued by aspect instead of narrative.
"Why doesn't Mrs. Coggan go to the door?" Bathsheba continued.
Rat-tat-tat-tat, resounded more decisively from Bathsheba's oak.
"Maryann, you go!" said she, fluttering under the onset of a crowd of romantic possibilities.
"O ma'am — see, here's a mess!"
The argument was unanswerable after a glance at Maryann.
"Liddy — you must." said Bathsheba.
Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated with dust from the rubbish they were sorting, and looked implor- ingly at her mistress.
"There — Mrs. Coggan is going!" said Bathsheba, exhaling her relief in the form of a long breath which had lain in her bosom a minute or more.
The door opened, and a deep voice said —
"Is Miss Everdene at home?"
"I'll see, sir." said Mrs. Coggan, and in a minute appeared in the room.
"Dear, what a thirtover place this world is!" con- tinued Mrs. Coggan (a wholesome-looking lady who had a voice for each class of remark according to the emotion involved; who could toss a pancake or twirl a mop with the accuracy of pure mathematics, and who at this moment showed hands shaggy with frag- ments of dough and arms encrusted with flour).
"I am never up to my elbows, Miss, in making a pudding but one of two things do happen — either my nose must needs begin tickling, and I can't live without scratching A woman's dress being a part of her countenance, and any disorder in the one being of the same nature with a malformation or wound in the other, Bathsheba said at once — "I can't see him in this state.
Whatever shall I do?"
Not-at-homes were hardly naturalized in Weatherbury farmhouses, so Liddy suggested —
"Say you're a fright with dust, and can't come down."
"Yes — that sounds very well." said Mrs. Coggan, critically.
"Say I can't see him — that will do."
Mrs. Coggan went downstairs, and returned the answer as requested, adding, however, on her own responsibility,
"Miss is dusting bottles, sir, and is quite a object — that's why 'tis."
"Oh, very well." said the deep voice." indifferently.
"All I wanted to ask was, if anything had been heard of Fanny Robin?"
"Nothing, sir — but we may know to-night.
William Smallbury is gone to Casterbridge, where her young man lives, as is supposed, and the other men be inquir- ing about everywhere."
The horse's tramp then recommenced and -retreated, and the door closed.
"Who is Mr. Boldwood?" said Bathsheba.
"A gentleman-farmer at Little Weatherbury."
"Married?"
"No, miss."
"How old is he?"
"Forty, I should say — very handsome — rather stern- looking — and rich."
"What a bother this dusting is!
I am always in some unfortunate plight or other," Bathsheba said, complainingly.
"Why should he inquire about Fanny?"
"Oh, because, as she had no friends in her childhood, he took her and put her to school, and got her her place here under your uncle.
He's a very kind man that way, but Lord — there!"
"What?"
"Never was such a hopeless man for a woman!
He's been courted by sixes and sevens — all the girls, gentle and simple, for miles round, have tried him.