There and thus they would muse; if their grief were the grief of oppression they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were poverty, wish themselves millionaires; if sin, they would wish they were saints or angels; if despised love, that they were some much-courted Adonis of county fame.
Some had been known to stand and think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had allowed their poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were discovered the next morning out of reach of their troubles, either here or in the deep pool called Blackwater, a little higher up the river.
To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunates had come before him, his way thither being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of the town.
Here he was standing one windy afternoon when Durnover church clock struck five.
While the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears across the damp intervening flat a man passed behind him and greeted Henchard by name.
Henchard turned slightly and saw that the corner was Jopp, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to whom, though he hated him, he had gone for lodgings because Jopp was the one man in Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen corn-merchant despised to the point of indifference.
Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp stopped.
“He and she are gone into their new house to-day,” said Jopp.
“Oh,” said Henchard absently. “Which house is that?”
“Your old one.”
“Gone into my house?” And starting up Henchard added, “MY house of all others in the town!”
“Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn’t, it can do ‘ee no harm that he’s the man.”
It was quite true: he felt that it was doing him no harm.
Farfrae, who had already taken the yards and stores, had acquired possession of the house for the obvious convenience of its contiguity.
And yet this act of his taking up residence within those roomy chambers while he, their former tenant, lived in a cottage, galled Henchard indescribably.
Jopp continued:
“And you heard of that fellow who bought all the best furniture at your sale?
He was bidding for no other than Farfrae all the while!
It has never been moved out of the house, as he’d already got the lease.”
“My furniture too!
Surely he’ll buy my body and soul likewise!”
“There’s no saying he won’t, if you be willing to sell.”
And having planted these wounds in the heart of his once imperious master Jopp went on his way; while Henchard stared and stared into the racing river till the bridge seemed moving backward with him.
The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey, When the landscape looked like a picture blotted in with ink, another traveller approached the great stone bridge.
He was driving a gig, his direction being also townwards.
On the round of the middle of the arch the gig stopped.
“Mr. Henchard?” came from it in the voice of Farfrae.
Henchard turned his face.
Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told the man who accompanied him to drive home; while he alighted and went up to his former friend.
“I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?” he said. “Is it true?
I have a real reason for asking.”
Henchard withheld his answer for several instants, and then said,
“Yes; it is true.
I am going where you were going to a few years ago, when I prevented you and got you to bide here.
‘Tis turn and turn about, isn’t it!
Do ye mind how we stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I persuaded ‘ee to stay?
You then stood without a chattel to your name, and I was the master of the house in Corn Street.
But now I stand without a stick or a rag, and the master of that house is you.”
“Yes, yes; that’s so!
It’s the way o’ the warrld,” said Farfrae.
“Ha, ha, true!” cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of jocularity. “Up and down!
I’m used to it.
What’s the odds after all!”
“Now listen to me, if it’s no taking up your time,” said Farfrae, “just as I listened to you. Don’t go.
Stay at home.”
“But I can do nothing else, man!” said Henchard scornfully. “The little money I have will just keep body and soul together for a few weeks, and no more.
I have not felt inclined to go back to journey-work yet; but I can’t stay doing nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere.”
“No; but what I propose is this—if ye will listen.
Come and live in your old house.
We can spare some rooms very well—I am sure my wife would not mind it at all—until there’s an opening for ye.”