In our beautiful Blackmoor or Blakemore Vale not far from the point where the Melchester Road turns sharply towards Icenhurst on its way to Wintoncester, having on one side the hamlet of Batton, on the other the larger town of Casterbridge, stands the farmhouse wherewith in this narrative we have to deal. There for generations have dwelt the rustic family of the Peeps, handing down from father to son a well-stocked cow-shed and a tradition of rural virtues which yet excluded not an overgreat affection on the male side for the home-brewed ale and the home-made language in which, as is known, the Wess.e.x peasantry delights.

On this winter morning the smoke rose thinly into the still atmosphere, and faded there as though ashamed of bringing a touch of Thermidorean warmth into a degree of temperature not far removed from the zero-mark of the local Fahrenheit. Within, a fire of good Wess.e.x logs crackled cheerily upon the hearth. Old Abraham Peep sat on one side of the fireplace, his figure yet telling a tale of former vigour. On the other sat Polly, his wife, an aimless, neutral, slatternly peasant woman, such as in these parts a man may find with the profusion of Wess.e.x blackberries. An empty chair between them spoke with all an empty chair's eloquence of an absent inmate. A b.u.t.ter-churn stood in a corner next to an ancient clock that had ticked away the mortality of many a past and gone Peep.

CHAPTER II.

"Where be Bonduca?" said Abraham, shifting his body upon his chair so as to bring his wife's faded tints better into view. "Like enough she's met in with that slack-twisted 'hor's bird of a feller, Tom Tatters. And she'll let the sheep draggle round the hills. My soul, but I'd like to baste 'en for a poor slammick of a chap."

Mrs. Peep smiled feebly. She had had her troubles. Like other realities, they took on themselves a metaphysical mantle of infallibility, sinking to minor cerebral phenomena for quiet contemplation. She had no notion how they did this. And, it must be added, that they might, had they felt so disposed, have stood as pressing concretions which chafe body and soul--a most disagreeable state of things, peculiar to the miserably pa.s.sive existence of a Wess.e.x peasant woman.

"Bonduca went early," she said, adding, with a weak irrelevance, "she mid 'a' had her pick to-day. A mampus o' men have bin after her--fourteen o' 'em, all the best lads round about, some of 'em wi'

bags and bags of gold to their names, and all wanting Bonduca to be their lawful wedded wife."

Abraham shifted again. A cunning smile played about the hard lines of his face. "Polly," he said, bringing his closed fist down upon his knee with a sudden violence, "you pick the richest, and let him carry Bonduca to the pa'son. Good looks wear badly, and good characters be of no account; but the gold's the thing for us. Why," he continued, meditatively, "the old house could be new thatched, and you and me live like Lords and Ladies, away from the mulch o' the barton, all in silks and satins, wi' golden crowns to our heads, and silver buckles to our feet."

Polly nodded eagerly. She was a Wess.e.x woman born, and thoroughly understood the pure and unsophisticated nature of the Wess.e.x peasant.

CHAPTER III.

Meanwhile Bonduca Peep--little Bo Peep was the name by which the country-folk all knew her--sat dreaming upon the hill-side, looking out with a premature woman's eyes upon the rich valley that stretched away to the horizon. The rest of the landscape was made up of agricultural scenes and incidents which the slightest knowledge of Wess.e.x novels can fill in amply. There were rows of swedes, legions of dairymen, maidens to milk the lowing cows that grazed soberly upon the rich pasture, farmers speaking rough words of an uncouth dialect, and gentlefolk careless of a milkmaid's honour. But nowhere, as far as the eye could reach, was there a sign of the sheep that Bo had that morning set forth to tend for her parents. Bo had a flexuous and finely-drawn figure not unreminiscent of many a vanished knight and dame, her remote progenitors, whose dust now mouldered in many churchyards. There was about her an amplitude of curve which, joined to a certain luxuriance of moulding, betrayed her s.e.x even to a careless observer. And when she spoke, it was often with a fetishistic utterance in a monotheistic falsetto which almost had the effect of startling her relations into temporary propriety.

CHAPTER IV.

Thus she sat for some time in the suspended att.i.tude of an amiable tiger-cat at pause on the edge of a spring. A rustle behind her caused her to turn her head, and she saw a strange procession advancing over the parched fields where--[Two pages of field-scenery omitted.--ED.] One by one they toiled along, a far-stretching line of women sharply defined against the sky. All were young, and most of them haughty and full of feminine waywardness. Here and there a coronet sparkled on some n.o.ble brow where predestined suffering had set its stamp. But what most distinguished these remarkable processionists in the clear noon of this winter day was that each one carried in her arms an infant. And each one, as she reached the place where the enthralled Bonduca sat obliviscent of her sheep, stopped for a moment and laid the baby down.

First came the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamptonshire followed at an interval by Lady Mottisfont and the Marchioness of Stonehenge. To them succeeded Barbara of the House of Grebe, Lady Icenway and Squire Petrick's lady. Next followed the Countess of Wess.e.x, the Honourable Laura and the Lady Penelope. Anna, Lady Baxby, brought up the rear.

Bonduca shuddered at the terrible re-encounter. Was her young life to be surrounded with infants? She was not a baby-farm after all, and the audition of these squalling nurslings vexed her. What could the matter mean? No answer was given to these questionings. A man's figure, vast and terrible, appeared on the hill's brow, with a cruel look of triumph on his wicked face. It was Thomas Tatters. Bonduca cowered; the n.o.ble dames fled shrieking down the valley.

"Bo," said he, "my own sweet Bo, behold the blood-red ray in the spectrum of your young life."

"Say those words quickly," she retorted.

"Certainly," said Tatters. "Blood-red ray, Broo-red ray, Broo-re-ray, Brooray! Tush!" he broke off, vexed with Bonduca and his own imperfect tongue-power, "you are fooling me. Beware!"

"I know you, I know you!" was all she could gasp, as she bowed herself submissive before him. "I detest you, and shall therefore marry you.

Trample upon me!" And he trampled upon her.

CHAPTER V.

Thus Bo Peep lost her sheep, leaving these fleecy tail-bearers to come home solitary to the accustomed fold. She did but humble herself before the manifestation of a Wess.e.x necessity.

And Fate, sitting aloft in the careless expanse of ether, rolled her destined chariots thundering along the pre-ordained highways of heaven, crushing a soul here and a life there with the tragic completeness of a steam-roller, granite-smashing, steam-fed, irresistible. And b.u.t.ter was churned with a tw.a.n.g in it, and rustics danced, and sheep that had fed in clover were "blasted," like poor Bonduca's budding prospects. And, from the calm nonchalance of a Wess.e.x hamlet, another novel was launched into a world of reviews, where the mult.i.tude of readers is not as to their external displacements, but as to their subjective experiences.

[THE END.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HINC ILLae LACRYIMae"

_Master Tommy_ (_returning from the funeral_). "Why did Uncle Jonas cry so for, Aunt? He cried more than anybody!"

_Aunt_ (_grimly_). "Of course! Most of the property is left to him, my dear!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What's that there blank s.p.a.ce left for, Jim?"

"Why, that's for the folks as can't read!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A YORKSHIRE GOSSIP

_First Gossip._ "So you was nivver axed tu t'funeral?"

_Second Gossip._ "Nivver as much as inside t'house. But n.o.bbut; wait till _we_ hev' a funeral of us own, an' _we_'ll show 'em!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Parson._ "Why, John, what are you doing there?"

_John._ "I be too wet to work, zur."

_Parson._. "Well, if it's too wet to work, why don't you go home?"

_John._ "Wull, my old 'ooman, she do jaw so!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Young Lady._ "Can you tell me the nearest way to get to Pulham from here?"

_Sweep._ "Well, miss, I'm going there meself. So, if yer jump in, I'll drive yer!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_First Village Dame._ "Did I bring you back that basket you lent me last week?"

_Second Dame_ (_emphatically_). "No, indeed, you did not."

_First Dame._ "That's a pity, for I just came round to borrow it again!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: