Eustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not completely on the floor, for she had managed to drop into a recumbent position against the clock-case, so that her head was well elevated. The play proceeded between Saint George, the Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas; and Eustacia, having no more to do, for the first time found leisure to observe the scene around, and to search for the form which had drawn her hither.

(To be continued.)

256

If she were here.

If she were here, in rich amaze

My sight would cling to her

As sunlight to a southward yearning flower :
In slow, dim dream of voiceless praise,
I'd glide to full-toned stir

Of vocal viol wandering through the bower,
Startled by sallies of the wayward lute;
While heavy perfume kept the soft air mute.

II

If she were here, in hushed delight

My ears would hold her speech

As empty sky the lark's new peals of song:
Over the rim of purple height,

Mellowed through pine and beech,

A memory of sweetest sounds would throng
To fill the pauses and allure the pain
Of hearing and not hearing her again.

III

If she were here, I might grow dull

To all thought save that she was here, And raise her hand and kiss it with my lips, Warming the hour while hope grew full,

Until my heart-helped fear

Lay in a banishment of lone eclipse,

And soul went forth, an incense at a shrine, In glance of pleading for a gift divine.

IV

If she were here, her hand might lie
In mine like faith at ease

Within a loyal heart. If she were here,
Some angel of the gentle sky

Might steal her voice to please
Her bashful lips--might whisper in my ear
The bounteous guerdon-syllables that she,
Willing them, said, yet would not say to me

BELGRAVIA.

MAY 1878.

The Heturn of the Native.

BY THOMAS HARDY.

THE

BOOK II. CHAPTER VI.

THE TWO STAND FACE TO FACE.

THE room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large oak table having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to the fireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimneycorner were grouped the guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among whom Eustacia cursorily recognised some wellto-do persons from beyond the heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, and Eustacia recollected that a light had shone from an upper window when they were outside-the window, probably, of Thomasin's room. A nose, chin, hands, knees, and toes projected from the seat within the chimney opening, which members she found to unite in the person of Grandfer Cantle, Mrs. Yeobright's occasional assistant in the garden, and therefore one of the invited. The smoke went up from an Etna of turf in front of him, played round the notches of the chimney-crook, struck against the salt-box, and got lost among the flitches.

Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side of the chimney stood the settle, which, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, is what the east belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to the garden. It is the necessary supplement to a fire so open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up candles gutter, locks of hair wave, men sneeze. Inside is Paradise. disturbs the air; the sitters' backs songs and old tales are drawn from the occupants by the comfortable heat, like fruit from melon-plants in a frame.

the smoke. Outside the settle young women shiver, and old Not a symptom of a draught are as warm as their faces, and

It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was concerned. A face showed itself with marked dis

VOL. XXXV. NO. CXXXIX.

8

tinctness against the dark tanned wood of the upper part, and a soul showed itself with marked distinctness upon the face. The owner, who was leaning against the settle's outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym as he was called here; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted an area of two feet in Rembrandt's intensest manner. A strange power in the man's appearance lay in the fact that, though his whole figure was visible, the observer's eye was only aware of his face.

To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a youth might hardly have seen the necessity for the qualification of immaturity. But it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of so many years as its age than of so much experience as its store. The number of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel, and the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man must be measured by the intensity of his history.

The face was well-shaped, even excellently. But the mind within was beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible would in no long time be ruthlessly overrun by its parasite thought, which might just as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there was nothing it could harm. Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a wearing habit of meditation, people would have said 'A handsome man.' Had his brain unfolded under harder contours, they would have said 'A thoughtful man.' But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer symmetry, and they rated his look as singular.

Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him. His countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being thought-worn, he yet had certain marks derived from a perception of his environment, such as are not unfrequently found on men at the end of the four or five years of endeavour which follow the close of placid pupilage, He already showed that thought is a disease of flesh, and indirectly bore evidence that ideal physical beauty is incompatible with emotional development and wide recognitions. Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even though there is already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight of two demands on one supply was just showing itself here.

When standing before certain men, the philosopher regrets that thinkers are but ephemeral tissue,-the artist, that ephemeral tissue has to think. Thus to deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually destructive interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been instinctive with these in critically observing Yeobright.

As for his expression, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against depression from without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested isolation, but it revealed something more. As usual with bright natures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within a perishable human carcase looked out of him like a ray.

The effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of excitement she had reached beforehand would indeed have caused her to be influenced by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at Yeobright's presence.

The remainder of the play ended: the Saracen's head was cut off, and Saint George stood as victor. Nobody commented, any more than they would have commented on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or snowdrops in spring. They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the actors themselves. It was a phase of cheerfulness which was, as a matter of course, to be passed through every Christmas; and there was no more to be said.

They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all the dead men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like the ghosts of Napoleon's soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards the door opened, and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by Christian and another. They had been waiting outside for the conclusion of the play, as the players had waited for the conclusion of the dance.

Come in, come in,' said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to welcome them. 'How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been here ever so long, and we thought you'd have come with him as you live so near one another.'

'Well, I should have come earlier,' Mr. Fairway said, and paused to look along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but, finding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all the nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at last relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between the candle-box and the head of the clock-case. 'I should have come earlier, ma'am,' he resumed with a more composed air, but I know what parties be, and how there's none too much room in folks' houses at such times, so I thought I wouldn't come till you'd got settled a bit.'

'And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright,' said Christian earnestly; but father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left home almost afore 'twas dark. I told him 'twas barely decent to come so over-soon; but words be wind.'

'Klk! I wasn't going to bide waiting about till half the game was over. I'm as light as a kite when anything's going on!' crowed Grandfer Cantle from the chimney-seat.