ot despairing. A quiet
firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was
not to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world
through smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and
fatal to any kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in
the face of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and,
apart from Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if
it could be made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To
keep a cottage night-school was one such form; and his affliction did
not master his spirit as it might otherwise have done.
He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon
with which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old
home. He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted
iron, and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the
tool of a man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and
Yeobright learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.
Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added; "Now, if
yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
same."
"Yes, I could," said Yeobright musingly. "How much do you get for
cutting these faggots?"
"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well
on the wages."
During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lost
in reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up
to the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went
across to her.
"Darling," he said, "I am much happier. And if my mother were
reconciled to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite."
"I fear that will never be," she said, looking afar with her beautiful
stormy eyes. "How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?"
"It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and
get a living at, in this time of misfortune."
"Yes?"
"I am going to be a furze and turf-cutter."
"No, Clym!" she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in
her face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.
"Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the
little money we've got when I can keep down expenditure by an honest
occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but
that in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?"
"But my grandfather offers to ass
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