r. Yeobright, I can't help feeling
that your cousin ought to have married you. 'Tis a pity to make two
chimley-corners where there need be only one. You could get her away
from him now, 'tis my belief, if you were only to set about it."

"How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two
women to their deaths? Don't think such a thing, Humphrey. After my
experience I should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to
church and take a wife. In the words of Job, 'I have made a covenant
with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?'"

"No, Mr. Clym, don't fancy that about driving two women to their
deaths. You shouldn't say it."

"Well, we'll leave that out," said Yeobright. "But anyhow God has
set a mark upon me which wouldn't look well in a lovemaking scene.
I have two ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a
night-school; and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to
say to that, Humphrey?"

"I'll come and hear 'ee with all my heart."

"Thanks. 'Tis all I wish."

As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other
path, and met him at the gate. "What do you think I have to tell you,
Clym?" she said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.

"I can guess," he replied.

She scrutinized his face. "Yes, you guess right. It is going to be
after all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to
think so too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you
don't object."

"Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your
way clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the
treatment you received in days gone by."

IV

Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End,
and Clym Finds His Vocation

Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o'clock on the
morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright's
house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came
from the dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was
chiefly a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over
the sanded floor within. One man only was visible outside, and he
seemed to be later at an appointment than he had intended to be, for
he hastened up to the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without
ceremony.

The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the
room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the
Egdon coterie, there