The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Changed Man and Other Tales, by Thomas Hardy

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Title: A Changed Man and Other Tales

Author: Thomas Hardy

Release Date: November 2, 2004 [eBook #3058]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANGED MAN AND OTHER TALES***

Transcribed from the 1920 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

A CHANGED MAN AND OTHER TALES

Contents:

Prefatory Note
A Changed Man
The Waiting Supper
Alicia's Diary
The Grave by the Handpost
Enter a Dragoon
A Tryst at an Ancient Earthwork
What the Shepherd Saw
A Committee Man of 'The Terror'
Master John Horseleigh, Knight
The Duke's Reappearance
A Mere Interlude

PREFATORY NOTE

I reprint in this volume, for what they may be worth, a dozen minor
novels that have been published in the periodical press at various dates
in the past, in order to render them accessible to readers who desire to
have them in the complete series issued by my publishers. For aid in
reclaiming some of the narratives I express my thanks to the proprietors
and editors of the newspapers and magazines in whose pages they first
appeared.

T. H.
August 1913.

A CHANGED MAN

CHAPTER I

The person who, next to the actors themselves, chanced to know most of
their story, lived just below 'Top o' Town' (as the spot was called) in
an old substantially-built house, distinguished among its neighbours by
having an oriel window on the first floor, whence could be obtained a
raking view of the High Street, west and east, the former including
Laura's dwelling, the end of the Town Avenue hard by (in which were
played the odd pranks hereafter to be mentioned), the Port-Bredy road
rising westwards, and the turning that led to the cavalry barracks where
the Captain was quartered. Looking eastward down the town from the same
favoured gazebo, the long perspective of houses declined and dwindled
till they merged in the highway across the moor. The white riband of
road disappeared over Grey's Bridge a quarter of a mile off, to plunge
into innumerable rustic windings, shy shades, and solitary undu