"Forecast the weather?"

"With labour and time."

"Then take this," said Henchard. "'Tis a crownpiece. Now, what is the
harvest fortnight to be? When can I know?'

"I've worked it out already, and you can know at once." (The fact
was that five farmers had already been there on the same errand from
different parts of the country.) "By the sun, moon, and stars, by the
clouds, the winds, the trees, and grass, the candle-flame and swallows,
the smell of the herbs; likewise by the cats' eyes, the ravens, the
leeches, the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnight in August
will be--rain and tempest."

"You are not certain, of course?"

"As one can be in a world where all's unsure. 'Twill be more like living
in Revelations this autumn than in England. Shall I sketch it out for
'ee in a scheme?"

"O no, no," said Henchard. "I don't altogether believe in forecasts,
come to second thoughts on such. But I--"

"You don't--you don't--'tis quite understood," said Wide-oh, without a
sound of scorn. "You have given me a crown because you've one too many.
But won't you join me at supper, now 'tis waiting and all?"

Henchard would gladly have joined; for the savour of the stew
had floated from the cottage into the porch with such appetizing
distinctness that the meat, the onions, the pepper, and the herbs could
be severally recognized by his nose. But as sitting down to
hob-and-nob there would have seemed to mark him too implicitly as the
weather-caster's apostle, he declined, and went his way.

The next Saturday Henchard bought grain to such an enormous extent that
there was quite a talk about his purchases among his neighbours the
lawyer, the wine merchant, and the doctor; also on the next, and on
all available days. When his granaries were full to choking all the
weather-cocks of Casterbridge creaked and set their faces in another
direction, as if tired of the south-west. The weather changed; the
sunlight, which had been like tin for weeks, assumed the hues of
topaz. The temperament of the welkin passed from the phlegmatic to
the sanguine; an excellent harvest was almost a certainty; and as a
consequence prices rushed down.

All these transformations, lovely to the outsider, to the wrong-headed
corn-dealer were terrible. He was reminded of what he had well known
before, that a man might gamble upon the square green areas of fields as
readily as upon those of a card-room.

Henchard had backed bad weather, and appar