in similar terms till it
ended in Jopp's dismissal there and then, Henchard turning upon his heel
and leaving him.

"You shall be sorry for this, sir; sorry as a man can be!" said Jopp,
standing pale, and looking after the corn-merchant as he disappeared in
the crowd of market-men hard by.

27.

It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfrae was buying. As was
usual, after reckoning too surely on famine weather the local farmers
had flown to the other extreme, and (in Farfrae's opinion) were selling
off too recklessly--calculating with just a trifle too much certainty
upon an abundant yield. So he went on buying old corn at its
comparatively ridiculous price: for the produce of the previous year,
though not large, had been of excellent quality.

When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way, and got rid
of his burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss, the harvest began.
There were three days of excellent weather, and then--"What if that
curst conjuror should be right after all!" said Henchard.

The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begun to play than the
atmosphere suddenly felt as if cress would grow in it without other
nourishment. It rubbed people's cheeks like damp flannel when they
walked abroad. There was a gusty, high, warm wind; isolated raindrops
starred the window-panes at remote distances: the sunlight would flap
out like a quickly opened fan, throw the pattern of the window upon the
floor of the room in a milky, colourless shine, and withdraw as suddenly
as it had appeared.

From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be so
successful an ingathering after all. If Henchard had only waited long
enough he might at least have avoided loss though he had not made a
profit. But the momentum of his character knew no patience. At this turn
of the scales he remained silent. The movements of his mind seemed to
tend to the thought that some power was working against him.

"I wonder," he asked himself with eerie misgiving; "I wonder if it can
be that somebody has been roasting a waxen image of me, or stirring an
unholy brew to confound me! I don't believe in such power; and yet--what
if they should ha' been doing it!" Even he could not admit that
the perpetrator, if any, might be Farfrae. These isolated hours of
superstition came to Henchard in time of moody depression, when all his
practical largeness of view had oozed out of him.

Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prosper