ed. He had purchased in so depressed a
market that the present moderate stiffness of prices was sufficient to
pile for him a large heap of gold where a little one had been.

"Why, he'll soon be Mayor!" said Henchard. It was indeed hard that the
speaker should, of all others, have to follow the triumphal chariot of
this man to the Capitol.

The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.

September-night shades had fallen upon Casterbridge; the clocks had
struck half-past eight, and the moon had risen. The streets of the town
were curiously silent for such a comparatively early hour. A sound of
jangling horse-bells and heavy wheels passed up the street. These were
followed by angry voices outside Lucetta's house, which led her and
Elizabeth-Jane to run to the windows, and pull up the blinds.

The neighbouring Market House and Town Hall abutted against its next
neighbour the Church except in the lower storey, where an arched
thoroughfare gave admittance to a large square called Bull Stake. A
stone post rose in the midst, to which the oxen had formerly been tied
for baiting with dogs to make them tender before they were killed in the
adjoining shambles. In a corner stood the stocks.

The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blocked by two four-horse
waggons and horses, one laden with hay-trusses, the leaders having
already passed each other, and become entangled head to tail. The
passage of the vehicles might have been practicable if empty; but built
up with hay to the bedroom windows as one was, it was impossible.

"You must have done it a' purpose!" said Farfrae's waggoner. "You can
hear my horses' bells half-a-mile such a night as this!"

"If ye'd been minding your business instead of zwailing along in such
a gawk-hammer way, you would have zeed me!" retorted the wroth
representative of Henchard.

However, according to the strict rule of the road it appeared that
Henchard's man was most in the wrong, he therefore attempted to back
into the High Street. In doing this the near hind-wheel rose against
the churchyard wall and the whole mountainous load went over, two of the
four wheels rising in the air, and the legs of the thill horse.

Instead of considering how to gather up the load the two men closed in
a fight with their fists. Before the first round was quite over Henchard
came upon the spot, somebody having run for him.

Henchard sent the two men staggering in contrary directions by collaring
one