the following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter holidays,
and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the light
spring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as they streamed
in the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled season shone on the
grass with the freshness of an occasional inspector rather than as an
accustomed proprietor. His errand was to fetch Fancy, and some
additional household goods, from her father's house in the neighbouring
parish to her dwelling at Mellstock. The distant view was darkly shaded
with clouds; but the nearer parts of the landscape were whitely illumined
by the visible rays of the sun streaming down across the heavy gray shade
behind.

The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner's heart that
had been suggested to him by Shiner's movements. He preferred to let
such delicate affairs right themselves; experience having taught him that
the uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in other people, was not
a groundwork upon which a single action of his own life could be founded.

Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed portion of
one of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to whom Day was head
game-keeper, timber-steward, and general overlooker for this district.
The wood was intersected by the highway from Casterbridge to London at a
place not far from the house, and some trees had of late years been
felled between its windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, to give the
solitary cottager a glimpse of the passers-by.

It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper's house, even as a
stranger, on a fine spring morning like the present. A curl of
wood-smoke came from the chimney, and drooped over the roof like a blue
feather in a lady's hat; and the sun shone obliquely upon the patch of