When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found to
be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search before
the next morning.

Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became
general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended
punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the
sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on
the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring
in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented
circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So that it
may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy in
exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so thorough when it came
to the private examination of their own lofts and outhouses. Stories
were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in some old
overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a
search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was
found. Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings.

In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured.
Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried
himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in
cinder-gray never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met
anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he
had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb.

The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his
frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly
followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they
all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of