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to proceed two men passed outside the hedge, engaged in argumentative conversation.
    "Why, surely," said Elizabeth, as they receded, "those men mentioned the name of Henchard in their talk—the name of our relative?"
    "I thought so too," said Mrs. Newson.
    "That seems a hint to us that he is still here."
    "Yes."
    "Shall I run after them, and ask them about him——"
    "No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse, or in the stocks, for all we know."
    "Dear me—why should you think that, mother?"
    "'Twas just something to say—that's all! But we must make private inquiries."
    Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at evenfall. The dense trees of the avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the open land on each side was still under a faint daylight, in other words, they passed down a midnight between two gloamings. The features of the town had a keen interest for Elizabeth's mother, now that the human side came to the fore. As soon as they had wandered about they could see that the stockade of gnarled trees which framed in Casterbridge was itself an avenue, standing on a low green bank or escarpment, with a ditch yet visible without. Within the avenue and bank was a wall more or less discontinuous, and within the wall were packed the abodes of the burghers.
    Though the two women did not know it these external features were but the ancient defences of the town, planted as a promenade.
    The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a sense of great smugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same time the unlighted country without strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering its nearness to life. The difference between burgh and champaign was increased, too, by sounds which now reached them above others—the notes of a brass band. The travellers returned into the High Street, where there were timber houses with overhanging stories, whose small–paned lattices were screened by dimity curtains on a drawing–string, and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs waved in the breeze. There were houses of brick–nogging, which derived their chief support from those adjoining. There were slate roofs patched with tiles, and tile roofs patched with slate, with occasionally a roof of thatch.
    The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the town depended for its existence was shown by the class of objects displayed in the shop windows. Scythes, reap–hooks, sheep–shears, bill–hooks, spades, mattocks, and hoes at the iron–monger's; bee–hives, butter–firkins, churns, milking stools and pails, hay–rakes, field–flagons, and seed–lips at the cooper's; cart–ropes and plough–harness at the saddler's; carts, wheel–barrows, and mill–gear at the wheelwright's and machinist's, horse–embrocations at the chemist's; at the glover's and leather–cutter's, hedging–gloves, thatchers' knee–caps, ploughmen's leggings, villagers' pattens and clogs.
    They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken into the darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by the nearest lamps sufficiently to show how completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework had been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in the crevices thus made little tufts of stone–crop and grass almost as far up as the very battlements. From this tower the clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll with a peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and it was utilized by the inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No sooner did the deep notes of the bell throb between the house–fronts than a clatter of shutters arose through the whole length of the High Street. In a few minutes business at Casterbridge was ended for the day.
    Other clocks struck eight from time to time—one gloomily from the gaol, another from the gable of an almshouse, with a preparative creak of machinery, more