Hello there Thank you so much for joining me for this continued reading of A Pair of Blue Eyes lovely novel from 1873 by English author and poet Thomas Hardy We're hearing about the adventures of a sweet,
Sensitive young woman in the Victorian era in the very far southwest of England in Cornwall If perhaps you've already heard the preceding parts of this story If you haven't and you would like to You can certainly look for the playlist for A Pair of Blue Eyes and you'll find everything there in order But for now,
Let's just take a moment here to have a nice deep exhale Letting go of the day Letting go of whichever baggage we might be bringing with us into this moment For right now,
There's nowhere else we have to be Nothing else we have to be doing So we can just relax get ourselves comfortable and enjoy the ongoing tale of a pair of blue eyes Chapter 24 Breeze,
Bird and flower confess the hour The rain had ceased since the sunset But it was a cloudy night and the light of the moon softened and dispersed by its misty veil was distributed over the land in pale grey A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John Smith's Riverside Cottage and strode rapidly towards West Endelstow with a light footstep Soon ascending from the lower levels.
He turned a corner followed a car track and saw the tower of the church he was in quest of distinctly shaped forth against the sky In less than half an hour from the time of starting he swung himself over the churchyard stile the wild Irregular enclosure was as much as ever an integral part of the old hill The grass was still long.
The graves were shaped Precisely as passing years chose to alter them from their orthodox form as laid down by Martin Canister and by Stephen's own grandfather before him A sound sped into the air from the direction in which Castle Butterall lay.
It was the striking of the church clock distinct in the still atmosphere as if it had come from the tower hard by which wrapped in its solitary silentness gave out no such sounds of life one two three four five six seven eight nine Stephen carefully counted the strokes Though he well knew their number beforehand nine o'clock It was the hour Elfride had herself named as the most convenient for meeting him Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened He could have heard the softest breathing of any person within the porch Nobody was there He went inside the doorway sat down upon the stone bench and waited with a beating heart The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence the Rising and falling of the sea far away along the coast was the most important A minor sound was the scurr of a distant Nighthawk Among the minutest where all were minute were the light settlement of Gossamer fragments floating in the air A toad humbly laboring along through the grass near the entrance the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was endeavoring to pull into the earth a waft of air getting nearer and nearer and Expiring at his feet under the burden of a winged seed Among all these soft sounds Came not the only soft sound he cared to hear the footfall of Elfride for a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus intent without moving a muscle At the end of that time He walked to the west front of the church Turning the corner of the tower a white form stared him in the face He started back and recovered himself it was the tomb of young farmer Jethway Looking still as fresh and as new as when it was first erected the white stone in which it was hewn having a singular weirdness Amid the dark blue slabs from local quarries of which the whole remaining gravestones were formed He thought of the night When he had sat there on with Elfride as his companion and well remembered his regret that she had received even unwillingly earlier homage than his own But his present tangible anxiety reduced such a feeling to Sentimental nonsense in comparison And he strolled on over the graves to the border of the churchyard Whence in the daytime could be clearly seen the vicarage and the present residence of the swan courts No footstep was discernible upon the path up the hill But a light was shining from a window in the last named house Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the time or place and No difficulty about keeping the engagement He waited yet longer Passing from impatience Into a mood which failed to take any account of the lapse of time He was awakened from his reverie by Castle Botterill clock One two three four five six seven eight nine ten One little fall of the hammer in Addition to the number it had been sharp pleasure to hear And what a difference to him He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of entrance and Went down the hill Slowly he drew near the gate of her house This he softly opened and walked up the gravel drive to the door Here he paused for several minutes At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly voice Came out to his ears through an open window behind the corner of the house this Was responded to by a clear soft laugh It was the laugh of Elfried Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart He retreated as he had come There are disappointments which ring us and There are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves Such are so keen That no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them They become registered as a permanent loss of happiness Such a one Was Stephen's now the crowning Aureola of the dream had been the meeting here by stealth and If Elfried had come to him Only ten minutes after he had turned away The disappointment would have been recognizable still When the young man reached home he found there a letter which had arrived in his absence Believing it to contain some reason for her non-appearance Yet unable to imagine one that could justify her he hastily tore open the envelope The paper contained Not a word from Elfried It was the deposit note for his 200 pounds on the back was the form of a check and This she had filled up with the same sum payable to the bearer Stephen was confounded He attempted to divine her motive Considering how limited was his knowledge of her later actions he guessed rather shrewdly that between the time of her sending the note in the morning and the evening's silent refusal of his gift Something had occurred which had caused a total change in her attitude towards him He knew not what to do It seemed absurd now to go to her father next morning as he had purposed and Asked for an engagement with her A possibility impending all the while that Elfried herself would not be on his side Only one course recommended itself as wise to wait and See what the days would bring forth To go and execute his commissions in Birmingham Then to return learn if anything had happened and Try what a meeting might do Perhaps her surprise at his backwardness Would bring her forward to show latent warmth as decidedly as in old times This act of patience Was in keeping only with the nature of a man precisely of Stephen's constitution Nine men out of ten would perhaps have rushed off Got into her presence by fair means or foul and provoked a catastrophe of some sort But Possibly for the better probably for the worse he started for Birmingham the next morning a Day's delay would have made no difference But he could not rest Until he had begun and ended the program proposed to himself Bodily activity will sometimes take the sting out of anxiety as completely as assurance itself
