The north road from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especiallyin winter-time. Along a part of its course it connects with Long-Ash Lane, a monotonous track without a village or hamlet for manymiles, and with very seldom a turning. Unapprized wayfarers who aretoo old, or too young, or in other respects too weak for thedistance to be traversed, but who, nevertheless, have to walk it,say, as they look wistfully ahead, 'Once at the top of that hill,and I must surely see the end of Long-Ash Lane!' But they reach thehilltop, and Long-Ash Lane stretches in front as mercilessly asbefore.

　　Some few years ago a certain farmer was riding through this lane inthe gloom of a winter evening. The farmer's friend, a dairyman, wasriding beside him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer's man.

　　All three were well horsed on strong, round-barrelled cobs; and tobe well horsed was to be in better spirits about Long-Ash Lane thanpoor pedestrians could attain to during its passage.

　　But the farmer did not talk much to his friend as he rode along.

　　The enterprise which had brought him there filled his mind; for intruth it was important. Not altogether so important was it,perhaps, when estimated by its value to society at large; but if thetrue measure of a deed be proportionate to the space it occupies inthe heart of him who undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton's businessto-night could hold its own with the business of kings.

　　He was a large farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probablythirty thousand pounds a year. He had a great many draught horses,a great many milch cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortableposition was, however, none of his own making. It had been createdby his father, a man of a very different stamp from the presentrepresentative of the line.

　　Darton, the father, had been a one-idea'd character, with abuttoned-up pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with commercialsubtlety. In Darton the son, this trade subtlety had becometransmuted into emotional, and the harshness had disappeared; hewould have been called a sad man but for his constant care not todivide himself from lively friends by piping notes out of harmonywith theirs. Contemplative, he allowed his mind to be a quietmeeting-place for memories and hopes. So that, naturally enough,since succeeding to the agricultural calling, and up to his presentage of thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor receded as acapitalist--a stationary result which did not agitate one of hisunambitious, unstrategic nature, since he had all that he desired.

　　The motive of his expedition tonight showed the same absence ofanxious regard for Number One.

　　The party rode on in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time andbad roads, Farmer Darton's head jigging rather unromantically up anddown against the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolderemphasis by his friend Japheth Johns; while those of the latter weretravestied in jerks still less softened by art in the person of thelad who attended them. A pair of whitish objects hung one on eachside of the latter, bumping against him at each step, and stillfurther spoiling the grace of his seat. On close inspection theymight have been perceived to be open rush baskets--one containing aturkey, and the other some bottles of wine.

　　'D'ye feel ye can meet your fate like a man, neighbour Darton?'

　　asked Johns, breaking a silence which had lasted while five-and-twenty hedgerow trees had glided by.

　　Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, 'Ay--call it my fate!

　　Hanging and wiving go by destiny.' And then they were silent again.

　　The darkness thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on theland in a perceptible flap, like the wave of a wing. The customaryclose of day was accelerated by a simultaneous blurring of the air.

　　With the fall of night had come a mist just damp enough toincommode, but not sufficient to saturate them. Countrymen as theywere--born, as may be said, with only an open door between them andthe four seasons--they regarded the mist but as an addedobscuration, and ignored its humid quality.

　　They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no moderncurrent of traffic, the place of Darton's pilgrimage being an old-fashioned village--one of the Hintocks (several villages of thatname, with a distinctive prefix or affix, lying thereabout)--wherethe people make the best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, andwhere the dunghills smell of pomace instead of stable refuse aselsewhere. The lane was sometimes so narrow that the brambles ofthe hedge, which hung forward like anglers' rods over a stream,scratched their hats and curry-combed their whiskers as they passed.

　　Yet this neglected............