Thomas Hardy

Under the Greenwood Tree Thomas Hardy

It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer windows breaking up into theeaves, a chimney standing in the middle of the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutterswere not yet closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated forth upon the thick bushes of boxand laurestinus growing in clumps outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hangingabout in various distorted shapes, the result of early training as espaliers combined with carelessclimbing into their boughs in later years. The walls of the dwelling were for the most part coveredwith creepers, though these were rather beaten back from the doorway-a feature which was wornand scratched by much passing in and out, giving it by day the appearance of an old keyhole. Lightstreamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little way from the cottage, a sight whichnourished a fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than toshelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood wasperiodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady regular munchingand the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses feeding within it. The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots any fragment of earth orleaf adhering thereto, then entered the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantryand cellar, was Dick Dewy's father Reuben, by vocation a "tranter," or irregular carrier. He was astout florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making theiracquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon or other distant object during conversations withfriends, walking about with a steady sway, and turning out his toes very considerably. Being nowoccupied in bending over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process ofbroaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the entry of his visitors, wellknowing by their footsteps that they were the expected old comrades.