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TWO months passed away. We are brought on to a day in February, on which was held the yearly statute or hiring fair in the county-town of Casterbridge.
Now that Greenbank had its eyes open for a little time, it was surprised to see that while the cities along the river had all adopted graded schools, de-graded schools, as they were called by the people opposed to them, and while even the little villages in the hill country had younger and more enlightened teachers, the county-town of Greenbank had made no advance.
Turnbull left Testbridge, and went to live in a small county-town where she was unknown.
A guffawing scytheman, moreover, pressed with his horny palm the hand of Maria, for whom shaggy Hanák, in the fervour of his enthusiasm, could find no more important title than that of "courier." As the day slowly began to dawn, the sobering breath of the fresh morning breeze blew full in the faces of the horsemen, and the towers of the county-town stood out plainly before them in the distance.
In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a soul was anywhere visible. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at the door.
Winchester is, of course, as it ever has been, the county-town of Hampshire, but it still maintains itself as it has done now these many years chiefly by reason of these two great establishments.
It was market-day at the county-town. The farmers outside and inside the corn-exchange looked at their samples of wheat, and poured them critically as usual from one palm to another, but they thought and spoke of Manston.
The railroads have concentrated the ability of all the professions in the cities, and carried thither the wealth of all the old families. To them, and not to the county-town, repair the people for advice in all critical matters, for supplies in all important purchases, for all their rarest pleasures, and all their most prized and memorable opportunities.
The seaman looked with contempt upon the squire as a milksop and a landman, who had lived without knowing the points of the compass, or seeing any part of the world beyond the county-town; and whenever they met, would talk of longitude and latitude, and circles and tropicks, would scarcely tell him the hour without some mention of the horizon and meridian, nor shew him the news without detecting his ignorance of the situation of other countries.
This ball is not to be held at the Town Hall of the county-town as usual, but at Lord Toneborough's, who is colonel of the regiment, and who, I suppose, wishes to please the yeomen because his brother is going to stand for the county.
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