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Updated: May 10, 2025
The citizen's THEN is the rustic's NOW. In London, twenty or thirty-years ago are old times; in Paris ten years, or five; in Weatherbury three or four score years were included in the mere present, and nothing less than a century set a mark on its face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the cut of a gaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, by the breadth of a hair.
Ascyltos, afraid to believe the evidence of his own eyes for fear of doing something rash, approached the man, as a prospective buyer, took the hem of the tunic from the rustic's shoulders, and felt it thoroughly. Oh wonderful stroke of Fortune!
I could fancy this ill-fated girl standing by and looking on aghast while hard things were said to the man she loved, while the silver veil of sweet romance was plucked so roughly from the countenance of her idol by an angry rustic's rude hand. "Well, I don't quite know whether she heard all," answered Mr. Mercer, thoughtfully. "Of course, James Halliday told his wife all about the row afterwards.
This picture of to-day in its frame of four hundred years ago did not produce that marked contrast between ancient and modern which is implied by the contrast of date. In comparison with cities, Weatherbury was immutable. The citizen's Then is the rustic's Now.
A suspicious, defensive look was the only expression on the rustic's face as he rose and peered furtively round to calculate his chances of escape. A little crowd was meanwhile closing up. "Know, sir," continued Populus, "that the King, in the plentitude of his goodness, has learned of the misery of his people and desires to hear their grievances and set them right.
He had told of the youthful legate who had had a cow-herd of Venusia scourged to death, as an answer to the rustic's jesting query whether the bearers of the litter were carrying a corpse: and of the consul who had scourged the quaestor of Teanum Sidicinum, the man of noblest lineage in his state, because the men's baths, in which the consul's wife had elected to bathe, were not adequately prepared for her reception.
Thus there are tales enough of the untaught student's perseverance, and of the boy giant's gentleness and prowess; tales, too, more than enough in proportion, of the fun which varied but did not pervade his existence, and of the young rustic's occasional and somewhat oafish pranks.
And as though an echo of the rustic's reflections, Karl seated at the piano, began chanting in a low voice one of Beethoven's hymns "We sing the joy of life, We sing of liberty, We'll ne'er betray our fellow-man, Though great the guerdon be."
And above one ear, in his hair, was a wisp of hay the rustic's letter of credit, his badge of innocence, the last clinging touch of the Garden of Eden lingering to shame the gold-brick men. Knowingly, smilingly, the city crowds passed him by. They saw the raw stranger stand in the gutter and stretch his neck at the tall buildings. At this they ceased to smile, and even to look at him.
The townsfolk understood every fluctuation in the rustic's condition, for it affected their receipts as much as the labourer's; they entered into the troubles and joys which moved the aristocratic families ten miles round for the same reason.
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