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As they marched along, with their garden shears, their long-handled pruning-knives, their rakes, their little spades and hoes, and sweeping-brooms; others following after these with baskets to carry off the stones and rubbish; and others, last of all, trailing along the heavy iron roller it was a thoroughly pretty, delightful procession.
I must depart; you have heard the proverb, 'those who are bound must obey. Young Jack, I presume, is squalling, and I must either nurse him, rock the cradle, or sing comic tunes for him, though heaven knows with what a disastrous heart I often sing, 'Begone dull care, the 'Rakes of Newcastle, or 'Peas upon a Trencher. Neal, I say again, pause before you take this leap in the dark.
Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave in the wilderness, cut off his skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts!
As we went, I could not help putting beside his promised picture of the hay-field as it was then the picture of it as I remembered it, and especially the images of the women engaged in the work rose up before me: the row of gaunt figures, lean, flat-breasted, ugly, without a grace of form or face about them; dressed in wretched skimpy print gowns, and hideous flapping sun-bonnets, moving their rakes in a listless mechanical way.
These strong lackeys will whisk you dexterously from the scene before the other gamblers realize what you were about to do. There is a sense of being watched all the while. "Faites le jeu, messieurs!" "Le jeu est fait." "Rien ne va plus." The winners get their winnings. The bank rakes in tremendous quantities of money-tokens. Its success is very impressive.
It is seldom that a siren, leaning lightly against a bright new hay-cutter, with a background of iron rakes and hoes and spades, sings her soft song. But it was so now, and Dora, her heart beating quickly, looked from under her long lashes to note the effect of her words. "If he will drop the little Drane," she said to herself, "I will drop the rector." But Ralph stood looking past her.
Surely you must have so many friends. Other engagements." "No," she answered, "I have very few friends. But surely Antoine there must be any number of ladies who would be far better company..." "I'm too involved with my books, I fear. Studying all the time; preparing lectures while the ladies run off with younger rakes." He glanced at her with a teasing half-smile.
With the rakes the croupiers collected the stakes of certain players; with these same rakes they doubled, separated, or even paid, in proportions of which he took no account, certain others, and that was all. But it mattered little. Having seen how the money was placed on the table, that was sufficient. He had five louis in his hand when the croupier said: "Messieurs, faites votre jeu."
The busy time of the seed trade was over, and the quiet weeks that preceded the hay-season had come setting their special stamp upon Casterbridge by thronging the market with wood rakes, new waggons in yellow, green, and red, formidable scythes, and pitchforks of prong sufficient to skewer up a small family.
Everywhere the same scene of desolation, vast stretches of tule land, once broken up by cultivation and dotted with dwellings, now clearly erased on that watery chart; long lines of symmetrical perspective, breaking the monotonous level, showing orchards buried in the flood; Indian mounds and natural eminences covered with cattle or hastily erected camps; half submerged houses, whose solitary chimneys, however, still gave signs of an undaunted life within; isolated groups of trees, with their lower branches heavy with the unwholesome fruit of the flood, in wisps of hay and straw, rakes and pitchforks, or pathetically sheltering some shivering and forgotten household pet.
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