idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her in their leafage whenever her path lay through them,
which now formed miniature forests, though not one stem of them would remain to bud the
next year.
The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawnlike oases which were
occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux of the heath district. The brakes of
furze and fern terminated abruptly round the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green
cattletrack skirted the spot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern, and this
path Eustacia followed, in order to reconnoitre the group before joining it. The lusty notes of
the East Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and she now beheld the musicians
themselves, sitting in a blue wagon with red wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched
with sticks, to which boughs and flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central
dance of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior individuals whose
gyrations were not always in strict keeping with the tune.
The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on their faces footed it to
the girls, who, with the excitement and the exercise, blushed deeper than the pink of their
numerous ribbons. Fair ones with long curls, fair ones with short curls, fair ones with
lovelocks, fair ones with braids, flew round and round; and a beholder might well have
wondered how such a prepossessing set of young women of like size, age, and disposition,
could have been collected together where there were only one or two villages to choose
from. In the background was one happy man dancing by himself, with closed eyes, totally
oblivious of all the rest. A fire was burning under a pollard thorn a few paces off, over
which three kettles hung in a row. Hard by was a table where elderly dames prepared tea,
but Eustacia looked among them in vain for the cattle−dealer's wife who had suggested that
she should come, and had promised to obtain a courteous welcome for her.
This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew considerably
damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety. Joining in became a matter of
difficulty, notwithstanding that, were she to advance, cheerful dames would come forward
with cups of tea and make much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge to
themselves. Having watched the company through the figures of two dances, she decided to
walk a little further, to a cottage where she might get some refreshment, and then return
homeward in the shady time of evening.
This she did, and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the scene of the
gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way to Alderworth, the sun was going
down. The air was now so still that she could hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be
playing with more spirit, if that were possible, than when she had come away. On reaching
the hill the sun had quite disappeared; but this made little difference either to Eustacia or to
the revellers, for a round yellow moon was rising before her, though its rays had not yet
outmastered those from the west. The dance was going on just the same, but strangers had
arrived and formed a ring around the figure, so that Eustacia could stand among these
Return of the Native
CHAPTER 3 − She Goes Out to Battle against Depression 225