ight be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The
guisers themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of
persons, could not afford to offend those by whose assistance they
so largely profited, and the innovations were allowed to stand.

There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity.
The Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact: his darker
habiliments, peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his
arm, could never be mistaken. And the same might be said of the
conventional figure of Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an
older man, who accompanied the band as general protector in long night
journeys from parish to parish, and was bearer of the purse.

Seven o'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short
time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuel-house. To dissipate in
some trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life
she went to the "linhay" or lean-to-shed, which formed the root-store
of their dwelling and abutted on the fuel-house. Here was a small
rough hole in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which
the interior of the next shed could be viewed. A light came from it
now; and Eustacia stepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.

On a ledge in the fuel-house stood three tall rush-lights and by the
light of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and
confusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.
Humphrey and Sam, the furze and turf cutters, were there looking on,
so also was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted
the boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and
anecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon
mummers-elect that these lads were now.

"Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be," he said. "Not that
such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen
should strut a bit more, and John needn't holler his inside out.
Beyond that perhaps you'll do. Have you got all your clothes ready?"

"We shall by Monday."

"Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?"

"Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright's."

"Oh, Mrs. Yeobright's. What makes her want to see ye? I should think
a middle-aged woman was tired of mumming."

"She's got up a bit of a party, because 'tis the first Christmas that
her son Clym has been home for a long time."

"To be sure, to be sure--her party! I am going myself. I almost