arriage was curious--if anything should be called curious in
concatenations of phenomena wherein each is known to have its accounting
cause. It was the day of the chief market--Saturday--and Farfrae
for once had been missed from his corn-stand in the dealers' room.
Nevertheless, it was known that he would be home that night--"for
Sunday," as Casterbridge expressed it.

Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the end of the
ranked trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions out
of the town. This end marked a mile; and here she stopped.

The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the road,
still adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched onward straight as a
surveyor's line till lost to sight on the most distant ridge. There was
neither hedge nor tree in the prospect now, the road clinging to the
stubby expanse of corn-land like a strip to an undulating garment. Near
her was a barn--the single building of any kind within her horizon.

She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing appeared
thereon--not so much as a speck. She sighed one word--"Donald!" and
turned her face to the town for retreat.

Here the case was different. A single figure was approaching
her--Elizabeth-Jane's.

Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed. Elizabeth's
face, as soon as she recognized her friend, shaped itself into
affectionate lines while yet beyond speaking distance. "I suddenly
thought I would come and meet you," she said, smiling.

Lucetta's reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion. A
by-road on her right hand descended from the fields into the highway
at the point where she stood, and down the track a bull was rambling
uncertainly towards her and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did
not observe him.

In the latter quarter of each year cattle were at once the mainstay and
the terror of families about Casterbridge and its neighbourhood, where
breeding was carried on with Abrahamic success. The head of stock
driven into and out of the town at this season to be sold by the local
auctioneer was very large; and all these horned beasts, in travelling to
and fro, sent women and children to shelter as nothing else could do.
In the main the animals would have walked along quietly enough; but the
Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it was indispensable that
hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures, should be used,
large s