onger have he got to suffer from it, Solomon Longways?"

"Another two year, they say. I don't know the why and the wherefore of
his fixing such a time, for 'a never has told anybody. But 'tis exactly
two calendar years longer, they say. A powerful mind to hold out so
long!"

"True....But there's great strength in hope. Knowing that in
four-and-twenty months' time ye'll be out of your bondage, and able to
make up for all you've suffered, by partaking without stint--why, it
keeps a man up, no doubt."

"No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And 'a must need such
reflections--a lonely widow man," said Longways.

"When did he lose his wife?" asked Elizabeth.

"I never knowed her. 'Twas afore he came to Casterbridge," Solomon
Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his
ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were sufficient to deprive her history of all
interest. "But I know that 'a's a banded teetotaller, and that if any of
his men be ever so little overtook by a drop he's down upon 'em as stern
as the Lord upon the jovial Jews."

"Has he many men, then?" said Elizabeth-Jane.

"Many! Why, my good maid, he's the powerfullest member of the Town
Council, and quite a principal man in the country round besides. Never
a big dealing in wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like but
Henchard's got a hand in it. Ay, and he'll go into other things too;
and that's where he makes his mistake. He worked his way up from nothing
when 'a came here; and now he's a pillar of the town. Not but what he's
been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn he has supplied in
his contracts. I've seen the sun rise over Durnover Moor these
nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me
unfairly ever since I've worked for'n, seeing I be but a little small
man, I must say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as has
been made from Henchard's wheat lately. 'Tis that growed out that ye
could a'most call it malt, and there's a list at bottom o' the loaf as
thick as the sole of one's shoe."

The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it was ended the
dinner was over, and speeches began to be made. The evening being calm,
and the windows still open, these orations could be distinctly heard.
Henchard's voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his
hay-dealing experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who had
been bent upon outwitting him.

"Ha-ha-ha!" responded his audience a