horse she chose.

On Friday afternoon one of the men brought it round. She was dressed,
and before going down looked at her shrivelled arm. 'Ah!' she said to
it, 'if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal would have been
saved me!'

When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of
clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant, 'I take these in case
I should not get back to-night from the person I am going to visit. Don't
be alarmed if I am not in by ten, and close up the house as usual. I
shall be at home to-morrow for certain.' She meant then to privately
tell her husband: the deed accomplished was not like the deed projected.
He would almost certainly forgive her.

And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her husband's
homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge she did not take the
direct route thither through Stickleford. Her cunning course at first
was in precisely the opposite direction. As soon as she was out of
sight, however, she turned to the left, by a road which led into Egdon,
and on entering the heath wheeled round, and set out in the true course,
due westerly. A more private way down the county could not be imagined;
and as to direction, she had merely to keep her horse's head to a point a
little to the right of the sun. She knew that she would light upon a
furze-cutter or cottager of some sort from time to time, from whom she
might correct her bearing.

Though the date was comparatively recent, Egdon was much less fragmentary
in character than now. The attempts--successful and otherwise--at
cultivation on the lower slopes, which intrude and break up the original
heath into small detached heaths, had not been carried far; Enclosure
Acts had not taken effect, and the banks and fences which now exclude the
cattle of those villagers who formerly enjoyed rights of commonage
thereon, and the carts of those who had turbary privileges which kept
them in firing all the year round, were not erected. Gertrude,
therefore, rode along with no other obstacles than the prickly furze
bushes, the mats of heather, the white water-courses, and the natural
steeps and declivities of the ground.

Her horse was sure, if heavy-footed and slow, and though a draught
animal, was easy-paced; had it been otherwise, she was not a woman who
could have ventured to ride over such a bit of country with a half-dead
arm. It was therefore nearly eight o'clock when she drew rei