This
was beside a lone copsewood, wherein heaps of white chips strewn upon
the leafy ground showed that woodmen had been faggoting and making
hurdles during the day. Now there was not a rustle, not a breeze,
not the faintest clash of twigs to keep her company. The woman
looked over the gate, opened it, and went in. Close to the entrance
stood a row of faggots, bound and un-bound, together with stakes of
all sizes.

For a few seconds the wayfarer stood with that tense stillness which
signifies itself to be not the end, but merely the suspension, of
a previous motion. Her attitude was that of a person who listens,
either to the external world of sound, or to the imagined discourse
of thought. A close criticism might have detected signs proving that
she was intent on the latter alternative. Moreover, as was shown by
what followed, she was oddly exercising the faculty of invention upon
the speciality of the clever Jacquet Droz, the designer of automatic
substitutes for human limbs.

By the aid of the Casterbridge aurora, and by feeling with her hands,
the woman selected two sticks from the heaps. These sticks were
nearly straight to the height of three or four feet, where each
branched into a fork like the letter Y. She sat down, snapped off
the small upper twigs, and carried the remainder with her into the
road. She placed one of these forks under each arm as a crutch,
tested them, timidly threw her whole weight upon them--so little that
it was--and swung herself forward. The girl had made for herself a
material aid.

The crutches answered well. The pat of her feet, and the tap of
her sticks upon the highway, were all the sounds that came from
the traveller now. She had passed the last milestone by a good
long distance, and began to look wistfully towards the bank as if
calculating upon another milestone soon. The crutches, though so
very useful, had their limits of power. Mechanism only transfers
labour, being powerless to supersede it, and the original amount of
exertion was not cleared away; it was thrown into the body and arms.
She was exhausted, and each swing forward became fainter. At last
she swayed sideways, and fell.

Here she lay, a shapeless heap, for ten minutes and more. The
morning wind began to boom dully over the flats, and to move afresh
dead leaves which had lain still since yesterday. The woman
desperately turned round upon her knees, and next rose to her feet.
Steadying herself