"It is trouble enough to make--and
really I hardly think we shall make any more. For honey sells well,
and we ourselves can make shift with a drop o' small mead and
metheglin for common use from the comb-washings."

"O, but you'll never have the heart!" reproachfully cried the stranger
in cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and setting it
down empty. "I love mead, when 'tis old like this, as I love to go to
church o' Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of the week."

"Ha, ha, ha!" said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the
taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not
refrain from this slight testimony to his comrade's humor.

Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or
maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon--with its due complement of
white of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and
processes of working, bottling, and cellaring--tasted remarkably
strong; but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence,
presently, the stranger in cinder-gray at the table, moved by its
creeping influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw himself back in
his chair, spread his legs, and made his presence felt in various
ways.

"Well, well, as I say," he resumed, "I am going to Casterbridge, and
to Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this
time; but the rain drove me into your dwelling, and I'm not sorry for
it."

"You don't live in Casterbridge?" said the shepherd.

"Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there."

"Going to set up in trade, perhaps?"

"No, no," said the shepherd's wife. "It is easy to see that the
gentleman is rich, and don't want to work at anything."

The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would
accept that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by
answering, "Rich is not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I
must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must
begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or
snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be done."

"Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be off than we." replied the
shepherd's wife.

"'Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. Tis the nature of my
trade more than my poverty.... But really and truly I must up and off,
or I shan't get a lodging in the town." However, the speaker did
not move, and directly added, "There's time fo