Jude the Obsure

Noting her dissembled distress Jude kissed her, and said it was time

to go and see if the lodgings were ready. He would go on with the

boy, and fetch her soon.

When she was left alone she waited patiently, but Jude did not come

back. At last she started, the coast being clear, and on passing the

poulterer's shop, not far off, she saw her pigeons in a hamper by the

door. An emotion at sight of them, assisted by the growing dusk of

evening, caused her to act on impulse, and first looking around her

quickly, she pulled out the peg which fastened down the cover, and

went on. The cover was lifted from within, and the pigeons flew

away with a clatter that brought the chagrined poulterer cursing and

swearing to the door.

Sue reached the lodging trembling, and found Jude and the boy making

it comfortable for her. "Do the buyers pay before they bring away

the things?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yes, I think. Why?"

"Because, then, I've done such a wicked thing!" And she explained,

in bitter contrition.

"I shall have to pay the poulterer for them, if he doesn't catch

them," said Jude. "But never mind. Don't fret about it, dear."

"It was so foolish of me! Oh why should Nature's law be mutual

butchery!"

"Is it so, Mother?" asked the boy intently.

"Yes!" said Sue vehemently.

"Well, they must take their chance, now, poor things," said Jude.

"As soon as the sale-account is wound up, and our bills paid, we go."

"Where do we go to?" asked Time, in suspense.

"We must sail under sealed orders, that nobody may trace us... We

mustn't go to Alfredston, or to Melchester, or to Shaston, or to

Christminster. Apart from those we may go anywhere."

"Why mustn't we go there, Father?"

"Because of a cloud that has gathered over us; though 'we have

wronged no man, corrupted no man, defrauded no man!' Though perhaps

we have 'done that which was right in our own eyes.'"

VII

From that week Jude Fawley and Sue walked no more in the town of

Aldbrickham.

Whither they had gone nobody knew, chiefly because nobody cared

to know. Any one sufficiently curious to trace the steps of such

an obscure pair might have discovered without great trouble that

they had taken advantage of his adaptive craftsmanship to enter

on a shifting, almost nomadic, life, which was not without its

pleasantness for a time.