For some probably economical reason it was usually a woman who was
chosen for this particular duty, and Groby gave as his motive in
selecting Tess that she was one of those who best combined strength
with quickness in untying, and both with staying power, and this may
have been true. The hum of the thresher, which prevented speech,
increased to a raving whenever the supply of corn fell short of the
regular quantity. As Tess and the man who fed could never turn their
heads she did not know that just before the dinner-hour a person had
come silently into the field by the gate, and had been standing under
a second rick watching the scene and Tess in particular. He was
dressed in a tweed suit of fashionable pattern, and he twirled a gay
walking-cane. "Who is that?" said Izz Huett to Marian. She had at first addressed
the inquiry to Tess, but the latter could not hear it. "Somebody's fancy-man, I s'pose," said Marian laconically. "I'll lay a guinea he's after Tess."
"O no. 'Tis a ranter pa'son who's been sniffing after her lately;
not a dandy like this."
"Well--this is the same man."
"The same man as the preacher? But he's quite different!"
"He hev left off his black coat and white neckercher, and hev cut off
his whiskers; but he's the same man for all that."
"D'ye really think so? Then I'll tell her," said Marian. "Don't. She'll see him soon enough, good-now." "Well, I don't think it at all right for him to join his preaching to
courting a married woman, even though her husband mid be abroad, and
she, in a sense, a widow."
"Oh--he can do her no harm," said Izz drily. "Her mind can no more
be heaved from that one place where it do bide than a stooded waggon
from the hole he's in. Lord love 'ee, neither court-paying, nor
preaching, nor the seven thunders themselves, can wean a woman when
'twould be better for her that she should be weaned."
Dinner-time came, and the whirling ceased; whereupon Tess left her
post, her knees trembling so wretchedly with the shaking of the
machine that she could scarcely walk.
"You ought to het a quart o' drink into 'ee, as I've done," said
Marian. "You wouldn't look so white then. Why, souls above us,
your face is as if you'd been hagrode!"
It occurred to the good-natured Marian that, as Tess was so tired,
her discovery of her visitor's presence might have the bad effect of
taking away her appetite; and Marian was thinking of inducing Tess
to descend by a ladder on the further side of the stack when the
gentleman came forward and looked up.