Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

part of a barrow-pig, which the countrymen used for greasing their
boots, as it was useless for any other purpose. Pigs were rather plenti-
ful hereabout, being bred and fattened in large numbers in certain
parts of North Wessex.
On the other side of the hedge was a stream, whence, as he now
for the 
first time realized, had come the slight sounds of voices and
laughter that had mingled with his dreams. He mounted the bank
and looked over the fence. On the further side of the stream stood a
small homestead, having a garden and pig-sties attached; in front of
it, beside the brook, three young women were kneeling, with buckets
and platters beside them containing heaps of pigs’ chitterlings,
which they were washing in the running water. One or two pairs of
eyes slyly glanced up, and perceiving that his attention had at last
been attracted, and that he was watching them, they braced them-
selves for inspection by putting their mouths demurely into shape
and recommencing their rinsing operations with assiduity.
‘Thank you!’ said Jude severely.
‘I didn’t throw it, I tell you!’ asserted one girl to her neighbour as if
unconscious of the young man’s presence.
‘Nor I,’ the second answered.
‘O, Anny––how can you!’ said the third.
‘If I had thrown anything at all, it shouldn’t have been that!’
‘Pooh––I don’t care for him!’ And they laughed and continued
their work without looking up, still ostentatiously accusing each
other.
Jude grew sarcastic, as he wiped his face, and caught their
remarks.
‘You didn’t do it––O no!’ he said to the up-stream one of the
three.
She whom he addressed was a 
fine dark-eyed girl, not exactly
handsome but capable of passing as such at a little distance, despite
some coarseness of skin and 
fibre. She had a round and prominent
bosom, full lips, perfect teeth, and the rich complexion of a cochin
hen’s egg. She was a complete and substantial female animal––no
more, no less; and Jude was almost certain that to her was attribut-
able the enterprise of attracting his attention from dreams of the
At Marygreen


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humaner letters to what was simmering in the minds around
him.
‘That you’ll never be told,’ said she deedily.*
‘Whoever did it was wasteful of other people’s property.’
‘O––that’s nothing. It is my father’s.’
‘But you want to speak to me, I suppose?’
‘O yes––if you like to.’
‘Shall I clamber across; or will you come to the plank above here?’
Perhaps she foresaw an opportunity for somehow or other the eyes
of the brown girl rested in his own when he had said the words, and
there was a momentary 
flash of intelligence, a dumb announcement
of a
ffinity in posse between herself and him, which, so far as Jude
Fawley was concerned, had no sort of premeditation in it. She saw
that he had singled her out* from the three as a woman is singled out
in such cases, for no reasoned purpose of further acquaintance, but
in commonplace obedience to conjunctive orders from headquarters,
unconsciously received by unfortunate men when the last intention
of their lives is to be occupied with the feminine.
Springing to her feet she said, ‘Bring back what is lying there.’
Jude was now aware that no message on any matter connected
with her father’s business had prompted her signal to him. He set
down his basket of tools, picked up the scrap of o
ffal, beat a pathway
for himself with his stick, and got over the hedge. They walked in
parallel lines, one on each bank of the stream, towards the small
plank bridge. As the girl drew nearer to it she gave, without Jude
perceiving it, an adroit little suck to the interior of each of her cheeks
in succession, by which curious and original manœuvre she brought
as by magic upon its smooth and rotund surface a perfect dimple,
which she was able to retain there as long as she continued to smile.
This production of dimples at will was a not unknown operation,
which many attempted but only a few succeeded in accomplishing.
They met in the middle of the plank, and Jude, tossing back her
missile, seemed to expect her to explain why she had audaciously
stopped him by this novel artillery instead of by hailing him.
But she, slyly looking in another direction, swayed herself back-
wards and forwards on her hand as it clutched the rail of the bridge;
till, moved by amatory curiosity, she turned her eyes critically upon
him.
‘You don’t think I would shy things at you?’