Having begun their journey, however, they pushed on; but it was not till five o’clock that they found themselves on the scene,—the distance being altogether about half-a-dozen miles from Marygreen, and three from Arabella’s. The conflagration had been got under by the time they reached it, and after a short inspection of the melancholy ruins they retraced their steps—their course lying through the town of Alfredston.
Arabella said she would like some tea, and they entered an inn of an inferior class, and gave their order. As it was not for beer they had a long time to wait. The maid-servant recognized Jude, and whispered her surprise to her mistress in the background, that he, the student “who kept hisself up so particular,” should have suddenly descended so low as to keep company with Arabella. The latter guessed what was being said, and laughed as she met the serious and tender gaze of her lover—the low and triumphant laugh of a careless woman who sees she is winning her game.
They sat and looked round the room, and at the picture of Samson and Delilah which hung on the wall, and at the circular beer-stains on the table, and at the spittoons underfoot filled with sawdust. The whole aspect of the scene had that depressing effect on Jude which few places can produce like a tap-room on a Sunday evening when the setting sun is slanting in, and no liquor is going, and the unfortunate wayfarer finds himself with no other haven of rest.
It began to grow dusk. They could not wait longer, really, for the tea, they said. “Yet what else can we do?” asked Jude. “It is a three-mile walk for you.”
“I suppose we can have some beer,” said Arabella.
“Beer, oh yes. I had forgotten that. Somehow it seems odd to come to a public-house for beer on a Sunday evening.”
“But we didn’t.”
“No, we didn’t.” Jude by this time wished he was out of such an uncongenial atmosphere; but he ordered the beer, which was promptly brought.
Arabella tasted it. “Ugh!” she said.
Jude tasted. “What’s the matter with it?” he asked. “I don’t understand beer very much now, it is true. I like it well enough, but it is bad to read on, and I find coffee better. But this seems all right.”