“I think they are horrible,” said Tess. “Crushing! Killing!”
“That’s what they are meant to be!” he replied in a trade voice. “But you should read my hottest ones—them I kips for slums and seaports. They’d make ye wriggle! Not but what this is a very good tex for rural districts.... Ah—there’s a nice bit of blank wall up by that barn standing to waste. I must put one there—one that it will be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed. Will ye wait, missy?”
“No,” said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way forward she turned her head. The old gray wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted mien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized what was to be the inscription he was now halfway through—
THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT—
Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted—
“If you want to ask for edification on these things of moment, there’s a very earnest good man going to preach a charity-sermon to-day in the parish you are going to—Mr Clare of Emminster. I’m not of his persuasion now, but he’s a good man, and he’ll expound as well as any parson I know. ’Twas he began the work in me.”
But Tess did not answer; she throbbingly resumed her walk, her eyes fixed on the ground. “Pooh—I don’t believe God said such things!” she murmured contemptuously when her flush had died away.
A plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father’s chimney, the sight of which made her heart ache. The aspect of the interior, when she reached it, made her heart ache more. Her mother, who had just come downstairs, turned to greet her from the fireplace, where she was kindling barked-oak twigs under the breakfast kettle. The young children were still above, as was also her father, it being Sunday morning, when he felt justified in lying an additional half-hour.
“Well!—my dear Tess!” exclaimed her surprised mother, jumping up and kissing the girl. “How be ye? I didn’t see you till you was in upon me! Have you come home to be married?”
“No, I have not come for that, mother.”