Lord, that's
the only comfort I've got now! If you engage, you'll be set
swede-hacking. That's what I be doing; but you won't like it."
"O--anything! Will you speak for me?"
"You will do better by speaking for yourself."
"Very well. Now, Marian, remember--nothing about HIM if I get the
place. I don't wish to bring his name down to the dirt."
Marian, who was really a trustworthy girl though of coarser grain
than Tess, promised anything she asked.
"This is pay-night," she said, "and if you were to come with me you
would know at once. I be real sorry that you are not happy; but 'tis
because he's away, I know. You couldn't be unhappy if he were here,
even if he gie'd ye no money--even if he used you like a drudge."
"That's true; I could not!"
They walked on together and soon reached the farmhouse, which was
almost sublime in its dreariness. There was not a tree within sight;
there was not, at this season, a green pasture--nothing but fallow
and turnips everywhere, in large fields divided by hedges plashed to
unrelieved levels.
Tess waited outside the door of the farmhouse till the group of
workfolk had received their wages, and then Marian introduced her.
The farmer himself, it appeared, was not at home, but his wife, who
represented him this evening, made no objection to hiring Tess, on
her agreeing to remain till Old Lady-Day.
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