I'm sure they'd see it as a romantical, artistical,
and proper thing to do. They spend lots o' money in keeping up old
ruins, and finding the bones o' things, and such like; and living
remains must be more interesting to 'em still, if they only knowed
of me. Would that somebody would go round and tell 'em what there
is living among 'em, and they thinking nothing of him! If Pa'son
Tringham, who discovered me, had lived, he'd ha' done it, I'm sure."
Tess postponed her arguments on this high project till she had
grappled with pressing matters in hand, which seemed little improved
by her remittances. When indoor necessities had been eased, she
turned her attention to external things. It was now the season for
planting and sowing; many gardens and allotments of the villagers
had already received their spring tillage; but the garden and the
allotment of the Durbeyfields were behindhand. She found, to her
dismay, that this was owing to their having eaten all the seed
potatoes,--that last lapse of the improvident. At the earliest
moment she obtained what others she could procure, and in a few
days her father was well enough to see to the garden, under Tess's
persuasive efforts: while she herself undertook the allotment-plot
which they rented in a field a couple of hundred yards out of the
village.
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