Eighth plate for Thomas Hardy's "Wessex Folk" (subsequently renamed "A Few Crusted Characters"), "He Was Stone-Dead" by Charles Green (original) (raw)

Passage Illustrated: How Netty outwitted the Land Agent

The agent had promised to call on old Sargent for this purpose at five o'clock, and Netty put the money into her desk to have it close at hand. While doing this she heard a slight cry from her uncle, and turning round, saw that he had fallen forward in his chair. She went and lifted him, but he was unconscious; and unconscious he remained. Neither medicine nor stimulants would bring him to himself. She had been told that he might possibly go off in that way, and it seemed as if the end had come. Before she had started for a doctor his face and extremities grew quite cold and white, and she saw that help would be useless. He was stone-dead.

'Netty's situation rose upon her distracted mind in all its seriousness. The house, garden, and field were lost — by a few hours — and with them a home for herself and her lover. She would not think so meanly of Jasper as to suppose that he would adhere to the resolution declared in a moment of impatience; but she trembled, nevertheless. Why could not her uncle have lived a couple of hours longer, since he had lived so long? It was now past three o’clock; at five the agent was to call, and, if all had gone well, by ten minutes past five the house and holding would have been securely hers for her own and Jasper’s lives, these being two of the three proposed to be added by paying the fine. How that wretched old Squire would rejoice at getting the little tenancy into his hands! He did not really require it, but constitutionally hated these tiny copyholds and leaseholds and freeholds, which made islands of independence in the fair, smooth ocean of his estates.

‘Then an idea struck into the head of Netty how to accomplish her object in spite of her uncle's negligence. [Life's Little Ironies, Osgood, McIlvaine edition, 294-95]

Commentary

This final plate in the Harper's four-month serialisation depicts the protagonist's finding her uncle dead in his chair just prior to his appointment to renew his cottage's copyhold. Green has chosen the moment of crisis for the protagonist, Netty Sergent, as she appears to have received a check from Fate. The scene appeared on page 125 in the June number of Harper's New Monthly Magazine for 1891, a placement intended to maximize readers' suspense. The oral story as a whole, which shows the biter bitten, is precisely the stuff of village anecdote that so engaged Thomas Hardy. In this instance, a canny villager (a young woman who must inherit her uncle's cottage in order to secure a husband) outwits the local aristocrat. Hardy concludes the ironic tale with the shrewd Netty's outmaneuvering the scheming squire by duping his agent. She artfully deceives the steward into believing that her uncle is still clinging to life when he "signs" the renewal document.

Bibliography

Brady, Kristin. The Short Stories of Thomas Hardy: Tales of Past and Present. London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984.

Hardy, Thomas. "Netty Sargent's Copyhold." [June 1891] Life's Little Ironies: A Set of Tales with Some Colloquial Sketches Entitled "A Few Crusted Characters." London: Osgood, McIlvaine, 1894. 292-301.

Hardy Thomas. Wessex Folk (subsequently renamed A Few Crusted Characters) in Harper's New Monthly Magazine 81 (March-May 1891): 594, 701, 703, 891, 894; 82 (June 1891): 123.

Ray, Martin. Chapter 25, "A Few Crusted Characters." Thomas Hardy: A Textual Study of the Short Stories. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997. 228-258.

Created 21 May 2008

Last modified 13 April