The dense trees of the avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the open land on each side was still under a faint daylight; in other words, they passed down a midnight between two gloamings. The features of the town had a keen interest for Elizabeth's mother, now that the human side came to the fore. As soon as they had wandered about they could see that the stockade of gnarled trees which framed in Casterbridge was itself an avenue, standing on a low green bank or escarpment, with a ditch yet visible without. Within the avenue and bank was a wall more or less discontinuous, and within the wall were packed the abodes of the burghers.
Though the two women did not know it these external features were but the ancient defences of the town, planted as a promenade.
The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a sense of great snugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same time the unlighted country without strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering its nearness to life. The difference between burgh and champaign was increased, too, by sounds which now reached them above others - the notes of a brass band. The travellers returned into the High Street, where there were timber houses with overhanging storeys, whose small-paned lattices were screened by dimity curtains on a drawing-string, and under whose barge-boards old cobwebs waved in the breeze. There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived their chief support from those adjoining. There were slate roofs patched with tiles, and tile roofs patched with slate, with occasionally a roof of thatch. See note 2 so that chronologists of the advanced school were appreciably on their way to the next hour before the whole business of the old one was satisfactorily wound up.
In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves rolled up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her skirt tucked up through her pocket hole. She carried a loaf under her arm from which she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some other women who walked with her; which pieces they nibbled critically. The sight reminded Mrs Henchard-Newson and her daughter that they had an appetite;and they inquired of the woman for the nearest baker's.
``Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in Casterbridge just now,'' she said, after directing them. ``They can blare their trumpets and thump their drums, and have their roaring dinners' - waving her hand towards a point further along the street, where the brass band could be seen standing in front of an illuminated building - ``but we must needs be put-to for want of a wholesome crust. There's less good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now.''
``And less good beer than swipes,'' said a man with his hands in his pockets.
``How does it happen there's no good bread?'' asked Mrs Henchard.
``Oh, 'tis the corn-factor - he's the man that our millers and bakers all deal wi', and he has sold 'em growed wheat, which they didn't know was growed, so they say , till the dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and like suet pudden inside. I've been a wife, and I've been a mother, and I never see such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before. - But you must be a real stranger here not to know what's made all the poor volks' insides plim like blowed bladders this week?''
``I am,'' said Elizabeth's mother shyly.
Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her future in this place, she withdrew with her daughter from the speaker's side.
Getting a couple of biscuits at the shop indicated as a temporary substitute for a meal, they next bent their steps instinctively to where the music was playing.
HARDY: The Mayor of Casterbridge - V
