Chapter 23 Chapter Twenty Two

They all yawned when they got up and went downstairs next morning; but they went on with their work of skimming and milking the cows, and went in for breakfast when they were done.They saw Mr. Crick, the dairyman, stamping his feet in the house. It turned out that he had received a letter from a customer complaining that the butter he produced had a strange smell. "Oh, my God, what a smell!" said the proprietor, holding in his left hand a piece of wood with a stick of butter on it. "There is a strange smell - if you don't believe me, try it yourself!" Several people gathered about him; Mr. Clare tasted, Tess tasted, the other milkmaids in the house tasted, and the milkmen also tasted, Kerry Mrs. Ke set the table outside the house, so she was the last to taste it.There must be a strange smell in the butter.

The Dairyman was there absorbed in the taste of the butter, trying to figure out what kind of weed was responsible for the strange taste, when suddenly he said aloud— "It's garlic! I thought there wasn't a single garlic leaf left in that meadow!" Then all the old workers remembered that some cows had run into a field of dry grass recently, and some years ago, some cows had run into that field and spoiled the butter.That time the boss couldn't distinguish the smell, thinking it was witchcraft that spoiled the butter. "We must search that pasture thoroughly again," continued the boss; "this kind of thing must not happen again."

All armed themselves with an old sharp knife in their hands, and went out together.As the butter-damaging plants that grow in the meadows are usually invisible, they must be very small, and there was little hope of finding them out of the lush meadow before them.But as the matter was so important, they all came to help and formed a line to search together; Mr. Clare also came to help of his own accord, and the dairyman stood with him at the beginning of the top; behind them were Tess, Marianne, Izz Huett and Letty; and after that Bill Lowell, Jonathan, and married women living in their own houses--including Baker Nibs, who grew up There was a head of curly black hair and large, rolling eyes; and a flaxen-haired Frances who had contracted consumption from the winter humidity in the water meadows.

With their eyes fixed on the ground, they slowly searched across the pasture. After searching the biological field, they searched back in the same way. When they finished searching in this way, not an inch of pasture could escape them. eyes out.This is the most tedious thing to do, and five or six garlic shoots were found in all in the whole pasture; but it is such a pungent plant that, if a cow happens to take a bite, it is enough to spoil the milk produced by the dairy farm that day. up. There was a great variety of natures in their company, and very different temperaments, but they were all stooped in a strangely neat line--they all came together silently and automatically; At this time, if an outsider walked by the nearby path and saw them, he would probably call this group of people "Hoji".As they searched, they bent low so that they could see the garlic sprouts on the ground, and the sun shone on the buttercups, and the soft yellow light reflected from them fell on their faces facing away from the sun, making them look Somewhat ethereal in the moonlight, even though the sun was shining light on their backs with all its power at noon.

Angel Clare was determined to follow a principle, to do everything with everyone, and he looked up from time to time.He was walking beside Tess, of course it was no accident. "Hi, how are you?" he asked in a low voice. "I'm fine, thank you, sir," she said solemnly. Only half an hour before, they had discussed so many personal matters that their courtesies seemed a little superfluous now.But they said nothing else at the time, stooping and searching, and Tess' skirt touched Clare's leggings, and Clare's elbow sometimes touched Tess's arm.The dairy farmer who followed behind was finally too tired to stand it.

"Bending like this is really exhausting, my back is almost broken!" He yelled loudly, frowning and slowly stretched his waist, and finally straightened his waist completely. "And you, Miss Tess, didn't you feel sick a day or two ago--it makes your head hurt! If you feel dizzy, you don't work; do the rest Leave it to someone else." The dairyman withdrew from the search, followed by Tess.Mr. Clare also withdrew from the line of searching people, and began to search wildly around.Seeing him approaching her, Tess tensed up at the conversation she had heard the night before, and spoke first.

"They're pretty, aren't they?" she said "Who?" "Izz Huett and Letty." Tess had painfully resolved that either of them would make a good farmer's wife, and that she should recommend them, and belittle her own unfortunate beauty. "Are they beautiful? Oh, yes—they are all beautiful girls—they look like water, and I often think so." "But, my dear girls, beauty does not last!" "Oh, it won't last, unfortunately." "They're the best dairymaids." "True; but they are still worse than you."

"They skim the cream better than I do." "Really?" Claire was still watching them—and it wasn't that they weren't watching him. "She's getting redder slowly," said Tess bravely. "Who is it?" "Letty Priddle." "Oh! Why are you blushing?" "Because you're always looking at her." Tess may have had a spirit of self-sacrifice in her heart, but she couldn't go any further and said aloud to him, "If you really don't want a lady but a dairymaid for your wife, you'll be in their Pick one of them; don't even think of marrying me!" She followed Dairyman Creek, and felt a sad satisfaction in seeing Clare still there.

From that day forward, she tried to force herself to avoid him—even if they met by chance, she would not allow herself to stay by his side for as long as before.She wants to leave the opportunity to the three of them. From the confession of the three girls, Tess, as a woman, fully realizes that the reputations of the three of them are in the hands of Claire, but she also sees that Claire avoids them carefully, and does not do anything to damage their future happiness. and it gave Tess a tender respect for him, so that, whether she was right or not, she thought Clare displayed a sense of self-restraint which she had never expected to find in a man. Quality, if this quality is lacking, then perhaps more than one of the simple-hearted female workers on the same dairy farm with him will cry to the end of life.