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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty two. They came downstairs yawning next morning, but

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skimming and milking were proceeded with as usual, and they

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went indoors to breakfast. Dairyman Crick was discovered stamping about

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the house. He had received a letter in which a

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customer had complained that the butter had a twang. And

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be gad sult have said the dairyman, who held in

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his left hand a wooden slice on which a lump

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of butter was stuck, yas taste it for yourself. Several

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of them gathered round him, and mister Clare tasted. Tess

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tasted also the indoor milk maids, one or two of

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the milking men, and last of all missus Crick, who

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came out from the waiting breakfast table. There certainly was

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a twang. The dairyman, who had thrown himself into abstraction

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to better realize the taste and so divine the particular

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species of noxious weed to which it appertained, suddenly exclaimed

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tears garlic, And I thought there wasn't a blade left

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in that mead. Then all the old hands remembered that

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a certain dry mead into which a few of the

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cows had been admitted of late, had in years gone by,

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spoilt the butter in the same way. The dairy man

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had not recognized the taste at the time, and thought

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the butter bewitched. We must overhaul that mead, he resumed,

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this mustn't continue. All, having armed themselves with old pointed knives,

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they went out together. As the inimical plant could only

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be present in very microscopic dimensions to have escaped ordinary

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observation to find it seemed rather a hopeless attempt in

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the stretch of rich grasp For them, however, they formed

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themselves into line, all assisting, owing to the importance of

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the search. The dairy man at the upper end with

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mister Clare, who had volunteered to help, then Tess Marion

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Is Hewett and Retty, then Bill Lewell Jonathan, and the

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married dairywomen Beck Crebs with her wooly black hair and

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rolling eyes, and Flaxen Francis, consumptive from the winter's damps

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of the water meads, who lived in their respective cottages.

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With eyes fixed upon the ground, they crept slowly across

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the strip of the field, returning a little further down,

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in such a manner that when they should have finished

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not a single inch of the pasture, but would have

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fallen under the eye of some one of them. It

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was a most tedious business, not more than half a

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dozen shoots of garlic being discoverable in the whole field.

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Yet such was the herb's pungency that probably one bite

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of it by one cow had been sufficient to season

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the whole. Dairies produce for the day, Differing one from

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another in natures and moods so greatly as they did,

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they yet formed bending a curiously uniform row, automatic, noiseless,

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and an alien observer passing down the neighboring lane might

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well have been excused for massing them as hodge. As

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they crept along, stooping low to discern the plant, a

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soft yellow gleam was reflected from the buttercups into their

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shaded faces, giving them an elfish moonlit aspect, though the

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sun was pouring upon their backs. In all the strength

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of noon, Angel Claire, who communistically stuck to his rule

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of taking part with the rest in everything, glanced up

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now and then. It was, not, of course, by accident,

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that he walked next to Tess. Well, how are you,

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he murmured, Very well, thank you, sir, she replied demurely.

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As they had been discussing a score of personal matters

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only half an hour before. The introductory style seemed a

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little superfluous, but they got no further in speech. Just

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then they crept and crept the hem of her petticoat,

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just touching his gaiter and his elbow, sometimes brushing hers.

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At last, the dairyman who came next could stand it

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no longer upon my soul and body, this here, stupid,

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do fairly make my back open and shut, he exclaimed,

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straightening himself up slowly with an excruciated look. Till quite upright.

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And you made e Tess. You wasn't well a day

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or two ago. This we'll make your head ache finely.

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Don't do any more if you'll fail, fainty, leave the

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rest to finish it. Dairy man crick withdrew and Tess

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dropped behind. Mister Clare also stepped out of line and

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began privateering about for the weed when she found him

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near her. Her very tension at what she had heard

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the night before made her the first to speak. Don't

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they look pretty? She said? Who is he? Hewett and

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Retty Tess had moodily decided that either of these maidens

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would make a good farmer's wife, and that she ought

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to recommend them and obscure her own wretched charms. Pretty

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er well, yes, they are pretty girls, fresh looking I

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have often thought so, though poor DearS, prettiness won't last long.

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Oh no, Unfortunately they are excellent dairy women. Yes, though

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not better than you. They skim better than I do

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they Claire remained observing them, not without their observing him.

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She's coloring up, continued Tess heroically, Who Retty, priddle? Oh

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why is that? Because you are looking at her self?

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Sacrificing as her mood might be, Tess could not go

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well further and cry, marry one of them, if you

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really do want a dairywoman and not a lady, and

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don't think of marrying me. She followed dairyman Crick and

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had the mournful satisfaction of seeing that Claire remained behind.

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From this day she forced herself to take pains to

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avoid him, never allowing herself as formerly to remain long

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in his company, even if their juxtaposition were purely accidental.

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She gave the other three every chance. Tess was woman

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enough to realize from their avows to her that Angel

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Claire had the honor of all the dairy maids in

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his keeping, and her preconception of his care to avoid

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compromising the happiness of either in the least degree. Bread

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a tender aspect in tests for what she deemed rightly

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or wrongly, the self controlling sense of duty shown by him,

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a quality which she had never expected to find in

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one of the opposite sex, and in the absence of

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which more than one of the simple hearts who were

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his housemates might have gone weeping on her pilgrimage. End

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of Chapter twenty two,