Thomas Hardy

The Hand of Ethelberta Thomas Hardy

'Well to be sure!' exclaimed a milkman, regarding her. 'We should freeze in our beds if 'twere not for the sun, and, dang me! if she isn't a pretty piece. A man could make a meal between them eyes and chin-eh, hostler? Odd nation dang my old sides if he couldn't!' The speaker, who had been carrying a pair of pails on a yoke, deposited them upon the edge of the pavement in front of the inn, and straightened his back to an excruciating perpendicular. His remarks had been addressed to a rickety person, wearing a waistcoat of that preternatural length from the top to the bottom button which prevails among men who have to do with horses. He was sweeping straws from the carriage-way beneath the stone arch that formed a passage to the stables behind. 'Never mind the cursing and swearing, or somebody who's never out of hearing may clap yer name down in his black book, ' said the hostler, also pausing, and lifting his eyes to the mullioned and transomed windows and moulded parapet above him-not to study them as features of ancient architecture, but just to give as healthful a stretch to the eyes as his acquaintance had done to his back.