Mother and Child

his wife, the milkmaids Tess, Marian, Retty Priddle, Izz Huett, and the married ones from the cottages; also Mr Clare, Jonathan Kail, old Deborah, and the rest, stood gazing hopelessly at the churn; and the boy who kept the horse going outside put on moon-like eyes to show his sense of the situation. Even the melancholy horse himself seemed to look in at the window in inquiring despair at each walk round. ¡¡¡¡`'Tis years since I went to Conjuror Trendle's son in Egdon - years!' said the dairyman bitterly. `And he was nothing to what his father had been. I have said fifty times, if I have said once, that I don't believe in en; though a' do cast folks' waters very true. But I shall have to go to 'n if he's alive. O yes, I shall have to go to 'n, if this sort of thing continnys!' ¡¡¡¡Even Mr Clare began to feel tragical at the dairyman's desperation. ¡¡¡¡`Conjuror Fall, t'other side of Casterbridge that they used to call Wide-O he's rotten as touchwood by now.'