TESS
OF THE D’URBERVILLES
PART
4
Every
village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own code of morality.
The levity of some of the younger women in and about Trantridge was marked, and
was perhaps symptomatic of the choice spirit who ruled The Slopes in that
vicinity. The place had also a more abiding defect; it drank hard. The staple
conversation on the farms around was on the uselessness of saving money; and
smock-frocked arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or hoes, would enter
into calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief was a fuller
provision for a man in his old age than any which could result from savings out
of their wages during a whole lifetime.
The chief
pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday night, when work was
done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market-town two or three miles distant; and,
returning in the small hours of the next morning, to spend Sunday in sleeping
off the dyspeptic effects of the curious compounds sold to them as beer by the
monopolizers of the once-independent inns.
For a long
time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages. But under pressure from
matrons not much older than herself—for a field-man's wages being as high at
twenty-one as at forty, marriage was early here—Tess at length consented to go.
Her first experience of the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had
expected, the hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her
monotonous attention to the poultry-farm all the week. She went again and
again. Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the momentary
threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her some sly regards from
loungers in the streets of Chaseborough; hence, though sometimes her journey to
the town was made independently, she always searched for her fellows at
nightfall, to have the protection of their companionship homeward.
This had
gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in September, on which a
fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims from Trantridge sought double
delights at the inns on that account. Tess's occupations made her late in
setting out, so that her comrades reached the town long before her. It was a fine
September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue
shades in hairlike lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without
aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance
in it. Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked leisurely along.
She did
not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till she had reached
the place, by which time it was close upon dusk. Her limited marketing was soon
completed; and then as usual she began to look about for some of the Trantridge
cottagers.
At first
she could not find them, and she was informed that most of them had gone to
what they called a private little jig at the house of a hay-trusser and
peat-dealer who had transactions with their farm. He lived in an out-of-the-way
nook of the townlet, and in trying to find her course thither her eyes fell
upon Mr d'Urberville standing at a street corner.
"What—my
Beauty? You here so late?" he said.
She told
him that she was simply waiting for company homeward.
"I'll
see you again," said he over her shoulder as she went on down the back
lane.
Approaching
the hay-trussers, she could hear the fiddled notes of a reel proceeding from
some building in the rear; but no sound of dancing was audible—an exceptional
state of things for these parts, where as a rule the stamping drowned the
music. The front door being open she could see straight through the house into
the garden at the back as far as the shades of night would allow; and nobody
appearing to her knock, she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the
outhouse whence the sound had attracted her.
It was a
windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door there floated into
the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance, which at first Tess thought to be
illuminated smoke. But on drawing nearer she perceived that it was a cloud of
dust, lit by candles within the outhouse, whose beams upon the haze carried
forward the outline of the doorway into the wide night of the garden.
When she
came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms racing up and down to the
figure of the dance, the silence of their footfalls arising from their being
overshoe in "scroff"—that is to say, the powdery residuum from the
storage of peat and other products, the stirring of which by their turbulent
feet created the nebulosity that involved the scene. Through this floating,
fusty debris of peat and hay, mixed with the perspirations and warmth of
the dancers, and forming together a sort of vegeto-human pollen, the muted
fiddles feebly pushed their notes, in marked contrast to the spirit with which
the measure was trodden out. They coughed as they danced, and laughed as they
coughed. Of the rushing couples there could barely be discerned more than the
high lights—the indistinctness shaping them to satyrs clasping nymphs—a
multiplicity of Pans whirling a multiplicity of Syrinxes; Lotis attempting to
elude Priapus, and always failing.
At
intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air, and the haze no longer
veiling their features, the demigods resolved themselves into the homely
personalities of her own next-door neighbours. Could Trantridge in two or three
short hours have metamorphosed itself thus madly!
Some
Sileni of the throng sat on benches and hay-trusses by the wall; and one of
them recognized her.
"The
maids don't think it respectable to dance at The Flower-de-Luce," he
explained. "They don't like to let everybody see which be their fancy-men.
Besides, the house sometimes shuts up just when their jints begin to get
greased. So we come here and send out for liquor."
"But
when be any of you going home?" asked Tess with some anxiety.
"Now—a'most
directly. This is all but the last jig."
She
waited. The reel drew to a close, and some of the party were in the mind of
starting. But others would not, and another dance was formed. This surely would
end it, thought Tess. But it merged in yet another. She became restless and
uneasy; yet, having waited so long, it was necessary to wait longer; on account
of the fair the roads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill
intent; and, though not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown.
Had she been near Marlott she would have had less dread.
"Don't
ye be nervous, my dear good soul," expostulated, between his coughs, a
young man with a wet face and his straw hat so far back upon his head that the
brim encircled it like the nimbus of a saint. "What's yer hurry? To-morrow
is Sunday, thank God, and we can sleep it off in church-time. Now, have a turn
with me?"
She did
not abhor dancing, but she was not going to dance here. The movement grew more
passionate: the fiddlers behind the luminous pillar of cloud now and then
varied the air by playing on the wrong side of the bridge or with the back of
the bow. But it did not matter; the panting shapes spun onwards.
They did
not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick to previous ones.
Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory choice had not as yet been
arrived at by one or other of the pair, and by this time every couple had been
suitably matched. It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which
emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious
intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin.
Suddenly
there was a dull thump on the ground: a couple had fallen, and lay in a mixed
heap. The next couple, unable to check its progress, came toppling over the
obstacle. An inner cloud of dust rose around the prostrate figures amid the
general one of the room, in which a twitching entanglement of arms and legs was
discernible.
"You
shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!" burst in female
accents from the human heap—those of the unhappy partner of the man whose
clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened also to be his recently married
wife, in which assortment there was nothing unusual at Trantridge as long as
any affection remained between wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not
uncustomary in their later lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people
between whom there might be a warm understanding.
A loud
laugh from behind Tess's back, in the shade of the garden, united with the
titter within the room. She looked round, and saw the red coal of a cigar: Alec
d'Urberville was standing there alone. He beckoned to her, and she reluctantly
retreated towards him.
"Well,
my Beauty, what are you doing here?"
She was so
tired after her long day and her walk that she confided her trouble to him—that
she had been waiting ever since he saw her to have their company home, because
the road at night was strange to her. "But it seems they will never leave
off, and I really think I will wait no longer."
"Certainly
do not. I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but come to The Flower-de-Luce,
and I'll hire a trap, and drive you home with me."
Tess,
though flattered, had never quite got over her original mistrust of him, and,
despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk home with the work-folk. So she
answered that she was much obliged to him, but would not trouble him. "I
have said that I will wait for 'em, and they will expect me to now."
"Very
well, Miss Independence. Please yourself… Then I shall not hurry… My good Lord,
what a kick-up they are having there!"
He had not
put himself forward into the light, but some of them had perceived him, and his
presence led to a slight pause and a consideration of how the time was flying.
As soon as he had re-lit a cigar and walked away the Trantridge people began to
collect themselves from amid those who had come in from other farms, and
prepared to leave in a body. Their bundles and baskets were gathered up, and
half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter past eleven, they
were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes.
It was a
three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter to-night by the light of
the moon.
Tess soon
perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with
that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses
among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also
were wandering in their gait—to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of
Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed
the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled
down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean
unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They followed the road
with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed
of original and profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming an
organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each
other. They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and
stars were as ardent as they.
Tess,
however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in her father's
house that the discovery of their condition spoilt the pleasure she was
beginning to feel in the moonlight journey. Yet she stuck to the party, for
reasons above given.
In the
open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now their route was
through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a difficulty in opening it, they
closed up together.
This
leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a wicker-basket
containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies, and other purchases for
the week. The basket being large and heavy, Car had placed it for convenience
of porterage on the top of her head, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as
she walked with arms akimbo.
"Well—whatever
is that a-creeping down thy back, Car Darch?" said one of the group
suddenly.
All looked
at Car. Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the back of her head a kind
of rope could be seen descending to some distance below her waist, like a
Chinaman's queue.
"'Tis
her hair falling down," said another.
No; it was
not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing from her basket, and it
glistened like a slimy snake in the cold still rays of the moon.
"'Tis
treacle," said an observant matron.
Treacle it
was. Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the sweet stuff. Honey she
had in plenty out of her own hives, but treacle was what her soul desired, and
Car had been about to give her a treat of surprise. Hastily lowering the basket
the dark girl found that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed
within.
By this
time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the extraordinary appearance of
Car's back, which irritated the dark queen into getting rid of the
disfigurement by the first sudden means available, and independently of the
help of the scoffers. She rushed excitedly into the field they were about to
cross, and flinging herself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her
gown as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and dragging
herself over it upon her elbows.
The
laughter rang louder; they clung to the gate, to the posts, rested on their
staves, in the weakness engendered by their convulsions at the spectacle of
Car. Our heroine, who had hitherto held her peace, at this wild moment could
not help joining in with the rest.
It was a
misfortune—in more ways than one. No sooner did the dark queen hear the soberer
richer note of Tess among those of the other work-people than a
long-smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to madness. She sprang to her
feet and closely faced the object of her dislike.
"How
darest th' laugh at me, hussy!" she cried.
"I
couldn't really help it when t'others did," apologized Tess, still
tittering.
"Ah,
th'st think th' beest everybody, dostn't, because th' beest first favourite
with He just now! But stop a bit, my lady, stop a bit! I'm as good as two of
such! Look here—here's at 'ee!"
To Tess's
horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her gown—which for the
added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free
of—till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to the moonshine,
under which they looked as luminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation,
in their possession of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country-girl. She
closed her fists and squared up at Tess.
"Indeed,
then, I shall not fight!" said the latter majestically; "and if I had
know you was of that sort, I wouldn't have so let myself down as to come with
such a whorage as this is!"
The rather
too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of vituperation from other quarters
upon fair Tess's unlucky head, particularly from the Queen of Diamonds, who
having stood in the relations to d'Urberville that Car had also been suspected
of, united with the latter against the common enemy. Several other women also
chimed in, with an animus which none of them would have been so fatuous as to
show but for the rollicking evening they had passed. Thereupon, finding Tess
unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers tried to make peace by defending
her; but the result of that attempt was directly to increase the war.
Tess was
indignant and ashamed. She no longer minded the loneliness of the way and the
lateness of the hour; her one object was to get away from the whole crew as
soon as possible. She knew well enough that the better among them would repent of
their passion next day. They were all now inside the field, and she was edging
back to rush off alone when a horseman emerged almost silently from the corner
of the hedge that screened the road, and Alec d'Urberville looked round upon
them.
"What
the devil is all this row about, work-folk?" he asked.
The
explanation was not readily forthcoming; and, in truth, he did not require any.
Having heard their voices while yet some way off he had ridden creepingly
forward, and learnt enough to satisfy himself.
Tess was
standing apart from the rest, near the gate. He bent over towards her.
"Jump up behind me," he whispered, "and we'll get shot of the
screaming cats in a jiffy!"
She felt
almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of the crisis. At almost any other
moment of her life she would have refused such proffered aid and company, as
she had refused them several times before; and now the loneliness would not of
itself have forced her to do otherwise. But coming as the invitation did at the
particular juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be
transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she abandoned
herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon his instep, and
scrambled into the saddle behind him. The pair were speeding away into the
distant gray by the time that the contentious revellers became aware of what
had happened.
The Queen
of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and stood beside the Queen of
Diamonds and the new-married, staggering young woman—all with a gaze of fixity
in the direction in which the horse's tramp was diminishing into silence on the
road.
"What
be ye looking at?" asked a man who had not observed the incident.
"Ho-ho-ho!"
laughed dark Car.
"Hee-hee-hee!"
laughed the tippling bride, as she steadied herself on the arm of her fond
husband.
"Heu-heu-heu!"
laughed dark Car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explained laconically:
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire!"
Then these children of the open air, whom even excess
of alcohol could scarce injure permanently, betook themselves to the
field-path; and as they went there moved onward with them, around the shadow of
each one's head, a circle of opalized light, formed by the moon's rays upon the
glistening sheet of dew. Each pedestrian could see no halo but his or her own,
which never deserted the head-shadow, whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might
be; but adhered to it, and persistently beautified it; till the erratic motions
seemed an inherent part of the irradiation, and the fumes of their breathing a
component of the night's mist; and the spirit of the scene, and of the
moonlight, and of Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with the spirit of
wine.
XI
The twain
cantered along for some time without speech, Tess as she clung to him still
panting in her triumph, yet in other respects dubious. She had perceived that
the horse was not the spirited one he sometimes rose, and felt no alarm on that
score, though her seat was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him. She
begged him to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did.
"Neatly
done, was it not, dear Tess?" he said by and by.
"Yes!"
said she. "I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you."
"And
are you?"
She did
not reply.
"Tess,
why do you always dislike my kissing you?"
"I
suppose—because I don't love you."
"You
are quite sure?"
"I am
angry with you sometimes!"
"Ah,
I half feared as much." Nevertheless, Alec did not object to that
confession. He knew that anything was better then frigidity. "Why haven't
you told me when I have made you angry?"
"You
know very well why. Because I cannot help myself here."
"I
haven't offended you often by love-making?"
"You
have sometimes."
"How
many times?"
"You
know as well as I—too many times."
"Every
time I have tried?"
She was
silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable distance, till a faint
luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows all the evening, became general and
enveloped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it
more pervasive than in clear air. Whether on this account, or from
absent-mindedness, or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long
ago passed the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway,
and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
She was
inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o'clock every morning of that week,
had been on foot the whole of each day, and on this evening had in addition
walked the three miles to Chaseborough, waited three hours for her neighbours
without eating or drinking, her impatience to start them preventing either; she
had then walked a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the
quarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now nearly one
o'clock. Only once, however, was she overcome by actual drowsiness. In that
moment of oblivion her head sank gently against him.
D'Urberville
stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups, turned sideways on the
saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to support her.
This
immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those sudden impulses of
reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a little push from her. In his
ticklish position he nearly lost his balance and only just avoided rolling over
into the road, the horse, though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest
he rode.
"That
is devilish unkind!" he said. "I mean no harm—only to keep you from
falling."
She
pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all be true, she
relented, and said quite humbly, "I beg your pardon, sir."
"I
won't pardon you unless you show some confidence in me. Good God!" he
burst out, "what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like you? For near
three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and snubbed
me; and I won't stand it!"
"I'll
leave you to-morrow, sir."
"No,
you will not leave me to-morrow! Will you, I ask once more, show your belief in
me by letting me clasp you with my arm? Come, between us two and nobody else,
now. We know each other well; and you know that I love you, and think you the
prettiest girl in the world, which you are. Mayn't I treat you as a
lover?"
She drew a
quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on her seat, looked far
ahead, and murmured, "I don't know—I wish—how can I say yes or no
when—"
He settled
the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired, and Tess expressed no
further negative. Thus they sidled slowly onward till it struck her they had
been advancing for an unconscionable time—far longer than was usually occupied
by the short journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and that
they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway.
"Why,
where be we?" she exclaimed.
"Passing
by a wood."
"A
wood—what wood? Surely we are quite out of the road?"
"A
bit of The Chase—the oldest wood in England. It is a lovely night, and why
should we not prolong our ride a little?"
"How
could you be so treacherous!" said Tess, between archness and real dismay,
and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers one by one, though at
the risk of slipping off herself. "Just when I've been putting such trust
in you, and obliging you to please you, because I thought I had wronged you by
that push! Please set me down, and let me walk home."
"You
cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear. We are miles away from
Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing fog you might wander for
hours among these trees."
"Never
mind that," she coaxed. "Put me down, I beg you. I don't mind where
it is; only let me get down, sir, please!"
"Very
well, then, I will—on one condition. Having brought you here to this
out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for your safe-conduct home,
whatever you may yourself feel about it. As to your getting to Trantridge
without assistance, it is quite impossible; for, to tell the truth, dear, owing
to this fog, which so disguises everything, I don't quite know where we are
myself. Now, if you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through
the bushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our
whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly. When I come back I'll give you
full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or you may ride—at
your pleasure."
She
accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not till he had
stolen a cursory kiss. He sprang down on the other side.
"I
suppose I must hold the horse?" said she.
"Oh
no; it's not necessary," replied Alec, patting the panting creature.
"He's had enough of it for to-night."
He turned
the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him on to a bough, and made a sort of
couch or nest for her in the deep mass of dead leaves.
"Now,
you sit there," he said. "The leaves have not got damp as yet. Just
give an eye to the horse—it will be quite sufficient."
He took a
few steps away from her, but, returning, said, "By the bye, Tess, your
father has a new cob to-day. Somebody gave it to him."
"Somebody?
You!"
D'Urberville
nodded.
"O
how very good of you that is!" she exclaimed, with a painful sense of the
awkwardness of having to thank him just then.
"And
the children have some toys."
"I
didn't know—you ever sent them anything!" she murmured, much moved.
"I almost wish you had not—yes, I almost wish it!"
"Why,
dear?"
"It—hampers
me so."
"Tessy—don't
you love me ever so little now?"
"I'm
grateful," she reluctantly admitted. "But I fear I do not—" The
sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this result so
distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and then following with
another, she wept outright.
"Don't
cry, dear, dear one! Now sit down here, and wait till I come." She
passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and shivered slightly.
"Are you cold?" he asked.
"Not
very—a little."
He touched
her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down. "You have only
that puffy muslin dress on—how's that?"
"It's
my best summer one. 'Twas very warm when I started, and I didn't know I was
going to ride, and that it would be night."
"Nights
grow chilly in September. Let me see." He pulled off a light overcoat that
he had worn, and put it round her tenderly. "That's it—now you'll feel
warmer," he continued. "Now, my pretty, rest there; I shall soon be
back again."
Having
buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders he plunged into the webs of vapour which
by this time formed veils between the trees. She could hear the rustling of the
branches as he ascended the adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder
than the hopping of a bird, and finally died away. With the setting of the moon
the pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into reverie
upon the leaves where he had left her.
In the
meantime Alec d'Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear his genuine
doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in. He had, in fact, ridden
quite at random for over an hour, taking any turning that came to hand in order
to prolong companionship with her, and giving far more attention to Tess's
moonlit person than to any wayside object. A little rest for the jaded animal
being desirable, he did not hasten his search for landmarks. A clamber over the
hill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway whose
contours he recognized, which settled the question of their whereabouts.
D'Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time the moon had quite gone
down, and partly on account of the fog The Chase was wrapped in thick darkness,
although morning was not far off. He was obliged to advance with outstretched
hands to avoid contact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit the exact
spot from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him. Roaming up and
down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of the horse close
at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly caught his foot.
"Tess!"
said d'Urberville.
There was
no answer. The obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing
but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which represented the white muslin figure
he had left upon the dead leaves. Everything else was blackness alike. D'Urberville
stooped; and heard a gentle regular breathing. He knelt and bent lower, till
her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers.
She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears.
Darkness
and silence ruled everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks
of The Chase, in which there poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap;
and about them stole the hopping rabbits and hares. But, might some say, where
was Tess's guardian angel? where was the providence of her simple faith?
Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was
talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not
to be awaked.
Why it was
that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and
practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse
pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the
finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand
years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order.
One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present
catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking
home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards
peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon
the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by
average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter.
As Tess's
own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in
their fatalistic way: "It was to be." There lay the pity of it. An
immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine's personality thereafter
from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother's door to try her
fortune at Trantridge poultry-farm.
