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The Three Strangers
Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage of some shepherd.
Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who 'conceive and meditate of pleasant things.'
Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, such a kind of shelter had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only reason for its precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed there and thus for a good five hundred years. Hence the house was exposed to the elements on all sides. But, though the wind up here blew unmistakably when it did blow, and the rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of the winter season were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were imagined to be by dwellers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as in the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the shepherd and his family who tenanted the house were pitied for their sufferings from the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were less inconvenienced by 'wuzzes and flames' (hoarses and phlegms) than when they had lived by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley.
The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds trying to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown inside-out like umbrellas. The gable-end of the cottage was stained with wet, and the eavesdroppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was commiseration for the shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was entertaining a large party in glorification of the christening of his second girl.
The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were all now assembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A glance into the apartment at eight o'clock on this eventful evening would have resulted in the opinion that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook as could be wished for in boisterous weather. The calling of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of highly- polished sheep-crooks without stems that were hung ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining crook varying from the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last local sheep-fair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, holy-days, and family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them standing on the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself significant. Candles on the chimney-piece always meant a party.
On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'
Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighbouring dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life-companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever--which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale.
Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's daughter from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket--and kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised as to the character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping that they would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing-party was the alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing objection on the score of good drink, had a counterbalancing disadvantage in the matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites engendered by the exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery. Shepherdess Fennel fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling short dances with short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any ungovernable rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined to her own gentle mind: the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the most reckless phases of hospitality.
The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who had a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so small and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle- dee of this youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground- bass from Elijah New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully brought with him his favourite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was instantaneous, Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no account to let the dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour.
But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one of the dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the musicians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and wind. Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the countenances of her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's elbow and put her hand on the serpent's mouth. But they took no notice, and fearing she might lose her character of genial hostess if she were to interfere too markedly, she retired and sat down helpless. And so the dance whizzed on with cumulative fury, the performers moving in their planet-like courses, direct and retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of the well-kicked clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the circumference of an hour.
While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel's pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about the growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on through the rain without a pause, following the little-worn path which, further on in its course, skirted the shepherd's cottage.
It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have been about forty years of age. He appeared tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed to the judging of men's heights by the eye, would have discerned that this was chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not more than five-feet-eight or nine.
Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there was something about him which suggested that he naturally belonged to the black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his boots hobnailed, yet in his progress he showed not the mud-accustomed bearing of hobnailed and fustianed peasantry.
By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd's premises the rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence. The outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the force of wind and rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the shepherd's domestic erections was an empty sty at the forward corner of his hedgeless garden, for in these latitudes the principle of masking the homelier features of your establishment by a conventional frontage was unknown. The traveller's eye was attracted to this small building by the pallid shine of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside, and, finding it empty, stood under the pent-roof for shelter.
While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompaniment to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on the cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just discernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was an insufficiency of water; and a casual rainfall was utilized by turning out, as catchers, every utensil that the house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the contrivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are absolutely necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But at this season there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the skies bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store.
At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie into which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an apparently new intention, he walked up the path to the house- door. Arrived here, his first act was to kneel down on a large stone beside the row of vessels, and to drink a copious draught from one of them. Having quenched his thirst he rose and lifted his hand to knock, but paused with his eye upon the panel. Since the dark surface of the wood revealed absolutely nothing, it was evident that he must be mentally looking through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the possibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they might bear upon the question of his entry.
In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a soul was anywhere visible. The garden-path stretched downward from his feet, gleaming like the track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly dry), the well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were varnished with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far away in the vale, a faint whiteness of more than usual extent showed that the rivers were high in the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops--lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at the door.
Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a not unwelcome diversion.
'Walk in!' said the shepherd promptly.
The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest candles, and turned to look at him.
Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large, open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the room. He seemed pleased with his survey, and, baring his shaggy head, said, in a rich deep voice, 'The rain is so heavy, friends, that I ask leave to come in and rest awhile.'
'To be sure, stranger,' said the shepherd. 'And faith, you've been lucky in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling for a glad cause--though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad cause to happen more than once a year.'
'Nor less,' spoke up a woman. 'For 'tis best to get your family over and done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier out of the fag o't.'
'And what may be this glad cause?' asked the stranger.
'A birth and christening,' said the shepherd.
The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too many or too few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to a pull at the mug, he readily acquiesced. His manner, which, before entering, had been so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless and candid man.
'Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb--hey?' said the engaged man of fifty.
'Late it is, master, as you say.--I'll take a seat in the chimney- corner, if you have nothing to urge against it, ma'am; for I am a little moist on the side that was next the rain.'
Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer, who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home.
'Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,' he said freely, seeing that the eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, 'and I am not well fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit better fit for working-days when I reach home.'
'One of hereabouts?' she inquired.
'Not quite that--further up the country.'
'I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my neighbourhood.'
'But you would hardly have heard of me,' he said quickly. 'My time would be long before yours, ma'am, you see.'
This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of stopping her cross-examination.
'There is only one thing more wanted to make me happy,' continued the new-comer. 'And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say I am out of.'
'I'll fill your pipe,' said the shepherd.
'I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise.'
'A smoker, and no pipe about 'ee?'
'I have dropped it somewhere on the road.'
The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he did so, 'Hand me your baccy-box--I'll fill that too, now I am about it.'
The man went through the movement of searching his pockets.
'Lost that too?' said his entertainer, with some surprise.
'I am afraid so,' said the man with some confusion. 'Give it to me in a screw of paper.' Lighting his pipe at the candle with a suction that drew the whole flame into the bowl, he resettled himself in the corner and bent his looks upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he wished to say no more.
Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice of this visitor by reason of an absorbing discussion in which they were engaged with the band about a tune for the next dance. The matter being settled, they were about to stand up when an interruption came in the shape of another knock at the door.
At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker and began stirring the brands as if doing it thoroughly were the one aim of his existence; and a second time the shepherd said, 'Walk in!' In a moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He too was a stranger.
This individual was one of a type radically different from the first. There was more of the commonplace in his manner, and a certain jovial cosmopolitanism sat upon his features. He was several years older than the first arrival, his hair being slightly frosted, his eyebrows bristly, and his whiskers cut back from his cheeks. His face was rather full and flabby, and yet it was not altogether a face without power. A few grog-blossoms marked the neighbourhood of his nose. He flung back his long drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of cinder-gray shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or other that would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal ornament. Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he said, 'I must ask for a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be wetted to my skin before I get to Casterbridge.'
'Make yourself at home, master,' said the shepherd, perhaps a trifle less heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the least tinge of niggardliness in his composition; but the room was far from large, spare chairs were not numerous, and damp companions were not altogether desirable at close quarters for the women and girls in their bright-coloured gowns.
However, the second comer, after taking off his greatcoat, and hanging his hat on a nail in one of the ceiling-beams as if he had been specially invited to put it there, advanced and sat down at the table. This had been pushed so closely into the chimney-corner, to give all available room to the dancers, that its inner edge grazed the elbow of the man who had ensconced himself by the fire; and thus the two strangers were brought into close companionship. They nodded to each other by way of breaking the ice of unacquaintance, and the first stranger handed his neighbour the family mug--a huge vessel of brown ware, having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of whole generations of thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh, and bearing the following inscription burnt upon its rotund side in yellow letters:
The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and drank on, and on, and on--till a curious blueness overspread the countenance of the shepherd's wife, who had regarded with no little surprise the first stranger's free offer to the second of what did not belong to him to dispense.
'I knew it!' said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction. 'When I walked up your garden before coming in, and saw the hives all of a row, I said to myself; "Where there's bees there's honey, and where there's honey there's mead." But mead of such a truly comfortable sort as this I really didn't expect to meet in my older days.' He took yet another pull at the mug, till it assumed an ominous elevation.
'Glad you enjoy it!' said the shepherd warmly.
'It is goodish mead,' assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of enthusiasm which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise for one's cellar at too heavy a price. 'It is trouble enough to make--and really I hardly think we shall make any more. For honey sells well, and we ourselves can make shift with a drop o' small mead and metheglin for common use from the comb-washings."
'O, but you'll never have the heart!' reproachfully cried the stranger in cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and setting it down empty. 'I love mead, when 'tis old like this, as I love to go to church o' Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of the week.'
'Ha, ha, ha!' said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not refrain from this slight testimony to his comrade's humour.
Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon--with its due complement of white of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of working, bottling, and cellaring--tasted remarkably strong; but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently, the stranger in cinder-gray at the table, moved by its creeping influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair, spread his legs, and made his presence felt in various ways.
'Well, well, as I say,' he resumed, 'I am going to Casterbridge, and to Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this time; but the rain drove me into your dwelling, and I'm not sorry for it.'
'You don't live in Casterbridge?' said the shepherd.
'Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there.'
'Going to set up in trade, perhaps?'
'No, no,' said the shepherd's wife. 'It is easy to see that the gentleman is rich, and don't want to work at anything.'
The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would accept that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by answering, 'Rich is not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be done.'
'Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse off than we?' replied the shepherd's wife.
''Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis the nature of my trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up and off, or I shan't get a lodging in the town.' However, the speaker did not move, and directly added, 'There's time for one more draught of friendship before I go; and I'd perform it at once if the mug were not dry.'
'Here's a mug o' small,' said Mrs. Fennel. 'Small, we call it, though to be sure 'tis only the first wash o' the combs.'
'No,' said the stranger disdainfully. 'I won't spoil your first kindness by partaking o' your second.'
'Certainly not,' broke in Fennel. 'We don't increase and multiply every day, and I'll fill the mug again.' He went away to the dark place under the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him.
'Why should you do this?' she said reproachfully, as soon as they were alone. 'He's emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and now he's not contented wi' the small, but must needs call for more o' the strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I don't like the look o' the man at all.'
'But he's in the house, my honey; and 'tis a wet night, and a christening. Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or less? There'll be plenty more next bee-burning.'
'Very well--this time, then,' she answered, looking wistfully at the barrel. 'But what is the man's calling, and where is he one of; that he should come in and join us like this?'
'I don't know. I'll ask him again.'
The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel. She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the large one at a discreet distance from him. When he had tossed off his portion the shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger's occupation.
The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney- corner, with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 'Anybody may know my trade--I'm a wheelwright.'
'A very good trade for these parts,' said the shepherd.
'And anybody may know mine--if they've the sense to find it out,' said the stranger in cinder-gray.
'You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,' observed the hedge-carpenter, looking at his own hands. 'My fingers be as full of thorns as an old pin-cushion is of pins.'
The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, 'True; but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers.'
No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma, the shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles presented themselves as at the former time--one had no voice, another had forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing himself. Thrusting one thumb into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks above the mantelpiece, began:-
'O my trade it is the rarest one, Simple shepherds all - My trade is a sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, And waft 'em to a far countree!'
The room was silent when he had finished the verse--with one exception, that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word, 'Chorus! 'joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish -
'And waft 'em to a far countree!'
Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some suspicion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely singing an old song from recollection, or was composing one there and then for the occasion. All were as perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests at Belshazzar's Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who quietly said, 'Second verse, stranger,' and smoked on.
The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went on with the next stanza as requested:-
'My tools are but common ones, Simple shepherds all - My tools are no sight to see: A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, Are implements enough for me!'
Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and all started back with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but finding him wanting in alacrity for catching her she sat down trembling.
'O, he's the--!' whispered the people in the background, mentioning the name of an ominous public officer. 'He's come to do it! 'Tis to be at Casterbridge jail to-morrow--the man for sheep-stealing-- the poor clock-maker we heard of; who used to live away at Shottsford and had no work to do--Timothy Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he went out of Shottsford by the high-road, and took a sheep in open daylight, defying the farmer and the farmer's wife and the farmer's lad, and every man jack among 'em. He' (and they nodded towards the stranger of the deadly trade) 'is come from up the country to do it because there's not enough to do in his own county-town, and he's got the place here now our own county man's dead; he's going to live in the same cottage under the prison wall.'
The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any way, he held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also held out his own. They clinked together, the eyes of the rest of the room hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted his lips for the third verse; but at that moment another knock was audible upon the door. This time the knock was faint and hesitating.
The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation towards the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted his alarmed wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the welcoming words, 'Walk in!'
The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a short, small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of dark clothes.
'Can you tell me the way to--?' he began: when, gazing round the room to observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that he scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced all whispers and inquiries by bursting into his third verse:-
'To-morrow is my working day, Simple shepherds all - To-morrow is a working day for me: For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta'en, And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'
The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his bass voice as before:-
'And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'
All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway. Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests particularly regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood before them the picture of abject terror--his knees trembling, his hand shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he supported himself rattled audibly: his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more and he had turned, closed the door, and fled.
'What a man can it be?' said the shepherd.
The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to think, and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and further from the grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for the Prince of Darkness himself; till they formed a remote circle, an empty space of floor being left between them and him -
' . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.'
The room was so silent--though there were more than twenty people in it--that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man in the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay.
The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun reverberated through the air--apparently from the direction of the county-town.
'Be jiggered!' cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up.
'What does that mean?' asked several.
'A prisoner escaped from the jail--that's what it means.'
All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 'I've often been told that in this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till now.'
'I wonder if it is MY man?' murmured the personage in cinder-gray.
'Surely it is!' said the shepherd involuntarily. 'And surely we've zeed him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered like a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!'
'His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,' said the dairyman.
'And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,' said Oliver Giles.
'And he bolted as if he'd been shot at,' said the hedge-carpenter.
'True--his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he bolted as if he'd been shot at,' slowly summed up the man in the chimney-corner.
'I didn't notice it,' remarked the hangman.
'We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,' faltered one of the women against the wall, 'and now 'tis explained!'
The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder-gray roused himself. 'Is there a constable here?' he asked, in thick tones. 'If so, let him step forward.'
The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the chair.
'You are a sworn constable?'
'I be, sir.'
'Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back here. He can't have gone far.'
'I will, sir, I will--when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get it, and come sharp here, and start in a body.'
'Staff!--never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!'
'But I can't do nothing without my staff--can I, William, and John, and Charles Jake? No; for there's the king's royal crown a painted on en in yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up and hit my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn't 'tempt to take up a man without my staff--no, not I. If I hadn't the law to gie me courage, why, instead o' my taking up him he might take up me!'
'Now, I'm a king's man myself; and can give you authority enough for this,' said the formidable officer in gray. 'Now then, all of ye, be ready. Have ye any lanterns?'
'Yes--have ye any lanterns?--I demand it!' said the constable.
'And the rest of you able-bodied--'
'Able-bodied men--yes--the rest of ye!' said the constable.
'Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks--'
'Staves and pitchforks--in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!'
Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed, though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was needed to show the shepherd's guests that after what they had seen it would look very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than a few hundred yards over such uneven country.
A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the town, the rain having fortunately a little abated.
Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her baptism, the child who had been christened began to cry heart- brokenly in the room overhead. These notes of grief came down through the chinks of the floor to the ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, and seemed glad of the excuse to ascend and comfort the baby, for the incidents of the last half-hour greatly oppressed them. Thus in the space of two or three minutes the room on the ground-floor was deserted quite.
But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away when a man returned round the corner of the house from the direction the pursuers had taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he entered leisurely. It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who had gone out with the rest. The motive of his return was shown by his helping himself to a cut piece of skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge beside where he had sat, and which he had apparently forgotten to take with him. He also poured out half a cup more mead from the quantity that remained, ravenously eating and drinking these as he stood. He had not finished when another figure came in just as quietly--his friend in cinder-gray.
'O--you here?' said the latter, smiling. 'I thought you had gone to help in the capture.' And this speaker also revealed the object of his return by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of old mead.
'And I thought you had gone,' said the other, continuing his skimmer-cake with some effort.
'Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,' said the first confidentially, 'and such a night as it is, too. Besides, 'tis the business o' the Government to take care of its criminals--not mine.'
'True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough without me.'
'I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of this wild country.'
'Nor I neither, between you and me.'
'These shepherd-people are used to it--simple-minded souls, you know, stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready for me before the morning, and no trouble to me at all.'
'They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in the matter.'
'True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as my legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?'
'No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there' (he nodded indefinitely to the right), 'and I feel as you do, that it is quite enough for my legs to do before bedtime.'
The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which, shaking hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other well, they went their several ways.
In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the hog's-back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had decided on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of the baleful trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite unable to form any such plan now. They descended in all directions down the hill, and straightway several of the party fell into the snare set by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the cretaceous formation. The 'lanchets,' or flint slopes, which belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones unawares, and losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply downwards, the lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and there lying on their sides till the horn was scorched through.
When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round these treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle their eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration, were extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this more rational order they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile, affording some shelter to any person who had sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they wandered apart, and after an interval closed together again to report progress.
At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely ash, the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the man they were in quest of; his outline being well defined against the sky beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and faced him.
'Your money or your life!' said the constable sternly to the still figure.
'No, no,' whispered John Pitcher. ''Tisn't our side ought to say that. That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the law.'
'Well, well,' replied the constable impatiently; 'I must say something, mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too!-- Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in the name of the Father--the Crown, I mane!'
The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time, and, giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage, he strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the third stranger; but his trepidation had in a great measure gone.
'Well, travellers,' he said, 'did I hear ye speak to me?'
'You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!' said the constable. 'We arrest 'ee on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbours, do your duty, and seize the culpet!'
On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the search-party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on all sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd's cottage.
It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from the open door, a sound of men's voices within, proclaimed to them as they approached the house that some new events had arisen in their absence. On entering they discovered the shepherd's living room to be invaded by two officers from Casterbridge jail, and a well-known magistrate who lived at the nearest country-seat, intelligence of the escape having become generally circulated.
'Gentlemen,' said the constable, 'I have brought back your man--not without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid, considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your prisoner!' And the third stranger was led to the light.
'Who is this?' said one of the officials.
'The man,' said the constable.
'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his statement.
'But how can it be otherwise?' asked the constable. 'Or why was he so terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law who sat there?' Here he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering the house during the hangman's song.
'Can't understand it,' said the officer coolly. 'All I know is that it is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from this one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather good- looking, and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never mistake as long as you lived.'
'Why, souls--'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'
'Hey--what?' said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring particulars from the shepherd in the background. 'Haven't you got the man after all?'
'Well, sir,' said the constable, 'he's the man we were in search of, that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the man we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you understand my every-day way; for 'twas the man in the chimney- corner!'
'A pretty kettle of fish altogether!' said the magistrate. 'You had better start for the other man at once.'
The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. 'Sir,' he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, 'take no more trouble about me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have done nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon I left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and ask the way. When I opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney- corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life, singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of agony at me, and I knew he meant, "Don't reveal what you see; my life depends on it." I was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and, not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried away.'
The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story made a great impression on all around. 'And do you know where your brother is at the present time?' asked the magistrate.
'I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.'
'I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since,' said the constable.
'Where does he think to fly to?--what is his occupation?'
'He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.'
''A said 'a was a wheelwright--a wicked rogue,' said the constable.
'The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,' said Shepherd Fennel. 'I thought his hands were palish for's trade.'
'Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this poor man in custody,' said the magistrate; 'your business lies with the other, unquestionably.'
And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or constable to raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they concerned another whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself. When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found to be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search before the next morning.
Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So that it may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy in exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so thorough when it came to the private examination of their own lofts and outhouses. Stories were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in some old overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was found. Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings.
In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never recaptured. Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did not, but buried himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate, the gentleman in cinder-gray never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb.
The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, and the details connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in the country about Higher Crowstairs.


text:
Character Bios
Demons of Power
Other Names:
Quenya: Valarauko (singular), Valaraukar (plural)
Race/Species: Ainur
from the Beginning of Time through the Third Age
Balrogs are corrupted Maia who clothe themselves in Middle-earth as terrifying demons of shadow and flame:The Balrogs, of whom the whips were the chief weapons, were primeval spirits of destroying fire, chief servants of the primeval Dark Power of the First Age.
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, Letter 144 to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April 1954
[Their] hearts were of fire, but they were cloaked in darkness, and terror went before them; they had whips of flame.
The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 3, Of The Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor
[They] had whips of flame and claws of steel, and were in stature very great.
The Book of Lost Tales 2, HoME Vol 2, Ch 3, The Fall of Gondolin
[It] was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it....
Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it. In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs....
[The] shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils....
The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped foward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall....
The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 2, Ch 5, The Bridge of Khazad-dûm
They were Maia who followed the Vala Melkor (later known as Morgoth) and became corrupted into evil by him:
For of the Maiar many were drawn to [Melkor's] splendour in the days of his greatness, and remained in that allegiance down into his darkness; and others he corrupted afterwards to his service with lies and treacherous gifts. Dreadful among these spirits were the Valaraukar, the scourges of fire that in Middle-earth were called the Balrogs, demons of terror.
The Silmarillion, Valaquenta: Of the Enemies
And in Utumno [Melkor] gathered his demons about him, those spirits who first adhered to him in the days of his splendour, and became most like him in his corruption.... Balrogs they were named in Middle-earth in later days.
The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 3, Of The Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor
Most of the Balrogs were destroyed at the end of the First Age; one notable exception being the Balrog of Moria, also known as Durin's Bane:
The meeting of the hosts of the West and of the North is named... the War of Wrath. There was marshalled the whole power of the Throne of Morgoth, and it had become great beyond count....
But it availed him not. The Balrogs were destroyed, save some few that fled and hid themselves in caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth....
The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 24, Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath
They were supposed to have been all destroyed in the overthrow of Thangorodrim, his fortress in the North. But it is here found (there is usually a hang-over especially of evil from one age to another) that one had escaped and taken refuge under the mountains of Hithaeglir (the Misty Mountains). It is observable that only the Elf knows what the thing is – and doubtless Gandalf.
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, Letter 144 to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April 1954
The power of Sauron, servant of Morgoth, was then again growing.... The Dwarves delved deep at that time, seeking beneath Barazinbar for mithril.... Thus they roused from sleep a thing of terror that, flying from Thangorodrim, had lain hidden at the foundations of the earth since the coming of the Host of the West: a Balrog of Morgoth. Durin was slain by it, and the year after Náin I, his son; and then the glory of Moria passed, and its people were destroyed or fled far away.
The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Durin's Folk
As originally conceived, Balrogs were not quite as overwhelmingly powerful as they later became in Tolkien's writings:
The early conception of the Balrogs makes them less terrible, and certainly more destructible, than they afterwards became: they existed in 'hundreds'..., and were slain by Tuor and the Gondothlim in large numbers.... The Balrogs are 'demons of power'...; they are capable of pain and fear...; they are attired in iron armour..., and they have whips of flame (a character they never lost) and claws of steel....
The Book of Lost Tales 2, HoME Vol 2, Ch 3, The Fall of Gondolin: Notes and Commentary
Then said Rog in a great voice: "Who now shall fear the Balrogs for all their terror? See before us the accursed ones who for ages have tormented the children of the Noldoli, and who now set a fire at our backs with their shooting. Come ye of the Hammer of Wrath and we will smite them for their evil." Thereupon he lifted his mace... and he made a way before him by the wrath of his onset even unto the fallen gate: but all the people of the Stricken Anvil ran behind like a wedge, and sparks came from their eyes for the fury of their rage. A great deed was that sally, as the Noldoli sing yet, and many of the Orcs were borne backward into the fires below; but the men of Rog leapt even upon the coils of the serpents and came at those Balrogs and smote them grievously, for all they had whips of flame and claws of steel, and were in stature very great. They battered them into nought, or catching at their whips wielded these against them, that they tore them even as they had aforetime torn the Gnomes; 1 and the number of Balrogs that perished was a marvel and dread to the hosts of Melko, for ere that day never had any of the Balrogs been slain by the hand of Elves or Men.
The Book of Lost Tales 2, HoME Vol 2, Ch 3, The Fall of Gondolin
Now the Orcs again take heart from the coming of the drakes, and they mingle with the Balrogs that pour about the breach, and they assail the Gondothlim grievously.... [By] reason of the great doughtiness of those two lords [Tuor and Ecthelion] came even unto the Balrogs. Of those demons of power Ecthelion slew three, for the brightness of his sword cleft the iron of them and did hurt to their fire, and they writhed; yet of the leap of that axe Dramborleg that was swung by the hand of Tuor were they still more afraid, for it sang like the rush of eagle's wings in the air and took death as it fell, and five of them went down before it.
The Book of Lost Tales 2, HoME Vol 2, Ch 3, The Fall of Gondolin
[In] a late note my father said that only very few ever existed — 'at most seven'.
The Book of Lost Tales 2, HoME Vol 2, Ch 3, The Fall of Gondolin: Notes and Commentary
val- 'power' in Valar, Valacirca, Valaquenta, Valaraukar, Val(i)mar, Valinor. The original stem was bal-, preserved in Sindarin Balan, plural Belain, the Valar, and in Balrog.
The Silmarillion, Appendix: Elements in Quenya and Sindarin Names
rauko- 'demon' in Valaraukar; Sindarin raug, rog in Balrog.
The Silmarillion, Appendix: Elements in Quenya and Sindarin Names
1 Gnomes: an early name for the Noldor.
Lyllyn 21Dec02
Elena Tiriel 19Nov05, 7Feb10, 24Jun11

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Out of the Darkness Community Walks
The Community Walks, held in hundreds of communities across the country, are the core of the Out of the Darkness movement, which began in 2004. These events give people the courage to open up about their own connections to the cause, and a platform to create a culture that's smarter about mental health. Friends, family members, neighbors and coworkers walk side-by-side, supporting each other and in memory of those we've lost.
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in spring 2020, our amazing volunteers and staff were determined to stay connected to one another. Our participants came #TogetherToFightSuicide as we transformed the remaining Walks into a variety of physically distanced creative activities known as Out of the Darkness Experiences. As we look ahead to fall 2022, we're moving forward with plans to return to in-person Out of the Darkness Community Walks. The health and safety of our participants, staff and volunteers will be our top priorities as we work with local authorities to make decisions about event details in your community, and we'll continue to offer options to participate online and in your neighborhood.
The global pandemic has impacted the emotional and economic well-being of many individuals and families, and left many of us to manage a variety of emotions, including feelings of uncertainty. We also know increases in suicide are not a foregone conclusion if we act now to mitigate risk and support the mental health of our friends, families, and neighbors. But we need your help. Every dollar you raise through the Out of the Darkness Walks allows AFSP to invest in life-saving research, education, advocacy, and support for those impacted by suicide.
It's more important than ever for us to stay connected. Register Today and help save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide.
View our Out of the Darkness Community Walk FAQ or Contact Us with any questions.
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide. AFSP creates a culture that's smart about mental health through education and community programs, develops suicide prevention through research and advocacy, and provides support for those affected by suicide.
From the start of the pandemic, AFSP has been an important voice on caring for one's mental health, using traditional and social media to convey messages about self-care, that physical distancing does not mean social isolation, and about staying in treatment, or seeking treatment through tele-mental health.
With your support, we will continue to meet the needs of the community and ensure our programs remain available to those we serve. Here are just a few recent examples:
- Created a section on AFSP's website dedicated to mental health and COVID-19 that provides the most up-to-date mental health resources, information, and support.
- Delivered more than 500 suicide prevention education and loss and healing programs virtually through our 73 chapters across the United States, including Talk Saves Lives, AFSP's most used public education program.
- Took steps to address mental health and suicide prevention among underserved populations, including launching a Town Hall series to bring attention to health disparities in communities of color; adopting a new research priority aimed at increasing suicide research in underrepresented communities; and forming a partnership with the National Latino Behavioral Health Association.
- Successfully advocated for passage of the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act, which designated 9-8-8 as the three-digit, easy-to-remember phone number for people in emotional distress. This new law also ensures states are able to increase support to local crisis centers to meet increased demand.
- Funded 38 new suicide prevention research studies since the pandemic, bringing our total current investment to $20 million, with 100 ongoing studies.
- As a part of National Suicide Prevention Week, we partnered with the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention to conduct a Harris Public Opinion Poll and found that 93% believe suicide can be prevented; 78% view mental health and physical health as equally important, and 95% of respondents said they would do something if someone close to them was thinking of suicide.
Our progress during this unprecedented time is only possible because of the generosity of participants and donors like you. Thank you for sharing your stories, for fundraising, and for donating to the Out of the Darkness Walks.
Learn more about the work your donations support by visiting afsp.org or by viewing our Annual Report. Join the conversation on suicide prevention by following AFSP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Suicide is a public health problem and a leading cause of death in the United States. Suicide can be prevented — more investment in suicide prevention, education, research, and advocacy can help save lives.
Facts about suicide in the U.S.*:
·Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S.
- In 2019 (latest available data), 47,511 Americans died by suicide
- In 2019, there were an estimated 1.38M suicide attempts
- The age-adjusted suicide rate in 2019 was 13.93 per 100,000 individuals.
- The rate of suicide is highest in middle-aged white men.
- In 2019, men died by suicide 3.63x more often than women.
- On average, there are 130 suicides per day.
- White males accounted for 69.38% of suicide deaths in 2019.
- In 2019, firearms accounted for 50.39% of all suicide deaths.
- 93% of adults surveyed in the U.S. think suicide can be prevented.
Visit afsp.org to learn the facts about suicide, view videos from leading suicide researchers, and download infographics like our National Fact Sheet (pictured below) and Individual State Fact Sheets.
*Learn the latest published statistics on suicide from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Data & Statistics Fatal Injury Report for 2019, retrieved February 9, 2021. Access additional verified data from the CDC.
If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 74174. AFSP does not provide its own crisis hotline service.


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BigBasket Review
Bigbasket.com is India's largest Online Grocery Store and Online Supermarket. With over 18,000 products from over 1000 brands Bigbasket.com is currently present in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, and Mysore with plans to expand to other cities soon. Our online food store offers a variety of products across various categories like : Fresh Fruits & Vegetables, Grocery & Staples, Beverages, Bread,Dairy & Egg products, Branded Foods, Meat, Personal Care and Household products.
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text:
I grew up in an acting family. My mother and father were actors. My father was a successful character actor.
I studied at the Actor's Studio in New York and Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute here in L.A.
But it all really came together when I started doing stand up. I just took a comedy class and developed an act. That is when I learned that stand up comedy is great for actors!
Stand up gave me an opportunity to be creative and develop content in between acting gigs. Stand up gave me the opportunity to play in front of 5 people to 15,000 people.
It gave me a chance to find my own voice, to be 'real, present and in the moment' on stage.
In acting, that is huge, for more reasons than just one. I put together fourteen.
If you're having a dry spell in your acting, here are 14 reasons Stand Up Comedy is great for actors and a terrific addition to your skill set.
1. Casting Courage
You can learn to master playing in front of just a few people, which is very similar to a casting situation.
2. You learn to ad-lib:
Improv skills are one thing. Being able to ad-lib on the subject matter in a split-second is something you learn in stand-up.
3. Storytelling:
You learn not only how to tell stories that are funny, you learn interpret the humor in scripts and how to play comedy successfully by playing against the comedy. Mediocre comedians play the comedy. Great comedians play the situation.
After performing stand up, Performing in an audition situation was a piece of cake. I mean what could these people ever say to hurt my feelings that some drunk in the city hasn't already said?
Ray Romano, Star of "Everybody Loves Raymond"
4. It's a brilliant way to showcase.
Casting directors and directors are coming to comedy showcases more than ever. Casting directors, agents and managers are always looking for new talent. The problem is their time is very limited. They would rather come out to watch your 6-10 minute showcase than come out an watch a 2-hour play. It's simple time management.
5. It demonstrates courage.
Most of the people you are trying to impress in the industry are in awe of artists who have the courage to do stand up. My friend met Robert Redford recently. Redford said, "I'm in awe of comedians. Doing stand up scares the hell out of me."
6. The one-man/one-woman show
– your ticket to notoriety.
7. Work When You're Not Working
When you're a working comic and also an actor, you can work when you're not "working." Meaning, you can get gigs as a comedian and pay the bills performing when you don't have an acting gig.
8. Funny is "Smart"
When people think you're funny, they also think you're smart. Funny is memorable. People like to be around people who make them laugh. If two actors are up for a job and the CD or the Director just saw you perform at a comedy club and you made them laugh, who is that CD most likely to choose?
9. You learn to be you
In 99 percent of all casting situations the casting director asks the actor to "just be yourself." You'd be amazed at how many actors freeze. Actors spend so much time in training learning to develop characters that they forget how to be themselves. Stand up comedy gives you that ability.
10. Learn to NAIL AUDITIONS
Nothing develops unbreakable confidence onstage than performing stand up on a regular basis. "You develop a thick skin, " says actor Ray Romano. "After performing stand up, Performing in an audition situation was a piece of cake. I mean what could these people ever say to hurt my feelings that some drunk in the city hasn't already said?" One of the best ways to develop unbreakable confidence on stage is by doing stand up on a regular basis.
11. Memorability
– Whether it's an audition or a comedy competition, one of the primary qualities that get you moving to the next level (the quarter or semi-final rounds in competitions, call-backs with producers, network or studio with acting), so if you go into an audition and you're funny, you become memorable.
13. "It's Impossible to Dislike Someone Who Makes You Laugh
This is one of my absolute favorites. I've used this in commercials, sitcoms & episodics. For someone to laugh with you they have to temporarily give themselves over to you. And when you make someone laugh, they like you. In the run of actors coming into the room to read, if you're the one that leaves them in stitches… they will want to see you again!
14. 60-Percent of Breakdowns are for 'Comedic Character'
– If you're not studying comedy, you're losing out on 60-percent of the acting opportunities currently being cast.
15. Stand-Up Comedy Shows Them a Different Side of You
– Every agent I've met looks at my resume and says, "Oh! You do stand-up?!" When it comes to 'special skills' stand-up can be one of your best assets!
Take Your Acting to the Next Level
So what are you waiting for? Take a class and in 8 weeks you'll have a comedy routine you can perform, that will be video taped and you'll be proud to showcase.


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Shaman 'Rainmaking' Center Discovered in South Africa
A towering "rain control" site, where shamans would have asked the gods to open up the skies centuries ago, has been discovered in South Africa.
Located in a semiarid area of the country, near Botswana and Zimbabwe, the site of Ratho Kroonkop (RKK) sits atop a 1,000-foot-tall (300 meters) hill and contains two naturally formed "rock tanks." These tanks are depressions in the rock created when water weakens the underlying sandstone. When the scientists excavated one of them, they found over 30,000 animal specimens, including the remains of rhinoceros, zebra and even giraffe.
"What makes RKK special is that every piece of faunal material found at RKK can in some way be linked to rain control," researcher Simone Brunton, a doctoral candidate at the University of Cape Town, wrote in an email to LiveScience. [In Photos: Amazing Ruins of the Ancient World]
The shamans, or religious leaders, would have ascended to the top of Ratho Kroonkop through natural tunnels (fissures) in the rock. When they reached the top of the hill, they would have lit a fire to burn the animal remains as part of their rainmaking rituals.
The people who conducted these rituals were from the San, an indigenous group in southern Africa who lived as hunter-gatherers. "They were San rain controllers who were employed by the farmers to control the rain," Brunton explained. The farmers, in turn, depended on their chief to make sure this arrangement went smoothly and that they did, in fact, get rain.
Access to the rain-control site would have been strictly controlled.
"The shaman or ritual specialist was usually the only one directly involved with the actual doing of the rituals. It would have been strictly forbidden for normal folks to go near the site," Brunton wrote in her email. The site "was placed away from society because it was seen as very dangerous or 'hot,' and any interference would cause the gods to be angry."
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The team's findings were reported in Issue one of the 2013 volume of the journal Azania.
Fat power
Brunton and her colleagues used ethnographic studies to determine the importance of the different animals at Ratho Kroonkop for rainmaking.
Some of the animals, the team found, were sacrificed for their fat. "Many San believed (and believe) that fat contained a high concentration of supernatural potency," the researchers wrote in the Azania paper. [5 Wild Weather Control Ideas]
For instance, the rhinoceros remains the team found were mainly from the animal's lower extremities. "People were taking the lower parts of the rhinoceros, in the region of the leg and thighs. These parts of the animal contain a lot of fat and meat, which is linked to potency and power," wrote Brunton.
Other fatty creatures they found at the site include the rock hyrax, a bushpig and what might be the remains of an eland. "In San cosmology, the eland was the most potent animal; killing one would give the shaman immense power to ask the ancestors for rain," Brunton wrote in her email.
Exploration and dating
Maria Schoeman, Brunton's supervisor and co-author of the study, originally surveyed the area as part of her doctoral work. "We were originally interested in [Ratho Kroonkop] because we found rock art at the bottom of the hill and decided to investigate it further. We climbed up the hill, and that was when we found the mound of bones contained in the rock tank 2," Brunton wrote.
Dating the excavated rock tank has proven difficult, as it contains a termite mound, and the insects may have moved some of the smaller objects. It's also possible that Ratho Kroonkop was used as a rain-control site before the rock tank was in use.
Brunton said the history of the region, and the rock art at the site, may provide clues as to exactly how long the site was in use.
"The site was possibly used by hunter-gatherers for many years, as there is San rock art at the bottom of the hill. Over time, farmers came onto the landscape and knew that the site was sacred in San cosmology; they would hire the San shamans to control the rain, but also left their own marks on the site by painting their own sacred animals over the San art, adding power to their own animals," Brunton wrote, adding that farmers were in the area by A.D. 1000.
"The way I see it is that this site could have been used over many years, but this paper is a snapshot in time for one of many periods of occupation/use," Brunton wrote.
Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Owen Jarus is a regular contributor to Live Science who writes about archaeology and humans' past. He has also written for The Independent (UK), The Canadian Press (CP) and The Associated Press (AP), among others. Owen has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Toronto and a journalism degree from Ryerson University.


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On December 29th, 2012 the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum hosted an open house with printing, type cutting demonstrations, and a celebration of the legacy of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company.
Thank you to everyone who could join us for our last open day in the museum's original location. We have a lot of work ahead of us with packing one of the premier wood type collections in the world at over 1.5 million pieces of wood type, but the event instilled even more hope in our hearts. The support from both around the world and here locally reminded us that we have a big wood type family. For those of you who couldn't make it please enjoy the wonderful photographs taken by Jeff Dawson of the local Lester Public Library. To see more please visit the flickr set. Please join us when we celebrate our reopening in our new Two Rivers location, which is yet to be announced.


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