peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and it was utilized by the inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No sooner did the deep notes of the bell throb between the house-fronts than a clatter of shutters arose through the whole length of the High Street. In a few minutes business at Casterbridge was ended for the day. 

 Other clocks struck eight from time to time—one gloomily from the gaol, another from the gable of an almshouse, with a preparative creak of machinery, more audible than the note of the bell; a row of tall, varnished case-clocks from the interior of a clock-maker’s shop joined in one after another just as the shutters were enclosing them, like a row of actors delivering their final speeches before the fall of the curtain; then chimes were heard stammering out the Sicilian Mariners’ Hymn; so that chronologists of the advanced school were appreciably on their way to the next hour before the whole business of the old one was satisfactorily wound up. 

 In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves rolled up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her skirt tucked up through her pocket hole. She carried a loaf under her arm from which she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some other women who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled critically. The sight reminded Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her daughter that they had an appetite; and they inquired of the woman for the nearest baker’s. 

 “Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in Casterbridge just now,” she said, after directing them. “They can blare their trumpets and thump their drums, and have their roaring dinners”—waving her hand towards a point further along the street, where the brass band could be seen standing in front of an illuminated building—“but we must needs be put-to for want of a wholesome crust. There’s less good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now.” 

 “And less good beer than swipes,” said a man with his hands in his pockets. 

 “How does it happen there’s no good bread?” asked Mrs. Henchard. 

 “Oh, ’tis the corn-factor—he’s the man that our millers and bakers all deal wi’, and he has sold ’em growed wheat, which they didn’t know was growed, so they say, till the dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and like suet pudden inside. I’ve been a wife, and I’ve been a mother, and I never see such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as 

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