[Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy]@TWC D-Link book
Wessex Tales

CHAPTER VII--A RIDE
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It was therefore necessary to wait for another opportunity.
Her determination received a fillip from learning that two epileptic children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years before with beneficial results, though the experiment had been strongly condemned by the neighbouring clergy.

April, May, June, passed; and it is no overstatement to say that by the end of the last-named month Gertrude well-nigh longed for the death of a fellow-creature.

Instead of her formal prayers each night, her unconscious prayer was, 'O Lord, hang some guilty or innocent person soon!' This time she made earlier inquiries, and was altogether more systematic in her proceedings.

Moreover, the season was summer, between the haymaking and the harvest, and in the leisure thus afforded him her husband had been holiday-taking away from home.
The assizes were in July, and she went to the inn as before.

There was to be one execution--only one--for arson.
Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge, but what means she should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail.


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