finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_21_part_0.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 22
chapter 22
{"name": "Phase III: \"The Rally,\" Chapter Twenty-Two", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-22", "summary": "The next morning, Dairyman Crick is all in a huff because he's had a letter complaining of a funny taste in the butter. He can taste it himself, and realizes that there must be garlic in the fields that the cows have been munching. So all the dairymaids and dairymen gather up and go over every inch of the field in a row, trying to find the offending plants. This, as you can imagine, is very tedious work--like hunting meticulously for a needle in the proverbial haystack. Angel is sure to put himself next to Tess in the row, so that they can speak quietly to each other as they scour the field. After a while, Tess separates herself from the rest of the group, and Angel follows after a few minutes. Tess remarks on how pretty the other dairymaids look, especially Izz and Retty. After this, she tries to avoid Angel as much as possible, to give the other dairymaids a fair chance. After all, she thinks that she can't, in good conscience, marry anyone after having had a baby out of wedlock.", "analysis": ""}


They came downstairs yawning next morning; but skimming and milking
were proceeded with as usual, and they went indoors to breakfast.
Dairyman Crick was discovered stamping about the house.  He had
received a letter, in which a customer had complained that the butter
had a twang.

"And begad, so 't have!" said the dairyman, who held in his left hand
a wooden slice on which a lump of butter was stuck. "Yes--taste for
yourself!"

Several of them gathered round him; and Mr Clare tasted, Tess tasted,
also the other indoor milkmaids, one or two of the milking-men, and
last of all Mrs Crick, who came out from the waiting breakfast-table.
There certainly was a twang.

The dairyman, who had thrown himself into abstraction to better
realize the taste, and so divine the particular species of noxious
weed to which it appertained, suddenly exclaimed--

"'Tis garlic! and I thought there wasn't a blade left in that mead!"

Then all the old hands remembered that a certain dry mead, into which
a few of the cows had been admitted of late, had, in years gone by,
spoilt the butter in the same way.  The dairyman had not recognized
the taste at that time, and thought the butter bewitched.

"We must overhaul that mead," he resumed; "this mustn't continny!"

All having armed themselves with old pointed knives, they went out
together.  As the inimical plant could only be present in very
microscopic dimensions to have escaped ordinary observation, to
find it seemed rather a hopeless attempt in the stretch of rich
grass before them.  However, they formed themselves into line, all
assisting, owing to the importance of the search; the dairyman at
the upper end with Mr Clare, who had volunteered to help; then
Tess, Marian, Izz Huett, and Retty; then Bill Lewell, Jonathan, and
the married dairywomen--Beck Knibbs, with her wooly black hair and
rolling eyes; and flaxen Frances, consumptive from the winter damps
of the water-meads--who lived in their respective cottages.

With eyes fixed upon the ground they crept slowly across a strip of
the field, returning a little further down in such a manner that,
when they should have finished, not a single inch of the pasture but
would have fallen under the eye of some one of them.  It was a most
tedious business, not more than half a dozen shoots of garlic being
discoverable in the whole field; yet such was the herb's pungency
that probably one bite of it by one cow had been sufficient to season
the whole dairy's produce for the day.

Differing one from another in natures and moods so greatly as they
did, they yet formed, bending, a curiously uniform row--automatic,
noiseless; and an alien observer passing down the neighbouring lane
might well have been excused for massing them as "Hodge".  As they
crept along, stooping low to discern the plant, a soft yellow gleam
was reflected from the buttercups into their shaded faces, giving
them an elfish, moonlit aspect, though the sun was pouring upon their
backs in all the strength of noon.

Angel Clare, who communistically stuck to his rule of taking part
with the rest in everything, glanced up now and then.  It was not,
of course, by accident that he walked next to Tess.

"Well, how are you?" he murmured.

"Very well, thank you, sir," she replied demurely.

As they had been discussing a score of personal matters only
half-an-hour before, the introductory style seemed a little
superfluous.  But they got no further in speech just then.  They
crept and crept, the hem of her petticoat just touching his gaiter,
and his elbow sometimes brushing hers.  At last the dairyman, who
came next, could stand it no longer.

"Upon my soul and body, this here stooping do fairly make my back
open and shut!" he exclaimed, straightening himself slowly with an
excruciated look till quite upright.  "And you, maidy Tess, you
wasn't well a day or two ago--this will make your head ache finely!
Don't do any more, if you feel fainty; leave the rest to finish it."

Dairyman Crick withdrew, and Tess dropped behind.  Mr Clare also
stepped out of line, and began privateering about for the weed.  When
she found him near her, her very tension at what she had heard the
night before made her the first to speak.

"Don't they look pretty?" she said.

"Who?"

"Izzy Huett and Retty."

Tess had moodily decided that either of these maidens would make a
good farmer's wife, and that she ought to recommend them, and obscure
her own wretched charms.

"Pretty?  Well, yes--they are pretty girls--fresh looking.  I have
often thought so."

"Though, poor dears, prettiness won't last long!"

"O no, unfortunately."

"They are excellent dairywomen."

"Yes: though not better than you."

"They skim better than I."

"Do they?"

Clare remained observing them--not without their observing him.

"She is colouring up," continued Tess heroically.

"Who?"

"Retty Priddle."

"Oh!  Why it that?"

"Because you are looking at her."

Self-sacrificing as her mood might be, Tess could not well go further
and cry, "Marry one of them, if you really do want a dairywoman and
not a lady; and don't think of marrying me!"  She followed Dairyman
Crick, and had the mournful satisfaction of seeing that Clare
remained behind.

From this day she forced herself to take pains to avoid him--never
allowing herself, as formerly, to remain long in his company, even if
their juxtaposition were purely accidental.  She gave the other three
every chance.

Tess was woman enough to realize from their avowals to herself that
Angel Clare had the honour of all the dairymaids in his keeping, and
her perception of his care to avoid compromising the happiness of
either in the least degree bred a tender respect in Tess for what she
deemed, rightly or wrongly, the self-controlling sense of duty shown
by him, a quality which she had never expected to find in one of the
opposite sex, and in the absence of which more than one of the simple
hearts who were his house-mates might have gone weeping on her
pilgrimage.



Phase III: "The Rally," Chapter Twenty-Two
The next morning, Dairyman Crick is all in a huff because he's had a letter complaining of a funny taste in the butter. He can taste it himself, and realizes that there must be garlic in the fields that the cows have been munching. So all the dairymaids and dairymen gather up and go over every inch of the field in a row, trying to find the offending plants. This, as you can imagine, is very tedious work--like hunting meticulously for a needle in the proverbial haystack. Angel is sure to put himself next to Tess in the row, so that they can speak quietly to each other as they scour the field. After a while, Tess separates herself from the rest of the group, and Angel follows after a few minutes. Tess remarks on how pretty the other dairymaids look, especially Izz and Retty. After this, she tries to avoid Angel as much as possible, to give the other dairymaids a fair chance. After all, she thinks that she can't, in good conscience, marry anyone after having had a baby out of wedlock.