for the first time) rather than apply to his father for more funds.
From this place they told him Tess Durbeyfield had gone, without due notice, to the home of her parents on the other side of Blackmoor, and it therefore became necessary to find Mrs. Durbeyfield. She had told him she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously reticent as to her actual address, and the only course was to go to Marlott and inquire for it. The farmer who had been so churlish with Tess was quite smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse and man to drive him to Marlott, the gig he had arrived in being sent back to Emminster; for the limit of a day's journey with that horse was reached.
Clare would not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle for a further distance than to the outskirts of Marlott, and, sending it back with the man who had driven him, he entered on foot the village which was the spot of his dear Tess's birth. It was as yet too early in the year for much colour to appear in the gardens and foliage; the so-called spring was but winter overlaid with a thin coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his expectations.
