Thenceforward the full sacks, looped with the shining chain,
went scurrying up and down under the cat-head, hairy arms were thrust
out from the different door-ways, and the grain was hauled in; trusses
of hay were tossed anew in and out of the barns, and the wimbles
creaked; while the scales and steel-yards began to be busy where
guess-work had formerly been the rule.
32.
Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town. The first,
of weather-stained brick, was immediately at the end of High Street,
where a diverging branch from that thoroughfare ran round to the
low-lying Durnover lanes; so that the precincts of the bridge formed
the merging point of respectability and indigence. The second bridge, of
stone, was further out on the highway--in fact, fairly in the meadows,
though still within the town boundary.
These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each
was worn down to obtuseness, partly by weather, more by friction from
generations of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year
made restless movements against these parapets, as they had stood there
meditating on the aspect of affairs. In the case of the more friable
bricks and stones even the flat faces were worn into hollows by the same
mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at each
joint; since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate men to wrench
the coping off and throw it down the river, in reckless defiance of the
magistrates.
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