Such was the state of things when the current affairs of
Casterbridge were interrupted by an event of such magnitude
that its influence reached to the lowest social stratum
there, stirring the depths of its society simultaneously
with the preparations for the skimmington. It was one of
those excitements which, when they move a country town,
leave permanent mark upon its chronicles, as a warm
summer permanently marks the ring in the tree-trunk
corresponding to its date.
A Royal Personage was about to pass through the borough on
his course further west, to inaugurate an immense
engineering work out that way. He had consented to halt
half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receive an address
from the corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a
representative centre of husbandry, w
