When the locals, according to custom, gather in front of Fairway’s house on a Sunday morning for haircuts, they talk about Clym. They expected him to make something of himself and assumed “that he would be successful in an original way, or that he would go to the dogs in an original way” (165). He might make a fortune or become a tragic figure. When his father died, a neighbor looked after him and sent him to a shop in Budmouth. From there he went to London and then on to Paris. Clym approaches the group and tells them he knows they are talking about him. He announces he has left his trivial life in Paris to come back to start a school.

Clym goes home to Blooms-End and tells his mother he is not going back to Paris. She, too, like the locals, was surprised by the boxes he brought home with him. He tells her he wants to be a schoolmaster and that he hated his flashy business in Paris. She tells him he could have been a gentleman, but like his father, he is “getting weary of doing well” (173).

Christian Cantle comes to the door in his Sunday clothes with a story about the witch, Eustacia.