It is a wet night on the downs in Thomas Hardy's story “The Three Strangers,” and in the midst of a christening celebration, three strangers knock on Shepherd Fennel's door. Shepherd Fennel, a hospitable man, welcomes each of them in.
The first man is gaunt with dark eyes and hair, and he takes a place in the chimney corner. The second man is dressed in cinder-gray and turns out to be an executioner on his way to Casterbridge to execute Timothy Summers, a prisoner who has stolen a sheep to feed his starving family. The third man is a small, nervous fellow who stands in the doorway shaking in terror and then dashes away.
Shepherd Fennel and his guests then hear the alarm sounded that means a prisoner has escaped, and they assume that the fearful man is that prisoner. The executioner organizes a search party, and the men...
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all head out into the wet night with their lanterns and pitchforks. Pretty soon, though, two men circle back to the house. One is the gaunt man who had sat in the chimney corner. The other is the executioner. Both agree that there are enough people out searching for the prisoner, and they are not needed. The gaunt man helps himself to some cake and a bit more mead, and then he tells the executioner that he is heading for home. The executioner says that he will head on to Casterbridge. They shake hands, wish each other well, and go their separate ways.
The frightened man is caught, but the jail officers who soon arrive say that he is certainly not the escaped prisoner. The man himself explains that he is actually the prisoner's brother, and he became terribly scared when he entered the house and saw his brother sitting in the chimney corner next to the executioner. The escaped prisoner, then, is the gaunt man, the first of the three strangers to enter the house. He is never caught and never seen again.