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The Three Strangers

by Thomas Hardy

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Student Question

In "The Three Strangers," how does the second stranger reveal his occupation?

Quick answer:

In “The Three Strangers,” the second stranger reveals his occupation by saying that the nature of his trade is that it “sets a mark upon my customers.” This is an oblique reference to the fact that he’s a hangman. As an added clue, he sings a verse of a song consisting of the following words: “My trade is a sight to see / For my customers I tie, and take them up on high / And waft’em to a far countree.”

Expert Answers

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In a challenge to our expectations as readers, Hardy makes the hangman in “The Three Strangers” a jolly soul who likes nothing better than to have a nice drink and sing merrily with the assembled guests at the christening party. On the face of it, this is the last man on earth we’d expect to make his living as a professional executioner. And yet that’s precisely what he is. When he rocks up at Higher Crowstairs, then, he’s making a business, not a social, call.

In the meantime, though, before he can get his hands on the escaped sheep-rustler he’s scheduled to hang, he’s going to have a bit of fun, hence the drinking and singing. He also has a bit of fun by obliquely revealing the nature of his profession. When the hedge-carpenter observes that you can tell a man’s trade by his hands, the hangman joins in the discussion, saying that his trade involves setting a mark upon his customers.

It’s not immediately apparent that anyone present understands the import of the hangman’s remarks. In any case, no one asks the hangman to elaborate upon his somewhat cryptic remarks.

Anyway, it’s a time for a song, and the hangman uses this as another opportunity to reveal his unusual profession:

Oh, my trade is the rarest one,
Simple shepherds all,
My trade is a sight to see;
For my customers I tie, and take them up on high,
And waft’em to a far countree.

The “far countree” is, of course, the next world, the world we’re supposed to enter after we die. If there was any ambiguity about the second stranger’s profession, there’s certainly none now, as can be gauged from the complete silence that greets his completion of the verse.

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