Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by the English writer Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy's second published novel, and the first of what was to become his series of Wessex novels. Critics recognise it as an important precursor to his later tragic works, setting the scene for the Wessex that the author would return to again and again. Hardy himself called the story of the Mellstock Quire and its west-gallery musicians "a fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, ways, and customs which were common among such orchestral bodies in the villages of [the 1850s]." Plot The novel follows the activities of a group of west gallery musicians, the Mellstock parish choir, one of whom, Dick Dewy, becomes romantically entangled with a comely new village schoolmistress, Fancy Day. The novel opens with the fiddlers and singers of the choir — including Dick, his father Reuben Dewy, and grandfather William Dewy — making the rounds in Mellstock village on Christmas Eve. When the little band plays at the schoolhouse, young Dick falls for Fancy at first sight. Dick seeks to insinuate himself into her life and affections, but Fancy's beauty has gained her other suitors including Shiner, a rich farmer, and Mr Maybold, the new vicar at the parish church. Maybold informs the choir that he intends Fancy, an accomplished organist, to replace their traditional gallery singing and string accompaniment to Sunday services. Reuben Dewy and the rest of the band visit the vicarage to negotiate, but reluctantly give way to the vicar's wishes. Dick seems to win Fancy's heart, and the two become secretly engaged. When he is informed, Fancy's father is initially opposed, but changes his mind when as a consequence Fancy stops eating and her health deteriorates. Some months later, after Fancy's first Sunday service as organist, Maybold unexpectedly proposes marriage and promises Fancy a life of relative affluence; racked by guilt and temptation, she accepts. The next day, however, at a chance meeting with Dick, Maybold learns that Fancy is in fact already spoken for. Maybold writes her a letter, admonishing her to be honest with Dick and to withdraw her commitment to him if she indeed meant what she said in accepting Maybold. Fancy withdraws her consent to marry Maybold, and asks him to keep her initial acceptance forever a secret. Maybold