Across Egdon Heath (a "vast tract of unenclosed wild . . . a somber, windswept stretch of brown hills and valleys, virtually treeless, covered in briars and thorn bushes"), an older man makes his way. Soon he encounters a horse-drawn van, being led by Diggory Venn, a reddleman (seller of a reddish powdery dye used by sheep farmers to identify their flock). In the van is a young woman whose identity Venn rudely conceals from the elderly hiker. As he continues walking alongside the van, the reddleman notices the figure of a woman, standing atop Rainbarrow, the largest of the many Celtic burial mounds in the area, profiled against the sky, "like an organic part of the entire motionless structure," and then, replacing her, other figures. These are heath folk (locals, living near the heath) come to start a Fifth-of-November bonfire, a local custom. The night sky is lit by a number of these bonfires.
The young woman traveling in Diggory Venn's horse cart is Thomasin Yeobright, who was to have married Damon Wildeve that day. Mrs. Yeobright takes Thomasin with her to see Wildeve at the inn he operates in order to demand an explanation of his failure to marry her. When their bonfire has burned out, the locals come to serenade Thomasin and Wildeve, thinking them to be newly married and wanting to celebrate. When Wildeve is able to get rid of them he starts off to see Eustacia Vye, the mysterious figure Venn saw earlier, standing on Rainbarrow.
Eustacia watches for Wildeve on Rainbarrow, returning now and then to check on the signal fire she has had built before her grandfather's house. (Captain Vye is the chance acquaintance of Venn's). Wildeve was once Eustacia's lover, but she has not seen him since his interest in Thomasin. Eventually, Wildeve does finally arrive.
