diff options
Diffstat (limited to '107-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 107-h/107-h.htm | 23346 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 107-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 245155 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 107-h/images/james3.jpg | bin | 0 -> 4376 bytes |
3 files changed, 23346 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/107-h/107-h.htm b/107-h/107-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34613ab --- /dev/null +++ b/107-h/107-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,23346 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 107 ***</div> + +<p class="center"> +There are two editions of this ebook in the Project Gutenberg collection. +Various characteristics of each ebook are listed to aid in selecting the +preferred file.<br /> +Click on any of the filenumbers below to quickly view each ebook. +</p> + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3"> + +<tr><td> + <b><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27/27-h/27-h.htm"> +27</a> </b> </td><td>1874, First Edition; illustrated. +</td></tr> + +<tr><td> + <b><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/107/107-h/107-h.htm"> +107</a></b></td><td>1895, Second Edition, extensively revised by Thomas Hardy. +</td></tr> + +</table> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>Far from the Madding Crowd</h1> + +<h2>by Thomas Hardy</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">PREFACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">Chapter I. Description of Farmer Oak—An Incident</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">Chapter II. Night—The Flock—An Interior—Another Interior</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">Chapter III. A Girl on Horseback—Conversation</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">Chapter IV. Gabriel’s Resolve—The Visit—The Mistake</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">Chapter V. Departure of Bathsheba—A Pastoral Tragedy</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">Chapter VI. The Fair—The Journey—The Fire</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">Chapter VII. Recognition—A Timid Girl</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">Chapter VIII. The Malthouse—The Chat—News</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">Chapter IX. The Homestead—A Visitor—Half-Confidences</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">Chapter X. Mistress and Men</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">Chapter XI. Outside the Barracks—Snow—A Meeting</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">Chapter XII. Farmers—A Rule—An Exception</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">Chapter XIII. Sortes Sanctorum—The Valentine</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">Chapter XIV. Effect of the Letter—Sunrise</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">Chapter XV. A Morning Meeting—The Letter Again</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">Chapter XVI. All Saints’ and All Souls’</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">Chapter XVII. In the Market-Place</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">Chapter XVIII. Boldwood in Meditation—Regret</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">Chapter XIX. The Sheep-Washing—The Offer</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">Chapter XX. Perplexity—Grinding the Shears—A Quarrel</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">Chapter XXI. Troubles in the Fold—A Message</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">Chapter XXII. The Great Barn and the Sheep-Shearers</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">Chapter XXIII. Eventide—A Second Declaration</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">Chapter XXIV. The Same Night—The Fir Plantation</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">Chapter XXV. The New Acquaintance Described</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">Chapter XXVI. Scene on the Verge of the Hay-Mead</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">Chapter XXVII. Hiving the Bees</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">Chapter XXVIII. The Hollow Amid the Ferns</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">Chapter XXIX. Particulars of a Twilight Walk</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">Chapter XXX. Hot Cheeks and Tearful Eyes</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">Chapter XXXI. Blame—Fury</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">Chapter XXXII. Night—Horses Tramping</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">Chapter XXXIII. In the Sun—A Harbinger</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">Chapter XXXIV. Home Again—A Trickster</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">Chapter XXXV. At an Upper Window</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">Chapter XXXVI. Wealth in Jeopardy—The Revel</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">Chapter XXXVII. The Storm—The Two Together</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">Chapter XXXVIII. Rain—One Solitary Meets Another</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">Chapter XXXIX. Coming Home—A Cry</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">Chapter XL. On Casterbridge Highway</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">Chapter XLI. Suspicion—Fanny Is Sent For</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">Chapter XLII. Joseph and His Burden—Buck’s Head</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">Chapter XLIII. Fanny’s Revenge</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">Chapter XLIV. Under a Tree—Reaction</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">Chapter XLV. Troy’s Romanticism</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">Chapter XLVI. The Gurgoyle: Its Doings</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap47">Chapter XLVII. Adventures by the Shore</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap48">Chapter XLVIII. Doubts Arise—Doubts Linger</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap49">Chapter XLIX. Oak’s Advancement—A Great Hope</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap50">Chapter L. The Sheep Fair—Troy Touches His Wife’s Hand</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap51">Chapter LI. Bathsheba Talks with Her Outrider</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap52">Chapter LII. Converging Courses</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap53">Chapter LIII. Concurritur—Horæ Momento</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap54">Chapter LIV. After the Shock</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap55">Chapter LV. The March Following—“Bathsheba Boldwood”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap56">Chapter LVI. Beauty in Loneliness—After All</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap57">Chapter LVII. A Foggy Night and Morning—Conclusion</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap58">Notes</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref01"></a>PREFACE</h2> + +<p> +In reprinting this story for a new edition I am reminded that it was in the +chapters of “Far from the Madding Crowd,” as they appeared month by +month in a popular magazine, that I first ventured to adopt the word +“Wessex” from the pages of early English history, and give it a +fictitious significance as the existing name of the district once included in +that extinct kingdom. The series of novels I projected being mainly of the kind +called local, they seemed to require a territorial definition of some sort to +lend unity to their scene. Finding that the area of a single county did not +afford a canvas large enough for this purpose, and that there were objections +to an invented name, I disinterred the old one. The press and the public were +kind enough to welcome the fanciful plan, and willingly joined me in the +anachronism of imagining a Wessex population living under Queen +Victoria;—a modern Wessex of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping +machines, union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read and +write, and National school children. But I believe I am correct in stating +that, until the existence of this contemporaneous Wessex was announced in the +present story, in 1874, it had never been heard of, and that the expression, +“a Wessex peasant,” or “a Wessex custom,” would +theretofore have been taken to refer to nothing later in date than the Norman +Conquest. +</p> + +<p> +I did not anticipate that this application of the word to a modern use would +extend outside the chapters of my own chronicles. But the name was soon taken +up elsewhere as a local designation. The first to do so was the now defunct +<i>Examiner</i>, which, in the impression bearing date July 15, 1876, entitled +one of its articles “The Wessex Labourer,” the article turning out +to be no dissertation on farming during the Heptarchy, but on the modern +peasant of the south-west counties, and his presentation in these stories. +</p> + +<p> +Since then the appellation which I had thought to reserve to the horizons and +landscapes of a merely realistic dream-country, has become more and more +popular as a practical definition; and the dream-country has, by degrees, +solidified into a utilitarian region which people can go to, take a house in, +and write to the papers from. But I ask all good and gentle readers to be so +kind as to forget this, and to refuse steadfastly to believe that there are any +inhabitants of a Victorian Wessex outside the pages of this and the companion +volumes in which they were first discovered. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, the village called Weatherbury, wherein the scenes of the present +story of the series are for the most part laid, would perhaps be hardly +discernible by the explorer, without help, in any existing place nowadays; +though at the time, comparatively recent, at which the tale was written, a +sufficient reality to meet the descriptions, both of backgrounds and +personages, might have been traced easily enough. The church remains, by great +good fortune, unrestored and intact, and a few of the old houses; but the +ancient malt-house, which was formerly so characteristic of the parish, has +been pulled down these twenty years; also most of the thatched and dormered +cottages that were once lifeholds. The game of prisoner’s base, which not +so long ago seemed to enjoy a perennial vitality in front of the worn-out +stocks, may, so far as I can say, be entirely unknown to the rising generation +of schoolboys there. The practice of divination by Bible and key, the regarding +of valentines as things of serious import, the shearing-supper, and the +harvest-home, have, too, nearly disappeared in the wake of the old houses; and +with them have gone, it is said, much of that love of fuddling to which the +village at one time was notoriously prone. The change at the root of this has +been the recent supplanting of the class of stationary cottagers, who carried +on the local traditions and humours, by a population of more or less migratory +labourers, which has led to a break of continuity in local history, more fatal +than any other thing to the preservation of legend, folk-lore, close +inter-social relations, and eccentric individualities. For these the +indispensable conditions of existence are attachment to the soil of one +particular spot by generation after generation.<br /> +<br /> +T. H.<br /> +<br /> +February 1895 +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I<br /> +Description of Farmer Oak—An Incident</h2> + +<p> +When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within +an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and +diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the +rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun. +</p> + +<p> +His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young man of sound +judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good character. On Sundays he +was a man of misty views, rather given to postponing, and hampered by his best +clothes and umbrella: upon the whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally +that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion +people of the parish and the drunken section,—that is, he went to church, +but yawned privately by the time the congregation reached the Nicene creed, and +thought of what there would be for dinner when he meant to be listening to the +sermon. Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, +when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad +man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, +he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture. +</p> + +<p> +Since he lived six times as many working-days as Sundays, Oak’s +appearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his own—the mental +picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him being always dressed in that +way. He wore a low-crowned felt hat, spread out at the base by tight jamming +upon the head for security in high winds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson’s; +his lower extremities being encased in ordinary leather leggings and boots +emphatically large, affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed +that any wearer might stand in a river all day long and know nothing of +damp—their maker being a conscientious man who endeavoured to compensate +for any weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension and solidity. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be called a small silver +clock; in other words, it was a watch as to shape and intention, and a small +clock as to size. This instrument being several years older than Oak’s +grandfather, had the peculiarity of going either too fast or not at all. The +smaller of its hands, too, occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, +though the minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of +the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of his watch Oak remedied +by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any evil consequences from the other two +defects by constant comparisons with and observations of the sun and stars, and +by pressing his face close to the glass of his neighbours’ windows, till +he could discern the hour marked by the green-faced timekeepers within. It may +be mentioned that Oak’s fob being difficult of access, by reason of its +somewhat high situation in the waistband of his trousers (which also lay at a +remote height under his waistcoat), the watch was as a necessity pulled out by +throwing the body to one side, compressing the mouth and face to a mere mass of +ruddy flesh on account of the exertion required, and drawing up the watch by +its chain, like a bucket from a well. +</p> + +<p> +But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one of his fields +on a certain December morning—sunny and exceedingly mild—might have +regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these. In his face one might notice +that many of the hues and curves of youth had tarried on to manhood: there even +remained in his remoter crannies some relics of the boy. His height and breadth +would have been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been +exhibited with due consideration. But there is a way some men have, rural and +urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than flesh and sinew: it is +a way of curtailing their dimensions by their manner of showing them. And from +a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, which seemed continually to +impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world’s room, Oak +walked unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from a +bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in an individual if he +depends for his valuation more upon his appearance than upon his capacity to +wear well, which Oak did not. +</p> + +<p> +He had just reached the time of life at which “young” is ceasing to +be the prefix of “man” in speaking of one. He was at the brightest +period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly +separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth +indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet +arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of +prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short, he was +twenty-eight, and a bachelor. +</p> + +<p> +The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called Norcombe Hill. +Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between Emminster and Chalk-Newton. +Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak saw coming down the incline before him an +ornamental spring waggon, painted yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, +a waggoner walking alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was +laden with household goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat +a woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld the sight for more than +half a minute, when the vehicle was brought to a standstill just beneath his +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss,” said the waggoner. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I heard it fall,” said the girl, in a soft, though not +particularly low voice. “I heard a noise I could not account for when we +were coming up the hill.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll run back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +The sensible horses stood—perfectly still, and the waggoner’s steps +sank fainter and fainter in the distance. +</p> + +<p> +The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by tables and +chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle, and ornamented in +front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses, together with a caged +canary—all probably from the windows of the house just vacated. There was +also a cat in a willow basket, from the partly-opened lid of which she gazed +with half-closed eyes, and affectionately surveyed the small birds around. +</p> + +<p> +The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and the only sound +heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary up and down the perches of +its prison. Then she looked attentively downwards. It was not at the bird, nor +at the cat; it was at an oblong package tied in paper, and lying between them. +She turned her head to learn if the waggoner were coming. He was not yet in +sight; and her eyes crept back to the package, her thoughts seeming to run upon +what was inside it. At length she drew the article into her lap, and untied the +paper covering; a small swing looking-glass was disclosed, in which she +proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow the crimson +jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright face and dark hair. +The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses packed around her were fresh and green, +and at such a leafless season they invested the whole concern of horses, +waggon, furniture, and girl with a peculiar vernal charm. What possessed her to +indulge in such a performance in the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and +unperceived farmer who were alone its spectators,—whether the smile began +as a factitious one, to test her capacity in that art,—nobody knows; it +ended certainly in a real smile. She blushed at herself, and seeing her +reflection blush, blushed the more. +</p> + +<p> +The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of such an +act—from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling out of +doors—lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not intrinsically possess. +The picture was a delicate one. Woman’s prescriptive infirmity had +stalked into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the freshness of an +originality. A cynical inference was irresistible by Gabriel Oak as he regarded +the scene, generous though he fain would have been. There was no necessity +whatever for her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her +hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that any such +intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She simply observed +herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine kind, her thoughts seeming +to glide into far-off though likely dramas in which men would play a +part—vistas of probable triumphs—the smiles being of a phase +suggesting that hearts were imagined as lost and won. Still, this was but +conjecture, and the whole series of actions was so idly put forth as to make it +rash to assert that intention had any part in them at all. +</p> + +<p> +The waggoner’s steps were heard returning. She put the glass in the +paper, and the whole again into its place. +</p> + +<p> +When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel withdrew from his point of espial, and +descending into the road, followed the vehicle to the turnpike-gate some way +beyond the bottom of the hill, where the object of his contemplation now halted +for the payment of toll. About twenty steps still remained between him and the +gate, when he heard a dispute. It was a difference concerning twopence between +the persons with the waggon and the man at the toll-bar. +</p> + +<p> +“Mis’ess’s niece is upon the top of the things, and she says +that’s enough that I’ve offered ye, you great miser, and she +won’t pay any more.” These were the waggoner’s words. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; then mis’ess’s niece can’t pass,” +said the turnpike-keeper, closing the gate. +</p> + +<p> +Oak looked from one to the other of the disputants, and fell into a reverie. +There was something in the tone of twopence remarkably insignificant. +Threepence had a definite value as money—it was an appreciable +infringement on a day’s wages, and, as such, a higgling matter; but +twopence—“Here,” he said, stepping forward and handing +twopence to the gatekeeper; “let the young woman pass.” He looked +up at her then; she heard his words, and looked down. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel’s features adhered throughout their form so exactly to the middle +line between the beauty of St. John and the ugliness of Judas Iscariot, as +represented in a window of the church he attended, that not a single lineament +could be selected and called worthy either of distinction or notoriety. The +red-jacketed and dark-haired maiden seemed to think so too, for she carelessly +glanced over him, and told her man to drive on. She might have looked her +thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she did not speak them; more probably +she felt none, for in gaining her a passage he had lost her her point, and we +know how women take a favour of that kind. +</p> + +<p> +The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle. “That’s a handsome +maid,” he said to Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“But she has her faults,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“True, farmer.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the greatest of them is—well, what it is always.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beating people down? ay, ’tis so.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, then?” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely traveller’s indifference, +glanced back to where he had witnessed her performance over the hedge, and +said, “Vanity.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II<br /> +NIGHT—THE FLOCK—AN INTERIOR—ANOTHER INTERIOR</h2> + +<p> +It was nearly midnight on the eve of St. Thomas’s, the shortest day in +the year. A desolating wind wandered from the north over the hill whereon Oak +had watched the yellow waggon and its occupant in the sunshine of a few days +earlier. +</p> + +<p> +Norcombe Hill—not far from lonely Toller-Down—was one of the spots +which suggest to a passer-by that he is in the presence of a shape approaching +the indestructible as nearly as any to be found on earth. It was a featureless +convexity of chalk and soil—an ordinary specimen of those +smoothly-outlined protuberances of the globe which may remain undisturbed on +some great day of confusion, when far grander heights and dizzy granite +precipices topple down. +</p> + +<p> +The hill was covered on its northern side by an ancient and decaying plantation +of beeches, whose upper verge formed a line over the crest, fringing its arched +curve against the sky, like a mane. To-night these trees sheltered the southern +slope from the keenest blasts, which smote the wood and floundered through it +with a sound as of grumbling, or gushed over its crowning boughs in a weakened +moan. The dry leaves in the ditch simmered and boiled in the same breezes, a +tongue of air occasionally ferreting out a few, and sending them spinning +across the grass. A group or two of the latest in date amongst the dead +multitude had remained till this very mid-winter time on the twigs which bore +them and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps. +</p> + +<p> +Between this half-wooded half-naked hill, and the vague still horizon that its +summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet of fathomless +shade—the sounds from which suggested that what it concealed bore some +reduced resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more or less coating +the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes of differing powers, and almost +of differing natures—one rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them +piercingly, another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive act of +humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the +trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies +of a cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then caught the +note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the hurrying gust then plunged +into the south, to be heard no more. +</p> + +<p> +The sky was clear—remarkably clear—and the twinkling of all the +stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse. The North +Star was directly in the wind’s eye, and since evening the Bear had swung +round it outwardly to the east, till he was now at a right angle with the +meridian. A difference of colour in the stars—oftener read of than seen +in England—was really perceptible here. The sovereign brilliancy of +Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called Capella was +yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery red. +</p> + +<p> +To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the +roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be +caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is +perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space +that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its +origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of +motion is a phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that +gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, +and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of +civilised mankind, who are dreamwrapt and disregardful of all such proceedings +at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars. +After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to get back to earth, and to +believe that the consciousness of such majestic speeding is derived from a tiny +human frame. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place up +against the sky. They had a clearness which was to be found nowhere in the +wind, and a sequence which was to be found nowhere in nature. They were the +notes of Farmer Oak’s flute. +</p> + +<p> +The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air: it seemed muffled in +some way, and was altogether too curtailed in power to spread high or wide. It +came from the direction of a small dark object under the plantation +hedge—a shepherd’s hut—now presenting an outline to which an +uninitiated person might have been puzzled to attach either meaning or use. +</p> + +<p> +The image as a whole was that of a small Noah’s Ark on a small Ararat, +allowing the traditionary outlines and general form of the Ark which are +followed by toy-makers—and by these means are established in men’s +imaginations among their firmest, because earliest impressions—to pass as +an approximate pattern. The hut stood on little wheels, which raised its floor +about a foot from the ground. Such shepherds’ huts are dragged into the +fields when the lambing season comes on, to shelter the shepherd in his +enforced nightly attendance. +</p> + +<p> +It was only latterly that people had begun to call Gabriel “Farmer” +Oak. During the twelvemonth preceding this time he had been enabled by +sustained efforts of industry and chronic good spirits to lease the small +sheep-farm of which Norcombe Hill was a portion, and stock it with two hundred +sheep. Previously he had been a bailiff for a short time, and earlier still a +shepherd only, having from his childhood assisted his father in tending the +flocks of large proprietors, till old Gabriel sank to rest. +</p> + +<p> +This venture, unaided and alone, into the paths of farming as master and not as +man, with an advance of sheep not yet paid for, was a critical juncture with +Gabriel Oak, and he recognised his position clearly. The first movement in his +new progress was the lambing of his ewes, and sheep having been his speciality +from his youth, he wisely refrained from deputing the task of tending them at +this season to a hireling or a novice. +</p> + +<p> +The wind continued to beat about the corners of the hut, but the flute-playing +ceased. A rectangular space of light appeared in the side of the hut, and in +the opening the outline of Farmer Oak’s figure. He carried a lantern in +his hand, and closing the door behind him, came forward and busied himself +about this nook of the field for nearly twenty minutes, the lantern light +appearing and disappearing here and there, and brightening him or darkening him +as he stood before or behind it. +</p> + +<p> +Oak’s motions, though they had a quiet energy, were slow, and their +deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of +beauty, nobody could have denied that his steady swings and turns in and about +the flock had elements of grace. Yet, although if occasion demanded he could do +or think a thing with as mercurial a dash as can the men of towns who are more +to the manner born, his special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was +static, owing little or nothing to momentum as a rule. +</p> + +<p> +A close examination of the ground hereabout, even by the wan starlight only, +revealed how a portion of what would have been casually called a wild slope had +been appropriated by Farmer Oak for his great purpose this winter. Detached +hurdles thatched with straw were stuck into the ground at various scattered +points, amid and under which the whitish forms of his meek ewes moved and +rustled. The ring of the sheep-bell, which had been silent during his absence, +recommenced, in tones that had more mellowness than clearness, owing to an +increasing growth of surrounding wool. This continued till Oak withdrew again +from the flock. He returned to the hut, bringing in his arms a new-born lamb, +consisting of four legs large enough for a full-grown sheep, united by a +seemingly inconsiderable membrane about half the substance of the legs +collectively, which constituted the animal’s entire body just at present. +</p> + +<p> +The little speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before the small stove, +where a can of milk was simmering. Oak extinguished the lantern by blowing into +it and then pinching the snuff, the cot being lighted by a candle suspended by +a twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of a few corn sacks thrown +carelessly down, covered half the floor of this little habitation, and here the +young man stretched himself along, loosened his woollen cravat, and closed his +eyes. In about the time a person unaccustomed to bodily labour would have +decided upon which side to lie, Farmer Oak was asleep. +</p> + +<p> +The inside of the hut, as it now presented itself, was cosy and alluring, and +the scarlet handful of fire in addition to the candle, reflecting its own +genial colour upon whatever it could reach, flung associations of enjoyment +even over utensils and tools. In the corner stood the sheep-crook, and along a +shelf at one side were ranged bottles and canisters of the simple preparations +pertaining to ovine surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar, +magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being the chief. On a triangular shelf across +the corner stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was +supplied from a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute, whose +notes had lately been called forth by the lonely watcher to beguile a tedious +hour. The house was ventilated by two round holes, like the lights of a +ship’s cabin, with wood slides. +</p> + +<p> +The lamb, revived by the warmth, began to bleat, and the sound entered +Gabriel’s ears and brain with an instant meaning, as expected sounds +will. Passing from the profoundest sleep to the most alert wakefulness with the +same ease that had accompanied the reverse operation, he looked at his watch, +found that the hour-hand had shifted again, put on his hat, took the lamb in +his arms, and carried it into the darkness. After placing the little creature +with its mother, he stood and carefully examined the sky, to ascertain the time +of night from the altitudes of the stars. +</p> + +<p> +The Dog-star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were half-way up +the Southern sky, and between them hung Orion, which gorgeous constellation +never burnt more vividly than now, as it soared forth above the rim of the +landscape. Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine were almost on the +meridian: the barren and gloomy Square of Pegasus was creeping round to the +north-west; far away through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended +amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia’s chair stood daintily poised on +the uppermost boughs. +</p> + +<p> +“One o’clock,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in +this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful +instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art +superlatively beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking +loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its +compass of the sights and sounds of man. Human shapes, interferences, troubles, +and joys were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on the shaded +hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save himself; he could fancy them all +gone round to the sunny side. +</p> + +<p> +Occupied thus, with eyes stretched afar, Oak gradually perceived that what he +had previously taken to be a star low down behind the outskirts of the +plantation was in reality no such thing. It was an artificial light, almost +close at hand. +</p> + +<p> +To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and +expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves +is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, +analogy, testimony, probability, induction—every kind of evidence in the +logician’s list—have united to persuade consciousness that it is +quite in isolation. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and pushed through its lower boughs to +the windy side. A dim mass under the slope reminded him that a shed occupied a +place here, the site being a cutting into the slope of the hill, so that at its +back part the roof was almost level with the ground. In front it was formed of +board nailed to posts and covered with tar as a preservative. Through crevices +in the roof and side spread streaks and dots of light, a combination of which +made the radiance that had attracted him. Oak stepped up behind, where, leaning +down upon the roof and putting his eye close to a hole, he could see into the +interior clearly. +</p> + +<p> +The place contained two women and two cows. By the side of the latter a +steaming bran-mash stood in a bucket. One of the women was past middle age. Her +companion was apparently young and graceful; he could form no decided opinion +upon her looks, her position being almost beneath his eye, so that he saw her +in a bird’s-eye view, as Milton’s Satan first saw Paradise. She +wore no bonnet or hat, but had enveloped herself in a large cloak, which was +carelessly flung over her head as a covering. +</p> + +<p> +“There, now we’ll go home,” said the elder of the two, +resting her knuckles upon her hips, and looking at their goings-on as a whole. +“I do hope Daisy will fetch round again now. I have never been more +frightened in my life, but I don’t mind breaking my rest if she +recovers.” +</p> + +<p> +The young woman, whose eyelids were apparently inclined to fall together on the +smallest provocation of silence, yawned without parting her lips to any +inconvenient extent, whereupon Gabriel caught the infection and slightly yawned +in sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we were rich enough to pay a man to do these things,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“As we are not, we must do them ourselves,” said the other; +“for you must help me if you stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my hat is gone, however,” continued the younger. “It +went over the hedge, I think. The idea of such a slight wind catching +it.” +</p> + +<p> +The cow standing erect was of the Devon breed, and was encased in a tight warm +hide of rich Indian red, as absolutely uniform from eyes to tail as if the +animal had been dipped in a dye of that colour, her long back being +mathematically level. The other was spotted, grey and white. Beside her Oak now +noticed a little calf about a day old, looking idiotically at the two women, +which showed that it had not long been accustomed to the phenomenon of +eyesight, and often turning to the lantern, which it apparently mistook for the +moon, inherited instinct having as yet had little time for correction by +experience. Between the sheep and the cows Lucina had been busy on Norcombe +Hill lately. +</p> + +<p> +“I think we had better send for some oatmeal,” said the elder +woman; “there’s no more bran.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, aunt; and I’ll ride over for it as soon as it is +light.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s no side-saddle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can ride on the other: trust me.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more curious to observe her features, +but this prospect being denied him by the hooding effect of the cloak, and by +his aërial position, he felt himself drawing upon his fancy for their details. +In making even horizontal and clear inspections we colour and mould according +to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in. Had Gabriel been able from +the first to get a distinct view of her countenance, his estimate of it as very +handsome or slightly so would have been as his soul required a divinity at the +moment or was ready supplied with one. Having for some time known the want of a +satisfactory form to fill an increasing void within him, his position moreover +affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a beauty. +</p> + +<p> +By one of those whimsical coincidences in which Nature, like a busy mother, +seems to spare a moment from her unremitting labours to turn and make her +children smile, the girl now dropped the cloak, and forth tumbled ropes of +black hair over a red jacket. Oak knew her instantly as the heroine of the +yellow waggon, myrtles, and looking-glass: prosily, as the woman who owed him +twopence. +</p> + +<p> +They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the lantern, and went +out, the light sinking down the hill till it was no more than a nebula. Gabriel +Oak returned to his flock. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III<br /> +A GIRL ON HORSEBACK—CONVERSATION</h2> + +<p> +The sluggish day began to break. Even its position terrestrially is one of the +elements of a new interest, and for no particular reason save that the incident +of the night had occurred there Oak went again into the plantation. Lingering +and musing here, he heard the steps of a horse at the foot of the hill, and +soon there appeared in view an auburn pony with a girl on its back, ascending +by the path leading past the cattle-shed. She was the young woman of the night +before. Gabriel instantly thought of the hat she had mentioned as having lost +in the wind; possibly she had come to look for it. He hastily scanned the ditch +and after walking about ten yards along it found the hat among the leaves. +Gabriel took it in his hand and returned to his hut. Here he ensconced himself, +and peeped through the loophole in the direction of the rider’s approach. +</p> + +<p> +She came up and looked around—then on the other side of the hedge. +Gabriel was about to advance and restore the missing article when an unexpected +performance induced him to suspend the action for the present. The path, after +passing the cowshed, bisected the plantation. It was not a +bridle-path—merely a pedestrian’s track, and the boughs spread +horizontally at a height not greater than seven feet above the ground, which +made it impossible to ride erect beneath them. The girl, who wore no +riding-habit, looked around for a moment, as if to assure herself that all +humanity was out of view, then dexterously dropped backwards flat upon the +pony’s back, her head over its tail, her feet against its shoulders, and +her eyes to the sky. The rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a +kingfisher—its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel’s eyes had +scarcely been able to follow her. The tall lank pony seemed used to such +doings, and ambled along unconcerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs. +</p> + +<p> +The performer seemed quite at home anywhere between a horse’s head and +its tail, and the necessity for this abnormal attitude having ceased with the +passage of the plantation, she began to adopt another, even more obviously +convenient than the first. She had no side-saddle, and it was very apparent +that a firm seat upon the smooth leather beneath her was unattainable sideways. +Springing to her accustomed perpendicular like a bowed sapling, and satisfying +herself that nobody was in sight, she seated herself in the manner demanded by +the saddle, though hardly expected of the woman, and trotted off in the +direction of Tewnell Mill. +</p> + +<p> +Oak was amused, perhaps a little astonished, and hanging up the hat in his hut, +went again among his ewes. An hour passed, the girl returned, properly seated +now, with a bag of bran in front of her. On nearing the cattle-shed she was met +by a boy bringing a milking-pail, who held the reins of the pony whilst she +slid off. The boy led away the horse, leaving the pail with the young woman. +</p> + +<p> +Soon soft spirts alternating with loud spirts came in regular succession from +within the shed, the obvious sounds of a person milking a cow. Gabriel took the +lost hat in his hand, and waited beside the path she would follow in leaving +the hill. +</p> + +<p> +She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee. The left arm was +extended as a balance, enough of it being shown bare to make Oak wish that the +event had happened in the summer, when the whole would have been revealed. +There was a bright air and manner about her now, by which she seemed to imply +that the desirability of her existence could not be questioned; and this rather +saucy assumption failed in being offensive because a beholder felt it to be, +upon the whole, true. Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius, that +which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was an addition to recognised +power. It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel’s face rising like +the moon behind the hedge. +</p> + +<p> +The adjustment of the farmer’s hazy conceptions of her charms to the +portrait of herself she now presented him with was less a diminution than a +difference. The starting-point selected by the judgment was her height. She +seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and the hedge diminutive; hence, +making allowance for error by comparison with these, she could have been not +above the height to be chosen by women as best. All features of consequence +were severe and regular. It may have been observed by persons who go about the +shires with eyes for beauty, that in Englishwoman a classically-formed face is +seldom found to be united with a figure of the same pattern, the +highly-finished features being generally too large for the remainder of the +frame; that a graceful and proportionate figure of eight heads usually goes off +into random facial curves. Without throwing a Nymphean tissue over a milkmaid, +let it be said that here criticism checked itself as out of place, and looked +at her proportions with a long consciousness of pleasure. From the contours of +her figure in its upper part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; +but since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been put into a low +dress she would have run and thrust her head into a bush. Yet she was not a shy +girl by any means; it was merely her instinct to draw the line dividing the +seen from the unseen higher than they do it in towns. +</p> + +<p> +That the girl’s thoughts hovered about her face and form as soon as she +caught Oak’s eyes conning the same page was natural, and almost certain. +The self-consciousness shown would have been vanity if a little more +pronounced, dignity if a little less. Rays of male vision seem to have a +tickling effect upon virgin faces in rural districts; she brushed hers with her +hand, as if Gabriel had been irritating its pink surface by actual touch, and +the free air of her previous movements was reduced at the same time to a +chastened phase of itself. Yet it was the man who blushed, the maid not at all. +</p> + +<p> +“I found a hat,” said Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“It is mine,” said she, and, from a sense of proportion, kept down +to a small smile an inclination to laugh distinctly: “it flew away last +night.” +</p> + +<p> +“One o’clock this morning?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—it was.” She was surprised. “How did you +know?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I was here.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are Farmer Oak, are you not?” +</p> + +<p> +“That or thereabouts. I’m lately come to this place.” +</p> + +<p> +“A large farm?” she inquired, casting her eyes round, and swinging +back her hair, which was black in the shaded hollows of its mass; but it being +now an hour past sunrise the rays touched its prominent curves with a colour of +their own. +</p> + +<p> +“No; not large. About a hundred.” (In speaking of farms the word +“acres” is omitted by the natives, by analogy to such old +expressions as “a stag of ten.”) +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted my hat this morning,” she went on. “I had to ride +to Tewnell Mill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes you had.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” she inquired, a misgiving bringing every muscle of her +lineaments and frame to a standstill. +</p> + +<p> +“Here—going through the plantation, and all down the hill,” +said Farmer Oak, with an aspect excessively knowing with regard to some matter +in his mind, as he gazed at a remote point in the direction named, and then +turned back to meet his colloquist’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +A perception caused him to withdraw his own eyes from hers as suddenly as if he +had been caught in a theft. Recollection of the strange antics she had indulged +in when passing through the trees was succeeded in the girl by a nettled +palpitation, and that by a hot face. It was a time to see a woman redden who +was not given to reddening as a rule; not a point in the milkmaid but was of +the deepest rose-colour. From the Maiden’s Blush, through all varieties +of the Provence down to the Crimson Tuscany, the countenance of Oak’s +acquaintance quickly graduated; whereupon he, in considerateness, turned away +his head. +</p> + +<p> +The sympathetic man still looked the other way, and wondered when she would +recover coolness sufficient to justify him in facing her again. He heard what +seemed to be the flitting of a dead leaf upon the breeze, and looked. She had +gone away. +</p> + +<p> +With an air between that of Tragedy and Comedy Gabriel returned to his work. +</p> + +<p> +Five mornings and evenings passed. The young woman came regularly to milk the +healthy cow or to attend to the sick one, but never allowed her vision to stray +in the direction of Oak’s person. His want of tact had deeply offended +her—not by seeing what he could not help, but by letting her know that he +had seen it. For, as without law there is no sin, without eyes there is no +indecorum; and she appeared to feel that Gabriel’s espial had made her an +indecorous woman without her own connivance. It was food for great regret with +him; it was also a <i>contretemps</i> which touched into life a latent heat he +had experienced in that direction. +</p> + +<p> +The acquaintanceship might, however, have ended in a slow forgetting, but for +an incident which occurred at the end of the same week. One afternoon it began +to freeze, and the frost increased with evening, which drew on like a stealthy +tightening of bonds. It was a time when in cottages the breath of the sleepers +freezes to the sheets; when round the drawing-room fire of a thick-walled +mansion the sitters’ backs are cold, even whilst their faces are all +aglow. Many a small bird went to bed supperless that night among the bare +boughs. +</p> + +<p> +As the milking-hour drew near, Oak kept his usual watch upon the cowshed. At +last he felt cold, and shaking an extra quantity of bedding round the yearling +ewes he entered the hut and heaped more fuel upon the stove. The wind came in +at the bottom of the door, and to prevent it Oak laid a sack there and wheeled +the cot round a little more to the south. Then the wind spouted in at a +ventilating hole—of which there was one on each side of the hut. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel had always known that when the fire was lighted and the door closed one +of these must be kept open—that chosen being always on the side away from +the wind. Closing the slide to windward, he turned to open the other; on second +thoughts the farmer considered that he would first sit down leaving both closed +for a minute or two, till the temperature of the hut was a little raised. He +sat down. +</p> + +<p> +His head began to ache in an unwonted manner, and, fancying himself weary by +reason of the broken rests of the preceding nights, Oak decided to get up, open +the slide, and then allow himself to fall asleep. He fell asleep, however, +without having performed the necessary preliminary. +</p> + +<p> +How long he remained unconscious Gabriel never knew. During the first stages of +his return to perception peculiar deeds seemed to be in course of enactment. +His dog was howling, his head was aching fearfully—somebody was pulling +him about, hands were loosening his neckerchief. +</p> + +<p> +On opening his eyes he found that evening had sunk to dusk in a strange manner +of unexpectedness. The young girl with the remarkably pleasant lips and white +teeth was beside him. More than this—astonishingly more—his head +was upon her lap, his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were +unbuttoning his collar. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever is the matter?” said Oak, vacantly. +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to experience mirth, but of too insignificant a kind to start +enjoyment. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing now,” she answered, “since you are not dead. It is a +wonder you were not suffocated in this hut of yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, the hut!” murmured Gabriel. “I gave ten pounds for that +hut. But I’ll sell it, and sit under thatched hurdles as they did in old +times, and curl up to sleep in a lock of straw! It played me nearly the same +trick the other day!” Gabriel, by way of emphasis, brought down his fist +upon the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“It was not exactly the fault of the hut,” she observed in a tone +which showed her to be that novelty among women—one who finished a +thought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it. “You +should, I think, have considered, and not have been so foolish as to leave the +slides closed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes I suppose I should,” said Oak, absently. He was endeavouring +to catch and appreciate the sensation of being thus with her, his head upon her +dress, before the event passed on into the heap of bygone things. He wished she +knew his impressions; but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odour in +a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feeling in the +coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +She made him sit up, and then Oak began wiping his face and shaking himself +like a Samson. “How can I thank ’ee?” he said at last, +gratefully, some of the natural rusty red having returned to his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind that,” said the girl, smiling, and allowing her +smile to hold good for Gabriel’s next remark, whatever that might prove +to be. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you find me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard your dog howling and scratching at the door of the hut when I +came to the milking (it was so lucky, Daisy’s milking is almost over for +the season, and I shall not come here after this week or the next). The dog saw +me, and jumped over to me, and laid hold of my skirt. I came across and looked +round the hut the very first thing to see if the slides were closed. My uncle +has a hut like this one, and I have heard him tell his shepherd not to go to +sleep without leaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were like +dead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no water, forgetting it was warm, +and no use.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if I should have died?” Gabriel said, in a low voice, +which was rather meant to travel back to himself than to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no!” the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic +probability; to have saved a man from death involved talk that should harmonise +with the dignity of such a deed—and she shunned it. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe you saved my life, Miss—I don’t know your name. I +know your aunt’s, but not yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“I would just as soon not tell it—rather not. There is no reason +either why I should, as you probably will never have much to do with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, I should like to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can inquire at my aunt’s—she will tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Gabriel Oak.” +</p> + +<p> +“And mine isn’t. You seem fond of yours in speaking it so +decisively, Gabriel Oak.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the most +of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think you might soon get a new one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy!—how many opinions you keep about you concerning other +people, Gabriel Oak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Miss—excuse the words—I thought you would like them. +But I can’t match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue. I +never was very clever in my inside. But I thank you. Come, give me your +hand.” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted at Oak’s old-fashioned earnest +conclusion to a dialogue lightly carried on. “Very well,” she said, +and gave him her hand, compressing her lips to a demure impassivity. He held it +but an instant, and in his fear of being too demonstrative, swerved to the +opposite extreme, touching her fingers with the lightness of a small-hearted +person. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry,” he said the instant after. +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Letting your hand go so quick.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may have it again if you like; there it is.” She gave him her +hand again. +</p> + +<p> +Oak held it longer this time—indeed, curiously long. “How soft it +is—being winter time, too—not chapped or rough or anything!” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +“There—that’s long enough,” said she, though without +pulling it away. “But I suppose you are thinking you would like to kiss +it? You may if you want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t thinking of any such thing,” said Gabriel, simply; +“but I will—” +</p> + +<p> +“That you won’t!” She snatched back her hand. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of tact. +</p> + +<p> +“Now find out my name,” she said, teasingly; and withdrew. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /> +GABRIEL’S RESOLVE—THE VISIT—THE MISTAKE</h2> + +<p> +The only superiority in women that is tolerable to the rival sex is, as a rule, +that of the unconscious kind; but a superiority which recognizes itself may +sometimes please by suggesting possibilities of capture to the subordinated +man. +</p> + +<p> +This well-favoured and comely girl soon made appreciable inroads upon the +emotional constitution of young Farmer Oak. +</p> + +<p> +Love, being an extremely exacting usurer (a sense of exorbitant profit, +spiritually, by an exchange of hearts, being at the bottom of pure passions, as +that of exorbitant profit, bodily or materially, is at the bottom of those of +lower atmosphere), every morning Oak’s feelings were as sensitive as the +money-market in calculations upon his chances. His dog waited for his meals in +a way so like that in which Oak waited for the girl’s presence, that the +farmer was quite struck with the resemblance, felt it lowering, and would not +look at the dog. However, he continued to watch through the hedge for her +regular coming, and thus his sentiments towards her were deepened without any +corresponding effect being produced upon herself. Oak had nothing finished and +ready to say as yet, and not being able to frame love phrases which end where +they begin; passionate tales— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + —Full of sound and fury,<br /> +—Signifying nothing— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +he said no word at all. +</p> + +<p> +By making inquiries he found that the girl’s name was Bathsheba Everdene, +and that the cow would go dry in about seven days. He dreaded the eighth day. +</p> + +<p> +At last the eighth day came. The cow had ceased to give milk for that year, and +Bathsheba Everdene came up the hill no more. Gabriel had reached a pitch of +existence he never could have anticipated a short time before. He liked saying +“Bathsheba” as a private enjoyment instead of whistling; turned +over his taste to black hair, though he had sworn by brown ever since he was a +boy, isolated himself till the space he filled in the public eye was +contemptibly small. Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. Marriage +transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and +happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it +supplants. Oak began now to see light in this direction, and said to himself, +“I’ll make her my wife, or upon my soul I shall be good for +nothing!” +</p> + +<p> +All this while he was perplexing himself about an errand on which he might +consistently visit the cottage of Bathsheba’s aunt. +</p> + +<p> +He found his opportunity in the death of a ewe, mother of a living lamb. On a +day which had a summer face and a winter constitution—a fine January +morning, when there was just enough blue sky visible to make +cheerfully-disposed people wish for more, and an occasional gleam of silvery +sunshine, Oak put the lamb into a respectable Sunday basket, and stalked across +the fields to the house of Mrs. Hurst, the aunt—George, the dog walking +behind, with a countenance of great concern at the serious turn pastoral +affairs seemed to be taking. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel had watched the blue wood-smoke curling from the chimney with strange +meditation. At evening he had fancifully traced it down the chimney to the spot +of its origin—seen the hearth and Bathsheba beside it—beside it in +her out-door dress; for the clothes she had worn on the hill were by +association equally with her person included in the compass of his affection; +they seemed at this early time of his love a necessary ingredient of the sweet +mixture called Bathsheba Everdene. +</p> + +<p> +He had made a toilet of a nicely-adjusted kind—of a nature between the +carefully neat and the carelessly ornate—of a degree between +fine-market-day and wet-Sunday selection. He thoroughly cleaned his silver +watch-chain with whiting, put new lacing straps to his boots, looked to the +brass eyelet-holes, went to the inmost heart of the plantation for a new +walking-stick, and trimmed it vigorously on his way back; took a new +handkerchief from the bottom of his clothes-box, put on the light waistcoat +patterned all over with sprigs of an elegant flower uniting the beauties of +both rose and lily without the defects of either, and used all the hair-oil he +possessed upon his usually dry, sandy, and inextricably curly hair, till he had +deepened it to a splendidly novel colour, between that of guano and Roman +cement, making it stick to his head like mace round a nutmeg, or wet seaweed +round a boulder after the ebb. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing disturbed the stillness of the cottage save the chatter of a knot of +sparrows on the eaves; one might fancy scandal and rumour to be no less the +staple topic of these little coteries on roofs than of those under them. It +seemed that the omen was an unpropitious one, for, as the rather untoward +commencement of Oak’s overtures, just as he arrived by the garden gate, +he saw a cat inside, going into various arched shapes and fiendish convulsions +at the sight of his dog George. The dog took no notice, for he had arrived at +an age at which all superfluous barking was cynically avoided as a waste of +breath—in fact, he never barked even at the sheep except to order, when +it was done with an absolutely neutral countenance, as a sort of +Commination-service, which, though offensive, had to be gone through once now +and then to frighten the flock for their own good. +</p> + +<p> +A voice came from behind some laurel-bushes into which the cat had run: +</p> + +<p> +“Poor dear! Did a nasty brute of a dog want to kill it;—did he, +poor dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said Oak to the voice, “but George was +walking on behind me with a temper as mild as milk.” +</p> + +<p> +Almost before he had ceased speaking, Oak was seized with a misgiving as to +whose ear was the recipient of his answer. Nobody appeared, and he heard the +person retreat among the bushes. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel meditated, and so deeply that he brought small furrows into his +forehead by sheer force of reverie. Where the issue of an interview is as +likely to be a vast change for the worse as for the better, any initial +difference from expectation causes nipping sensations of failure. Oak went up +to the door a little abashed: his mental rehearsal and the reality had had no +common grounds of opening. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s aunt was indoors. “Will you tell Miss Everdene that +somebody would be glad to speak to her?” said Mr. Oak. (Calling +one’s self merely Somebody, without giving a name, is not to be taken as +an example of the ill-breeding of the rural world: it springs from a refined +modesty, of which townspeople, with their cards and announcements, have no +notion whatever.) +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently been hers. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you come in, Mr. Oak?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank ’ee,” said Gabriel, following her to the +fireplace. “I’ve brought a lamb for Miss Everdene. I thought she +might like one to rear; girls do.” +</p> + +<p> +“She might,” said Mrs. Hurst, musingly; “though she’s +only a visitor here. If you will wait a minute, Bathsheba will be in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I will wait,” said Gabriel, sitting down. “The lamb +isn’t really the business I came about, Mrs. Hurst. In short, I was going +to ask her if she’d like to be married.” +</p> + +<p> +“And were you indeed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Because if she would, I should be very glad to marry her. +D’ye know if she’s got any other young man hanging about her at +all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me think,” said Mrs. Hurst, poking the fire superfluously.... +“Yes—bless you, ever so many young men. You see, Farmer Oak, +she’s so good-looking, and an excellent scholar besides—she was +going to be a governess once, you know, only she was too wild. Not that her +young men ever come here—but, Lord, in the nature of women, she must have +a dozen!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s unfortunate,” said Farmer Oak, contemplating a crack +in the stone floor with sorrow. “I’m only an every-day sort of man, +and my only chance was in being the first comer.... Well, there’s no use +in my waiting, for that was all I came about: so I’ll take myself off +home-along, Mrs. Hurst.” +</p> + +<p> +When Gabriel had gone about two hundred yards along the down, he heard a +“hoi-hoi!” uttered behind him, in a piping note of more treble +quality than that in which the exclamation usually embodies itself when shouted +across a field. He looked round, and saw a girl racing after him, waving a +white handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +Oak stood still—and the runner drew nearer. It was Bathsheba Everdene. +Gabriel’s colour deepened: hers was already deep, not, as it appeared, +from emotion, but from running. +</p> + +<p> +“Farmer Oak—I—” she said, pausing for want of breath +pulling up in front of him with a slanted face and putting her hand to her +side. +</p> + +<p> +“I have just called to see you,” said Gabriel, pending her further +speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I know that,” she said panting like a robin, her face +red and moist from her exertions, like a peony petal before the sun dries off +the dew. “I didn’t know you had come to ask to have me, or I should +have come in from the garden instantly. I ran after you to say—that my +aunt made a mistake in sending you away from courting me—” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel expanded. “I’m sorry to have made you run so fast, my +dear,” he said, with a grateful sense of favours to come. “Wait a +bit till you’ve found your breath.” +</p> + +<p> +“—It was quite a mistake—aunt’s telling you I had a +young man already,” Bathsheba went on. “I haven’t a +sweetheart at all—and I never had one, and I thought that, as times go +with women, it was <i>such</i> a pity to send you away thinking that I had +several.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really and truly I am glad to hear that!” said Farmer Oak, smiling +one of his long special smiles, and blushing with gladness. He held out his +hand to take hers, which, when she had eased her side by pressing it there, was +prettily extended upon her bosom to still her loud-beating heart. Directly he +seized it she put it behind her, so that it slipped through his fingers like an +eel. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a nice snug little farm,” said Gabriel, with half a degree +less assurance than when he had seized her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you have.” +</p> + +<p> +“A man has advanced me money to begin with, but still, it will soon be +paid off, and though I am only an every-day sort of man, I have got on a little +since I was a boy.” Gabriel uttered “a little” in a tone to +show her that it was the complacent form of “a great deal.” He +continued: “When we be married, I am quite sure I can work twice as hard +as I do now.” +</p> + +<p> +He went forward and stretched out his arm again. Bathsheba had overtaken him at +a point beside which stood a low stunted holly bush, now laden with red +berries. Seeing his advance take the form of an attitude threatening a possible +enclosure, if not compression, of her person, she edged off round the bush. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Farmer Oak,” she said, over the top, looking at him with +rounded eyes, “I never said I was going to marry you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—that <i>is</i> a tale!” said Oak, with dismay. +“To run after anybody like this, and then say you don’t want +him!” +</p> + +<p> +“What I meant to tell you was only this,” she said eagerly, and yet +half conscious of the absurdity of the position she had made for +herself—“that nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of my +having a dozen, as my aunt said; I <i>hate</i> to be thought men’s +property in that way, though possibly I shall be had some day. Why, if +I’d wanted you I shouldn’t have run after you like this; +’twould have been the <i>forwardest</i> thing! But there was no harm in +hurrying to correct a piece of false news that had been told you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no—no harm at all.” But there is such a thing as being +too generous in expressing a judgment impulsively, and Oak added with a more +appreciative sense of all the circumstances—“Well, I am not quite +certain it was no harm.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I hadn’t time to think before starting whether I wanted to +marry or not, for you’d have been gone over the hill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Gabriel, freshening again; “think a minute or +two. I’ll wait a while, Miss Everdene. Will you marry me? Do, Bathsheba. +I love you far more than common!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try to think,” she observed, rather more timorously; +“if I can think out of doors; my mind spreads away so.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you can give a guess.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then give me time.” Bathsheba looked thoughtfully into the +distance, away from the direction in which Gabriel stood. +</p> + +<p> +“I can make you happy,” said he to the back of her head, across the +bush. “You shall have a piano in a year or two—farmers’ wives +are getting to have pianos now—and I’ll practise up the flute right +well to play with you in the evenings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I should like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“And have one of those little ten-pound gigs for market—and nice +flowers, and birds—cocks and hens I mean, because they be useful,” +continued Gabriel, feeling balanced between poetry and practicality. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like it very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“And a frame for cucumbers—like a gentleman and lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And when the wedding was over, we’d have it put in the newspaper +list of marriages.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearly I should like that!” +</p> + +<p> +“And the babies in the births—every man jack of ’em! And at +home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be—and whenever I +look up there will be you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait, wait, and don’t be improper!” +</p> + +<p> +Her countenance fell, and she was silent awhile. He regarded the red berries +between them over and over again, to such an extent, that holly seemed in his +after life to be a cypher signifying a proposal of marriage. Bathsheba +decisively turned to him. +</p> + +<p> +“No; ’tis no use,” she said. “I don’t want to +marry you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have tried hard all the time I’ve been thinking; for a marriage +would be very nice in one sense. People would talk about me, and think I had +won my battle, and I should feel triumphant, and all that. But a +husband—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, he’d always be there, as you say; whenever I looked up, there +he’d be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he would—I, that is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what I mean is that I shouldn’t mind being a bride at a +wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. But since a woman +can’t show off in that way by herself, I shan’t marry—at +least yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a terrible wooden story!” +</p> + +<p> +At this criticism of her statement Bathsheba made an addition to her dignity by +a slight sweep away from him. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my heart and soul, I don’t know what a maid can say stupider +than that,” said Oak. “But dearest,” he continued in a +palliative voice, “don’t be like it!” Oak sighed a deep +honest sigh—none the less so in that, being like the sigh of a pine +plantation, it was rather noticeable as a disturbance of the atmosphere. +“Why won’t you have me?” he appealed, creeping round the +holly to reach her side. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot,” she said, retreating. +</p> + +<p> +“But why?” he persisted, standing still at last in despair of ever +reaching her, and facing over the bush. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I don’t love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but—” +</p> + +<p> +She contracted a yawn to an inoffensive smallness, so that it was hardly +ill-mannered at all. “I don’t love you,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“But I love you—and, as for myself, I am content to be +liked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh Mr. Oak—that’s very fine! You’d get to despise +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” said Mr Oak, so earnestly that he seemed to be coming, by +the force of his words, straight through the bush and into her arms. “I +shall do one thing in this life—one thing certain—that is, love +you, and long for you, and <i>keep wanting you</i> till I die.” His voice +had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems dreadfully wrong not to have you when you feel so much!” +she said with a little distress, and looking hopelessly around for some means +of escape from her moral dilemma. “How I wish I hadn’t run after +you!” However she seemed to have a short cut for getting back to +cheerfulness, and set her face to signify archness. “It wouldn’t +do, Mr. Oak. I want somebody to tame me; I am too independent; and you would +never be able to, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak cast his eyes down the field in a way implying that it was useless to +attempt argument. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Oak,” she said, with luminous distinctness and common sense, +“you are better off than I. I have hardly a penny in the world—I am +staying with my aunt for my bare sustenance. I am better educated than +you—and I don’t love you a bit: that’s my side of the case. +Now yours: you are a farmer just beginning; and you ought in common prudence, +if you marry at all (which you should certainly not think of doing at present), +to marry a woman with money, who would stock a larger farm for you than you +have now.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel looked at her with a little surprise and much admiration. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the very thing I had been thinking myself!” he +naïvely said. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Oak had one-and-a-half Christian characteristics too many to succeed +with Bathsheba: his humility, and a superfluous moiety of honesty. Bathsheba +was decidedly disconcerted. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, why did you come and disturb me?” she said, almost +angrily, if not quite, an enlarging red spot rising in each cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t do what I think would be—would be—” +</p> + +<p> +“Right?” +</p> + +<p> +“No: wise.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have made an admission <i>now</i>, Mr. Oak,” she exclaimed, +with even more hauteur, and rocking her head disdainfully. “After that, +do you think I could marry you? Not if I know it.” +</p> + +<p> +He broke in passionately. “But don’t mistake me like that! Because +I am open enough to own what every man in my shoes would have thought of, you +make your colours come up your face, and get crabbed with me. That about your +not being good enough for me is nonsense. You speak like a lady—all the +parish notice it, and your uncle at Weatherbury is, I have heerd, a large +farmer—much larger than ever I shall be. May I call in the evening, or +will you walk along with me o’ Sundays? I don’t want you to make-up +your mind at once, if you’d rather not.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no—I cannot. Don’t press me any +more—don’t. I don’t love you—so ’twould be +ridiculous,” she said, with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +No man likes to see his emotions the sport of a merry-go-round of skittishness. +“Very well,” said Oak, firmly, with the bearing of one who was +going to give his days and nights to Ecclesiastes for ever. “Then +I’ll ask you no more.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V<br /> +DEPARTURE OF BATHSHEBA—A PASTORAL TRAGEDY</h2> + +<p> +The news which one day reached Gabriel, that Bathsheba Everdene had left the +neighbourhood, had an influence upon him which might have surprised any who +never suspected that the more emphatic the renunciation the less absolute its +character. +</p> + +<p> +It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love +as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that +way, but it has been known to fail. Separation, which was the means that chance +offered to Gabriel Oak by Bathsheba’s disappearance, though effectual +with people of certain humours, is apt to idealize the removed object with +others—notably those whose affection, placid and regular as it may be, +flows deep and long. Oak belonged to the even-tempered order of humanity, and +felt the secret fusion of himself in Bathsheba to be burning with a finer flame +now that she was gone—that was all. +</p> + +<p> +His incipient friendship with her aunt had been nipped by the failure of his +suit, and all that Oak learnt of Bathsheba’s movements was done +indirectly. It appeared that she had gone to a place called Weatherbury, more +than twenty miles off, but in what capacity—whether as a visitor, or +permanently, he could not discover. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel had two dogs. George, the elder, exhibited an ebony-tipped nose, +surrounded by a narrow margin of pink flesh, and a coat marked in random +splotches approximating in colour to white and slaty grey; but the grey, after +years of sun and rain, had been scorched and washed out of the more prominent +locks, leaving them of a reddish-brown, as if the blue component of the grey +had faded, like the indigo from the same kind of colour in Turner’s +pictures. In substance it had originally been hair, but long contact with sheep +seemed to be turning it by degrees into wool of a poor quality and staple. +</p> + +<p> +This dog had originally belonged to a shepherd of inferior morals and dreadful +temper, and the result was that George knew the exact degrees of condemnation +signified by cursing and swearing of all descriptions better than the wickedest +old man in the neighbourhood. Long experience had so precisely taught the +animal the difference between such exclamations as “Come in!” and +“D–––– ye, come in!” that he knew to a +hair’s breadth the rate of trotting back from the ewes’ tails that +each call involved, if a staggerer with the sheep crook was to be escaped. +Though old, he was clever and trustworthy still. +</p> + +<p> +The young dog, George’s son, might possibly have been the image of his +mother, for there was not much resemblance between him and George. He was +learning the sheep-keeping business, so as to follow on at the flock when the +other should die, but had got no further than the rudiments as yet—still +finding an insuperable difficulty in distinguishing between doing a thing well +enough and doing it too well. So earnest and yet so wrong-headed was this young +dog (he had no name in particular, and answered with perfect readiness to any +pleasant interjection), that if sent behind the flock to help them on, he did +it so thoroughly that he would have chased them across the whole county with +the greatest pleasure if not called off or reminded when to stop by the example +of old George. +</p> + +<p> +Thus much for the dogs. On the further side of Norcombe Hill was a chalk-pit, +from which chalk had been drawn for generations, and spread over adjacent +farms. Two hedges converged upon it in the form of a V, but without quite +meeting. The narrow opening left, which was immediately over the brow of the +pit, was protected by a rough railing. +</p> + +<p> +One night, when Farmer Oak had returned to his house, believing there would be +no further necessity for his attendance on the down, he called as usual to the +dogs, previously to shutting them up in the outhouse till next morning. Only +one responded—old George; the other could not be found, either in the +house, lane, or garden. Gabriel then remembered that he had left the two dogs +on the hill eating a dead lamb (a kind of meat he usually kept from them, +except when other food ran short), and concluding that the young one had not +finished his meal, he went indoors to the luxury of a bed, which latterly he +had only enjoyed on Sundays. +</p> + +<p> +It was a still, moist night. Just before dawn he was assisted in waking by the +abnormal reverberation of familiar music. To the shepherd, the note of the +sheep-bell, like the ticking of the clock to other people, is a chronic sound +that only makes itself noticed by ceasing or altering in some unusual manner +from the well-known idle twinkle which signifies to the accustomed ear, however +distant, that all is well in the fold. In the solemn calm of the awakening morn +that note was heard by Gabriel, beating with unusual violence and rapidity. +This exceptional ringing may be caused in two ways—by the rapid feeding +of the sheep bearing the bell, as when the flock breaks into new pasture, which +gives it an intermittent rapidity, or by the sheep starting off in a run, when +the sound has a regular palpitation. The experienced ear of Oak knew the sound +he now heard to be caused by the running of the flock with great velocity. +</p> + +<p> +He jumped out of bed, dressed, tore down the lane through a foggy dawn, and +ascended the hill. The forward ewes were kept apart from those among which the +fall of lambs would be later, there being two hundred of the latter class in +Gabriel’s flock. These two hundred seemed to have absolutely vanished +from the hill. There were the fifty with their lambs, enclosed at the other end +as he had left them, but the rest, forming the bulk of the flock, were nowhere. +Gabriel called at the top of his voice the shepherd’s call: +</p> + +<p> +“Ovey, ovey, ovey!” +</p> + +<p> +Not a single bleat. He went to the hedge; a gap had been broken through it, and +in the gap were the footprints of the sheep. Rather surprised to find them +break fence at this season, yet putting it down instantly to their great +fondness for ivy in winter-time, of which a great deal grew in the plantation, +he followed through the hedge. They were not in the plantation. He called +again: the valleys and farthest hills resounded as when the sailors invoked the +lost Hylas on the Mysian shore; but no sheep. He passed through the trees and +along the ridge of the hill. On the extreme summit, where the ends of the two +converging hedges of which we have spoken were stopped short by meeting the +brow of the chalk-pit, he saw the younger dog standing against the +sky—dark and motionless as Napoleon at St. Helena. +</p> + +<p> +A horrible conviction darted through Oak. With a sensation of bodily faintness +he advanced: at one point the rails were broken through, and there he saw the +footprints of his ewes. The dog came up, licked his hand, and made signs +implying that he expected some great reward for signal services rendered. Oak +looked over the precipice. The ewes lay dead and dying at its foot—a heap +of two hundred mangled carcasses, representing in their condition just now at +least two hundred more. +</p> + +<p> +Oak was an intensely humane man: indeed, his humanity often tore in pieces any +politic intentions of his which bordered on strategy, and carried him on as by +gravitation. A shadow in his life had always been that his flock ended in +mutton—that a day came and found every shepherd an arrant traitor to his +defenseless sheep. His first feeling now was one of pity for the untimely fate +of these gentle ewes and their unborn lambs. +</p> + +<p> +It was a second to remember another phase of the matter. The sheep were not +insured. All the savings of a frugal life had been dispersed at a blow; his +hopes of being an independent farmer were laid low—possibly for ever. +Gabriel’s energies, patience, and industry had been so severely taxed +during the years of his life between eighteen and eight-and-twenty, to reach +his present stage of progress that no more seemed to be left in him. He leant +down upon a rail, and covered his face with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Stupors, however, do not last for ever, and Farmer Oak recovered from his. It +was as remarkable as it was characteristic that the one sentence he uttered was +in thankfulness:— +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God I am not married: what would <i>she</i> have done in the +poverty now coming upon me!” +</p> + +<p> +Oak raised his head, and wondering what he could do, listlessly surveyed the +scene. By the outer margin of the Pit was an oval pond, and over it hung the +attenuated skeleton of a chrome-yellow moon which had only a few days to +last—the morning star dogging her on the left hand. The pool glittered +like a dead man’s eye, and as the world awoke a breeze blew, shaking and +elongating the reflection of the moon without breaking it, and turning the +image of the star to a phosphoric streak upon the water. All this Oak saw and +remembered. +</p> + +<p> +As far as could be learnt it appeared that the poor young dog, still under the +impression that since he was kept for running after sheep, the more he ran +after them the better, had at the end of his meal off the dead lamb, which may +have given him additional energy and spirits, collected all the ewes into a +corner, driven the timid creatures through the hedge, across the upper field, +and by main force of worrying had given them momentum enough to break down a +portion of the rotten railing, and so hurled them over the edge. +</p> + +<p> +George’s son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too +good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve +o’clock that same day—another instance of the untoward fate which +so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of +reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct +in a world made up so largely of compromise. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel’s farm had been stocked by a dealer—on the strength of +Oak’s promising look and character—who was receiving a percentage +from the farmer till such time as the advance should be cleared off. Oak found +that the value of stock, plant, and implements which were really his own would +be about sufficient to pay his debts, leaving himself a free man with the +clothes he stood up in, and nothing more. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /> +THE FAIR—THE JOURNEY—THE FIRE</h2> + +<p> +Two months passed away. We are brought on to a day in February, on which was +held the yearly statute or hiring fair in the county-town of Casterbridge. +</p> + +<p> +At one end of the street stood from two to three hundred blithe and hearty +labourers waiting upon Chance—all men of the stamp to whom labour +suggests nothing worse than a wrestle with gravitation, and pleasure nothing +better than a renunciation of the same. Among these, carters and waggoners were +distinguished by having a piece of whip-cord twisted round their hats; +thatchers wore a fragment of woven straw; shepherds held their sheep-crooks in +their hands; and thus the situation required was known to the hirers at a +glance. +</p> + +<p> +In the crowd was an athletic young fellow of somewhat superior appearance to +the rest—in fact, his superiority was marked enough to lead several ruddy +peasants standing by to speak to him inquiringly, as to a farmer, and to use +“Sir” as a finishing word. His answer always was,— +</p> + +<p> +“I am looking for a place myself—a bailiff’s. Do ye know of +anybody who wants one?” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel was paler now. His eyes were more meditative, and his expression was +more sad. He had passed through an ordeal of wretchedness which had given him +more than it had taken away. He had sunk from his modest elevation as pastoral +king into the very slime-pits of Siddim; but there was left to him a dignified +calm he had never before known, and that indifference to fate which, though it +often makes a villain of a man, is the basis of his sublimity when it does not. +And thus the abasement had been exaltation, and the loss gain. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning a regiment of cavalry had left the town, and a sergeant and his +party had been beating up for recruits through the four streets. As the end of +the day drew on, and he found himself not hired, Gabriel almost wished that he +had joined them, and gone off to serve his country. Weary of standing in the +market-place, and not much minding the kind of work he turned his hand to, he +decided to offer himself in some other capacity than that of bailiff. +</p> + +<p> +All the farmers seemed to be wanting shepherds. Sheep-tending was +Gabriel’s speciality. Turning down an obscure street and entering an +obscurer lane, he went up to a smith’s shop. +</p> + +<p> +“How long would it take you to make a shepherd’s crook?” +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” +</p> + +<p> +“Two shillings.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat on a bench and the crook was made, a stem being given him into the +bargain. +</p> + +<p> +He then went to a ready-made clothes’ shop, the owner of which had a +large rural connection. As the crook had absorbed most of Gabriel’s +money, he attempted, and carried out, an exchange of his overcoat for a +shepherd’s regulation smock-frock. +</p> + +<p> +This transaction having been completed, he again hurried off to the centre of +the town, and stood on the kerb of the pavement, as a shepherd, crook in hand. +</p> + +<p> +Now that Oak had turned himself into a shepherd, it seemed that bailiffs were +most in demand. However, two or three farmers noticed him and drew near. +Dialogues followed, more or less in the subjoined form:— +</p> + +<p> +“Where do you come from?” +</p> + +<p> +“Norcombe.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a long way. +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen miles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s farm were you upon last?” +</p> + +<p> +“My own.” +</p> + +<p> +This reply invariably operated like a rumour of cholera. The inquiring farmer +would edge away and shake his head dubiously. Gabriel, like his dog, was too +good to be trustworthy, and he never made advance beyond this point. +</p> + +<p> +It is safer to accept any chance that offers itself, and extemporize a +procedure to fit it, than to get a good plan matured, and wait for a chance of +using it. Gabriel wished he had not nailed up his colours as a shepherd, but +had laid himself out for anything in the whole cycle of labour that was +required in the fair. It grew dusk. Some merry men were whistling and singing +by the corn-exchange. Gabriel’s hand, which had lain for some time idle +in his smock-frock pocket, touched his flute which he carried there. Here was +an opportunity for putting his dearly bought wisdom into practice. +</p> + +<p> +He drew out his flute and began to play “Jockey to the Fair” in the +style of a man who had never known a moment’s sorrow. Oak could pipe with +Arcadian sweetness, and the sound of the well-known notes cheered his own heart +as well as those of the loungers. He played on with spirit, and in half an hour +had earned in pence what was a small fortune to a destitute man. +</p> + +<p> +By making inquiries he learnt that there was another fair at Shottsford the +next day. +</p> + +<p> +“How far is Shottsford?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ten miles t’other side of Weatherbury.” +</p> + +<p> +Weatherbury! It was where Bathsheba had gone two months before. This +information was like coming from night into noon. +</p> + +<p> +“How far is it to Weatherbury?” +</p> + +<p> +“Five or six miles.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba had probably left Weatherbury long before this time, but the place +had enough interest attaching to it to lead Oak to choose Shottsford fair as +his next field of inquiry, because it lay in the Weatherbury quarter. Moreover, +the Weatherbury folk were by no means uninteresting intrinsically. If report +spoke truly they were as hardy, merry, thriving, wicked a set as any in the +whole county. Oak resolved to sleep at Weatherbury that night on his way to +Shottsford, and struck out at once into the high road which had been +recommended as the direct route to the village in question. +</p> + +<p> +The road stretched through water-meadows traversed by little brooks, whose +quivering surfaces were braided along their centres, and folded into creases at +the sides; or, where the flow was more rapid, the stream was pied with spots of +white froth, which rode on in undisturbed serenity. On the higher levels the +dead and dry carcasses of leaves tapped the ground as they bowled along +helter-skelter upon the shoulders of the wind, and little birds in the hedges +were rustling their feathers and tucking themselves in comfortably for the +night, retaining their places if Oak kept moving, but flying away if he stopped +to look at them. He passed by Yalbury Wood where the game-birds were rising to +their roosts, and heard the crack-voiced cock-pheasants “cu-uck, +cuck,” and the wheezy whistle of the hens. +</p> + +<p> +By the time he had walked three or four miles every shape in the landscape had +assumed a uniform hue of blackness. He descended Yalbury Hill and could just +discern ahead of him a waggon, drawn up under a great over-hanging tree by the +roadside. +</p> + +<p> +On coming close, he found there were no horses attached to it, the spot being +apparently quite deserted. The waggon, from its position, seemed to have been +left there for the night, for beyond about half a truss of hay which was heaped +in the bottom, it was quite empty. Gabriel sat down on the shafts of the +vehicle and considered his position. He calculated that he had walked a very +fair proportion of the journey; and having been on foot since daybreak, he felt +tempted to lie down upon the hay in the waggon instead of pushing on to the +village of Weatherbury, and having to pay for a lodging. +</p> + +<p> +Eating his last slices of bread and ham, and drinking from the bottle of cider +he had taken the precaution to bring with him, he got into the lonely waggon. +Here he spread half of the hay as a bed, and, as well as he could in the +darkness, pulled the other half over him by way of bed-clothes, covering +himself entirely, and feeling, physically, as comfortable as ever he had been +in his life. Inward melancholy it was impossible for a man like Oak, +introspective far beyond his neighbours, to banish quite, whilst conning the +present untoward page of his history. So, thinking of his misfortunes, amorous +and pastoral, he fell asleep, shepherds enjoying, in common with sailors, the +privilege of being able to summon the god instead of having to wait for him. +</p> + +<p> +On somewhat suddenly awaking, after a sleep of whose length he had no idea, Oak +found that the waggon was in motion. He was being carried along the road at a +rate rather considerable for a vehicle without springs, and under circumstances +of physical uneasiness, his head being dandled up and down on the bed of the +waggon like a kettledrum-stick. He then distinguished voices in conversation, +coming from the forpart of the waggon. His concern at this dilemma (which would +have been alarm, had he been a thriving man; but misfortune is a fine opiate to +personal terror) led him to peer cautiously from the hay, and the first sight +he beheld was the stars above him. Charles’s Wain was getting towards a +right angle with the Pole star, and Gabriel concluded that it must be about +nine o’clock—in other words, that he had slept two hours. This +small astronomical calculation was made without any positive effort, and whilst +he was stealthily turning to discover, if possible, into whose hands he had +fallen. +</p> + +<p> +Two figures were dimly visible in front, sitting with their legs outside the +waggon, one of whom was driving. Gabriel soon found that this was the waggoner, +and it appeared they had come from Casterbridge fair, like himself. +</p> + +<p> +A conversation was in progress, which continued thus:— +</p> + +<p> +“Be as ’twill, she’s a fine handsome body as far’s +looks be concerned. But that’s only the skin of the woman, and these +dandy cattle be as proud as a lucifer in their insides.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—so ’a do seem, Billy Smallbury—so ’a do +seem.” This utterance was very shaky by nature, and more so by +circumstance, the jolting of the waggon not being without its effect upon the +speaker’s larynx. It came from the man who held the reins. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a very vain feymell—so ’tis said here and +there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, now. If so be ’tis like that, I can’t look her in the +face. Lord, no: not I—heh-heh-heh! Such a shy man as I be!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—she’s very vain. ’Tis said that every night at +going to bed she looks in the glass to put on her night-cap properly.” +</p> + +<p> +“And not a married woman. Oh, the world!” +</p> + +<p> +“And ’a can play the peanner, so ’tis said. Can play so +clever that ’a can make a psalm tune sound as well as the merriest loose +song a man can wish for.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye tell o’t! A happy time for us, and I feel quite a new +man! And how do she pay?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I don’t know, Master Poorgrass.” +</p> + +<p> +On hearing these and other similar remarks, a wild thought flashed into +Gabriel’s mind that they might be speaking of Bathsheba. There were, +however, no grounds for retaining such a supposition, for the waggon, though +going in the direction of Weatherbury, might be going beyond it, and the woman +alluded to seemed to be the mistress of some estate. They were now apparently +close upon Weatherbury and not to alarm the speakers unnecessarily, Gabriel +slipped out of the waggon unseen. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to an opening in the hedge, which he found to be a gate, and mounting +thereon, he sat meditating whether to seek a cheap lodging in the village, or +to ensure a cheaper one by lying under some hay or corn-stack. The crunching +jangle of the waggon died upon his ear. He was about to walk on, when he +noticed on his left hand an unusual light—appearing about half a mile +distant. Oak watched it, and the glow increased. Something was on fire. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel again mounted the gate, and, leaping down on the other side upon what +he found to be ploughed soil, made across the field in the exact direction of +the fire. The blaze, enlarging in a double ratio by his approach and its own +increase, showed him as he drew nearer the outlines of ricks beside it, lighted +up to great distinctness. A rick-yard was the source of the fire. His weary +face now began to be painted over with a rich orange glow, and the whole front +of his smock-frock and gaiters was covered with a dancing shadow pattern of +thorn-twigs—the light reaching him through a leafless intervening +hedge—and the metallic curve of his sheep-crook shone silver-bright in +the same abounding rays. He came up to the boundary fence, and stood to regain +breath. It seemed as if the spot was unoccupied by a living soul. +</p> + +<p> +The fire was issuing from a long straw-stack, which was so far gone as to +preclude a possibility of saving it. A rick burns differently from a house. As +the wind blows the fire inwards, the portion in flames completely disappears +like melting sugar, and the outline is lost to the eye. However, a hay or a +wheat-rick, well put together, will resist combustion for a length of time, if +it begins on the outside. +</p> + +<p> +This before Gabriel’s eyes was a rick of straw, loosely put together, and +the flames darted into it with lightning swiftness. It glowed on the windward +side, rising and falling in intensity, like the coal of a cigar. Then a +superincumbent bundle rolled down, with a whisking noise; flames elongated, and +bent themselves about with a quiet roar, but no crackle. Banks of smoke went +off horizontally at the back like passing clouds, and behind these burned +hidden pyres, illuminating the semi-transparent sheet of smoke to a lustrous +yellow uniformity. Individual straws in the foreground were consumed in a +creeping movement of ruddy heat, as if they were knots of red worms, and above +shone imaginary fiery faces, tongues hanging from lips, glaring eyes, and other +impish forms, from which at intervals sparks flew in clusters like birds from a +nest. +</p> + +<p> +Oak suddenly ceased from being a mere spectator by discovering the case to be +more serious than he had at first imagined. A scroll of smoke blew aside and +revealed to him a wheat-rick in startling juxtaposition with the decaying one, +and behind this a series of others, composing the main corn produce of the +farm; so that instead of the straw-stack standing, as he had imagined +comparatively isolated, there was a regular connection between it and the +remaining stacks of the group. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel leapt over the hedge, and saw that he was not alone. The first man he +came to was running about in a great hurry, as if his thoughts were several +yards in advance of his body, which they could never drag on fast enough. +</p> + +<p> +“O, man—fire, fire! A good master and a bad servant is fire, +fire!—I mane a bad servant and a good master. Oh, Mark Clark—come! +And you, Billy Smallbury—and you, Maryann Money—and you, Jan +Coggan, and Matthew there!” Other figures now appeared behind this +shouting man and among the smoke, and Gabriel found that, far from being alone +he was in a great company—whose shadows danced merrily up and down, timed +by the jigging of the flames, and not at all by their owners’ movements. +The assemblage—belonging to that class of society which casts its +thoughts into the form of feeling, and its feelings into the form of +commotion—set to work with a remarkable confusion of purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop the draught under the wheat-rick!” cried Gabriel to those +nearest to him. The corn stood on stone staddles, and between these, tongues of +yellow hue from the burning straw licked and darted playfully. If the fire once +got <i>under</i> this stack, all would be lost. +</p> + +<p> +“Get a tarpaulin—quick!” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +A rick-cloth was brought, and they hung it like a curtain across the channel. +The flames immediately ceased to go under the bottom of the corn-stack, and +stood up vertical. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand here with a bucket of water and keep the cloth wet.” said +Gabriel again. +</p> + +<p> +The flames, now driven upwards, began to attack the angles of the huge roof +covering the wheat-stack. +</p> + +<p> +“A ladder,” cried Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“The ladder was against the straw-rick and is burnt to a cinder,” +said a spectre-like form in the smoke. +</p> + +<p> +Oak seized the cut ends of the sheaves, as if he were going to engage in the +operation of “reed-drawing,” and digging in his feet, and +occasionally sticking in the stem of his sheep-crook, he clambered up the +beetling face. He at once sat astride the very apex, and began with his crook +to beat off the fiery fragments which had lodged thereon, shouting to the +others to get him a bough and a ladder, and some water. +</p> + +<p> +Billy Smallbury—one of the men who had been on the waggon—by this +time had found a ladder, which Mark Clark ascended, holding on beside Oak upon +the thatch. The smoke at this corner was stifling, and Clark, a nimble fellow, +having been handed a bucket of water, bathed Oak’s face and sprinkled him +generally, whilst Gabriel, now with a long beech-bough in one hand, in addition +to his crook in the other, kept sweeping the stack and dislodging all fiery +particles. +</p> + +<p> +On the ground the groups of villagers were still occupied in doing all they +could to keep down the conflagration, which was not much. They were all tinged +orange, and backed up by shadows of varying pattern. Round the corner of the +largest stack, out of the direct rays of the fire, stood a pony, bearing a +young woman on its back. By her side was another woman, on foot. These two +seemed to keep at a distance from the fire, that the horse might not become +restive. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a shepherd,” said the woman on foot. +“Yes—he is. See how his crook shines as he beats the rick with it. +And his smock-frock is burnt in two holes, I declare! A fine young shepherd he +is too, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whose shepherd is he?” said the equestrian in a clear voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t know, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t any of the others know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody at all—I’ve asked ’em. Quite a stranger, they +say.” +</p> + +<p> +The young woman on the pony rode out from the shade and looked anxiously +around. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think the barn is safe?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye think the barn is safe, Jan Coggan?” said the second +woman, passing on the question to the nearest man in that direction. +</p> + +<p> +“Safe now—leastwise I think so. If this rick had gone the barn +would have followed. ’Tis that bold shepherd up there that have done the +most good—he sitting on the top o’ rick, whizzing his great +long arms about like a windmill.” +</p> + +<p> +“He does work hard,” said the young woman on horseback, looking up +at Gabriel through her thick woollen veil. “I wish he was shepherd here. +Don’t any of you know his name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never heard the man’s name in my life, or seed his form +afore.” +</p> + +<p> +The fire began to get worsted, and Gabriel’s elevated position being no +longer required of him, he made as if to descend. +</p> + +<p> +“Maryann,” said the girl on horseback, “go to him as he comes +down, and say that the farmer wishes to thank him for the great service he has +done.” +</p> + +<p> +Maryann stalked off towards the rick and met Oak at the foot of the ladder. She +delivered her message. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is your master the farmer?” asked Gabriel, kindling with the +idea of getting employment that seemed to strike him now. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tisn’t a master; ’tis a mistress, shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman farmer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ’a b’lieve, and a rich one too!” said a bystander. +“Lately ’a came here from a distance. Took on her uncle’s +farm, who died suddenly. Used to measure his money in half-pint cups. They say +now that she’ve business in every bank in Casterbridge, and thinks no +more of playing pitch-and-toss sovereign than you and I do +pitch-halfpenny—not a bit in the world, shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s she, back there upon the pony,” said Maryann; +“wi’ her face a-covered up in that black cloth with holes in +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak, his features smudged, grimy, and undiscoverable from the smoke and heat, +his smock-frock burnt into holes and dripping with water, the ash stem of his +sheep-crook charred six inches shorter, advanced with the humility stern +adversity had thrust upon him up to the slight female form in the saddle. He +lifted his hat with respect, and not without gallantry: stepping close to her +hanging feet he said in a hesitating voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“Do you happen to want a shepherd, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +She lifted the wool veil tied round her face, and looked all astonishment. +Gabriel and his cold-hearted darling, Bathsheba Everdene, were face to face. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba did not speak, and he mechanically repeated in an abashed and sad +voice,— +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want a shepherd, ma’am?” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /> +RECOGNITION—A TIMID GIRL</h2> + +<p> +Bathsheba withdrew into the shade. She scarcely knew whether most to be amused +at the singularity of the meeting, or to be concerned at its awkwardness. There +was room for a little pity, also for a very little exultation: the former at +his position, the latter at her own. Embarrassed she was not, and she +remembered Gabriel’s declaration of love to her at Norcombe only to think +she had nearly forgotten it. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she murmured, putting on an air of dignity, and turning +again to him with a little warmth of cheek; “I do want a shepherd. +But—” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s the very man, ma’am,” said one of the villagers, +quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Conviction breeds conviction. “Ay, that ’a is,” said a +second, decisively. +</p> + +<p> +“The man, truly!” said a third, with heartiness. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s all there!” said number four, fervidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then will you tell him to speak to the bailiff?” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +All was practical again now. A summer eve and loneliness would have been +necessary to give the meeting its proper fulness of romance. +</p> + +<p> +The bailiff was pointed out to Gabriel, who, checking the palpitation within +his breast at discovering that this Ashtoreth of strange report was only a +modification of Venus the well-known and admired, retired with him to talk over +the necessary preliminaries of hiring. +</p> + +<p> +The fire before them wasted away. “Men,” said Bathsheba, “you +shall take a little refreshment after this extra work. Will you come to the +house?” +</p> + +<p> +“We could knock in a bit and a drop a good deal freer, Miss, if so be +ye’d send it to Warren’s Malthouse,” replied the spokesman. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba then rode off into the darkness, and the men straggled on to the +village in twos and threes—Oak and the bailiff being left by the rick +alone. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” said the bailiff, finally, “all is settled, I +think, about your coming, and I am going home-along. Good-night to ye, +shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you get me a lodging?” inquired Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“That I can’t, indeed,” he said, moving past Oak as a +Christian edges past an offertory-plate when he does not mean to contribute. +“If you follow on the road till you come to Warren’s Malthouse, +where they are all gone to have their snap of victuals, I daresay some of +’em will tell you of a place. Good-night to ye, shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +The bailiff who showed this nervous dread of loving his neighbour as himself, +went up the hill, and Oak walked on to the village, still astonished at the +reencounter with Bathsheba, glad of his nearness to her, and perplexed at the +rapidity with which the unpractised girl of Norcombe had developed into the +supervising and cool woman here. But some women only require an emergency to +make them fit for one. +</p> + +<p> +Obliged, to some extent, to forgo dreaming in order to find the way, he reached +the churchyard, and passed round it under the wall where several ancient trees +grew. There was a wide margin of grass along here, and Gabriel’s +footsteps were deadened by its softness, even at this indurating period of the +year. When abreast of a trunk which appeared to be the oldest of the old, he +became aware that a figure was standing behind it. Gabriel did not pause in his +walk, and in another moment he accidentally kicked a loose stone. The noise was +enough to disturb the motionless stranger, who started and assumed a careless +position. +</p> + +<p> +It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night to you,” said Gabriel, heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night,” said the girl to Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +The voice was unexpectedly attractive; it was the low and dulcet note +suggestive of romance; common in descriptions, rare in experience. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll thank you to tell me if I’m in the way for +Warren’s Malthouse?” Gabriel resumed, primarily to gain the +information, indirectly to get more of the music. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite right. It’s at the bottom of the hill. And do you +know—” The girl hesitated and then went on again. “Do you +know how late they keep open the Buck’s Head Inn?” She seemed to be +won by Gabriel’s heartiness, as Gabriel had been won by her modulations. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know where the Buck’s Head is, or anything about it. +Do you think of going there to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—” The woman again paused. There was no necessity for any +continuance of speech, and the fact that she did add more seemed to proceed +from an unconscious desire to show unconcern by making a remark, which is +noticeable in the ingenuous when they are acting by stealth. “You are not +a Weatherbury man?” she said, timorously. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not. I am the new shepherd—just arrived.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a shepherd—and you seem almost a farmer by your ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a shepherd,” Gabriel repeated, in a dull cadence of finality. +His thoughts were directed to the past, his eyes to the feet of the girl; and +for the first time he saw lying there a bundle of some sort. She may have +perceived the direction of his face, for she said coaxingly,— +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t say anything in the parish about having seen me here, +will you—at least, not for a day or two?” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t if you wish me not to,” said Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, indeed,” the other replied. “I am rather poor, +and I don’t want people to know anything about me.” Then she was +silent and shivered. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to have a cloak on such a cold night,” Gabriel observed. +“I would advise ’ee to get indoors.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no! Would you mind going on and leaving me? I thank you much for what +you have told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will go on,” he said; adding hesitatingly,—“Since +you are not very well off, perhaps you would accept this trifle from me. It is +only a shilling, but it is all I have to spare.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I will take it,” said the stranger gratefully. +</p> + +<p> +She extended her hand; Gabriel his. In feeling for each other’s palm in +the gloom before the money could be passed, a minute incident occurred which +told much. Gabriel’s fingers alighted on the young woman’s wrist. +It was beating with a throb of tragic intensity. He had frequently felt the +same quick, hard beat in the femoral artery of his lambs when overdriven. It +suggested a consumption too great of a vitality which, to judge from her figure +and stature, was already too little. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no! Let your having seen me be a secret!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; I will. Good-night, again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +The young girl remained motionless by the tree, and Gabriel descended into the +village of Weatherbury, or Lower Longpuddle as it was sometimes called. He +fancied that he had felt himself in the penumbra of a very deep sadness when +touching that slight and fragile creature. But wisdom lies in moderating mere +impressions, and Gabriel endeavoured to think little of this. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +THE MALTHOUSE—THE CHAT—NEWS</h2> + +<p> +Warren’s Malthouse was enclosed by an old wall inwrapped with ivy, and +though not much of the exterior was visible at this hour, the character and +purposes of the building were clearly enough shown by its outline upon the sky. +From the walls an overhanging thatched roof sloped up to a point in the centre, +upon which rose a small wooden lantern, fitted with louvre-boards on all the +four sides, and from these openings a mist was dimly perceived to be escaping +into the night air. There was no window in front; but a square hole in the door +was glazed with a single pane, through which red, comfortable rays now +stretched out upon the ivied wall in front. Voices were to be heard inside. +</p> + +<p> +Oak’s hand skimmed the surface of the door with fingers extended to an +Elymas-the-Sorcerer pattern, till he found a leathern strap, which he pulled. +This lifted a wooden latch, and the door swung open. +</p> + +<p> +The room inside was lighted only by the ruddy glow from the kiln mouth, which +shone over the floor with the streaming horizontality of the setting sun, and +threw upwards the shadows of all facial irregularities in those assembled +around. The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, +and into undulations everywhere. A curved settle of unplaned oak stretched +along one side, and in a remote corner was a small bed and bedstead, the owner +and frequent occupier of which was the maltster. +</p> + +<p> +This aged man was now sitting opposite the fire, his frosty white hair and +beard overgrowing his gnarled figure like the grey moss and lichen upon a +leafless apple-tree. He wore breeches and the laced-up shoes called +ankle-jacks; he kept his eyes fixed upon the fire. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel’s nose was greeted by an atmosphere laden with the sweet smell of +new malt. The conversation (which seemed to have been concerning the origin of +the fire) immediately ceased, and every one ocularly criticised him to the +degree expressed by contracting the flesh of their foreheads and looking at him +with narrowed eyelids, as if he had been a light too strong for their sight. +Several exclaimed meditatively, after this operation had been completed:— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’tis the new shepherd, ’a b’lieve.” +</p> + +<p> +“We thought we heard a hand pawing about the door for the bobbin, but +weren’t sure ’twere not a dead leaf blowed across,” said +another. “Come in, shepherd; sure ye be welcome, though we don’t +know yer name.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel Oak, that’s my name, neighbours.” +</p> + +<p> +The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned at this—his turning +being as the turning of a rusty crane. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s never Gable Oak’s grandson over at +Norcombe—never!” he said, as a formula expressive of surprise, +which nobody was supposed for a moment to take literally. +</p> + +<p> +“My father and my grandfather were old men of the name of Gabriel,” +said the shepherd, placidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Thought I knowed the man’s face as I seed him on the +rick!—thought I did! And where be ye trading o’t to now, +shepherd?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m thinking of biding here,” said Mr. Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Knowed yer grandfather for years and years!” continued the +maltster, the words coming forth of their own accord as if the momentum +previously imparted had been sufficient. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—and did you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Knowed yer grandmother.” +</p> + +<p> +“And her too!” +</p> + +<p> +“Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child. Why, my boy Jacob there +and your father were sworn brothers—that they were +sure—weren’t ye, Jacob?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sure,” said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with a +semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper jaw, which made +much of itself by standing prominent, like a milestone in a bank. “But +’twas Joe had most to do with him. However, my son William must have +knowed the very man afore us—didn’t ye, Billy, afore ye left +Norcombe?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ’twas Andrew,” said Jacob’s son Billy, a child of +forty, or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a cheerful +soul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assuming a chinchilla shade here +and there. +</p> + +<p> +“I can mind Andrew,” said Oak, “as being a man in the place +when I was quite a child.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—the other day I and my youngest daughter, Liddy, were over at +my grandson’s christening,” continued Billy. “We were talking +about this very family, and ’twas only last Purification Day in this very +world, when the use-money is gied away to the second-best poor folk, you know, +shepherd, and I can mind the day because they all had to traypse up to the +vestry—yes, this very man’s family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, shepherd, and drink. ’Tis gape and swaller with us—a +drap of sommit, but not of much account,” said the maltster, removing +from the fire his eyes, which were vermilion-red and bleared by gazing into it +for so many years. “Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if ’tis +warm, Jacob.” +</p> + +<p> +Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled tall mug standing +in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat: it was rather furred with +extraneous matter about the outside, especially in the crevices of the handles, +the innermost curves of which may not have seen daylight for several years by +reason of this encrustation thereon—formed of ashes accidentally wetted +with cider and baked hard; but to the mind of any sensible drinker the cup was +no worse for that, being incontestably clean on the inside and about the rim. +It may be observed that such a class of mug is called a God-forgive-me in +Weatherbury and its vicinity for uncertain reasons; probably because its size +makes any given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees its bottom in +drinking it empty. +</p> + +<p> +Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor was warm enough, placidly +dipped his forefinger into it by way of thermometer, and having pronounced it +nearly of the proper degree, raised the cup and very civilly attempted to dust +some of the ashes from the bottom with the skirt of his smock-frock, because +Shepherd Oak was a stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“A clane cup for the shepherd,” said the maltster commandingly. +</p> + +<p> +“No—not at all,” said Gabriel, in a reproving tone of +considerateness. “I never fuss about dirt in its pure state, and when I +know what sort it is.” Taking the mug he drank an inch or more from the +depth of its contents, and duly passed it to the next man. “I +wouldn’t think of giving such trouble to neighbours in washing up when +there’s so much work to be done in the world already,” continued +Oak in a moister tone, after recovering from the stoppage of breath which is +occasioned by pulls at large mugs. +</p> + +<p> +“A right sensible man,” said Jacob. +</p> + +<p> +“True, true; it can’t be gainsaid!” observed a brisk young +man—Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman, whom to meet +anywhere in your travels was to know, to know was to drink with, and to drink +with was, unfortunately, to pay for. +</p> + +<p> +“And here’s a mouthful of bread and bacon that mis’ess have +sent, shepherd. The cider will go down better with a bit of victuals. +Don’t ye chaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the bacon fall in the road +outside as I was bringing it along, and may be ’tis rather gritty. There, +’tis clane dirt; and we all know what that is, as you say, and you +bain’t a particular man we see, shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +“True, true—not at all,” said the friendly Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let your teeth quite meet, and you won’t feel the +sandiness at all. Ah! ’tis wonderful what can be done by +contrivance!” +</p> + +<p> +“My own mind exactly, neighbour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, he’s his grandfer’s own grandson!—his grandfer +were just such a nice unparticular man!” said the maltster. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink, Henry Fray—drink,” magnanimously said Jan Coggan, a +person who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and share alike where liquor +was concerned, as the vessel showed signs of approaching him in its gradual +revolution among them. +</p> + +<p> +Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze into mid-air, Henry did +not refuse. He was a man of more than middle age, with eyebrows high up in his +forehead, who laid it down that the law of the world was bad, with a +long-suffering look through his listeners at the world alluded to, as it +presented itself to his imagination. He always signed his name +“Henery”—strenuously insisting upon that spelling, and if any +passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that the second “e” was +superfluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply that +“H-e-n-e-r-y” was the name he was christened and the name he would +stick to—in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences were +matters which had a great deal to do with personal character. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery, was a crimson man with a +spacious countenance and private glimmer in his eye, whose name had appeared on +the marriage register of Weatherbury and neighbouring parishes as best man and +chief witness in countless unions of the previous twenty years; he also very +frequently filled the post of head godfather in baptisms of the subtly-jovial +kind. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Mark Clark—come. Ther’s plenty more in the +barrel,” said Jan. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—that I will, ’tis my only doctor,” replied Mr. +Clark, who, twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the same orbit. +He secreted mirth on all occasions for special discharge at popular parties. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han’t had a drop!” said Mr. Coggan +to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the cup towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a modest man as he is!” said Jacob Smallbury. “Why, +ye’ve hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young +mis’ess’s face, so I hear, Joseph?” +</p> + +<p> +All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach. +</p> + +<p> +“No—I’ve hardly looked at her at all,” simpered Joseph, +reducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek sense of undue +prominence. “And when I seed her, ’twas nothing but blushes with +me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor feller,” said Mr. Clark. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a curious nature for a man,” said Jan Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” continued Joseph Poorgrass—his shyness, which was so +painful as a defect, filling him with a mild complacency now that it was +regarded as an interesting study. “’Twere blush, blush, blush with +me every minute of the time, when she was speaking to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a very bashful +man.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a’ awkward gift for a man, poor soul,” said the +maltster. “And how long have ye have suffered from it, Joseph?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes—mother was concerned to her heart +about it—yes. But ’twas all nought.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph +Poorgrass?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh ay, tried all sorts o’ company. They took me to Greenhill Fair, +and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble show, where there were women-folk riding +round—standing upon horses, with hardly anything on but their smocks; but +it didn’t cure me a morsel. And then I was put errand-man at the +Women’s Skittle Alley at the back of the Tailor’s Arms in +Casterbridge. ’Twas a horrible sinful situation, and a very curious place +for a good man. I had to stand and look ba’dy people in the face from +morning till night; but ’twas no use—I was just as bad as ever +after all. Blushes hev been in the family for generations. There, ’tis a +happy providence that I be no worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a +profounder view of the subject. “’Tis a thought to look at, that ye +might have been worse; but even as you be, ’tis a very bad affliction for +’ee, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, though ’tis very well for a +woman, dang it all, ’tis awkward for a man like him, poor feller?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis—’tis,” said Gabriel, recovering from a +meditation. “Yes, very awkward for the man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, and he’s very timid, too,” observed Jan Coggan. +“Once he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap of +drink, and lost his way as he was coming home-along through Yalbury Wood, +didn’t ye, Master Poorgrass?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no; not that story!” expostulated the modest man, forcing +a laugh to bury his concern. +</p> + +<p> +“—And so ’a lost himself quite,” continued Mr. Coggan, +with an impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide, +must run its course and would respect no man. “And as he was coming along +in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not able to find his way out of +the trees nohow, ’a cried out, ‘Man-a-lost! man-a-lost!’ A +owl in a tree happened to be crying ‘Whoo-whoo-whoo!’ as owls do, +you know, shepherd” (Gabriel nodded), “and Joseph, all in a +tremble, said, ‘Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!’” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, now—that’s too much!” said the timid man, +becoming a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. “I didn’t say +<i>sir</i>. I’ll take my oath I didn’t say ‘Joseph Poorgrass +o’ Weatherbury, sir.’ No, no; what’s right is right, and I +never said sir to the bird, knowing very well that no man of a +gentleman’s rank would be hollering there at that time o’ night. +‘Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury,’—that’s every word I +said, and I shouldn’t ha’ said that if ’t hadn’t been +for Keeper Day’s metheglin.... There, ’twas a merciful thing it +ended where it did.” +</p> + +<p> +The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the company, Jan went +on meditatively:— +</p> + +<p> +“And he’s the fearfullest man, bain’t ye, Joseph? Ay, another +time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren’t ye, Joseph?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was,” replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions too +serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would not open, +try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil’s hand in it, he +kneeled down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of the +fire, the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities of the +experience alluded to. “My heart died within me, that time; but I kneeled +down and said the Lord’s Prayer, and then the Belief right through, and +then the Ten Commandments, in earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn’t +open; and then I went on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and, thinks I, this +makes four, and ’tis all I know out of book, and if this don’t do +it nothing will, and I’m a lost man. Well, when I got to Saying After Me, +I rose from my knees and found the gate would open—yes, neighbours, the +gate opened the same as ever.” +</p> + +<p> +A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all, and during its +continuance each directed his vision into the ashpit, which glowed like a +desert in the tropics under a vertical sun, shaping their eyes long and liny, +partly because of the light, partly from the depth of the subject discussed. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel broke the silence. “What sort of a place is this to live at, and +what sort of a mis’ess is she to work under?” Gabriel’s bosom +thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the assembly the +inner-most subject of his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“We d’ know little of her—nothing. She only showed herself a +few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor was called with his +world-wide skill; but he couldn’t save the man. As I take it, she’s +going to keep on the farm. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s about the shape o’t, ’a b’lieve,” +said Jan Coggan. “Ay, ’tis a very good family. I’d as soon be +under ’em as under one here and there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of +man. Did ye know en, shepherd—a bachelor-man?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife, Charlotte, who was +his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were Farmer Everdene, and I being +a respectable young fellow was allowed to call and see her and drink as much +ale as I liked, but not to carry away any—outside my skin I mane of +course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so you see ’twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value his +kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as to drink only a +thimbleful, which would have been insulting the man’s +generosity—” +</p> + +<p> +“True, Master Coggan, ’twould so,” corroborated Mark Clark. +</p> + +<p> +“—And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and then by +the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket—so thorough dry that +that ale would slip down—ah, ’twould slip down sweet! Happy times! +Heavenly times! Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house! You can +mind, Jacob? You used to go wi’ me sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can—I can,” said Jacob. “That one, too, that we had +at Buck’s Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you no +nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun, there was none like +those in Farmer Everdene’s kitchen. Not a single damn allowed; no, not a +bare poor one, even at the most cheerful moment when all were blindest, though +the good old word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great +relief to a merry soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said the maltster. “Nater requires her swearing at +the regular times, or she’s not herself; and unholy exclamations is a +necessity of life.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Charlotte,” continued Coggan—“not a word of the +sort would Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain.... Ay, +poor Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good fortune to get into Heaven when +’a died! But ’a was never much in luck’s way, and perhaps +’a went downwards after all, poor soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did any of you know Miss Everdene’s father and mother?” +inquired the shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversation in +the desired channel. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew them a little,” said Jacob Smallbury; “but they were +townsfolk, and didn’t live here. They’ve been dead for years. +Father, what sort of people were mis’ess’ father and mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the maltster, “he wasn’t much to look at; +but she was a lovely woman. He was fond enough of her as his sweetheart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Used to kiss her scores and long-hundreds o’ times, so ’twas +said,” observed Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as I’ve +been told,” said the maltster. + +“Ay,” said Coggan. “He admired her so much that he used to +light the candle three times a night to look at her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Boundless love; I shouldn’t have supposed it in the +universe!” murmured Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large +scale in his moral reflections. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, to be sure,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both well. Levi +Everdene—that was the man’s name, sure. ‘Man,’ saith I +in my hurry, but he were of a higher circle of life than that—’a +was a gentleman-tailor really, worth scores of pounds. And he became a very +celebrated bankrupt two or three times.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!” said Joseph. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no! That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold and +silver.” +</p> + +<p> +The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after absently +scrutinising a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative, +with a private twirl of his eye:— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now, you’d hardly believe it, but that man—our Miss +Everdene’s father—was one of the ficklest husbands alive, after a +while. Understand? ’a didn’t want to be fickle, but he +couldn’t help it. The pore feller were faithful and true enough to her in +his wish, but his heart would rove, do what he would. He spoke to me in real +tribulation about it once. ‘Coggan,’ he said, ‘I could never +wish for a handsomer woman than I’ve got, but feeling she’s +ticketed as my lawful wife, I can’t help my wicked heart wandering, do +what I will.’ But at last I believe he cured it by making her take off +her wedding-ring and calling her by her maiden name as they sat together after +the shop was shut, and so ’a would get to fancy she was only his +sweetheart, and not married to him at all. And as soon as he could thoroughly +fancy he was doing wrong and committing the seventh, ’a got to like her +as well as ever, and they lived on a perfect picture of mutel love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’twas a most ungodly remedy,” murmured Joseph +Poorgrass; “but we ought to feel deep cheerfulness that a happy +Providence kept it from being any worse. You see, he might have gone the bad +road and given his eyes to unlawfulness entirely—yes, gross unlawfulness, +so to say it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” said Billy Smallbury, “The man’s will was to +do right, sure enough, but his heart didn’t chime in.” +</p> + +<p> +“He got so much better, that he was quite godly in his later years, +wasn’t he, Jan?” said Joseph Poorgrass. “He got himself +confirmed over again in a more serious way, and took to saying +‘Amen’ almost as loud as the clerk, and he liked to copy comforting +verses from the tombstones. He used, too, to hold the money-plate at Let Your +Light so Shine, and stand godfather to poor little come-by-chance children; and +he kept a missionary box upon his table to nab folks unawares when they called; +yes, and he would box the charity-boys’ ears, if they laughed in church, +till they could hardly stand upright, and do other deeds of piety natural to +the saintly inclined.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high things,” added +Billy Smallbury. “One day Parson Thirdly met him and said, +‘Good-Morning, Mister Everdene; ’tis a fine day!’ +‘Amen’ said Everdene, quite absent-like, thinking only of religion +when he seed a parson. Yes, he was a very Christian man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Their daughter was not at all a pretty chiel at that time,” said +Henery Fray. “Never should have thought she’d have growed up such a +handsome body as she is.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis to be hoped her temper is as good as her face.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes; but the baily will have most to do with the business and +ourselves. Ah!” Henery gazed into the ashpit, and smiled volumes of +ironical knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +“A queer Christian, like the Devil’s head in a +cowl,<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +as the saying is,” volunteered Mark Clark. +</p> + +<p> +“He is,” said Henery, implying that irony must cease at a certain +point. “Between we two, man and man, I believe that man would as soon +tell a lie Sundays as working-days—that I do so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good faith, you do talk!” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“True enough,” said the man of bitter moods, looking round upon the +company with the antithetic laughter that comes from a keener appreciation of +the miseries of life than ordinary men are capable of. “Ah, there’s +people of one sort, and people of another, but that man—bless your +souls!” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. “You must be a very aged man, +malter, to have sons growed mild and ancient,” he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“Father’s so old that ’a can’t mind his age, can ye, +father?” interposed Jacob. “And he’s growed terrible crooked +too, lately,” Jacob continued, surveying his father’s figure, which +was rather more bowed than his own. “Really one may say that father there +is three-double.” +</p> + +<p> +“Crooked folk will last a long while,” said the maltster, grimly, +and not in the best humour. +</p> + +<p> +“Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer life, +father—wouldn’t ye, shepherd?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that I should,” said Gabriel with the heartiness of a man who +had longed to hear it for several months. “What may your age be, +malter?” +</p> + +<p> +The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for emphasis, and +elongating his gaze to the remotest point of the ashpit, said, in the slow +speech justifiable when the importance of a subject is so generally felt that +any mannerism must be tolerated in getting at it, “Well, I don’t +mind the year I were born in, but perhaps I can reckon up the places I’ve +lived at, and so get it that way. I bode at Upper Longpuddle across +there” (nodding to the north) “till I were eleven. I bode seven at +Kingsbere” (nodding to the east) “where I took to malting. I went +therefrom to Norcombe, and malted there two-and-twenty years, +and-two-and-twenty years I was there turnip-hoeing and harvesting. Ah, I knowed +that old place, Norcombe, years afore you were thought of, Master Oak” +(Oak smiled sincere belief in the fact). “Then I malted at Durnover four +year, and four year turnip-hoeing; and I was fourteen times eleven months at +Millpond St. Jude’s” (nodding north-west-by-north). “Old +Twills wouldn’t hire me for more than eleven months at a time, to keep me +from being chargeable to the parish if so be I was disabled. Then I was three +year at Mellstock, and I’ve been here one-and-thirty year come Candlemas. +How much is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hundred and seventeen,” chuckled another old gentleman, given to +mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hitherto sat unobserved in a +corner. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, that’s my age,” said the maltster, emphatically. +</p> + +<p> +“O no, father!” said Jacob. “Your turnip-hoeing were in the +summer and your malting in the winter of the same years, and ye don’t +ought to count-both halves, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chok’ it all! I lived through the summers, didn’t I? +That’s my question. I suppose ye’ll say next I be no age at all to +speak of?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure we shan’t,” said Gabriel, soothingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye be a very old aged person, malter,” attested Jan Coggan, also +soothingly. “We all know that, and ye must have a wonderful talented +constitution to be able to live so long, mustn’t he, neighbours?” +</p> + +<p> +“True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful,” said the meeting +unanimously. +</p> + +<p> +The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough to voluntarily +disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having lived a great many years, by +mentioning that the cup they were drinking out of was three years older than +he. +</p> + +<p> +While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak’s flute became +visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery Fray exclaimed, “Surely, +shepherd, I seed you blowing into a great flute by now at Casterbridge?” +</p> + +<p> +“You did,” said Gabriel, blushing faintly. “I’ve been +in great trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it. I used not to be so poor as +I be now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, heart!” said Mark Clark. “You should take it +careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come. But we could thank ye for a +tune, if ye bain’t too tired?” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since Christmas,” said Jan +Coggan. “Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that I will,” said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and putting +it together. “A poor tool, neighbours; but such as I can do ye shall have +and welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak then struck up “Jockey to the Fair,” and played that sparkling +melody three times through, accenting the notes in the third round in a most +artistic and lively manner by bending his body in small jerks and tapping with +his foot to beat time. +</p> + +<p> +“He can blow the flute very well—that ’a can,” said a +young married man, who having no individuality worth mentioning was known as +“Susan Tall’s husband.” He continued, “I’d as +lief as not be able to blow into a flute as well as that.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a clever man, and ’tis a true comfort for us to have +such a shepherd,” murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft cadence. “We +ought to feel full o’ thanksgiving that he’s not a player of +ba’dy songs instead of these merry tunes; for ’twould have been +just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose low man—a man of +iniquity, so to speak it—as what he is. Yes, for our wives’ and +daughters’ sakes we should feel real thanksgiving.” +</p> + +<p> +“True, true,—real thanksgiving!” dashed in Mark Clark +conclusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion that he +had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the Bible; +“for evil do thrive so in these times that ye may be as much deceived in +the cleanest shaved and whitest shirted man as in the raggedest tramp upon the +turnpike, if I may term it so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd,” said Henery Fray, +criticising Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his second tune. +“Yes—now I see ’ee blowing into the flute I know ’ee to +be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were scrimped up and +yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man’s—just as they be +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look such a +scarecrow,” observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criticism of +Gabriel’s countenance, the latter person jerking out, with the ghastly +grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of “Dame +Durden:”— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +’Twas Moll’ and Bet’, and Doll’ and Kate’,<br /> +And Dor’-othy Drag’-gle Tail’. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you don’t mind that young man’s bad manners in naming +your features?” whispered Joseph to Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Mr. Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd,” continued +Joseph Poorgrass, with winning sauvity. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that ye be, shepard,” said the company. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much,” said Oak, in the modest tone good manners +demanded, thinking, however, that he would never let Bathsheba see him playing +the flute; in this resolve showing a discretion equal to that related to its +sagacious inventress, the divine Minerva herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, when I and my wife were married at Norcombe Church,” said the +old maltster, not pleased at finding himself left out of the subject, “we +were called the handsomest couple in the neighbourhood—everybody said +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Danged if ye bain’t altered now, malter,” said a voice with +the vigour natural to the enunciation of a remarkably evident truism. It came +from the old man in the background, whose offensiveness and spiteful ways were +barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle he contributed to general laughs. +</p> + +<p> +“O no, no,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ye play no more shepherd” said Susan Tall’s +husband, the young married man who had spoken once before. “I must be +moving and when there’s tunes going on I seem as if hung in wires. If I +thought after I’d left that music was still playing, and I not there, I +should be quite melancholy-like.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s yer hurry then, Laban?” inquired Coggan. “You +used to bide as late as the latest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ye see, neighbours, I was lately married to a woman, and +she’s my vocation now, and so ye see—” The young man halted +lamely. +</p> + +<p> +“New Lords new laws, as the saying is, I suppose,” remarked Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ’a b’lieve—ha, ha!” said Susan Tall’s +husband, in a tone intended to imply his habitual reception of jokes without +minding them at all. The young man then wished them good-night and withdrew. +</p> + +<p> +Henery Fray was the first to follow. Then Gabriel arose and went off with Jan +Coggan, who had offered him a lodging. A few minutes later, when the remaining +ones were on their legs and about to depart, Fray came back again in a hurry. +Flourishing his finger ominously he threw a gaze teeming with tidings just +where his eye alighted by accident, which happened to be in Joseph +Poorgrass’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“O—what’s the matter, what’s the matter, Henery?” +said Joseph, starting back. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s a-brewing, Henery?” asked Jacob and Mark Clark. +</p> + +<p> +“Baily Pennyways—Baily Pennyways—I said so; yes, I said +so!” +</p> + +<p> +“What, found out stealing anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Stealing it is. The news is, that after Miss Everdene got home she went +out again to see all was safe, as she usually do, and coming in found Baily +Pennyways creeping down the granary steps with half a bushel of barley. She +fleed at him like a cat—never such a tomboy as she is—of course I +speak with closed doors?” +</p> + +<p> +“You do—you do, Henery.” +</p> + +<p> +“She fleed at him, and, to cut a long story short, he owned to having +carried off five sack altogether, upon her promising not to persecute him. +Well, he’s turned out neck and crop, and my question is, who’s +going to be baily now?” +</p> + +<p> +The question was such a profound one that Henery was obliged to drink there and +then from the large cup till the bottom was distinctly visible inside. Before +he had replaced it on the table, in came the young man, Susan Tall’s +husband, in a still greater hurry. +</p> + +<p> +“Have ye heard the news that’s all over parish?” +</p> + +<p> +“About Baily Pennyways?” +</p> + +<p> +“But besides that?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—not a morsel of it!” they replied, looking into the very +midst of Laban Tall as if to meet his words half-way down his throat. +</p> + +<p> +“What a night of horrors!” murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving his +hands spasmodically. “I’ve had the news-bell ringing in my left ear +quite bad enough for a murder, and I’ve seen a magpie all alone!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny Robin—Miss Everdene’s youngest +servant—can’t be found. They’ve been wanting to lock up the +door these two hours, but she isn’t come in. And they don’t know +what to do about going to bed for fear of locking her out. They wouldn’t +be so concerned if she hadn’t been noticed in such low spirits these last +few days, and Maryann d’ think the beginning of a crowner’s inquest +has happened to the poor girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—’tis burned—’tis burned!” came from +Joseph Poorgrass’s dry lips. +</p> + +<p> +“No—’tis drowned!” said Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“Or ’tis her father’s razor!” suggested Billy +Smallbury, with a vivid sense of detail. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—Miss Everdene wants to speak to one or two of us before we go +to bed. What with this trouble about the baily, and now about the girl, +mis’ess is almost wild.” +</p> + +<p> +They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting the old maltster, +whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder could draw from his hole. There, as +the others’ footsteps died away he sat down again and continued gazing as +usual into the furnace with his red, bleared eyes. +</p> + +<p> +From the bedroom window above their heads Bathsheba’s head and shoulders, +robed in mystic white, were dimly seen extended into the air. +</p> + +<p> +“Are any of my men among you?” she said anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am, several,” said Susan Tall’s husband. +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow morning I wish two or three of you to make inquiries in the +villages round if they have seen such a person as Fanny Robin. Do it quietly; +there is no reason for alarm as yet. She must have left whilst we were all at +the fire.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man courting her in the parish, +ma’am?” asked Jacob Smallbury. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never heard of any such thing, ma’am,” said two +or three. +</p> + +<p> +“It is hardly likely, either,” continued Bathsheba. “For any +lover of hers might have come to the house if he had been a respectable lad. +The most mysterious matter connected with her absence—indeed, the only +thing which gives me serious alarm—is that she was seen to go out of the +house by Maryann with only her indoor working gown on—not even a +bonnet.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you mean, ma’am, excusing my words, that a young woman would +hardly go to see her young man without dressing up,” said Jacob, turning +his mental vision upon past experiences. “That’s true—she +would not, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn’t see very +well,” said a female voice from another window, which seemed that of +Maryann. “But she had no young man about here. Hers lives in +Casterbridge, and I believe he’s a soldier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know his name?” Bathsheba said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, mistress; she was very close about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I might be able to find out if I went to Casterbridge +barracks,” said William Smallbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; if she doesn’t return to-morrow, mind you go there and +try to discover which man it is, and see him. I feel more responsible than I +should if she had had any friends or relations alive. I do hope she has come to +no harm through a man of that kind.... And then there’s this disgraceful +affair of the bailiff—but I can’t speak of him now.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness that it seemed she did not think +it worth while to dwell upon any particular one. “Do as I told you, +then,” she said in conclusion, closing the casement. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, mistress; we will,” they replied, and moved away. +</p> + +<p> +That night at Coggan’s, Gabriel Oak, beneath the screen of closed +eyelids, was busy with fancies, and full of movement, like a river flowing +rapidly under its ice. Night had always been the time at which he saw Bathsheba +most vividly, and through the slow hours of shadow he tenderly regarded her +image now. It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate +for the pain of sleeplessness, but they possibly did with Oak to-night, for the +delight of merely seeing her effaced for the time his perception of the great +difference between seeing and possessing. +</p> + +<p> +He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcombe. +<i>The Young Man’s Best Companion</i>, <i>The Farrier’s Sure +Guide</i>, <i>The Veterinary Surgeon</i>, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, <i>The +Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, Ash’s +<i>Dictionary</i>, and Walkingame’s <i>Arithmetic</i>, constituted his +library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired +more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has +done from a furlong of laden shelves. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /> +THE HOMESTEAD—A VISITOR—HALF-CONFIDENCES</h2> + +<p> +By daylight, the bower of Oak’s new-found mistress, Bathsheba Everdene, +presented itself as a hoary building, of the early stage of Classic Renaissance +as regards its architecture, and of a proportion which told at a glance that, +as is so frequently the case, it had once been the memorial hall upon a small +estate around it, now altogether effaced as a distinct property, and merged in +the vast tract of a non-resident landlord, which comprised several such modest +demesnes. +</p> + +<p> +Fluted pilasters, worked from the solid stone, decorated its front, and above +the roof the chimneys were panelled or columnar, some coped gables with finials +and like features still retaining traces of their Gothic extraction. Soft brown +mosses, like faded velveteen, formed cushions upon the stone tiling, and tufts +of the houseleek or sengreen sprouted from the eaves of the low surrounding +buildings. A gravel walk leading from the door to the road in front was +encrusted at the sides with more moss—here it was a silver-green variety, +the nut-brown of the gravel being visible to the width of only a foot or two in +the centre. This circumstance, and the generally sleepy air of the whole +prospect here, together with the animated and contrasting state of the reverse +façade, suggested to the imagination that on the adaptation of the building for +farming purposes the vital principle of the house had turned round inside its +body to face the other way. Reversals of this kind, strange deformities, +tremendous paralyses, are often seen to be inflicted by trade upon +edifices—either individual or in the aggregate as streets and +towns—which were originally planned for pleasure alone. +</p> + +<p> +Lively voices were heard this morning in the upper rooms, the main staircase to +which was of hard oak, the balusters, heavy as bed-posts, being turned and +moulded in the quaint fashion of their century, the handrail as stout as a +parapet-top, and the stairs themselves continually twisting round like a person +trying to look over his shoulder. Going up, the floors above were found to have +a very irregular surface, rising to ridges, sinking into valleys; and being +just then uncarpeted, the face of the boards was seen to be eaten into +innumerable vermiculations. Every window replied by a clang to the opening and +shutting of every door, a tremble followed every bustling movement, and a creak +accompanied a walker about the house, like a spirit, wherever he went. +</p> + +<p> +In the room from which the conversation proceeded Bathsheba and her +servant-companion, Liddy Smallbury, were to be discovered sitting upon the +floor, and sorting a complication of papers, books, bottles, and rubbish spread +out thereon—remnants from the household stores of the late occupier. +Liddy, the maltster’s great-granddaughter, was about Bathsheba’s +equal in age, and her face was a prominent advertisement of the light-hearted +English country girl. The beauty her features might have lacked in form was +amply made up for by perfection of hue, which at this winter-time was the +softened ruddiness on a surface of high rotundity that we meet with in a +Terburg or a Gerard Douw; and, like the presentations of those great +colourists, it was a face which kept well back from the boundary between +comeliness and the ideal. Though elastic in nature she was less daring than +Bathsheba, and occasionally showed some earnestness, which consisted half of +genuine feeling, and half of mannerliness superadded by way of duty. +</p> + +<p> +Through a partly-opened door the noise of a scrubbing-brush led up to the +charwoman, Maryann Money, a person who for a face had a circular disc, furrowed +less by age than by long gazes of perplexity at distant objects. To think of +her was to get good-humoured; to speak of her was to raise the image of a dried +Normandy pippin. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop your scrubbing a moment,” said Bathsheba through the door to +her. “I hear something.” +</p> + +<p> +Maryann suspended the brush. +</p> + +<p> +The tramp of a horse was apparent, approaching the front of the building. The +paces slackened, turned in at the wicket, and, what was most unusual, came up +the mossy path close to the door. The door was tapped with the end of a crop or +stick. +</p> + +<p> +“What impertinence!” said Liddy, in a low voice. “To ride up +the footpath like that! Why didn’t he stop at the gate? Lord! ’Tis +a gentleman! I see the top of his hat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be quiet!” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +The further expression of Liddy’s concern was continued by aspect instead +of narrative. +</p> + +<p> +“Why doesn’t Mrs. Coggan go to the door?” Bathsheba +continued. +</p> + +<p> +Rat-tat-tat-tat resounded more decisively from Bathsheba’s oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Maryann, you go!” said she, fluttering under the onset of a crowd +of romantic possibilities. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh ma’am—see, here’s a mess!” +</p> + +<p> +The argument was unanswerable after a glance at Maryann. +</p> + +<p> +“Liddy—you must,” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated with dust from the rubbish they were +sorting, and looked imploringly at her mistress. +</p> + +<p> +“There—Mrs. Coggan is going!” said Bathsheba, exhaling her +relief in the form of a long breath which had lain in her bosom a minute or +more. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, and a deep voice said— +</p> + +<p> +“Is Miss Everdene at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see, sir,” said Mrs. Coggan, and in a minute appeared +in the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, what a thirtover place this world is!” continued Mrs. Coggan +(a wholesome-looking lady who had a voice for each class of remark according to +the emotion involved; who could toss a pancake or twirl a mop with the accuracy +of pure mathematics, and who at this moment showed hands shaggy with fragments +of dough and arms encrusted with flour). “I am never up to my elbows, +Miss, in making a pudding but one of two things do happen—either my nose +must needs begin tickling, and I can’t live without scratching it, or +somebody knocks at the door. Here’s Mr. Boldwood wanting to see you, Miss +Everdene.” +</p> + +<p> +A woman’s dress being a part of her countenance, and any disorder in the +one being of the same nature with a malformation or wound in the other, +Bathsheba said at once— +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t see him in this state. Whatever shall I do?” +</p> + +<p> +Not-at-homes were hardly naturalized in Weatherbury farmhouses, so Liddy +suggested—“Say you’re a fright with dust, and can’t +come down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—that sounds very well,” said Mrs. Coggan, critically. +</p> + +<p> +“Say I can’t see him—that will do.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Coggan went downstairs, and returned the answer as requested, adding, +however, on her own responsibility, “Miss is dusting bottles, sir, and is +quite a object—that’s why ’tis.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well,” said the deep voice indifferently. “All I +wanted to ask was, if anything had been heard of Fanny Robin?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, sir—but we may know to-night. William Smallbury is gone +to Casterbridge, where her young man lives, as is supposed, and the other men +be inquiring about everywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +The horse’s tramp then recommenced and retreated, and the door closed. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is Mr. Boldwood?” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“A gentleman-farmer at Little Weatherbury.” +</p> + +<p> +“Married?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“How old is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Forty, I should say—very handsome—rather +stern-looking—and rich.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a bother this dusting is! I am always in some unfortunate plight or +other,” Bathsheba said, complainingly. “Why should he inquire about +Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, because, as she had no friends in her childhood, he took her and put +her to school, and got her her place here under your uncle. He’s a very +kind man that way, but Lord—there!” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never was such a hopeless man for a woman! He’s been courted by +sixes and sevens—all the girls, gentle and simple, for miles round, have +tried him. Jane Perkins worked at him for two months like a slave, and the two +Miss Taylors spent a year upon him, and he cost Farmer Ives’s daughter +nights of tears and twenty pounds’ worth of new clothes; but +Lord—the money might as well have been thrown out of the window.” +</p> + +<p> +A little boy came up at this moment and looked in upon them. This child was one +of the Coggans, who, with the Smallburys, were as common among the families of +this district as the Avons and Derwents among our rivers. He always had a +loosened tooth or a cut finger to show to particular friends, which he did with +an air of being thereby elevated above the common herd of afflictionless +humanity—to which exhibition people were expected to say “Poor +child!” with a dash of congratulation as well as pity. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a pen-nee!” said Master Coggan in a scanning +measure. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—who gave it you, Teddy?” said Liddy. +</p> + +<p> +“Mis-terr Bold-wood! He gave it to me for opening the gate.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did he say?” +</p> + +<p> +“He said, ‘Where are you going, my little man?’ and I said, +‘To Miss Everdene’s please,’ and he said, ‘She is a +staid woman, isn’t she, my little man?’ and I said, +‘Yes.’” +</p> + +<p> +“You naughty child! What did you say that for?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Cause he gave me the penny!” +</p> + +<p> +“What a pucker everything is in!” said Bathsheba, discontentedly +when the child had gone. “Get away, Maryann, or go on with your +scrubbing, or do something! You ought to be married by this time, and not here +troubling me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, mistress—so I did. But what between the poor men I won’t +have, and the rich men who won’t have me, I stand as a pelican in the +wilderness!” +</p> + +<p> +“Did anybody ever want to marry you miss?” Liddy ventured to ask +when they were again alone. “Lots of ’em, I daresay?” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba paused, as if about to refuse a reply, but the temptation to say yes, +since it was really in her power was irresistible by aspiring virginity, in +spite of her spleen at having been published as old. +</p> + +<p> +“A man wanted to once,” she said, in a highly experienced tone, and +the image of Gabriel Oak, as the farmer, rose before her. +</p> + +<p> +“How nice it must seem!” said Liddy, with the fixed features of +mental realization. “And you wouldn’t have him?” +</p> + +<p> +“He wasn’t quite good enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“How sweet to be able to disdain, when most of us are glad to say, +‘Thank you!’ I seem I hear it. ‘No, sir—I’m your +better.’ or ‘Kiss my foot, sir; my face is for mouths of +consequence.’ And did you love him, miss?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no. But I rather liked him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not—what footsteps are those I hear?” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy looked from a back window into the courtyard behind, which was now +getting low-toned and dim with the earliest films of night. A crooked file of +men was approaching the back door. The whole string of trailing individuals +advanced in the completest balance of intention, like the remarkable creatures +known as Chain Salpæ, which, distinctly organized in other respects, have one +will common to a whole family. Some were, as usual, in snow-white smock-frocks +of Russia duck, and some in whitey-brown ones of drabbet—marked on the +wrists, breasts, backs, and sleeves with honeycomb-work. Two or three women in +pattens brought up the rear. +</p> + +<p> +“The Philistines be upon us,” said Liddy, making her nose white +against the glass. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well. Maryann, go down and keep them in the kitchen till I am +dressed, and then show them in to me in the hall.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X<br /> +MISTRESS AND MEN</h2> + +<p> +Half-an-hour later Bathsheba, in finished dress, and followed by Liddy, entered +the upper end of the old hall to find that her men had all deposited themselves +on a long form and a settle at the lower extremity. She sat down at a table and +opened the time-book, pen in her hand, with a canvas money-bag beside her. From +this she poured a small heap of coin. Liddy chose a position at her elbow and +began to sew, sometimes pausing and looking round, or, with the air of a +privileged person, taking up one of the half-sovereigns lying before her and +surveying it merely as a work of art, while strictly preventing her countenance +from expressing any wish to possess it as money. +</p> + +<p> +“Now before I begin, men,” said Bathsheba, “I have two +matters to speak of. The first is that the bailiff is dismissed for thieving, +and that I have formed a resolution to have no bailiff at all, but to manage +everything with my own head and hands.” +</p> + +<p> +The men breathed an audible breath of amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“The next matter is, have you heard anything of Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you done anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“I met Farmer Boldwood,” said Jacob Smallbury, “and I went +with him and two of his men, and dragged Newmill Pond, but we found +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the new shepherd have been to Buck’s Head, by Yalbury, +thinking she had gone there, but nobody had seed her,” said Laban Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t William Smallbury been to Casterbridge?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am, but he’s not yet come home. He promised to be +back by six.” +</p> + +<p> +“It wants a quarter to six at present,” said Bathsheba, looking at +her watch. “I daresay he’ll be in directly. Well, now +then”—she looked into the book—“Joseph Poorgrass, are +you there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir—ma’am I mane,” said the person addressed. +“I be the personal name of Poorgrass.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing in my own eye. In the eye of other people—well, I +don’t say it; though public thought will out.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you do on the farm?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do do carting things all the year, and in seed time I shoots the rooks +and sparrows, and helps at pig-killing, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Please nine and ninepence and a good halfpenny where ’twas a bad +one, sir—ma’am I mane.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings in addition as a small +present, as I am a new comer.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba blushed slightly at the sense of being generous in public, and Henery +Fray, who had drawn up towards her chair, lifted his eyebrows and fingers to +express amazement on a small scale. +</p> + +<p> +“How much do I owe you—that man in the corner—what’s +your name?” continued Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“Matthew Moon, ma’am,” said a singular framework of clothes +with nothing of any consequence inside them, which advanced with the toes in no +definite direction forwards, but turned in or out as they chanced to swing. +</p> + +<p> +“Matthew Mark, did you say?—speak out—I shall not hurt +you,” inquired the young farmer, kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“Matthew Moon, mem,” said Henery Fray, correctingly, from behind +her chair, to which point he had edged himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Matthew Moon,” murmured Bathsheba, turning her bright eyes to the +book. “Ten and twopence halfpenny is the sum put down to you, I +see?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mis’ess,” said Matthew, as the rustle of wind among +dead leaves. +</p> + +<p> +“Here it is, and ten shillings. Now the next—Andrew Randle, you are +a new man, I hear. How come you to leave your last farm?” +</p> + +<p> +“P-p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-l-l-l-l-ease, ma’am, p-p-p-p-pl-pl- +pl-pl-please, ma’am-please’m-please’m—” +</p> + +<p> +“’A’s a stammering man, mem,” said Henery Fray in an +undertone, “and they turned him away because the only time he ever did +speak plain he said his soul was his own, and other iniquities, to the squire. +’A can cuss, mem, as well as you or I, but ’a can’t speak a +common speech to save his life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Andrew Randle, here’s yours—finish thanking me in a day or +two. Temperance Miller—oh, here’s another, Soberness—both +women I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes’m. Here we be, ’a b’lieve,” was echoed in +shrill unison. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you been doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tending thrashing-machine and wimbling haybonds, and saying +‘Hoosh!’ to the cocks and hens when they go upon your seeds, and +planting Early Flourballs and Thompson’s Wonderfuls with a dibble.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I see. Are they satisfactory women?” she inquired softly +of Henery Fray. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh mem—don’t ask me! Yielding women—as scarlet a pair +as ever was!” groaned Henery under his breath. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who, mem?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +Joseph Poorgrass, in the background twitched, and his lips became dry with fear +of some terrible consequences, as he saw Bathsheba summarily speaking, and +Henery slinking off to a corner. +</p> + +<p> +“Now the next. Laban Tall, you’ll stay on working for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“For you or anybody that pays me well, ma’am,” replied the +young married man. +</p> + +<p> +“True—the man must live!” said a woman in the back quarter, +who had just entered with clicking pattens. +</p> + +<p> +“What woman is that?” Bathsheba asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I be his lawful wife!” continued the voice with greater prominence +of manner and tone. This lady called herself five-and-twenty, looked thirty, +passed as thirty-five, and was forty. She was a woman who never, like some +newly married, showed conjugal tenderness in public, perhaps because she had +none to show. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you are,” said Bathsheba. “Well, Laban, will you stay +on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he’ll stay, ma’am!” said again the shrill tongue +of Laban’s lawful wife. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he can speak for himself, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh Lord, not he, ma’am! A simple tool. Well enough, but a poor +gawkhammer mortal,” the wife replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Heh-heh-heh!” laughed the married man with a hideous effort of +appreciation, for he was as irrepressibly good-humoured under ghastly snubs as +a parliamentary candidate on the hustings. +</p> + +<p> +The names remaining were called in the same manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I think I have done with you,” said Bathsheba, closing the +book and shaking back a stray twine of hair. “Has William Smallbury +returned?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“The new shepherd will want a man under him,” suggested Henery +Fray, trying to make himself official again by a sideway approach towards her +chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—he will. Who can he have?” +</p> + +<p> +“Young Cain Ball is a very good lad,” Henery said, “and +Shepherd Oak don’t mind his youth?” he added, turning with an +apologetic smile to the shepherd, who had just appeared on the scene, and was +now leaning against the doorpost with his arms folded. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t mind that,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“How did Cain come by such a name?” asked Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh you see, mem, his pore mother, not being a Scripture-read woman, made +a mistake at his christening, thinking ’twas Abel killed Cain, and called +en Cain, meaning Abel all the time. The parson put it right, but ’twas +too late, for the name could never be got rid of in the parish. ’Tis very +unfortunate for the boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is rather unfortunate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. However, we soften it down as much as we can, and call him Cainy. +Ah, pore widow-woman! she cried her heart out about it almost. She was brought +up by a very heathen father and mother, who never sent her to church or school, +and it shows how the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, +mem.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Fray here drew up his features to the mild degree of melancholy required +when the persons involved in the given misfortune do not belong to your own +family. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well then, Cainey Ball to be under-shepherd. And you quite +understand your duties?—you I mean, Gabriel Oak?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite well, I thank you, Miss Everdene,” said Shepherd Oak from +the doorpost. “If I don’t, I’ll inquire.” Gabriel was +rather staggered by the remarkable coolness of her manner. Certainly nobody +without previous information would have dreamt that Oak and the handsome woman +before whom he stood had ever been other than strangers. But perhaps her air +was the inevitable result of the social rise which had advanced her from a +cottage to a large house and fields. The case is not unexampled in high places. +When, in the writings of the later poets, Jove and his family are found to have +moved from their cramped quarters on the peak of Olympus into the wide sky +above it, their words show a proportionate increase of arrogance and reserve. +</p> + +<p> +Footsteps were heard in the passage, combining in their character the qualities +both of weight and measure, rather at the expense of velocity. +</p> + +<p> +(All.) “Here’s Billy Smallbury come from Casterbridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what’s the news?” said Bathsheba, as William, after +marching to the middle of the hall, took a handkerchief from his hat and wiped +his forehead from its centre to its remoter boundaries. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have been sooner, miss,” he said, “if it +hadn’t been for the weather.” He then stamped with each foot +severely, and on looking down his boots were perceived to be clogged with snow. +</p> + +<p> +“Come at last, is it?” said Henery. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what about Fanny?” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ma’am, in round numbers, she’s run away with the +soldiers,” said William. +</p> + +<p> +“No; not a steady girl like Fanny!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell ye all particulars. When I got to Casterbridge Barracks, +they said, ‘The Eleventh Dragoon-Guards be gone away, and new troops have +come.’ The Eleventh left last week for Melchester and onwards. The Route +came from Government like a thief in the night, as is his nature to, and afore +the Eleventh knew it almost, they were on the march. They passed near +here.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel had listened with interest. “I saw them go,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” continued William, “they pranced down the street +playing ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ so ’tis said, in +glorious notes of triumph. Every looker-on’s inside shook with the blows +of the great drum to his deepest vitals, and there was not a dry eye throughout +the town among the public-house people and the nameless women!” +</p> + +<p> +“But they’re not gone to any war?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am; but they be gone to take the places of them who may, +which is very close connected. And so I said to myself, Fanny’s young man +was one of the regiment, and she’s gone after him. There, ma’am, +that’s it in black and white.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you find out his name?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; nobody knew it. I believe he was higher in rank than a +private.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel remained musing and said nothing, for he was in doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we are not likely to know more to-night, at any rate,” said +Bathsheba. “But one of you had better run across to Farmer +Boldwood’s and tell him that much.” +</p> + +<p> +She then rose; but before retiring, addressed a few words to them with a pretty +dignity, to which her mourning dress added a soberness that was hardly to be +found in the words themselves. +</p> + +<p> +“Now mind, you have a mistress instead of a master. I don’t yet +know my powers or my talents in farming; but I shall do my best, and if you +serve me well, so shall I serve you. Don’t any unfair ones among you (if +there are any such, but I hope not) suppose that because I’m a woman I +don’t understand the difference between bad goings-on and good.” +</p> + +<p> +(All.) “No’m!” +</p> + +<p> +(Liddy.) “Excellent well said.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; +and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish +you all.” +</p> + +<p> +(All.) “Yes’m!” +</p> + +<p> +“And so good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +(All.) “Good-night, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +Then this small thesmothete stepped from the table, and surged out of the hall, +her black silk dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a +scratching noise upon the floor. Liddy, elevating her feelings to the occasion +from a sense of grandeur, floated off behind Bathsheba with a milder dignity +not entirely free from travesty, and the door was closed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /> +OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS—SNOW—A MEETING</h2> + +<p> +For dreariness nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of a certain +town and military station, many miles north of Weatherbury, at a later hour on +this same snowy evening—if that may be called a prospect of which the +chief constituent was darkness. +</p> + +<p> +It was a night when sorrow may come to the brightest without causing any great +sense of incongruity: when, with impressible persons, love becomes +solicitousness, hope sinks to misgiving, and faith to hope: when the exercise +of memory does not stir feelings of regret at opportunities for ambition that +have been passed by, and anticipation does not prompt to enterprise. +</p> + +<p> +The scene was a public path, bordered on the left hand by a river, behind which +rose a high wall. On the right was a tract of land, partly meadow and partly +moor, reaching, at its remote verge, to a wide undulating upland. +</p> + +<p> +The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind than amid +woodland scenery. Still, to a close observer, they are just as perceptible; the +difference is that their media of manifestation are less trite and familiar +than such well-known ones as the bursting of the buds or the fall of the leaf. +Many are not so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to imagine in considering +the general torpidity of a moor or waste. Winter, in coming to the country +hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively +observed the retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the +filling of the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse +of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow. +</p> + +<p> +This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the aforesaid moor, and +for the first time in the season its irregularities were forms without +features; suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing, and without more +character than that of being the limit of something else—the lowest layer +of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic skyful of crowding flakes the mead +and moor momentarily received additional clothing, only to appear momentarily +more naked thereby. The vast arch of cloud above was strangely low, and formed +as it were the roof of a large dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its +floor; for the instinctive thought was that the snow lining the heavens and +that encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass without any +intervening stratum of air at all. +</p> + +<p> +We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics; which were flatness in +respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall behind it, and +darkness as to both. These features made up the mass. If anything could be +darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if any thing could be gloomier than +the wall it was the river beneath. The indistinct summit of the façade was +notched and pronged by chimneys here and there, and upon its face were faintly +signified the oblong shapes of windows, though only in the upper part. Below, +down to the water’s edge, the flat was unbroken by hole or projection. +</p> + +<p> +An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their regularity, sent +their sound with difficulty through the fluffy atmosphere. It was a +neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in the open air, and being +overlaid with several inches of muffling snow, had lost its voice for the time. +</p> + +<p> +About this hour the snow abated: ten flakes fell where twenty had fallen, then +one had the room of ten. Not long after a form moved by the brink of the river. +</p> + +<p> +By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer might have seen +that it was small. This was all that was positively discoverable, though it +seemed human. +</p> + +<p> +The shape went slowly along, but without much exertion, for the snow, though +sudden, was not as yet more than two inches deep. At this time some words were +spoken aloud:— +</p> + +<p> +“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.” +</p> + +<p> +Between each utterance the little shape advanced about half a dozen yards. It +was evident now that the windows high in the wall were being counted. The word +“Five” represented the fifth window from the end of the wall. +</p> + +<p> +Here the spot stopped, and dwindled smaller. The figure was stooping. Then a +morsel of snow flew across the river towards the fifth window. It smacked +against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. The throw was the idea +of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No man who had ever seen +bird, rabbit, or squirrel in his childhood, could possibly have thrown with +such utter imbecility as was shown here. +</p> + +<p> +Another attempt, and another; till by degrees the wall must have become pimpled +with the adhering lumps of snow. At last one fragment struck the fifth window. +</p> + +<p> +The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep smooth sort which +races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any irregularities of +speed being immediately corrected by a small whirlpool. Nothing was heard in +reply to the signal but the gurgle and cluck of one of these invisible +wheels—together with a few small sounds which a sad man would have called +moans, and a happy man laughter—caused by the flapping of the waters +against trifling objects in other parts of the stream. +</p> + +<p> +The window was struck again in the same manner. +</p> + +<p> +Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the window. This +was followed by a voice from the same quarter. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s there?” +</p> + +<p> +The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise. The high wall being that +of a barrack, and marriage being looked upon with disfavour in the army, +assignations and communications had probably been made across the river before +to-night. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it Sergeant Troy?” said the blurred spot in the snow, +tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +This person was so much like a mere shade upon the earth, and the other speaker +so much a part of the building, that one would have said the wall was holding a +conversation with the snow. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” came suspiciously from the shadow. “What girl are +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Frank—don’t you know me?” said the spot. +“Your wife, Fanny Robin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny!” said the wall, in utter astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion. +</p> + +<p> +There was something in the woman’s tone which is not that of the wife, +and there was a manner in the man which is rarely a husband’s. The +dialogue went on: +</p> + +<p> +“How did you come here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I asked which was your window. Forgive me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not expect you to-night. Indeed, I did not think you would come at +all. It was a wonder you found me here. I am orderly to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You said I was to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—I said that you might.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I mean that I might. You are glad to see me, Frank?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you—come to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Fan, no! The bugle has sounded, the barrack gates are closed, +and I have no leave. We are all of us as good as in the county gaol till +to-morrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I shan’t see you till then!” The words were in a +faltering tone of disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get here from Weatherbury?” +</p> + +<p> +“I walked—some part of the way—the rest by the +carriers.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am surprised.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—so am I. And Frank, when will it be?” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“That you promised.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite recollect.” +</p> + +<p> +“O you do! Don’t speak like that. It weighs me to the earth. It +makes me say what ought to be said first by you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind—say it.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, must I?—it is, when shall we be married, Frank?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see. Well—you have to get proper clothes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have money. Will it be by banns or license?” +</p> + +<p> +“Banns, I should think.” +</p> + +<p> +“And we live in two parishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do we? What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“My lodgings are in St. Mary’s, and this is not. So they will have +to be published in both.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that the law?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. O Frank—you think me forward, I am afraid! Don’t, dear +Frank—will you—for I love you so. And you said lots of times you +would marry me, and—and—I—I—I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t cry, now! It is foolish. If I said so, of course I +will.” +</p> + +<p> +“And shall I put up the banns in my parish, and will you in yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes” +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to-morrow. We’ll settle in a few days.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have the permission of the officers?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“O—how is it? You said you almost had before you left +Casterbridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming like this is so sudden and +unexpected.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—yes—it is. It was wrong of me to worry you. I’ll +go away now. Will you come and see me to-morrow, at Mrs. Twills’s, in +North Street? I don’t like to come to the Barracks. There are bad women +about, and they think me one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite, so. I’ll come to you, my dear. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Frank—good-night!” +</p> + +<p> +And the noise was again heard of a window closing. The little spot moved away. +When she passed the corner a subdued exclamation was heard inside the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho—ho—Sergeant—ho—ho!” An expostulation +followed, but it was indistinct; and it became lost amid a low peal of +laughter, which was hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the tiny +whirlpools outside. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII<br /> +FARMERS—A RULE—AN EXCEPTION</h2> + +<p> +The first public evidence of Bathsheba’s decision to be a farmer in her +own person and by proxy no more was her appearance the following market-day in +the cornmarket at Casterbridge. +</p> + +<p> +The low though extensive hall, supported by beams and pillars, and latterly +dignified by the name of Corn Exchange, was thronged with hot men who talked +among each other in twos and threes, the speaker of the minute looking sideways +into his auditor’s face and concentrating his argument by a contraction +of one eyelid during delivery. The greater number carried in their hands +ground-ash saplings, using them partly as walking-sticks and partly for poking +up pigs, sheep, neighbours with their backs turned, and restful things in +general, which seemed to require such treatment in the course of their +peregrinations. During conversations each subjected his sapling to great +varieties of usage—bending it round his back, forming an arch of it +between his two hands, overweighting it on the ground till it reached nearly a +semicircle; or perhaps it was hastily tucked under the arm whilst the +sample-bag was pulled forth and a handful of corn poured into the palm, which, +after criticism, was flung upon the floor, an issue of events perfectly well +known to half-a-dozen acute town-bred fowls which had as usual crept into the +building unobserved, and waited the fulfilment of their anticipations with a +high-stretched neck and oblique eye. +</p> + +<p> +Among these heavy yeomen a feminine figure glided, the single one of her sex +that the room contained. She was prettily and even daintily dressed. She moved +between them as a chaise between carts, was heard after them as a romance after +sermons, was felt among them like a breeze among furnaces. It had required a +little determination—far more than she had at first imagined—to +take up a position here, for at her first entry the lumbering dialogues had +ceased, nearly every face had been turned towards her, and those that were +already turned rigidly fixed there. +</p> + +<p> +Two or three only of the farmers were personally known to Bathsheba, and to +these she had made her way. But if she was to be the practical woman she had +intended to show herself, business must be carried on, introductions or none, +and she ultimately acquired confidence enough to speak and reply boldly to men +merely known to her by hearsay. Bathsheba too had her sample-bags, and by +degrees adopted the professional pour into the hand—holding up the grains +in her narrow palm for inspection, in perfect Casterbridge manner. +</p> + +<p> +Something in the exact arch of her upper unbroken row of teeth, and in the +keenly pointed corners of her red mouth when, with parted lips, she somewhat +defiantly turned up her face to argue a point with a tall man, suggested that +there was potentiality enough in that lithe slip of humanity for alarming +exploits of sex, and daring enough to carry them out. But her eyes had a +softness—invariably a softness—which, had they not been dark, would +have seemed mistiness; as they were, it lowered an expression that might have +been piercing to simple clearness. +</p> + +<p> +Strange to say of a woman in full bloom and vigor, she always allowed her +interlocutors to finish their statements before rejoining with hers. In arguing +on prices, she held to her own firmly, as was natural in a dealer, and reduced +theirs persistently, as was inevitable in a woman. But there was an elasticity +in her firmness which removed it from obstinacy, as there was a +<i>naïveté</i> in her cheapening which saved it from meanness. +</p> + +<p> +Those of the farmers with whom she had no dealings (by far the greater part) +were continually asking each other, “Who is she?” The reply would +be— +</p> + +<p> +“Farmer Everdene’s niece; took on Weatherbury Upper Farm; turned +away the baily, and swears she’ll do everything herself.” +</p> + +<p> +The other man would then shake his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ’tis a pity she’s so headstrong,” the first would +say. “But we ought to be proud of her here—she lightens up the old +place. ’Tis such a shapely maid, however, that she’ll soon get +picked up.” +</p> + +<p> +It would be ungallant to suggest that the novelty of her engagement in such an +occupation had almost as much to do with the magnetism as had the beauty of her +face and movements. However, the interest was general, and this +Saturday’s <i>début</i> in the forum, whatever it may have been to +Bathsheba as the buying and selling farmer, was unquestionably a triumph to her +as the maiden. Indeed, the sensation was so pronounced that her instinct on two +or three occasions was merely to walk as a queen among these gods of the +fallow, like a little sister of a little Jove, and to neglect closing prices +altogether. +</p> + +<p> +The numerous evidences of her power to attract were only thrown into greater +relief by a marked exception. Women seem to have eyes in their ribbons for such +matters as these. Bathsheba, without looking within a right angle of him, was +conscious of a black sheep among the flock. +</p> + +<p> +It perplexed her first. If there had been a respectable minority on either +side, the case would have been most natural. If nobody had regarded her, she +would have taken the matter indifferently—such cases had occurred. If +everybody, this man included, she would have taken it as a matter of +course—people had done so before. But the smallness of the exception made +the mystery. +</p> + +<p> +She soon knew thus much of the recusant’s appearance. He was a +gentlemanly man, with full and distinctly outlined Roman features, the +prominences of which glowed in the sun with a bronze-like richness of tone. He +was erect in attitude, and quiet in demeanour. One characteristic pre-eminently +marked him—dignity. +</p> + +<p> +Apparently he had some time ago reached that entrance to middle age at which a +man’s aspect naturally ceases to alter for the term of a dozen years or +so; and, artificially, a woman’s does likewise. Thirty-five and fifty +were his limits of variation—he might have been either, or anywhere +between the two. +</p> + +<p> +It may be said that married men of forty are usually ready and generous enough +to fling passing glances at any specimen of moderate beauty they may discern by +the way. Probably, as with persons playing whist for love, the consciousness of +a certain immunity under any circumstances from that worst possible ultimate, +the having to pay, makes them unduly speculative. Bathsheba was convinced that +this unmoved person was not a married man. +</p> + +<p> +When marketing was over, she rushed off to Liddy, who was waiting for her +beside the yellow gig in which they had driven to town. The horse was put in, +and on they trotted—Bathsheba’s sugar, tea, and drapery parcels +being packed behind, and expressing in some indescribable manner, by their +colour, shape, and general lineaments, that they were that young +lady-farmer’s property, and the grocer’s and draper’s no +more. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been through it, Liddy, and it is over. I shan’t mind +it again, for they will all have grown accustomed to seeing me there; but this +morning it was as bad as being married—eyes everywhere!” +</p> + +<p> +“I knowed it would be,” Liddy said. “Men be such a terrible +class of society to look at a body.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there was one man who had more sense than to waste his time upon +me.” The information was put in this form that Liddy might not for a +moment suppose her mistress was at all piqued. “A very good-looking +man,” she continued, “upright; about forty, I should think. Do you +know at all who he could be?” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy couldn’t think. +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you guess at all?” said Bathsheba with some +disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t a notion; besides, ’tis no difference, since he +took less notice of you than any of the rest. Now, if he’d taken more, it +would have mattered a great deal.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was suffering from the reverse feeling just then, and they bowled +along in silence. A low carriage, bowling along still more rapidly behind a +horse of unimpeachable breed, overtook and passed them. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there he is!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Liddy looked. “That! That’s Farmer Boldwood—of course +’tis—the man you couldn’t see the other day when he +called.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Farmer Boldwood,” murmured Bathsheba, and looked at him as he +outstripped them. The farmer had never turned his head once, but with eyes +fixed on the most advanced point along the road, passed as unconsciously and +abstractedly as if Bathsheba and her charms were thin air. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s an interesting man—don’t you think so?” she +remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“O yes, very. Everybody owns it,” replied Liddy. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder why he is so wrapt up and indifferent, and seemingly so far +away from all he sees around him.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is said—but not known for certain—that he met with some +bitter disappointment when he was a young man and merry. A woman jilted him, +they say.” +</p> + +<p> +“People always say that—and we know very well women scarcely ever +jilt men; ’tis the men who jilt us. I expect it is simply his nature to +be so reserved.” +</p> + +<p> +“Simply his nature—I expect so, miss—nothing else in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, ’tis more romantic to think he has been served cruelly, +poor thing’! Perhaps, after all, he has!” +</p> + +<p> +“Depend upon it he has. Oh yes, miss, he has! I feel he must have.” +</p> + +<p> +“However, we are very apt to think extremes of people. I shouldn’t +wonder after all if it wasn’t a little of both—just between the +two—rather cruelly used and rather reserved.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear no, miss—I can’t think it between the two!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s most likely.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes, so it is. I am convinced it is most likely. You may take my +word, miss, that that’s what’s the matter with him.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /> +SORTES SANCTORUM—THE VALENTINE</h2> + +<p> +It was Sunday afternoon in the farmhouse, on the thirteenth of February. Dinner +being over, Bathsheba, for want of a better companion, had asked Liddy to come +and sit with her. The mouldy pile was dreary in winter-time before the candles +were lighted and the shutters closed; the atmosphere of the place seemed as old +as the walls; every nook behind the furniture had a temperature of its own, for +the fire was not kindled in this part of the house early in the day; and +Bathsheba’s new piano, which was an old one in other annals, looked +particularly sloping and out of level on the warped floor before night threw a +shade over its less prominent angles and hid the unpleasantness. Liddy, like a +little brook, though shallow, was always rippling; her presence had not so much +weight as to task thought, and yet enough to exercise it. +</p> + +<p> +On the table lay an old quarto Bible, bound in leather. Liddy looking at it +said,— +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever find out, miss, who you are going to marry by means of the +Bible and key?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be so foolish, Liddy. As if such things could be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there’s a good deal in it, all the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, child.” +</p> + +<p> +“And it makes your heart beat fearful. Some believe in it; some +don’t; I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, let’s try it,” said Bathsheba, bounding from her +seat with that total disregard of consistency which can be indulged in towards +a dependent, and entering into the spirit of divination at once. “Go and +get the front door key.” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy fetched it. “I wish it wasn’t Sunday,” she said, on +returning. “Perhaps ’tis wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s right week days is right Sundays,” replied her +mistress in a tone which was a proof in itself. +</p> + +<p> +The book was opened—the leaves, drab with age, being quite worn away at +much-read verses by the forefingers of unpractised readers in former days, +where they were moved along under the line as an aid to the vision. The special +verse in the Book of Ruth was sought out by Bathsheba, and the sublime words +met her eye. They slightly thrilled and abashed her. It was Wisdom in the +abstract facing Folly in the concrete. Folly in the concrete blushed, persisted +in her intention, and placed the key on the book. A rusty patch immediately +upon the verse, caused by previous pressure of an iron substance thereon, told +that this was not the first time the old volume had been used for the purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“Now keep steady, and be silent,” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +The verse was repeated; the book turned round; Bathsheba blushed guiltily. +</p> + +<p> +“Who did you try?” said Liddy curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you notice Mr. Boldwood’s doings in church this morning, +miss?” Liddy continued, adumbrating by the remark the track her thoughts +had taken. +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed,” said Bathsheba, with serene indifference. +</p> + +<p> +“His pew is exactly opposite yours, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you did not see his goings on!” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I did not, I tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy assumed a smaller physiognomy, and shut her lips decisively. +</p> + +<p> +This move was unexpected, and proportionately disconcerting. “What did he +do?” Bathsheba said perforce. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t turn his head to look at you once all the service.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should he?” again demanded her mistress, wearing a nettled +look. “I didn’t ask him to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no. But everybody else was noticing you; and it was odd he +didn’t. There, ’tis like him. Rich and gentlemanly, what does he +care?” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba dropped into a silence intended to express that she had opinions on +the matter too abstruse for Liddy’s comprehension, rather than that she +had nothing to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me—I had nearly forgotten the valentine I bought +yesterday,” she exclaimed at length. +</p> + +<p> +“Valentine! who for, miss?” said Liddy. “Farmer +Boldwood?” +</p> + +<p> +It was the single name among all possible wrong ones that just at this moment +seemed to Bathsheba more pertinent than the right. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no. It is only for little Teddy Coggan. I have promised him +something, and this will be a pretty surprise for him. Liddy, you may as well +bring me my desk and I’ll direct it at once.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba took from her desk a gorgeously illuminated and embossed design in +post-octavo, which had been bought on the previous market-day at the chief +stationer’s in Casterbridge. In the centre was a small oval enclosure; +this was left blank, that the sender might insert tender words more appropriate +to the special occasion than any generalities by a printer could possibly be. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s a place for writing,” said Bathsheba. “What +shall I put?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something of this sort, I should think,” returned Liddy +promptly:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The rose is red,<br /> +The violet blue,<br /> +Carnation’s sweet,<br /> +And so are you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that shall be it. It just suits itself to a chubby-faced child like +him,” said Bathsheba. She inserted the words in a small though legible +handwriting; enclosed the sheet in an envelope, and dipped her pen for the +direction. +</p> + +<p> +“What fun it would be to send it to the stupid old Boldwood, and how he +would wonder!” said the irrepressible Liddy, lifting her eyebrows, and +indulging in an awful mirth on the verge of fear as she thought of the moral +and social magnitude of the man contemplated. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba paused to regard the idea at full length. Boldwood’s had begun +to be a troublesome image—a species of Daniel in her kingdom who +persisted in kneeling eastward when reason and common sense said that he might +just as well follow suit with the rest, and afford her the official glance of +admiration which cost nothing at all. She was far from being seriously +concerned about his nonconformity. Still, it was faintly depressing that the +most dignified and valuable man in the parish should withhold his eyes, and +that a girl like Liddy should talk about it. So Liddy’s idea was at first +rather harassing than piquant. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I won’t do that. He wouldn’t see any humour in +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’d worry to death,” said the persistent Liddy. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, I don’t care particularly to send it to Teddy,” +remarked her mistress. “He’s rather a naughty child +sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—that he is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s toss as men do,” said Bathsheba, idly. “Now +then, head, Boldwood; tail, Teddy. No, we won’t toss money on a Sunday, +that would be tempting the devil indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Toss this hymn-book; there can’t be no sinfulness in that, +miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. Open, Boldwood—shut, Teddy. No; it’s more likely +to fall open. Open, Teddy—shut, Boldwood.” +</p> + +<p> +The book went fluttering in the air and came down shut. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, a small yawn upon her mouth, took the pen, and with off-hand +serenity directed the missive to Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Now light a candle, Liddy. Which seal shall we use? Here’s a +unicorn’s head—there’s nothing in that. What’s +this?—two doves—no. It ought to be something extraordinary, ought +it not, Liddy? Here’s one with a motto—I remember it is some funny +one, but I can’t read it. We’ll try this, and if it doesn’t +do we’ll have another.” +</p> + +<p> +A large red seal was duly affixed. Bathsheba looked closely at the hot wax to +discover the words. +</p> + +<p> +“Capital!” she exclaimed, throwing down the letter frolicsomely. +“’Twould upset the solemnity of a parson and clerke too.” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy looked at the words of the seal, and read— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>ARRY</small> M<small>E</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +The same evening the letter was sent, and was duly sorted in Casterbridge +post-office that night, to be returned to Weatherbury again in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +So very idly and unreflectingly was this deed done. Of love as a spectacle +Bathsheba had a fair knowledge; but of love subjectively she knew nothing. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /> +EFFECT OF THE LETTER—SUNRISE</h2> + +<p> +At dusk, on the evening of St. Valentine’s Day, Boldwood sat down to +supper as usual, by a beaming fire of aged logs. Upon the mantel-shelf before +him was a time-piece, surmounted by a spread eagle, and upon the eagle’s +wings was the letter Bathsheba had sent. Here the bachelor’s gaze was +continually fastening itself, till the large red seal became as a blot of blood +on the retina of his eye; and as he ate and drank he still read in fancy the +words thereon, although they were too remote for his sight— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“M<small>ARRY</small> M<small>E</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +The pert injunction was like those crystal substances which, colourless +themselves, assume the tone of objects about them. Here, in the quiet of +Boldwood’s parlour, where everything that was not grave was extraneous, +and where the atmosphere was that of a Puritan Sunday lasting all the week, the +letter and its dictum changed their tenor from the thoughtlessness of their +origin to a deep solemnity, imbibed from their accessories now. +</p> + +<p> +Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, Boldwood had felt the symmetry +of his existence to be slowly getting distorted in the direction of an ideal +passion. The disturbance was as the first floating weed to Columbus—the +contemptibly little suggesting possibilities of the infinitely great. +</p> + +<p> +The letter must have had an origin and a motive. That the latter was of the +smallest magnitude compatible with its existence at all, Boldwood, of course, +did not know. And such an explanation did not strike him as a possibility even. +It is foreign to a mystified condition of mind to realize of the mystifier that +the processes of approving a course suggested by circumstance, and of striking +out a course from inner impulse, would look the same in the result. The vast +difference between starting a train of events, and directing into a particular +groove a series already started, is rarely apparent to the person confounded by +the issue. +</p> + +<p> +When Boldwood went to bed he placed the valentine in the corner of the +looking-glass. He was conscious of its presence, even when his back was turned +upon it. It was the first time in Boldwood’s life that such an event had +occurred. The same fascination that caused him to think it an act which had a +deliberate motive prevented him from regarding it as an impertinence. He looked +again at the direction. The mysterious influences of night invested the writing +with the presence of the unknown writer. Somebody’s—some +<i>woman’s</i>—hand had travelled softly over the paper bearing his +name; her unrevealed eyes had watched every curve as she formed it; her brain +had seen him in imagination the while. Why should she have imagined him? Her +mouth—were the lips red or pale, plump or creased?—had curved +itself to a certain expression as the pen went on—the corners had moved +with all their natural tremulousness: what had been the expression? +</p> + +<p> +The vision of the woman writing, as a supplement to the words written, had no +individuality. She was a misty shape, and well she might be, considering that +her original was at that moment sound asleep and oblivious of all love and +letter-writing under the sky. Whenever Boldwood dozed she took a form, and +comparatively ceased to be a vision: when he awoke there was the letter +justifying the dream. +</p> + +<p> +The moon shone to-night, and its light was not of a customary kind. His window +admitted only a reflection of its rays, and the pale sheen had that reversed +direction which snow gives, coming upward and lighting up his ceiling in an +unnatural way, casting shadows in strange places, and putting lights where +shadows had used to be. +</p> + +<p> +The substance of the epistle had occupied him but little in comparison with the +fact of its arrival. He suddenly wondered if anything more might be found in +the envelope than what he had withdrawn. He jumped out of bed in the weird +light, took the letter, pulled out the flimsy sheet, shook the +envelope—searched it. Nothing more was there. Boldwood looked, as he had +a hundred times the preceding day, at the insistent red seal: “Marry +me,” he said aloud. +</p> + +<p> +The solemn and reserved yeoman again closed the letter, and stuck it in the +frame of the glass. In doing so he caught sight of his reflected features, wan +in expression, and insubstantial in form. He saw how closely compressed was his +mouth, and that his eyes were wide-spread and vacant. Feeling uneasy and +dissatisfied with himself for this nervous excitability, he returned to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Then the dawn drew on. The full power of the clear heaven was not equal to that +of a cloudy sky at noon, when Boldwood arose and dressed himself. He descended +the stairs and went out towards the gate of a field to the east, leaning over +which he paused and looked around. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of the usual slow sunrises of this time of the year, and the sky, +pure violet in the zenith, was leaden to the northward, and murky to the east, +where, over the snowy down or ewe-lease on Weatherbury Upper Farm, and +apparently resting upon the ridge, the only half of the sun yet visible burnt +rayless, like a red and flameless fire shining over a white hearthstone. The +whole effect resembled a sunset as childhood resembles age. +</p> + +<p> +In other directions, the fields and sky were so much of one colour by the snow, +that it was difficult in a hasty glance to tell whereabouts the horizon +occurred; and in general there was here, too, that before-mentioned +preternatural inversion of light and shade which attends the prospect when the +garish brightness commonly in the sky is found on the earth, and the shades of +earth are in the sky. Over the west hung the wasting moon, now dull and +greenish-yellow, like tarnished brass. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood was listlessly noting how the frost had hardened and glazed the +surface of the snow, till it shone in the red eastern light with the polish of +marble; how, in some portions of the slope, withered grass-bents, encased in +icicles, bristled through the smooth wan coverlet in the twisted and curved +shapes of old Venetian glass; and how the footprints of a few birds, which had +hopped over the snow whilst it lay in the state of a soft fleece, were now +frozen to a short permanency. A half-muffled noise of light wheels interrupted +him. Boldwood turned back into the road. It was the mail-cart—a crazy, +two-wheeled vehicle, hardly heavy enough to resist a puff of wind. The driver +held out a letter. Boldwood seized it and opened it, expecting another +anonymous one—so greatly are people’s ideas of probability a mere +sense that precedent will repeat itself. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it is for you, sir,” said the man, when he saw +Boldwood’s action. “Though there is no name, I think it is for your +shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood looked then at the address— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +To the New Shepherd,<br /> +Weatherbury Farm,<br /> +Near Casterbridge +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—what a mistake!—it is not mine. Nor is it for my +shepherd. It is for Miss Everdene’s. You had better take it on to +him—Gabriel Oak—and say I opened it in mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment, on the ridge, up against the blazing sky, a figure was visible, +like the black snuff in the midst of a candle-flame. Then it moved and began to +bustle about vigorously from place to place, carrying square skeleton masses, +which were riddled by the same rays. A small figure on all fours followed +behind. The tall form was that of Gabriel Oak; the small one that of George; +the articles in course of transit were hurdles. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait,” said Boldwood. “That’s the man on the hill. +I’ll take the letter to him myself.” +</p> + +<p> +To Boldwood it was now no longer merely a letter to another man. It was an +opportunity. Exhibiting a face pregnant with intention, he entered the snowy +field. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel, at that minute, descended the hill towards the right. The glow +stretched down in this direction now, and touched the distant roof of +Warren’s Malthouse—whither the shepherd was apparently bent: +Boldwood followed at a distance. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV<br /> +A MORNING MEETING—THE LETTER AGAIN</h2> + +<p> +The scarlet and orange light outside the malthouse did not penetrate to its +interior, which was, as usual, lighted by a rival glow of similar hue, +radiating from the hearth. +</p> + +<p> +The maltster, after having lain down in his clothes for a few hours, was now +sitting beside a three-legged table, breakfasting off bread and bacon. This was +eaten on the plateless system, which is performed by placing a slice of bread +upon the table, the meat flat upon the bread, a mustard plaster upon the meat, +and a pinch of salt upon the whole, then cutting them vertically downwards with +a large pocket-knife till wood is reached, when the severed lump is impaled on +the knife, elevated, and sent the proper way of food. +</p> + +<p> +The maltster’s lack of teeth appeared not to sensibly diminish his powers +as a mill. He had been without them for so many years that toothlessness was +felt less to be a defect than hard gums an acquisition. Indeed, he seemed to +approach the grave as a hyperbolic curve approaches a straight line—less +directly as he got nearer, till it was doubtful if he would ever reach it at +all. +</p> + +<p> +In the ashpit was a heap of potatoes roasting, and a boiling pipkin of charred +bread, called “coffee”, for the benefit of whomsoever should call, +for Warren’s was a sort of clubhouse, used as an alternative to the inn. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, says I, we get a fine day, and then down comes a snapper at +night,” was a remark now suddenly heard spreading into the malthouse from +the door, which had been opened the previous moment. The form of Henery Fray +advanced to the fire, stamping the snow from his boots when about half-way +there. The speech and entry had not seemed to be at all an abrupt beginning to +the maltster, introductory matter being often omitted in this neighbourhood, +both from word and deed, and the maltster having the same latitude allowed him, +did not hurry to reply. He picked up a fragment of cheese, by pecking upon it +with his knife, as a butcher picks up skewers. +</p> + +<p> +Henery appeared in a drab kerseymere great-coat, buttoned over his smock-frock, +the white skirts of the latter being visible to the distance of about a foot +below the coat-tails, which, when you got used to the style of dress, looked +natural enough, and even ornamental—it certainly was comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +Matthew Moon, Joseph Poorgrass, and other carters and waggoners followed at his +heels, with great lanterns dangling from their hands, which showed that they +had just come from the cart-horse stables, where they had been busily engaged +since four o’clock that morning. +</p> + +<p> +“And how is she getting on without a baily?” the maltster inquired. +Henery shook his head, and smiled one of the bitter smiles, dragging all the +flesh of his forehead into a corrugated heap in the centre. +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll rue it—surely, surely!” he said. “Benjy +Pennyways were not a true man or an honest baily—as big a betrayer as +Judas Iscariot himself. But to think she can carr’ on alone!” He +allowed his head to swing laterally three or four times in silence. +“Never in all my creeping up—never!” +</p> + +<p> +This was recognized by all as the conclusion of some gloomy speech which had +been expressed in thought alone during the shake of the head; Henery meanwhile +retained several marks of despair upon his face, to imply that they would be +required for use again directly he should go on speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“All will be ruined, and ourselves too, or there’s no meat in +gentlemen’s houses!” said Mark Clark. +</p> + +<p> +“A headstrong maid, that’s what she is—and won’t listen +to no advice at all. Pride and vanity have ruined many a cobbler’s dog. +Dear, dear, when I think o’ it, I sorrows like a man in travel!” +</p> + +<p> +“True, Henery, you do, I’ve heard ye,” said Joseph Poorgrass +in a voice of thorough attestation, and with a wire-drawn smile of misery. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twould do a martel man no harm to have what’s under her +bonnet,” said Billy Smallbury, who had just entered, bearing his one +tooth before him. “She can spaik real language, and must have some sense +somewhere. Do ye foller me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do, I do; but no baily—I deserved that place,” wailed +Henery, signifying wasted genius by gazing blankly at visions of a high destiny +apparently visible to him on Billy Smallbury’s smock-frock. “There, +’twas to be, I suppose. Your lot is your lot, and Scripture is nothing; +for if you do good you don’t get rewarded according to your works, but be +cheated in some mean way out of your recompense.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; I don’t agree with’ee there,” said Mark Clark. +“God’s a perfect gentleman in that respect.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good works good pay, so to speak it,” attested Joseph Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +A short pause ensued, and as a sort of <i>entr’acte</i> Henery turned and +blew out the lanterns, which the increase of daylight rendered no longer +necessary even in the malthouse, with its one pane of glass. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder what a farmer-woman can want with a harpsichord, dulcimer, +pianner, or whatever ’tis they d’call it?” said the maltster. +“Liddy saith she’ve a new one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Got a pianner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay. Seems her old uncle’s things were not good enough for her. +She’ve bought all but everything new. There’s heavy chairs for the +stout, weak and wiry ones for the slender; great watches, getting on to the +size of clocks, to stand upon the chimbley-piece.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pictures, for the most part wonderful frames.” +</p> + +<p> +“And long horse-hair settles for the drunk, with horse-hair pillows at +each end,” said Mr. Clark. “Likewise looking-glasses for the +pretty, and lying books for the wicked.” +</p> + +<p> +A firm loud tread was now heard stamping outside; the door was opened about six +inches, and somebody on the other side exclaimed— +</p> + +<p> +“Neighbours, have ye got room for a few new-born lambs?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sure, shepherd,” said the conclave. +</p> + +<p> +The door was flung back till it kicked the wall and trembled from top to bottom +with the blow. Mr. Oak appeared in the entry with a steaming face, hay-bands +wound about his ankles to keep out the snow, a leather strap round his waist +outside the smock-frock, and looking altogether an epitome of the world’s +health and vigour. Four lambs hung in various embarrassing attitudes over his +shoulders, and the dog George, whom Gabriel had contrived to fetch from +Norcombe, stalked solemnly behind. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Shepherd Oak, and how’s lambing this year, if I mid say +it?” inquired Joseph Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +“Terrible trying,” said Oak. “I’ve been wet through +twice a-day, either in snow or rain, this last fortnight. Cainy and I +haven’t tined our eyes to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good few twins, too, I hear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Too many by half. Yes; ’tis a very queer lambing this year. We +shan’t have done by Lady Day.” +</p> + +<p> +“And last year ’twer all over by Sexajessamine Sunday,” +Joseph remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring on the rest Cain,” said Gabriel, “and then run back to +the ewes. I’ll follow you soon.” +</p> + +<p> +Cainy Ball—a cheery-faced young lad, with a small circular orifice by way +of mouth, advanced and deposited two others, and retired as he was bidden. Oak +lowered the lambs from their unnatural elevation, wrapped them in hay, and +placed them round the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve no lambing-hut here, as I used to have at Norcombe,” +said Gabriel, “and ’tis such a plague to bring the weakly ones to a +house. If ’twasn’t for your place here, malter, I don’t know +what I should do i’ this keen weather. And how is it with you to-day, +malter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, neither sick nor sorry, shepherd; but no younger.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—I understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down, Shepherd Oak,” continued the ancient man of malt. +“And how was the old place at Norcombe, when ye went for your dog? I +should like to see the old familiar spot; but faith, I shouldn’t know a +soul there now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you wouldn’t. ’Tis altered very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it true that Dicky Hill’s wooden cider-house is pulled +down?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—years ago, and Dicky’s cottage just above it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, to be sure!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and Tompkins’s old apple-tree is rooted that used to bear two +hogsheads of cider; and no help from other trees.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rooted?—you don’t say it! Ah! stirring times we live +in—stirring times.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you can mind the old well that used to be in the middle of the +place? That’s turned into a solid iron pump with a large stone trough, +and all complete.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, dear—how the face of nations alter, and what we live to see +nowadays! Yes—and ’tis the same here. They’ve been talking +but now of the mis’ess’s strange doings.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you been saying about her?” inquired Oak, sharply +turning to the rest, and getting very warm. +</p> + +<p> +“These middle-aged men have been pulling her over the coals for pride and +vanity,” said Mark Clark; “but I say, let her have rope enough. +Bless her pretty face—shouldn’t I like to do so—upon her +cherry lips!” The gallant Mark Clark here made a peculiar and well known +sound with his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Mark,” said Gabriel, sternly, “now you mind this! none of +that dalliance-talk—that smack-and-coddle style of yours—about Miss +Everdene. I don’t allow it. Do you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +“With all my heart, as I’ve got no chance,” replied Mr. +Clark, cordially. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’ve been speaking against her?” said Oak, +turning to Joseph Poorgrass with a very grim look. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no—not a word I—’tis a real joyful thing that +she’s no worse, that’s what I say,” said Joseph, trembling +and blushing with terror. “Matthew just said—” +</p> + +<p> +“Matthew Moon, what have you been saying?” asked Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“I? Why ye know I wouldn’t harm a worm—no, not one +underground worm?” said Matthew Moon, looking very uneasy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, somebody has—and look here, neighbours,” Gabriel, +though one of the quietest and most gentle men on earth, rose to the occasion, +with martial promptness and vigour. “That’s my fist.” Here he +placed his fist, rather smaller in size than a common loaf, in the mathematical +centre of the maltster’s little table, and with it gave a bump or two +thereon, as if to ensure that their eyes all thoroughly took in the idea of +fistiness before he went further. “Now—the first man in the parish +that I hear prophesying bad of our mistress, why” (here the fist was +raised and let fall as Thor might have done with his hammer in assaying +it)—“he’ll smell and taste that—or I’m a +Dutchman.” +</p> + +<p> +All earnestly expressed by their features that their minds did not wander to +Holland for a moment on account of this statement, but were deploring the +difference which gave rise to the figure; and Mark Clark cried “Hear, +hear; just what I should ha’ said.” The dog George looked up at the +same time after the shepherd’s menace, and though he understood English +but imperfectly, began to growl. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, don’t ye take on so, shepherd, and sit down!” said +Henery, with a deprecating peacefulness equal to anything of the kind in +Christianity. +</p> + +<p> +“We hear that ye be a extraordinary good and clever man, shepherd,” +said Joseph Poorgrass with considerable anxiety from behind the +maltster’s bedstead, whither he had retired for safety. “’Tis +a great thing to be clever, I’m sure,” he added, making movements +associated with states of mind rather than body; “we wish we were, +don’t we, neighbours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that we do, sure,” said Matthew Moon, with a small anxious +laugh towards Oak, to show how very friendly disposed he was likewise. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s been telling you I’m clever?” said Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis blowed about from pillar to post quite common,” said +Matthew. “We hear that ye can tell the time as well by the stars as we +can by the sun and moon, shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I can do a little that way,” said Gabriel, as a man of medium +sentiments on the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“And that ye can make sun-dials, and prent folks’ names upon their +waggons almost like copper-plate, with beautiful flourishes, and great long +tails. A excellent fine thing for ye to be such a clever man, shepherd. Joseph +Poorgrass used to prent to Farmer James Everdene’s waggons before you +came, and ’a could never mind which way to turn the J’s and +E’s—could ye, Joseph?” Joseph shook his head to express how +absolute was the fact that he couldn’t. “And so you used to do +’em the wrong way, like this, didn’t ye, Joseph?” Matthew +marked on the dusty floor with his whip-handle +</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/james3.jpg" width="150" height="33" alt="[Illustration: The +word J A M E S appears here with the “J”, “E”, and “S” printed backwards]" /> +</div> + +<p> +“And how Farmer James would cuss, and call thee a fool, wouldn’t +he, Joseph, when ’a seed his name looking so inside-out-like?” +continued Matthew Moon with feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—’a would,” said Joseph, meekly. “But, you +see, I wasn’t so much to blame, for them J’s and E’s be such +trying sons o’ witches for the memory to mind whether they face backward +or forward; and I always had such a forgetful memory, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a very bad affliction for ye, being such a man of calamities +in other ways.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’tis; but a happy Providence ordered that it should be no +worse, and I feel my thanks. As to shepherd, there, I’m sure +mis’ess ought to have made ye her baily—such a fitting man +for’t as you be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind owning that I expected it,” said Oak, frankly. +“Indeed, I hoped for the place. At the same time, Miss Everdene has a +right to be her own baily if she choose—and to keep me down to be a +common shepherd only.” Oak drew a slow breath, looked sadly into the +bright ashpit, and seemed lost in thoughts not of the most hopeful hue. +</p> + +<p> +The genial warmth of the fire now began to stimulate the nearly lifeless lambs +to bleat and move their limbs briskly upon the hay, and to recognize for the +first time the fact that they were born. Their noise increased to a chorus of +baas, upon which Oak pulled the milk-can from before the fire, and taking a +small tea-pot from the pocket of his smock-frock, filled it with milk, and +taught those of the helpless creatures which were not to be restored to their +dams how to drink from the spout—a trick they acquired with astonishing +aptitude. +</p> + +<p> +“And she don’t even let ye have the skins of the dead lambs, I +hear?” resumed Joseph Poorgrass, his eyes lingering on the operations of +Oak with the necessary melancholy. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t have them,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye be very badly used, shepherd,” hazarded Joseph again, in the +hope of getting Oak as an ally in lamentation after all. “I think +she’s took against ye—that I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—not at all,” replied Gabriel, hastily, and a sigh +escaped him, which the deprivation of lamb skins could hardly have caused. +</p> + +<p> +Before any further remark had been added a shade darkened the door, and +Boldwood entered the malthouse, bestowing upon each a nod of a quality between +friendliness and condescension. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Oak, I thought you were here,” he said. “I met the +mail-cart ten minutes ago, and a letter was put into my hand, which I opened +without reading the address. I believe it is yours. You must excuse the +accident please.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—not a bit of difference, Mr. Boldwood—not a +bit,” said Gabriel, readily. He had not a correspondent on earth, nor was +there a possible letter coming to him whose contents the whole parish would not +have been welcome to peruse. +</p> + +<p> +Oak stepped aside, and read the following in an unknown hand:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +D<small>EAR</small> F<small>RIEND</small>,—I do not know your name, but I +think these few lines will reach you, which I wrote to thank you for your +kindness to me the night I left Weatherbury in a reckless way. I also return +the money I owe you, which you will excuse my not keeping as a gift. All has +ended well, and I am happy to say I am going to be married to the young man who +has courted me for some time—Sergeant Troy, of the 11th Dragoon Guards, +now quartered in this town. He would, I know, object to my having received +anything except as a loan, being a man of great respectability and high +honour—indeed, a nobleman by blood.<br /> + I should be much obliged to you if you would keep the contents of this +letter a secret for the present, dear friend. We mean to surprise Weatherbury +by coming there soon as husband and wife, though I blush to state it to one +nearly a stranger. The sergeant grew up in Weatherbury. Thanking you again for +your kindness, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +I am, your sincere well-wisher, <br /> +F<small>ANNY</small> R<small>OBIN</small>. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you read it, Mr. Boldwood?” said Gabriel; “if not, you +had better do so. I know you are interested in Fanny Robin.” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood read the letter and looked grieved. +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny—poor Fanny! the end she is so confident of has not yet come, +she should remember—and may never come. I see she gives no +address.” +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of a man is this Sergeant Troy?” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“H’m—I’m afraid not one to build much hope upon in such +a case as this,” the farmer murmured, “though he’s a clever +fellow, and up to everything. A slight romance attaches to him, too. His mother +was a French governess, and it seems that a secret attachment existed between +her and the late Lord Severn. She was married to a poor medical man, and soon +after an infant was born; and while money was forthcoming all went on well. +Unfortunately for her boy, his best friends died; and he got then a situation +as second clerk at a lawyer’s in Casterbridge. He stayed there for some +time, and might have worked himself into a dignified position of some sort had +he not indulged in the wild freak of enlisting. I have much doubt if ever +little Fanny will surprise us in the way she mentions—very much doubt. A +silly girl!—silly girl!” +</p> + +<p> +The door was hurriedly burst open again, and in came running Cainy Ball out of +breath, his mouth red and open, like the bell of a penny trumpet, from which he +coughed with noisy vigour and great distension of face. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Cain Ball,” said Oak, sternly, “why will you run so +fast and lose your breath so? I’m always telling you of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—I—a puff of mee breath—went—the—wrong +way, please, Mister Oak, and made me cough—hok—hok!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—what have you come for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve run to tell ye,” said the junior shepherd, supporting +his exhausted youthful frame against the doorpost, “that you must come +directly. Two more ewes have twinned—that’s what’s the +matter, Shepherd Oak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s it,” said Oak, jumping up, and dimissing for the +present his thoughts on poor Fanny. “You are a good boy to run and tell +me, Cain, and you shall smell a large plum pudding some day as a treat. But, +before we go, Cainy, bring the tarpot, and we’ll mark this lot and have +done with ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak took from his illimitable pockets a marking iron, dipped it into the pot, +and imprinted on the buttocks of the infant sheep the initials of her he +delighted to muse on—“B. E.,” which signified to all the +region round that henceforth the lambs belonged to Farmer Bathsheba Everdene, +and to no one else. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Cainy, shoulder your two, and off. Good morning, Mr. +Boldwood.” The shepherd lifted the sixteen large legs and four small +bodies he had himself brought, and vanished with them in the direction of the +lambing field hard by—their frames being now in a sleek and hopeful +state, pleasantly contrasting with their death’s-door plight of half an +hour before. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood followed him a little way up the field, hesitated, and turned back. He +followed him again with a last resolve, annihilating return. On approaching the +nook in which the fold was constructed, the farmer drew out his pocket-book, +unfastened it, and allowed it to lie open on his hand. A letter was +revealed—Bathsheba’s. +</p> + +<p> +“I was going to ask you, Oak,” he said, with unreal carelessness, +“if you know whose writing this is?” +</p> + +<p> +Oak glanced into the book, and replied instantly, with a flushed face, +“Miss Everdene’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak had coloured simply at the consciousness of sounding her name. He now felt +a strangely distressing qualm from a new thought. The letter could of course be +no other than anonymous, or the inquiry would not have been necessary. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood mistook his confusion: sensitive persons are always ready with their +“Is it I?” in preference to objective reasoning. +</p> + +<p> +“The question was perfectly fair,” he returned—and there was +something incongruous in the serious earnestness with which he applied himself +to an argument on a valentine. “You know it is always expected that privy +inquiries will be made: that’s where the—fun lies.” If the +word “fun” had been “torture,” it could not have been +uttered with a more constrained and restless countenance than was +Boldwood’s then. +</p> + +<p> +Soon parting from Gabriel, the lonely and reserved man returned to his house to +breakfast—feeling twinges of shame and regret at having so far exposed +his mood by those fevered questions to a stranger. He again placed the letter +on the mantelpiece, and sat down to think of the circumstances attending it by +the light of Gabriel’s information. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /> +ALL SAINTS’ AND ALL SOULS’</h2> + +<p> +On a week-day morning a small congregation, consisting mainly of women and +girls, rose from its knees in the mouldy nave of a church called All +Saints’, in the distant barrack-town before-mentioned, at the end of a +service without a sermon. They were about to disperse, when a smart footstep, +entering the porch and coming up the central passage, arrested their attention. +The step echoed with a ring unusual in a church; it was the clink of spurs. +Everybody looked. A young cavalry soldier in a red uniform, with the three +chevrons of a sergeant upon his sleeve, strode up the aisle, with an +embarrassment which was only the more marked by the intense vigour of his step, +and by the determination upon his face to show none. A slight flush had mounted +his cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these women; but, passing +on through the chancel arch, he never paused till he came close to the altar +railing. Here for a moment he stood alone. +</p> + +<p> +The officiating curate, who had not yet doffed his surplice, perceived the +new-comer, and followed him to the communion-space. He whispered to the +soldier, and then beckoned to the clerk, who in his turn whispered to an +elderly woman, apparently his wife, and they also went up the chancel steps. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a wedding!” murmured some of the women, brightening. +“Let’s wait!” +</p> + +<p> +The majority again sat down. +</p> + +<p> +There was a creaking of machinery behind, and some of the young ones turned +their heads. From the interior face of the west wall of the tower projected a +little canopy with a quarter-jack and small bell beneath it, the automaton +being driven by the same clock machinery that struck the large bell in the +tower. Between the tower and the church was a close screen, the door of which +was kept shut during services, hiding this grotesque clockwork from sight. At +present, however, the door was open, and the egress of the jack, the blows on +the bell, and the mannikin’s retreat into the nook again, were visible to +many, and audible throughout the church. +</p> + +<p> +The jack had struck half-past eleven. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the woman?” whispered some of the spectators. +</p> + +<p> +The young sergeant stood still with the abnormal rigidity of the old pillars +around. He faced the south-east, and was as silent as he was still. +</p> + +<p> +The silence grew to be a noticeable thing as the minutes went on, and nobody +else appeared, and not a soul moved. The rattle of the quarter-jack again from +its niche, its blows for three-quarters, its fussy retreat, were almost +painfully abrupt, and caused many of the congregation to start palpably. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder where the woman is!” a voice whispered again. +</p> + +<p> +There began now that slight shifting of feet, that artificial coughing among +several, which betrays a nervous suspense. At length there was a titter. But +the soldier never moved. There he stood, his face to the south-east, upright as +a column, his cap in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +The clock ticked on. The women threw off their nervousness, and titters and +giggling became more frequent. Then came a dead silence. Every one was waiting +for the end. Some persons may have noticed how extraordinarily the striking of +quarters seems to quicken the flight of time. It was hardly credible that the +jack had not got wrong with the minutes when the rattle began again, the puppet +emerged, and the four quarters were struck fitfully as before. One could almost +be positive that there was a malicious leer upon the hideous creature’s +face, and a mischievous delight in its twitchings. Then followed the dull and +remote resonance of the twelve heavy strokes in the tower above. The women were +impressed, and there was no giggle this time. +</p> + +<p> +The clergyman glided into the vestry, and the clerk vanished. The sergeant had +not yet turned; every woman in the church was waiting to see his face, and he +appeared to know it. At last he did turn, and stalked resolutely down the nave, +braving them all, with a compressed lip. Two bowed and toothless old almsmen +then looked at each other and chuckled, innocently enough; but the sound had a +strange weird effect in that place. +</p> + +<p> +Opposite to the church was a paved square, around which several overhanging +wood buildings of old time cast a picturesque shade. The young man on leaving +the door went to cross the square, when, in the middle, he met a little woman. +The expression of her face, which had been one of intense anxiety, sank at the +sight of his nearly to terror. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he said, in a suppressed passion, fixedly looking at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Frank—I made a mistake!—I thought that church with the +spire was All Saints’, and I was at the door at half-past eleven to a +minute as you said. I waited till a quarter to twelve, and found then that I +was in All Souls’. But I wasn’t much frightened, for I thought it +could be to-morrow as well.” +</p> + +<p> +“You fool, for so fooling me! But say no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall it be to-morrow, Frank?” she asked blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow!” and he gave vent to a hoarse laugh. “I +don’t go through that experience again for some time, I warrant +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“But after all,” she expostulated in a trembling voice, “the +mistake was not such a terrible thing! Now, dear Frank, when shall it +be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, when? God knows!” he said, with a light irony, and turning +from her walked rapidly away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br /> +IN THE MARKET-PLACE</h2> + +<p> +On Saturday Boldwood was in Casterbridge market house as usual, when the +disturber of his dreams entered and became visible to him. Adam had awakened +from his deep sleep, and behold! there was Eve. The farmer took courage, and +for the first time really looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +Material causes and emotional effects are not to be arranged in regular +equation. The result from capital employed in the production of any movement of +a mental nature is sometimes as tremendous as the cause itself is absurdly +minute. When women are in a freakish mood, their usual intuition, either from +carelessness or inherent defect, seemingly fails to teach them this, and hence +it was that Bathsheba was fated to be astonished to-day. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood looked at her—not slily, critically, or understandingly, but +blankly at gaze, in the way a reaper looks up at a passing train—as +something foreign to his element, and but dimly understood. To Boldwood women +had been remote phenomena rather than necessary complements—comets of +such uncertain aspect, movement, and permanence, that whether their orbits were +as geometrical, unchangeable, and as subject to laws as his own, or as +absolutely erratic as they superficially appeared, he had not deemed it his +duty to consider. +</p> + +<p> +He saw her black hair, her correct facial curves and profile, and the roundness +of her chin and throat. He saw then the side of her eyelids, eyes, and lashes, +and the shape of her ear. Next he noticed her figure, her skirt, and the very +soles of her shoes. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood thought her beautiful, but wondered whether he was right in his +thought, for it seemed impossible that this romance in the flesh, if so sweet +as he imagined, could have been going on long without creating a commotion of +delight among men, and provoking more inquiry than Bathsheba had done, even +though that was not a little. To the best of his judgement neither nature nor +art could improve this perfect one of an imperfect many. His heart began to +move within him. Boldwood, it must be remembered, though forty years of age, +had never before inspected a woman with the very centre and force of his +glance; they had struck upon all his senses at wide angles. +</p> + +<p> +Was she really beautiful? He could not assure himself that his opinion was true +even now. He furtively said to a neighbour, “Is Miss Everdene considered +handsome?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes; she was a good deal noticed the first time she came, if you +remember. A very handsome girl indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +A man is never more credulous than in receiving favourable opinions on the +beauty of a woman he is half, or quite, in love with; a mere child’s word +on the point has the weight of an R.A.’s. Boldwood was satisfied now. +</p> + +<p> +And this charming woman had in effect said to him, “Marry me.” Why +should she have done that strange thing? Boldwood’s blindness to the +difference between approving of what circumstances suggest, and originating +what they do not suggest, was well matched by Bathsheba’s insensibility +to the possibly great issues of little beginnings. +</p> + +<p> +She was at this moment coolly dealing with a dashing young farmer, adding up +accounts with him as indifferently as if his face had been the pages of a +ledger. It was evident that such a nature as his had no attraction for a woman +of Bathsheba’s taste. But Boldwood grew hot down to his hands with an +incipient jealousy; he trod for the first time the threshold of “the +injured lover’s hell.” His first impulse was to go and thrust +himself between them. This could be done, but only in one way—by asking +to see a sample of her corn. Boldwood renounced the idea. He could not make the +request; it was debasing loveliness to ask it to buy and sell, and jarred with +his conceptions of her. +</p> + +<p> +All this time Bathsheba was conscious of having broken into that dignified +stronghold at last. His eyes, she knew, were following her everywhere. This was +a triumph; and had it come naturally, such a triumph would have been the +sweeter to her for this piquing delay. But it had been brought about by +misdirected ingenuity, and she valued it only as she valued an artificial +flower or a wax fruit. +</p> + +<p> +Being a woman with some good sense in reasoning on subjects wherein her heart +was not involved, Bathsheba genuinely repented that a freak which had owed its +existence as much to Liddy as to herself, should ever have been undertaken, to +disturb the placidity of a man she respected too highly to deliberately tease. +</p> + +<p> +She that day nearly formed the intention of begging his pardon on the very next +occasion of their meeting. The worst features of this arrangement were that, if +he thought she ridiculed him, an apology would increase the offence by being +disbelieved; and if he thought she wanted him to woo her, it would read like +additional evidence of her forwardness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br /> +Boldwood in Meditation—Regret</h2> + +<p> +Boldwood was tenant of what was called Little Weatherbury Farm, and his person +was the nearest approach to aristocracy that this remoter quarter of the parish +could boast of. Genteel strangers, whose god was their town, who might happen +to be compelled to linger about this nook for a day, heard the sound of light +wheels, and prayed to see good society, to the degree of a solitary lord, or +squire at the very least, but it was only Mr. Boldwood going out for the day. +They heard the sound of wheels yet once more, and were re-animated to +expectancy: it was only Mr. Boldwood coming home again. +</p> + +<p> +His house stood recessed from the road, and the stables, which are to a farm +what a fireplace is to a room, were behind, their lower portions being lost +amid bushes of laurel. Inside the blue door, open half-way down, were to be +seen at this time the backs and tails of half-a-dozen warm and contented horses +standing in their stalls; and as thus viewed, they presented alternations of +roan and bay, in shapes like a Moorish arch, the tail being a streak down the +midst of each. Over these, and lost to the eye gazing in from the outer light, +the mouths of the same animals could be heard busily sustaining the above-named +warmth and plumpness by quantities of oats and hay. The restless and shadowy +figure of a colt wandered about a loose-box at the end, whilst the steady grind +of all the eaters was occasionally diversified by the rattle of a rope or the +stamp of a foot. +</p> + +<p> +Pacing up and down at the heels of the animals was Farmer Boldwood himself. +This place was his almonry and cloister in one: here, after looking to the +feeding of his four-footed dependants, the celibate would walk and meditate of +an evening till the moon’s rays streamed in through the cobwebbed +windows, or total darkness enveloped the scene. +</p> + +<p> +His square-framed perpendicularity showed more fully now than in the crowd and +bustle of the market-house. In this meditative walk his foot met the floor with +heel and toe simultaneously, and his fine reddish-fleshed face was bent +downwards just enough to render obscure the still mouth and the well-rounded +though rather prominent and broad chin. A few clear and thread-like horizontal +lines were the only interruption to the otherwise smooth surface of his large +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +The phases of Boldwood’s life were ordinary enough, but his was not an +ordinary nature. That stillness, which struck casual observers more than +anything else in his character and habit, and seemed so precisely like the rest +of inanition, may have been the perfect balance of enormous antagonistic +forces—positives and negatives in fine adjustment. His equilibrium +disturbed, he was in extremity at once. If an emotion possessed him at all, it +ruled him; a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, +it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed. +</p> + +<p> +He had no light and careless touches in his constitution, either for good or +for evil. Stern in the outlines of action, mild in the details, he was serious +throughout all. He saw no absurd sides to the follies of life, and thus, though +not quite companionable in the eyes of merry men and scoffers, and those to +whom all things show life as a jest, he was not intolerable to the earnest and +those acquainted with grief. Being a man who read all the dramas of life +seriously, if he failed to please when they were comedies, there was no +frivolous treatment to reproach him for when they chanced to end tragically. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark and silent shape upon which she +had so carelessly thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she known +Boldwood’s moods, her blame would have been fearful, and the stain upon +her heart ineradicable. Moreover, had she known her present power for good or +evil over this man, she would have trembled at her responsibility. Luckily for +her present, unluckily for her future tranquillity, her understanding had not +yet told her what Boldwood was. Nobody knew entirely; for though it was +possible to form guesses concerning his wild capabilities from old floodmarks +faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused them. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Boldwood came to the stable-door and looked forth across the level +fields. Beyond the first enclosure was a hedge, and on the other side of this a +meadow belonging to Bathsheba’s farm. +</p> + +<p> +It was now early spring—the time of going to grass with the sheep, when +they have the first feed of the meadows, before these are laid up for mowing. +The wind, which had been blowing east for several weeks, had veered to the +southward, and the middle of spring had come abruptly—almost without a +beginning. It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the +Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and +swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and +trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond +and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and +pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and +pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood, looking into the distant meadows, saw there three figures. They were +those of Miss Everdene, Shepherd Oak, and Cainy Ball. +</p> + +<p> +When Bathsheba’s figure shone upon the farmer’s eyes it lighted him +up as the moon lights up a great tower. A man’s body is as the shell, or +the tablet, of his soul, as he is reserved or ingenuous, overflowing or +self-contained. There was a change in Boldwood’s exterior from its former +impassibleness; and his face showed that he was now living outside his defences +for the first time, and with a fearful sense of exposure. It is the usual +experience of strong natures when they love. +</p> + +<p> +At last he arrived at a conclusion. It was to go across and inquire boldly of +her. +</p> + +<p> +The insulation of his heart by reserve during these many years, without a +channel of any kind for disposable emotion, had worked its effect. It has been +observed more than once that the causes of love are chiefly subjective, and +Boldwood was a living testimony to the truth of the proposition. No mother +existed to absorb his devotion, no sister for his tenderness, no idle ties for +sense. He became surcharged with the compound, which was genuine lover’s +love. +</p> + +<p> +He approached the gate of the meadow. Beyond it the ground was melodious with +ripples, and the sky with larks; the low bleating of the flock mingling with +both. Mistress and man were engaged in the operation of making a lamb +“take,” which is performed whenever an ewe has lost her own +offspring, one of the twins of another ewe being given her as a substitute. +Gabriel had skinned the dead lamb, and was tying the skin over the body of the +live lamb, in the customary manner, whilst Bathsheba was holding open a little +pen of four hurdles, into which the mother and foisted lamb were driven, where +they would remain till the old sheep conceived an affection for the young one. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba looked up at the completion of the manœuvre and saw the farmer by the +gate, where he was overhung by a willow tree in full bloom. Gabriel, to whom +her face was as the uncertain glory of an April day, was ever regardful of its +faintest changes, and instantly discerned thereon the mark of some influence +from without, in the form of a keenly self-conscious reddening. He also turned +and beheld Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +At once connecting these signs with the letter Boldwood had shown him, Gabriel +suspected her of some coquettish procedure begun by that means, and carried on +since, he knew not how. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Boldwood had read the pantomime denoting that they were aware of his +presence, and the perception was as too much light turned upon his new +sensibility. He was still in the road, and by moving on he hoped that neither +would recognize that he had originally intended to enter the field. He passed +by with an utter and overwhelming sensation of ignorance, shyness, and doubt. +Perhaps in her manner there were signs that she wished to see him—perhaps +not—he could not read a woman. The cabala of this erotic philosophy +seemed to consist of the subtlest meanings expressed in misleading ways. Every +turn, look, word, and accent contained a mystery quite distinct from its +obvious import, and not one had ever been pondered by him until now. +</p> + +<p> +As for Bathsheba, she was not deceived into the belief that Farmer Boldwood had +walked by on business or in idleness. She collected the probabilities of the +case, and concluded that she was herself responsible for Boldwood’s +appearance there. It troubled her much to see what a great flame a little +wildfire was likely to kindle. Bathsheba was no schemer for marriage, nor was +she deliberately a trifler with the affections of men, and a censor’s +experience on seeing an actual flirt after observing her would have been a +feeling of surprise that Bathsheba could be so different from such a one, and +yet so like what a flirt is supposed to be. +</p> + +<p> +She resolved never again, by look or by sign, to interrupt the steady flow of +this man’s life. But a resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till +the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br /> +THE SHEEP-WASHING—THE OFFER</h2> + +<p> +Boldwood did eventually call upon her. She was not at home. “Of course +not,” he murmured. In contemplating Bathsheba as a woman, he had +forgotten the accidents of her position as an agriculturist—that being as +much of a farmer, and as extensive a farmer, as himself, her probable +whereabouts was out-of-doors at this time of the year. This, and the other +oversights Boldwood was guilty of, were natural to the mood, and still more +natural to the circumstances. The great aids to idealization in love were +present here: occasional observation of her from a distance, and the absence of +social intercourse with her—visual familiarity, oral strangeness. The +smaller human elements were kept out of sight; the pettinesses that enter so +largely into all earthly living and doing were disguised by the accident of +lover and loved-one not being on visiting terms; and there was hardly awakened +a thought in Boldwood that sorry household realities appertained to her, or +that she, like all others, had moments of commonplace, when to be least plainly +seen was to be most prettily remembered. Thus a mild sort of apotheosis took +place in his fancy, whilst she still lived and breathed within his own horizon, +a troubled creature like himself. +</p> + +<p> +It was the end of May when the farmer determined to be no longer repulsed by +trivialities or distracted by suspense. He had by this time grown used to being +in love; the passion now startled him less even when it tortured him more, and +he felt himself adequate to the situation. On inquiring for her at her house +they had told him she was at the sheep-washing, and he went off to seek her +there. +</p> + +<p> +The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin of brickwork in the +meadows, full of the clearest water. To birds on the wing its glassy surface, +reflecting the light sky, must have been visible for miles around as a +glistening Cyclops’ eye in a green face. The grass about the margin at +this season was a sight to remember long—in a minor sort of way. Its +activity in sucking the moisture from the rich damp sod was almost a process +observable by the eye. The outskirts of this level water-meadow were +diversified by rounded and hollow pastures, where just now every flower that +was not a buttercup was a daisy. The river slid along noiselessly as a shade, +the swelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moist brink. +To the north of the mead were trees, the leaves of which were new, soft, and +moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened under summer sun and drought, +their colour being yellow beside a green—green beside a yellow. From the +recesses of this knot of foliage the loud notes of three cuckoos were +resounding through the still air. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood went meditating down the slopes with his eyes on his boots, which the +yellow pollen from the buttercups had bronzed in artistic gradations. A +tributary of the main stream flowed through the basin of the pool by an inlet +and outlet at opposite points of its diameter. Shepherd Oak, Jan Coggan, Moon, +Poorgrass, Cain Ball, and several others were assembled here, all dripping wet +to the very roots of their hair, and Bathsheba was standing by in a new +riding-habit—the most elegant she had ever worn—the reins of her +horse being looped over her arm. Flagons of cider were rolling about upon the +green. The meek sheep were pushed into the pool by Coggan and Matthew Moon, who +stood by the lower hatch, immersed to their waists; then Gabriel, who stood on +the brink, thrust them under as they swam along, with an instrument like a +crutch, formed for the purpose, and also for assisting the exhausted animals +when the wool became saturated and they began to sink. They were let out +against the stream, and through the upper opening, all impurities flowing away +below. Cainy Ball and Joseph, who performed this latter operation, were if +possible wetter than the rest; they resembled dolphins under a fountain, every +protuberance and angle of their clothes dribbling forth a small rill. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood came close and bade her good morning, with such constraint that she +could not but think he had stepped across to the washing for its own sake, +hoping not to find her there; more, she fancied his brow severe and his eye +slighting. Bathsheba immediately contrived to withdraw, and glided along by the +river till she was a stone’s throw off. She heard footsteps brushing the +grass, and had a consciousness that love was encircling her like a perfume. +Instead of turning or waiting, Bathsheba went further among the high sedges, +but Boldwood seemed determined, and pressed on till they were completely past +the bend of the river. Here, without being seen, they could hear the splashing +and shouts of the washers above. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Everdene!” said the farmer. +</p> + +<p> +She trembled, turned, and said “Good morning.” His tone was so +utterly removed from all she had expected as a beginning. It was lowness and +quiet accentuated: an emphasis of deep meanings, their form, at the same time, +being scarcely expressed. Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing +itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it +is then more impressive than speech. In the same way, to say a little is often +to tell more than to say a great deal. Boldwood told everything in that word. +</p> + +<p> +As the consciousness expands on learning that what was fancied to be the rumble +of wheels is the reverberation of thunder, so did Bathsheba’s at her +intuitive conviction. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel—almost too much—to think,” he said, with a +solemn simplicity. “I have come to speak to you without preface. My life +is not my own since I have beheld you clearly, Miss Everdene—I come to +make you an offer of marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba tried to preserve an absolutely neutral countenance, and all the +motion she made was that of closing lips which had previously been a little +parted. +</p> + +<p> +“I am now forty-one years old,” he went on. “I may have been +called a confirmed bachelor, and I was a confirmed bachelor. I had never any +views of myself as a husband in my earlier days, nor have I made any +calculation on the subject since I have been older. But we all change, and my +change, in this matter, came with seeing you. I have felt lately, more and +more, that my present way of living is bad in every respect. Beyond all things, +I want you as my wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel, Mr. Boldwood, that though I respect you much, I do not +feel—what would justify me to—in accepting your offer,” she +stammered. +</p> + +<p> +This giving back of dignity for dignity seemed to open the sluices of feeling +that Boldwood had as yet kept closed. +</p> + +<p> +“My life is a burden without you,” he exclaimed, in a low voice. +“I want you—I want you to let me say I love you again and +again!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba answered nothing, and the horse upon her arm seemed so impressed that +instead of cropping the herbage she looked up. +</p> + +<p> +“I think and hope you care enough for me to listen to what I have to +tell!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s momentary impulse at hearing this was to ask why he thought +that, till she remembered that, far from being a conceited assumption on +Boldwood’s part, it was but the natural conclusion of serious reflection +based on deceptive premises of her own offering. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could say courteous flatteries to you,” the farmer +continued in an easier tone, “and put my rugged feeling into a graceful +shape: but I have neither power nor patience to learn such things. I want you +for my wife—so wildly that no other feeling can abide in me; but I should +not have spoken out had I not been led to hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“The valentine again! O that valentine!” she said to herself, but +not a word to him. +</p> + +<p> +“If you can love me say so, Miss Everdene. If not—don’t say +no!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Boldwood, it is painful to have to say I am surprised, so that I +don’t know how to answer you with propriety and respect—but am only +just able to speak out my feeling—I mean my meaning; that I am afraid I +can’t marry you, much as I respect you. You are too dignified for me to +suit you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Miss Everdene!” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I didn’t—I know I ought never to have dreamt of +sending that valentine—forgive me, sir—it was a wanton thing which +no woman with any self-respect should have done. If you will only pardon my +thoughtlessness, I promise never to—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no. Don’t say thoughtlessness! Make me think it was +something more—that it was a sort of prophetic instinct—the +beginning of a feeling that you would like me. You torture me to say it was +done in thoughtlessness—I never thought of it in that light, and I +can’t endure it. Ah! I wish I knew how to win you! but that I can’t +do—I can only ask if I have already got you. If I have not, and it is not +true that you have come unwittingly to me as I have to you, I can say no +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not fallen in love with you, Mr. Boldwood—certainly I must +say that.” She allowed a very small smile to creep for the first time +over her serious face in saying this, and the white row of upper teeth, and +keenly-cut lips already noticed, suggested an idea of heartlessness, which was +immediately contradicted by the pleasant eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“But you will just think—in kindness and condescension +think—if you cannot bear with me as a husband! I fear I am too old for +you, but believe me I will take more care of you than would many a man of your +own age. I will protect and cherish you with all my strength—I will +indeed! You shall have no cares—be worried by no household affairs, and +live quite at ease, Miss Everdene. The dairy superintendence shall be done by a +man—I can afford it well—you shall never have so much as to look +out of doors at haymaking time, or to think of weather in the harvest. I rather +cling to the chaise, because it is the same my poor father and mother drove, +but if you don’t like it I will sell it, and you shall have a +pony-carriage of your own. I cannot say how far above every other idea and +object on earth you seem to me—nobody knows—God only +knows—how much you are to me!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s heart was young, and it swelled with sympathy for the +deep-natured man who spoke so simply. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say it! don’t! I cannot bear you to feel so much, and +me to feel nothing. And I am afraid they will notice us, Mr. Boldwood. Will you +let the matter rest now? I cannot think collectedly. I did not know you were +going to say this to me. Oh, I am wicked to have made you suffer so!” She +was frightened as well as agitated at his vehemence. +</p> + +<p> +“Say then, that you don’t absolutely refuse. Do not quite +refuse?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can do nothing. I cannot answer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may speak to you again on the subject?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may think of you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I suppose you may think of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And hope to obtain you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—do not hope! Let us go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will call upon you again to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—please not. Give me time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I will give you any time,” he said earnestly and +gratefully. “I am happier now.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—I beg you! Don’t be happier if happiness only comes from +my agreeing. Be neutral, Mr. Boldwood! I must think.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will wait,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +And then she turned away. Boldwood dropped his gaze to the ground, and stood +long like a man who did not know where he was. Realities then returned upon him +like the pain of a wound received in an excitement which eclipses it, and he, +too, then went on. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX<br /> +PERPLEXITY—GRINDING THE SHEARS—A QUARREL</h2> + +<p> +“He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can +desire,” Bathsheba mused. +</p> + +<p> +Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not +exercise kindness here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a +self-indulgence, and no generosity at all. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, not being the least in love with him, was eventually able to look +calmly at his offer. It was one which many women of her own station in the +neighbourhood, and not a few of higher rank, would have been wild to accept and +proud to publish. In every point of view, ranging from politic to passionate, +it was desirable that she, a lonely girl, should marry, and marry this earnest, +well-to-do, and respected man. He was close to her doors: his standing was +sufficient: his qualities were even supererogatory. Had she felt, which she did +not, any wish whatever for the married state in the abstract, she could not +reasonably have rejected him, being a woman who frequently appealed to her +understanding for deliverance from her whims. Boldwood as a means to marriage +was unexceptionable: she esteemed and liked him, yet she did not want him. It +appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without +marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not +possible without possession; with totally differing aims the method is the same +on both sides. But the understood incentive on the woman’s part was +wanting here. Besides, Bathsheba’s position as absolute mistress of a +farm and house was a novel one, and the novelty had not yet begun to wear off. +</p> + +<p> +But a disquiet filled her which was somewhat to her credit, for it would have +affected few. Beyond the mentioned reasons with which she combated her +objections, she had a strong feeling that, having been the one who began the +game, she ought in honesty to accept the consequences. Still the reluctance +remained. She said in the same breath that it would be ungenerous not to marry +Boldwood, and that she couldn’t do it to save her life. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. An +Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed actions of +the greatest temerity with a manner of extreme discretion. Many of her thoughts +were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few +were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most +frequently grew into deeds. +</p> + +<p> +The next day to that of the declaration she found Gabriel Oak at the bottom of +her garden, grinding his shears for the sheep-shearing. All the surrounding +cottages were more or less scenes of the same operation; the scurr of whetting +spread into the sky from all parts of the village as from an armoury previous +to a campaign. Peace and war kiss each other at their hours of +preparation—sickles, scythes, shears, and pruning-hooks, ranking with +swords, bayonets, and lances, in their common necessity for point and edge. +</p> + +<p> +Cainy Ball turned the handle of Gabriel’s grindstone, his head performing +a melancholy see-saw up and down with each turn of the wheel. Oak stood +somewhat as Eros is represented when in the act of sharpening his arrows: his +figure slightly bent, the weight of his body thrown over on the shears, and his +head balanced side-ways, with a critical compression of the lips and +contraction of the eyelids to crown the attitude. +</p> + +<p> +His mistress came up and looked upon them in silence for a minute or two; then +she said— +</p> + +<p> +“Cain, go to the lower mead and catch the bay mare. I’ll turn the +winch of the grindstone. I want to speak to you, Gabriel.” +</p> + +<p> +Cain departed, and Bathsheba took the handle. Gabriel had glanced up in intense +surprise, quelled its expression, and looked down again. Bathsheba turned the +winch, and Gabriel applied the shears. +</p> + +<p> +The peculiar motion involved in turning a wheel has a wonderful tendency to +benumb the mind. It is a sort of attenuated variety of Ixion’s +punishment, and contributes a dismal chapter to the history of gaols. The brain +gets muddled, the head grows heavy, and the body’s centre of gravity +seems to settle by degrees in a leaden lump somewhere between the eyebrows and +the crown. Bathsheba felt the unpleasant symptoms after two or three dozen +turns. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you turn, Gabriel, and let me hold the shears?” she said. +“My head is in a whirl, and I can’t talk.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel turned. Bathsheba then began, with some awkwardness, allowing her +thoughts to stray occasionally from her story to attend to the shears, which +required a little nicety in sharpening. +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to ask you if the men made any observations on my going behind +the sedge with Mr. Boldwood yesterday?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they did,” said Gabriel. “You don’t hold the +shears right, miss—I knew you wouldn’t know the way—hold like +this.” +</p> + +<p> +He relinquished the winch, and inclosing her two hands completely in his own +(taking each as we sometimes slap a child’s hand in teaching him to +write), grasped the shears with her. “Incline the edge so,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +Hands and shears were inclined to suit the words, and held thus for a +peculiarly long time by the instructor as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“That will do,” exclaimed Bathsheba. “Loose my hands. I +won’t have them held! Turn the winch.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel freed her hands quietly, retired to his handle, and the grinding went +on. +</p> + +<p> +“Did the men think it odd?” she said again. +</p> + +<p> +“Odd was not the idea, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did they say?” +</p> + +<p> +“That Farmer Boldwood’s name and your own were likely to be flung +over pulpit together before the year was out.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so by the look of them! Why, there’s nothing in it. A +more foolish remark was never made, and I want you to contradict it: +that’s what I came for.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel looked incredulous and sad, but between his moments of incredulity, +relieved. +</p> + +<p> +“They must have heard our conversation,” she continued. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, Bathsheba!” said Oak, stopping the handle, and gazing +into her face with astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Everdene, you mean,” she said, with dignity. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean this, that if Mr. Boldwood really spoke of marriage, I +bain’t going to tell a story and say he didn’t to please you. I +have already tried to please you too much for my own good!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba regarded him with round-eyed perplexity. She did not know whether to +pity him for disappointed love of her, or to be angry with him for having got +over it—his tone being ambiguous. +</p> + +<p> +“I said I wanted you just to mention that it was not true I was going to +be married to him,” she murmured, with a slight decline in her assurance. +</p> + +<p> +“I can say that to them if you wish, Miss Everdene. And I could likewise +give an opinion to ’ee on what you have done.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay. But I don’t want your opinion.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose not,” said Gabriel bitterly, and going on with his +turning, his words rising and falling in a regular swell and cadence as he +stooped or rose with the winch, which directed them, according to his position, +perpendicularly into the earth, or horizontally along the garden, his eyes +being fixed on a leaf upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +With Bathsheba a hastened act was a rash act; but, as does not always happen, +time gained was prudence insured. It must be added, however, that time was very +seldom gained. At this period the single opinion in the parish on herself and +her doings that she valued as sounder than her own was Gabriel Oak’s. And +the outspoken honesty of his character was such that on any subject, even that +of her love for, or marriage with, another man, the same disinterestedness of +opinion might be calculated on, and be had for the asking. Thoroughly convinced +of the impossibility of his own suit, a high resolve constrained him not to +injure that of another. This is a lover’s most stoical virtue, as the +lack of it is a lover’s most venial sin. Knowing he would reply truly she +asked the question, painful as she must have known the subject would be. Such +is the selfishness of some charming women. Perhaps it was some excuse for her +thus torturing honesty to her own advantage, that she had absolutely no other +sound judgment within easy reach. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is your opinion of my conduct,” she said, quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“That it is unworthy of any thoughtful, and meek, and comely +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant Bathsheba’s face coloured with the angry crimson of a Danby +sunset. But she forbore to utter this feeling, and the reticence of her tongue +only made the loquacity of her face the more noticeable. +</p> + +<p> +The next thing Gabriel did was to make a mistake. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you don’t like the rudeness of my reprimanding you, for I +know it is rudeness; but I thought it would do good.” +</p> + +<p> +She instantly replied sarcastically— +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, my opinion of you is so low, that I see in your abuse +the praise of discerning people!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you don’t mind it, for I said it honestly and with every +serious meaning.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see. But, unfortunately, when you try not to speak in jest you are +amusing—just as when you wish to avoid seriousness you sometimes say a +sensible word.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a hard hit, but Bathsheba had unmistakably lost her temper, and on that +account Gabriel had never in his life kept his own better. He said nothing. She +then broke out— +</p> + +<p> +“I may ask, I suppose, where in particular my unworthiness lies? In my +not marrying you, perhaps!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not by any means,” said Gabriel quietly. “I have long given +up thinking of that matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or wishing it, I suppose,” she said; and it was apparent that she +expected an unhesitating denial of this supposition. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever Gabriel felt, he coolly echoed her words— +</p> + +<p> +“Or wishing it either.” +</p> + +<p> +A woman may be treated with a bitterness which is sweet to her, and with a +rudeness which is not offensive. Bathsheba would have submitted to an indignant +chastisement for her levity had Gabriel protested that he was loving her at the +same time; the impetuosity of passion unrequited is bearable, even if it stings +and anathematizes—there is a triumph in the humiliation, and a tenderness +in the strife. This was what she had been expecting, and what she had not got. +To be lectured because the lecturer saw her in the cold morning light of +open-shuttered disillusion was exasperating. He had not finished, either. He +continued in a more agitated voice:— +</p> + +<p> +“My opinion is (since you ask it) that you are greatly to blame for +playing pranks upon a man like Mr. Boldwood, merely as a pastime. Leading on a +man you don’t care for is not a praiseworthy action. And even, Miss +Everdene, if you seriously inclined towards him, you might have let him find it +out in some way of true loving-kindness, and not by sending him a +valentine’s letter.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba laid down the shears. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot allow any man to—to criticise my private conduct!” +she exclaimed. “Nor will I for a minute. So you’ll please leave the +farm at the end of the week!” +</p> + +<p> +It may have been a peculiarity—at any rate it was a fact—that when +Bathsheba was swayed by an emotion of an earthly sort her lower lip trembled: +when by a refined emotion, her upper or heavenward one. Her nether lip quivered +now. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, so I will,” said Gabriel calmly. He had been held to +her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than +by a chain he could not break. “I should be even better pleased to go at +once,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Go at once then, in Heaven’s name!” said she, her eyes +flashing at his, though never meeting them. “Don’t let me see your +face any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, Miss Everdene—so it shall be.” +</p> + +<p> +And he took his shears and went away from her in placid dignity, as Moses left +the presence of Pharaoh. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI<br /> +TROUBLES IN THE FOLD—A MESSAGE</h2> + +<p> +Gabriel Oak had ceased to feed the Weatherbury flock for about four-and-twenty +hours, when on Sunday afternoon the elderly gentlemen Joseph Poorgrass, Matthew +Moon, Fray, and half-a-dozen others, came running up to the house of the +mistress of the Upper Farm. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever <i>is</i> the matter, men?” she said, meeting them at the +door just as she was coming out on her way to church, and ceasing in a moment +from the close compression of her two red lips, with which she had accompanied +the exertion of pulling on a tight glove. +</p> + +<p> +“Sixty!” said Joseph Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +“Seventy!” said Moon. +</p> + +<p> +“Fifty-nine!” said Susan Tall’s husband. +</p> + +<p> +“—Sheep have broke fence,” said Fray. +</p> + +<p> +“—And got into a field of young clover,” said Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“—Young clover!” said Moon. +</p> + +<p> +“—Clover!” said Joseph Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +“And they be getting blasted,” said Henery Fray. +</p> + +<p> +“That they be,” said Joseph. +</p> + +<p> +“And will all die as dead as nits, if they bain’t got out and +cured!” said Tall. +</p> + +<p> +Joseph’s countenance was drawn into lines and puckers by his concern. +Fray’s forehead was wrinkled both perpendicularly and crosswise, after +the pattern of a portcullis, expressive of a double despair. Laban Tall’s +lips were thin, and his face was rigid. Matthew’s jaws sank, and his eyes +turned whichever way the strongest muscle happened to pull them. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Joseph, “and I was sitting at home, looking for +Ephesians, and says I to myself, ‘’Tis nothing but Corinthians and +Thessalonians in this danged Testament,’ when who should come in but +Henery there: ‘Joseph,’ he said, ‘the sheep have blasted +theirselves—’” +</p> + +<p> +With Bathsheba it was a moment when thought was speech and speech exclamation. +Moreover, she had hardly recovered her equanimity since the disturbance which +she had suffered from Oak’s remarks. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s enough—that’s enough!—oh, you +fools!” she cried, throwing the parasol and Prayer-book into the passage, +and running out of doors in the direction signified. “To come to me, and +not go and get them out directly! Oh, the stupid numskulls!” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest now. Bathsheba’s beauty +belonging rather to the demonian than to the angelic school, she never looked +so well as when she was angry—and particularly when the effect was +heightened by a rather dashing velvet dress, carefully put on before a glass. +</p> + +<p> +All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to the clover-field, +Joseph sinking down in the midst when about half-way, like an individual +withering in a world which was more and more insupportable. Having once +received the stimulus that her presence always gave them they went round among +the sheep with a will. The majority of the afflicted animals were lying down, +and could not be stirred. These were bodily lifted out, and the others driven +into the adjoining field. Here, after the lapse of a few minutes, several more +fell down, and lay helpless and livid as the rest. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at these primest specimens of her +prime flock as they rolled there— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew. +</p> + +<p> +Many of them foamed at the mouth, their breathing being quick and short, whilst +the bodies of all were fearfully distended. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what can I do, what can I do!” said Bathsheba, helplessly. +“Sheep are such unfortunate animals!—there’s always something +happening to them! I never knew a flock pass a year without getting into some +scrape or other.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s only one way of saving them,” said Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“What way? Tell me quick!” +</p> + +<p> +“They must be pierced in the side with a thing made on purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you do it? Can I?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am. We can’t, nor you neither. It must be done in a +particular spot. If ye go to the right or left but an inch you stab the ewe and +kill her. Not even a shepherd can do it, as a rule.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then they must die,” she said, in a resigned tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Only one man in the neighbourhood knows the way,” said Joseph, now +just come up. “He could cure ’em all if he were here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is he? Let’s get him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Shepherd Oak,” said Matthew. “Ah, he’s a clever man in +talents!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that he is so!” said Joseph Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +“True—he’s the man,” said Laban Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you name that man in my presence!” she said excitedly. +“I told you never to allude to him, nor shall you if you stay with me. +Ah!” she added, brightening, “Farmer Boldwood knows!” +</p> + +<p> +“O no, ma’am” said Matthew. “Two of his store ewes got +into some vetches t’other day, and were just like these. He sent a man on +horseback here post-haste for Gable, and Gable went and saved ’em. Farmer +Boldwood hev got the thing they do it with. ’Tis a holler pipe, with a +sharp pricker inside. Isn’t it, Joseph?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—a holler pipe,” echoed Joseph. “That’s what +’tis.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sure—that’s the machine,” chimed in Henery Fray, +reflectively, with an Oriental indifference to the flight of time. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” burst out Bathsheba, “don’t stand there with +your ‘ayes’ and your ‘sures’ talking at me! Get +somebody to cure the sheep instantly!” +</p> + +<p> +All then stalked off in consternation, to get somebody as directed, without any +idea of who it was to be. In a minute they had vanished through the gate, and +she stood alone with the dying flock. +</p> + +<p> +“Never will I send for him—never!” she said firmly. +</p> + +<p> +One of the ewes here contracted its muscles horribly, extended itself, and +jumped high into the air. The leap was an astonishing one. The ewe fell +heavily, and lay still. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba went up to it. The sheep was dead. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do!” she again exclaimed, +wringing her hands. “I won’t send for him. No, I +won’t!” +</p> + +<p> +The most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the +greatest vigour of the resolution itself. It is often flung out as a sort of +prop to support a decaying conviction which, whilst strong, required no +enunciation to prove it so. The “No, I won’t” of Bathsheba +meant virtually, “I think I must.” +</p> + +<p> +She followed her assistants through the gate, and lifted her hand to one of +them. Laban answered to her signal. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is Oak staying?” +</p> + +<p> +“Across the valley at Nest Cottage!” +</p> + +<p> +“Jump on the bay mare, and ride across, and say he must return +instantly—that I say so.” +</p> + +<p> +Tall scrambled off to the field, and in two minutes was on Poll, the bay, +bare-backed, and with only a halter by way of rein. He diminished down the +hill. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba watched. So did all the rest. Tall cantered along the bridle-path +through Sixteen Acres, Sheeplands, Middle Field, The Flats, Cappel’s +Piece, shrank almost to a point, crossed the bridge, and ascended from the +valley through Springmead and Whitepits on the other side. The cottage to which +Gabriel had retired before taking his final departure from the locality was +visible as a white spot on the opposite hill, backed by blue firs. Bathsheba +walked up and down. The men entered the field and endeavoured to ease the +anguish of the dumb creatures by rubbing them. Nothing availed. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba continued walking. The horse was seen descending the hill, and the +wearisome series had to be repeated in reverse order: Whitepits, Springmead, +Cappel’s Piece, The Flats, Middle Field, Sheeplands, Sixteen Acres. She +hoped Tall had had presence of mind enough to give the mare up to Gabriel, and +return himself on foot. The rider neared them. It was Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what folly!” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel was not visible anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps he is already gone!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Tall came into the inclosure, and leapt off, his face tragic as Morton’s +after the battle of Shrewsbury. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Bathsheba, unwilling to believe that her verbal +<i>lettre-de-cachet</i> could possibly have miscarried. +</p> + +<p> +“He says <i>beggars mustn’t be choosers</i>,” replied Laban. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” said the young farmer, opening her eyes and drawing in her +breath for an outburst. Joseph Poorgrass retired a few steps behind a hurdle. +</p> + +<p> +“He says he shall not come onless you request en to come civilly and in a +proper manner, as becomes any ’ooman begging a favour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, oh, that’s his answer! Where does he get his airs? Who am I, +then, to be treated like that? Shall I beg to a man who has begged to +me?” +</p> + +<p> +Another of the flock sprang into the air, and fell dead. +</p> + +<p> +The men looked grave, as if they suppressed opinion. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba turned aside, her eyes full of tears. The strait she was in through +pride and shrewishness could not be disguised longer: she burst out crying +bitterly; they all saw it; and she attempted no further concealment. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t cry about it, miss,” said William Smallbury, +compassionately. “Why not ask him softer like? I’m sure he’d +come then. Gable is a true man in that way.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba checked her grief and wiped her eyes. “Oh, it is a wicked +cruelty to me—it is—it is!” she murmured. “And he +drives me to do what I wouldn’t; yes, he does!—Tall, come +indoors.” +</p> + +<p> +After this collapse, not very dignified for the head of an establishment, she +went into the house, Tall at her heels. Here she sat down and hastily scribbled +a note between the small convulsive sobs of convalescence which follow a fit of +crying as a ground-swell follows a storm. The note was none the less polite for +being written in a hurry. She held it at a distance, was about to fold it, then +added these words at the bottom:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“<i>Do not desert me, Gabriel!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +She looked a little redder in refolding it, and closed her lips, as if thereby +to suspend till too late the action of conscience in examining whether such +strategy were justifiable. The note was despatched as the message had been, and +Bathsheba waited indoors for the result. +</p> + +<p> +It was an anxious quarter of an hour that intervened between the +messenger’s departure and the sound of the horse’s tramp again +outside. She could not watch this time, but, leaning over the old bureau at +which she had written the letter, closed her eyes, as if to keep out both hope +and fear. +</p> + +<p> +The case, however, was a promising one. Gabriel was not angry: he was simply +neutral, although her first command had been so haughty. Such imperiousness +would have damned a little less beauty; and on the other hand, such beauty +would have redeemed a little less imperiousness. +</p> + +<p> +She went out when the horse was heard, and looked up. A mounted figure passed +between her and the sky, and drew on towards the field of sheep, the rider +turning his face in receding. Gabriel looked at her. It was a moment when a +woman’s eyes and tongue tell distinctly opposite tales. Bathsheba looked +full of gratitude, and she said:— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gabriel, how could you serve me so unkindly!” +</p> + +<p> +Such a tenderly-shaped reproach for his previous delay was the one speech in +the language that he could pardon for not being commendation of his readiness +now. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel murmured a confused reply, and hastened on. She knew from the look +which sentence in her note had brought him. Bathsheba followed to the field. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel was already among the turgid, prostrate forms. He had flung off his +coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and taken from his pocket the instrument of +salvation. It was a small tube or trochar, with a lance passing down the +inside; and Gabriel began to use it with a dexterity that would have graced a +hospital surgeon. Passing his hand over the sheep’s left flank, and +selecting the proper point, he punctured the skin and rumen with the lance as +it stood in the tube; then he suddenly withdrew the lance, retaining the tube +in its place. A current of air rushed up the tube, forcible enough to have +extinguished a candle held at the orifice. +</p> + +<p> +It has been said that mere ease after torment is delight for a time; and the +countenances of these poor creatures expressed it now. Forty-nine operations +were successfully performed. Owing to the great hurry necessitated by the +far-gone state of some of the flock, Gabriel missed his aim in one case, and in +one only—striking wide of the mark, and inflicting a mortal blow at once +upon the suffering ewe. Four had died; three recovered without an operation. +The total number of sheep which had thus strayed and injured themselves so +dangerously was fifty-seven. +</p> + +<p> +When the love-led man had ceased from his labours, Bathsheba came and looked +him in the face. +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel, will you stay on with me?” she said, smiling winningly, +and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end, because +there was going to be another smile soon. +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +And she smiled on him again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII<br /> +THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS</h2> + +<p> +Men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by not making the +most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they +are indispensable. Gabriel lately, for the first time since his prostration by +misfortune, had been independent in thought and vigorous in action to a marked +extent—conditions which, powerless without an opportunity as an +opportunity without them is barren, would have given him a sure lift upwards +when the favourable conjunction should have occurred. But this incurable +loitering beside Bathsheba Everdene stole his time ruinously. The spring tides +were going by without floating him off, and the neap might soon come which +could not. +</p> + +<p> +It was the first day of June, and the sheep-shearing season culminated, the +landscape, even to the leanest pasture, being all health and colour. Every +green was young, every pore was open, and every stalk was swollen with racing +currents of juice. God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had +gone with the world to town. Flossy catkins of the later kinds, fern-sprouts +like bishops’ croziers, the square-headed moschatel, the odd +cuckoo-pint,—like an apoplectic saint in a niche of +malachite,—snow-white ladies’-smocks, the toothwort, approximating +to human flesh, the enchanter’s night-shade, and the black-petaled +doleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of the vegetable world in and +about Weatherbury at this teeming time; and of the animal, the metamorphosed +figures of Mr. Jan Coggan, the master-shearer; the second and third shearers, +who travelled in the exercise of their calling, and do not require definition +by name; Henery Fray the fourth shearer, Susan Tall’s husband the fifth, +Joseph Poorgrass the sixth, young Cain Ball as assistant-shearer, and Gabriel +Oak as general supervisor. None of these were clothed to any extent worth +mentioning, each appearing to have hit in the matter of raiment the decent mean +between a high and low caste Hindoo. An angularity of lineament, and a fixity +of facial machinery in general, proclaimed that serious work was the order of +the day. +</p> + +<p> +They sheared in the great barn, called for the nonce the Shearing-barn, which +on ground-plan resembled a church with transepts. It not only emulated the form +of the neighbouring church of the parish, but vied with it in antiquity. +Whether the barn had ever formed one of a group of conventual buildings nobody +seemed to be aware; no trace of such surroundings remained. The vast porches at +the sides, lofty enough to admit a waggon laden to its highest with corn in the +sheaf, were spanned by heavy-pointed arches of stone, broadly and boldly cut, +whose very simplicity was the origin of a grandeur not apparent in erections +where more ornament has been attempted. The dusky, filmed, chestnut roof, +braced and tied in by huge collars, curves, and diagonals, was far nobler in +design, because more wealthy in material, than nine-tenths of those in our +modern churches. Along each side wall was a range of striding buttresses, +throwing deep shadows on the spaces between them, which were perforated by +lancet openings, combining in their proportions the precise requirements both +of beauty and ventilation. +</p> + +<p> +One could say about this barn, what could hardly be said of either the church +or the castle, akin to it in age and style, that the purpose which had dictated +its original erection was the same with that to which it was still applied. +Unlike and superior to either of those two typical remnants of mediævalism, the +old barn embodied practices which had suffered no mutilation at the hands of +time. Here at least the spirit of the ancient builders was at one with the +spirit of the modern beholder. Standing before this abraded pile, the eye +regarded its present usage, the mind dwelt upon its past history, with a +satisfied sense of functional continuity throughout—a feeling almost of +gratitude, and quite of pride, at the permanence of the idea which had heaped +it up. The fact that four centuries had neither proved it to be founded on a +mistake, inspired any hatred of its purpose, nor given rise to any reaction +that had battered it down, invested this simple grey effort of old minds with a +repose, if not a grandeur, which a too curious reflection was apt to disturb in +its ecclesiastical and military compeers. For once mediævalism and modernism +had a common stand-point. The lanceolate windows, the time-eaten archstones and +chamfers, the orientation of the axis, the misty chestnut work of the rafters, +referred to no exploded fortifying art or worn-out religious creed. The defence +and salvation of the body by daily bread is still a study, a religion, and a +desire. +</p> + +<p> +To-day the large side doors were thrown open towards the sun to admit a +bountiful light to the immediate spot of the shearers’ operations, which +was the wood threshing-floor in the centre, formed of thick oak, black with age +and polished by the beating of flails for many generations, till it had grown +as slippery and as rich in hue as the state-room floors of an Elizabethan +mansion. Here the shearers knelt, the sun slanting in upon their bleached +shirts, tanned arms, and the polished shears they flourished, causing these to +bristle with a thousand rays strong enough to blind a weak-eyed man. Beneath +them a captive sheep lay panting, quickening its pants as misgiving merged in +terror, till it quivered like the hot landscape outside. +</p> + +<p> +This picture of to-day in its frame of four hundred years ago did not produce +that marked contrast between ancient and modern which is implied by the +contrast of date. In comparison with cities, Weatherbury was immutable. The +citizen’s <i>Then</i> is the rustic’s <i>Now</i>. In London, twenty +or thirty-years ago are old times; in Paris ten years, or five; in Weatherbury +three or four score years were included in the mere present, and nothing less +than a century set a mark on its face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the +cut of a gaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, by the breadth of a hair. Ten +generations failed to alter the turn of a single phrase. In these Wessex nooks +the busy outsider’s ancient times are only old; his old times are still +new; his present is futurity. +</p> + +<p> +So the barn was natural to the shearers, and the shearers were in harmony with +the barn. +</p> + +<p> +The spacious ends of the building, answering ecclesiastically to nave and +chancel extremities, were fenced off with hurdles, the sheep being all +collected in a crowd within these two enclosures; and in one angle a +catching-pen was formed, in which three or four sheep were continuously kept +ready for the shearers to seize without loss of time. In the background, +mellowed by tawny shade, were the three women, Maryann Money, and Temperance +and Soberness Miller, gathering up the fleeces and twisting ropes of wool with +a wimble for tying them round. They were indifferently well assisted by the old +maltster, who, when the malting season from October to April had passed, made +himself useful upon any of the bordering farmsteads. +</p> + +<p> +Behind all was Bathsheba, carefully watching the men to see that there was no +cutting or wounding through carelessness, and that the animals were shorn +close. Gabriel, who flitted and hovered under her bright eyes like a moth, did +not shear continuously, half his time being spent in attending to the others +and selecting the sheep for them. At the present moment he was engaged in +handing round a mug of mild liquor, supplied from a barrel in the corner, and +cut pieces of bread and cheese. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, after throwing a glance here, a caution there, and lecturing one of +the younger operators who had allowed his last finished sheep to go off among +the flock without re-stamping it with her initials, came again to Gabriel, as +he put down the luncheon to drag a frightened ewe to his shear-station, +flinging it over upon its back with a dexterous twist of the arm. He lopped off +the tresses about its head, and opened up the neck and collar, his mistress +quietly looking on. +</p> + +<p> +“She blushes at the insult,” murmured Bathsheba, watching the pink +flush which arose and overspread the neck and shoulders of the ewe where they +were left bare by the clicking shears—a flush which was enviable, for its +delicacy, by many queens of coteries, and would have been creditable, for its +promptness, to any woman in the world. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Gabriel’s soul was fed with a luxury of content by having her over +him, her eyes critically regarding his skilful shears, which apparently were +going to gather up a piece of the flesh at every close, and yet never did so. +Like Guildenstern, Oak was happy in that he was not over happy. He had no wish +to converse with her: that his bright lady and himself formed one group, +exclusively their own, and containing no others in the world, was enough. +</p> + +<p> +So the chatter was all on her side. There is a loquacity that tells nothing, +which was Bathsheba’s; and there is a silence which says much: that was +Gabriel’s. Full of this dim and temperate bliss, he went on to fling the +ewe over upon her other side, covering her head with his knee, gradually +running the shears line after line round her dewlap; thence about her flank and +back, and finishing over the tail. +</p> + +<p> +“Well done, and done quickly!” said Bathsheba, looking at her watch +as the last snip resounded. +</p> + +<p> +“How long, miss?” said Gabriel, wiping his brow. +</p> + +<p> +“Three-and-twenty minutes and a half since you took the first lock from +its forehead. It is the first time that I have ever seen one done in less than +half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +The clean, sleek creature arose from its fleece—how perfectly like +Aphrodite rising from the foam should have been seen to be +realized—looking startled and shy at the loss of its garment, which lay +on the floor in one soft cloud, united throughout, the portion visible being +the inner surface only, which, never before exposed, was white as snow, and +without flaw or blemish of the minutest kind. +</p> + +<p> +“Cain Ball!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mister Oak; here I be!” +</p> + +<p> +Cainy now runs forward with the tar-pot. “B. E.” is newly stamped +upon the shorn skin, and away the simple dam leaps, panting, over the board +into the shirtless flock outside. Then up comes Maryann; throws the loose locks +into the middle of the fleece, rolls it up, and carries it into the background +as three-and-a-half pounds of unadulterated warmth for the winter enjoyment of +persons unknown and far away, who will, however, never experience the +superlative comfort derivable from the wool as it here exists, new and +pure—before the unctuousness of its nature whilst in a living state has +dried, stiffened, and been washed out—rendering it just now as superior +to anything <i>woollen</i> as cream is superior to milk-and-water. +</p> + +<p> +But heartless circumstance could not leave entire Gabriel’s happiness of +this morning. The rams, old ewes, and two-shear ewes had duly undergone their +stripping, and the men were proceeding with the shearlings and hogs, when +Oak’s belief that she was going to stand pleasantly by and time him +through another performance was painfully interrupted by Farmer +Boldwood’s appearance in the extremest corner of the barn. Nobody seemed +to have perceived his entry, but there he certainly was. Boldwood always +carried with him a social atmosphere of his own, which everybody felt who came +near him; and the talk, which Bathsheba’s presence had somewhat +suppressed, was now totally suspended. +</p> + +<p> +He crossed over towards Bathsheba, who turned to greet him with a carriage of +perfect ease. He spoke to her in low tones, and she instinctively modulated her +own to the same pitch, and her voice ultimately even caught the inflection of +his. She was far from having a wish to appear mysteriously connected with him; +but woman at the impressionable age gravitates to the larger body not only in +her choice of words, which is apparent every day, but even in her shades of +tone and humour, when the influence is great. +</p> + +<p> +What they conversed about was not audible to Gabriel, who was too independent +to get near, though too concerned to disregard. The issue of their dialogue was +the taking of her hand by the courteous farmer to help her over the +spreading-board into the bright June sunlight outside. Standing beside the +sheep already shorn, they went on talking again. Concerning the flock? +Apparently not. Gabriel theorized, not without truth, that in quiet discussion +of any matter within reach of the speakers’ eyes, these are usually fixed +upon it. Bathsheba demurely regarded a contemptible straw lying upon the +ground, in a way which suggested less ovine criticism than womanly +embarrassment. She became more or less red in the cheek, the blood wavering in +uncertain flux and reflux over the sensitive space between ebb and flood. +Gabriel sheared on, constrained and sad. +</p> + +<p> +She left Boldwood’s side, and he walked up and down alone for nearly a +quarter of an hour. Then she reappeared in her new riding-habit of myrtle +green, which fitted her to the waist as a rind fits its fruit; and young Bob +Coggan led on her mare, Boldwood fetching his own horse from the tree under +which it had been tied. +</p> + +<p> +Oak’s eyes could not forsake them; and in endeavouring to continue his +shearing at the same time that he watched Boldwood’s manner, he snipped +the sheep in the groin. The animal plunged; Bathsheba instantly gazed towards +it, and saw the blood. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gabriel!” she exclaimed, with severe remonstrance, “you +who are so strict with the other men—see what you are doing +yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +To an outsider there was not much to complain of in this remark; but to Oak, +who knew Bathsheba to be well aware that she herself was the cause of the poor +ewe’s wound, because she had wounded the ewe’s shearer in a still +more vital part, it had a sting which the abiding sense of his inferiority to +both herself and Boldwood was not calculated to heal. But a manly resolve to +recognize boldly that he had no longer a lover’s interest in her, helped +him occasionally to conceal a feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“Bottle!” he shouted, in an unmoved voice of routine. Cainy Ball +ran up, the wound was anointed, and the shearing continued. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood gently tossed Bathsheba into the saddle, and before they turned away +she again spoke out to Oak with the same dominative and tantalizing +graciousness. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going now to see Mr. Boldwood’s Leicesters. Take my place in +the barn, Gabriel, and keep the men carefully to their work.” +</p> + +<p> +The horses’ heads were put about, and they trotted away. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood’s deep attachment was a matter of great interest among all +around him; but, after having been pointed out for so many years as the perfect +exemplar of thriving bachelorship, his lapse was an anticlimax somewhat +resembling that of St. John Long’s death by consumption in the midst of +his proofs that it was not a fatal disease. +</p> + +<p> +“That means matrimony,” said Temperance Miller, following them out +of sight with her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I reckon that’s the size o’t,” said Coggan, working +along without looking up. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, better wed over the mixen than over the moor,” said Laban +Tall, turning his sheep. +</p> + +<p> +Henery Fray spoke, exhibiting miserable eyes at the same time: “I +don’t see why a maid should take a husband when she’s bold enough +to fight her own battles, and don’t want a home; for ’tis keeping +another woman out. But let it be, for ’tis a pity he and she should +trouble two houses.” +</p> + +<p> +As usual with decided characters, Bathsheba invariably provoked the criticism +of individuals like Henery Fray. Her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced +in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her likings. We learn that it +is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give +them the colours they are known by; and in the same way people are specialized +by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no +attribute at all. +</p> + +<p> +Henery continued in a more complaisant mood: “I once hinted my mind to +her on a few things, as nearly as a battered frame dared to do so to such a +froward piece. You all know, neighbours, what a man I be, and how I come down +with my powerful words when my pride is boiling wi’ scarn?” +</p> + +<p> +“We do, we do, Henery.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I said, ‘Mistress Everdene, there’s places empty, and +there’s gifted men willing; but the spite’—no, not the +spite—I didn’t say spite—‘but the villainy of the +contrarikind,’ I said (meaning womankind), ‘keeps ’em +out.’ That wasn’t too strong for her, say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Passably well put.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook me for +it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“A true man, and proud as a lucifer.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see the artfulness? Why, ’twas about being baily really; but I +didn’t put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so I could +lay it on all the stronger. That was my depth!... However, let her marry an she +will. Perhaps ’tis high time. I believe Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind +the spear-bed at the sheep-washing t’other day—that I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a lie!” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, neighbour Oak—how’st know?” said, Henery, mildly. +</p> + +<p> +“Because she told me all that passed,” said Oak, with a pharisaical +sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye have a right to believe it,” said Henery, with dudgeon; +“a very true right. But I mid see a little distance into things! To be +long-headed enough for a baily’s place is a poor mere trifle—yet a +trifle more than nothing. However, I look round upon life quite cool. Do you +heed me, neighbours? My words, though made as simple as I can, mid be rather +deep for some heads.” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye.” +</p> + +<p> +“A strange old piece, goodmen—whirled about from here to yonder, as +if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my +great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to brain. But +no—O no!” +</p> + +<p> +“A strange old piece, ye say!” interposed the maltster, in a +querulous voice. “At the same time ye be no old man worth naming—no +old man at all. Yer teeth bain’t half gone yet; and what’s a old +man’s standing if so be his teeth bain’t gone? Weren’t I +stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? ’Tis a poor thing to be +sixty, when there’s people far past four-score—a boast weak as +water.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the unvarying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differences when the +maltster had to be pacified. +</p> + +<p> +“Weak as water! yes,” said Jan Coggan. “Malter, we feel ye to +be a wonderful veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody,” said Joseph Poorgrass. “Ye be a very rare old +spectacle, malter, and we all admire ye for that gift.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in prosperity, I was +likewise liked by a good-few who knowed me,” said the maltster. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ithout doubt you was—’ithout doubt.” +</p> + +<p> +The bent and hoary man was satisfied, and so apparently was Henery Fray. That +matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her brown +complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the mellow +hue of an old sketch in oils—notably some of Nicholas +Poussin’s:— +</p> + +<p> +“Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or any second-hand fellow +at all that would do for poor me?” said Maryann. “A perfect one I +don’t expect to get at my time of life. If I could hear of such a thing +’twould do me more good than toast and ale.” +</p> + +<p> +Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on with his shearing, and said not +another word. Pestilent moods had come, and teased away his quiet. Bathsheba +had shown indications of anointing him above his fellows by installing him as +the bailiff that the farm imperatively required. He did not covet the post +relatively to the farm: in relation to herself, as beloved by him and unmarried +to another, he had coveted it. His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and +indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one of the absurdest mistakes. +Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she had trifled with himself in thus +feigning that she had trifled with another. He was inwardly convinced that, in +accordance with the anticipations of his easy-going and worse-educated +comrades, that day would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss Everdene. +Gabriel at this time of his life had out-grown the instinctive dislike which +every Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite +frequently, and he inwardly said, “‘I find more bitter than death +the woman whose heart is snares and nets!’” This was mere +exclamation—the froth of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same. +</p> + +<p> +“We workfolk shall have some lordly junketing to-night,” said Cainy +Ball, casting forth his thoughts in a new direction. “This morning I see +’em making the great puddens in the milking-pails—lumps of fat as +big as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I’ve never seed such splendid large knobs +of fat before in the days of my life—they never used to be bigger then a +horse-bean. And there was a great black crock upon the brandish with his legs +a-sticking out, but I don’t know what was in within.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s two bushels of biffins for apple-pies,” said +Maryann. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope to do my duty by it all,” said Joseph Poorgrass, in a +pleasant, masticating manner of anticipation. “Yes; victuals and drink is +a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to the nerveless, if the form of words may +be used. ’Tis the gospel of the body, without which we perish, so to +speak it.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII<br /> +EVENTIDE—A SECOND DECLARATION</h2> + +<p> +For the shearing-supper a long table was placed on the grass-plot beside the +house, the end of the table being thrust over the sill of the wide parlour +window and a foot or two into the room. Miss Everdene sat inside the window, +facing down the table. She was thus at the head without mingling with the men. +</p> + +<p> +This evening Bathsheba was unusually excited, her red cheeks and lips +contrasting lustrously with the mazy skeins of her shadowy hair. She seemed to +expect assistance, and the seat at the bottom of the table was at her request +left vacant until after they had begun the meal. She then asked Gabriel to take +the place and the duties appertaining to that end, which he did with great +readiness. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment Mr. Boldwood came in at the gate, and crossed the green to +Bathsheba at the window. He apologized for his lateness: his arrival was +evidently by arrangement. +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel,” said she, “will you move again, please, and let +Mr. Boldwood come there?” +</p> + +<p> +Oak moved in silence back to his original seat. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman-farmer was dressed in cheerful style, in a new coat and white +waistcoat, quite contrasting with his usual sober suits of grey. Inwardy, too, +he was blithe, and consequently chatty to an exceptional degree. So also was +Bathsheba now that he had come, though the uninvited presence of Pennyways, the +bailiff who had been dismissed for theft, disturbed her equanimity for a while. +</p> + +<p> +Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own private account, without reference +to listeners:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I’ve lost my love, and I care not,<br /> +I’ve lost my love, and I care not;<br /> + I shall soon have another<br /> + That’s better than t’other;<br /> +I’ve lost my love, and I care not. +</p> + +<p> +This lyric, when concluded, was received with a silently appreciative gaze at +the table, implying that the performance, like a work by those established +authors who are independent of notices in the papers, was a well-known delight +which required no applause. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Master Poorgrass, your song!” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“I be all but in liquor, and the gift is wanting in me,” said +Joseph, diminishing himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense; wou’st never be so ungrateful, +Joseph—never!” said Coggan, expressing hurt feelings by an +inflection of voice. “And mistress is looking hard at ye, as much as to +say, ‘Sing at once, Joseph Poorgrass.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, so she is; well, I must suffer it!... Just eye my features, and +see if the tell-tale blood overheats me much, neighbours?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, yer blushes be quite reasonable,” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“I always tries to keep my colours from rising when a beauty’s eyes +get fixed on me,” said Joseph, differently; “but if so be +’tis willed they do, they must.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Joseph, your song, please,” said Bathsheba, from the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really, ma’am,” he replied, in a yielding tone, +“I don’t know what to say. It would be a poor plain ballet of my +own composure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hear, hear!” said the supper-party. +</p> + +<p> +Poorgrass, thus assured, trilled forth a flickering yet commendable piece of +sentiment, the tune of which consisted of the key-note and another, the latter +being the sound chiefly dwelt upon. This was so successful that he rashly +plunged into a second in the same breath, after a few false starts:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I sow′-ed th′-e.....<br /> +I sow′-ed.....<br /> +I sow′-ed th′-e seeds′ of′ love′,<br /> + I-it was′ all′ i′-in the′-e spring′,<br /> +I-in A′-pril′, Ma′-ay, a′-nd sun′-ny′ +June′,<br /> + When sma′-all bi′-irds they′ do′ sing. +</p> + +<p> +“Well put out of hand,” said Coggan, at the end of the verse. +“‘They do sing’ was a very taking paragraph.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; and there was a pretty place at ‘seeds of love.’ and +’twas well heaved out. Though ‘love’ is a nasty high corner +when a man’s voice is getting crazed. Next verse, Master +Poorgrass.” +</p> + +<p> +But during this rendering young Bob Coggan exhibited one of those anomalies +which will afflict little people when other persons are particularly serious: +in trying to check his laughter, he pushed down his throat as much of the +tablecloth as he could get hold of, when, after continuing hermetically sealed +for a short time, his mirth burst out through his nose. Joseph perceived it, +and with hectic cheeks of indignation instantly ceased singing. Coggan boxed +Bob’s ears immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, Joseph—go on, and never mind the young scamp,” said +Coggan. “’Tis a very catching ballet. Now then again—the next +bar; I’ll help ye to flourish up the shrill notes where yer wind is +rather wheezy:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Oh the wi′-il-lo′-ow tree′ will′ twist′,<br /> +And the wil′-low′ tre′-ee wi′-ill twine′. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But the singer could not be set going again. Bob Coggan was sent home for his +ill manners, and tranquility was restored by Jacob Smallbury, who volunteered a +ballad as inclusive and interminable as that with which the worthy toper old +Silenus amused on a similar occasion the swains Chromis and Mnasylus, and other +jolly dogs of his day. +</p> + +<p> +It was still the beaming time of evening, though night was stealthily making +itself visible low down upon the ground, the western lines of light raking the +earth without alighting upon it to any extent, or illuminating the dead levels +at all. The sun had crept round the tree as a last effort before death, and +then began to sink, the shearers’ lower parts becoming steeped in +embrowning twilight, whilst their heads and shoulders were still enjoying day, +touched with a yellow of self-sustained brilliancy that seemed inherent rather +than acquired. +</p> + +<p> +The sun went down in an ochreous mist; but they sat, and talked on, and grew as +merry as the gods in Homer’s heaven. Bathsheba still remained enthroned +inside the window, and occupied herself in knitting, from which she sometimes +looked up to view the fading scene outside. The slow twilight expanded and +enveloped them completely before the signs of moving were shown. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel suddenly missed Farmer Boldwood from his place at the bottom of the +table. How long he had been gone Oak did not know; but he had apparently +withdrawn into the encircling dusk. Whilst he was thinking of this, Liddy +brought candles into the back part of the room overlooking the shearers, and +their lively new flames shone down the table and over the men, and dispersed +among the green shadows behind. Bathsheba’s form, still in its original +position, was now again distinct between their eyes and the light, which +revealed that Boldwood had gone inside the room, and was sitting near her. +</p> + +<p> +Next came the question of the evening. Would Miss Everdene sing to them the +song she always sang so charmingly—“The Banks of Allan +Water”—before they went home? +</p> + +<p> +After a moment’s consideration Bathsheba assented, beckoning to Gabriel, +who hastened up into the coveted atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you brought your flute?” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“Play to my singing, then.” +</p> + +<p> +She stood up in the window-opening, facing the men, the candles behind her, +Gabriel on her right hand, immediately outside the sash-frame. Boldwood had +drawn up on her left, within the room. Her singing was soft and rather +tremulous at first, but it soon swelled to a steady clearness. Subsequent +events caused one of the verses to be remembered for many months, and even +years, by more than one of those who were gathered there:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +For his bride a soldier sought her,<br /> + And a winning tongue had he:<br /> +On the banks of Allan Water<br /> + None was gay as she! +</p> + +<p> +In addition to the dulcet piping of Gabriel’s flute, Boldwood supplied a +bass in his customary profound voice, uttering his notes so softly, however, as +to abstain entirely from making anything like an ordinary duet of the song; +they rather formed a rich unexplored shadow, which threw her tones into relief. +The shearers reclined against each other as at suppers in the early ages of the +world, and so silent and absorbed were they that her breathing could almost be +heard between the bars; and at the end of the ballad, when the last tone +loitered on to an inexpressible close, there arose that buzz of pleasure which +is the attar of applause. +</p> + +<p> +It is scarcely necessary to state that Gabriel could not avoid noting the +farmer’s bearing to-night towards their entertainer. Yet there was +nothing exceptional in his actions beyond what appertained to his time of +performing them. It was when the rest were all looking away that Boldwood +observed her; when they regarded her he turned aside; when they thanked or +praised he was silent; when they were inattentive he murmured his thanks. The +meaning lay in the difference between actions, none of which had any meaning of +itself; and the necessity of being jealous, which lovers are troubled with, did +not lead Oak to underestimate these signs. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba then wished them good-night, withdrew from the window, and retired to +the back part of the room, Boldwood thereupon closing the sash and the +shutters, and remaining inside with her. Oak wandered away under the quiet and +scented trees. Recovering from the softer impressions produced by +Bathsheba’s voice, the shearers rose to leave, Coggan turning to +Pennyways as he pushed back the bench to pass out:— +</p> + +<p> +“I like to give praise where praise is due, and the man deserves +it—that ’a do so,” he remarked, looking at the worthy thief, +as if he were the masterpiece of some world-renowned artist. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I should never have believed it if we hadn’t proved +it, so to allude,” hiccupped Joseph Poorgrass, “that every cup, +every one of the best knives and forks, and every empty bottle be in their +place as perfect now as at the beginning, and not one stole at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I don’t deserve half the praise you give me,” +said the virtuous thief, grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll say this for Pennyways,” added Coggan, +“that whenever he do really make up his mind to do a noble thing in the +shape of a good action, as I could see by his face he did to-night afore +sitting down, he’s generally able to carry it out. Yes, I’m proud +to say, neighbours, that he’s stole nothing at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’tis an honest deed, and we thank ye for it, +Pennyways,” said Joseph; to which opinion the remainder of the company +subscribed unanimously. +</p> + +<p> +At this time of departure, when nothing more was visible of the inside of the +parlour than a thin and still chink of light between the shutters, a passionate +scene was in course of enactment there. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Everdene and Boldwood were alone. Her cheeks had lost a great deal of +their healthful fire from the very seriousness of her position; but her eye was +bright with the excitement of a triumph—though it was a triumph which had +rather been contemplated than desired. +</p> + +<p> +She was standing behind a low arm-chair, from which she had just risen, and he +was kneeling in it—inclining himself over its back towards her, and +holding her hand in both his own. His body moved restlessly, and it was with +what Keats daintily calls a too happy happiness. This unwonted abstraction by +love of all dignity from a man of whom it had ever seemed the chief component, +was, in its distressing incongruity, a pain to her which quenched much of the +pleasure she derived from the proof that she was idolized. +</p> + +<p> +“I will try to love you,” she was saying, in a trembling voice +quite unlike her usual self-confidence. “And if I can believe in any way +that I shall make you a good wife I shall indeed be willing to marry you. But, +Mr. Boldwood, hesitation on so high a matter is honourable in any woman, and I +don’t want to give a solemn promise to-night. I would rather ask you to +wait a few weeks till I can see my situation better. +</p> + +<p> +“But you have every reason to believe that <i>then</i>—” +</p> + +<p> +“I have every reason to hope that at the end of the five or six weeks, +between this time and harvest, that you say you are going to be away from home, +I shall be able to promise to be your wife,” she said, firmly. “But +remember this distinctly, I don’t promise yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is enough; I don’t ask more. I can wait on those dear words. +And now, Miss Everdene, good-night!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night,” she said, graciously—almost tenderly; and +Boldwood withdrew with a serene smile. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba knew more of him now; he had entirely bared his heart before her, +even until he had almost worn in her eyes the sorry look of a grand bird +without the feathers that make it grand. She had been awe-struck at her past +temerity, and was struggling to make amends without thinking whether the sin +quite deserved the penalty she was schooling herself to pay. To have brought +all this about her ears was terrible; but after a while the situation was not +without a fearful joy. The facility with which even the most timid women +sometimes acquire a relish for the dreadful when that is amalgamated with a +little triumph, is marvellous. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV<br /> +THE SAME NIGHT—THE FIR PLANTATION</h2> + +<p> +Among the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had voluntarily imposed upon +herself by dispensing with the services of a bailiff, was the particular one of +looking round the homestead before going to bed, to see that all was right and +safe for the night. Gabriel had almost constantly preceded her in this tour +every evening, watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed +officer of surveillance could have done; but this tender devotion was to a +great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was somewhat +thanklessly received. Women are never tired of bewailing man’s fickleness +in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy. +</p> + +<p> +As watching is best done invisibly, she usually carried a dark lantern in her +hand, and every now and then turned on the light to examine nooks and corners +with the coolness of a metropolitan policeman. This coolness may have owed its +existence not so much to her fearlessness of expected danger as to her freedom +from the suspicion of any; her worst anticipated discovery being that a horse +might not be well bedded, the fowls not all in, or a door not closed. +</p> + +<p> +This night the buildings were inspected as usual, and she went round to the +farm paddock. Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness were steady +munchings of many mouths, and stentorian breathings from all but invisible +noses, ending in snores and puffs like the blowing of bellows slowly. Then the +munching would recommence, when the lively imagination might assist the eye to +discern a group of pink-white nostrils, shaped as caverns, and very clammy and +humid on their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to the touch until one got used +to them; the mouths beneath having a great partiality for closing upon any +loose end of Bathsheba’s apparel which came within reach of their +tongues. Above each of these a still keener vision suggested a brown forehead +and two staring though not unfriendly eyes, and above all a pair of whitish +crescent-shaped horns like two particularly new moons, an occasional stolid +“moo!” proclaiming beyond the shade of a doubt that these phenomena +were the features and persons of Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonny-lass, Jolly-O, Spot, +Twinkle-eye, etc., etc.—the respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging to +Bathsheba aforesaid. +</p> + +<p> +Her way back to the house was by a path through a young plantation of tapering +firs, which had been planted some years earlier to shelter the premises from +the north wind. By reason of the density of the interwoven foliage overhead, it +was gloomy there at cloudless noontide, twilight in the evening, dark as +midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight. To +describe the spot is to call it a vast, low, naturally formed hall, the plumy +ceiling of which was supported by slender pillars of living wood, the floor +being covered with a soft dun carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed cones, with +a tuft of grass-blades here and there. +</p> + +<p> +This bit of the path was always the crux of the night’s ramble, though, +before starting, her apprehensions of danger were not vivid enough to lead her +to take a companion. Slipping along here covertly as Time, Bathsheba fancied +she could hear footsteps entering the track at the opposite end. It was +certainly a rustle of footsteps. Her own instantly fell as gently as +snowflakes. She reassured herself by a remembrance that the path was public, +and that the traveller was probably some villager returning home; regretting, +at the same time, that the meeting should be about to occur in the darkest +point of her route, even though only just outside her own door. +</p> + +<p> +The noise approached, came close, and a figure was apparently on the point of +gliding past her when something tugged at her skirt and pinned it forcibly to +the ground. The instantaneous check nearly threw Bathsheba off her balance. In +recovering she struck against warm clothes and buttons. +</p> + +<p> +“A rum start, upon my soul!” said a masculine voice, a foot or so +above her head. “Have I hurt you, mate?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink away. +</p> + +<p> +“We have got hitched together somehow, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you a woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lady, I should have said.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that a dark lantern you have? I fancy so,” said the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll allow me I’ll open it, and set you free.” +</p> + +<p> +A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the rays burst out from their +prison, and Bathsheba beheld her position with astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in brass and scarlet. He was a +soldier. His sudden appearance was to darkness what the sound of a trumpet is +to silence. Gloom, the <i>genius loci</i> at all times hitherto, was now +totally overthrown, less by the lantern-light than by what the lantern lighted. +The contrast of this revelation with her anticipations of some sinister figure +in sombre garb was so great that it had upon her the effect of a fairy +transformation. +</p> + +<p> +It was immediately apparent that the military man’s spur had become +entangled in the gimp which decorated the skirt of her dress. He caught a view +of her face. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll unfasten you in one moment, miss,” he said, with +new-born gallantry. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—I can do it, thank you,” she hastily replied, and +stooped for the performance. +</p> + +<p> +The unfastening was not such a trifling affair. The rowel of the spur had so +wound itself among the gimp cords in those few moments, that separation was +likely to be a matter of time. +</p> + +<p> +He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the ground betwixt them threw the +gleam from its open side among the fir-tree needles and the blades of long damp +grass with the effect of a large glowworm. It radiated upwards into their +faces, and sent over half the plantation gigantic shadows of both man and +woman, each dusky shape becoming distorted and mangled upon the tree-trunks +till it wasted to nothing. +</p> + +<p> +He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them for a moment; Bathsheba +looked down again, for his gaze was too strong to be received point-blank with +her own. But she had obliquely noticed that he was young and slim, and that he +wore three chevrons upon his sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba pulled again. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a prisoner, miss; it is no use blinking the matter,” said +the soldier, drily. “I must cut your dress if you are in such a +hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—please do!” she exclaimed, helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“It wouldn’t be necessary if you could wait a moment,” and he +unwound a cord from the little wheel. She withdrew her own hand, but, whether +by accident or design, he touched it. Bathsheba was vexed; she hardly knew why. +</p> + +<p> +His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed coming to no end. She +looked at him again. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face!” said the young +sergeant, without ceremony. +</p> + +<p> +She coloured with embarrassment. “’Twas unwillingly shown,” +she replied, stiffly, and with as much dignity—which was very +little—as she could infuse into a position of captivity. +</p> + +<p> +“I like you the better for that incivility, miss,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I should have liked—I wish—you had never shown yourself to +me by intruding here!” She pulled again, and the gathers of her dress +began to give way like liliputian musketry. +</p> + +<p> +“I deserve the chastisement your words give me. But why should such a +fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to her father’s sex?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on your way, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, Beauty, and drag you after me? Do but look; I never saw such a +tangle!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose +to keep me here—you have!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I don’t think so,” said the sergeant, with a merry +twinkle. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you you have!” she exclaimed, in high temper. “I +insist upon undoing it. Now, allow me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, miss; I am not of steel.” He added a sigh which had as +much archness in it as a sigh could possess without losing its nature +altogether. “I am thankful for beauty, even when ’tis thrown to me +like a bone to a dog. These moments will be over too soon!” +</p> + +<p> +She closed her lips in a determined silence. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether by a bold and desperate rush she +could free herself at the risk of leaving her skirt bodily behind her. The +thought was too dreadful. The dress—which she had put on to appear +stately at the supper—was the head and front of her wardrobe; not another +in her stock became her so well. What woman in Bathsheba’s position, not +naturally timid, and within call of her retainers, would have bought escape +from a dashing soldier at so dear a price? +</p> + +<p> +“All in good time; it will soon be done, I perceive,” said her cool +friend. +</p> + +<p> +“This trifling provokes, and—and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not too cruel!” +</p> + +<p> +“—Insults me!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is done in order that I may have the pleasure of apologizing to so +charming a woman, which I straightway do most humbly, madam,” he said, +bowing low. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba really knew not what to say. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen a good many women in my time,” continued the young +man in a murmur, and more thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding her +bent head at the same time; “but I’ve never seen a woman so +beautiful as you. Take it or leave it—be offended or like it—I +don’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you, then, who can so well afford to despise opinion?” +</p> + +<p> +“No stranger. Sergeant Troy. I am staying in this place.—There! it +is undone at last, you see. Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I +wish it had been the knot of knots, which there’s no untying!” +</p> + +<p> +This was worse and worse. She started up, and so did he. How to decently get +away from him—that was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch by inch, +the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness of his coat no longer. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Beauty; good-bye!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of twenty or thirty yards, turned +about, and ran indoors. +</p> + +<p> +Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her own chamber, Bathsheba +opened the girl’s door an inch or two, and, panting, said— +</p> + +<p> +“Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village—sergeant +somebody—rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good looking—a red +coat with blue facings?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, miss.... No, I say; but really it might be Sergeant Troy home on +furlough, though I have not seen him. He was here once in that way when the +regiment was at Casterbridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that’s the name. Had he a moustache—no whiskers or +beard?” +</p> + +<p> +“He had.” +</p> + +<p> +“What kind of a person is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! miss—I blush to name it—a gay man! But I know him to be +very quick and trim, who might have made his thousands, like a squire. Such a +clever young dandy as he is! He’s a doctor’s son by name, which is +a great deal; and he’s an earl’s son by nature!” +</p> + +<p> +“Which is a great deal more. Fancy! Is it true?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And, he was brought up so well, and sent to Casterbridge Grammar +School for years and years. Learnt all languages while he was there; and it was +said he got on so far that he could take down Chinese in shorthand; but that I +don’t answer for, as it was only reported. However, he wasted his gifted +lot, and listed a soldier; but even then he rose to be a sergeant without +trying at all. Ah! such a blessing it is to be high-born; nobility of blood +will shine out even in the ranks and files. And is he really come home, +miss?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe so. Good-night, Liddy.” +</p> + +<p> +After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts be permanently offended with +the man? There are occasions when girls like Bathsheba will put up with a great +deal of unconventional behaviour. When they want to be praised, which is often, +when they want to be mastered, which is sometimes; and when they want no +nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with +Bathsheba, with a dash of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the +ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome stranger who +had evidently seen better days. +</p> + +<p> +So she could not clearly decide whether it was her opinion that he had insulted +her or not. +</p> + +<p> +“Was ever anything so odd!” she at last exclaimed to herself, in +her own room. “And was ever anything so meanly done as what I +did—to skulk away like that from a man who was only civil and +kind!” Clearly she did not think his barefaced praise of her person an +insult now. +</p> + +<p> +It was a fatal omission of Boldwood’s that he had never once told her she +was beautiful. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV<br /> +THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED</h2> + +<p> +Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an +exceptional being. +</p> + +<p> +He was a man to whom memories were an incumbrance, and anticipations a +superfluity. Simply feeling, considering, and caring for what was before his +eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His outlook upon time was as a +transient flash of the eye now and then: that projection of consciousness into +days gone by and to come, which makes the past a synonym for the pathetic and +the future a word for circumspection, was foreign to Troy. With him the past +was yesterday; the future, to-morrow; never, the day after. +</p> + +<p> +On this account he might, in certain lights, have been regarded as one of the +most fortunate of his order. For it may be argued with great plausibility that +reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease, and that expectation in its +only comfortable form—that of absolute faith—is practically an +impossibility; whilst in the form of hope and the secondary compounds, +patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity, it is a constant fluctuation between +pleasure and pain. +</p> + +<p> +Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent of the practice of expectation, was +never disappointed. To set against this negative gain there may have been some +positive losses from a certain narrowing of the higher tastes and sensations +which it entailed. But limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss +by the loser therefrom: in this attribute moral or æsthetic poverty contrasts +plausibly with material, since those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those +who mind it soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anything to have been +always without it, and what Troy had never enjoyed he did not miss; but, being +fully conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed, his capacity, though +really less, seemed greater than theirs. +</p> + +<p> +He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan—a +system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first +flush of admission into lively society; and the possibility of the favour +gained being transitory had reference only to the future. +</p> + +<p> +He never passed the line which divides the spruce vices from the ugly; and +hence, though his morals had hardly been applauded, disapproval of them had +frequently been tempered with a smile. This treatment had led to his becoming a +sort of regrater of other men’s gallantries, to his own aggrandizement as +a Corinthian, rather than to the moral profit of his hearers. +</p> + +<p> +His reason and his propensities had seldom any reciprocating influence, having +separated by mutual consent long ago: thence it sometimes happened that, while +his intentions were as honourable as could be wished, any particular deed +formed a dark background which threw them into fine relief. The +sergeant’s vicious phases being the offspring of impulse, and his +virtuous phases of cool meditation, the latter had a modest tendency to be +oftener heard of than seen. +</p> + +<p> +Troy was full of activity, but his activities were less of a locomotive than a +vegetative nature; and, never being based upon any original choice of +foundation or direction, they were exercised on whatever object chance might +place in their way. Hence, whilst he sometimes reached the brilliant in speech +because that was spontaneous, he fell below the commonplace in action, from +inability to guide incipient effort. He had a quick comprehension and +considerable force of character; but, being without the power to combine them, +the comprehension became engaged with trivialities whilst waiting for the will +to direct it, and the force wasted itself in useless grooves through unheeding +the comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +He was a fairly well-educated man for one of middle class—exceptionally +well educated for a common soldier. He spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could +in this way be one thing and seem another: for instance, he could speak of love +and think of dinner; call on the husband to look at the wife; be eager to pay +and intend to owe. +</p> + +<p> +The wondrous power of flattery in <i>passados</i> at woman is a perception so +universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they +repeat a proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like, without +thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. +Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. +With the majority such an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms +which require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly +home. When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness it seems co-ordinate +with a belief that this flattery must be reasonable to be effective. It is to +the credit of men that few attempt to settle the question by experiment, and it +is for their happiness, perhaps, that accident has never settled it for them. +Nevertheless, that a male dissembler who by deluging her with untenable +fictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powers reaching to the extremity +of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and wringing occurrences. +And some profess to have attained to the same knowledge by experiment as +aforesaid, and jauntily continue their indulgence in such experiments with +terrible effect. Sergeant Troy was one. +</p> + +<p> +He had been known to observe casually that in dealing with womankind the only +alternative to flattery was cursing and swearing. There was no third method. +“Treat them fairly, and you are a lost man.” he would say. +</p> + +<p> +This person’s public appearance in Weatherbury promptly followed his +arrival there. A week or two after the shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a nameless +relief of spirits on account of Boldwood’s absence, approached her +hayfields and looked over the hedge towards the haymakers. They consisted in +about equal proportions of gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being the +men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankeen, which +hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing in a +less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to the strokes of his scythe, to +which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead they were +already loading hay, the women raking it into cocks and windrows, and the men +tossing it upon the waggon. +</p> + +<p> +From behind the waggon a bright scarlet spot emerged, and went on loading +unconcernedly with the rest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had come +haymaking for pleasure; and nobody could deny that he was doing the mistress of +the farm real knight-service by this voluntary contribution of his labour at a +busy time. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her, and sticking his pitchfork +into the ground and picking up his crop or cane, he came forward. Bathsheba +blushed with half-angry embarrassment, and adjusted her eyes as well as her +feet to the direct line of her path. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI<br /> +SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD</h2> + +<p> +“Ah, Miss Everdene!” said the sergeant, touching his diminutive +cap. “Little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night. +And yet, if I had reflected, the ‘Queen of the Corn-market’ (truth +is truth at any hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in +Casterbridge yesterday), the ‘Queen of the Corn-market.’ I say, +could be no other woman. I step across now to beg your forgiveness a thousand +times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a +stranger. To be sure I am no stranger to the place—I am Sergeant Troy, as +I told you, and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when +I was a lad. I have been doing the same for you to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy,” said the +Queen of the Corn-market, in an indifferently grateful tone. +</p> + +<p> +The sergeant looked hurt and sad. “Indeed you must not, Miss +Everdene,” he said. “Why could you think such a thing +necessary?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad it is not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? if I may ask without offence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I don’t much want to thank you for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never +mend. O these intolerable times: that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly +telling a woman she is beautiful! ’Twas the most I said—you must +own that; and the least I could say—that I own myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is some talk I could do without more easily than money.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed. That remark is a sort of digression.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. It means that I would rather have your room than your +company.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other +woman; so I’ll stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And yet she could not help feeling that +the assistance he was rendering forbade a harsh repulse. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” continued Troy, “I suppose there is a praise which is +rudeness, and that may be mine. At the same time there is a treatment which is +injustice, and that may be yours. Because a plain blunt man, who has never been +taught concealment, speaks out his mind without exactly intending it, +he’s to be snapped off like the son of a sinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed there’s no such case between us,” she said, turning +away. “I don’t allow strangers to be bold and impudent—even +in praise of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—it is not the fact but the method which offends you,” he +said, carelessly. “But I have the sad satisfaction of knowing that my +words, whether pleasing or offensive, are unmistakably true. Would you have had +me look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you are quite a common-place +woman, to save you the embarrassment of being stared at if they come near you? +Not I. I couldn’t tell any such ridiculous lie about a beauty to +encourage a single woman in England in too excessive a modesty.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is all pretence—what you are saying!” exclaimed +Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the sly method. “You have a +rare invention, Sergeant Troy. Why couldn’t you have passed by me that +night, and said nothing?—that was all I meant to reproach you for.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I wasn’t going to. Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in +being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out mine. It +would have been just the same if you had been the reverse person—ugly and +old—I should have exclaimed about it in the same way.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling, +then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from +deformity.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of +doesn’t stop at faces, but extends to morals as well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t speak of morals or religion—my own or anybody +else’s. Though perhaps I should have been a very good Christian if you +pretty women hadn’t made me an idolater.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimplings of merriment. Troy +followed, whirling his crop. +</p> + +<p> +“But—Miss Everdene—you do forgive me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hardly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“You say such things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said you were beautiful, and I’ll say so still; for, by +G—— so you are! The most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall dead +this instant! Why, upon my ——” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t—don’t! I won’t listen to you—you are +so profane!” she said, in a restless state between distress at hearing +him and a <i>penchant</i> to hear more. +</p> + +<p> +“I again say you are a most fascinating woman. There’s nothing +remarkable in my saying so, is there? I’m sure the fact is evident +enough. Miss Everdene, my opinion may be too forcibly let out to please you, +and, for the matter of that, too insignificant to convince you, but surely it +is honest, and why can’t it be excused?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because it—it isn’t a correct one,” she femininely +murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, fie—fie! Am I any worse for breaking the third of that +Terrible Ten than you for breaking the ninth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it doesn’t seem <i>quite</i> true to me that I am +fascinating,” she replied evasively. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so to you: then I say with all respect that, if so, it is owing to +your modesty, Miss Everdene. But surely you must have been told by everybody of +what everybody notices? And you should take their words for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“They don’t say so exactly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, they must!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I mean to my face, as you do,” she went on, allowing herself +to be further lured into a conversation that intention had rigorously +forbidden. +</p> + +<p> +“But you know they think so?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—that is—I certainly have heard Liddy say they do, +but—” She paused. +</p> + +<p> +Capitulation—that was the purport of the simple reply, guarded as it +was—capitulation, unknown to herself. Never did a fragile tailless +sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within +himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the +moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond +mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the +chink: the remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes. +</p> + +<p> +“There the truth comes out!” said the soldier, in reply. +“Never tell me that a young lady can live in a buzz of admiration without +knowing something about it. Ah, well, Miss Everdene, you are—pardon my +blunt way—you are rather an injury to our race than otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +“How—indeed?” she said, opening her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb (an +old country saying, not of much account, but it will do for a rough soldier), +and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and without hoping or +intending to get your pardon. Why, Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that +your good looks may do more harm than good in the world.” The sergeant +looked down the mead in critical abstraction. “Probably some one man on +an average falls in love with each ordinary woman. She can marry him: he is +content, and leads a useful life. Such women as you a hundred men always +covet—your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unavailing fancy +for you—you can only marry one of that many. Out of these say twenty will +endeavour to drown the bitterness of despised love in drink; twenty more will +mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in the world, +because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you; twenty +more—the susceptible person myself possibly among them—will be +always draggling after you, getting where they may just see you, doing +desperate things. Men are such constant fools! The rest may try to get over +their passion with more or less success. But all these men will be saddened. +And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have +married are saddened with them. There’s my tale. That’s why I say +that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to +her race.” +</p> + +<p> +The handsome sergeant’s features were during this speech as rigid and +stern as John Knox’s in addressing his gay young queen. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing she made no reply, he said, “Do you read French?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I began, but when I got to the verbs, father died,” she said +simply. +</p> + +<p> +“I do—when I have an opportunity, which latterly has not been often +(my mother was a Parisienne)—and there’s a proverb they have, +<i>Qui aime bien, châtie bien</i>—‘He chastens who loves +well.’ Do you understand me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” she replied, and there was even a little tremulousness in the +usually cool girl’s voice; “if you can only fight half as winningly +as you can talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound!” And +then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this admission: in +hastily trying to retrieve it, she went from bad to worse. “Don’t, +however, suppose that <i>I</i> derive any pleasure from what you tell +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you do not—I know it perfectly,” said Troy, with much +hearty conviction on the exterior of his face: and altering the expression to +moodiness; “when a dozen men are ready to speak tenderly to you, and give +the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you need, it stands to +reason that my poor rough-and-ready mixture of praise and blame cannot convey +much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am not so conceited as to suppose +that!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you—are conceited, nevertheless,” said Bathsheba, +looking askance at a reed she was fitfully pulling with one hand, having lately +grown feverish under the soldier’s system of procedure—not because +the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but because its vigour was +overwhelming. +</p> + +<p> +“I would not own it to anybody else—nor do I exactly to you. Still, +there might have been some self-conceit in my foolish supposition the other +night. I knew that what I said in admiration might be an opinion too often +forced upon you to give any pleasure, but I certainly did think that the +kindness of your nature might prevent you judging an uncontrolled tongue +harshly—which you have done—and thinking badly of me and wounding +me this morning, when I am working hard to save your hay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you need not think more of that: perhaps you did not mean to be +rude to me by speaking out your mind: indeed, I believe you did not,” +said the shrewd woman, in painfully innocent earnest. “And I thank you +for giving help here. But—but mind you don’t speak to me again in +that way, or in any other, unless I speak to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Miss Bathsheba! That is too hard!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it isn’t. Why is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will never speak to me; for I shall not be here long. I am soon +going back again to the miserable monotony of drill—and perhaps our +regiment will be ordered out soon. And yet you take away the one little +ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life of mine. Well, perhaps +generosity is not a woman’s most marked characteristic.” +</p> + +<p> +“When are you going from here?” she asked, with some interest. +</p> + +<p> +“In a month.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you ask Miss Everdene—knowing as you do—what my offence +is based on?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then, I +don’t mind doing it,” she uncertainly and doubtingly answered. +“But you can’t really care for a word from me? you only say +so—I think you only say so.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s unjust—but I won’t repeat the remark. I am too +gratified to get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavil at the +tone. I <i>do</i>, Miss Everdene, care for it. You may think a man foolish to +want a mere word—just a good morning. Perhaps he is—I don’t +know. But you have never been a man looking upon a woman, and that woman +yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like—and +Heaven forbid that you ever should!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any +direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, sergeant, it won’t do—you are pretending!” she +said, shaking her head. “Your words are too dashing to be true.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not, upon the honour of a soldier.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>why</i> is it so?—Of course I ask for mere pastime.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are so distracting—and I am so distracted.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you only saw me the other night!” +</p> + +<p> +“That makes no difference. The lightning works instantaneously. I loved +you then, at once—as I do now.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upward, as high as she liked to +venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You cannot and you don’t,” she said demurely. “There +is no such sudden feeling in people. I won’t listen to you any longer. +Hear me, I wish I knew what o’clock it is—I am going—I have +wasted too much time here already!” +</p> + +<p> +The sergeant looked at his watch and told her. “What, haven’t you a +watch, miss?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not just at present—I am about to get a new one.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. You shall be given one. Yes—you shall. A gift, Miss +Everdene—a gift.” +</p> + +<p> +And before she knew what the young man was intending, a heavy gold watch was in +her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“It is an unusually good one for a man like me to possess,” he +quietly said. “That watch has a history. Press the spring and open the +back.” +</p> + +<p> +She did so. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you see?” +</p> + +<p> +“A crest and a motto.” +</p> + +<p> +“A coronet with five points, and beneath, <i>Cedit amor +rebus</i>—‘Love yields to circumstance.’ It’s the motto +of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the last lord, and was given to +my mother’s husband, a medical man, for his use till I came of age, when +it was to be given to me. It was all the fortune that ever I inherited. That +watch has regulated imperial interests in its time—the stately +ceremonial, the courtly assignation, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. Now it +is yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this—I cannot!” she +exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. “A gold watch! What are you doing? +Don’t be such a dissembler!” +</p> + +<p> +The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she held out +persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep it—do, Miss Everdene—keep it!” said the erratic +child of impulse. “The fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten +times as much to me. A more plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well, +and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats against—well, I +won’t speak of that. It is in far worthier hands than ever it has been in +before.” +</p> + +<p> +“But indeed I can’t have it!” she said, in a perfect simmer +of distress. “Oh, how can you do such a thing; that is if you really mean +it! Give me your dead father’s watch, and such a valuable one! You should +not be so reckless, indeed, Sergeant Troy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I loved my father: good; but better, I love you more. That’s how I +can do it,” said the sergeant, with an intonation of such exquisite +fidelity to nature that it was evidently not all acted now. Her beauty, which, +whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest, had in its animated +phases moved him to earnest; and though his seriousness was less than she +imagined, it was probably more than he imagined himself. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in +half-suspicious accents of feeling, “Can it be! Oh, how can it be, that +you care for me, and so suddenly! You have seen so little of me: I may not be +really so—so nice-looking as I seem to you. Please, do take it; Oh, do! I +cannot and will not have it. Believe me, your generosity is too great. I have +never done you a single kindness, and why should you be so kind to me?” +</p> + +<p> +A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but it was again suspended, +and he looked at her with an arrested eye. The truth was, that as she now +stood—excited, wild, and honest as the day—her alluring beauty bore +out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it that he was quite startled at +his temerity in advancing them as false. He said mechanically, “Ah, +why?” and continued to look at her. +</p> + +<p> +“And my workfolk see me following you about the field, and are wondering. +Oh, this is dreadful!” she went on, unconscious of the transmutation she +was effecting. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one poor +patent of nobility,” he broke out, bluntly; “but, upon my soul, I +wish you would now. Without any shamming, come! Don’t deny me the +happiness of wearing it for my sake? But you are too lovely even to care to be +kind as others are.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; don’t say so! I have reasons for reserve which I cannot +explain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let it be, then, let it be,” he said, receiving back the watch at +last; “I must be leaving you now. And will you speak to me for these few +weeks of my stay?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I will. Yet, I don’t know if I will! Oh, why did you come +and disturb me so!” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. Such things have +happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields?” he coaxed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Everdene, I thank you.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye!” +</p> + +<p> +The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head, saluted, and +returned to the distant group of haymakers. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. Her heart erratically flitting +hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot, and almost tearful, she +retreated homeward, murmuring, “Oh, what have I done! What does it mean! +I wish I knew how much of it was true!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII<br /> +HIVING THE BEES</h2> + +<p> +The Weatherbury bees were late in their swarming this year. It was in the +latter part of June, and the day after the interview with Troy in the hayfield, +that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, watching a swarm in the air and +guessing their probable settling place. Not only were they late this year, but +unruly. Sometimes throughout a whole season all the swarms would alight on the +lowest attainable bough—such as part of a currant-bush or espalier +apple-tree; next year they would, with just the same unanimity, make straight +off to the uppermost member of some tall, gaunt costard, or quarrenden, and +there defy all invaders who did not come armed with ladders and staves to take +them. +</p> + +<p> +This was the case at present. Bathsheba’s eyes, shaded by one hand, were +following the ascending multitude against the unexplorable stretch of blue till +they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy trees spoken of. A process +somewhat analogous to that of alleged formations of the universe, time and +times ago, was observable. The bustling swarm had swept the sky in a scattered +and uniform haze, which now thickened to a nebulous centre: this glided on to a +bough and grew still denser, till it formed a solid black spot upon the light. +</p> + +<p> +The men and women being all busily engaged in saving the hay—even Liddy +had left the house for the purpose of lending a hand—Bathsheba resolved +to hive the bees herself, if possible. She had dressed the hive with herbs and +honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook, made herself impregnable with armour +of leather gloves, straw hat, and large gauze veil—once green but now +faded to snuff colour—and ascended a dozen rungs of the ladder. At once +she heard, not ten yards off, a voice that was beginning to have a strange +power in agitating her. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should not attempt such a thing +alone.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy was just opening the garden gate. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook, and empty hive, pulled the skirt of her +dress tightly round her ankles in a tremendous flurry, and as well as she could +slid down the ladder. By the time she reached the bottom Troy was there also, +and he stooped to pick up the hive. +</p> + +<p> +“How fortunate I am to have dropped in at this moment!” exclaimed +the sergeant. +</p> + +<p> +She found her voice in a minute. “What! and will you shake them in for +me?” she asked, in what, for a defiant girl, was a faltering way; though, +for a timid girl, it would have seemed a brave way enough. +</p> + +<p> +“Will I!” said Troy. “Why, of course I will. How blooming you +are to-day!” Troy flung down his cane and put his foot on the ladder to +ascend. +</p> + +<p> +“But you must have on the veil and gloves, or you’ll be stung +fearfully!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. Will you kindly show me how +to fix them properly?” +</p> + +<p> +“And you must have the broad-brimmed hat, too, for your cap has no brim +to keep the veil off, and they’d reach your face.” +</p> + +<p> +“The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means.” +</p> + +<p> +So a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be taken off—veil and all +attached—and placed upon his head, Troy tossing his own into a gooseberry +bush. Then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge round his collar and the +gloves put on him. +</p> + +<p> +He looked such an extraordinary object in this guise that, flurried as she was, +she could not avoid laughing outright. It was the removal of yet another stake +from the palisade of cold manners which had kept him off. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst he was busy sweeping and shaking the +bees from the tree, holding up the hive with the other hand for them to fall +into. She made use of an unobserved minute whilst his attention was absorbed in +the operation to arrange her plumes a little. He came down holding the hive at +arm’s length, behind which trailed a cloud of bees. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my life,” said Troy, through the veil, “holding up this +hive makes one’s arm ache worse than a week of sword-exercise.” +When the manœuvre was complete he approached her. “Would you be good +enough to untie me and let me out? I am nearly stifled inside this silk +cage.” +</p> + +<p> +To hide her embarrassment during the unwonted process of untying the string +about his neck, she said:— +</p> + +<p> +“I have never seen that you spoke of.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“The sword-exercise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! would you like to?” said Troy. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous reports from time to time by +dwellers in Weatherbury, who had by chance sojourned awhile in Casterbridge, +near the barracks, of this strange and glorious performance, the +sword-exercise. Men and boys who had peeped through chinks or over walls into +the barrack-yard returned with accounts of its being the most flashing affair +conceivable; accoutrements and weapons glistening like stars—here, there, +around—yet all by rule and compass. So she said mildly what she felt +strongly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I should like to see it very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so you shall; you shall see me go through it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No! How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me consider.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not with a walking-stick—I don’t care to see that. It must +be a real sword.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know; and I have no sword here; but I think I could get one by +the evening. Now, will you do this?” +</p> + +<p> +Troy bent over her and murmured some suggestion in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, indeed!” said Bathsheba, blushing. “Thank you very +much, but I couldn’t on any account.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you might? Nobody would know.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, but with a weakened negation. “If I were to,” +she said, “I must bring Liddy too. Might I not?” +</p> + +<p> +Troy looked far away. “I don’t see why you want to bring +her,” he said coldly. +</p> + +<p> +An unconscious look of assent in Bathsheba’s eyes betrayed that something +more than his coldness had made her also feel that Liddy would be superfluous +in the suggested scene. She had felt it, even whilst making the proposal. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I won’t bring Liddy—and I’ll come. But only for +a very short time,” she added; “a very short time.” +</p> + +<p> +“It will not take five minutes,” said Troy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII<br /> +THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS</h2> + +<p> +The hill opposite Bathsheba’s dwelling extended, a mile off, into an +uncultivated tract of land, dotted at this season with tall thickets of brake +fern, plump and diaphanous from recent rapid growth, and radiant in hues of +clear and untainted green. +</p> + +<p> +At eight o’clock this midsummer evening, whilst the bristling ball of +gold in the west still swept the tips of the ferns with its long, luxuriant +rays, a soft brushing-by of garments might have been heard among them, and +Bathsheba appeared in their midst, their soft, feathery arms caressing her up +to her shoulders. She paused, turned, went back over the hill and half-way to +her own door, whence she cast a farewell glance upon the spot she had just +left, having resolved not to remain near the place after all. +</p> + +<p> +She saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round the shoulder of the rise. It +disappeared on the other side. +</p> + +<p> +She waited one minute—two minutes—thought of Troy’s +disappointment at her non-fulfilment of a promised engagement, till she again +ran along the field, clambered over the bank, and followed the original +direction. She was now literally trembling and panting at this her temerity in +such an errant undertaking; her breath came and went quickly, and her eyes +shone with an infrequent light. Yet go she must. She reached the verge of a pit +in the middle of the ferns. Troy stood in the bottom, looking up towards her. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw you,” he said, +coming up and giving her his hand to help her down the slope. +</p> + +<p> +The pit was a saucer-shaped concave, naturally formed, with a top diameter of +about thirty feet, and shallow enough to allow the sunshine to reach their +heads. Standing in the centre, the sky overhead was met by a circular horizon +of fern: this grew nearly to the bottom of the slope and then abruptly ceased. +The middle within the belt of verdure was floored with a thick flossy carpet of +moss and grass intermingled, so yielding that the foot was half-buried within +it. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he raised it into +the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a living thing, “first, we +have four right and four left cuts; four right and four left thrusts. Infantry +cuts and guards are more interesting than ours, to my mind; but they are not so +swashing. They have seven cuts and three thrusts. So much as a preliminary. +Well, next, our cut one is as if you were sowing your corn—so.” +Bathsheba saw a sort of rainbow, upside down in the air, and Troy’s arm +was still again. “Cut two, as if you were hedging—so. Three, as if +you were reaping—so. Four, as if you were threshing—in that way. +Then the same on the left. The thrusts are these: one, two, three, four, right; +one, two, three, four, left.” He repeated them. “Have ’em +again?” he said. “One, two—” +</p> + +<p> +She hurriedly interrupted: “I’d rather not; though I don’t +mind your twos and fours; but your ones and threes are terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. I’ll let you off the ones and threes. Next, cuts, +points and guards altogether.” Troy duly exhibited them. “Then +there’s pursuing practice, in this way.” He gave the movements as +before. “There, those are the stereotyped forms. The infantry have two +most diabolical upward cuts, which we are too humane to use. Like +this—three, four.” +</p> + +<p> +“How murderous and bloodthirsty!” +</p> + +<p> +“They are rather deathly. Now I’ll be more interesting, and let you +see some loose play—giving all the cuts and points, infantry and cavalry, +quicker than lightning, and as promiscuously—with just enough rule to +regulate instinct and yet not to fetter it. You are my antagonist, with this +difference from real warfare, that I shall miss you every time by one +hair’s breadth, or perhaps two. Mind you don’t flinch, whatever you +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be sure not to!” she said invincibly. +</p> + +<p> +He pointed to about a yard in front of him. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s adventurous spirit was beginning to find some grains of +relish in these highly novel proceedings. She took up her position as directed, +facing Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“Now just to learn whether you have pluck enough to let me do what I +wish, I’ll give you a preliminary test.” +</p> + +<p> +He flourished the sword by way of introduction number two, and the next thing +of which she was conscious was that the point and blade of the sword were +darting with a gleam towards her left side, just above her hip; then of their +reappearance on her right side, emerging as it were from between her ribs, +having apparently passed through her body. The third item of consciousness was +that of seeing the same sword, perfectly clean and free from blood held +vertically in Troy’s hand (in the position technically called +“recover swords”). All was as quick as electricity. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” she cried out in affright, pressing her hand to her side. +“Have you run me through?—no, you have not! Whatever have you +done!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not touched you,” said Troy, quietly. “It was mere +sleight of hand. The sword passed behind you. Now you are not afraid, are you? +Because if you are I can’t perform. I give my word that I will not only +not hurt you, but not once touch you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I am afraid. You are quite sure you will not hurt +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is the sword very sharp?” +</p> + +<p> +“O no—only stand as still as a statue. Now!” +</p> + +<p> +In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba’s eyes. Beams +of light caught from the low sun’s rays, above, around, in front of her, +well-nigh shut out earth and heaven—all emitted in the marvellous +evolutions of Troy’s reflecting blade, which seemed everywhere at once, +and yet nowhere specially. These circling gleams were accompanied by a keen +rush that was almost a whistling—also springing from all sides of her at +once. In short, she was enclosed in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses, +resembling a sky-full of meteors close at hand. +</p> + +<p> +Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been more +dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of Sergeant Troy, and never +had he been in such splendid temper for the performance as now in the evening +sunshine among the ferns with Bathsheba. It may safely be asserted with respect +to the closeness of his cuts, that had it been possible for the edge of the +sword to leave in the air a permanent substance wherever it flew past, the +space left untouched would have been almost a mould of Bathsheba’s +figure. +</p> + +<p> +Behind the luminous streams of this <i>aurora militaris</i>, she could see the +hue of Troy’s sword arm, spread in a scarlet haze over the space covered +by its motions, like a twanged harpstring, and behind all Troy himself, mostly +facing her; sometimes, to show the rear cuts, half turned away, his eye +nevertheless always keenly measuring her breadth and outline, and his lips +tightly closed in sustained effort. Next, his movements lapsed slower, and she +could see them individually. The hissing of the sword had ceased, and he +stopped entirely. +</p> + +<p> +“That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying,” he said, before she +had moved or spoken. “Wait: I’ll do it for you.” +</p> + +<p> +An arc of silver shone on her right side: the sword had descended. The lock +dropped to the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Bravely borne!” said Troy. “You didn’t flinch a +shade’s thickness. Wonderful in a woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“It was because I didn’t expect it. Oh, you have spoilt my +hair!” +</p> + +<p> +“Only once more.” +</p> + +<p> +“No—no! I am afraid of you—indeed I am!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t touch you at all—not even your hair. I am only going +to kill that caterpillar settling on you. Now: still!” +</p> + +<p> +It appeared that a caterpillar had come from the fern and chosen the front of +her bodice as his resting place. She saw the point glisten towards her bosom, +and seemingly enter it. Bathsheba closed her eyes in the full persuasion that +she was killed at last. However, feeling just as usual, she opened them again. +</p> + +<p> +“There it is, look,” said the sergeant, holding his sword before +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The caterpillar was spitted upon its point. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, it is magic!” said Bathsheba, amazed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—dexterity. I merely gave point to your bosom where the +caterpillar was, and instead of running you through checked the extension a +thousandth of an inch short of your surface.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has no +edge?” +</p> + +<p> +“No edge! This sword will shave like a razor. Look here.” +</p> + +<p> +He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it, showed +her a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling therefrom. +</p> + +<p> +“But you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn’t cut +me!” +</p> + +<p> +“That was to get you to stand still, and so make sure of your safety. The +risk of injuring you through your moving was too great not to force me to tell +you a fib to escape it.” +</p> + +<p> +She shuddered. “I have been within an inch of my life, and didn’t +know it!” +</p> + +<p> +“More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being +pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cruel, cruel, ’tis of you!” +</p> + +<p> +“You have been perfectly safe, nevertheless. My sword never errs.” +And Troy returned the weapon to the scabbard. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred tumultuous feelings resulting from the scene, +abstractedly sat down on a tuft of heather. +</p> + +<p> +“I must leave you now,” said Troy, softly. “And I’ll +venture to take and keep this in remembrance of you.” +</p> + +<p> +She saw him stoop to the grass, pick up the winding lock which he had severed +from her manifold tresses, twist it round his fingers, unfasten a button in the +breast of his coat, and carefully put it inside. She felt powerless to +withstand or deny him. He was altogether too much for her, and Bathsheba seemed +as one who, facing a reviving wind, finds it blow so strongly that it stops the +breath. He drew near and said, “I must be leaving you.” +</p> + +<p> +He drew nearer still. A minute later and she saw his scarlet form disappear +amid the ferny thicket, almost in a flash, like a brand swiftly waved. +</p> + +<p> +That minute’s interval had brought the blood beating into her face, set +her stinging as if aflame to the very hollows of her feet, and enlarged emotion +to a compass which quite swamped thought. It had brought upon her a stroke +resulting, as did that of Moses in Horeb, in a liquid stream—here a +stream of tears. She felt like one who has sinned a great sin. +</p> + +<p> +The circumstance had been the gentle dip of Troy’s mouth downwards upon +her own. He had kissed her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX<br /> +PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK</h2> + +<p> +We now see the element of folly distinctly mingling with the many varying +particulars which made up the character of Bathsheba Everdene. It was almost +foreign to her intrinsic nature. Introduced as lymph on the dart of Eros, it +eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution. Bathsheba, though she +had too much understanding to be entirely governed by her womanliness, had too +much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage. Perhaps in no +minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she +possesses of believing cajoleries that she knows to be false—except, +indeed, in that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she knows to be +true. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they +abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her +strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw +away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has +never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly +weak by being new. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this matter. Though in one sense a +woman of the world, it was, after all, that world of daylight coteries and +green carpets wherein cattle form the passing crowd and winds the busy hum; +where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on the other side of your +party-wall, where your neighbour is everybody in the tything, and where +calculation is confined to market-days. Of the fabricated tastes of good +fashionable society she knew but little, and of the formulated self-indulgence +of bad, nothing at all. Had her utmost thoughts in this direction been +distinctly worded (and by herself they never were), they would only have +amounted to such a matter as that she felt her impulses to be pleasanter guides +than her discretion. Her love was entire as a child’s, and though warm as +summer it was fresh as spring. Her culpability lay in her making no attempt to +control feeling by subtle and careful inquiry into consequences. She could show +others the steep and thorny way, but “reck’d not her own +rede.” +</p> + +<p> +And Troy’s deformities lay deep down from a woman’s vision, whilst +his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely +Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as +metals in a mine. +</p> + +<p> +The difference between love and respect was markedly shown in her conduct. +Bathsheba had spoken of her interest in Boldwood with the greatest freedom to +Liddy, but she had only communed with her own heart concerning Troy. +</p> + +<p> +All this infatuation Gabriel saw, and was troubled thereby from the time of his +daily journey a-field to the time of his return, and on to the small hours of +many a night. That he was not beloved had hitherto been his great sorrow; that +Bathsheba was getting into the toils was now a sorrow greater than the first, +and one which nearly obscured it. It was a result which paralleled the +oft-quoted observation of Hippocrates concerning physical pains. +</p> + +<p> +That is a noble though perhaps an unpromising love which not even the fear of +breeding aversion in the bosom of the one beloved can deter from combating his +or her errors. Oak determined to speak to his mistress. He would base his +appeal on what he considered her unfair treatment of Farmer Boldwood, now +absent from home. +</p> + +<p> +An opportunity occurred one evening when she had gone for a short walk by a +path through the neighbouring cornfields. It was dusk when Oak, who had not +been far a-field that day, took the same path and met her returning, quite +pensively, as he thought. +</p> + +<p> +The wheat was now tall, and the path was narrow; thus the way was quite a +sunken groove between the embowing thicket on either side. Two persons could +not walk abreast without damaging the crop, and Oak stood aside to let her +pass. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, is it Gabriel?” she said. “You are taking a walk too. +Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I would come to meet you, as it is rather late,” said +Oak, turning and following at her heels when she had brushed somewhat quickly +by him. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, indeed, but I am not very fearful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; but there are bad characters about.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never meet them.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Oak, with marvellous ingenuity, had been going to introduce the gallant +sergeant through the channel of “bad characters.” But all at once +the scheme broke down, it suddenly occurring to him that this was rather a +clumsy way, and too barefaced to begin with. He tried another preamble. +</p> + +<p> +“And as the man who would naturally come to meet you is away from home, +too—I mean Farmer Boldwood—why, thinks I, I’ll go,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes.” She walked on without turning her head, and for many +steps nothing further was heard from her quarter than the rustle of her dress +against the heavy corn-ears. Then she resumed rather tartly— +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite understand what you meant by saying that Mr. +Boldwood would naturally come to meet me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I meant on account of the wedding which they say is likely to take place +between you and him, miss. Forgive my speaking plainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“They say what is not true.” she returned quickly. “No +marriage is likely to take place between us.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel now put forth his unobscured opinion, for the moment had come. +“Well, Miss Everdene,” he said, “putting aside what people +say, I never in my life saw any courting if his is not a courting of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba would probably have terminated the conversation there and then by +flatly forbidding the subject, had not her conscious weakness of position +allured her to palter and argue in endeavours to better it. +</p> + +<p> +“Since this subject has been mentioned,” she said very +emphatically, “I am glad of the opportunity of clearing up a mistake +which is very common and very provoking. I didn’t definitely promise Mr. +Boldwood anything. I have never cared for him. I respect him, and he has urged +me to marry him. But I have given him no distinct answer. As soon as he returns +I shall do so; and the answer will be that I cannot think of marrying +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“People are full of mistakes, seemingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are.” +</p> + +<p> +“The other day they said you were trifling with him, and you almost +proved that you were not; lately they have said that you be not, and you +straightway begin to show—” +</p> + +<p> +“That I am, I suppose you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope they speak the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“They do, but wrongly applied. I don’t trifle with him; but then, I +have nothing to do with him.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak was unfortunately led on to speak of Boldwood’s rival in a wrong tone +to her after all. “I wish you had never met that young Sergeant Troy, +miss,” he sighed. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s steps became faintly spasmodic. “Why?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“He is not good enough for ’ee.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did any one tell you to speak to me like this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it appears to me that Sergeant Troy does not concern us +here,” she said, intractably. “Yet I must say that Sergeant Troy is +an educated man, and quite worthy of any woman. He is well born.” +</p> + +<p> +“His being higher in learning and birth than the ruck o’ soldiers +is anything but a proof of his worth. It show’s his course to be +down’ard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot see what this has to do with our conversation. Mr. Troy’s +course is not by any means downward; and his superiority <i>is</i> a proof of +his worth!” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe him to have no conscience at all. And I cannot help begging +you, miss, to have nothing to do with him. Listen to me this once—only +this once! I don’t say he’s such a bad man as I have +fancied—I pray to God he is not. But since we don’t exactly know +what he is, why not behave as if he <i>might</i> be bad, simply for your own +safety? Don’t trust him, mistress; I ask you not to trust him so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, pray?” +</p> + +<p> +“I like soldiers, but this one I do not like,” he said, sturdily. +“His cleverness in his calling may have tempted him astray, and what is +mirth to the neighbours is ruin to the woman. When he tries to talk to +’ee again, why not turn away with a short ‘Good day’; and +when you see him coming one way, turn the other. When he says anything +laughable, fail to see the point and don’t smile, and speak of him before +those who will report your talk as ‘that fantastical man,’ or +‘that Sergeant What’s-his-name.’ ‘That man of a family +that has come to the dogs.’ Don’t be unmannerly towards en, but +harmless-uncivil, and so get rid of the man.” +</p> + +<p> +No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane ever pulsed as did Bathsheba now. +</p> + +<p> +“I say—I say again—that it doesn’t become you to talk +about him. Why he should be mentioned passes me quite!” she exclaimed +desperately. “I know this, th-th-that he is a thoroughly conscientious +man—blunt sometimes even to rudeness—but always speaking his mind +about you plain to your face!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too, +about going to church—yes, he is!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afeard nobody saw him there. I never did, certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“The reason of that is,” she said eagerly, “that he goes in +privately by the old tower door, just when the service commences, and sits at +the back of the gallery. He told me so.” +</p> + +<p> +This supreme instance of Troy’s goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like the +thirteenth stroke of crazy clock. It was not only received with utter +incredulity as regarded itself, but threw a doubt on all the assurances that +had preceded it. +</p> + +<p> +Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted him. He brimmed with deep +feeling as he replied in a steady voice, the steadiness of which was spoilt by +the palpableness of his great effort to keep it so:— +</p> + +<p> +“You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall love you always. I only +mention this to bring to your mind that at any rate I would wish to do you no +harm: beyond that I put it aside. I have lost in the race for money and good +things, and I am not such a fool as to pretend to ’ee now I am poor, and +you have got altogether above me. But Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you +to consider—that, both to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, +and in common generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, you +should be more discreet in your bearing towards this soldier.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t, don’t, don’t!” she exclaimed, in a +choking voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Are ye not more to me than my own affairs, and even life!” he went +on. “Come, listen to me! I am six years older than you, and Mr. Boldwood +is ten years older than I, and consider—I do beg of ’ee to consider +before it is too late—how safe you would be in his hands!” +</p> + +<p> +Oak’s allusion to his own love for her lessened, to some extent, her +anger at his interference; but she could not really forgive him for letting his +wish to marry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her good, any more than for his +slighting treatment of Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you to go elsewhere,” she commanded, a paleness of face +invisible to the eye being suggested by the trembling words. “Do not +remain on this farm any longer. I don’t want you—I beg you to +go!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s nonsense,” said Oak, calmly. “This is the +second time you have pretended to dismiss me; and what’s the use o’ +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pretended! You shall go, sir—your lecturing I will not hear! I am +mistress here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go, indeed—what folly will you say next? Treating me like Dick, +Tom and Harry when you know that a short time ago my position was as good as +yours! Upon my life, Bathsheba, it is too barefaced. You know, too, that I +can’t go without putting things in such a strait as you wouldn’t +get out of I can’t tell when. Unless, indeed, you’ll promise to +have an understanding man as bailiff, or manager, or something. I’ll go +at once if you’ll promise that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have no bailiff; I shall continue to be my own manager,” +she said decisively. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then; you should be thankful to me for biding. How would the +farm go on with nobody to mind it but a woman? But mind this, I don’t +wish ’ee to feel you owe me anything. Not I. What I do, I do. Sometimes I +say I should be as glad as a bird to leave the place—for don’t +suppose I’m content to be a nobody. I was made for better things. +However, I don’t like to see your concerns going to ruin, as they must if +you keep in this mind.... I hate taking my own measure so plain, but, upon my +life, your provoking ways make a man say what he wouldn’t dream of at +other times! I own to being rather interfering. But you know well enough how it +is, and who she is that I like too well, and feel too much like a fool about to +be civil to her!” +</p> + +<p> +It is more than probable that she privately and unconsciously respected him a +little for this grim fidelity, which had been shown in his tone even more than +in his words. At any rate she murmured something to the effect that he might +stay if he wished. She said more distinctly, “Will you leave me alone +now? I don’t order it as a mistress—I ask it as a woman, and I +expect you not to be so uncourteous as to refuse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I will, Miss Everdene,” said Gabriel, gently. He +wondered that the request should have come at this moment, for the strife was +over, and they were on a most desolate hill, far from every human habitation, +and the hour was getting late. He stood still and allowed her to get far ahead +of him till he could only see her form upon the sky. +</p> + +<p> +A distressing explanation of this anxiety to be rid of him at that point now +ensued. A figure apparently rose from the earth beside her. The shape beyond +all doubt was Troy’s. Oak would not be even a possible listener, and at +once turned back till a good two hundred yards were between the lovers and +himself. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel went home by way of the churchyard. In passing the tower he thought of +what she had said about the sergeant’s virtuous habit of entering the +church unperceived at the beginning of service. Believing that the little +gallery door alluded to was quite disused, he ascended the external flight of +steps at the top of which it stood, and examined it. The pale lustre yet +hanging in the north-western heaven was sufficient to show that a sprig of ivy +had grown from the wall across the door to a length of more than a foot, +delicately tying the panel to the stone jamb. It was a decisive proof that the +door had not been opened at least since Troy came back to Weatherbury. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX<br /> +HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES</h2> + +<p> +Half an hour later Bathsheba entered her own house. There burnt upon her face +when she met the light of the candles the flush and excitement which were +little less than chronic with her now. The farewell words of Troy, who had +accompanied her to the very door, still lingered in her ears. He had bidden her +adieu for two days, which were, so he stated, to be spent at Bath in visiting +some friends. He had also kissed her a second time. +</p> + +<p> +It is only fair to Bathsheba to explain here a little fact which did not come +to light till a long time afterwards: that Troy’s presentation of himself +so aptly at the roadside this evening was not by any distinctly preconcerted +arrangement. He had hinted—she had forbidden; and it was only on the +chance of his still coming that she had dismissed Oak, fearing a meeting +between them just then. +</p> + +<p> +She now sank down into a chair, wild and perturbed by all these new and +fevering sequences. Then she jumped up with a manner of decision, and fetched +her desk from a side table. +</p> + +<p> +In three minutes, without pause or modification, she had written a letter to +Boldwood, at his address beyond Casterbridge, saying mildly but firmly that she +had well considered the whole subject he had brought before her and kindly +given her time to decide upon; that her final decision was that she could not +marry him. She had expressed to Oak an intention to wait till Boldwood came +home before communicating to him her conclusive reply. But Bathsheba found that +she could not wait. +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible to send this letter till the next day; yet to quell her +uneasiness by getting it out of her hands, and so, as it were, setting the act +in motion at once, she arose to take it to any one of the women who might be in +the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +She paused in the passage. A dialogue was going on in the kitchen, and +Bathsheba and Troy were the subject of it. +</p> + +<p> +“If he marry her, she’ll gie up farming.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twill be a gallant life, but may bring some trouble between the +mirth—so say I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I wish I had half such a husband.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba had too much sense to mind seriously what her servitors said about +her; but too much womanly redundance of speech to leave alone what was said +till it died the natural death of unminded things. She burst in upon them. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you speaking of?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause before anybody replied. At last Liddy said frankly, +“What was passing was a bit of a word about yourself, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so! Maryann and Liddy and Temperance—now I forbid you to +suppose such things. You know I don’t care the least for Mr. +Troy—not I. Everybody knows how much I hate him.—Yes,” +repeated the froward young person, “<i>hate</i> him!” +</p> + +<p> +“We know you do, miss,” said Liddy; “and so do we all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hate him too,” said Maryann. +</p> + +<p> +“Maryann—Oh you perjured woman! How can you speak that wicked +story!” said Bathsheba, excitedly. “You admired him from your heart +only this morning in the very world, you did. Yes, Maryann, you know it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, miss, but so did you. He is a wild scamp now, and you are right to +hate him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s <i>not</i> a wild scamp! How dare you to my face! I have no +right to hate him, nor you, nor anybody. But I am a silly woman! What is it to +me what he is? You know it is nothing. I don’t care for him; I +don’t mean to defend his good name, not I. Mind this, if any of you say a +word against him you’ll be dismissed instantly!” +</p> + +<p> +She flung down the letter and surged back into the parlour, with a big heart +and tearful eyes, Liddy following her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh miss!” said mild Liddy, looking pitifully into +Bathsheba’s face. “I am sorry we mistook you so! I did think you +cared for him; but I see you don’t now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut the door, Liddy.” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy closed the door, and went on: “People always say such foolery, +miss. I’ll make answer hencefor’ard, ‘Of course a lady like +Miss Everdene can’t love him’; I’ll say it out in plain black +and white.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba burst out: “O Liddy, are you such a simpleton? Can’t you +read riddles? Can’t you see? Are you a woman yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy’s clear eyes rounded with wonderment. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you must be a blind thing, Liddy!” she said, in reckless +abandonment and grief. “Oh, I love him to very distraction and misery and +agony! Don’t be frightened at me, though perhaps I am enough to frighten +any innocent woman. Come closer—closer.” She put her arms round +Liddy’s neck. “I must let it out to somebody; it is wearing me +away! Don’t you yet know enough of me to see through that miserable +denial of mine? O God, what a lie it was! Heaven and my Love forgive me. And +don’t you know that a woman who loves at all thinks nothing of perjury +when it is balanced against her love? There, go out of the room; I want to be +quite alone.” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy went towards the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Liddy, come here. Solemnly swear to me that he’s not a fast man; +that it is all lies they say about him!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, miss, how can I say he is not if—” +</p> + +<p> +“You graceless girl! How can you have the cruel heart to repeat what they +say? Unfeeling thing that you are.... But <i>I’ll</i> see if you or +anybody else in the village, or town either, dare do such a thing!” She +started off, pacing from fireplace to door, and back again. +</p> + +<p> +“No, miss. I don’t—I know it is not true!” said Liddy, +frightened at Bathsheba’s unwonted vehemence. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you only agree with me like that to please me. But, Liddy, he +<i>cannot be</i> bad, as is said. Do you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, miss, yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you don’t believe he is?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what to say, miss,” said Liddy, beginning to +cry. “If I say No, you don’t believe me; and if I say Yes, you rage +at me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Say you don’t believe it—say you don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe him to be so bad as they make out.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not bad at all.... My poor life and heart, how weak I am!” +she moaned, in a relaxed, desultory way, heedless of Liddy’s presence. +“Oh, how I wish I had never seen him! Loving is misery for women always. +I shall never forgive God for making me a woman, and dearly am I beginning to +pay for the honour of owning a pretty face.” She freshened and turned to +Liddy suddenly. “Mind this, Lydia Smallbury, if you repeat anywhere a +single word of what I have said to you inside this closed door, I’ll +never trust you, or love you, or have you with me a moment longer—not a +moment!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to repeat anything,” said Liddy, with womanly +dignity of a diminutive order; “but I don’t wish to stay with you. +And, if you please, I’ll go at the end of the harvest, or this week, or +to-day.... I don’t see that I deserve to be put upon and stormed at for +nothing!” concluded the small woman, bigly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, Liddy; you must stay!” said Bathsheba, dropping from +haughtiness to entreaty with capricious inconsequence. “You must not +notice my being in a taking just now. You are not as a servant—you are a +companion to me. Dear, dear—I don’t know what I am doing since this +miserable ache of my heart has weighted and worn upon me so! What shall I come +to! I suppose I shall get further and further into troubles. I wonder sometimes +if I am doomed to die in the Union. I am friendless enough, God knows!” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t notice anything, nor will I leave you!” sobbed +Liddy, impulsively putting up her lips to Bathsheba’s, and kissing her. +</p> + +<p> +Then Bathsheba kissed Liddy, and all was smooth again. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t often cry, do I, Lidd? but you have made tears come into +my eyes,” she said, a smile shining through the moisture. “Try to +think him a good man, won’t you, dear Liddy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will, miss, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a sort of steady man in a wild way, you know. That’s better +than to be as some are, wild in a steady way. I am afraid that’s how I +am. And promise me to keep my secret—do, Liddy! And do not let them know +that I have been crying about him, because it will be dreadful for me, and no +good to him, poor thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“Death’s head himself shan’t wring it from me, mistress, if +I’ve a mind to keep anything; and I’ll always be your +friend,” replied Liddy, emphatically, at the same time bringing a few +more tears into her own eyes, not from any particular necessity, but from an +artistic sense of making herself in keeping with the remainder of the picture, +which seems to influence women at such times. “I think God likes us to be +good friends, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, dear miss, you won’t harry me and storm at me, will you? +because you seem to swell so tall as a lion then, and it frightens me! Do you +know, I fancy you would be a match for any man when you are in one o’ +your takings.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never! do you?” said Bathsheba, slightly laughing, though somewhat +seriously alarmed by this Amazonian picture of herself. “I hope I am not +a bold sort of maid—mannish?” she continued with some anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, not mannish; but so almighty womanish that ’tis getting on +that way sometimes. Ah! miss,” she said, after having drawn her breath +very sadly in and sent it very sadly out, “I wish I had half your failing +that way. ’Tis a great protection to a poor maid in these +illegit’mate days!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI<br /> +BLAME—FURY</h2> + +<p> +The next evening Bathsheba, with the idea of getting out of the way of Mr. +Boldwood in the event of his returning to answer her note in person, proceeded +to fulfil an engagement made with Liddy some few hours earlier. +Bathsheba’s companion, as a gauge of their reconciliation, had been +granted a week’s holiday to visit her sister, who was married to a +thriving hurdler and cattle-crib-maker living in a delightful labyrinth of +hazel copse not far beyond Yalbury. The arrangement was that Miss Everdene +should honour them by coming there for a day or two to inspect some ingenious +contrivances which this man of the woods had introduced into his wares. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving her instructions with Gabriel and Maryann, that they were to see +everything carefully locked up for the night, she went out of the house just at +the close of a timely thunder-shower, which had refined the air, and daintily +bathed the coat of the land, though all beneath was dry as ever. Freshness was +exhaled in an essence from the varied contours of bank and hollow, as if the +earth breathed maiden breath; and the pleased birds were hymning to the scene. +Before her, among the clouds, there was a contrast in the shape of lairs of +fierce light which showed themselves in the neighbourhood of a hidden sun, +lingering on to the farthest north-west corner of the heavens that this +midsummer season allowed. +</p> + +<p> +She had walked nearly two miles of her journey, watching how the day was +retreating, and thinking how the time of deeds was quietly melting into the +time of thought, to give place in its turn to the time of prayer and sleep, +when she beheld advancing over Yalbury hill the very man she sought so +anxiously to elude. Boldwood was stepping on, not with that quiet tread of +reserved strength which was his customary gait, in which he always seemed to be +balancing two thoughts. His manner was stunned and sluggish now. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood had for the first time been awakened to woman’s privileges in +tergiversation even when it involves another person’s possible blight. +That Bathsheba was a firm and positive girl, far less inconsequent than her +fellows, had been the very lung of his hope; for he had held that these +qualities would lead her to adhere to a straight course for consistency’s +sake, and accept him, though her fancy might not flood him with the iridescent +hues of uncritical love. But the argument now came back as sorry gleams from a +broken mirror. The discovery was no less a scourge than a surprise. +</p> + +<p> +He came on looking upon the ground, and did not see Bathsheba till they were +less than a stone’s throw apart. He looked up at the sound of her +pit-pat, and his changed appearance sufficiently denoted to her the depth and +strength of the feelings paralyzed by her letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh; is it you, Mr. Boldwood?” she faltered, a guilty warmth +pulsing in her face. +</p> + +<p> +Those who have the power of reproaching in silence may find it a means more +effective than words. There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, +and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the +grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of +sound. Boldwood’s look was unanswerable. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing she turned a little aside, he said, “What, are you afraid of +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should you say that?” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“I fancied you looked so,” said he. “And it is most strange, +because of its contrast with my feeling for you.” +</p> + +<p> +She regained self-possession, fixed her eyes calmly, and waited. +</p> + +<p> +“You know what that feeling is,” continued Boldwood, deliberately. +“A thing strong as death. No dismissal by a hasty letter affects +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you did not feel so strongly about me,” she murmured. +“It is generous of you, and more than I deserve, but I must not hear it +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hear it? What do you think I have to say, then? I am not to marry you, +and that’s enough. Your letter was excellently plain. I want you to hear +nothing—not I.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was unable to direct her will into any definite groove for freeing +herself from this fearfully awkward position. She confusedly said, “Good +evening,” and was moving on. Boldwood walked up to her heavily and dully. +</p> + +<p> +“Bathsheba—darling—is it final indeed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Bathsheba—have pity upon me!” Boldwood burst out. +“God’s sake, yes—I am come to that low, lowest stage—to +ask a woman for pity! Still, she is you—she is you.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba commanded herself well. But she could hardly get a clear voice for +what came instinctively to her lips: “There is little honour to the woman +in that speech.” It was only whispered, for something unutterably +mournful no less than distressing in this spectacle of a man showing himself to +be so entirely the vane of a passion enervated the feminine instinct for +punctilios. +</p> + +<p> +“I am beyond myself about this, and am mad,” he said. “I am +no stoic at all to be supplicating here; but I do supplicate to you. I wish you +knew what is in me of devotion to you; but it is impossible, that. In bare +human mercy to a lonely man, don’t throw me off now!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t throw you off—indeed, how can I? I never had +you.” In her noon-clear sense that she had never loved him she forgot for +a moment her thoughtless angle on that day in February. +</p> + +<p> +“But there was a time when you turned to me, before I thought of you! I +don’t reproach you, for even now I feel that the ignorant and cold +darkness that I should have lived in if you had not attracted me by that +letter—valentine you call it—would have been worse than my +knowledge of you, though it has brought this misery. But, I say, there was a +time when I knew nothing of you, and cared nothing for you, and yet you drew me +on. And if you say you gave me no encouragement, I cannot but contradict +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What you call encouragement was the childish game of an idle minute. I +have bitterly repented of it—ay, bitterly, and in tears. Can you still go +on reminding me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t accuse you of it—I deplore it. I took for earnest +what you insist was jest, and now this that I pray to be jest you say is awful, +wretched earnest. Our moods meet at wrong places. I wish your feeling was more +like mine, or my feeling more like yours! Oh, could I but have foreseen the +torture that trifling trick was going to lead me into, how I should have cursed +you; but only having been able to see it since, I cannot do that, for I love +you too well! But it is weak, idle drivelling to go on like this.... Bathsheba, +you are the first woman of any shade or nature that I have ever looked at to +love, and it is the having been so near claiming you for my own that makes this +denial so hard to bear. How nearly you promised me! But I don’t speak now +to move your heart, and make you grieve because of my pain; it is no use, that. +I must bear it; my pain would get no less by paining you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I do pity you—deeply—O, so deeply!” she earnestly +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Do no such thing—do no such thing. Your dear love, Bathsheba, is +such a vast thing beside your pity, that the loss of your pity as well as your +love is no great addition to my sorrow, nor does the gain of your pity make it +sensibly less. O sweet—how dearly you spoke to me behind the spear-bed at +the washing-pool, and in the barn at the shearing, and that dearest last time +in the evening at your home! Where are your pleasant words all gone—your +earnest hope to be able to love me? Where is your firm conviction that you +would get to care for me very much? Really forgotten?—really?” +</p> + +<p> +She checked emotion, looked him quietly and clearly in the face, and said in +her low, firm voice, “Mr. Boldwood, I promised you nothing. Would you +have had me a woman of clay when you paid me that furthest, highest compliment +a man can pay a woman—telling her he loves her? I was bound to show some +feeling, if I would not be a graceless shrew. Yet each of those pleasures was +just for the day—the day just for the pleasure. How was I to know that +what is a pastime to all other men was death to you? Have reason, do, and think +more kindly of me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, never mind arguing—never mind. One thing is sure: you were +all but mine, and now you are not nearly mine. Everything is changed, and that +by you alone, remember. You were nothing to me once, and I was contented; you +are now nothing to me again, and how different the second nothing is from the +first! Would to God you had never taken me up, since it was only to throw me +down!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, in spite of her mettle, began to feel unmistakable signs that she +was inherently the weaker vessel. She strove miserably against this femininity +which would insist upon supplying unbidden emotions in stronger and stronger +current. She had tried to elude agitation by fixing her mind on the trees, sky, +any trivial object before her eyes, whilst his reproaches fell, but ingenuity +could not save her now. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not take you up—surely I did not!” she answered as +heroically as she could. “But don’t be in this mood with me. I can +endure being told I am in the wrong, if you will only tell it me gently! O sir, +will you not kindly forgive me, and look at it cheerfully?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cheerfully! Can a man fooled to utter heart-burning find a reason for +being merry? If I have lost, how can I be as if I had won? Heavens you must be +heartless quite! Had I known what a fearfully bitter sweet this was to be, how +I would have avoided you, and never seen you, and been deaf of you. I tell you +all this, but what do you care! You don’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +She returned silent and weak denials to his charges, and swayed her head +desperately, as if to thrust away the words as they came showering about her +ears from the lips of the trembling man in the climax of life, with his bronzed +Roman face and fine frame. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest, dearest, I am wavering even now between the two opposites of +recklessly renouncing you, and labouring humbly for you again. Forget that you +have said No, and let it be as it was! Say, Bathsheba, that you only wrote that +refusal to me in fun—come, say it to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be untrue, and painful to both of us. You overrate my capacity +for love. I don’t possess half the warmth of nature you believe me to +have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentleness out of +me.” +</p> + +<p> +He immediately said with more resentment: “That may be true, somewhat; +but ah, Miss Everdene, it won’t do as a reason! You are not the cold +woman you would have me believe. No, no! It isn’t because you have no +feeling in you that you don’t love me. You naturally would have me think +so—you would hide from me that you have a burning heart like mine. You +have love enough, but it is turned into a new channel. I know where.” +</p> + +<p> +The swift music of her heart became hubbub now, and she throbbed to extremity. +He was coming to Troy. He did then know what had occurred! And the name fell +from his lips the next moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did Troy not leave my treasure alone?” he asked, fiercely. +“When I had no thought of injuring him, why did he force himself upon +your notice! Before he worried you your inclination was to have me; when next I +should have come to you your answer would have been Yes. Can you deny +it—I ask, can you deny it?” +</p> + +<p> +She delayed the reply, but was too honest to withhold it. “I +cannot,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you cannot. But he stole in in my absence and robbed me. Why +didn’t he win you away before, when nobody would have been +grieved?—when nobody would have been set tale-bearing. Now the people +sneer at me—the very hills and sky seem to laugh at me till I blush +shamefully for my folly. I have lost my respect, my good name, my +standing—lost it, never to get it again. Go and marry your man—go +on!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh sir—Mr. Boldwood!” +</p> + +<p> +“You may as well. I have no further claim upon you. As for me, I had +better go somewhere alone, and hide—and pray. I loved a woman once. I am +now ashamed. When I am dead they’ll say, miserable love-sick man that he +was. Heaven—heaven—if I had got jilted secretly, and the dishonour +not known, and my position kept! But no matter, it is gone, and the woman not +gained. Shame upon him—shame!” +</p> + +<p> +His unreasonable anger terrified her, and she glided from him, without +obviously moving, as she said, “I am only a girl—do not speak to me +so!” +</p> + +<p> +“All the time you knew—how very well you knew—that your new +freak was my misery. Dazzled by brass and scarlet—Oh, +Bathsheba—this is woman’s folly indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +She fired up at once. “You are taking too much upon yourself!” she +said, vehemently. “Everybody is upon me—everybody. It is unmanly to +attack a woman so! I have nobody in the world to fight my battles for me; but +no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of you sneer and say things against me, I +<i>will not</i> be put down!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll chatter with him doubtless about me. Say to him, +‘Boldwood would have died for me.’ Yes, and you have given way to +him, knowing him to be not the man for you. He has kissed you—claimed you +as his. Do you hear—he has kissed you. Deny it!” +</p> + +<p> +The most tragic woman is cowed by a tragic man, and although Boldwood was, in +vehemence and glow, nearly her own self rendered into another sex, +Bathsheba’s cheek quivered. She gasped, “Leave me, sir—leave +me! I am nothing to you. Let me go on!” +</p> + +<p> +“Deny that he has kissed you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha—then he has!” came hoarsely from the farmer. +</p> + +<p> +“He has,” she said, slowly, and, in spite of her fear, defiantly. +“I am not ashamed to speak the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then curse him; and curse him!” said Boldwood, breaking into a +whispered fury. “Whilst I would have given worlds to touch your hand, you +have let a rake come in without right or ceremony and—kiss you! +Heaven’s mercy—kiss you!... Ah, a time of his life shall come when +he will have to repent, and think wretchedly of the pain he has caused another +man; and then may he ache, and wish, and curse, and yearn—as I do +now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t, don’t, oh, don’t pray down evil upon +him!” she implored in a miserable cry. “Anything but +that—anything. Oh, be kind to him, sir, for I love him true!” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood’s ideas had reached that point of fusion at which outline and +consistency entirely disappear. The impending night appeared to concentrate in +his eye. He did not hear her at all now. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll punish him—by my soul, that will I! I’ll meet +him, soldier or no, and I’ll horsewhip the untimely stripling for this +reckless theft of my one delight. If he were a hundred men I’d horsewhip +him—” He dropped his voice suddenly and unnaturally. +“Bathsheba, sweet, lost coquette, pardon me! I’ve been blaming you, +threatening you, behaving like a churl to you, when he’s the greatest +sinner. He stole your dear heart away with his unfathomable lies!... It is a +fortunate thing for him that he’s gone back to his regiment—that +he’s away up the country, and not here! I hope he may not return here +just yet. I pray God he may not come into my sight, for I may be tempted beyond +myself. Oh, Bathsheba, keep him away—yes, keep him away from me!” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment Boldwood stood so inertly after this that his soul seemed to have +been entirely exhaled with the breath of his passionate words. He turned his +face away, and withdrew, and his form was soon covered over by the twilight as +his footsteps mixed in with the low hiss of the leafy trees. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, who had been standing motionless as a model all this latter time, +flung her hands to her face, and wildly attempted to ponder on the exhibition +which had just passed away. Such astounding wells of fevered feeling in a still +man like Mr. Boldwood were incomprehensible, dreadful. Instead of being a man +trained to repression he was—what she had seen him. +</p> + +<p> +The force of the farmer’s threats lay in their relation to a circumstance +known at present only to herself: her lover was coming back to Weatherbury in +the course of the very next day or two. Troy had not returned to his distant +barracks as Boldwood and others supposed, but had merely gone to visit some +acquaintance in Bath, and had yet a week or more remaining to his furlough. +</p> + +<p> +She felt wretchedly certain that if he revisited her just at this nick of time, +and came into contact with Boldwood, a fierce quarrel would be the consequence. +She panted with solicitude when she thought of possible injury to Troy. The +least spark would kindle the farmer’s swift feelings of rage and +jealousy; he would lose his self-mastery as he had this evening; Troy’s +blitheness might become aggressive; it might take the direction of derision, +and Boldwood’s anger might then take the direction of revenge. +</p> + +<p> +With almost a morbid dread of being thought a gushing girl, this guileless +woman too well concealed from the world under a manner of carelessness the warm +depths of her strong emotions. But now there was no reserve. In her +distraction, instead of advancing further she walked up and down, beating the +air with her fingers, pressing on her brow, and sobbing brokenly to herself. +Then she sat down on a heap of stones by the wayside to think. There she +remained long. Above the dark margin of the earth appeared foreshores and +promontories of coppery cloud, bounding a green and pellucid expanse in the +western sky. Amaranthine glosses came over them then, and the unresting world +wheeled her round to a contrasting prospect eastward, in the shape of +indecisive and palpitating stars. She gazed upon their silent throes amid the +shades of space, but realised none at all. Her troubled spirit was far away +with Troy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII<br /> +NIGHT—HORSES TRAMPING</h2> + +<p> +The village of Weatherbury was quiet as the graveyard in its midst, and the +living were lying well-nigh as still as the dead. The church clock struck +eleven. The air was so empty of other sounds that the whirr of the clock-work +immediately before the strokes was distinct, and so was also the click of the +same at their close. The notes flew forth with the usual blind obtuseness of +inanimate things—flapping and rebounding among walls, undulating against +the scattered clouds, spreading through their interstices into unexplored miles +of space. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s crannied and mouldy halls were to-night occupied only by +Maryann, Liddy being, as was stated, with her sister, whom Bathsheba had set +out to visit. A few minutes after eleven had struck, Maryann turned in her bed +with a sense of being disturbed. She was totally unconscious of the nature of +the interruption to her sleep. It led to a dream, and the dream to an +awakening, with an uneasy sensation that something had happened. She left her +bed and looked out of the window. The paddock abutted on this end of the +building, and in the paddock she could just discern by the uncertain gray a +moving figure approaching the horse that was feeding there. The figure seized +the horse by the forelock, and led it to the corner of the field. Here she +could see some object which circumstances proved to be a vehicle, for after a +few minutes spent apparently in harnessing, she heard the trot of the horse +down the road, mingled with the sound of light wheels. +</p> + +<p> +Two varieties only of humanity could have entered the paddock with the +ghostlike glide of that mysterious figure. They were a woman and a gipsy man. A +woman was out of the question in such an occupation at this hour, and the comer +could be no less than a thief, who might probably have known the weakness of +the household on this particular night, and have chosen it on that account for +his daring attempt. Moreover, to raise suspicion to conviction itself, there +were gipsies in Weatherbury Bottom. +</p> + +<p> +Maryann, who had been afraid to shout in the robber’s presence, having +seen him depart had no fear. She hastily slipped on her clothes, stumped down +the disjointed staircase with its hundred creaks, ran to Coggan’s, the +nearest house, and raised an alarm. Coggan called Gabriel, who now again lodged +in his house as at first, and together they went to the paddock. Beyond all +doubt the horse was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Hark!” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +They listened. Distinct upon the stagnant air came the sounds of a trotting +horse passing up Longpuddle Lane—just beyond the gipsies’ +encampment in Weatherbury Bottom. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s our Dainty—I’ll swear to her step,” said +Jan. +</p> + +<p> +“Mighty me! Won’t mis’ess storm and call us stupids when she +comes back!” moaned Maryann. “How I wish it had happened when she +was at home, and none of us had been answerable!” +</p> + +<p> +“We must ride after,” said Gabriel, decisively. “I’ll +be responsible to Miss Everdene for what we do. Yes, we’ll follow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, I don’t see how,” said Coggan. “All our horses +are too heavy for that trick except little Poppet, and what’s she between +two of us?—If we only had that pair over the hedge we might do +something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which pair?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Boldwood’s Tidy and Moll.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then wait here till I come hither again,” said Gabriel. He ran +down the hill towards Farmer Boldwood’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Farmer Boldwood is not at home,” said Maryann. +</p> + +<p> +“All the better,” said Coggan. “I know what he’s gone +for.” +</p> + +<p> +Less than five minutes brought up Oak again, running at the same pace, with two +halters dangling from his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you find ’em?” said Coggan, turning round and +leaping upon the hedge without waiting for an answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Under the eaves. I knew where they were kept,” said Gabriel, +following him. “Coggan, you can ride bare-backed? there’s no time +to look for saddles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like a hero!” said Jan. +</p> + +<p> +“Maryann, you go to bed,” Gabriel shouted to her from the top of +the hedge. +</p> + +<p> +Springing down into Boldwood’s pastures, each pocketed his halter to hide +it from the horses, who, seeing the men empty-handed, docilely allowed +themselves to be seized by the mane, when the halters were dexterously slipped +on. Having neither bit nor bridle, Oak and Coggan extemporized the former by +passing the rope in each case through the animal’s mouth and looping it +on the other side. Oak vaulted astride, and Coggan clambered up by aid of the +bank, when they ascended to the gate and galloped off in the direction taken by +Bathsheba’s horse and the robber. Whose vehicle the horse had been +harnessed to was a matter of some uncertainty. +</p> + +<p> +Weatherbury Bottom was reached in three or four minutes. They scanned the shady +green patch by the roadside. The gipsies were gone. +</p> + +<p> +“The villains!” said Gabriel. “Which way have they gone, I +wonder?” +</p> + +<p> +“Straight on, as sure as God made little apples,” said Jan. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; we are better mounted, and must overtake ’em”, +said Oak. “Now on at full speed!” +</p> + +<p> +No sound of the rider in their van could now be discovered. The road-metal grew +softer and more clayey as Weatherbury was left behind, and the late rain had +wetted its surface to a somewhat plastic, but not muddy state. They came to +cross-roads. Coggan suddenly pulled up Moll and slipped off. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“We must try to track ’em, since we can’t hear +’em,” said Jan, fumbling in his pockets. He struck a light, and +held the match to the ground. The rain had been heavier here, and all foot and +horse tracks made previous to the storm had been abraded and blurred by the +drops, and they were now so many little scoops of water, which reflected the +flame of the match like eyes. One set of tracks was fresh and had no water in +them; one pair of ruts was also empty, and not small canals, like the others. +The footprints forming this recent impression were full of information as to +pace; they were in equidistant pairs, three or four feet apart, the right and +left foot of each pair being exactly opposite one another. +</p> + +<p> +“Straight on!” Jan exclaimed. “Tracks like that mean a stiff +gallop. No wonder we don’t hear him. And the horse is +harnessed—look at the ruts. Ay, that’s our mare sure enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Old Jimmy Harris only shoed her last week, and I’d swear to his +make among ten thousand.” +</p> + +<p> +“The rest of the gipsies must ha’ gone on earlier, or some other +way,” said Oak. “You saw there were no other tracks?” +</p> + +<p> +“True.” They rode along silently for a long weary time. Coggan +carried an old pinchbeck repeater which he had inherited from some genius in +his family; and it now struck one. He lighted another match, and examined the +ground again. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a canter now,” he said, throwing away the light. +“A twisty, rickety pace for a gig. The fact is, they over-drove her at +starting; we shall catch ’em yet.” +</p> + +<p> +Again they hastened on, and entered Blackmore Vale. Coggan’s watch struck +one. When they looked again the hoof-marks were so spaced as to form a sort of +zigzag if united, like the lamps along a street. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a trot, I know,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Only a trot now,” said Coggan, cheerfully. “We shall +overtake him in time.” +</p> + +<p> +They pushed rapidly on for yet two or three miles. “Ah! a moment,” +said Jan. “Let’s see how she was driven up this hill. ’Twill +help us.” A light was promptly struck upon his gaiters as before, and the +examination made. +</p> + +<p> +“Hurrah!” said Coggan. “She walked up here—and well she +might. We shall get them in two miles, for a crown.” +</p> + +<p> +They rode three, and listened. No sound was to be heard save a millpond +trickling hoarsely through a hatch, and suggesting gloomy possibilities of +drowning by jumping in. Gabriel dismounted when they came to a turning. The +tracks were absolutely the only guide as to the direction that they now had, +and great caution was necessary to avoid confusing them with some others which +had made their appearance lately. +</p> + +<p> +“What does this mean?—though I guess,” said Gabriel, looking +up at Coggan as he moved the match over the ground about the turning. Coggan, +who, no less than the panting horses, had latterly shown signs of weariness, +again scrutinized the mystic characters. This time only three were of the +regular horseshoe shape. Every fourth was a dot. +</p> + +<p> +He screwed up his face and emitted a long “Whew-w-w!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lame,” said Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Dainty is lamed; the near-foot-afore,” said Coggan slowly, +staring still at the footprints. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll push on,” said Gabriel, remounting his humid steed. +</p> + +<p> +Although the road along its greater part had been as good as any turnpike-road +in the country, it was nominally only a byway. The last turning had brought +them into the high road leading to Bath. Coggan recollected himself. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall have him now!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sherton Turnpike. The keeper of that gate is the sleepiest man between +here and London—Dan Randall, that’s his name—knowed en for +years, when he was at Casterbridge gate. Between the lameness and the gate +’tis a done job.” +</p> + +<p> +They now advanced with extreme caution. Nothing was said until, against a shady +background of foliage, five white bars were visible, crossing their route a +little way ahead. +</p> + +<p> +“Hush—we are almost close!” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Amble on upon the grass,” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +The white bars were blotted out in the midst by a dark shape in front of them. +The silence of this lonely time was pierced by an exclamation from that +quarter. +</p> + +<p> +“Hoy-a-hoy! Gate!” +</p> + +<p> +It appeared that there had been a previous call which they had not noticed, for +on their close approach the door of the turnpike-house opened, and the keeper +came out half-dressed, with a candle in his hand. The rays illumined the whole +group. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep the gate close!” shouted Gabriel. “He has stolen the +horse!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” said the turnpike-man. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel looked at the driver of the gig, and saw a woman—Bathsheba, his +mistress. +</p> + +<p> +On hearing his voice she had turned her face away from the light. Coggan had, +however, caught sight of her in the meanwhile. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, ’tis mistress—I’ll take my oath!” he said, +amazed. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba it certainly was, and she had by this time done the trick she could +do so well in crises not of love, namely, mask a surprise by coolness of +manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Gabriel,” she inquired quietly, “where are you +going?” +</p> + +<p> +“We thought—” began Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“I am driving to Bath,” she said, taking for her own use the +assurance that Gabriel lacked. “An important matter made it necessary for +me to give up my visit to Liddy, and go off at once. What, then, were you +following me?” +</p> + +<p> +“We thought the horse was stole.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—what a thing! How very foolish of you not to know that I had +taken the trap and horse. I could neither wake Maryann nor get into the house, +though I hammered for ten minutes against her window-sill. Fortunately, I could +get the key of the coach-house, so I troubled no one further. Didn’t you +think it might be me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should we, miss?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not. Why, those are never Farmer Boldwood’s horses! +Goodness mercy! what have you been doing—bringing trouble upon me in this +way? What! mustn’t a lady move an inch from her door without being dogged +like a thief?” +</p> + +<p> +“But how was we to know, if you left no account of your doings?” +expostulated Coggan, “and ladies don’t drive at these hours, miss, +as a jineral rule of society.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did leave an account—and you would have seen it in the morning. +I wrote in chalk on the coach-house doors that I had come back for the horse +and gig, and driven off; that I could arouse nobody, and should return +soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ll consider, ma’am, that we couldn’t see that +till it got daylight.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” she said, and though vexed at first she had too much sense +to blame them long or seriously for a devotion to her that was as valuable as +it was rare. She added with a very pretty grace, “Well, I really thank +you heartily for taking all this trouble; but I wish you had borrowed +anybody’s horses but Mr. Boldwood’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dainty is lame, miss,” said Coggan. “Can ye go on?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was only a stone in her shoe. I got down and pulled it out a hundred +yards back. I can manage very well, thank you. I shall be in Bath by daylight. +Will you now return, please?” +</p> + +<p> +She turned her head—the gateman’s candle shimmering upon her quick, +clear eyes as she did so—passed through the gate, and was soon wrapped in +the embowering shades of mysterious summer boughs. Coggan and Gabriel put about +their horses, and, fanned by the velvety air of this July night, retraced the +road by which they had come. +</p> + +<p> +“A strange vagary, this of hers, isn’t it, Oak?” said Coggan, +curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Gabriel, shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t be in Bath by no daylight!” +</p> + +<p> +“Coggan, suppose we keep this night’s work as quiet as we +can?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am of one and the same mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. We shall be home by three o’clock or so, and can creep +into the parish like lambs.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Bathsheba’s perturbed meditations by the roadside had ultimately evolved +a conclusion that there were only two remedies for the present desperate state +of affairs. The first was merely to keep Troy away from Weatherbury till +Boldwood’s indignation had cooled; the second to listen to Oak’s +entreaties, and Boldwood’s denunciations, and give up Troy altogether. +</p> + +<p> +Alas! Could she give up this new love—induce him to renounce her by +saying she did not like him—could no more speak to him, and beg him, for +her good, to end his furlough in Bath, and see her and Weatherbury no more? +</p> + +<p> +It was a picture full of misery, but for a while she contemplated it firmly, +allowing herself, nevertheless, as girls will, to dwell upon the happy life she +would have enjoyed had Troy been Boldwood, and the path of love the path of +duty—inflicting upon herself gratuitous tortures by imagining him the +lover of another woman after forgetting her; for she had penetrated +Troy’s nature so far as to estimate his tendencies pretty accurately, but +unfortunately loved him no less in thinking that he might soon cease to love +her—indeed, considerably more. +</p> + +<p> +She jumped to her feet. She would see him at once. Yes, she would implore him +by word of mouth to assist her in this dilemma. A letter to keep him away could +not reach him in time, even if he should be disposed to listen to it. +</p> + +<p> +Was Bathsheba altogether blind to the obvious fact that the support of a +lover’s arms is not of a kind best calculated to assist a resolve to +renounce him? Or was she sophistically sensible, with a thrill of pleasure, +that by adopting this course for getting rid of him she was ensuring a meeting +with him, at any rate, once more? +</p> + +<p> +It was now dark, and the hour must have been nearly ten. The only way to +accomplish her purpose was to give up her idea of visiting Liddy at Yalbury, +return to Weatherbury Farm, put the horse into the gig, and drive at once to +Bath. The scheme seemed at first impossible: the journey was a fearfully heavy +one, even for a strong horse, at her own estimate; and she much underrated the +distance. It was most venturesome for a woman, at night, and alone. +</p> + +<p> +But could she go on to Liddy’s and leave things to take their course? No, +no; anything but that. Bathsheba was full of a stimulating turbulence, beside +which caution vainly prayed for a hearing. She turned back towards the village. +</p> + +<p> +Her walk was slow, for she wished not to enter Weatherbury till the cottagers +were in bed, and, particularly, till Boldwood was secure. Her plan was now to +drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in the morning before he set +out to come to her, bid him farewell, and dismiss him: then to rest the horse +thoroughly (herself to weep the while, she thought), starting early the next +morning on her return journey. By this arrangement she could trot Dainty gently +all the day, reach Liddy at Yalbury in the evening, and come home to +Weatherbury with her whenever they chose—so nobody would know she had +been to Bath at all. Such was Bathsheba’s scheme. But in her +topographical ignorance as a late comer to the place, she misreckoned the +distance of her journey as not much more than half what it really was. +</p> + +<p> +This idea she proceeded to carry out, with what initial success we have already +seen. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII<br /> +IN THE SUN—A HARBINGER</h2> + +<p> +A week passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there any +explanation of her Gilpin’s rig. +</p> + +<p> +Then a note came for Maryann, stating that the business which had called her +mistress to Bath still detained her there; but that she hoped to return in the +course of another week. +</p> + +<p> +Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were a-field under +a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air and short shadows of noon. +Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning of blue-bottle flies; +out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss of tressy oat-ears rubbing +together as their perpendicular stalks of amber-yellow fell heavily to each +swath. Every drop of moisture not in the men’s bottles and flagons in the +form of cider was raining as perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. +Drought was everywhere else. +</p> + +<p> +They were about to withdraw for a while into the charitable shade of a tree in +the fence, when Coggan saw a figure in a blue coat and brass buttons running to +them across the field. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder who that is?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope nothing is wrong about mistress,” said Maryann, who with +some other women was tying the bundles (oats being always sheafed on this +farm), “but an unlucky token came to me indoors this morning. I went to +unlock the door and dropped the key, and it fell upon the stone floor and broke +into two pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful bodement. I wish mis’ess +was home.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis Cain Ball,” said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his +reaphook. +</p> + +<p> +Oak was not bound by his agreement to assist in the corn-field; but the harvest +month is an anxious time for a farmer, and the corn was Bathsheba’s, so +he lent a hand. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s dressed up in his best clothes,” said Matthew Moon. +“He hev been away from home for a few days, since he’s had that +felon upon his finger; for ’a said, since I can’t work I’ll +have a hollerday.” +</p> + +<p> +“A good time for one—a’ excellent time,” said Joseph +Poorgrass, straightening his back; for he, like some of the others, had a way +of resting a while from his labour on such hot days for reasons preternaturally +small; of which Cain Ball’s advent on a week-day in his Sunday-clothes +was one of the first magnitude. “’Twas a bad leg allowed me to read +the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, and Mark Clark learnt All-Fours in a +whitlow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, and my father put his arm out of joint to have time to go +courting,” said Jan Coggan, in an eclipsing tone, wiping his face with +his shirt-sleeve and thrusting back his hat upon the nape of his neck. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Cainy was nearing the group of harvesters, and was perceived to be +carrying a large slice of bread and ham in one hand, from which he took +mouthfuls as he ran, the other being wrapped in a bandage. When he came close, +his mouth assumed the bell shape, and he began to cough violently. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Cainy!” said Gabriel, sternly. “How many more times +must I tell you to keep from running so fast when you be eating? You’ll +choke yourself some day, that’s what you’ll do, Cain Ball.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hok-hok-hok!” replied Cain. “A crumb of my victuals went the +wrong way—hok-hok! That’s what ’tis, Mister Oak! And +I’ve been visiting to Bath because I had a felon on my thumb; yes, and +I’ve seen—ahok-hok!” +</p> + +<p> +Directly Cain mentioned Bath, they all threw down their hooks and forks and +drew round him. Unfortunately the erratic crumb did not improve his narrative +powers, and a supplementary hindrance was that of a sneeze, jerking from his +pocket his rather large watch, which dangled in front of the young man +pendulum-wise. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he continued, directing his thoughts to Bath and letting his +eyes follow, “I’ve seed the world at last—yes—and +I’ve seed our mis’ess—ahok-hok-hok!” +</p> + +<p> +“Bother the boy!” said Gabriel. “Something is always going +the wrong way down your throat, so that you can’t tell what’s +necessary to be told.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ahok! there! Please, Mister Oak, a gnat have just fleed into my stomach +and brought the cough on again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s just it. Your mouth is always open, you young +rascal!” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly down yer throat, pore +boy!” said Matthew Moon. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, at Bath you saw—” prompted Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw our mistress,” continued the junior shepherd, “and a +sojer, walking along. And bymeby they got closer and closer, and then they went +arm-in-crook, like courting complete—hok-hok! like courting +complete—hok!—courting complete—” Losing the thread of +his narrative at this point simultaneously with his loss of breath, their +informant looked up and down the field apparently for some clue to it. +“Well, I see our mis’ess and a soldier—a-ha-a-wk!” +</p> + +<p> +“Damn the boy!” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if ye’ll excuse it,” +said Cain Ball, looking reproachfully at Oak, with eyes drenched in their own +dew. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s some cider for him—that’ll cure his +throat,” said Jan Coggan, lifting a flagon of cider, pulling out the +cork, and applying the hole to Cainy’s mouth; Joseph Poorgrass in the +meantime beginning to think apprehensively of the serious consequences that +would follow Cainy Ball’s strangulation in his cough, and the history of +his Bath adventures dying with him. +</p> + +<p> +“For my poor self, I always say ‘please God’ afore I do +anything,” said Joseph, in an unboastful voice; “and so should you, +Cain Ball. ’Tis a great safeguard, and might perhaps save you from being +choked to death some day.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Coggan poured the liquor with unstinted liberality at the suffering +Cain’s circular mouth; half of it running down the side of the flagon, +and half of what reached his mouth running down outside his throat, and half of +what ran in going the wrong way, and being coughed and sneezed around the +persons of the gathered reapers in the form of a cider fog, which for a moment +hung in the sunny air like a small exhalation. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a great clumsy sneeze! Why can’t ye have better +manners, you young dog!” said Coggan, withdrawing the flagon. +</p> + +<p> +“The cider went up my nose!” cried Cainy, as soon as he could +speak; “and now ’tis gone down my neck, and into my poor dumb +felon, and over my shiny buttons and all my best cloze!” +</p> + +<p> +“The poor lad’s cough is terrible unfortunate,” said Matthew +Moon. “And a great history on hand, too. Bump his back, shepherd.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis my nater,” mourned Cain. “Mother says I always +was so excitable when my feelings were worked up to a point!” +</p> + +<p> +“True, true,” said Joseph Poorgrass. “The Balls were always a +very excitable family. I knowed the boy’s grandfather—a truly +nervous and modest man, even to genteel refinery. ’Twas blush, blush with +him, almost as much as ’tis with me—not but that ’tis a fault +in me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, Master Poorgrass,” said Coggan. “’Tis a +very noble quality in ye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heh-heh! well, I wish to noise nothing abroad—nothing at +all,” murmured Poorgrass, diffidently. “But we be born to +things—that’s true. Yet I would rather my trifle were hid; though, +perhaps, a high nater is a little high, and at my birth all things were +possible to my Maker, and he may have begrudged no gifts.... But under your +bushel, Joseph! under your bushel with ’ee! A strange desire, neighbours, +this desire to hide, and no praise due. Yet there is a Sermon on the Mount with +a calendar of the blessed at the head, and certain meek men may be named +therein.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cainy’s grandfather was a very clever man,” said Matthew +Moon. “Invented a’ apple-tree out of his own head, which is called +by his name to this day—the Early Ball. You know ’em, Jan? A +Quarrenden grafted on a Tom Putt, and a Rathe-ripe upon top o’ that +again. ’Tis trew ’a used to bide about in a public-house wi’ +a ’ooman in a way he had no business to by rights, but +there—’a were a clever man in the sense of the term.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now then,” said Gabriel, impatiently, “what did you see, +Cain?” +</p> + +<p> +“I seed our mis’ess go into a sort of a park place, where +there’s seats, and shrubs and flowers, arm-in-crook with a sojer,” +continued Cainy, firmly, and with a dim sense that his words were very +effective as regarded Gabriel’s emotions. “And I think the sojer +was Sergeant Troy. And they sat there together for more than half-an-hour, +talking moving things, and she once was crying a’most to death. And when +they came out her eyes were shining and she was as white as a lily; and they +looked into one another’s faces, as far-gone friendly as a man and woman +can be.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel’s features seemed to get thinner. “Well, what did you see +besides?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all sorts.” +</p> + +<p> +“White as a lily? You are sure ’twas she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what besides?” +</p> + +<p> +“Great glass windows to the shops, and great clouds in the sky, full of +rain, and old wooden trees in the country round.” +</p> + +<p> +“You stun-poll! What will ye say next?” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“Let en alone,” interposed Joseph Poorgrass. “The boy’s +meaning is that the sky and the earth in the kingdom of Bath is not altogether +different from ours here. ’Tis for our good to gain knowledge of strange +cities, and as such the boy’s words should be suffered, so to speak +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the people of Bath,” continued Cain, “never need to +light their fires except as a luxury, for the water springs up out of the earth +ready boiled for use.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis true as the light,” testified Matthew Moon. +“I’ve heard other navigators say the same thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“They drink nothing else there,” said Cain, “and seem to +enjoy it, to see how they swaller it down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it seems a barbarian practice enough to us, but I daresay the +natives think nothing o’ it,” said Matthew. +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t victuals spring up as well as drink?” asked +Coggan, twirling his eye. +</p> + +<p> +“No—I own to a blot there in Bath—a true blot. God +didn’t provide ’em with victuals as well as drink, and ’twas +a drawback I couldn’t get over at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’tis a curious place, to say the least,” observed +Moon; “and it must be a curious people that live therein.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Everdene and the soldier were walking about together, you +say?” said Gabriel, returning to the group. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, and she wore a beautiful gold-colour silk gown, trimmed with black +lace, that would have stood alone ’ithout legs inside if required. +’Twas a very winsome sight; and her hair was brushed splendid. And when +the sun shone upon the bright gown and his red coat—my! how handsome they +looked. You could see ’em all the length of the street.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what then?” murmured Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“And then I went into Griffin’s to hae my boots hobbed, and then I +went to Riggs’s batty-cake shop, and asked ’em for a penneth of the +cheapest and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy, but not quite. And +whilst I was chawing ’em down I walked on and seed a clock with a face as +big as a baking trendle—” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s nothing to do with mistress!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m coming to that, if you’ll leave me alone, Mister +Oak!” remonstrated Cainy. “If you excites me, perhaps you’ll +bring on my cough, and then I shan’t be able to tell ye nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—let him tell it his own way,” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel settled into a despairing attitude of patience, and Cainy went +on:— +</p> + +<p> +“And there were great large houses, and more people all the week long +than at Weatherbury club-walking on White Tuesdays. And I went to grand +churches and chapels. And how the parson would pray! Yes; he would kneel down +and put up his hands together, and make the holy gold rings on his fingers +gleam and twinkle in yer eyes, that he’d earned by praying so excellent +well!—Ah yes, I wish I lived there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our poor Parson Thirdly can’t get no money to buy such +rings,” said Matthew Moon, thoughtfully. “And as good a man as ever +walked. I don’t believe poor Thirdly have a single one, even of humblest +tin or copper. Such a great ornament as they’d be to him on a dull +afternoon, when he’s up in the pulpit lighted by the wax candles! But +’tis impossible, poor man. Ah, to think how unequal things be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps he’s made of different stuff than to wear +’em,” said Gabriel, grimly. “Well, that’s enough of +this. Go on, Cainy—quick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—and the new style of parsons wear moustaches and long +beards,” continued the illustrious traveller, “and look like Moses +and Aaron complete, and make we fokes in the congregation feel all over like +the children of Israel.” +</p> + +<p> +“A very right feeling—very,” said Joseph Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s two religions going on in the nation now—High +Church and High Chapel. And, thinks I, I’ll play fair; so I went to High +Church in the morning, and High Chapel in the afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“A right and proper boy,” said Joseph Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, at High Church they pray singing, and worship all the colours of +the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray preaching, and worship drab and +whitewash only. And then—I didn’t see no more of Miss Everdene at +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you say so afore, then?” exclaimed Oak, with much +disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Matthew Moon, “she’ll wish her cake dough if +so be she’s over intimate with that man.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not over intimate with him,” said Gabriel, +indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“She would know better,” said Coggan. “Our mis’ess has +too much sense under they knots of black hair to do such a mad thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, he’s not a coarse, ignorant man, for he was well brought +up,” said Matthew, dubiously. “’Twas only wildness that made +him a soldier, and maids rather like your man of sin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Cain Ball,” said Gabriel restlessly, “can you swear in +the most awful form that the woman you saw was Miss Everdene?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cain Ball, you be no longer a babe and suckling,” said Joseph in +the sepulchral tone the circumstances demanded, “and you know what taking +an oath is. ’Tis a horrible testament mind ye, which you say and seal +with your blood-stone, and the prophet Matthew tells us that on whomsoever it +shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now, before all the work-folk here +assembled, can you swear to your words as the shepherd asks ye?” +</p> + +<p> +“Please no, Mister Oak!” said Cainy, looking from one to the other +with great uneasiness at the spiritual magnitude of the position. “I +don’t mind saying ’tis true, but I don’t like to say +’tis damn true, if that’s what you mane.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cain, Cain, how can you!” asked Joseph sternly. “You be +asked to swear in a holy manner, and you swear like wicked Shimei, the son of +Gera, who cursed as he came. Young man, fie!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t! ’Tis you want to squander a pore boy’s +soul, Joseph Poorgrass—that’s what ’tis!” said Cain, +beginning to cry. “All I mane is that in common truth ’twas Miss +Everdene and Sergeant Troy, but in the horrible so-help-me truth that ye want +to make of it perhaps ’twas somebody else!” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s no getting at the rights of it,” said Gabriel, +turning to his work. +</p> + +<p> +“Cain Ball, you’ll come to a bit of bread!” groaned Joseph +Poorgrass. +</p> + +<p> +Then the reapers’ hooks were flourished again, and the old sounds went +on. Gabriel, without making any pretence of being lively, did nothing to show +that he was particularly dull. However, Coggan knew pretty nearly how the land +lay, and when they were in a nook together he said— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make +whose sweetheart she is, since she can’t be yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the very thing I say to myself,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV<br /> +HOME AGAIN—A TRICKSTER</h2> + +<p> +That same evening at dusk Gabriel was leaning over Coggan’s garden-gate, +taking an up-and-down survey before retiring to rest. +</p> + +<p> +A vehicle of some kind was softly creeping along the grassy margin of the lane. +From it spread the tones of two women talking. The tones were natural and not +at all suppressed. Oak instantly knew the voices to be those of Bathsheba and +Liddy. +</p> + +<p> +The carriage came opposite and passed by. It was Miss Everdene’s gig, and +Liddy and her mistress were the only occupants of the seat. Liddy was asking +questions about the city of Bath, and her companion was answering them +listlessly and unconcernedly. Both Bathsheba and the horse seemed weary. +</p> + +<p> +The exquisite relief of finding that she was here again, safe and sound, +overpowered all reflection, and Oak could only luxuriate in the sense of it. +All grave reports were forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +He lingered and lingered on, till there was no difference between the eastern +and western expanses of sky, and the timid hares began to limp courageously +round the dim hillocks. Gabriel might have been there an additional half-hour +when a dark form walked slowly by. “Good-night, Gabriel,” the +passer said. +</p> + +<p> +It was Boldwood. “Good-night, sir,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood likewise vanished up the road, and Oak shortly afterwards turned +indoors to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Boldwood went on towards Miss Everdene’s house. He reached the +front, and approaching the entrance, saw a light in the parlour. The blind was +not drawn down, and inside the room was Bathsheba, looking over some papers or +letters. Her back was towards Boldwood. He went to the door, knocked, and +waited with tense muscles and an aching brow. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood had not been outside his garden since his meeting with Bathsheba in +the road to Yalbury. Silent and alone, he had remained in moody meditation on +woman’s ways, deeming as essentials of the whole sex the accidents of the +single one of their number he had ever closely beheld. By degrees a more +charitable temper had pervaded him, and this was the reason of his sally +to-night. He had come to apologize and beg forgiveness of Bathsheba with +something like a sense of shame at his violence, having but just now learnt +that she had returned—only from a visit to Liddy, as he supposed, the +Bath escapade being quite unknown to him. +</p> + +<p> +He inquired for Miss Everdene. Liddy’s manner was odd, but he did not +notice it. She went in, leaving him standing there, and in her absence the +blind of the room containing Bathsheba was pulled down. Boldwood augured ill +from that sign. Liddy came out. +</p> + +<p> +“My mistress cannot see you, sir,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer instantly went out by the gate. He was unforgiven—that was the +issue of it all. He had seen her who was to him simultaneously a delight and a +torture, sitting in the room he had shared with her as a peculiarly privileged +guest only a little earlier in the summer, and she had denied him an entrance +there now. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood did not hurry homeward. It was ten o’clock at least, when, +walking deliberately through the lower part of Weatherbury, he heard the +carrier’s spring van entering the village. The van ran to and from a town +in a northern direction, and it was owned and driven by a Weatherbury man, at +the door of whose house it now pulled up. The lamp fixed to the head of the +hood illuminated a scarlet and gilded form, who was the first to alight. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Boldwood to himself, “come to see her +again.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy entered the carrier’s house, which had been the place of his lodging +on his last visit to his native place. Boldwood was moved by a sudden +determination. He hastened home. In ten minutes he was back again, and made as +if he were going to call upon Troy at the carrier’s. But as he +approached, some one opened the door and came out. He heard this person say +“Good-night” to the inmates, and the voice was Troy’s. This +was strange, coming so immediately after his arrival. Boldwood, however, +hastened up to him. Troy had what appeared to be a carpet-bag in his +hand—the same that he had brought with him. It seemed as if he were going +to leave again this very night. +</p> + +<p> +Troy turned up the hill and quickened his pace. Boldwood stepped forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Sergeant Troy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I’m Sergeant Troy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just arrived from up the country, I think?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just arrived from Bath.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am William Boldwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +The tone in which this word was uttered was all that had been wanted to bring +Boldwood to the point. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to speak a word with you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“What about?” +</p> + +<p> +“About her who lives just ahead there—and about a woman you have +wronged.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder at your impertinence,” said Troy, moving on. +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here,” said Boldwood, standing in front of him, +“wonder or not, you are going to hold a conversation with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy heard the dull determination in Boldwood’s voice, looked at his +stalwart frame, then at the thick cudgel he carried in his hand. He remembered +it was past ten o’clock. It seemed worth while to be civil to Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, I’ll listen with pleasure,” said Troy, placing +his bag on the ground, “only speak low, for somebody or other may +overhear us in the farmhouse there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well then—I know a good deal concerning your Fanny Robin’s +attachment to you. I may say, too, that I believe I am the only person in the +village, excepting Gabriel Oak, who does know it. You ought to marry +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I ought. Indeed, I wish to, but I cannot.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +Troy was about to utter something hastily; he then checked himself and said, +“I am too poor.” His voice was changed. Previously it had had a +devil-may-care tone. It was the voice of a trickster now. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood’s present mood was not critical enough to notice tones. He +continued, “I may as well speak plainly; and understand, I don’t +wish to enter into the questions of right or wrong, woman’s honour and +shame, or to express any opinion on your conduct. I intend a business +transaction with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” said Troy. “Suppose we sit down here.” +</p> + +<p> +An old tree trunk lay under the hedge immediately opposite, and they sat down. +</p> + +<p> +“I was engaged to be married to Miss Everdene,” said Boldwood, +“but you came and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not engaged,” said Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“As good as engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I had not turned up she might have become engaged to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hang might!” +</p> + +<p> +“Would, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you had not come I should certainly—yes, +<i>certainly</i>—have been accepted by this time. If you had not seen her +you might have been married to Fanny. Well, there’s too much difference +between Miss Everdene’s station and your own for this flirtation with her +ever to benefit you by ending in marriage. So all I ask is, don’t molest +her any more. Marry Fanny. I’ll make it worth your while.” +</p> + +<p> +“How will you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll pay you well now, I’ll settle a sum of money upon her, +and I’ll see that you don’t suffer from poverty in the future. +I’ll put it clearly. Bathsheba is only playing with you: you are too poor +for her as I said; so give up wasting your time about a great match +you’ll never make for a moderate and rightful match you may make +to-morrow; take up your carpet-bag, turn about, leave Weatherbury now, this +night, and you shall take fifty pounds with you. Fanny shall have fifty to +enable her to prepare for the wedding, when you have told me where she is +living, and she shall have five hundred paid down on her wedding-day.” +</p> + +<p> +In making this statement Boldwood’s voice revealed only too clearly a +consciousness of the weakness of his position, his aims, and his method. His +manner had lapsed quite from that of the firm and dignified Boldwood of former +times; and such a scheme as he had now engaged in he would have condemned as +childishly imbecile only a few months ago. We discern a grand force in the +lover which he lacks whilst a free man; but there is a breadth of vision in the +free man which in the lover we vainly seek. Where there is much bias there must +be some narrowness, and love, though added emotion, is subtracted capacity. +Boldwood exemplified this to an abnormal degree: he knew nothing of Fanny +Robin’s circumstances or whereabouts, he knew nothing of Troy’s +possibilities, yet that was what he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I like Fanny best,” said Troy; “and if, as you say, Miss +Everdene is out of my reach, why I have all to gain by accepting your money, +and marrying Fan. But she’s only a servant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind—do you agree to my arrangement?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Boldwood, in a more elastic voice. “Oh, Troy, if +you like her best, why then did you step in here and injure my +happiness?” +</p> + +<p> +“I love Fanny best now,” said Troy. “But Bathsh—Miss +Everdene inflamed me, and displaced Fanny for a time. It is over now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should it be over so soon? And why then did you come here +again?” +</p> + +<p> +“There are weighty reasons. Fifty pounds at once, you said!” +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” said Boldwood, “and here they are—fifty +sovereigns.” He handed Troy a small packet. +</p> + +<p> +“You have everything ready—it seems that you calculated on my +accepting them,” said the sergeant, taking the packet. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you might accept them,” said Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve only my word that the programme shall be adhered to, whilst +I at any rate have fifty pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had thought of that, and I have considered that if I can’t +appeal to your honour I can trust to your—well, shrewdness we’ll +call it—not to lose five hundred pounds in prospect, and also make a +bitter enemy of a man who is willing to be an extremely useful friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stop, listen!” said Troy in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +A light pit-pat was audible upon the road just above them. +</p> + +<p> +“By George—’tis she,” he continued. “I must go on +and meet her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She—who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bathsheba.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bathsheba—out alone at this time o’ night!” said +Boldwood in amazement, and starting up. “Why must you meet her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She was expecting me to-night—and I must now speak to her, and +wish her good-bye, according to your wish.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see the necessity of speaking.” +</p> + +<p> +“It can do no harm—and she’ll be wandering about looking for +me if I don’t. You shall hear all I say to her. It will help you in your +love-making when I am gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your tone is mocking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no. And remember this, if she does not know what has become of me, +she will think more about me than if I tell her flatly I have come to give her +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you confine your words to that one point?—Shall I hear every +word you say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Every word. Now sit still there, and hold my carpet bag for me, and mark +what you hear.” +</p> + +<p> +The light footstep came closer, halting occasionally, as if the walker listened +for a sound. Troy whistled a double note in a soft, fluty tone. +</p> + +<p> +“Come to that, is it!” murmured Boldwood, uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“You promised silence,” said Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“I promise again.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy stepped forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Frank, dearest, is that you?” The tones were Bathsheba’s. +</p> + +<p> +“O God!” said Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Troy to her. +</p> + +<p> +“How late you are,” she continued, tenderly. “Did you come by +the carrier? I listened and heard his wheels entering the village, but it was +some time ago, and I had almost given you up, Frank.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was sure to come,” said Frank. “You knew I should, did you +not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I thought you would,” she said, playfully; “and, +Frank, it is so lucky! There’s not a soul in my house but me to-night. +I’ve packed them all off so nobody on earth will know of your visit to +your lady’s bower. Liddy wanted to go to her grandfather’s to tell +him about her holiday, and I said she might stay with them till +to-morrow—when you’ll be gone again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Capital,” said Troy. “But, dear me, I had better go back for +my bag, because my slippers and brush and comb are in it; you run home whilst I +fetch it, and I’ll promise to be in your parlour in ten minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” She turned and tripped up the hill again. +</p> + +<p> +During the progress of this dialogue there was a nervous twitching of +Boldwood’s tightly closed lips, and his face became bathed in a clammy +dew. He now started forward towards Troy. Troy turned to him and took up the +bag. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I tell her I have come to give her up and cannot marry her?” +said the soldier, mockingly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; wait a minute. I want to say more to you—more to +you!” said Boldwood, in a hoarse whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Troy, “you see my dilemma. Perhaps I am a bad +man—the victim of my impulses—led away to do what I ought to leave +undone. I can’t, however, marry them both. And I have two reasons for +choosing Fanny. First, I like her best upon the whole, and second, you make it +worth my while.” +</p> + +<p> +At the same instant Boldwood sprang upon him, and held him by the neck. Troy +felt Boldwood’s grasp slowly tightening. The move was absolutely +unexpected. +</p> + +<p> +“A moment,” he gasped. “You are injuring her you love!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you mean?” said the farmer. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me breath,” said Troy. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood loosened his hand, saying, “By Heaven, I’ve a mind to kill +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“And ruin her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Save her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how can she be saved now, unless I marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood groaned. He reluctantly released the soldier, and flung him back +against the hedge. “Devil, you torture me!” said he. +</p> + +<p> +Troy rebounded like a ball, and was about to make a dash at the farmer; but he +checked himself, saying lightly— +</p> + +<p> +“It is not worth while to measure my strength with you. Indeed it is a +barbarous way of settling a quarrel. I shall shortly leave the army because of +the same conviction. Now after that revelation of how the land lies with +Bathsheba, ’twould be a mistake to kill me, would it not?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twould be a mistake to kill you,” repeated Boldwood, +mechanically, with a bowed head. +</p> + +<p> +“Better kill yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Far better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad you see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Troy, make her your wife, and don’t act upon what I arranged just +now. The alternative is dreadful, but take Bathsheba; I give her up! She must +love you indeed to sell soul and body to you so utterly as she has done. +Wretched woman—deluded woman—you are, Bathsheba!” +</p> + +<p> +“But about Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bathsheba is a woman well to do,” continued Boldwood, in nervous +anxiety, “and, Troy, she will make a good wife; and, indeed, she is worth +your hastening on your marriage with her!” +</p> + +<p> +“But she has a will—not to say a temper, and I shall be a mere +slave to her. I could do anything with poor Fanny Robin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Troy,” said Boldwood, imploringly, “I’ll do anything +for you, only don’t desert her; pray don’t desert her, Troy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which, poor Fanny?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; Bathsheba Everdene. Love her best! Love her tenderly! How shall I +get you to see how advantageous it will be to you to secure her at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to secure her in any new way.” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood’s arm moved spasmodically towards Troy’s person again. He +repressed the instinct, and his form drooped as with pain. +</p> + +<p> +Troy went on— +</p> + +<p> +“I shall soon purchase my discharge, and then—” +</p> + +<p> +“But I wish you to hasten on this marriage! It will be better for you +both. You love each other, and you must let me help you to do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“How?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, by settling the five hundred on Bathsheba instead of Fanny, to +enable you to marry at once. No; she wouldn’t have it of me. I’ll +pay it down to you on the wedding-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy paused in secret amazement at Boldwood’s wild infatuation. He +carelessly said, “And am I to have anything now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, if you wish to. But I have not much additional money with me. I did +not expect this; but all I have is yours.” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood, more like a somnambulist than a wakeful man, pulled out the large +canvas bag he carried by way of a purse, and searched it. +</p> + +<p> +“I have twenty-one pounds more with me,” he said. “Two notes +and a sovereign. But before I leave you I must have a paper +signed—” +</p> + +<p> +“Pay me the money, and we’ll go straight to her parlour, and make +any arrangement you please to secure my compliance with your wishes. But she +must know nothing of this cash business.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, nothing,” said Boldwood, hastily. “Here is the sum, +and if you’ll come to my house we’ll write out the agreement for +the remainder, and the terms also.” +</p> + +<p> +“First we’ll call upon her.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why? Come with me to-night, and go with me to-morrow to the +surrogate’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she must be consulted; at any rate informed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; go on.” +</p> + +<p> +They went up the hill to Bathsheba’s house. When they stood at the +entrance, Troy said, “Wait here a moment.” Opening the door, he +glided inside, leaving the door ajar. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood waited. In two minutes a light appeared in the passage. Boldwood then +saw that the chain had been fastened across the door. Troy appeared inside, +carrying a bedroom candlestick. +</p> + +<p> +“What, did you think I should break in?” said Boldwood, +contemptuously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, it is merely my humour to secure things. Will you read this a +moment? I’ll hold the light.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy handed a folded newspaper through the slit between door and doorpost, and +put the candle close. “That’s the paragraph,” he said, +placing his finger on a line. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood looked and read— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +M<small>ARRIAGES</small>.<br /> +On the 17th inst., at St. Ambrose’s Church, Bath, by the Rev. G. Mincing, +B.A., Francis Troy, only son of the late Edward Troy, Esq., M.D., of +Weatherbury, and sergeant with Dragoon Guards, to Bathsheba, only surviving +daughter of the late Mr. John Everdene, of Casterbridge. +</p> + +<p> +“This may be called Fort meeting Feeble, hey, Boldwood?” said Troy. +A low gurgle of derisive laughter followed the words. +</p> + +<p> +The paper fell from Boldwood’s hands. Troy continued— +</p> + +<p> +“Fifty pounds to marry Fanny. Good. Twenty-one pounds not to marry Fanny, +but Bathsheba. Good. Finale: already Bathsheba’s husband. Now, Boldwood, +yours is the ridiculous fate which always attends interference between a man +and his wife. And another word. Bad as I am, I am not such a villain as to make +the marriage or misery of any woman a matter of huckster and sale. Fanny has +long ago left me. I don’t know where she is. I have searched everywhere. +Another word yet. You say you love Bathsheba; yet on the merest apparent +evidence you instantly believe in her dishonour. A fig for such love! Now that +I’ve taught you a lesson, take your money back again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not; I will not!” said Boldwood, in a hiss. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow I won’t have it,” said Troy, contemptuously. He +wrapped the packet of gold in the notes, and threw the whole into the road. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood shook his clenched fist at him. “You juggler of Satan! You black +hound! But I’ll punish you yet; mark me, I’ll punish you +yet!” +</p> + +<p> +Another peal of laughter. Troy then closed the door, and locked himself in. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout the whole of that night Boldwood’s dark form might have been +seen walking about the hills and downs of Weatherbury like an unhappy Shade in +the Mournful Fields by Acheron. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER XXXV<br /> +AT AN UPPER WINDOW</h2> + +<p> +It was very early the next morning—a time of sun and dew. The confused +beginnings of many birds’ songs spread into the healthy air, and the wan +blue of the heaven was here and there coated with thin webs of incorporeal +cloud which were of no effect in obscuring day. All the lights in the scene +were yellow as to colour, and all the shadows were attenuated as to form. The +creeping plants about the old manor-house were bowed with rows of heavy water +drops, which had upon objects behind them the effect of minute lenses of high +magnifying power. +</p> + +<p> +Just before the clock struck five Gabriel Oak and Coggan passed the village +cross, and went on together to the fields. They were yet barely in view of +their mistress’s house, when Oak fancied he saw the opening of a casement +in one of the upper windows. The two men were at this moment partially screened +by an elder bush, now beginning to be enriched with black bunches of fruit, and +they paused before emerging from its shade. +</p> + +<p> +A handsome man leaned idly from the lattice. He looked east and then west, in +the manner of one who makes a first morning survey. The man was Sergeant Troy. +His red jacket was loosely thrown on, but not buttoned, and he had altogether +the relaxed bearing of a soldier taking his ease. +</p> + +<p> +Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at the window. +</p> + +<p> +“She has married him!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel had previously beheld the sight, and he now stood with his back turned, +making no reply. +</p> + +<p> +“I fancied we should know something to-day,” continued Coggan. +“I heard wheels pass my door just after dark—you were out +somewhere.” He glanced round upon Gabriel. “Good heavens above us, +Oak, how white your face is; you look like a corpse!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I?” said Oak, with a faint smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Lean on the gate: I’ll wait a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, all right.” +</p> + +<p> +They stood by the gate awhile, Gabriel listlessly staring at the ground. His +mind sped into the future, and saw there enacted in years of leisure the scenes +of repentance that would ensue from this work of haste. That they were married +he had instantly decided. Why had it been so mysteriously managed? It had +become known that she had had a fearful journey to Bath, owing to her +miscalculating the distance: that the horse had broken down, and that she had +been more than two days getting there. It was not Bathsheba’s way to do +things furtively. With all her faults, she was candour itself. Could she have +been entrapped? The union was not only an unutterable grief to him: it amazed +him, notwithstanding that he had passed the preceding week in a suspicion that +such might be the issue of Troy’s meeting her away from home. Her quiet +return with Liddy had to some extent dispersed the dread. Just as that +imperceptible motion which appears like stillness is infinitely divided in its +properties from stillness itself, so had his hope undistinguishable from +despair differed from despair indeed. +</p> + +<p> +In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house. The sergeant still +looked from the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Morning, comrades!” he shouted, in a cheery voice, when they came +up. +</p> + +<p> +Coggan replied to the greeting. “Bain’t ye going to answer the +man?” he then said to Gabriel. “I’d say good +morning—you needn’t spend a hapenny of meaning upon it, and yet +keep the man civil.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel soon decided too that, since the deed was done, to put the best face +upon the matter would be the greatest kindness to her he loved. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Sergeant Troy,” he returned, in a ghastly voice. +</p> + +<p> +“A rambling, gloomy house this,” said Troy, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—they <i>may</i> not be married!” suggested Coggan. +“Perhaps she’s not there.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel shook his head. The soldier turned a little towards the east, and the +sun kindled his scarlet coat to an orange glow. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is a nice old house,” responded Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I suppose so; but I feel like new wine in an old bottle here. +My notion is that sash-windows should be put throughout, and these old +wainscoted walls brightened up a bit; or the oak cleared quite away, and the +walls papered.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be a pity, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no. A philosopher once said in my hearing that the old builders, +who worked when art was a living thing, had no respect for the work of builders +who went before them, but pulled down and altered as they thought fit; and why +shouldn’t we? ‘Creation and preservation don’t do well +together,’ says he, ‘and a million of antiquarians can’t +invent a style.’ My mind exactly. I am for making this place more modern, +that we may be cheerful whilst we can.” +</p> + +<p> +The military man turned and surveyed the interior of the room, to assist his +ideas of improvement in this direction. Gabriel and Coggan began to move on. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Coggan,” said Troy, as if inspired by a recollection “do +you know if insanity has ever appeared in Mr. Boldwood’s family?” +</p> + +<p> +Jan reflected for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“I once heard that an uncle of his was queer in his head, but I +don’t know the rights o’t,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It is of no importance,” said Troy, lightly. “Well, I shall +be down in the fields with you some time this week; but I have a few matters to +attend to first. So good-day to you. We shall, of course, keep on just as +friendly terms as usual. I’m not a proud man: nobody is ever able to say +that of Sergeant Troy. However, what is must be, and here’s half-a-crown +to drink my health, men.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy threw the coin dexterously across the front plot and over the fence +towards Gabriel, who shunned it in its fall, his face turning to an angry red. +Coggan twirled his eye, edged forward, and caught the money in its ricochet +upon the road. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well—you keep it, Coggan,” said Gabriel with disdain +and almost fiercely. “As for me, I’ll do without gifts from +him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t show it too much,” said Coggan, musingly. “For +if he’s married to her, mark my words, he’ll buy his discharge and +be our master here. Therefore ’tis well to say ‘Friend’ +outwardly, though you say ‘Troublehouse’ within.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—perhaps it is best to be silent; but I can’t go further +than that. I can’t flatter, and if my place here is only to be kept by +smoothing him down, my place must be lost.” +</p> + +<p> +A horseman, whom they had for some time seen in the distance, now appeared +close beside them. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s Mr. Boldwood,” said Oak. “I wonder what Troy +meant by his question.” +</p> + +<p> +Coggan and Oak nodded respectfully to the farmer, just checked their paces to +discover if they were wanted, and finding they were not stood back to let him +pass on. +</p> + +<p> +The only signs of the terrible sorrow Boldwood had been combating through the +night, and was combating now, were the want of colour in his well-defined face, +the enlarged appearance of the veins in his forehead and temples, and the +sharper lines about his mouth. The horse bore him away, and the very step of +the animal seemed significant of dogged despair. Gabriel, for a minute, rose +above his own grief in noticing Boldwood’s. He saw the square figure +sitting erect upon the horse, the head turned to neither side, the elbows +steady by the hips, the brim of the hat level and undisturbed in its onward +glide, until the keen edges of Boldwood’s shape sank by degrees over the +hill. To one who knew the man and his story there was something more striking +in this immobility than in a collapse. The clash of discord between mood and +matter here was forced painfully home to the heart; and, as in laughter there +are more dreadful phases than in tears, so was there in the steadiness of this +agonized man an expression deeper than a cry. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI<br /> +WEALTH IN JEOPARDY—THE REVEL</h2> + +<p> +One night, at the end of August, when Bathsheba’s experiences as a +married woman were still new, and when the weather was yet dry and sultry, a +man stood motionless in the stockyard of Weatherbury Upper Farm, looking at the +moon and sky. +</p> + +<p> +The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the south slowly fanned +the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashes of buoyant cloud were +sailing in a course at right angles to that of another stratum, neither of them +in the direction of the breeze below. The moon, as seen through these films, +had a lurid metallic look. The fields were sallow with the impure light, and +all were tinged in monochrome, as if beheld through stained glass. The same +evening the sheep had trailed homeward head to tail, the behaviour of the rooks +had been confused, and the horses had moved with timidity and caution. +</p> + +<p> +Thunder was imminent, and, taking some secondary appearances into +consideration, it was likely to be followed by one of the lengthened rains +which mark the close of dry weather for the season. Before twelve hours had +passed a harvest atmosphere would be a bygone thing. +</p> + +<p> +Oak gazed with misgiving at eight naked and unprotected ricks, massive and +heavy with the rich produce of one-half the farm for that year. He went on to +the barn. +</p> + +<p> +This was the night which had been selected by Sergeant Troy—ruling now in +the room of his wife—for giving the harvest supper and dance. As Oak +approached the building the sound of violins and a tambourine, and the regular +jigging of many feet, grew more distinct. He came close to the large doors, one +of which stood slightly ajar, and looked in. +</p> + +<p> +The central space, together with the recess at one end, was emptied of all +incumbrances, and this area, covering about two-thirds of the whole, was +appropriated for the gathering, the remaining end, which was piled to the +ceiling with oats, being screened off with sail-cloth. Tufts and garlands of +green foliage decorated the walls, beams, and extemporized chandeliers, and +immediately opposite to Oak a rostrum had been erected, bearing a table and +chairs. Here sat three fiddlers, and beside them stood a frantic man with his +hair on end, perspiration streaming down his cheeks, and a tambourine quivering +in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +The dance ended, and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row of couples +formed for another. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, ma’am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would like +next?” said the first violin. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, it makes no difference,” said the clear voice of +Bathsheba, who stood at the inner end of the building, observing the scene from +behind a table covered with cups and viands. Troy was lolling beside her. +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said the fiddler, “I’ll venture to name that +the right and proper thing is ‘The Soldier’s Joy’—there +being a gallant soldier married into the farm—hey, my sonnies, and +gentlemen all?” +</p> + +<p> +“It shall be ‘The Soldier’s Joy,’” exclaimed a +chorus. +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks for the compliment,” said the sergeant gaily, taking +Bathsheba by the hand and leading her to the top of the dance. “For +though I have purchased my discharge from Her Most Gracious Majesty’s +regiment of cavalry the 11th Dragoon Guards, to attend to the new duties +awaiting me here, I shall continue a soldier in spirit and feeling as long as I +live.” +</p> + +<p> +So the dance began. As to the merits of “The Soldier’s Joy,” +there cannot be, and never were, two opinions. It has been observed in the +musical circles of Weatherbury and its vicinity that this melody, at the end of +three-quarters of an hour of thunderous footing, still possesses more +stimulative properties for the heel and toe than the majority of other dances +at their first opening. “The Soldier’s Joy” has, too, an +additional charm, in being so admirably adapted to the tambourine +aforesaid—no mean instrument in the hands of a performer who understands +the proper convulsions, spasms, St. Vitus’s dances, and fearful frenzies +necessary when exhibiting its tones in their highest perfection. +</p> + +<p> +The immortal tune ended, a fine DD rolling forth from the bass-viol with the +sonorousness of a cannonade, and Gabriel delayed his entry no longer. He +avoided Bathsheba, and got as near as possible to the platform, where Sergeant +Troy was now seated, drinking brandy-and-water, though the others drank without +exception cider and ale. Gabriel could not easily thrust himself within +speaking distance of the sergeant, and he sent a message, asking him to come +down for a moment. The sergeant said he could not attend. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you tell him, then,” said Gabriel, “that I only stepped +ath’art to say that a heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and that something +should be done to protect the ricks?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Troy says it will not rain,” returned the messenger, +“and he cannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets.” +</p> + +<p> +In juxtaposition with Troy, Oak had a melancholy tendency to look like a candle +beside gas, and ill at ease, he went out again, thinking he would go home; for, +under the circumstances, he had no heart for the scene in the barn. At the door +he paused for a moment: Troy was speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“Friends, it is not only the harvest home that we are celebrating +to-night; but this is also a Wedding Feast. A short time ago I had the +happiness to lead to the altar this lady, your mistress, and not until now have +we been able to give any public flourish to the event in Weatherbury. That it +may be thoroughly well done, and that every man may go happy to bed, I have +ordered to be brought here some bottles of brandy and kettles of hot water. A +treble-strong goblet will be handed round to each guest.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba put her hand upon his arm, and, with upturned pale face, said +imploringly, “No—don’t give it to them—pray +don’t, Frank! It will only do them harm: they have had enough of +everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“True—we don’t wish for no more, thank ye,” said one or +two. +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh!” said the sergeant contemptuously, and raised his voice as +if lighted up by a new idea. “Friends,” he said, “we’ll +send the women-folk home! ’Tis time they were in bed. Then we cockbirds +will have a jolly carouse to ourselves! If any of the men show the white +feather, let them look elsewhere for a winter’s work.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba indignantly left the barn, followed by all the women and children. +The musicians, not looking upon themselves as “company,” slipped +quietly away to their spring waggon and put in the horse. Thus Troy and the men +on the farm were left sole occupants of the place. Oak, not to appear +unnecessarily disagreeable, stayed a little while; then he, too, arose and +quietly took his departure, followed by a friendly oath from the sergeant for +not staying to a second round of grog. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel proceeded towards his home. In approaching the door, his toe kicked +something which felt and sounded soft, leathery, and distended, like a +boxing-glove. It was a large toad humbly travelling across the path. Oak took +it up, thinking it might be better to kill the creature to save it from pain; +but finding it uninjured, he placed it again among the grass. He knew what this +direct message from the Great Mother meant. And soon came another. +</p> + +<p> +When he struck a light indoors there appeared upon the table a thin glistening +streak, as if a brush of varnish had been lightly dragged across it. +Oak’s eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the other side, where it led +up to a huge brown garden-slug, which had come indoors to-night for reasons of +its own. It was Nature’s second way of hinting to him that he was to +prepare for foul weather. +</p> + +<p> +Oak sat down meditating for nearly an hour. During this time two black spiders, +of the kind common in thatched houses, promenaded the ceiling, ultimately +dropping to the floor. This reminded him that if there was one class of +manifestation on this matter that he thoroughly understood, it was the +instincts of sheep. He left the room, ran across two or three fields towards +the flock, got upon a hedge, and looked over among them. +</p> + +<p> +They were crowded close together on the other side around some furze bushes, +and the first peculiarity observable was that, on the sudden appearance of +Oak’s head over the fence, they did not stir or run away. They had now a +terror of something greater than their terror of man. But this was not the most +noteworthy feature: they were all grouped in such a way that their tails, +without a single exception, were towards that half of the horizon from which +the storm threatened. There was an inner circle closely huddled, and outside +these they radiated wider apart, the pattern formed by the flock as a whole not +being unlike a vandyked lace collar, to which the clump of furze-bushes stood +in the position of a wearer’s neck. +</p> + +<p> +This was enough to re-establish him in his original opinion. He knew now that +he was right, and that Troy was wrong. Every voice in nature was unanimous in +bespeaking change. But two distinct translations attached to these dumb +expressions. Apparently there was to be a thunder-storm, and afterwards a cold +continuous rain. The creeping things seemed to know all about the later rain, +but little of the interpolated thunder-storm; whilst the sheep knew all about +the thunder-storm and nothing of the later rain. +</p> + +<p> +This complication of weathers being uncommon, was all the more to be feared. +Oak returned to the stack-yard. All was silent here, and the conical tips of +the ricks jutted darkly into the sky. There were five wheat-ricks in this yard, +and three stacks of barley. The wheat when threshed would average about thirty +quarters to each stack; the barley, at least forty. Their value to Bathsheba, +and indeed to anybody, Oak mentally estimated by the following simple +calculation:— +</p> + +<table> +<tr><td align="right"> 5 × 30 = 150 quarters = 500 £.<br /> +3 × 40 = 120 quarters = 250 £.<br /> +––––<br /> +Total . . 750 £. +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="noindent"> +Seven hundred and fifty pounds in the divinest form that money can +wear—that of necessary food for man and beast: should the risk be run of +deteriorating this bulk of corn to less than half its value, because of the +instability of a woman? “Never, if I can prevent it!” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the argument that Oak set outwardly before him. But man, even to +himself, is a palimpsest, having an ostensible writing, and another beneath the +lines. It is possible that there was this golden legend under the utilitarian +one: “I will help to my last effort the woman I have loved so +dearly.” +</p> + +<p> +He went back to the barn to endeavour to obtain assistance for covering the +ricks that very night. All was silent within, and he would have passed on in +the belief that the party had broken up, had not a dim light, yellow as saffron +by contrast with the greenish whiteness outside, streamed through a knot-hole +in the folding doors. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel looked in. An unusual picture met his eye. +</p> + +<p> +The candles suspended among the evergreens had burnt down to their sockets, and +in some cases the leaves tied about them were scorched. Many of the lights had +quite gone out, others smoked and stank, grease dropping from them upon the +floor. Here, under the table, and leaning against forms and chairs in every +conceivable attitude except the perpendicular, were the wretched persons of all +the work-folk, the hair of their heads at such low levels being suggestive of +mops and brooms. In the midst of these shone red and distinct the figure of +Sergeant Troy, leaning back in a chair. Coggan was on his back, with his mouth +open, huzzing forth snores, as were several others; the united breathings of +the horizonal assemblage forming a subdued roar like London from a distance. +Joseph Poorgrass was curled round in the fashion of a hedge-hog, apparently in +attempts to present the least possible portion of his surface to the air; and +behind him was dimly visible an unimportant remnant of William Smallbury. The +glasses and cups still stood upon the table, a water-jug being overturned, from +which a small rill, after tracing its course with marvellous precision down the +centre of the long table, fell into the neck of the unconscious Mark Clark, in +a steady, monotonous drip, like the dripping of a stalactite in a cave. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel glanced hopelessly at the group, which, with one or two exceptions, +composed all the able-bodied men upon the farm. He saw at once that if the +ricks were to be saved that night, or even the next morning, he must save them +with his own hands. +</p> + +<p> +A faint “ting-ting” resounded from under Coggan’s waistcoat. +It was Coggan’s watch striking the hour of two. +</p> + +<p> +Oak went to the recumbent form of Matthew Moon, who usually undertook the rough +thatching of the home-stead, and shook him. The shaking was without effect. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel shouted in his ear, “where’s your thatching-beetle and +rick-stick and spars?” +</p> + +<p> +“Under the staddles,” said Moon, mechanically, with the unconscious +promptness of a medium. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel let go his head, and it dropped upon the floor like a bowl. He then +went to Susan Tall’s husband. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s the key of the granary?” +</p> + +<p> +No answer. The question was repeated, with the same result. To be shouted to at +night was evidently less of a novelty to Susan Tall’s husband than to +Matthew Moon. Oak flung down Tall’s head into the corner again and turned +away. +</p> + +<p> +To be just, the men were not greatly to blame for this painful and demoralizing +termination to the evening’s entertainment. Sergeant Troy had so +strenuously insisted, glass in hand, that drinking should be the bond of their +union, that those who wished to refuse hardly liked to be so unmannerly under +the circumstances. Having from their youth up been entirely unaccustomed to any +liquor stronger than cider or mild ale, it was no wonder that they had +succumbed, one and all, with extraordinary uniformity, after the lapse of about +an hour. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel was greatly depressed. This debauch boded ill for that wilful and +fascinating mistress whom the faithful man even now felt within him as the +embodiment of all that was sweet and bright and hopeless. +</p> + +<p> +He put out the expiring lights, that the barn might not be endangered, closed +the door upon the men in their deep and oblivious sleep, and went again into +the lone night. A hot breeze, as if breathed from the parted lips of some +dragon about to swallow the globe, fanned him from the south, while directly +opposite in the north rose a grim misshapen body of cloud, in the very teeth of +the wind. So unnaturally did it rise that one could fancy it to be lifted by +machinery from below. Meanwhile the faint cloudlets had flown back into the +south-east corner of the sky, as if in terror of the large cloud, like a young +brood gazed in upon by some monster. +</p> + +<p> +Going on to the village, Oak flung a small stone against the window of Laban +Tall’s bedroom, expecting Susan to open it; but nobody stirred. He went +round to the back door, which had been left unfastened for Laban’s entry, +and passed in to the foot of the staircase. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Tall, I’ve come for the key of the granary, to get at the +rick-cloths,” said Oak, in a stentorian voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you?” said Mrs. Susan Tall, half awake. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along to bed, do, you drawlatching rogue—keeping a body awake +like this!” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t Laban—’tis Gabriel Oak. I want the key of the +granary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel! What in the name of fortune did you pretend to be Laban +for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t. I thought you meant—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes you did! What do you want here?” +</p> + +<p> +“The key of the granary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take it then. ’Tis on the nail. People coming disturbing women at +this time of night ought—” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel took the key, without waiting to hear the conclusion of the tirade. Ten +minutes later his lonely figure might have been seen dragging four large +water-proof coverings across the yard, and soon two of these heaps of treasure +in grain were covered snug—two cloths to each. Two hundred pounds were +secured. Three wheat-stacks remained open, and there were no more cloths. Oak +looked under the staddles and found a fork. He mounted the third pile of wealth +and began operating, adopting the plan of sloping the upper sheaves one over +the other; and, in addition, filling the interstices with the material of some +untied sheaves. +</p> + +<p> +So far all was well. By this hurried contrivance Bathsheba’s property in +wheat was safe for at any rate a week or two, provided always that there was +not much wind. +</p> + +<p> +Next came the barley. This it was only possible to protect by systematic +thatching. Time went on, and the moon vanished not to reappear. It was the +farewell of the ambassador previous to war. The night had a haggard look, like +a sick thing; and there came finally an utter expiration of air from the whole +heaven in the form of a slow breeze, which might have been likened to a death. +And now nothing was heard in the yard but the dull thuds of the beetle which +drove in the spars, and the rustle of thatch in the intervals. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII<br /> +THE STORM—THE TWO TOGETHER</h2> + +<p> +A light flapped over the scene, as if reflected from phosphorescent wings +crossing the sky, and a rumble filled the air. It was the first move of the +approaching storm. +</p> + +<p> +The second peal was noisy, with comparatively little visible lightning. Gabriel +saw a candle shining in Bathsheba’s bedroom, and soon a shadow swept to +and fro upon the blind. +</p> + +<p> +Then there came a third flash. Manœuvres of a most extraordinary kind were +going on in the vast firmamental hollows overhead. The lightning now was the +colour of silver, and gleamed in the heavens like a mailed army. Rumbles became +rattles. Gabriel from his elevated position could see over the landscape at +least half-a-dozen miles in front. Every hedge, bush, and tree was distinct as +in a line engraving. In a paddock in the same direction was a herd of heifers, +and the forms of these were visible at this moment in the act of galloping +about in the wildest and maddest confusion, flinging their heels and tails high +into the air, their heads to earth. A poplar in the immediate foreground was +like an ink stroke on burnished tin. Then the picture vanished, leaving the +darkness so intense that Gabriel worked entirely by feeling with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +He had stuck his ricking-rod, or poniard, as it was indifferently +called—a long iron lance, polished by handling—into the stack, used +to support the sheaves instead of the support called a groom used on houses. A +blue light appeared in the zenith, and in some indescribable manner flickered +down near the top of the rod. It was the fourth of the larger flashes. A moment +later and there was a smack—smart, clear, and short. Gabriel felt his +position to be anything but a safe one, and he resolved to descend. +</p> + +<p> +Not a drop of rain had fallen as yet. He wiped his weary brow, and looked again +at the black forms of the unprotected stacks. Was his life so valuable to him +after all? What were his prospects that he should be so chary of running risk, +when important and urgent labour could not be carried on without such risk? He +resolved to stick to the stack. However, he took a precaution. Under the +staddles was a long tethering chain, used to prevent the escape of errant +horses. This he carried up the ladder, and sticking his rod through the clog at +one end, allowed the other end of the chain to trail upon the ground. The spike +attached to it he drove in. Under the shadow of this extemporized +lightning-conductor he felt himself comparatively safe. +</p> + +<p> +Before Oak had laid his hands upon his tools again out leapt the fifth flash, +with the spring of a serpent and the shout of a fiend. It was green as an +emerald, and the reverberation was stunning. What was this the light revealed +to him? In the open ground before him, as he looked over the ridge of the rick, +was a dark and apparently female form. Could it be that of the only venturesome +woman in the parish—Bathsheba? The form moved on a step: then he could +see no more. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, ma’am?” said Gabriel to the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is there?” said the voice of Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel. I am on the rick, thatching.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gabriel!—and are you? I have come about them. The weather +awoke me, and I thought of the corn. I am so distressed about it—can we +save it anyhow? I cannot find my husband. Is he with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know where he is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Asleep in the barn.” +</p> + +<p> +“He promised that the stacks should be seen to, and now they are all +neglected! Can I do anything to help? Liddy is afraid to come out. Fancy +finding you here at such an hour! Surely I can do something?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can bring up some reed-sheaves to me, one by one, ma’am; if +you are not afraid to come up the ladder in the dark,” said Gabriel. +“Every moment is precious now, and that would save a good deal of time. +It is not very dark when the lightning has been gone a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do anything!” she said, resolutely. She instantly took +a sheaf upon her shoulder, clambered up close to his heels, placed it behind +the rod, and descended for another. At her third ascent the rick suddenly +brightened with the brazen glare of shining majolica—every knot in every +straw was visible. On the slope in front of him appeared two human shapes, +black as jet. The rick lost its sheen—the shapes vanished. Gabriel turned +his head. It had been the sixth flash which had come from the east behind him, +and the two dark forms on the slope had been the shadows of himself and +Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the peal. It hardly was credible that such a heavenly light could be +the parent of such a diabolical sound. +</p> + +<p> +“How terrible!” she exclaimed, and clutched him by the sleeve. +Gabriel turned, and steadied her on her aerial perch by holding her arm. At the +same moment, while he was still reversed in his attitude, there was more light, +and he saw, as it were, a copy of the tall poplar tree on the hill drawn in +black on the wall of the barn. It was the shadow of that tree, thrown across by +a secondary flash in the west. +</p> + +<p> +The next flare came. Bathsheba was on the ground now, shouldering another +sheaf, and she bore its dazzle without flinching—thunder and +all—and again ascended with the load. There was then a silence everywhere +for four or five minutes, and the crunch of the spars, as Gabriel hastily drove +them in, could again be distinctly heard. He thought the crisis of the storm +had passed. But there came a burst of light. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on!” said Gabriel, taking the sheaf from her shoulder, and +grasping her arm again. +</p> + +<p> +Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash was almost too novel for its +inexpressibly dangerous nature to be at once realized, and they could only +comprehend the magnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west, north, +south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the +air, shaped with blue fire for bones—dancing, leaping, striding, racing +around, and mingling altogether in unparalleled confusion. With these were +intertwined undulating snakes of green, and behind these was a broad mass of +lesser light. Simultaneously came from every part of the tumbling sky what may +be called a shout; since, though no shout ever came near it, it was more of the +nature of a shout than of anything else earthly. In the meantime one of the +grisly forms had alighted upon the point of Gabriel’s rod, to run +invisibly down it, down the chain, and into the earth. Gabriel was almost +blinded, and he could feel Bathsheba’s warm arm tremble in his +hand—a sensation novel and thrilling enough; but love, life, everything +human, seemed small and trifling in such close juxtaposition with an infuriated +universe. +</p> + +<p> +Oak had hardly time to gather up these impressions into a thought, and to see +how strangely the red feather of her hat shone in this light, when the tall +tree on the hill before mentioned seemed on fire to a white heat, and a new one +among these terrible voices mingled with the last crash of those preceding. It +was a stupefying blast, harsh and pitiless, and it fell upon their ears in a +dead, flat blow, without that reverberation which lends the tones of a drum to +more distant thunder. By the lustre reflected from every part of the earth and +from the wide domical scoop above it, he saw that the tree was sliced down the +whole length of its tall, straight stem, a huge riband of bark being apparently +flung off. The other portion remained erect, and revealed the bared surface as +a strip of white down the front. The lightning had struck the tree. A +sulphurous smell filled the air; then all was silent, and black as a cave in +Hinnom. +</p> + +<p> +“We had a narrow escape!” said Gabriel, hurriedly. “You had +better go down.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba said nothing; but he could distinctly hear her rhythmical pants, and +the recurrent rustle of the sheaf beside her in response to her frightened +pulsations. She descended the ladder, and, on second thoughts, he followed her. +The darkness was now impenetrable by the sharpest vision. They both stood still +at the bottom, side by side. Bathsheba appeared to think only of the +weather—Oak thought only of her just then. At last he said— +</p> + +<p> +“The storm seems to have passed now, at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so too,” said Bathsheba. “Though there are +multitudes of gleams, look!” +</p> + +<p> +The sky was now filled with an incessant light, frequent repetition melting +into complete continuity, as an unbroken sound results from the successive +strokes on a gong. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing serious,” said he. “I cannot understand no rain +falling. But Heaven be praised, it is all the better for us. I am now going up +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel, you are kinder than I deserve! I will stay and help you yet. +Oh, why are not some of the others here!” +</p> + +<p> +“They would have been here if they could,” said Oak, in a +hesitating way. +</p> + +<p> +“O, I know it all—all,” she said, adding slowly: “They +are all asleep in the barn, in a drunken sleep, and my husband among them. +That’s it, is it not? Don’t think I am a timid woman and +can’t endure things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not certain,” said Gabriel. “I will go and see.” +</p> + +<p> +He crossed to the barn, leaving her there alone. He looked through the chinks +of the door. All was in total darkness, as he had left it, and there still +arose, as at the former time, the steady buzz of many snores. +</p> + +<p> +He felt a zephyr curling about his cheek, and turned. It was Bathsheba’s +breath—she had followed him, and was looking into the same chink. +</p> + +<p> +He endeavoured to put off the immediate and painful subject of their thoughts +by remarking gently, “If you’ll come back again, +miss—ma’am, and hand up a few more; it would save much time.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Oak went back again, ascended to the top, stepped off the ladder for +greater expedition, and went on thatching. She followed, but without a sheaf. +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel,” she said, in a strange and impressive voice. +</p> + +<p> +Oak looked up at her. She had not spoken since he left the barn. The soft and +continual shimmer of the dying lightning showed a marble face high against the +black sky of the opposite quarter. Bathsheba was sitting almost on the apex of +the stack, her feet gathered up beneath her, and resting on the top round of +the ladder. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, mistress,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you thought that when I galloped away to Bath that night it +was on purpose to be married?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did at last—not at first,” he answered, somewhat surprised +at the abruptness with which this new subject was broached. +</p> + +<p> +“And others thought so, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you blamed me for it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so. Now, I care a little for your good opinion, and I want to +explain something—I have longed to do it ever since I returned, and you +looked so gravely at me. For if I were to die—and I may die soon—it +would be dreadful that you should always think mistakenly of me. Now, +listen.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel ceased his rustling. +</p> + +<p> +“I went to Bath that night in the full intention of breaking off my +engagement to Mr. Troy. It was owing to circumstances which occurred after I +got there that—that we were married. Now, do you see the matter in a new +light?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do—somewhat.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must, I suppose, say more, now that I have begun. And perhaps +it’s no harm, for you are certainly under no delusion that I ever loved +you, or that I can have any object in speaking, more than that object I have +mentioned. Well, I was alone in a strange city, and the horse was lame. And at +last I didn’t know what to do. I saw, when it was too late, that scandal +might seize hold of me for meeting him alone in that way. But I was coming +away, when he suddenly said he had that day seen a woman more beautiful than I, +and that his constancy could not be counted on unless I at once became his.... +And I was grieved and troubled—” She cleared her voice, and waited +a moment, as if to gather breath. “And then, between jealousy and +distraction, I married him!” she whispered with desperate impetuosity. +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel made no reply. +</p> + +<p> +“He was not to blame, for it was perfectly true about—about his +seeing somebody else,” she quickly added. “And now I don’t +wish for a single remark from you upon the subject—indeed, I forbid it. I +only wanted you to know that misunderstood bit of my history before a time +comes when you could never know it.—You want some more sheaves?” +</p> + +<p> +She went down the ladder, and the work proceeded. Gabriel soon perceived a +languor in the movements of his mistress up and down, and he said to her, +gently as a mother— +</p> + +<p> +“I think you had better go indoors now, you are tired. I can finish the +rest alone. If the wind does not change the rain is likely to keep off.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I am useless I will go,” said Bathsheba, in a flagging cadence. +“But O, if your life should be lost!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not useless; but I would rather not tire you longer. You have +done well.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you better!” she said, gratefully. “Thank you for your +devotion, a thousand times, Gabriel! Goodnight—I know you are doing your +very best for me.” +</p> + +<p> +She diminished in the gloom, and vanished, and he heard the latch of the gate +fall as she passed through. He worked in a reverie now, musing upon her story, +and upon the contradictoriness of that feminine heart which had caused her to +speak more warmly to him to-night than she ever had done whilst unmarried and +free to speak as warmly as she chose. +</p> + +<p> +He was disturbed in his meditation by a grating noise from the coach-house. It +was the vane on the roof turning round, and this change in the wind was the +signal for a disastrous rain. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII<br /> +RAIN—ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER</h2> + +<p> +It was now five o’clock, and the dawn was promising to break in hues of +drab and ash. +</p> + +<p> +The air changed its temperature and stirred itself more vigorously. Cool +breezes coursed in transparent eddies round Oak’s face. The wind shifted +yet a point or two and blew stronger. In ten minutes every wind of heaven +seemed to be roaming at large. Some of the thatching on the wheat-stacks was +now whirled fantastically aloft, and had to be replaced and weighted with some +rails that lay near at hand. This done, Oak slaved away again at the barley. A +huge drop of rain smote his face, the wind snarled round every corner, the +trees rocked to the bases of their trunks, and the twigs clashed in strife. +Driving in spars at any point and on any system, inch by inch he covered more +and more safely from ruin this distracting impersonation of seven hundred +pounds. The rain came on in earnest, and Oak soon felt the water to be tracking +cold and clammy routes down his back. Ultimately he was reduced well-nigh to a +homogeneous sop, and the dyes of his clothes trickled down and stood in a pool +at the foot of the ladder. The rain stretched obliquely through the dull +atmosphere in liquid spines, unbroken in continuity between their beginnings in +the clouds and their points in him. +</p> + +<p> +Oak suddenly remembered that eight months before this time he had been fighting +against fire in the same spot as desperately as he was fighting against water +now—and for a futile love of the same woman. As for her—But Oak was +generous and true, and dismissed his reflections. +</p> + +<p> +It was about seven o’clock in the dark leaden morning when Gabriel came +down from the last stack, and thankfully exclaimed, “It is done!” +He was drenched, weary, and sad, and yet not so sad as drenched and weary, for +he was cheered by a sense of success in a good cause. +</p> + +<p> +Faint sounds came from the barn, and he looked that way. Figures stepped singly +and in pairs through the doors—all walking awkwardly, and abashed, save +the foremost, who wore a red jacket, and advanced with his hands in his +pockets, whistling. The others shambled after with a conscience-stricken air: +the whole procession was not unlike Flaxman’s group of the suitors +tottering on towards the infernal regions under the conduct of Mercury. The +gnarled shapes passed into the village, Troy, their leader, entering the +farmhouse. Not a single one of them had turned his face to the ricks, or +apparently bestowed one thought upon their condition. +</p> + +<p> +Soon Oak too went homeward, by a different route from theirs. In front of him +against the wet glazed surface of the lane he saw a person walking yet more +slowly than himself under an umbrella. The man turned and plainly started; he +was Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you this morning, sir?” said Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is a wet day.—Oh, I am well, very well, I thank you; quite +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to hear it, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood seemed to awake to the present by degrees. “You look tired and +ill, Oak,” he said then, desultorily regarding his companion. +</p> + +<p> +“I am tired. You look strangely altered, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I? Not a bit of it: I am well enough. What put that into your +head?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you didn’t look quite so topping as you used to, that +was all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, then you are mistaken,” said Boldwood, shortly. +“Nothing hurts me. My constitution is an iron one.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been working hard to get our ricks covered, and was barely in +time. Never had such a struggle in my life.... Yours of course are safe, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” Boldwood added, after an interval of silence: “What +did you ask, Oak?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your ricks are all covered before this time?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“At any rate, the large ones upon the stone staddles?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Them under the hedge?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I forgot to tell the thatcher to set about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor the little one by the stile?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor the little one by the stile. I overlooked the ricks this +year.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then not a tenth of your corn will come to measure, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Overlooked them,” repeated Gabriel slowly to himself. It is +difficult to describe the intensely dramatic effect that announcement had upon +Oak at such a moment. All the night he had been feeling that the neglect he was +labouring to repair was abnormal and isolated—the only instance of the +kind within the circuit of the county. Yet at this very time, within the same +parish, a greater waste had been going on, uncomplained of and disregarded. A +few months earlier Boldwood’s forgetting his husbandry would have been as +preposterous an idea as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship. Oak was just +thinking that whatever he himself might have suffered from Bathsheba’s +marriage, here was a man who had suffered more, when Boldwood spoke in a +changed voice—that of one who yearned to make a confidence and relieve +his heart by an outpouring. +</p> + +<p> +“Oak, you know as well as I that things have gone wrong with me lately. I +may as well own it. I was going to get a little settled in life; but in some +way my plan has come to nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought my mistress would have married you,” said Gabriel, not +knowing enough of the full depths of Boldwood’s love to keep silence on +the farmer’s account, and determined not to evade discipline by doing so +on his own. “However, it is so sometimes, and nothing happens that we +expect,” he added, with the repose of a man whom misfortune had inured +rather than subdued. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay I am a joke about the parish,” said Boldwood, as if the +subject came irresistibly to his tongue, and with a miserable lightness meant +to express his indifference. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—I don’t think that.” +</p> + +<p> +“—But the real truth of the matter is that there was not, as some +fancy, any jilting on—her part. No engagement ever existed between me and +Miss Everdene. People say so, but it is untrue: she never promised me!” +Boldwood stood still now and turned his wild face to Oak. “Oh, +Gabriel,” he continued, “I am weak and foolish, and I don’t +know what, and I can’t fend off my miserable grief!... I had some faint +belief in the mercy of God till I lost that woman. Yes, He prepared a gourd to +shade me, and like the prophet I thanked Him and was glad. But the next day He +prepared a worm to smite the gourd and wither it; and I feel it is better to +die than to live!” +</p> + +<p> +A silence followed. Boldwood aroused himself from the momentary mood of +confidence into which he had drifted, and walked on again, resuming his usual +reserve. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Gabriel,” he resumed, with a carelessness which was like the +smile on the countenance of a skull: “it was made more of by other people +than ever it was by us. I do feel a little regret occasionally, but no woman +ever had power over me for any length of time. Well, good morning; I can trust +you not to mention to others what has passed between us two here.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX<br /> +COMING HOME—A CRY</h2> + +<p> +On the turnpike road, between Casterbridge and Weatherbury, and about three +miles from the former place, is Yalbury Hill, one of those steep long ascents +which pervade the highways of this undulating part of South Wessex. In +returning from market it is usual for the farmers and other gig-gentry to +alight at the bottom and walk up. +</p> + +<p> +One Saturday evening in the month of October Bathsheba’s vehicle was duly +creeping up this incline. She was sitting listlessly in the second seat of the +gig, whilst walking beside her in a farmer’s marketing suit of unusually +fashionable cut was an erect, well-made young man. Though on foot, he held the +reins and whip, and occasionally aimed light cuts at the horse’s ear with +the end of the lash, as a recreation. This man was her husband, formerly +Sergeant Troy, who, having bought his discharge with Bathsheba’s money, +was gradually transforming himself into a farmer of a spirited and very modern +school. People of unalterable ideas still insisted upon calling him +“Sergeant” when they met him, which was in some degree owing to his +having still retained the well-shaped moustache of his military days, and the +soldierly bearing inseparable from his form and training. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, if it hadn’t been for that wretched rain I should have +cleared two hundred as easy as looking, my love,” he was saying. +“Don’t you see, it altered all the chances? To speak like a book I +once read, wet weather is the narrative, and fine days are the episodes, of our +country’s history; now, isn’t that true?” +</p> + +<p> +“But the time of year is come for changeable weather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes. The fact is, these autumn races are the ruin of everybody. +Never did I see such a day as ’twas! ’Tis a wild open place, just +out of Budmouth, and a drab sea rolled in towards us like liquid misery. Wind +and rain—good Lord! Dark? Why, ’twas as black as my hat before the +last race was run. ’Twas five o’clock, and you couldn’t see +the horses till they were almost in, leave alone colours. The ground was as +heavy as lead, and all judgment from a fellow’s experience went for +nothing. Horses, riders, people, were all blown about like ships at sea. Three +booths were blown over, and the wretched folk inside crawled out upon their +hands and knees; and in the next field were as many as a dozen hats at one +time. Ay, Pimpernel regularly stuck fast, when about sixty yards off, and when +I saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart against the lining of my ribs, +I assure you, my love!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you mean, Frank,” said Bathsheba, sadly—her voice was +painfully lowered from the fulness and vivacity of the previous +summer—“that you have lost more than a hundred pounds in a month by +this dreadful horse-racing? O, Frank, it is cruel; it is foolish of you to take +away my money so. We shall have to leave the farm; that will be the end of +it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Humbug about cruel. Now, there ’tis again—turn on the +waterworks; that’s just like you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’ll promise me not to go to Budmouth second meeting, +won’t you?” she implored. Bathsheba was at the full depth for +tears, but she maintained a dry eye. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why I should; in fact, if it turns out to be a fine +day, I was thinking of taking you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never, never! I’ll go a hundred miles the other way first. I hate +the sound of the very word!” +</p> + +<p> +“But the question of going to see the race or staying at home has very +little to do with the matter. Bets are all booked safely enough before the race +begins, you may depend. Whether it is a bad race for me or a good one, will +have very little to do with our going there next Monday.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t mean to say that you have risked anything on this +one too!” she exclaimed, with an agonized look. +</p> + +<p> +“There now, don’t you be a little fool. Wait till you are told. +Why, Bathsheba, you have lost all the pluck and sauciness you formerly had, and +upon my life if I had known what a chicken-hearted creature you were under all +your boldness, I’d never have—I know what.” +</p> + +<p> +A flash of indignation might have been seen in Bathsheba’s dark eyes as +she looked resolutely ahead after this reply. They moved on without further +speech, some early-withered leaves from the trees which hooded the road at this +spot occasionally spinning downward across their path to the earth. +</p> + +<p> +A woman appeared on the brow of the hill. The ridge was in a cutting, so that +she was very near the husband and wife before she became visible. Troy had +turned towards the gig to remount, and whilst putting his foot on the step the +woman passed behind him. +</p> + +<p> +Though the overshadowing trees and the approach of eventide enveloped them in +gloom, Bathsheba could see plainly enough to discern the extreme poverty of the +woman’s garb, and the sadness of her face. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, sir, do you know at what time Casterbridge Union-house closes at +night?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman said these words to Troy over his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Troy started visibly at the sound of the voice; yet he seemed to recover +presence of mind sufficient to prevent himself from giving way to his impulse +to suddenly turn and face her. He said, slowly— +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman, on hearing him speak, quickly looked up, examined the side of his +face, and recognized the soldier under the yeoman’s garb. Her face was +drawn into an expression which had gladness and agony both among its elements. +She uttered an hysterical cry, and fell down. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, poor thing!” exclaimed Bathsheba, instantly preparing to +alight. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay where you are, and attend to the horse!” said Troy, +peremptorily throwing her the reins and the whip. “Walk the horse to the +top: I’ll see to the woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you hear? Clk—Poppet!” +</p> + +<p> +The horse, gig, and Bathsheba moved on. +</p> + +<p> +“How on earth did you come here? I thought you were miles away, or dead! +Why didn’t you write to me?” said Troy to the woman, in a strangely +gentle, yet hurried voice, as he lifted her up. +</p> + +<p> +“I feared to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any money?” +</p> + +<p> +“None.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good Heaven—I wish I had more to give you! +Here’s—wretched—the merest trifle. It is every farthing I +have left. I have none but what my wife gives me, you know, and I can’t +ask her now.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman made no answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I have only another moment,” continued Troy; “and now +listen. Where are you going to-night? Casterbridge Union?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I thought to go there.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shan’t go there; yet, wait. Yes, perhaps for to-night; I can +do nothing better—worse luck! Sleep there to-night, and stay there +to-morrow. Monday is the first free day I have; and on Monday morning, at ten +exactly, meet me on Grey’s Bridge just out of the town. I’ll bring +all the money I can muster. You shan’t want—I’ll see that, +Fanny; then I’ll get you a lodging somewhere. Good-bye till then. I am a +brute—but good-bye!” +</p> + +<p> +After advancing the distance which completed the ascent of the hill, Bathsheba +turned her head. The woman was upon her feet, and Bathsheba saw her withdrawing +from Troy, and going feebly down the hill by the third milestone from +Casterbridge. Troy then came on towards his wife, stepped into the gig, took +the reins from her hand, and without making any observation whipped the horse +into a trot. He was rather agitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know who that woman was?” said Bathsheba, looking +searchingly into his face. +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” he said, looking boldly back into hers. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you did,” said she, with angry hauteur, and still +regarding him. “Who is she?” +</p> + +<p> +He suddenly seemed to think that frankness would benefit neither of the women. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing to either of us,” he said. “I know her by +sight.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is her name?” +</p> + +<p> +“How should I know her name?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Think if you will, and be—” The sentence was completed by a +smart cut of the whip round Poppet’s flank, which caused the animal to +start forward at a wild pace. No more was said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a>CHAPTER XL<br /> +ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY</h2> + +<p> +For a considerable time the woman walked on. Her steps became feebler, and she +strained her eyes to look afar upon the naked road, now indistinct amid the +penumbræ of night. At length her onward walk dwindled to the merest totter, and +she opened a gate within which was a haystack. Underneath this she sat down and +presently slept. +</p> + +<p> +When the woman awoke it was to find herself in the depths of a moonless and +starless night. A heavy unbroken crust of cloud stretched across the sky, +shutting out every speck of heaven; and a distant halo which hung over the town +of Casterbridge was visible against the black concave, the luminosity appearing +the brighter by its great contrast with the circumscribing darkness. Towards +this weak, soft glow the woman turned her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“If I could only get there!” she said. “Meet him the day +after to-morrow: God help me! Perhaps I shall be in my grave before +then.” +</p> + +<p> +A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one, in a +small, attenuated tone. After midnight the voice of a clock seems to lose in +breadth as much as in length, and to diminish its sonorousness to a thin +falsetto. +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards a light—two lights—arose from the remote shade, and grew +larger. A carriage rolled along the road, and passed the gate. It probably +contained some late diners-out. The beams from one lamp shone for a moment upon +the crouching woman, and threw her face into vivid relief. The face was young +in the groundwork, old in the finish; the general contours were flexuous and +childlike, but the finer lineaments had begun to be sharp and thin. +</p> + +<p> +The pedestrian stood up, apparently with revived determination, and looked +around. The road appeared to be familiar to her, and she carefully scanned the +fence as she slowly walked along. Presently there became visible a dim white +shape; it was another milestone. She drew her fingers across its face to feel +the marks. +</p> + +<p> +“Two more!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She leant against the stone as a means of rest for a short interval, then +bestirred herself, and again pursued her way. For a slight distance she bore up +bravely, afterwards flagging as before. This was beside a lone copsewood, +wherein heaps of white chips strewn upon the leafy ground showed that woodmen +had been faggoting and making hurdles during the day. Now there was not a +rustle, not a breeze, not the faintest clash of twigs to keep her company. The +woman looked over the gate, opened it, and went in. Close to the entrance stood +a row of faggots, bound and unbound, together with stakes of all sizes. +</p> + +<p> +For a few seconds the wayfarer stood with that tense stillness which signifies +itself to be not the end, but merely the suspension, of a previous motion. Her +attitude was that of a person who listens, either to the external world of +sound, or to the imagined discourse of thought. A close criticism might have +detected signs proving that she was intent on the latter alternative. Moreover, +as was shown by what followed, she was oddly exercising the faculty of +invention upon the speciality of the clever Jacquet Droz, the designer of +automatic substitutes for human limbs. +</p> + +<p> +By the aid of the Casterbridge aurora, and by feeling with her hands, the woman +selected two sticks from the heaps. These sticks were nearly straight to the +height of three or four feet, where each branched into a fork like the letter +Y. She sat down, snapped off the small upper twigs, and carried the remainder +with her into the road. She placed one of these forks under each arm as a +crutch, tested them, timidly threw her whole weight upon them—so little +that it was—and swung herself forward. The girl had made for herself a +material aid. +</p> + +<p> +The crutches answered well. The pat of her feet, and the tap of her sticks upon +the highway, were all the sounds that came from the traveller now. She had +passed the last milestone by a good long distance, and began to look wistfully +towards the bank as if calculating upon another milestone soon. The crutches, +though so very useful, had their limits of power. Mechanism only transfers +labour, being powerless to supersede it, and the original amount of exertion +was not cleared away; it was thrown into the body and arms. She was exhausted, +and each swing forward became fainter. At last she swayed sideways, and fell. +</p> + +<p> +Here she lay, a shapeless heap, for ten minutes and more. The morning wind +began to boom dully over the flats, and to move afresh dead leaves which had +lain still since yesterday. The woman desperately turned round upon her knees, +and next rose to her feet. Steadying herself by the help of one crutch, she +essayed a step, then another, then a third, using the crutches now as +walking-sticks only. Thus she progressed till descending Mellstock Hill another +milestone appeared, and soon the beginning of an iron-railed fence came into +view. She staggered across to the first post, clung to it, and looked around. +</p> + +<p> +The Casterbridge lights were now individually visible. It was getting towards +morning, and vehicles might be hoped for, if not expected soon. She listened. +There was not a sound of life save that acme and sublimation of all dismal +sounds, the bark of a fox, its three hollow notes being rendered at intervals +of a minute with the precision of a funeral bell. +</p> + +<p> +“Less than a mile!” the woman murmured. “No; more,” she +added, after a pause. “The mile is to the county hall, and my +resting-place is on the other side Casterbridge. A little over a mile, and +there I am!” After an interval she again spoke. “Five or six steps +to a yard—six perhaps. I have to go seventeen hundred yards. A hundred +times six, six hundred. Seventeen times that. O pity me, Lord!” +</p> + +<p> +Holding to the rails, she advanced, thrusting one hand forward upon the rail, +then the other, then leaning over it whilst she dragged her feet on beneath. +</p> + +<p> +This woman was not given to soliloquy; but extremity of feeling lessens the +individuality of the weak, as it increases that of the strong. She said again +in the same tone, “I’ll believe that the end lies five posts +forward, and no further, and so get strength to pass them.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a practical application of the principle that a half-feigned and +fictitious faith is better than no faith at all. +</p> + +<p> +She passed five posts and held on to the fifth. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll pass five more by believing my longed-for spot is at the next +fifth. I can do it.” +</p> + +<p> +She passed five more. +</p> + +<p> +“It lies only five further.” +</p> + +<p> +She passed five more. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is five further.” +</p> + +<p> +She passed them. +</p> + +<p> +“That stone bridge is the end of my journey,” she said, when the +bridge over the Froom was in view. +</p> + +<p> +She crawled to the bridge. During the effort each breath of the woman went into +the air as if never to return again. +</p> + +<p> +“Now for the truth of the matter,” she said, sitting down. +“The truth is, that I have less than half a mile.” Self-beguilement +with what she had known all the time to be false had given her strength to come +over half a mile that she would have been powerless to face in the lump. The +artifice showed that the woman, by some mysterious intuition, had grasped the +paradoxical truth that blindness may operate more vigorously than prescience, +and the short-sighted effect more than the far-seeing; that limitation, and not +comprehensiveness, is needed for striking a blow. +</p> + +<p> +The half-mile stood now before the sick and weary woman like a stolid +Juggernaut. It was an impassive King of her world. The road here ran across +Durnover Moor, open to the road on either side. She surveyed the wide space, +the lights, herself, sighed, and lay down against a guard-stone of the bridge. +</p> + +<p> +Never was ingenuity exercised so sorely as the traveller here exercised hers. +Every conceivable aid, method, stratagem, mechanism, by which these last +desperate eight hundred yards could be overpassed by a human being unperceived, +was revolved in her busy brain, and dismissed as impracticable. She thought of +sticks, wheels, crawling—she even thought of rolling. But the exertion +demanded by either of these latter two was greater than to walk erect. The +faculty of contrivance was worn out. Hopelessness had come at last. +</p> + +<p> +“No further!” she whispered, and closed her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +From the stripe of shadow on the opposite side of the bridge a portion of shade +seemed to detach itself and move into isolation upon the pale white of the +road. It glided noiselessly towards the recumbent woman. +</p> + +<p> +She became conscious of something touching her hand; it was softness and it was +warmth. She opened her eyes, and the substance touched her face. A dog was +licking her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +He was a huge, heavy, and quiet creature, standing darkly against the low +horizon, and at least two feet higher than the present position of her eyes. +Whether Newfoundland, mastiff, bloodhound, or what not, it was impossible to +say. He seemed to be of too strange and mysterious a nature to belong to any +variety among those of popular nomenclature. Being thus assignable to no breed, +he was the ideal embodiment of canine greatness—a generalization from +what was common to all. Night, in its sad, solemn, and benevolent aspect, apart +from its stealthy and cruel side, was personified in this form. Darkness endows +the small and ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power, and even the +suffering woman threw her idea into figure. +</p> + +<p> +In her reclining position she looked up to him just as in earlier times she +had, when standing, looked up to a man. The animal, who was as homeless as she, +respectfully withdrew a step or two when the woman moved, and, seeing that she +did not repulse him, he licked her hand again. +</p> + +<p> +A thought moved within her like lightning. “Perhaps I can make use of +him—I might do it then!” +</p> + +<p> +She pointed in the direction of Casterbridge, and the dog seemed to +misunderstand: he trotted on. Then, finding she could not follow, he came back +and whined. +</p> + +<p> +The ultimate and saddest singularity of woman’s effort and invention was +reached when, with a quickened breathing, she rose to a stooping posture, and, +resting her two little arms upon the shoulders of the dog, leant firmly +thereon, and murmured stimulating words. Whilst she sorrowed in her heart she +cheered with her voice, and what was stranger than that the strong should need +encouragement from the weak was that cheerfulness should be so well stimulated +by such utter dejection. Her friend moved forward slowly, and she with small +mincing steps moved forward beside him, half her weight being thrown upon the +animal. Sometimes she sank as she had sunk from walking erect, from the +crutches, from the rails. The dog, who now thoroughly understood her desire and +her incapacity, was frantic in his distress on these occasions; he would tug at +her dress and run forward. She always called him back, and it was now to be +observed that the woman listened for human sounds only to avoid them. It was +evident that she had an object in keeping her presence on the road and her +forlorn state unknown. +</p> + +<p> +Their progress was necessarily very slow. They reached the bottom of the town, +and the Casterbridge lamps lay before them like fallen Pleiads as they turned +to the left into the dense shade of a deserted avenue of chestnuts, and so +skirted the borough. Thus the town was passed, and the goal was reached. +</p> + +<p> +On this much-desired spot outside the town rose a picturesque building. +Originally it had been a mere case to hold people. The shell had been so thin, +so devoid of excrescence, and so closely drawn over the accommodation granted, +that the grim character of what was beneath showed through it, as the shape of +a body is visible under a winding-sheet. +</p> + +<p> +Then Nature, as if offended, lent a hand. Masses of ivy grew up, completely +covering the walls, till the place looked like an abbey; and it was discovered +that the view from the front, over the Casterbridge chimneys, was one of the +most magnificent in the county. A neighbouring earl once said that he would +give up a year’s rental to have at his own door the view enjoyed by the +inmates from theirs—and very probably the inmates would have given up the +view for his year’s rental. +</p> + +<p> +This stone edifice consisted of a central mass and two wings, whereon stood as +sentinels a few slim chimneys, now gurgling sorrowfully to the slow wind. In +the wall was a gate, and by the gate a bellpull formed of a hanging wire. The +woman raised herself as high as possible upon her knees, and could just reach +the handle. She moved it and fell forwards in a bowed attitude, her face upon +her bosom. +</p> + +<p> +It was getting on towards six o’clock, and sounds of movement were to be +heard inside the building which was the haven of rest to this wearied soul. A +little door by the large one was opened, and a man appeared inside. He +discerned the panting heap of clothes, went back for a light, and came again. +He entered a second time, and returned with two women. +</p> + +<p> +These lifted the prostrate figure and assisted her in through the doorway. The +man then closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +“How did she get here?” said one of the women. +</p> + +<p> +“The Lord knows,” said the other. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a dog outside,” murmured the overcome traveller. +“Where is he gone? He helped me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I stoned him away,” said the man. +</p> + +<p> +The little procession then moved forward—the man in front bearing the +light, the two bony women next, supporting between them the small and supple +one. Thus they entered the house and disappeared. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a>CHAPTER XLI<br /> +SUSPICION—FANNY IS SENT FOR</h2> + +<p> +Bathsheba said very little to her husband all that evening of their return from +market, and he was not disposed to say much to her. He exhibited the unpleasant +combination of a restless condition with a silent tongue. The next day, which +was Sunday, passed nearly in the same manner as regarded their taciturnity, +Bathsheba going to church both morning and afternoon. This was the day before +the Budmouth races. In the evening Troy said, suddenly— +</p> + +<p> +“Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?” +</p> + +<p> +Her countenance instantly sank. “Twenty pounds?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is, I want it badly.” The anxiety upon Troy’s face +was unusual and very marked. It was a culmination of the mood he had been in +all the day. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! for those races to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy for the moment made no reply. Her mistake had its advantages to a man who +shrank from having his mind inspected as he did now. “Well, suppose I do +want it for races?” he said, at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Frank!” Bathsheba replied, and there was such a volume of +entreaty in the words. “Only such a few weeks ago you said that I was far +sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and that you would give +them all up for me; and now, won’t you give up this one, which is more a +worry than a pleasure? Do, Frank. Come, let me fascinate you by all I can +do—by pretty words and pretty looks, and everything I can think +of—to stay at home. Say yes to your wife—say yes!” +</p> + +<p> +The tenderest and softest phases of Bathsheba’s nature were prominent +now—advanced impulsively for his acceptance, without any of the disguises +and defences which the wariness of her character when she was cool too +frequently threw over them. Few men could have resisted the arch yet dignified +entreaty of the beautiful face, thrown a little back and sideways in the well +known attitude that expresses more than the words it accompanies, and which +seems to have been designed for these special occasions. Had the woman not been +his wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly; as it was, he thought he would +not deceive her longer. +</p> + +<p> +“The money is not wanted for racing debts at all,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it for?” she asked. “You worry me a great deal by +these mysterious responsibilities, Frank.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy hesitated. He did not now love her enough to allow himself to be carried +too far by her ways. Yet it was necessary to be civil. “You wrong me by +such a suspicious manner,” he said. “Such strait-waistcoating as +you treat me to is not becoming in you at so early a date.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay,” she +said, with features between a smile and a pout. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to the latter. +Bathsheba, fun is all very well, but don’t go too far, or you may have +cause to regret something.” +</p> + +<p> +She reddened. “I do that already,” she said, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you regret?” +</p> + +<p> +“That my romance has come to an end.” +</p> + +<p> +“All romances end at marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. You grieve me to my soul by +being smart at my expense.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are dull enough at mine. I believe you hate me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not you—only your faults. I do hate them.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure them. +Come, let’s strike a balance with the twenty pounds, and be +friends.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a sigh of resignation. “I have about that sum here for household +expenses. If you must have it, take it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good. Thank you. I expect I shall have gone away before you are in +to breakfast to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“And must you go? Ah! there was a time, Frank, when it would have taken a +good many promises to other people to drag you away from me. You used to call +me darling, then. But it doesn’t matter to you how my days are passed +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go, in spite of sentiment.” Troy, as he spoke, looked at +his watch, and, apparently actuated by <i>non lucendo</i> principles, opened +the case at the back, revealing, snugly stowed within it, a small coil of hair. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s eyes had been accidentally lifted at that moment, and she saw +the action and saw the hair. She flushed in pain and surprise, and some words +escaped her before she had thought whether or not it was wise to utter them. +“A woman’s curl of hair!” she said. “Oh, Frank, whose +is that?” +</p> + +<p> +Troy had instantly closed his watch. He carelessly replied, as one who cloaked +some feelings that the sight had stirred. “Why, yours, of course. Whose +should it be? I had quite forgotten that I had it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a dreadful fib, Frank!” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I had forgotten it!” he said, loudly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean that—it was yellow hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s insulting me. I know it was yellow. Now whose was it? I +want to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well—I’ll tell you, so make no more ado. It is the hair +of a young woman I was going to marry before I knew you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to tell me her name, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot do that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she married yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she alive?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she pretty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful +affliction!” +</p> + +<p> +“Affliction—what affliction?” he inquired, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Having hair of that dreadful colour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—ho—I like that!” said Troy, recovering himself. +“Why, her hair has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she +has worn it loose, which has not been long. It is beautiful hair. People used +to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh! that’s nothing—that’s nothing!” she +exclaimed, in incipient accents of pique. “If I cared for your love as +much as I used to I could say people had turned to look at mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bathsheba, don’t be so fitful and jealous. You knew what married +life would be like, and shouldn’t have entered it if you feared these +contingencies.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in her +throat, and the ducts to her eyes were painfully full. Ashamed as she was to +show emotion, at last she burst out:— +</p> + +<p> +“This is all I get for loving you so well! Ah! when I married you your +life was dearer to me than my own. I would have died for you—how truly I +can say that I would have died for you! And now you sneer at my foolishness in +marrying you. O! is it kind to me to throw my mistake in my face? Whatever +opinion you may have of my wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, +now that I am in your power.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t help how things fall out,” said Troy; “upon my +heart, women will be the death of me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well you shouldn’t keep people’s hair. You’ll burn it, +won’t you, Frank?” +</p> + +<p> +Frank went on as if he had not heard her. “There are considerations even +before my consideration for you; reparations to be made—ties you know +nothing of. If you repent of marrying, so do I.” +</p> + +<p> +Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled tones of +wretchedness and coaxing, “I only repent it if you don’t love me +better than any woman in the world! I don’t otherwise, Frank. You +don’t repent because you already love somebody better than you love me, +do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. Why do you say that?” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t burn that curl. You like the woman who owns that pretty +hair—yes; it is pretty—more beautiful than my miserable black mane! +Well, it is no use; I can’t help being ugly. You must like her best, if +you will!” +</p> + +<p> +“Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never looked upon +that bit of hair for several months—that I am ready to swear.” +</p> + +<p> +“But just now you said ‘ties’; and then—that woman we +met?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it hers, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are +content.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what are the ties?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! that meant nothing—a mere jest.” +</p> + +<p> +“A mere jest!” she said, in mournful astonishment. “Can you +jest when I am so wretchedly in earnest? Tell me the truth, Frank. I am not a +fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman’s moments. Come! +treat me fairly,” she said, looking honestly and fearlessly into his +face. “I don’t want much; bare justice—that’s all! Ah! +once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the highest homage from +the husband I should choose. Now, anything short of cruelty will content me. +Yes! the independent and spirited Bathsheba is come to this!” +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake don’t be so desperate!” Troy said, +snappishly, rising as he did so, and leaving the room. +</p> + +<p> +Directly he had gone, Bathsheba burst into great sobs—dry-eyed sobs, +which cut as they came, without any softening by tears. But she determined to +repress all evidences of feeling. She was conquered; but she would never own it +as long as she lived. Her pride was indeed brought low by despairing +discoveries of her spoliation by marriage with a less pure nature than her own. +She chafed to and fro in rebelliousness, like a caged leopard; her whole soul +was in arms, and the blood fired her face. Until she had met Troy, Bathsheba +had been proud of her position as a woman; it had been a glory to her to know +that her lips had been touched by no man’s on earth—that her waist +had never been encircled by a lover’s arm. She hated herself now. In +those earlier days she had always nourished a secret contempt for girls who +were the slaves of the first good-looking young fellow who should choose to +salute them. She had never taken kindly to the idea of marriage in the abstract +as did the majority of women she saw about her. In the turmoil of her anxiety +for her lover she had agreed to marry him; but the perception that had +accompanied her happiest hours on this account was rather that of +self-sacrifice than of promotion and honour. Although she scarcely knew the +divinity’s name, Diana was the goddess whom Bathsheba instinctively +adored. That she had never, by look, word, or sign, encouraged a man to +approach her—that she had felt herself sufficient to herself, and had in +the independence of her girlish heart fancied there was a certain degradation +in renouncing the simplicity of a maiden existence to become the humbler half +of an indifferent matrimonial whole—were facts now bitterly remembered. +Oh, if she had never stooped to folly of this kind, respectable as it was, and +could only stand again, as she had stood on the hill at Norcombe, and dare Troy +or any other man to pollute a hair of her head by his interference! +</p> + +<p> +The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and had the horse saddled for her +ride round the farm in the customary way. When she came in at half-past +eight—their usual hour for breakfasting—she was informed that her +husband had risen, taken his breakfast, and driven off to Casterbridge with the +gig and Poppet. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast she was cool and collected—quite herself in +fact—and she rambled to the gate, intending to walk to another quarter of +the farm, which she still personally superintended as well as her duties in the +house would permit, continually, however, finding herself preceded in +forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom she began to entertain the genuine +friendship of a sister. Of course, she sometimes thought of him in the light of +an old lover, and had momentary imaginings of what life with him as a husband +would have been like; also of life with Boldwood under the same conditions. But +Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given to futile dreaming, and +her musings under this head were short and entirely confined to the times when +Troy’s neglect was more than ordinarily evident. +</p> + +<p> +She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood. It was Mr. Boldwood. +Bathsheba blushed painfully, and watched. The farmer stopped when still a long +way off, and held up his hand to Gabriel Oak, who was in a footpath across the +field. The two men then approached each other and seemed to engage in earnest +conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Thus they continued for a long time. Joseph Poorgrass now passed near them, +wheeling a barrow of apples up the hill to Bathsheba’s residence. +Boldwood and Gabriel called to him, spoke to him for a few minutes, and then +all three parted, Joseph immediately coming up the hill with his barrow. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with some surprise, experienced great +relief when Boldwood turned back again. “Well, what’s the message, +Joseph?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He set down his barrow, and, putting upon himself the refined aspect that a +conversation with a lady required, spoke to Bathsheba over the gate. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll never see Fanny Robin no more—use nor +principal—ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because she’s dead in the Union.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fanny dead—never!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did she die from?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know for certain; but I should be inclined to think it was +from general neshness of constitution. She was such a limber maid that ’a +could stand no hardship, even when I knowed her, and ’a went like a +candle-snoff, so ’tis said. She was took bad in the morning, and, being +quite feeble and worn out, she died in the evening. She belongs by law to our +parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a waggon at three this afternoon to +fetch her home here and bury her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I shall not let Mr. Boldwood do any such thing—I shall do +it! Fanny was my uncle’s servant, and, although I only knew her for a +couple of days, she belongs to me. How very, very sad this is!—the idea +of Fanny being in a workhouse.” Bathsheba had begun to know what +suffering was, and she spoke with real feeling.... “Send across to Mr. +Boldwood’s, and say that Mrs. Troy will take upon herself the duty of +fetching an old servant of the family.... We ought not to put her in a waggon; +we’ll get a hearse.” +</p> + +<p> +“There will hardly be time, ma’am, will there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not,” she said, musingly. “When did you say we must +be at the door—three o’clock?” +</p> + +<p> +“Three o’clock this afternoon, ma’am, so to speak it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well—you go with it. A pretty waggon is better than an ugly +hearse, after all. Joseph, have the new spring waggon with the blue body and +red wheels, and wash it very clean. And, Joseph—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put upon her +coffin—indeed, gather a great many, and completely bury her in them. Get +some boughs of laurustinus, and variegated box, and yew, and boy’s-love; +ay, and some bunches of chrysanthemum. And let old Pleasant draw her, because +she knew him so well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will, ma’am. I ought to have said that the Union, in the form of +four labouring men, will meet me when I gets to our churchyard gate, and take +her and bury her according to the rites of the Board of Guardians, as by law +ordained.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me—Casterbridge Union—and is Fanny come to this?” +said Bathsheba, musing. “I wish I had known of it sooner. I thought she +was far away. How long has she lived there?” +</p> + +<p> +“On’y been there a day or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!—then she has not been staying there as a regular +inmate?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. She first went to live in a garrison-town t’other side +o’ Wessex, and since then she’s been picking up a living at +seampstering in Melchester for several months, at the house of a very +respectable widow-woman who takes in work of that sort. She only got handy the +Union-house on Sunday morning ’a b’lieve, and ’tis supposed +here and there that she had traipsed every step of the way from Melchester. Why +she left her place, I can’t say, for I don’t know; and as to a lie, +why, I wouldn’t tell it. That’s the short of the story, +ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah-h!” +</p> + +<p> +No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one more rapidly than changed +the young wife’s countenance whilst this word came from her in a +long-drawn breath. “Did she walk along our turnpike-road?” she +said, in a suddenly restless and eager voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe she did.... Ma’am, shall I call Liddy? You bain’t +well, ma’am, surely? You look like a lily—so pale and +fainty!” +</p> + +<p> +“No; don’t call her; it is nothing. When did she pass +Weatherbury?” +</p> + +<p> +“Last Saturday night.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will do, Joseph; now you may go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Joseph, come hither a moment. What was the colour of Fanny Robin’s +hair?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, mistress, now that ’tis put to me so judge-and-jury like, +I can’t call to mind, if ye’ll believe me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind; go on and do what I told you. Stop—well no, go +on.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned herself away from him, that he might no longer notice the mood which +had set its sign so visibly upon her, and went indoors with a distressing sense +of faintness and a beating brow. About an hour after, she heard the noise of +the waggon and went out, still with a painful consciousness of her bewildered +and troubled look. Joseph, dressed in his best suit of clothes, was putting in +the horse to start. The shrubs and flowers were all piled in the waggon, as she +had directed; Bathsheba hardly saw them now. +</p> + +<p> +“Died of what? did you say, Joseph?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you quite sure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ma’am, quite sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure of what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure that all I know is that she arrived in the morning and +died in the evening without further parley. What Oak and Mr. Boldwood told me +was only these few words. ‘Little Fanny Robin is dead, Joseph,’ +Gabriel said, looking in my face in his steady old way. I was very sorry, and I +said, ‘Ah!—and how did she come to die?’ ‘Well, +she’s dead in Casterbridge Union,’ he said, ‘and perhaps +’tisn’t much matter about how she came to die. She reached the +Union early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon—that’s clear +enough.’ Then I asked what she’d been doing lately, and Mr. +Boldwood turned round to me then, and left off spitting a thistle with the end +of his stick. He told me about her having lived by seampstering in Melchester, +as I mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at the end of last week, +passing near here Saturday night in the dusk. They then said I had better just +name a hint of her death to you, and away they went. Her death might have been +brought on by biding in the night wind, you know, ma’am; for people used +to say she’d go off in a decline: she used to cough a good deal in winter +time. However, ’tisn’t much odds to us about that now, for +’tis all over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you heard a different story at all?” She looked at him so +intently that Joseph’s eyes quailed. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word, mistress, I assure ’ee!” he said. “Hardly +anybody in the parish knows the news yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder why Gabriel didn’t bring the message to me himself. He +mostly makes a point of seeing me upon the most trifling errand.” These +words were merely murmured, and she was looking upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps he was busy, ma’am,” Joseph suggested. “And +sometimes he seems to suffer from things upon his mind, connected with the time +when he was better off than ’a is now. ’A’s rather a curious +item, but a very understanding shepherd, and learned in books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was speaking to you about +this?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot but say that there did, ma’am. He was terrible down, and +so was Farmer Boldwood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Joseph. That will do. Go on now, or you’ll be +late.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, still unhappy, went indoors again. In the course of the afternoon +she said to Liddy, who had been informed of the occurrence, “What was the +colour of poor Fanny Robin’s hair? Do you know? I cannot +recollect—I only saw her for a day or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was light, ma’am; but she wore it rather short, and packed away +under her cap, so that you would hardly notice it. But I have seen her let it +down when she was going to bed, and it looked beautiful then. Real golden +hair.” +</p> + +<p> +“Her young man was a soldier, was he not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. In the same regiment as Mr. Troy. He says he knew him very +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, Mr. Troy says so? How came he to say that?” +</p> + +<p> +“One day I just named it to him, and asked him if he knew Fanny’s +young man. He said, ‘Oh yes, he knew the young man as well as he knew +himself, and that there wasn’t a man in the regiment he liked +better.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! Said that, did he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness between himself and the +other young man, so that sometimes people mistook them—” +</p> + +<p> +“Liddy, for Heaven’s sake stop your talking!” said Bathsheba, +with the nervous petulance that comes from worrying perceptions. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>CHAPTER XLII<br /> +JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN—BUCK’S HEAD</h2> + +<p> +A wall bounded the site of Casterbridge Union-house, except along a portion of +the end. Here a high gable stood prominent, and it was covered like the front +with a mat of ivy. In this gable was no window, chimney, ornament, or +protuberance of any kind. The single feature appertaining to it, beyond the +expanse of dark green leaves, was a small door. +</p> + +<p> +The situation of the door was peculiar. The sill was three or four feet above +the ground, and for a moment one was at a loss for an explanation of this +exceptional altitude, till ruts immediately beneath suggested that the door was +used solely for the passage of articles and persons to and from the level of a +vehicle standing on the outside. Upon the whole, the door seemed to advertise +itself as a species of Traitor’s Gate translated to another sphere. That +entry and exit hereby was only at rare intervals became apparent on noting that +tufts of grass were allowed to flourish undisturbed in the chinks of the sill. +</p> + +<p> +As the clock over the South-street Alms-house pointed to five minutes to three, +a blue spring waggon, picked out with red, and containing boughs and flowers, +passed the end of the street, and up towards this side of the building. Whilst +the chimes were yet stammering out a shattered form of “Malbrook,” +Joseph Poorgrass rang the bell, and received directions to back his waggon +against the high door under the gable. The door then opened, and a plain elm +coffin was slowly thrust forth, and laid by two men in fustian along the middle +of the vehicle. +</p> + +<p> +One of the men then stepped up beside it, took from his pocket a lump of chalk, +and wrote upon the cover the name and a few other words in a large scrawling +hand. (We believe that they do these things more tenderly now, and provide a +plate.) He covered the whole with a black cloth, threadbare, but decent, the +tail-board of the waggon was returned to its place, one of the men handed a +certificate of registry to Poorgrass, and both entered the door, closing it +behind them. Their connection with her, short as it had been, was over for +ever. +</p> + +<p> +Joseph then placed the flowers as enjoined, and the evergreens around the +flowers, till it was difficult to divine what the waggon contained; he smacked +his whip, and the rather pleasing funeral car crept down the hill, and along +the road to Weatherbury. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon drew on apace, and, looking to the right towards the sea as he +walked beside the horse, Poorgrass saw strange clouds and scrolls of mist +rolling over the long ridges which girt the landscape in that quarter. They +came in yet greater volumes, and indolently crept across the intervening +valleys, and around the withered papery flags of the moor and river brinks. +Then their dank spongy forms closed in upon the sky. It was a sudden overgrowth +of atmospheric fungi which had their roots in the neighbouring sea, and by the +time that horse, man, and corpse entered Yalbury Great Wood, these silent +workings of an invisible hand had reached them, and they were completely +enveloped, this being the first arrival of the autumn fogs, and the first fog +of the series. +</p> + +<p> +The air was as an eye suddenly struck blind. The waggon and its load rolled no +longer on the horizontal division between clearness and opacity, but were +imbedded in an elastic body of a monotonous pallor throughout. There was no +perceptible motion in the air, not a visible drop of water fell upon a leaf of +the beeches, birches, and firs composing the wood on either side. The trees +stood in an attitude of intentness, as if they waited longingly for a wind to +come and rock them. A startling quiet overhung all surrounding things—so +completely, that the crunching of the waggon-wheels was as a great noise, and +small rustles, which had never obtained a hearing except by night, were +distinctly individualized. +</p> + +<p> +Joseph Poorgrass looked round upon his sad burden as it loomed faintly through +the flowering laurustinus, then at the unfathomable gloom amid the high trees +on each hand, indistinct, shadowless, and spectre-like in their monochrome of +grey. He felt anything but cheerful, and wished he had the company even of a +child or dog. Stopping the horse, he listened. Not a footstep or wheel was +audible anywhere around, and the dead silence was broken only by a heavy +particle falling from a tree through the evergreens and alighting with a smart +rap upon the coffin of poor Fanny. The fog had by this time saturated the +trees, and this was the first dropping of water from the overbrimming leaves. +The hollow echo of its fall reminded the waggoner painfully of the grim +Leveller. Then hard by came down another drop, then two or three. Presently +there was a continual tapping of these heavy drops upon the dead leaves, the +road, and the travellers. The nearer boughs were beaded with the mist to the +greyness of aged men, and the rusty-red leaves of the beeches were hung with +similar drops, like diamonds on auburn hair. +</p> + +<p> +At the roadside hamlet called Roy-Town, just beyond this wood, was the old inn +Buck’s Head. It was about a mile and a half from Weatherbury, and in the +meridian times of stage-coach travelling had been the place where many coaches +changed and kept their relays of horses. All the old stabling was now pulled +down, and little remained besides the habitable inn itself, which, standing a +little way back from the road, signified its existence to people far up and +down the highway by a sign hanging from the horizontal bough of an elm on the +opposite side of the way. +</p> + +<p> +Travellers—for the variety <i>tourist</i> had hardly developed into a +distinct species at this date—sometimes said in passing, when they cast +their eyes up to the sign-bearing tree, that artists were fond of representing +the signboard hanging thus, but that they themselves had never before noticed +so perfect an instance in actual working order. It was near this tree that the +waggon was standing into which Gabriel Oak crept on his first journey to +Weatherbury; but, owing to the darkness, the sign and the inn had been +unobserved. +</p> + +<p> +The manners of the inn were of the old-established type. Indeed, in the minds +of its frequenters they existed as unalterable formulæ: +<i>e.g.</i>— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Rap with the bottom of your pint for more liquor.<br /> +For tobacco, shout.<br /> +In calling for the girl in waiting, say, “Maid!”<br /> +Ditto for the landlady, “Old Soul!” etc., etc. +</p> + +<p> +It was a relief to Joseph’s heart when the friendly signboard came in +view, and, stopping his horse immediately beneath it, he proceeded to fulfil an +intention made a long time before. His spirits were oozing out of him quite. He +turned the horse’s head to the green bank, and entered the hostel for a +mug of ale. +</p> + +<p> +Going down into the kitchen of the inn, the floor of which was a step below the +passage, which in its turn was a step below the road outside, what should +Joseph see to gladden his eyes but two copper-coloured discs, in the form of +the countenances of Mr. Jan Coggan and Mr. Mark Clark. These owners of the two +most appreciative throats in the neighbourhood, within the pale of +respectability, were now sitting face to face over a three-legged circular +table, having an iron rim to keep cups and pots from being accidentally elbowed +off; they might have been said to resemble the setting sun and the full moon +shining <i>vis-à-vis</i> across the globe. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, ’tis neighbour Poorgrass!” said Mark Clark. +“I’m sure your face don’t praise your mistress’s table, +Joseph.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had a very pale companion for the last four miles,” +said Joseph, indulging in a shudder toned down by resignation. “And to +speak the truth, ’twas beginning to tell upon me. I assure ye, I +ha’n’t seed the colour of victuals or drink since breakfast time +this morning, and that was no more than a dew-bit afield.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then drink, Joseph, and don’t restrain yourself!” said +Coggan, handing him a hooped mug three-quarters full. +</p> + +<p> +Joseph drank for a moderately long time, then for a longer time, saying, as he +lowered the jug, “’Tis pretty drinking—very pretty drinking, +and is more than cheerful on my melancholy errand, so to speak it.” +</p> + +<p> +“True, drink is a pleasant delight,” said Jan, as one who repeated +a truism so familiar to his brain that he hardly noticed its passage over his +tongue; and, lifting the cup, Coggan tilted his head gradually backwards, with +closed eyes, that his expectant soul might not be diverted for one instant from +its bliss by irrelevant surroundings. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must be on again,” said Poorgrass. “Not but that I +should like another nip with ye; but the parish might lose confidence in me if +I was seed here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where be ye trading o’t to to-day, then, Joseph?” +</p> + +<p> +“Back to Weatherbury. I’ve got poor little Fanny Robin in my waggon +outside, and I must be at the churchyard gates at a quarter to five with +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay—I’ve heard of it. And so she’s nailed up in parish +boards after all, and nobody to pay the bell shilling and the grave +half-crown.” +</p> + +<p> +“The parish pays the grave half-crown, but not the bell shilling, because +the bell’s a luxery: but ’a can hardly do without the grave, poor +body. However, I expect our mistress will pay all.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty maid as ever I see! But what’s yer hurry, Joseph? The +pore woman’s dead, and you can’t bring her to life, and you may as +well sit down comfortable, and finish another with us.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind taking just the least thimbleful ye can dream of more +with ye, sonnies. But only a few minutes, because ’tis as +’tis.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, you’ll have another drop. A man’s twice the man +afterwards. You feel so warm and glorious, and you whop and slap at your work +without any trouble, and everything goes on like sticks a-breaking. Too much +liquor is bad, and leads us to that horned man in the smoky house; but after +all, many people haven’t the gift of enjoying a wet, and since we be +highly favoured with a power that way, we should make the most +o’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said Mark Clark. “’Tis a talent the Lord has +mercifully bestowed upon us, and we ought not to neglect it. But, what with the +parsons and clerks and school-people and serious tea-parties, the merry old +ways of good life have gone to the dogs—upon my carcase, they +have!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really, I must be onward again now,” said Joseph. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, now, Joseph; nonsense! The poor woman is dead, isn’t she, and +what’s your hurry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope Providence won’t be in a way with me for my +doings,” said Joseph, again sitting down. “I’ve been troubled +with weak moments lately, ’tis true. I’ve been drinky once this +month already, and I did not go to church a-Sunday, and I dropped a curse or +two yesterday; so I don’t want to go too far for my safety. Your next +world is your next world, and not to be squandered offhand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe ye to be a chapelmember, Joseph. That I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, no! I don’t go so far as that.” +</p> + +<p> +“For my part,” said Coggan, “I’m staunch Church of +England.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, and faith, so be I,” said Mark Clark. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t say much for myself; I don’t wish to,” Coggan +continued, with that tendency to talk on principles which is characteristic of +the barley-corn. “But I’ve never changed a single doctrine: +I’ve stuck like a plaster to the old faith I was born in. Yes; +there’s this to be said for the Church, a man can belong to the Church +and bide in his cheerful old inn, and never trouble or worry his mind about +doctrines at all. But to be a meetinger, you must go to chapel in all winds and +weathers, and make yerself as frantic as a skit. Not but that chapel members be +clever chaps enough in their way. They can lift up beautiful prayers out of +their own heads, all about their families and shipwrecks in the +newspaper.” +</p> + +<p> +“They can—they can,” said Mark Clark, with corroborative +feeling; “but we Churchmen, you see, must have it all printed aforehand, +or, dang it all, we should no more know what to say to a great gaffer like the +Lord than babes unborn.” +</p> + +<p> +“Chapelfolk be more hand-in-glove with them above than we,” said +Joseph, thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Coggan. “We know very well that if anybody do go +to heaven, they will. They’ve worked hard for it, and they deserve to +have it, such as ’tis. I bain’t such a fool as to pretend that we +who stick to the Church have the same chance as they, because we know we have +not. But I hate a feller who’ll change his old ancient doctrines for the +sake of getting to heaven. I’d as soon turn king’s-evidence for the +few pounds you get. Why, neighbours, when every one of my taties were frosted, +our Parson Thirdly were the man who gave me a sack for seed, though he hardly +had one for his own use, and no money to buy ’em. If it hadn’t been +for him, I shouldn’t hae had a tatie to put in my garden. D’ye +think I’d turn after that? No, I’ll stick to my side; and if we be +in the wrong, so be it: I’ll fall with the fallen!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well said—very well said,” observed +Joseph.—“However, folks, I must be moving now: upon my life I must. +Pa’son Thirdly will be waiting at the church gates, and there’s the +woman a-biding outside in the waggon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Joseph Poorgrass, don’t be so miserable! Pa’son Thirdly +won’t mind. He’s a generous man; he’s found me in tracts for +years, and I’ve consumed a good many in the course of a long and shady +life; but he’s never been the man to cry out at the expense. Sit +down.” +</p> + +<p> +The longer Joseph Poorgrass remained, the less his spirit was troubled by the +duties which devolved upon him this afternoon. The minutes glided by uncounted, +until the evening shades began perceptibly to deepen, and the eyes of the three +were but sparkling points on the surface of darkness. Coggan’s repeater +struck six from his pocket in the usual still small tones. +</p> + +<p> +At that moment hasty steps were heard in the entry, and the door opened to +admit the figure of Gabriel Oak, followed by the maid of the inn bearing a +candle. He stared sternly at the one lengthy and two round faces of the +sitters, which confronted him with the expressions of a fiddle and a couple of +warming-pans. Joseph Poorgrass blinked, and shrank several inches into the +background. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my soul, I’m ashamed of you; ’tis disgraceful, Joseph, +disgraceful!” said Gabriel, indignantly. “Coggan, you call yourself +a man, and don’t know better than this.” +</p> + +<p> +Coggan looked up indefinitely at Oak, one or other of his eyes occasionally +opening and closing of its own accord, as if it were not a member, but a dozy +individual with a distinct personality. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t take on so, shepherd!” said Mark Clark, looking +reproachfully at the candle, which appeared to possess special features of +interest for his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody can hurt a dead woman,” at length said Coggan, with the +precision of a machine. “All that could be done for her is +done—she’s beyond us: and why should a man put himself in a tearing +hurry for lifeless clay that can neither feel nor see, and don’t know +what you do with her at all? If she’d been alive, I would have been the +first to help her. If she now wanted victuals and drink, I’d pay for it, +money down. But she’s dead, and no speed of ours will bring her to life. +The woman’s past us—time spent upon her is throwed away: why should +we hurry to do what’s not required? Drink, shepherd, and be friends, for +to-morrow we may be like her.” +</p> + +<p> +“We may,” added Mark Clark, emphatically, at once drinking himself, +to run no further risk of losing his chance by the event alluded to, Jan +meanwhile merging his additional thoughts of to-morrow in a song:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + To-mor-row, to-mor-row!<br /> +And while peace and plen-ty I find at my board,<br /> + With a heart free from sick-ness and sor-row,<br /> +With my friends will I share what to-day may af-ford,<br /> + And let them spread the ta-ble to-mor-row.<br /> + To-mor-row, to-mor—— +</p> + +<p> +“Do hold thy horning, Jan!” said Oak; and turning upon Poorgrass, +“as for you, Joseph, who do your wicked deeds in such confoundedly holy +ways, you are as drunk as you can stand.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Shepherd Oak, no! Listen to reason, shepherd. All that’s the +matter with me is the affliction called a multiplying eye, and that’s how +it is I look double to you—I mean, you look double to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“A multiplying eye is a very bad thing,” said Mark Clark. +</p> + +<p> +“It always comes on when I have been in a public-house a little +time,” said Joseph Poorgrass, meekly. “Yes; I see two of every +sort, as if I were some holy man living in the times of King Noah and entering +into the ark.... Y-y-y-yes,” he added, becoming much affected by the +picture of himself as a person thrown away, and shedding tears; “I feel +too good for England: I ought to have lived in Genesis by rights, like the +other men of sacrifice, and then I shouldn’t have b-b-been called a +d-d-drunkard in such a way!” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d show yourself a man of spirit, and not sit whining +there!” +</p> + +<p> +“Show myself a man of spirit?... Ah, well! let me take the name of +drunkard humbly—let me be a man of contrite knees—let it be! I know +that I always do say ‘Please God’ afore I do anything, from my +getting up to my going down of the same, and I be willing to take as much +disgrace as there is in that holy act. Hah, yes!... But not a man of spirit? +Have I ever allowed the toe of pride to be lifted against my hinder parts +without groaning manfully that I question the right to do so? I inquire that +query boldly?” +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t say that you have, Hero Poorgrass,” admitted Jan. +</p> + +<p> +“Never have I allowed such treatment to pass unquestioned! Yet the +shepherd says in the face of that rich testimony that I be not a man of spirit! +Well, let it pass by, and death is a kind friend!” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel, seeing that neither of the three was in a fit state to take charge of +the waggon for the remainder of the journey, made no reply, but, closing the +door again upon them, went across to where the vehicle stood, now getting +indistinct in the fog and gloom of this mildewy time. He pulled the +horse’s head from the large patch of turf it had eaten bare, readjusted +the boughs over the coffin, and drove along through the unwholesome night. +</p> + +<p> +It had gradually become rumoured in the village that the body to be brought and +buried that day was all that was left of the unfortunate Fanny Robin who had +followed the Eleventh from Casterbridge through Melchester and onwards. But, +thanks to Boldwood’s reticence and Oak’s generosity, the lover she +had followed had never been individualized as Troy. Gabriel hoped that the +whole truth of the matter might not be published till at any rate the girl had +been in her grave for a few days, when the interposing barriers of earth and +time, and a sense that the events had been somewhat shut into oblivion, would +deaden the sting that revelation and invidious remark would have for Bathsheba +just now. +</p> + +<p> +By the time that Gabriel reached the old manor-house, her residence, which lay +in his way to the church, it was quite dark. A man came from the gate and said +through the fog, which hung between them like blown flour— +</p> + +<p> +“Is that Poorgrass with the corpse?” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel recognized the voice as that of the parson. +</p> + +<p> +“The corpse is here, sir,” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“I have just been to inquire of Mrs. Troy if she could tell me the reason +of the delay. I am afraid it is too late now for the funeral to be performed +with proper decency. Have you the registrar’s certificate?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gabriel. “I expect Poorgrass has that; and +he’s at the Buck’s Head. I forgot to ask him for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that settles the matter. We’ll put off the funeral till +to-morrow morning. The body may be brought on to the church, or it may be left +here at the farm and fetched by the bearers in the morning. They waited more +than an hour, and have now gone home.” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel had his reasons for thinking the latter a most objectionable plan, +notwithstanding that Fanny had been an inmate of the farm-house for several +years in the lifetime of Bathsheba’s uncle. Visions of several unhappy +contingencies which might arise from this delay flitted before him. But his +will was not law, and he went indoors to inquire of his mistress what were her +wishes on the subject. He found her in an unusual mood: her eyes as she looked +up to him were suspicious and perplexed as with some antecedent thought. Troy +had not yet returned. At first Bathsheba assented with a mien of indifference +to his proposition that they should go on to the church at once with their +burden; but immediately afterwards, following Gabriel to the gate, she swerved +to the extreme of solicitousness on Fanny’s account, and desired that the +girl might be brought into the house. Oak argued upon the convenience of +leaving her in the waggon, just as she lay now, with her flowers and green +leaves about her, merely wheeling the vehicle into the coach-house till the +morning, but to no purpose. “It is unkind and unchristian,” she +said, “to leave the poor thing in a coach-house all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then,” said the parson. “And I will arrange that +the funeral shall take place early to-morrow. Perhaps Mrs. Troy is right in +feeling that we cannot treat a dead fellow-creature too thoughtfully. We must +remember that though she may have erred grievously in leaving her home, she is +still our sister: and it is to be believed that God’s uncovenanted +mercies are extended towards her, and that she is a member of the flock of +Christ.” +</p> + +<p> +The parson’s words spread into the heavy air with a sad yet unperturbed +cadence, and Gabriel shed an honest tear. Bathsheba seemed unmoved. Mr. Thirdly +then left them, and Gabriel lighted a lantern. Fetching three other men to +assist him, they bore the unconscious truant indoors, placing the coffin on two +benches in the middle of a little sitting-room next the hall, as Bathsheba +directed. +</p> + +<p> +Every one except Gabriel Oak then left the room. He still indecisively lingered +beside the body. He was deeply troubled at the wretchedly ironical aspect that +circumstances were putting on with regard to Troy’s wife, and at his own +powerlessness to counteract them. In spite of his careful manœuvering all this +day, the very worst event that could in any way have happened in connection +with the burial had happened now. Oak imagined a terrible discovery resulting +from this afternoon’s work that might cast over Bathsheba’s life a +shade which the interposition of many lapsing years might but indifferently +lighten, and which nothing at all might altogether remove. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, as in a last attempt to save Bathsheba from, at any rate, immediate +anguish, he looked again, as he had looked before, at the chalk writing upon +the coffin-lid. The scrawl was this simple one, “<i>Fanny Robin and +child</i>.” Gabriel took his handkerchief and carefully rubbed out the +two latter words, leaving visible the inscription “<i>Fanny +Robin</i>” only. He then left the room, and went out quietly by the front +door. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap43"></a>CHAPTER XLIII<br /> +FANNY’S REVENGE</h2> + +<p> +“Do you want me any longer ma’am?” inquired Liddy, at a later +hour the same evening, standing by the door with a chamber candlestick in her +hand and addressing Bathsheba, who sat cheerless and alone in the large parlour +beside the first fire of the season. +</p> + +<p> +“No more to-night, Liddy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll sit up for master if you like, ma’am. I am not at all +afraid of Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a candle. She was such a +childlike, nesh young thing that her spirit couldn’t appear to anybody if +it tried, I’m quite sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no! You go to bed. I’ll sit up for him myself till twelve +o’clock, and if he has not arrived by that time, I shall give him up and +go to bed too.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is half-past ten now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you sit upstairs, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t I?” said Bathsheba, desultorily. “It +isn’t worth while—there’s a fire here, Liddy.” She +suddenly exclaimed in an impulsive and excited whisper, “Have you heard +anything strange said of Fanny?” The words had no sooner escaped her than +an expression of unutterable regret crossed her face, and she burst into tears. +</p> + +<p> +“No—not a word!” said Liddy, looking at the weeping woman +with astonishment. “What is it makes you cry so, ma’am; has +anything hurt you?” She came to Bathsheba’s side with a face full +of sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Liddy—I don’t want you any more. I can hardly say why I +have taken to crying lately: I never used to cry. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lonelier actually than she had been +before her marriage; but her loneliness then was to that of the present time as +the solitude of a mountain is to the solitude of a cave. And within the last +day or two had come these disquieting thoughts about her husband’s past. +Her wayward sentiment that evening concerning Fanny’s temporary +resting-place had been the result of a strange complication of impulses in +Bathsheba’s bosom. Perhaps it would be more accurately described as a +determined rebellion against her prejudices, a revulsion from a lower instinct +of uncharitableness, which would have withheld all sympathy from the dead +woman, because in life she had preceded Bathsheba in the attentions of a man +whom Bathsheba had by no means ceased from loving, though her love was sick to +death just now with the gravity of a further misgiving. +</p> + +<p> +In five or ten minutes there was another tap at the door. Liddy reappeared, and +coming in a little way stood hesitating, until at length she said, +“Maryann has just heard something very strange, but I know it isn’t +true. And we shall be sure to know the rights of it in a day or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing connected with you or us, ma’am. It is about Fanny. +That same thing you have heard.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean that a wicked story is got to Weatherbury within this last +hour—that—” Liddy came close to her mistress and whispered +the remainder of the sentence slowly into her ear, inclining her head as she +spoke in the direction of the room where Fanny lay. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba trembled from head to foot. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe it!” she said, excitedly. “And +there’s only one name written on the coffin-cover.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I, ma’am. And a good many others don’t; for we should +surely have been told more about it if it had been true—don’t you +think so, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“We might or we might not.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba turned and looked into the fire, that Liddy might not see her face. +Finding that her mistress was going to say no more, Liddy glided out, closed +the door softly, and went to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s face, as she continued looking into the fire that evening, +might have excited solicitousness on her account even among those who loved her +least. The sadness of Fanny Robin’s fate did not make Bathsheba’s +glorious, although she was the Esther to this poor Vashti, and their fates +might be supposed to stand in some respects as contrasts to each other. When +Liddy came into the room a second time the beautiful eyes which met hers had +worn a listless, weary look. When she went out after telling the story they had +expressed wretchedness in full activity. Her simple country nature, fed on +old-fashioned principles, was troubled by that which would have troubled a +woman of the world very little, both Fanny and her child, if she had one, being +dead. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba had grounds for conjecturing a connection between her own history and +the dimly suspected tragedy of Fanny’s end which Oak and Boldwood never +for a moment credited her with possessing. The meeting with the lonely woman on +the previous Saturday night had been unwitnessed and unspoken of. Oak may have +had the best of intentions in withholding for as many days as possible the +details of what had happened to Fanny; but had he known that Bathsheba’s +perceptions had already been exercised in the matter, he would have done +nothing to lengthen the minutes of suspense she was now undergoing, when the +certainty which must terminate it would be the worst fact suspected after all. +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly felt a longing desire to speak to some one stronger than herself, +and so get strength to sustain her surmised position with dignity and her +lurking doubts with stoicism. Where could she find such a friend? nowhere in +the house. She was by far the coolest of the women under her roof. Patience and +suspension of judgement for a few hours were what she wanted to learn, and +there was nobody to teach her. Might she but go to Gabriel Oak!—but that +could not be. What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring things. Boldwood, +who seemed so much deeper and higher and stronger in feeling than Gabriel, had +not yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simple lesson which Oak showed a +mastery of by every turn and look he gave—that among the multitude of +interests by which he was surrounded, those which affected his personal +well-being were not the most absorbing and important in his eyes. Oak +meditatively looked upon the horizon of circumstances without any special +regard to his own standpoint in the midst. That was how she would wish to be. +But then Oak was not racked by incertitude upon the inmost matter of his bosom, +as she was at this moment. Oak knew all about Fanny that he wished to +know—she felt convinced of that. If she were to go to him now at once and +say no more than these few words, “What is the truth of the story?” +he would feel bound in honour to tell her. It would be an inexpressible relief. +No further speech would need to be uttered. He knew her so well that no +eccentricity of behaviour in her would alarm him. +</p> + +<p> +She flung a cloak round her, went to the door and opened it. Every blade, every +twig was still. The air was yet thick with moisture, though somewhat less dense +than during the afternoon, and a steady smack of drops upon the fallen leaves +under the boughs was almost musical in its soothing regularity. It seemed +better to be out of the house than within it, and Bathsheba closed the door, +and walked slowly down the lane till she came opposite to Gabriel’s +cottage, where he now lived alone, having left Coggan’s house through +being pinched for room. There was a light in one window only, and that was +downstairs. The shutters were not closed, nor was any blind or curtain drawn +over the window, neither robbery nor observation being a contingency which +could do much injury to the occupant of the domicile. Yes, it was Gabriel +himself who was sitting up: he was reading. From her standing-place in the road +she could see him plainly, sitting quite still, his light curly head upon his +hand, and only occasionally looking up to snuff the candle which stood beside +him. At length he looked at the clock, seemed surprised at the lateness of the +hour, closed his book, and arose. He was going to bed, she knew, and if she +tapped it must be done at once. +</p> + +<p> +Alas for her resolve! She felt she could not do it. Not for worlds now could +she give a hint about her misery to him, much less ask him plainly for +information on the cause of Fanny’s death. She must suspect, and guess, +and chafe, and bear it all alone. +</p> + +<p> +Like a homeless wanderer she lingered by the bank, as if lulled and fascinated +by the atmosphere of content which seemed to spread from that little dwelling, +and was so sadly lacking in her own. Gabriel appeared in an upper room, placed +his light in the window-bench, and then—knelt down to pray. The contrast +of the picture with her rebellious and agitated existence at this same time was +too much for her to bear to look upon longer. It was not for her to make a +truce with trouble by any such means. She must tread her giddy distracting +measure to its last note, as she had begun it. With a swollen heart she went +again up the lane, and entered her own door. +</p> + +<p> +More fevered now by a reaction from the first feelings which Oak’s +example had raised in her, she paused in the hall, looking at the door of the +room wherein Fanny lay. She locked her fingers, threw back her head, and +strained her hot hands rigidly across her forehead, saying, with a hysterical +sob, “Would to God you would speak and tell me your secret, Fanny!... Oh, +I hope, hope it is not true that there are two of you!... If I could only look +in upon you for one little minute, I should know all!” +</p> + +<p> +A few moments passed, and she added, slowly, “<i>And I will</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba in after times could never gauge the mood which carried her through +the actions following this murmured resolution on this memorable evening of her +life. She went to the lumber-closet for a screw-driver. At the end of a short +though undefined time she found herself in the small room, quivering with +emotion, a mist before her eyes, and an excruciating pulsation in her brain, +standing beside the uncovered coffin of the girl whose conjectured end had so +entirely engrossed her, and saying to herself in a husky voice as she gazed +within— +</p> + +<p> +“It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!” +</p> + +<p> +She was conscious of having brought about this situation by a series of actions +done as by one in an extravagant dream; of following that idea as to method, +which had burst upon her in the hall with glaring obviousness, by gliding to +the top of the stairs, assuring herself by listening to the heavy breathing of +her maids that they were asleep, gliding down again, turning the handle of the +door within which the young girl lay, and deliberately setting herself to do +what, if she had anticipated any such undertaking at night and alone, would +have horrified her, but which, when done, was not so dreadful as was the +conclusive proof of her husband’s conduct which came with knowing beyond +doubt the last chapter of Fanny’s story. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s head sank upon her bosom, and the breath which had been bated +in suspense, curiosity, and interest, was exhaled now in the form of a +whispered wail: “Oh-h-h!” she said, and the silent room added +length to her moan. +</p> + +<p> +Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair in the coffin: tears of a +complicated origin, of a nature indescribable, almost indefinable except as +other than those of simple sorrow. Assuredly their wonted fires must have lived +in Fanny’s ashes when events were so shaped as to chariot her hither in +this natural, unobtrusive, yet effectual manner. The one feat alone—that +of dying—by which a mean condition could be resolved into a grand one, +Fanny had achieved. And to that had destiny subjoined this reencounter +to-night, which had, in Bathsheba’s wild imagining, turned her +companion’s failure to success, her humiliation to triumph, her +lucklessness to ascendency; it had thrown over herself a garish light of +mockery, and set upon all things about her an ironical smile. +</p> + +<p> +Fanny’s face was framed in by that yellow hair of hers; and there was no +longer much room for doubt as to the origin of the curl owned by Troy. In +Bathsheba’s heated fancy the innocent white countenance expressed a dim +triumphant consciousness of the pain she was retaliating for her pain with all +the merciless rigour of the Mosaic law: “Burning for burning; wound for +wound: strife for strife.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba indulged in contemplations of escape from her position by immediate +death, which, thought she, though it was an inconvenient and awful way, had +limits to its inconvenience and awfulness that could not be overpassed; whilst +the shames of life were measureless. Yet even this scheme of extinction by +death was but tamely copying her rival’s method without the reasons which +had glorified it in her rival’s case. She glided rapidly up and down the +room, as was mostly her habit when excited, her hands hanging clasped in front +of her, as she thought and in part expressed in broken words: “O, I hate +her, yet I don’t mean that I hate her, for it is grievous and wicked; and +yet I hate her a little! Yes, my flesh insists upon hating her, whether my +spirit is willing or no!... If she had only lived, I could have been angry and +cruel towards her with some justification; but to be vindictive towards a poor +dead woman recoils upon myself. O God, have mercy! I am miserable at all +this!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba became at this moment so terrified at her own state of mind that she +looked around for some sort of refuge from herself. The vision of Oak kneeling +down that night recurred to her, and with the imitative instinct which animates +women she seized upon the idea, resolved to kneel, and, if possible, pray. +Gabriel had prayed; so would she. +</p> + +<p> +She knelt beside the coffin, covered her face with her hands, and for a time +the room was silent as a tomb. Whether from a purely mechanical, or from any +other cause, when Bathsheba arose it was with a quieted spirit, and a regret +for the antagonistic instincts which had seized upon her just before. +</p> + +<p> +In her desire to make atonement she took flowers from a vase by the window, and +began laying them around the dead girl’s head. Bathsheba knew no other +way of showing kindness to persons departed than by giving them flowers. She +knew not how long she remained engaged thus. She forgot time, life, where she +was, what she was doing. A slamming together of the coach-house doors in the +yard brought her to herself again. An instant after, the front door opened and +closed, steps crossed the hall, and her husband appeared at the entrance to the +room, looking in upon her. +</p> + +<p> +He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at the scene, as if he +thought it an illusion raised by some fiendish incantation. Bathsheba, pallid +as a corpse on end, gazed back at him in the same wild way. +</p> + +<p> +So little are instinctive guesses the fruit of a legitimate induction that, at +this moment, as he stood with the door in his hand, Troy never once thought of +Fanny in connection with what he saw. His first confused idea was that somebody +in the house had died. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—what?” said Troy, blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go! I must go!” said Bathsheba, to herself more than to +him. She came with a dilated eye towards the door, to push past him. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, in God’s name? who’s dead?” +said Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot say; let me go out. I want air!” she continued. +</p> + +<p> +“But no; stay, I insist!” He seized her hand, and then volition +seemed to leave her, and she went off into a state of passivity. He, still +holding her, came up the room, and thus, hand in hand, Troy and Bathsheba +approached the coffin’s side. +</p> + +<p> +The candle was standing on a bureau close by them, and the light slanted down, +distinctly enkindling the cold features of both mother and babe. Troy looked +in, dropped his wife’s hand, knowledge of it all came over him in a lurid +sheen, and he stood still. +</p> + +<p> +So still he remained that he could be imagined to have left in him no motive +power whatever. The clashes of feeling in all directions confounded one +another, produced a neutrality, and there was motion in none. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know her?” said Bathsheba, in a small enclosed echo, as +from the interior of a cell. +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it she?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is.” +</p> + +<p> +He had originally stood perfectly erect. And now, in the well-nigh congealed +immobility of his frame could be discerned an incipient movement, as in the +darkest night may be discerned light after a while. He was gradually sinking +forwards. The lines of his features softened, and dismay modulated to +illimitable sadness. Bathsheba was regarding him from the other side, still +with parted lips and distracted eyes. Capacity for intense feeling is +proportionate to the general intensity of the nature, and perhaps in all +Fanny’s sufferings, much greater relatively to her strength, there never +was a time she suffered in an absolute sense what Bathsheba suffered now. +</p> + +<p> +What Troy did was to sink upon his knees with an indefinable union of remorse +and reverence upon his face, and, bending over Fanny Robin, gently kissed her, +as one would kiss an infant asleep to avoid awakening it. +</p> + +<p> +At the sight and sound of that, to her, unendurable act, Bathsheba sprang +towards him. All the strong feelings which had been scattered over her +existence since she knew what feeling was, seemed gathered together into one +pulsation now. The revulsion from her indignant mood a little earlier, when she +had meditated upon compromised honour, forestalment, eclipse in maternity by +another, was violent and entire. All that was forgotten in the simple and still +strong attachment of wife to husband. She had sighed for her self-completeness +then, and now she cried aloud against the severance of the union she had +deplored. She flung her arms round Troy’s neck, exclaiming wildly from +the deepest deep of her heart— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t—don’t kiss them! O, Frank, I can’t bear +it—I can’t! I love you better than she did: kiss me too, +Frank—kiss me! <i>You will, Frank, kiss me too!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +There was something so abnormal and startling in the childlike pain and +simplicity of this appeal from a woman of Bathsheba’s calibre and +independence, that Troy, loosening her tightly clasped arms from his neck, +looked at her in bewilderment. It was such an unexpected revelation of all +women being alike at heart, even those so different in their accessories as +Fanny and this one beside him, that Troy could hardly seem to believe her to be +his proud wife Bathsheba. Fanny’s own spirit seemed to be animating her +frame. But this was the mood of a few instants only. When the momentary +surprise had passed, his expression changed to a silencing imperious gaze. +</p> + +<p> +“I will not kiss you!” he said pushing her away. +</p> + +<p> +Had the wife now but gone no further. Yet, perhaps, under the harrowing +circumstances, to speak out was the one wrong act which can be better +understood, if not forgiven in her, than the right and politic one, her rival +being now but a corpse. All the feeling she had been betrayed into showing she +drew back to herself again by a strenuous effort of self-command. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you to say as your reason?” she asked, her bitter voice +being strangely low—quite that of another woman now. +</p> + +<p> +“I have to say that I have been a bad, black-hearted man,” he +answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And that this woman is your victim; and I not less than she.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! don’t taunt me, madam. This woman is more to me, dead as she +is, than ever you were, or are, or can be. If Satan had not tempted me with +that face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should have married her. I +never had another thought till you came in my way. Would to God that I had; but +it is all too late!” He turned to Fanny then. “But never mind, +darling,” he said; “in the sight of Heaven you are my very, very +wife!” +</p> + +<p> +At these words there arose from Bathsheba’s lips a long, low cry of +measureless despair and indignation, such a wail of anguish as had never before +been heard within those old-inhabited walls. It was the +Τετέλεσται<a href="#fn-4" name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[*]</sup></a> +of her union with Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“If she’s—that,—what—am I?” she added, as a +continuation of the same cry, and sobbing pitifully: and the rarity with her of +such abandonment only made the condition more dire. +</p> + +<p> +“You are nothing to me—nothing,” said Troy, heartlessly. +“A ceremony before a priest doesn’t make a marriage. I am not +morally yours.” +</p> + +<p> +A vehement impulse to flee from him, to run from this place, hide, and escape +his words at any price, not stopping short of death itself, mastered Bathsheba +now. She waited not an instant, but turned to the door and ran out. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap44"></a>CHAPTER XLIV<br /> +UNDER A TREE—REACTION</h2> + +<p> +Bathsheba went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring about the +direction or issue of her flight. The first time that she definitely noticed +her position was when she reached a gate leading into a thicket overhung by +some large oak and beech trees. On looking into the place, it occurred to her +that she had seen it by daylight on some previous occasion, and that what +appeared like an impassable thicket was in reality a brake of fern now +withering fast. She could think of nothing better to do with her palpitating +self than to go in here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spot sheltered +from the damp fog by a reclining trunk, where she sank down upon a tangled +couch of fronds and stems. She mechanically pulled some armfuls round her to +keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was not clearly aware. But it was +with a freshened existence and a cooler brain that, a long time afterwards, she +became conscious of some interesting proceedings which were going on in the +trees above her head and around. +</p> + +<p> +A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound. +</p> + +<p> +It was a sparrow just waking. +</p> + +<p> +Next: “Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!” from another retreat. +</p> + +<p> +It was a finch. +</p> + +<p> +Third: “Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!” from the hedge. +</p> + +<p> +It was a robin. +</p> + +<p> +“Chuck-chuck-chuck!” overhead. +</p> + +<p> +A squirrel. +</p> + +<p> +Then, from the road, “With my ra-ta-ta, and my rum-tum-tum!” +</p> + +<p> +It was a ploughboy. Presently he came opposite, and she believed from his voice +that he was one of the boys on her own farm. He was followed by a shambling +tramp of heavy feet, and looking through the ferns Bathsheba could just discern +in the wan light of daybreak a team of her own horses. They stopped to drink at +a pond on the other side of the way. She watched them flouncing into the pool, +drinking, tossing up their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling from +their lips in silver threads. There was another flounce, and they came out of +the pond, and turned back again towards the farm. +</p> + +<p> +She looked further around. Day was just dawning, and beside its cool air and +colours her heated actions and resolves of the night stood out in lurid +contrast. She perceived that in her lap, and clinging to her hair, were red and +yellow leaves which had come down from the tree and settled silently upon her +during her partial sleep. Bathsheba shook her dress to get rid of them, when +multitudes of the same family lying round about her rose and fluttered away in +the breeze thus created, “like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.” +</p> + +<p> +There was an opening towards the east, and the glow from the as yet unrisen sun +attracted her eyes thither. From her feet, and between the beautiful yellowing +ferns with their feathery arms, the ground sloped downwards to a hollow, in +which was a species of swamp, dotted with fungi. A morning mist hung over it +now—a fulsome yet magnificent silvery veil, full of light from the sun, +yet semi-opaque—the hedge behind it being in some measure hidden by its +hazy luminousness. Up the sides of this depression grew sheaves of the common +rush, and here and there a peculiar species of flag, the blades of which +glistened in the emerging sun, like scythes. But the general aspect of the +swamp was malignant. From its moist and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the +essences of evil things in the earth, and in the waters under the earth. The +fungi grew in all manner of positions from rotting leaves and tree stumps, some +exhibiting to her listless gaze their clammy tops, others their oozing gills. +Some were marked with great splotches, red as arterial blood, others were +saffron yellow, and others tall and attenuated, with stems like macaroni. Some +were leathery and of richest browns. The hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences +small and great, in the immediate neighbourhood of comfort and health, and +Bathsheba arose with a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the +brink of so dismal a place. +</p> + +<p> +There were now other footsteps to be heard along the road. Bathsheba’s +nerves were still unstrung: she crouched down out of sight again, and the +pedestrian came into view. He was a schoolboy, with a bag slung over his +shoulder containing his dinner, and a book in his hand. He paused by the gate, +and, without looking up, continued murmuring words in tones quite loud enough +to reach her ears. +</p> + +<p> +“‘O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord’:—that I know +out o’ book. ‘Give us, give us, give us, give us, give +us’:—that I know. ‘Grace that, grace that, grace that, grace +that’:—that I know.” Other words followed to the same effect. +The boy was of the dunce class apparently; the book was a psalter, and this was +his way of learning the collect. In the worst attacks of trouble there appears +to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and +open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the +boy’s method, till he too passed on. +</p> + +<p> +By this time stupor had given place to anxiety, and anxiety began to make room +for hunger and thirst. A form now appeared upon the rise on the other side of +the swamp, half-hidden by the mist, and came towards Bathsheba. The +woman—for it was a woman—approached with her face askance, as if +looking earnestly on all sides of her. When she got a little further round to +the left, and drew nearer, Bathsheba could see the newcomer’s profile +against the sunny sky, and knew the wavy sweep from forehead to chin, with +neither angle nor decisive line anywhere about it, to be the familiar contour +of Liddy Smallbury. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that she was not +altogether deserted, and she jumped up. “Oh, Liddy!” she said, or +attempted to say; but the words had only been framed by her lips; there came no +sound. She had lost her voice by exposure to the clogged atmosphere all these +hours of night. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ma’am! I am so glad I have found you,” said the girl, as +soon as she saw Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t come across,” Bathsheba said in a whisper, which +she vainly endeavoured to make loud enough to reach Liddy’s ears. Liddy, +not knowing this, stepped down upon the swamp, saying, as she did so, “It +will bear me up, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba never forgot that transient little picture of Liddy crossing the +swamp to her there in the morning light. Iridescent bubbles of dank +subterranean breath rose from the sweating sod beside the waiting-maid’s +feet as she trod, hissing as they burst and expanded away to join the vapoury +firmament above. Liddy did not sink, as Bathsheba had anticipated. +</p> + +<p> +She landed safely on the other side, and looked up at the beautiful though pale +and weary face of her young mistress. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor thing!” said Liddy, with tears in her eyes, “Do hearten +yourself up a little, ma’am. However did—” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t speak above a whisper—my voice is gone for the +present,” said Bathsheba, hurriedly. “I suppose the damp air from +that hollow has taken it away. Liddy, don’t question me, mind. Who sent +you—anybody?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody. I thought, when I found you were not at home, that something +cruel had happened. I fancy I heard his voice late last night; and so, knowing +something was wrong—” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; he left just before I came out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is Fanny taken away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. She will soon be—at nine o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“We won’t go home at present, then. Suppose we walk about in this +wood?” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or anything, in this episode, +assented, and they walked together further among the trees. +</p> + +<p> +“But you had better come in, ma’am, and have something to eat. You +will die of a chill!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not come indoors yet—perhaps never.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I get you something to eat, and something else to put over your +head besides that little shawl?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will, Liddy.” +</p> + +<p> +Liddy vanished, and at the end of twenty minutes returned with a cloak, hat, +some slices of bread and butter, a tea-cup, and some hot tea in a little china +jug. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Fanny gone?” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said her companion, pouring out the tea. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba wrapped herself up and ate and drank sparingly. Her voice was then a +little clearer, and trifling colour returned to her face. “Now +we’ll walk about again,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +They wandered about the wood for nearly two hours, Bathsheba replying in +monosyllables to Liddy’s prattle, for her mind ran on one subject, and +one only. She interrupted with— +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will go and see.” +</p> + +<p> +She came back with the information that the men were just taking away the +corpse; that Bathsheba had been inquired for; that she had replied to the +effect that her mistress was unwell and could not be seen. +</p> + +<p> +“Then they think I am in my bedroom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” Liddy then ventured to add: “You said when I first +found you that you might never go home again—you didn’t mean it, +ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I’ve altered my mind. It is only women with no pride in them +who run away from their husbands. There is one position worse than that of +being found dead in your husband’s house from his ill usage, and that is, +to be found alive through having gone away to the house of somebody else. +I’ve thought of it all this morning, and I’ve chosen my course. A +runaway wife is an encumbrance to everybody, a burden to herself and a +byword—all of which make up a heap of misery greater than any that comes +by staying at home—though this may include the trifling items of insult, +beating, and starvation. Liddy, if ever you marry—God forbid that you +ever should!—you’ll find yourself in a fearful situation; but mind +this, don’t you flinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces. +That’s what I’m going to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mistress, don’t talk so!” said Liddy, taking her hand; +“but I knew you had too much sense to bide away. May I ask what dreadful +thing it is that has happened between you and him?” +</p> + +<p> +“You may ask; but I may not tell.” +</p> + +<p> +In about ten minutes they returned to the house by a circuitous route, entering +at the rear. Bathsheba glided up the back stairs to a disused attic, and her +companion followed. +</p> + +<p> +“Liddy,” she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and hope had +begun to reassert themselves; “you are to be my confidante for the +present—somebody must be—and I choose you. Well, I shall take up my +abode here for a while. Will you get a fire lighted, put down a piece of +carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable. Afterwards, I want you and +Maryann to bring up that little stump bedstead in the small room, and the bed +belonging to it, and a table, and some other things.... What shall I do to pass +the heavy time away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing,” said Liddy. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no! I hate needlework—I always did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Knitting?” +</p> + +<p> +“And that, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“You might finish your sampler. Only the carnations and peacocks want +filling in; and then it could be framed and glazed, and hung beside your +aunt’s ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Samplers are out of date—horribly countrified. No Liddy, +I’ll read. Bring up some books—not new ones. I haven’t heart +to read anything new.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some of your uncle’s old ones, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Some of those we stowed away in boxes.” A faint gleam of +humour passed over her face as she said: “Bring Beaumont and +Fletcher’s <i>Maid’s Tragedy</i>, and the <i>Mourning Bride</i>, +and—let me see—<i>Night Thoughts</i>, and the <i>Vanity of Human +Wishes</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that story of the black man, who murdered his wife Desdemona? It is +a nice dismal one that would suit you excellent just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Liddy, you’ve been looking into my books without telling me; +and I said you were not to! How do you know it would suit me? It wouldn’t +suit me at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if the others do—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, they don’t; and I won’t read dismal books. Why should I +read dismal books, indeed? Bring me <i>Love in a Village</i>, and <i>Maid of +the Mill</i>, and <i>Doctor Syntax</i>, and some volumes of the +<i>Spectator</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +All that day Bathsheba and Liddy lived in the attic in a state of barricade; a +precaution which proved to be needless as against Troy, for he did not appear +in the neighbourhood or trouble them at all. Bathsheba sat at the window till +sunset, sometimes attempting to read, at other times watching every movement +outside without much purpose, and listening without much interest to every +sound. +</p> + +<p> +The sun went down almost blood-red that night, and a livid cloud received its +rays in the east. Up against this dark background the west front of the church +tower—the only part of the edifice visible from the farm-house +windows—rose distinct and lustrous, the vane upon the summit bristling +with rays. Hereabouts, at six o’clock, the young men of the village +gathered, as was their custom, for a game of Prisoners’ base. The spot +had been consecrated to this ancient diversion from time immemorial, the old +stocks conveniently forming a base facing the boundary of the churchyard, in +front of which the ground was trodden hard and bare as a pavement by the +players. She could see the brown and black heads of the young lads darting +about right and left, their white shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun; whilst +occasionally a shout and a peal of hearty laughter varied the stillness of the +evening air. They continued playing for a quarter of an hour or so, when the +game concluded abruptly, and the players leapt over the wall and vanished round +to the other side behind a yew-tree, which was also half behind a beech, now +spreading in one mass of golden foliage, on which the branches traced black +lines. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did the base-players finish their game so suddenly?” Bathsheba +inquired, the next time that Liddy entered the room. +</p> + +<p> +“I think ’twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge and +began putting up a grand carved tombstone,” said Liddy. “The lads +went to see whose it was.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know?” Bathsheba asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t,” said Liddy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap45"></a>CHAPTER XLV<br /> +TROY’S ROMANTICISM</h2> + +<p> +When Troy’s wife had left the house at the previous midnight his first +act was to cover the dead from sight. This done he ascended the stairs, and +throwing himself down upon the bed dressed as he was, he waited miserably for +the morning. +</p> + +<p> +Fate had dealt grimly with him through the last four-and-twenty hours. His day +had been spent in a way which varied very materially from his intentions +regarding it. There is always an inertia to be overcome in striking out a new +line of conduct—not more in ourselves, it seems, than in circumscribing +events, which appear as if leagued together to allow no novelties in the way of +amelioration. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty pounds having been secured from Bathsheba, he had managed to add to the +sum every farthing he could muster on his own account, which had been seven +pounds ten. With this money, twenty-seven pounds ten in all, he had hastily +driven from the gate that morning to keep his appointment with Fanny Robin. +</p> + +<p> +On reaching Casterbridge he left the horse and trap at an inn, and at five +minutes before ten came back to the bridge at the lower end of the town, and +sat himself upon the parapet. The clocks struck the hour, and no Fanny +appeared. In fact, at that moment she was being robed in her grave-clothes by +two attendants at the Union poorhouse—the first and last tiring-women the +gentle creature had ever been honoured with. The quarter went, the half hour. A +rush of recollection came upon Troy as he waited: this was the second time she +had broken a serious engagement with him. In anger he vowed it should be the +last, and at eleven o’clock, when he had lingered and watched the stone +of the bridge till he knew every lichen upon their face and heard the chink of +the ripples underneath till they oppressed him, he jumped from his seat, went +to the inn for his gig, and in a bitter mood of indifference concerning the +past, and recklessness about the future, drove on to Budmouth races. +</p> + +<p> +He reached the race-course at two o’clock, and remained either there or +in the town till nine. But Fanny’s image, as it had appeared to him in +the sombre shadows of that Saturday evening, returned to his mind, backed up by +Bathsheba’s reproaches. He vowed he would not bet, and he kept his vow, +for on leaving the town at nine o’clock in the evening he had diminished +his cash only to the extent of a few shillings. +</p> + +<p> +He trotted slowly homeward, and it was now that he was struck for the first +time with a thought that Fanny had been really prevented by illness from +keeping her promise. This time she could have made no mistake. He regretted +that he had not remained in Casterbridge and made inquiries. Reaching home he +quietly unharnessed the horse and came indoors, as we have seen, to the fearful +shock that awaited him. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as it grew light enough to distinguish objects, Troy arose from the +coverlet of the bed, and in a mood of absolute indifference to +Bathsheba’s whereabouts, and almost oblivious of her existence, he +stalked downstairs and left the house by the back door. His walk was towards +the churchyard, entering which he searched around till he found a newly dug +unoccupied grave—the grave dug the day before for Fanny. The position of +this having been marked, he hastened on to Casterbridge, only pausing and +musing for a while at the hill whereon he had last seen Fanny alive. +</p> + +<p> +Reaching the town, Troy descended into a side street and entered a pair of +gates surmounted by a board bearing the words, “Lester, stone and marble +mason.” Within were lying about stones of all sizes and designs, +inscribed as being sacred to the memory of unnamed persons who had not yet +died. +</p> + +<p> +Troy was so unlike himself now in look, word, and deed, that the want of +likeness was perceptible even to his own consciousness. His method of engaging +himself in this business of purchasing a tomb was that of an absolutely +unpractised man. He could not bring himself to consider, calculate, or +economize. He waywardly wished for something, and he set about obtaining it +like a child in a nursery. “I want a good tomb,” he said to the man +who stood in a little office within the yard. “I want as good a one as +you can give me for twenty-seven pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +It was all the money he possessed. +</p> + +<p> +“That sum to include everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everything. Cutting the name, carriage to Weatherbury, and erection. And +I want it now, at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“We could not get anything special worked this week.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must have it now.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you would like one of these in stock it could be got ready +immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Troy, impatiently. “Let’s see what +you have.” +</p> + +<p> +“The best I have in stock is this one,” said the stone-cutter, +going into a shed. “Here’s a marble headstone beautifully +crocketed, with medallions beneath of typical subjects; here’s the +footstone after the same pattern, and here’s the coping to enclose the +grave. The polishing alone of the set cost me eleven pounds—the slabs are +the best of their kind, and I can warrant them to resist rain and frost for a +hundred years without flying.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how much?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I could add the name, and put it up at Weatherbury for the sum you +mention.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get it done to-day, and I’ll pay the money now.” +</p> + +<p> +The man agreed, and wondered at such a mood in a visitor who wore not a shred +of mourning. Troy then wrote the words which were to form the inscription, +settled the account and went away. In the afternoon he came back again, and +found that the lettering was almost done. He waited in the yard till the tomb +was packed, and saw it placed in the cart and starting on its way to +Weatherbury, giving directions to the two men who were to accompany it to +inquire of the sexton for the grave of the person named in the inscription. +</p> + +<p> +It was quite dark when Troy came out of Casterbridge. He carried rather a heavy +basket upon his arm, with which he strode moodily along the road, resting +occasionally at bridges and gates, whereon he deposited his burden for a time. +Midway on his journey he met, returning in the darkness, the men and the waggon +which had conveyed the tomb. He merely inquired if the work was done, and, on +being assured that it was, passed on again. +</p> + +<p> +Troy entered Weatherbury churchyard about ten o’clock and went +immediately to the corner where he had marked the vacant grave early in the +morning. It was on the obscure side of the tower, screened to a great extent +from the view of passers along the road—a spot which until lately had +been abandoned to heaps of stones and bushes of alder, but now it was cleared +and made orderly for interments, by reason of the rapid filling of the ground +elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +Here now stood the tomb as the men had stated, snow-white and shapely in the +gloom, consisting of head and foot-stone, and enclosing border of marble-work +uniting them. In the midst was mould, suitable for plants. +</p> + +<p> +Troy deposited his basket beside the tomb, and vanished for a few minutes. When +he returned he carried a spade and a lantern, the light of which he directed +for a few moments upon the marble, whilst he read the inscription. He hung his +lantern on the lowest bough of the yew-tree, and took from his basket +flower-roots of several varieties. There were bundles of snow-drop, hyacinth +and crocus bulbs, violets and double daisies, which were to bloom in early +spring, and of carnations, pinks, picotees, lilies of the valley, +forget-me-not, summer’s farewell, meadow-saffron and others, for the +later seasons of the year. +</p> + +<p> +Troy laid these out upon the grass, and with an impassive face set to work to +plant them. The snowdrops were arranged in a line on the outside of the coping, +the remainder within the enclosure of the grave. The crocuses and hyacinths +were to grow in rows; some of the summer flowers he placed over her head and +feet, the lilies and forget-me-nots over her heart. The remainder were +dispersed in the spaces between these. +</p> + +<p> +Troy, in his prostration at this time, had no perception that in the futility +of these romantic doings, dictated by a remorseful reaction from previous +indifference, there was any element of absurdity. Deriving his idiosyncrasies +from both sides of the Channel, he showed at such junctures as the present the +inelasticity of the Englishman, together with that blindness to the line where +sentiment verges on mawkishness, characteristic of the French. +</p> + +<p> +It was a cloudy, muggy, and very dark night, and the rays from Troy’s +lantern spread into the two old yews with a strange illuminating power, +flickering, as it seemed, up to the black ceiling of cloud above. He felt a +large drop of rain upon the back of his hand, and presently one came and +entered one of the holes of the lantern, whereupon the candle sputtered and +went out. Troy was weary and it being now not far from midnight, and the rain +threatening to increase, he resolved to leave the finishing touches of his +labour until the day should break. He groped along the wall and over the graves +in the dark till he found himself round at the north side. Here he entered the +porch, and, reclining upon the bench within, fell asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap46"></a>CHAPTER XLVI<br /> +THE GURGOYLE: ITS DOINGS</h2> + +<p> +The tower of Weatherbury Church was a square erection of fourteenth-century +date, having two stone gurgoyles on each of the four faces of its parapet. Of +these eight carved protuberances only two at this time continued to serve the +purpose of their erection—that of spouting the water from the lead roof +within. One mouth in each front had been closed by bygone church-wardens as +superfluous, and two others were broken away and choked—a matter not of +much consequence to the wellbeing of the tower, for the two mouths which still +remained open and active were gaping enough to do all the work. +</p> + +<p> +It has been sometimes argued that there is no truer criterion of the vitality +of any given art-period than the power of the master-spirits of that time in +grotesque; and certainly in the instance of Gothic art there is no disputing +the proposition. Weatherbury tower was a somewhat early instance of the use of +an ornamental parapet in parish as distinct from cathedral churches, and the +gurgoyles, which are the necessary correlatives of a parapet, were +exceptionally prominent—of the boldest cut that the hand could shape, and +of the most original design that a human brain could conceive. There was, so to +speak, that symmetry in their distortion which is less the characteristic of +British than of Continental grotesques of the period. All the eight were +different from each other. A beholder was convinced that nothing on earth could +be more hideous than those he saw on the north side until he went round to the +south. Of the two on this latter face, only that at the south-eastern corner +concerns the story. It was too human to be called like a dragon, too impish to +be like a man, too animal to be like a fiend, and not enough like a bird to be +called a griffin. This horrible stone entity was fashioned as if covered with a +wrinkled hide; it had short, erect ears, eyes starting from their sockets, and +its fingers and hands were seizing the corners of its mouth, which they thus +seemed to pull open to give free passage to the water it vomited. The lower row +of teeth was quite washed away, though the upper still remained. Here and thus, +jutting a couple of feet from the wall against which its feet rested as a +support, the creature had for four hundred years laughed at the surrounding +landscape, voicelessly in dry weather, and in wet with a gurgling and snorting +sound. +</p> + +<p> +Troy slept on in the porch, and the rain increased outside. Presently the +gurgoyle spat. In due time a small stream began to trickle through the seventy +feet of aerial space between its mouth and the ground, which the water-drops +smote like duckshot in their accelerated velocity. The stream thickened in +substance, and increased in power, gradually spouting further and yet further +from the side of the tower. When the rain fell in a steady and ceaseless +torrent the stream dashed downward in volumes. +</p> + +<p> +We follow its course to the ground at this point of time. The end of the liquid +parabola has come forward from the wall, has advanced over the plinth +mouldings, over a heap of stones, over the marble border, into the midst of +Fanny Robin’s grave. +</p> + +<p> +The force of the stream had, until very lately, been received upon some loose +stones spread thereabout, which had acted as a shield to the soil under the +onset. These during the summer had been cleared from the ground, and there was +now nothing to resist the down-fall but the bare earth. For several years the +stream had not spouted so far from the tower as it was doing on this night, and +such a contingency had been over-looked. Sometimes this obscure corner received +no inhabitant for the space of two or three years, and then it was usually but +a pauper, a poacher, or other sinner of undignified sins. +</p> + +<p> +The persistent torrent from the gurgoyle’s jaws directed all its +vengeance into the grave. The rich tawny mould was stirred into motion, and +boiled like chocolate. The water accumulated and washed deeper down, and the +roar of the pool thus formed spread into the night as the head and chief among +other noises of the kind created by the deluging rain. The flowers so carefully +planted by Fanny’s repentant lover began to move and writhe in their bed. +The winter-violets turned slowly upside down, and became a mere mat of mud. +Soon the snowdrop and other bulbs danced in the boiling mass like ingredients +in a cauldron. Plants of the tufted species were loosened, rose to the surface, +and floated off. +</p> + +<p> +Troy did not awake from his comfortless sleep till it was broad day. Not having +been in bed for two nights his shoulders felt stiff, his feet tender, and his +head heavy. He remembered his position, arose, shivered, took the spade, and +again went out. +</p> + +<p> +The rain had quite ceased, and the sun was shining through the green, brown, +and yellow leaves, now sparkling and varnished by the raindrops to the +brightness of similar effects in the landscapes of Ruysdael and Hobbema, and +full of all those infinite beauties that arise from the union of water and +colour with high lights. The air was rendered so transparent by the heavy fall +of rain that the autumn hues of the middle distance were as rich as those near +at hand, and the remote fields intercepted by the angle of the tower appeared +in the same plane as the tower itself. +</p> + +<p> +He entered the gravel path which would take him behind the tower. The path, +instead of being stony as it had been the night before, was browned over with a +thin coating of mud. At one place in the path he saw a tuft of stringy roots +washed white and clean as a bundle of tendons. He picked it up—surely it +could not be one of the primroses he had planted? He saw a bulb, another, and +another as he advanced. Beyond doubt they were the crocuses. With a face of +perplexed dismay Troy turned the corner and then beheld the wreck the stream +had made. +</p> + +<p> +The pool upon the grave had soaked away into the ground, and in its place was a +hollow. The disturbed earth was washed over the grass and pathway in the guise +of the brown mud he had already seen, and it spotted the marble tombstone with +the same stains. Nearly all the flowers were washed clean out of the ground, +and they lay, roots upwards, on the spots whither they had been splashed by the +stream. +</p> + +<p> +Troy’s brow became heavily contracted. He set his teeth closely, and his +compressed lips moved as those of one in great pain. This singular accident, by +a strange confluence of emotions in him, was felt as the sharpest sting of all. +Troy’s face was very expressive, and any observer who had seen him now +would hardly have believed him to be a man who had laughed, and sung, and +poured love-trifles into a woman’s ear. To curse his miserable lot was at +first his impulse, but even that lowest stage of rebellion needed an activity +whose absence was necessarily antecedent to the existence of the morbid misery +which wrung him. The sight, coming as it did, superimposed upon the other dark +scenery of the previous days, formed a sort of climax to the whole panorama, +and it was more than he could endure. Sanguine by nature, Troy had a power of +eluding grief by simply adjourning it. He could put off the consideration of +any particular spectre till the matter had become old and softened by time. The +planting of flowers on Fanny’s grave had been perhaps but a species of +elusion of the primary grief, and now it was as if his intention had been known +and circumvented. +</p> + +<p> +Almost for the first time in his life, Troy, as he stood by this dismantled +grave, wished himself another man. It is seldom that a person with much animal +spirit does not feel that the fact of his life being his own is the one +qualification which singles it out as a more hopeful life than that of others +who may actually resemble him in every particular. Troy had felt, in his +transient way, hundreds of times, that he could not envy other people their +condition, because the possession of that condition would have necessitated a +different personality, when he desired no other than his own. He had not minded +the peculiarities of his birth, the vicissitudes of his life, the meteor-like +uncertainty of all that related to him, because these appertained to the hero +of his story, without whom there would have been no story at all for him; and +it seemed to be only in the nature of things that matters would right +themselves at some proper date and wind up well. This very morning the illusion +completed its disappearance, and, as it were, all of a sudden, Troy hated +himself. The suddenness was probably more apparent than real. A coral reef +which just comes short of the ocean surface is no more to the horizon than if +it had never been begun, and the mere finishing stroke is what often appears to +create an event which has long been potentially an accomplished thing. +</p> + +<p> +He stood and meditated—a miserable man. Whither should he go? “He +that is accursed, let him be accursed still,” was the pitiless anathema +written in this spoliated effort of his new-born solicitousness. A man who has +spent his primal strength in journeying in one direction has not much spirit +left for reversing his course. Troy had, since yesterday, faintly reversed his; +but the merest opposition had disheartened him. To turn about would have been +hard enough under the greatest providential encouragement; but to find that +Providence, far from helping him into a new course, or showing any wish that he +might adopt one, actually jeered his first trembling and critical attempt in +that kind, was more than nature could bear. +</p> + +<p> +He slowly withdrew from the grave. He did not attempt to fill up the hole, +replace the flowers, or do anything at all. He simply threw up his cards and +forswore his game for that time and always. Going out of the churchyard +silently and unobserved—none of the villagers having yet risen—he +passed down some fields at the back, and emerged just as secretly upon the high +road. Shortly afterwards he had gone from the village. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Bathsheba remained a voluntary prisoner in the attic. The door was +kept locked, except during the entries and exits of Liddy, for whom a bed had +been arranged in a small adjoining room. The light of Troy’s lantern in +the churchyard was noticed about ten o’clock by the maid-servant, who +casually glanced from the window in that direction whilst taking her supper, +and she called Bathsheba’s attention to it. They looked curiously at the +phenomenon for a time, until Liddy was sent to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba did not sleep very heavily that night. When her attendant was +unconscious and softly breathing in the next room, the mistress of the house +was still looking out of the window at the faint gleam spreading from among the +trees—not in a steady shine, but blinking like a revolving coast-light, +though this appearance failed to suggest to her that a person was passing and +repassing in front of it. Bathsheba sat here till it began to rain, and the +light vanished, when she withdrew to lie restlessly in her bed and re-enact in +a worn mind the lurid scene of yesternight. +</p> + +<p> +Almost before the first faint sign of dawn appeared she arose again, and opened +the window to obtain a full breathing of the new morning air, the panes being +now wet with trembling tears left by the night rain, each one rounded with a +pale lustre caught from primrose-hued slashes through a cloud low down in the +awakening sky. From the trees came the sound of steady dripping upon the +drifted leaves under them, and from the direction of the church she could hear +another noise—peculiar, and not intermittent like the rest, the purl of +water falling into a pool. +</p> + +<p> +Liddy knocked at eight o’clock, and Bathsheba unlocked the door. +</p> + +<p> +“What a heavy rain we’ve had in the night, ma’am!” said +Liddy, when her inquiries about breakfast had been made. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, very heavy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you hear the strange noise from the churchyard?” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard one strange noise. I’ve been thinking it must have been +the water from the tower spouts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s what the shepherd was saying, ma’am. He’s +now gone on to see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Gabriel has been here this morning!” +</p> + +<p> +“Only just looked in in passing—quite in his old way, which I +thought he had left off lately. But the tower spouts used to spatter on the +stones, and we are puzzled, for this was like the boiling of a pot.” +</p> + +<p> +Not being able to read, think, or work, Bathsheba asked Liddy to stay and +breakfast with her. The tongue of the more childish woman still ran upon recent +events. “Are you going across to the church, ma’am?” she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Not that I know of,” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you might like to go and see where they have put Fanny. The +trees hide the place from your window.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba had all sorts of dreads about meeting her husband. “Has Mr. +Troy been in to-night?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma’am; I think he’s gone to Budmouth.” +</p> + +<p> +Budmouth! The sound of the word carried with it a much diminished perspective +of him and his deeds; there were thirteen miles interval betwixt them now. She +hated questioning Liddy about her husband’s movements, and indeed had +hitherto sedulously avoided doing so; but now all the house knew that there had +been some dreadful disagreement between them, and it was futile to attempt +disguise. Bathsheba had reached a stage at which people cease to have any +appreciative regard for public opinion. +</p> + +<p> +“What makes you think he has gone there?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Laban Tall saw him on the Budmouth road this morning before +breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba was momentarily relieved of that wayward heaviness of the past +twenty-four hours which had quenched the vitality of youth in her without +substituting the philosophy of maturer years, and she resolved to go out and +walk a little way. So when breakfast was over, she put on her bonnet, and took +a direction towards the church. It was nine o’clock, and the men having +returned to work again from their first meal, she was not likely to meet many +of them in the road. Knowing that Fanny had been laid in the reprobates’ +quarter of the graveyard, called in the parish “behind church,” +which was invisible from the road, it was impossible to resist the impulse to +enter and look upon a spot which, from nameless feelings, she at the same time +dreaded to see. She had been unable to overcome an impression that some +connection existed between her rival and the light through the trees. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba skirted the buttress, and beheld the hole and the tomb, its +delicately veined surface splashed and stained just as Troy had seen it and +left it two hours earlier. On the other side of the scene stood Gabriel. His +eyes, too, were fixed on the tomb, and her arrival having been noiseless, she +had not as yet attracted his attention. Bathsheba did not at once perceive that +the grand tomb and the disturbed grave were Fanny’s, and she looked on +both sides and around for some humbler mound, earthed up and clodded in the +usual way. Then her eye followed Oak’s, and she read the words with which +the inscription opened:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Erected by Francis Troy<br /> +In Beloved Memory of<br /> +Fanny Robin +</p> + +<p> +Oak saw her, and his first act was to gaze inquiringly and learn how she +received this knowledge of the authorship of the work, which to himself had +caused considerable astonishment. But such discoveries did not much affect her +now. Emotional convulsions seemed to have become the commonplaces of her +history, and she bade him good morning, and asked him to fill in the hole with +the spade which was standing by. Whilst Oak was doing as she desired, Bathsheba +collected the flowers, and began planting them with that sympathetic +manipulation of roots and leaves which is so conspicuous in a woman’s +gardening, and which flowers seem to understand and thrive upon. She requested +Oak to get the churchwardens to turn the leadwork at the mouth of the gurgoyle +that hung gaping down upon them, that by this means the stream might be +directed sideways, and a repetition of the accident prevented. Finally, with +the superfluous magnanimity of a woman whose narrower instincts have brought +down bitterness upon her instead of love, she wiped the mud spots from the tomb +as if she rather liked its words than otherwise, and went again home.<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap47"></a>CHAPTER XLVII<br /> +ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE</h2> + +<p> +Troy wandered along towards the south. A composite feeling, made up of disgust +with the, to him, humdrum tediousness of a farmer’s life, gloomy images +of her who lay in the churchyard, remorse, and a general averseness to his +wife’s society, impelled him to seek a home in any place on earth save +Weatherbury. The sad accessories of Fanny’s end confronted him as vivid +pictures which threatened to be indelible, and made life in Bathsheba’s +house intolerable. At three in the afternoon he found himself at the foot of a +slope more than a mile in length, which ran to the ridge of a range of hills +lying parallel with the shore, and forming a monotonous barrier between the +basin of cultivated country inland and the wilder scenery of the coast. Up the +hill stretched a road nearly straight and perfectly white, the two sides +approaching each other in a gradual taper till they met the sky at the top +about two miles off. Throughout the length of this narrow and irksome inclined +plane not a sign of life was visible on this garish afternoon. Troy toiled up +the road with a languor and depression greater than any he had experienced for +many a day and year before. The air was warm and muggy, and the top seemed to +recede as he approached. +</p> + +<p> +At last he reached the summit, and a wide and novel prospect burst upon him +with an effect almost like that of the Pacific upon Balboa’s gaze. The +broad steely sea, marked only by faint lines, which had a semblance of being +etched thereon to a degree not deep enough to disturb its general evenness, +stretched the whole width of his front and round to the right, where, near the +town and port of Budmouth, the sun bristled down upon it, and banished all +colour, to substitute in its place a clear oily polish. Nothing moved in sky, +land, or sea, except a frill of milkwhite foam along the nearer angles of the +shore, shreds of which licked the contiguous stones like tongues. +</p> + +<p> +He descended and came to a small basin of sea enclosed by the cliffs. +Troy’s nature freshened within him; he thought he would rest and bathe +here before going farther. He undressed and plunged in. Inside the cove the +water was uninteresting to a swimmer, being smooth as a pond, and to get a +little of the ocean swell, Troy presently swam between the two projecting spurs +of rock which formed the pillars of Hercules to this miniature Mediterranean. +Unfortunately for Troy a current unknown to him existed outside, which, +unimportant to craft of any burden, was awkward for a swimmer who might be +taken in it unawares. Troy found himself carried to the left and then round in +a swoop out to sea. +</p> + +<p> +He now recollected the place and its sinister character. Many bathers had there +prayed for a dry death from time to time, and, like Gonzalo also, had been +unanswered; and Troy began to deem it possible that he might be added to their +number. Not a boat of any kind was at present within sight, but far in the +distance Budmouth lay upon the sea, as it were quietly regarding his efforts, +and beside the town the harbour showed its position by a dim meshwork of ropes +and spars. After well-nigh exhausting himself in attempts to get back to the +mouth of the cove, in his weakness swimming several inches deeper than was his +wont, keeping up his breathing entirely by his nostrils, turning upon his back +a dozen times over, swimming <i>en papillon</i>, and so on, Troy resolved as a +last resource to tread water at a slight incline, and so endeavour to reach the +shore at any point, merely giving himself a gentle impetus inwards whilst +carried on in the general direction of the tide. This, necessarily a slow +process, he found to be not altogether so difficult, and though there was no +choice of a landing-place—the objects on shore passing by him in a sad +and slow procession—he perceptibly approached the extremity of a spit of +land yet further to the right, now well defined against the sunny portion of +the horizon. While the swimmer’s eyes were fixed upon the spit as his +only means of salvation on this side of the Unknown, a moving object broke the +outline of the extremity, and immediately a ship’s boat appeared manned +with several sailor lads, her bows towards the sea. +</p> + +<p> +All Troy’s vigour spasmodically revived to prolong the struggle yet a +little further. Swimming with his right arm, he held up his left to hail them, +splashing upon the waves, and shouting with all his might. From the position of +the setting sun his white form was distinctly visible upon the now deep-hued +bosom of the sea to the east of the boat, and the men saw him at once. Backing +their oars and putting the boat about, they pulled towards him with a will, and +in five or six minutes from the time of his first halloo, two of the sailors +hauled him in over the stern. +</p> + +<p> +They formed part of a brig’s crew, and had come ashore for sand. Lending +him what little clothing they could spare among them as a slight protection +against the rapidly cooling air, they agreed to land him in the morning; and +without further delay, for it was growing late, they made again towards the +roadstead where their vessel lay. +</p> + +<p> +And now night drooped slowly upon the wide watery levels in front; and at no +great distance from them, where the shoreline curved round, and formed a long +riband of shade upon the horizon, a series of points of yellow light began to +start into existence, denoting the spot to be the site of Budmouth, where the +lamps were being lighted along the parade. The cluck of their oars was the only +sound of any distinctness upon the sea, and as they laboured amid the +thickening shades the lamp-lights grew larger, each appearing to send a flaming +sword deep down into the waves before it, until there arose, among other dim +shapes of the kind, the form of the vessel for which they were bound. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap48"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII<br /> +DOUBTS ARISE—DOUBTS LINGER</h2> + +<p> +Bathsheba underwent the enlargement of her husband’s absence from hours +to days with a slight feeling of surprise, and a slight feeling of relief; yet +neither sensation rose at any time far above the level commonly designated as +indifference. She belonged to him: the certainties of that position were so +well defined, and the reasonable probabilities of its issue so bounded that she +could not speculate on contingencies. Taking no further interest in herself as +a splendid woman, she acquired the indifferent feelings of an outsider in +contemplating her probable fate as a singular wretch; for Bathsheba drew +herself and her future in colours that no reality could exceed for darkness. +Her original vigorous pride of youth had sickened, and with it had declined all +her anxieties about coming years, since anxiety recognizes a better and a worse +alternative, and Bathsheba had made up her mind that alternatives on any +noteworthy scale had ceased for her. Soon, or later—and that not very +late—her husband would be home again. And then the days of their tenancy +of the Upper Farm would be numbered. There had originally been shown by the +agent to the estate some distrust of Bathsheba’s tenure as James +Everdene’s successor, on the score of her sex, and her youth, and her +beauty; but the peculiar nature of her uncle’s will, his own frequent +testimony before his death to her cleverness in such a pursuit, and her +vigorous marshalling of the numerous flocks and herds which came suddenly into +her hands before negotiations were concluded, had won confidence in her powers, +and no further objections had been raised. She had latterly been in great doubt +as to what the legal effects of her marriage would be upon her position; but no +notice had been taken as yet of her change of name, and only one point was +clear—that in the event of her own or her husband’s inability to +meet the agent at the forthcoming January rent-day, very little consideration +would be shown, and, for that matter, very little would be deserved. Once out +of the farm, the approach of poverty would be sure. +</p> + +<p> +Hence Bathsheba lived in a perception that her purposes were broken off. She +was not a woman who could hope on without good materials for the process, +differing thus from the less far-sighted and energetic, though more petted ones +of the sex, with whom hope goes on as a sort of clockwork which the merest food +and shelter are sufficient to wind up; and perceiving clearly that her mistake +had been a fatal one, she accepted her position, and waited coldly for the end. +</p> + +<p> +The first Saturday after Troy’s departure she went to Casterbridge alone, +a journey she had not before taken since her marriage. On this Saturday +Bathsheba was passing slowly on foot through the crowd of rural business-men +gathered as usual in front of the market-house, who were as usual gazed upon by +the burghers with feelings that those healthy lives were dearly paid for by +exclusion from possible aldermanship, when a man, who had apparently been +following her, said some words to another on her left hand. Bathsheba’s +ears were keen as those of any wild animal, and she distinctly heard what the +speaker said, though her back was towards him. +</p> + +<p> +“I am looking for Mrs. Troy. Is that she there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; that’s the young lady, I believe,” said the the person +addressed. +</p> + +<p> +“I have some awkward news to break to her. Her husband is drowned.” +</p> + +<p> +As if endowed with the spirit of prophecy, Bathsheba gasped out, “No, it +is not true; it cannot be true!” Then she said and heard no more. The ice +of self-command which had latterly gathered over her was broken, and the +currents burst forth again, and overwhelmed her. A darkness came into her eyes, +and she fell. +</p> + +<p> +But not to the ground. A gloomy man, who had been observing her from under the +portico of the old corn-exchange when she passed through the group without, +stepped quickly to her side at the moment of her exclamation, and caught her in +his arms as she sank down. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” said Boldwood, looking up at the bringer of the big +news, as he supported her. +</p> + +<p> +“Her husband was drowned this week while bathing in Lulwind Cove. A +coastguardsman found his clothes, and brought them into Budmouth +yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +Thereupon a strange fire lighted up Boldwood’s eye, and his face flushed +with the suppressed excitement of an unutterable thought. Everybody’s +glance was now centred upon him and the unconscious Bathsheba. He lifted her +bodily off the ground, and smoothed down the folds of her dress as a child +might have taken a storm-beaten bird and arranged its ruffled plumes, and bore +her along the pavement to the King’s Arms Inn. Here he passed with her +under the archway into a private room; and by the time he had +deposited—so lothly—the precious burden upon a sofa, Bathsheba had +opened her eyes. Remembering all that had occurred, she murmured, “I want +to go home!” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood left the room. He stood for a moment in the passage to recover his +senses. The experience had been too much for his consciousness to keep up with, +and now that he had grasped it it had gone again. For those few heavenly, +golden moments she had been in his arms. What did it matter about her not +knowing it? She had been close to his breast; he had been close to hers. +</p> + +<p> +He started onward again, and sending a woman to her, went out to ascertain all +the facts of the case. These appeared to be limited to what he had already +heard. He then ordered her horse to be put into the gig, and when all was ready +returned to inform her. He found that, though still pale and unwell, she had in +the meantime sent for the Budmouth man who brought the tidings, and learnt from +him all there was to know. +</p> + +<p> +Being hardly in a condition to drive home as she had driven to town, Boldwood, +with every delicacy of manner and feeling, offered to get her a driver, or to +give her a seat in his phaeton, which was more comfortable than her own +conveyance. These proposals Bathsheba gently declined, and the farmer at once +departed. +</p> + +<p> +About half-an-hour later she invigorated herself by an effort, and took her +seat and the reins as usual—in external appearance much as if nothing had +happened. She went out of the town by a tortuous back street, and drove slowly +along, unconscious of the road and the scene. The first shades of evening were +showing themselves when Bathsheba reached home, where, silently alighting and +leaving the horse in the hands of the boy, she proceeded at once upstairs. +Liddy met her on the landing. The news had preceded Bathsheba to Weatherbury by +half-an-hour, and Liddy looked inquiringly into her mistress’s face. +Bathsheba had nothing to say. +</p> + +<p> +She entered her bedroom and sat by the window, and thought and thought till +night enveloped her, and the extreme lines only of her shape were visible. +Somebody came to the door, knocked, and opened it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is it, Liddy?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I was thinking there must be something got for you to wear,” said +Liddy, with hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mourning.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no,” said Bathsheba, hurriedly. +</p> + +<p> +“But I suppose there must be something done for poor—” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at present, I think. It is not necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because he’s still alive.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you know that?” said Liddy, amazed. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know it. But wouldn’t it have been different, or +shouldn’t I have heard more, or wouldn’t they have found him, +Liddy?—or—I don’t know how it is, but death would have been +different from how this is. I am perfectly convinced that he is still +alive!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba remained firm in this opinion till Monday, when two circumstances +conjoined to shake it. The first was a short paragraph in the local newspaper, +which, beyond making by a methodizing pen formidable presumptive evidence of +Troy’s death by drowning, contained the important testimony of a young +Mr. Barker, M.D., of Budmouth, who spoke to being an eyewitness of the +accident, in a letter to the editor. In this he stated that he was passing over +the cliff on the remoter side of the cove just as the sun was setting. At that +time he saw a bather carried along in the current outside the mouth of the +cove, and guessed in an instant that there was but a poor chance for him unless +he should be possessed of unusual muscular powers. He drifted behind a +projection of the coast, and Mr. Barker followed along the shore in the same +direction. But by the time that he could reach an elevation sufficiently great +to command a view of the sea beyond, dusk had set in, and nothing further was +to be seen. +</p> + +<p> +The other circumstance was the arrival of his clothes, when it became necessary +for her to examine and identify them—though this had virtually been done +long before by those who inspected the letters in his pockets. It was so +evident to her in the midst of her agitation that Troy had undressed in the +full conviction of dressing again almost immediately, that the notion that +anything but death could have prevented him was a perverse one to entertain. +</p> + +<p> +Then Bathsheba said to herself that others were assured in their opinion; +strange that she should not be. A strange reflection occurred to her, causing +her face to flush. Suppose that Troy had followed Fanny into another world. Had +he done this intentionally, yet contrived to make his death appear like an +accident? Nevertheless, this thought of how the apparent might differ from the +real—made vivid by her bygone jealousy of Fanny, and the remorse he had +shown that night—did not blind her to the perception of a likelier +difference, less tragic, but to herself far more disastrous. +</p> + +<p> +When alone late that evening beside a small fire, and much calmed down, +Bathsheba took Troy’s watch into her hand, which had been restored to her +with the rest of the articles belonging to him. She opened the case as he had +opened it before her a week ago. There was the little coil of pale hair which +had been as the fuze to this great explosion. +</p> + +<p> +“He was hers and she was his; they should be gone together,” she +said. “I am nothing to either of them, and why should I keep her +hair?” She took it in her hand, and held it over the fire. +“No—I’ll not burn it—I’ll keep it in memory of +her, poor thing!” she added, snatching back her hand. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap49"></a>CHAPTER XLIX<br /> +OAK’S ADVANCEMENT—A GREAT HOPE</h2> + +<p> +The later autumn and the winter drew on apace, and the leaves lay thick upon +the turf of the glades and the mosses of the woods. Bathsheba, having +previously been living in a state of suspended feeling which was not suspense, +now lived in a mood of quietude which was not precisely peacefulness. While she +had known him to be alive she could have thought of his death with equanimity; +but now that it might be she had lost him, she regretted that he was not hers +still. She kept the farm going, raked in her profits without caring keenly +about them, and expended money on ventures because she had done so in bygone +days, which, though not long gone by, seemed infinitely removed from her +present. She looked back upon that past over a great gulf, as if she were now a +dead person, having the faculty of meditation still left in her, by means of +which, like the mouldering gentlefolk of the poet’s story, she could sit +and ponder what a gift life used to be. +</p> + +<p> +However, one excellent result of her general apathy was the long-delayed +installation of Oak as bailiff; but he having virtually exercised that function +for a long time already, the change, beyond the substantial increase of wages +it brought, was little more than a nominal one addressed to the outside world. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood lived secluded and inactive. Much of his wheat and all his barley of +that season had been spoilt by the rain. It sprouted, grew into intricate mats, +and was ultimately thrown to the pigs in armfuls. The strange neglect which had +produced this ruin and waste became the subject of whispered talk among all the +people round; and it was elicited from one of Boldwood’s men that +forgetfulness had nothing to do with it, for he had been reminded of the danger +to his corn as many times and as persistently as inferiors dared to do. The +sight of the pigs turning in disgust from the rotten ears seemed to arouse +Boldwood, and he one evening sent for Oak. Whether it was suggested by +Bathsheba’s recent act of promotion or not, the farmer proposed at the +interview that Gabriel should undertake the superintendence of the Lower Farm +as well as of Bathsheba’s, because of the necessity Boldwood felt for +such aid, and the impossibility of discovering a more trustworthy man. +Gabriel’s malignant star was assuredly setting fast. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, when she learnt of this proposal—for Oak was obliged to +consult her—at first languidly objected. She considered that the two +farms together were too extensive for the observation of one man. Boldwood, who +was apparently determined by personal rather than commercial reasons, suggested +that Oak should be furnished with a horse for his sole use, when the plan would +present no difficulty, the two farms lying side by side. Boldwood did not +directly communicate with her during these negotiations, only speaking to Oak, +who was the go-between throughout. All was harmoniously arranged at last, and +we now see Oak mounted on a strong cob, and daily trotting the length and +breadth of about two thousand acres in a cheerful spirit of surveillance, as if +the crops all belonged to him—the actual mistress of the one-half and the +master of the other, sitting in their respective homes in gloomy and sad +seclusion. +</p> + +<p> +Out of this there arose, during the spring succeeding, a talk in the parish +that Gabriel Oak was feathering his nest fast. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever d’ye think,” said Susan Tall, “Gable Oak is +coming it quite the dand. He now wears shining boots with hardly a hob in +’em, two or three times a-week, and a tall hat a-Sundays, and ’a +hardly knows the name of smockfrock. When I see people strut enough to be cut +up into bantam cocks, I stand dormant with wonder, and says no more!” +</p> + +<p> +It was eventually known that Gabriel, though paid a fixed wage by Bathsheba +independent of the fluctuations of agricultural profits, had made an engagement +with Boldwood by which Oak was to receive a share of the receipts—a small +share certainly, yet it was money of a higher quality than mere wages, and +capable of expansion in a way that wages were not. Some were beginning to +consider Oak a “near” man, for though his condition had thus far +improved, he lived in no better style than before, occupying the same cottage, +paring his own potatoes, mending his stockings, and sometimes even making his +bed with his own hands. But as Oak was not only provokingly indifferent to +public opinion, but a man who clung persistently to old habits and usages, +simply because they were old, there was room for doubt as to his motives. +</p> + +<p> +A great hope had latterly germinated in Boldwood, whose unreasoning devotion to +Bathsheba could only be characterized as a fond madness which neither time nor +circumstance, evil nor good report, could weaken or destroy. This fevered hope +had grown up again like a grain of mustard-seed during the quiet which followed +the hasty conjecture that Troy was drowned. He nourished it fearfully, and +almost shunned the contemplation of it in earnest, lest facts should reveal the +wildness of the dream. Bathsheba having at last been persuaded to wear +mourning, her appearance as she entered the church in that guise was in itself +a weekly addition to his faith that a time was coming—very far off +perhaps, yet surely nearing—when his waiting on events should have its +reward. How long he might have to wait he had not yet closely considered. What +he would try to recognize was that the severe schooling she had been subjected +to had made Bathsheba much more considerate than she had formerly been of the +feelings of others, and he trusted that, should she be willing at any time in +the future to marry any man at all, that man would be himself. There was a +substratum of good feeling in her: her self-reproach for the injury she had +thoughtlessly done him might be depended upon now to a much greater extent than +before her infatuation and disappointment. It would be possible to approach her +by the channel of her good nature, and to suggest a friendly businesslike +compact between them for fulfilment at some future day, keeping the passionate +side of his desire entirely out of her sight. Such was Boldwood’s hope. +</p> + +<p> +To the eyes of the middle-aged, Bathsheba was perhaps additionally charming +just now. Her exuberance of spirit was pruned down; the original phantom of +delight had shown herself to be not too bright for human nature’s daily +food, and she had been able to enter this second poetical phase without losing +much of the first in the process. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s return from a two months’ visit to her old aunt at +Norcombe afforded the impassioned and yearning farmer a pretext for inquiring +directly after her—now possibly in the ninth month of her +widowhood—and endeavouring to get a notion of her state of mind regarding +him. This occurred in the middle of the haymaking, and Boldwood contrived to be +near Liddy, who was assisting in the fields. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to see you out of doors, Lydia,” he said pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +She simpered, and wondered in her heart why he should speak so frankly to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope Mrs. Troy is quite well after her long absence,” he +continued, in a manner expressing that the coldest-hearted neighbour could +scarcely say less about her. +</p> + +<p> +“She is quite well, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And cheerful, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, cheerful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fearful, did you say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no. I merely said she was cheerful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tells you all her affairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Some of them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Troy puts much confidence in you, Lydia, and very wisely, +perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“She do, sir. I’ve been with her all through her troubles, and was +with her at the time of Mr. Troy’s going and all. And if she were to +marry again I expect I should bide with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She promises that you shall—quite natural,” said the +strategic lover, throbbing throughout him at the presumption which +Liddy’s words appeared to warrant—that his darling had thought of +re-marriage. +</p> + +<p> +“No—she doesn’t promise it exactly. I merely judge on my own +account.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, I understand. When she alludes to the possibility of marrying +again, you conclude—” +</p> + +<p> +“She never do allude to it, sir,” said Liddy, thinking how very +stupid Mr. Boldwood was getting. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not,” he returned hastily, his hope falling again. +“You needn’t take quite such long reaches with your rake, +Lydia—short and quick ones are best. Well, perhaps, as she is absolute +mistress again now, it is wise of her to resolve never to give up her +freedom.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mistress did certainly once say, though not seriously, that she +supposed she might marry again at the end of seven years from last year, if she +cared to risk Mr. Troy’s coming back and claiming her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, six years from the present time. Said that she might. She might +marry at once in every reasonable person’s opinion, whatever the lawyers +may say to the contrary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you been to ask them?” said Liddy, innocently. +</p> + +<p> +“Not I,” said Boldwood, growing red. “Liddy, you +needn’t stay here a minute later than you wish, so Mr. Oak says. I am now +going on a little farther. Good-afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +He went away vexed with himself, and ashamed of having for this one time in his +life done anything which could be called underhand. Poor Boldwood had no more +skill in finesse than a battering-ram, and he was uneasy with a sense of having +made himself to appear stupid and, what was worse, mean. But he had, after all, +lighted upon one fact by way of repayment. It was a singularly fresh and +fascinating fact, and though not without its sadness it was pertinent and real. +In little more than six years from this time Bathsheba might certainly marry +him. There was something definite in that hope, for admitting that there might +have been no deep thought in her words to Liddy about marriage, they showed at +least her creed on the matter. +</p> + +<p> +This pleasant notion was now continually in his mind. Six years were a long +time, but how much shorter than never, the idea he had for so long been obliged +to endure! Jacob had served twice seven years for Rachel: what were six for +such a woman as this? He tried to like the notion of waiting for her better +than that of winning her at once. Boldwood felt his love to be so deep and +strong and eternal, that it was possible she had never yet known its full +volume, and this patience in delay would afford him an opportunity of giving +sweet proof on the point. He would annihilate the six years of his life as if +they were minutes—so little did he value his time on earth beside her +love. He would let her see, all those six years of intangible ethereal +courtship, how little care he had for anything but as it bore upon the +consummation. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile the early and the late summer brought round the week in which +Greenhill Fair was held. This fair was frequently attended by the folk of +Weatherbury. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap50"></a>CHAPTER L<br /> +THE SHEEP FAIR—TROY TOUCHES HIS WIFE’S HAND</h2> + +<p> +Greenhill was the Nijni Novgorod of South Wessex; and the busiest, merriest, +noisiest day of the whole statute number was the day of the sheep fair. This +yearly gathering was upon the summit of a hill which retained in good +preservation the remains of an ancient earthwork, consisting of a huge rampart +and entrenchment of an oval form encircling the top of the hill, though +somewhat broken down here and there. To each of the two chief openings on +opposite sides a winding road ascended, and the level green space of ten or +fifteen acres enclosed by the bank was the site of the fair. A few permanent +erections dotted the spot, but the majority of visitors patronized canvas alone +for resting and feeding under during the time of their sojourn here. +</p> + +<p> +Shepherds who attended with their flocks from long distances started from home +two or three days, or even a week, before the fair, driving their charges a few +miles each day—not more than ten or twelve—and resting them at +night in hired fields by the wayside at previously chosen points, where they +fed, having fasted since morning. The shepherd of each flock marched behind, a +bundle containing his kit for the week strapped upon his shoulders, and in his +hand his crook, which he used as the staff of his pilgrimage. Several of the +sheep would get worn and lame, and occasionally a lambing occurred on the road. +To meet these contingencies, there was frequently provided, to accompany the +flocks from the remoter points, a pony and waggon into which the weakly ones +were taken for the remainder of the journey. +</p> + +<p> +The Weatherbury Farms, however, were no such long distance from the hill, and +those arrangements were not necessary in their case. But the large united +flocks of Bathsheba and Farmer Boldwood formed a valuable and imposing +multitude which demanded much attention, and on this account Gabriel, in +addition to Boldwood’s shepherd and Cain Ball, accompanied them along the +way, through the decayed old town of Kingsbere, and upward to the +plateau,—old George the dog of course behind them. +</p> + +<p> +When the autumn sun slanted over Greenhill this morning and lighted the dewy +flat upon its crest, nebulous clouds of dust were to be seen floating between +the pairs of hedges which streaked the wide prospect around in all directions. +These gradually converged upon the base of the hill, and the flocks became +individually visible, climbing the serpentine ways which led to the top. Thus, +in a slow procession, they entered the opening to which the roads tended, +multitude after multitude, horned and hornless—blue flocks and red +flocks, buff flocks and brown flocks, even green and salmon-tinted flocks, +according to the fancy of the colourist and custom of the farm. Men were +shouting, dogs were barking, with greatest animation, but the thronging +travellers in so long a journey had grown nearly indifferent to such terrors, +though they still bleated piteously at the unwontedness of their experiences, a +tall shepherd rising here and there in the midst of them, like a gigantic idol +amid a crowd of prostrate devotees. +</p> + +<p> +The great mass of sheep in the fair consisted of South Downs and the old Wessex +horned breeds; to the latter class Bathsheba’s and Farmer +Boldwood’s mainly belonged. These filed in about nine o’clock, +their vermiculated horns lopping gracefully on each side of their cheeks in +geometrically perfect spirals, a small pink and white ear nestling under each +horn. Before and behind came other varieties, perfect leopards as to the full +rich substance of their coats, and only lacking the spots. There were also a +few of the Oxfordshire breed, whose wool was beginning to curl like a +child’s flaxen hair, though surpassed in this respect by the effeminate +Leicesters, which were in turn less curly than the Cotswolds. But the most +picturesque by far was a small flock of Exmoors, which chanced to be there this +year. Their pied faces and legs, dark and heavy horns, tresses of wool hanging +round their swarthy foreheads, quite relieved the monotony of the flocks in +that quarter. +</p> + +<p> +All these bleating, panting, and weary thousands had entered and were penned +before the morning had far advanced, the dog belonging to each flock being tied +to the corner of the pen containing it. Alleys for pedestrians intersected the +pens, which soon became crowded with buyers and sellers from far and near. +</p> + +<p> +In another part of the hill an altogether different scene began to force itself +upon the eye towards midday. A circular tent, of exceptional newness and size, +was in course of erection here. As the day drew on, the flocks began to change +hands, lightening the shepherd’s responsibilities; and they turned their +attention to this tent and inquired of a man at work there, whose soul seemed +concentrated on tying a bothering knot in no time, what was going on. +</p> + +<p> +“The Royal Hippodrome Performance of Turpin’s Ride to York and the +Death of Black Bess,” replied the man promptly, without turning his eyes +or leaving off tying. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the tent was completed the band struck up highly stimulating +harmonies, and the announcement was publicly made, Black Bess standing in a +conspicuous position on the outside, as a living proof, if proof were wanted, +of the truth of the oracular utterances from the stage over which the people +were to enter. These were so convinced by such genuine appeals to heart and +understanding both that they soon began to crowd in abundantly, among the +foremost being visible Jan Coggan and Joseph Poorgrass, who were holiday +keeping here to-day. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the great ruffen pushing me!” screamed a woman in +front of Jan over her shoulder at him when the rush was at its fiercest. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I help pushing ye when the folk behind push me?” said +Coggan, in a deprecating tone, turning his head towards the aforesaid folk as +far as he could without turning his body, which was jammed as in a vice. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence; then the drums and trumpets again sent forth their echoing +notes. The crowd was again ecstasied, and gave another lurch in which Coggan +and Poorgrass were again thrust by those behind upon the women in front. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh that helpless feymels should be at the mercy of such ruffens!” +exclaimed one of these ladies again, as she swayed like a reed shaken by the +wind. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Coggan, appealing in an earnest voice to the public at +large as it stood clustered about his shoulder-blades, “did ye ever hear +such onreasonable woman as that? Upon my carcase, neighbours, if I could only +get out of this cheese-wring, the damn women might eat the show for me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ye lose yer temper, Jan!” implored Joseph Poorgrass, +in a whisper. “They might get their men to murder us, for I think by the +shine of their eyes that they be a sinful form of womankind.” +</p> + +<p> +Jan held his tongue, as if he had no objection to be pacified to please a +friend, and they gradually reached the foot of the ladder, Poorgrass being +flattened like a jumping-jack, and the sixpence, for admission, which he had +got ready half-an-hour earlier, having become so reeking hot in the tight +squeeze of his excited hand that the woman in spangles, brazen rings set with +glass diamonds, and with chalked face and shoulders, who took the money of him, +hastily dropped it again from a fear that some trick had been played to burn +her fingers. So they all entered, and the cloth of the tent, to the eyes of an +observer on the outside, became bulged into innumerable pimples such as we +observe on a sack of potatoes, caused by the various human heads, backs, and +elbows at high pressure within. +</p> + +<p> +At the rear of the large tent there were two small dressing-tents. One of +these, alloted to the male performers, was partitioned into halves by a cloth; +and in one of the divisions there was sitting on the grass, pulling on a pair +of jack-boots, a young man whom we instantly recognise as Sergeant Troy. +</p> + +<p> +Troy’s appearance in this position may be briefly accounted for. The brig +aboard which he was taken in Budmouth Roads was about to start on a voyage, +though somewhat short of hands. Troy read the articles and joined, but before +they sailed a boat was despatched across the bay to Lulwind cove; as he had +half expected, his clothes were gone. He ultimately worked his passage to the +United States, where he made a precarious living in various towns as Professor +of Gymnastics, Sword Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism. A few months were +sufficient to give him a distaste for this kind of life. There was a certain +animal form of refinement in his nature; and however pleasant a strange +condition might be whilst privations were easily warded off, it was +disadvantageously coarse when money was short. There was ever present, too, the +idea that he could claim a home and its comforts did he but chose to return to +England and Weatherbury Farm. Whether Bathsheba thought him dead was a frequent +subject of curious conjecture. To England he did return at last; but the fact +of drawing nearer to Weatherbury abstracted its fascinations, and his intention +to enter his old groove at the place became modified. It was with gloom he +considered on landing at Liverpool that if he were to go home his reception +would be of a kind very unpleasant to contemplate; for what Troy had in the way +of emotion was an occasional fitful sentiment which sometimes caused him as +much inconvenience as emotion of a strong and healthy kind. Bathsheba was not a +woman to be made a fool of, or a woman to suffer in silence; and how could he +endure existence with a spirited wife to whom at first entering he would be +beholden for food and lodging? Moreover, it was not at all unlikely that his +wife would fail at her farming, if she had not already done so; and he would +then become liable for her maintenance: and what a life such a future of +poverty with her would be, the spectre of Fanny constantly between them, +harrowing his temper and embittering her words! Thus, for reasons touching on +distaste, regret, and shame commingled, he put off his return from day to day, +and would have decided to put it off altogether if he could have found anywhere +else the ready-made establishment which existed for him there. +</p> + +<p> +At this time—the July preceding the September in which we find at +Greenhill Fair—he fell in with a travelling circus which was performing +in the outskirts of a northern town. Troy introduced himself to the manager by +taming a restive horse of the troupe, hitting a suspended apple with a +pistol-bullet fired from the animal’s back when in full gallop, and other +feats. For his merits in these—all more or less based upon his +experiences as a dragoon-guardsman—Troy was taken into the company, and +the play of Turpin was prepared with a view to his personation of the chief +character. Troy was not greatly elated by the appreciative spirit in which he +was undoubtedly treated, but he thought the engagement might afford him a few +weeks for consideration. It was thus carelessly, and without having formed any +definite plan for the future, that Troy found himself at Greenhill Fair with +the rest of the company on this day. +</p> + +<p> +And now the mild autumn sun got lower, and in front of the pavilion the +following incident had taken place. Bathsheba—who was driven to the fair +that day by her odd man Poorgrass—had, like every one else, read or heard +the announcement that Mr. Francis, the Great Cosmopolitan Equestrian and +Roughrider, would enact the part of Turpin, and she was not yet too old and +careworn to be without a little curiosity to see him. This particular show was +by far the largest and grandest in the fair, a horde of little shows grouping +themselves under its shade like chickens around a hen. The crowd had passed in, +and Boldwood, who had been watching all the day for an opportunity of speaking +to her, seeing her comparatively isolated, came up to her side. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope the sheep have done well to-day, Mrs. Troy?” he said, +nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, thank you,” said Bathsheba, colour springing up in the +centre of her cheeks. “I was fortunate enough to sell them all just as we +got upon the hill, so we hadn’t to pen at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“And now you are entirely at leisure?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, except that I have to see one more dealer in two hours’ time: +otherwise I should be going home. He was looking at this large tent and the +announcement. Have you ever seen the play of ‘Turpin’s Ride to +York’? Turpin was a real man, was he not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, perfectly true—all of it. Indeed, I think I’ve heard +Jan Coggan say that a relation of his knew Tom King, Turpin’s friend, +quite well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Coggan is rather given to strange stories connected with his relations, +we must remember. I hope they can all be believed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes; we know Coggan. But Turpin is true enough. You have never seen +it played, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never. I was not allowed to go into these places when I was young. Hark! +What’s that prancing? How they shout!” +</p> + +<p> +“Black Bess just started off, I suppose. Am I right in supposing you +would like to see the performance, Mrs. Troy? Please excuse my mistake, if it +is one; but if you would like to, I’ll get a seat for you with +pleasure.” Perceiving that she hesitated, he added, “I myself shall +not stay to see it: I’ve seen it before.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Bathsheba did care a little to see the show, and had only withheld her feet +from the ladder because she feared to go in alone. She had been hoping that Oak +might appear, whose assistance in such cases was always accepted as an +inalienable right, but Oak was nowhere to be seen; and hence it was that she +said, “Then if you will just look in first, to see if there’s room, +I think I will go in for a minute or two.” +</p> + +<p> +And so a short time after this Bathsheba appeared in the tent with Boldwood at +her elbow, who, taking her to a “reserved” seat, again withdrew. +</p> + +<p> +This feature consisted of one raised bench in a very conspicuous part of the +circle, covered with red cloth, and floored with a piece of carpet, and +Bathsheba immediately found, to her confusion, that she was the single reserved +individual in the tent, the rest of the crowded spectators, one and all, +standing on their legs on the borders of the arena, where they got twice as +good a view of the performance for half the money. Hence as many eyes were +turned upon her, enthroned alone in this place of honour, against a scarlet +background, as upon the ponies and clown who were engaged in preliminary +exploits in the centre, Turpin not having yet appeared. Once there, Bathsheba +was forced to make the best of it and remain: she sat down, spreading her +skirts with some dignity over the unoccupied space on each side of her, and +giving a new and feminine aspect to the pavilion. In a few minutes she noticed +the fat red nape of Coggan’s neck among those standing just below her, +and Joseph Poorgrass’s saintly profile a little further on. +</p> + +<p> +The interior was shadowy with a peculiar shade. The strange luminous +semi-opacities of fine autumn afternoons and eves intensified into Rembrandt +effects the few yellow sunbeams which came through holes and divisions in the +canvas, and spirted like jets of gold-dust across the dusky blue atmosphere of +haze pervading the tent, until they alighted on inner surfaces of cloth +opposite, and shone like little lamps suspended there. +</p> + +<p> +Troy, on peeping from his dressing-tent through a slit for a reconnoitre before +entering, saw his unconscious wife on high before him as described, sitting as +queen of the tournament. He started back in utter confusion, for although his +disguise effectually concealed his personality, he instantly felt that she +would be sure to recognize his voice. He had several times during the day +thought of the possibility of some Weatherbury person or other appearing and +recognizing him; but he had taken the risk carelessly. If they see me, let +them, he had said. But here was Bathsheba in her own person; and the reality of +the scene was so much intenser than any of his prefigurings that he felt he had +not half enough considered the point. +</p> + +<p> +She looked so charming and fair that his cool mood about Weatherbury people was +changed. He had not expected her to exercise this power over him in the +twinkling of an eye. Should he go on, and care nothing? He could not bring +himself to do that. Beyond a politic wish to remain unknown, there suddenly +arose in him now a sense of shame at the possibility that his attractive young +wife, who already despised him, should despise him more by discovering him in +so mean a condition after so long a time. He actually blushed at the thought, +and was vexed beyond measure that his sentiments of dislike towards Weatherbury +should have led him to dally about the country in this way. +</p> + +<p> +But Troy was never more clever than when absolutely at his wit’s end. He +hastily thrust aside the curtain dividing his own little dressing space from +that of the manager and proprietor, who now appeared as the individual called +Tom King as far down as his waist, and as the aforesaid respectable manager +thence to his toes. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s the devil to pay!” said Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s a blackguard creditor in the tent I don’t want +to see, who’ll discover me and nab me as sure as Satan if I open my +mouth. What’s to be done?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must appear now, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the play must proceed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you give out that Turpin has got a bad cold, and can’t speak +his part, but that he’ll perform it just the same without +speaking.” +</p> + +<p> +The proprietor shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, play or no play, I won’t open my mouth,” said Troy, +firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then let me see. I tell you how we’ll manage,” +said the other, who perhaps felt it would be extremely awkward to offend his +leading man just at this time. “I won’t tell ’em anything +about your keeping silence; go on with the piece and say nothing, doing what +you can by a judicious wink now and then, and a few indomitable nods in the +heroic places, you know. They’ll never find out that the speeches are +omitted.” +</p> + +<p> +This seemed feasible enough, for Turpin’s speeches were not many or long, +the fascination of the piece lying entirely in the action; and accordingly the +play began, and at the appointed time Black Bess leapt into the grassy circle +amid the plaudits of the spectators. At the turnpike scene, where Bess and +Turpin are hotly pursued at midnight by the officers, and the half-awake +gatekeeper in his tasselled nightcap denies that any horseman has passed, +Coggan uttered a broad-chested “Well done!” which could be heard +all over the fair above the bleating, and Poorgrass smiled delightedly with a +nice sense of dramatic contrast between our hero, who coolly leaps the gate, +and halting justice in the form of his enemies, who must needs pull up +cumbersomely and wait to be let through. At the death of Tom King, he could not +refrain from seizing Coggan by the hand, and whispering, with tears in his +eyes, “Of course he’s not really shot, Jan—only +seemingly!” And when the last sad scene came on, and the body of the +gallant and faithful Bess had to be carried out on a shutter by twelve +volunteers from among the spectators, nothing could restrain Poorgrass from +lending a hand, exclaiming, as he asked Jan to join him, “’Twill be +something to tell of at Warren’s in future years, Jan, and hand down to +our children.” For many a year in Weatherbury, Joseph told, with the air +of a man who had had experiences in his time, that he touched with his own hand +the hoof of Bess as she lay upon the board upon his shoulder. If, as some +thinkers hold, immortality consists in being enshrined in others’ +memories, then did Black Bess become immortal that day if she never had done so +before. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Troy had added a few touches to his ordinary make-up for the +character, the more effectually to disguise himself, and though he had felt +faint qualms on first entering, the metamorphosis effected by judiciously +“lining” his face with a wire rendered him safe from the eyes of +Bathsheba and her men. Nevertheless, he was relieved when it was got through. +</p> + +<p> +There was a second performance in the evening, and the tent was lighted up. +Troy had taken his part very quietly this time, venturing to introduce a few +speeches on occasion; and was just concluding it when, whilst standing at the +edge of the circle contiguous to the first row of spectators, he observed +within a yard of him the eye of a man darted keenly into his side features. +Troy hastily shifted his position, after having recognized in the scrutineer +the knavish bailiff Pennyways, his wife’s sworn enemy, who still hung +about the outskirts of Weatherbury. +</p> + +<p> +At first Troy resolved to take no notice and abide by circumstances. That he +had been recognized by this man was highly probable; yet there was room for a +doubt. Then the great objection he had felt to allowing news of his proximity +to precede him to Weatherbury in the event of his return, based on a feeling +that knowledge of his present occupation would discredit him still further in +his wife’s eyes, returned in full force. Moreover, should he resolve not +to return at all, a tale of his being alive and being in the neighbourhood +would be awkward; and he was anxious to acquire a knowledge of his wife’s +temporal affairs before deciding which to do. +</p> + +<p> +In this dilemma Troy at once went out to reconnoitre. It occurred to him that +to find Pennyways, and make a friend of him if possible, would be a very wise +act. He had put on a thick beard borrowed from the establishment, and in this +he wandered about the fair-field. It was now almost dark, and respectable +people were getting their carts and gigs ready to go home. +</p> + +<p> +The largest refreshment booth in the fair was provided by an innkeeper from a +neighbouring town. This was considered an unexceptionable place for obtaining +the necessary food and rest: Host Trencher (as he was jauntily called by the +local newspaper) being a substantial man of high repute for catering through +all the country round. The tent was divided into first and second-class +compartments, and at the end of the first-class division was a yet further +enclosure for the most exclusive, fenced off from the body of the tent by a +luncheon-bar, behind which the host himself stood bustling about in white apron +and shirt-sleeves, and looking as if he had never lived anywhere but under +canvas all his life. In these penetralia were chairs and a table, which, on +candles being lighted, made quite a cozy and luxurious show, with an urn, +plated tea and coffee pots, china teacups, and plum cakes. +</p> + +<p> +Troy stood at the entrance to the booth, where a gipsy-woman was frying +pancakes over a little fire of sticks and selling them at a penny a-piece, and +looked over the heads of the people within. He could see nothing of Pennyways, +but he soon discerned Bathsheba through an opening into the reserved space at +the further end. Troy thereupon retreated, went round the tent into the +darkness, and listened. He could hear Bathsheba’s voice immediately +inside the canvas; she was conversing with a man. A warmth overspread his face: +surely she was not so unprincipled as to flirt in a fair! He wondered if, then, +she reckoned upon his death as an absolute certainty. To get at the root of the +matter, Troy took a penknife from his pocket and softly made two little cuts +crosswise in the cloth, which, by folding back the corners left a hole the size +of a wafer. Close to this he placed his face, withdrawing it again in a +movement of surprise; for his eye had been within twelve inches of the top of +Bathsheba’s head. It was too near to be convenient. He made another hole +a little to one side and lower down, in a shaded place beside her chair, from +which it was easy and safe to survey her by looking horizontally. +</p> + +<p> +Troy took in the scene completely now. She was leaning back, sipping a cup of +tea that she held in her hand, and the owner of the male voice was Boldwood, +who had apparently just brought the cup to her, Bathsheba, being in a negligent +mood, leant so idly against the canvas that it was pressed to the shape of her +shoulder, and she was, in fact, as good as in Troy’s arms; and he was +obliged to keep his breast carefully backward that she might not feel its +warmth through the cloth as he gazed in. +</p> + +<p> +Troy found unexpected chords of feeling to be stirred again within him as they +had been stirred earlier in the day. She was handsome as ever, and she was his. +It was some minutes before he could counteract his sudden wish to go in, and +claim her. Then he thought how the proud girl who had always looked down upon +him even whilst it was to love him, would hate him on discovering him to be a +strolling player. Were he to make himself known, that chapter of his life must +at all risks be kept for ever from her and from the Weatherbury people, or his +name would be a byword throughout the parish. He would be nicknamed +“Turpin” as long as he lived. Assuredly before he could claim her +these few past months of his existence must be entirely blotted out. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I get you another cup before you start, ma’am?” said +Farmer Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Bathsheba. “But I must be going at once. It +was great neglect in that man to keep me waiting here till so late. I should +have gone two hours ago, if it had not been for him. I had no idea of coming in +here; but there’s nothing so refreshing as a cup of tea, though I should +never have got one if you hadn’t helped me.” +</p> + +<p> +Troy scrutinized her cheek as lit by the candles, and watched each varying +shade thereon, and the white shell-like sinuosities of her little ear. She took +out her purse and was insisting to Boldwood on paying for her tea for herself, +when at this moment Pennyways entered the tent. Troy trembled: here was his +scheme for respectability endangered at once. He was about to leave his hole of +espial, attempt to follow Pennyways, and find out if the ex-bailiff had +recognized him, when he was arrested by the conversation, and found he was too +late. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Pennyways; “I’ve some +private information for your ear alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot hear it now,” she said, coldly. That Bathsheba could not +endure this man was evident; in fact, he was continually coming to her with +some tale or other, by which he might creep into favour at the expense of +persons maligned. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll write it down,” said Pennyways, confidently. He stooped +over the table, pulled a leaf from a warped pocket-book, and wrote upon the +paper, in a round hand— +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Your husband is here. I’ve seen him. Who’s the fool +now?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +This he folded small, and handed towards her. Bathsheba would not read it; she +would not even put out her hand to take it. Pennyways, then, with a laugh of +derision, tossed it into her lap, and, turning away, left her. +</p> + +<p> +From the words and action of Pennyways, Troy, though he had not been able to +see what the ex-bailiff wrote, had not a moment’s doubt that the note +referred to him. Nothing that he could think of could be done to check the +exposure. “Curse my luck!” he whispered, and added imprecations +which rustled in the gloom like a pestilent wind. Meanwhile Boldwood said, +taking up the note from her lap— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you wish to read it, Mrs. Troy? If not, I’ll destroy +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said Bathsheba, carelessly, “perhaps it is unjust +not to read it; but I can guess what it is about. He wants me to recommend him, +or it is to tell me of some little scandal or another connected with my +work-people. He’s always doing that.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba held the note in her right hand. Boldwood handed towards her a plate +of cut bread-and-butter; when, in order to take a slice, she put the note into +her left hand, where she was still holding the purse, and then allowed her hand +to drop beside her close to the canvas. The moment had come for saving his +game, and Troy impulsively felt that he would play the card. For yet another +time he looked at the fair hand, and saw the pink finger-tips, and the blue +veins of the wrist, encircled by a bracelet of coral chippings which she wore: +how familiar it all was to him! Then, with the lightning action in which he was +such an adept, he noiselessly slipped his hand under the bottom of the +tent-cloth, which was far from being pinned tightly down, lifted it a little +way, keeping his eye to the hole, snatched the note from her fingers, dropped +the canvas, and ran away in the gloom towards the bank and ditch, smiling at +the scream of astonishment which burst from her. Troy then slid down on the +outside of the rampart, hastened round in the bottom of the entrenchment to a +distance of a hundred yards, ascended again, and crossed boldly in a slow walk +towards the front entrance of the tent. His object was now to get to Pennyways, +and prevent a repetition of the announcement until such time as he should +choose. +</p> + +<p> +Troy reached the tent door, and standing among the groups there gathered, +looked anxiously for Pennyways, evidently not wishing to make himself prominent +by inquiring for him. One or two men were speaking of a daring attempt that had +just been made to rob a young lady by lifting the canvas of the tent beside +her. It was supposed that the rogue had imagined a slip of paper which she held +in her hand to be a bank note, for he had seized it, and made off with it, +leaving her purse behind. His chagrin and disappointment at discovering its +worthlessness would be a good joke, it was said. However, the occurrence seemed +to have become known to few, for it had not interrupted a fiddler, who had +lately begun playing by the door of the tent, nor the four bowed old men with +grim countenances and walking-sticks in hand, who were dancing “Major +Malley’s Reel” to the tune. Behind these stood Pennyways. Troy +glided up to him, beckoned, and whispered a few words; and with a mutual glance +of concurrence the two men went into the night together. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap51"></a>CHAPTER LI<br /> +BATHSHEBA TALKS WITH HER OUTRIDER</h2> + +<p> +The arrangement for getting back again to Weatherbury had been that Oak should +take the place of Poorgrass in Bathsheba’s conveyance and drive her home, +it being discovered late in the afternoon that Joseph was suffering from his +old complaint, a multiplying eye, and was, therefore, hardly trustworthy as +coachman and protector to a woman. But Oak had found himself so occupied, and +was full of so many cares relative to those portions of Boldwood’s flocks +that were not disposed of, that Bathsheba, without telling Oak or anybody, +resolved to drive home herself, as she had many times done from Casterbridge +Market, and trust to her good angel for performing the journey unmolested. But +having fallen in with Farmer Boldwood accidentally (on her part at least) at +the refreshment-tent, she found it impossible to refuse his offer to ride on +horseback beside her as escort. It had grown twilight before she was aware, but +Boldwood assured her that there was no cause for uneasiness, as the moon would +be up in half-an-hour. +</p> + +<p> +Immediately after the incident in the tent, she had risen to go—now +absolutely alarmed and really grateful for her old lover’s +protection—though regretting Gabriel’s absence, whose company she +would have much preferred, as being more proper as well as more pleasant, since +he was her own managing-man and servant. This, however, could not be helped; +she would not, on any consideration, treat Boldwood harshly, having once +already ill-used him, and the moon having risen, and the gig being ready, she +drove across the hilltop in the wending way’s which led +downwards—to oblivious obscurity, as it seemed, for the moon and the hill +it flooded with light were in appearance on a level, the rest of the world +lying as a vast shady concave between them. Boldwood mounted his horse, and +followed in close attendance behind. Thus they descended into the lowlands, and +the sounds of those left on the hill came like voices from the sky, and the +lights were as those of a camp in heaven. They soon passed the merry stragglers +in the immediate vicinity of the hill, traversed Kingsbere, and got upon the +high road. +</p> + +<p> +The keen instincts of Bathsheba had perceived that the farmer’s staunch +devotion to herself was still undiminished, and she sympathized deeply. The +sight had quite depressed her this evening; had reminded her of her folly; she +wished anew, as she had wished many months ago, for some means of making +reparation for her fault. Hence her pity for the man who so persistently loved +on to his own injury and permanent gloom had betrayed Bathsheba into an +injudicious considerateness of manner, which appeared almost like tenderness, +and gave new vigour to the exquisite dream of a Jacob’s seven years +service in poor Boldwood’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +He soon found an excuse for advancing from his position in the rear, and rode +close by her side. They had gone two or three miles in the moonlight, speaking +desultorily across the wheel of her gig concerning the fair, farming, +Oak’s usefulness to them both, and other indifferent subjects, when +Boldwood said suddenly and simply— +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Troy, you will marry again some day?” +</p> + +<p> +This point-blank query unmistakably confused her, and it was not till a minute +or more had elapsed that she said, “I have not seriously thought of any +such subject.” +</p> + +<p> +“I quite understand that. Yet your late husband has been dead nearly one +year, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget that his death was never absolutely proved, and may not have +taken place; so that I may not be really a widow,” she said, catching at +the straw of escape that the fact afforded. +</p> + +<p> +“Not absolutely proved, perhaps, but it was proved circumstantially. A +man saw him drowning, too. No reasonable person has any doubt of his death; nor +have you, ma’am, I should imagine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have none now, or I should have acted differently,” she said, +gently. “I certainly, at first, had a strange unaccountable feeling that +he could not have perished, but I have been able to explain that in several +ways since. But though I am fully persuaded that I shall see him no more, I am +far from thinking of marriage with another. I should be very contemptible to +indulge in such a thought.” +</p> + +<p> +They were silent now awhile, and having struck into an unfrequented track +across a common, the creaks of Boldwood’s saddle and her gig springs were +all the sounds to be heard. Boldwood ended the pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember when I carried you fainting in my arms into the +King’s Arms, in Casterbridge? Every dog has his day: that was +mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I know it all,” she said, hurriedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I, for one, shall never cease regretting that events so fell out as to +deny you to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I, too, am very sorry,” she said, and then checked herself. +“I mean, you know, I am sorry you thought I—” +</p> + +<p> +“I have always this dreary pleasure in thinking over those past times +with you—that I was something to you before <i>he</i> was anything, and +that you belonged <i>almost</i> to me. But, of course, that’s nothing. +You never liked me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did; and respected you, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which?” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean which?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you like me, or do you respect me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—at least, I cannot tell you. It is difficult +for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to +express theirs. My treatment of you was thoughtless, inexcusable, wicked! I +shall eternally regret it. If there had been anything I could have done to make +amends I would most gladly have done it—there was nothing on earth I so +longed to do as to repair the error. But that was not possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t blame yourself—you were not so far in the wrong as you +suppose. Bathsheba, suppose you had real complete proof that you are what, in +fact, you are—a widow—would you repair the old wrong to me by +marrying me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot say. I shouldn’t yet, at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you might at some future time of your life?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I might at some time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, do you know that without further proof of any kind you may +marry again in about six years from the present—subject to nobody’s +objection or blame?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” she said, quickly. “I know all that. But +don’t talk of it—seven or six years—where may we all be by +that time?” +</p> + +<p> +“They will soon glide by, and it will seem an astonishingly short time to +look back upon when they are past—much less than to look forward to +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes; I have found that in my own experience.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now listen once more,” Boldwood pleaded. “If I wait that +time, will you marry me? You own that you owe me amends—let that be your +way of making them.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mr. Boldwood—six years—” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want to be the wife of any other man?” +</p> + +<p> +“No indeed! I mean, that I don’t like to talk about this matter +now. Perhaps it is not proper, and I ought not to allow it. Let us drop it. My +husband may be living, as I said.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, I’ll drop the subject if you wish. But propriety has +nothing to do with reasons. I am a middle-aged man, willing to protect you for +the remainder of our lives. On your side, at least, there is no passion or +blamable haste—on mine, perhaps, there is. But I can’t help seeing +that if you choose from a feeling of pity, and, as you say, a wish to make +amends, to make a bargain with me for a far-ahead time—an agreement which +will set all things right and make me happy, late though it may be—there +is no fault to be found with you as a woman. Hadn’t I the first place +beside you? Haven’t you been almost mine once already? Surely you can say +to me as much as this, you will have me back again should circumstances permit? +Now, pray speak! O Bathsheba, promise—it is only a little +promise—that if you marry again, you will marry me!” +</p> + +<p> +His tone was so excited that she almost feared him at this moment, even whilst +she sympathized. It was a simple physical fear—the weak of the strong; +there was no emotional aversion or inner repugnance. She said, with some +distress in her voice, for she remembered vividly his outburst on the Yalbury +Road, and shrank from a repetition of his anger:— +</p> + +<p> +“I will never marry another man whilst you wish me to be your wife, +whatever comes—but to say more—you have taken me so by +surprise—” +</p> + +<p> +“But let it stand in these simple words—that in six years’ +time you will be my wife? Unexpected accidents we’ll not mention, because +those, of course, must be given way to. Now, this time I know you will keep +your word.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s why I hesitate to give it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But do give it! Remember the past, and be kind.” +</p> + +<p> +She breathed; and then said mournfully: “Oh what shall I do? I +don’t love you, and I much fear that I never shall love you as much as a +woman ought to love a husband. If you, sir, know that, and I can yet give you +happiness by a mere promise to marry at the end of six years, if my husband +should not come back, it is a great honour to me. And if you value such an act +of friendship from a woman who doesn’t esteem herself as she did, and has +little love left, why I—I will—” +</p> + +<p> +“Promise!” +</p> + +<p> +“—Consider, if I cannot promise soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“But soon is perhaps never?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, it is not! I mean soon. Christmas, we’ll say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Christmas!” He said nothing further till he added: “Well, +I’ll say no more to you about it till that time.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Bathsheba was in a very peculiar state of mind, which showed how entirely the +soul is the slave of the body, the ethereal spirit dependent for its quality +upon the tangible flesh and blood. It is hardly too much to say that she felt +coerced by a force stronger than her own will, not only into the act of +promising upon this singularly remote and vague matter, but into the emotion of +fancying that she ought to promise. When the weeks intervening between the +night of this conversation and Christmas day began perceptibly to diminish, her +anxiety and perplexity increased. +</p> + +<p> +One day she was led by an accident into an oddly confidential dialogue with +Gabriel about her difficulty. It afforded her a little relief—of a dull +and cheerless kind. They were auditing accounts, and something occurred in the +course of their labours which led Oak to say, speaking of Boldwood, +“He’ll never forget you, ma’am, never.” +</p> + +<p> +Then out came her trouble before she was aware; and she told him how she had +again got into the toils; what Boldwood had asked her, and how he was expecting +her assent. “The most mournful reason of all for my agreeing to +it,” she said sadly, “and the true reason why I think to do so for +good or for evil, is this—it is a thing I have not breathed to a living +soul as yet—I believe that if I don’t give my word, he’ll go +out of his mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, do ye?” said Gabriel, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe this,” she continued, with reckless frankness; +“and Heaven knows I say it in a spirit the very reverse of vain, for I am +grieved and troubled to my soul about it—I believe I hold that +man’s future in my hand. His career depends entirely upon my treatment of +him. O Gabriel, I tremble at my responsibility, for it is terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think this much, ma’am, as I told you years ago,” +said Oak, “that his life is a total blank whenever he isn’t hoping +for ’ee; but I can’t suppose—I hope that nothing so dreadful +hangs on to it as you fancy. His natural manner has always been dark and +strange, you know. But since the case is so sad and odd-like, why don’t +ye give the conditional promise? I think I would.” +</p> + +<p> +“But is it right? Some rash acts of my past life have taught me that a +watched woman must have very much circumspection to retain only a very little +credit, and I do want and long to be discreet in this! And six years—why +we may all be in our graves by that time, even if Mr. Troy does not come back +again, which he may not impossibly do! Such thoughts give a sort of absurdity +to the scheme. Now, isn’t it preposterous, Gabriel? However he came to +dream of it, I cannot think. But is it wrong? You know—you are older than +I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Eight years older, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, eight years—and is it wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it would be an uncommon agreement for a man and woman to make: I +don’t see anything really wrong about it,” said Oak, slowly. +“In fact the very thing that makes it doubtful if you ought to marry en +under any condition, that is, your not caring about him—for I may +suppose—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you may suppose that love is wanting,” she said shortly. +“Love is an utterly bygone, sorry, worn-out, miserable thing with +me—for him or any one else.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, your want of love seems to me the one thing that takes away harm +from such an agreement with him. If wild heat had to do wi’ it, making ye +long to over-come the awkwardness about your husband’s vanishing, it mid +be wrong; but a cold-hearted agreement to oblige a man seems different, +somehow. The real sin, ma’am in my mind, lies in thinking of ever wedding +wi’ a man you don’t love honest and true.” +</p> + +<p> +“That I’m willing to pay the penalty of,” said Bathsheba, +firmly. “You know, Gabriel, this is what I cannot get off my +conscience—that I once seriously injured him in sheer idleness. If I had +never played a trick upon him, he would never have wanted to marry me. Oh if I +could only pay some heavy damages in money to him for the harm I did, and so +get the sin off my soul that way!... Well, there’s the debt, which can +only be discharged in one way, and I believe I am bound to do it if it honestly +lies in my power, without any consideration of my own future at all. When a +rake gambles away his expectations, the fact that it is an inconvenient debt +doesn’t make him the less liable. I’ve been a rake, and the single +point I ask you is, considering that my own scruples, and the fact that in the +eye of the law my husband is only missing, will keep any man from marrying me +until seven years have passed—am I free to entertain such an idea, even +though ’tis a sort of penance—for it will be that? I <i>hate</i> +the act of marriage under such circumstances, and the class of women I should +seem to belong to by doing it!” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me that all depends upon whe’r you think, as everybody +else do, that your husband is dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I’ve long ceased to doubt that. I well know what would +have brought him back long before this time if he had lived.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, in a religious sense you will be as free to <i>think</i> +o’ marrying again as any real widow of one year’s standing. But why +don’t ye ask Mr. Thirdly’s advice on how to treat Mr. +Boldwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. When I want a broad-minded opinion for general enlightenment, +distinct from special advice, I never go to a man who deals in the subject +professionally. So I like the parson’s opinion on law, the lawyer’s +on doctoring, the doctor’s on business, and my +business-man’s—that is, yours—on morals.” +</p> + +<p> +“And on love—” +</p> + +<p> +“My own.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid there’s a hitch in that argument,” said +Oak, with a grave smile. +</p> + +<p> +She did not reply at once, and then saying, “Good evening, Mr. +Oak,” went away. +</p> + +<p> +She had spoken frankly, and neither asked nor expected any reply from Gabriel +more satisfactory than that she had obtained. Yet in the centremost parts of +her complicated heart there existed at this minute a little pang of +disappointment, for a reason she would not allow herself to recognize. Oak had +not once wished her free that he might marry her himself—had not once +said, “I could wait for you as well as he.” That was the insect +sting. Not that she would have listened to any such hypothesis. O no—for +wasn’t she saying all the time that such thoughts of the future were +improper, and wasn’t Gabriel far too poor a man to speak sentiment to +her? Yet he might have just hinted about that old love of his, and asked, in a +playful off-hand way, if he might speak of it. It would have seemed pretty and +sweet, if no more; and then she would have shown how kind and inoffensive a +woman’s “No” can sometimes be. But to give such cool +advice—the very advice she had asked for—it ruffled our heroine all +the afternoon. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap52"></a>CHAPTER LII<br /> +CONVERGING COURSES</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +Christmas-eve came, and a party that Boldwood was to give in the evening was +the great subject of talk in Weatherbury. It was not that the rarity of +Christmas parties in the parish made this one a wonder, but that Boldwood +should be the giver. The announcement had had an abnormal and incongruous +sound, as if one should hear of croquet-playing in a cathedral aisle, or that +some much-respected judge was going upon the stage. That the party was intended +to be a truly jovial one there was no room for doubt. A large bough of +mistletoe had been brought from the woods that day, and suspended in the hall +of the bachelor’s home. Holly and ivy had followed in armfuls. From six +that morning till past noon the huge wood fire in the kitchen roared and +sparkled at its highest, the kettle, the saucepan, and the three-legged pot +appearing in the midst of the flames like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; +moreover, roasting and basting operations were continually carried on in front +of the genial blaze. +</p> + +<p> +As it grew later the fire was made up in the large long hall into which the +staircase descended, and all encumbrances were cleared out for dancing. The log +which was to form the back-brand of the evening fire was the uncleft trunk of a +tree, so unwieldy that it could be neither brought nor rolled to its place; and +accordingly two men were to be observed dragging and heaving it in by chains +and levers as the hour of assembly drew near. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of all this, the spirit of revelry was wanting in the atmosphere of +the house. Such a thing had never been attempted before by its owner, and it +was now done as by a wrench. Intended gaieties would insist upon appearing like +solemn grandeurs, the organization of the whole effort was carried out coldly, +by hirelings, and a shadow seemed to move about the rooms, saying that the +proceedings were unnatural to the place and the lone man who lived therein, and +hence not good. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p> +Bathsheba was at this time in her room, dressing for the event. She had called +for candles, and Liddy entered and placed one on each side of her +mistress’s glass. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go away, Liddy,” said Bathsheba, almost timidly. +“I am foolishly agitated—I cannot tell why. I wish I had not been +obliged to go to this dance; but there’s no escaping now. I have not +spoken to Mr. Boldwood since the autumn, when I promised to see him at +Christmas on business, but I had no idea there was to be anything of this +kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I would go now,” said Liddy, who was going with her; for +Boldwood had been indiscriminate in his invitations. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shall make my appearance, of course,” said Bathsheba. +“But I am <i>the cause</i> of the party, and that upsets +me!—Don’t tell, Liddy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, ma’am. You the cause of it, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I am the reason of the party—I. If it had not been for me, +there would never have been one. I can’t explain any +more—there’s no more to be explained. I wish I had never seen +Weatherbury.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s wicked of you—to wish to be worse off than you +are.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Liddy. I have never been free from trouble since I have lived here, +and this party is likely to bring me more. Now, fetch my black silk dress, and +see how it sits upon me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you will leave off that, surely, ma’am? You have been a +widow-lady fourteen months, and ought to brighten up a little on such a night +as this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it necessary? No; I will appear as usual, for if I were to wear any +light dress people would say things about me, and I should seem to be rejoicing +when I am solemn all the time. The party doesn’t suit me a bit; but never +mind, stay and help to finish me off.” +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p> +Boldwood was dressing also at this hour. A tailor from Casterbridge was with +him, assisting him in the operation of trying on a new coat that had just been +brought home. +</p> + +<p> +Never had Boldwood been so fastidious, unreasonable about the fit, and +generally difficult to please. The tailor walked round and round him, tugged at +the waist, pulled the sleeve, pressed out the collar, and for the first time in +his experience Boldwood was not bored. Times had been when the farmer had +exclaimed against all such niceties as childish, but now no philosophic or +hasty rebuke whatever was provoked by this man for attaching as much importance +to a crease in the coat as to an earthquake in South America. Boldwood at last +expressed himself nearly satisfied, and paid the bill, the tailor passing out +of the door just as Oak came in to report progress for the day. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Oak,” said Boldwood. “I shall of course see you here +to-night. Make yourself merry. I am determined that neither expense nor trouble +shall be spared.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll try to be here, sir, though perhaps it may not be very +early,” said Gabriel, quietly. “I am glad indeed to see such a +change in ’ee from what it used to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I must own it—I am bright to-night: cheerful and more +than cheerful—so much so that I am almost sad again with the sense that +all of it is passing away. And sometimes, when I am excessively hopeful and +blithe, a trouble is looming in the distance: so that I often get to look upon +gloom in me with content, and to fear a happy mood. Still this may be +absurd—I feel that it is absurd. Perhaps my day is dawning at +last.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope it ’ill be a long and a fair one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you—thank you. Yet perhaps my cheerfulness rests on a +slender hope. And yet I trust my hope. It is faith, not hope. I think this time +I reckon with my host.—Oak, my hands are a little shaky, or something; I +can’t tie this neckerchief properly. Perhaps you will tie it for me. The +fact is, I have not been well lately, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to hear that, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it’s nothing. I want it done as well as you can, please. Is +there any late knot in fashion, Oak?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, sir,” said Oak. His tone had sunk to sadness. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood approached Gabriel, and as Oak tied the neckerchief the farmer went on +feverishly— +</p> + +<p> +“Does a woman keep her promise, Gabriel?” +</p> + +<p> +“If it is not inconvenient to her she may.” +</p> + +<p> +“—Or rather an implied promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t answer for her implying,” said Oak, with faint +bitterness. “That’s a word as full o’ holes as a sieve with +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oak, don’t talk like that. You have got quite cynical +lately—how is it? We seem to have shifted our positions: I have become +the young and hopeful man, and you the old and unbelieving one. However, does a +woman keep a promise, not to marry, but to enter on an engagement to marry at +some time? Now you know women better than I—tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afeard you honour my understanding too much. However, she may keep +such a promise, if it is made with an honest meaning to repair a wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“It has not gone far yet, but I think it will soon—yes, I know it +will,” he said, in an impulsive whisper. “I have pressed her upon +the subject, and she inclines to be kind to me, and to think of me as a husband +at a long future time, and that’s enough for me. How can I expect more? +She has a notion that a woman should not marry within seven years of her +husband’s disappearance—that her own self shouldn’t, I +mean—because his body was not found. It may be merely this legal reason +which influences her, or it may be a religious one, but she is reluctant to +talk on the point. Yet she has promised—implied—that she will +ratify an engagement to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seven years,” murmured Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no—it’s no such thing!” he said, with impatience. +“Five years, nine months, and a few days. Fifteen months nearly have +passed since he vanished, and is there anything so wonderful in an engagement +of little more than five years?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems long in a forward view. Don’t build too much upon such +promises, sir. Remember, you have once be’n deceived. Her meaning may be +good; but there—she’s young yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Deceived? Never!” said Boldwood, vehemently. “She never +promised me at that first time, and hence she did not break her promise! If she +promises me, she’ll marry me. Bathsheba is a woman to her word.” +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p> +Troy was sitting in a corner of The White Hart tavern at Casterbridge, smoking +and drinking a steaming mixture from a glass. A knock was given at the door, +and Pennyways entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, have you seen him?” Troy inquired, pointing to a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Boldwood?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—Lawyer Long.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wadn’ at home. I went there first, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a nuisance.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis rather, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet I don’t see that, because a man appears to be drowned and was +not, he should be liable for anything. I shan’t ask any lawyer—not +I.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s not it, exactly. If a man changes his name and so +forth, and takes steps to deceive the world and his own wife, he’s a +cheat, and that in the eye of the law is ayless a rogue, and that is ayless a +lammocken vagabond; and that’s a punishable situation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha-ha! Well done, Pennyways,” Troy had laughed, but it was with +some anxiety that he said, “Now, what I want to know is this, do you +think there’s really anything going on between her and Boldwood? Upon my +soul, I should never have believed it! How she must detest me! Have you found +out whether she has encouraged him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haen’t been able to learn. There’s a deal of feeling on +his side seemingly, but I don’t answer for her. I didn’t know a +word about any such thing till yesterday, and all I heard then was that she was +gwine to the party at his house to-night. This is the first time she has ever +gone there, they say. And they say that she’ve not so much as spoke to +him since they were at Greenhill Fair: but what can folk believe o’t? +However, she’s not fond of him—quite offish and quite careless, I +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not so sure of that.... She’s a handsome woman, +Pennyways, is she not? Own that you never saw a finer or more splendid creature +in your life. Upon my honour, when I set eyes upon her that day I wondered what +I could have been made of to be able to leave her by herself so long. And then +I was hampered with that bothering show, which I’m free of at last, thank +the stars.” He smoked on awhile, and then added, “How did she look +when you passed by yesterday?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, she took no great heed of me, ye may well fancy; but she looked well +enough, far’s I know. Just flashed her haughty eyes upon my poor scram +body, and then let them go past me to what was yond, much as if I’d been +no more than a leafless tree. She had just got off her mare to look at the last +wring-down of cider for the year; she had been riding, and so her colours were +up and her breath rather quick, so that her bosom plimmed and +fell—plimmed and fell—every time plain to my eye. Ay, and there +were the fellers round her wringing down the cheese and bustling about and +saying, ‘Ware o’ the pommy, ma’am: ’twill spoil yer +gown.’ ‘Never mind me,’ says she. Then Gabe brought her some +of the new cider, and she must needs go drinking it through a strawmote, and +not in a nateral way at all. ‘Liddy,’ says she, ‘bring +indoors a few gallons, and I’ll make some cider-wine.’ Sergeant, I +was no more to her than a morsel of scroff in the fuel-house!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must go and find her out at once—O yes, I see that—I must +go. Oak is head man still, isn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ’a b’lieve. And at Little Weatherbury Farm too. He +manages everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twill puzzle him to manage her, or any other man of his +compass!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that. She can’t do without him, and +knowing it well he’s pretty independent. And she’ve a few soft +corners to her mind, though I’ve never been able to get into one, the +devil’s in’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, baily, she’s a notch above you, and you must own it: a higher +class of animal—a finer tissue. However, stick to me, and neither this +haughty goddess, dashing piece of womanhood, Juno-wife of mine (Juno was a +goddess, you know), nor anybody else shall hurt you. But all this wants looking +into, I perceive. What with one thing and another, I see that my work is well +cut out for me.” +</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p> +“How do I look to-night, Liddy?” said Bathsheba, giving a final +adjustment to her dress before leaving the glass. +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw you look so well before. Yes—I’ll tell you when +you looked like it—that night, a year and a half ago, when you came in so +wildlike, and scolded us for making remarks about you and Mr. Troy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Everybody will think that I am setting myself to captivate Mr. Boldwood, +I suppose,” she murmured. “At least they’ll say so. +Can’t my hair be brushed down a little flatter? I dread going—yet I +dread the risk of wounding him by staying away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, ma’am, you can’t well be dressed plainer than you +are, unless you go in sackcloth at once. ’Tis your excitement is what +makes you look so noticeable to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what’s the matter, I feel wretched at one time, +and buoyant at another. I wish I could have continued quite alone as I have +been for the last year or so, with no hopes and no fears, and no pleasure and +no grief.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now just suppose Mr. Boldwood should ask you—only just suppose +it—to run away with him, what would you do, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Liddy—none of that,” said Bathsheba, gravely. “Mind, I +won’t hear joking on any such matter. Do you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg pardon, ma’am. But knowing what rum things we women be, I +just said—however, I won’t speak of it again.” +</p> + +<p> +“No marrying for me yet for many a year; if ever, ’twill be for +reasons very, very different from those you think, or others will believe! Now +get my cloak, for it is time to go.” +</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p> +“Oak,” said Boldwood, “before you go I want to mention what +has been passing in my mind lately—that little arrangement we made about +your share in the farm I mean. That share is small, too small, considering how +little I attend to business now, and how much time and thought you give to it. +Well, since the world is brightening for me, I want to show my sense of it by +increasing your proportion in the partnership. I’ll make a memorandum of +the arrangement which struck me as likely to be convenient, for I haven’t +time to talk about it now; and then we’ll discuss it at our leisure. My +intention is ultimately to retire from the management altogether, and until you +can take all the expenditure upon your shoulders, I’ll be a sleeping +partner in the stock. Then, if I marry her—and I hope—I feel I +shall, why—” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t speak of it, sir,” said Oak, hastily. “We +don’t know what may happen. So many upsets may befall ’ee. +There’s many a slip, as they say—and I would advise you—I +know you’ll pardon me this once—not to be <i>too sure</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know, I know. But the feeling I have about increasing your share is on +account of what I know of you. Oak, I have learnt a little about your secret: +your interest in her is more than that of bailiff for an employer. But you have +behaved like a man, and I, as a sort of successful rival—successful +partly through your goodness of heart—should like definitely to show my +sense of your friendship under what must have been a great pain to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“O that’s not necessary, thank ’ee,” said Oak, +hurriedly. “I must get used to such as that; other men have, and so shall +I.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak then left him. He was uneasy on Boldwood’s account, for he saw anew +that this constant passion of the farmer made him not the man he once had been. +</p> + +<p> +As Boldwood continued awhile in his room alone—ready and dressed to +receive his company—the mood of anxiety about his appearance seemed to +pass away, and to be succeeded by a deep solemnity. He looked out of the +window, and regarded the dim outline of the trees upon the sky, and the +twilight deepening to darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Then he went to a locked closet, and took from a locked drawer therein a small +circular case the size of a pillbox, and was about to put it into his pocket. +But he lingered to open the cover and take a momentary glance inside. It +contained a woman’s finger-ring, set all the way round with small +diamonds, and from its appearance had evidently been recently purchased. +Boldwood’s eyes dwelt upon its many sparkles a long time, though that its +material aspect concerned him little was plain from his manner and mien, which +were those of a mind following out the presumed thread of that jewel’s +future history. +</p> + +<p> +The noise of wheels at the front of the house became audible. Boldwood closed +the box, stowed it away carefully in his pocket, and went out upon the landing. +The old man who was his indoor factotum came at the same moment to the foot of +the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“They be coming, sir—lots of ’em—a-foot and +a-driving!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was coming down this moment. Those wheels I heard—is it Mrs. +Troy?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir—’tis not she yet.” +</p> + +<p> +A reserved and sombre expression had returned to Boldwood’s face again, +but it poorly cloaked his feelings when he pronounced Bathsheba’s name; +and his feverish anxiety continued to show its existence by a galloping motion +of his fingers upon the side of his thigh as he went down the stairs. +</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p> +“How does this cover me?” said Troy to Pennyways. “Nobody +would recognize me now, I’m sure.” +</p> + +<p> +He was buttoning on a heavy grey overcoat of Noachian cut, with cape and high +collar, the latter being erect and rigid, like a girdling wall, and nearly +reaching to the verge of a travelling cap which was pulled down over his ears. +</p> + +<p> +Pennyways snuffed the candle, and then looked up and deliberately inspected +Troy. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve made up your mind to go then?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Made up my mind? Yes; of course I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not write to her? ’Tis a very queer corner that you have got +into, sergeant. You see all these things will come to light if you go back, and +they won’t sound well at all. Faith, if I was you I’d even bide as +you be—a single man of the name of Francis. A good wife is good, but the +best wife is not so good as no wife at all. Now that’s my outspoke mind, +and I’ve been called a long-headed feller here and there.” +</p> + +<p> +“All nonsense!” said Troy, angrily. “There she is with plenty +of money, and a house and farm, and horses, and comfort, and here am I living +from hand to mouth—a needy adventurer. Besides, it is no use talking now; +it is too late, and I am glad of it; I’ve been seen and recognized here +this very afternoon. I should have gone back to her the day after the fair, if +it hadn’t been for you talking about the law, and rubbish about getting a +separation; and I don’t put it off any longer. What the deuce put it into +my head to run away at all, I can’t think! Humbugging +sentiment—that’s what it was. But what man on earth was to know +that his wife would be in such a hurry to get rid of his name!” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have known it. She’s bad enough for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pennyways, mind who you are talking to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sergeant, all I say is this, that if I were you I’d go +abroad again where I came from—’tisn’t too late to do it now. +I wouldn’t stir up the business and get a bad name for the sake of living +with her—for all that about your play-acting is sure to come out, you +know, although you think otherwise. My eyes and limbs, there’ll be a +racket if you go back just now—in the middle of Boldwood’s +Christmasing!” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m, yes. I expect I shall not be a very welcome guest if he has +her there,” said the sergeant, with a slight laugh. “A sort of +Alonzo the Brave; and when I go in the guests will sit in silence and fear, and +all laughter and pleasure will be hushed, and the lights in the chamber burn +blue, and the worms—Ugh, horrible!—Ring for some more brandy, +Pennyways, I felt an awful shudder just then! Well, what is there besides? A +stick—I must have a walking-stick.” +</p> + +<p> +Pennyways now felt himself to be in something of a difficulty, for should +Bathsheba and Troy become reconciled it would be necessary to regain her good +opinion if he would secure the patronage of her husband. “I sometimes +think she likes you yet, and is a good woman at bottom,” he said, as a +saving sentence. “But there’s no telling to a certainty from a +body’s outside. Well, you’ll do as you like about going, of course, +sergeant, and as for me, I’ll do as you tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, let me see what the time is,” said Troy, after emptying his +glass in one draught as he stood. “Half-past six o’clock. I shall +not hurry along the road, and shall be there then before nine.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap53"></a>CHAPTER LIII<br /> +CONCURRITUR—HORÆ MOMENTO</h2> + +<p> +Outside the front of Boldwood’s house a group of men stood in the dark, +with their faces towards the door, which occasionally opened and closed for the +passage of some guest or servant, when a golden rod of light would stripe the +ground for the moment and vanish again, leaving nothing outside but the +glowworm shine of the pale lamp amid the evergreens over the door. +</p> + +<p> +“He was seen in Casterbridge this afternoon—so the boy said,” +one of them remarked in a whisper. “And I for one believe it. His body +was never found, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a strange story,” said the next. “You may depend +upon’t that she knows nothing about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps he don’t mean that she shall,” said another man. +</p> + +<p> +“If he’s alive and here in the neighbourhood, he means +mischief,” said the first. “Poor young thing: I do pity her, if +’tis true. He’ll drag her to the dogs.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no; he’ll settle down quiet enough,” said one disposed to +take a more hopeful view of the case. +</p> + +<p> +“What a fool she must have been ever to have had anything to do with the +man! She is so self-willed and independent too, that one is more minded to say +it serves her right than pity her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. I don’t hold with ’ee there. She was no otherwise +than a girl mind, and how could she tell what the man was made of? If +’tis really true, ’tis too hard a punishment, and more than she +ought to hae.—Hullo, who’s that?” This was to some footsteps +that were heard approaching. +</p> + +<p> +“William Smallbury,” said a dim figure in the shades, coming up and +joining them. “Dark as a hedge, to-night, isn’t it? I all but +missed the plank over the river ath’art there in the bottom—never +did such a thing before in my life. Be ye any of Boldwood’s +workfolk?” He peered into their faces. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—all o’ us. We met here a few minutes ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I hear now—that’s Sam Samway: thought I knowed the +voice, too. Going in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Presently. But I say, William,” Samway whispered, “have ye +heard this strange tale?” +</p> + +<p> +“What—that about Sergeant Troy being seen, d’ye mean, +souls?” said Smallbury, also lowering his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay: in Casterbridge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have. Laban Tall named a hint of it to me but now—but I +don’t think it. Hark, here Laban comes himself, ’a +b’lieve.” A footstep drew near. +</p> + +<p> +“Laban?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, ’tis I,” said Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“Have ye heard any more about that?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Tall, joining the group. “And I’m inclined +to think we’d better keep quiet. If so be ’tis not true, +’twill flurry her, and do her much harm to repeat it; and if so be +’tis true, ’twill do no good to forestall her time o’ +trouble. God send that it mid be a lie, for though Henery Fray and some of +’em do speak against her, she’s never been anything but fair to me. +She’s hot and hasty, but she’s a brave girl who’ll never tell +a lie however much the truth may harm her, and I’ve no cause to wish her +evil.” +</p> + +<p> +“She never do tell women’s little lies, that’s true; and +’tis a thing that can be said of very few. Ay, all the harm she thinks +she says to yer face: there’s nothing underhand wi’ her.” +</p> + +<p> +They stood silent then, every man busied with his own thoughts, during which +interval sounds of merriment could be heard within. Then the front door again +opened, the rays streamed out, the well-known form of Boldwood was seen in the +rectangular area of light, the door closed, and Boldwood walked slowly down the +path. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis master,” one of the men whispered, as he neared them. +“We’d better stand quiet—he’ll go in again directly. He +would think it unseemly o’ us to be loitering here.” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood came on, and passed by the men without seeing them, they being under +the bushes on the grass. He paused, leant over the gate, and breathed a long +breath. They heard low words come from him. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope to God she’ll come, or this night will be nothing but +misery to me! Oh my darling, my darling, why do you keep me in suspense like +this?” +</p> + +<p> +He said this to himself, and they all distinctly heard it. Boldwood remained +silent after that, and the noise from indoors was again just audible, until, a +few minutes later, light wheels could be distinguished coming down the hill. +They drew nearer, and ceased at the gate. Boldwood hastened back to the door, +and opened it; and the light shone upon Bathsheba coming up the path. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood compressed his emotion to mere welcome: the men marked her light laugh +and apology as she met him: he took her into the house; and the door closed +again. +</p> + +<p> +“Gracious heaven, I didn’t know it was like that with him!” +said one of the men. “I thought that fancy of his was over long +ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know much of master, if you thought that,” said +Samway. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t he should know we heard what ’a said for the +world,” remarked a third. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish we had told of the report at once,” the first uneasily +continued. “More harm may come of this than we know of. Poor Mr. +Boldwood, it will be hard upon en. I wish Troy was in—Well, God forgive +me for such a wish! A scoundrel to play a poor wife such tricks. Nothing has +prospered in Weatherbury since he came here. And now I’ve no heart to go +in. Let’s look into Warren’s for a few minutes first, shall us, +neighbours?” +</p> + +<p> +Samway, Tall, and Smallbury agreed to go to Warren’s, and went out at the +gate, the remaining ones entering the house. The three soon drew near the +malt-house, approaching it from the adjoining orchard, and not by way of the +street. The pane of glass was illuminated as usual. Smallbury was a little in +advance of the rest when, pausing, he turned suddenly to his companions and +said, “Hist! See there.” +</p> + +<p> +The light from the pane was now perceived to be shining not upon the ivied wall +as usual, but upon some object close to the glass. It was a human face. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s come closer,” whispered Samway; and they approached on +tiptoe. There was no disbelieving the report any longer. Troy’s face was +almost close to the pane, and he was looking in. Not only was he looking in, +but he appeared to have been arrested by a conversation which was in progress +in the malt-house, the voices of the interlocutors being those of Oak and the +maltster. +</p> + +<p> +“The spree is all in her honour, isn’t it—hey?” said +the old man. “Although he made believe ’tis only keeping up +o’ Christmas?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot say,” replied Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh ’tis true enough, faith. I cannot understand Farmer Boldwood +being such a fool at his time of life as to ho and hanker after this woman in +the way ’a do, and she not care a bit about en.” +</p> + +<p> +The men, after recognizing Troy’s features, withdrew across the orchard +as quietly as they had come. The air was big with Bathsheba’s fortunes +to-night: every word everywhere concerned her. When they were quite out of +earshot all by one instinct paused. +</p> + +<p> +“It gave me quite a turn—his face,” said Tall, breathing. +</p> + +<p> +“And so it did me,” said Samway. “What’s to be +done?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that ’tis any business of ours,” Smallbury +murmured dubiously. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is! ’Tis a thing which is everybody’s +business,” said Samway. “We know very well that master’s on a +wrong tack, and that she’s quite in the dark, and we should let ’em +know at once. Laban, you know her best—you’d better go and ask to +speak to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I bain’t fit for any such thing,” said Laban, nervously. +“I should think William ought to do it if anybody. He’s +oldest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall have nothing to do with it,” said Smallbury. +“’Tis a ticklish business altogether. Why, he’ll go on to her +himself in a few minutes, ye’ll see.” +</p> + +<p> +“We don’t know that he will. Come, Laban.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, if I must I must, I suppose,” Tall reluctantly +answered. “What must I say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just ask to see master.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; I shan’t speak to Mr. Boldwood. If I tell anybody, +’twill be mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Samway. +</p> + +<p> +Laban then went to the door. When he opened it the hum of bustle rolled out as +a wave upon a still strand—the assemblage being immediately inside the +hall—and was deadened to a murmur as he closed it again. Each man waited +intently, and looked around at the dark tree tops gently rocking against the +sky and occasionally shivering in a slight wind, as if he took interest in the +scene, which neither did. One of them began walking up and down, and then came +to where he started from and stopped again, with a sense that walking was a +thing not worth doing now. +</p> + +<p> +“I should think Laban must have seen mistress by this time,” said +Smallbury, breaking the silence. “Perhaps she won’t come and speak +to him.” +</p> + +<p> +The door opened. Tall appeared, and joined them. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said both. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t like to ask for her after all,” Laban faltered out. +“They were all in such a stir, trying to put a little spirit into the +party. Somehow the fun seems to hang fire, though everything’s there that +a heart can desire, and I couldn’t for my soul interfere and throw damp +upon it—if ’twas to save my life, I couldn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose we had better all go in together,” said Samway, +gloomily. “Perhaps I may have a chance of saying a word to master.” +</p> + +<p> +So the men entered the hall, which was the room selected and arranged for the +gathering because of its size. The younger men and maids were at last just +beginning to dance. Bathsheba had been perplexed how to act, for she was not +much more than a slim young maid herself, and the weight of stateliness sat +heavy upon her. Sometimes she thought she ought not to have come under any +circumstances; then she considered what cold unkindness that would have been, +and finally resolved upon the middle course of staying for about an hour only, +and gliding off unobserved, having from the first made up her mind that she +could on no account dance, sing, or take any active part in the proceedings. +</p> + +<p> +Her allotted hour having been passed in chatting and looking on, Bathsheba told +Liddy not to hurry herself, and went to the small parlour to prepare for +departure, which, like the hall, was decorated with holly and ivy, and well +lighted up. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody was in the room, but she had hardly been there a moment when the master +of the house entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Troy—you are not going?” he said. “We’ve +hardly begun!” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’ll excuse me, I should like to go now.” Her manner +was restive, for she remembered her promise, and imagined what he was about to +say. “But as it is not late,” she added, “I can walk home, +and leave my man and Liddy to come when they choose.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been trying to get an opportunity of speaking to you,” +said Boldwood. “You know perhaps what I long to say?” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba silently looked on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“You do give it?” he said, eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, that’s evasion! Why, the promise. I don’t want to +intrude upon you at all, or to let it become known to anybody. But do give your +word! A mere business compact, you know, between two people who are beyond the +influence of passion.” Boldwood knew how false this picture was as +regarded himself; but he had proved that it was the only tone in which she +would allow him to approach her. “A promise to marry me at the end of +five years and three-quarters. You owe it to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel that I do,” said Bathsheba; “that is, if you demand +it. But I am a changed woman—an unhappy woman—and +not—not—” +</p> + +<p> +“You are still a very beautiful woman,” said Boldwood. Honesty and +pure conviction suggested the remark, unaccompanied by any perception that it +might have been adopted by blunt flattery to soothe and win her. +</p> + +<p> +However, it had not much effect now, for she said, in a passionless murmur +which was in itself a proof of her words: “I have no feeling in the +matter at all. And I don’t at all know what is right to do in my +difficult position, and I have nobody to advise me. But I give my promise, if I +must. I give it as the rendering of a debt, conditionally, of course, on my +being a widow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll marry me between five and six years hence?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t press me too hard. I’ll marry nobody else.” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely you will name the time, or there’s nothing in the +promise at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know, pray let me go!” she said, her bosom +beginning to rise. “I am afraid what to do! I want to be just to you, and +to be that seems to be wronging myself, and perhaps it is breaking the +commandments. There is considerable doubt of his death, and then it is +dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!” +</p> + +<p> +“Say the words, dear one, and the subject shall be dismissed; a blissful +loving intimacy of six years, and then marriage—O Bathsheba, say +them!” he begged in a husky voice, unable to sustain the forms of mere +friendship any longer. “Promise yourself to me; I deserve it, indeed I +do, for I have loved you more than anybody in the world! And if I said hasty +words and showed uncalled-for heat of manner towards you, believe me, dear, I +did not mean to distress you; I was in agony, Bathsheba, and I did not know +what I said. You wouldn’t let a dog suffer what I have suffered, could +you but know it! Sometimes I shrink from your knowing what I have felt for you, +and sometimes I am distressed that all of it you never will know. Be gracious, +and give up a little to me, when I would give up my life for you!” +</p> + +<p> +The trimmings of her dress, as they quivered against the light, showed how +agitated she was, and at last she burst out crying. “And you’ll +not—press me—about anything more—if I say in five or six +years?” she sobbed, when she had power to frame the words. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, then I’ll leave it to time.” +</p> + +<p> +She waited a moment. “Very well. I’ll marry you in six years from +this day, if we both live,” she said solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ll take this as a token from me.” +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood had come close to her side, and now he clasped one of her hands in +both his own, and lifted it to his breast. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it? Oh I cannot wear a ring!” she exclaimed, on seeing +what he held; “besides, I wouldn’t have a soul know that it’s +an engagement! Perhaps it is improper? Besides, we are not engaged in the usual +sense, are we? Don’t insist, Mr. Boldwood—don’t!” In +her trouble at not being able to get her hand away from him at once, she +stamped passionately on the floor with one foot, and tears crowded to her eyes +again. +</p> + +<p> +“It means simply a pledge—no sentiment—the seal of a +practical compact,” he said more quietly, but still retaining her hand in +his firm grasp. “Come, now!” And Boldwood slipped the ring on her +finger. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot wear it,” she said, weeping as if her heart would break. +“You frighten me, almost. So wild a scheme! Please let me go home!” +</p> + +<p> +“Only to-night: wear it just to-night, to please me!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba sat down in a chair, and buried her face in her handkerchief, though +Boldwood kept her hand yet. At length she said, in a sort of hopeless +whisper— +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then, I will to-night, if you wish it so earnestly. Now +loosen my hand; I will, indeed I will wear it to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret courtship of six +years, with a wedding at the end?” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!” she said, +fairly beaten into non-resistance. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop in her lap. “I am happy +now,” he said. “God bless you!” +</p> + +<p> +He left the room, and when he thought she might be sufficiently composed sent +one of the maids to her. Bathsheba cloaked the effects of the late scene as she +best could, followed the girl, and in a few moments came downstairs with her +hat and cloak on, ready to go. To get to the door it was necessary to pass +through the hall, and before doing so she paused on the bottom of the staircase +which descended into one corner, to take a last look at the gathering. +</p> + +<p> +There was no music or dancing in progress just now. At the lower end, which had +been arranged for the work-folk specially, a group conversed in whispers, and +with clouded looks. Boldwood was standing by the fireplace, and he, too, though +so absorbed in visions arising from her promise that he scarcely saw anything, +seemed at that moment to have observed their peculiar manner, and their looks +askance. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it you are in doubt about, men?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +One of them turned and replied uneasily: “It was something Laban heard +of, that’s all, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“News? Anybody married or engaged, born or dead?” inquired the +farmer, gaily. “Tell it to us, Tall. One would think from your looks and +mysterious ways that it was something very dreadful indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, sir, nobody is dead,” said Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish somebody was,” said Samway, in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you say, Samway?” asked Boldwood, somewhat sharply. +“If you have anything to say, speak out; if not, get up another +dance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Troy has come downstairs,” said Samway to Tall. “If you +want to tell her, you had better do it now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what they mean?” the farmer asked Bathsheba, across +the room. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t in the least,” said Bathsheba. +</p> + +<p> +There was a smart rapping at the door. One of the men opened it instantly, and +went outside. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Troy is wanted,” he said, on returning. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite ready,” said Bathsheba. “Though I didn’t tell +them to send.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a stranger, ma’am,” said the man by the door. +</p> + +<p> +“A stranger?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask him to come in,” said Boldwood. +</p> + +<p> +The message was given, and Troy, wrapped up to his eyes as we have seen him, +stood in the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +There was an unearthly silence, all looking towards the newcomer. Those who had +just learnt that he was in the neighbourhood recognized him instantly; those +who did not were perplexed. Nobody noted Bathsheba. She was leaning on the +stairs. Her brow had heavily contracted; her whole face was pallid, her lips +apart, her eyes rigidly staring at their visitor. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood was among those who did not notice that he was Troy. “Come in, +come in!” he repeated, cheerfully, “and drain a Christmas beaker +with us, stranger!” +</p> + +<p> +Troy next advanced into the middle of the room, took off his cap, turned down +his coat-collar, and looked Boldwood in the face. Even then Boldwood did not +recognize that the impersonator of Heaven’s persistent irony towards him, +who had once before broken in upon his bliss, scourged him, and snatched his +delight away, had come to do these things a second time. Troy began to laugh a +mechanical laugh: Boldwood recognized him now. +</p> + +<p> +Troy turned to Bathsheba. The poor girl’s wretchedness at this time was +beyond all fancy or narration. She had sunk down on the lowest stair; and there +she sat, her mouth blue and dry, and her dark eyes fixed vacantly upon him, as +if she wondered whether it were not all a terrible illusion. +</p> + +<p> +Then Troy spoke. “Bathsheba, I come here for you!” +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Come home with me: come!” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba moved her feet a little, but did not rise. Troy went across to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, madam, do you hear what I say?” he said, peremptorily. +</p> + +<p> +A strange voice came from the fireplace—a voice sounding far off and +confined, as if from a dungeon. Hardly a soul in the assembly recognized the +thin tones to be those of Boldwood. Sudden despair had transformed him. +</p> + +<p> +“Bathsheba, go with your husband!” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, she did not move. The truth was that Bathsheba was beyond the +pale of activity—and yet not in a swoon. She was in a state of mental +<i>gutta serena</i>; her mind was for the minute totally deprived of light at +the same time no obscuration was apparent from without. +</p> + +<p> +Troy stretched out his hand to pull her towards him, when she quickly shrank +back. This visible dread of him seemed to irritate Troy, and he seized her arm +and pulled it sharply. Whether his grasp pinched her, or whether his mere touch +was the cause, was never known, but at the moment of his seizure she writhed, +and gave a quick, low scream. +</p> + +<p> +The scream had been heard but a few seconds when it was followed by sudden +deafening report that echoed through the room and stupefied them all. The oak +partition shook with the concussion, and the place was filled with grey smoke. +</p> + +<p> +In bewilderment they turned their eyes to Boldwood. At his back, as stood +before the fireplace, was a gun-rack, as is usual in farmhouses, constructed to +hold two guns. When Bathsheba had cried out in her husband’s grasp, +Boldwood’s face of gnashing despair had changed. The veins had swollen, +and a frenzied look had gleamed in his eye. He had turned quickly, taken one of +the guns, cocked it, and at once discharged it at Troy. +</p> + +<p> +Troy fell. The distance apart of the two men was so small that the charge of +shot did not spread in the least, but passed like a bullet into his body. He +uttered a long guttural sigh—there was a contraction—an +extension—then his muscles relaxed, and he lay still. +</p> + +<p> +Boldwood was seen through the smoke to be now again engaged with the gun. It +was double-barrelled, and he had, meanwhile, in some way fastened his +hand-kerchief to the trigger, and with his foot on the other end was in the act +of turning the second barrel upon himself. Samway his man was the first to see +this, and in the midst of the general horror darted up to him. Boldwood had +already twitched the handkerchief, and the gun exploded a second time, sending +its contents, by a timely blow from Samway, into the beam which crossed the +ceiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it makes no difference!” Boldwood gasped. “There is +another way for me to die.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he broke from Samway, crossed the room to Bathsheba, and kissed her hand. +He put on his hat, opened the door, and went into the darkness, nobody thinking +of preventing him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap54"></a>CHAPTER LIV<br /> +AFTER THE SHOCK</h2> + +<p> +Boldwood passed into the high road and turned in the direction of Casterbridge. +Here he walked at an even, steady pace over Yalbury Hill, along the dead level +beyond, mounted Mellstock Hill, and between eleven and twelve o’clock +crossed the Moor into the town. The streets were nearly deserted now, and the +waving lamp-flames only lighted up rows of grey shop-shutters, and strips of +white paving upon which his step echoed as his passed along. He turned to the +right, and halted before an archway of heavy stonework, which was closed by an +iron studded pair of doors. This was the entrance to the gaol, and over it a +lamp was fixed, the light enabling the wretched traveller to find a bell-pull. +</p> + +<p> +The small wicket at last opened, and a porter appeared. Boldwood stepped +forward, and said something in a low tone, when, after a delay, another man +came. Boldwood entered, and the door was closed behind him, and he walked the +world no more. +</p> + +<p> +Long before this time Weatherbury had been thoroughly aroused, and the wild +deed which had terminated Boldwood’s merrymaking became known to all. Of +those out of the house Oak was one of the first to hear of the catastrophe, and +when he entered the room, which was about five minutes after Boldwood’s +exit, the scene was terrible. All the female guests were huddled aghast against +the walls like sheep in a storm, and the men were bewildered as to what to do. +As for Bathsheba, she had changed. She was sitting on the floor beside the body +of Troy, his head pillowed in her lap, where she had herself lifted it. With +one hand she held her handkerchief to his breast and covered the wound, though +scarcely a single drop of blood had flowed, and with the other she tightly +clasped one of his. The household convulsion had made her herself again. The +temporary coma had ceased, and activity had come with the necessity for it. +Deeds of endurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are rare in conduct, and +Bathsheba was astonishing all around her now, for her philosophy was her +conduct, and she seldom thought practicable what she did not practise. She was +of the stuff of which great men’s mothers are made. She was indispensable +to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises. +Troy recumbent in his wife’s lap formed now the sole spectacle in the +middle of the spacious room. +</p> + +<p> +“Gabriel,” she said, automatically, when he entered, turning up a +face of which only the well-known lines remained to tell him it was hers, all +else in the picture having faded quite. “Ride to Casterbridge instantly +for a surgeon. It is, I believe, useless, but go. Mr. Boldwood has shot my +husband.” +</p> + +<p> +Her statement of the fact in such quiet and simple words came with more force +than a tragic declamation, and had somewhat the effect of setting the distorted +images in each mind present into proper focus. Oak, almost before he had +comprehended anything beyond the briefest abstract of the event, hurried out of +the room, saddled a horse and rode away. Not till he had ridden more than a +mile did it occur to him that he would have done better by sending some other +man on this errand, remaining himself in the house. What had become of +Boldwood? He should have been looked after. Was he mad—had there been a +quarrel? Then how had Troy got there? Where had he come from? How did this +remarkable reappearance effect itself when he was supposed by many to be at the +bottom of the sea? Oak had in some slight measure been prepared for the +presence of Troy by hearing a rumour of his return just before entering +Boldwood’s house; but before he had weighed that information, this fatal +event had been superimposed. However, it was too late now to think of sending +another messenger, and he rode on, in the excitement of these self-inquiries +not discerning, when about three miles from Casterbridge, a square-figured +pedestrian passing along under the dark hedge in the same direction as his own. +</p> + +<p> +The miles necessary to be traversed, and other hindrances incidental to the +lateness of the hour and the darkness of the night, delayed the arrival of Mr. +Aldritch, the surgeon; and more than three hours passed between the time at +which the shot was fired and that of his entering the house. Oak was +additionally detained in Casterbridge through having to give notice to the +authorities of what had happened; and he then found that Boldwood had also +entered the town, and delivered himself up. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime the surgeon, having hastened into the hall at Boldwood’s, +found it in darkness and quite deserted. He went on to the back of the house, +where he discovered in the kitchen an old man, of whom he made inquiries. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s had him took away to her own house, sir,” said his +informant. +</p> + +<p> +“Who has?” said the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Troy. ’A was quite dead, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +This was astonishing information. “She had no right to do that,” +said the doctor. “There will have to be an inquest, and she should have +waited to know what to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; it was hinted to her that she had better wait till the law was +known. But she said law was nothing to her, and she wouldn’t let her dear +husband’s corpse bide neglected for folks to stare at for all the +crowners in England.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Aldritch drove at once back again up the hill to Bathsheba’s. The +first person he met was poor Liddy, who seemed literally to have dwindled +smaller in these few latter hours. “What has been done?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know, sir,” said Liddy, with suspended breath. +“My mistress has done it all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Upstairs with him, sir. When he was brought home and taken upstairs, she +said she wanted no further help from the men. And then she called me, and made +me fill the bath, and after that told me I had better go and lie down because I +looked so ill. Then she locked herself into the room alone with him, and would +not let a nurse come in, or anybody at all. But I thought I’d wait in the +next room in case she should want me. I heard her moving about inside for more +than an hour, but she only came out once, and that was for more candles, +because hers had burnt down into the socket. She said we were to let her know +when you or Mr. Thirdly came, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak entered with the parson at this moment, and they all went upstairs +together, preceded by Liddy Smallbury. Everything was silent as the grave when +they paused on the landing. Liddy knocked, and Bathsheba’s dress was +heard rustling across the room: the key turned in the lock, and she opened the +door. Her looks were calm and nearly rigid, like a slightly animated bust of +Melpomene. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Aldritch, you have come at last,” she murmured from her +lips merely, and threw back the door. “Ah, and Mr. Thirdly. Well, all is +done, and anybody in the world may see him now.” She then passed by him, +crossed the landing, and entered another room. +</p> + +<p> +Looking into the chamber of death she had vacated they saw by the light of the +candles which were on the drawers a tall straight shape lying at the further +end of the bedroom, wrapped in white. Everything around was quite orderly. The +doctor went in, and after a few minutes returned to the landing again, where +Oak and the parson still waited. +</p> + +<p> +“It is all done, indeed, as she says,” remarked Mr. Aldritch, in a +subdued voice. “The body has been undressed and properly laid out in +grave clothes. Gracious Heaven—this mere girl! She must have the nerve of +a stoic!” +</p> + +<p> +“The heart of a wife merely,” floated in a whisper about the ears +of the three, and turning they saw Bathsheba in the midst of them. Then, as if +at that instant to prove that her fortitude had been more of will than of +spontaneity, she silently sank down between them and was a shapeless heap of +drapery on the floor. The simple consciousness that superhuman strain was no +longer required had at once put a period to her power to continue it. +</p> + +<p> +They took her away into a further room, and the medical attendance which had +been useless in Troy’s case was invaluable in Bathsheba’s, who fell +into a series of fainting-fits that had a serious aspect for a time. The +sufferer was got to bed, and Oak, finding from the bulletins that nothing +really dreadful was to be apprehended on her score, left the house. Liddy kept +watch in Bathsheba’s chamber, where she heard her mistress, moaning in +whispers through the dull slow hours of that wretched night: “Oh it is my +fault—how can I live! O Heaven, how can I live!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap55"></a>CHAPTER LV<br /> +THE MARCH FOLLOWING—“BATHSHEBA BOLDWOOD”</h2> + +<p> +We pass rapidly on into the month of March, to a breezy day without sunshine, +frost, or dew. On Yalbury Hill, about midway between Weatherbury and +Casterbridge, where the turnpike road passes over the crest, a numerous +concourse of people had gathered, the eyes of the greater number being +frequently stretched afar in a northerly direction. The groups consisted of a +throng of idlers, a party of javelin-men, and two trumpeters, and in the midst +were carriages, one of which contained the high sheriff. With the idlers, many +of whom had mounted to the top of a cutting formed for the road, were several +Weatherbury men and boys—among others Poorgrass, Coggan, and Cain Ball. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of half-an-hour a faint dust was seen in the expected quarter, and +shortly after a travelling-carriage, bringing one of the two judges on the +Western Circuit, came up the hill and halted on the top. The judge changed +carriages whilst a flourish was blown by the big-cheeked trumpeters, and a +procession being formed of the vehicles and javelin-men, they all proceeded +towards the town, excepting the Weatherbury men, who as soon as they had seen +the judge move off returned home again to their work. +</p> + +<p> +“Joseph, I seed you squeezing close to the carriage,” said Coggan, +as they walked. “Did ye notice my lord judge’s face?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” said Poorgrass. “I looked hard at en, as if I would +read his very soul; and there was mercy in his eyes—or to speak with the +exact truth required of us at this solemn time, in the eye that was towards +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope for the best,” said Coggan, “though bad that +must be. However, I shan’t go to the trial, and I’d advise the rest +of ye that bain’t wanted to bide away. ’Twill disturb his mind more +than anything to see us there staring at him as if he were a show.” +</p> + +<p> +“The very thing I said this morning,” observed Joseph, +“‘Justice is come to weigh him in the balances,’ I said in my +reflectious way, ‘and if he’s found wanting, so be it unto +him,’ and a bystander said ‘Hear, hear! A man who can talk like +that ought to be heard.’ But I don’t like dwelling upon it, for my +few words are my few words, and not much; though the speech of some men is +rumoured abroad as though by nature formed for such.” +</p> + +<p> +“So ’tis, Joseph. And now, neighbours, as I said, every man bide at +home.” +</p> + +<p> +The resolution was adhered to; and all waited anxiously for the news next day. +Their suspense was diverted, however, by a discovery which was made in the +afternoon, throwing more light on Boldwood’s conduct and condition than +any details which had preceded it. +</p> + +<p> +That he had been from the time of Greenhill Fair until the fatal Christmas Eve +in excited and unusual moods was known to those who had been intimate with him; +but nobody imagined that there had shown in him unequivocal symptoms of the +mental derangement which Bathsheba and Oak, alone of all others and at +different times, had momentarily suspected. In a locked closet was now +discovered an extraordinary collection of articles. There were several sets of +ladies’ dresses in the piece, of sundry expensive materials; silks and +satins, poplins and velvets, all of colours which from Bathsheba’s style +of dress might have been judged to be her favourites. There were two muffs, +sable and ermine. Above all there was a case of jewellery, containing four +heavy gold bracelets and several lockets and rings, all of fine quality and +manufacture. These things had been bought in Bath and other towns from time to +time, and brought home by stealth. They were all carefully packed in paper, and +each package was labelled “Bathsheba Boldwood,” a date being +subjoined six years in advance in every instance. +</p> + +<p> +These somewhat pathetic evidences of a mind crazed with care and love were the +subject of discourse in Warren’s malt-house when Oak entered from +Casterbridge with tidings of the sentence. He came in the afternoon, and his +face, as the kiln glow shone upon it, told the tale sufficiently well. +Boldwood, as every one supposed he would do, had pleaded guilty, and had been +sentenced to death. +</p> + +<p> +The conviction that Boldwood had not been morally responsible for his later +acts now became general. Facts elicited previous to the trial had pointed +strongly in the same direction, but they had not been of sufficient weight to +lead to an order for an examination into the state of Boldwood’s mind. It +was astonishing, now that a presumption of insanity was raised, how many +collateral circumstances were remembered to which a condition of mental disease +seemed to afford the only explanation—among others, the unprecedented +neglect of his corn stacks in the previous summer. +</p> + +<p> +A petition was addressed to the Home Secretary, advancing the circumstances +which appeared to justify a request for a reconsideration of the sentence. It +was not “numerously signed” by the inhabitants of Casterbridge, as +is usual in such cases, for Boldwood had never made many friends over the +counter. The shops thought it very natural that a man who, by importing direct +from the producer, had daringly set aside the first great principle of +provincial existence, namely that God made country villages to supply customers +to county towns, should have confused ideas about the Decalogue. The prompters +were a few merciful men who had perhaps too feelingly considered the facts +latterly unearthed, and the result was that evidence was taken which it was +hoped might remove the crime in a moral point of view, out of the category of +wilful murder, and lead it to be regarded as a sheer outcome of madness. +</p> + +<p> +The upshot of the petition was waited for in Weatherbury with solicitous +interest. The execution had been fixed for eight o’clock on a Saturday +morning about a fortnight after the sentence was passed, and up to Friday +afternoon no answer had been received. At that time Gabriel came from +Casterbridge Gaol, whither he had been to wish Boldwood good-bye, and turned +down a by-street to avoid the town. When past the last house he heard a +hammering, and lifting his bowed head he looked back for a moment. Over the +chimneys he could see the upper part of the gaol entrance, rich and glowing in +the afternoon sun, and some moving figures were there. They were carpenters +lifting a post into a vertical position within the parapet. He withdrew his +eyes quickly, and hastened on. +</p> + +<p> +It was dark when he reached home, and half the village was out to meet him. +</p> + +<p> +“No tidings,” Gabriel said, wearily. “And I’m afraid +there’s no hope. I’ve been with him more than two hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do ye think he <i>really</i> was out of his mind when he did it?” +said Smallbury. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t honestly say that I do,” Oak replied. +“However, that we can talk of another time. Has there been any change in +mistress this afternoon?” +</p> + +<p> +“None at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she downstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. And getting on so nicely as she was too. She’s but very little +better now again than she was at Christmas. She keeps on asking if you be come, +and if there’s news, till one’s wearied out wi’ answering +her. Shall I go and say you’ve come?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Oak. “There’s a chance yet; but I +couldn’t stay in town any longer—after seeing him too. So +Laban—Laban is here, isn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“What I’ve arranged is, that you shall ride to town the last thing +to-night; leave here about nine, and wait a while there, getting home about +twelve. If nothing has been received by eleven to-night, they say there’s +no chance at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do so hope his life will be spared,” said Liddy. “If it is +not, she’ll go out of her mind too. Poor thing; her sufferings have been +dreadful; she deserves anybody’s pity.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she altered much?” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“If you haven’t seen poor mistress since Christmas, you +wouldn’t know her,” said Liddy. “Her eyes are so miserable +that she’s not the same woman. Only two years ago she was a romping girl, +and now she’s this!” +</p> + +<p> +Laban departed as directed, and at eleven o’clock that night several of +the villagers strolled along the road to Casterbridge and awaited his +arrival—among them Oak, and nearly all the rest of Bathsheba’s men. +Gabriel’s anxiety was great that Boldwood might be saved, even though in +his conscience he felt that he ought to die; for there had been qualities in +the farmer which Oak loved. At last, when they all were weary the tramp of a +horse was heard in the distance— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +First dead, as if on turf it trode,<br /> +Then, clattering on the village road<br /> +In other pace than forth he yode. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall soon know now, one way or other.” said Coggan, and they +all stepped down from the bank on which they had been standing into the road, +and the rider pranced into the midst of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Laban?” said Gabriel. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—’tis come. He’s not to die. ’Tis confinement +during Her Majesty’s pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurrah!” said Coggan, with a swelling heart. “God’s +above the devil yet!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap56"></a>CHAPTER LVI<br /> +BEAUTY IN LONELINESS—AFTER ALL</h2> + +<p> +Bathsheba revived with the spring. The utter prostration that had followed the +low fever from which she had suffered diminished perceptibly when all +uncertainty upon every subject had come to an end. +</p> + +<p> +But she remained alone now for the greater part of her time, and stayed in the +house, or at furthest went into the garden. She shunned every one, even Liddy, +and could be brought to make no confidences, and to ask for no sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +As the summer drew on she passed more of her time in the open air, and began to +examine into farming matters from sheer necessity, though she never rode out or +personally superintended as at former times. One Friday evening in August she +walked a little way along the road and entered the village for the first time +since the sombre event of the preceding Christmas. None of the old colour had +as yet come to her cheek, and its absolute paleness was heightened by the jet +black of her gown, till it appeared preternatural. When she reached a little +shop at the other end of the place, which stood nearly opposite to the +churchyard, Bathsheba heard singing inside the church, and she knew that the +singers were practising. She crossed the road, opened the gate, and entered the +graveyard, the high sills of the church windows effectually screening her from +the eyes of those gathered within. Her stealthy walk was to the nook wherein +Troy had worked at planting flowers upon Fanny Robin’s grave, and she +came to the marble tombstone. +</p> + +<p> +A motion of satisfaction enlivened her face as she read the complete +inscription. First came the words of Troy himself:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Erected by Francis Troy<br /> +In Beloved Memory of<br /> +Fanny Robin<br /> +Who died October 9, 18—,<br /> +Aged 20 years. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Underneath this was now inscribed in new letters:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +In the Same Grave lie<br /> +The Remains of the aforesaid<br /> +Francis Troy,<br /> +Who died December 24th, 18—,<br /> +Aged 26 years. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Whilst she stood and read and meditated the tones of the organ began again in +the church, and she went with the same light step round to the porch and +listened. The door was closed, and the choir was learning a new hymn. Bathsheba +was stirred by emotions which latterly she had assumed to be altogether dead +within her. The little attenuated voices of the children brought to her ear in +distinct utterance the words they sang without thought or comprehension— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,<br /> +Lead Thou me on. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba’s feeling was always to some extent dependent upon her whim, as +is the case with many other women. Something big came into her throat and an +uprising to her eyes—and she thought that she would allow the imminent +tears to flow if they wished. They did flow and plenteously, and one fell upon +the stone bench beside her. Once that she had begun to cry for she hardly knew +what, she could not leave off for crowding thoughts she knew too well. She +would have given anything in the world to be, as those children were, +unconcerned at the meaning of their words, because too innocent to feel the +necessity for any such expression. All the impassioned scenes of her brief +experience seemed to revive with added emotion at that moment, and those scenes +which had been without emotion during enactment had emotion then. Yet grief +came to her rather as a luxury than as the scourge of former times. +</p> + +<p> +Owing to Bathsheba’s face being buried in her hands she did not notice a +form which came quietly into the porch, and on seeing her, first moved as if to +retreat, then paused and regarded her. Bathsheba did not raise her head for +some time, and when she looked round her face was wet, and her eyes drowned and +dim. “Mr. Oak,” exclaimed she, disconcerted, “how long have +you been here?” +</p> + +<p> +“A few minutes, ma’am,” said Oak, respectfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you going in?” said Bathsheba; and there came from within the +church as from a prompter— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,<br /> +Pride ruled my will: remember not past years. +</p> + +<p> +“I was,” said Gabriel. “I am one of the bass singers, you +know. I have sung bass for several months.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed: I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll leave you, then.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +sang the children. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let me drive you away, mistress. I think I won’t go in +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no—you don’t drive me away.” +</p> + +<p> +Then they stood in a state of some embarrassment, Bathsheba trying to wipe her +dreadfully drenched and inflamed face without his noticing her. At length Oak +said, “I’ve not seen you—I mean spoken to you—since +ever so long, have I?” But he feared to bring distressing memories back, +and interrupted himself with: “Were you going into church?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she said. “I came to see the tombstone +privately—to see if they had cut the inscription as I wished. Mr. Oak, +you needn’t mind speaking to me, if you wish to, on the matter which is +in both our minds at this moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“And have they done it as you wished?” said Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Come and see it, if you have not already.” +</p> + +<p> +So together they went and read the tomb. “Eight months ago!” +Gabriel murmured when he saw the date. “It seems like yesterday to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“And to me as if it were years ago—long years, and I had been dead +between. And now I am going home, Mr. Oak.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak walked after her. “I wanted to name a small matter to you as soon as +I could,” he said, with hesitation. “Merely about business, and I +think I may just mention it now, if you’ll allow me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is that I may soon have to give up the management of your farm, Mrs. +Troy. The fact is, I am thinking of leaving England—not yet, you +know—next spring.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leaving England!” she said, in surprise and genuine +disappointment. “Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve thought it best,” Oak stammered out. +“California is the spot I’ve had in my mind to try.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is understood everywhere that you are going to take poor Mr. +Boldwood’s farm on your own account.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve had the refusal o’ it ’tis true; but nothing is +settled yet, and I have reasons for giving up. I shall finish out my year there +as manager for the trustees, but no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what shall I do without you? Oh, Gabriel, I don’t think you +ought to go away. You’ve been with me so long—through bright times +and dark times—such old friends as we are—that it seems unkind +almost. I had fancied that if you leased the other farm as master, you might +still give a helping look across at mine. And now going away!” +</p> + +<p> +“I would have willingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet now that I am more helpless than ever you go away!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s the ill fortune o’ it,” said Gabriel, in a +distressed tone. “And it is because of that very helplessness that I feel +bound to go. Good afternoon, ma’am” he concluded, in evident +anxiety to get away, and at once went out of the churchyard by a path she could +follow on no pretence whatever. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba went home, her mind occupied with a new trouble, which being rather +harassing than deadly was calculated to do good by diverting her from the +chronic gloom of her life. She was set thinking a great deal about Oak and of +his wish to shun her; and there occurred to Bathsheba several incidents of her +latter intercourse with him, which, trivial when singly viewed, amounted +together to a perceptible disinclination for her society. It broke upon her at +length as a great pain that her last old disciple was about to forsake her and +flee. He who had believed in her and argued on her side when all the rest of +the world was against her, had at last like the others become weary and +neglectful of the old cause, and was leaving her to fight her battles alone. +</p> + +<p> +Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of interest in her was +forthcoming. She noticed that instead of entering the small parlour or office +where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or leaving a memorandum as he +had hitherto done during her seclusion, Oak never came at all when she was +likely to be there, only entering at unseasonable hours when her presence in +that part of the house was least to be expected. Whenever he wanted directions +he sent a message, or note with neither heading nor signature, to which she was +obliged to reply in the same offhand style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now +from the most torturing sting of all—a sensation that she was despised. +</p> + +<p> +The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy conjectures, and +Christmas-day came, completing a year of her legal widowhood, and two years and +a quarter of her life alone. On examining her heart it appeared beyond measure +strange that the subject of which the season might have been supposed +suggestive—the event in the hall at Boldwood’s—was not +agitating her at all; but instead, an agonizing conviction that everybody +abjured her—for what she could not tell—and that Oak was the +ringleader of the recusants. Coming out of church that day she looked round in +hope that Oak, whose bass voice she had heard rolling out from the gallery +overhead in a most unconcerned manner, might chance to linger in her path in +the old way. There he was, as usual, coming down the path behind her. But on +seeing Bathsheba turn, he looked aside, and as soon as he got beyond the gate, +and there was the barest excuse for a divergence, he made one, and vanished. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning brought the culminating stroke; she had been expecting it +long. It was a formal notice by letter from him that he should not renew his +engagement with her for the following Lady-day. +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba actually sat and cried over this letter most bitterly. She was +aggrieved and wounded that the possession of hopeless love from Gabriel, which +she had grown to regard as her inalienable right for life, should have been +withdrawn just at his own pleasure in this way. She was bewildered too by the +prospect of having to rely on her own resources again: it seemed to herself +that she never could again acquire energy sufficient to go to market, barter, +and sell. Since Troy’s death Oak had attended all sales and fairs for +her, transacting her business at the same time with his own. What should she do +now? Her life was becoming a desolation. +</p> + +<p> +So desolate was Bathsheba this evening, that in an absolute hunger for pity and +sympathy, and miserable in that she appeared to have outlived the only true +friendship she had ever owned, she put on her bonnet and cloak and went down to +Oak’s house just after sunset, guided on her way by the pale primrose +rays of a crescent moon a few days old. +</p> + +<p> +A lively firelight shone from the window, but nobody was visible in the room. +She tapped nervously, and then thought it doubtful if it were right for a +single woman to call upon a bachelor who lived alone, although he was her +manager, and she might be supposed to call on business without any real +impropriety. Gabriel opened the door, and the moon shone upon his forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Oak,” said Bathsheba, faintly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I am Mr. Oak,” said Gabriel. “Who have I the +honour—O how stupid of me, not to know you, mistress!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not be your mistress much longer, shall I Gabriel?” she +said, in pathetic tones. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no. I suppose—But come in, ma’am. Oh—and +I’ll get a light,” Oak replied, with some awkwardness. +</p> + +<p> +“No; not on my account.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is so seldom that I get a lady visitor that I’m afraid I +haven’t proper accommodation. Will you sit down, please? Here’s a +chair, and there’s one, too. I am sorry that my chairs all have wood +seats, and are rather hard, but I—was thinking of getting some new +ones.” Oak placed two or three for her. +</p> + +<p> +“They are quite easy enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces, and upon the +old furniture, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +all a-sheenen<br /> +Wi’ long years o’ handlen,<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +that formed Oak’s array of household possessions, which sent back a +dancing reflection in reply. It was very odd to these two persons, who knew +each other passing well, that the mere circumstance of their meeting in a new +place and in a new way should make them so awkward and constrained. In the +fields, or at her house, there had never been any embarrassment; but now that +Oak had become the entertainer their lives seemed to be moved back again to the +days when they were strangers. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll think it strange that I have come, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no; not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought—Gabriel, I have been uneasy in the belief that I +have offended you, and that you are going away on that account. It grieved me +very much and I couldn’t help coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Offended me! As if you could do that, Bathsheba!” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t I?” she asked, gladly. “But, what are you +going away for else?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn’t aware that you +would wish me not to when I told ’ee or I shouldn’t ha’ +thought of doing it,” he said, simply. “I have arranged for Little +Weatherbury Farm and shall have it in my own hands at Lady-day. You know +I’ve had a share in it for some time. Still, that wouldn’t prevent +my attending to your business as before, hadn’t it been that things have +been said about us.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” said Bathsheba, in surprise. “Things said about you +and me! What are they?” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be wiser if you were to, I think. You have played the part of +mentor to me many times, and I don’t see why you should fear to do it +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing that you have done, this time. The top and tail o’t +is this—that I am sniffing about here, and waiting for poor +Boldwood’s farm, with a thought of getting you some day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Getting me! What does that mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Marrying of ’ee, in plain British. You asked me to tell, so you +mustn’t blame me.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by +her ear, which was what Oak had expected. “Marrying me! I didn’t +know it was that you meant,” she said, quietly. “Such a thing as +that is too absurd—too soon—to think of, by far!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; of course, it is too absurd. I don’t desire any such thing; I +should think that was plain enough by this time. Surely, surely you be the last +person in the world I think of marrying. It is too absurd, as you say.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Too—s-s-soon’ were the words I used.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, ‘too +absurd,’ and so do I.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon too!” she returned, with tears in her eyes. +“‘Too soon’ was what I said. But it doesn’t matter a +bit—not at all—but I only meant, ‘too soon.’ Indeed, I +didn’t, Mr. Oak, and you must believe me!” +</p> + +<p> +Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight being faint there was +not much to be seen. “Bathsheba,” he said, tenderly and in +surprise, and coming closer: “if I only knew one thing—whether you +would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all—if I only +knew that!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you never will know,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you never ask.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—Oh!” said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness. +“My own dear—” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought not to have sent me that harsh letter this morning,” she +interrupted. “It shows you didn’t care a bit about me, and were +ready to desert me like all the rest of them! It was very cruel of you, +considering I was the first sweetheart that you ever had, and you were the +first I ever had; and I shall not forget it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Bathsheba, was ever anybody so provoking,” he said, laughing. +“You know it was purely that I, as an unmarried man, carrying on a +business for you as a very taking young woman, had a proper hard part to +play—more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for +’ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it +might injure your good name. Nobody knows the heat and fret I have been caused +by it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And was that all?” +</p> + +<p> +“All.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how glad I am I came!” she exclaimed, thankfully, as she rose +from her seat. “I have thought so much more of you since I fancied you +did not want even to see me again. But I must be going now, or I shall be +missed. Why Gabriel,” she said, with a slight laugh, as they went to the +door, “it seems exactly as if I had come courting you—how +dreadful!” +</p> + +<p> +“And quite right too,” said Oak. “I’ve danced at your +skittish heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long +day; and it is hard to begrudge me this one visit.” +</p> + +<p> +He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his +forthcoming tenure of the other farm. They spoke very little of their mutual +feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between +such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any +arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the +rougher sides of each other’s character, and not the best till further +on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic +reality. This good-fellowship—<i>camaraderie</i>—usually occurring +through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love +between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but +in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its +development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is +strong as death—that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods +drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as +steam. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap57"></a>CHAPTER LVII<br /> +A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING—CONCLUSION</h2> + +<p> +“The most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to +have.” +</p> + +<p> +Those had been Bathsheba’s words to Oak one evening, some time after the +event of the preceding chapter, and he meditated a full hour by the clock upon +how to carry out her wishes to the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“A license—O yes, it must be a license,” he said to himself +at last. “Very well, then; first, a license.” +</p> + +<p> +On a dark night, a few days later, Oak came with mysterious steps from the +surrogate’s door, in Casterbridge. On the way home he heard a heavy tread +in front of him, and, overtaking the man, found him to be Coggan. They walked +together into the village until they came to a little lane behind the church, +leading down to the cottage of Laban Tall, who had lately been installed as +clerk of the parish, and was yet in mortal terror at church on Sundays when he +heard his lone voice among certain hard words of the Psalms, whither no man +ventured to follow him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, good-night, Coggan,” said Oak, “I’m going down +this way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Coggan, surprised; “what’s going on to-night +then, make so bold Mr. Oak?” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed rather ungenerous not to tell Coggan, under the circumstances, for +Coggan had been true as steel all through the time of Gabriel’s +unhappiness about Bathsheba, and Gabriel said, “You can keep a secret, +Coggan?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve proved me, and you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have, and I do know. Well, then, mistress and I mean to get +married to-morrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven’s high tower! And yet I’ve thought of such a thing +from time to time; true, I have. But keeping it so close! Well, there, +’tis no consarn of of mine, and I wish ’ee joy o’ her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Coggan. But I assure ’ee that this great hush is not +what I wished for at all, or what either of us would have wished if it +hadn’t been for certain things that would make a gay wedding seem hardly +the thing. Bathsheba has a great wish that all the parish shall not be in +church, looking at her—she’s shy-like and nervous about it, in +fact—so I be doing this to humour her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, I see: quite right, too, I suppose I must say. And you be now going +down to the clerk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; you may as well come with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afeard your labour in keeping it close will be throwed away,” +said Coggan, as they walked along. “Labe Tall’s old woman will horn +it all over parish in half-an-hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she will, upon my life; I never thought of that,” said Oak, +pausing. “Yet I must tell him to-night, I suppose, for he’s working +so far off, and leaves early.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell ’ee how we could tackle her,” said Coggan. +“I’ll knock and ask to speak to Laban outside the door, you +standing in the background. Then he’ll come out, and you can tell yer +tale. She’ll never guess what I want en for; and I’ll make up a few +words about the farm-work, as a blind.” +</p> + +<p> +This scheme was considered feasible; and Coggan advanced boldly, and rapped at +Mrs. Tall’s door. Mrs. Tall herself opened it. +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted to have a word with Laban.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not at home, and won’t be this side of eleven +o’clock. He’ve been forced to go over to Yalbury since shutting out +work. I shall do quite as well.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly think you will. Stop a moment;” and Coggan stepped round +the corner of the porch to consult Oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s t’other man, then?” said Mrs. Tall. +</p> + +<p> +“Only a friend,” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“Say he’s wanted to meet mistress near church-hatch to-morrow +morning at ten,” said Oak, in a whisper. “That he must come without +fail, and wear his best clothes.” +</p> + +<p> +“The clothes will floor us as safe as houses!” said Coggan. +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be helped,” said Oak. “Tell her.” +</p> + +<p> +So Coggan delivered the message. “Mind, het or wet, blow or snow, he must +come,” added Jan. “’Tis very particular, indeed. The fact is, +’tis to witness her sign some law-work about taking shares wi’ +another farmer for a long span o’ years. There, that’s what +’tis, and now I’ve told ’ee, Mother Tall, in a way I +shouldn’t ha’ done if I hadn’t loved ’ee so hopeless +well.” +</p> + +<p> +Coggan retired before she could ask any further; and next they called at the +vicar’s in a manner which excited no curiosity at all. Then Gabriel went +home, and prepared for the morrow. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Liddy,” said Bathsheba, on going to bed that night, “I want +you to call me at seven o’clock to-morrow, in case I shouldn’t +wake.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you always do wake afore then, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but I have something important to do, which I’ll tell you of +when the time comes, and it’s best to make sure.” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba, however, awoke voluntarily at four, nor could she by any contrivance +get to sleep again. About six, being quite positive that her watch had stopped +during the night, she could wait no longer. She went and tapped at +Liddy’s door, and after some labour awoke her. +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought it was I who had to call you?” said the bewildered +Liddy. “And it isn’t six yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed it is; how can you tell such a story, Liddy? I know it must be +ever so much past seven. Come to my room as soon as you can; I want you to give +my hair a good brushing.” +</p> + +<p> +When Liddy came to Bathsheba’s room her mistress was already waiting. +Liddy could not understand this extraordinary promptness. “Whatever +<i>is</i> going on, ma’am?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Bathsheba, with a mischievous +smile in her bright eyes. “Farmer Oak is coming here to dine with me +to-day!” +</p> + +<p> +“Farmer Oak—and nobody else?—you two alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But is it safe, ma’am, after what’s been said?” asked +her companion, dubiously. “A woman’s good name is such a perishable +article that—” +</p> + +<p> +Bathsheba laughed with a flushed cheek, and whispered in Liddy’s ear, +although there was nobody present. Then Liddy stared and exclaimed, +“Souls alive, what news! It makes my heart go quite bumpity-bump!” +</p> + +<p> +“It makes mine rather furious, too,” said Bathsheba. +“However, there’s no getting out of it now!” +</p> + +<p> +It was a damp disagreeable morning. Nevertheless, at twenty minutes to ten +o’clock, Oak came out of his house, and +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Went up the hill side<br /> +With that sort of stride<br /> +A man puts out when walking in search of a bride, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and knocked at Bathsheba’s door. Ten minutes later a large and a smaller +umbrella might have been seen moving from the same door, and through the mist +along the road to the church. The distance was not more than a quarter of a +mile, and these two sensible persons deemed it unnecessary to drive. An +observer must have been very close indeed to discover that the forms under the +umbrellas were those of Oak and Bathsheba, arm-in-arm for the first time in +their lives, Oak in a greatcoat extending to his knees, and Bathsheba in a +cloak that reached her clogs. Yet, though so plainly dressed, there was a +certain rejuvenated appearance about her:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +As though a rose should shut and be a bud again. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Repose had again incarnadined her cheeks; and having, at Gabriel’s +request, arranged her hair this morning as she had worn it years ago on +Norcombe Hill, she seemed in his eyes remarkably like a girl of that +fascinating dream, which, considering that she was now only three or +four-and-twenty, was perhaps not very wonderful. In the church were Tall, +Liddy, and the parson, and in a remarkably short space of time the deed was +done. +</p> + +<p> +The two sat down very quietly to tea in Bathsheba’s parlour in the +evening of the same day, for it had been arranged that Farmer Oak should go +there to live, since he had as yet neither money, house, nor furniture worthy +of the name, though he was on a sure way towards them, whilst Bathsheba was, +comparatively, in a plethora of all three. +</p> + +<p> +Just as Bathsheba was pouring out a cup of tea, their ears were greeted by the +firing of a cannon, followed by what seemed like a tremendous blowing of +trumpets, in the front of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said Oak, laughing, “I knew those fellows were up to +something, by the look on their faces.” +</p> + +<p> +Oak took up the light and went into the porch, followed by Bathsheba with a +shawl over her head. The rays fell upon a group of male figures gathered upon +the gravel in front, who, when they saw the newly-married couple in the porch, +set up a loud “Hurrah!” and at the same moment bang again went the +cannon in the background, followed by a hideous clang of music from a drum, +tambourine, clarionet, serpent, hautboy, tenor-viol, and double-bass—the +only remaining relics of the true and original Weatherbury band—venerable +worm-eaten instruments, which had celebrated in their own persons the victories +of Marlborough, under the fingers of the forefathers of those who played them +now. The performers came forward, and marched up to the front. +</p> + +<p> +“Those bright boys, Mark Clark and Jan, are at the bottom of all +this,” said Oak. “Come in, souls, and have something to eat and +drink wi’ me and my wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to-night,” said Mr. Clark, with evident self-denial. +“Thank ye all the same; but we’ll call at a more seemly time. +However, we couldn’t think of letting the day pass without a note of +admiration of some sort. If ye could send a drop of som’at down to +Warren’s, why so it is. Here’s long life and happiness to neighbour +Oak and his comely bride!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank ye; thank ye all,” said Gabriel. “A bit and a drop +shall be sent to Warren’s for ye at once. I had a thought that we might +very likely get a salute of some sort from our old friends, and I was saying so +to my wife but now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith,” said Coggan, in a critical tone, turning to his +companions, “the man hev learnt to say ‘my wife’ in a +wonderful naterel way, considering how very youthful he is in wedlock as +yet—hey, neighbours all?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never heerd a skilful old married feller of twenty years’ +standing pipe ‘my wife’ in a more used note than ’a +did,” said Jacob Smallbury. “It might have been a little more true +to nater if’t had been spoke a little chillier, but that wasn’t to +be expected just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“That improvement will come wi’ time,” said Jan, twirling his +eye. +</p> + +<p> +Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily now), and +their friends turned to go. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I suppose that’s the size o’t,” said Joseph +Poorgrass with a cheerful sigh as they moved away; “and I wish him joy +o’ her; though I were once or twice upon saying to-day with holy Hosea, +in my scripture manner, which is my second nature, ‘Ephraim is joined to +idols: let him alone.’ But since ’tis as ’tis, why, it might +have been worse, and I feel my thanks accordingly.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap58"></a>NOTES</h2> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a> +This phrase is a conjectural emendation of the unintelligible expression, +“as the Devil said to the Owl,” used by the natives. +</p> + + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a> +The local tower and churchyard do not answer precisely to the foregoing +description. +</p> + + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a> +W. Barnes +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<b>Transcriber’s note</b>: +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[*]</a> +Greek word meaning “it is finished” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 107 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + diff --git a/107-h/images/cover.jpg b/107-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..347b53a --- /dev/null +++ b/107-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/107-h/images/james3.jpg b/107-h/images/james3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dce60bd --- /dev/null +++ b/107-h/images/james3.jpg |
