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27     1874, First Edition; illustrated.

107    1895, Second Edition, extensively revised by Thomas Hardy.




Far from the Madding Crowd

by Thomas Hardy

AUTHOR OF
“A PAIR OF BLUE EYES,” “UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE,” ETC.

WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS.

IN TWO VOLUMES

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE.
1874.


Contents

 VOLUME I.
 CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK—AN INCIDENT
 CHAPTER II. NIGHT—THE FLOCK—AN INTERIOR—ANOTHER INTERIOR
 CHAPTER III. A GIRL ON HORSEBACK—CONVERSATION
 CHAPTER IV. GABRIEL’S RESOLVE—THE VISIT—THE MISTAKE
 CHAPTER V. DEPARTURE OF BATHSHEBA—A PASTORAL TRAGEDY
 CHAPTER VI. THE FAIR—THE JOURNEY—THE FIRE
 CHAPTER VII. RECOGNITION—A TIMID GIRL
 CHAPTER VIII. THE MALTHOUSE—THE CHAT—NEWS
 CHAPTER IX. THE HOMESTEAD—A VISITOR—HALF CONFIDENCES
 CHAPTER X. MISTRESS AND MEN
 CHAPTER XI. MELCHESTER MOOR—SNOW—A MEETING
 CHAPTER XII. FARMERS—A RULE—AN EXCEPTION
 CHAPTER XIII. SORTES SANCTORUM—THE VALENTINE
 CHAPTER XIV. EFFECT OF THE LETTER—SUNRISE
 CHAPTER XV. A MORNING MEETING—THE LETTER AGAIN
 CHAPTER XVI. ALL SAINTS’ AND ALL SOULS’
 CHAPTER XVII. IN THE MARKET-PLACE
 CHAPTER XVIII. BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION—A VISIT
 CHAPTER XIX. THE SHEEP-WASHING—THE OFFER
 CHAPTER XX. PERPLEXITY—GRINDING THE SHEARS—A QUARREL
 CHAPTER XXI. TROUBLES IN THE FOLD—A MESSAGE
 CHAPTER XXII. THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS
 CHAPTER XXIII. EVENTIDE—A SECOND DECLARATION
 CHAPTER XXIV. THE SAME NIGHT—THE FIR PLANTATION
 CHAPTER XXV. THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED
 CHAPTER XXVI. SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD
 CHAPTER XXVII. HIVING THE BEES
 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS
 CHAPTER XXIX. PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK
 CHAPTER XXX. HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES

 VOLUME II.
 CHAPTER I. BLAME—FURY
 CHAPTER II. NIGHT—HORSES TRAMPING
 CHAPTER III. IN THE SUN—A HARBINGER
 CHAPTER IV. HOME AGAIN—A JUGGLER
 CHAPTER V. AT AN UPPER WINDOW
 CHAPTER VI. WEALTH IN JEOPARDY—THE REVEL
 CHAPTER VII. THE STORM—THE TWO TOGETHER
 CHAPTER VIII. RAIN—ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER
 CHAPTER IX. COMING HOME—A CRY
 CHAPTER X. ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY
 CHAPTER XI. SUSPICION—FANNY IS SENT FOR
 CHAPTER XII. JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN—BUCK’S HEAD
 CHAPTER XIII. FANNY’S REVENGE
 CHAPTER XIV. UNDER A TREE—REACTION
 CHAPTER XV. TROY’S ROMANTICISM
 CHAPTER XVI. THE GURGOYLE: ITS DOINGS
 CHAPTER XVII. ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE
 CHAPTER XVIII. DOUBTS ARISE—DOUBTS VANISH
 CHAPTER XIX. OAK’S ADVANCEMENT—A GREAT HOPE
 CHAPTER XX. THE SHEEP FAIR—TROY TOUCHES HIS WIFE’S HAND
 CHAPTER XXI. BATHSHEBA TALKS WITH HER OUTRIDER
 CHAPTER XXII. CONVERGING COURSES
 CHAPTER XXIII. CONCURRITUR—HORÆ MOMENTO
 CHAPTER XXIV. AFTER THE SHOCK
 CHAPTER XXV. THE MARCH FOLLOWING—“BATHSHEBA BOLDWOOD”
 CHAPTER XXVI. BEAUTY IN LONELINESS—AFTER ALL
 CHAPTER XXVII. A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING—CONCLUSION




List of Illustrations


 HANDS WERE LOOSENING HIS NECKERCHIEF.
 “DO YOU HAPPEN TO WANT A SHEPPERD MA’AM?”
 “GET THE FRONT DOOR KEY.” LIDDY FETCHED IT.
 “I FEEL—ALMOST TOO MUCH—TO THINK,” HE SAID.
 SHE STOOD UP IN THE WINDOW-OPENING, FACING THE MEN.
 SHE TOOK UP HER POSITION AS DIRECTED.
 BATSHEBA FLUNG HER HANDS TO HER FACE.
 “THERE’S NOT A SOUL IN MY HOUSE BUT ME TO-NIGHT”.
 SHE OPENED A GATE WITHIN WHICH WAS A HAYSTACK. UNDER THIS SHE SAT DOWN.
 BENDING OVER FANNY ROBIN, HE GENTLY KISSED HER.
 HE SAW A BATHER CARRIED ALONG IN THE CURRENT.
 TROY NEXT ADVANCED INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM AND TOOK OFF HIS CAP.




VOLUME I.




CHAPTER I.
DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK—AN INCIDENT


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
mere chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon
his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising
sun.

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 a
postponing treatment of things, whose best clothes and
seven-and-sixpenny umbrella were always hampering him: upon the whole,
one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middle space of
Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Sacrament people of the
parish and the drunken division of its inhabitants—that is, he went to
church, but yawned privately by the time the congegation 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.

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 always presenting him as dressed in
that way when their imaginations answered to the thought “Gabriel Oak.”
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 about it—their maker being a conscientious man
who always endeavoured to compensate for any weakness in his cut by
unstinted dimension and solidity.

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,
when it always went on again immediately, 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 when passing their houses, 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 extremely 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.

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—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, quite distinct from
a bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in an
individual if he depends for his valuation as a total more upon his
appearance than upon his capacity to wear well, which Oak did not. 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 life, 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.

The field he was in sloped steeply to a ridge called Norcombe Hill.
Through a spur of this hill ran the highway from Norcombe to
Casterbridge, sunk in a deep cutting. 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.

“The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss,” said the waggoner.

“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.”

“I’ll run back.”

“Do,” she answered.

The sensible horses stood perfectly still, and the waggoner’s steps
sank fainter and fainter in the distance.

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.

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. Then she parted her lips and
smiled.

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
charm of rarity. 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.

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 invested it with 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 direction, her expressions 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.

The waggoner’s steps were heard returning. She put the glass in the
paper, and the whole again into its place.

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 at 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.

“Mis’ess’s niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that’s
enough that I’ve offered ye, you grate miser, and she won’t pay any
more.” These were the waggoner’s words.

“Very well; then mis’ess’s niece can’t pass,” said the turnpike-keeper,
closing the gate.

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.

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.

The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle. “That’s a handsome
maid,” he said to Oak.

“But she has her faults,” said Gabriel.

“True, farmer.”

“And the greatest of them is—well, what it is always.”

“Beating people down? ay, ’tis so.”

“Oh no.”

“What, then?”

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.”




CHAPTER II.
NIGHT—THE FLOCK—AN INTERIOR—ANOTHER INTERIOR


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.

Norcombe Hill—forming part of Norcombe Ewelease—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.

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 this dead multitude
had remained on the twigs which bore them till this very mid-winter
time, and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps.

Between this half-wooded, half-naked hill, and the vague, still horizon
its summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet of fathomless
shade—the sounds only from which suggested that what it concealed bore
some humble 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 differing natures—one rubbing the blades heavily,
another raking them piercingly, another brushing them like a soft
broom. The instinctive act of human-kind 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.

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 it 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 kingly brilliancy
of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called
Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery red.

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 a fancy that the better outlook upon space afforded by a hill
emphasizes terrestrial revolution, 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, first enlarging the consciousness with a
sense of difference from the mass of civilized mankind, who are
horizontal and disregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long
and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars. After such a
nocturnal reconnoitre among these astral clusters, aloft from the
customary haunts of thought and vision, some men may feel raised to a
capability for eternity at once.

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.

The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air, but 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.

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 toymakers—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 small 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.

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.

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 recognized 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.

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.

Oak’s motions, though they had a quiet energy, were slow, and their
deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the
basis of all 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.

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, and 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
an unimportant membrane about half the substance of the legs
collectively, which constituted the animal’s entire body just at
present.

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 out 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.

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 cabin, with wood slides.

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.

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 swung
itself 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.

“One o’clock,” said Gabriel.

Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some
beauty 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.

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.

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 alone.

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 boards 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 up
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.

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 aërial 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.

“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.”

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. “I wish we were rich enough
to pay a man to do these things,” she said.

“As we are not, we must do them ourselves,” said the other; “for you
must help me if you stay.”

“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.”

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.

“I think we had better send for some oatmeal,” said the elder woman;
“there’s no more bran.”

“Yes, aunt; and I’ll ride over for it as soon as it is light.”

“But there’s no side-saddle.”

“I can ride on the other: trust me.”

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 her forehead coming in the way of what the cloak did
not cover, 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.

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.

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.




CHAPTER III.
A GIRL ON HORSEBACK—CONVERSATION


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 looked through the loophole in the direction
of the rider’s approach.

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 shoulder, 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 phenomena, and ambled along
unconcerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs.

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.

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.

Soon a soft spirt, alternating with a loud spirt, came in regular
succession from within the shed. They were the 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.

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 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 recognized power. It was
with some surprise that she saw Gabriel’s face rising like the moon
behind the hedge.

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 Englishwomen 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 in examining details to return
to where it began, 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 it may be
stated that 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.

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 hastily brushed hers with her hand, as if Gabriel had been
irritating its pink surface with a straw, 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.

“I found a hat,” said Oak.

“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.”

“One o’clock this morning?”

“Well—it was.” She was surprised. “How did you know?” she said.

“I was here.”

“You are Farmer Oak, are you not?”

“That or thereabouts. I’m lately come to this place.”

“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.

“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.”)

“I wanted my hat this morning,” she went on. “I had to ride to Tewnell
Mill.”

“Yes, you had.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw you.”

“Where?” she inquired, a misgiving bringing every muscle of her
lineaments and frame to a standstill.

“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.

A perception caused him to withdraw his own 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.

The sympathetic man still looked the other way, and wondered when she
would recover whiteness 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.

With an air between that of Tragedy and Comedy, Gabriel returned to his
work.

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
_contretemps_ which touched into life a latent heat he had experienced
in that direction.

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.

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 yeaning ewes, he entered the hut and heaped more fuel upon
the stove. The wind came in at the bottom of the door, to prevent which
Oak 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.

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.

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 without having performed the necessary
preliminary.

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.

[Illustration: HANDS WERE LOOSENING HIS NECKERCHIEF.]

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.

“Whatever is the matter?” said Oak, vacantly.

She seemed to experience a sensation of mirth, but of too insignificant
a kind to start the capacity of enjoyment.

“Nothing now,” she answered, “since you are not dead. It was a wonder
you were not suffocated in this hut of yours.”

“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,
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.

“It was not exactly the fault of the hut,” she observed, speaking 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.”

“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.

She made him sit up, and then Oak began wiping his face and shaking
himself like a Samson. “How can I thank ye?” he said at last,
gratefully, some of the natural rusty red having returned to his face.

“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.

“How did you find me?”

“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 dress. 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.”

“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.

“Oh no,” the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic
probability; to have saved a man from death involved talk that should
harmonize with the dignity of such a deed—and she shunned it.

“I believe you saved my life, Miss—— I don’t know your name. I know
your aunt’s, but not yours.”

“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.”

“Still, I should like to know.”

“You can inquire at my aunt’s—she will tell you.”

“My name is Gabriel Oak.”

“And mine isn’t. You seem fond of yours in speaking it so decisively,
Gabriel Oak.”

“You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the
most of it.”

“I always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable.”

“I should think you might soon get a new one.”

“Mercy!—how many opinions you keep about you concerning other people,
Gabriel Oak.”

“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, as I may say.
I never was very clever in my inside. But I thank you. Come, give me
your hand!”

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.

“I am sorry,” he said, the instant after, regretfully.

“What for?”

“Letting your hand go so quickly.”

“You may have it again if you like; there it is.” She gave him her hand
again.

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.

“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.”

“I wasn’t thinking of any such thing,” said Gabriel, simply; “but I
will——”

“That you won’t!” She snatched back her hand.

Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of tact.

“Now find out my name,” she said, teasingly; and withdrew.




CHAPTER IV.
GABRIEL’S RESOLVE—THE VISIT—THE MISTAKE


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 at the same time
possibilities of impropriation to the subordinated man.

This well-favoured and comely girl soon made appreciable inroads upon
the emotional constitution of young Farmer Oak.

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 his 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—

—Full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing—


he said no word at all.

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 eight day.

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!”

All this while he was perplexing himself about an errand on which he
might consistently visit the cottage of Bathsheba’s aunt.

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 sunshiny
gleam of silvery whiteness, 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.

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.

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.

Nothing disturbed the stillness of the cottage save the chatter of a
knot of sparrows on the eaves; one might fancy scandal and
_tracasseries_ to be no less the staple subject 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 liturgical
form of Commination-service, which, though offensive, had to be gone
through once now and then just to frighten the flock for their own
good.

A voice came from behind some laurel-bushes into which the cat had run:

“Poor dear! Did a nasty brute of a dog want to kill it!—did he poor
dear!”

“I beg yer pardon,” said Oak to the voice, “but George was walking on
behind me with a temper as mild as milk.”

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.

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.

Bathsheba’s aunt was indoors. “Will you tell Miss Everdene that
somebody would be glad to speak to her?” said Mr. Oak. (Calling
yourself merely Somebody, and not giving a name, is not by any means to
be taken as an example of the ill-breeding of the rural world: it
springs from a refined sense of modesty, of which townspeople, with
their cards and announcements, have no notion whatever.)

Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently been hers.

“Will you come in, Mr. Oak?”

“Oh, thank ye,” 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.”

“She might,” said Mrs. Hurst, musingly; “though she’s only a visitor
here. If you will wait a minute, Bathsheba will be in.”

“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.”

“And were you indeed?”

“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?”

“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!”

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.

“I have just called to see you,” said Gabriel, pending her further
speech.

“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 (pant) to ask to have me, or I
should have come in from the garden instantly. I ran after you to say
(pant) that my aunt made a mistake in sending you away from courting me
(pant)——”

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.”

“—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 (pant), and I never
had one, and I thought that, as times go with women, it was _such_ a
pity to send you away thinking that I had several.”

“Really and trewly 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.

“I have a nice snug little farm,” said Gabriel, with half a degree less
assurance than when he had seized her hand.

“Yes; you have.”

“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 are married, I am quite sure I can work twice as
hard as I do now.”

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.

“Why, Farmer Oak,” she said, over the top, looking at him with rounded
eyes, “I never said I was going to marry you.”

“Well—that _is_ a tale!” said Oak, with dismay.” To run after anybody
like this, and then say you don’t want me!”

“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 _hate_ 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 _forwardest_ thing! But there was no harm in hurrying to correct a
piece of false news that had been told you.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Come,” said Gabriel, freshening again; “think a minute or two. I’ll
wait awhile, Miss Everdene. Will you marry me? Do, Bathsheba. I love
you far more than common!”

“I’ll try to think,” she observed, rather more timorously; “if I can
think out of doors; but my mind spreads away so.”

“But you can give a guess.”

“Then give me time.” Bathsheba looked thoughtfully into the distance,
away from the direction in which Gabriel stood.

“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.”

“Yes; I should like that.”

“And have one of those little ten-pound gigs for market—and nice
flowers, and birds—cocks and hens I mean, because they are useful,”
continued Gabriel, feeling balanced between poetry and verse.

“I should like it very much.”

“And a frame for cucumbers—like a gentleman and lady.”

“Yes.”

“And when the wedding was over, we’d have it put in the newspaper list
of marriages.”

“Dearly I should like that.”

“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.”

“Wait, wait, and don’t be improper!”

Her countenance fell, and she was silent awhile. He contemplated 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.

“No;” ’tis no use,” she said. “I don’t want to marry you.”

“Try.”

“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——”

“Well!”

“Why, he’d always be there, as you say; whenever I looked up, there
he’d be.”

“Of course he would—I, that is.”

“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.”

“That’s a terrible wooden story.”

At this elegant criticism of her statement, Bathsheba made an addition
to her dignity by a slight sweep away from him.

“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 said appealingly, creeping round the holly to reach her side.

“I cannot,” she said, retreating.

“But why?” he persisted, standing still at last in despair of ever
reaching her, and facing over the bush.

“Because I don’t love you.”

“Yes, but——”

She contracted a yawn to an inoffensive smallness, so that it was
hardly ill-mannered at all. “I don’t love you,” she said.”

“But I love you—and, as for myself, I am content to be liked.”

“Oh, Mr. Oak—that’s very fine! You’d get to despise me.”

“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 _keep wanting you_ till I die.” His voice had a
genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled.

“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.”

Oak cast his eyes down the field in a way implying that it was useless
to attempt argument.

“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 begining, 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.”

Gabriel looked at her with a little surprise and much admiration.

“That’s the very thing I had been thinking myself!” he naïvely said.

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.

“Well, then, why did you come and disturb me?” she said, almost
angrily, if not quite, an enlarging red spot rising in each cheek.

“I can’t do what I think would be—would be——”

“Right?”

“No: wise.”

“You have made an admission _now_, 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.”

He broke in passionately: “But don’t mistake me like that! Because I am
open enough to own what every man in my position 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
heard, a large farmer—much larger than ever I shall be. May I call in
the evening, or will you walk along with me on Sundays? I don’t want
you to make up your mind at once, if you’d rather not.”

“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.

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.”




CHAPTER V.
DEPARTURE OF BATHSHEBA—A PASTORAL TRAGEDY


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 tinkle 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.

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.

“Ovey, ovey, ovey!”

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 furthest 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.

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.

Oak was an intensely humane man: indeed, his humanity often tore in
pieces any politic intentions of his bordering 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.

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.

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:—

“Thank God I am not married: what would _she_ have done in the poverty
now coming upon me!” 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 right 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.

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.

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.

Gabriel’s farm had been stocked by a dealer—on the strength of Oak’s
promising look and character—who was receiving a per-centage 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.




CHAPTER VI.
THE FAIR—THE JOURNEY—THE FIRE


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 town of
Casterbridge.

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.

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 terminational word. His answer
always was,—

“I am looking for a place myself—a bailiff’s. Do you know of anybody
who wants one?”

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.

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.

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.

“How long would it take you to make a shepherd’s crook?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“How much?”

“Two shillings.”

He sat on a bench and the crook was made, a stem being given him into
the bargain.

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.

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.

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:—

“Where do you come from?”

“Norcombe.”

“That’s a long way.

“Twenty miles.”

“Who’s farm were you upon last?”

“My own.”

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.

It is better 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 instead 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.

He drew out his flute and began to play “Jockey to the Fair” in the
style of a man who had never known 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.

By making inquiries he learnt that there was another fair at Shottsford
the next day.

“Where is Shottsford?”

“Eight miles t’other side of Weatherbury.”

Weatherbury! It was where Bathsheba had gone two months before. This
information was like coming from night into noon.

“How far is it to Weatherbury?”

“Five or six miles.”

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 a footpath which had been recommended as a short cut
to the village in question.

The path wended 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 high-road 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
through a 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.

By the time he had walked three or four miles, every shape on the
landscape had assumed a uniform hue of blackness. He ascended a hill
and could just discern ahead of him a waggon, drawn up under a great
overhanging tree by the roadside.

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.

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.

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 forepart
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.

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.

A conversation was in progress, which continued thus:—

“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.”

“Ay—so ’a seem, Billy Smallbury—so ’a 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.

“She’s a very vain feymell—so ’tis said here and there.”

“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!”

“Yes—she’s very vain. ’Tis said that every night at going to bed she
looks in the glass to put on her nightcap properly.”

“And not a married woman. Oh, the world!”

“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.”

“D’ye tell o’t! A happy mercy for us, and I feel quite unspeakable! And
how do she pay?”

“That I don’t know, Master Poorgrass.”

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.

He turned to an opening in the hedge, which he found to be a stile, 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.

Gabriel again mounted the stile, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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, Joseph Poorgrass, and
Matthew there, for his mercy endureth for ever!” 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.

“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 hues from the burning straw licked and darted playfully. If the
fire once got _under_ this stack, all would be lost.

“Get a tarpaulin—quick!” said Gabriel.

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.

“Stand here with a bucket of water and keep the cloth wet,” said
Gabriel again.

The flames, now driven upwards, began to attack the angles of the huge
roof covering the wheat-stack.

“A ladder,” cried Gabriel.

“The ladder was against the straw-rick and is burnt to a cinder,” said
a spectre-like form in the smoke.

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.

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.

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 as tall as fir-trees.
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 female, on foot. These two seemed to keep at a distance from
the fire, that the horse might not become restive.

“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.”

“Whose shepherd is he?” said the equestrian in a clear voice.

“Don’t know, ma’am.”

“Don’t any of the others know?”

“Nobody at all—I’ve asked ’em. Quite a stranger, they say.”

The young woman on the pony rode out from the shade and looked
anxiously around.

“Do you think the barn is safe?” she said.

“D’ye think the barn is safe, Jan Coggan?” said the second woman,
passing on the question to the nearest man in that direction.

“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.”

“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?”

“Never heard the man’s name in my life, or seed his form afore.”

The fire began to get worsted, and Gabriel’s elevated position being no
longer required of him, he made as if to descend.

“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.”

Maryann stalked off towards the rick and met Oak at the foot of the
ladder. She delivered her message.

“Where is your master the farmer?” asked Gabriel, kindling with the
idea of getting employment that seemed to strike him now.

“’Tisn’t a master; ’tis a mistress, shepherd.”

“A woman farmer?”

“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.”

“That’s she, back there upon the pony,” said Maryann; “wi’ her face
a-covered up in a cloth with holes in it.”

Oak, his features black, grimy, and undiscoverable from the smoke and
heat, his smock-frock burnt into holes, dripping with water, the
ash-stem of his sheep-crook charred six inches shorter than it had
been, 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,—

“Do you happen to want a shepherd, ma’am?”

She lifted the Shetland veil tied round her face, and looked all
astonishment. Gabriel and his cold-hearted darling, Bathsheba Everdene,
were face to face.

Bathsheba did not speak, and he mechanically repeated in an abashed and
sad voice,—

“Do you want a shepherd, ma’am?”

[Illustration: “DO YOU HAPPEN TO WANT A SHEPPERD MA’AM?”]




CHAPTER VII.
RECOGNITION—A TIMID GIRL


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.

“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——”

“He’s the very man, ma’am,” said one of the villagers, quietly.

Conviction breeds conviction. “Ay, that ’a is,” said a second,
decisively.

“The man, truly!” said a third, with heartiness.”

“He’s all there!” said number four, fervidly.”

“Then will you tell him to speak to the bailiff,” said Bathsheba.

All was practical again now. A summer eve and loneliness would have
been necessary to give the meeting its proper fulness of romance.

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.

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?”

“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.

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.

“And now,” said the bailiff, finally, “all is settled, I think, about
yer coming, and I am going home-along. Good-night to ye, shepherd.”

“Can you get me a lodging?” inquired Gabriel.

“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 dare say some of ’em will
tell you of a place. Good-night to ye, shepherd.”

The bailiff, who showed this nervous dread of loving his neighbours as
himself, went up the hill, and Oak walked on to the village, still
astonished at the rencontre 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.

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 old chestnuts 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 on the other side. 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.

It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad.

“Good-night to you,” said Gabriel, heartily.

“Good-night,” said the girl to Gabriel.

The voice was unexpectedly attractive; it was the low and dulcet note
suggestive of romance; common in descriptions, rare in experience.

“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.

“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.

“I don’t know where the ‘Buck’s Head’ is, or anything about it. Do you
think of going there to-night?”

“Yes——.” The female 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.

“I am not. I am the new shepherd—just arrived.”

“Only a shepherd—and you seem almost a farmer by your ways.”

“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,—

“You won’t say anything in the parish about having seen me here, will
you—at least, not for a day or two?”

“I won’t if you wish me not to,” said Oak.

“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.

“You ought to have a cloak on such a cold night,” Gabriel observed. “I
would advise you to get indoors.”

“O no! Would you mind going on and leaving me? I thank you much for
what you have told me.”

“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.”

“Yes, I will take it,” said the stranger, gratefully.

She extended her hand; Gabriel his. In feeling for each other’s palms
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.

“What is the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“But there is?”

“No, no, no! Let your having seen me be a secret!”

“Very well; I will. Good-night, again.”

“Good-night.”

The young girl remained motionless by the tree and Gabriel descended
into the village. 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.




CHAPTER VIII.
THE MALTHOUSE—THE CHAT—NEWS


Warren’s Malthouse was inclosed 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.

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.

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, with the effect of the footlights upon the
features of her Majesty’s servants when they approach too near the
front. 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.

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.

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
criticized 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:—

“Oh, ’tis the new shepherd, a’ b’lieve.”

“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.”

“Gabriel Oak, that’s my name, neighbours.”

The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned up this—his turning
being as the turning of a rusty crane.

“That’s never Gable Oak’s grandson over at Norcombe—never!” he said, as
a formula expressive of surprise, which nobody was supposed to take
literally.

“My father and my grandfather were old men of the name of Gabriel,”
said the shepherd, placidly.

“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?”

“I’m thinking of biding here,” said Mr. Oak.

“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.

“Ah—and did you!”

“Knowed yer grandmother.”

“And her too!”

“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?”

“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?”

“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.

“I remember Andrew,” said Oak, “as being a man in the place when I was
quite a child.”

“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.”

“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.”

Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled tall mug
standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat, 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:
this idea is, however, a mere guess.

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.

“A clane cup for the shepherd,” said the maltster commandingly.

“No—not at all,” said Gabriel, in a reproving tone of considerateness.
“I never fuss about dirt in its natural 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 ever occasioned by
proper pulls at large mugs.

“A right sensible man,” said Jacob.

“True, true, as the old woman said,” 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.

“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.”

“True, true—not at all,” said the friendly Oak.

“Don’t let yer teeth quite meet, and you won’t feel the sandiness at
all. Ah! ’tis wonderful what can be done by contrivance!”

“My own mind exactly, neighbour.”

“Ah, he’s his grandfer’s own grandson!—his grandfer were just such a
nice unparticular man!” said the maltster.

“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.

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.

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
god-father in baptisms of the subtly-jovial kind.

“Come, Mark Clark—come. Ther’s plenty more in the barrel,” said Jan.

“Ay—that I will, as the doctor said,” 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—his
productions of this class being more noticeably advanced than Coggan’s,
inflicting a faint sense of reduplication and similitude upon the elder
members of such companies.

“Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye ha’n’t had a drop!” said Mr. Coggan to a
very shrinking man in the background, thrusting the cup towards him.

“Such a shy 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?”

All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.

“No—I’ve hardly looked at her at all,” faltered 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!”

“Poor feller,” said Mr. Clark.

“’Tis a curious nature for a man,” said Jan Coggan.

“Yes,” continued Joseph Poorgrass—his shyness, which was so painful as
a defect, just beginning to fill him with a mild complacency now that
it was regarded in the light of an interesting study. “’Twere blush,
blush, blush with me every minute of the time, when she was speaking to
me.”

“I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a very
bashful man.”

“’Tis terrible bad for a man, poor soul,” said the maltster. “And how
long have ye suffered from it, Joseph?”

“Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes—mother was concerned to her heart
about it—yes. But ’twas all nought.”

“Did ye ever take anything to try and stop it, Joseph Poorgrass?”

“Oh ay, tried all sorts. They took me to Greenhill Fair, and into a
grate large 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 gross situation, and altogether a very
curious place for a good man. I had to stand and look wicked 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, so to speak it—yes, a happy
thing, and I feel my few poor gratitudes.”

“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 ye,
Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, though ’tis very well for a woman, dang
it all, ’tis awkward for a man like him, poor feller.” He appealed to
the shepherd by a heart-feeling glance.

“’Tis—’tis,” said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation as to whether
the saving to a man’s soul in the run of a twelvemonth by saying “dang”
instead of what it stood for, made it worth while to use the word.
“Yes, very awkward for the man.”

“Ay, and he’s very timid, too,” observed Jan Coggan. “Once he had been
working late at Windleton, 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?”

“No, no, no; not that story!” expostulated the modest man, forcing a
laugh to bury his concern, and forcing out too much for the
purpose—laughing over the greater part of his skin, round to his ears,
and up among his hair, insomuch that Shepherd Oak, who was rather
sensitive himself, was surfeited, and felt that he would never adopt
that plan for hiding trepidation any more.

“——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 wait for 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!’”

“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 _sir_. 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, as I
may say,” continued Joseph, swallowing his breath in content.

The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the company,
Jan went on meditatively:—

“And he’s the fearfullest man, bain’t ye, Joseph? Ay, another time ye
were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren’t ye, Joseph?”

“I was,” replied Poorgrass, as if there were some matters too serious
even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one.

“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.”

“Ay,” said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of the fire,
the cider, and a growing 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.”

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—each man severally drawing upon the tablet of
his imagination a clear and correct picture of Joseph Poorgrass under
the remarkable conditions he had related, and surveying the position in
all its bearings with critical exactness.

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
innermost subject of his heart.

“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.

“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, 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?”

“Not at all.”

The inquirer paused a moment, and then continued his relation, which,
as did every remark he made, instead of being casual, seemed the result
of a slow convergence of forces that had commenced their operation, in
times far remote.

“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.”

“Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning.”

“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——”

“True, Master Coggan, ’twould so.” corroborated Mark Clark.

“——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! Ay, ’twere like drinking blessedness itself. Pints and
pints! Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house. You can
mind, Jacob? You used to go wi’ me sometimes.”

“I can—I can,” said Jacob. “That one, too, that we had at Buck’s Head
on a White Monday was a pretty tipple, indeed.”

“’Twas. But for a drunk of really a noble class and on the highest
princliples, that brought you no nearer to the dark 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 would have been a great relief to
a merry soul.”

“True,” said the maltster. “Nature requires her swearing at the regular
times, or she’s not herself; and unholy exclamations is a necessity of
life.”

“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.”

“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.

“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?”

“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.”

“Used to kiss her in scores and long-hundreds, so ’twas said here and
there,” observed Coggan.

“He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as I’ve been
told,” said the maltster.

“Ay,” said Coggan. “He admired his wife so much, that he used to light
the candle three time every night to look at her.”

“Boundless love; I shouldn’t have supposed it in the world’s universe!”
murmered Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale in his
moral reflections.

“Well, to be sure,” said Gabriel.

“Oh, ’tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both well. Levi
Everdene—that was the man’s name, sure enough. ‘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.”

“Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!” said Joseph.

“O no, no! That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold and
silver.”

The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after absently
scrutinizing a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the
narrative, with a private twirl of his eye:—

“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. Ay, ’a 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 so 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.”

“Well, ’twas a most ungodly remedy,” murmured Joseph Poorgrass; “but we
ought to feel deep cheerfulness, as I may say, 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.”

“You see,” said Billy Smallbury, with testimonial emphasis, “the man’s
will was to do right, sure enough, but his heart didn’t chime in.”

“He got so much better, that he was quite religious 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 that
had no father at all in the eye of matrimony, 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 common to the
saintly inclined.”

“Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but righteousness,” 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.”

“His second-cousin, John, was the most religious of the family,
however,” said the old malster. “None of the others were so pious as
he, for they never went past us Church people in their Christianity,
but John’s feelings growed as strong as a chapel member’s. ’A was a
watch and clock maker by trade, and thought of nothing but godliness,
poor man. ‘I judge every clock according to his works,’ he used to say
when he were  in his holy frame of mind. Ay, he likewise was a very
Christian man.

“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.”

“’Tis to be hoped her temper is as good as her face.”

“Well, yes; but the baily will have most to do with the business and
ourselves. Ah!” Henery shook his head, gazed into the ashpit, and
smiled volumes of ironical knowledge.

“A queer Christian, as the D—— said of the owl,” volunteered Mark
Clark,

“He is,” said Henery, with a manner implying that irony must
necessarily 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.”

“Good faith, you do talk!” said Gabriel, with apprehension.

“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 untold 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!”

The company suspended consideration of whether they wanted their souls
blessed that moment, as the shortest way to the end of the story.

“I believe that if so be that Baily Pennyways’ heart were put inside a
nutshell, he’d rattle,” continued Henery. “He’ll strain for money as a
salmon will strain for the river’s head. ’Tis a thief and a robber,
that’s what ’tis.”

Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. “You must be a very aged
man, malster, to have sons growed mild and ancient,” he remarked.

“Father’s so old that ’a can’t mind his age, can ye, father?”
interposed Jacob. “And he’s growled 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.”

“Crooked folk will last a long while,” said the maltster, grimly, and
not in the best humour.

“Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer life, father—wouldn’t
ye, shepherd?”

“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, malster?”

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 Juddle
Farm across there” (nodding to the north) “till I were eleven. I bode
seven at Lower Twifford” (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 a corroboration of the fact). “Then
I malted at Snoodly-under-Drool four year, and four year turnip-hoeing;
and I was fourteen times eleven months at Moreford 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?”

“Hundred and seventeen,” chuckled another old gentleman, given to
mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hitherto sat
unobserved in a corner.

“Well, then, that’s my age,” said the maltster, emphatically.

“Oh, no, father!” Jacob remonstrated. “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.”

“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?”

“Sure we sha’n’t,” said Gabriel, soothingly.

“Ye be a very old-aged person, malster,” 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?”

“True, true; ye must, malster, a wonderful talented constitution,” said
the meeting unanimously.

The maltster, being know 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.

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 grate flute by-now at
Casterbridge?”

“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.”

“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?”

“Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard this Christmas,” said Jan
Coggan. “Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!”

“Ay, that I will,” said Gabriel readily, pulling out his flute and
putting it together. “A poor tool, neighbours; an everyday chap; but
such as I can do ye shall have and welcome.”

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.

“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 admiringly, “I’d as lief as not be able
to blow into a flute as well as that.”

“He’s a clever man, and ’tis a true comfort for us to have such a
shepherd,” murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft and complacent cadence.
“We ought to feel real thanksgiving that he’s not a player of loose
songs instead of these merry tunes; for ’twould have been just as easy
for God to have made the shepherd a lewd 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.”

“True, true, as the old woman said,” 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.

“Yes,” added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the Bible; “for
evil does thrive so in these times that ye may be as much deceived in
the clanest shaved and whitest shirted man as in the raggedest tramp
upon the turnpike, if I may term it so.”

“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 ye blowing into the flute I know ye 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.”

“’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 unconcernedly,
with the ghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of
“Dame Durden:”—

’Twas Moll′ and Bet′, and Doll′ and Kate′
And Dor′-othy Drag′-gle Tail′.


“I hope you don’t mind that young man Mark Clark’s bad manners in
naming your features?” whispered Joseph to Gabriel privately.

“Not at all,” said Mr. Oak.

“For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd,” continued Joseph
Poorgrass, with winning sauvity.

“Ay, that ye be, sheperd,” said the company.

“Thank you very much,” said Oak, in the modest tone good manners
demanded, privately 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.

“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.”

“Danged if ye bain’t altered now, malster,” 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.

“O no, no,” said Gabriel.

“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.”

“What’s yer hurry then, Laban?” inquired Coggan. “You used to bide as
late as the latest.”

“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.

“New Lords new laws, as the saying is, I suppose,” remarked Coggan,
with a very compressed countenance; that the frigidity implied by this
arrangement of facial muscles was not the true mood of his soul being
only discernible from a private glimmer in the outer corner of one of
his eyes—this eye being nearly closed, and the other only half open.

“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.

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 glance alighted by accident,
which happened to be in Joseph Poorgrass’s face.

“Oh—what’s the matter, what’s the matter, Henery?” said Joseph,
starting back.

“What’s a-brewing, Henrey?” asked Jacob and Mark Clark.

“Baily Pennyways—Baily Pennyways—I said so; yes, I said so.”

“What, found out stealing anything?”

“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 flewed at him like a cat—never such a tom-boy as
she is—of course I speak with closed doors?”

“You do—you do, Henery.”

“She flewed 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?”

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.

“Have ye heard the news that’s all over parish?”

“About Baily Pennyways?”

“Ah—but besides that?”

“No—not a morsel of it!” they all replied, looking into the very midst
of Laban Tall, and, as at were, advancing their intelligence to meet
his words half way down his throat.

“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 seed a magpie all alone!”

“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.”

“Oh—’tis burned—’tis burned!” came from Joseph Poorgrass with dry lips.

“No—’tis drowned!” said Tall.

“Or ’tis her father’s razor!” suggested Billy Smallbury, with a vivid
sense of detail.

“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.”

They all hastened up the rise to the farm-house, 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.

From the bed-room window above their heads Bathsheba’s head and
shoulders, robed in mystic white, were dimly seen extended into the
air.

“Are any of my men among you?” she said anxiously.

“Yes, ma’am, several,” said Susan Tall’s husband.

“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.”

“I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man courting her in the
parish, ma’am?” asked Jacob Smallbury.

“I don’t know,” said Bathsheba.

“I’ve never heard of any such thing, ma’am,” said two or three.

“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.”

“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.”

“She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn’t see very well,” said a
female voice from another window, which seemed to belong to Maryann.
“But she had no young man about here. Hers lives in Casterbridge, and I
believe he’s a soldier.”

“Do you know his name?” Bathsheba said.

“No, mistress; she was very close about it.”

“Perhaps I might be able to find out if I went to Casterbridge
barracks,” said William Smallbury.

“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.”

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.

“Ay, ay, mistress; we will,” they replied, and moved away.

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.

He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from
Norcombe. _The Young Man’s Best Companion, The Farrier’s Sure Guide,
The Veterinary Surgeon, Paradise Lost, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson
Crusoe, Ash’s Dictionary_, and _Walkingame’s Arithmetic_, 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.




CHAPTER IX.
THE HOMESTEAD—A VISITOR—HALF CONFIDENCES


By daylight, the bower of Oak’s new-found mistress, Bathsheba Everdene,
presented itself as a hoary building, of the Jacobean 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
manorial 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.

Fluted pilasters, worked from the solid stone, decorated its front, and
above the roof pairs of chimneys were here and there linked by an arch,
some gables and other unmanageable 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.

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, we find the floors above to have a very irregular
surface, rising to ridges, sinking into valleys, and being at present
uncarpeted, the face of the boards is shown to be eaten into
innumerable vermiculations. Every window replies by a clang to the
opening and shutting of every door, a tremble follows every bustling
movement, and a creak accompanies a walker about the house, like a
spirit, wherever he goes.

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 in a Terburg or a Gerard Douw, and like the
presentations of those great colourists, it was a face which always
kept on the natural side of the boundary between comeliness and the
ideal. Though elastic in bearing, 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.

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.

“Stop your scrubbing a moment,” said Bathsheba through the door to her.
“I hear something.”

Maryann suspended the brush.

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 whip or stick.

“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.”

“Be quiet!” said Bathsheba.

The further expression of Liddy’s concern was continued by exhibition
instead of relation.

“Why doesn’t Mrs. Coggan go to the door?” Bathsheba continued.

Rat-tat-tat-tat, resounded more decisively from Bathsheba’s oak.

“Maryann, you go!” said she, fluttering under the onset of a crowd of
romantic possibilities.

“Oh, ma’am—see, here’s a mess!”

The argument was unanswerable after a glance at Maryann.

“Liddy—you must,” said Bathsheba.

Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated with dust from the rubbish
they were sorting, and looked imploringly at her mistress.

“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.

The door opened, and a deep voice said,—

“Is Miss Everdene at home?”

“I’ll see, sir,” said Mrs. Coggan, and in a minute appeared in the
room.

“Dear, what a universe 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 appeared 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 happens—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.”

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,—

“I can’t see him in this state. Whatever shall I do?”

Not-at-homes were hardly naturalized in Weatherbury farm-houses, so
Liddy suggested—“Say you’re a fright with dust, and can’t come down.”

“Yes—that sounds very well,” said Mrs. Coggan, critically.

“Say I can’t see him—that will do.”

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.”

“Oh, very well,” said the deep voice, indifferently. “All I wanted to
ask was, if anything had been heard of Fanny Robin?”

“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.”

The horse’s tramp then recommenced and retreated, and the door closed.

“Who is Mr. Boldwood?” said Bathsheba.

“A gentleman-farmer at Lower Weatherbury.”

“Married?”

“No, miss.”

“How old is he?”

“Forty, I should say—very handsome—rather stern-looking—and rich.”

“What a bother this dusting is! I am always in some unfortunate plight
or other,” Bathsheba said, complainingly. “Why should he inquire about
Fanny?”

“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!”

“What?”

“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.”

A little boy came up at this moment and looked in upon them. This child
was one of the Coggans (Smallburys and Coggans were as common among the
families of this district as the Avons and Derwents among our rivers),
and he always had a loosened tooth or a cut finger to show to
particular friends, which he did with a complacent 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.

“I’ve got a pen-nee!” said Master Coggan in a scanning measure.

“Well—who gave it you, Teddy?” said Liddy.

“Mis-terr Bold-wood! He gave it to me for opening the gate.”

“What did he say?”

“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.’”

“You naughty child! What did you say that for?”

“’Cause he gave me the penny!”

“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.”

“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 forlorn as a pelican in the
wilderness. Ah, poor soul of me!”

“Did anybody ever want to marry you miss?” Liddy ventured to ask when
they were again alone. “Lots of ’em, I daresay?”

Bathsheba paused, as if about to refuse a reply, but the temptation to
say yes, since it really was in her power, was irresistible by aspiring
virginity, in spite of her spleen at having been published as old.

“A man wanted to once,” she said, in a highly experienced tone, and the
image of Gabriel Oak, as the farmer, rose before her.

“How nice it must seem!” said Liddy, with the fixed features of mental
realization. “And you wouldn’t have him?”

“He wasn’t quite good enough for me.”

“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?”

“Oh, no. But I rather liked him.”

“Do you now?”

“Of course not—what footsteps are those I hear?”

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.

“The Philistines are upon us,” said Liddy, making her nose white
against the glass.

“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.”




CHAPTER X.
MISTRESS AND MEN


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, and a canvas money-bag beside her. From this she poured a small
heap of coin. Liddy took up 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 as a work of art merely, strictly preventing her
countenance from expressing any wish to possess it as money.

“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.”

The men breathed an audible breath of amazement.

“The next matter is, have you heard anything of Fanny?”

“Nothing, ma’am.

“Have you done anything?”

“I met Farmer Boldwood,” said Jacob Smallbury, and I went with him and
two of his men, and dragged Wood Pond, but we found nothing.”

“And the new shepherd have been to Buck’s Head, thinking she had gone
there, but nobody had seed her,” said Laban Tall.

“Hasn’t William Smallbury been to Casterbridge?”

“Yes, ma’am, but he’s not yet come home. He promised to be back by
six.”

“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?”

“Yes, sir—ma’am I mane,” said the person addressed. “I am the personal
name of Poorgrass—a small matter who is nothing in his own eye. Perhaps
it is different in the eye of other people—but I don’t say it; though
public thought will out.”

“What do you do on the farm?”

“I does carting things all the year, and in seed time I shoots the
rooks and sparrows, and helps at pig-killing, sir.”

“How much to you?”

“Please nine and ninepence and a good halfpenny where ’twas a bad one,
sir—ma’am I mane.”

“Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings in addition as a small
present, as I am a new comer.”

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.

“How much do I owe you—that man in the corner—what’s your name?”
continued Bathsheba.

“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.

“Matthew Mark, did you say?—speak out—I shall not hurt you,” inquired
the young farmer, kindly.

“Matthew Moon, mem,” said Henery Fray, correctingly from behind her
chair, to which point he had edged himself.

“Matthew Moon,” murmured Bathsheba, turning her bright eyes to the
book. “Ten and two-pence halfpenny is the sum put down to you, I see?”

“Yes, mis’ess,” said Matthew, as the rustle of wind among dead leaves.

“Here it is and ten shillings. Now the next—Andrew Candle, you are a
new man, I hear. How come you to leave your last farm?”

“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——”

“’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.”

“Andrew Candle, here’s yours—finish thanking me in a day or two.
Temperance Miller—oh, here’s another, Soberness—both women I suppose?”

“Yes’m. Here we be, ’a b’lieve,” was echoed in shrill unison.

“What have you been doing?”

“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.”

“Yes—I see. Are they satisfactory women?” she inquired softly of Henery
Fray.

“Oh, mem—don’t ask me! Yielding women?—as scarlet a pair as ever was!”
groaned Henery under his breath.

“Sit down.

“Who, mem?”

“Sit down!”

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.

“Now the next. Laban Tall. You’ll stay on working for me?”

“For you or anybody that pays me well, ma’am,” replied the young
married man.

“True—the man must live!” said a woman in the back quarter, who had
just entered with clicking pattens.

“What woman is that?” Bathsheba asked.

“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.

“Oh, you are,” said Bathsheba. “Well, Laban, will you stay on?”

“Yes, he’ll stay, ma’am!” said again the shrill tongue of Laban’s
lawful wife.

“Well, he can speak for himself, I suppose.”

“O Lord, no, ma’am! A simple tool. Well enough, but a poor gawkhammer
mortal,” the wife replied

“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.

The names remaining were called in the same manner.

“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?”

“No, ma’am.”

“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.

“Oh—he will. Who can he have?”

“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.

“Oh, I don’t mind that,” said Gabriel.

“How did Cain come by such a name?” asked Bathsheba.

“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.”

“It is rather unfortunate.”

“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.”

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.

“Very well then, Cainy Ball to be under-shepherd. And you quite
understand your duties?—you I mean, Gabriel Oak?”

“Quite well, I thank you, Miss Everdene,” said Shepard 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.

Footsteps were heard in the passage, combining in their character the
qualities both of weight and measure, rather at the expense of
velocity.

(All.) “Here’s Billy Smallbury come from Casterbridge.”

“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.

“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.

“Come at last, is it?” said Henery.

“Well, what about Fanny?” said Bathsheba.

“Well, ma’am, in round numbers, she’s run away with the soldiers,” said
William.

“No; not a steady girl like Fanny!”

“I’ll tell ye all particulars. When I got to Casterbridge Barracks,
they said, ‘The 11th Dragoon-Guards be gone away, and new troops have
come.’ The Eleventh left last week for Melchester. 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.”

Gabriel had listened with interest. “I saw them go,” he said.

“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!”

“But they’re not gone to any war?”

“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.”

“Did you find out his name?”

“No; nobody knew it. I believe he was higher in rank than a private.”

Gabriel remained musing and said nothing, for he was in doubt.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

(All.) “No’m!”

(Liddy.) “Excellent well said.”

“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.

(All.) “Yes’m!”

“And so good-night.”

(All.) “Good-night, ma’am.”

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.




CHAPTER XI.
MELCHESTER MOOR—SNOW—A MEETING


For dreariness, nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of
the city of Melchester at a later hour on this same snowy evening—if
that may be called a prospect of which the chief constituent was
darkness.

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.

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 heath.

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 heath. Winter, in coming to the place under notice, advanced in
some such well-marked stages as the following:—

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.
An obliteration by snow.


This climax of the series had been reached to-night on Melchester 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 heath and moor momentarily received additional
clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast dome
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.

We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics. They were
flatness as regards the river, verticality as regards the wall behind
it, and darkness as regards both. These features made up the mass. If
anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall; and if anything
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.

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.

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.

By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer might
have seen that it was small. This was all that was positively
discoverable. Human it seemed.

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:—

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

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.

Here the spot stopped, and dwindled small. 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.

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.

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.

The window was struck again in the same manner.

Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the
window. This was followed by a voice from the same quarter.

“Who’s there?”

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 tonight.

“Is it Sergeant Troy?” said the blurred spot in the snow, tremulously.

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.

“Yes,” came suspiciously from the shadow. “What girl are you?”

“Oh, Frank—don’t you know me?” said the spot. “Your wife, Fanny Robin.”

“Fanny!” said the wall, in utter astonishment.

“Yes,” said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion.

There was a tone in the woman 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.

“How did you come here?”

“I asked which was your window. Forgive me!”

“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.”

“You said I was to come.”

“Well—I said that you might.”

“Yes, I mean that I might. You are glad to see me, Frank?”

“O yes—of course.”

“Can you—come to me!”

“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 Melchester Gaol
till to-morrow morning.”

“Then I shan’t see you till then!” The words were in a faltering tone
of disappointment.

“How did you get here from Weatherbury?”

“I walked—some part of the way—the rest by the carrier.”

“I am surprised.”

“Yes—so am I. And Frank, when will it be?”

“What?”

“That you promised.”

“I don’t quite recollect.”

“Oh 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.”

“Never mind—say it.”

“Oh, must I?—it is, when shall we be married, Frank?”

“Oh, I see. Well—you have to get proper clothes.”

“I have money. Will it be by banns or license?”

“Banns, I should think.”

“And we live in two parishes.”

“Do we? What then?”

“My lodgings are in St. Mary’s, and this is not. So they will have to
be published in both.”

“Is that the law?”

“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——”

“Don’t cry, now! It is foolish. If I said so, of course I will.”

“And shall I put up the banns in my parish, and will you in yours?”

“Yes”

“To-morrow?”

“Not to-morrow. We’ll settle in a few days.”

“You have the permission of the officers?”

“No—not yet.”

“Oh—how is it? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge.”

“The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming like this  is so sudden and
unexpected.”

“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.”

“Quite so. I’ll come to you, my dear. Good-night.”

“Good-night, Frank—good-night!”

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.

“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.




CHAPTER XII.
FARMERS—A RULE—AN EXCEPTION


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 corn-market at Casterbridge.

The low though extensive hall, supported by Tuscan 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
semi-circle; 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.

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.

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.

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 depth enough in that lithe slip of humanity
for alarming potentialities of exploit, 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,

Strange to say of a woman in full bloom and vigour, 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 naïveté in her cheapening which saved it
from meanness.

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,—

“Farmer Everdene’s niece; took on Weatherbury Upper Farm; turned away
the baily, and swears she’ll do everything herself.”

The other man would then shake his head.

“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.”

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 _débût_ 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 to merely walk as a
queen among these gods of the fallow, like a little sister of a little
Jove, and to neglect closing prices altogether.

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.

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 exception,
added to its smallness, made the mystery—just as when the difference
between the state of an insignificant fleece and the state of all round
it, rather than any novelty in the states themselves, arrested the
attention of Gideon.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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!”

“I knowed it would be,” Liddy said. “Men be such a terrible class of
society to look at a body.”

“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?”

Liddy couldn’t think.

“Can’t you guess at all?” said Bathsheba with some disappointment.

“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.”

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.

“Why, there he is!” she said.

Liddy looked. “That! That’s Farmer Boldwood—of course ’tis—the man you
couldn’t see the other day when he called.”

“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.

“He’s an interesting man—don’t you think so?” she remarked.

“Oh yes, very. Everybody owns it,” replied Liddy.

“I wonder why he is so wrapt up and indifferent, and seemingly so far
away from all he sees around him.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Simply his nature—I expect so, miss—nothing else in the world.”

“Still, ’tis more romantic to think he has been served cruelly, poor
thing! Perhaps, after all, he has!”

“Depend upon it he has. Oh yes, miss, he has. I feel he must have.”

“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.”

“Oh dear no, miss—I can’t think it between the two!”

“That’s most likely.”

“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.”




CHAPTER XIII.
SORTES SANCTORUM—THE VALENTINE


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.

On the table lay an old quarto Bible, bound in leather. Liddy looking
at it said,—

“Did you ever find out, miss, who you are going to marry by means of
the Bible and key?”

“Don’t be so foolish, Liddy. As if such things could be.”

“Well, there’s a good deal in it, all the same.”

“Nonsense, child.”

“And it makes your heart beat fearfully. Some believe in it; some
don’t; I do.”

“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.”

Liddy fetched it. “I wish it wasn’t Sunday,” she said, on returning.”
Perhaps ’tis wrong.”

[Illustration: “GET THE FRONT DOOR KEY.” LIDDY FETCHED IT.]

“What’s right week days is right Sundays,” replied her companion in a
tone which was a proof in itself.

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.

“Now keep steady, and be silent,” said Bathsheba.

The verse was repeated; the book turned round; Bathsheba blushed
guiltily.

“Who did you try?” said Liddy curiously.

“I shall not tell you.”

“Did you notice Mr. Boldwood’s doings in church this morning, miss?”
Liddy continued, adumbrating by the remark the track her thoughts had
taken.

“No, indeed,” said Bathsheba, with serene indifference

“His pew is exactly opposite yours, miss.”

“I know it.”

“And you did not see his goings on?”

“Certainly I did not, I tell you.”

Liddy assumed a smaller physiognomy, and shut her lips decisively.

This move was unexpected, and proportionately disconcerting. “What did
he do?” Bathsheba said perforce.

“Didn’t turn his head to look at you once all the service.

“Why should he?” again demanded her mistress, wearing a nettled look.
“I didn’t ask him to.”

“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?”

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.

“Dear me—I had nearly forgotten the valentine I bought yesterday,” she
exclaimed at length.

“Valentine! who for, miss?” said Liddy. “Farmer Boldwood?”

It was the single name among all possible wrong ones that just at this
moment seemed to Bathsheba more pertinent than the right.

“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.”

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.

“Here’s a place for writing,” said Bathsheba. “What shall I put?”

“Something of this sort, I should think,” returned Liddy promptly:—

“The rose is red,
The violet blue,
Carnation’s sweet,
And so are you.”


“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.

“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.

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 non-conformity. 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.

“No, I won’t do that. He wouldn’t see any humour in it.”

“He’d worry to death,” said the persistent Liddy.

“Really, I don’t care particularly to send it to Teddy,” remarked her
mistress. “He’s rather a naughty child sometimes.”

“Yes—that he is.”

“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.”

“Toss this hymn-book; there can’t be no sinfulness in that, miss.”

“Very well. Open, Boldwood—shut, Teddy. No; it’s more likely to fall
open. Open, Teddy—shut, Boldwood.”

The book went fluttering in the air and came down shut.

Bathsheba, a small yawn upon her mouth, took the pen, and with off-hand
serenity directed the missive to Boldwood.

“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, Lidd? 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.”

A large red seal was duly affixed. Bathsheba looked closely at the hot
wax to discover the words.

“Capital!” she exclaimed, throwing down the letter frolicsomely.
“’Twould upset the solemnity of a parson and clerk too.

Liddy looked at the words of the seal, and read—

“MARRY ME.”


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.

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.




CHAPTER XIV.
EFFECT OF THE LETTER—SUNRISE


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,—

“MARRY ME.”


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.

Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, Boldwood had felt the
spherical completeness of his existence heretofore to be slowly
spreading into an abnormal distortion in the particular direction of an
ideal passion. The disturbance was as the first floating weed to
Columbus—the eontemptibly little suggesting possibilities of the
infinitely great.

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 very dissimilar processes of
approving a course suggested by circumstance, and striking out a course
from inner impulse and intention purely, 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.

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 _woman’s_—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?

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.

The moon shone to-night, and its light was not of a customary kind. His
window only admitted a reflection of its rays, and the pale sheen had
that reversed direction which snow gives, coming upward and lighting up
his ceiling in a phenomenal way, casting shadows in strange places, and
putting lights where shadows had used to be.

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.

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.

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.

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 incandescent and rayless, like a red and
flameless fire shining over a white hearthstone. The whole effect
resembled a sunset as childhood resembles age.

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.

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
coverlit 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, that they often do not
stop to think whether the fact of an event having once occurred is not
in many cases the very circumstance which makes its repetition
unlikely.

“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.”

Boldwood looked then at the address:—

_To the New Shepherd,
    Weatherbury Farm,
        Near Casterbridge_.


“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.”

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.

“Wait,” said Boldwood.” That’s the man on the hill. I’ll take the
letter to him myself.”

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.

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.




CHAPTER XV.
A MORNING MEETING—THE LETTER AGAIN


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.

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. 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 line—sheering off as he got
nearer, till it was doubtful if he would ever reach it at all.

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 village clubhouse, there being no inn
in the place.

“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, and 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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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 manage alone!” He allowed his head to
swing laterally three or four times in silence. “Never in all my
creeping up—never!”

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.

“All will be ruined, and ourselves too, or there’s no meat in
gentlemen’s houses!” said Mark Clark in the manner of a man ready to
burst all links of habit.

“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 of it, I sorrows like a man in travel!”

“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.

“’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 conceive me?”

“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
are cheated in some mean way out of your recompense.”

“No, no; I don’t agree with’ee there,” said Mark Clark, decisively.
God’s a perfect gentleman in that respect.”

“Good works good pay, so to speak it,” attested Joseph Poorgrass.

A short pause ensued, and as a sort of _entr’acte_ 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.

“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.”

“Got a pianner?”

“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.”

“Pictures, for the most part wonderful frames.”

“Long horse-hair settles for the drunk, with horse-hair pillows at each
end.”

“Looking-glasses for the pretty.”

“Lying books for the wicked.”

A firm loud tread was now heard stamping outside; the door was opened
about six inches, and somebody on the other side exclaimed,—

“Neighbours, have ye got room for a few new-born lambs?”

“Ay, sure, shepherd,” said the conclave.

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.

“Well, Shepherd Oak, and how’s lambing this year, if I may say it?”
inquired Joseph Poorgrass.

“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.”

“A good few twins, too, I hear, so to speak it?”

“Too many by half. Yes; ’tis a very queer lambing this year. We sha’n’t
have done by Lady Day.”

“And last year ’twer all over by Sexagessamine Sunday,” Joseph
remarked.

“Bring on the rest, Cain,” said Gabriel, “and then run back to the
ewes. I’ll follow you soon.”

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.

“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, malster, I don’t know what I should
do! this keen weather. And how is it with you to-day, malster?”

“Oh, neither sick nor sorry, shepherd, but no younger.”

“Ay—I understand.”

“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.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t. ’Tis altered very much.”

“Is it true that Dicky Hill’s wooden cider-house is pulled down?”

“O yes—years ago, and Dicky’s cottage just above it.”

“Well, to be sure!,

“Yes; and Tompkins’s old apple-tree is rooted that used to bear two
hogsheads of cider with its own apples, and no help from other trees.”

“Rooted?—you don’t say it! Ah! stirring times we live in—stirring
times.”

“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.”

“Dear, dear—how the face of nations alter, and what great revolutions
we live to see now-a-days! Yes—and ’tis the same here. They’ve been
talking but now of the mis’ess’s strange doings.”

“What have you been saying about her?” inquired Oak, sharply turning to
the rest, and getting very warm.

“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.

“Mark,” said Gabriel, sternly, “now you mind this: none of that
dalliance-talk—that philandering way—that dandle-smack-and-coddle style
of yours—about Miss Everdene. I don’t allow it. Do you hear?”

“With all my heart, as the old woman said,” replied Mr. Clark,
heartily.

“I suppose you’ve been speaking against her?” said Oak, turning to
Joseph Poorgrass with a very grim look.

“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——”

“Matthew Moon, what have you been saying?” asked Oak.

“I? Why ye know I wouldn’t harm a worm—no, not one underground worm?”
said Matthew Moon, looking very uneasy.

“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.”

All earnestly expressed by their features that their minds did not
wander to Holland for a moment on account of this statement, well
knowing it was but a powerful form of speech; but were deploring the
difference which gave rise to the figure; and Mark Clark cried “Hear,
hear; as the undertaker 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.

“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.

“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 small movements
associated with states of mind rather than body; “we wish we were,
don’t we, neighbours?”

“Ay, that we do, sure,” said Matthew Moon, with a small anxious laugh
towards Oak, to show how very friendly disposed he was likewise.

“Who’s been telling you I’m clever?” said Oak.

“’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.”

“Yes, I can do a little that way,” said Gabriel, as a man of medium
sentiments on the subject.

“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

[Illustration: J A M E S]

“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.

“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’ dogs for the memory
to mind whether they face backward or forward; and I always had such a
forgetful memory, too.”

“’Tis a bad afiction for ye, Jospeh Poorgrass—being such a man of
calamity in other ways.”

“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.”

“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 chooses—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.

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 teapot 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.

“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.

“I don’t have them,” said Gabriel.

“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.”

“Oh no—not at all,” replied Gabriel, hastily, and a sigh escaped him,
which the deprivation of lamb skins could hardly have caused.

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.

“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.”

“O 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.

Oak stepped aside, and read the following in an unknown hand:—

“DEAR FRIEND,—I do not know your name, but I think these few lines will
reach you, which I write 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 Melchester. 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.

“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,

“I am, your sincere well-wisher,
“FANNY ROBIN.”


“Have you read it, Mr. Boldwood?” said Gabriel; “if not, you had better
do so. I know you are interested in Fanny Robin.”

Boldwood read the letter and looked grieved.

“Fanny—poor Fanny! the end she is so confident of has not yet come, she
should remember—and may never come.”

“What sort of a man is this Sergeant Troy?” said Gabriel.

“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. Soon after she was married to a poor
medical man, 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!”

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, and coughing with noisy vigour and great distension of face.

“Now, Cain Ball,” said Oak, sternly, “why will you run so fast and lose
your breath so? I’m always telling you of it.”

“Oh—I—A puff of mee breath—went—the wrong way, please, Mister Oak, and
made me cough—hok—hok!”

“Well—what have you come for?”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.

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.

“I was going to ask you, Oak,” he said, with unreal carelessness, “if
you know whose writing this is?”

Oak glanced into the book, and replied instantly, with a flushed face,
“Miss Everdene’s.”

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.

Boldwood mistook his confusion: sensitive persons are always ready with
their “Is it I?” in preference to objective reasoning.

“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.

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.




CHAPTER XVI.
ALL SAINTS’ AND ALL SOULS’


On a week-day morning a small congregation, consisting mainly of women
and girls, rose from its knees in the mouldy nave of All Saints’
church, Melchester, 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 accented 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 females; 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.

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.

“’Tis a wedding!” murmured some of the women, brightening. “Let’s
wait!”

The majority again sat down.

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.

The jack had struck half-past eleven.

“Where’s the woman?” whispered some of the spectators.

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.

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 blow for three-quarters, its
fussy retreat, were almost painfully abrupt, and caused many of the
congregation to start palpably.

“I wonder where the woman is!” a voice whispered again.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Well?” he said, in a suppressed passion, without looking at her.

“O, 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.”

“You fool, for so fooling me! But say no more.”

“Shall it be to-morrow, Frank?” she asked blankly.

“To-morrow!” and he gave vent to a hoarse laugh. “I don’t go through
that experience again for some time, I warrant you!”

“But after all,” she expostulated in a trembling voice, “the mistake
was not such a terrible thing! Now, dear Frank, when shall it be?”

“Ah, when? God knows!” he said, with a light irony, and turning from
her walked rapidly away.




CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE MARKET-PLACE


On Saturday Boldwood was in the 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.

Emotional causes and 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.

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.

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.

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 judgment 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.

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?”

“Oh, yes; she was a good deal noticed the first time she came, if you
remember. A very handsome girl indeed.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, it would read like additional evidence of her forwardness.




CHAPTER XVIII.
BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION—A VISIT


Boldwood was tenant of what was called the Lower Farm, and his person
was the nearest approach to aristocracy that this remoter quarter of
Weatherbury 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.

His house stood recessed from the road, and the stables, which are to a
farm what a fireplace is to a house, 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,
presenting 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 up and down 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.

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.

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.

The phases of Boldwood’s life were ordinary enough, but his was not an
ordinary nature. Spiritually and mentally, no less than socially, a
commonplace general condition is no conclusive proof that a man has not
potentialities above that level.

In all cases this state may be either the mediocrity of inadequacy, as
was Oak’s, or what we will venture to call the mediocrity of
counterpoise, as was Boldwood’s. The quiet mean to which we originally
found him adhering, and in which, with few exceptions, he had
continually moved, was that of neutralization: it was not structural at
all. 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.

Boldwood was thus either hot or cold. 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 ho
was missed. The shallows in the characters of ordinary men were sterile
strands in his, but his depths were so profound as to be practically
bottomless.

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.

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 spirited capabilities from old floodmarks
faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused
them.

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.

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.

Boldwood, looking into the distant meadows, saw there three figures.
They were those of Miss Everdene, Shepherd Oak, and Cainy Ball.

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.

At last he arrived at a conclusion. It was to go across and inquire
boldly of her.

The insulation of his heart by reserve during these many years, without
a duct 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.

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.

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.

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.

Farmer Boldwood had read the pantomime denoting that they were
conscious 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.

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.

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.




CHAPTER XIX.
THE SHEEP-WASHING—THE OFFER


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.

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.

The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin of stonework 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 round as a glistening Cyclop’s 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 everything that was not a buttercup was a daisy, losing
this character somewhat as they sank to the verge of the intervening
river. It slid along noiselessly as a shade, the swelling reeds and
sedge forming a flexible palisade along its moist brink. To the north
of the mead were trees, the leaves of which were new, soft, moist, and
flexible, 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.

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 means of 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 thus flowing away below—Cainy Ball and Joseph,
who performed this latter operation, being if possible wetter than the
rest; they resembled dolphins under a fountain, every protuberance and
angle of their clothes dribbling forth a small rill.

Boldwood came close and bid 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.

“Miss Everdene!” said the farmer.

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.

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.

“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.”

[Illustration: “I FEEL—ALMOST TOO MUCH—TO THINK,” HE SAID.]

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.

“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.”

“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.

This giving back of dignity for dignity seemed to open the sluices of
feeling that Boldwood had as yet kept closed.

“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!”

Bathsheba answered nothing, and the horse upon her arm seemed so
impressed, that instead of cropping the herbage she looked up.

“I think and hope you care enough for me to listen to what I have to
tell!”

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.

“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.”

The valentine again! O that valentine!” she said to herself, but not a
word to him.

“If you can love me, say so, Miss Everdene. If not—don’t say no.”

“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.”

“But, Miss Everdene!”

“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——”

“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.”

“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.

“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 hay-making time, or to think of weather in the
harvest. I rather cling to the chaise, because it is he 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!”

Bathsheba’s heart was young, and it swelled with sympathy for the
deep-natured man who spoke so simply.

“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.

“Say then, that you don’t absolutely refuse. Do not quite refuse!”

“I can do nothing. I cannot answer.”

“I may speak to you again on the subject?”

“Yes.”

“I may think of you?”

“Yes, I suppose you may think of me.”

“And hope to obtain you?”

“No—do not hope! Let us go on.”

“I will call upon you again to-morrow.”

“No—please not. Give me time.”

“Yes—I will give you any time,” he said earnestly and gratefully. “I am
happier now.”

“No—I beg you! Don’t be happier if happiness only comes from my
agreeing. Be neutral, Mr. Boldwood! I must think.”

“I will wait,” he said.

And then she turned away. Boldwood dropped his eyes 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.




CHAPTER XX.
PERPLEXITY—GRINDING THE SHEARS—A QUARREL


“He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can desire,”
Bathsheba said, musingly.

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.

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 as 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 men take wives because possession is not
possible without marriage, and that 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.

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.

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.

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, mingling with swords, bayonets, and lances,
in their common necessity for point and edge.

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 sideways, with a
critical compression of the lips and contraction of the eyelids to
crown the attitude.

His mistress came up and looked upon them in silence for a minute or
two; then she said,—

“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.”

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.

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.

“Will you turn, Gabriel, and let me hold the shears?” she said. “My
head is in a whirl, and I can’t talk.”

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.

“I wanted to ask you if the men made any observations on my going
behind the sedge with Mr. Boldwood yesterday?”

“Yes, they did,” said Gabriel. “You don’t hold the shears right, miss—I
knew you wouldn’t know the way—hold like this.”

He relinquished the winch, and inclosing her two hands completely in
his own (taking each as we sometimes clasp a child’s hand in teaching
him to write), grasped the shears with her. “Incline the edge so,” he
said.

Hands and shears were inclined to suit the words, and held thus for a
peculiarly long time by the instructor as he spoke.

“That will do,” exclaimed Bathsheba. “Loose my hands. I won’t have them
held! Turn the winch.”

Gabriel freed her hands quietly, retired to his handle, and the
grinding went on.

“Did the men think it odd?” she said again.

“Odd was not the idea, miss.”

“What did they say?”

“That Farmer Boldwood’s name and your own were likely to be flung over
pulpit together before the year was out.”

“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.”

Gabriel looked incredulous and sad, but between his movements of
incredulity, relieved.

“They must have heard our conversation,” she continued.

“Well, then, Bathsheba!” said Oak, stopping the handle, and gazing into
her face with astonishment.

“Miss Everdene, you mean,” she said, with dignity.

“I mean this, that if Mr. Boldwood really spoke of marriage, I am not
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.”

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.

“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.

“I can say that to them if you wish, Miss Everdene. And I could
likewise give an opinion to you on what you have done.”

“I daresay. But I don’t want your opinion.”

“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.

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.

“Well, what is your opinion of my conduct,” she said, quietly.

“That it is unworthy of any thoughtful, and meek, and comely woman.”

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.

The next thing Gabriel did was to make a mistake.

“Perhaps you don’t like the rudeness of my reprimanding you, for I know
it is rudeness; but I thought it would do good.”

She instantly replied sarcastically,—

“On the contrary, my opinion of you is so low, that I see in your abuse
the praise of discerning people.”

“I am glad you don’t mind it, for I said it honestly, and with every
serious meaning.”

“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.”

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,—

“I may ask, I suppose, where in particular my unworthiness lies? In my
not marrying you, perhaps!”

“Not by any means,” said Gabriel quietly. “I have long given up
thinking of that matter.”

“Or wishing it, I suppose,” she said; and it was apparent that she
expected an unhesitating denial of this supposition.

Whatever Gabriel felt, he coolly echoed her words,—

“Or wishing it either.”

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:—

“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 discover it in some way of true loving-kindness, and not
by sending him a valentine’s letter.”

Bathsheba laid down the shears.

“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!”

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.

“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.

“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.”

“Very well, Miss Everdene—so it shall be.”

And he took his shears and went away from her in placid dignity, as
Moses left the presence of Pharaoh.




CHAPTER XXI.
TROUBLES IN THE FOLD—A MESSAGE


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.

“Whatever _is_ 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.

“Sixty!” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“Seventy!” said Moon.

“Fifty-nine!” said Susan Tall’s husband.

“—Sheep have broke fence,” said Fray.

“—And got into a field of young clover,” said Tall.

“—Young clover!” said Moon.

“—Clover!” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“And they be getting blasted,” said Henery Fray.

“That they be,” said Joseph.

“And will all die as dead as nits, if they bain’t got out and
cured!”said Tall.

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.

“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 themselves—’”

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.

“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!”

Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest now. Bathsheba’s beauty
belonged rather to the redeemed-demonian than to the blemished-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.

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 got more and more
unstable. 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.

Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at these primest
specimens of her prime flock as they rolled there,—

Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew.


Many of them foamed at the mouth, their breathing being quick and
short, whilst the bodies of all were fearfully distended.

“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.”

“There’s only one way of saving them,” said Tall.

“What way? Tell me quick!”

“They must be pierced in the side with a thing made on purpose.”

“Can you do it? Can I?”

“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.”

“Then they must die,” she said, in a resigned tone.

“Only one man in the neighbourhood knows the way,” said Joseph, now
just come up. “He could cure ’em all if he were here.”

“Who is he? Let’s get him!”

“Shepherd Oak,” said Matthew. “Ah, he’s a clever man in talents!”

“Ah, that he is so!” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“True—he’s the man,” said Laban Tall.

“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!”

“Oh 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 posthaste 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?”

“Ay—a holler pipe,” echoed Joseph. “That’s what ’tis.”

“Ay, sure—that’s the machine,” chimed in Henery Fray, reflectively,
with an Oriental indifference to the flight of time.

“Well,” burst out Bathsheba, “don’t stand there with your ‘ayes’ and
your ‘sures’ talking at me! Get somebody to cure the sheep instantly!”

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.

“Never will I send for him—never!” she said firmly.

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.

Bathsheba went up to it. The sheep was dead.

“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!”

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.”

She followed her assistants through the gate, and lifted her hand to
one of them. Laban answered to her signal.

“Where is Oak staying?”

“Across the valley at Nest Cottage.”

“Jump on the bay mare, and ride across, and say he must return
instantly—that I say so.”

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.

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.

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.

“Oh, what folly!” said Bathsheba.

Gabriel was not visible anywhere.

“Perhaps he is already gone,” she said.

Tall came into the inclosure, and leapt off, his face tragic as
Morton’s after the battle of Shrewsbury.

“Well?” said Bathsheba, unwilling to believe that her verbal
_lettre-de-cachet_ could possibly have miscarried.

“He says _beggars mustn’t be choosers_,” replied Laban.

“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.

“He says he shall not come unless you request him to come civilly and
in a proper manner, as becomes any person begging a favour.”

“Oh, ho, 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?”

Another of the flock sprang into the air, and fell dead.

The men looked grave, as if they suppressed opinion.

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.

“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.”

Bathsheba checked her grief and wiped her eyes. “O, 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.”

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:

“Do not desert me, Gabriel!”


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 was justifiable. The note was despatched as the
message had been, and Bathsheba waited indoors for the result.

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.

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.

She went out when the horse was heard, and looked up. A mounted figure
passed between her and the sky, and went 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:—

“Oh, Gabriel, how could you serve me so unkindly!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

When the love-led man had ceased from his labours, Bathsheba came and
looked him in the face.

“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.

“I will,” said Gabriel.

And she smiled on him again.




CHAPTER XXII.
THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS


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.

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-fronds like bishops’ croziers, the
square-headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint,—like an apoplectic saint
in a niche of malachite—clear white ladies’-smocks, the toothwort,
approximating to human flesh, the enchanter’s nightshade, 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.

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.

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 builders then was at one with the spirit of the beholder
now. 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 standpoint.
The lanceolate windows, the time-eaten arch-stones 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.

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 them to bristle with a
thousand rays strong enough to blind a weak-eyed man. Beneath them a
captive sheep lay panting, increasing the rapidity ot its pants as
misgiving merged in terror, till it quivered like the hot landscape
outside.

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 _Then_ is the rustic’s _Now_. 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 nooks the busy outsider’s
ancient times are only old; his old times are still new; his present is
futurity.

So the barn was natural to the shearers, and the shearers were in
harmony with the barn.

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.

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.

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.

“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 the coteries, and would
have been creditable, for its promptness, to any woman in the world.

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.

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 dew-lap;
thence about her flank and back, and finishing over the tail.

“Well done, and done quickly!” said Bathsheba, looking at her watch as
the last snip resounded.

“How long, miss?” said Gabriel, wiping his brow.

“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.”

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.

“Cain Ball!”

“Yes, Mister Oak; here I be!”

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 _woollen_ as cream is
superior to milk-and-water.

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.

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
impressible 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.

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 May 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.

She left Boldwood’s side, and he walked up and down alone for nearly a
quarter of an hour. Then she reappeared in a 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.

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.

“Oh Gabriel!” she exclaimed, with severe remonstrance, “you who are so
strict with the other men—see what you are doing yourself!”

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.

“Bottle!” he shouted, in an unmoved voice of routine. Cainy Ball ran
up, the wound was anointed, and the shearing continued.

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.

“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.”

The horses’ heads were put about, and they trotted away.

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.

“That means matrimony,” said Temperance Miller, following them out of
sight with her eyes.

“I reckon that’s the size o’t,” said Coggan, working along without
looking up.

“Well, better wed over the mixen than over the moor,” said Laban Tall,
turning his sheep.

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.”

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.

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 with
indignation?”

“We do, we do, Henery.”

“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?”

“Passably well put.”

“Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook me for
it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind!”

“A true man, and proud as a Lucifer.”

“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.”

“What a lie!” said Gabriel.

“Ah, neighbour Oak—how’st know?” said, Henery, mildly.

“Because she told me all that passed,” said Oak, with a pharisaical
sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter.

“Ye have a right to believe it,” said Henery, with dudgeon; “a very
true right. But I may 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
promiscuous. Do you conceive me, neighbours? My words, though made as
simple as I can, may be rather deep for some heads.”

“Oh yes, Henery, we quite conceive ye.”

“A strange old piece, goodmen—whirled about from here to yonder, as if
I were nothing worth. A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha,
and even my great depths! I might close with a certain shepherd, brain
to brain. But no—Oh no!”

“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 baint half gone yet; and what’s a old man’s standing if
so be his teeth baint 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.”

It was the unvarying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differences
when the maltster had to be pacified.

“Weak as water! yes,” said Jan Coggan. “Malter, we feel ye to be a
wonderful old veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it.”

“Nobody,” said Joseph Poorgrass. “Ye are a very rare old spectacle,
malster, and we all respect ye for that gift.”

“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.

“’Ithout doubt you was—’ithout doubt.”

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:—

“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 article 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.”

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 outgrown 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.

“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 than
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.”

“And there’s two bushels of biffins for apple-pies,” said Maryann.

“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.”




CHAPTER XXIII.
EVENTIDE—A SECOND DECLARATION


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.

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.

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.

“Gabriel,” said she, “will you move again, please, and let Mr. Boldwood
come there?”

Oak moved in silence back to his original seat.

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.

Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own private account, without
reference to listeners:—

“I’ve lost my love, and I care not,
I’ve lost my love, and I care not;
    I shall soon have another
    That’s better than t’other;
I’ve lost my love, and I care not.”


This melody, 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.

“Now, Master Poorgrass, your song,” said Coggan.

“I be all but a shadder, and the gift is wanting in me,” said Joseph,
diminishing himself.

“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.’”

“Faith, so she is; well, I must suffer it!… How do I bear her gaze? Do
I blush prodigally? Just eye my features, and see if the tell-tale
blood overpowers me much, neighbours.”

“No, yer blushes be quite reasonable,” said Coggan.

“A very reasonable depth indeed,” testified Oak.

“I always tries to keep my colours from rising when a beauty’s eyes get
fixed on me,” said Joseph, diffidently; “but if so be ’tis willed they
do, they must.”

“Now, Joseph, your song, please,” said Bathsheba, from the window.

“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.”

“Hear, hear!” said the supper-party.

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:—

“I sow′-ed th′-e. . . . .
I sow′-ed. . . . .
I sow′-ed the′-e seeds′ of′ love′,
    I-it was′ all′ i′-in the′-e spring′,
I-in A′-pril′, Ma′-ay, a′-nd sun′-ny′ June′,
    When sma′-all bi′-irds they′ do′ sing′.”


“Well put out of hand,” said Coggan, at the end of the verse. “‘They do
sing’ was a very taking paragraph.”

“Ay; and there was a pretty place at ‘seeds of love,’ and ’twas well
let out. Though ‘love’ is a nasty high corner when a man’s voice is
getting crazed. Next verse, Master Poorgrass.”

But during this rendering young Bob Coggan evinced one of those
anomalies which will afflict little people when other persons are
particularly serious, and, in trying to check his laughter, 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
ultimately burst out through his nose. Joseph perceived it, and with
hectic cheeks of indignation instantly ceased singing. Coggan boxed
Bob’s ears immediately.

“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:—

“Oh the wi′-il-lo′-ow tree’ will′ twist′,
And the wil′-low′ tre′-ee wi′ill twine′.”


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.

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, lacquered with a yellow of
self-sustained brilliancy that seemed inherent rather than acquired.

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.

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.

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?

After a moment’s consideration Bathsheba assented, beckoning to
Gabriel, who hastened up into the coveted atmosphere at once.

“Have you brought your flute?” she whispered.

“Yes, miss.”

“Play to my singing, then.”

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:—

“For his bride a soldier sought her,
    And a winning tongue had he:
On the banks of Allan Water
    None was gay as she!”

[Illustration: SHE STOOD UP IN THE WINDOW-OPENING, FACING THE MEN.]

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.

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 themselves; and the necessity of being
jealous, which lovers are troubled with, did not lead Oak to
under-estimate these signs.

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 shutting himself 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:—

“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
comprehensively, as if he were the masterpiece of some world-renowned
artist.

“I’m sure I should never have believed it if we hadn’t proved it, so to
allude,” said 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.

“I’m sure I don’t deserve half the praise you give me,” said the
virtuous thief, grimly.

“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.”

“Well, ’tis an honest deed, and we thank ye for it, Pennyways,” said
Joseph; to which opinion the remainder of the company subscribed
unanimously.

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.

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.

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 the poet 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.

“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.”

“But you have every reason to believe that _then_…”

“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.”

“It is enough; I don’t ask more. I can wait on those dear words. And
now, Miss Everdene, good-night!”

“Good-night,” she said, graciously—almost tenderly; and Boldwood
withdrew with a serene smile.

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
awestruck 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.




CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SAME NIGHT—THE FIR PLANTATION


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.

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.

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, large
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 fragment 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

“A rum start, upon my soul!” said a masculine voice, a foot or so above
her head. “Have I hurt you, mate?”

“No,” said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink a way.

“We have got hitched together somehow, I think.”

“Yes.”

“Are you a woman?”

“Yes.”

“A lady, I should have said.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I am a man.”

“Oh!”

Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose.

“Is that a dark lantern you have? I fancy so,” said the man.

“Yes.”

“If you’ll allow me I’ll open it, and set you free.”

A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the rays burst out from
their prison, and Bathsheba beheld her position with astonishment.

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 _genius loci_ 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.

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.

“I’ll unfasten you in one moment, miss,” he said, with new-born
gallantry.

“O no—I can do it, thank you,” she hastily replied, and stooped for the
performance.

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.

He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the ground betwixt them
threw the gleam from its open side among the fir-tree _débris_ 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.

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
pointblank with her own. But she had obliquely noticed that he was
young and slim, and that he wore three chevrons upon his sleeve.
Bathsheba pulled again.

“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.”

“Yes—please do!” she exclaimed, helplessly.

“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.

His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed coming to no end.
She looked at him again.

“Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face!” said the young
sergeant, without ceremony.

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 utter captivity

“I like you the better for that incivility, miss,” he said.

“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 lilliputian musketry.

“I deserve such a chastisement your words give me. But why should such
a fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to her father’s sex?”

“Go on your way, please.”

“What, Beauty, and drag you after me? Do but look; I never saw such a
tangle!”

“Oh, ’tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose to
keep me here—you have!”

“Indeed, I don’t think so,” said the sergeant, with a merry twinkle.

“I tell you you have!” she exclaimed, in high temper. “I insist upon
undoing it. Now, allow me!”

“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!”

She closed her lips in a determined silence.

Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether by a bold and desperate
rush she could free herself at the risk of leaving a portion of 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?

“All in good time; it will soon be done, I perceive,” said her cool
friend.

“This trifling provokes, and—and——”

“Not too cruel!”

“—Insults me!”

“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.

Bathsheba really knew not what to say.

“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.”

“Who are you, then, who can so well afford to despise opinion?”

“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!”

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.

“Ah, Beauty; good-bye!” he said.

She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of twenty or thirty yards,
turned about, and ran indoors.

Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her own chamber,
Bathsheba opened the girl’s door an inch or two, and said,—

“Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village—sergeant somebody—rather
gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good looking—a red coat with blue
facings?”

“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.”

“Yes; that’s the name. Had he a moustache—no whiskers or beard?”

“He had.”

“What kind of a person is he?”

“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!”

“Which is a great deal more. Fancy! Is it true?”

“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?”

“I believe so. Good-night, Liddy.”

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.

So she could not clearly decide whether it was her opinion that he had
insulted her or not.

“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 bare-faced praise of her person an insult now.

It was a fatal omission of Boldwood’s that he had never once told her
she was beautiful.




CHAPTER XXV.
THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED


Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an
exceptional being.

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.

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.

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.

He was perfectly 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 but transient had reference only
to the future.

He never passed the line which divides the spruce vices from the ugly;
and hence, though his morals had never been applauded, disapproval of
them had frequently been tempered with a smile. This treatment had led
to his becoming a sort of forestaller of other men’s experiences of the
glorious class, to his own aggrandizement as a Corinthian, rather than
to the moral profit of his hearers.

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.

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.

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.

The wondrous power of flattery in _passados_ 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 preposition. 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 the power of a male
dissembler, who by the simple process of deluging her with untenable
fictions charms the female wisely, becomes limitless and absolute to
the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and
wringing occurrences. And some—frequently those who are definable as
middle-aged youths, though not always—profess to have attained the same
knowledge by other and converse experiences, and jauntily continue
their indulgence in such experiences with terrible effect. Sergeant
Troy was one. 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.

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.

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.

As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her, and sticking his
pitchfork into the ground and picking up his walking-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.




CHAPTER XXVI.
SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD


“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.”

“I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy,” said the “Queen
of the Corn-market,” in an indifferently grateful tone.

The sergeant looked hurt and sad. “Indeed you must not, Miss Everdene,”
he said. “Why could you think such a thing necessary?”

“I am glad it is not.”

“Why? if I may ask without offence.”

“Because I don’t much want to thank you for any” thing.”

“I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never
mend. Oh 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.”

“There is some talk I could do without more easily than money.”

“Indeed. That remark seems somewhat digressive.”

“It means that I would rather have your room than your company.”

“And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other
woman; so I’ll stay here.”

Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And yet she could not help feeling
that the assistance he was rendering forbade a harsh repulse.

“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.”

“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.”

“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
commonplace 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.”

“It is all pretence—what you are saying!” exclaimed Bathsheba, laughing
in spite of herself at the sergeant’s 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.”

“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.”

“How long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling,
then?”

“Oh, ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from deformity.”

“’Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of doesn’t
stop at faces, but extends to morals as well.”

“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.”

Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimplings of merriment.
Troy followed, whirling his cane.

“But—Miss Everdene—you do forgive me?”

“Hardly.”

“Why?”

“You say such things.”

“I said you were beautiful, and I’ll say so still; for, by—so you are!
The most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall dead this instant! Why,
upon my——”

“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 _penchant_ to hear
more.

“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?”

“Because it—it isn’t a correct one,” she femininely murmured.

“O, fie—fie! Am I any worse for breaking the third of that Terrible Ten
than you for breaking the ninth?”

“Well, it doesn’t seem _quite_ true to me that I am fascinating,” she
replied evasively.

“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.”

“They don’t say so exactly.”

“O yes, they must!”

“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.

“But you know they think so?”

“No—that is—I certainly have heard Liddy say they do, but. . . .” She
paused.

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 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 seriate changes.

“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.”

“How—indeed?” she said, opening her eyes.

“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 abstracion.]
“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.”

The handsome sergeant’s features were during this speech as rigid and
stern as John Knox’s in addressing his gay young queen.

Seeing she made no reply, he said, “Do you read French?”

“No; I began, but when I got to the verbs, father died,” she said
simply.

“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, ‘Qui aime
bien, châtie bien’—‘He chastens who loves well.’ Do you understand me?”

“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_ derive any pleasure from what
you tell me.”

“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.”

“I think you—are conceited, nevertheless,” said Bathsheba,
hesitatingly, and 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.

“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.”

“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.”

“Oh, Miss Bathsheba! That is to hard!”

“No, it isn’t. Why is it?”

“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.”

“When are you going from here?” she asked, with some interest.

“In a month.”

“But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?”

“Can you ask Miss Everdene—knowing as you do—what my offence is based
on?”

“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.”

“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
_do_, 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.”

“Well.”

“Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like—and Heaven
forbid that you ever should.”

“Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing.”

“Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any
direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture.”

“Ah, sergeant, it won’t do—you are pretending,” she said, shaking her
head dubiously. “Your words are too dashing to be true.”

“I am not, upon the honour of a soldier.”

“But _why_ is it so?—Of course I ask for mere pastime.”

“Because you are so distracting—and I am so distracted.”

“You look like it.”

“I am indeed.”

“Why, you only saw me the other night!”

“That makes no difference. The lightning works instantaneously. I loved
you then, at once—as I do now.”

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.

“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. Dear me, I
wish I knew what o’clock it is—I am going—I have wasted too much time
here already.”

The sergeant looked at his watch and told her. “What, haven’t you a
watch, miss?” he inquired.

“I have not just at present—I am about to get a new one.”

“No. You shall be given one. Yes—you shall. A gift, Miss Everdene—a
gift.”

And before she knew what the young man was intending, a heavy gold
watch was in her hand.

“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.”

She did so.

“What do you see?”

“A crest and a motto.”

“A coronet with five points, and beneath, _Cedit amor rebus_—‘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.

“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!”

The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she held
out persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired.

“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.”

“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!”

“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.

Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in
half-suspicious accents of feeling, “Can it be! O, 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?”

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.

“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.

“I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it as 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.”

“No, no; don’t say so! I have reasons for reserve which I cannot
explain.”

“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?”

“Indeed I will. Yet, I don’t know if I will! Oh, why did you come and
disturb me so!”

“Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. Such things have
happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields?” he coaxed.

“Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you.”

“Miss Everdene, I thank you.

“No, no.”

“Good-bye!”

The sergeant lifted his cap from the slope of his head, bowed, replaced
it, and returned to the distant group of haymakers.

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!”




CHAPTER XXVII.
HIVING THE BEES


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 quarrington, and there defy all
invaders who did not come armed with ladders and staves to take them.

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 was observable somewhat analogous to that of alleged
formations of the universe, time and times ago. 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.

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.

“Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should not attempt such a thing
alone.”

Troy was just opening the garden gate.

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.

“How fortunate I am to have dropped in at this moment!” exclaimed the
sergeant.

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.

“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.

“But you must have on the veil and gloves, or you’ll be stung
fearfully!”

“Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. Will you kindly show me
how to fix them properly?”

“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.”

“The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means.”

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

To hide her embarrassment during the unwonted process of untying the
string about his neck, she said:—

“I have never seen that you spoke of.”

“What?”

“The sword-exercise.”

“Ah! would you like to?” said Troy.

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.

“Yes; I should like to see it very much.”

“And so you shall; you shall see me go through it.”

“No! How?”

“Let me consider.”

“Not with a walking-stick—I don’t care to see that. It must be a real
sword.”

“Yes, I know; and I have no sword here; but I think I could get one by
the evening. Now, will you do this?”

Troy bent over her and murmured some suggestion in a low voice.

“Oh no, indeed!” said Bathsheba, blushing.” Thank you very much, but I
couldn’t on any account.

“Surely you might? Nobody would know.”

She shook her head, but with a weakened negation. “If I were to,” she
said, “I must bring Liddy too. Might I not?”

Troy looked far away. “I don’t see why you want to bring her,” he said
coldly.

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.

“Well, I won’t bring Liddy—and I’ll come. But only for a very short
time,” she added; “a very short time.”

“It will not take five minutes,” said Troy.




CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS


The hill opposite one end of Bathsheba’s dwelling extended into an
uncultivated tract of land, covered 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.

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 down again 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.

She saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round the shoulder of the
rise. It disappeared on the other side.

She waited one minute—two minutes—thought of Troy’s disappointment at
her non-fulfilment of a promised engagement, tossed on her hat again,
ran up the garden, 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.

“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.

The pit was a hemispherical 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.

“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——”

She hurriedly interrupted: “I’d rather not; though I don’t mind your
twos and fours; but your ones and threes are terrible!”

“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.”

“How murderous and bloodthirsty!”

“They are rather deathy. 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.”

I’ll be sure not to!” she said invincibly.

He pointed to about a yard in front of him.

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.

[Illustration: SHE TOOK UP HER POSITION AS DIRECTED.]

“Now just to learn whether you have pluck enough to let me do what I
wish, I’ll give you a preliminary test.”

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.

“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!”

“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.”

“I don’t think I am afraid. You are quite sure you will not hurt me?”

“Quite sure.”

“Is the sword very sharp?”

“Oh no—only stand as still as a statue. Now!”

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 circumambient gleams were accompanied
by a keen sibilation 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.

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 a complete mould of Bathsheba’s figure.

Behind the luminous streams of this _aurora militaris_, 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 bowstring, 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.

“That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying, he said, before she had
moved or spoken. “Wait: I’ll do it for you.”

An arc of silver shone on her right side: the sword had descended. The
lock droped to the ground.

“Bravely borne!” said Troy. “You didn’t flinch a shade’s thickness.
Wonderful in a woman!”

“It was because I didn’t expect it. Oh you have spoilt my hair!”

“Only once more.”

“No—no! I am afraid of you—indeed I am!” she cried.

“I won’t touch you at all—not even your hair. I am only going to kill
that caterpillar settling on you. Now: still!”

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.

“There it is, look,” said the sargeant, holding his sword before her
eyes.

The caterpillar was spitted upon its point.

“Why, it is magic!” said Bathsheba, amazed.

“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.”

“But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has no
edge?”

“No edge! This sword will shave like a razor. Look here.”

He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it,
showed her a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling therefrom.

“But you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn’t cut me!”

“That was to get you to stand still, and so ensure your safety. The
risk of injuring you through your moving was too great not to compel me
to tell you an untruth to obviate it.”

She shuddered. “I have been within an inch of my life, and didn’t know
it!”

“More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being
pared alive two hundred and ninety-five tinies.”

“Cruel, cruel, ’tis of you!”

“You have been perfectly safe, nevertheless. My sword never errs.” And
Troy returned the weapon to the scabbard.

Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred tumultuous feelings resulting from the
scene, abstractedly sat down on a tuft of heather.

“I must leave you now,” said Troy, softly. “And I’ll venture to take
and keep this in remembrance of you.”

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.” 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.

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.

The circumstance had been the gentle dip of Troy’s mouth downwards upon
her own. He had kissed her.




CHAPTER XXIX.
PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK


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. It was introduced as
lymph on the dart of Eros, and 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.

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.

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 consciences. She
could show others the steep and thorny way, but “reck’d not her own
rede.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

An opportunity occurred one evening when she had gone for a short walk
by a path through the neighbouring corn-fields. 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.

The wheat was now tall, and the path was narrow; thus the way was quite
a sunken groove between the embrowing thicket on either side. Two
persons could not walk abreast without damaging the crop, and Oak stood
aside to let her pass.

“Oh, is it Gabriel?” she said. “You are taking a walk too. Good-night.”

“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.

“Thank you, indeed, but I am not very fearful.”

“Oh no; but there are bad characters about.”

“I never meet them.”

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.

“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.

“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:—

“I don’t quite understand what you meant by saying that Mr. Boldwood
would naturally come to meet me.”

“I meant on account of the wedding which they say is likely to take
place between you and him, miss. Forgive my speaking plainly.”

“They say what is not true,” she returned quickly. No marriage is
likely to take place between us.”

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.”

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.

“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.”

“People are full of mistakes, seemingly.”

“They are.”

“The other day they said you were trifling with him, and you almost
proved that you were not; lately they have said that you are not, and
you straightway begin to show——”

“That I am, I suppose you mean.”

“Well, I hope they speak the truth.”

“They do, but wrongly applied. I don’t trifle with him; but then, I
have nothing to do with him.”

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.

Bathsheba’s steps became faintly spasmodic. “Why?” she asked.

“He is not good enough for you.”

“Did any one tell you to speak to me like this?”

“Nobody at all.”

“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.”

“His being higher in learning and birth than the ruck of soldiers is
anything but a proof of his worth. It shows his course to be downward.”

“I cannot see what this has to do with our conversation. Mr. Troy’s
course is not by any means downward; and his superiority _is_ a proof
of his worth!”

“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 _might_ be bad, simply for your own safety? Don’t trust
him, mistress; I ask you not to trust him so.”

“Why, pray?”

“I like soldiers, but this one I do not like,” he said, sturdily. “His
nature of 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 you
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 him, but harmless-uncivil, and so get rid
of the man.”

No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane ever pulsed as did
Bathsheba now.

“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!”

“Oh.”

“He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too,
about going to church—yes, he is!”

“I am afeard nobody saw him there. I never did certainly.”

“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.”

This supreme instance of Troy’s goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like
the thirteenth stroke of a 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.

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:—

“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 you
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.”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t!” she exclaimed, in a choking voice.

“Are you 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 you to
consider before it is too late—how safe you would be in his hands!”

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.

“I wish you to go elsewhere,” she said, 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!”

“That’s nonsense,” said Oak, calmly. “This is the second time you have
pretended to dismiss me; and what’s the use of it?”

“Pretended! You shall go, sir—your lecturing I will not hear! I am
mistress here.”

“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.”

“I shall have no bailiff; I shall continue to be my own manager,” she
said decisively.

“Very well, then; you should be thankful to me for staying. How would
the farm go on with nobody to mind it but a woman? But mind this, I
don’t wish you 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 measures so plainly,
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.”

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.”

“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.

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.

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.




CHAPTER XXX.
HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

She paused in the passage. A dialogue was going on in the kitchen, and
Bathsheba and Troy were the subject of it.

“If he marry her, she’ll gie up farming.”

“’Twill be a gallant life, but may bring some trouble between the
mirth—so say I.”

“Well, I wish I had half such a husband.”

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.

“Who are you speaking of?” she asked.

There was a pause before anybody replied. At last Liddy said frankly,”
What was passing was a bit of a word about yourself, miss.”

“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, “_hate_ him!”

“We know you do, miss,” said Liddy; “and so do we all.”

“I hate him too,” said Maryann.

“Maryann—O 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!”

“Yes, miss, but so did you. He is a wild scamp now, and you are right
to hate him.”

“He’s _not_ 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.”

She flung down the letter and surged back into the parlour, with a big
heart and tearful eyes, Liddy following her.

“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.”

“Shut the door, Liddy.”

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.”

Bathsheba burst out: “O Liddy, are you such a simpleton? Can’t you read
riddles? Can’t you see? Are you a woman yourself?”

Liddy’s clear eyes rounded with wonderment.

“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.”

Liddy went towards the door.

“Liddy, come here. Solemnly swear to me that he’s not a bad man; that
it is all lies they say about him!”

“But, miss, how can I say he is not if——”

“You graceless girl. How can you have the cruel heart to repeat what
they say? Unfeeling thing that you are…. But _I’ll_ 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.

“No, miss. I don’t—I know it is not true!” said Liddy, frightened at
Bathsheba’s unwonted vehemence.

“I suppose you only agree with me like that to please me. But, Liddy,
he _cannot be_ bad, as is said. Do you hear?”

“Yes, miss, yes.”

“And you don’t believe he is?”

“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!”

“Say you don’t believe it—say you don’t!”

“I don’t believe him to be so bad as they make out.”

“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 my Maker 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.”

“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.

“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 o’ 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.”

“I won’t notice anything, nor will I leave you!” sobbed Liddy,
impulsively putting up her lips to Bathsheba’s, and kissing her.

Then Bathsheba kissed Liddy, and all was smooth again.

“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?”

“I will, miss, indeed.”

“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!”

“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?”

“Indeed I do.”

“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.”

“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.

“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 days!”

END OF VOL. I.




VOLUME II.




CHAPTER I.
BLAME—FURY


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 gage 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 from 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.

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 mere coat of the land, all beneath
being 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.

She had walked nearly three 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 the 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.

Boldwood had for the first time been awakened to woman’s privileges in
the practice of tergiversation without regard to another’s distraction
and 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.

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.

“Oh; is it you, Mr. Boldwood?” she faltered, a guilty warmth pulsing in
her face.

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.

Seeing she turned a little aside, he said, “What, are you afraid of
me?”

“Why should you say that?” said Bathsheba.

“I fancied you looked so,” said he. “And it is most strange, because of
its contrast with my feeling for you.”

She regained self-possession, fixed her eyes calmly, and waited.

“You know what that feeling is,” continued Boldwood, deliberately. “A
thing strong as death. No dismissal by a hasty letter affects that.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“Bathsheba—darling—is it final indeed?”

“Indeed it is.”

“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.”

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.

“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!”

“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.

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“But I do pity you—deeply—oh, so deeply!” she earnestly said.

“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. Oh 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?”

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!”

“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!”

Bathsheba, in spite of her mettle, began to feel unmistakable signs
that she was inherently the weaker vessel. She strove miserably against
this feminity 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.

“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! Oh sir, will you
not kindly forgive me, and look at it cheerfully?”

“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.”

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.

“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!”

“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.”

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.”

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 transpired!
And the name fell from his lips the next moment.

“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?”

She delayed the reply, but was too honest to withhold it. “I cannot,”
she whispered.

“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
shamefuly 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!”

“Oh sir—Mr. Boldwood!”

“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!”

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!”

“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!”

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 _will not_ be put down!”

“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!”

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!”

“Deny that he has kissed you.”

“I shall not.”

“Ha—then he has!” came hoarsely from the farmer.

“He has,” she said, slowly, and, in spite of her fear, defiantly. “I am
not ashamed to speak the truth.”

“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!”

“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!”

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.

“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 in Melchester, 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!”

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.

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.

[Illustration: BATSHEBA FLUNG HER HANDS TO HER FACE.]

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 Weatherby the very next day. Troy had not returned to his
Melchester Barracks as Boldwood and others supposed, but had merely
gone for a day or two to visit some acquaintance in Bath, and had yet a
week or more remaining to his furlough.

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.

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 fer her distraction, instead of advancing further, she
walked up and down, beating the air with her fingers, pressing 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. The dark
rotundity of the earth appeared foreshores and promontories of coppery
cloud which bounded 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 realized none at all. Her troubled spirit
was far away with Troy.




CHAPTER II.
NIGHT—HORSES TRAMPING


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.

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.

Two varieties only of humanity could have entered the paddock with the
ghost-like 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.

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.

“Listen!” said Gabriel.

They listened. Distinct upon the stagnant air came the sounds of a
trotting horse passing up Weatherbury Hill—just beyond the gipsies’
encampment in Weatherbury Bottom.

“That’s our Dainty—I’ll swear to her step,” said Jan.

“Mighty me! Won’t mis’ess storm and call us stupids wen she comes
back!” moaned Maryann. “How I wish it had happened when she was at
home, and none of us had been answerable!”

“We must ride after,” said Gabriel, decisively. “I’ll be responsible to
Miss Everdene for what we do. Yes, we’ll follow.”

“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.”

“Which pair?”

“Mr Boldwood’s Tidy and Moll.”

“Then wait here till I come hither again,” said Gabriel. He ran down
the hill towards Farmer Boldwood’s.

“Farmer Boldwood is not at home,” said Maryann.

“All the better,” said Coggan. “I know what he’s gone for.”

Less than five minutes brought up Oak again, running at the same pace,
with two halters dangling from his hand.

“Where did you find ’em?” said Coggan, turning round and leaping upon
the hedge without waiting for an answer.

“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.”

“Like a hero!” said Jan.

“Maryann, you go to bed,” Gabriel shouted to her from the top of the
hedge.

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 Bathsheha’s horse and
the robber. Whose vehicle the horse had been harnessed to was a matter
of some uncertainty.

Weatherbury Bottom was reached in three or four minutes. They scanned
the shady green patch by the roadside. The gipsies were gone.

“The villains!” said Gabriel. “Which way have they gone, I wonder?”

“Straight on, as sure as God made little apples,” said Jan.

“Very well; we are better mounted, and must overtake overtake ’em,”
said Oak. “Now, on at full speed!”

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.

“What’s the matter?” said Gabriel.

“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.

“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!”

“How do you know?”

“Old Jimmy Harris only shoed her last week, and I’d swear to his make
among ten thousand.”

“The rest of the gipsies must have gone on earlier, or some other way,”
said Oak. “You saw there were no other tracks?”

“Trew.” They rode along silently for a long weary time. Coggan’s watch
struck one. He lighted another match, and examined the ground again.

“’Tis a canter now,” he said, throwing away the light. “A twisty,
rickety pace for a gig. The fact is, they overdrove her at starting; we
shall catch them yet.”

Again they hastened on. Coggan’s watch struck two. 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.

“That’s a trot, I know,” said Gabriel.

“Only a trot now,” said Coggan, cheerfully. “We shall overtake him in
time.”

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.

“Hurrah!” said Coggan. “She walked up here—and well she might. We shall
get them in two miles, for a crown.”

They rode three, and listened. No sound was to be heard save a
mill-pond 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.

“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.

He screwed up his face and emitted a long “whew-w-w!”

“Lame,” said Oak.

“Yes. Dainty is lamed; the near-foot-afore,” said Coggan slowly,
staring still at the footprints.

“We’ll push on,” said Gabriel, remounting his humid steed.

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.

“We shall have him now!” he exclaimed.

“Where?”

“Pettiton 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.”

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.

“Hush—we are almost close!” said Gabriel.

“Amble on upon the grass,” said Coggan.

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.

“Hoy-a-hoy! Gate!”

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.

“Keep the gate close!” shouted Gabriel. “He has stolen the horse!”

“Who?” said the turnpike-man.

Gabriel looked at the driver of the gig, and saw a woman—Bathsheba, his
mistress.

On hearing his voice she had turned her face away from the light.
Coggan had, however, caught sight of her in the meanwhile.

“Why, ’tis mistress—I’ll take my oath!” he said, amazed.

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.

“Well, Gabriel,” she inquired quietly, “where are you going?”

“We thought——” began Gabriel.

“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?”

“We thought the horse was stole.”

“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?”

“Why should we, miss?”

“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?”

“But how were we to know, if you left no account of your doings,”
expostulated Coggan, “and ladies don’t drive at these hours as a
jineral rule of society.”

“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.”

“But you’ll consider, ma’am, that we couldn’t see that till it got
daylight.”

“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.”

“Dainty is lame, miss,” said Coggan. “Can ye go on?”

“It was only a stone in her shoe. I dismounted 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?”

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.

“A strange vagary, this of hers, isn’t it, Oak?” said Coggan,
curiously.

“Yes,” said Gabriel, shortly. “Coggan, suppose we keep this night’s
work as quiet as we can?”

“I am of one and the same mind.”

“Very well. We shall be home by three o’clock or so, and can creep into
the parish like lambs.”

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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; it was most
venturesome for a woman, at night, and alone.

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.

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.

This idea she proceeded to carry out, with what success we have already
seen.




CHAPTER III.
IN THE SUN—A HARBINGER


A week passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there
any explanation of her Gilpin’s rig.

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.

Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were afield
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.

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.

“I wonder who that is?” he said.

“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. l 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.”

“’Tis Cain Ball,” said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his reaphook.

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.

“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.”

“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 _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and Mark Clark learnt All-Fours in
a whitlow.”

“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.

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.

“Now, Cainy!” said Gabriel, sternly. “How many more times must I tell
you to keep from running so fast when you are eating? You’ll choke
yourself some day, that’s what you’ll do, Cain Ball.”

“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!”

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.

“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!”

“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.”

“Ahok! there! Please, Mister Oak, a gnat have just flewed into my
stomach and brought the cough on again!”

“Yes, that’s just it. Your mouth is always open, you young rascal.”

“’Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly down yer throat, pore boy!” said
Matthew Moon.

“Well, at Bath you saw—” prompted Gabriel.

“I saw our mistress,” continued the junior shepherd, “and a soldier,
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!”

“D—— the boy!” said Gabriel.

“’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.

“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.

“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.”

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.

“There’s a great clumsy sneeze! Why can’t ye have better manners, you
young dog!” said Coggan, withdrawing the flagon.

“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!”

“The poor lad’s cough is terrible unfortunate,” said Matthew Moon. “And
a great history on hand, too. Bump his back, shepherd.”

“’Tis my nater.” mourned Cain. “Mother says I always was so excitable
when my feelings were worked up to a point.”

“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 refinement. ’Twas blush, blush with him,
almost as much as ’tis with me—not but that ’tis a fault in me.”

“Not at all, Master Poorgrass,” said Coggan. “’Tis a very noble quality
in ye.”

“Heh-heh! well, I wish to noise nothing abroad—nothing at all,”
murmured Poorgrass, diffidently. “But we are 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 you! 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.”

“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 Quarrington 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 in a way he had no business to by
rights, but there—’a were a clever man in the sense of the term.”

“Now then,” said Gabriel, impatiently, “what did you see, Cain?”

“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 soldier,” continued
Cainy, firmly, and with a dim sense that his words were very effective
as regarded Gabriel’s emotions. “And I think the soldier was Sergeant
Troy. And they sat there together for more than half-an-hour, talking
moving things, and she once was crying almost 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 desperately friendly as a man and
woman can be.”

Gabriel’s features seemed to get thinner. “Well, what did you see
besides?”

“Oh, all sorts.”

“White as a lily? You are sure ’twas she?

“Yes.”

“Well, what besides?”

“Great glass windows to the shops, and great clouds in the sky, full of
rain, and old wooden trees in the country round.”

“You stun-poll! What will ye say next?” said Coggan.

“Let en alone,” interposed Joseph Poorgrass. “The boy’s maning 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.”

“And the people of Bath,” continued Cain, “never need to light their
fires except as a luxery, for the water springs up out of the earth
ready boiled for use.”

“’Tis true as the light,” testified Matthew Moon.” I’ve heard other
navigators say the same thing.”

“They drink nothing else there,” said Cain, “and seem to enjoy it, to
see how they swaller it down.”

“Well, it seems a barbarous practice enough to us, but I daresay the
natives think nothing of it,” said Matthew.

“And don’t victuals spring up as well as drink?” asked Coggan, twirling
his eye.

“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.”

“Well, ’tis a curious place, to say the least,” observed Moon; “and it
must be a curious people that live therein.”

“Miss Everdene and the soldier were walking about together, you say?”
said Gabriel, returning to the group.

“Ay, and she wore a beautiful gold-colour silk gown, trimmed with black
lace, that would have stood alone without 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.”

“And what then?” murmured Gabriel.

“And then I went into Griffin’s to have 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——”

“But that’s nothing to do with mistress!”

“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.”

“Yes—let him tell it his own way,” said Coggan.

Gabriel settled into a despairing attitude of patience, and Cainy went
on:—

“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.”

“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.”

“Perhaps he’s made of different stuff than to wear ’em,” said Gabriel,
grimly. “Well, that’s enough of this. Go on, Cainy—quick.”

“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.”

“A very right feeling—very,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“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.”

“A right and proper boy,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“Well, at High Church they pray singing, and believe in all the colours
of the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray preaching, and believe in
drab and whitewash only. And then—I didn’t see no more of Miss Everdene
at all.”

“Why didn’t you say so before, then?” exclaimed Oak, with much
disappointment.

“Ah,” said Matthew Moon, “she’ll wish her cake dough if so be she’s
over intimate with that man.”

“She’s not over intimate with him,” said Gabriel, indignantly.

“She would know better,” said Coggan. “Our mis’ess has too much sense
under those knots of black hair to do such a mad thing.”

“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.”

“Now, Cain Ball,” said Gabriel restlessly, “can you swear in the most
awful form that the woman you saw was Miss Everdene?”

“Cain Ball, you are 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?”

“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 d—— true, if that’s
what you mane.”

“Cain, Cain, how can you!” asked Joseph sternly. “You are 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!”

“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.”

“There’s no getting at the rights of it,” said Gabriel, turning to his
work.

“Cain Ball, you’ll come to a bit of bread!” groaned Joseph Poorgrass.

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—

“Don’t take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose
sweetheart she is, since she can’t be yours?”

“That’s the very thing I say to myself,” said Gabriel.




CHAPTER IV.
HOME AGAIN—A JUGGLER


That same evening at dusk Gabriel was leaning over Coggan’s
garden-gate, taking an up-and-down survey before retiring to rest.

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 he
those of Bathsheba and Liddy.

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.

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.

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.

It was Boldwood. “Good-night, sir,” said Gabriel.

Boldwood likewise vanished up the road, and Oak shortly afterwards
turned indoors to bed.

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.

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.

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.

“My mistress cannot see you, sir,” she said.

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.

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.

“Ah!” said Boldwood to himself, “come to see her again.”

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.

Troy turned up the hill and quickened his pace. Boldwood stepped
forward.

“Sergeant Troy?”

“Yes—I’m Sergeant Troy.”

“Just arrived from Melchester, I think?”

“Just arrived from Bath.”

“I am William Boldwood.”

“Indeed.”

The tone in which this word was uttered was all that had been wanted to
bring Boldwood to the point.

“I wish to speak a word with you,” he said.

“What about?”

“About her who lives just ahead there—and about a woman you have
wronged.”

“I wonder at your impertinence,” said Troy, moving on.

“Now look here,” said Boldwood, standing in front of him, “wonder or
not, you are going to hold a conversation with me.”

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“I suppose I ought. Indeed, I wish to, but I cannot.”

“Why?”

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.

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.”

“I see,” said Troy. “Suppose we sit down here.”

An old tree trunk lay under the hedge immediately opposite, and they
sat down.

“I was engaged to be married to Miss Everdene,” said Boldwood, “but you
came and——”

“Not engaged,” said Troy.

“As good as engaged.”

“If I had not turned up she might have become engaged to you.”

“Hang might!”

“Would, then.”

“If you had not come I should certainly—yes, _certainly_—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.”

“How will you?”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“Never mind—do you agree to my arrangement?”

“I do.”

“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?”

“I love Fanny best now,” said Troy. “But Bathsh——Miss Everdene inflamed
me, and displaced Fanny for a time. It is over now.”

“Why should it be over so soon? And why then did you come here again?”

“There are weighty reasons. Fifty pounds at once, you said?”

“I did,” said Boldwood, “and here they are—fifty sovereigns.” He handed
Troy a small packet.

“You have everything ready—it seems that you calculated on my accepting
them,” said the sergeant, taking the packet.

“I thought you might accept them,” said Boldwood.

“You’ve only my word that the programme shall be adhered to, whilst I
at any rate have fifty pounds.”

“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.”

“Stop, listen!” said Troy in a whisper.

A light pit-pat was audible upon the road just above them.

“By George—’tis she,” he continued. “I must go on and meet her.”

“She—who?”

“Bathsheba.”

“Bathsheba—out alone at this time o’ night!” said Boldwood in
amazement, and starting up. “Why must you meet her?”

“She was expecting me to-night—and I must now speak to her, and wish
her good-bye, according to your wish.”

“I don’t see the necessity of speaking.”

“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.”

“Your tone is mocking.”

“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.”

“Will you confine your words to that one point?—Shall I hear every word
you say?”

“Every word. Now sit still there, and hold my carpet bag for me, and
mark what you hear.”

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.

“Come to that, is it!” murmured Boldwood, uneasily.

“You promised silence,” said Troy.

“I promise again.”

Troy stepped forward.

“Frank, dearest, is that you?” The tones were Bathsheba’s.

“O God!” said Boldwood.

“Yes,” said Troy to her.

“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.”

“I was sure to come,” said Frank. “You knew I should, did you not?”

“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.”

[Illustration: “THERE’S NOT A SOUL IN MY HOUSE BUT ME TO-NIGHT”.]

“Capital,” said Troy.” But, dear me, I had better go back for my bag:
you run home whilst I fetch it, and I’ll promise to be in your parlour
in ten minutes.”

“Yes.” She turned and tripped up the hill again.

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.

“Shall I tell her I have come to give her up and cannot marry her?”
said the soldier, mockingly.

“No, no; wait a minute. I want to say more to you—more to you,” said
Boldwood, in a hoarse whisper.

“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.”

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.

“A moment,” he gasped. “You are injuring her you love.”

“Well, what do you mean?” said the farmer.

“Give me breath,” said Troy.

Boldwood loosened his hand, saying, “By Heaven, I’ve a mind to kill
you!”

“And ruin her.”

“Save her.”

“Oh, how can she be saved now, unless I marry her?”

Boldwood groaned. He reluctantly released the soldier, and flung him
back against the hedge. “Devil, you torture me!” said he.

Troy rebounded like a ball, and was about to make a dash at the farmer;
but he checked himself, saying lightly,—

“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?”

“’Twould be a mistake to kill you,” repeated Boldwood, mechanically,
with a bowed head.

“Better kill yourself.”

“Far better.”

“I’m glad you see it.”

“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!”

“But about Fanny?”

“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!”

“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.”

“Troy,” said Boldwood, imploringly,” I’ll do anything for you, only
don’t desert her; pray don’t desert her, Troy.”

“Which, poor Fanny?”

“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?”

“I don’t wish to secure her in any new way.”

Boldwood’s arm moved spasmodically towards Troy’s person again. He
repressed the instinct, and his form drooped as with pain.

Troy went on,—

“I shall soon purchase my discharge, and then——”

“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.”

“How?”

“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.”

Troy paused in secret amazement at Boldwood’s wild and purblind
infatuation. He carelessly said, “And am I to have anything now?”

“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.”

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.

“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——”

“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.”

“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.”

“First we’ll call upon her.”

“But why? Come with me to-night, and go with me to-morrow to the
surrogate’s.”

“But she must be consulted; at any rate informed.”

“Very well; go on.”

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.

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.

“What, did you think I should break in?” said Boldwood, contemptuously.

“Oh no; it is merely my humour to secure things. Will you read this a
moment? I’ll hold the light.”

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.

Boldwood looked and read—

“MARRIAGES.


“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 11th Dragoon Guards, to Bathsheba,
only surviving daughter of the late Mr. John Everdene, of
Casterbridge.”


“This may be called Fort meeting Feeble, hey, Boldwood?” said Troy. A
low gurgle of derisive laughter followed the words.

The paper fell from Boldwood’s hands. Troy continued,—

“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.”

“I will not; I will not!” said Boldwood, in a hiss.

“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.

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!”

Another peal of laughter. Troy then closed the door, and locked himself
in.

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.




CHAPTER V.
AT AN UPPER WINDOW


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.

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.

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.

Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at the window.

“She has married him!” he said.

Gabriel had previously beheld the sight, and he now stood with his back
turned, making no reply.

“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!”

“Do I?” said Oak, with a faint smile.

“Lean on the gate: I’ll wait a bit.”

“All right, all right.”

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 was not at all Bathsheba’s way of doing
things. 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
struggling hopes against the imagined deed differentiated it entirely
from the thing actually done.

In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house. The sergeant
still looked from the window.

“Morning, comrades!” he shouted, in a cheery voice, when they came up.

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 hapeth
of meaning upon it, and yet keep the man civil.”

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.

“Good-morning, Sergeant Troy,” he returned, in a ghastly voice.

“A rambling, gloomy house this,” said Troy, smiling.

“Why—they _may_ not be married!” suggested Coggan. “Perhaps she’s not
there.”

Gabriel shook his head. The soldier turned a little towards the east,
and the sun kindled his scarlet coat to an orange glow.

“But it is a nice old house,” responded Gabriel.

“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.”

“It would be a pity, I think.”

“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.”

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.

“Oh, Coggan,” said Troy, as if inspired by a recollection, “do you know
if insanity has ever appeared in Mr. Boldwood’s family?”

Jan reflected for a moment.

“I once heard that an uncle of his was queer in his head, but I don’t
know the rights o’t,” he said.

“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.”

Troy threw the coin dexterously across the front plot 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 grass.

“Very well—you keep it, Coggan,” said Gabriel with disdain and almost
fiercely. “As for me, I’ll do without gifts from him.”

“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.”

“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.”

A horseman, whom they had for some time seen in the distance, now
appeared close beside them.

“There’s Mr. Boldwood,” said Oak.” I wonder what Troy meant by his
question.”

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.

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.




CHAPTER VI.
WEALTH IN JEOPARDY—THE REVEL


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 stackyard of Weatherbury Upper
Farm, looking at the moon and sky.

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 head, the behaviour of the rooks had
been confused, and the horses had moved with timidity and caution.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The dance ended, and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row of
couples formed for another.

“Now, ma’am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would like
next?” said the first violin.

“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.

“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?”

“It shall be ‘The Soldier’s Joy,’ exclaimed a chorus.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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?”

“Mr. Troy says it will not rain,” returned the messenger, “and he
cannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets.”

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.

“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 he handed
round to each guest.”

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.”

“Trew—we don’t wish for no more, thank ye,” said one or two.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 being not unlike a
vandyked lace collar, to which the clump of furze-bushes stood in the
position of a wearer’s neck.

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, hut little of the
interpolated thunder-storm; whilst the sheep knew all about the
thunder-storm and nothing of the latter rain.

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:—

5 × 30 = 150 quarters = 500 £.
3 × 40 = 120 quarters = 250 £.
                 Total . . . . . .750 £.


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.

Such was the argument that Oak set outwardly before him. But man, even
to himself, is a cryptographic page, having an ostensible writing, and
another between 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.”

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.

Gabriel looked in. An offensive picture met his eye.

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, buzzing 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 hedgehog, 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.

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.

A faint “ting-ting” resounded from under Coggan’s waistcoat. It was
Coggan’s watch striking the hour of two.

Oak went to the recumbent form of Matthew Moon, who usually undertook
the rough thatching of the homestead, and shook him. The shaking was
without effect.

Gabriel shouted in his ear, “Where’s your thatching-beetle and
rick-stick and spars?”

“Under the staddles,” said Moon mechanically, with the unconscious
promptness of a medium.

Gabriel let go his head, and it dropped upon the floor like a bowl. He
then went to Susan Tall’s husband.

“Where’s the key of the granary?”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Mrs. Tall, I’ve come for the key of the granary, to get at the
rick-cloths,” said Oak, in a stentorian voice.

“Is that you?” said Mrs. Susan Tall, half awake.

“Yes,” said Gabriel.

“Come along to bed, do, you draw-latching rogue—keeping a body awake
like this!”

“It isn’t Laban—’tis Gabriel Oak. I want the key of the granary.”

“Gabriel! What in the name of fortune did you pretend to be Laban for?”

“I didn’t. I thought you meant——”

“Yes you did! What do you want here?”

“The key of the granary.”

“Take it then. ’Tis on the nail. People coming disturbing women at this
time of night ought——”

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 waterproof 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.

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.

Next came the barley. This it was only possible to protect by
systematic thatching. Time went on, and the moon vanished not to
re-appear. 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.




CHAPTER VII.
THE STORM—THE TWO TOGETHER


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
arrow from the approaching storm, and it fell wide.

The second peal was noisy, with comparatively little visible lightning.
Gabriel saw a candle shining in Bathsheba’s bedroom, and soon a shadow
moved to and fro upon the blind.

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.

He had stuck his ricking-rod, or poignard, as it was indifferently
called—a long iron lance, sharp at the extremity and polished by
handling—into the stack to support the sheaves. 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.

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.

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.

“Is that you, ma’am?” said Gabriel to the darkness.

“Who is there?” said the voice of Bathsheba.

“Gabriel. I am on the rick, thatching.”

“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?”

“He is not here.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Asleep in the barn.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.

Then came the peal. It hardly was credible that such a heavenly light
could be the parent of such a diabolical sound.

“How terrible!” she exclaimed, and clutched him by the sleeve. Gabriel
turned, and steadied her on her aërial 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.

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.

“Hold on!” said Gabriel, taking the sheaf from her shoulder, and
grasping her arm again.

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. It 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. 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.

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.

“We had a narrow escape!” said Gabriel, hurriedly. “You had better go
down.”

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,—

“The storm seems to have passed now, at any rate.”

“I think so too,” said Bathsheba. “Though there are multitudes of
gleams, look!”

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.

“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.”

“Gabriel, you are kinder than I deserve! I will stay and help you yet.
Oh, why are not some of the others here!”

“They would have been here if they could,” said Oak, in a hesitating
way.

“Oh, 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.”

“I am not certain,” said Gabriel. “I will go and see.”

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.

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.

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.”

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

“Gabriel,” she said, in a strange and impressive voice.

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.

“Yes, mistress,” he said.

“I suppose you thought that when I galloped away to Bath that night it
was on purpose to be married?”

“I did at last—not at first,” he answered, somewhat surprised at the
abruptness with which this new subject was broached.

“And others thought so, too?”

“Yes.”

“And you blamed me for it?”

“Well—a little.”

“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 mistakingly of me. Now,
listen.”

Gabriel ceased his rustling.

“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?”

“I do—somewhat.”

“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.

Gabriel made no reply.

“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?”

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,—

“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.”

“If I am useless I will go,” said Bathsheba, in a flagging cadence.
“But oh, if your life should be lost!”

“You are not useless; but I would rather not tire you longer. You have
done well.”

“And you better!” she said, gratefully. “Thank you for your devotion, a
thousand times, Gabriel! Good-night—I know you are doing your very best
for me.”

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.

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.




CHAPTER VIII.
RAIN—ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER


It was now five o’clock, and the dawn was promising to break in hues of
drab and ash.

The air changed its temperature and stirred itself more vigorously.
Cool elastic 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 a decoction of his
person 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.

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.

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.

Faint sounds came from the barn, and he looked that way. Figures came
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. 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 apparently started; he was Boldwood.

“How are you this morning, sir?” said Oak.

“Yes, it is a wet day.—Oh, I am well, very well, I thank you; quite
well.”

“I am glad to hear it, sir.”

Boldwood seemed to awake to the present by degrees. “You look tired and
ill, Oak,” he said then, desultorily regarding his companion.

“I am tired. You look strangely altered, sir.”

“I? Not a bit of it: I am well enough. What put that into your head?”

“I thought you didn’t look quite so topping as you used to, that was
all.”

“Indeed, then you are mistaken,” said Boldwood, shortly. “Nothing hurts
me. My constitution is an iron one.”

“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.”

“Oh yes.” Boldwood added, after an interval of silence, “What did you
ask, Oak?”

“Your ricks are all covered before this time?”

“No.”

“At any rate, the large ones upon the stone staddles?”

“They are not.”

“Those under the hedge?”

“No. I forgot to tell the thatcher to set about it.”

“Nor the little one by the stile?”

“Nor the little one by the stile. I overlooked the ricks this year.”

“Then not a tenth of your corn will come to measure, sir.”

“Possibly not.

“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.

“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.”

“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.

“I dare say 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.

“Oh no—I don’t think that.”

“—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.”

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.

“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.”




CHAPTER IX.
COMING HOME—A CRY


On the turnpike road, between Casterbridge and Weatherbury, and about a
mile from the latter place, is one of those steep long ascents which
pervade the highways of this undulating district. In returning from
market it is usual for the farmers and other gig-gentry to alight at
the bottom and walk up.

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 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.

“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?”

“But the time of year is come for changeable weather.”

“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, not far
from the sands, 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. Aye, 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!”

“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? Oh, 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!”

“Humbug about cruel. Now, there ’tis again—turn on the waterworks;
that’s just like you.”

“But you’ll promise me not to go to Budmouth races next week, won’t
you?” she implored. Bathsheba was at the full depth for tears, but she
maintained a dry eye.

“I don’t see why I should; in fact, if it turns out to be a fine day, I
was thinking of taking you.”

“Never, never! I’ll go a hundred miles the other way first. I hate the
sound of the very word!”

“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.”

“But you don’t mean to say that you have risked anything on this one
too!” she exclaimed, with an agonized look.

“There now, don’t you be a little fool. Wait till you are told. Why,
Bathsheba, you’ve 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.”

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 beech trees which
hooded the road at this spot occasionally spinning downward across
their path to the earth.

A woman appeared on the brow of the hill. The ridge was so abrupt 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.

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.

“Please, sir, do you know at what time Casterbridge Union-house closes
at night?”

The woman said these words to Troy over his shoulder.

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—

“I don’t know.”

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.

“Oh, poor thing!” exclaimed Bathsheba, instantly preparing to alight.

“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.”

“But I—”

“Do you hear? Clk—Poppet!”

The horse, gig, and Bathsheba moved on.

“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.

“I feared to.”

“Have you any money?”

“None.”

“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.”

The woman made no answer.

“I have only another moment,” continued Troy; “and now listen. Where
are you going to-night? Casterbridge Union?”

“Yes; I thought to go there.”

“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 Casterbridge Bridge. 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!”

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. 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 pale.

“Do you know who that woman was?” said Bathsheba, looking searchingly
into his face.

“I do,” he said, looking boldly back into hers.

“I thought you did,” said she, with angry hauteur, and still regarding
him. “Who is she?”

He suddenly seemed to think that frankness would benefit neither of the
women.

“Nothing to either of us,” he said. “I know her by sight.”

“What is her name?”

“How should I know her name?”

“I think you do.”

“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.




CHAPTER X.
ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY


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.

[Illustration: SHE OPENED A GATE WITHIN WHICH WAS A HAYSTACK. UNDER
THIS SHE SAT DOWN.]

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.

“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.”

A 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.

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.

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.

“Three!” she said.

She leant against the stone as a means of rest for a short interval,
then bestirred herself, and again pursued her way. For a lengthy
distance she bore up bravely, afterwards flagging as before. This was
beside a lone hazel copse, 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.

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.

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.

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 a second 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 transmutes labour,
being powerless to abstract it, and the original quantum 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.

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
the beginning of a long railed fence came into view. She staggered
across to the first post, clung to it, and looked around. Another
milestone was on the opposite side of the road.

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.

“One mile more,” the woman murmured. “No; less,” she added, after a
pause. “The mile is to the Town Hall, and my resting-place is on this
side Casterbridge. Three-quarters of 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.
Twelve times that. Oh, pity me, Lord!”

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.

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.”

This was a practical application of the principle that a half-feigned
and fictitious faith is better than no faith at all.

She passed five posts and held on to the fifth.

“I’ll pass five more by believing my longed-for spot is at the next
fifth. I can do it.”

She passed five more.

“It lies only five further.”

She passed five more.

“But it is five further.”

She passed them.

“The end of these railings is the end of my journey,” she said, when
the end was in view.

She crawled to the end. During the effort each breath of the woman went
into the air as if never to return again.

“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 a
quarter of 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.

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 a level plateau with only a bank on either side. She surveyed
the wide space, the lights, herself, sighed, and lay down on the bank.

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.

“No further!” she whispered, and closed her eyes.

From the stripe of shadow on the opposite side of the way 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.

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.

He was 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.

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.

A thought moved within her like lightning. “Perhaps I can make use of
him—I might do it then!”

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.

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.

Their progress was necessarily very slow. They reached the brow of the
hill, and the Casterbridge lamps lay beneath them like fallen Pleiads
as they walked down the incline. Thus the distance was passed, and the
goal was reached. 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.

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.

This green 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 bell-pull 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.

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.

These lifted the prostrate figure and assisted her in through the
doorway. The man then closed the door.

“How did she get here?” said one of the women.

“The Lord knows,” said the other.

“There is a dog outside,” murmured the overcome traveller. “Where is he
gone? He helped me.”

“I stoned him away,” said the man.

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 door and disappeared.




CHAPTER XI.
SUSPICION—FANNY IS SENT FOR


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,—

“Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?”

Her countenance instantly sank. “Twenty pounds?” she said.

“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.

“Ah! for those races to-morrow.”

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.

“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!”

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.

“The money is not wanted for racing debts at all,” he said.

“What is it for?” she asked. “You worry me a great deal by these
mysterious responsibilities, Frank.”

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.”

“I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay,” she said,
with features between a smile and a pout.

“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.”

She reddened. “I do that already,” she said, quickly.

“What do you regret?”

“That my romance has come to an end.”

“All romances end at marriage.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. You grieve me to my soul by being
smart at my expense.”

“You are dull enough at mine. I believe you hate me.”

“Not you—only your faults. I do hate them.”

“’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.”

She gave a sigh of resignation. “I have about that sum here for
household expenses. If you must have it, take it.”

“Very good. Thank you. I expect I shall have gone away before you are
in to breakfast to-morrow.”

“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.”

“I must go, in spite of sentiment.” Troy, as he spoke, looked at his
watch, and, apparently actuated by _non lucendo_ principles, opened the
case at the back, revealing, snugly stowed within it, a small coil of
hair.

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?”

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.”

“What a dreadful fib, Frank!”

“I tell you I had forgotten it!” he said, loudly.

“I don’t mean that—it was yellow hair.”

“Nonsense.”

“That’s insulting me. I know it was yellow. Now whose was it? I want to
know.”

“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.”

“You ought to tell me her name, then.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Is she married yet?”

“No.”

“Is she alive?”

“Yes.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Yes.”

“It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful
affliction!”

“Affliction—what affliction?” he inquired, quickly.

“Having hair of that dreadful colour.”

“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!”

“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.”

“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.”

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:—

“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. Oh! 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.”

“I can’t help how things fall out,” said Troy; “upon my heart, women
will be the death of me!”

“Well you shouldn’t keep people’s hair. You’ll burn it, won’t you,
Frank?”

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.”

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?”

“I don’t know. Why do you say that?”

“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!”

“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.”

“But just now you said ‘ties;’ and then—that woman we met?”

“’Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair.”

“Is it hers, then?”

“Yes. There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are
content.”

“And what are the ties?”

“Oh! that meant nothing—a mere jest.”

“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!”

“For Heaven’s sake don’t be so desperate!” Troy said, snappishly,
rising as he did so, and leaving the room.

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!

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.

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.

She saw coming up the hill 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 another part of the field. The two men then approached each other
and seemed to engage in earnest conversation.

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.

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.

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.

“You’ll never see Fanny Robin no more—use nor principal—ma’am.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s dead in the Union.”

“Fanny dead—never!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What did she die from?”

“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 afternoon. She belongs by
law to our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a waggon this
afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her.”

“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.”

“There will hardly be time, ma’am, will there?”

“Perhaps not,” she said, musingly. “When did you say we must be at the
door—three o’clock?”

“Three o’clock this afternoon, ma’am, so to speak it.”

“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.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“On’y been there a day or two.”

“Oh!—then she has not been staying there as a regular inmate?”

“No. 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.”

“Ah-h!”

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.

“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!”

“No; don’t call her; it is nothing. When did she pass Weatherbury?”

“Last Saturday night.”

“That will do, Joseph; now you may go.”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

“Joseph, come hither a moment. What was the colour of Fanny Robin’s
hair?”

“Really, mistress, now that ’tis put to me so judge-and-jury-like, I
can’t call to mind, if ye’ll believe me!”

“Never mind; go on and do what I told you. Stop—well no, go on.”

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.

“Whose sweetheart did you say, Joseph?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Yes, ma’am, quite sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“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
hent 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.”

“Have you heard a different story at all?” She looked at him so
intently that Joseph’s eyes quailed.

“Not a word, mistress, I assure you,” he said. “Hardly anybody in the
parish knows the news yet.”

“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.

“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.”

“Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was speaking to you about
this?”

“I cannot but say that there did, ma’am. He was terrible down, and so
was Farmer Boldwood.”

“Thank you, Joseph. That will do. Go on now, or you’ll be late.”

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.”

“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.”

“Her young man was a soldier, was he not?”

“Yes. In the same regiment as Mr. Troy. He says he knew him very well.”

“What, Mr. Troy says so? How came he to say that?”

“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.’”

“Ah! Said that, did he?”

“Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness between himself and the
other young man, so that sometimes people mistook them——”

“Liddy, for Heaven’s sake stop your talking!” said Bathsheba, with the
nervous petulance that comes from worrying perceptions.




CHAPTER XII.
JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN—BUCK’S HEAD


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.

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 element. 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.

As the clock from the tower of St. George’s Church pointed to three
minutes to three, a blue spring waggon, picked out with red, and
containing boughs and flowers, turned from the high road and halted on
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.

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.

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 up the
hill, and along the road to Weatherbury.

The afternoon drew on apace, and, looking to the left towards the sea
as he walked beside the horse, Poorgrass saw strange clouds and scrolls
of mist rolling over the high hills 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
sloughs 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. It
was the first arrival of the autumn fogs, and the first fog of the
series.

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. They 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.

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.

Situated by roadside in the midst of this wood was the old inn, called
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.

Travellers—for the variety _tourist_ 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.

The manners of the inn were of the old-established type. Indeed, in the
minds of its frequenters they existed as unalterable formulæ: _e.g._—

Rap with the bottom of your pint for more liquor.
For tobacco, shout.
In calling for the girl in waiting, say, “Maid!”
Ditto for the landlady, “Old Soul!” etc., etc.


It was a relief to Joseph’s heart when the friendly sign-board 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.

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, on this side 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 _vis-à-vis_
across the globe.

“Why, ’tis neighbour Poorgrass!” said Mark Clark. “I’m sure your face
don’t praise your mistress’s table, Joseph.”

“I’ve had a very pale companion for the last five 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.”

“Then drink, Joseph, and don’t restrain yourself!” said Coggan, handing
him a hooped mug three-quarters full.

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.”

“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.

“Well, I must be on again,” said Poorgrass. “Not but that I should like
another nip with ye; but the country might lose confidence in me if I
was seed here.”

“Where be ye trading o’t to to-day, then, Joseph?”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I don’t mind taking just the merest thimbleful of imagination more
with ye, sonnies. But only a few minutes, because ’tis as ’tis.”

“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 soak, and
since we are highly favoured with a power that way, we should make the
most o’t.”

“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!”

“Well, really, I must be onward again now,” said Joseph.

“Now, now, Joseph; nonsense! The poor woman is dead, isn’t she, and
what’s your hurry?”

“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 lightly.”

“I believe ye to be a chapel-member, Joseph. That I do.”

“Oh, no, no! I don’ got so far as that.”

“For my part,” said Coggan, “I’m staunch Church of England.”

“Ay, and faith, so be I,” said Mark Clark.

“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 shipwracks in the
newspaper.”

“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 person like
Providence than babes unborn.”

“Chapel-folk be more hand-in-glove with them above than we,” said
Joseph, thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said Coggan. “We know very well that if anybody goes to heaven,
they will. They’ve worked hard for it, and they deserve to have it,
such as ’tis. I’m not 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!”

“Well said—very well said,” observed Joseph.—“However, folks, I must be
moving now: upon my life I must. Parson Thirdly will be waiting at the
church gates, and there’s the woman a-biding outside in the waggon.”

“Joseph Poorgrass, don’t be so miserable! Parson 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 rather shady life; but
he’s never been the man to complain at the expense. Sit down.”

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 watch struck six from his pocket in the
usual still small tones.

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.

“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.”

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.

“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.

“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.”

“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:—

        “To-mor-row, to-mor-row!
And while peace and plen-ty I find at my board,
    With a heart free from sick-ness and sor-row,
With my friends will I share what to-day may af-ford,
    And let them spread the ta-ble to-mor-row.
        To-mor-row, to-mor—”


“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.”

“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.”

“A multiplying eye is a very distressing thing,” said Mark Clark.

“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!”

“I wish you’d show yourself a man of spirit, and not sit whining
there!”

“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 am willing to take as much
disgrace as belongs to that holy act. Hah, yes!… But not a man of
spirit? Have I ever allowed the toe of pride to be lifted against my
person without shouting manfully that I question the right to do so? I
inquire that query boldly?”

“We can’t say that you have, Joseph Poorgrass,” said Jan, emphatically.

“Never have I allowed such treatment to pass unquestioned! Yet the
shepherd says in the face of that rich testimony that I am not a man of
spirit! Well, let it pass by, and death is a kind friend!”

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.

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 to
Melchester. 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.

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,—

“Is that Poorgrass with the corpse?”

Gabriel recognized the voice as that of the parson.

“The corpse is here, sir,” said Gabriel.

“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?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “I expect Poorgrass has that; and he’s at the
Buck’s Head. I forgot to ask him for it.”

“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.”

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.”

“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.”

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.

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 manœuvring 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.

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,
“_Fanny Robin and child._” Gabriel took his handkerchief and carefully
rubbed out the two latter words. He then left the room, and went out
quietly by the front door.




CHAPTER XIII.
FANNY’S REVENGE


“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.

“No more to-night, Liddy.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is half-past ten now.”

“Oh! is it?”

“Why don’t you sit upstairs, ma’am?”

“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.

“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.

“No, Liddy—I don’t want you any more. I can hardly say why I have taken
so to crying lately: I never used to cry. Good-night.”

Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door.

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.

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.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing connected with you or us, ma’am. It is about Fanny. That
same thing you have heard.”

“I have heard nothing.”

“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.

Bathsheba trembled from head to foot.

“I don’t believe it!” she said, excitedly. “And it is not written on
the coffin-cover.”

“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?”

“We might or we might not.”

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.

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. This also sank to apathy after a time. But her thoughts,
sluggish and confused at first, acquired more life as the minutes
passed, and the dull misgiving in her brow and eyes suddenly gave way
to the stillness of concentration.

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; 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.

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 carking 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 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.

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.

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. She must suspect, and guess, and chafe, and
bear it all alone.

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.

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!… If I could only look
in upon you for one little minute, I should know all!”

A few moments passed, and she added, slowly, “_And I will_.”

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. 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—

“It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!”

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 which came with knowing beyond doubt the last chapter
of Fanny’s story.

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.

Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair: 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
rencounter 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.
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.

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: “Oh, 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!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Well—what?” said Troy, blankly.

“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.

“What’s the matter, in God’s name? who’s dead?” said Troy.

“I cannot say; let me go out. I want air!” she continued.

“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.

The candle was standing on a bureau close by them, and the light
slanted down, distinctly enkindling the cold features within. Troy
looked in, dropped his wife’s hand, knowledge of it all came over him
in a lurid sheen, and he stood still.

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.

“Do you know her?” said Bathsheba, in a small enclosed echo, as from
the interior of a cell.

“I do,” said Troy.

“Is it she?”

“It is.”

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.

This is what Troy did. He sank 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.

[Illustration: BENDING OVER FANNY ROBIN, HE GENTLY KISSED HER.]

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 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,—

“Don’t—don’t kiss them! Oh, Frank, I can”t bear it—I can’t! I love you
better than she did: kiss me too, Frank—kiss me! _You will, Frank, kiss
me too!_”

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 and 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.

“I will not kiss you,” he said, pushing her away.

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. All
the feeling she had been betrayed into showing she drew back to herself
again by a strenuous effort of self-command.

“What have you to say as your reason?” she asked, her bitter voice
being strangely low—quite that of another woman now.

“I have to say that I have been a bad, black-hearted man,” he answered.

“And that this woman is your victim; and I not less than she.”

“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! I deserve to live in torment for
this!” He turned to Fanny then. “But never mind, darling,” he said; “in
the sight of Heaven you are my very, very wife!”

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 of her union with Troy.

“If she’s—that,—what—am I?” she added, as a continuation of the same
cry, and sobbing fearfully: and the rarity with her of such abandonment
only made the condition more terrible.

“You are nothing to me—nothing,” said Troy, heartlessly. “A ceremony
before a priest doesn’t make a marriage. I am not morally yours.”

A vehement impulse to flee from him, to run from this place, hide, and
escape humiliation 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.




CHAPTER XIV.
UNDER A TREE—REACTION


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.

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.

A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound.

It was a sparrow just waking.

Next: “Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!” from another retreat.

It was a finch.

Third: “Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!” from the hedge.

It was a robin.

“Chuck-chuck-chuck!” overhead.

A squirrel.

Then, from the road, “With my ra-ta-ta, and my rum-tum-tum!”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

“‘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.

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 female—for it was a female—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 new-comer’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.

Bathsheba’s heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that she was
not altogether deserted, and she jumped up. “O, 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.

“Oh, ma’am! I am so glad I have found you,” said the girl, as soon as
she saw Bathsheba.

“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.”

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.

She landed safely on the other side, and looked up at the beautiful
though pale and weary face of her young mistress.

“Poor thing!” said Liddy, with tears in her eyes. “Do hearten yourself
up a little, ma’am. However did——”

“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?”

“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——”

“Is he at home?”

“No; he left just before I came out.”

“Is Fanny taken away?”

“Not yet. She will soon be—at nine o’clock.”

“We won’t go home at present, then. Suppose we walk about in this
wood?”

Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or anything, in this
episode, assented, and they walked together further among the trees.

“But you had better come in, ma’am, and have something to eat. You will
die of a chill!”

“I shall not come indoors yet—perhaps never.”

“Shall I get you something to eat, and something else to put over your
head besides that little shawl?”

“If you will, Liddy.”

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

“Is Fanny gone?” said Bathsheba.

“No,” said her companion, pouring out the tea.

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.

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:—

“I wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?”

“I will go and see.”

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.

“Then they think I am in my bedroom?”

“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?”

“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.”

“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?”

“You may ask; but I may not tell.”

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.

“Liddy,” she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and hope had begun
to re-assert 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 iron 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!”

“Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing,” said Liddy.

“Oh no, no! I hate needle-work—I always did.”

“Knitting?”

“And that, too.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Some of your uncle’s old ones, ma’am?”

“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
‘Maid’s Tragedy;’ and the ‘Mourning Bride;’ and—let me see—‘Night
Thoughts,’ and the ‘Vanity of Human Wishes.’”

“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.”

“Now, Lidd, 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.”

“But if the others do——”

“No, they don’t; and I won’t read dismal books. Why should I read
dismal books, indeed? Bring me ‘Love in a Village,’ and the ‘Maid of
the Mill,’ and ‘Doctor Syntax,’ and some volumes of the ‘Spectator.’”

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.

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
pinnacle bristling with rays. Here, about six o’clock, the young men of
the village gathered, as was their custom, for a game of fives. The
tower had been consecrated to this ancient diversion from time
immemorial, the western façade conveniently forming the boundary of the
churchyard at that end, where the ground was trodden hard and bare as a
pavement by the players. She could see the balls flying upwards, almost
to the belfry window, and 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 north 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.

“Why did the fives-players finish their game so suddenly?” Bathsheba
inquired, the next time that Liddy entered the room.

“I think ’twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge and
began putting up grand carved tombstone,” said Liddy. “The lads went to
see whose it was.”

“Do you know?” Bathsheba asked.

“I don’t,” said Liddy.




CHAPTER XV.
TROY’S ROMANTICISM


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.

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.

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.

On reaching Casterbridge he left the horse and trap at an inn, and at
five minutes before ten went to the bridge at the further 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 stones of the bridge till
he knew every lichen upon their faces, 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.

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.

He trotted slowly homeward, and it was now that 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.

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 of
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 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.

Reaching the town, Troy descended into a side street and entered a pair
of gates surmounted by a board bearing the words, “Harrison, 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.

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,”

It was all the money he possessed.

“That sum to include everything?”

“Everything. Cutting the name, carriage to Weatherbury and erection.
And I want it now, at once.”

“We could not get anything special worked this week.”

“If you would like one of these in stock it could be got ready
immediately.”

“Very well,” said Troy, impatiently. “Let’s see what you have.”

“The best I have in stock is this one,” said the stonecutter, 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.”

“And how much?”

“Well, I could add the name, and put it up at Weatherbury for the sum
you mention.”

“Get it done to-day, and I’ll pay the money now.”

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.

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 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.

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 north 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.

Here now stood the tomb as the men had stated, snow-white and shapely
in the gloom, with a head and foot stone, and enclosing border of
marble-work uniting them. In the midst was mould, suitable for plants.

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 tomb, 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 snowdrop, 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.

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.

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,
mingled with that blindness to the line where sentiment verges on
mawkishness, characteristic of the French.

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 the open side 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 south side. Here he entered the porch, and,
reclining upon the bench within, fell asleep.




CHAPTER XVI.
THE GURGOYLE: ITS DOINGS


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 churchwardens as superfluous, and two others
were broken away and choked—a matter not of much consequence to the
well-being of the tower, for the two mouths which still remained open
and active were gaping enough to do all the work.

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 south side
until he went round to the north. Of the two on this latter face, only
that at the north-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.

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 aërial 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.

We follow its course to the ground at this point of time. The base 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.

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
overlooked. 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.

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
of.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He stood and mediated—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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

Liddy knocked at eight o’clock, and Bathsheba unlocked the door.

“What a heavy rain we’ve had in the night, ma’am!” said Liddy, when her
inquiries about breakfast had been made.

“Yes; very heavy.”

“Did you hear the strange noise from the churchyard?”

“I heard one strange noise. I’ve been thinking it must have been the
water from the tower spouts.”

“Well, that’s what the shepherd was saying, ma’am. He’s now gone on to
see.”

“Oh! Gabriel has been here this morning?”

“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.”

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.

“Not that I know of,” said Bathsheba.

“I thought you might like to go and see where they have put Fanny. The
tree hides the place from your window.”

Bathsheba had all sorts of dreads about meeting her husband. “Has Mr.
Troy been in to-night?” she said

“No, ma’am; I think he’s gone to Budmouth.”

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.

“What makes you think he has gone there?” she said.

“Laban Tall saw him on the Budmouth road this morning before
breakfast.”

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 the 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.

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:—

“Erected by Francis Troy in memory of Fanny Robin.”


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 converse and 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 home again.




CHAPTER XVII.
ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE


Troy wandered along towards the west. A composite feeling, made up of
disgust with the, to him, humdrum tedium of a farmer’s life, gloomily
images of her who lay in the churchyard, remorse, and a general
aversion 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 perfectly 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.

At last he reached the summit, and a new 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 left, 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.

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.

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 _en papillon_ 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 left, 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.

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.

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.

And now night drooped slowly upon the wide watery levels in front; and
at no great distance from them, where the shore-line 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.




CHAPTER XVIII.
DOUBTS ARISE—DOUBTS VANISH


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.

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.

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 the lack of 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

“I am looking for Mrs. Troy. Is that she there?”

“Yes; that’s the young lady, I believe,” said the the person addressed.

“I have some awkward news to break to her. Her husband is drowned.”

As if endowed with the spirit of prophecy, Bathsheba gasped out, “Oh,
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.

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.

“What is it?” said Boldwood, looking up at the bringer of the big news,
as he supported her.

“Her husband was drowned this week while bathing in Carrow Cove. A
coastguardsman found his clothes, and brought them into Budmouth
yesterday.”

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
Three Choughs 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, and remembering all
that had occurred, murmured, “I want to go home!”

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.

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.

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. 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, when, 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.

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.

“Well, what is it, Liddy?” she said.

“I was thinking there must be something got for you to wear,” said
Liddy, with hesitation.

“What do you mean?”

“Mourning.”

“No, no, no,” said Bathsheba, hurriedly.

“But I suppose there must be something done for poor——”

“Not at present, I think. It is not necessary.”

“Why not, ma’am?”

“Because he’s still alive.”

“How do you know that?” said Liddy, amazed.

“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 full of a feeling that he is still alive!”

 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 eye-witness 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.

[Illustration: HE SAW A BATHER CARRIED ALONG IN THE CURRENT.]

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 never entertained.

Then Bathsheba said to herself that others were assured in their
opinion, and why should not she be? A strange reflection occurred to
her, causing her face to flush. Troy had left her, and followed Fanny
into another world. Had he done this intentionally, yet contrived to
make his death appear like an accident? Oddly enough, 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—blinded her
to the perception of any other possible difference, less tragic, but to
herself far more terrible.

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.

“He was hers and she was his, and they are 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.




CHAPTER XIX.
OAK’S ADVANCEMENT—A GREAT HOPE


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 she believed 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.

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.

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.

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
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.

Out of this there arose, during the spring succeeding, a talk in the
parish that Gabriel Oak was feathering his nest fast. “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.”

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.

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 universal belief 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.

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.

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 presumably 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.

“I am glad to see you out of doors, Lydia,” he said, pleasantly.

She simpered, and wondered in her heart why he should speak so frankly
to her.

“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.

“She is quite well, sir.”

“And cheerful, I suppose.”

“Yes, cheerful.”

“Fearful, did you say?”

“Oh no. I merely said she was cheerful.”

“Tells you all her affairs?”

“No, sir.

“Some of them?”

“Yes, sir.

“Mrs. Troy puts much confidence in you, Lydia; and very wisely,
perhaps.”

“She do, sir. I’ve been with her all through her troubles, and was with
her at the time of Mr. Troy’s death and all. And if she were to marry
again I expect I should bide with her.”

“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.

“No—she doesn’t promise it exactly. I merely judge on my own account.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. When she alludes to the possibility of
marrying again, you conclude——”

“She never do allude to it, sir,” said Liddy, thinking how very stupid
Mr. Boldwood was getting.

“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.”

“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 wished.”

“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.”

“Have you been to ask them?” said Liddy, innocently.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.




CHAPTER XX.
THE SHEEP FAIR—TROY TOUCHES HIS WIFE’S HAND


Greenhill was the Nijnii 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 twenty or thirty 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.

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.

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—old George the dog of course behind
them.

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 wended, 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.

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. 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.

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.

“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.

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.

“That’s the great ruffin pushing me!” screamed a woman in front of Jan
over her shoulder to him when the rush was at its fiercest.

“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.

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.

“Oh that helpless feymels should be at the mercy of such ruffins!”
exclaimed one of these ladies again, as she swayed like a reed shaken
by the wind.

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
a unreasonable woman as that? Upon my carcase, neighbours, if I could
only get out of this cheesewring, the d—— women might eat the show for
me!”

“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 are a sinful form of womankind.”

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 sides 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.

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
recognize as Sergeant Troy.

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
Carrow Cove; but, 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 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 women 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.

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 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.

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 Cosmopolite
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.

“I hope the sheep have done well to-day, Mrs. Troy?” he said,
nervously.

“Oh yes, thank you,” said Bathsheba, colour springing up in the centre
of her cheeks. “I was fortunate enough to sell them all before we got
upon the hill, so we hadn’t to pen at all.”

“And now you are entirely at leisure?”

“Yes, except that I have to see one more dealer in two hours’ time:
otherwise I should be going home. I 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?”

“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.”

“Coggan is rather given to strange stories connected with his
relations, we must remember. I hope they can all be believed.”

“Yes, yes; we know Coggan. But Turpin is true enough. You have never
seen it played, I suppose?”

“Never. I was not allowed to go into these places when I was young.
Hark! what’s that prancing? How they shout!”

“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.”

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.”

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.

This feature consisted of one raised bench in 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.

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.

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. 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. 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 the aforesaid respectable manager thence to his
toes.

“Here’s the d—— to pay!” said Troy.

“How’s that?”

“Why, there’s a good-for-nothing scamp 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?”

“You must appear now, I think.”

“I can’t.”

“But the play must proceed.”

“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.”

The proprietor shook his head.

“Anyhow, play or no play, I won’t open my mouth, said Troy, firmly.

“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 them 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.”

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.

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. There 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.

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.

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.

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 county 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, silver tea and coffee pots, china teacups, and plum cakes.

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.

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.

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.

“Shall I get you another cup before you start, ma’am?” said Farmer
Boldwood.

“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.”

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.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Pennyways; “I’ve some private information for
your ear alone.”

“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.

“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—

“_Your husband is here. I’ve seen him. Who’s the fool now?_”

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.

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—

“Don’t you wish to read it, Mrs. Troy? If not, I’ll destroy it.”

“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 workpeople. He’s always doing that.”

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.

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.




CHAPTER XXI.
BATHSHEBA TALKS WITH HER OUTRIDER


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 lady. 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.

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 illused him, and the moon having risen, and the gig
being ready, she drove across the hill-top in the wending ways 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, and got upon the high road.

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.

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—

“Mrs. Troy, you will marry again some day?”

This point-blank query unmistakably confused her, it was not till a
minute or more had elapsed that she said, “I have not seriously thought
of any such subject.”

“I quite understand that. Yet your late husband has been dead nearly
one year, and—”

“You forget that his death was never absolutely proved, and so I
suppose I am not legally a widow,” she said, catching at the straw of
escape that the fact afforded.

“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.”

“I have one 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.”

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.

“Do you remember when I carried you fainting in my arms into the Three
Choughs, in Casterbridge? Every dog has his day: that was mine.”

“I know—I know it all,” she said, hurriedly.

“I, for one, shall never cease regretting that events so fell out as to
deny you to me.”

“I, too, am very sorry,” she said, and then checked herself. “I mean,
you know, I am sorry you thought I—”

“I have always this dreary pleasure in thinking over those past times
with you—that I was something to you before _he_ was anything, and that
you belonged _almost_ to me. But, of course, that’s nothing. You never
liked me.”

“I did; and respected you, too.”

“Do you now?”

“Yes.”

“Which?”

“How do you mean which?”

“Do you like me, or do you respect me?”

“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.”

“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?”

“I cannot say. I shouldn’t yet, at any rate.”

“But you might at some future time of your life?”

“Oh yes, I might at some time.”

“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?”

“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?”

“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.”

“Yes, yes; I have found that in my own experience.”

“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.”

“But, Mr. Boldwood—six years—”

“Do you want to be the wife of any other man?”

“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
for the present, please do!”

“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 blameable 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!”

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 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:—

“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—”

“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.”

“That’s why I hesitate to give it.”

“But do give it! Remember the past, and be kind.”

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 without feeling, and just in
friendliness, to marry at the end of six years, 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—”

“Promise!”

“—Consider, if I cannot promise soon.”

“But soon is perhaps never?”

“Oh no, it is not! I mean soon. Christmas, we’ll say.”

“Christmas!” He said nothing further till he added: “Well, I’ll say no
more to you about it till that time.”

 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.

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.”

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.”

“Really, do ye?” said Gabriel, gravely.

“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!”

“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 you; 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.”

“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! Indeed the long
time and the uncertainty of the whole thing 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.”

“Eight years older, ma’am.”

“Yes, eight years—and is it wrong?”

“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——”

“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.”

“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 overcome the awkwardness about your husband’s death, it
might 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 with a man you don’t love honest and true.”

“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 _hate_ the act of marriage under such
circumstances, and the class of women I should seem to belong to by
doing it!”

“It seems to me that all depends upon whe’r you think, as everybody
else does, that your husband is dead.”

“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.”

“Well, then, in religious sense you must be as free to think o’
marrying again as any other widow of one year’s standing. But why don’t
ye ask Mr. Thirdly’s advice on how to treat Mr. Boldwood?”

“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.”

“And on love——”

“My own.”

“I’m afraid there’s a hitch in that argument,” said Oak, with a grave
smile.

She did not reply at once, and then saying, “Good evening Mr. Oak,”
went away.

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. Oh 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.




CHAPTER XXII.
CONVERGING COURSES

I.

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.

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 four men were to be
observed dragging and heaving it in by chains and levers as the hour of
assembly drew near.

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.

II.

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.

“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.”

“But I would go now,” said Liddy, who was going with her; for Boldwood
had been indiscriminate in his invitations.

“Yes, I shall make my appearance, of course,” said Bathsheba.” But I am
_the cause_ of the party, and that upsets me.—Don’t tell, Liddy.”

“Oh no, ma’am, You the cause of it, ma’am?”

“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.”

“That’s wicked of you—to wish to be worse off than you are.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

III.

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.

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.

“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.”

“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 ye
from what it used to be.”

“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.”

“I hope it will be a long and a fair one.”

“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.”

“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I want it done as well as you can, please. Is there
any late knot in fashion, Oak?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Oak. His tone had sunk to sadness.

Boldwood approached Gabriel, and as Oak tied the neckerchief the farmer
went on feverishly—

“Does a woman keep her promise, Gabriel?”

“If it is not inconvenient to her she may.”

“—Or rather an implied promise.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 death—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.”

“Seven years,” murmured Oak.

“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 his
death, and is there anything so wonderful in an engagement of little
more than five years?”

“It seems long in a forward view. Don’t build too much upon such
promises, sir. Remember, you have once been deceived. Her maning may be
good; but there—she’s young yet.”

“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.”

IV.

Troy was sitting in a small apartment in a small tavern at
Casterbridge, smoking and drinking a steaming mixture from a glass. A
knock was given at the door, and Pennyways entered.

“Well, have you seen him?” Troy inquired, pointing to a chair.

“Boldwood?”

“No—Lawyer Long.”

“He wadn’ at home. I went there first, too.”

“That’s a nuisance.”

“’Tis rather, I suppose.”

“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.”

“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
vagabond; and that’s a punishable situation.”

“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?”

“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.”

“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?”

“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!”

“I must go and find her out at once—Oh yes, I see that—I must go. Oak
is head man still, isn’t he?”

“Yes, ’a b’lieve. And at Lower Farm too. He manages everything.”

“’Twill puzzle him to manage her, or any other man of his compass.”

“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.”

“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.”

V.

“How do I look to-night, Liddy?” said Bathsheba, giving a final
adjustment to her dress before leaving the glass.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Now just suppose Mr. Boldwood should ask you—only just suppose it—to
run away with him, what would you do, ma’am?”

“Liddy—none of that,” said Bathsheba, gravely. “Mind, I won’t hear
joking on any such matter. Do you hear?”

“I beg pardon, ma’am. But knowing what rum things we women are, I just
said—however, I won’t speak of it again.”

“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.”

VI.

“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——”

“Pray don’t speak of it, sir,” said Oak, hastily. “We don’t know what
may happen. So many upsets may befall ye. There’s many a slip, as they
say—and I would advise you—I know you’ll pardon me this once—not to be
_too sure_.”

“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.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary, thank ye,” said Oak, hurriedly. “I must get
used to such as that; other men have, and so shall I.”

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.

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.

Then he went to a locked closet, and took from a locked drawer therein
a small circular case the size of a pill-box, 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.

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.

“They be coming, sir—lots of ’em—a-foot and a-driving!”

“I was coming down this moment. Those wheels I heard—is it Mrs. Troy?”

“No, sir—’tis not she yet.”

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.

VII.

“How does this cover me?” said Troy to Pennyways, “Nobody would
recognize me now, I’m sure.”

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 travelling cap which was
pulled down over his ears.

Pennyways snuffed the candle, and then looked up and deliberately
inspected Troy.

“You’ve made up your mind to go then?” he said.

“Made up my mind? Yes; of course I have.”

“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.”

“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!”

“I should have known it. She’s bad enough for anything.”

“Pennyways, mind who you are talking to.”

“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!”

“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.”

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.”

“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.”




CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCURRITUR—HORÆ MOMENTO


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.

“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.”

“’Tis a strange story,” said the next. “You may depend upon’t that she
knows nothing about it.”

“Not a word.”

“Perhaps he don’t mean that she shall,” said another man.

“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.”

“Oh, no; he’ll settle down quiet enough,” said one disposed to take a
more hopeful view of the case.

“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.”

“No, no! I don’t hold with ye 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.

“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.

“Yes—all o’ us. We met here a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, I hear now—that’s Sam Samway: thought I knowed the voice, too.
Going in?”

“Presently. But I say, William,” Samway whispered, “have ye heard this
strange tale?”

“What—that about Sergeant Troy being seen, d’ye mean, souls?” said
Smallbury, also lowering his voice.

“Ay: in Casterbridge.”

“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.

“Laban?”

“Yes, ’tis I,” said Tall.

“Have ye heard any more about that?”

“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 may 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.”

“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.”

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.

“’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.”

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.

“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!”

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.

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.

“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.

“You don’t know much of master, if you thought that,” said Samway.

“I wouldn’t he should know we heard what ’a said for the world,”
remarked a third.

“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, shall us,
neighbours?”

Samway, Tall, and Smallbury agreed to go, 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.”

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.

“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.

“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?”

“I cannot say,” replied Oak.

“O ’tis true enough, faith. I cannot understand Farmer Boldwood being
such a fool at his time of life as to ho and hanker after thik woman in
the way ’a do, and she not care a bit about en.”

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.

“It gave me quite a turn—his face,” said Tall, breathing.

“And so it did me,” said Samway. “What’s to be done?”

“I don’t see that ’tis any business of ours,” Smallbury murmured
dubiously.

“Oh, yes. ’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.”

“I bain’t fit for any such thing,” said Laban, nervously. “I should
think William ought to do it if anybody. He’s oldest.”

“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.”

“We don’t know that he will. Come, Laban.”

“Very well, if I must I must, I suppose,” Tall reluctantly answered.
“What must I say?”

“Just ask to see master.”

“Oh no; I shan’t speak to Mr. Boldwood. If I tell anybody, ’twill be
mistress.”

“Very well,” said Samway.

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.

“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.”

The door opened. Tall appeared, and joined them.

“Well?” said both.

“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!”

“I suppose we had better all go in together,” said Samway, gloomily.
“Perhaps I may have a chance of saying a word to master.”

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.

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.

Nobody was in the room, but she had hardly been there a moment when the
master of the house entered.

“Mrs. Troy—you are not going?” he said. “We’ve hardly begun.”

“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.”

“I’ve been trying to get an opportunity of speaking to you,” said
Boldwood. “You know perhaps what I long to say?”

Bathsheba silently looked on the floor.

“You do give it?” he said, eagerly.

“What?” she whispered.

“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!”

“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——”

“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.

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
diddicult 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.”

“You’ll marry me between five and six years hence.”

“Don’t press me too hard. I’ll marry nobody else.”

“But surely you will name the time, or there’s nothing in the promise
at all.”

“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 a shadow of a doubt of his death, and then it is
dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!”

“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!”

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.

“Yes, then I’ll leave it to time.”

She waited a moment. “Very well. I’ll marry you in six years from this
day, if we both live,” she said solemnly.

“And you’ll take this as a token from me?”

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.

“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.

“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.

“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!”

“Only to-night: wear it just to-night, to please me.”

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,—

“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.”

“And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret courtship of six
years, with a wedding at the end?”

“It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!” she said, fairly
beaten into non-resistance.

Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop in her lap. “I am
happy now,” he said. “God bless you!”

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.

There was no music or dancing in progress just now. At the lower end,
which had been arranged for the workfolk 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.

“What is it you are in doubt about, men?” he said.

One of them turned and replied uneasily: “It was something Laban heard
of, that’s all, sir.”

“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.”

“Oh no, sir, nobody is dead,” said Tall.

“I wish somebody was,” said Samway, in a whisper.

“What do you say, Samway?” asked Boldwood, somewhat sharply. “If you
have anything to say, speak out; if not, get up another dance.”

“Mrs. Troy has come downstairs,” said Samway to Tall. “If you want to
tell her, you had better do it now.”

“Do you know what they mean?” the farmer asked Bathsheba, across the
room.

“I don’t in the least,” said Bathsheba.

There was a smart rapping at the door. One of the men opened it
instantly, and went outside.

“Mrs. Troy is wanted,” he said, on returning.

“Quite ready,” said Bathsheba. “Though I didn’t tell them to send.”

“It is a stranger, ma’am,” said the man by the door.

“A stranger?” she said.

“Ask him to come in,” said Boldwood.

The message was given, and Troy, wrapped up to his eyes as we have seen
him, stood in the doorway.

There was an unearthly silence, all looking towards the new-comer.
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.

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!”

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.

[Illustration: TROY NEXT ADVANCED INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM AND TOOK
OFF HIS CAP.]

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.

Then Troy spoke. “Bathsheba, I come here for you!”

She made no reply.

“Come home with me: come!”

Bathsheba moved her feet a little, but did not rise. Troy went across
to her.

“Come, madam, do you hear what I say?” he said, peremptorily.

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.

“Bathsheba, go with your husband!”

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 _gutta serena;_ her mind was for the minute totally deprived of
light at the same time that no obscuration was apparent from without.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 handkerchief 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.

“Well, it makes no difference,” Boldwood gasped. “There is another way
for me to die.”

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.




CHAPTER XXIV.
AFTER THE SHOCK


Boldwood passed into the high road and turned in the direction of
Casterbridge. Here he walked at an even, steady pace over Buck’s Head,
along the dead level beyond, mounted Casterbridge Hill, and between
eleven and twelve o’clock descended 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 he passed along. He turned to the left, and halted before an
archway of old brown brick, 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.

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.

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, feared at tea parties, hated in shops, and loved at crises.
Troy in his recumbent wife’s lap formed now the sole spectacle in the
middle of the spacious room.

“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.”

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 come to pass when he was supposed 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.

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. Granthead, 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.

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.

“She’s had him took away to her own house, sir,” said his informant.

“Who has?” said the doctor.

“Mrs. Troy. ’A was quite dead, sir.”

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.”

“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.”

Mr. Granthead 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.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Liddy, with suspended breath. “My mistress
has done it all.”

“Where is she?”

“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.”

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.

“Oh, Mr. Granthead, 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.

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.

“It is all done, indeed, as she says,” remarked Mr. Granthead, 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!”

“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.

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! Oh Heaven, how can
I live!”




CHAPTER XXV.
THE MARCH FOLLOWING—“BATHSHEBA BOLDWOOD”


We pass rapidly on into the month of March, to a breezy day without
sunshine, frost, or dew. On Yallbury 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.

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 that 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.

“Joseph, I seed you squeezing close to the carriage,” said Coggan, as
they walked. “Did ye notice my lord judge’s face?”

“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.”

“Well, I hope for the best,” said Coggan, though bad that must be.
However, I sha’n’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.”

“The very thing I said this morning,” observed Joseph. “‘Justice is
come to weigh him in the balance,’ 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.”

“So ’tis, Joseph. And now, neighbours, as I said, every man bide at
home.”

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.

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
unequivocal symptoms of the mental derangement which Bathsheba and
Troy, 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.

These somewhat pathetic evidences of a mind crazed with care and love
were the subject of discourse in Warren’s malthouse 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.

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.

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.

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.

It was dark when he reached home, and half the village was out to meet
him.

“No tidings,” Gabriel said, wearily. “And I’m afraid there’s no hope.
I’ve been with him more than two hours.”

“Do ye think he _really_ was out of his mind when he did it?” said
Smallbury.

“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?”

“None at all.”

“Is she downstairs?”

“No. And getting on so nicely as she was too. She’s but very little
better now again than she was a-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?”

“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?”

“Yes,” said Tall.

“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.”

“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.”

“Is she altered much?” said Coggan.

“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!”

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—

“First dead, as if on turf it trode,
Then, clattering, on the village road
In other pace than forth he yode.”


“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.

“Is that you, Laban?” said Gabriel.

“Yes—’tis come. He’s not to die. ’Tis confinement during her Majesty’s
pleasure.”

“Hurrah!” said Coggan, with a swelling heart. “God’s above the devil
yet!”




CHAPTER XXVI.
BEAUTY IN LONELINESS—AFTER ALL


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.

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.

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 orchard 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
dress till it appeared preternatural. When she reached the gate at the
other end of the orchard, which opened nearly opposite to the
churchyard, Bathsheba heard singing inside the church, and she knew
that the singers were practising. She opened the gate, crossed the road
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.

A motion of satisfaction enlivened her face as she read the complete
inscription. First came the words of Troy himself:—

ERECTED BY FRANCIS TROY
IN MEMORY OF
FANNY ROBIN,
WHO DIED OCTOBER 9, 18—,
AGED 20 YEARS.


Underneath this was now inscribed in new letters:—

IN THE SAME GRAVE LIE
THE REMAINS OF THE AFORESAID
FRANCIS TROY,
WHO DIED DECEMBER 24TH, 18—,
AGED 26 YEARS.


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—

“Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on.”


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.

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?”

“A few minutes, ma’am,” said Oak, respectfully.

“Are you going in?” said Bathsheba; and there came from within the
church as from a prompter—

“I loved the garish day; in spite of fears
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.”


“I was,” said Gabriel. “I am one of the bass singers, you know. I have
sung bass for several months.”

“Indeed: I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll leave you, then.”

“Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile,”


sang the children.

“Don’t let me drive you away, mistress. I think I won’t go in
to-night.”

“Oh no—you don’t drive me away.”

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?”

“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.”

“And have they done it as you wished?” said Oak.

“Yes. Come and see it, if you have not already.”

So together they went and read the tomb. “Eight months ago!” Gabriel
murmured when he saw the date. “It seems like yesterday to me.”

“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.”

Oak walked after her. “I wanted to name a small matter to you as soon
as I could,” he said, with hesitation. “Merrily about business, and I
think I may just mention it now, if you’ll allow me.”

“Oh yes, certainly.”

“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.”

“Leaving England!” she said in surprise and genuine disappointment.
“Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?”

“Well, I’ve thought it best,” Oak stammered out. “California is the
spot I’ve had in my mind to try.”

“But it is understood everywhere that you are going to take the Lower
Farm on your own account.”

“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.”

“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!”

“I would have willingly.”

“Yet now that I am more helpless than ever you go away.”

“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.

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 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.

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 off-hand style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now from the most
torturing sting of all—a sensation that she was despised.

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 up 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Mr. Oak,” said Bathsheba, faintly.

“Yes; I am Mr. Oak,” said Gabriel. “Who have I the honour—Oh! how
stupid of me, not to know you, mistress!”

“I shall not be your mistress much longer, shall I Gabriel?” she said,
in pathetic tones.

“Well, no. I suppose—But come in, ma’am. Oh—and I’ll get a light,” Oak
replied, with some awkwardness.

“No; not on my account.”

“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.

“They are quite easy enough for me.”

So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces, and
upon

“The few worn-out traps, all a-sheenen
With long years of handlen,”


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.

“You’ll think it strange that I have come, but—”

“Oh, no; not at all!”

“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.”

“Offended me! As if you could do that, Bathsheba!”

“Haven’t I?” she asked, gladly. “But, what are you going away for
else?”

“I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn’t aware that you would
wish me not to when I told ye, or I shouldn’t ha’ thought of doing it,”
he said, simply. “I have arranged for Lower 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.”

“What?” said Bathsheba, in surprise. “Things said about you and me!
What are they?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Getting me! What does that mean?”

“Marrying o’ ye, in plain British. You asked me to tell, so you mustn’t
blame me.”

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!”

“Yes; of course, it is too absurd. I don’t desire any such thing; I
should think that was visible 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.”

“‘Too—s-s-soon’ were the words I used.”

“I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, ‘too absurd,’
and so do I.”

“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!”

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!”

“But you never will know,” she murmured.

“Why?”

“Because you never ask.”

“Oh—Oh!” said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness. “My own dear—”

“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!”

“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 particularly that people knew I had a sort of feeling for
ye; 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.”

“And was that all?”

“All.”

“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!”

“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.”

He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his
forthcoming tenure of the Lower 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—_camaraderie_—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.




CHAPTER XXVII.
A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING—CONCLUSION


“The most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to
have.”

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.

“A licence—Oh yes, it must be a licence,” he said to himself at last.
“Very well, then; first, a licence.”

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.

“Well, good night, Coggan,” said Oak, “I’m going down this way.”

“Oh!” said Coggan, surprised; “what’s going on to-night then, make so
bold, Mr. Oak?”

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?”

“You’ve proved me, and you know.”

“Yes, I have, and I do know. Well, then, mistress and I mean to get
married to-morrow morning.”

“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 mine, and I wish ye joy o’ her.”

“Thank you, Coggan. But I assure ye 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 sky-like and nervous about it, in fact—so
I be doing this to humour her.”

“Ay, I see: quite right, too, I suppose I must say. And you be now
going down to the clerk.”

“Yes; you may as well come with me.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I’ll tell ye 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.”

This scheme was considered feasible; and Coggan advanced boldly, and
rapped at Mrs. Tall’s door. Mrs. Tall herself opened it.

“I wanted to have a word with Laban.”

“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.”

“I hardly think you will. Stop a moment.” And Coggan stepped round the
corner of the porch to consult Oak.

“Who’s t’other man, then?” said Mrs. Tall.

“Only a friend,” said Coggan.

“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.”

“The clothes will floor us as safe as houses!” said Coggan.

“It can’t be helped,” said Oak. “Tell her.”

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 ye, Mother Tall, in a way I shouldn’t ha’ done if I hadn’t loved
ye so hopeless well.”

Coggan retired before she could ask any further; and next they called
at the vicar’s in a way which excited no curiosity at all. Then Gabriel
went home, and prepared for the morrow.

“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.”

“But you always do wake afore then, ma’am.”

“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.”

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.

“But I thought it was I who had to call you?” said the bewildered
Liddy. “And it isn’t six yet.”

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.”

When Liddy came to Bathsheba’s room her mistress was already waiting.
Liddy could not understand this extraordinary promptness. “Whatever
_is_ going on, ma’am?” she said.

“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!”

“Farmer Oak—and nobody else?—you two alone?”

“Yes.”

“But is it safe, ma’am?” said her companion, dubiously. “A woman’s good
name is such a perishable article that——”

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!”

“It makes mine rather furious, too,” said Bathsheba. “However, there’s
no getting out of it now.”

It was a damp disagreeable morning. Nevertheless, at twenty minutes to
ten o’clock, Oak came out of his house, and

“Went up the hill side
With that sort of stride
A man puts out when walking in search of a bride,”


and knocked Bathsheba’s door. Ten minutes later two large umbrellas
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 hundred
yards, 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 great coat 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:—

“As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.”


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 the 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.

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.

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.

“There!” said Oak, laughing, “I knew those fellows were up to
something, by the look on their faces.”

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 Marlhorough, under the
fingers of the forefathers of those who played them now. The performers
came forward, and marched up to the front.

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“That improvement will come with time,” said Jan, twirling his eye.

Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily
now), and their friends turned to go.

“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.”

THE END