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Far From the Madding Crowd
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Far From The Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy
February, 1994 [Etext #107]
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FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
by Thomas Hardy
Preface
In reprinting this story for a new edition I am reminded
that it was in the chapters of "Far from the Madding Crowd"
as they appeared month by month in a popular magazine, that
I first ventured to adopt the word "Wessex" from the pages
of early English history, and give it a fictitious
significance as the existing name of the district once
included in that extinct kingdom. The series of novels I
projected being mainly of the kind called local, they seemed
to require a territorial definition of some sort to lend
unity to their scene. Finding that the area of a single
country did not afford a canvas large enough for this
purpose, and that there were objections to an invented name,
I disinterred the old one. The press and the public were
kind enough to welcome the fanciful plan, and willingly
joined me in the anachronism of imagining a Wessex
population living under Queen Victoria; -- a modern Wessex
of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping machines,
union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read
and write, and National school children. But I believe I am
correct in stating that, until the existence of this
contemporaneous Wessex was announced in the present story,
in 1874, it had never been heard of, and that the
expression, "a Wessex peasant" or "a Wessex custom" would
theretofore have been taken to refer to nothing later in
date than the Norman Conquest.
I did not anticipate that this application of the word to a
modern use would extend outside the chapters of my own
chronicles. But the name was soon taken up elsewhere as a
local designation. The first to do so was the now defunct
Examiner, which, in the impression bearing date July 15,
1876, entitled one of its articles "The Wessex Labourer,"
the article turning out to be no dissertation on farming
during the Heptarchy, but on the modern peasant of the
south-west counties, and his presentation in these stories.
Since then the appellation which I had thought to reserve to
the horizons and landscapes of a merely realistic dream-
country, has become more and more popular as a practical
definition; and the dream-country has, by degrees,
solidified into a utilitarian region which people can go to,
take a house in, and write to the papers from. But I ask
all good and gentle readers to be so kind as to forget this,
and to refuse steadfastly to believe that there are any
inhabitants of a Victorian Wessex outside the pages of this
and the companion volumes in which they were first
discovered.
Moreover, the village called Weatherbury, wherein the scenes
of the present story of the series are for the most part
laid, would perhaps be hardly discernible by the explorer,
without help, in any existing place nowadays; though at the
time, comparatively recent, at which the tale was written, a
sufficient reality to meet the descriptions, both of
backgrounds and personages, might have been traced easily
enough. The church remains, by great good fortune,
unrestored and intact, and a few of the old houses; but the
ancient malt-house, which was formerly so characteristic of
the parish, has been pulled down these twenty years; also
most of the thatched and dormered cottages that were once
lifeholds. The game of prisoner's base, which not so long
ago seemed to enjoy a perennial vitality in front of the
worn-out stocks, may, so far as I can say, be entirely
unknown to the rising generation of schoolboys there. The
practice of divination by Bible and key, the regarding of
valentines as things of serious import, the shearing-supper,
and the harvest-home, have, too, nearly disappeared in the
wake of the old houses; and with them have gone, it is said,
much of that love of fuddling to which the village at one
time was notoriously prone. The change at the root of this
has been the recent supplanting of the class of stationary
cottagers, who carried on the local traditions and humours,
by a population of more or less migratory labourers, which
has led to a break of continuity in local history, more
fatal than any other thing to the preservation of legend,
folk-lore, close inter-social relations, and eccentric
individualities. For these the indispensable conditions of
existence are attachment to the soil of one particular spot
by generation after generation.
T.H.
February 1895
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 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 postponing, and hampered by his best
clothes and umbrella: upon the whole, one who felt himself
to occupy morally that vast middle space of Laodicean
neutrality which lay between the Communion people of the
parish and the drunken section, -- that is, he went to
church, but yawned privately by the time the con-gegation
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 in
imagining him being always dressed in that way. He wore a
low-crowned felt hat, spread out at the base by tight
jamming upon the head for security in high winds, and a coat
like Dr. Johnson's; his lower extremities being encased in
ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically large,
affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that
any wearer might stand in a river all day long and know
nothing of damp -- their maker being a conscientious man who
endeavoured to compensate for any weakness in his cut by
unstinted dimension and solidity.
Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be
called a small silver clock; in other words, it was a watch
as to shape and intention, and a small clock as to size.
This instrument being several years older than Oak's
grandfather, had the peculiarity of going either too fast or
not at all. The smaller of its hands, too, occasionally
slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the minutes
were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of
the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of his
watch Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any
evil consequences from the other two defects by constant
comparisons with and observations of the sun and stars, and
by pressing his face close to the glass of his neighbours'
windows, till he could discern the hour marked by the green-
faced timekeepers within. It may be mentioned that Oak's
fob being difficult of access, by reason of its somewhat
high situation in the waistband of his trousers (which also
lay at a remote height under his waistcoat), the watch was
as a necessity pulled out by throwing the body to one side,
compressing the mouth and face to a mere mass of ruddy flesh
on account of the exertion required, and drawing up the
watch by its chain, like a bucket from a well.
But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across
one of his fields on a certain December morning -- sunny and
exceedingly mild -- might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other
aspects than these. In his face one might notice that many
of the hues and curves of youth had tarried on to manhood:
there even remained in his remoter crannies some relics of
the boy. His height and breadth would have been sufficient
to make his presence imposing, had they been exhibited with
due consideration. But there is a way some men have, rural
and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than
flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions
by their manner of showing them. And from a quiet modesty
that would have become a vestal which seemed continually to
impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world's
room, Oak walked unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible
bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the shoulders. This may
be said to be a defect in an individual if he depends for
his valuation more upon his appearance than upon his
capacity to wear well, which Oak did not.
He had just reached the time of life at which "young" is
ceasing to be the prefix of "man" in speaking of one.
He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his
intellect and his emotions were clearly separated: he had
passed the time during which the influence of youth
indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse,
and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become
united again, in the character of prejudice, by the
influence of a wife and family. In short, he was
twenty-eight, and a bachelor.
The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called
Norcombe Hill. Through a spur of this hill ran the highway
between Emminster and Chalk-Newton. Casually glancing over
the hedge, Oak saw coming down the incline before him an
ornamental spring waggon, painted yellow and gaily marked,
drawn by two horses, a waggoner walking alongside bearing a
whip perpendicularly. The waggon was laden with household
goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat a
woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld the
sight for more than half a minute, when the vehicle was
brought to a standstill just beneath his eyes.
"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. 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 vernal
charm. What possessed her to indulge in such a performance
in the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and unperceived
farmer who were alone its spectators, -- whether the smile
began as a factitious one, to test her capacity in that art,
-- nobody knows; it ended certainly in a real smile. She
blushed at herself, and seeing her reflection blush, blushed
the more.
The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of
such an act -- from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time
of travelling out of doors -- lent to the idle deed a
novelty it did not intrinsically possess. The picture was a
delicate one. Woman's prescriptive infirmity had stalked
into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the freshness of
an originality. A cynical inference was irresistible by
Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous though he
fain would have been. There was no necessity whatever for
her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or
pat her hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing
to signify that any such intention had been her motive in
taking up the glass. She simply observed herself as a fair
product of Nature in the feminine kind, her thoughts seeming
to glide into far-off though likely dramas in which men
would play a part -- vistas of probable triumphs -- the
smiles being of a phase suggesting that hearts were imagined
as lost and won. Still, this was but conjecture, and the
whole series of actions was so idly put forth as to make it
rash to assert that intention had any part in them at all.
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 some way beyond the bottom of
the hill, where the object of his contemplation now halted
for the payment of toll. About twenty steps still remained
between him and the gate, when he heard a dispute. It was a
difference concerning twopence between the persons with the
waggon and the man at the toll-bar.
"Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, and she says
that's enough that I've offered ye, you great miser, and she
won't pay any more." These were the waggoner's words.
"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."
"O 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 -- not far from lonely Toller-Down -- was one
of the spots which suggest to a passer-by that he is in the
presence of a shape approaching the indestructible as nearly
as any to be found on earth. It was a featureless convexity
of chalk and soil -- an ordinary specimen of those smoothly-
outlined protuberances of the globe which may remain
undisturbed on some great day of confusion, when far grander
heights and dizzy granite precipices topple down.
The hill was covered on its northern side by an ancient and
decaying plantation of beeches, whose upper verge formed a
line over the crest, fringing its arched curve against the
sky, like a mane. To-night these trees sheltered the
southern slope from the keenest blasts, which smote the wood
and floundered through it with a sound as of grumbling, or
gushed over its crowning boughs in a weakened moan. The dry
leaves in the ditch simmered and boiled in the same breezes,
a tongue of air occasionally ferreting out a few, and
sending them spinning across the grass. A group or two of
the latest in date amongst the dead multitude had remained
till this very mid-winter time on the twigs which bore them
and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps.
Between this half-wooded half naked hill, and the vague
still horizon that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a
mysterious sheet of fathomless shade -- the sounds from
which suggested that what it concealed bore some reduced
resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more or
less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes
of differing powers, and almost of differing natures -- one
rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly,
another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive
act of humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the
trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or
chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a
cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then
caught the note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how
the hurrying gust then plunged into the south, to be heard
no more.
The sky was clear -- remarkably clear -- and the twinkling
of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed
by a common pulse. The North Star was directly in the
wind's eye, and since evening the Bear had swung round it
outwardly to the east, till he was now at a right angle with
the meridian. A difference of colour in the stars --
oftener read of than seen in England -- was really
perceptible here. The sovereign brilliancy of Sirius
pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called
Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a
fiery red.
To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight
such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a
palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the
panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is
perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better
outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or
by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression
of riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of motion
is a phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that
gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small
hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense
of difference from the mass of civilised mankind, who are
dreamwrapt and disregardful of all such proceedings at this
time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through
the stars. After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to
get back to earth, and to believe that the consciousness of
such majestic speeding is derived from a tiny human frame.
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: 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 toy-makers -- and by
these means are established in men's imaginations among
their firmest, because earliest impressions -- to pass as
an approximate pattern. The hut stood on little wheels,
which raised its floor about a foot from the ground. Such
shepherds' huts are dragged into the fields when the lambing
season comes on, to shelter the shepherd in his enforced
nightly attendance.
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
recognised his position clearly. The first movement in his
new progress was the lambing of his ewes, and sheep having
been his speciality from his youth, he wisely refrained from
deputing the task of tending them at this season to a
hireling or a novice.
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 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. This continued till Oak withdrew again from the
flock. He returned to the hut, bringing in his arms a new-
born lamb, consisting of four legs large enough for a full-
grown sheep, united by a seemingly inconsiderable membrane
about half the substance of the legs collectively, which
constituted the animal's entire body just at present.
The little speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before
the small stove, where a can of milk was simmering. Oak
extinguished the lantern by blowing into it and then
pinching the snuff, the cot being lighted by a candle
suspended by a twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of
a few corn sacks thrown carelessly down, covered half the
floor of this little habitation, and here the young man
stretched himself along, loosened his woollen cravat, and
closed his eyes. In about the time a person unaccustomed to
bodily labour would have decided upon which side to lie,
Farmer Oak was asleep.
The inside of the hut, as it now presented itself, was cosy
and alluring, and the scarlet handful of fire in addition to
the candle, reflecting its own genial colour upon whatever
it could reach, flung associations of enjoyment even over
utensils and tools. In the corner stood the sheep-crook,
and along a shelf at one side were ranged bottles and
canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to ovine
surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar,
magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being the chief. On a
triangular shelf across the corner stood bread, bacon,
cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was supplied from
a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute,
whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely
watcher to beguile a tedious hour. The house was ventilated
by two round holes, like the lights of a ship's cabin, with
wood slides.
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 soared forth above the rim of
the landscape. Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine
were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy Square of
Pegasus was creeping round to the north-west; far away
through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended
amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia's chair stood
daintily poised on the uppermost boughs.
"One o'clock," said Gabriel.
Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there
was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after
looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it
in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively
beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the
speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the
complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and
sounds of man. Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and
joys were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on
the shaded hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save
himself; he could fancy them all gone round to the sunny
side.
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 in isolation.
Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and pushed through
its lower boughs to the windy side. A dim mass under the
slope reminded him that a shed occupied a place here, the
site being a cutting into the slope of the hill, so that at
its back part the roof was almost level with the ground. In
front it was formed of board nailed to posts and covered
with tar as a preservative. Through crevices in the roof
and side spread streaks and dots of light, a combination of
which made the radiance that had attracted him. Oak stepped
up behind, where,leaning down upon the roof and putting his
eye close to a hole, he could see into the interior clearly.
The place contained two women and two cows. By the side of
the latter a steaming bran-mash stood in a bucket. One of
the women was past middle age. Her companion was apparently
young and graceful; he could form no decided opinion upon
her looks, her position being almost beneath his eye, so
that he saw her in a bird's-eye view, as Milton's Satan
first saw Paradise. She wore no bonnet or hat, but had
enveloped herself in a large cloak, which was carelessly
flung over her head as a covering.
"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 his aerial position,
he felt himself drawing upon his fancy for their details.
In making even horizontal and clear inspections we colour
and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes
bring in. Had Gabriel been able from the first to get a
distinct view of her countenance, his estimate of it as very
handsome or slightly so would have been as his soul required
a divinity at the moment or was ready supplied with one.
Having for some time known the want of a satisfactory form
to fill an increasing void within him, his position moreover
affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a
beauty.
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 peeped 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 shoulders, and her eyes to the sky. The
rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a
kingfisher -- its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel's
eyes had scarcely been able to follow her. The tall lank
pony seemed used to such doings, and ambled along
unconcerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs.
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 soft spirts alternating with loud spirts came in
regular succession from within the shed, the obvious sounds
of a person milking a cow. Gabriel took the lost hat in his
hand, and waited beside the path she would follow in leaving
the hill.
She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee.
The left arm was extended as a balance, enough of it being
shown bare to make Oak wish that the event had happened in
the summer, when the whole would have been revealed. There
was a bright air and manner about her now, by which she
seemed to imply that the desirability of her existence could
not be questioned; and this rather saucy assumption failed
in being offensive because a beholder felt it to be, upon
the whole, true. Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a
genius, that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was
an addition to recognised power. It was with some surprise
that she saw Gabriel's face rising like the moon behind the
hedge.
The adjustment of the farmer's hazy conceptions of her
charms to the portrait of herself she now presented him with
was less a diminution than a difference. The starting-point
selected by the judgment was her height. She seemed tall,
but the pail was a small one, and the hedge diminutive;
hence, making allowance for error by comparison with these,
she could have been not above the height to be chosen by
women as best. All features of consequence were severe and
regular. It may have been observed by persons who go about
the shires with eyes for beauty, that in Englishwoman a
classically-formed face is seldom found to be united with a
figure of the same pattern, the highly-finished features
being generally too large for the remainder of the frame;
that a graceful and proportionate figure of eight heads
usually goes off into random facial curves. Without
throwing a Nymphean tissue over a milkmaid, let it be said
that here criticism checked itself as out of place, and
looked at her proportions with a long consciousness of
pleasure. From the contours of her figure in its upper
part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; but
since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been
put into a low dress she would have run and thrust her head
into a bush. Yet she was not a shy girl by any means; it
was merely her instinct to draw the line dividing the seen
from the unseen higher than they do it in towns.
That the girl's thoughts hovered about her face and form as
soon as she caught Oak's eyes conning the same page was
natural, and almost certain. The self-consciousness shown
would have been vanity if a little more pronounced, dignity
if a little less. Rays of male vision seem to have a
tickling effect upon virgin faces in rural districts; she
brushed hers with her hand, as if Gabriel had been
irritating its pink surface by actual touch, and the free
air of her previous movements was reduced at the same time
to a chastened phase of itself. Yet it was the man who
blushed, the maid not at all.
"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 eyes from hers
as suddenly as if he had been caught in a theft.
Recollection of the strange antics she had indulged in when
passing through the trees was succeeded in the girl by a
nettled palpitation, and that by a hot face. It was a time
to see a woman redden who was not given to reddening as a
rule; not a point in the milkmaid but was of the deepest
rose-colour. From the Maiden's Blush, through all varieties
of the Provence down to the Crimson Tuscany, the countenance
of Oak's acquaintance quickly graduated; whereupon he, in
considerateness, turned away his head.
The sympathetic man still looked the other way, and wondered
when she would recover coolness sufficient to justify him in
facing her again. He heard what seemed to be the flitting
of a dead leaf upon the breeze, and looked. She had gone
away.
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 yearling ewes he entered the
hut and heaped more fuel upon the stove. The wind came in
at the bottom of the door, and to prevent it Oak laid a sack
there and wheeled the cot round a little more to the south.
Then the wind spouted in at a ventilating hole -- of which
there was one on each side of the hut.
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, however,
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.
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 mirth, but of too insignificant a
kind to start enjoyment.
"Nothing now,' she answered, "since you are not dead. It is
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, and curl up to sleep in a lock of
straw! It played me nearly the same trick the other day!"
Gabriel, by way of emphasis, brought down his fist upon the
floor.
"It was not exactly the fault of the hut," she observed in a
tone which showed her to be that novelty among women -- one
who finished a thought before beginning the sentence which
was to convey it. "You should, I think, have considered,
and not have been so foolish as to leave the slides closed."
"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 'ee?" 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 skirt. I came across
and looked round the hut the very first thing to see if the
slides were closed. My uncle has a hut like this one, and I
have heard him tell his shepherd not to go to sleep without
leaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were
like dead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no
water, forgetting it was warm, and no use."
"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 harmonise 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 napping out my mind
upon my tongue. 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.
"What for?"
"Letting your hand go so quick"
"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 possibilities of capture 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 Oak's feelings were as
sensitive as the money-market in calculations upon his
chances. His dog waited for his meals in a way so like that
in which Oak waited for the girl's presence, that the farmer
was quite struck with the resemblance, felt it lowering, and
would not look at the dog. However, he continued to watch
through the hedge for her regular coming, and thus his
sentiments towards her were deepened without any
corresponding effect being produced upon herself. Oak had
nothing finished and ready to say as yet, and not being able
to frame love phrases which end where they begin; passionate
tales --
-- 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 eighth 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 gleam of silvery sunshine,
Oak put the lamb into a respectable Sunday basket, and
stalked across the fields to the house of Mrs. Hurst, the
aunt -- George, the dog walking behind, with a countenance
of great concern at the serious turn pastoral affairs seemed
to be taking.
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 rumour to be no less the staple topic of these
little coteries on roofs than of those under them. It
seemed that the omen was an unpropitious one, for, as the
rather untoward commencement of Oak's overtures, just as he
arrived by the garden gate, he saw a cat inside, going into
various arched shapes and fiendish convulsions at the sight
of his dog George. The dog took no notice , for he had
arrived at an age at which all superfluous barking was
cynically avoided as a waste of breath -- in fact, he never
barked even at the sheep except to order, when it was done
with an absolutely neutral countenance, as a sort of
Commination-service, which, though offensive, had to be gone
through once now and then to frighten the flock for their
own good.
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 your 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 one's self merely Somebody, without giving a name,
is not to be taken as an example of the ill-breeding of the
rural world: it springs from a refined modesty, of which
townspeople, with their cards and announcements, have no
notion whatever.)
Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently been hers.
"Will you come in, Mr. Oak?"
"Oh, thank 'ee," said Gabriel, following her to the
fireplace. "I've brought a lamb for Miss Everdene. I
thought she might like one to rear; girls do."
"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 to ask to have me, or I should have come in from the
garden instantly. I ran after you to say -- that my aunt
made a mistake in sending you away from courting me ----"
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 -- 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 truly I am glad to hear that!" said Farmer Oak,
smiling one of his long special smiles, and blushing with
gladness. He held out his hand to take hers, which, when
she had eased her side by pressing it there, was prettily
extended upon her bosom to still her loud-beating heart.
Directly he seized it she put it behind her, so that it
slipped through his fingers like an eel."
"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
be 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 him!"
"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 a while, 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; 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 be useful," continued Gabriel, feeling balanced
between poetry and practicality.
"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
regarded the red berries between them over and over again,
to such an extent, that holly seemed in his after life to be
a cypher signifying a proposal of marriage. Bathsheba
decisively turned to him.
"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 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
appealed, 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
naively 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 shoes
would have thought of, you make your colours come up your
face, and get crabbed with me. That about your not being
good enough for me is nonsense. You speak like a lady --
all the parish notice it, and your uncle at Weatherbury is,
I have heerd, a large farmer -- much larger than ever I
shall be. May I call in the evening, or will you walk along
with me o' Sundays? I don't want you to make-up your mind
at once, if you'd rather not."
"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 regulal 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 twinkle which
signifies to the accustomed ear, however distant, that all
is well in the fold. In the solemn calm of the awakening
morn that note was heard by Gabriel, beating with unusual
violence and rapidity. This exceptional ringing may be
caused in two ways -- by the rapid feeding of the sheep
bearing the bell, as when the flock breaks into new pasture,
which gives it an intermittent rapidity, or by the sheep
starting off in a run, when the sound has a regular
palpitation. The experienced ear of Oak knew the sound he
now heard to be caused by the running of the flock with
great velocity.
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
farthest hills resounded as when the sailors invoked the
lost Hylas on the Mysian shore; but no sheep. He passed
through the trees and along the ridge of the hill. On the
extreme summit, where the ends of the two converging hedges
of which we have spoken were stopped short by meeting the
brow of the chalk-pit, he saw the younger dog standing
against the sky -- dark and motionless as Napoleon at St.
Helena.
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 which bordered
on strategy, and carried him on as by gravitation. A shadow
in his life had always been that his flock ended in mutton --
that a day came and found every shepherd an arrant traitor
to his defenseless sheep. His first feeling now was one of
pity for the untimely fate of these gentle ewes and their
unborn lambs.
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 left hand.
The pool glittered like a dead man's eye, and as the world
awoke a breeze blew, shaking and elongating the reflection
of the moon without breaking it, and turning the image of
the star to a phosphoric streak upon the water. All this
Oak saw and remembered.
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 percentage from the farmer till such time as the
advance should be cleared off. Oak found that the value of
stock, plant, and implements which were really his own would
be about sufficient to pay his debts, leaving himself a free
man with the clothes he stood up in, and nothing more.
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 county-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 some-what
superior appearance to the rest -- in fact, his superiority
was marked enough to lead several ruddy peasants standing by
to speak to him inquiringly, as to a farmer, and to use
'Sir' as a finishing word. His answer always was, --
"I am looking for a place myself -- a bailiff's. Do ye 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 bailifs 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.
"Fifteen 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 safer to accept any chance that offers itself, and
extemporize a procedure to fit it, than to get a good
shepherd, but had laid himself out for anything in the whole
cycle of labour that was required in the fair. It grew
dusk. Some merry men were whistling and singing by the
corn-exchange. Gabriel's hand, which had lain for some time
idle in his smock-frock pocket, touched his flute which he
carried there. Here was an opportunity for putting his
dearly bought wisdom into practice.
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.
"How far is Shottsford?"
"Ten 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
the high road which had been recommended as the direct route
to the village in question.
The road stretched through water-meadows traversed by little
brooks, whose quivering surfaces were braided along their
centres, and folded into creases at the sides; or, where the
flow was more rapid, the stream was pied with spots of white
froth, which rode on in undisturbed serenity. On the higher
levels the dead and dry carcasses of leaves tapped the
ground as they bowled along helter-skelter upon the
shoulders of the wind, and little birds in the hedges were
rustling their feathers and tucking themselves in
comfortably for the night, retaining their places if Oak
kept moving, but flying away if he stopped to look at them.
He passed by Yalbury Wood where the game-birds were rising
to their roosts, and heard the crack-voiced cock-pheasants
"cu-uck, cuck," and the wheezy whistle of the hens.
By the time he had walked three or four miles every shape in
the landscape had assumed a uniform hue of blackness. He
descended Yalbury Hill and could just discern ahead of him a
waggon, drawn up under a great over-hanging tree by the
roadside.
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 forpart of the waggon. His concern at this dilemma
(which would have been alarm, had he been a thriving man;
but misfortune is a fine opiate to personal terror) led him
to peer cautiously from the hay, and the first sight he
beheld was the stars above him. Charles's Wain was getting
towards a right angle with the Pole star, and Gabriel
concluded that it must be about nine o'clock -- in other
words, that he had slept two hours. This small astronomical
calculation was made without any positive effort, and whilst
he was stealthily turning to discover, if possible, into
whose hands he had fallen.
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 do seem, Billy Smallbury -- so 'a do seem."
This utterance was very shaky by nature, and more so by
circumstance, the jolting of the waggon not being without
its effect upon the speaker's larynx. It came from the man
who held the reins.
"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 night-cap
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 time for us, and I feel quite a new
man! And how do she play?"
"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 ground 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
gate, and mounting thereon, he sat meditating whether to
seek a cheap lodging in the village, or to ensure a cheaper
one by lying under some hay or corn-stack. The crunching
jangle of the waggon died upon his ear. He was about to
walk on, when he noticed on his left hand an unusual light --
appearing about half a mile distant. Oak watched it, and
the glow increased. Something was on fire.
Gabriel again mounted the gate, and, leaping down on the
other side upon what he found to be ploughed soil, made
across the field in the exact direction of the fire. The
blaze, enlarging in a double ratio by his approach and its
own increase, showed him as he drew nearer the outlines of
ricks beside it, lighted up to great distinctness. A rick-
yard was the source of the fire. His weary face now began
to be painted over with a rich orange glow, and the whole
front of his smock-frock and gaiters was covered with a
dancing shadow pattern of thorn-twigs -- the light reaching
him through a leafless intervening hedge -- and the metallic
curve of his sheep-crook shone silver-bright in the same
abounding rays. He came up to the boundary fence, and stood
to regain breath. It seemed as if the spot was unoccupied
by a living soul.
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, Jan Coggan, and Matthew there!"
Other figures now appeared behind this shouting man and
among the smoke, and Gabriel found that, far from being
alone he was in a great company -- whose shadows danced
merrily up and down, timed by the jigging of the flames, and
not at all by their owners' movements. The assemblage --
belonging to that class of society which casts its thoughts
into the form of feeling, and its feelings into the form of
commotion -- set to work with a remarkable confusion of
purpose.
"Stop the draught under the wheat-rick!" cried Gabriel to
those nearest to him. The corn stood on stone staddles, and
between these, tongues of yellow hue from the burning straw
licked and darted playfully. If the fire once got 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 of varying pattern. Round the corner of the largest
stack, out of the direct rays of the fire, stood a pony,
bearing a young woman on its back. By her side was another
woman, on foot. These two seemed to keep at a distance from
the fire, that the horse might not become restive.
"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 that black cloth with holes in it."
Oak, his features smudged, grimy, and undiscoverable from
the smoke and heat, his smock-frock burnt into holes and
dripping with water, the ash stem of his sheep-crook charred
six inches shorter, advansed 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 wool 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?"
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 your 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 daresay some of 'em will tell you
of a place. Good-night to ye, shepherd."
The bailiff who showed this nervous dread of loving his
neighbour as himself, went up the hill, and Oak walked on to
the village, still astonished at the rencounter 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 ancient trees grew. There was
a wide margin of grass along here, and Gabriel's footsteps
were deadened by its softness, even at this indurating
period of the year. When abreast of a trunk which appeared
to be the oldest of the old, he became aware that a figure
was standing behind it. Gabriel did not pause in his walk,
and in another moment he accidentally kicked a loose stone.
The noise was enough to disturb the motionless stranger, who
started and assumed a careless position.
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 woman again paused. There was no necessity
for any continuance of speech, and the fact that she did add
more seemed to proceed from an unconscious desire to show
unconcern by making a remark, which is noticeable in the
ingenuous when they are acting by stealth. "You are not a
Weatherbury man?" she said, timorously.
"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 'ee 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 palm in the gloom before the money could be passed,
a minute incident occurred which told much. Gabriel's
fingers alighted on the young woman's wrist. It was beating
with a throb of tragic intensity. He had frequently felt
the same quick, hard beat in the femoral artery of -- his
lambs when overdriven. It suggested a consumption too great
of a vitality which, to judge from her figure and stature,
was already too little.
"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 of Weatherbury, or Lower
Longpuddle as it was sometimes called. He fancied that he
had felt himself in the penumbra of a very deep sadness when
touching that slight and fragile creature. But wisdom lies
in moderating mere impressions, and Gabriel endeavoured to
think little of this.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MALTHOUSE -- THE CHAT -- NEWS
WARREN'S Malthouse was enclosed by an old wall inwrapped
with ivy, and though not much of the exterior was visible at
this hour, the character and purposes of the building were
clearly enough shown by its outline upon the sky. From the
walls an overhanging thatched roof sloped up to a point in
the centre, upon which rose a small wooden lantern, fitted
with louvre-boards on all the four sides, and from these
openings a mist was dimly perceived to be escaping into the
night air. There was no window in front; but a square hole
in the door was glazed with a single pane, through which
red, comfortable rays now stretched out upon the ivied wall
in front. Voices were to be heard inside.
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. 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 criticised him to the degree
expressed by contracting the flesh of their foreheads and
looking at him with narrowed eyelids, as if he had been a
light too strong for their sight. Several exclaimed
meditatively, after this operation had been completed: --
"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 for a moment 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 can mind 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: it was rather furred with extraneous matter about the
outside, especially in the crevices of the handles, the
innermost curves of which may not have seen daylight for
several years by reason of this encrustation thereon --
formed of ashes accidentally wetted with cider and baked
hard; but to the mind of any sensible drinker the cup was no
worse for that, being incontestably clean on the inside and
about the rim. It may be observed that such a class of mug
is called a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and its vicinity
for uncertain reasons; probably because its size makes any
given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees its bottom
in drinking it empty.
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 pure
state, and when I know what sort it is." Taking the mug he
drank an inch or more from the depth of its contents, and
duly passed it to the next man. "I wouldn't think of giving
such trouble to neighbours in washing up when there's so
much work to be done in the world already." continued Oak in
a moister tone, after recovering from the stoppage of breath
which is occasioned by pulls at large mugs.
"A right sensible man," said Jacob.
"True, true; it can't be gainsaid!" observed a brisk young
man -- Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman,
whom to meet anywhere in your travels was to know, to know
was to drink with, and to drink with was, unfortunately, to
pay for.
"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 your 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 grandsonn! -- 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
godfather in baptisms of the subtly-jovial kind.
"Come, Mark Clark -- come. Ther's plenty more in the
barrel," said Jan.
"Ay -- that I will, 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark,
who, twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the
same orbit. He secreted mirth on all occasions for special
discharge at popular parties.
"Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop!" said Mr.
Coggan to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting
the cup towards him.
"Such a modest man as he is!" said Jacob Smallbury. "Why,
ye've hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young
mis'ess's face, so I hear, Joseph?"
All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.
"No -- I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph,
reducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a
meek sense of undue prominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas
nothing but blushes with me!"
"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, filling him with a mild complacency
now that it was regarded as an interesting study. "'Twere
blush, blush, blush with me every minute of the time, when
she was speaking to me."
"I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a
very bashful man."
"'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the
maltster. "And how long have ye have suffered from it,
Joseph?"
[Alternate text: appears in all three additions on hand:
"'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the
maltster. "And ye have suffered from it a long time, we
know."
"Ay, ever since..."]
"Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes -- mother was concerned to
her heart about it -- yes. But 'twas all nought."
"Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph
Poorgrass?"
"Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company. They took me to
Greenhill Fair, and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble show,
where there were women-folk riding round -- standing upon
horses, with hardly anything on but their smocks; but it
didn't cure me a morsel. And then I was put errand-man at
the Women's Skittle Alley at the back of the Tailor's Arms
in Casterbridge. 'Twas a horrible sinful situation, and a
very curious place for a good man. I had to stand and look
ba'dy people in the face from morning till night; but 'twas
no use -- I was just as-bad as ever after all. Blushes hev
been in the family for generations. There, 'tis a happy
providence that I be no worse."
"True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a
profounder view of the subject. "'Tis a thought to look at,
that ye might have been worse; but even as you be, 'tis a
very bad affliction for 'ee, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd,
though 'tis very well for a woman, dang it all, 'tis awkward
for a man like him, poor feller?"
"'Tis -- 'tis," said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation.
"Yes, very awkward for the man."
"Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan. "Once
he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a
drap of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home-along
through Yalbury Wood, didn't ye, Master Poorgrass?"
"No, no, no; not that story!" expostulated the modest man,
forcing a laugh to bury his concern.
"---- And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan,
with an impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like
time and tide, must run its course and would respect no man.
"And as he was coming along in the middle of the night, much
afeared, and not able to find his way out of the trees
nohow, 'a cried out, 'Man-a-lost! man-a-lost!' A owl in a
tree happened to be crying "Whoo-whoo-whoo!" as owls do, you
know, shepherd" (Gabriel nodded), "and Joseph, all in a
tremble, said, 'Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!'"
"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 tike 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."
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 conditions
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 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.
Gabriel broke the silence. "What sort of a place is this to
live at, and what sort of a mis'ess is she to work under?"
Gabriel's bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the
notice of the assembly the inner-most subject of his heart.
"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, shepherd -- a bachelor-man?"
"Not at all."
"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!
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."
"'Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you
no nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun,
there was none like those in Farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not
a single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the
most cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good
old word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a
great relief to a merry soul."
"True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at
the regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy
exclamations is a necessity of life."
"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 scores and long-hundreds o' times, so
'twas said," 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 her so much that he used to
light the candle three time a night to look at her."
"Boundless love; I shouldn't have supposed it in the
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.
"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.
"Oh 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 scrutinising 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. He spoke to me in real
tribulation about it once. "Coggan," he said, "I could
never wish for a handsomer woman than I've got, but feeling
she's ticketed as my lawful wife, I can't help my wicked
heart wandering, do what I will." But at last I believe he
cured it by making her take off her wedding-ring and calling
her by her maiden name as they sat together after the shop
was shut, and so 'a would get to fancy she was only his
sweetheart, and not married to him at all. And as soon as
he could thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing
the seventh, 'a got to like her as well as ever, and they
lived on a perfect picture of mutel love."
"Well, 'twas a most ungodly remedy," murmured Joseph
Poorgrass; "but we ought to feel deep cheerfulness that a
happy Providence kept it from being any worse. You see, he
might have gone the bad road and given his eyes to
unlawfulness entirely -- yes, gross unlawfulness, so to say
it."
"You see," said Billy Smallbury, "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 godly in his later
years, wasn't he, Jan?" said Joseph Poorgrass. "He got
himself confirmed over again in a more serious way, and took
to saying 'Amen' almost as loud as the clerk, and he liked
to copy comforting verses from the tombstones. He used,
too, to hold the money-plate at Let Your Light so Shine, and
stand godfather to poor little come-by-chance children; and
he kept a missionary box upon his table to nab folks
unawares when they called; yes, and he would box the
charity-boys' ears, if they laughed in church, till they
could hardly stand upright, and do other deeds of piety
natural to the saintly inclined."
"Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high things,"
added Billy Smallbury. "One day Parson Thirdly met him and
said, 'Good-Morning, Mister Everdene; 'tis a fine day!'
'Amen' said Everdene, quite absent-like, thinking only of
religion when he seed a parson. Yes, he was a very
Christian man."
"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 gazed into the ashpit,
and smiled volumes of ironical knowledge.
"A queer Christian, like the Devil's head in a cowl,[1] as
the saying is," volunteered Mark Clark.
[1] This phrase is a conjectural emendation of the
unintelligible expression, "as the Devil said to the Owl,"
used by the natives.
"He is," said Henery, implying that irony must cease at a
certain point. "Between we two, man and man, I believe that
man would as soon tell a lie Sundays as working-days -- that
I do so."
"Good faith, you do talk!" said Gabriel.
"True enough," said the man of bitter moods, looking round
upon the company with the antithetic laughter that comes
from a keener appreciation of the miseries of life than
ordinary men are capable of. 'Ah, there's people of one
sort, and people of another, but that man -- bless your
souls!"
Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. "You must be a
very aged man, malter, 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 growed terrible
crooked too, lately," Jacob continued, surveying his
father's figure, which was rather more bowed than his own.
"Really one may say that father there is three-double."
"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, malter?"
The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for
emphasis, and elongating his gaze to the remotest point of
the ashpit, said, in the slow speech justifiable when the
importance of a subject is so generally felt that any
mannerism must be tolerated in getting at it, "Well, I don't
mind the year I were born in, but perhaps I can reckon up
the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I bode at
Upper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north) "till
I were eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the
east) "where I took to malting. I went therefrom to
Norcombe, and malted there two-and-twenty years, and-two-
and-twenty years I was there turnip-hoeing and harvesting.
Ah, I knowed that old place, Norcombe, years afore you were
thought of, Master Oak" (Oak smiled sincere belief in the
fact). "Then I malted at Durnover four year, and four year
turnip-hoeing; and I was fourteen times eleven months at
Millpond St. Jude's" (nodding north-west-by-north). "Old
Twills wouldn't hire me for more than eleven months at a
time, to keep me from being chargeable to the parish if so
be I was disabled. Then I was three year at Mellstock,
and I've been here one-and-thirty year come Candlemas. How
much is that?"
"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.
"O no, father!" said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing were in the
summer and your malting in the winter of the same years, and
ye don't ought to count-both halves father."
"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 shan't," said Gabriel, soothingly.
"Ye be a very old aged person, malter," attested Jan Coggan,
also soothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a
wonderful talented constitution to be able to live so long,
mustn't he, neighbours?"
"True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," 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
great 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 since Christmas,"
said Jan Coggan. "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!"
"Ay, that I will," said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and
putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbours; but such as
I can do ye shall have and welcome."
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, "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
cadence. "We ought to feel full o' thanksgiving that he's
not a player of ba'dy songs 'instead of these merry tunes;
for 'twould have been just as easy for God to have made the
shepherd a loose low man -- a man of iniquity, so to speak
it -- as what he is. Yes, for our wives' and daughters'
sakes we should feel real thanks giving."
"True, true, -- real thanksgiving!" dashed in Mark Clark
conclusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his
opinion that he had only heard about a word and three-
quarters of what Joseph had said.
"Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the
Bible; "for evil do thrive so in these times that ye may be
as much deceived in the cleanest shaved and whitest shirted
man as in the raggedest tramp upon the turnpike, if I may
term it so."
"Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd," said Henery Fray,
criticising Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his
second tune. "Yes -- now I see 'ee blowing into the flute I
know 'ee to be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for
yer mouth were scrimped up and yer eyes a-staring out like a
strangled man's -- just as they be now."
"'Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look
such a scarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional
criticism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person
jerking out, with the ghastly grimace required by the
instrument, the chorus of "Dame Durden:" --
'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate',
And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle Tail'.
"I hope you don't mind that young man's bad manners in
naming your features?" whispered Joseph to Gabriel.
"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, shepard," said the company.
"Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good
manners demanded, thinking, however, that he would never let
Bathsheba see him playing the flute; in this resolve showing
a discretion equal to that related to its sagacious
inventress, the divine Minerva herself.
"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, malter," said a voice with
the vigour natural to the enunciation of a remarkably
evident truism. It came from the old man in the background,
whose offensiveness and spiteful ways were barely atoned for
by the occasional chuckle he contributed to general laughs.
"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.
"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 eye alighted by accident, which
happened to be in Joseph Poorgrass's face.
"O -- 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 a bushel of barley. She fleed at
him like a cat -- never such a tomboy as she is -- of course
I speak with closed doors?"
"You do -- you do, Henery."
"She fleed at him, and, to cut a long story short, he owned
to having carried off five sack altogether, upon her
promising not to persecute him. Well, he's turned out neck
and crop, and my question is, who's going to be baily now?"
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?"
"But besides that?"
"No -- not a morsel of it!" they replied, looking into the
very midst of Laban Tall as if to meet his words half-way
down his throat.
"What a night of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving
his hands spasmodically. "I've had the news-bell ringing in
my left ear quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seen a
magpie all alone!"
"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 hed 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's 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 lane to the farmhouse, excepting
the old maltster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder
could draw from his hole. There, as the others' footsteps
died away he sat down again and continued gazing as usual
into the furnace with his red, bleared eyes.
From the bedroom 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
that of 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 tomorrow, 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,
the 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 early stage of Classic Renaissance as regards its
architecture, and of a proportion which told at a glance
that, as is so frequently the case, it had once been the
memorial hall upon a small estate around it, now altogether
effaced as a distinct property, and merged in the vast tract
of a non-resident landlord, which comprised several such
modest demesnes.
Fluted pilasters, worked from the solid stone, decorated its
front, and above the roof the chimneys were panelled or
columnar, some coped gables with finials and like features
still retaining traces of their Gothic extraction. Soft
brown mosses, like faded velveteen, formed cushions upon the
stone tiling, and tufts of the houseleek or sengreen
sprouted from the eaves of the low surrounding buildings. A
gravel walk leading from the door to the road in front was
encrusted at the sides with more moss -- here it was a
silver-green variety, the nut-brown of the gravel being
visible to the width of only a foot or two in the centre.
This circumstance, and the generally sleepy air of the whole
prospect here, together with the animated and contrasting
state of the reverse facade, 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, the floors above were found to have a very irregular
surface, rising to ridges, sinking into valleys; and being
just then uncarpeted, the face of the boards was seen to be
eaten into innumerable vermiculations. Every window replied
by a clang to the opening and shutting of every door, a
tremble followed every bustling movement, and a creak
accompanied a walker about the house, like a spirit,
wherever he went.
In the room from which the conversation proceeded Bathsheba
and her servant-companion, Liddy Smallbury were to be
discovered sitting upon the floor, and sorting a
complication of papers, books, bottles, and rubbish spread
out thereon -- remnants from the household stores of the
late occupier. Liddy, the maltster's great-granddaughter,
was about Bathsheba's equal in age, and her face was a
prominent advertisement of the light-hearted English country
girl. The beauty her features might have lacked in form was
amply made up for by perfection of hue, which at this
winter-time was the softened ruddiness on a surface of high
rotundity that we meet with in a Terburg or a Gerard Douw;
and, like the presentations of those great colourists, it
was a face which kept well back from the boundary between
comeliness and the ideal. Though elastic in nature she was
less daring than Bathsheba, and occasionally showed some
earnestness, which consisted half of genuine feeling, and
half of mannerliness superadded by way of duty.
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 crop 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
aspect instead of narrative.
"Why doesn't Mrs. Coggan go to the door?" Bath-sheba
continued.
Rat-tat-tat-tat resounded more decisively from Bath-sheba'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 thirtover place this world is!" continued Mrs.
Coggan (a wholesome-looking lady who had a voice for each
class of remark according to the emotion involved; who could
toss a pancake or twirl a mop with the accuracy of pure
mathematics, and who at this moment showed hands shaggy with
fragments of dough and arms encrusted with flour). "I am
never up to my elbows, Miss, in making a pudding but one of
two things do happen -- either my nose must needs begin
tickling, and I can't live without scratching it, or
somebody knocks at the door. Here's Mr. Boldwood wanting to
see you, Miss Everdne."
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
farmhouses, 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 Little 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, who, with the Smallburys,
were as common among the families of this district as the
Avons and Derwents among our rivers. He always had a
loosened tooth or a cut finger to show to particular
friends, which he did with an air of being thereby elevated
above the common herd of afflictionless humanity -- to which
exhibition people were expected to say "Poor child!" with a
dash of congratulation as well as pity.
"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 as a
pelicon in the wilderness!"
"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 was really 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 Salpae, 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 be 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, with a
canvas money-bag beside her. From this she poured a small
heap of coin. Liddy chose a position at her elbow and began
to sew, sometimes pausing and looking round, or with the air
of a privileged person, taking up one of the half-sovereigns
lying before her and surveying it merely as a work of art,
while strictly preventing her countenance from expressing
any wish to possess it as money.
"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 Newmill Pond, but
we found nothing."
"And the new shepherd have been to Buck's Head, by Yalbury,
thinking she had gone there, but nobody had seed her," said
Laban Tall.
"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
be the personal name of Poorgrass."
"And what are you?"
"Nothing in my own eye. In the eye of other people -- well,
I don't say it; though public thought will out."
"What do you do on the farm?"
"I do do 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 twopence 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
Randle, 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 Randle, 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."
"Oh Lord, not he, 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.
"No, 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, 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, Cainey 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 Eleventh Dragoon-Guards be gone
away, and new troops have come.' The Eleventh left last week
for Melchester and onwards. The Route came from Government
like a thief in the night, as is his nature to, and afore
the Eleventh knew it almost, they were on the march. They
passed near here."
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
OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS -- SNOW -- A MEETING
FOR dreariness nothing could surpass a prospect in the
outskirts of a certain town and military station, many miles
north of Weatherbury, at a later hour on this same snowy
evening -- if that may be called a prospect of which the
chief constituent was darkness.
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 uplan.
The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of
this kind than amid woodland scenery. Still, to a close
observer, they are just as perceptible; the difference is
that their media of manifestation are less trite and
familiar than such well-known ones as the bursting of the
buds or the fall of the leaf. Many are not so stealthy and
gradual as we may be apt to imagine in considering the
general torpidity of a moor or waste. Winter, in coming to
the country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages,
wherein might have been successively observed the retreat of
the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of
the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the
collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.
This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the
aforesaid moor, and for the first time in the season its
irregularities were forms without features; suggestive of
anything, proclaiming nothing, and without more character
than that of being the limit of something else -- the lowest
layer of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic skyful of
crowding flakes the mead and moor momentarily received
additional clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked
thereby. The vast arch of cloud above was strangely low,
and formed as it were the roof of a large dark cavern,
gradually sinking in upon its floor; for the instinctive
thought was that the snow lining the heavens and that
encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass without
any intervening stratum of air at all.
We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics;
which were flatness in respect of the river, verticality in
respect of the wall behind it, and darkness as to both.
These features made up the mass. If anything could be
darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if any thing could
be gloomier than the wall it was the river beneath. The
indistinct summit of the facade 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, though it seemed human.
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 smaller. The figure was
stooping. Then a morsel of snow flew across the river
towards the fifth window. It smacked against the wall at a
point several yards from its mark. The throw was the idea
of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No man
who had ever seen bird, rabbit, or squirrel in his
childhood, could possibly have thrown with such utter
imbecility as was shown here.
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 something in the woman's tone which is not that of
the wife, and there was a manner in the man which is rarely
a husband's. The dialogue went on:
"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?"
"Oh 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 the county 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
carriers."
"I am surprised."
"Yes -- so am I. And Frank, when will it be?"
"What?"
"That you promised."
"I don't quite recollect."
"O you do! Don't speak like that. It weighs me to the
earth. It makes me say what ought to be said first by you."
"Never mind -- say it."
"O, 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 tomorrow. We'll settle in a few days."
"You have the permission of the officers?"
"No, not yet."
"O -- 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 -- IN 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 cornmarket at
Casterbridge.
The low though extensive hall, supported by beams and
pillars, and latterly dignified by the name of Corn
Exchange, was thronged with hot men who talked among each
other in twos and threes, the speaker of the minute looking
sideways into his auditor's face and concentrating his
argument by a contraction of one eyelid during delivery.
The greater number carried in their hands ground-ash
saplings, using them partly as walking-sticks and partly for
poking up pigs, sheep, neighbours with their backs turned,
and restful things in general, which seemed to require such
treatment in the course of their peregrinations. During
conversations each subjected his sapling to great varieties
of usage -- bending it round his back, forming an arch of it
between his two hands, overweighting it on the ground till
it reached nearly a semicircle; or perhaps it was hastily
tucked under the arm whilst the sample-bag was pulled forth
and a handful of corn poured into the palm, which, after
criticism, was flung upon the floor, an issue of events
perfectly well known to half-a-dozen acute town-bred fowls
which had as usual crept into the building unobserved, and
waited the fulfilment of their anticipations with a high-
stretched neck and oblique eye.
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 potentiality enough in that lithe slip of humanity for
alarming exploits of sex, and daring enough to carry them
out. But her eyes had a softness -- invariably a softness --
which, had they not been dark, would have seemed
mistiness; as they were, it lowered an expression that might
have been piercing to simple clearness.
Strange to say of a woman in full bloom and vigor, she
always allowed her interlocutors to finish their statements
before rejoining with hers. In arguing on prices, she held
to her own firmly, as was natural in a dealer, and reduced
theirs persistently, as was inevitable in a woman. But
there was an elasticity in her firmness which removed it
from obstinacy, as there was a naivete 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 DEBUT in the forum, whatever it may have been to
Bathsheba as the buying and selling farmer, was
unquestionably a triumph to her as the maiden. Indeed, the
sensation was so pronounced that her instinct on two or
three occasions was merely to walk as a queen among these
gods of the fallow, like a little sister of a little Jove,
and to neglect closing prices altogether.
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
smallness of the exception made the mystery.
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 yellowing 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
drapers 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.
"O 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 fearful. 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."
"What's right week days is right Sundays," replied her
mistress 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 nonconformity.
Still, it was faintly depressing that the most dignified and
valuable man in the parish should withhold his eyes, and
that a girl like Liddy should talk about it. So Liddy's
idea was at first rather harassing than piquant.
"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, Liddy? Here's one with a motto
-- I remember it is some funny one, but I can't read it.
We'll try this, and if it doesn't do we'll have another."
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
clerke 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, Bold-wood
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 symmetry of his existence to be slowly getting
distorted in the direction of an ideal passion. The
disturbance was as the first floating weed to Columbus --
the contemptibly little suggesting possibilities of the
infinitely great.
The letter must have had an origin and a motive. That the
latter was of the smallest magnitude compatible with its
existence at all, Boldwood, of course, did not know. And
such an explanation did not strike him as a possibility
even. It is foreign to a mystified condition of mind to
realize of the mystifier that the processes of approving a
course suggested by circumstance, and of striking out a
course from inner impulse, would look the same in the
result. The vast difference between starting a train of
events, and directing into a particular groove a series
already started, is rarely apparent to the person confounded
by the issue.
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 admitted only a reflection of
its rays, and the pale sheen had that reversed direction
which snow gives, coming upward and lighting up his ceiling
in an unnatural way, casting shadows in strange places, and
putting lights where shadows had used to be.
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 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 coverlet in the
twisted and curved shapes of old Venetian glass; and how the
footprints of a few birds, which had hopped over the snow
whilst it lay in the state of a soft fleece, were now frozen
to a short permanency. A half-muffled noise of light wheels
interrupted him. Boldwood turned back into the road. It
was the mail-cart -- a crazy, two-wheeled vehicle, hardly
heavy enough to resist a puff of wind. The driver held out
a letter. Boldwood seized it and opened it, expecting
another anonymous one -- so greatly are people's ideas of
probability a mere sense that precedent will repeat itself.
"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 I
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 of 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 lamp 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
straight line -- less directly 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
clubhouse, used as an alternative to the inn.
"I say, says I, we get a fine day, and then down comes a
snapper at night," was a remark now suddenly heard spreading
into the malthouse from the door, which had been opened the
previous moment. The form of Henery Fray advanced to the
fire, stamping the snow from his boots when about half-way
there. The speech and entry had not seemed to be at all an
abrupt beginning to the maltster, introductory matter being
often omitted in this neighbourhood, both from word and
deed, and the maltster having the same latitude allowed him,
did not hurry to reply. He picked up a fragment of cheese,
by pecking upon it with his knife, as a butcher picks up
skewers.
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 carr' on
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.
"A headstrong maid, that's what she is -- and won't listen
to no advice at all. Pride and vanity have ruined many a
cobbler's dog. Dear, dear, when I think o' it, I sorrows
like a man in travel!"
"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 foller 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
be cheated in some mean way out of your recompense."
"No, no; I don't agree with'ee there," said Mark Clark.
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."
"And long horse-hair settles for the drunk, with horse-hair
pillows at each end," said Mr. Clark. "Likewise looking-
glasses for the pretty, and lying books for the wicked."
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 mid
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?"
"Too many by half. Yes; 'tis a very queer lambing this
year. We shan't have done by Lady Day."
"And last year 'twer all over by Sexajessamine 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, malter, I
don't know what I should do! this keen weather. And how is
it with you to-day, malter?"
"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?"
"Oh 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; 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 we
live to see nowadays! 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 smack-and-coddle style of yours
-- about Miss Everdene. I don't allow it. Do you hear?"
"With all my heart, as I've got no chance," replied Mr.
Clark, cordially.
"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, but were deploring the difference which gave rise
to the figure; and Mark Clark cried "Hear, hear; just what I
should ha' said." The dog George looked up at the same time
after the shepherd's menace, and though he understood
English but imperfectly, began to growl.
"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 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.
[the word J A M E S appears here with the "J" and "E"
printed as mirror images]
"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' witches for the memory to mind whether they face
backward or forward; and I always had such a forgetful
memory, too."
"'Tis a very bad afiction for ye, being such a man of
calamities 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 choose --
and to keep me down to be a common shepherd only." Oak drew
a slow breath, looked sadly into the bright ashpit, and
seemed lost in thoughts not of the most hopeful hue.
The genial warmth of the fire now began to stimulate the
nearly lifeless lambs to bleat and move their limbs briskly
upon the hay, and to recognize for the first time the fact
that they were born. Their noise increased to a chorus of
baas, upon which Oak pulled the milk-can from before the
fire, and taking a small tea-pot from the pocket of his
smock-frock, filled it with milk, and taught those of the
helpless creatures which were not to be restored to their
dams how to drink from the spout -- a trick they acquired
with astonishing aptitude.
"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."
"Oh yes -- not a bit of difference, Mr. Boldwood -- not a
bit," said Gabriel, readily. He had not a correspondent on
earth, nor was there a possible letter coming to him whose
contents the whole parish would not have been welcome to
persue.
Oak stepped aside, and read the following in an unknown
hand: --
"DEAR FRIEND, -- I do not know your name, but l think these
few lines will reach you, which I wrote to thank you for
your kindness to me the night I left Weatherbury in a
reckless way. I also return the money I owe you, which you
will excuse my not keeping as a gift. All has ended well,
and I am happy to say I am going to be married to the young
man who has courted me for some time -- Sergeant Troy, of
the 11th Dragoon Guards, now quartered in this town. He
would, I know, object to my having received anything except
as a loan, being a man of great respectability and high
honour -- indeed, a nobleman by blood.
"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 l 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. I see
she gives no address."
"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. She was married to a poor medical man, and
soon after an infant was horn; 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, from which he coughed 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 imprintcd 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 a church called All Saints', in the distant barrack-
town before mentioned, at the end of a service without a
sermon. They were about to disperse, when a smart footstep,
entering the porch and coming up the central passage,
arrested their attention. The step echoed with a ring
unusual in a church; it was the clink of spurs. Everybody
looked. A young cavalry soldier in a red uniform, with the
three chevrons of a sergeant upon his sleeve, strode up the
aisle, with an embarrassment which was only the more marked
by the intense vigour of his step, and by the determination
upon his face to show none. A slight flush had mounted his
cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these
women; but, passing on through the chancel arch, he never
paused till he came close to the altar railing. Here for a
moment he stood alone.
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 through-
out 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
blows 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, fixedly looking at
her.
"Oh, Frank -- I made a mistake! -- I thought that church
with the spire was All Saints', and I was at the door at
half-past eleven to a minute as you said. I waited till a
quarter to twelve, and found then that I was in All Souls'.
But I wasn't much frightened, for I thought it could be to-
morrow as well."
"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 Casterbridge market house as
usual, when the disturber of his dreams entered and became
visible to him. Adam had awakened from his deep sleep, and
behold! there was Eve. The farmer took courage, and for the
first time really looked at her.
Material causes and emotional effects are not to be arranged
in regular equation. The result from capital employed in
the production of any movement of a mental nature is
sometimes as tremendous as the cause itself is absurdly
minute. When women are in a freakish mood, their usual
intuition, either from carelessness or inherent defect,
seemingly fails to teach them this, and hence it was that
Bathsheba was fated to be astonished today.
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
judgement neither nature nor art could improve this perfect
one of an imperfect many. His heart began to move within
him. Boldwood, it must be remembered, though forty years of
age, had never before inspected a woman with the very centre
and force of his glance; they had struck upon all his senses
at wide angles.
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 to woo
her, it would read like additional evidence of her
forwardness.
CHAPTER XVIII
BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION -- REGRET
BOLDWOOD was tenant of what was called Little Weatherbury
Farm, and his person was the nearest approach to aristocracy
that this remoter quarter of the parish could boast of.
Genteel strangers, whose god was their town, who might
happen to be compelled to linger about this nook for a day,
heard the sound of light wheels, and prayed to see good
society, to the degree of a solitary lord, or squire at the
very least, but it was only Mr. Boldwood going out for the
day. They heard the sound of wheels yet once more, and were
re-animated to expectancy: it was only Mr. Boldwood coming
home again.
His house stood recessed from the road, and the stables,
which are to a farm what a fireplace is to a room, were
behind, their lower portions being lost amid bushes of
laurel. Inside the blue door, open half-way down, were to
be seen at this time the backs and tails of half-a-dozen
warm and contented horses standing in their stalls; and as
thus viewed, they presented alternations of roan and bay, in
shapes like a Moorish arch, the tail being a streak down the
midst of each. Over these, and lost to the eye gazing in
from the outer light, the mouths of the same animals could
be heard busily sustaining the above-named warmth and
plumpness by quantities of oats and hay. The restless and
shadowy figure of a colt wandered about a loose-box at the
end, whilst the steady grind of all the eaters was
occasionally diversified by the rattle of a rope or the
stamp of a foot.
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. That stillness, which struck
casual observers more than anything else in his character
and habit, and seemed so precisely like the rest of
inanition, may have been the perfect balance of enormous
antagonistic forces -- positives and negatives in fine
adjustment. His equilibrium disturbed, he was in extremity
at once. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him;
a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant
or rapid, it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or
he was missed.
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
wild 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 map 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 channel of any kind for disposable emotion,
had worked its effect. It has been observed more than once
that the causes of love are chiefly subjective, and Boldwood
was a living testimony to the truth of the proposition. No
mother existed to absorb his devotion, no sister for his
tenderness, no idle ties for sense. He became surcharged
with the compound, which was genuine lover's love.
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 manouvre, 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 aware of his presence, and the perception was as too
much light turned upon his new sensibility. He was still in
the road, and by moving on he hoped that neither would
recognize that he had originally intended to enter the
field. He passed by with an utter and overwhelming
sensation of ignorance, shyness, and doubt. Perhaps in her
manner there were signs that she wished to see him --
perhaps not -- he could not read a woman. The cabala of
this erotic philosophy seemed to consist of the subtlest
meanings expressed in misleading ways. Every turn, look,
word, and accent contained a mystery quite distinct from its
obvious import, and not one had ever been pondered by him
until now.
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
sheepwashing, and he went off to seek her there.
The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin of
brickwork in the meadows, full of the clearest water. To
birds on the wing its glassy surface, reflecting the light
sky, must have been visible for miles around as a glistening
Cyclops' eye in a green face. The grass about the margin at
this season was a sight to remember long -- in a minor sort
of way. Its activity in sucking the moisture from the rich
damp sod was almost a process observable by the eye. The
outskirts of this level water-meadow were diversified by
rounded and hollow pastures, where just now every flower
that was not a buttercup was a daisy. The river slid along
noiselessly as a shade, the swelling reeds and sedge forming
a flexible palisade upon its moist brink. To the north of
the mead were trees, the leaves of which were new, soft, and
moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened under summer
sun and drought, their colour being yellow beside a green --
green beside a yellow. From the recesses of this knot of
foliage the loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding
through the still air.
Boldwood went meditating down the slopes with his eyes on
his boots, which the yellow pollen from the buttercups had
bronzed in artistic gradations. A tributary of the main
stream flowed through the basin of the pool by an inlet and
outlet at opposite points of its diameter. Shepherd Oak,
Jan Coggan, Moon, Poorgrass, Cain Ball, and several others
were assembled here, all dripping wet to the very roots of
their hair, and Bathsheba was standing by in a new riding-
habit -- the most elegant she had ever worn -- the reins of
her horse being looped over her arm. Flagons of cider were
rolling about upon the green. The meek sheep were pushed
into the pool by Coggan and Matthew Moon, who stood by the
lower hatch, immersed to their waists; then Gabriel, who
stood on the brink, thrust them under as they swam along,
with an instrument like a crutch, formed for the purpose,
and also for assisting the exhausted animals when the wool
became saturated and they began to sink. They were let out
against the stream, and through the upper opening, all
impurities flowing away below. Cainy Ball and Joseph, who
performed this latter operation, were if possible wetter
than the rest; they resembled dolphins under a fountain,
every protuberance and angle of their clothes dribbling
forth a small rill.
Boldwood came close and bade her good morning, with such
constraint that she could not but think he had stepped
across to the washing for its own sake, hoping not to find
her there; more, she fancied his brow severe and his eye
slighting. Bathsheba immediately contrived to withdraw, and
glided along by the river till she was a stone's throw off.
She heard footsteps brushing the grass, and had a
consciousness that love was encircling her like a perfume.
Instead of turning or waiting, Bathsheba went further among
the high sedges, but Boldwood seemed determined, and pressed
on till they were completely past the bend of the river.
Here, without being seen, they could hear the splashing and
shouts of the washers above.
"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."
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
will -- you shall never have so much as to look out of doors
at haymaking time, or to think of weather in the harvest. I
rather cling; to the chaise, because it is 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 gaze to the
ground, and stood long like a man who did not know where he
was. Realities then returned upon him like the pain of a
wound received in an excitement which eclipses it, and he,
too, then went on.
CHAPTER XX
PERPLEXITY -- GRINDING THE SHEARS -- A QUARREL
"HE is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can
desire," Bathsheba mused.
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, being a woman who frequently appealed to her
understanding for deliverance from her whims. Boldwood as a
means to marriage was unexceptionable: she esteemed and
liked him, yet she did not want him. It appears that
ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible
without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands
because marriage is not possible without possession; with
totally differing aims the method is the same on both sides.
But the understood incentive on the woman's part was wanting
here. Besides, Bathsheba's position as absolute mistress of
a farm and house was a novel one, and the novelty had not
yet begun to wear off.
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, ranking 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 side-ways, 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 goals. 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 slap 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 moments
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 bain't going to tell a story and say he didn't to please
you. I have already tried to please you too much for my own
good!"
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 'ee 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 find
it out 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 theirselves ----'"
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 demonian than to
the angelic school, she never looked so well as when she was
angry -- and particularly when the effect was heightened by
a rather dashing velvet dress, carefully put on before a
glass.
All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to the
clover-field, Joseph sinking down in the midst when about
half-way, like an individual withering in a world which was
more and more insupportable. Having once received the
stimulus that her presence always gave them they went round
among the sheep with a will. The majority of the afflicted
animals were lying down, and could not be stirred. These
were bodily lifted out, and the others driven into the
adjoining field. Here, after the lapse of a few minutes,
several more fell down, and lay helpless and livid as the
rest.
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!"
"O no, ma'am" said Matthew. "Two of his store ewes got into
some vetches t'other day, and were just like these. He sent
a man on horseback here post-haste for Gable, and Gable went
and saved 'em, Farmer Boldwood hev got the thing they do it
with. 'Tis a holler pipe, with a sharp pricker inside.
Isn't it, Joseph?"
"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 en to come
civilly and in a proper manner, as becomes any 'ooman
begging a favour."
"Oh, oh, that's his answer! Where does he get his airs? Who
am I, then, to be treated like that? Shall I beg to a man
who has begged to me?"
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 Small-bury,
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. "Oh, it is
a wicked cruelty to me -- it is -- it is!" she murmured.
"And he drives me to do what I wouldn't; yes, he does! --
Tall, come indoors."
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 were
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 drew on
towards the field of sheep, the rider turning his face in
receding. Gabriel looked at her. It was a moment when a
woman's eyes and tongue tell distinctly opposite tales.
Bathsheba looked full of gratitude, and she said: --
"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-sprouts like bishops'
croziers, the square-headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint,
-- like an apoplectic saint in a niche of malachite, --
snow-white ladies'-smocks, the toothwort, approximating to
human flesh, the enchanter's night-shade, and the black-
petaled doleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of
the vegetable world in and about Weatherbury at this teeming
time; and of the animal, the metamorphosed figures of Mr.
Jan Coggan, the master-shearer; the second and third
shearers, who travelled in the exercise of their calling,
and do not require definition by name; Henery Fray the
fourth shearer, Susan Tall's husband the fifth, Joseph
Poorgrass the sixth, young Cain Ball as assistant-shearer,
and Gabriel Oak as general supervisor. None of these were
clothed to any extent worth mentioning, each appearing to
have hit in the matter of raiment the decent mean between a
high and low caste Hindoo. An angularity of lineament, and
a fixity of facial machinery in general, proclaimed that
serious work was the order of the day.
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 mediaevalism, the old barn embodied practices
which had suffered no mutilation at the hands of time. Here
at least the spirit of the ancient builders was at one with
the spirit of the modern beholder. Standing before this
abraded pile, the eye regarded its present usage, the mind
dwelt upon its past history, with a satisfied sense of
functional continuity throughout -- a feeling almost of
gratitude, and quite of pride, at the permanence of the idea
which had heaped it up. The fact that four centuries had
neither proved it to be founded on a mistake, inspired any
hatred of its purpose, nor given rise to any reaction that
had battered it down, invested this simple grey effort of
old minds with a repose, if not a grandeur, which a too
curious reflection was apt to disturb in its ecclesiastical
and military compeers. For once medievalism and modernism
had a common stand-point. 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 these to
bristle with a thousand rays strong enough to blind a weak-
eyed man. Beneath them a captive sheep lay panting,
quickening its pants as misgiving merged in terror, till it
quivered like the hot landscape outside.
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 Wessex 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 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
dewlap; 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 shear-lings 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
impressionable age gravitates to the larger body not only in
her choice of words, which is apparent every day, but even
in her shades of tone and humour, when the influence is
great.
What they conversed about was not audible to Gabriel, who
was too independent to get near, though too concerned to
disregard. The issue of their dialogue was the taking of
her hand by the courteous farmer to help her over the
spreading-board into the bright June sunlight outside.
Standing beside the sheep already shorn, they went on
talking again. Concerning the flock? Apparently not.
Gabriel theorized, not without truth, that in quiet
discussion of any matter within reach of the speakers' eyes,
these are usually fixed upon it. Bathsheba demurely
regarded a contemptible straw lying upon the ground, in a
way which suggested less ovine criticism than womanly
embarrassment. She became more or less red in the cheek,
the blood wavering in uncertain flux and reflux over the
sensitive space between ebb and flood. Gabriel sheared on,
constrained and sad.
She left Boldwood's side, and he walked up and down alone
for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then she reappeared in her
new riding-habit of myrtle-green, which fitted her to the
waist as a rind fits its fruit; and young Bob Coggan led on
her mare, Boldwood fetching his own horse from the tree
under which it had been tied.
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 wi' scarn?"
"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 mid see a little distance into
things! To be long-headed enough for a baily's place is a
poor mere trifle -- yet a trifle more than nothing.
However, I look round upon life quite cool. Do you heed me,
neighbours? My words, though made as simple as I can, mid be
rather deep for some heads."
"O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye."
"A strange old piece, goodmen -- whirled about from here to
yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I
have my depths; ha, and even my great depths! I might gird
at a certain shepherd, brain to brain. But no -- O no!"
"A strange old piece, ye say!" interposed the maltster, in a
querulous voice. "At the same time ye be no old man worth
naming -- no old man at all. Yer teeth bain't half gone
yet; and what's a old man's standing if so be his teeth
bain't gone? Weren't I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of
arms? 'Tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there's people far
past four-score -- a boast'weak as water."
It was the unvaying 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 veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it."
"Nobody," said Joseph Poorgrass. "Ye be a very rare old
spectacle, malter, and we all admire 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 Frag. 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 one I don't expect to 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 out-grown the instinctive dislike which every
Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now
quite frequently, and he inwardly said, "I find more bitter
than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets!" This
was mere exclamation -- the froth of the storm. He adored
Bathsheba just the same.
"We workfolk shall have some lordly-junketing to-night,"
said Cainy Ball, casting forth his thoughts in a new
direction. "This morning I see'em making the great puddens
in the milking-pails -- lumps of fat as big as yer thumb,
Mister Oak! I've never seed such splendid large
knobs of fat before in the days of my life -- they never
used to be bigger then a horse-bean. And there was a great
black crock upon the brandish with his legs a-sticking out,
but I don't know what was in within."
"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 l care not,
I've lost my love, and l care not;
I shall soon have another
That's better than t'other;
I've lost my love, and I care not.
This lyric, when concluded, was received with a silently
appreciative gaze at the table, implying that the
performance, like a work by those established authors who
are independent of notices in the papers, was a well-known
delight which required no applause.
"Now, Master Poorgrass, your song!" said Coggan.
"I be all but in liquor, 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! ... Just eye my
features, and see if the tell-tale blood overheats me much,
neighbours?"
"No, yer blushes be quite reasonable," said Coggan.
"I always tries to keep my colours from rising when a
beauty's eyes get fixed on me," said Joseph, differently;
"but if so be 'tis willed they do, they must."
"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 heaved 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 exhibited one of
those anomalies which will afflict little people when other
persons are particularly serious: in trying to check his
laughter, he pushed down his throat as much of the
tablecloth as he could get hold of, when, after continuing
hermetically sealed for a short time, his mirth burst out
through his nose. Joseph perceived it, and with hectic
cheeks of indignation instantly ceased singing. Coggan
boxed Bob's ears immediately.
"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 taking the earth without
alighting upon it to any extent, or illuminating the dead
levels at all. The sun had crept round the tree as a last
effort before death, and then began to sink, the shearers'
lower parts becoming steeped in embrowning twilight, whilst
their heads and shoulders were still enjoying day, touched
with a yellow of self-sustained brilliancy that seemed
inherent rather than acquired.
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.
"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!
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 itself; and the necessity of being jealous, which
lovers are troubled with, did not lead Oak to underestimate
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 remaining
inside with her. Oak wandered away under the quiet and
scented trees. Recovering from the softer impressions
produced by Bathsheba's voice, the shearers rose to leave,
Coggan turning to Pennyways as he pushed back the bench to
pass out: --
"I like to give praise where praise is due, and the man
deserves it -- that 'a do so," he remarked, looking at the
worthy thief, as if he were the masterpiece of some world-
renowned artist.
"I'm sure I should never have believed it if we hadn't
proved it, so to allude," hiccupped Joseph Poorgrass, "that
every cup, every one of the best knives and forks, and every
empty bottle be in their place as perfect now as at the
beginning, and not one stole at all."
"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 Keats
daintily calls a too happy happiness. This unwonted
abstraction by love of all dignity from a man of whom it had
ever seemed the chief component, was, in its distressing
incongruity, a pain to her which quenched much of the
pleasure she derived from the proof that she was idolized.
"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 awe-struck at her past
temerity, and was struggling to make amends without thinking
whether the sin quite deserved the penalty she was schooling
herself to pay. To have brought all this about her ears was
terrible; but after a while the situation was not without a
fearful joy. The facility with which even the most timid
woman 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, shaped as caverns, and very
clammy and humid on their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to
the touch until one got used to them; the mouths beneath
having a great partiality for closing upon any loose end of
Bathsheba's apparel which came within reach of their
tongues. Above each of these a still keener vision
suggested a brown forehead and two staring though not
unfriendly eyes, and above all a pair of whitish crescent-
shaped horns like two particularly new moons, an occasional
stolid "moo!" proclaiming beyond the shade of a doubt that
these phenomena were the features and persons of Daisy,
Whitefoot, Bonny-lass, Jolly-O, Spot, Twinkle-eye, etc.,
etc. -- the respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging to
Bathsheba aforesaid.
Her way back to the house was by a path through a young
plantation of tapering firs, which had been planted some
years earlier to shelter the premises from the north wind.
By reason of the density of the interwoven foliage overhead,
it was gloomy there at cloudless noontide, twilight in the
evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth
plague of Egypt at midnight. To describe the spot is to
call it a vast, low, naturally formed hall, the plumy
ceiling of which was supported by slender pillars of living
wood, the floor being covered with a soft dun carpet of dead
spikelets and mildewed cones, with a tuft of grass-blades
here and there.
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; regetting, 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 silense. 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.
"Oh 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 needles and the blades of long damp grass with the
effect of a large glowworm. It radiated upwards into their
faces, and sent over half the plantation gigantic shadows of
both man and woman, each dusky shape becoming distorted and
mangled upon the tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing.
He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them for a
moment; Bathsheba looked down again, for his gaze was too
strong to be received point-blank with her own. But she had
obliquely noticed that he was young and slim, and that he
wore three chevrons upon his sleeve.
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 un-willingly
shown," she replied, stiffly, and with as much dignity --
which was very little -- as she could infuse into a position
of 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 liliputian
musketry.
"I deserve the chastisement your words give me. But why
should such a fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to
her father's sex?"
"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
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, panting, 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 do to sulk away like that from a man who
was only civil and kind!" Clearly she did not think his
barefaced praise of her person an insult now.
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 aesthetic 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 moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied
like a Cretan -- a system of ethics above all others
calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission
into lively society; and the possibility of the favour
gained being transitory had reference only to the future.
He never passed the line which divides the spruce vices from
the ugly; and hence, though his morals had hardly been
applauded, disapproval of them had frequently been tempered
with a smile. This treatment had led to his becoming a sort
of regrater of other men's gallantries, to his own
aggrandizement as a Corinthian, rather than to the moral
profit of his hearers.
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
proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of
the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such
an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which
require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings
thoroughly home. When expressed with some amount of
reflectiveness it seems co-ordinate with a belief that this
flattery must be reasonable to be effective. It is to the
credit of men that few attempt to settle the question by
experiment, and it is for their happiness, perhaps, that
accident has never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that
a male dissembler who by deluging her with untenable
fictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powers
reaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to
many by unsought and wringing occurrences. And some profess
to have attained to the same knowledge by experiment as
aforesaid, and jauntily continue their indulgence in such
experiments with terrible effect. Sergeant Troy was one.
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
crop or cane, he came forward. Bathsheba blushed with half-
angry embarrassment, and adjusted her eyes as well as her
feet to the direct line of her path.
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 today."
"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 anything."
"I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart
will never mend. O these intolerable times: that ill-luck
should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is
beautiful! 'Twas the most I said -- you must own that; and
the least I could say -- that I own myself."
"There is some talk I could do without more easily than
money."
"Indeed. That remark is a sort of digression."
"No. 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 common-place
woman, to save you the embarrassment of being stared at if
they come near you? Not I. I couldn't tell any such
ridiculous lie about a beauty to encourage a single woman in
England in too excessive a modesty."
"It is all pretence -- what you are saying!" exclaimed
Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the sly method.
"You have a rare invention, Sergeant Troy. Why couldn't you
have passed by me that night, and said nothing? -- that was
all I meant to reproach you for."
"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 crop.
"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.
"Oh, 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."
"Oh 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 her-self.
Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a more perfect
meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and
probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet,
for the moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone
and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to
lift the foundation had taken root in the chink: the
remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes.
"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 other-wise.
"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 espised love in drink;
twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or
attempt to make a mark in he 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 CHATIE 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, 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 too 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." 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. Hear 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! Oh,
how can it be, that you care for me, and so suddenly! You
have seen so little of me: I may not be really so -- so
nice-looking as I seem to you. Please, do take it; Oh, do!
I cannot and will not have it. Believe me, your generosity
is too great. I have never done you a single kindness, and
why should you be so kind to me?"
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 was
my one poor patent of nobility," he broke out, bluntly;
"but, upon my soul, I wish you would now. Without any
shamming, come! Don't deny me the happiness of wearing it
for my sake? But you are too lovely even to care to be kind
as others are."
"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 brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his
head, saluted, 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 quarrenden, 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 somewhat
analogous to that of alleged formations of the universe,
time and times ago, was observable. The bustling swarm had
swept the sky in a scattered and uniform haze, which now
thickened to a nebulous centre: this glided on to a bough
and grew still denser, till it formed a solid black spot
upon the light.
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 manoeuvre 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 Bathsheba's dwelling extended, a mile off,
into an uncultivated tract of land, dotted at this season
with tall thickets of brake fern, plump and diaphanous from
recent rapid growth, and radiant in hues of clear and
untainted green.
At eight o'clock this midsummer evening, whilst the
bristling ball of gold in the west still swept the tips of
the ferns with its long, luxuriant rays, a soft brushing-by
of garments might have been heard among them, and Bathsheba
appeared in their midst, their soft, feathery arms caressing
her up to her shoulders. She paused, turned, went back over
the hill and half-way to her own door, whence she cast a
farewell glance upon the spot she had just left, having
resolved not to remain near the place after all.
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, till she again ran along the field, clambered
over the bank, and followed the original direction. She was
now literally trembling and panting at this her temerity in
such an errant undertaking; her breath came and went
quickly, and her eyes shone with an in-frequent 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 saucer-shaped concave, naturally formed, with
a top diameter of about thirty feet, and shallow enough to
allow the sunshine to reach their heads. Standing in the
centre, the sky overhead was met by a circular horizon of
fern: this grew nearly to the bottom of the slope and then
abruptly ceased. The middle within the belt of verdure was
floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss and grass
intermingled, so yielding that the foot was half-buried
within it.
"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.
"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 l can't perform. I
give my word that l 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?"
"O 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 circling gleams were accompanied
by a keen rush that was almost a whistling -- also springing
from all sides of her at once. In short, she was enclosed
in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses, resembling a
sky-full of meteors close at hand.
Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had
there been more dexterity shown in its management than by
the hands of Sergeant Troy, and never had he been in such
splendid temper for the performance as now in the evening
sunshine among the ferns with Bathsheba. It may safely be
asserted with respect to the closeness of his cuts, that had
it been possible for the edge of the sword to leave in the
air a permanent substance wherever it flew past, the space
left untouched would have been almost a mould of Bathsheba's
figure.
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
harpstring, and behind all Troy himself, mostly facing her;
sometimes, to show the rear cuts, half turned away, his eye
nevertheless always keenly measuring her breadth and
outline, and his lips tightly closed in sustained effort.
Next, his movements lapsed slower, and she could see them
individually. The hissing of the sword had ceased, and he
stopped entirely.
"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 make sure of
your safety. The risk of injuring you through your moving
was too great not to force me to tell you a fib to escape
it."
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 times."
"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. Introduced as lymph on the dart of Eros, it
eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution.
Bathsheba, though she had too much understanding to be
entirely governed by her womanliness, had too much
womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage.
Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate
more than in the strange power she possesses of believing
cajoleries that she knows to be false -- except, indeed, in
that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she knows
to be true.
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 cornfields.
It was dusk when Oak, who had not been far a-field that day,
took the same path and met her returning, quite pensively,
as he thought.
The wheat was now tall, and the path was narrow; thus the
way was quite a sunken groove between the embowing thicket
on either side. Two persons could not walk abreast without
damaging the crop, and Oak stood aside to let her pass.
"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 be 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 'ee."
"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 o'
soldiers is anything but a proof of his worth. It show's
his course to be down'ard."
"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 cleverness in his calling may have tempted
him astray, and what is mirth to the neighbours is ruin to
the woman. When he tries to talk to 'ee again, why not turn
away with a short "Good day"; and when you see him coming
one way, turn the other. When he says anything laughable,
fail to see the point and don't smile, and speak of him
before those who will report your talk as "that fantastical
man," or "that Sergeant What's-his-name." "That man of a
family that has come to the dogs." Don't be unmannerly
towards en, but harmless-uncivil, and so get rid of the
man."
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 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 'ee now I
am poor, and you have got altogether above me. But
Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider --
that, both to keep yourself well honoured among the
workfolk, and in common generosity to an honourable man who
loves you as well as I, you should be more discreet in your
bearing towards this soldier."
"Don't, don't, don't!" she exclaimed, in a choking voice.
"Are ye not more to me than my own affairs, and even life!"
he went on. "Come, listen to me! I am six years older than
you, and Mr. Boldwood is ten years older than I, and
consider -- I do beg of 'ee to consider before it is too
late -- how safe you would be in his hands!"
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 commanded, a paleness of
face invisible to the eye being suggested by the trembling
words. "Do not remain on this farm any longer. I don't
want you -- I beg you to go!"
"That's nonsense," said Oak, calmly. "This is the second
time you have pretended to dismiss me; and what's the use o'
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 biding.
How would the farm go on with nobody to mind it but a woman?
But mind this, I don't wish 'ee to feel you owe me anything.
Not I. What I do, I do. Sometimes I say I should be as
glad as a bird to leave the place -- for don't suppose I'm
content to be a nobody. I was made for better things.
However, I don't like to see your concerns going to ruin, as
they must if you keep in this mind.... I hate taking my own
measure so plain, but, upon my life, your provoking ways
make a man say what he wouldn't dream of at other times! I
own to being rather interfering. But you know well enough
how it is, and who she is that I like too well, and feel too
much like a fool about to be civil to her!"
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 -- Oh you perjured woman! How can you speak that
wicked story!" said Bathsheba, excitedly. "You admired him
from your heart only this morning in the very world, you
did. Yes, Maryann, you know it!"
"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
fast 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 had, 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 had as they make out."
"He is not had at all.... My poor life and heart, how weak
I am!" she moaned, in a relaxed, desultory way, heedless of
Liddy's presence. "Oh, how I wish I had never seen him!
Loving is misery for women always. I shall never forgive
God for making me a woman, and dearly am I beginning to pay
for the honour of owning a pretty face." She freshened and
turned to Liddy suddenly. "Mind this, Lydia Smallbury, if
you repeat anywhere a single word of what I have said to you
inside this closed door, I'll never trust you, or love you,
or have you with me a moment longer -- not a moment!"
"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 illegit'mate days!"
CHAPTER XXXI
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 beyond
Yalbury. The arrangement was that Miss Everdene should
honour them by coming there for a day or two to inspect some
ingenious contrivances which this man of the woods had
introduced into his wares.
Leaving her instructions with Gabriel and Maryann, that they
were to see everything carefully locked up for the night,
she went out of the house just at the close of a timely
thunder-shower, which had refined the air, and daintily
bathed the coat of the land, though all beneath was dry as
ever. Freshness was exhaled in an essence from the varied
contours of bank and hollow, as if the earth breathed maiden
breath; and the pleased birds were hymning to the scene.
Before her, among the clouds, there was a contrast in the
shape of lairs of fierce light which showed themselves in
the neighbourhood of a hidden sun, lingering on to the
farthest north-west corner of the heavens that this
midsummer season allowed.
She had walked nearly two miles of her journey, watching how
the day was retreating, and thinking how the time of deeds
was quietly melting into the time of thought, to give place
in its turn to the time of prayer and sleep, when she beheld
advancing over Yalbury hill the very man she sought so
anxiously to elude. Boldwood was stepping on, not with that
quiet tread of reserved strength which was his customary
gait, in which he always seemed to be balancing two
thoughts. His manner was stunned and sluggish now.
Boldwood had for the first time been awakened to woman's
privileges in tergiversation even when it involves another
person's possible blight. That Bathsheba was a firm and
positive girl, far less inconsequent than her fellows, had
been the very lung of his hope; for he had held that these
qualities would lead her to adhere to a straight course for
consistency's sake, and accept him, though her fancy might
not flood him with the iridescent hues of uncritical love.
But the argument now came back as sorry gleams from a broken
mirror. The discovery was no less a scourge than a
surprise.
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 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 he 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 -- O, 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. O sweet -- how dearly you spoke to me behind
the spear-bed at the washing-pool, and in the barn at the
shearing, and that dearest last time in the evening at your
home! Where are your pleasant words all gone -- your
earnest hope to be able to love me? Where is your firm
conviction that you would get to care for me very much?
Really forgotten? -- really?"
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 l 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 un-
mistakable 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! O 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
would I 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 occurred! 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 to honest to with hold it.
"I cannot," she whispered.
"I know you cannot. But he stole in in my absence and
robbed me. Why did'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 away up the country, and not here! I hope he
may not return here just yet. I pray God he may not come
into my sight, for I may be tempted beyond myself. Oh,
Bathsheba, keep him away -- yes, keep him away from me!"
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.
The force of the farmer's threats lay in their relation to a
circumstance known at present only to herself: her lover was
coming back to Weatherbury in the course of the very next
day or two. Troy had not returned to his distant barracks
as Boldwood and others supposed, but had merely gone to
visit some acquaintance in Bath, and had yet a week or more
remaining to his furlough.
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 her
distraction, instead of advancing further she walked up and
down, beating the air with her fingers, pressing on her
brow, and sobbing brokenly to herself. Then she sat down on
a heap of stones by the wayside to think. There she
remained long. Above the dark margin of the earth appeared
foreshores and promontories of coppery cloud, bounding a
green and pellucid expanse in the western sky. Amaranthine
glosses came over them then, and the unresting world wheeled
her round to a contrasting prospect eastward, in the shape
of indecisive and palpitating stars. She gazed upon their
silent throes amid the shades of space, but realised none at
all. Her troubled spirit was far away with Troy.
CHAPTER XXXII
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 ghostlike glide of that mysterious figure.
They were a woman and a gipsy man. A woman was out of the
question in such an occupation at this hour, and the comer
could be no less than a thief, who might probably have known
the weakness of the household on this particular night, and
have chosen it on that account for his daring attempt.
Moreover, to raise suspicion to conviction itself, there
were gipsies in Weatherbury Bottom.
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.
"Hark!" said Gabriel.
They listened. Distinct upon the stagnant air came the
sounds of a trotting horse passing up Longpuddle Lane --
just beyond the gipsies' encampment in Weatherbury Bottom.
"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 he 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 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 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 ha' gone on earlier, or some
other way," said Oak. "You saw there were no other tracks?"
"True." They rode along silently for a long weary time.
Coggan carried an old pinchbeck repeater which he had
inherited from some genius in his family; and it now struck
one. He lighted another match, and examined the ground
again.
"'Tis a canter now," he said, throwing away the light. "A
twisty, rickety pace for a gig. The fact is, they over-
drove her at starting, we shall catch 'em yet."
Again they hastened on, and entered Blackmore Vale.
Coggan's watch struck one. When they looked again the hoof-
marks were so spaced as to form a sort of zigzag if united,
like the lamps along a street.
"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 millpond trickling hoarsely through a hatch, and
suggesting gloomy possibilities of drowning by jumping in.
Gabriel dismounted when they came to a turning. The tracks
were absolutely the only guide as to the direction that they
now had, and great caution was necessary to avoid confusing
them with some others which had made their appearance
lately.
"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?"
"Sherton Turnpike. The keeper of that gate is the sleepiest
man between here and London -- Dan Randall, that's his name
-- knowed en for years, when he was at Casterbridge gate.
Between the lameness and the gate 'tis a done job."
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 Bold-wood'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 was we to know, if you left no account of your
doings?" expostulated Coggan, "and ladies don't drive at
these hours, miss, as a jineral rule of society."
"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 got down and pulled it
out a hundred yards back. I can manage very well, thank
you. I shall be in Bath by daylight. Will you now return,
please?"
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.
"She won't be in Bath by no daylight!"
"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, hut 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, at her own
estimate; and she much underrated the distance. 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. Such was
Bathsheba's scheme. But in her topographical ignorance as a
late comer to the place, she misreckoned the distance of her
journey as not much more than half what it really was.
This idea she proceeded to carry out, with what initial
success we have already seen.
CHAPTER XXXIII
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 a-field under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the
trembling air and short shadows of noon. Indoors nothing
was to be heard save the droning of blue-bottle flies; out-
of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss of tressy oat-
ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of
amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath. Every drop of
moisture not in the men's bottles and flagons in the form of
cider was raining as perspiration from their foreheads and
cheeks. Drought was everywhere else.
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. I went to unlock the door and
dropped the key, and it fell upon the stone floor and broke
into two pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful bodement. I
wish mis'ess was home."
"'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 be
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 l'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, "l'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 fleed
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
sojer, walking along. And bymeby they got closer and
closer, and then they went arm-in-crook, like courting
complete -- hok-hok! like courting complete -- hok! --
courting complete ----" Losing the thread of his narrative
at this point simultaneously with his loss of breath, their
informant looked up and down the field apparently for some
clue to it. "Well, I see our mis'ess and a soldier -- a-ha-
a-wk!"
"Damn 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 refinery.
'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 be born to
things -- that's true. Yet I would rather my trifle were
hid; though, perhaps, a high nater is a little high, and at
my birth all things were possible to my Maker, and he may
have begrudged no gifts.... But under your bushel, Joseph!
under your bushel with 'ee! A strange desire, neighbours,
this desire to hide, and no praise due. Yet there is a
Sermon on the Mount with a calendar of the blessed at the
head, and certain meek men may be named therein."
"Cainy's grandfather was a very clever man," said Matthew
Moon. "Invented a' apple-tree out of his own head, which is
called by his name to this day -- the Early Ball. You know
'em, Jan? A Quarrenden grafted on a Tom Putt, and a Rathe-
ripe upon top o' that again. "'Tis trew 'a used to bide
about in a public-house wi' a 'ooman in a way he had no
business to by rights, but there -- 'a were a clever man in
the sense of the term."
"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
sojer," continued Cainy, firmly, and with a dim sense that
his words were very effective as regarded Gabriel's
emotions. "And I think the sojer was Sergeant Troy. And
they sat there together for more than half-an-hour, talking
moving things, and she once was crying a'most to death. And
when they came out her eyes were shining and she was as
white as a lily; and they looked into one another's faces,
as far-gone friendly as a man and woman can be."
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
meaning is that the sky and the earth in the kingdom of Bath
is not altogether different from ours here. 'Tis for our
good to gain knowledge of strange cities, and as such the
boy's words should be suffered, so to speak it."
"And the people of Bath," continued Cain, "never need to
light their fires except as a luxury, for the water springs
up out of the earth ready boiled for use."
"'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 barbarian practice enough to us, but I
daresay the natives think nothing o' 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 'ithout legs
inside if required. 'Twas a very winsome sight; and her
hair was brushed splendid. And when the sun shone upon the
bright gown and his red coat -- my! how handsome they
looked. You could see 'em all the length of the street."
"And what then?" murmured Gabriel.
"And then I went into Griffin's to hae my boots hobbed, and
then I went to Riggs's batty-cake shop, and asked 'em for a
penneth of the cheapest and nicest stales, that were all but
blue-mouldy, but not quite. And whilst I was chawing 'em
down I walked on and seed a clock with a face as big as a
baking trendle ----"
"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 worship all the
colours of the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray
preaching, and worship drab and whitewash only. And then --
I didn't see no more of Miss Everdene at all."
"Why didn't you say so afore, 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 they 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 be no longer a babe and suckling," said
Joseph in the sepulchral tone the circumstances demanded,
"and you know what taking an oath is. 'Tis a horrible
testament mind ye, which you say and seal with your blood-
stone, and the prophet Matthew tells us that on whomsoever
it shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now, before all
the work-folk here assembled, can you swear to your words as
the shepherd asks ye?"
"Please no, Mister Oak!" said Cainy, looking from one to the
other with great uneasiness at the spiritual magnitude of
the position. "I don't mind saying 'tis true, but I don't
like to say 'tis damn true, if that's what you mane."
"Cain, Cain, how can you!" asked Joseph sternly. "You be
asked to swear in a holy manner, and you swear like wicked
Shimei, the son of Gera, who cursed as he came. Young man,
fie!"
"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 XXXIV
HOME AGAIN -- A TRICKSTER
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 as 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 up the country, 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, l 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."
"Capital," said Troy. "But, dear me, I had better go back
for my bag, because my slippers and brush and comb are in
it; you run home whilst I fetch it, and I'll promise to be
in your parlour in ten minutes."
"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
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 with
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
maight have been seen walking about hills and downs of
Weatherbury like an unhappy Shade in the Mournful Fields by
Acheron.
CHAPTER XXXV
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 had become known that she had had a fearful
journey to Bath, owing to her miscalculating the distance:
that the horse had broken down, and that she had been more
than two days getting there. It was not Bathsheba's way to
do things furtively. With all her faults, she was candour
itself. Could she have been entrapped? The union was not
only an unutterable grief to him: it amazed him,
notwithstanding that he had passed the preceding week in a
suspicion that such might be the issue of Troy's meeting her
away from home. Her quiet return with Liddy had to some
extent dispersed the dread. Just as that imperceptible
motion which appears like stillness is infinitely divided in
its properties from stillness itself, so had his hope
undistinguishable from despair differed from despair indeed.
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 hapenny 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 and
over the fence towards Gabriel, who shunned it in its fall,
his face turning to an angry red. Coggan twirled his eye,
edged forward, and caught the money in its ricochet upon the
road.
"Very well -- you keep it, Coggan," said Gabriel with
disdain and almost fiercely. "As for me, I'll do with-out
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 XXXVI
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 stockyard 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 tail, 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."
"True -- 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 not being 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 later 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 x 30 = 150 quarters = 500 L.
3 x 40 = 120 quarters = 250 L.
-------
Total . . 750 L.
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 palimpsest, having an
ostensible writing, and another beneath the lines. It is
possible that there was this golden legend under the
utilitarian one: "I will help to my last effort the woman I
have loved so dearly."
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 unusual 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,
huzzing forth snores, as were several others; the united
breathings of the horizonal assemblage forming a subdued
roar like London from a distance. Joseph Poorgrass was
curled round in the fashion of a hedge-hog, apparently in
attempts to present the least possible portion of his
surface to the air; and behind him was dimly visible an
unimportant remnant of William Smallbury. The glasses and
cups still stood upon the table, a water-jug being
overturned, from which a small rill, after tracing its
course with marvellous precision down the centre of the long
table, fell into the neck of the unconscious Mark Clark, in
a steady, monotonous drip, like the dripping of a stalactite
in a cave.
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 home-stead, 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 stair-case.
"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 drawlatching 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 water-proof coverings
across the yard, and soon two of these heaps of treasure in
grain were covered snug -- two cloths to each. Two hundred
pounds were secured. Three wheat-stacks remained open, and
there were no more cloths. Oak looked under the staddles
and found a fork. He mounted the third pile of wealth and
began operating, adopting the plan of sloping the upper
sheaves one over the other; and, in addition, filling the
interstices with the material of some untied sheaves.
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 reappear. It was the farewell of the
ambassador previous to war. The night had a haggard look,
like a sick thing; and there came finally an utter
expiration of air from the whole heaven in the form of a
slow breeze, which might have been likened to a death. And
now nothing was heard in the yard but the dull thuds of the
beetle which drove in the spars, and the rustle of thatch in
the intervals.
CHAPTER XXXVII
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 move of the approaching storm.
The second peal was noisy, with comparatively little visible
lightning. Gabriel saw a candle shining in Bathsheba's
bedroom, and soon a shadow swept to and fro upon the blind.
Then there came a third flash. Manoeuvres 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
fore-ground 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 poniard, as it was
indifferently called -- a long iron lance, polished by
handling -- into the stack, used to support the sheaves
instead of the support called a groom used on houses. A blue
light appeared in the zenith, and in some indescribable
manner flickered down near the top of the rod. It was the
fourth of the larger flashes. A moment later and there was
a smack -- smart, clear, and short, Gabriel felt his
position to be anything but a safe one, and he resolved to
descend.
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 aerial
perch by holding her arm. At the same moment, while he was
still reversed in his attitude, there was more light, and he
saw, as it were, a copy of the tall poplar tree on the hill
drawn in black on the wall of the barn. It was the shadow
of that tree, thrown across by a secondary flash in the
west.
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, and
was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons
appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones --
dancing, leaping, striding, racing around, and mingling
altogether in unparalleled confusion. With these were
intertwined undulating snakes of green, and behind these was
a broad mass of lesser light. Simultaneously came from
every part of the tumbling sky what may be called a shout;
since, though no shout ever came near it, it was more of the
nature of a shout than of anything else earthly. In the
meantime one of the grisly forms had alighted upon the point
of Gabriel's rod, to run invisibly down it, down the chain,
and into the earth. Gabriel was almost blinded, and he
could feel Bathsheba's warm arm tremble in his hand -- a
sensation novel and thrilling enough; but love, life,
everything human, seemed small and trifling in such close
juxtaposition with an infuriated universe.
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.
"O, I know it all -- all," she said, adding slowly: "They
are all asleep in the barn, in a drunken sleep, and my
husband among them. That's it, is it not? Don't think I am
a timid woman and can't endure things."
"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 mistakenly 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 O, 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! Goodnight -- 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 XXXVIII
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 breezes coursed in transparent eddies
round Oak's face. The wind shifted yet a point or two and
blew stronger. In ten minutes every wind of heaven seemed
to be roaming at large. Some of the thatching on the wheat-
stacks was now whirled fantastically aloft, and had to be
replaced and weighted with some rails that lay near at hand.
This done, Oak slaved away again at the barley. A huge drop
of rain smote his face, the wind snarled round every corner,
the trees rocked to the bases of their trunks, and the twigs
clashed in strife. Driving in spars at any point and on any
system, inch by inch he covered more and more safely from
ruin this distracting impersonation of seven hundred pounds.
The rain came on in earnest, and Oak soon felt the water to
be tracking cold and clammy routes down his back.
Ultimately he was reduced well-nigh to a homogeneous sop,
and the dyes of his clothes trickled down and stood in a
pool at the foot of the ladder. The rain stretched
obliquely through the dull atmosphere in liquid spines,
unbroken in continuity between their beginnings in the
clouds and their points in him.
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 stepped singly and in pairs through the doors -- all
walking awkwardly, and abashed, save the foremost, who wore
a red jacket, and advanced with his hands in his pockets,
whistling. The others shambled after with a conscience-
stricken air: the whole procession was not unlike Flaxman's
group of the suitors tottering on towards the infernal
regions under the conduct of Mercury. The gnarled shapes
passed into the village, Troy, their leader, entering the
farmhouse. Not a single one of them had turned his face to
the ricks, or apparently bestowed one thought upon their
condition.
Soon Oak too went homeward, by a different route from
theirs. In front of him against the wet glazed surface of
the lane he saw a person walking yet more slowly than
himself under an umbrella. The man turned and plainly
started; he was Boldwood.
"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."
"Them 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 daresay I am a joke about the parish," said Boldwood, as
if the subject came irresistibly to his tongue, and with a
miserable lightness meant to express his indifference.
"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 XXXIX
COMING HOME -- A CRY
ON the turnpike road, between Casterbridge and Weatherbury,
and about three miles from the former place, is Yalbury
Hill, one of those steep long ascents which pervade the
highways of this undulating part of South Wessex. In
returning from market it is usual for the farmers and other
gig-gentry to alight at the bottom and walk up.
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 and
training.
"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, just out of Budmouth, and a drab sea rolled in
towards us like liquid misery. Wind and rain -- good Lord!
Dark? Why, 'twas as black as my hat before the last race
was run. 'Twas five o'clock, and you couldn't see the
horses till they were almost in, leave alone colours. The
ground was as heavy as lead, and all judgment from a
fellow's experience went for nothing. Horses, riders,
people, were all blown about like ships at sea. Three
booths were blown over, and the wretched folk inside crawled
out upon their hands and knees; and in the next field were
as many as a dozen hats at one time. Ay, Pimpernel
regularly stuck fast, when about sixty yards off, and when I
saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart against the
lining of my ribs, I assure you, my love!"
"And you mean, Frank," said Bathsheba, sadly -- her voice
was painfully lowered from the fulness and vivacity of the
previous summer -- "that you have lost more than a hundred
pounds in a month by this dreadful horse-racing? O, Frank,
it is cruel; it is foolish of you to take away my money so.
We shall have to leave the farm; that will be the end of
it!"
"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 second meeting,
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 have lost all the pluck and
sauciness you formerly had, and upon my life if I had known
what a chicken-hearted creature you were under all your
boldness, I'd never have -- I know what."
A flash of indignation might have been seen in Bathsheba's
dark eyes as she looked resolutely ahead after this reply.
They moved on without further speech, some early-withered
leaves from the trees which hooded the road at this spot
occasionally spinning downward across their path to the
earth.
A woman appeared on the brow of the hill. The ridge was in
a cutting, so that she was very near the husband and wife
before she became visible. Troy had turned towards the gig
to remount, and whilst putting his foot on the step the
woman passed behind him.
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
Grey's Bridge just out of the town. I'll bring all the
money I can muster. You shan't want -- I'll see that,
Fanny; then I'll get you a lodging somewhere. Good-bye till
then. I am a brute -- but good-bye!"
After advancing the distance which completed the ascent of
the hill, Bathsheba turned her head. The woman was upon her
feet, and Bathsheba saw her withdrawing from Troy, and going
feebly down the hill by the third milestone from
Casterbridge. Troy then came on towards his wife, stepped
into the gig, took the reins from her hand, and without
making any observation whipped the horse into a trot. He
was rather agitated.
"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 XL
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 penumbrae 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.
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 manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the
hour, one, in a small, attenuated tone. After midnight the
voice of a clock seems to lose in breadth as much as in
length, and to diminish its sonorousness to a thin falsetto.
Afterwards a light -- two lights -- arose from the remote
shade, and grew larger. A carriage rolled along the toad,
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.
"Two more!" 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 slight distance she bore up bravely, afterwards
flagging as before. This was beside a lone copsewood,
wherein heaps of white chips strewn upon the leafy ground
showed that woodmen had been faggoting and making hurdles
during the day. Now there was not a rustle, not a breeze,
not the faintest clash of twigs to keep her company. The
woman looked over the gate, opened it, and went in. Close
to the entrance stood a row of faggots, bound and un-bound,
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 the last
milestone by a good long distance, and began to look
wistfully towards the bank as if calculating upon another
milestone soon. The crutches, though so very useful, had
their limits of power. Mechanism only transfers labour,
being powerless to supersede it, and the original amount of
exertion was not cleared away; it was thrown into the body
and arms. She was exhausted, and each swing forward became
fainter. At last she swayed sideways, and fell.
Here she lay, a shapeless heap, for ten minutes and more.
The morning wind began to boom dully over the flats, and to
move afresh dead leaves which had lain still since
yesterday. The woman desperately turned round upon her
knees, and next rose to her feet. Steadying herself by the
help of one crutch, she essayed a step, then another, then a
third, using the crutches now as walking-sticks only. Thus
she progressed till descending Mellstock Hill another
milestone appeared, and soon the beginning of an iron-railed
fence came into view. She staggered across to the first
post, clung to it, and looked around.
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.
"Less than a mile!" the woman murmured. "No; more," she
added, after a pause. "The mile is to the county hall, and
my resting-place is on the other side Casterbridge. A
little over a mile, and there I am!" After an interval she
again spoke. "Five or six steps to a yard -- six perhaps.
I have to go seventeen hundred yards. A hundred times six,
six hundred. Seventeen times that. O pity me, Lord!"
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.
"That stone bridge is the end of my journey," she said, when
the bridge over the Froom was in view.
She crawled to the bridge. 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 over half a mile that she
would have been powerless to face in the lump. The artifice
showed that the woman, by some mysterious intuition, had
grasped the paradoxical truth that blindness may operate
more vigorously than prescience, and the short-sighted
effect more than the far-seeing; that limitation, and not
comprehensiveness, is needed for striking a blow.
The half-mile stood now before the sick and weary woman like
a stolid Juggernaut. It was an impassive King of her world.
The road here ran across Durnover Moor, open to the road on
either side. She surveyed the wide space, the lights,
herself, sighed, and lay down against a guard-stone of the
bridge.
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 bridge
a portion of shade seemed to detach itself and move into
isolation upon the pale white of the road. It glided
noiselessly towards the recumbent woman.
She became conscious of something touching her hand; it was
softness and it was warmth. She opened her eye's, and the
substance touched her face. A dog was licking her cheek.
He was a huge, heavy, and quiet creature, standing darkly
against the low horizon, and at least two feet higher than
the present position of her eyes. Whether Newfoundland,
mastiff, bloodhound, or what not, it was impossible to say.
He seemed to be of too strange and mysterious a nature to
belong to any variety among those of popular nomenclature.
Being thus assignable to no breed, he was the ideal
embodiment of canine greatness -- a generalization from what
was common to all. Night, in its sad, solemn, and
benevolent aspect, apart from its stealthy and cruel side,
was personified in this form. Darkness endows the small and
ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power, and even
the suffering woman threw her idea into figure.
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
bottom of the town, and the Casterbridge lamps lay before
them like fallen Pleiads as they turned to the left into the
dense shade of a deserted avenue of chestnuts, and so
skirted the borough. Thus the town was passed, and the goal
was reached.
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 stone edifice consisted of a central mass and two
wings, whereon stood as sentinels a few slim chimneys, now
gurgling sorrowfully to the slow wind. In the wall was a
gate, and by the gate a bellpull formed of a hanging wire.
The woman raised herself as high as possible upon her knees,
and could just reach the handle. She moved it and fell
forwards in a bowed attitude, her face upon her bosom.
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 house and disappeared.
CHAPTER XLI
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. O! is it kind to me to throw my mistake in my
face? Whatever opinion you may have of my wisdom, you
should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am in
your power."
"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
goodlooking 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 road a man like Mr. Boldwood. It was
Mr. Boldwood. Bathsheba blushed painfully, and watched.
The farmer stopped when still a long way off, and held up
his hand to Gabriel Oak, who was in a footpath across the
field. The two men then approached each other and seemed to
engage in earnest conversation.
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 evening. She belongs by law to
our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a waggon at
three this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her."
"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 hunches 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 first went to live in a garrison-town t'other side
o' Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a living at
seampstering in Melchester for several months, at the house
of a very respectable widow-woman who takes in work of that
sort. She only got handy the Union-house on Sunday morning
'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and there that she had
traipsed every step of the way from Melchester. Why she
left her place, I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a
lie, why, I wouldn't tell it. That's the short of the
story, ma'am."
"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
Casterhridge Union,' he said, 'and perhaps 'tisn't much
matter about how she came to die. She reached the Union
early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon -- that's
clear enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing lately,
and Mr. Boldwood turned round to me then, and left off
spitting a thistle with the end of his stick. He told me
about her having lived by seampstering in Melchester, as I
mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at the end
of last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk.
They then said I had better just name a hint of her death to
you, and away they went. Her death might have been brought
on by biding in the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people
used to say she'd go off in a decline: she used to cough a
good deal in winter time. However, 'tisn't much odds to us
about that now, for 'tis all over."
"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 'ee!" 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 XLII
JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN
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 sphere. That entry and
exit hereby was only at rare intervals became apparent on
noting that tufts of grass were allowed to flourish
undisturbed in the chinks of the sill.
As the clock over the South-street Alms-house pointed to
five minutes to three, a blue spring waggon, picked out with
red, and containing boughs and flowers, passed the end of
the street, and up towards this side of the building.
Whilst the chimes were yet stammering out a shattered form
of "Malbrook." Joseph Poorgrass rang the bell, and received
directions to back his waggon against the high door under
the gable. The door then opened, and a plain elm coffin was
slowly thrust forth, and laid by two men in fustian along
the middle of the vehicle.
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 tailboard 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 down the hill, and
along the road to Weatherbury.
The afternoon drew on apace, and, looking to the right
towards the sea as he walked beside the horse, Poorgrass saw
strange clouds and scrolls of mist rolling over the long
ridges which girt the landscape in that quarter. They came
in yet greater volumes, and indolently crept across the
intervening valleys, and around the withered papery flags of
the moor and river brinks. Then their dank spongy forms
closed in upon the sky. It was a sudden overgrowth of
atmospheric fungi which had their roots in the neighbouring
sea, and by the time that horse, man, and corpse entered
Yalbury Great Wood, these silent workings of an invisible
hand had reached them, and they were completely enveloped,
this being the first arrival of the autumn fogs, and the
first fog of the series.
The air was as an eye suddenly struck blind. The waggon and
its load rolled no longer on the horizontal division between
clearness and opacity, but were imbedded in an elastic body
of a monotonous pallor throughout. There was no perceptible
motion in the air, not a visible drop of water fell upon a
leaf of the beeches, birches, and firs composing the wood on
either side. The trees stood in an attitude of intentness,
as if they waited longingly for a wind to come and rock
them. A startling quiet overhung all surrounding things --
so completely, that the crunching of the waggon-wheels was
as a great noise, and small rustles, which had never
obtained a hearing except by night, were distinctly
individualized.
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 spectrelike 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.
At the roadside hamlet called Roy-Town, just beyond this
wood, was the old inn Buck's Head. It was about a mile and
a half from Weatherbury, and in the meridian times of stage-
coach travelling had been the place where many coaches
changed and kept their relays of horses. All the old
stabling was now pulled down, and little remained besides
the habitable inn itself, which, standing a little way back
from the road, signified its existence to people far up and
down the highway by a sign hanging from the horizontal bough
of an elm on the opposite side of the way.
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 formulae: 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
signboard came in view, and, stopping his horse immediately
beneath it, he proceeded to fulfil an intention made a long
time before. His spirits were oozing out of him quite. He
turned the horse's head to the green bank, and entered the
hostel for a mug of ale.
Going down into the kitchen of the inn, the floor of which
was a step below the passage, which in its turn was a step
below the road outside, what should Joseph see to gladden
his eyes but two copper-coloured discs, in the form of the
countenances of Mr. Jan Coggan and Mr. Mark Clark. These
owners of the two most appreciative throats in the
neighbourhood, within the pale of respectability, were now
sitting face to face over a threelegged 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-A-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 four miles,"
said Joseph, indulging in a shudder toned down by
resignation. "And to speak the truth, 'twas beginning to
tell upon me. I assure ye, I ha'n't seed the colour of
victuals or drink since breakfast time this morning, and
that was no more than a dew-bit afield."
"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 parish 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 least thimbleful ye can dream
of 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 wet, and
since we be 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 schoolpeople 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 offhand."
"I believe ye to be a chapelmember, Joseph. That I do."
"Oh, no, no! I don't go 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
shipwrecks 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 gaffer like the Lord than babes
unborn,"
"Chapelfolk be more hand-in-glove with them above than we,"
said Joseph, thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Coggan. "We know very well that if anybody do
go to heaven, they will. They've worked hard for it, and
they deserve to have it, such as 'tis. I bain't such a fool
as to pretend that we who stick to the Church have the same
chance as they, because we know we have not. But I hate a
feller who'll change his old ancient doctrines for the sake
of getting to heaven. I'd as soon turn king's-evidence for
the few pounds you get. Why, neighbours, when every one of
my taties were frosted, our Parson Thirdly were the man who
gave me a sack for seed, though he hardly had one for his
own use, and no money to buy 'em. If it hadn't been for
him, I shouldn't hae had a tatie to put in my garden. D'ye
think I'd turn after that? No, I'll stick to my side; and if
we be in the wrong, so be it: I'll fall with the fallen!"
"Well said -- very well said," observed Joseph. -- "However,
folks, I must be moving now: upon my life I must. Pa'son
Thirdly will be waiting at the church gates, and there's the
woman a-biding outside in the waggon."
"Joseph Poorgrass, don't be so miserable! Pa'son Thirdly
won't mind. He's a generous man; he's found me in tracts
for years, and I've consumed a good many in the course of a
long and shady life; but he's never been the man to cry out
at the expense. Sit down."
The longer Joseph Poorgrass remained, the less his spirit
was troubled by the duties which devolved upon him this
afternoon. The minutes glided by uncounted, until the
evening shades began perceptibly to deepen, and the eyes of
the three were but sparkling points on the surface of
darkness. Coggan's repeater struck six from his pocket in
the usual still small tones.
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 bad 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 be willing to take as much disgrace as there
is in that holy act. Hah, yes! ... But not a man of
spirit? Have I ever allowed the toe of pride to be lifted
against my hinder parts without groaning manfully that I
question the right to do so? I inquire that query boldly?"
"We can't say that you have, Hero Poorgrass," admitted Jan.
"Never have I allowed such treatment to pass unquestioned!
Yet the shepherd says in the face of that rich testimony
that I be not a man of spirit! Well, let it pass by, and
death is a kind friend!"
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 through Melchester and onwards. But,
thanks to Boldwood's reticence and Oak's generosity, the
lover she had followed had never been individualized as
Troy. Gabriel hoped that the whole truth of the matter
might not be published till at any rate the girl had been in
her grave for a few days, when the interposing barriers of
earth and time, and a sense that the events had been
somewhat shut into oblivion, would deaden the sting that
revelation and invidious remark would have for Bathsheba
just now.
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 manoeuvring 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 coffinlid. The
scrawl was this simple one, "FANNY ROBIN AND CHILD." Gabriel
took his handkerchief and carefully rubbed out the two
latter words, leaving visible the inscription "FANNY ROBIN"
only. He then left the room, and went out quietly by the
front door.
CHAPTER XLIII
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 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 there's
only one name 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. Her
simple contrary nature, fed on old-fashioned principles, was
troubled by that which would have troubled a woman of the
world very little, both Fanny and her child, if she had one
being dead.
Bathsheba had grounds for conjecturing a connection between
her own history and the dimly suspected tragedy of Fanny's
end which Oak and Boldwood never for a moment credited her
with possessing. The meeting with the lonely woman on the
previous Saturday night had been unwitnessed and unspoken
of. Oak may have had the best of intentions in withholding
for as many days as possible the details of what had
happened to Fanny; but had he known that Bathsheba's
perceptions had already been exercised in the matter, he
would have done nothing to lengthen the minutes of suspense
she was now undergoing, when the certainty which must
terminate it would be the worst fact suspected after all.
She suddenly felt a longing desire to speak to some one
stronger than herself, and so get strength to sustain her
surmised position with dignity and her lurking doubts with
stoicism. Where could she find such a friend? nowhere in
the house. She was by far the coolest of the women under
her roof. Patience and suspension of judgement for a few
hours were what she wanted to learn, and there was nobody to
teach her. Might she but go to Gabriel Oak! -- but that
could not be. What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring
things. Boldwood, who seemed so much deeper and higher and
stronger in feeling than Gabriel, had not yet learnt, any
more than she herself, the simple lesson which Oak showed a
mastery of by every turn and look he gave -- that among the
multitude of interests by which he was surrounded, those
which affected his personal well-being were not the most
absorbing and important in his eyes. Oak meditatively
looked upon the horizon of circumstances without any special
regard to his own standpoint in the midst. That was how she
would wish to be. But then Oak was not racked by
incertitude upon the inmost matter of his bosom, as she was
at this moment. Oak knew all about Fanny that he wished to
know -- she felt convinced of that. If she were to go to
him now at once and say no more than these few words, "What
is the truth of the story?" he would feel bound in honour to
tell her. It would be an inexpressible relief. No further
speech would need to be uttered. He knew her so well that
no eccentricity of behaviour in her would alarm him.
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 on the cause
of Fanny's death. 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 that
there are two of you! ... 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. She went
to the lumber-closet for a screw-driver. At the end of a
short though undefined time she found herself in the small
room, quivering with emotion, a mist before her eyes, and an
excruciating pulsation in her brain, standing beside the
uncovered coffin of the girl whose conjectured end had so
entirely engrossed her, and saying to herself in a husky
voice as she gazed within --
"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 of her husband's
conduct 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 in the
coffin: tears of a complicated origin, of a nature
indescribable, almost indefinable except as other than those
of simple sorrow. Assuredly their wonted fires must have
lived in Fanny's ashes when events were so shaped as to
chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yet
effectual manner. The one feat alone -- that of dying -- by
which a mean condition could be resolved into a grand one,
Fanny had achieved. And to that had destiny subjoined this
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: "O, I hate her, yet I don't mean
that I hate her, for it is grievous and wicked; and yet I
hate her a little! yes, my flesh insists upon hating her,
whether my spirit is willing or no!... If she had only
lived, I could have been angry and cruel towards her with
some justification; but to be vindictive towards a poor dead
woman recoils upon myself. O God, have mercy! I am
miserable at all this!"
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 her-self
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
of both mother and babe. Troy looked in, dropped his wife's
hand, knowledge of it all came over him in a lurid sheen,
and he stood still.
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.
What Troy did was to sink upon his knees with an indefinable
union of remorse and reverence upon his face, and, bending
over Fanny Robin, gently kissed her, as one would kiss an
infant asleep to avoid awakening it.
At the sight and sound of that, to her, unendurable act,
Bathsheba sprang towards him. All the strong feelings which
had been scattered over her existence since she knew what
feeling was, seemed gathered together into one pulsation
now. The revulsion from her indignant mood a little
earlier, when she had meditated upon compromised honour,
forestalment, eclipse in maternity by another, was violent
and entire. All that was forgotten in the simple and still
strong attachment of wife to husband. She had sighed for
her self-completeness then, and now she cried aloud against
the severance of the union she had deplored. She flung her
arms round Troy's neck, exclaiming wildly from the deepest
deep of her heart --
"Don't -- don't kiss them! O, Frank, I can't bear it -- I
can't! I love you better than she did: kiss me too, Frank --
kiss me! 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 an unexpected revelation of all
women being alike at heart, even those so different in their
accessories as Fanny and this one beside him, that Troy
could hardly seem to believe her to be his proud wife
Bathsheba. Fanny's own spirit seemed to be animating her
frame. But this was the mood of a few instants only. When
the momentary surprise had passed, his expression changed to
a silencing imperious gaze.
"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, her rival being now but a
corpse. All the feeling she had been betrayed into showing
she drew back to herself again by a strenuous effort of
self-command.
"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! 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 [GREEK word meaning "it is
finished"] of her union with Troy.
"If she's -- that, -- what -- am I?" she added, as a
continuation of the same cry, and sobbing pitifully: and the
rarity with her of such abandonment only made the condition
more dire.
"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 his words at any price, not stopping short
of death itself, mastered Bathsheba now. She waited not an
instant, but turned to the door and ran out.
CHAPTER XLIV
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 over-hung 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 hook 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 woman --
for it was a woman -- approached with her face askance, as
if looking earnestly on all sides of her. When she got a
little further round to the left, and drew nearer, Bathsheba
could see the newcomer's profile against the sunny sky, and
knew the wavy sweep from forehead to chin, with neither
angle nor decisive line anywhere about it, to be the
familiar contour of Liddy Smallbury.
Bathsheba's heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that
she was not altogether deserted, and she jumped up. "Oh,
Liddy!" she said, or attempted to say; but the words had
only been framed by her lips; there came no sound. She had
lost her voice by exposure to the clogged atmosphere all
these hours of night.
"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 reassert themselves;" you are to be my
confidante for the present -- somebody must be -- and I
choose you. Well, I shall take up my abode here for a
while. Will you get a fire lighted, put down a piece of
carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable.
Afterwards, I want you and Maryann to bring up that little
stump bedstead in the small room, and the bed belonging to
it, and a table, and some other things.... What shall I do
to pass the heavy time away?"
"Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing," said Liddy.
"Oh no, no! I hate needlework -- 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, Liddy, you've been looking into my books without
telling me; and I said you were not to! How do you know it
would suit me? It wouldn't suit me a 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 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 summit
bristling with rays. Hereabouts, at six o'clock, the young
men of the village gathered, as was their custom, for a game
of Prisoners' base. The spot had been consecrated to this
ancient diversion from time immemorial, the old stocks
conveniently forming a base facing the boundary of the
churchyard, in front of which the ground was trodden hard
and bare as a pavement by the players. She could see the
brown and black heads of the young lads darting about right
and left, their white shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun;
whilst occasionally a shout and a peal of hearty laughter
varied the stillness of the evening air. They continued
playing for a quarter of an hour or so, when the game
concluded abruptly, and the players leapt over the wall and
vanished round to the other side behind a yew-tree, which
was also half behind a beech, now spreading in one mass of
golden foliage, on which the branches traced black lines.
"Why did the base-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 a grand carved tombstone,"
said Liddy. "The lads went to see whose it was."
"Do you know?" Bathsheba asked.
"I don't," said Liddy.
CHAPTER XLV
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 came back to the bridge
at the lower end of the town, and sat himself upon the
parapet. The clocks struck the hour, and no Fanny appeared.
In fact, at that moment she was being robed in her grave-
clothes by two attendants at the Union poorhouse -- the
first and last tiring-women the gentle creature had ever
been honoured with. The quarter went, the half hour. A
rush of recollection came upon Troy as he waited: this was
the second time she had broken a serious engagement with
him. In anger he vowed it should be the last, and at eleven
o'clock, when he had lingered and watched the stone of the
bridge till he knew every lichen upon their face and heard
the chink of the ripples underneath till they oppressed him,
he jumped from his seat, went to the inn for his gig, and in
a bitter mood of indifference concerning the past, and
recklessness about the future, drove on to Budmouth races.
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 he was
struck for the first time with a thought that Fanny had been
really prevented by illness from keeping her promise. This
time she could have made no mistake. He regretted that he
had not remained in Casterbridge and made inquiries.
Reaching home he quietly unharnessed the horse and came
indoors, as we have seen, to the fearful shock that awaited
him.
As soon as it grew light enough to distinguish objects, Troy
arose from the coverlet of the bed, and in a mood of
absolute indifference to Bathsheba's whereabouts, and almost
oblivious of her existence, he stalked downstairs and left
the house by the back door. His walk was towards the
churchyard, entering which he searched around till he found
a newly dug unoccupied grave -- the grave dug the day before
for Fanny. The position of this having been marked, he
hastened on to Casterbridge, only pausing and musing for a
while at the hill whereon he had last seen Fanny alive.
Reaching the town, Troy descended into a side street and
entered a pair of gates surmounted by a board bearing the
words, "Lester, stone and marble mason." Within were lying
about stones of all sizes and designs, inscribed as being
sacred to the memory of unnamed persons who had not yet
died.
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.
"I must have it now."
"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 stone-
cutter, going into a shed. "Here's a marble headstone
beautifully crocketed, with medallions beneath of typical
subjects; here's the footstone after the same pattern, and
here's the coping to enclose the grave. The polishing alone
of the set cost me eleven pounds -- the slabs are the best
of their kind, and I can warrant them to resist rain and
frost for a hundred years without flying."
"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, returning in the
darkness, the men and the waggon which had conveyed the
tomb. He merely inquired if the work was done, and, on
being assured that it was, passed on again.
Troy entered Weatherbury churchyard about ten o'clock and
went immediately to the corner where he had marked the
vacant grave early in the morning. It was on the obscure
side of the tower, screened to a great extent from the view
of passers along the road -- a spot which until lately had
been abandoned to heaps of stones and bushes of alder, but
now it was cleared and made orderly for interments, by
reason of the rapid filling of the ground elsewhere.
Here now stood the tomb as the men had stated, snow-white
and shapely in the gloom, consisting of head and foot-stone,
and enclosing border of marble-work uniting them. In the
midst was mould, suitable for plants.
Troy deposited his basket beside the tomb, and vanished for
a few minutes. When he returned he carried a spade and a
lantern, the light of which he directed for a few moments
upon the marble, whilst he read the inscription. He hung
his lantern on the lowest bough of the yew-tree, and took
from his basket flower-roots of several varieties. There
were bundles of snow-drop, hyacinth and crocus bulbs,
violets and double daisies, which were to bloom in early
spring, and of carnations, pinks, picotees, lilies of the
valley, forget-me-not, summer's farewell, meadow-saffron and
others, for the later seasons of the year.
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, together
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 one of the holes of the lantern, whereupon the
candle sputtered and went out. Troy was weary and it being
now not far from midnight, and the rain threatening to
increase, he resolved to leave the finishing touches of his
labour until the day should break. He groped along the wall
and over the graves in the dark till he found himself round
at the north side. Here he entered the porch, and,
reclining upon the bench within, fell asleep.
CHAPTER XLVI
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 church-wardens as superfluous, and two
others were broken away and choked -- a matter not of much
consequence to the wellbeing of the tower, for the two
mouths which still remained open and active were gaping
enough to do all the work.
It has been sometimes argued that there is no truer
criterion of the vitality of any given art-period than the
power of the master-spirits of that time in grotesque; and
certainly in the instance of Gothic art there is no
disputing the proposition. Weatherbury tower was a somewhat
early instance of the use of an ornamental parapet in parish
as distinct from cathedral churches, and the gurgoyles,
which are the necessary correlatives of a parapet, were
exceptionally prominent -- of the boldest cut that the hand
could shape, and of the most original design that a human
brain could conceive. There was, so to speak, that symmetry
in their distortion which is less the characteristic of
British than of Continental grotesques of the period. All
the eight were different from each other. A beholder was
convinced that nothing on earth could be more hideous than
those he saw on the north side until he went round to the
south. Of the two on this latter face, only that at the
south-eastern corner concerns the story. It was too human
to be called like a dragon, too impish to be like a man, too
animal to be like a fiend, and not enough like a bird to be
called a griffin. This horrible stone entity was fashioned
as if covered with a wrinkled hide; it had short, erect
ears, eyes starting from their sockets, and its fingers and
hands were seizing the corners of its mouth, which they thus
seemed to pull open to give free passage to the water it
vomited. The lower row of teeth was quite washed away,
though the upper still remained. Here and thus, jutting a
couple of feet from the wall against which its feet rested
as a support, the creature had for four hundred years
laughed at the surrounding landscape, voicelessly in dry
weather, and in wet with a gurgling and snorting sound.
Troy slept on in the porch, and the rain increased outside.
Presently the gurgoyle spat. In due time a small stream
began to trickle through the seventy feet of aerial space
between its mouth and the ground, which the water-drops
smote like duckshot in their accelerated velocity. The
stream thickened in substance, and increased in power,
gradually spouting further and yet further from the side of
the tower. When the rain fell in a steady and ceaseless
torrent the stream dashed downward in volumes.
We follow its course to the ground at this point of time.
The end of the liquid parabola has come forward from the
wall, has advanced over the plinth mouldings, over a heap of
stones, over the marble border, into the midst of Fanny
Robin's grave.
The force of the stream had, until very lately, been
received upon some loose stones spread thereabout, which had
acted as a shield to the soil under the onset. These during
the summer had been cleared from the ground, and there was
now nothing to resist the down-fall but the bare earth. For
several years the stream had not spouted so far from the
tower as it was doing on this night, and such a contingency
had been over-looked. Sometimes this obscure corner
received no inhabitant for the space of two or three years,
and then it was usually but a pauper, a poacher, or other
sinner of undignified sins.
The persistent torrent from the gurgoyle's jaws directed all
its vengeance into the grave. The rich tawny mould was
stirred into motion, and boiled like chocolate. The water
accumulated and washed deeper down, and the roar of the pool
thus formed spread into the night as the head and chief
among other noises of the kind created by the deluging rain.
The flowers so carefully planted by Fanny's repentant lover
began to move and writhe in their bed. The winter-violets
turned slowly upside down, and became a mere mat of mud.
Soon the snowdrop and other bulbs danced in the boiling mass
like ingredients in a cauldron. Plants of the tufted
species were loosened, rose to the surface, and floated off.
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
coastlight, 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 un-locked 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 church yard?"
"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 trees hide 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 she resolved to go out and walk a
little way. So when breakfast was over, she put on her
bonnet, and took a direction towards the church. It was
nine o'clock, and the men having returned to work again from
their first meal, she was not likely to meet many of them in
the road. Knowing that Fanny had been laid in the
reprobates' quarter of the graveyard, called in the parish
"behind church," which was invisible from the road, it was
impossible to resist the impulse to enter and look upon a
spot which, from nameless feelings, she at the same time
dreaded to see. She had been unable to overcome an
impression that some connection existed between her rival
and the light through the trees.
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 Beloved 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 narrower instincts have brought
down bitterness upon her instead of love, she wiped the mud
spots from the tomb as if she rather liked its words than
otherwise, and went again home. [1]
[1] The local tower and churchyard do not answer precisely
to the foregoing description.
CHAPTER XLVII
ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE
TROY wandered along towards the south. A composite feeling,
made up of disgust with the, to him, humdrum tediousness of
a farmer's life, gloomily images of her who lay in the
churchyard, remorse, and a general averseness to his wife's
society, impelled him to seek a home in any place on earth
save Weatherbury. The sad accessories of Fanny's end
confronted him as vivid pictures which threatened to be
indelible, and made life in Bathsheba's house intolerable.
At three in the afternoon he found himself at the foot of a
slope more than a mile in length, which ran to the ridge of
a range of hills lying parallel with the shore, and forming
a monotonous barrier between the basin of cultivated country
inland and the wilder scenery of the coast. Up the hill
stretched a road nearly straight and perfectly white, the
two sides approaching each other in a gradual taper till
they met the sky at the top about two miles off. Throughout
the length of this narrow and irksome inclined plane not a
sign of life was visible on this garish afternoon. Troy
toiled up the road with a languor and depression greater
than any he had experienced for many a day and year before.
The air was warm and muggy, and the top seemed to recede as
he approached.
At last he reached the summit, and a wide and novel prospect
burst upon him with an effect almost like that of the
Pacific upon Balboa's gaze. The broad steely sea, marked
only by faint lines, which had a semblance of being etched
thereon to a degree not deep enough to disturb its general
evenness, stretched the whole width of his front and round
to the right, where, near the town and port of Budmouth, the
sun bristled down upon it, and banished all colour, to
substitute in its place a clear oily polish. Nothing moved
in sky, land, or sea, except a frill of milkwhite foam along
the nearer angles of the shore, shreds of which licked the
contiguous stones like tongues.
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 right, now well defined
against the sunny portion of the horizon. While the
swimmer's eye's 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
shoreline curved round, and formed a long riband of shade
upon the horizon, a series of points of yellow light began
to start into existence, denoting the spot to be the site of
Budmouth, where the lamps were being lighted along the
parade. The cluck of their oars was the only sound of any
distinctness upon the sea, and as they laboured amid the
thickening shades the lamplights 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 XLVIII
DOUBTS ARISE -- DOUBTS LINGER
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 exclusion from possible
aldermanship, when a man, who had apparently been following
her, said some words to another on her left hand.
Bathsheba's ears were keen as those of any wild animal, and
she distinctly heard what the speaker said, though her back
was towards him.
"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, "No, it is not true; it cannot be true!" Then she said
and heard no more. The ice of self-command which had
latterly gathered over her was broken, and the currents
burst forth again, and over whelmed 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 Lulwind
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 King's Arms Inn. Here he passed with her under the
archway into a private room; and by the time he had
deposited -- so lothly -- the precious burden upon a sofa,
Bathsheba had opened her eyes. Remembering all that had
occurred, she murmured, "I want to go home!"
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, where, silently alighting and
leaving the horse in the hands of the boy, she proceeded at
once upstairs. Liddy met her on the landing. The news had
preceded Bathsheba to Weatherbury by half-an-hour, and Liddy
looked inquiringly into her mistress's face. Bathsheba had
nothing to say.
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 perfectly
convinced 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 eyewitness of the accident, in a letter to the editor.
In this he stated that he was passing over the cliff on the
remoter side of the cove just as the sun was setting. At
that time he saw a bather carried along in the current
outside the mouth of the cove, and guessed in an instant
that there was but a poor chance for him unless he should be
possessed of unusual muscular powers. He drifted behind a
projection of the coast, and Mr. Barker followed along the
shore in the same direction. But by the time that he could
reach an elevation sufficiently great to command a view of
the sea beyond, dusk had set in, and nothing further was to
be seen.
The other circumstance was the arrival of his clothes, when
it became necessary for her to examine and identify them --
though this had virtually been done long before by those who
inspected the letters in his pockets. It was so evident to
her in the midst of her agitation that Troy had undressed in
the full conviction of dressing again almost immediately,
that the notion that anything but death could have prevented
him was a perverse one to entertain.
Then Bathsheba said to herself that others were assured in
their opinion; strange that she should not be. A strange
reflection occurred to her, causing her face to flush.
Suppose that Troy had followed Fanny into another world.
Had he done this intentionally, yet contrived to make his
death appear like an accident? Nevertheless, this thought
of how the apparent might differ from the real -- made vivid
by her bygone jealousy of Fanny, and the remorse he had
shown that night -- did not blind her to the perception of a
likelier difference, less tragic, but to herself far more
disastrous.
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; they should be gone together,"
she said. "I am nothing to either of them, and why should I
keep her hair?" She took it in her hand, and held it over
the fire." No -- I'll not burn it -- I'll keep it in memory
of her, poor thing!" she added, snatching back her hand.
CHAPTER XLIX
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 it might be she
had lost him, she regretted that he was not hers still. She
kept the farm going, raked in her profits without caring
keenly about them, and expended money on ventures because
she had done so in bygone days, which, though not long gone
by, seemed infinitely removed from her present. She looked
back upon that past over a great gulf, as if she were now a
dead person, having the faculty of meditation still left in
her, by means of which, like the mouldering gentlefolk of
the poet's story, she could sit and ponder what a gift life
used to be.
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 he 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 hasty
conjecture that Troy was drowned. He nourished it
fearfully, and almost shunned the contemplation of it in
earnest, lest facts should reveal the wildness of the dream.
Bathsheba having at last been persuaded to wear mourning,
her appearance as she entered the church in that guise was
in itself a weekly addition to his faith that a time was
coming -- very far off perhaps, yet surely nearing -- when
his waiting on events should have its reward. How long he
might have to wait he had not yet closely considered. What
he would try to recognize was that the severe schooling she
had been subjected to had made Bathsheba much more
considerate than she had formerly been of the feelings of
others, and he trusted that, should she be willing at any
time in the future to marry any man at all, that man would
be himself. There was a substratum of good feeling in her:
her self-reproach for the injury she had thoughtlessly done
him might be depended upon now to a much greater extent than
before her infatuation and disappointment. It would be
possible to approach her by the channel of her good nature,
and to suggest a friendly businesslike compact between them
for fulfilment at some future day, keeping the passionate
side of his desire entirely out of her sight. Such was
Boldwood's hope.
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 possibly in
the ninth month of her widowhood -- and endeavouring to get
a notion of her state of mind regarding him. This occurred
in the middle of the haymaking, and Boldwood contrived to be
near Liddy who was assisting in the fields.
"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 going 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 cared to risk Mr. Troy's coming
back and claiming her."
"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 L
THE SHEEP FAIR -- TROY TOUCHES HIS WIFE'S HAND
GREENHILL was the Nijni Novgorod of South Wessex; and the
busiest, merriest, noisiest day of the whole statute number
was the day of the sheep fair. This yearly gathering was
upon the summit of a hill which retained in good
preservation the remains of an ancient earthwork, consisting
of a huge rampart and entrenchment of an oval form
encircling the top of the hill, though somewhat broken down
here and there. To each of the two chief openings on
opposite sides a winding road ascended, and the level green
space of ten or fifteen acres enclosed by the bank was the
site of the fair. A few permanent erections dotted the
spot, but the majority of visitors patronized canvas alone
for resting and feeding under during the time of their
sojourn here.
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, through the decayed old town
of Kingsbere, and upward to the plateau, -- 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 tended, multitude
after multitude, horned and hornless -- blue flocks and red
flocks, buff flocks and brown flocks, even green and salmon-
tinted flocks, according to the fancy of the colourist and
custom of the farm. Men were shouting, dogs were barking,
with greatest animation, but the thronging travellers in so
long a journey had grown nearly indifferent to such terrors,
though they still bleated piteously at the unwontedness of
their experiences, a tall shepherd rising here and there in
the midst of them, like a gigantic idol amid a crowd of
prostrate devotees.
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 trying.
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 ruffen pushing me!" screamed a woman in
front of Jan over her shoulder at 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 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
ruffens!" 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 onreasonable woman as that?
Upon my carcase, neighbours, if I could only get out of this
cheesewring, the damn 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 be 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 cloth of the tent, to the eyes of an observer on the
outside, became bulged into innumerable pimples such as we
observe on a sack of potatoes, caused by the various human
heads, backs, and elbows at high pressure within.
At the rear of the large tent there were two small dressing-
tents. One of these, alloted to the male performers, was
partitioned into halves by a cloth; and in one of the
divisions there was sitting on the grass, pulling on a pair
of jack-boots, a young man whom we instantly recognise as
Sergeant Troy.
Troy's appearance in this position may be briefly accounted
for. The brig aboard which he was taken in Budmouth Roads
was about to start on a voyage, though somewhat short of
hands. Troy read the articles and joined, but before they
sailed a boat was despatched across the bay to Lulwind cove;
as he had half expected, his clothes were gone. He
ultimately worked his passage to the United States, where he
made a precarious living in various towns as Professor of
Gymnastics, Sword Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism. A few
months were sufficient to give him a distaste for this kind
of life. There was a certain animal form of refinement in
his nature; and however pleasant a strange condition might
be whilst privations were easily warded off, it was
disadvantageously coarse when money was short. There was
ever present, too, the idea that he could claim a home and
its comforts did he but chose to return to England and
Weatherbury Farm. Whether Bathsheba thought him dead was a
frequent subject of curious conjecture. To England he did
return at last; but the fact of drawing nearer to
Weatherbury abstracted its fascinations, and his intention
to enter his old groove at the place became modified. It
was with gloom he considered on landing at Liverpool that if
he were to go home his reception would be of a kind very
unpleasant to contemplate; for what Troy had in the way of
emotion was an occasional fitful sentiment which sometimes
caused him as much inconvenience as emotion of a strong and
healthy kind. Bathsheba was not a 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
a pistol -- bullet fired from the animal's back when in full
gallop, and other feats. For his merits in these -- all
more or less based upon his experiences as a dragoon-
guardsman -- Troy was taken into the company, and the play
of Turpin was prepared with a view to his personation of the
chief character. Troy was not greatly elated by the
appreciative spirit in which he was undoubtedly treated, but
he thought the engagement might afford him a few weeks for
consideration. It was thus carelessly, and without having
formed any definite plan for the future, that Troy
found himself at Greenhill Fair with the rest of the company
on this day.
And now the mild autumn sun got lower, and in front of the
pavilion the following incident had taken place. Bathsheba
-- who was driven to the fair that day by her odd man
Poorgrass -- had, like every one else, read or heard the
announcement that Mr. Francis, the Great Cosmopolitan
Equestrian and Roughrider, would enact the part of Turpin,
and she was not yet too old and careworn to be without a
little curiosity to see him. This particular show was by
far the largest and grandest in the fair, a horde of little
shows grouping themselves under its shade like chickens
around a hen. The crowd had passed in, and Boldwood, who
had been watching all the day for an opportunity of speaking
to her, seeing her comparatively isolated, came up to her
side.
"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 just as 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. He was
looking at this large tent and the announcement. Have you
ever seen the play of "Turpin's Ride to York?" Turpin was a
real man, was he not?"
"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 back-ground, 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 as the aforesaid
respectable manager thence to his toes.
"Here's the devil to pay!" said Troy.
"How's that?"
"Why, there's a blackguard creditor in the tent I don't want
to see, who'll discover me and nab me as sure as Satan if I
open my mouth. What's to be done?"
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 'em anything about your keeping silence; go on
with the piece and say nothing, doing what you can by a
judicious wink now and then, and a few indomitable nods in
the heroic places, you know. They'll never find out that
the speeches are omitted."
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 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 baliff
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 country round. The tent was
divided into first and second-class compartments, and at the
end of the first-class division was a yet further enclosure
for the most exclusive, fenced off from the body of the tent
by a luncheon-bar, behind which the host himself stood
bustling about in white apron and shirt-sleeves, and looking
as if he had never lived anywhere but under canvas all his
life. In these penetralia were chairs and a table, which,
on candles being lighted, made quite a cozy and luxurious
show, with an urn, plated tea and coffee pots, china
teacups, and plum cakes.
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 work-people.
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 LI
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
woman. But Oak had found himself so occupied, and was full
of so many cares relative to those portions of Boldwood's
flocks that were not disposed of, that Bathsheba, without
telling Oak or anybody, resolved to drive home herself, as
she had many times done from Casterbridge Market, and trust
to her good angel for performing the journey unmolested.
But having fallen in with Farmer Boldwood accidentally (on
her part at least) at the refreshment-tent, she found it
impossible to refuse his offer to ride on horseback beside
her as escort. It had grown twilight before she was aware,
but Boldwood assured her that there was no cause for
uneasiness, as the moon would be up in half-an-hour.
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
hilltop in the wending way's which led downwards -- to
oblivious obscurity, as it seemed, for the moon and the hill
it flooded with light were in appearance on a level, the
rest of the world lying as a vast shady concave between
them. Boldwood mounted his horse, and followed in close
attendance behind. Thus they descended into the lowlands,
and the sounds of those left on the hill came like voices
from the sky, and the lights were as those of a camp in
heaven. They soon passed the merry stragglers in the
immediate vicinity of the hill, traversed Kingsbere, and got
upon the high road.
The keen instincts of Bathsheba had perceived that the
farmer's staunch devotion to herself was still un-
diminished, 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
may not have taken place; so that I may not be really a
widow," she said, catching at the straw of escape that the
fact afforded.
"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 none now, or I should have acted differently," she
said, gently. "I certainly, at first, had a strange
uaccountable 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 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 King's Arms, 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. My husband may be living, as I
said."
"Of course, I'll drop the subject if you wish. But
propriety has nothing to do with reasons. I am a middle-
aged man, willing to protect you for the remainder of our
lives. On your side, at least, there is no passion or
blamable haste -- on mine, perhaps, there is. But I can't
help seeing that if you choose from a feeling of pity, and,
as you say, a wish to make amends, to make a bargain with me
for a far-ahead time -- an agreement which will set all
things right and make me happy, late though it may be --
there is no fault to be found with you as a woman. Hadn't I
the first place beside you? Haven't you been almost mine
once already? Surely you can say to me as much as this, you
will have me back again should circumstances permit? Now,
pray speak! O Bathsheba, promise -- it is only a little
promise -- that if you marry again, you will marry me!"
His tone was so excited that she almost feared him at this
moment, even whilst she sympathized. It was a simple
physical fear -- the weak of the strong; there was no
emotional aversion or inner repugnance. She said, with some
distress in her voice, for she remembered vividly his
outburst on the Yalbury Road, and shrank from a repetition
of his anger: --
"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 to marry at the end of six years, if my husband
should not come back, it is a great honour to me. And if
you value such an act of friendship from a woman who doesn't
esteem herself as she did, and has little love left, why it
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 'ee; but I can't suppose -- I hope that nothing
so dreadful hangs on to it as you fancy. His natural manner
has always been dark and strange, you know. But since the
case is so sad and oddlike, 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, even if Mr. Troy
does not come back again, which he may not impossibly do!
Such thoughts give a sort of absurdity to the scheme. Now,
isn't it preposterous, Gabriel? However he came to dream of
it, I cannot think. But is it wrong? You know -- you are
older than I."
"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 over-come the
awkwardness about your husband's vanishing, it mid be wrong;
but a cold-hearted agreement to oblige a man seems
different, somehow. The real sin, ma'am in my mind, lies in
thinking of ever wedding wi' a man you don't love honest and
true."
"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 do, 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 a religious sense you will be as free to
THINK o' marrying again as any real widow of one year's
standing. But why don't ye ask Mr. Thirdly's advice on how
to treat Mr. Boldwood?"
"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. O no -- for
wasn't she saying all the time that such thoughts of the
future were improper, and wasn't Gabriel far too poor a man
to speak sentiment to her? Yet he might have just hinted
about that old love of his, and asked, in a playful off-hand
way, if he might speak of it. It would have seemed pretty
and sweet, if no more; and then she would have shown how
kind and inoffensive a woman's "No" can sometimes be. But
to give such cool advice -- the very advice she had asked
for -- it ruffled our heroine all the afternoon.
CHAPTER LII
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 two 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 widowlady 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 he 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 'ee 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 'ill be a long and a fair one."
"Thank you -- thank you. Yet perhaps my cheerful mess 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 disappearance -- that her own self shouldn't,
I mean -- because his body was not found. It may be merely
this legal reason which influences her, or it may be a
religious one, but she is reluctant to talk on the point.
Yet she has promised -- implied -- that she will ratify an
engagement to-night."
"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 he vanished, 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 be'n deceived.
Her meaning 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 corner of The White Hart tavern at
Casterbridge, smoking and drinking a steaming mixture from a
glass. A knock was given at the door, and Pennyways
entered.
"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 lammocken 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 care less, 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 -- O yes, I see that --
I must go. Oak is head man still, isn't he?"
"Yes, 'a b'lieve. And at Little Weatherbury 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
be, 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 'ee.
There's many a slip, as they say -- and I would advise you -
-- I know you'll pardon me this once -- not to be 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."
"O that's not necessary, thank 'ee," said Oak, hurriedly.
"I must get used to such as that; other men have, and so
shall I."
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 pillbox,
and was about to put it into his pocket. But he lingered to
open the cover and take a momentary glance inside. It
contained a woman's finger-ring, set all the way round with
small diamonds, and from its appearance had evidently been
recently purchased. Boldwood's eyes dwelt upon its many
sparkles a long time, though that its material aspect
concerned him little was plain from his manner and mien,
which were those of a mind following out the presumed thread
of that jewel's future history.
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 LIII
CONCURRITUR -- HORAE 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 l 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."
"O 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 'ee there. She was no otherwise
than a girl mind, and how could she tell what the man was
made of? If 'tis really true, 'tis too hard a punishment,
and more than she ought to hae. -- Hullo, who's that?" This
was to some footsteps that were heard approaching.
"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 mid be a lie, for though Henery
Fray and some of 'em do speak against her, she's never been
anything but fair to me. She's hot and hasty, but she's a
brave girl who'll never tell a lie however much the truth
may harm her, and I've no cause to wish her evil."
"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 for a few
minutes first, shall us, neighbours?"
Samway, Tall, and Smallbury agreed to go to Warren's, and
went out at the gate, the remaining ones entering the house.
The three soon drew near the malt-house, approaching it from
the adjoining orchard, and not by way of the street. The
pane of glass was illuminated as usual. Smallbury was a
little in advance of the rest when, pausing, he turned
suddenly to his companions and said, "Hist! See there."
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.
"Oh 'tis true enough, faith. I cannot understand Farmer
Boldwood being such a fool at his time of life as to ho and
hanker after 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.
"But it is! 'Tis a thing which is everybody's business,"
said Samway. "We know very well that master's on a wrong
tack, and that she's quite in the dark, and we should let
'em know at once. Laban, you know her best -- you'd better
go and ask to speak to her."
"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 difficult position, and I
have nobody to advise me. But I give my promise, if I must.
I give it as the rendering of a debt, conditionally, of
course, on my being a widow."
"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! want to be just
to you, and to be that seems to be wronging myself, and
perhaps it is breaking the commandments. There is
considerable doubt of his death, and then it is dreadful;
let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!"
"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 work-folk
specially, a group conversed in whispers, and with clouded
looks. Boldwood was standing by the fireplace, and he, too,
though so absorbed in visions arising from her promise that
he scarcely saw anything, seemed at that moment to have
observed their peculiar manner, and their looks askance.
"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
newcomer. Those who had just learnt that he was in the
neighbourhood recognized him instantly; those who did not
were perplexed. Nobody noted Bathsheba. She was leaning on
the stairs. Her brow had heavily contracted; her whole face
was pallid, her lips apart, her eyes rigidly staring at
their visitor.
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.
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 dispaire 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 no obscuration was apparent from without.
Troy stretched out his hand to pull her 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 hand-kerchief to the
trigger, and with his foot on the other end was in the act
of turning the second barrel upon himself. Samway his man
was the first to see this, and in the midst of the general
horror darted up to him. Boldwood had already twitched the
handkerchief, and the gun exploded a second time, sending
its contents, by a timely blow from Samway, into the beam
which crossed the ceiling.
"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 LIV
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 Yalbury Hill, along the dead level beyond,
mounted Mellstock Hill, and between eleven and twelve
o'clock crossed the Moor into the town. The streets were
nearly deserted now, and the waving lamp-flames only lighted
up rows of grey shop-shutters, and strips of white paving
upon which his step echoed as his passed along. He turned
to the right, and halted before an archway of heavy
stonework, which was closed by an iron studded pair of
doors. This was the entrance to the gaol, and over it a
lamp was fixed, the light enabling the wretched traveller to
find a bell-pull.
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, hated at tea parties,
feared in shops, and loved at crises. Troy recumbent in his
wife's lap formed now the sole spectacle in the middle of
the spacious room.
"Gabriel," she said, automatically, when he entered, turning
up a face of which only the wellknown 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 effect itself when he was supposed by many to
be at the bottom of the sea? Oak had in some slight measure
been prepared for the presence of Troy by hearing a rumour
of his return just before entering Boldwood's house; but
before he had weighed that information, this fatal event had
been superimposed. However, it was too late now to think of
sending another messenger, and he rode on, in the excitement
of these self-inquiries not discerning, when about three
miles from Casterbridge, a square-figured pedestrian passing
along under the dark hedge in the same direction as his own.
The miles necessary to be traversed, and other hindrances
incidental to the lateness of the hour and the darkness of
the night, delayed the arrival of Mr. Aldritch, the surgeon;
and more than three hours passed between the time at which
the shot was fired and that of his entering the house. Oak
was additionally detained in Casterbridge through having to
give notice to the authorities of what had happened; and he
then found that Boldwood had also entered the town, and
delivered himself up.
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. Aldritch drove at once back again up the hill to
Bathsheba's. The first person he met was poor Liddy, who
seemed literally to have dwindled smaller in these few
latter hours. "What has been done?" he said.
"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. Aldritch, you have come at last," she murmured from
her lips merely, and threw back the door. "Ah, and Mr.
Thirdly. Well, all is done, and anybody in the world may
see him now." She then passed by him, crossed the landing,
and entered another room.
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.
Aldritch, in a subdued voice. "The body has been undressed
and properly laid out in grave clothes. Gracious Heaven --
this mere girl! She must have the nerve of a stoic!"
"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! O Heaven, how can I live!"
CHAPTER LV
THE MARCH FOLLOWING -- "BATHSHEBA BOLDWOOD"
WE pass rapidly on into the month of March, to a breezy day
without sunshine, frost, or dew. On Yalbury Hill, about
midway between Weatherbury and Casterbridge, where the
turnpike road passes over the crest, a numerous concourse of
people had gathered, the eyes of the greater number being
frequently stretched afar in a northerly direction. The
groups consisted of a throng of idlers, a party of javelin-
men, and two trumpeters, and in the midst were carriages,
one of which contained the high sheriff. With the idlers,
many of whom had mounted to the top of a cutting formed for
the road, were several Weatherbury men and boys -- among
others Poorgrass, Coggan, and Cain Ball.
At the end of half-an-hour a faint dust was seen in the
expected quarter, and shortly after a travelling-carriage,
bringing one of the two judges on the Western Circuit, came
up the hill and halted on the top. The judge changed
carriages whilst a flourish was blown by the big-cheeked
trumpeters, and a procession being formed of the vehicles
and javelin-men, they all proceeded towards the town,
excepting the Weatherbury men, who as soon as they had seen
the judge move off returned home again to their work.
"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 shan't go to the trial, and I'd advise
the rest of ye that bain't wanted to bide away. 'Twill
disturb his mind more than anything to see us there staring
at him as if he were a show."
"The very thing I said this morning," observed Joseph,
"'Justice is come to weigh him in the balances,' I said in
my reflectious way, 'and if he's found wanting, so be it
unto him,' and a bystander said 'Hear, hear! A man who can
talk like that ought to be heard.' But I don't like dwelling
upon it, for my few words are my few words, and not much;
though the speech of some men is rumoured abroad as though
by nature formed for such."
"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 in him unequivocal symptoms of the
mental derangement which Bathsheba and Oak, alone of all
others and at different times, had momentarily suspected.
In a locked closet was now discovered an extraordinary
collection of articles. There were several sets of ladies'
dresses in the piece, of sundry expensive materials; silks
and satins, poplins and velvets, all of colours which from
Bathsheba's style of dress might have been judged to be her
favourites. There were two muffs, sable and ermine. Above
all there was a case of jewellery, containing four heavy
gold bracelets and several lockets and rings, all of fine
quality and manufacture. These things had been bought in
Bath and other towns from time to time, and brought home by
stealth. They were all carefully packed in paper, and each
package was labelled "Bathsheba Boldwood," a date being
subjoined six years in advance in every instance.
These somewhat pathetic evidences of a mind crazed with care
and love were the subject of discourse in Warren's malt-
house when Oak entered from Casterbridge with tidings of
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 at Christmas. She
keeps on asking if you be come, and if there's news, till
one's wearied out wi' answering her. Shall I go and say
you've come?"
"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 LVI
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 village for the first time since the sombre event of the
preceding Christmas. None of the old colour had as yet come
to her cheek, and its absolute paleness was heightened by
the jet black of her gown, till it appeared preternatural.
When she reached a little shop at the other end of the
place, which stood nearly opposite to the churchyard,
Bathsheba heard singing inside the church, and she knew that
the singers were practising. She crossed the road, opened
the gate, and entered the graveyard, the high sills of the
church windows effectually screening her from the eyes of
those gathered within. Her stealthy walk was to the nook
wherein Troy had worked at planting flowers upon Fanny
Robin's grave, and she came to the marble tombstone.
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 BELOVED 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 destinct 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 expenence 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, and, 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
poor Mr. Boldwood's 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 that
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 her latter intercourse with him, which, trivial
when singly viewed amounted together to a perceptible
disinclination for her society. It broke upon her at length
as a great pain that her last old disciple was about to
forsake her and flee. He who had believed in her and argued
on her side when all the rest of the world was against her,
had at last like the others become weary and neglectful of
the old cause, and was leaving her to fight her battles
alone.
Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of
interest in her was forthcoming. She noticed that instead
of entering the small parlour or office where the farm
accounts were kept, and waiting, or leaving a memorandum as
he had hitherto done during her seclusion, Oak never came at
all when she was likely to be there, only entering at
unseasonable hours when her presence in that part of the
house was least to be expected. Whenever he wanted
directions he sent a message, or note with neither heading
nor signature, to which she was obliged to reply in the same
offhand style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now from the
most torturing sting of all -- a sensation that she was
despised.
The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy
conjectures, and Christmas-day came, completing a year of
her legal widowhood, and two years and a quarter of her life
alone. On examining her heart it appeared beyond measure
strange that the subject of which the season might have been
supposed suggestive -- the event in the hall at Boldwood's --
was not agitating her at all; but instead, an agonizing
conviction that everybody abjured her -- for what she could
not tell -- and that Oak was the ringleader of the
recusants. Coming out of church that day she looked round
in hope that Oak, whose bass voice she had heard rolling out
from the gallery overhead in a most unconcerned manner,
might chance to linger in her path in the old way. There he
was, as usual, coming down the path behind her. But on
seeing Bathsheba turn, he looked aside, and as soon as he
got beyond the gate, and there was the barest excuse for a
divergence, he made one, and vanished.
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 --
O 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 old furniture,
all a-sheenen
Wi' long years o' handlen, [1]
[1] W. Barnes.
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 'ee or I shouldn't ha'
thought of doing it," he said, simply. "I have arranged for
Little Weatherbury Farm and shall have it in my own hands at
Lady-day. You know I've had a share in it for some time.
Still, that wouldn't prevent my attending to your business
as before, hadn't it been that things have been said about
us."
"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 of 'ee, 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 plain enough by this time.
Surely, surely you be the last person in the world I think
of marrying. It is too absurd, as you say.
"'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 particular
that people knew I had a sort of feeling for 'ee; and I
fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it
might injure your good name. Nobody knows the heat and fret
I have been caused by it."
"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 other farm. They
spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases
and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such
tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which
arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown
together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each
other's character, and not the best till further on, the
romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard
prosaic reality. This good-fellowship -- 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 LVII
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 -- O yes, it must be a licence," he said to
himself at last. "Very well, then; first, a license."
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 of mine, and I wish 'ee joy
o' her."
"Thank you, Coggan. But I assure 'ee that this great hush
is not what I wished for at all, or what either of us would
have wished if it hadn't been for certain things that would
make a gay wedding seem hardly the thing. Bathsheba has a
great wish that all the parish shall not be in church,
looking at her -- she's shylike 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 'ee how we could tackle her," said Coggan. "I'll
knock and ask to speak to Laban outside the door, you
standing in the background. Then he'll come out, and you
can tell yer tale. She'll never guess what I want en for;
and I'll make up a few words about the farm-work, as a
blind."
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 'ee,
Mother Tall, in a way I shouldn't ha' done if I hadn't loved
'ee so hopeless well."
Coggan retired before she could ask any further; and next
they called at the vicar's in a manner which excited no
curiosity at all. Then Gabriel went home, and prepared for
the morrow.
"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, after what's been said?" asked 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 a large and
a smaller umbrella might have been seen moving from the same
door, and through the mist along the road to the church.
The distance was not more than a quarter of a mile, and
these two sensible persons deemed it unnecessary to drive.
An observer must have been very close indeed to discover
that the forms under the umbrellas were those of Oak and
Bathsheba, arm-in-arm for the first time in their lives, Oak
in a greatcoat extending to his knees, and Bathsheba in a
cloak that reached her clogs. Yet, though so plainly
dressed there was a certain rejuvenated appearance about
her: --
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 a girl of that fascinating dream, which,
considering that she was now only three or four-and-twenty,
was perhaps not very wonderful. In the church were Tall,
Liddy, and the parson, and in a remarkably short space of
time the deed was done.
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 wi' 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."
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of "Far from the Madding Crowd"
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