FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD by Thomas Hardy

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 hark 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 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. lt 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.
"O, 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?"
SUSPICION
"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.
"O, 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. O, 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 weakness 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,
FANNY IS SENT FOR
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'siove;
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 judgeand-
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, "O 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 Unionhouse,
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 waggonwheels
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 home, 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 rustyred
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 threequarters
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 abreaking.
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-iet me be a
man of contrite knees-iet it be! l 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 Cake 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 manorhouse,
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 tomorrow.
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,
(n 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."
"O 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
country nature, fed on old-fashioned principles, was
troubled by that which would have troubled a woman
of the world very little, both Fanny and her child, if she
had one, being dead.
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 wellbeing 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. lt 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! . , . O, 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; et 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 out
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
hen 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
ave been angry and cruel towards her with some justification;
but to be vindictive towards a poor dead woman
recoils upon myself. O God, have mercy,! I am
miserable at all this!"
Bathsheba became at this moment so terrified at her
own state of mind that she looked around for some sort
of refuge from herself. The vision of Oak kneeling
down that night recurred to her, and with the imitative
instinct which animates women she seized upon the idea,
resolved to kneel, and, if possible, pray. Gabriel had
prayed; so would she.
She knelt beside the coffin, covered her face with her
hands, and for a time the room was silent as a tomb.
whether from a purely mechanical, or from any other
cause, when Bathsheba arose it was with a quieted spirit,
and a regret for the antagonistic instincts which had
seized upon her just before.
In her desire to make atonement she took flowers
from a vase by the window, and began laying them
around the dead girl's head. Bathsheba knew no other
way of showing kindness to persons departed than by
giving them flowers. She knew not how long she
remained engaged thus. She forgot time, life, where
she was, what she was doing. A slamming together of
the coach-house doors in the yard brought her to herself
again. An instant after, the front door opened and
closed, steps crossed the hall, and her husband appeared
at the entrance to the room, looking in upon her.
He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at
the scene, as if he thought it an illusion raised by some
fiendish
incantation. Bathsheba, pallid as a corpse on
end, gazed back at him in the same wild way.
So little are instinctive guesses the fruit of a legitimate
induction, that at this moment, as he stood with the
door in his hand, Troy never once thought of Fanny in
connection with what he saw. His first confused idea
was that somebody in the house had died.
"Well -- what?" said Troy, blankly.
"I must go! I must go!" said Bathsheba, to herself
more than to him. She came with a dilated eye towards
the door, to push past him.
"What's the matter, in God's name? who's dead?"
said Troy.
"I cannot say; let me go out. I want air!" she
continued.
"But no; stay, I insist!" He seized her hand, and
then volition seemed to leave her, and she went off into
a state of passivity. He, still holding her, came up the
room, and thus, hand in hand, Troy and Bathsheba
approached the coffin's side.
The candle was standing on a bureau close by them,
and the light slanted down, distinctly enkindling the
cold features 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 wellnigh 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 and unexpected
revelation of all women being alike at heart, even
those so different in their accessories as Fanny and this
one beside him, that Troy could hardly seem to believe
her to be his proud wife Bathsheba. Fanny's own
spirit seemed to be animating her frame. But this was
the mood of a few instants only. When the momentary
"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.
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
He turned to Fanny then. "But never mind, darling,
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 product*
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 overhung
by some large oak and beech trees. On looking
into the place, it occurred to her that she had seen it
by daylight on some previous occasion, and that what
appeared like an impassable thicket was in reality a
brake of fern now withering fast. She could think of
nothing better to do with her palpitating self than to go
in here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spot
sheltered from the damp fog by a reclining trunk, where
she sank down upon a tangled couch of fronds and
stems. She mechanically pulled some armfuls round
her to keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes.
Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was
not clearly aware. But it was with a freshened existence
and a cooler brain that, a long time afterwards, she
became conscious of some interesting proceedings which
were going on in the trees above her head and around.
A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound.
It was a sparrow just waking.
Next: "Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!" from another
retreat.
It was a finch.
Third: "Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!" from the hedge,
It was a robin.
"Chuck-chuck-chuck!" overhead.
A squirrel.
Then, from the road, "With my ra-ta-ta, and my
rum-tum-tum!"
It was a ploughboy. Presently he came opposite,
and she believed from his voice that he was one of
the boys on her own farm. He was followed by a
shambling tramp of heavy feet, and looking through
the ferns Bathsheba could just discern in the wan light
of daybreak a team of her own horses. They stopped
to drink at a pond on the other side of the way'. She
watched them flouncing into the pool, drinking, tossing
up their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling
from their lips in silver threads. There was another
flounce, and they came out of the pond, and turned
back again towards the farm.
She looked further around. Day was just dawning,
and beside its cool air and colours her heated actions
and resolves of the night stood out in lurid contrast.
She perceived that in her lap, and clinging to her
hair, were red and yellow leaves which had come
down from the tree and settled silently upon her
during her partial sleep. Bathsheba shook her dress to
get rid of them, when multitudes of the same family lying
round about her rose and fluttered away in the breeze
thus created, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing."
There was an opening towards the east, and the
glow from the as yet unrisen sun attracted her eyes
thither. From her feet, and between the beautiful
yellowing ferns with their feathery arms, the ground
sloped downwards to a hollow, in which was a species
of swamp, dotted with fungi. A morning mist hung
over it now -- a fulsome yet magnificent silvery veil,
full of light from the sun, yet semi-opaque -- the hedge
behind it being in some measure hidden by its hazy
luminousness. Up the sides of this depression grew
sheaves of the common rush, and here and there a
peculiar species of flag, the blades of which glistened
in the emerging sun, like scythes. But the general
aspect of the swamp was malignant. From its moist
and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences
of evil things in the earth, and in the waters under
the earth. The fungi grew in all manner of positions
from rotting leaves and tree stumps, some exhibiting
to her listless gaze their clammy tops, others their
oozing gills. Some were marked with great splotches,
red as arterial blood, others were saffron yellow, and
others tall and attenuated, with stems like macaroni.
Some were leathery and of richest browns. The
hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences small and
great, in the immediate neighbourhood of comfort
and health, and Bathsheba arose with a tremor at the
thought of having passed the night on the brink of
so dismal a place.
"There were now other footsteps to be heard along
the road. Bathsheba's nerves were still unstrung:
she crouched down out of sight again, and the pedestrian
came into view. He was a schoolboy, with a
bag slung over his shoulder containing his dinner,
and a 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. "O, Liddy!" she said, or attempted to say;
but the words had only been framed by her lips; there
came no sound. She had lost her voice by exposure
to the clogged atmosphere all these hours of night.
"O, 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 --
"l 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."
"O, 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 be
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.
"O 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"
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 book
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 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 fourand-
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 diminish
his cash only to the extent of a few shillings.
He trotted slowly homeward, and it was now that
was struck for the first time with a thought that Fanny
had been really prevented by illness from keeping her
promise. This time she could have made no mistake
He regretted that he had not remained in Casterbridge
and made inquiries. Reaching home he quietly unharnessed
the horse and came indoors, as we have seen,
to the fearful shock that awaited him.
As soon as it grew light enough to distinguish objects,
Troy arose from the coverlet of the bed, and in a mood
of absolute indifference to Bathsheba's whereabouts, a
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
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 twentyseven
pounds,"
It was all the money he possessed.
"That sum to include everything?"
"Everything. Cutting the name, carriage to Weatherbury,
and erection. And I want it now at once ."
"We could not get anything special worked this
week.
"If you would like one of these in stock it could be
got ready immediately."
"Very well." said Troy, impatiently. "Let's see what
you have."
"The best I have in stock is this one," said the stonecutter,
going into a shed." Here's a marble headstone
beautifully crocketed, with medallions beneath of typical
subjects; here's the footstone after the same pattern,
and here's the coping to enclose the- grave. The
slabs are the best of their kind, and I can warrant them
"Well, I could add the name, and put it up at
visitor who wore not a shred of mourning. Troy then
settled the account and went away. In the afternoon
almost done. He waited in the yard till the tomb was
way to Weatherbury, giving directions to the two men
the grave of the person named in the inscription.
bridge. He carried rather a heavy basket upon his
occasionally at bridges and gates, whereon he deposited
returning in the darkness, the men and the waggon
the work was done, and, on being assured that it was,
Troy entered Weatherbury churchyard about ten
had marked the vacant grave early in the morning. It
extent from the view of passers along the road -- a spot
and bushes of alder, but now it was cleared and made
the ground elsewhere.
Here now stood the tomb as the men had stated, snowwhite
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 flowerroots
of several varieties. There were bundles of snowdrop,
hyacinth and crocus bulbs, violets and double
daisies, which were to bloom in early spring, and of
carnations, pinks, picotees, lilies of the valley, forget-menot,
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.
lt 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 churchwardens
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 downfall
but the bare earth. For several years the stream
had not spouted so far from the tower as it was doing
on this night, and such a contingency had been overlooked.
Sometimes this obscure corner received no
inhabitant for the space of two or three years, and
then it was usually but a pauper, a poacher, or other
sinner of undignified sins.
The persistent torrent from the gurgoyle's jaws
directed all its vengeance into the grave. The rich
tawny mould was stirred into motion, and boiled like
chocolate. The water accumulated and washed deeper
down, and the roar of the pool thus formed spread into
the night as the head and chief among other noises of
the kind created by the deluging rain. The flowers so
carefully planted by Fanny's repentant lover began to
move and writhe in their bed. The winter-violets
turned slowly upside down, and became a mere mat of
mud. Soon the snowdrop and other bulbs danced in
the boiling mass like ingredients in a cauldron. Plants
of the tufted species were loosened, rose to the surface,
and floated of.
Troy did not awake from his comfortless sleep till it
was broad day. Not having been in bed for two nights
his shoulders felt stiff his feet tender, and his head
heavy. He remembered his position, arose, shivered,
took the spade, and again went out.
The rain had quite ceased, and the sun was shining
through the green, brown, and yellow leaves, now
sparkling and varnished by the raindrops to the brightness
of similar effects in the landscapes of Ruysdael and
Hobbema, and full of all those infinite beauties that
arise from the union of water and colour with high
lights. The air was rendered so transparent by the
heavy fall of rain that the autumn hues of the middle
distance were as rich as those near at hand, and the
remote fields intercepted by the angle of the tower appeared
in the same plane as the tower itself.
He entered the gravel path which would take him
behind the tower. The path, instead of being stony as
it had been the night before, was browned over with a
thin coating of mud. At one place in the path he saw
a tuft of stringy roots washed white and clean as a
bundle of tendons. He picked it up -- surely it could
not be one of the primroses he had planted? He saw
a bulb, another, and another as he advanced. Beyond
doubt they were the crocuses. With a face of perplexed
dismay Troy turned the corner and then beheld the
wreck the stream had made.
The pool upon the grave had soaked away into the
ground, and in its place was a hollow. The disturbed
earth was washed over the grass and pathway in the
guise of the brown mud he had already seen, and it
spotted the marble tombstone with the same stains.
Nearly all the flowers were washed clean out of the
ground, and they lay, roots upwards, on the spots whither
they had been splashed by the stream.
Troy's brow became heavily contracted. He set his
teeth closely, and his compressed lips moved as those of
one in great pain. This singular accident, by a strange
confluence of emotions in him, was felt as the sharpest
sting of all. Troy's face was very expressive, and any
observer who had seen him now would hardly have
believed him to be a man who had laughed, and sung,
and poured love-trifles into a woman's ear. To curse
his miserable lot was at first his impulse, but even that
lowest stage of rebellion needed an activity whose
absence was necessarily antecedent to the existence of the
morbid misery which wrung him. The sight, coming
as it did, superimposed upon the other dark scenery of
the previous days, formed a sort of climax to the whole
panorama, and it was more than he could endure.
Sanguine by nature, Troy had a power of eluding
grief by simply adjourning it. He could put off the
consideration of any particular spectre till the matter
had become old and softened by time. The planting
of flowers on Fanny's grave had been perhaps but a
species of elusion of the primary grief, and now it was
as if his intention had been known and circumvented.
Almost for the first time in his life, Troy, as he stood
by this dismantled grave, wished himself another man.
lt 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 meteorlike 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 primrosehued
slashes through a cloud low down in the awakening
sky. From the trees came the sound of steady
dripping upon the drifted leaves under them, and from
the direction of the church she could hear another noise
-- peculiar, and not intermittent like the rest, the purl
of water falling into a pool.
Liddy knocked at eight o'clock, and Bathsheba unlocked
the door.
"What a heavy rain we've had in the night, ma'am!"
said Liddy, when her inquiries about breakfast had been
made.
"Yes, very heavy."
"Did you hear the strange noise from the 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 the
resolved to go out and walk a little way. So when
breakfast was over, she put on her bonnet, and took
a direction towards the church. It was nine o'clock,
and the men having returned to work again from their
first meal, she was not likely to meet many of them in
the road. Knowing that Fanny had been laid in the
reprobates' quarter of the graveyard, called in the parish
"behind church." which was invisible from the road, it
was impossible to resist the impulse to enter and look
upon a spot which, from nameless feelings, she at the
same time dreaded to see. She had been unable to
overcome an impression that some connection existed
between her rival and the light through the trees.
Bathsheba skirted the buttress, and beheld the hole
and the tomb, its delicately veined surface splashed and
stained just as Troy had seen it and left it two hours
earlier. On the other side of the scene stood Gabriel.
His eyes, too, were fixed on the tomb, and her arrival
having been noiseless, she had not as yet attracted his
attention. Bathsheba did not at once perceive that the
grand tomb and the disturbed grave were Fanny's, and
she looked on both sides and around for some humbler
mound, earthed up and clodded in the usual way. Then
her eye followed Oak's, and she read the words with
which the inscription opened: --
"Erected by Francis Troy in 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,
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 wellnigh 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
late they made again towards the roadstead where their
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 of. 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 markethouse,
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 selfcommand
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
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
middle of the haymaking, and Boldwood contrived to
"I am glad to see you out of doors, Lydia." he said
She simpered, and wondered in her heart why he
"I hope Mrs. Troy is quite well after her long
the coldest-hearted neighbour could scarcely say less
"She is quite well, sir.
"Yes, cheerful.
"Fearful, did you say?"
"O 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.
"O that helpless feymels should be at the mercy of
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, pull
ing 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
but the fact of drawing nearer to Weatherbury abstracted its
fascinations, and his intention to enter his old groove at
the place became modified. It was with gloom he considered
on landing at Liverpool that if he were to go home
his reception would be of a kind very unpleasant to contemplate;
for what Troy had in the way of emotion was
an occasional fitful sentiment which sometimes caused
him as much inconvenience as emotion of a strong and
healthy kind. Bathsheba was not a women to be made
a fool of, or a woman to suffer in silence; and how
could he endure existence with a spirited wife to whom
at first entering he would be beholden for food and
lodging? Moreover, it was not at all unlikely that his
wife would fail at her farming, if she had not already
done so; and he would then become liable for her
maintenance: and what a life such a future of poverty
with her would be, the spectre of Fanny constantly between
them, harrowing his temper and embittering her
words! Thus, for reasons touching on distaste, regret,
and shame commingled, he put off his return from day
to day, and would have decided to put it off altogether
if he could have found anywhere else the ready-made
establishment which existed for him there.
At this time -- the July preceding the September in
which we find at Greenhill Fair -- he fell in with a
travelling circus which was performing in the outskirts of
a northern town. Troy introduced himself to the
manager by taming a restive horse of the troupe, hitting
a suspended apple with pistol-- bullet fired from the
animal's back when in full gallop, and other feats. For
his merits in these -- all more or less based upon his experiences
as a dragoon-guardsman -- Troy was taken into
the company, and the play of Turpin was prepared with
a view to his personation of the chief character. Troy
was not greatly elated by the appreciative spirit in which
he was undoubtedly treated, but he thought the engagement
might afford him a few weeks for consideration.
It was thus carelessly, and without having formed any
definite plan for the future, that Troy found himself
at Greenhill Fair with the rest of the company on this
day.
And now the mild autumn sun got lower, and in
front of the pavilion the following incident had taken
place. Bathsheba -- who was driven to the fair that day
by her odd man Poorgrass -- had, like every one else,
read or heard the announcement that Mr. Francis, the
Great 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.
"O 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?"
"O yes, perfectly true -- all of it. Indeed, I think
I've heard Jan Coggan say that a relation of his knew
Tom King, Turpin's friend, quite well."
"Coggan is rather given to strange stories connected
with his relations, we must remember. I hope they
can all be believed."
"Yes, yes; we know Coggan. But Turpin is true
enough. You have never seen it played, I suppose?"
"Never. I was not allowed to go into these places
when I was young. Hark! What's that prancing?
How they shout!"
"Black Bess just started off, I suppose. Am I right
in supposing you would like to see the performance,
Mrs. Troy? Please excuse my mistake, if it is one;
but if you would like to, I'll get a seat for you with
pleasure." Perceiving that she hesitated, he added, "I
myself shall not stay to see it: I've seen it before."
Now Bathsheba did care a little to see the show, and
had only withheld her feet from the ladder because she
feared to go in alone. She had been hoping that Oak
might appear, whose assistance in such cases was always
accepted as an inalienable right, but Oak was nowhere
to be seen; and hence it was that she said, "Then if
you will just look in first, to see if there's room, I think
I will go in for a minute or two."
And so a short time after this Bathsheba appeared
in the tent with Boldwood at her elbow, who, taking
her to a "reserved" seat, again withdrew.
This feature consisted of one raised bench in very
conspicuous part of the circle, covered with red cloth,
and floored with a piece of carpet, and Bathsheba
immediately found, to her confusion, that she was the
single reserved individual in the tent, the rest of the
crowded spectators, one and all, standing on their legs
on the borders of the arena, where they got twice as
good a view of the performance for half the money.
Hence as many eyes were turned upon her, enthroned
alone in this place of honour, against a scarlet background,
as upon the ponies and clown who were
engaged in preliminary exploits in the centre, Turpin
not having yet appeared. Once there, Bathsheba was
forced to make the best of it and remain: she sat
down, spreading her skirts with some dignity over the
unoccupied space on each side of her, and giving a
new and feminine aspect to the pavilion. In a few
minutes she noticed the fat red nape of Coggan's neck
among those standing just below her, and Joseph Poorgrass's
saintly profile a little further on.
The interior was shadowy with a peculiar shade.
The strange luminous semi-opacities of fine autumn
afternoons and eves intensified into Rembrandt effects
the few yellow sunbeams which came through holes
and divisions in the canvas, and spirted like jets of
gold-dust across the dusky blue atmosphere of haze
pervading the tent, until they alighted on inner surfaces
of cloth opposite, and shone like little lamps suspended
there.
Troy, on peeping from his dressing-tent through a
slit for a reconnoitre before entering, saw his unconscious
wife on high before him as described, sitting as queen
of the tournament. He started back in utter confusion,
for although his disguise effectually concealed his personality,
he instantly felt that she would be sure to recognize
his voice. He had several times during the day thought
of the possibility of some Weatherbury person or other
appearing and recognizing him; but he had taken the
risk carelessly. If they see me, let them, he had said.
But here was Bathsheba in her own person; and the
reality of the scene was so much intenser than any of
his prefigurings that he felt he had not half enough
considered the point.
She looked so charming and fair that his cool mood
about Weatherbury people was changed. He had not
expected her to exercise this power over him in the
twinkling of an eye. Should he go on, and care nothing?
He could not bring himself to do that. Beyond a politic
wish to remain unknown, there suddenly arose in him
now a sense of shame at the possibility that his
attractive young wife, who already despised him, should
despise him more by discovering him in so mean a
condition after so long a time. He actually blushed
at the thought, and was vexed beyond measure that
his sentiments of dislike towards Weatherbury should
have led him to dally about the country in this way.
But Troy was never more clever than when absolutely
at his wit's end. He hastily thrust aside the curtain
dividing his own little dressing space from that of the
manager and proprietor, who now appeared as the
individual called Tom King as far down as his waist, and
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
sworn enemy, who still hung about the outskirts of
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 this he wandered about the fairfield.
It was now almost dark, and respectable people
were getting their carts and gigs ready to go home
The largest refreshment booth in the fair was provided
by an innkeeper from a neighbouring town. This was
considered an unexceptionable place for obtaining the
necessary food and rest: Host Trencher (as he was
jauntily called by the local newspaper) being a substantial
man of high repute for catering through all the
county round. The tent was divided into first and
second-class compartments, and at the end of the firstclass
division was a yet further enclosure for the most
exclusive, fenced of 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. lt 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.
I thank you," said Bathsheba. "But I must be going
at once. It was great neglect in that man to keep me
waiting here till so late. I should have gone two hours
ago, if it had not been for him. I had no idea of
coming in here; but there's nothing so refreshing as a
cup of tea, though I should never have got one if you
hadn't helped me."
Troy scrutinized her cheek as lit by the candles,
and watched each varying shade thereon, and the
white shell-like sinuosities of her little ear. She took
out her purse and was insisting to Boldwood on paying
for her tea for herself, when at this moment Pennyways
entered the tent. Troy trembled: here was his scheme
for respectability endangered at once. He was about
to leave his hole of espial, attempt to follow Pennyways,
and find out if the ex-bailiff had recognized him, when
he was arrested by the conversation, and found he was
too late.
"Excuse me, ma'am." said Pennyways; "I've some
private information for your ear alone."
I cannot hear it now." she said, coldly. That
Bathsheba could not endure this man was evident; in
fact, he was continually coming to her with some tale
or other, by which he might creep into favour at the
expense of persons maligned.
"I'll write it down." said Pennyways, confidently. He
stooped over the table, pulled a leaf from a warped
pocket-book, and wrote upon the paper, in a round
hand --
"YOUR husband is here. I've seen him. Who's the fool
now?"
This he folded small, and handed towards her.
Bathsheba would not read it; she would not even put
out her hand to take it. Pennyways, then, with a laugh
of derision, tossed it into her lap, and, turning away,
left her.
From the words and action of Pennyways, Troy,
though he had not been able to see what the ex-bailiff
wrote, had not a moment's doubt that the note referred
to him. Nothing that he could think of could be done
to check the exposure. "Curse my luck!" he whispered,
and added imprecations which rustled in the gloom like
a pestilent wind. Meanwhile Boldwood said, taking up
the note from her lap --
"Don't you wish to read it, Mrs. Troy? If not,
I'll destroy it."
"Oh, well." said Bathsheba, carelessly, "perhaps it is
unjust not to read it; but I can guess what it is about.
He wants me to recommend him, or it is to tell me of
some little scandal or another connected with my workpeople.
He's always doing that."
Bathsheba held the note in her right hand. Boldwood
handed towards her a plate of cut bread-andbutter;
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 he 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 refreshmenttent,
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 undiminished,
and she sympathized deeply. The sight
had quite depressed her this evening; had reminded
her of her folly; she wished anew, as she had wished
many months ago, for some means of making reparation
for her fault. Hence her pity for the man who
so persistently loved on to his own injury and permanent
gloom had betrayed Bathsheba into an injudicious
considerateness of manner, which appeared
almost like tenderness, and gave new vigour to the
exquisite dream of a Jacob's seven years service in
poor Boldwood's mind.
He soon found an excuse for advancing from his
position in the rear, and rode close by her side. They
had gone two or three miles in the moonlight, speaking
desultorily across the wheel of her gig concerning the
fair, farming, Oak's usefulness to them both, and other
indifferent subjects, when Boldwood said suddenly
and simply --
"Mrs. Troy, you will marry again some day?"
This point-blank query unmistakably confused her,
it was not till a minute or more had elapsed that
she said, "I have not seriously thought of any such
subject."
"I quite understand that. Yet your late husband
has been dead nearly one year, and -- "
"You forget that his death was never absolutely
proved, and 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.
"O yes I have, or I should have acted differently,"
she said, gently. "From the first, I have had a strange
uaccountable feeling that he could not have perished,
but I have been able to explain that in several ways
since. Even were I half 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?"
"O 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?"
"O 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
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: "O 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?"
"O 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
BATHSHEBA TALKS WITH OAK
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, wornout,
miserable thing with me -- for him or any one else."
"Well, your want of love seems to me the one thing
that takes away harm from such an agreement with him.
If wild heat had to do wi' it, making ye long to overcome
the awkwardness about your husband's 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.
O 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."
"I shall get to, I suppose, because I cannot help
feeling what would have brought him back long before
this time if he had lived."
"Well, then, in 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 threelegged 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.
II
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.
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."
"O 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 feli-plimmed and feli-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 scroffin 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 adriving!"
"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. 'Halfpast
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, tonight,
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 wellknown 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! O 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.
"O 'tis true enough, faith. I cannot understand
Farmer Boldwood being such a fool at his time of life
as to ho and hanker after thik woman in the way 'a do,
and she not care a bit about en."
The men, after recognizing Troy's features, withdrew
across the orchard as quietly as they had come. The
air was big with Bathsheba's fortunes to-night: every
word everywhere concerned her. When they were quite
out of earshot all by one instinct paused.
"It gave me quite a turn -- his face." said Tall,
breathing.
"And so it did me." said Samway. "What's to be
done?"
"I don't see that 'tis any business of ours." Smallbury
murmured dubiously.
"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."
"O 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 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 for she said,
in a passionless murmur which was in itself a proof of
her words: "I have no feeling in the matter at all.
And I don't at all know what is right to do in my
diddicult position, and I have nobody to advise me. But
I give my promise, if I must. I give it as the rendering of
a debt, 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?"
O, 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."
"Very well. If he does not return, I'll marry you
in six years from this day, if we both live." she said
solemnly.
"And you'll take this as a token from me."
Boldwood had come close to her side, and now he
clasped one of her hands in both his own, and lifted it
to his breast.
"What is it? Oh I cannot wear a ring!" she exclaimed,
on seeing what he held; "besides, I wouldn't
have a soul know that it's an engagement! Perhaps it
is improper? Besides, we are not engaged in the usual
sense, are we? Don't insist, Mr. Boldwood -- don't!"
In her trouble at not being able to get her hand away
from him at once, she stamped passionately on the floor
with one foot, and tears crowded to her eyes again.
"It means simply a pledge -- no sentiment -- the seal
of a practical compact." he said more quietly, but still
retaining her hand in his firm grasp. "Come, now!"
And Boldwood slipped the ring on her finger.
"I cannot wear it." she said, weeping as if her heart
would break. "You frighten me, almost. So wild a
scheme! Please let me go home!"
"Only to-night: wear it just to-night, to please me!"
Bathsheba sat down in a chair, and buried her face
in her handkerchief, though Boldwood kept her hand
yet. At length she said, in a sort of hopeless whisper --
"Very well, then, I will to-night, if you wish it so
earnestly. Now loosen my hand; I will, indeed I will
wear it to-night."
"And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret
courtship of six years, with a wedding at the end?"
"It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!"
she said, fairly beaten into non-resistance.
Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop
in her lap. "I am happy now." he said. "God bless
you!"
He left the room, and when he thought she might
be sufficiently composed sent one of the maids to her
Bathsheba cloaked the effects of the late scene as she
best could, followed the girl, and in a few moments
came downstairs with her hat and cloak on, ready to go.
To get to the door it was necessary to pass through the
hall, and before doing so she paused on the bottom of
the staircase which descended into one corner, to take
a last look at the gathering.
There was no music or dancing in progress just now.
At the lower end, which had been arranged for the workfolk
specially, a group conversed in whispers, and with
clouded looks. Boldwood was standing by the fireplace,
and he, too, though so absorbed in visions arising from
her promise that he scarcely saw anything, seemed at
that moment to have observed their peculiar manner,
and their looks askance.
"What is it you are in doubt about, men?" he said.
One of them turned and replied uneasily: "It was
something Laban heard of, that's all, sir."
"News? Anybody married or engaged, born or
dead?" inquired the farmer, gaily. "Tell it to us, Tall.
One would think from your looks and mysterious ways
that it was something very dreadful indeed."
"O 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 gunrack,
as is usual in farmhouses, constructed to hold two
guns. When Bathsheba had cried out in her husband's
grasp, Boldwood's face of gnashing despair had changed.
The veins had swollen, and a frenzied look had gleamed
in his eye. He had turned quickly, taken one of the
guns, cocked it, and at once discharged it at Troy.
Troy fell. The distance apart of the two men was
so small that the charge of shot did not spread in the
least, but passed like a bullet into his body. He uttered
a long guttural sigh -- there was a contraction -- an extension
-- then his muscles relaxed, and he lay still.
Boldwood was seen through the smoke to be now
again engaged with the gun. It was double-barrelled,
and he had, meanwhile, in some way fastened his handkerchief
to the trigger, and with his foot on the other
end was in the act of turning the second barrel upon
himself. Samway his man was the first to see this, and
in the midst of the general horror darted up to him.
Boldwood had already twitched the handkerchief, and
the gun exploded a second time, sending its contents,
by a timely blow from Samway, into the beam which
crossed the ceiling.
"Well, it makes no difference!" Boldwood gasped.
"There is another way for me to die."
Then he broke from Samway, crossed the room to
Bathsheba, and kissed her hand. He put on his hat,
opened the door, and went into the darkness, nobody
thinking of preventing him.
CHAPTER 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 bellpull.
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: "O 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 Yai*-
bury 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 travellingcarriage,
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 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 -- ,
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 --
l 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."
"O 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."
"O 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 which to shun her; and there
occurred to Bathsheba several incidents of latter intercourse
with him, which, trivial when singly viewed
amounted together to a perceptible disinclination for
her society. It broke upon her at length as a great
pain that her last old disciple was about to forsake her
and flee. He who had believed in her and argued on
her side when all the rest of the world was against her,
had at last like the others become weary and neglectful
of the old cause, and was leaving her to fight her battles
alone.
Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his
want of interest in her was forthcoming. She noticed
that instead of entering the small parlour or office
where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or
leaving a memorandum as he had hitherto done during
her seclusion, Oak never came at all when she was likely
to be there, only entering at unseasonable hours when
her presence in that part of the house was least to be
expected. Whenever he wanted directions he sent a
message, or note with neither heading nor signature, to
which she was obliged to reply in the same off-hand
style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now from the
most torturing sting of ali-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
AFTER ALL
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 forehaad.
"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,
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 -- "
"O 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 o' '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 ali-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 ali-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 tonight
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
amine, 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 tonight,
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."
CONCLUSION
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-inarm
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 face; "
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, tenorviol,
and double-bass -- the only remaining relics of the
true and original Weatherbury band -- venerable wormeaten
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 selfdenial.
"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."
THE END