HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES
Half an hour later Bathsheba entered her own house. There burnt upon
her face when she met the light of the candles the flush and excitement
which were little less than chronic with her now. The farewell words of
Troy, who had accompanied her to the very door, still lingered in her
ears. He had bidden her adieu for two days, which were, so he stated,
to be spent at Bath in visiting some friends. He had also kissed her a
second time.
It is only fair to Bathsheba to explain here a little fact which did
not come to light till a long time afterwards: that Troy’s presentation
of himself so aptly at the roadside this evening was not by any
distinctly preconcerted arrangement. He had hinted—she had forbidden;
and it was only on the chance of his still coming that she had
dismissed Oak, fearing a meeting between them just then.
She now sank down into a chair, wild and perturbed by all these new and
fevering sequences. Then she jumped up with a manner of decision, and
fetched her desk from a side table.
In three minutes, without pause or modification, she had written a
letter to Boldwood, at his address beyond Casterbridge, saying mildly
but firmly that she had well considered the whole subject he had
brought before her and kindly given her time to decide upon; that her
final decision was that she could not marry him. She had expressed to
Oak an intention to wait till Boldwood came home before communicating
to him her conclusive reply. But Bathsheba found that she could not
wait.
It was impossible to send this letter till the next day; yet to quell
her uneasiness by getting it out of her hands, and so, as it were,
setting the act in motion at once, she arose to take it to any one of
the women who might be in the kitchen.
She paused in the passage. A dialogue was going on in the kitchen, and
Bathsheba and Troy were the subject of it.
“If he marry her, she’ll gie up farming.”
“’Twill be a gallant life, but may bring some trouble between the
mirth—so say I.”
“Well, I wish I had half such a husband.”
Bathsheba had too much sense to mind seriously what her servitors said
about her; but too much womanly redundance of speech to leave alone
what was said till it died the natural death of unminded things. She
burst in upon them.
“Who are you speaking of?” she asked.
There was a pause before anybody replied. At last Liddy said frankly,”
What was passing was a bit of a word about yourself, miss.”
“I thought so! Maryann and Liddy and Temperance—now I forbid you to
suppose such things. You know I don’t care the least for Mr. Troy—not
I. Everybody knows how much I hate him.—Yes,” repeated the froward
young person, “_hate_ him!”
“We know you do, miss,” said Liddy; “and so do we all.”
“I hate him too,” said Maryann.
“Maryann—O you perjured woman! How can you speak that wicked story!”
said Bathsheba, excitedly. “You admired him from your heart only this
morning in the very world, you did. Yes, Maryann, you know it!”
“Yes, miss, but so did you. He is a wild scamp now, and you are right
to hate him.”
“He’s _not_ a wild scamp! How dare you to my face! I have no right to
hate him, nor you, nor anybody. But I am a silly woman! What is it to
me what he is? You know it is nothing. I don’t care for him; I don’t
mean to defend his good name, not I. Mind this, if any of you say a
word against him you’ll be dismissed instantly.”
She flung down the letter and surged back into the parlour, with a big
heart and tearful eyes, Liddy following her.
“Oh miss!” said mild Liddy, looking pitifully into Bathsheba’s face. “I
am sorry we mistook you so! I did think you cared for him; but I see
you don’t now.”
“Shut the door, Liddy.”
Liddy closed the door, and went on: “People always say such foolery,
miss. I’ll make answer hencefor’ard, ‘Of course a lady like Miss
Everdene can’t love him;’ I’ll say it out in plain black and white.”
Bathsheba burst out: “O Liddy, are you such a simpleton? Can’t you read
riddles? Can’t you see? Are you a woman yourself?”
Liddy’s clear eyes rounded with wonderment.
“Yes; you must be a blind thing, Liddy!” she said, in reckless
abandonment and grief. “Oh, I love him to very distraction and misery
and agony! Don’t be frightened at me, though perhaps I am enough to
frighten any innocent woman. Come closer—closer.” She put her arms
round Liddy’s neck. “I must let it out to somebody; it is wearing me
away. Don’t you yet know enough of me to see through that miserable
denial of mine? O God, what a lie it was! Heaven and my Love forgive
me. And don’t you know that a woman who loves at all thinks nothing of
perjury when it is balanced against her love? There, go out of the
room; I want to be quite alone.”
Liddy went towards the door.
“Liddy, come here. Solemnly swear to me that he’s not a bad man; that
it is all lies they say about him!”
“But, miss, how can I say he is not if——”
“You graceless girl. How can you have the cruel heart to repeat what
they say? Unfeeling thing that you are…. But _I’ll_ see if you or
anybody else in the village, or town either, dare do such a thing!” She
started off, pacing from fireplace to door, and back again.
“No, miss. I don’t—I know it is not true!” said Liddy, frightened at
Bathsheba’s unwonted vehemence.
“I suppose you only agree with me like that to please me. But, Liddy,
he _cannot be_ bad, as is said. Do you hear?”
“Yes, miss, yes.”
“And you don’t believe he is?”
“I don’t know what to say, miss,” said Liddy, beginning to cry. “If I
say No, you don’t believe me; and if I say Yes, you rage at me!”
“Say you don’t believe it—say you don’t!”
“I don’t believe him to be so bad as they make out.”
“He is not bad at all…. My poor life and heart, how weak I am!” she
moaned, in a relaxed, desultory way, heedless of Liddy’s presence. “Oh,
how I wish I had never seen him! Loving is misery for women always. I
shall never forgive my Maker for making me a woman, and dearly am I
beginning to pay for the honour of owning a pretty face.” She freshened
and turned to Liddy suddenly. “Mind this, Lydia Smallbury, if you
repeat anywhere a single word of what I have said to you inside this
closed door, I’ll never trust you, or love you, or have you with me a
moment longer—not a moment.”
“I don’t want to repeat anything,” said Liddy, with womanly dignity of
a diminutive order; “but I don’t wish to stay with you. And, if you
please, I’ll go at the end of the harvest, or this week, or to-day…. I
don’t see that I deserve to be put upon and stormed at for nothing!”
concluded the small woman, bigly.
“No, no, Liddy; you must stay!” said Bathsheba, dropping from
haughtiness to entreaty with capricious inconsequence. “You must not
notice my being in a taking just now. You are not as a servant—you are
a companion to me. Dear, dear—I don’t know what I am doing since this
miserable ache o’ my heart has weighted and worn upon me so. What shall
I come to! I suppose I shall get further and further into troubles. I
wonder sometimes if I am doomed to die in the Union. I am friendless
enough, God knows.”
“I won’t notice anything, nor will I leave you!” sobbed Liddy,
impulsively putting up her lips to Bathsheba’s, and kissing her.
Then Bathsheba kissed Liddy, and all was smooth again.
“I don’t often cry, do I, Lidd? but you have made tears come into my
eyes,” she said, a smile shining through the moisture. “Try to think
him a good man, won’t you, dear Liddy?”
“I will, miss, indeed.”
“He is a sort of steady man in a wild way, you know. That’s better than
to be as some are, wild in a steady way. I am afraid that’s how I am.
And promise me to keep my secret—do, Liddy! And do not let them know
that I have been crying about him, because it will be dreadful for me,
and no good to him, poor thing!”
“Death’s head himself shan’t wring it from me, mistress, if I’ve a mind
to keep anything; and I’ll always be your friend,” replied Liddy,
emphatically, at the same time bringing a few more tears into her own
eyes, not from any particular necessity, but from an artistic sense of
making herself in keeping with the remainder of the picture, which
seems to influence women at such times. “I think God likes us to be
good friends, don’t you?”
“Indeed I do.”
“And, dear miss, you won”t harry me and storm at me, will you? because
you seem to swell so tall as a lion then, and it frightens me. Do you
know, I fancy you would be a match for any man when you are in one o’
your takings.”
“Never! do you?” said Bathsheba, slightly laughing, though somewhat
seriously alarmed by this Amazonian picture of herself. “I hope I am
not a bold sort of maid—mannish?” she continued with some anxiety.
“Oh no, not mannish; but so almighty womanish that ’tis getting on that
way sometimes. Ah! miss,” she said, after having drawn her breath very
sadly in and sent it very sadly out, “I wish I had half your failing
that way. ’Tis a great protection to a poor maid in these days!”
END OF VOL. I.
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER I.
BLAME—FURY
The next evening Bathsheba, with the idea of getting out of the way of
Mr. Boldwood in the event of his returning to answer her note in
person, proceeded to fulfil an engagement made with Liddy some few
hours earlier. Bathsheba’s companion, as a gage of their
reconciliation, had been granted a week’s holiday to visit her sister,
who was married to a thriving hurdler and cattle-crib-maker living in a
delightful labyrinth of hazel copse not far from Yalbury. The
arrangement was that Miss Everdene should honour them by coming there
for a day or two to inspect some ingenious contrivances which this man
of the woods had introduced into his wares.
Leaving her instructions with Gabriel and Maryann, that they were to
see everything carefully locked up for the night, she went out of the
house just at the close of a timely thunder-shower, which had refined
the air, and daintily bathed the mere coat of the land, all beneath
being dry as ever. Freshness was exhaled in an essence from the varied
contours of bank and hollow, as if the earth breathed maiden breath,
and the pleased birds were hymning to the scene. Before her, among the
clouds, there was a contrast in the shape of lairs of fierce light
which showed themselves in the neighbourhood of a hidden sun, lingering
on to the farthest north-west corner of the heavens that this midsummer
season allowed.
She had walked nearly three miles of her journey, watching how the day
was retreating, and thinking how the time of deeds was quietly melting
into the time of thought, to give place in its turn to the time of
prayer and sleep, when she beheld advancing over the hill the very man
she sought so anxiously to elude. Boldwood was stepping on, not with
that quiet tread of reserved strength which was his customary gait, in
which he always seemed to be balancing two thoughts. His manner was
stunned and sluggish now.
Boldwood had for the first time been awakened to woman’s privileges in
the practice of tergiversation without regard to another’s distraction
and possible blight. That Bathsheba was a firm and positive girl, far
less inconsequent than her fellows, had been the very lung of his hope;
for he had held that these qualities would lead her to adhere to a
straight course for consistency’s sake, and accept him, though her
fancy might not flood him with the iridescent hues of uncritical love.
But the argument now came back as sorry gleams from a broken mirror.
The discovery was no less a scourge than a surprise.
He came on looking upon the ground, and did not see Bathsheba till they
were less than a stone’s throw apart. He looked up at the sound of her
pit-pat, and his changed appearance sufficiently denoted to her the
depth and strength of the feelings paralyzed by her letter.
“Oh; is it you, Mr. Boldwood?” she faltered, a guilty warmth pulsing in
her face.
Those who have the power of reproaching in silence may find it a means
more effective than words. There are accents in the eye which are not
on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an
ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that
they avoid the pathway of sound. Boldwood’s look was unanswerable.
Seeing she turned a little aside, he said, “What, are you afraid of
me?”
“Why should you say that?” said Bathsheba.
“I fancied you looked so,” said he. “And it is most strange, because of
its contrast with my feeling for you.”
She regained self-possession, fixed her eyes calmly, and waited.
“You know what that feeling is,” continued Boldwood, deliberately. “A
thing strong as death. No dismissal by a hasty letter affects that.”
“I wish you did not feel so strongly about me,” she murmured. “It is
generous of you, and more than I deserve, but I must not hear it now.”
“Hear it? What do you think I have to say, then? I am not to marry you,
and that’s enough. Your letter was excellently plain. I want you to
hear nothing—not I.”
Bathsheba was unable to direct her will into any definite groove for
freeing herself from this fearfully awkward position. She confusedly
said, “Good-evening,” and was moving on. Boldwood walked up to her
heavily and dully.
“Bathsheba—darling—is it final indeed?”
“Indeed it is.”
“Oh Bathsheba—have pity upon me!” Boldwood burst out. “God’s sake,
yes—I am come to that low, lowest stage—to ask a woman for pity! Still,
she is you—she is you.”
Bathsheba commanded herself well. But she could hardly get a clear
voice for what came instinctively to her lips: “There is little honour
to the woman in that speech.” It was only whispered, for something
unutterably mournful no less than distressing in this spectacle of a
man showing himself to be so entirely the vane of a passion enervated
the feminine instinct for punctilios.
“I am beyond myself about this, and am mad,” he said. “I am no stoic at
all to be supplicating here; but I do supplicate to you. I wish you
knew what is in me of devotion to you; but it is impossible, that. In
bare human mercy to a lonely man, don’t throw me off now!”
“I don’t throw you off—indeed, how can I? I never had you.” In her
noon-clear sense that she had never loved him she forgot for a moment
her thoughtless angle on that day in February.
“But there was a time when you turned to me, before I thought of you! I
don’t reproach you, for even now I feel that the ignorant and cold
darkness that I should have lived in if you had not attracted me by
that letter—valentine you call it—would have been worse than my
knowledge of you, though it has brought this misery. But, I say, there
was a time when I knew nothing of you, and cared nothing for you, and
yet you drew me on. And if you say you gave me no encouragement, I
cannot but contradict you.”
“What you call encouragement was the childish game of an idle minute. I
have bitterly repented of it—ay, bitterly, and in tears. Can you still
go on reminding me?”
“I don’t accuse you of it—I deplore it. I took for earnest what you
insist was jest, and now this that I pray to be jest you say is awful,
wretched earnest. Our moods meet at wrong places. I wish your feeling
was more like mine, or my feeling more like yours! Oh, could I but have
foreseen the torture that trifling trick was going to lead me into, how
I should have cursed you; but only having been able to see it since, I
cannot do that, for I love you too well! But it is weak, idle
drivelling to go on like this…. Bathsheba, you are the first woman of
any shade or nature that I have ever looked at to love, and it is the
having been so near claiming you for my own that makes this denial so
hard to bear. How nearly you promised me! But I don’t speak now to move
your heart, and make you grieve because of my pain; it is no use, that.
I must bear it; my pain would get no less by paining you.”
“But I do pity you—deeply—oh, so deeply!” she earnestly said.
“Do no such thing—do no such thing. Your dear love, Bathsheba, is such
a vast thing beside your pity, that the loss of your pity as well as
your love is no great addition to my sorrow, nor does the gain of your
pity make it sensibly less. Oh sweet—how dearly you spoke to me behind
the spear-bed at the washing-pool, and in the barn at the shearing, and
that dearest last time in the evening at your home! Where are your
pleasant words all gone—your earnest hope to be able to love me? Where
is your firm conviction that you would get to care for me very much?
Really forgotten?—really?”
She checked emotion, looked him quietly and clearly in the face, and
said in her low, firm voice, “Mr. Boldwood, I promised you nothing.
Would you have had me a woman of clay when you paid me that furthest,
highest compliment a man can pay a woman—telling her he loves her? I
was bound to show some feeling, if I would not be a graceless shrew.
Yet each of those pleasures was just for the day—the day just for the
pleasure. How was I to know that what is a pastime to all other men was
death to you? Have reason, do, and think more kindly of me!”
“Well, never mind arguing—never mind. One thing is sure: you were all
but mine, and now you are not nearly mine. Everything is changed, and
that by you alone, remember. You were nothing to me once, and I was
contented; you are now nothing to me again, and how different the
second nothing is from the first! Would to God you had never taken me
up, since it was only to throw me down!”
Bathsheba, in spite of her mettle, began to feel unmistakable signs
that she was inherently the weaker vessel. She strove miserably against
this feminity which would insist upon supplying unbidden emotions in
stronger and stronger current. She had tried to elude agitation by
fixing her mind on the trees, sky, any trivial object before her eyes,
whilst his reproaches fell, but ingenuity could not save her now.
“I did not take you up—surely I did not!” she answered as heroically as
she could. “But don’t be in this mood with me. I can endure being told
I am in the wrong, if you will only tell it me gently! Oh sir, will you
not kindly forgive me, and look at it cheerfully?”
“Cheerfully! Can a man fooled to utter heart-burning find a reason for
being merry? If I have lost, how can I be as if I had won? Heavens, you
must be heartless quite! Had I known what a fearfully bitter sweet this
was to be, how I would have avoided you, and never seen you, and been
deaf of you. I tell you all this, but what do you care! You don’t
care.”
She returned silent and weak denials to his charges, and swayed her
head desperately, as if to thrust away the words as they came showering
about her ears from the lips of the trembling man in the climax of
life, with his bronzed Roman face and fine frame.
“Dearest, dearest, I am wavering even now between the two opposites of
recklessly renouncing you, and labouring humbly for you again. Forget
that you have said No, and let it be as it was. Say, Bathsheba, that
you only wrote that refusal to me in fun—come, say it to me!”
“It would be untrue, and painful to both of us. You overrate my
capacity for love. I don’t possess half the warmth of nature you
believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten
gentleness out of me.”
He immediately said with more resentment: “That may be true, somewhat;
but ah, Miss Everdene, it won’t do as a reason! You are not the cold
woman you would have me believe. No, no. It isn’t because you have no
feeling in you that you don’t love me. You naturally would have me
think so—you would hide from me that you have a burning heart like
mine. You have love enough, but it is turned into a new channel. I know
where.”
The swift music of her heart became hubbub now, and she throbbed to
extremity. He was coming to Troy. He did then know what had transpired!
And the name fell from his lips the next moment.
“Why did Troy not leave my treasure alone?” he asked, fiercely. “When I
had no thought of injuring him, why did he force himself upon your
notice! Before he worried you your inclination was to have me; when
next I should have come to you your answer would have been Yes. Can you
deny it—I ask, can you deny it?”
She delayed the reply, but was too honest to withhold it. “I cannot,”
she whispered.
“I know you cannot. But he stole in in my absence and robbed me. Why
didn’t he win you away before, when nobody would have been
grieved?—when nobody would have been set tale-bearing. Now the people
sneer at me—the very hills and sky seem to laugh at me till I blush
shamefuly for my folly. I have lost my respect, my good name, my
standing—lost it, never to get it again. Go and marry your man—go on!”
“Oh sir—Mr. Boldwood!”
“You may as well. I have no further claim upon you. As for me, I had
better go somewhere alone, and hide—and pray. I loved a woman once. I
am now ashamed. When I am dead they’ll say, miserable love-sick man
that he was. Heaven—heaven—if I had got jilted secretly, and the
dishonour not known, and my position kept! But no matter, it is gone,
and the woman not gained. Shame upon him—shame!”
His unreasonable anger terrified her, and she glided from him, without
obviously moving, as she said, “I am only a girl—do not speak to me
so!”
“All the time you knew—how very well you knew—that your new freak was
my misery. Dazzled by brass and scarlet—Oh Bathsheba—this is woman’s
folly indeed!”
She fired up at once. “You are taking too much upon yourself!” she
said, vehemently. “Everybody is upon me—everybody. It is unmanly to
attack a woman so! I have nobody in the world to fight my battles for
me; but no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of you sneer and say
things against me, I _will not_ be put down!”
“You’ll chatter with him doubtless about me. Say to him, ‘Boldwood
would have died for me.’ Yes, and you have given way to him, knowing
him to be not the man for you. He has kissed you—claimed you as his. Do
you hear—he has kissed you. Deny it!”
The most tragic woman is cowed by a tragic man, and although Boldwood
was, in vehemence and glow, nearly her own self rendered into another
sex, Bathsheba’s cheek quivered. She gasped, “Leave me, sir—leave me! I
am nothing to you. Let me go on!”
“Deny that he has kissed you.”
“I shall not.”
“Ha—then he has!” came hoarsely from the farmer.
“He has,” she said, slowly, and, in spite of her fear, defiantly. “I am
not ashamed to speak the truth.”
“Then curse him; and curse him!” said Boldwood, breaking into a
whispered fury.” Whilst I would have given worlds to touch your hand,
you have let a rake come in without right or ceremony and—kiss you!
Heaven’s mercy—kiss you! … Ah, a time of his life shall come when he
will have to repent, and think wretchedly of the pain he has caused
another man; and then may he ache, and wish, and curse, and yearn—as I
do now!”
“Don’t, don’t, oh, don’t pray down evil upon him!” she implored in a
miserable cry. “Anything but that—anything. Oh, be kind to him, sir,
for I love him true!”
Boldwood’s ideas had reached that point of fusion at which outline and
consistency entirely disappear. The impending night appeared to
concentrate in his eye. He did not hear her at all now.
“I’ll punish him—by my soul, that will I! I’ll meet him, soldier or no,
and I’ll horsewhip the untimely stripling for this reckless theft of my
one delight. If he were a hundred men I’d horsewhip him….” He dropped
his voice suddenly and unnaturally. “Bathsheba, sweet, lost coquette,
pardon me! I’ve been blaming you, threatening you, behaving like a
churl to you, when he’s the greatest sinner. He stole your dear heart
away with his unfathomable lies!… It is a fortunate thing for him that
he’s gone back to his regiment—that he’s in Melchester, and not here! I
hope he may not return here just yet. I pray God he may not come into
my sight, for I may be tempted beyond myself. Oh, Bathsheba, keep him
away—yes, keep him away from me!”
For a moment Boldwood stood so inertly after this that his soul seemed
to have been entirely exhaled with the breath of his passionate words.
He turned his face away, and withdrew, and his form was soon covered
over by the twilight as his footsteps mixed in with the low hiss of the
leafy trees.
Bathsheba, who had been standing motionless as a model all this latter
time, flung her hands to her face, and wildly attempted to ponder on
the exhibition which had just passed away. Such astounding wells of
fevered feeling in a still man like Mr. Boldwood were incomprehensible,
dreadful. Instead of being a man trained to repression he was—what she
had seen him.
[Illustration: BATSHEBA FLUNG HER HANDS TO HER FACE.]
The force of the farmer’s threats lay in their relation to a
circumstance known at present only to herself: her lover was coming
back to Weatherby the very next day. Troy had not returned to his
Melchester Barracks as Boldwood and others supposed, but had merely
gone for a day or two to visit some acquaintance in Bath, and had yet a
week or more remaining to his furlough.
She felt wretchedly certain that if he revisited her just at this nick
of time, and came into contact with Boldwood, a fierce quarrel would be
the consequence. She panted with solicitude when she thought of
possible injury to Troy. The least spark would kindle the farmer’s
swift feelings of rage and jealousy; he would lose his self-mastery as
he had this evening; Troy’s blitheness might become aggressive; it
might take the direction of derision, and Boldwood’s anger might then
take the direction of revenge.
With almost a morbid dread of being thought a gushing girl, this
guileless woman too well concealed from the world under a manner of
carelessness the warm depths of her strong emotions. But now there was
no reserve. In fer her distraction, instead of advancing further, she
walked up and down, beating the air with her fingers, pressing her
brow, and sobbing brokenly to herself. Then she sat down on a heap of
stones by the wayside to think. There she remained long. The dark
rotundity of the earth appeared foreshores and promontories of coppery
cloud which bounded a green and pellucid expanse in the western sky,
amaranthine glosses came over them then, and the unresting world
wheeled her round to a contrasting prospect eastward, in the shape of
indecisive and palpitating stars. She gazed upon their silent throes
amid the shades of space, but realized none at all. Her troubled spirit
was far away with Troy.
CHAPTER II.
NIGHT—HORSES TRAMPING
The village of Weatherbury was quiet as the graveyard in its midst, and
the living were lying well-nigh as still as the dead. The church clock
struck eleven. The air was so empty of other sounds that the whirr of
the clock-work immediately before the strokes was distinct, and so was
also the click of the same at their close. The notes flew forth with
the usual blind obtuseness of inanimate things—flapping and rebounding
among walls, undulating against the scattered clouds, spreading through
their interstices into unexplored miles of space.
Bathsheba’s crannied and mouldy halls were to-night occupied only by
Maryann, Liddy being, as was stated, with her sister, whom Bathsheba
had set out to visit. A few minutes after eleven had struck, Maryann
turned in her bed with a sense of being disturbed. She was totally
unconscious of the nature of the interruption to her sleep. It led to a
dream, and the dream to an awakening, with an uneasy sensation that
something had happened. She left her bed and looked out of the window.
The paddock abutted on this end of the building, and in the paddock she
could just discern by the uncertain gray a moving figure approaching
the horse that was feeding there. The figure seized the horse by the
forelock, and led it to the corner of the field. Here she could see
some object which circumstances proved to be a vehicle for after a few
minutes’ spent apparently in harnessing, she heard the trot of the
horse down the road, mingled with the sound of light wheels.
Two varieties only of humanity could have entered the paddock with the
ghost-like glide of that mysterious figure. They were a woman and a
gipsy man. A woman was out of the question in such an occupation at
this hour, and the comer could be no less than a thief, who might
probably have known the weakness of the household on this particular
night, and have chosen it on that account for his daring attempt.
Moreover, to raise suspicion to conviction itself, there were gipsies
in Weatherbury Bottom.
Maryann, who had been afraid to shout in the robber’s presence, having
seen him depart, had no fear. She hastily slipped on her clothes,
stumped down the disjointed staircase with its hundred creaks, ran to
Coggan’s, the nearest house, and raised an alarm. Coggan called
Gabriel, who now again lodged in his house as at first, and together
they went to the paddock. Beyond all doubt the horse was gone.
“Listen!” said Gabriel.
They listened. Distinct upon the stagnant air came the sounds of a
trotting horse passing up Weatherbury Hill—just beyond the gipsies’
encampment in Weatherbury Bottom.
“That’s our Dainty—I’ll swear to her step,” said Jan.
“Mighty me! Won’t mis’ess storm and call us stupids wen she comes
back!” moaned Maryann. “How I wish it had happened when she was at
home, and none of us had been answerable!”
“We must ride after,” said Gabriel, decisively. “I’ll be responsible to
Miss Everdene for what we do. Yes, we’ll follow.”
“Faith, I don’t see how,” said Coggan. “All our horses are too heavy
for that trick except little Poppet, and what’s she between two of
us?—If we only had that pair over the hedge we might do something.”
“Which pair?”
“Mr Boldwood’s Tidy and Moll.”
“Then wait here till I come hither again,” said Gabriel. He ran down
the hill towards Farmer Boldwood’s.
“Farmer Boldwood is not at home,” said Maryann.
“All the better,” said Coggan. “I know what he’s gone for.”
Less than five minutes brought up Oak again, running at the same pace,
with two halters dangling from his hand.
“Where did you find ’em?” said Coggan, turning round and leaping upon
the hedge without waiting for an answer.
“Under the eaves. I knew where they were kept,” said Gabriel, following
him. “Coggan, you can ride bare-backed? there’s no time to look for
saddles.”
“Like a hero!” said Jan.
“Maryann, you go to bed,” Gabriel shouted to her from the top of the
hedge.
Springing down into Boldwood’s pastures, each pocketed his halter to
hide it from the horses, who, seeing the men empty-handed, docilely
allowed themselves to be seized by the mane, when the halters were
dexterously slipped on. Having neither bit nor bridle, Oak and Coggan
extemporized the former by passing the rope in each case through the
animal’s mouth and looping it on the other side. Oak vaulted astride,
and Coggan clambered up by aid of the bank, when they ascended to the
gate and galloped off in the direction taken by Bathsheha’s horse and
the robber. Whose vehicle the horse had been harnessed to was a matter
of some uncertainty.
Weatherbury Bottom was reached in three or four minutes. They scanned
the shady green patch by the roadside. The gipsies were gone.
“The villains!” said Gabriel. “Which way have they gone, I wonder?”
“Straight on, as sure as God made little apples,” said Jan.
“Very well; we are better mounted, and must overtake overtake ’em,”
said Oak. “Now, on at full speed!”
No sound of the rider in their van could now be discovered. The
road-metal grew softer and more clayey as Weatherbury was left behind,
and the late rain had wetted its surface to a somewhat plastic, but not
muddy state. They came to cross-roads. Coggan suddenly pulled up Moll
and slipped off.
“What’s the matter?” said Gabriel.
“We must try to track ’em, since we can’t hear ’em,” said Jan, fumbling
in his pockets. He struck a light, and held the match to the ground.
The rain had been heavier here, and all foot and horse tracks made
previous to the storm had been abraded and blurred by the drops, and
they were now so many little scoops of water, which reflected the flame
of the match like eyes. One set of tracks was fresh and had no water in
them; one pair of ruts was also empty, and not small canals, like the
others. The footprints forming this recent impression were full of
information as to pace; they were in equidistant pairs, three or four
feet apart, the right and left foot of each pair being exactly opposite
one another.
“Straight on!” Jan exclaimed. “Tracks like that mean a stiff gallop. No
wonder we don’t hear him. And the horse is harnessed—look at the ruts.
Ay, that’s our mare, sure enough!”
“How do you know?”
“Old Jimmy Harris only shoed her last week, and I’d swear to his make
among ten thousand.”
“The rest of the gipsies must have gone on earlier, or some other way,”
said Oak. “You saw there were no other tracks?”
“Trew.” They rode along silently for a long weary time. Coggan’s watch
struck one. He lighted another match, and examined the ground again.
“’Tis a canter now,” he said, throwing away the light. “A twisty,
rickety pace for a gig. The fact is, they overdrove her at starting; we
shall catch them yet.”
Again they hastened on. Coggan’s watch struck two. When they looked
again the hoof-marks were so spaced as to form a sort of zigzag if
united, like the lamps along a street.
“That’s a trot, I know,” said Gabriel.
“Only a trot now,” said Coggan, cheerfully. “We shall overtake him in
time.”
They pushed rapidly on for yet two or three miles. “Ah! a moment,” said
Jan. “Let’s see how she was driven up this hill. ’Twill help us.” A
light was promptly struck upon his gaiters as before, and the
examination made.
“Hurrah!” said Coggan. “She walked up here—and well she might. We shall
get them in two miles, for a crown.”
They rode three, and listened. No sound was to be heard save a
mill-pond trickling hoarsely through a hatch, and suggesting gloomy
possibilities of drowning by jumping in. Gabriel dismounted when they
came to a turning. The tracks were absolutely the only guide as to the
direction that they now had, and great caution was necessary to avoid
confusing them with some others which had made their appearance lately.
“What does this mean?—though I guess,” said Gabriel, looking up at
Coggan as he moved the match over the ground about the turning. Coggan,
who, no less than the panting horses, had latterly shown signs of
weariness, again scrutinized the mystic characters. This time only
three were of the regular horseshoe shape. Every fourth was a dot.
He screwed up his face and emitted a long “whew-w-w!”
“Lame,” said Oak.
“Yes. Dainty is lamed; the near-foot-afore,” said Coggan slowly,
staring still at the footprints.
“We’ll push on,” said Gabriel, remounting his humid steed.
Although the road along its greater part had been as good as any
turnpike-road in the country, it was nominally only a byway. The last
turning had brought them into the high road leading to Bath. Coggan
recollected himself.
“We shall have him now!” he exclaimed.
“Where?”
“Pettiton Turnpike. The keeper of that gate is the sleepiest man
between here and London—Dan Randall, that’s his name—knowed en for
years, when he was at Casterbridge gate. Between the lameness and the
gate ’tis a done job.”
They now advanced with extreme caution. Nothing was said until, against
a shady background of foliage, five white bars were visible, crossing
their route a little way ahead.
“Hush—we are almost close!” said Gabriel.
“Amble on upon the grass,” said Coggan.
The white bars were blotted out in the midst by a dark shape in front
of them. The silence of this lonely time was pierced by an exclamation
from that quarter.
“Hoy-a-hoy! Gate!”
It appeared that there had been a previous call which they had not
noticed, for on their close approach the door of the turnpike-house
opened, and the keeper came out half-dressed, with a candle in his
hand. The rays illumined the whole group.
“Keep the gate close!” shouted Gabriel. “He has stolen the horse!”
“Who?” said the turnpike-man.
Gabriel looked at the driver of the gig, and saw a woman—Bathsheba, his
mistress.
On hearing his voice she had turned her face away from the light.
Coggan had, however, caught sight of her in the meanwhile.
“Why, ’tis mistress—I’ll take my oath!” he said, amazed.
Bathsheba it certainly was, and she had by this time done the trick she
could do so well in crises not of love, namely, mask a surprise by
coolness of manner.
“Well, Gabriel,” she inquired quietly, “where are you going?”
“We thought——” began Gabriel.
“I am driving to Bath,” she said, taking for her own use the assurance
that Gabriel lacked. “An important matter made it necessary for me to
give up my visit to Liddy, and go off at once. What, then, were you
following me?”
“We thought the horse was stole.”
“Well—what a thing! How very foolish of you not to know that I had
taken the trap and horse. I could neither wake Maryann nor get into the
house, though I hammered for ten minutes against her window-sill.
Fortunately, I could get the key of the coach-house, so I troubled no
one further. Didn’t you think it might be me?”
“Why should we, miss?”
“Perhaps not. Why, those are never Farmer Boldwood’s horses! Goodness
mercy! what have you been doing—bringing trouble upon me in this way?
What! mustn’t a lady move an inch from her door without being dogged
like a thief?”
“But how were we to know, if you left no account of your doings,”
expostulated Coggan, “and ladies don’t drive at these hours as a
jineral rule of society.”
“I did leave an account—and you would have seen it in the morning. I
wrote in chalk on the coach-house doors that I had come back for the
horse and gig, and driven off; that I could arouse nobody, and should
return soon.”
“But you’ll consider, ma’am, that we couldn’t see that till it got
daylight.”
“True,” she said, and though vexed at first she had too much sense to
blame them long or seriously for a devotion to her that was as valuable
as it was rare. She added with a very pretty grace, “Well, I really
thank you heartily for taking all this trouble; but I wish you had
borrowed anybody’s horses but Mr. Boldwood’s.”
“Dainty is lame, miss,” said Coggan. “Can ye go on?”
“It was only a stone in her shoe. I dismounted and pulled it out a
hundred yards back. I can manage very well, thank you. I shall be in
Bath by daylight. Will you now return, please?”
She turned her head—the gateman’s candle shimmering upon her quick,
clear eyes as she did so—passed through the gate, and was soon wrapped
in the embowering shades of mysterious summer boughs. Coggan and
Gabriel put about their horses, and, fanned by the velvety air of this
July night, retraced the road by which they had come.
“A strange vagary, this of hers, isn’t it, Oak?” said Coggan,
curiously.
“Yes,” said Gabriel, shortly. “Coggan, suppose we keep this night’s
work as quiet as we can?”
“I am of one and the same mind.”
“Very well. We shall be home by three o’clock or so, and can creep into
the parish like lambs.”
Bathsheba’s perturbed meditations by the roadside had ultimately
evolved a conclusion that there were only two remedies for the present
desperate state of affairs. The first was merely to keep Troy away from
Weatherbury till Boldwood’s indignation had cooled; the second to
listen to Oak’s entreaties, and Boldwood’s denunciations, and give up
Troy altogether.
Alas! Could she give up this new love—induce him to renounce her by
saying she did not like him—could no more speak to him, and beg him,
for her good, to end his furlough in Bath, and see her and Weatherbury
no more?
It was a picture full of misery, but for a while she contemplated it
firmly, allowing herself, nevertheless, as girls will, to dwell upon
the happy life she would have enjoyed had Troy been Boldwood, and the
path of love the path of duty—inflicting upon herself gratuitous
tortures by imagining him the lover of another woman after forgetting
her; for she had penetrated Troy’s nature so far as to estimate his
tendencies pretty accurately, but unfortunately loved him no less in
thinking that he might soon cease to love her—indeed, considerably
more.
She jumped to her feet. She would see him at once. Yes, she would
implore him by word of mouth to assist her in this dilemma. A letter to
keep him away could not reach him in time, even if he should be
disposed to listen to it.
Was Bathsheba altogether blind to the obvious fact that the support of
a lover’s arms is not of a kind best calculated to assist a resolve to
renounce him? Or was she sophistically sensible, with a thrill of
pleasure, that by adopting this course for getting rid of him she was
ensuring a meeting with him, at any rate, once more?
It was now dark, and the hour must have been nearly ten. The only way
to accomplish her purpose was to give up her idea of visiting Liddy at
Yalbury, return to Weatherbury Farm, put the horse into the gig, and
drive at once to Bath. The scheme seemed at first impossible: the
journey was a fearfully heavy one, even for a strong horse; it was most
venturesome for a woman, at night, and alone.
But could she go on to Liddy’s and leave things to take their course?
No, no; anything but that. Bathsheba was full of a stimulating
turbulence, beside which caution vainly prayed for a hearing. She
turned back towards the village.
Her walk was slow, for she wished not to enter Weatherbury till the
cottagers were in bed, and, particularly, till Boldwood was secure. Her
plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in
the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell, and
dismiss him: then to rest the horse thoroughly (herself to weep the
while, she thought), starting early the next morning on her return
journey. By this arrangement she could trot Dainty gently all the day,
reach Liddy at Yalbury in the evening, and come home to Weatherbury
with her whenever they chose—so nobody would know she had been to Bath
at all.
This idea she proceeded to carry out, with what success we have already
seen.
CHAPTER III.
IN THE SUN—A HARBINGER
A week passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there
any explanation of her Gilpin’s rig.
Then a note came for Maryann, stating that the business which had
called her mistress to Bath still detained her there; but that she
hoped to return in the course of another week.
Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were afield
under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air and short
shadows of noon. Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning of
blue-bottle flies; out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss of
tressy oat-ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of
amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath. Every drop of moisture not in
the men’s bottles and flagons in the form of cider was raining as
perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. Drought was everywhere
else.
They were about to withdraw for a while into the charitable shade of a
tree in the fence, when Coggan saw a figure in a blue coat and brass
buttons running to them across the field.
“I wonder who that is?” he said.
“I hope nothing is wrong about mistress,” said Maryann, who with some
other women was tying the bundles (oats being always sheafed on this
farm), “but an unlucky token came to me indoors this morning. l went to
unlock the door and dropped the key, and it fell upon the stone floor
and broke into two pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful bodement. I
wish mis’ess was home.”
“’Tis Cain Ball,” said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his reaphook.
Oak was not bound by his agreement to assist in the corn-field; but the
harvest month is an anxious time for a farmer, and the corn was
Bathsheba’s, so he lent a hand.
“He’s dressed up in his best clothes,” said Matthew Moon. “He hev been
away from home for a few days, since he’s had that felon upon his
finger; for a’ said, since I can’t work I’ll have a hollerday.”
“A good time for one—a excellent time,” said Joseph Poorgrass,
straightening his back; for he, like some of the others, had a way of
resting a while from his labour on such hot days for reasons
preternaturally small; of which Cain Ball’s advent on a week-day in his
Sunday clothes was one of the first magnitude. “’Twas a bad leg allowed
me to read the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, and Mark Clark learnt All-Fours in
a whitlow.”
“Ay, and my father put his arm out of joint to have time to go
courting,” said Jan Coggan, in an eclipsing tone, wiping his face with
his shirt-sleeve and thrusting back his hat upon the nape of his neck.
By this time Cainy was nearing the group of harvesters, and was
perceived to be carrying a large slice of bread and ham in one hand,
from which he took mouthfuls as he ran, the other being wrapped in a
bandage. When he came close, his mouth assumed the bell shape, and he
began to cough violently.
“Now, Cainy!” said Gabriel, sternly. “How many more times must I tell
you to keep from running so fast when you are eating? You’ll choke
yourself some day, that’s what you’ll do, Cain Ball.”
“Hok-hok-hok!” replied Cain. “A crumb of my victuals went the wrong
way—hok-hok! That’s what ’tis, Mister Oak! And I’ve been visiting to
Bath because I had a felon on my thumb; yes, and I’ve seen—ahok-hok!”
Directly Cain mentioned Bath, they all threw down their hooks and forks
and drew round him. Unfortunately the erratic crumb did not improve his
narrative powers, and a supplementary hindrance was that of a sneeze,
jerking from his pocket his rather large watch, which dangled in front
of the young man pendulum-wise.
“Yes,” he continued, directing his thoughts to Bath and letting his
eyes follow, “I’ve seed the world at last—yes—and I’ve seed our
mis’ess—ahok-hok-hok!”
“Bother the boy!” said Gabriel. “Something is always going the wrong
way down your throat, so that you can’t tell what’s necessary to be
told.”
“Ahok! there! Please, Mister Oak, a gnat have just flewed into my
stomach and brought the cough on again!”
“Yes, that’s just it. Your mouth is always open, you young rascal.”
“’Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly down yer throat, pore boy!” said
Matthew Moon.
“Well, at Bath you saw—” prompted Gabriel.
“I saw our mistress,” continued the junior shepherd, “and a soldier,
walking along. And bymeby they got closer and closer, and then they
went arm-in-crook, like courting complete—hok-hok! like courting
complete—hok!—courting complete—” Losing the thread of his narrative at
this point simultaneously with his loss of breath, their informant
looked up and down the field apparently for some clue to it. “Well, I
see our mis’ess and a soldier—a-ha-a-wk!”
“D—— the boy!” said Gabriel.
“’Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if ye’ll excuse it,” said Cain Ball,
looking reproachfully at Oak, with eyes drenched in their own dew.
“Here’s some cider for him—that’ll cure his throat,” said Jan Coggan,
lifting a flagon of cider, pulling out the cork, and applying the hole
to Cainy’s mouth; Joseph Poorgrass in the meantime beginning to think
apprehensively of the serious consequences that would follow Cainy
Ball’s strangulation in his cough, and the history of his Bath
adventures dying with him.
“For my poor self, I always say ‘please God’ afore I do anything,” said
Joseph, in an unboastful voice; “and so should you, Cain Ball. ’Tis a
great safeguard, and might perhaps save you from being choked to death
some day.”
Mr. Coggan poured the liquor with unstinted liberality at the suffering
Cain’s circular mouth; half of it running down the side of the flagon,
and half of what reached his mouth running down outside his throat, and
half of what ran in going the wrong way, and being coughed and sneezed
around the persons of the gathered reapers in the form of a cider fog,
which for a moment hung in the sunny air like a small exhalation.
“There’s a great clumsy sneeze! Why can’t ye have better manners, you
young dog!” said Coggan, withdrawing the flagon.
“The cider went up my nose!” cried Cainy, as soon as he could speak;
“and now ’tis gone down my neck, and into my poor dumb felon, and over
my shiny buttons and all my best cloze!”
“The poor lad’s cough is terrible unfortunate,” said Matthew Moon. “And
a great history on hand, too. Bump his back, shepherd.”
“’Tis my nater.” mourned Cain. “Mother says I always was so excitable
when my feelings were worked up to a point.”
“True, true,” said Joseph Poorgrass. “The Balls were always a very
excitable family. I knowed the boy’s grandfather—a truly nervous and
modest man, even to genteel refinement. ’Twas blush, blush with him,
almost as much as ’tis with me—not but that ’tis a fault in me.”
“Not at all, Master Poorgrass,” said Coggan. “’Tis a very noble quality
in ye.”
“Heh-heh! well, I wish to noise nothing abroad—nothing at all,”
murmured Poorgrass, diffidently. “But we are born to things—that’s
true. Yet I would rather my trifle were hid; though, perhaps, a high
nater is a little high, and at my birth all things were possible to my
Maker, and he may have begrudged no gifts…. But under your bushel,
Joseph! under your bushel with you! A strange desire, neighbours, this
desire to hide, and no praise due. Yet there is a Sermon on the Mount
with a calendar of the blessed at the head, and certain meek men may be
named therein.”
“Cainy’s grandfather was a very clever man,” said Matthew Moon.
“Invented a apple-tree out of his own head, which is called by his name
to this day—the Early Ball. You know ’em, Jan? A Quarrington grafted on
a Tom Putt, and a Rathe-ripe upon top o’ that again. ’Tis trew a’ used
to bide about in a public-house in a way he had no business to by
rights, but there—’a were a clever man in the sense of the term.”
“Now then,” said Gabriel, impatiently, “what did you see, Cain?”
“I seed our mis’ess go into a sort of a park place, where there’s
seats, and shrubs and flowers, arm-in-crook with a soldier,” continued
Cainy, firmly, and with a dim sense that his words were very effective
as regarded Gabriel’s emotions. “And I think the soldier was Sergeant
Troy. And they sat there together for more than half-an-hour, talking
moving things, and she once was crying almost to death. And when they
came out her eyes were shining and she was as white as a lily; and they
looked into one another’s faces, as desperately friendly as a man and
woman can be.”
Gabriel’s features seemed to get thinner. “Well, what did you see
besides?”
“Oh, all sorts.”
“White as a lily? You are sure ’twas she?
“Yes.”
“Well, what besides?”
“Great glass windows to the shops, and great clouds in the sky, full of
rain, and old wooden trees in the country round.”
“You stun-poll! What will ye say next?” said Coggan.
“Let en alone,” interposed Joseph Poorgrass. “The boy’s maning is that
the sky and the earth in the kingdom of Bath is not altogether
different from ours here. ’Tis for our good to gain knowledge of
strange cities, and as such the boy’s words should be suffered, so to
speak it.”
“And the people of Bath,” continued Cain, “never need to light their
fires except as a luxery, for the water springs up out of the earth
ready boiled for use.”
“’Tis true as the light,” testified Matthew Moon.” I’ve heard other
navigators say the same thing.”
“They drink nothing else there,” said Cain, “and seem to enjoy it, to
see how they swaller it down.”
“Well, it seems a barbarous practice enough to us, but I daresay the
natives think nothing of it,” said Matthew.
“And don’t victuals spring up as well as drink?” asked Coggan, twirling
his eye.
“No—I own to a blot there in Bath—a true blot. God didn’t provide ’em
with victuals as well as drink, and ’twas a drawback I couldn’t get
over at all.”
“Well, ’tis a curious place, to say the least,” observed Moon; “and it
must be a curious people that live therein.”
“Miss Everdene and the soldier were walking about together, you say?”
said Gabriel, returning to the group.
“Ay, and she wore a beautiful gold-colour silk gown, trimmed with black
lace, that would have stood alone without legs inside if required.
’Twas a very winsome sight; and her hair was brushed splendid. And when
the sun shone upon the bright gown and his red coat—my! how handsome
they looked. You could see ’em all the length of the street.”
“And what then?” murmured Gabriel.
“And then I went into Griffin’s to have my boots hobbed, and then I
went to Riggs’s batty-cake shop, and asked ’em for a penneth of the
cheapest and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy, but not
quite. And whilst I was chawing ’em down I walked on and seed a clock
with a face as big as a baking-trendle——”
“But that’s nothing to do with mistress!”
“I’m coming to that, if you’ll leave me alone, Mister Oak!”
remonstrated Cainy. “If you excites me, perhaps you’ll bring on my
cough, and then I shan’t be able to tell ye nothing.”
“Yes—let him tell it his own way,” said Coggan.
Gabriel settled into a despairing attitude of patience, and Cainy went
on:—
“And there were great large houses, and more people all the week long
than at Weatherbury club-walking on White Tuesdays. And I went to grand
churches and chapels. And how the parson would pray! Yes; he would
kneel down and put up his hands together, and make the holy gold rings
on his fingers gleam and twinkle in yer eyes, that he’d earned by
praying so excellent well!—Ah yes, I wish I lived there.”
“Our poor Parson Thirdly can’t get no money to buy such rings,” said
Matthew Moon, thoughtfully. “And as good a man as ever walked. I don’t
believe poor Thirdly have a single one, even of humblest tin or copper.
Such a great ornament as they’d be to him on a dull afternoon, when
he’s up in the pulpit lighted by the wax candles! But ’tis impossible,
poor man. Ah, to think how unequal things be.”
“Perhaps he’s made of different stuff than to wear ’em,” said Gabriel,
grimly. “Well, that’s enough of this. Go on, Cainy—quick.”
“Oh—and the new style of parsons wear moustaches and long beards,”
continued the illustrious traveller, “and look like Moses and Aaron
complete, and make we fokes in the congregation feel all over like the
children of Israel.”
“A very right feeling—very,” said Joseph Poorgrass.
“And there’s two religions going on in the nation now—High Church and
High Chapel. And, thinks I, I’ll play fair; so I went to High Church in
the morning, and High Chapel in the afternoon.”
“A right and proper boy,” said Joseph Poorgrass.
“Well, at High Church they pray singing, and believe in all the colours
of the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray preaching, and believe in
drab and whitewash only. And then—I didn’t see no more of Miss Everdene
at all.”
“Why didn’t you say so before, then?” exclaimed Oak, with much
disappointment.
“Ah,” said Matthew Moon, “she’ll wish her cake dough if so be she’s
over intimate with that man.”
“She’s not over intimate with him,” said Gabriel, indignantly.
“She would know better,” said Coggan. “Our mis’ess has too much sense
under those knots of black hair to do such a mad thing.”
“You see, he’s not a coarse, ignorant man, for he was well brought up,”
said Matthew, dubiously. “’Twas only wildness that made him a soldier,
and maids rather like your man of sin.”
“Now, Cain Ball,” said Gabriel restlessly, “can you swear in the most
awful form that the woman you saw was Miss Everdene?”
“Cain Ball, you are no longer a babe and suckling,” said Joseph in the
sepulchral tone the circumstances demanded, “and you know what taking
an oath is. ’Tis a horrible testament mind ye, which you say and seal
with your blood-stone, and the prophet Matthew tells us that on
whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now, before all
the work-folk here assembled, can you swear to your words as the
shepherd asks ye?”
“Please no, Mister Oak!” said Cainy, looking from one to the other with
great uneasiness at the spiritual magnitude of the position. “I don’t
mind saying ’tis true, but I don’t like to say ’tis d—— true, if that’s
what you mane.”
“Cain, Cain, how can you!” asked Joseph sternly. “You are asked to
swear in a holy manner, and you swear like wicked Shimei, the son of
Gera, who cursed as he came. Young man, fie!”
“No, I don’t! ’Tis you want to squander a pore boy’s soul, Joseph
Poorgrass—that’s what ’tis!” said Cain, beginning to cry. “All I mane
is that in common truth ’twas Miss Everdene and Sergeant Troy, but in
the horrible so-help-me truth that ye want to make of it perhaps ’twas
somebody else.”
“There’s no getting at the rights of it,” said Gabriel, turning to his
work.
“Cain Ball, you’ll come to a bit of bread!” groaned Joseph Poorgrass.
Then the reapers’ hooks were flourished again, and the old sounds went
on. Gabriel, without making any pretence of being lively, did nothing
to show that he was particularly dull. However, Coggan knew pretty
nearly how the land lay, and when they were in a nook together he said—
“Don’t take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose
sweetheart she is, since she can’t be yours?”
“That’s the very thing I say to myself,” said Gabriel.
CHAPTER IV.
HOME AGAIN—A JUGGLER
That same evening at dusk Gabriel was leaning over Coggan’s
garden-gate, taking an up-and-down survey before retiring to rest.
A vehicle of some kind was softly creeping along the grassy margin of
the lane. From it spread the tones of two women talking. The tones were
natural and not at all suppressed. Oak instantly knew the voices to he
those of Bathsheba and Liddy.
The carriage came opposite and passed by. It was Miss Everdene’s gig,
and Liddy and her mistress were the only occupants of the seat. Liddy
was asking questions about the city of Bath, and her companion was
answering them listlessly and unconcernedly. Both Bathsheba and the
horse seemed weary.
The exquisite relief of finding that she was here again, safe and
sound, overpowered all reflection, and Oak could only luxuriate in the
sense of it. All grave reports were forgotten.
He lingered and lingered on, till there was no difference between the
eastern and western expanses of sky, and the timid hares began to limp
courageously round the dim hillocks. Gabriel might have been there an
additional half-hour when a dark form walked slowly by. “Good-night,
Gabriel,” the passer said.
It was Boldwood. “Good-night, sir,” said Gabriel.
Boldwood likewise vanished up the road, and Oak shortly afterwards
turned indoors to bed.
Farmer Boldwood went on towards Miss Everdene’s house. He reached the
front, and approaching the entrance, saw a light in the parlour. The
blind was not drawn down, and inside the room was Bathsheba, looking
over some papers or letters. Her back was towards Boldwood. He went to
the door, knocked, and waited with tense muscles and an aching brow.
Boldwood had not been outside his garden since his meeting with
Bathsheba in the road to Yalbury. Silent and alone, he had remained in
moody meditation on woman’s ways, deeming as essentials of the whole
sex the accidents of the single one of their number he had ever closely
beheld. By degrees a more charitable temper had pervaded him, and this
was the reason of his sally to-night. He had come to apologize and beg
forgiveness of Bathsheba with something like a sense of shame at his
violence, having but just now learnt that she had returned—only from a
visit to Liddy, as he supposed, the Bath escapade being quite unknown
to him.
He inquired for Miss Everdene. Liddy’s manner was odd, but he did not
notice it. She went in, leaving him standing there, and in her absence
the blind of the room containing Bathsheba was pulled down. Boldwood
augured ill from that sign. Liddy came out.
“My mistress cannot see you, sir,” she said.
The farmer instantly went out by the gate. He was unforgiven—that was
the issue of it all. He had seen her who was to him simultaneously a
delight and a torture, sitting in the room he had shared with her as a
peculiarly privileged guest only a little earlier in the summer, and
she had denied him an entrance there now.
Boldwood did not hurry homeward. It was ten o’clock at least, when,
walking deliberately through the lower part of Weatherbury, he heard
the carrier’s spring-van entering the village. The van ran to and from
a town in a northern direction, and it was owned and driven by a
Weatherbury man, at the door of whose house it now pulled up. The lamp
fixed to the head of the hood illuminated a scarlet and gilded form,
who was the first to alight.
“Ah!” said Boldwood to himself, “come to see her again.”
Troy entered the carrier’s house, which had been the place of his
lodging on his last visit to his native place. Boldwood was moved by a
sudden determination. He hastened home. In ten minutes he was back
again, and made as if he were going to call upon Troy at the carrier’s.
But as he approached, some one opened the door and came out. He heard
this person say “Good-night” to the inmates, and the voice was Troy’s.
This was strange, coming so immediately after his arrival. Boldwood,
however, hastened up to him. Troy had what appeared to be a carpet-bag
in his hand—the same that he had brought with him. It seemed as if he
were going to leave again this very night.
Troy turned up the hill and quickened his pace. Boldwood stepped
forward.
“Sergeant Troy?”
“Yes—I’m Sergeant Troy.”
“Just arrived from Melchester, I think?”
“Just arrived from Bath.”
“I am William Boldwood.”
“Indeed.”
The tone in which this word was uttered was all that had been wanted to
bring Boldwood to the point.
“I wish to speak a word with you,” he said.
“What about?”
“About her who lives just ahead there—and about a woman you have
wronged.”
“I wonder at your impertinence,” said Troy, moving on.
“Now look here,” said Boldwood, standing in front of him, “wonder or
not, you are going to hold a conversation with me.”
Troy heard the dull determination in Boldwood’s voice, looked at his
stalwart frame, then at the thick cudgel he carried in his hand. He
remembered it was past ten o’clock. It seemed worth while to be civil
to Boldwood.
“Very well, I’ll listen with pleasure,” said Troy, placing his bag on
the ground, “only speak low, for somebody or other may overhear us in
the farmhouse there.”
“Well then—I know a good deal concerning your—Fanny Robin’s attachment
to you. I may say, too, that I believe I am the only person in the
village, excepting Gabriel Oak, who does know it. You ought to marry
her.”
“I suppose I ought. Indeed, I wish to, but I cannot.”
“Why?”
Troy was about to utter something hastily; he then checked himself and
said, “I am too poor.” His voice was changed. Previously it had had a
devil-may-care tone. It was the voice of a trickster now.
Boldwood’s present mood was not critical enough to notice tones. He
continued, “I may as well speak plainly; and understand, I don’t wish
to enter into the questions of right or wrong, woman’s honour and
shame, or to express any opinion on your conduct. I intend a business
transaction with you.”
“I see,” said Troy. “Suppose we sit down here.”
An old tree trunk lay under the hedge immediately opposite, and they
sat down.
“I was engaged to be married to Miss Everdene,” said Boldwood, “but you
came and——”
“Not engaged,” said Troy.
“As good as engaged.”
“If I had not turned up she might have become engaged to you.”
“Hang might!”
“Would, then.”
“If you had not come I should certainly—yes, _certainly_—have been
accepted by this time. If you had not seen her you might have been
married to Fanny. Well, there’s too much difference between Miss
Everdene’s station and your own for this flirtation with her ever to
benefit you by ending in marriage. So all I ask is, don’t molest her
any more. Marry Fanny. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“How will you?”
“I’ll pay you well now, I’ll settle a sum of money upon her, and I’ll
see that you don’t suffer from poverty in the future. I’ll put it
clearly. Bathsheba is only playing with you: you are too poor for her,
as I said; so give up wasting your time about a great match you’ll
never make for a moderate and rightful match you may make to-morrow;
take up your carpet-bag, turn about, leave Weatherbury now, this night,
and you shall take fifty pounds with you. Fanny shall have fifty to
enable her to prepare for the wedding, when you have told me where she
is living, and she shall have five hundred paid down on her
wedding-day.”
In making this statement Boldwood’s voice revealed only too clearly a
consciousness of the weakness of his position, his aims, and his
method. His manner had lapsed quite from that of the firm and dignified
Boldwood of former times; and such a scheme as he had now engaged in he
would have condemned as childishly imbecile only a few months ago. We
discern a grand force in the lover which he lacks whilst a free man;
but there is a breadth of vision in the free man which in the lover we
vainly seek. Where there is much bias there must be some narrowness,
and love, though added emotion, is subtracted capacity. Boldwood
exemplified this to an abnormal degree: he knew nothing of Fanny
Robin’s circumstances or whereabouts, he knew nothing of Troy’s
possibilities, yet that was what he said.
“I like Fanny best,” said Troy; “and if, as you say, Miss Everdene is
out of my reach, why I have all to gain by accepting your money, and
marrying Fan. But she’s only a servant.”
“Never mind—do you agree to my arrangement?”
“I do.”
“Ah!” said Boldwood, in a more elastic voice. “Oh Troy, if you like her
best, why then did you step in here and injure my happiness?”
“I love Fanny best now,” said Troy. “But Bathsh——Miss Everdene inflamed
me, and displaced Fanny for a time. It is over now.”
“Why should it be over so soon? And why then did you come here again?”
“There are weighty reasons. Fifty pounds at once, you said?”
“I did,” said Boldwood, “and here they are—fifty sovereigns.” He handed
Troy a small packet.
“You have everything ready—it seems that you calculated on my accepting
them,” said the sergeant, taking the packet.
“I thought you might accept them,” said Boldwood.
“You’ve only my word that the programme shall be adhered to, whilst I
at any rate have fifty pounds.”
“I had thought of that, and I have considered that if I can’t appeal to
your honour I can trust to your—well, shrewdness we’ll call it—not to
lose five hundred pounds in prospect, and also make a bitter enemy of a
man who is willing to be an extremely useful friend.”
“Stop, listen!” said Troy in a whisper.
A light pit-pat was audible upon the road just above them.
“By George—’tis she,” he continued. “I must go on and meet her.”
“She—who?”
“Bathsheba.”
“Bathsheba—out alone at this time o’ night!” said Boldwood in
amazement, and starting up. “Why must you meet her?”
“She was expecting me to-night—and I must now speak to her, and wish
her good-bye, according to your wish.”
“I don’t see the necessity of speaking.”
“It can do no harm—and she’ll be wandering about looking for me if I
don’t. You shall hear all I say to her. It will help you in your
love-making when I am gone.”
“Your tone is mocking.”
“Oh no. And remember this, if she does not know what has become of me,
she will think more about me than if I tell her flatly I have come to
give her up.”
“Will you confine your words to that one point?—Shall I hear every word
you say?”
“Every word. Now sit still there, and hold my carpet bag for me, and
mark what you hear.”
The light footstep came closer, halting occasionally, as if the walker
listened for a sound. Troy whistled a double note in a soft, fluty
tone.
“Come to that, is it!” murmured Boldwood, uneasily.
“You promised silence,” said Troy.
“I promise again.”
Troy stepped forward.
“Frank, dearest, is that you?” The tones were Bathsheba’s.
“O God!” said Boldwood.
“Yes,” said Troy to her.
“How late you are,” she continued, tenderly. “Did you come by the
carrier? I listened and heard his wheels entering the village, but it
was some time ago, and I had almost given you up, Frank.”
“I was sure to come,” said Frank. “You knew I should, did you not?”
“Well, I thought you would,” she said, playfully; “and, Frank, it is so
lucky! There’s not a soul in my house but me to-night. I’ve packed them
all off, so nobody on earth will know of your visit to your lady’s
bower. Liddy wanted to go to her grandfather’s to tell him about her
holiday, and I said she might stay with them till to-morrow—when you’ll
be gone again.”
[Illustration: “THERE’S NOT A SOUL IN MY HOUSE BUT ME TO-NIGHT”.]
“Capital,” said Troy.” But, dear me, I had better go back for my bag:
you run home whilst I fetch it, and I’ll promise to be in your parlour
in ten minutes.”
“Yes.” She turned and tripped up the hill again.
During the progress of this dialogue there was a nervous twitching of
Boldwood’s tightly closed lips, and his face became bathed in a clammy
dew. He now started forward towards Troy. Troy turned to him and took
up the bag.
“Shall I tell her I have come to give her up and cannot marry her?”
said the soldier, mockingly.
“No, no; wait a minute. I want to say more to you—more to you,” said
Boldwood, in a hoarse whisper.
“Now,” said Troy,” you see my dilemma. Perhaps I am a bad man—the
victim of my impulses—led away to do what I ought to leave undone. I
can’t, however, marry them both. And I have two reasons for choosing
Fanny. First, I like her best upon the whole, and second, you make it
worth my while.”
At the same instant Boldwood sprang upon him, and held him by the neck.
Troy felt Boldwood’s grasp slowly tightening. The move was absolutely
unexpected.
“A moment,” he gasped. “You are injuring her you love.”
“Well, what do you mean?” said the farmer.
“Give me breath,” said Troy.
Boldwood loosened his hand, saying, “By Heaven, I’ve a mind to kill
you!”
“And ruin her.”
“Save her.”
“Oh, how can she be saved now, unless I marry her?”
Boldwood groaned. He reluctantly released the soldier, and flung him
back against the hedge. “Devil, you torture me!” said he.
Troy rebounded like a ball, and was about to make a dash at the farmer;
but he checked himself, saying lightly,—
“It is not worth while to measure my strength with you. Indeed it is a
barbarous way of settling a quarrel. I shall shortly leave the army
because of the same conviction. Now after that revelation of how the
land lies with Bathsheba, ’twould be a mistake to kill me, would it
not?”
“’Twould be a mistake to kill you,” repeated Boldwood, mechanically,
with a bowed head.
“Better kill yourself.”
“Far better.”
“I’m glad you see it.”
“Troy, make her your wife, and don’t act upon what I arranged just now.
The alternative is dreadful, but take Bathsheba; I give her up! She
must love you indeed to sell soul and body to you so utterly as she has
done. Wretched woman—deluded woman—you are, Bathsheba!”
“But about Fanny?”
“Bathsheba is a woman well to do,” continued Boldwood, in nervous
anxiety, “and, Troy, she will make a good wife; and, indeed, she is
worth your hastening on your marriage with her!”
“But she has a will—not to say a temper, and I shall be a mere slave to
her. I could do anything with poor Fanny Robin.”
“Troy,” said Boldwood, imploringly,” I’ll do anything for you, only
don’t desert her; pray don’t desert her, Troy.”
“Which, poor Fanny?”
“No; Bathsheba Everdene. Love her best! Love her tenderly! How shall I
get you to see how advantageous it will be to you to secure her at
once?”
“I don’t wish to secure her in any new way.”
Boldwood’s arm moved spasmodically towards Troy’s person again. He
repressed the instinct, and his form drooped as with pain.
Troy went on,—
“I shall soon purchase my discharge, and then——”
“But I wish you to hasten on this marriage. It will be better for you
both. You love each other, and you must let me help you to do it.”
“How?”
“Why, by settling the five hundred on Bathsheba instead of Fanny, to
enable you to marry at once. No; she wouldn’t have it of me. I’ll pay
it down to you on the wedding-day.”
Troy paused in secret amazement at Boldwood’s wild and purblind
infatuation. He carelessly said, “And am I to have anything now?”
“Yes, if you wish to. But I have not much additional money with me. I
did not expect this; but all I have is yours.”
Boldwood, more like a somnambulist than a wakeful man, pulled out the
large canvas bag he carried by way of a purse, and searched it.
“I have twenty-one pounds more with me,” he said. “Two notes and a
sovereign. But before I leave you I must have a paper signed——”
“Pay me the money, and we’ll go straight to her parlour, and make any
arrangement you please to secure my compliance with your wishes. But
she must know nothing of this cash business.”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Boldwood, hastily. “Here is the sum, and if
you’ll come to my house we’ll write out the agreement for the
remainder, and the terms also.”
“First we’ll call upon her.”
“But why? Come with me to-night, and go with me to-morrow to the
surrogate’s.”
“But she must be consulted; at any rate informed.”
“Very well; go on.”
They went up the hill to Bathsheba’s house. When they stood at the
entrance, Troy said, “Wait here a moment.” Opening the door, he glided
inside, leaving the door ajar.
Boldwood waited. In two minutes a light appeared in the passage.
Boldwood then saw that the chain had been fastened across the door.
Troy appeared inside, carrying a bedroom candlestick.
“What, did you think I should break in?” said Boldwood, contemptuously.
“Oh no; it is merely my humour to secure things. Will you read this a
moment? I’ll hold the light.”
Troy handed a folded newspaper through the slit between door and
doorpost, and put the candle close. “That’s the paragraph,” he said,
placing his finger on a line.
Boldwood looked and read—
“MARRIAGES.
“On the 17th inst., at St. Ambrose’s Church, Bath, by the Rev. G.
Mincing, B.A., Francis Troy, only son of the late Edward Troy, Esq.,
M.D., of Weatherbury, and sergeant 11th Dragoon Guards, to Bathsheba,
only surviving daughter of the late Mr. John Everdene, of
Casterbridge.”
“This may be called Fort meeting Feeble, hey, Boldwood?” said Troy. A
low gurgle of derisive laughter followed the words.
The paper fell from Boldwood’s hands. Troy continued,—
“Fifty pounds to marry Fanny, Good. Twenty-one pounds not to marry
Fanny, but Bathsheba. Good. Finale: already Bathsheba’s husband. Now,
Boldwood, yours is the ridiculous fate which always attends
interference between a man and his wife. And another word. Bad as I am,
I am not such a villain as to make the marriage or misery of any woman
a matter of huckster and sale. Fanny has long ago left me. I don’t know
where she is. I have searched everywhere. Another word yet. You say you
love Bathsheba; yet on the merest apparent evidence you instantly
believe in her dishonour. A fig for such love! Now that I’ve taught you
a lesson, take your money back again.”
“I will not; I will not!” said Boldwood, in a hiss.
“Anyhow I won’t have it,” said Troy, contemptuously. He wrapped the
packet of gold in the notes, and threw the whole into the road.
Boldwood shook his clenched fist at him. “You juggler of Satan! You
black hound! But I’ll punish you yet; mark me, I’ll punish you yet!”
Another peal of laughter. Troy then closed the door, and locked himself
in.
Throughout the whole of that night Boldwood’s dark form might have been
seen walking about the hills and downs of Weatherbury like an unhappy
Shade in the Mournful Fields by Acheron.
CHAPTER V.
AT AN UPPER WINDOW
It was very early the next morning—a time of sun and dew. The confused
beginnings of many birds’ songs spread into the healthy air, and the
wan blue of the heaven was here and there coated with thin webs of
incorporeal cloud which were of no effect in obscuring day. All the
lights in the scene were yellow as to colour, and all the shadows were
attenuated as to form. The creeping plants about the old manor-house
were bowed with rows of heavy water drops, which had upon objects
behind them the effect of minute lenses of high magnifying power.
Just before the clock struck five Gabriel Oak and Coggan passed the
village cross, and went on together to the fields. They were yet barely
in view of their mistress’s house, when Oak fancied he saw the opening
of a casement in one of the upper windows. The two men were at this
moment partially screened by an elder bush, now beginning to be
enriched with black bunches of fruit, and they paused before emerging
from its shade.
A handsome man leaned idly from the lattice. He looked east and then
west, in the manner of one who makes a first morning survey. The man
was Sergeant Troy. His red jacket was loosely thrown on, but not
buttoned, and he had altogether the relaxed bearing of a soldier taking
his ease.
Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at the window.
“She has married him!” he said.
Gabriel had previously beheld the sight, and he now stood with his back
turned, making no reply.
“I fancied we should know something to-day,” continued Coggan. “I heard
wheels pass my door just after dark—you were out somewhere.” He glanced
round upon Gabriel. “Good heavens above us, Oak, how white your face
is; you look like a corpse!”
“Do I?” said Oak, with a faint smile.
“Lean on the gate: I’ll wait a bit.”
“All right, all right.”
They stood by the gate awhile, Gabriel listlessly staring at the
ground. His mind sped into the future, and saw there enacted in years
of leisure the scenes of repentance that would ensue from this work of
haste. That they were married he had instantly decided. Why had it been
so mysteriously managed? It was not at all Bathsheba’s way of doing
things. With all her faults, she was candour itself. Could she have
been entrapped? The union was not only an unutterable grief to him: it
amazed him, notwithstanding that he had passed the preceding week in a
suspicion that such might be the issue of Troy’s meeting her away from
home. Her quiet return with Liddy had to some extent dispersed the
dread. Just as that imperceptible motion which appears like stillness
is infinitely divided in its properties from stillness itself, so had
struggling hopes against the imagined deed differentiated it entirely
from the thing actually done.
In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house. The sergeant
still looked from the window.
“Morning, comrades!” he shouted, in a cheery voice, when they came up.
Coggan replied to the greeting. “Bain’t ye going to answer the man?” he
then said to Gabriel. “I’d say good morning—you needn’t spend a hapeth
of meaning upon it, and yet keep the man civil.”
Gabriel soon decided too that, since the deed was done, to put the best
face upon the matter would be the greatest kindness to her he loved.
“Good-morning, Sergeant Troy,” he returned, in a ghastly voice.
“A rambling, gloomy house this,” said Troy, smiling.
“Why—they _may_ not be married!” suggested Coggan. “Perhaps she’s not
there.”
Gabriel shook his head. The soldier turned a little towards the east,
and the sun kindled his scarlet coat to an orange glow.
“But it is a nice old house,” responded Gabriel.
“Yes—I suppose so; but I feel like new wine in an old bottle here. My
notion is that sash-windows should be put throughout, and these old
wainscoted walls brightened up a bit; or the oak cleared quite away,
and the walls papered.”
“It would be a pity, I think.”
“Well, no. A philosopher once said in my hearing that the old builders,
who worked when art was a living thing, had no respect for the work of
builders who went before them, but pulled down and altered as they
thought fit; and why shouldn’t we? ‘Creation and preservation don’t do
well together,’ says he, ‘and a million of antiquarians can’t invent a
style.’ My mind exactly. I am for making this place more modern, that
we may be cheerful whilst we can.”
The military man turned and surveyed the interior of the room, to
assist his ideas of improvement in this direction. Gabriel and Coggan
began to move on.
“Oh, Coggan,” said Troy, as if inspired by a recollection, “do you know
if insanity has ever appeared in Mr. Boldwood’s family?”
Jan reflected for a moment.
“I once heard that an uncle of his was queer in his head, but I don’t
know the rights o’t,” he said.
“It is of no importance,” said Troy, lightly. “Well, I shall be down in
the fields with you some time this week; but I have a few matters to
attend to first. So good-day to you. We shall, of course, keep on just
as friendly terms as usual. I’m not a proud man: nobody is ever able to
say that of Sergeant Troy. However, what is must be, and here’s
half-a-crown to drink my health, men.”
Troy threw the coin dexterously across the front plot towards Gabriel,
who shunned it in its fall, his face turning to an angry red. Coggan
twirled his eye, edged forward, and caught the money in its ricochet
upon the grass.
“Very well—you keep it, Coggan,” said Gabriel with disdain and almost
fiercely. “As for me, I’ll do without gifts from him.”
“Don’t show it too much,” said Coggan, musingly. “For if he’s married
to her, mark my words, he’ll buy his discharge and be our master here.
Therefore ’tis well to say ‘Friend’ outwardly, though you say
‘Troublehouse’ within.”
“Well—perhaps it is best to be silent; but I can’t go further than
that. I can’t flatter, and if my place here is only to be kept by
smoothing him down, my place must be lost.”
A horseman, whom they had for some time seen in the distance, now
appeared close beside them.
“There’s Mr. Boldwood,” said Oak.” I wonder what Troy meant by his
question.”
Coggan and Oak nodded respectfully to the farmer, just checked their
paces to discover if they were wanted, and finding they were not, stood
back to let him pass on.
The only signs of the terrible sorrow Boldwood had been combating
through the night and was combating now were the want of colour in his
well-defined face, the enlarged appearance of the veins in his forehead
and temples, and the sharper lines about his mouth. The horse bore him
away, and the very step of the animal seemed significant of dogged
despair. Gabriel, for a minute, rose above his own grief in noticing
Boldwood’s. He saw the square figure sitting erect upon the horse, the
head turned to neither side, the elbows steady by the hips, the brim of
the hat level and undisturbed in its onward glide, until the keen edges
of Boldwood’s shape sank by degrees over the hill. To one who knew the
man and his story there was something more striking in this immobility
than in a collapse. The clash of discord between mood and matter here
was forced painfully home to the heart; and, as in laughter there are
more dreadful phases than in tears, so was there in the steadiness of
this agonized man an expression deeper than a cry.
CHAPTER VI.
WEALTH IN JEOPARDY—THE REVEL
One night, at the end of August, when Bathsheba’s experiences as a
married woman were still new, and when the weather was yet dry and
sultry, a man stood motionless in the stackyard of Weatherbury Upper
Farm, looking at the moon and sky.
The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the south slowly
fanned the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashes of buoyant
cloud were sailing in a course at right angles to that of another
stratum, neither of them in the direction of the breeze below. The
moon, as seen through these films, had a lurid metallic look. The
fields were sallow with the impure light, and all were tinged in
monochrome, as if beheld through stained glass. The same evening the
sheep had trailed homeward head to head, the behaviour of the rooks had
been confused, and the horses had moved with timidity and caution.
Thunder was imminent, and, taking some secondary appearances into
consideration, it was likely to be followed by one of the lengthened
rains which mark the close of dry weather for the season. Before twelve
hours had passed a harvest atmosphere would be a bygone thing.
Oak gazed with misgiving at eight naked and unprotected ricks, massive
and heavy with the rich produce of one-half the farm for that year. He
went on to the barn.
This was the night which had been selected by Sergeant Troy—ruling now
in the room of his wife—for giving the harvest supper and dance. As Oak
approached the building the sound of violins and a tambourine, and the
regular jigging of many feet, grew more distinct. He came close to the
large doors, one of which stood slightly ajar, and looked in.
The central space, together with the recess at one end, was emptied of
all incumbrances, and this area, covering about two-thirds of the
whole, was appropriated for the gathering, the remaining end, which was
piled to the ceiling with oats, being screened off with sail-cloth.
Tufts and garlands of green foliage decorated the walls, beams, and
extemporized chandeliers, and immediately opposite to Oak a rostrum had
been erected, bearing a table and chairs. Here sat three fiddlers, and
beside them stood a frantic man with his hair on end, perspiration
streaming down his cheeks, and a tambourine quivering in his hand.
The dance ended, and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row of
couples formed for another.
“Now, ma’am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would like
next?” said the first violin.
“Really, it makes no difference,” said the clear voice of Bathsheba,
who stood at the inner end of the building, observing the scene from
behind a table covered with cups and viands. Troy was lolling beside
her.
“Then,” said the fiddler, “I’ll venture to name that the right and
proper thing is ‘The Soldier’s Joy’—there being a gallant soldier
married into the farm—hey, my sonnies, and gentlemen all?”
“It shall be ‘The Soldier’s Joy,’ exclaimed a chorus.
“Thanks for the compliment,” said the sergeant gaily, taking Bathsheba
by the hand and leading her to the top of the dance. “For though I have
purchased my discharge from Her Most Gracious Majesty’s regiment of
cavalry the 11th Dragoon Guards, to attend to the new duties awaiting
me here, I shall continue a soldier in spirit and feeling as long as I
live.”
So the dance began. As to the merits of “The Soldier’s Joy.” there
cannot be, and never were, two opinions. It has been observed in the
musical circles of Weatherbury and its vicinity that this melody, at
the end of three-quarters of an hour of thunderous footing, still
possesses more stimulative properties for the heel and toe than the
majority of other dances at their first opening. “The Soldier’s Joy”
has, too, an additional charm, in being so admirably adapted to the
tambourine aforesaid—no mean instrument in the hands of a performer who
understands the proper convulsions, spasms, St. Vitus’s dances, and
fearful frenzies necessary when exhibiting its tones in their highest
perfection.
The immortal tune ended, a fine DD rolling forth from the bass-viol
with the sonorousness of a cannonade, and Gabriel delayed his entry no
longer. He avoided Bathsheba, and got as near as possible to the
platform, where Sergeant Troy was now seated, drinking
brandy-and-water, though the others drank without exception cider and
ale. Gabriel could not easily thrust himself within speaking distance
of the sergeant, and he sent a message, asking him to come down for a
moment. The sergeant said he could not attend.
“Will you tell him, then,” said Gabriel, “that I only stepped ath’art
to say that a heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and that something
should be done to protect the ricks?”
“Mr. Troy says it will not rain,” returned the messenger, “and he
cannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets.”
In juxtaposition with Troy, Oak had a melancholy tendency to look like
a candle beside gas, and ill at ease, he went out again, thinking he
would go home; for, under the circumstances, he had no heart for the
scene in the barn. At the door he paused for a moment: Troy was
speaking.
“Friends, it is not only the Harvest Home that we are celebrating
to-night; but this is also a Wedding Feast. A short time ago I had the
happiness to lead to the altar this lady, your mistress, and not until
now have we been able to give any public flourish to the event in
Weatherbury. That it may be thoroughly well done, and that every man
may go happy to bed, I have ordered to be brought here some bottles of
brandy and kettles of hot water. A treble-strong goblet will he handed
round to each guest.”
Bathsheba put her hand upon his arm, and, with upturned pale face, said
imploringly, “No—don’t give it to them—pray don’t, Frank! It will only
do them harm: they have had enough of everything.”
“Trew—we don’t wish for no more, thank ye,” said one or two.
“Pooh!” said the sergeant contemptuously, and raised his voice as if
lighted up by a new idea. “Friends,” he said,” we’ll send the
women-folk home! ’Tis time they were in bed. Then we cockbirds will
have a jolly carouse to ourselves. If any of the men show the white
feather, let them look elsewhere for a winter’s work.”
Bathsheba indignantly left the barn, followed by all the women and
children. The musicians, not looking upon themselves as “company,”
slipped quietly away to their spring waggon and put in the horse. Thus
Troy and the men on the farm were left sole occupants of the place.
Oak, not to appear unnecessarily disagreeable, stayed a little while;
then he, too, arose and quietly took his departure, followed by a
friendly oath from the sergeant for not staying to a second round of
grog.
Gabriel proceeded towards his home. In approaching the door, his toe
kicked something which felt and sounded soft, leathery, and distended,
like a boxing-glove. It was a large toad humbly travelling across the
path. Oak took it up, thinking it might be better to kill the creature
to save it from pain; but finding it uninjured, he placed it again
among the grass. He knew what this direct message from the Great Mother
meant. And soon came another.
When he struck a light indoors there appeared upon the table a thin
glistening streak, as if a brush of varnish had been lightly dragged
across it. Oak’s eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the other side,
where it led up to a huge brown garden-slug, which had come indoors
to-night for reasons of its own. It was Nature’s second way of hinting
to him that he was to prepare for foul weather.
Oak sat down meditating for nearly an hour. During this time two black
spiders, of the kind common in thatched houses, promenaded the ceiling,
ultimately dropping to the floor. This reminded him that if there was
one class of manifestation on this matter that he thoroughly
understood, it was the instincts of sheep. He left the room, ran across
two or three fields towards the flock, got upon a hedge, and looked
over among them.
They were crowded close together on the other side around some furze
bushes, and the first peculiarity observable was that, on the sudden
appearance of Oak’s head over the fence, they did not stir or run away.
They had now a terror of something greater than their terror of man.
But this was not the most noteworthy feature: they were all grouped in
such a way that their tails, without a single exception, were towards
that half of the horizon from which the storm threatened. There was an
inner circle closely huddled, and outside these they radiated wider
apart, the pattern formed by the flock as a whole being not unlike a
vandyked lace collar, to which the clump of furze-bushes stood in the
position of a wearer’s neck.
This was enough to re-establish him in his original opinion. He knew
now that he was right, and that Troy was wrong. Every voice in nature
was unanimous in bespeaking change. But two distinct translations
attached to these dumb expressions. Apparently there was to be a
thunder-storm, and afterwards a cold continuous rain. The creeping
things seemed to know all about the later rain, hut little of the
interpolated thunder-storm; whilst the sheep knew all about the
thunder-storm and nothing of the latter rain.
This complication of weathers being uncommon, was all the more to be
feared. Oak returned to the stack-yard. All was silent here, and the
conical tips of the ricks jutted darkly into the sky. There were five
wheat-ricks in this yard, and three stacks of barley. The wheat when
threshed would average about thirty quarters to each stack; the barley,
at least forty. Their value to Bathsheba, and indeed to anybody, Oak
mentally estimated by the following simple calculation:—
5 × 30 = 150 quarters = 500 £.
3 × 40 = 120 quarters = 250 £.
Total . . . . . .750 £.
Seven hundred and fifty pounds in the divinest form that money can
wear—that of necessary food for man and beast: should the risk be run
of deteriorating this bulk of corn to less than half its value, because
of the instability of a woman? “Never, if I can prevent it!” said
Gabriel.
Such was the argument that Oak set outwardly before him. But man, even
to himself, is a cryptographic page, having an ostensible writing, and
another between the lines. It is possible that there was this golden
legend under the utilitarian one: “I will help, to my last effort, the
woman I have loved so dearly.”
He went back to the barn to endeavour to obtain assistance for covering
the ricks that very night. All was silent within, and he would have
passed on in the belief that the party had broken up, had not a dim
light, yellow as saffron by contrast with the greenish whiteness
outside, streamed through a knot-hole in the folding doors.
Gabriel looked in. An offensive picture met his eye.