 Chapter 24 of Far From the Matting Crowd. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Far From the Matting Crowd by Thomas Hardy. Chapter 24. The Same Night, The Fur Plantation. Among the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had voluntarily imposed upon herself by dispensing with the services of a bailiff, was the particular one of looking around the homestead before going to bed to see that all was right and safe for the night. Gabriel had almost constantly preceded her in this tour every evening, watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of surveillance could have done, but this tender devotion was to a great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was somewhat thanklessly received. Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness and love, but they only seem to snub his constancy. As watching his best done invisibly, she usually carried a dark lantern in her hand and every now and then turned on the light to examine nooks and corners with the coolness of a metropolitan policeman. This coolness may have owed its existence not so much to her fearlessness of expected danger as to her freedom from the suspicion of any. Her worst anticipated discovery being that a horse might not be well bedded, the fowls not all in, or a door not closed. This night the buildings were inspected as usual and she went round the farm paddock. Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness were steady munchings of many mouths and centaurian breathings from all but invisible noses, ending in snores and puffs like the blowing of bellows slowly. Then the munching would recommence when the lively imagination might assist the eye to discern a group of pink-white nostrils shaped as caverns and very clammy and humid on their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to the touch until one got used to them, the vowels beneath having a great partiality for closing upon any loose end of Bathsheba's apparel which came within reach of their tongues. Above each of these a still keener vision suggested a brown forehead and two staring though not unfriendly eyes and above all a pair of whitish crescent shaped horns like two particularly new moons, an occasional stolid moo proclaiming beyond the shade of a doubt that these phenomena were the features and persons of Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonnie Lass, Jolly O, Spot, Twinkle Eye, etc. etc. The respectable dairy of Devin Cowes belonging to Bathsheba aforesaid. Her way back to the house was by a path through a young plantation of tapering furs which had been planted some years earlier to shelter the premises from the north wind. By reason of the density of the interwoven foliage overhead it was gloomy there at cloudless noon tide, twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight. To describe the spot is to call it a vast, low, naturally formed hall, the plumey ceiling of which was supported by slender pillars of living wood, the floor being covered with a soft, done carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed cones with a tuft of grass blades here and there. This bit of the path was always the crux of the night's ramble though, before starting her apprehensions of danger were not vivid enough to lead her to take a companion. Slipping along here covertly as time, Bathsheba fancied she could hear footsteps entering the track at the opposite end. It was certainly a rustle of footsteps. Her own instantly fell as gently as snowflakes. She reassured herself by a remembrance that the path was public and that the traveler was probably some villager returning home. Regretting at the same time that the meeting should be about to occur in the darkest point of her route, even though only just outside her own door. The noise approached came close and a figure was apparently on the point of gliding past her when something tugged at her skirt and pinned it forcibly to the ground. The instantaneous check nearly threw Bathsheba off her balance. In recovering she struck against warm clothes and buttons. A rumb start upon my soul said a masculine voice a foot or so above her head. Have I hurt you, mate? No, said Bathsheba attempting to shrink away. We have got hitched together somehow, I think. Yes. Are you a woman? Yes. A lady, I should have said. It doesn't matter. I am a man. Oh, Bathsheba softly tugged again but to no purpose. Is that a dark lantern you have? I fancy so, said the man. Yes. If you'll allow me, I'll open it and set you free. A hand seized the lantern, the door was open, the rays burst out from their prison and Bathsheba beheld her position with astonishment. The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in brass and scarlet. He was a soldier. His sudden appearance was to darkness what the sound of a trumpet is to silence. Gloom, the genius loci at all times hitherto, was now totally overthrown less by the lantern light than by what the lantern lighted. The contrast of this revelation with her anticipations of some sinister figure in somber garb was so great that it had upon her the effect of a fairy transformation. It was immediately apparent that the military man's spur had become entangled in the gimp which decorated the skirt of her dress. He caught a view of her face. I'll unfasten you in one moment, Miss, he said with newborn gallantry. You know, I can do it, thank you," she hastily replied and stooped for the performance. The unfastening was not such a trifling affair. The rattle of the spur had so wound itself among the gimp cords in those few moments that separation was likely to be a matter of time. He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the ground betwixt them through the gleam from its open side among the fir tree needles and the blades of long damp grass with the effect of a large glow worm. It radiated upwards into their faces and sent over half the plantation gigantic shadows of both man and woman, each dusky shape becoming distorted and mangled upon the tree trunks till it wasted to nothing. He looked hard into her eyes when she raised him for a moment. Bathsheba looked down again for his gaze was too strong to be received point blank with her own. But she had obliquely noticed that he was young and slim and that he wore three chevrons upon his sleeve. Bathsheba pulled again. You are a prisoner, Miss. It is no use blinking the matter, said the soldier dryly. I must cut your dress if you are in such a hurry. Yes, please do, she exclaimed helplessly. It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a moment, and he unwound a cord from the little wheel. She withdrew her own hand, but whether by accident or design, he touched it. Bathsheba was vexed. She hardly knew why. His unraveling went on, but nevertheless seemed coming to no end. She looked at him again. Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face, said the young sergeant without ceremony. She colored with embarrassment. Twas unwillingly shunned, she replied stiffly and with as much dignity which was very little as she could infuse into a position of captivity. I like you the better for that incivility, Miss, he said. I should have liked. I wish you had never shown yourself to me by intruding here. She pulled again, and the gathers of her dress began to give way like the Lapuchin musketry. I deserve the chastisement your words give me, but why should such a fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to her father's sex? Go on your way, please. What beauty, and drag you after me? Do but look. I never saw such a tangle. Oh, tis shameful of you. You have been making it worse on purpose to keep me here. You have. Indeed, I don't think so, said the sergeant with a merry twinkle. I tell you you have, she exclaimed in high temper. I insist upon undoing it. Now allow me. Certainly, Miss, I am not of steel. He added a sigh which had as much archeness than it is a sigh could possess without losing its nature altogether. I am thankful for beauty even when tis thrown to me like a bone to a dog. These moments will be over too soon. She closed her lips in a determined silence. Bathsheba was revolving in her mind, whether by a bold and desperate rush she could free herself at the risk of leaving her skirt bodily behind her. The thought was too dreadful. The dress, which she had put on to appear stately at the supper, was the head in front of her wardrobe. Not another in her stock became her so well. The woman in Bathsheba's position, not naturally timid and within call of her retainers, would have bought escape from a dashing soldier at so dear a price. All in good time, it will soon be done, I perceive, said her cool friend. This trifling provokes and, and not too cruel, insults me. It is done in order that I may have the pleasure of apologizing to so charming a woman, which I straightaway do most humbly, madam, he said, bowing low. Bathsheba really knew not what to say. I've seen a good many women in my time, continued the young man in a murmur and more thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding her bent head at the same time, but I've never seen a woman so beautiful as you. Take it or leave it, be offended or like it, I don't care. Who are you then, who can so well afford to despise opinion? No stranger, sergeant Troy, I am staying in this place, there. It is undone at last, you see. Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's no untieing. This was worse and worse. She started up and so did he, had to decently get away from him. That was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness of his coat no longer. Ah, beauty, good-bye, he said. She made no reply and reaching a distance of twenty or thirty yards, turned about and ran indoors. Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her own chamber, Bathsheba opened the girl's door an inch or two in panting, said, Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village, sergeant somebody, rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good-looking, a red coat with blue facings? No, miss, no, I say. But really, it might be sergeant Troy, home on furlough, though I have not seen him. He was here once in that way when the regiment was at Castor Bridge. Yes, that's the name. Had he a moustache, no whiskers or beard? He had. What kind of a person is he? Oh, miss, I blush to name it. A gay man. But I know him to be very quick and trim, who might have made his thousands like a squire. He's not every young dandy as he is. He's a doctor's son by name, which is a great deal, and he's an Earl's son by nature. Which is a great deal more. Fancy, is it true? Yes, and he was brought up so well and sent to Castor Bridge Grammar School for years and years, learned all languages while he was there, and it was said he got on so far that he could take down Chinese in shorthand. But that I don't answer for, as it was only reported. I've been a surgeon, listed a soldier, but even then he rose to be a sergeant without trying at all. Ah, such a blessing it is to be high-born. Nobility of blood will shine out even in the ranks and files, and has he really come home, miss? I believe so. Good night, Liddy. After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts be permanently offended with man? There are occasions when girls like Bathsheba will put up with a great deal of unconventional behavior. They will be praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered, which is sometimes, and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba with a dash of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the ministerate was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome stranger who had evidently seen better days. So she could not clearly decide whether it was her opinion that he had insulted her or not. Was ever anything so odd she at last exclaimed to herself in her own room, and was ever anything so meanly done as what I did to skulk away like that from a man who was only civil and kind. Clearly, she did not think his bare-faced praise of her person an insult now. It was a fatal omission of bold woods that he had never once told her she was beautiful. End of Chapter 24 Recording by Leanne Howlett. Chapter 25 of Far From the Madding Crowd. This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. Chapter 25 The New Acquaintance Described. Ideosyncrasy Ideosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being. He was a man to whom memories weren't encumbrance and anticipations a superfluity. Simply feeling, considering and caring for what was before his eyes he was vulnerable only in the present. His outlook upon time was as a transient flash of the eye now and then, that projection of consciousness in today's eye and to come, which makes the past a synonym for the pathetic and the future a word for circumspection was foreign to Troy. With him, the past was yesterday, the future tomorrow, never the day after. On this account he might in certain lights have been regarded as one of the most fortunate of his order. For it may be argued with great plausibility that reminiscence is less than endowment than a disease and that expectation in its only comfortable form, that of absolute faith, is practically an impossibility, whilst in the form of hope in the secondary compounds patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity it is a constant fluctuation between pleasure and pain. Sergeant Troy being entirely innocent of the practice of expectation was never disappointed. To set against this negative gain there may have been some positive losses from a certain narrowing of the higher tastes and sensations which had entailed. But limitation of the capacity has never recognized as a loss by the loser there from. In this attribute moral or aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material since those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind it soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anything to have been always without it and what Troy had never enjoyed he did not miss. But being fully conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed his capacity though really less seemed greater than theirs. He was moderately truthful towards men but to women lied like a cretin. A system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society and the possibility of the favor gained being transitory had reference only to the future. He had ever passed the line which devised the spruce vices from the ugly and hence though his morals had hardly been applauded disapproval of them had frequently been tempered with a smile. This treatment had led to his becoming a sort of regraeter of other men's gallantries to his own agranism as a Corinthian rather than to the moral profit of his hearers. His reason and his propensities had seldom any reciprocating influence having separated by mutual consent long ago since it sometimes happened that while his intentions were as honorable as could be wished any particular deed formed a dark background which threw them into fine relief. The sergeant's vicious phases being the offspring of impulse and as virtuous phases of cool meditation the latter had a modest tendency to be often heard of then seen. Troy was full of activity but his activities were less of a locomotive than a vegetative nature and never being based upon any original choice of foundation or direction they were exercised on whatever object chance might place in their way. Hence, whilst he sometimes reached the brilliant in speech because that was spontaneous, he fell below the commonplace in action from inability to guide incipient effort. He had a quick comprehension and considerable force of character but being without the power to combine them the comprehension became engaged with trivialities whilst waiting for the will to direct it and the force wasted itself in useless grooves through unheating the comprehension. He was a fairly well educated man for one of middle class exceptionally well educated for a common soldier he spoke fluently and unceasingly he could in this way be one thing and seem another for instance, he could speak of love and think of dinner, call on the husband to look at the wife, be eager to pay and intend to owe. The wondrous power of flattery and passados at women is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb or say that they are Christians and the like without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the compliment being alluded to. With the majority such an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe to bring this meaning thoroughly home. When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness it seems coordinate with the belief that this flattery must be reasonable to be effective. It is to the credit of men that few attempt to settle the question by experiment and it is for their happiness perhaps that accident has never settled it for them. Nevertheless that a male dissimilar who by deluging her with untenable fictions charms the female wisely and require powers reaching to the extremity of perdition is a truth taught to many by unsought and ringing occurrences. And some profess to have attained to the same knowledge by experiment as aforesaid and jauntily continue their indulgence in such experiments with terrible effect. Sergeant Troy was one. He had been known to observe casually that in dealing with woman kind the only alternative to flattery was cursing and swearing. This is the third method. Treat them fairly and you are a lost man he would say. This person's public appearance and whether be promptly followed his arrival there. A week or two after the shearing Bathsheba feeling a nameless relief of spirits on account of bold woods absence approached her hay fields and looked over the hedge towards the hay makers. They consisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and fluctuous forms the former being the men of the women who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankine which hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing in a less forward meadow. Clark coming attuned to the strokes of the sky to which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead they were already loading hay the women raking it into cocks and windrows and the men tossing it upon the wagon. From behind the wagon a bright scarlet spot emerged and went on loading unconcernedly with the rest. It was the gallant sergeant who had come haymaking for pleasure and nobody could deny that he was doing the mistress of the farm real night service by this voluntary contribution of his labor at a busy time. As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and picking up his crop or cane he came forward. Bathsheba blushed with half angry embarrassment and adjusted her eyes as well as her feet to the direct line of her path. End of Chapter 25 Recording by Leanne Howlett Chapter 26 of Far From the Matting Crowd This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Leanne Howlett Far From the Matting Crowd by Thomas Hardy Chapter 26 Seeing on the Verge of the Haymeade Ah, Miss Everdeen said the sergeant touching his diminutive cap little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night and yet if I had reflected the Queen of the Corn Market truth is truth at any hour of the day or night and I heard you so name in Castor Bridge yesterday, the Queen of the Corn Market I say it could be no other woman I step across not a beggar forgiveness a thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a stranger to be sure I am no stranger to the place I am Sergeant Troy as I told you and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad I have been doing the same for you today I suppose I must thank you for that Sergeant Troy said the Queen of the Corn Market in an indifferently grateful tone the sergeant looked hurt and sad indeed you must not miss Everdeen he said why could you think such a thing necessary I am glad it is not why if I may ask without offense because I don't much want to thank you for anything I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never mend oh these intolerable times that ill luck should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful to as the most I said you must own that and the least I could say that I own myself there is some talk I could do without more easily than money indeed that remark is a sort of digression no it means I would rather have your room than your company and I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman so I will stay here Bathsheba was absolutely speechless and yet she could not help feeling that the assistance he was rendering forbade a harsh repulse well continued Troy I suppose there is a praise which is rudeness and that may be mine at the same time there is a treatment which is injustice and that may be yours because a plain blunt man who has never been taught concealment speaks out his mind without exactly intending it he is to be snapped off like the son of a sinner indeed there is no such case between us and I have been turning away I don't allow strangers to be bold and impudent even in praise of me ah it is not the fact but the method which offends you he said carelessly but I have had the sad satisfaction of knowing that my words whether pleasing or offensive are unmistakably true would you have had me look at you and tell my acquaintance that you are quite a common place woman to save you the embarrassment of being stared at if they come near you not I would you have a ridiculous lie about a beauty to encourage a single woman in England into excessive immodesty it is all pretense which you are saying exclaim bashable laughing in spite of herself at the sly method you have a rare invention sergeant Troy why couldn't you have passed by me that night and said nothing that was all I meant to reproach you for because I wasn't going to half the pleasure of a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of the moment not mine it would have been just the same if you had been the reverse person ugly and old I should have exclaimed about it in the same way how long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling then oh ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from deformity tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of doesn't stop at faces but extends to morals as well I won't speak of morals or religion or anybody else's though perhaps I should have been a very good Christian if you pretty women hadn't made me an idolater Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimplings of merriment Troy followed whirling his crop but Miss Everdeen you do forgive me hardly why you say such things I said you were beautiful and I'll say so still for by so you are the most beautiful ever I saw or may I fall dead this instant why upon my don't don't I won't listen to you you are so profane she said in a restless state between distress adhering him and a penchant to hear more I again say you are a most fascinating woman there's nothing remarkable in my saying so is there I'm sure the fact is evident enough Miss Everdeen my opinion may be too forcibly let out to please you and for the matter of that too insignificant event you but surely it is honest and why can't it be excused because it it isn't a correct one she femininely murmured oh Phi Phi am I any worse for breaking the third of that terrible ten than you for breaking the ninth well it doesn't seem quite true to me that I am fascinating she replied evasively not so to you then I say with all respect that if so it is owing to your modesty Miss Everdeen but surely you must have been told by everybody of what everybody notices and you should take their words for it they don't say so exactly oh yes they must well I mean to my face as you do she went on allowing herself to be further lured into a conversation that intention had rigorously forbidden but you know they think so no that is I certainly say they do but she paused capitulation that was the purport of the simple reply guarded as it was capitulation unknown to herself never did a fragile, tailless sentence convey a more perfect meaning the careless sergeant smile within himself and probably too the devil smile from a loophole and tofu it for the moment was the turning point of a career her tone and mean signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the chink the remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes there the truth comes out said the soldier in reply never tell me that a young lady can live in a buzz of admiration without knowing something about it oh well Miss Everdeen you are pardon my blunt way you are rather an injury to our race than otherwise how indeed she said opening her eyes oh it is true enough I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb an old country saying not of much account but it will do for a rough soldier and so I will speak my mind regardless of your pleasure and without hoping or intending to get your pardon why Miss Everdeen it is in this manner that your good looks may do more harm than good in the world the sergeant looked down the meat in critical abstraction probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman she can marry him he is content and leads a useful life such women as you a hundred men always covet your eyes will be which scores on scores into an unavailing fancy for you you can only marry one of that many out of these say twenty will endeavor to drown the bitterness of despise love and drink twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in the world because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you twenty more the susceptible person myself possibly among them will be always dragling after you getting where they may just see you doing desperate things men are such constant fools the rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success but all these men will be saddened and not only those ninety nine men but the ninety nine women they might have married or saddened with them there is my tale that's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself Miss Everdeen is hardly a blessing to her race the handsome sergeant's features were during this speech as rigid and stern as John Knox's in addressing his gay young queen seeing she made no reply he said do you read French no I began but when I got to the verbs father died she said simply I do when I have an opportunity which laterally has not been often my mother was a Parisian and there's a proverb they have K. Amébien Chatébien he chastens who loves well do you understand me ah she replied and there was even a little tremulousness in the usually cool girls voice if you can only fight half as winningly as you can talk you were able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound and then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this admission and hastily trying to retrieve it she went from bad to worse don't however suppose that I drive any pleasure from what you tell me I know you do not I know it perfectly said Troy with much hearty conviction on the exterior of his face and altering the expression to moodiness when a dozen men are ready to speak tenderly to you and give the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you need it stands to reason that my poor rough and ready mixture of praise and blame cannot convey much pleasure and may be I am not so conceited as to suppose that I think you are conceited nevertheless said Bathsheba looking as scant at her reach she was fitfully pulling with one hand having lately grown feverish under the soldier's system of procedure not because the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived but because it's vigor was overwhelming I would not own it to anybody else nor do I exactly to you still there might have been some self-conceit in my foolish supposition the other night I knew that what I said in admiration might be an opinion too often forced upon you to give any pleasure but I certainly did think that the kindness of your nature might prevent you judging an uncontrolled tongue harshly which you have done and thinking badly of me and wounding me this morning when I am working hard to save your hay well you need not think more of that perhaps you did not mean to be rude to me by speaking out your mind indeed I believe you did not said the shrewd woman in painfully innocent earnest and I thank you for giving help here but mind you don't speak to me again in that way or in any other unless I speak to you oh Miss Bathsheba that is too hard no it isn't why is it you will never speak to me for I shall not be here long I am soon going back again to the miserable monotony of drill and perhaps our regiment will be ordered out soon and yet you take away the one little you lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life of mine well perhaps generosity is not a woman's most marked characteristic when are you going from here she asked with some interest in a month but how can it give you pleasure to speak to me can you ask Miss Everdeen knowing as you do what my offense is based on if you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind I don't mind doing it she uncertainly and doubly answered but you can't really care for a word from me you only say so I think you only say so that's unjust but I won't repeat the remark I am too gratified to get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavill at the tone I do Miss Everdeen care for it you may think a man foolish to want a mere word just a good morning perhaps he is, I don't know do you know what such an experience is like in heaven forbid that you ever should nonsense flatterer what is it like I am interested in knowing put shortly it is not being able to think here or look in any direction except one without wretchedness nor there without torture ah sergeant it won't do you you are pretending she said shaking her head your words are too dashing to be true I am not upon the honor of a soldier but why is it so of course I ask from your pastime because you were so distracting and I am so distracted you look like it I am indeed why you only saw me the other night that makes no difference the lightning works instantaneously I loved you then at once as I do now Bathsheba surveyed her and she said Bathsheba surveyed him curiously from the feet upward as high as she liked to venture her glance which was not quite so high as his eyes you cannot and you don't she said demerly there is no such sudden feeling in people I won't listen to you any longer hear me I wish I knew what o'clock it is I am going I have wasted too much time here already the sergeant looked at his watch and told her what haven't you a watch miss he inquired I have not just at present I am about to get a new one no you should be given one yes you shall a gift miss everdeen a gift and before she knew what the young man was intending a heavy gold watch was in her hand it is an unusually good one for a man like me to possess he quietly said that watch has a history press the spring and open the back she did so a crest and a motto a coronet with five points and beneath sedit and more rebus love yields to circumstance it's the motto of the earls of severn that watch belonged to the last lord and was given to my mother's husband a medical man for his use till I came of age when it was to be given to me it was all the fortune that ever I inherited that watch has regulated imperial interest in its time the stately ceremonial the courtly assignation pompous travels and lordly sleeps now it is yours but sergeant Troy I cannot take this I cannot she exclaimed with round eyed wonder a gold watch what are you doing don't be such a dissembler the sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift which she held up persistently towards him Bathsheba followed as he retired keep it do miss everdeen keep it said the erratic child of impulse the fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten times as much to me a more plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats against well I won't speak of that it is in far worthier hands than ever it has been in before but indeed I can't have it she said in a perfect simmer of distress oh how can you do such a thing that is if you really mean it give me your dead father's watch and such a valuable one you should not be so reckless indeed sergeant Troy I loved my father good but better I love you more that's how I can do it said the sergeant with an intonation of such exquisite fidelity to nature that it was evidently not all acted now her beauty which whilst it had been quacient he had praised ingest had in its animated phases moved him to earnest and though his seriousness was less than she imagined it was probably more than he imagined himself Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment and she said in half suspicious accents of feeling can it be? well how can it be that you care for me and so suddenly you have seen so little of me I may not be really so so nice looking as I seem to you please do take it oh do I cannot and will not have it believe me your generosity is too great I have never done you a single kindness and why should you be so kind to me a factitious reply had been again upon his lips but it was again suspended and he looked at her with an arrested eye the truth was that as she now stood excited, wild and honest as the day her alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it that he was quite startled at his temerity and advancing them as false he said mechanically ah why and continued to look at her and my work folks see me following you about the field and are wondering oh this is dreadful she went on unconscious of the transmutation she was affecting I did not quite mean you to accept that at first for it was my one poor patent of nobility he broke out bluntly but upon my soul I wish you would now without any shamming come don't deny me the happiness of wearing it for my sake but you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are no no don't say so I have reasons for reserve which I cannot explain let it be then let it be he said receiving back the watch at last I must be leaving you now and will you speak to me for these few weeks of my stay indeed I will yet I don't know if I will oh why did you come and disturb me so perhaps in setting a gin I have caught myself such things have happened well will you let me work in your fields he coaxed yes I suppose if it is any pleasure to you Miss Everdeen I thank you no no goodbye the sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the soap of his head saluted and returned to the distant group of haymakers Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now her heart erratically flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement hot and almost tearful she retreated homeward murmuring oh what have I done what does it mean I wish I knew how much of it was true end of chapter 26 recording by Leanne Howlett chapter 27 of Far From the Madden Crowd this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Far From the Madden Crowd by Thomas Hardy chapter 27 Hiving the Bees The Weatherbury Bees were late in their swarming this year it was in the latter part of June and the day after the interview with Troy in the hayfield that Bathsheba was standing in her garden watching a swarm in the air and guessing their probable settling place not only were they late this year but unruly sometimes throughout a whole season all the swarms would alight on the lowest attainable bow such as part of a current bush or a spalia apple tree next year they would with just the same unanimity make straight off to the uppermost member of some tall gaunt costard or quarrandon and there defy all invaders who did not come armed with ladders and staves to take them this was the case at present Bathsheba's eyes shaded by one hand were following the ascending multitude against the unexplorable stretch of blue till they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy trees spoken of a process somewhat analogous to that of alleged formations of the universe time and times ago was observable the bustling swarm had swept the sky in a scattered and uniform haze which now thickened to a nebulous centre this glided onto a bow and grew still denser till it formed a solid black spot upon the light the men and women being all busily engaged in saving the hay even Liddy had left the house for the purpose of lending a hand Bathsheba resolved to hive the bees herself if possible she had dressed the hive with herbs and honey fetched a ladder, brush and crook made herself impregnable with armour of leather gloves straw hat and a large gauze veil once green but now faded to snuff colour and ascended a dozen rungs of the ladder at once she heard not ten yards off a voice that was beginning to have a strange power in agitating her Miss Everdeen, let me assist you you should not attempt such a thing alone Troy was just opening the garden gate Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook and empty hive pulled the skirt of her dress tightly round her ankles in a tremendous flurry and as well as she could slid down the ladder by the time she reached the bottom Troy was there also and he stooped to pick up the hive how fortunate I am to have dropped in at this moment exclaimed the sergeant she found her voice in a minute what and will you shake them in for me she asked in what for a defiant girl was a faltering way though for a timid girl it would have seemed a brave way enough will I said Troy well of course I will how blooming you are today Troy flung down his cane and put his foot on the ladder to ascend but you must have on the veil and gloves or you'll be stung fearfully ah yes I must put on the veil and gloves will you kindly show me how to fix them properly and you must have the broad brimmed hat too for your cap has no brim to keep the veil off and they'd reach your face the broad brimmed hat too by all means so a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be taken off veil and all attached and placed upon his head Troy tossing his own into a gooseberry bush then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge around his collar and the gloves put on him he looked such an extraordinary object in this guise that flowed as she was she could not avoid laughing outright it was the removal of yet another state from the palisade of cold manners which had kept him off Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst he was busy sweeping and shaking the bees from the tree holding up the hive with the other hand for them to fall into she made use of an unobserved minute whilst his attention was absorbed in the operation to arrange her plumes a little he came down holding the hive at arm's length behind which trailed a cloud of bees upon my life said Troy through the veil holding up this hive makes one's arm ache worse than a week of sword exercise when the manoeuvre was complete he approached her would you be good enough to untie me but I'm nearly stifled inside this silk cage to hide her embarrassment during the unwanted process of untying the string about his neck she said I've never seen that you spoke of what? the sword exercise ah would you like to said Troy Bathsheba hesitated she had heard wondrous reports from time to time by dwellers in Weatherbury who had by chance sojourned a while in Casterbridge near the barracks of this strange and glorious performance the sword exercise men and boys who had peeped through the chinks or over walls into the barret yard returned with accounts of its being the most flashing affair conceivable accoutrements and weapons glistening like stars here there around yet all by rule and compass so she said mildly what she felt strongly yes I should like to see it very much and so you shall you shall see me go through it no how let me consider not with a walking stick I don't care to see that it must be a real sword yes I know and I have no sword here but I think I could get one by the evening now will you do this Troy bent over her and murmured some suggestion in a low voice oh no indeed said Bathsheba blushing thank you very much thank you very much but I couldn't on any account surely you might nobody would know she shook her head but with a weakened negation if I were to she said I must bring Liddy too might I not Troy looked far away I don't see why you want to bring her he said coldly an unconscious look of ascent in Bathsheba's eyes betrayed that something more than his coldness had made her also Liddy would be superfluous in the suggested scene she had felt it even whilst making the proposal well I won't bring Liddy and I'll come but only for a very short time she added a very short time it will not take five minutes said Troy End of Chapter 27 Chapter 28 of Far From the Madding Crowd this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy Chapter 28 The Hollow Amid the Furns The Hill opposite Bathsheba's dwelling extended a mile off into an uncultivated tract of land dotted at this season with tall thickets of brake fern plump and diaphanous from recent rapid growth and radiant in hues of clear and untainted green at eight o'clock this midsummer evening whilst the bristling ball of gold in the west still swept the tips of the ferns with its long luxuriant rays a soft brushing by of garments that have been heard among them and Bathsheba appeared in their midst their soft feathery arms caressing her up to her shoulders she paused turned went back over the hill and halfway to her own door when she cast a farewell glance upon the spot she had just left having resolved not to remain near the place after all she saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round the shoulder of the rise it disappeared on the other side she waited one minute two minutes thought of Troy's disappointment at her non-fulfillment of a promised engagement till she again ran along the field clambered over the bank and followed the original direction she was now literally trembling and panting at this her temerity in such an errant undertaking her breath came and went quickly drawn with an infrequent light yet go she must she reached the verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns Troy stood in the bottom looking up towards her I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw you, he said coming up and giving her his hand to help her down the slope the pit was a saucer shaped concave naturally formed with a top diameter of about 30 feet and shallow enough to allow the sunshine to reach their heads standing in the center the sky overhead was met by a circular horizon of fern this grew nearly to the bottom of the slope and then abruptly ceased the middle within the belt of Virger was floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss and grass intermingled so yielding that the foot was half buried within it now said Troy producing the sword right into the sunlight gleamed a sort of greeting like a living thing first we have four right and four left cuts four right and four left thrusts infantry cuts and guards are more interesting than ours to my mind but they are not so swashing they have seven cuts and three thrusts so much as a preliminary well next our cut one is as if you were sowing your corn Bathsheba saw a sort of rainbow upside down in the air and Troy's arm was still again cut two as if you were hedging so three as if you were reaping so four as if you were threshing in that way then the same on the left the thrusts are these one two three four right one two three four left repeated them have them again he said one two I'd rather not though I don't mind your twos and fours but your ones and threes are terrible very well I'll let you off the ones and threes next cuts points and guards altogether Troy duly exhibited them then there's pursuing practice in this way he gave the movements as before there those are the stereotype forms the infantry have two most diabolical upward cuts which we are too humane to use like this three four how murderous and bloodthirsty they are rather deathy now I'll be more interesting and let you see some loose play giving all the cuts and points infantry and cavalry quicker than lightning and as promiscuously with just enough rule to regulate instinct and yet not to fatter it you are my antagonist with this difference from real warfare that I shall miss you every time by one hair's breadth or perhaps two mind you don't flinch whatever you do I'll be sure not to she said invincibly he pointed to about a yard in front of him Bathsheba's adventurous spirit was beginning to find some grains of relish in these highly novel proceedings she took up her position as directed facing Troy now just to learn whether you have pluck enough to let me do what I wish I'll give you a preliminary test he flourished the sword by way of introduction number two and the next thing of which she was conscious was that the point and blade of the sword were darting with a gleam towards her left side just above her hip then of their reappearance on her right side emerging as it were from between her ribs having apparently cast through her body the third item of consciousness was that of seeing the same sword perfectly clean and free from blood held vertically in Troy's hand in the position technically called recover swords all was as quick as electricity all she cried out in a fright pressing her hand to her side have you run me through no you have not whatever have you done I have not touched you I said Troy quietly it was mere sleight of hand the sword passed behind you now you're not afraid are you because if you are I can't perform I give you my word that I will not only not hurt you but not once touch you I don't think I'm afraid you're quite sure you will not hurt me quite sure is the sword very sharp oh no only stand as still as a statue in an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba's eyes beams of light caught from the low sun's rays above around in front of her well nice shut out the earth and heaven all emitted in the marvellous evolutions of Troy's reflecting blade which seemed everywhere at once and yet nowhere specially these circling gleams were accompanied by a keen rush that was almost a whistling also springing from all sides in short she was enclosed in a firmament of light of sharp hisses resembling a sky full of meteors close at hand never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been more dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of sergeant Troy and never had he been in such splendid temper for the performance as now in the evening sunshine among the ferns with Bathsheba it may safely be asserted with respect to the closeness of his cuts that had it been possible for the edge of the sword to leave in the air a permanent substance wherever it flew past the space left untouched would have been almost a mould of Bathsheba's figure behind the luminous streams of this aurora militaris she could see the hue of Troy's sword arm spread in a scarlet haze over the space covered by its motions like a twanged harp string and behind all Troy himself mostly facing her sometimes to show the rear cuts half turned away his eye nevertheless always keenly measuring her breadth and outline and his lips tightly closed in sustained effort next his movements lapsed slower and she could see them individually the hissing of the sword had ceased and he stopped entirely that outer loose lock of hair once tidying he said before she had moved or spoken wait I'll do it for you an arc of silver shone on her right side the sword had descended the lock dropped to the ground bravely born said Troy you didn't flinch a shade's thickness wonderful in a woman it was because I didn't expect it oh you have squirted my hair only once more no no I'm afraid of you damn she cried I won't touch you at all not even your hair I'm only going to kill that caterpillar settling on you now still it appeared that a caterpillar had come from the fern and chosen the front of her body as his resting place she saw the point glistened towards her bosom and seemingly enter it Bathsheba closed her eyes in the full persuasion that she was killed at last however feeling just as usual she opened them again there it is look said the sergeant holding his sword before her eyes the caterpillar was spitted upon its point why it is magic said Bathsheba amazed oh no dexterity I merely gave the point to your bosom where the caterpillar was and instead of running you through check the extension a thousandth of an inch short of your surface but how could you chop off a curl of my hair a sword that has no edge no edge this sword will shave like a razor look here he touched the palm of his hand with a blade and then lifting it showed her a thin shaving of scarf skin dangling there from but you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn't cut me that was to get you to stand still and so make sure of your safety the risk of injuring you through your moving was too great for me to tell you a fib to escape it she shuddered I've been within an inch of my life and didn't know it more precisely speaking you have been within half an inch of being paired alive 295 times cruel cruel tis of you you have been perfectly safe nevertheless my sword never errs and Troy returned the weapon to the scabbard Bathsheba overcome by a hundred tumultuous feelings resulting from the scene abstractedly sat down on a tuft of heather I must leave you now," said Troy softly and I'll venture to take and keep this in remembrance of you she saw him stoop to the grass pick up the winding lock which he had severed from her manifold trashes twist it round his fingers and fasten a button in the breast of his coat and carefully put it inside she felt powerless to withstand or deny him he was altogether too much for her and Bathsheba seemed as one who facing a reviving wind finds it blow so strongly that it stops the breath he drew near and said I must be leaving you he drew nearer still a minute later and she saw his scarlet form disappear amid the ferny thicket almost in a flash and swiftly waved that minute's interval had brought the blood beating into her face set her stinging as if a flame to the very hollows of her feet and enlarged emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought it had brought upon her a stroke resulting as did that of Moses in Horeb in a liquid stream here a stream of tears she felt like one who has sinned a great sin the circumstance had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards upon her own he had kissed her and of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 of Far from the Madding Crowd this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer LibriVox.org Far from the Madding crowd by Thomas Hardy Chapter 29 particulars of a twilight walk we now see the element of folly distinctly mingling with the many varying particulars which made up the character of Bathsheba Everdeen it was almost foreign to her intrinsic nature introduced as Lymph on the Dart of Eros it eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution Bathsheba though she had too much understanding to be entirely governed by her womanliness had too much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses leaving cajolaries that she knows to be false except indeed in that of being utterly skeptical on strictures that she knows to be true Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance when a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away the weakness of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion she has never had practice in making the best of such a condition weakness is doubly weak by being new Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this matter though in one sense a woman of the world it was after all that world of daylight coteries and green carpets were in cattle form the passing crowd and wins the busy hum where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on the other side of your party wall where your neighbour is everybody in the tithing and where calculation is confined to market days of the fabricated tastes of good fashionable society she knew but little and of the formulated self-indulgence of bad nothing at all had her utmost thoughts in this direction been distinctly worded and by herself they never were they would only have amounted to such a matter as that she felt her impulses to be pleasant to guides than her discretion her love was entire as a child and though warm as summer it was fresh as spring her culpability lay in her making no attempt to control feeling by subtle and careful inquiry into consequences she could show others the steep and thorny way but wrecked not her own reed and Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface thus contrasting with the homely oak whose defects were patent to the blindest and whose virtues were as metals in a mine the difference between love and respect was markedly shown in her conduct Bathsheba had spoken of her interest in Oldwood with the greatest freedom to Liddy but she had only communed with her own heart concerning Troy all this infatuation Gabriel saw and was troubled thereby from the time of his daily journey afield to the time of his return and on to the small hours of many a night that he was not beloved had hitherto been his great sorrow that Bathsheba was getting into the toils was now a sorrow greater than the first and one which nearly obscured it it was a result which paralleled the oft quoted observation of Hippocrates concerning physical pains that is a noble though perhaps an unpromising love which not even the fear of breeding a version in the bosom of the one beloved can deter from combating his or her errors oak determined to speak to his mistress he would base his appeal on what he considered her unfair treatment of Farmer Boldwood now absent from home an opportunity occurred one evening when she had gone for a short walk by a path through the neighbouring cornfields it was dusk when oak who had not been far afield that day took the same path and met her returning quite pensively as he thought the wheat was now tall and the path was narrow thus the way was quite a sunken groove between the imbowing thicket on either side two persons could not walk a breast without damaging the crop and oak stood aside to let her pass oh is it Gabriel she said you are taking a walk too good night I thought I would come to meet you as it is rather late said oak turning and following at her heels when she brushed somewhat quickly via him thank you indeed but I am not very fearful oh no but there are bad characters about I never meet them now oak with marvellous ingenuity had been going to introduce the gallant sergeant through the channel of bad characters but all at once the scheme broke down it is suddenly occurring to him that this was rather a clumsy way and too bare faced to begin with he tried another preamble and as the man who would naturally come to meet you is away from home too I mean farmer boldwood why thanks I, I'll go ah yes she walked on without turning her head and for many steps nothing further was heard from her quarter than the rustle of her dress against the heavy corneas then she resumed rather tartly I don't quite understand what you mean by saying that Mr Boldwood would naturally come to meet me I meant on account of the wedding which they say is likely to take place between you and him miss forgive my speaking plainly they say what is not true she returned quickly no marriage is likely to take place between us Gabriel now put forth his unabscured opinion for the moment had come well Miss Everdeen he said putting aside what people say I never in my life saw any courting if his is not a courting of you Bathsheba would probably have terminated the conversation there and then by flatly forbidding the subject had not her conscious weakness of position allured her to paltre and argue in endeavours to better it since this subject has been mentioned she said very emphatically I'm glad of the opportunity of clearing up a mistake which is very common and very provoking I didn't definitely promise Mr Boldwood anything I have never cared for him I respect him and he has urged me to marry him but I have given him no distinct answer as soon as he returns I shall do so and the answer will be that I cannot think of marrying him people are full of mistakes seemingly they are the other day they said you were trifling with him and you almost proved that you were not lately they have said that you be not and you straight way begin to show that I am I suppose you mean well I hope they speak the truth they do but wrongly applied I don't trifle with him but then I have nothing to do with him Oak was unfortunately led on to speak of Boldwood's rival in a wrong tone to her after all I wish you had never met that young sergeant Troy miss he sighed Bathsheba's steps became faintly spasmodic why she asked he is not good enough for he did anyone tell you to speak to me like this? nobody at all then it appears to me that sergeant Troy does not concern us here she said intractably yet I must say that sergeant Troy is an educated man and quite worthy of any woman he is well born his being higher in learning and birth than the rucker soldiers is anything but proof of his worth it shows his course to be downward I cannot see what this has to do with our conversation Mr Troy's course is not by any means downward and his superiority is a proof of his worth I believe him to have no conscience at all and I cannot help begging you miss to have nothing to do with him listen to me this once only this once I don't say he is such a bad man as I have fancied I pray to God he is not but since we don't exactly know what he is why not behave as if he might be bad simply for your own safety don't trust him mistress I ask you not to trust him so why pray I like soldiers but this one I do not like he said sturdily his cleverness in his calling may have tempted him astray and what is mirth to the neighbours is ruined to the woman when he tries to talk to he again why not turn away with a short good day and when you see him coming one way and the other when he says anything laughable fail to see the point and don't smile and speak of him before those who will report your talk as that fantastical man or that sergeant what's his name that man of a family that has come to the dogs don't be unmanly towards him but harmless uncivil and so get rid of the man no Christmas robbing detained by a windowpane and all the youngsters did Bathsheba now I say, I say again that it doesn't become you to talk about him why he should be mentioned passes me quite she exclaimed desperately I know this that he is a thoroughly conscientious man blunt sometimes even to rudeness but always speaking his mind about you plain to your face oh he is as good as anybody in this parish he is very particular too about going to church yes he is I am a feared nobody ever saw him there I never did certainly the reason of that is she said eagerly that he goes in privately by the old tower door just when the service commences and sits at the back of the gallery he told me so this supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel's ears like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock it was not only received with utter incredulity as regarded itself but through a doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted him he brimmed with deep feeling as he replied in a steady voice the steadiness of which was spoiled by the palpableness of his great effort to keep it so you know mistress that I love you and shall love you always I only mention this to bring to your mind that at any rate I would wish to do you no harm beyond that I put it aside I have lost in the race for money and good things and I am not such a fool as to pretend to be now I am poor and you have got all together above me but Bathsheba dear mistress this I beg you to consider that both to keep yourself well honoured among the work folk and in common generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I you should be more discreet in your bearing towards this soldier don't, don't, don't she exclaimed in a choking voice are you not more to me than my own affairs and even life he went on come listen to me I am six years older than you and Mr Bouldwood is ten years older than I and consider I do beg of you to consider before it is too late how safe you would be in his hands Oak's allusion to his own love for her lessened to some extent her anger at his interference but she could not really forgive him for letting his wish to marry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her good any more than for his slighting treatment of Troy I wish you to go elsewhere she commanded a paleness of face invisible to the eye being suggested by the trembling words do not remain on this farm any longer I don't want you I beg you to go nonsense said Oak calmly this is the second time you have pretended to dismiss me and what's the use of it pretended you shall go sir you're lecturing I will not hear I am mistress here go indeed what folly will you say next treating me like Dick, Tom and Harry when you know that a short time ago my position was as good as yours upon my life Bathsheba it is too bare faced you know too that I can't go without putting things in such a straight as you wouldn't get out of I can't tell when unless indeed you'll promise to have an understanding man as bailiff or manager or something I'll go at once if you'll promise that I shall have no bailiff I shall continue to be my own manager she said decisively very well then you should be thankful to me for biding how would the farm go on but mind this I don't wish you to feel you owe me anything not I what I do I do sometimes I say I should be as glad as a bird to leave the place but don't suppose I'm content to be a nobody I was made for better things however I don't like to see your concerns going to ruin as they must if you keep this in mind I hate taking my own measure so plain but upon my life your provoking ways make a man say what he wouldn't dream of at other times I own to being rather interfering but you know well enough how it is and who she is that I like too well and feel too much like a fool about to be civil to her it is more than probable that she privately and unconsciously respected him a little for this grim fidelity which had been shown in his tone even more than in his words at any rate she murmured something to the effect that he might stay if he wished she said more distinctly will you leave me alone now I don't order it as a mistress I ask it as a woman and I expect you not to be so uncurtious as to refuse certainly I will Miss Everdeen said Gabriel gently he wondered that the request should have come at this moment for the strife was over and they were on a most desolate hill in every human habitation and the hour was getting late he stood still and allowed her to get far ahead of him till he could only see her form upon the sky a distressing explanation of this anxiety to be rid of him at that point now ensued a figure apparently rose from the earth beside her the shape beyond all doubt was Troyes Oak would not be even a possible listener and at once turned back the good two hundred yards were between the lovers and himself Gabriel went home by way of the churchyard in passing the tower he thought of what she had said about the sergeant's virtuous habit of entering the church unperceived at the beginning of service believing that the little gallery door alluded to was quite disused he ascended the external flight of steps at the top of which it stood and examined it the yet hanging in the northwestern heaven was sufficient to show that a sprig of ivy had grown from the wall across the door to a length of more than a foot delicately tying the panel to the stone jam it was a decisive proof that the door had not been opened at least since Troyes came back to Weatherbury End of Chapter 29 Far from the Madden crowd Chapter 30 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Far from the Madden crowd by Thomas Hardy Chapter 30 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 Troyes who had accompanied her to the very door still lingered in her ears he had bitten 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 Troyes' 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 Bouldwood 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 Bouldwood came home before communicating to him her conclusive reply 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 give up farming it will 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 by 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 your self-miss I thought so Marianne and Liddy in 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 Marianne Marianne oh you perjured woman how can you speak that wicked story said Bathsheba excitedly you admired him from your heart only this morning in the very world you did yes Marianne you know it yes miss but so did you he's 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'm 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 with a big heart and tearful eyes Liddy following her oh miss said mild Liddy looking pitifully into Bathsheba's face I'm 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 hence forward of course a lady like Miss Everdeen can't love him I'll say it out in plain black and white Bathsheba burst out oh Liddy are you such a simpleton can't you read riddles can't you see are you a woman yourself Liddy's clear eye rounded with wonderment yes she 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'm 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 oh 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's balanced against love there go out of the room I want to be quite alone Liddy went towards the door Liddy come here solemnly swear to me that he's not a fast man and that he's 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 will do such a thing she started off pacing from fireplace to door and back again no miss I don't I know it's not true said Liddy frightened at Bathsheba's unwanted vehemence I suppose you only agree with me like that to please me but Liddy he cannot be bad as he said do you hear yes miss yes and you don't believe he is I don't know what to say miss said Liddy 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's 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 his misery for women always I shall never forgive God for making me a woman and dearly am I beginning to pay for the honor of owning a pretty face she freshened and turned to Liddy suddenly mind this Liddy a small brie if you repeat anywhere a single word of what I've 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 today 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'm doing since this miserable ache of my heart has waited 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'm doomed to die in the union I'm friendless enough God knows I won't notice anything nor will I leave you sobbed Liddy impulsively putting her lips to Bathsheba's and kissing her then Bathsheba kissed Liddy and all was smooth again I don't often cry do I Liddy 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's a sort of steady man in a wild way you know that's better than to be a summer wild in a steady way I'm afraid that's how I am and promise me to keep my secret do Liddy and do not let them know that I've been crying about him that will be dreadful for me and no good to him poor thing Death's head himself shan't ring it from me mistress if I have 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 hurry me or 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're in one of your takings never do you said Bathsheba slightly laughing though somewhat seriously alarmed by this Amazonian picture of herself I hope I'm not a bold sort of made, Manish she continued with some anxiety oh no not Manish but so almighty womanish that is 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 it is a great protection to a poor maid in these illegitimate days end of chapter 30 far from the madding crowd chapter 31 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org far from the madding crowd by Thomas Hardy chapter 31 Blame Fury the next evening Bathsheba getting out of the way of Mr. Boldwood in the event of his returning to answer her note in person proceeded to fulfill an engagement made with Liddy some few hours earlier Bathsheba's companion as a gauge of their reconciliation had been granted a weeks holiday to visit her sister who was married to a thriving hurdler and cattle crib maker living in a delightful labyrinth of hazel cops not far beyond Yalbury was that Miss Everdeen should honour them by coming there for a day or two to inspect some ingenious contrivances which the man of the woods had introduced into his wares leaving her instructions with Gabriel and Mary Anne 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 thundershower which had refined the air and daintily bathed the coat of the land though all beneath was dry as ever freshness was exiled 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 layers of fierce light which showed themselves in the neighbourhood of a hidden sun lingering on to the farthest northwest corner of the heavens that this midsummer season allowed she had walked nearly two miles of her journey watching how the day was retreating and thinking how the time of deeds was quietly melting into the time of thought to give place in its turn to the time of prayer and sleep when she beheld advancing over Yalbury Hill the very man she sought so anxiously to elude boldwood was stepping on not with that quiet tread of reserved strength which was his customary gate 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 interdiversation even when it involves another person's possible blight that Bathsheba was a firm and positive girl far less inconsequent than her fellows had been the very lung of his hope for he had held that these qualities would lead her to adhere to a straight course of his presence'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 the stones 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 paralysed 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 remota 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 for what her 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'm not to marry you and that's enough your letter was excellently plain I want you to hear nothing I 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 dullly Bathsheba darling is it final indeed indeed it is oh Bathsheba have pity upon me Boldwood burst out God's sake yes I'm 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 a 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 vein of a passion innovated the feminine instinct for punctilios I'm beyond myself about this and a mad he said I'm 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 I thought this 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 Ballantine 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 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 I 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 it for I love you too well but it is weak idle driveling to go on like this Bathsheba you are the first woman of any shade or nature that I've 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 also 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. Bold would I promise 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 that 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 were now nothing to me again and how different the second nothing is from the first would to God you had never taken me up it was only to throw me down Bathsheba in spite of her metal began to feel unmistakable signs that she was inherently the weaker vessel she strove miserably against this femininity which would insist upon supplying unbidden emotions in stronger and stronger current she had tried to elude agitation by fixing her mind on the trees sky any trivial object before her eyes whilst his reproaches fell but ingenuity could not save her now 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'm 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 fall 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 to 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 bronze Roman face and fine frame dearest dearest I'm wavering even now between the two opposites of recklessly renouncing you and laboring 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 Armis Everdeen 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 I would love enough but it is turned into a new channel I know where the swift music of her heart became hubbub now and she throbbed to extremity he was coming to Troy he did then know what had occurred and the name fell from his lips the next moment why did Troy not leave my treasure alone he asked fiercely when I had no thought of injuring him why did he force himself upon your notice before he worried you your inclination was to have me when next I should have come to you your answer would have been yes can you deny it I ask you 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 tail bearing now the people sneer at me the very walls and sky seem to laugh at me till I blush shamefully for my folly I have lost my respect my good name my standing lost it never to get it again go and marry your man go on oh sir Mr. Bouldwood 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 I am the perfect 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 and 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 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 your chatter with him doubtless about me say to him Bouldwood 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 nor though Bouldwood 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'm 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 Bouldwood 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 I'll be kind to him sir for I love him true Bouldwood'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 horse whip the untimely stripling for this reckless theft of my one delight if he were a hundred men I'd horse whip him he dropped his voice suddenly and unnaturally Bathsheba sweet lost coquette pardon me I've been blaming you threatening you behaving like a child to you when he's the greatest sinner he stole your dear heart away with his unfathomable lies it is a fortunate thing for him that he's gone back to his regiment that he's away up the country and not here I hope he may not return here just yet I pray God he may not come into for I may be tempted beyond myself oh Bathsheba keep him away yes keep him away from me for a moment bulward stood so inertly after this that his soul seem to have been entirely exiled 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 Bouldwood were incomprehensible dreadful instead of being a man trained to repression he was what she had seen him the force of the farmer's threats lay in their relation to a circumstance known at present only to herself her lover was coming back to Wetherbury in the course of the very next day or two Troy had not returned to his distant barrack as Bouldwood and others supposed but had merely gone to visit some acquaintance in Bath and had yet a week or more remaining to his furlough she felt wretchedly certain that if he revisited her just at this nick of time and came into contact with Bouldwood 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 Bouldwood's anger might then take the direction of revenge with almost a morbid dread of being thought a gushing girl this guide this woman too well concealed from the world under a manner of carelessness the warm depths of her strong emotions but now there was no reserve in her distraction instead of advancing further she walked up and down beating the air with her fingers pressing her brow and sobbing brokenly to herself then she sat down on a heap of stones by the wayside to think there she remained long above the dark margin of the earth appeared foreshores and promontries of coppery cloud bounding a green and pelucid 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 shadows amid the shades of space but realized none at all her troubled spirit was far away with Troy End of Chapter 31