 24 The same night the fir plantation. Among the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had voluntarily imposed upon herself by dispensing with the services of a bailiff, was the particular one of looking round the homestead before going to bed, to see that all was right and safe for the night. Gabriel had almost constantly preceded her, in this tour every evening, watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of surveillance could have done, but this tender devotion was to a great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known what somewhat thanklessly received. Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snope his constancy. As watching is best done invisibly, she usually carried a dark lantern in her hand, and every now and then turned on the lantern 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 fowl not all in, or a door not closed. This night the buildings were inspected as usual, and she went round to the farm paddock. Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness were steady munchings of many mouths, and stentorian readings from all but invisible noses, ending in snores and puffs like the blowing of bellows slowly. Then the munching would recommence, when the lively imagination might assist the eye, to discern a group of pink-white nostrils, shaped as caverns, and very clammy and humid on their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to the touch, until one got used to them, the mouths beneath having a great partiality for closing upon any loose end of Bathsheba's apparel which came within reach of their tongues. Of 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 of the persons of Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonnie-Lass, Jolly-O, Spot, Twinkle-Eye, etc., etc., the respectable dairy of Devon-cows belonging to Bathsheba aforesaid. Her way back to the house was by a path through a young plantation of tapering 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 plumy 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. Being 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 her remembrance that the path was public, and that the traveller was probably some villager returning home, regretting at the same time that the meeting should be about to occur in the darkest point of a route, even though just outside her own door. The noise approached, came close, and the 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. "'I'll rum-start upon my soul,' said the 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 land, and you have? I fancy so,' said the man. "'Yes. "'If you'll allow me, I'll open it and set you free.' His hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the rays burst out from their prison, and Bathsheba beheld her position with astonishment. The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant and brass and scarlet. He was a soldier. His sudden appearance was the darkness what the sound of a trumpet is to silence. Gloom, the genius loci at all times hitherto, was now totally overthrown, best by the lantern-light than by what the lantern-lighted. The contrast of this revelation with her anticipations of some sinister figure in Somburgarb 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 am fast and you in one moment, miss,' he said with a newborn gallantry. "'Oh, no, I can do it, thank you,' she hastily replied and stooped for the performance. The unfastening was not such a trifling affair. The rowl 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 drew a gleam from its open side among the fir-tree needles and the blades of long-damped 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 was wasted to nothing. He looked hard into her eyes when she raised him for a moment, but she 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-mess, it's no use blinking the matter,' said the soldier, dryly. "'I must cut your dress if you're in such a hurry.' "'Yes, please do,' she exclaimed helplessly. "'It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a moment.' And he unwound a cord from the little wheel. She withdrew her own hand, but whether by accident or design he touched it. Bathsheba was vexed. She hardly knew why. His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed coming to no end. She looked at him again. "'Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face,' said the young sergeant without ceremony. She coloured with embarrassment. "'Twas unwillingly shown,' she replied stiffly, and with as much dignity, which was very little, as she could infuse into a position of captivity. "'I like you the better for that incivility-mess,' 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 lily-pugetian 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 had never saw such a tangle.' "'Oh, too 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, mess. I am not of steel.' He added with a sigh which had as much archeness in it as a sigh could possess, without losing its nature altogether. "'I am thankful for beauty, even when it's thrown to me like a bone to a dog. These moments would be over too soon.' She closed her lips in a determined silence. Bathsheba was revolving in her mind, whether by a bold and desperate rush she could free herself at the risk of leaving her skirt bodily behind her. The thought was too dreadful. The dress, which she had put on to appear stately at the supper, was the head and front of a wardrobe. Not another in her stock became her so well. What woman in Bathsheba's position, not naturally timid, and within call of her retainers, would have bought escape from a dashing soldier at so dear a price. "'All in good time. It will soon be done, I perceive,' said her cool friend. This trifling provokes, and—and—not too cruel—insults me. It is done in order that I may have the pleasure of apologizing to so charming a woman, which I straightway do most humbly, madam,' he said, bowing low. Bathsheba really knew not what to say. I have seen a good many women in my time, continue the 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 at this place. There, it isn't done at last, you see. Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I wish it had been the not odd knots which there is no one tying. This was worse and worse. She started up, and so did he. How to decently get away from him, that was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness of his coat no longer. Ah, beauty! Good-bye,' he said. She made no reply, and reaching a distance of twenty or thirty yards, turned about, and ran indoors. Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her own chamber Bathsheba opened the girl's door an inch or two, and panting said, "'Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village, a sergeant somebody, rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good-looking, a red coat with blue facings?' "'No, miss,' he said, no, say I, but really, it might be Sergeant Troy home on Forlough, 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. He had a moustache, no whiskers or beard. He had. What kind of person is he? Oh, miss, I blush to name a gay man, but I know him to be very quick and trim, who might have made his thousands like a squire, such a clever young dandy as he is. He's a doctor's son by name, which is a great deal, and he's an Earl's son by nature. Which is a great deal more, I 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 that he got on so far that he could take down Chinese in shorthand, but I don't answer for it, as it was only reported. However, he wasted his gifted lot, and listed a soldier, but even then he rose to be 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 a man? There are occasions when girls like Bathsheba will put up with a great deal of unconventional behaviour, when they want to be praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered, which is sometimes, and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba, with a dash of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devoury, the ministerant 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 this barefaced praise of her person and insults now. It was a fatal omission of bold words that he had never once told her she was beautiful. CHAPTER 25 The New Acquaintance Described Video-syncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being. He was a man to whom memories were an incumbrance and anticipations a superfluity. Simply feeling, considering and caring for what was before his eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His outlook upon time was as a transient flash of the eye now and then, that projection of consciousness in today's gone by and to come, which makes the past a synonym for the pathetic, and the future a word for circumspection which 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 an endowment than a disease, and that expectation in its only comfortable form, that of absolute fate, is practically an impossibility. Whilst in the form of hope and the secondary compounds, patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity, it is a constant fluctuation between pleasure and pain. Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent of the practice of expectation, was never disappointed. To set against this negative gain there may have been some positive losses from a certain narrowing of the higher tastes and sensations which it entailed. But limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss by the loser therefrom. In this attribute moral or aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind it soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anything to have been always without it, and what Troy had never enjoyed he did not miss, but, being fully conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed, his capacity, though really less, seemed greater than theirs. He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a 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, would reference only to the future. He never 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 regretter of other men's gallantries, to his own aggrandizement as a Quintian, rather than to the moral prophet of his hearers. His reason and his propensities had seldom any reciprocating influence, having separated by mutual consent long ago. Then it sometimes happened that, whilst his intentions were as honourable as could be wished, any particular deed formed a dark background which threw them into fine relief. The sergeant's vicious phase is being the offspring of impulse, and his virtuous phases of cool meditation, the latter had a modest tendency to be often heard of than seen. Troy was full of activity, but his activities were less of a locomotive than a vegetative nature, and never being based upon any original choice of foundation or direction, they were exercised on whatever object chance might place in their way. Hence whilst he sometimes reached the brilliant in speech because that was spontaneous, he fell below the common place 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 unhealing 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, and 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 woman is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb or say that they are Christians and the like, without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such an opinion is shelled with all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home. When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness it seems co-ordinate with a belief that this flattery must be reasonable to be effective. It is to the credit of men that few attempt to settle the question by experiment, and it is for their happiness perhaps that accident has never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that a male dissembler who, by deluging her with untenable fictions, charms the female wisely, may acquire powers reaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and 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 womankind the only alternative to flattery was cursing and swearing. There was no third method. Treat him fairly, and you're a lost man, he would say. This person's public appearance in weathery promptly followed his arrival there. A week or two after the shearing Bathsheba, feeling a nameless relief of spirits on account of Bouldwood's absence, approached her hay-fields and looked over the hedge towards the hay-makers. They consisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and fleshy forms, the former being the men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankeen which hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggin and Mark Clark were mowing in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to the strokes of a scythe, to which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead they were already loading hay, the women raking it into cocks and wind-rows, 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 hay-making for pleasure, and nobody could deny that he was doing the mistress of the farm real night service by his voluntary contribution of his labour at a busy time. As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her, and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and picking up his crop or cane, he came forward. Bathsheba blushed with a half-angry embarrassment, and adjusted her eyes as well as her feet to the direct line of her path. CHAPTER XXVI. OF FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER XXVI. SEEN ON THE VERGE OF THE HAYMEED. 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 day or night, and I heard you so named in Castlebridge yesterday. The Queen of the Corn Market, I say, could be no other woman. I step across now to beg your forgiveness a thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a stranger. To be sure, I am no stranger to the place. I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad. I have been doing the same for you, to-day. I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy," said the Queen of the Corn Market, in an indifferently grateful tone. The sergeant looked hurt and sad. Indeed, you must not, Miss Everdeen, he said. Why could you think such a thing necessary? I am glad it is not. Why, if I may ask without offence? Because I don't much want to thank you for anything. I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never mend. Oh, these intolerable times, that ill look should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful. It was the most I said, you must own that, and the least I could say, that I own myself. There is some talk I could do without more easily than money. Indeed, that remark is a sort of digression. No, it means that I would rather have your room than your company. And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman, so I'll stay here. Bathsheba was absolutely speechless, and yet she could not help feeling that the assistance he was rendering forbade a harsh repulse. Well, continued Troy, I suppose there is a praise which is rudeness, and that may be mine. At the same time there is a treatment which is injustice, and that may be yours, because a plain blunt man, who has never been taught concealment, speaks out his mind without exactly intending it, he is snapped off like the son of a sinner. Indeed, there is no such case between us, she said, turning away. I don't allow strangers to be bold and impudent, even in praise of me. Ah! It is not the fact but the method which offends you, he said carelessly. But I have the sad satisfaction of knowing that my words, whether pleasing or offensive, are unmistakably true. Would you have had me look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you are quite a commonplace woman? To save you the embarrassment of being stared at if they come near you? Not I. I couldn't tell any such ridiculous lie about a beauty to encourage a single woman in England in too excessive a modesty. It is all pretense what you are saying, exclaimed Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the sly method. You are a rare invention, Sergeant Troy. Why couldn't you have passed by me that night, and said nothing? That was all I meant to reproach you for. Because I wasn't going to. Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out mine. It would have been just the same if you had been the reversed person, ugly and old. I should have exclaimed about it in the same way. How long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling, then? Oh! Ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from deformity. Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of doesn't stop at faces, but extends to morals as well. I won't speak of morals or religion, my own or anybody else's, though perhaps I should have been a very good Christian if you pretty women hadn't made me an idolater. Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimplings of merriment. Troy followed whirling his crop. But Miss Everdeen, do you forgive me? Hardly. Why? You say such things. I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still. For by—so you are, the most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall dead this instant? Why, upon my— Don't! Don't! I won't listen to you. You are so profane. She said, in a restless state, between distress at hearing him and a punch on to hear more. I say again you're a most fascinating woman. There's nothing remarkable am I 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 to convince you, but surely it is honest. Why can't it be excused? Because it—it isn't a correct one, she femininely murmured. Oh, fie! Fie! Am I any worse for breaking the third of that terrible tend than you are 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 have heard Liddy say they do, but—she paused. Capitulation. It was the purport of the simple reply, guarded as it was, capitulation unknown to herself. Never did a fragile, tale-less sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and probably, too, the devil smiled from a loophole in Toffette. For the moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone and mienne signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the chink. The remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes. There, the truth comes out, said the soldier in reply. Never tell me that a young lady can live in a buzz of admiration without knowing something about it. Ah, well, Miss Everdeen, you are, pardon my blunt way. You are rather an injury to your 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 mead in critical abstraction. Probably some one man, on an average, falls in love with each ordinary woman. As 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 witch-scores on scores into an unavailing fancy for you. You can only marry one of that many. Out of these say twenty will endeavour to drown the bitterness of the spy's love in drink. Twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in the world, because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you. Twenty more, the susceptible person, myself possibly among them, will be always draggling after you, getting where they may just see you and doing desperate things. Men are such constant fools. The rest may try to get over their passions with more or less success, but all these men will be saddened. And not only these ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they may have married are saddened with them. There's 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 my father died, she said simply, I do when I have an opportunity, which laterally has not been often. My mother was a parisienne. There is a proverb they have. Quiem bien, châtis bien. He chasens, who loves well. Do you understand me? Ah! She replied, and there was even a little tremulousness in the usually cool girl's voice. If you can only fight half as winningly as you can talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound. And then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this admission. In hastily trying to retrieve it she went from bad to worse. Don't however suppose that I derive any pleasure from what you tell me? I know you do not, and 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 you the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you need. It stands to reason that my poor rough-and-ready mixture of praise and blame cannot convey much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am not so conceited as to suppose that. I think you, you are conceited nevertheless, said Bathsheba, looking as scant at a reed she was fitfully pulling with one hand, having lately grown feverish under the soldier's system of procedure, not because the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but because its figure 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 this rude 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 eulam 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 offence is based on? If you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then I don't mind doing it. She is uncertainly undoubtingly 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'm 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. But you have never been a man looking upon a woman, and that woman yourself. Well, then you know nothing of what such an experience is like, and heaven forbid that you ever should. Nonsense flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing. But shortly it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture. Ah, Sergeant, it won't do. You are pretending, she said, shaking her head. Your words are too dashing to be true. I am not, upon the honour of a soldier. But why is it so? Of course I ask from your pastime. Because you are so distracting, and I am so distracted. You look like it. I am indeed. Why, you only saw me the other night. That makes no difference. The lightning works instantaneously. I loved you then, at once, as I do now. Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upwards, and as high as she liked to venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his eyes. You cannot, and you don't, she said, demurely. There is no such sudden feeling in people. I won't listen to you any longer. Hear me. I wish to know 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. What do you see? A crest and a motto. A coronet with five points. And beneath credit a more rebus. Love yields to circumstance. It's the motto of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the last lord. It 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 I ever inherited. That watch has regulated imperial interests in its time. The stately ceremonial, the courtly assignation, pompous travels and lordly sleeps. Now it is yours. But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this. I cannot." She exclaimed with round-eyed wonder. A gold watch. What are you doing? Don't be such a dissembler. The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which he held out persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired. Keep it. Severn. Keep it. Said the erratic child of Impulse. The fact of your possessing it makes it work 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 is how I can do it, said the sergeant, with an intonation of such exquisite fidelity to nature, that it was evidently not all acted now. Her beauty, which, whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest, had in its animated phases moved him to earnest, and, though his seriousness was less than she imagined, it was probably more than he imagined himself. Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said in half suspicious accents of feeling. Can it be? Oh, how can it be that you care for me? And so suddenly? You have seen so little of me. I may not really be 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 a day, her alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it, that he was quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as faults. He said mechanically, Ah, why? and continued to look at her. And my work-folk see me following you about the field, and are wondering, Oh, this is dreadful! she went on, unconscious of the transmutation she was effacing. I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one poor patent of nobility. He broke out bluntly. But upon my soul I wish you would now, without any shamming, come. Don't deny me the happiness of wearing it for my sake, but you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are. No, no, don't say so. I have reasons for reserve, which I cannot explain. Let it be, then, let it be, he said, receiving back the watch at last. I must be leaving you now. And will you speak to me for these few weeks of my stay? I will indeed, 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, as such things have happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields? He coaxed. Yes, I suppose so, if it is any pleasure to you. Miss Everdeen, I thank you. No, no. Good-bye. The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head, saluted, and returned to the distant group of hay-makers. And that she be could not face the hay-makers now, her heart erratically flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot and almost tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring. Oh! What have I done? What does it mean? I wish I knew how much of it was true. CHAPTER 27 Hiving the bees. The weather-bees were laid in their swarming this year. It was in the latter part of June, and the day after the interview with Troy in the hay-field, as Bathsheba was standing in her garden, watching a swarm in the air and guessing their probable settling place. Not only were they laid 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 spalié-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 center. This glided to 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, but Bathsheba resolved to hive the bees herself, if possible. She had dressed the hive with herbs and honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook, made herself impregnable with armour of leather gloves, straw hat, and large gauze veil, once green, but now faded to snuff-colour, and ascended a dozen rungs of the ladder. At once she heard, not ten yards off, a voice that was beginning to have a strange power in agitating her. Miss Everdeen, let me assist you. You should not attempt such a thing alone." Troy was just open in the garden-gate. Bathsheba, flung down the brush, crook, and empty hive, pulled a 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 also there, and he stooped to pick up the hive. How fortunate I am to have dropped in at this moment! exclaimed the sergeant. She found her voice in a minute. What! and will you shake them in for me? She asked, in what for a defiant girl was a faltering way, though for a timid girl, it would have seemed a brave way enough. Will I? said Troy, why, of course I will. How blooming you are to-day! Troy flung down his cane and put his foot on the ladder to ascend. 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'll reach your face. The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means. So whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be taken off, veil and all attached, and placed upon his head, Troy tossing his own into a gooseberry bush. Then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge, round its collar, and the gloves put on him. He looked such an extraordinary object in this guise, that, flurried as she was, she could not avoid laughing outright. It was the removal of yet another stake from the palisade of cold manners which had kept him off. Bathsheba looked on from the ground while she 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 the cloud of bees. "'Upon my life,' said Troy through the veil, holding up this hive makes one's arm ache worse than a week of sword exercise. When the manoeuvre was complete he approached her. "'Would you be good enough to untie me and let me out? I am nearly stifled inside this silk cage.' To hide her embarrassment during the unwanted process of untieing the string about his neck, she said, "'I have never seen that you spoke of.' "'What?' "'The sword exercise.' "'Ah, would you like to?' said Troy. Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous reports from time to time by dwellers in Wetherbury, who had by chance sojourned a while in Castor Bridge, near the barracks, of this strange and glorious performance the sword exercise. Men and boys who had peeped through chinks or over walls into the barrack-yard returned with accounts of it being the most flashing affair conceivable, accoutrements and weapons glistening like stars, here, there, around, yet all by rule and compass. So she said mildly what she felt strongly. "'Yes, I should like to see it very much.' "'And so you shall. You shall see me go through it.' "'No. How?' "'Let me consider. Not with a walking-stick. I don't care to see that. It must be a real sword.' "'Yes, I know. And I have no sword here. But I think I could get one by the evening. Now, will you do this?' Troy bent over her and murmured some suggestion in a low voice. "'Oh, no, indeed,' said Bathsheba, blushing. Thank you very much, but I couldn't on any account. Surely you might. Nobody would know.' She shook her head, but with a weakened negation. "'If I were to,' she said, "'I must bring Liddy, too. Might I not?' Troy looked far away. I don't see why you want to bring her,' he said coldly. An unconscious look of assent in Bathsheba's eyes betrayed that something more than his coldness had made her also feel that Liddy would be superfluous in the suggested scene. She had felt it, even whilst making the proposal. "'Well, I won't bring Liddy, and I 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 XXVII The hill opposite Bathsheba's dwelling extended a mile off into an uncultivated tract of land, dotted at this season with tall tickets of break-fern, plump and diaphanous from recent rapid growth, and radiant in hues of clear and untainted green. At eight o'clock this midsummer evening whilst the bristling ball of gold in the west still swept the tips of the ferns with its long, luxuriant rays, a soft brushing by of garments might have been heard among them, and Bathsheba appeared in their midst, their soft feathery arms caressing her up to her shoulders. She paused, turned, and 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 nonfulfillment 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, her eyes shone with an infrequent light. Yet go she must! She reached the verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns. Troy stood in the bottom, looking up towards her. I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw you. He said, coming up and giving her his hand, to help her down the slope. The pit was a saucer-shaped concave, naturally formed, with a top diameter of about thirty feet, and shallow enough to allow the sunshine to reach their heads. Standing in the centre, the sky overhead was met by a circular horizon of fern. This grew nearly to the bottom of the slope, and then abruptly ceased. The middle, within the belt of verjure, was floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss and grass intermingled, so yielding that the foot was half buried within it. Now, said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he raised it into the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a living thing. First, we have four right and four left cuts, four right and four left thrusts. Infantry cuts and guards are more interesting than ours, to my mind, but they are not so swashing. They have seven cuts, and three thrusts. So much is a preliminary. Well, next, our cut one is as if you were sowing corn, so. Bathsheba saw a sort of rainbow upside down in the air, and Troy's arm was still again. Cut two as if you were hedging, so. Three as if you were reaping, so. Four as if you were threshing, in that way. Then the same on the left. The thrusts are these, one, two, three, four, right, one, two, three, four, left. We repeated them. Have them again, he said, one, two, she hurriedly interrupted. I'd rather not, though I don't mind your twos and fours, but your ones and threes are terrible. Very well, I'll let you off the ones and threes. Next cuts, points, and guards all together. Troy duly exhibited them. Then there's pursuing practice in this way. He gave the movements as before. Those are the stereotyped forms. The infantry have two most diabolical upward cuts, which we are too humane to use. Like this. Three. Four. Oh! How murderous and bloodthirsty! They are rather deathy. Now, I'll be more interesting and let you see some loose play, giving all the cuts and points, infantry and cavalry, quicker than lightning, and as promiscuously, with just enough rule to regulate instinct and yet not to fetter it. You are my antagonist, with this difference from real warfare, that I shall miss you every time by one hair's breadth, nor perhaps two. Mind you don't flinch whatever you do. I'd 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 you 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 the reappearance on her right side. Nothing as it were from between her ribs, having apparently passed through her body. The third item of consciousness was that of seeing the same sword, perfectly clean and free from blood, held vertically in Troy's hand, in the position technically called Recover Swords. All was as quick as electricity. Oh! She cried out in a fright, pressing her hand to her side. Have you run me through? No, you have not. Where have you done? I have not touched you, said Troy quietly. It was mere sleight of hand. The sword passed behind you. Now, you are not afraid, are you? Because if you are, I can't perform. I give my word that I will not only not hurt you, but not once touch you. I don't think I am afraid. You are quite sure you will not hurt me. Quite sure? Is the sword very sharp? Oh! No! Only stand still as a statue. Now! In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba's eyes. Beams of light caught from the low sun's rays, above, around, in front of her, well nice shut-out earth and heaven, all emitted in the marvellous evolution of Troy's reflecting blade, which seemed everywhere at once, and yet nowhere especially. These circling gleams were accompanied by a keen rush that was almost a whistling, also springing from all sides of her at once. In short she was enclosed in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses resembling a sky full of meteors close at hand. Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been more dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of Sergeant Troy, and never had he been in such splendid temper for their 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 spring, and behind all Troy himself, mostly facing her, sometimes to show the rear-cuts half turned away, his eye nevertheless always keenly measuring her breath 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 think to shade's thickness. Wonderful in a woman. It was because I didn't expect it. Oh! You have spoilt my hair. Only once more. No. No. I am afraid of you. Indeed I am. She cried. I won't touch you at all. Not even your hair. I am only going to kill that caterpillar settling on you—now, still. It appeared that a caterpillar had come from the fern and chosen the front of her bodice as a resting place. She saw the point glistened towards her bosom, and seemingly enter it, and 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. No, no. Dexterity! I merely gave point to your bosom, where the caterpillar was, and instead of running you through, checked the extension a thousandth of an inch short of your surface. But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has no edge? No edge. This sword will shave like a razor. Look here. He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it, shorter a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling therefrom. But you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn't cut me. That was to get you to stand still, and so make sure of your safety. The risk of injuring you through your moving was too great not to force me to tell you a fibb to escape it. She shuddered. I have been within an inch of my life, and didn't know it. More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being paired alive two hundred and ninety-five times. Oh, cruel! Cruel, tis of you! You have been perfectly safe, nevertheless. My sword never airs, 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 she had severed from her manifold tresses, twisted round his fingers, unfasten a button in the breast of his coat, and carefully put it inside. She felt powerless to withstand or deny him. He was altogether too much for her, and Bathsheba seemed as one who, facing a reviving wind, finds it blow so strongly that it stops the breath. He drew near and said, I must be leaving you. He drew nearer still. A minute later, and she saw his scarlet form disappear amid the ferny ticket, almost in a flash like a brand swiftly waved. That minute's interval had brought the blood beating into her face, set her stinging as if aflame to the very hollows of her feet, and a large emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought. It had brought upon her a stroke resulting, as did that of Moses and 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. End of CHAPTER XXVIII 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 limp on the dart of Eros, it eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution. Bathsheba, though she had too much understanding to be entirely governed by her womanliness, had too much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage. Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses of believing jolleries that she knows to be false, except indeed in that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she knows to be true. Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One sort 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 Gael in this matter, although in one sense a woman of the world it was, after all, that world of daylight coteries and green carpets wherein cattle form the passing crowd and wins the busy home, 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 have amounted to such a matter as that she felt her impulses to be pleasanter guides than her discretion. Her love was entire as a child's, and though as 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 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 bold-wood 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 ennobled, though perhaps an unpromising love which not even the fear of breeding aversion in the bosom of the one beloved can deter from combating his or her errors. Oak determined to speak to his mistress. He would base his appeal on what he considered her unfair treatment of farmer bold-wood, 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 unbrowning ticket and either side. Two persons could not walk abreast without damaging the crop, and oak stood aside to let her pass. "'Oh, is it, Gabriel?' she said. "'You are taking a walk, too. Good night.' "'I thought I would come to meet you, as it is rather late,' said oak, turning and following at her heels, when she had brushed somewhat quickly by him. "'Thank you, indeed, but I am not very fearful.' "'Oh, no, but there are bad characters about.' "'I never meet them.' "'Now oak, with marvellous ingenuity, had been going to introduce the gallant sergeant through the channel of bad characters. But all at once the scheme broke down. It suddenly occurred to him that this was rather a clumsy way, and too bare-faced to begin with. He tried another preamble. "'As the man who would naturally come to meet you is away from home, too—I mean, Farmer Bouldwood—why, thinks I—'I'll go,' said he. "'Ah, yes. She walked on without turning her head, and for many steps nothing further was heard from her quarter than the rustle of her dress against the heavy corn-ears. Then she resumed rather tartly. "'I don't quite understand what you meant by saying that Mr. Bouldwood would naturally come to meet me. I mean, on account of the wedding which they say is likely to take place between you and him, miss, and have forgiven my speaking plainly. If they say what is not true, she returned quickly. No marriage is likely to take place between us.' Gabriel now put forth his unobscured opinion. For the moment had come. "'Well, Miss 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 falter and argue in endeavours to better it. "'Since this subject has been mentioned,' she said very emphatically, I am glad of the opportunity of clearing up a mistake which is very common and very provoking. I didn't definitely promise Mr. Bouldwood anything. I have never cared for him. I respect him, and he has urged me to marry him, but I have given him no distinct answer. As soon as he returns, I shall do so, and the answer will be that I cannot think of marrying him.' "'People are full of mistakes, seemingly.' "'They are.' "'The other day they said you were trifling with him, and you almost proved that you were not. Lately they have said that you be not, and you straightway begin to show.' "'That I am, I suppose you mean?' "'Well, I hope they speak the truth.' "'They do, but wrongly applied. I don't trifle with him, but then I have nothing to do with him.' Oak was unfortunately led on to speak of Bouldwood's rival in a wrong tone to her after all. I wish you had never met that young sergeant Troy Miss,' he sighed. But she the steps became faintly spasmodic. "'Why?' she asked. "'He is not good enough for me.' "'Did any one tell you to speak to me like this?' "'Nobody at all.' "'Then it appears to me that Sergeant Troy does not concern us here,' she said intractably. Yet I must say that Sergeant Troy is an educated man, and quite worthy of any woman. He is well-born.' His being higher in learning and birth than the ruckus soldiers is anything but a proof of his worth. It shows his course to be downward. I cannot see what this has to do with our conversation. Mr. Troy's course is not by any means downward, and his superiority is a proof of his worth. I believe him to have no conscience at all, and I cannot help begging you, Miss, to have nothing to do with him. Listen to me this once, only this once. We 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 ruin to the woman. When he tries to talk to me again, why not turn away with a short good day, and when you see him come in one way turn the other? When he says anything laughable, fail to see the point, and don't smile, and speak of him before those who will report your talk as that fantastical man, or that sergeant what's his name, that a man of family that has come to the dogs. Don't be all manly towards him, but harmlessly uncivil, and so get rid of the man. No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane ever pulsed as did Bathsheba now. I say, I say again, that it doesn't become you to talk about him. Why he should be mentioned passes me quite,' she exclaimed desperately. "'I know this, that he is a thoroughly conscientious man, and 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 afraid 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 doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it. Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted him. He brimmed with deep feeling as he replied in a steady voice, the steadiness of which was spoilt by the palpable-ness 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, and 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 that I am poor, and you have got altogether above me. Both Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider, that both to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, and in common generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, you shall be more discreet in your bearings towards this soldier.' "'Don't, don't, don't!' she exclaimed in a choking voice. Are ye not more to me than my own affairs, and even life?' He went on. "'Come, listen to me. I am six years older than you, and Mr. Bouldard is ten years older than I, and consider, I do beg of thee to consider before it is too late how safe you would be in his hands.' Oaks allusioned to his own love for her lessened, to some extent her anger at his interference, but she could not really forgive him for letting his wish to marry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her good, any more than for his slighting treatment of Troy. "'I wish you to go elsewhere,' she commanded, a paleness of face invisible to the eye, being suggested by the trembling words. Do not remain on this farm any longer. I don't want you. I beg you to go.' "'That's nonsense,' said Oak calmly. This is the second time you've pretended to dismiss me, and what's the use of it?' "'Petended? 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-bath shebe 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, our manager, or something. I'll go at once if you promise that. I shall have no Bailiff. I shall continue to be my own manager. She said decisively. "'Very well, then. You shall be thankful to me for biding. How would a farm go on with nobody to mind but a woman? But mind this, I don't wish he to feel you owe me anything. Not I. What I do, I do. Sometimes I say I shall be as glad as a border leaves a place, for I don't suppose I am content to be a nobody. I was made for better things. However, I don't like to see your concerns going to ruin, as they must if you keep in this mind.' I hate taking my own measure so plain, but upon my life your provoking ways make a man say what he wouldn't dream of at other times. I own to be 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, Would you leave me alone now? I don't order it as a mistress. I ask it as a woman, and I expect you not to be so uncourteous as to refuse. Certainly I will, Miss 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, far from every human habitation, and the hour was getting late. He stood still and allowed her to get far ahead of him, till he could only see her form upon the sky. A distressing exclamation of this anxiety to be rid of him at that point now ensued, a figure apparently rose from the earth beside her. The shape beyond all doubt was Troy's. Oak would not be even a possible listener, and at once turned back till a good two hundred yards were between the lovers and himself. Gabriel went home by way of the churchyard. In passing the tower he thought of what she had said about the sergeant's virtuous habit of entering the church unperceived at the beginning of service. Believing that the little gallery door alluded to was quite disused, he ascended to the external flight of steps at the top of which it stood, and examined it. The pale luster yet hanging in the north-western heaven was sufficient to show that a sprig of ivy had grown from the wall, across the door to a length of more than a foot, delicately tying the panel to the stone jam. It was a decisive proof that the door had not been opened at least since Troy came back to Weatherbury. End of Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Of Far From the Madding Crowd This lipper-box recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tyge Hines Far From the Madding 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 a 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 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 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, of 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 attention to wait till Bouldwood came home before communicating to him her conclusive reply, but Bathsheba found that she could not wait. It was impossible to send the 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. Twill be a gallant life, but may bring some trouble between the married, so say I. Well, I wish I had asked such auspend. Bathsheba had too much sense to mind seriously what her servitor said about her, but too much womanly redundance of speech to leave alone what was said, till it had 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 your self-miss. I thought so. Marianne 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 forward 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, when you are right to hate him. He is 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 parlor 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. I did think you cared for him, but I say 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 henceforth. 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 eyes rounded with wonderment. Yes, you must be a blind thing, Liddy, she said, in reckless abandonment and grief. Oh, I love him, too very distraction and misery and agony. Don't be frightened at me, though perhaps I am enough to frighten any innocent woman, and come closer, closer. She put her arms around 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 is balanced against her love? There, go out of the room. I want to be quite alone. Liddy went towards the door. Liddy, come here. Solemnly swear to me that he's not a fast man, that it is all lies they say about him. But, Miss, how can I say he is not, if— You graceless girl! How can you have the cruel heart to repeat what they say? I'm feeling 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 the fireplace to door and back again. No, Miss, I don't—I know it's not true, said Liddy, frightened at that she was unwanted 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. 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 his misery for women always, I shall never forgive God for making me a woman. And dearly I am beginning to pay for the honour of owning a pretty face. She freshened and turned to Liddy suddenly. Mind this, Liddy Smallbury. If you repeat anywhere a single word of what I have said to you inside these closed doors, 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 desire to be put upon and stormed after nothing. Concluded the small woman, bigly. No, no, Liddy, you must stay, said Bathsheba, dropping from hardiness 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 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 am doomed to die in the union. I am friendless enough, God knows. I won't know with anything. Nor will I leave you, sobbed Liddy impulsively, putting her lips to Bathshebas 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 I'm 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 a sommar 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 him know that I have been crying about him, because it will be dreadful for me and no good to him, poor thing. That's had himself shattering of for me mistress, if I ever mind to keep anything, and I'll always be a 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 and storm at me, will you, because you seem to swell as tall as a lion then, and 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 Bathsheva, slightly laughing, though somewhat seriously alarmed by this Amazonian picture of herself. I hope I am not a bold sort of maid, 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 scented very sadly out. I wish I had half your failing in that way. To the great protection to a poor maid in these illegitimate days. CHAPTER XXXI The next evening Bathsheva, with the idea of getting out of the way of Mr. Bouldwood in the event of his returning to answer her note in person, proceeded to fulfil an engagement made with Liddy some few hours earlier. Bathsheva's companion, as a gauge 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-cops not far beyond Yalbury. The arrangement was that Miss Everdeen 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 Marianne that they were to see everything carefully locked up for the night, she went out of the house just at the clothes of a timely thunder-shower, which had refined the air, and daintily bathed the coat of the land, though all beneath was dry as ever. Freshness was exhaled in an essence from the varied contours of bank and hollow, as if the earth breathed maiden-breadth, and the pleased birds were himming to the scene. Before her, among the clouds, there was a contrast in the shape of layers of fierce light which show themselves in the neighbourhood of a hidden sun, lingering on to the farthest north-west corner of the heavens that this midsummer season allowed. She had walked nearly two miles of her journey, watching how the day was retrieving, 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. Bouldwood 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. Bouldwood had, for the first time, been awakened to woman's privilege's interrogation, 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 long 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 them, though her fancy might not flood them 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 chained appearance sufficiently denoted to her the depth and strength of the feeling paralyzed by her letter. Oh, is it you, Mr. Bouldwood? 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 tails come from pale lips than can enter a near. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remote her moods that they avoid the pathway of sound. Her Bouldwood'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 look so, he said, 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 Bouldwood deliberately. A thing as 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 is 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. Bouldwood walked up to her, heavily and dully. Bathsheba, darling, is it final indeed? Indeed it is. O Bathsheba, have pity upon me! Bouldwood 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 punctilious. 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. Inbear 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 new and 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. 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 that, for I love you too well. But it is weak idle driveling to 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 that 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. There 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. Not as 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? You 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 a low, firm voice, Mr. Bouldwood, 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 to 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 the 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. What to God you had never taken me up, since 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, nanny-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 me it 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 she 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 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 I am as ever deemed. 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 for me that you have a burning heart like mine. You have love enough, but it has turned into a new channel. I know where. The swift music of her heart became hubbub now, and she throbbed to extremity. He was coming to Troy. He did then know what had occurred, and the name fell from his lips the next moment. Why did Troy not leave my treasure alone? He asked fiercely. When I had no thought of injuring him, why did he force himself upon your notice? Before he worried you, your inclination was to have me. When next I should have come to you, your answer would have been yes. Can you deny it? I ask. Can you deny it? She delayed the reply, but was 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 hills and skies 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 love the woman once. I am now ashamed. When I am dead, they'll say miserable, love-sick man that he was. Heaven! Heaven! And if I got jilted secretly, and the dishonour was 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, o baths, sheba, 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. You say to him, boldwood would have died for me. Yes, and you have given way to him, knowing him not to be 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. Denied that he has kissed you. I shall not. He has, then, 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, cursome, and cursome, 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 rite 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 I will. I'll meet him, soldier or no, and I'll horsewhip the untimely stripling for his 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 have been blaming you, threatening you, behaving like a churl to you. Whilst he is the greatest sinner. He stole your dear heart away with his unfathomable lies. It is a fortunate thing for him that he has gone back to his regiment, that he's away of the country and not here. I hope he may not return here just yet. I pray God he may not come into my sight, for I may be tempted beyond of myself. Oh Bathsheba, keep him away. Yes, keep him away from me. For a moment Boldwood stood so inertly after this, that his soul seemed to have been entirely exhaled with the breath of his passionate words. He turned his face away, and withdrew, and his form was soon covered over by the twilight, as his footsteps mixed in with the low hiss of the leafy trees. Bathsheba, who had been standing motionless as a model all this latter time, flung her hands to her face, and wildly attempted to ponder on the exhibition which had just passed away. Such astounding wells of fevered feeling in a still man like Mr. Boldwood were incomprehensible, dreadful. Instead of being a man trained to repression, he was what she had seen him. The force of the farmer's treks lay in their relation to a circumstance known at present only to herself. Her lover was coming back to Weatherbury in the course of the very next day or two. Troy had not returned to his distant barracks, as Boldwood and others opposed, but had merely gone to visit some acquaintance in Bath, and had yet a week or more remaining to his furlough. She felt wretchedly certain that if he revisited her, just at this nick of time, and came into contact with Boldwood, a fierce quarrel would be the consequence. She panted with solicitude when she thought of possible injury to Troy. The least spark would kindle the farmer's swift feelings of rage and jealousy. He would lose his self-mastery as he had this evening. Troy's blindness 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 taught a gushing-girl, this guiless woman too well concealed from the world under a manner of carelessness the warm depths of her strong emotions. But now there was no reserve. In her distraction, instead of advancing further she walked up and down, beating the air with her fingers, pressing on her brow and sobbing brokenly to herself. Then she sat down on a heap of stones by the wayside to think. There she remained long. Above the dark margin of the earth appeared four shores and prominencies of coppery cloud, bounding a green and polluted 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.