Part 4 out of 9in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her likings. We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by; and win the same way people are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all. Henery continued in a more complaisant mood: "I once hinted my mind to her on a few things, as nearly as a battered frame dared to do so to such a froward piece. You all know, neighbours, what a man I be, and how I come down with my powerful words when my pride is boiling wi' scarn?" "We do, we do, Henery." "So I said, " Mistress Everdene, there's places empty, and there's gifted men willing; but the spite -- no. not the spite -- I didn't say spite -- "but the villainy of the contrarikind." I said (meaning womankind), " keeps 'em out." That wasn't too strong for her, say?" "Passably well put." "Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook me for it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind." "A true man, and proud as a lucifer." "You see the artfulness? Why, 'twas about being baily really; but I didn't put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so I could lay it on all the stronger. That was my depth! ... However, let her marry an she will. Perhaps 'tis high time. I believe Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the sheep-washing t'other day -- that I do." "What a lie!" said Gabriel. "Ah, neighbour Oak -- how'st know?" said, Henery, mildly. "Because she told me all that passed." said Oak, with a pharisaical sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter. "Ye have a right to believe it." said Henery, with dudgeon; "a very true right. But I mid see a little distance into things! To be long-headed enough for a baily's place is a poor mere trifle -- yet a trifle more than nothing. However, I look round upon life quite cool. Do you heed me, neighbours? My words, though made as simple as I can, mid be rather deep for some heads." "O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye." "A strange old piece, goodmen -- whirled about from here to yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to brain. But no -- O no!" "A strange old piece, ye say!" interposed the maltster, in a querulous voice. "At the same time ye be no old man worth naming -- no old man at all. Yer teeth bain't half gone yet; and what's a old man's standing if se be his teeth bain't gone? Weren't I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? 'Tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there's people far past four-score -- a boast'weak as water." It was the unvaying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differences when the maltster had to be pacified. "Weak as-water! yes." said Jan Coggan.- "Malter, we feel ye to be a wonderful veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it." "Nobody." said Joseph Poorgrass. "Ye be a very rare old spectacle, malter, and we all admire ye for that gift. " "Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in prosperity, I was likewise liked by a good-few who knowed me." said the maltster. "'Ithout doubt you was -- 'ithout doubt." The bent and hoary 'man was satisfied, and so apparently was Henery Frag. That matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils -- notably some of Nicholas Poussin's: -- "Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or any second-hand fellow at all that would do for poor me?" said Maryann. "A perfect one I don't expect to at my time of life. If I could hear of such a thing twould do me more good than toast and ale." Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on with his shearing, and said not another word. Pestilent moods had come, and teased away his quiet. Bathsheba had shown indications of anointing him above his fellows by installing him as the bailiff that the farm imperatively required. He did not covet the post relatively to the farm: in relation to herself, as beloved by him and unmarried to another, he had coveted it. His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one of the absurdest mistakes. Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she had trifled with himself in thus feigning that she had trifled with another. He was inwardly convinced that, in accordance with the anticipations of his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that day would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss Everdene. Gabriel at this time of his life had out- grown the instinctive dislike which every Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite frequently, and he inwardly said, "I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets!" This was mere exclamation -- the froth of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same. "We workfolk shall have some lordly- junketing to-night." said Cainy Ball, casting forth his thoughts in a new direction. "This morning I see'em making the great puddens in the milking-pails -- lumps of fat as big as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I've never seed such splendid large knobs of fat before in the days of my life -- they never used to be bigger then a horse-bean. And there was a great black crock upon the brandish with his legs a-sticking out, but I don't know what was in within." "And there's two bushels of biffins for apple-pies," said Maryann. "Well, I hope to do my duty by it all." said Joseph Poorgrass, in a pleasant, masticating manner of anticipa- tion. "Yes; victuals and drink is a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to the nerveless, if the form of words may be used. 'Tis the gospel of the body, without which we perish, so to speak it." CHAPTER XXIII EVENTIDE -- A SECOND DECLARATION FOR the shearing-supper a long table was placed on the grass-plot beside the house, the end of the table being thrust over the sill of the wide parlour window and a foot or two into the room. Miss Everdene sat inside the window, facing down the table. She was thus at the head without mingling with the men. This evening Bathsheba was unusually excited, her red cheeks and lips contrasting lustrously with the mazy skeins of her shadowy hair. She seemed to expect assistance, and the seat at the bottom of the table was at her request left vacant until after they had begun and the duties appertaining to that end, which he did with great readiness. At this moment Mr. Boldwood came in at the gate, and crossed the green to Bathsheba at the window. He apologized for his lateness: his arrival was evidently by arrangement. "Gabriel." said she, " will you move again, please, and let Mr. Boldwood come there?" Oak moved in silence back to his original seat. The gentleman-farmer was dressed in cheerful style, in a new coat and white waistcoat, quite contrasting with his usual sober suits of grey. Inwardy, too, he was blithe, and consequently chatty to an exceptional degree. So also was Bathsheba now that he had come, though the uninvited presence of Pennyways, the bailiff who had been dismissed for theft, disturbed her equan- imity for a while. Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own private account, without reference to listeners: -- l've lost my love and l care not, I've lost my love, and l care not; I shall soon have another That's better than t'other! I've lost my love, and I care not. This lyric, when concluded, was received with a silently appreciative gaze at the table, implying that the performance, like a work by those established authors who are independent of notices in the papers, was a well-known delight which required no applause. "Now, Master Poorgrass, your song!" said Coggan. "I be all but in liquor, and the gift is wanting in me." said Joseph, diminishing himself. "Nonsense; wou'st never be so ungrateful, Joseph -- never!" said Coggan, expressing hurt feelings by an inflection of voice. "And mistress is looking hard at ye, as much as to say, "Sing at once, Joseph Poor- grass." "Faith, so she is; well, I must suffer it! ... Just eye my features, and see if the tell-tale blood overheats me much, neighbours?" "No, yer blushes be quite reasonable." said Coggan. "I always tries to keep my colours from rising when a beauty's eyes get fixed on me." said Joseph, differently; "but if so be 'tis willed they do, they must." "Now, Joseph, your song, please." said Bathsheba, from the window. "Well, really, ma'am." he replied, in a yielding tone, "I don't know what to say. It would be a poor plain ballet of my own composure." Hear, hear!" said the supper-party. Poorgrass, thus assured, trilled forth a flickering yet commendable piece of sentiment, the tune of which consisted of the key-note and another, the latter being the sound chiefly dwelt upon. This was so successful that he rashly plunged into a second in the same breath, after a few false starts: -- I sow'-ed th'-e I sow'-ed I sow'-ed the'-e seeds' of love', I-it was' all' i'-in the'-e spring', I-in A'-pril', Ma'-ay, a'-nd sun'-ny' June', When sma'-all bi'-irds they' do' sing. "Well put out of hand." said Coggan, at the end of the verse. `They do sing' was a very taking paragraph." "Ay; and there was a pretty place at "seeds of love." and 'twas well heaved out. Though "love " is a nasty high corner when a man's voice is getting crazed. Next verse, Master Poorgrass." But during this rendering young Bob Coggan ex- hibited one of those anomalies which will afflict little people when other persons are particularly serious: in trying to check his laughter, he pushed down his throat as much of the tablecloth as he could get hold of, when, after continuing hermetically sealed for a short time, his mirth burst out through his nose. Joseph perceived it, and with hectic cheeks of indignation instantly ceased singing. Coggan boxed Bob's ears immediately. "Go on, Joseph -- go on, and never mind the young scamp." said Coggan. "'Tis a very catching ballet. Now then again -- the next bar; I'll help ye to flourish up the shrill notes where yer wind is rather wheezy: -- O the wi'-il-lo'-ow tree' will' twist', And the wil'-low' tre'-ee wi'ill twine'. But the singer could not be set going again. Bob Coggan was sent home for his ill manners, and tran- quility was restored by Jacob Smallbury, who volunteered a ballad as inclusive and interminable as that with which the worthy toper old Silenus amused on a similar occasion the swains Chromis and Mnasylus, and other jolly dogs of his day. It was still the beaming time of evening, though night was stealthily making itself visible low down upon the ground, the western lines of light taking the earth without alighting upon it to any extent, or illuminating the dead levels at all. The sun had crept round the tree as a last effort before death, and then began to sink, the shearers' lower parts becoming steeped in embrowning twilight, whilst their heads and shoulders were still enjoying day, touched with a yellow of self- sustained brilliancy that seemed inherent rather than acquired. The sun went down in an ochreous mist; but they sat, and talked on, and grew as merry as the gods in Homer's heaven. Bathsheba still remained enthroned inside the window, and occupied herself in knitting, from which she sometimes looked up to view the fading scene outside. The slow twilight expanded and enveloped them completely before the signs of moving were shown. Gabriel suddenly missed Farmer Boldwood from his place at the bottom of the table. How long he had been gone Oak did not know; but he had apparently withdrawn into the encircling dusk. Whilst he was thinking of this, Liddy brought candles into the back part of the room overlooking the shearers, and their lively new flames shone down the table and over the men, and dispersed among the green shadows behind. Bathsheba's form, still in its original position, was now again distinct between their eyes and the light, which revealed that Boldwood had gone inside the room, and was sitting near her. Next came the question of the evening. Would Miss Everdene sing to them the song she always sang so charmingly -- " The Banks of Allan Water" -- before they went home? After a moment's consideration Bathsheba assented, beckoning to Gabriel, who hastened up into the coveted atmosphere. "Have you brought your flute? " she whispered. "Yes, miss." "Play to my singing, then." She stood up in the window-opening, facing the men, the candles behind her, Gabriel on her right hand, immediately outside the sash-frame. Boldwood had drawn up on her left, within the room. Her singing was soft and rather tremulous at first, but it soon swelled to a steady clearness. Subsequent events caused one of the verses to be remembered for many months, and even years, by more than one of those who were gathered there: -- For his bride a soldier sought her, And a winning tongue had he: On the banks of Allan Water None was gay as she! In addition to the dulcet piping of Gabriel's flute, Boldwood supplied a bass in his customary profound voice, uttering his notes so softly, however, as to abstain entirely from making anything like an ordinary duet of the song; they rather formed a rich unexplored shadow, which threw her tones into relief. The shearers reclined against each other as at suppers in the early ages of the world, and so silent and absorbed were they that her breathing could almost be heard between the bars; and at the end of the ballad, when the last tone loitered on to an inexpressible close, there arose that buzz of pleasure which is the attar of applause. It is scarcely necessary to state that Gabriel could not avoid noting the farmer's bearing to-night towards their entertainer. Yet there was nothing exceptional in his actions beyond what appertained to his time of performing them. It was when the rest were all looking away that Boldwood observed her; when they regarded her he turned aside; when they thanked or praised he was silent; when they were inattentive he murmured his thanks. The meaning lay in the difference between actions, none of which had any meaning of itself; and the necessity of being jealous, which lovers are troubled with, did not lead Oak to underestimate these signs. Bathsheba then wished them good-night, withdrew from the window, and retired to the back part of the room, Boldwood thereupon closing the sash and the shutters, and remaining inside with her. Oak wandered away under the quiet and scented trees. Recovering from the softer impressions produced by Bathsheba's voice, the shearers rose to leave, Coggan turning to Pennyways as he pushed back the bench to pass out: -- "I like to give praise where praise is due, and the man deserves it -- that 'a do so." he remarked, looking at the worthy thief, as if he were the masterpiece of some world-renowned artist. "I'm sure I should never have believed it if we hadn't proved it, so to allude," hiccupped Joseph Poorgrass, "that every cup, every one of the best knives and forks, and every empty bottle be in their place as perfect now as at the beginning, and not one stole at all. "I'm sure I don't deserve half the praise you give me." said the virtuous thief, grimly. "Well, I'll say this for Pennyways." added Coggan, "that whenever he do really make up his mind to do a noble thing in the shape of a good action, as I could see by his face he. did to-night afore sitting down, he's generally able to carry it out. Yes, I'm proud to say. neighbours, that he's stole nothing at all. "Well." -- 'tis an honest deed, and we thank ye for it, Pennyways." said Joseph; to which opinion the remainder of the company subscribed unanimously. At this time of departure, when nothing more was visible of the inside of the parlour than a thin and still chink of light between the shutters, a passionate scene was in course of enactment there." Miss Everdene and Boldwood were alone. Her cheeks had lost a great deal of their healthful fire from the very seriousness of her position; but her eye was bright with the excitement of a triumph -- though it was a triumph which had rather been contemplated than desired. She was standing behind a low arm-chair, from which she had just risen, and he was kneeling in it -- inclining himself over its back towards her, and holding her hand in both his own. His body moved restlessly, and it was with what Keats daintily calls a too happy happiness. This unwonted abstraction by love of all dignity from a man of whom it had ever seemed the chief component, was, in its distressing incongruity, a pain to her which quenched much of the pleasure she derived from the proof that she was idolized. "I will try to love you." she was saying, in a trembling voice quite unlike her usual self-confidence. "And if I can believe in any way that I shall make you a good wife I shall indeed be willing to marry you. But, Mr. Boldwood, hesitation on so high a matter is honourable in any woman, and I don't want to give a solemn promise to-night. I would rather ask you to wait a few weeks till I can see my situation better."But you have every reason to believe that then -- -- " "I have every reason to hope that at the end of the five or six weeks, between this time and harvest, that you say you are going to be away from home, I shall be able to promise to be your wife." she said, firmly. "But remember this distinctly, I don't promise yet." "It is enough I don't ask more. I can wait on those dear words. And now, Miss Everdene, good- night!" "Good-night." she said, graciously -- almost tenderly; and Boldwood withdrew with a serene smile. Bathsheba knew more of him now; he had entirely bared his heart before her, even until he had almost worn in her eyes the sorry look of a grand bird without the feathers that make it grand. She had been awe- struck at her past temerity, and was struggling to make amends without thinking whether the sin quite deserved the penalty she was schooling herself to pay. To have brought all this about her ears was terrible; but after a while the situation was not without a fearful joy. The facility with which even the most timid woman some- times acquire a relish for the dreadful when that is amalgamated with a little triumph, is marvellous. CHAPTER XXIV THE SAME NIGHT -- THE FIR PLANTATION AMONG the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had voluntarily imposed upon herself by dispensing with the services of a bailiff, was the particular one of looking round the homestead before going to bed, to see that all was right and safe for the night. Gabriel had almost constantly preceded her in this tour every evening, watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of surveillance could have done; but this tender devotion was to a great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was somewhat thanklessly received. Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his con- stancy. As watching is best done invisibly, she usually carried a dark lantern in her hand, and every now and then turned on the light to examine nooks and corners with the coolness of a metropolitan policeman. This cool- ness may have owed its existence not so much to her fearlessness of expected danger as to her freedom from the suspicion of any; her worst anticipated discovery being that a horse might not be well bedded, the fowls not all in, or a door not closed. This night the buildings were inspected as usual, and she went round to the farm paddock. Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness were steady munch- ings of many mouths, and stentorian breathings from all but invisible noses, ending in snores and puffs like the blowing of bellows slowly. Then the munching would recommence, when the lively imagination might assist the eye to discern a group of pink-white nostrils, shaped as caverns, and very clammy and humid on their sur- faces, not exactly pleasant to the touch until one got used to them; the mouths beneath having a great partiality for closing upon any loose end of Bathsheba's apparel which came within reach of their tongues. Above each of these a still keener vision suggested a brown forehead and two staring though not unfriendly eyes, and above all a pair of whitish crescent-shaped horns like two particularly new moons, an occasional stolid " moo!" proclaiming beyond the shade of a doubt that these phenomena were the features and persons of Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonny-lass, Jolly-O, Spot, Twinkle-eye, etc., etc. -- the respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging to Bathsheba aforesaid. Her way back to the house was by a path through a young plantation of tapering firs, which had been planted some years earlier to shelter the premises from the north wind. By reason of the density of the interwoven foliage overhead, it was gloomy there at cloudless noontide, twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight. To describe the spot is to call it a vast, low, naturally formed hall, the plumy ceiling of which was supported by slender pillars of living wood, the floor being covered with a soft dun carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed cones, with a tuft of grass-blades here and there. This bit of the path was always the crux of the night's ramble, though, before starting, her apprehen- sions of danger were not vivid enough to lead her to take a companion. Slipping along here covertly as Time, Bathsheba fancied she could hear footsteps enter- ing the track at the opposite end. It was certainly a rustle of footsteps. Her own instantly fell as gently as snowflakes. She reassured herself by a remembrance that the path was public, and that the traveller was probably some villager returning home; regetting, at the same time, that the meeting should be about to occur in the darkest point of her route, even though only just outside her own door. The noise approached, came close, and a figure was apparently on the point of gliding past her when some- thing tugged at her skirt and pinned it forcibly to the ground. The instantaneous check nearly threw Bath- sheba off her balance. In recovering she struck against warm clothes and buttons. "A rum start, upon my soul!" said a masculine voice, a foot or so above her head. "Have I hurt you, mate?" "No." said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink a way. "We have got hitched together somehow, I think." "Yes." "Are you a woman?" "Yes." "A lady, I should have said." "It doesn't matter." "I am a man." "Oh!" Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose. "Is that a dark lantern you have? I fancy so." said the man. "Yes." "If you'll allow me I'll open it, and set you free." A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the rays burst out from their prison, and Bathsheba beheld her position with astonishment. The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in brass and scarlet. He was a soldier. His sudden appearance was to darkness what the sound of a trumpet is to silense. Gloom, the genius loci at all times hitherto, was now totally overthrown, less by the lantern-light than by what the lantern lighted. The contrast of this revelation with her anticipations of some sinister figure in sombre garb was so great that it had upon her the effect of a fairy transformation. It was immediately apparent that the military man's spur had become entangled in the gimp which decorated the skirt of her dress. He caught a view of her face. "I'll unfasten you in one moment, miss." he said, with new-born gallantry. "O no -- I can do it, thank you." she hastily replied, and stooped for the performance. The unfastening was not such a trifling affair. The rowel of the spur had so wound itself among the gimp cords in those few moments, that separation was likely to be a matter of time. He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the ground betwixt them threw the gleam from its open side among the fir-tree needles and the blades of long damp grass with the effect of a large glowworm. It radiated upwards into their faces, and sent over half the planta- tion gigantic shadows of both man and woman, each dusky shape becoming distorted and mangled upon the tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing. He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them for a moment; Bathsheba looked down again, for his gaze was too strong to be received point-blank with her own. But she had obliquely noticed that he was young and slim, and that he wore three chevrons upon his sleeve. Bathsheba pulled again. "You are a prisoner, miss; it is no use blinking the matter." said the soldier, drily. "I must cut your dress if you are in such a hurry." "Yes -- please do!" she exclaimed, helplessly. " "It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a moment," and he unwound a cord from the little wheel. She withdrew her own hand, but, whether by accident or design, he touched it. Bathsheba was vexed; she hardly knew why. His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed coming to no end. She looked at him again. "Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face!" said the young sergeant, without ceremony. She coloured with embarrassment. "'Twas un- willingly shown." she replied, stiffly, and with as much dignity -- which was very little -- as she could infuse into a position of captivity "I like you the better for that incivility, miss." he said. "I should have liked -- I wish -- you had never shown yourself to me by intruding here!" She pulled again, and the gathers of her dress began to give way like liliputian musketry. "I deserve the chastisement your words give me. But why should such a fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to her father's sex?" "Go on your way, please." "What, Beauty, and drag you after me? Do but look; I never saw such a tangle!" "O, 'tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose to keep me here -- you have!" "Indeed, I don't think so." said the sergeant, with a merry twinkle. "I tell you you have!" she exclaimed, in high temper. I insist upon undoing it. Now, allow me!" "Certainly, miss; I am not of steel." He added a sigh which had as much archness in it as a sigh could possess without losing its nature altogether. "I am thankful for beauty, even when 'tis thrown to me like a bone to a dog. These moments will be over too soon!" She closed her lips in a determined silence. Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether by a bold and desperate rush she could free herself at the risk of leaving her skirt bodily behind her. The thought was too dreadful. The dress -- which she had put on to appear stately at the supper -- was the head and front of her wardrobe; not another in her stock became her so well. What woman in Bathsheba's position, not naturally timid, and within call of her retainers, would have bought escape from a dashing soldier at so dear a price? "All in good time; it will soon be done, I perceive," said her cool friend. "This trifling provokes, and -- and -- -- " "Not too cruel!" "-- Insults me!" "It is done in order that I may have the pleasure of apologizing to so charming a woman, which I straightway do most humbly, madam." he said, bowing low. Bathsheba really knew not what to say. "I've seen a good many women in my time, continued the young man in a murmur, and more thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding her bent head at the same time; "but I've never seen a woman so beautiful as you. Take it or leave it -- be offended or like it -- I don't care." "Who are you, then, who can so well afford to despise opinion?" "No stranger. Sergeant Troy. I am staying in this place. -- There! it is undone at last, you see. Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's no untying!" This was worse and worse. She started up, and so did he. How to decently get away from him -- that was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness of his coat no longer. "Ah, Beauty; good-bye!" he said. She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of twenty or thirty yards, turned about, and ran indoors. Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her own chamber, Bathsheba opened the girl's door an inch or two, and, panting, said -- "Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village -- sergeant somebody -- rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good looking -- a red coat with blue facings?" "No, miss ... No, I say; but really it might be Sergeant Troy home on furlough, though I have not seen him. He was here once in that way when the regiment was at Casterbridge." "Yes; that's the name. Had he a moustache -- no whiskers or beard?" "He had." "What kind of a person is he?" "O! miss -- I blush to name it -- a gay man! But I know him to be very quick and trim, who might have made his thousands, like a squire. Such a clever young dandy as he is! He's a doctor's son by name, which is a great deal; and he's an earl's son by nature!" "Which is a great deal more. Fancy! Is it true?" "Yes. And, he was brought up so well, and sent to Casterbridge Grammar School for years and years. Learnt all languages while he was there; and it was said he got on so far that he could take down Chinese in shorthand; but that I don't answer for, as it was only reported. However, he wasted his gifted lot, and listed a soldier; but even then he rose to be a sergeant without trying at all. Ah! such a blessing it is to be high-born; nobility of blood will shine out even in the ranks and files. And is he really come home, miss?" "I believe so. Good-night, Liddy." After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts be permanently offended with the man? There are occasions when girls like Bathsheba will put up with a great deal of unconventional behaviour. When they want to be praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered, which is sometimes; and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba, with a dash of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome stranger who had evidently seen better days. So she could not clearly decide whether it was her opinion that he had insulted her or not. " "Was ever anything so odd!" she at last exclaimed to herself, in her own room. "And was ever anything so meanly done as what I did do to sulk away like that from a man who was only civil and kind!" Clearly she did not think his barefaced praise of her person an insult now. It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her she was beautiful. CHAPTER XXV THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED IDIOSYNCRASY and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being. He was a man to whom memories were an in- cumbrance, and anticipations a superfluity. Simply feeling, considering, and caring for what was before his eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His out- look upon time was as a transient flash of the eye now and then: that projection of consciousness into days gone by and to come, which makes the past a synonym for the pathetic and the future a word for circum- spection, was foreign to Troy. With him the past was yesterday; the future, to-morrow; never, the day after. On this account he might, in certain lights, have been regarded as one of the most fortunate of his order. For it may be argued with great plausibility that reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease, and that expectation in its only comfortable form -- that of absolute faith -- is practically an impossibility; whilst in the form of hope and the secondary compounds, patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity, it is a constant fluctuation between pleasure and pain. Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent of the practice of expectation, was never disappointed. To set against this negative gain there may have been some positive losses from a certain narrowing of the higher tastes and sensations which it entailed. But limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss by the loser therefrom: in this attribute moral or aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind it soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anything to have been always without it, and what Troy had never enjoyed he did not miss; but, being fully conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed, his capacity, though really less, seemed greater than theirs. He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan -- a system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society; and the possibility of the favour gained being transitory had reference only to the future. He never passed the line which divides the spruce vices from the ugly; and hence, though his morals had hardly been applauded, disapproval of them" had fre- quently been tempered with a smile. This treatment had led to his becoming a sort of regrater of other men's gallantries, to his own aggrandizement as a Corinthian, rather than to the moral profit of his hearers. His reason and his propensities had seldom any reciprocating influence, having separated by mutual consent long ago: thence it sometimes happened that, while his intentions were as honourable as could be wished, any particular deed formed a dark background which threw them into fine relief. The sergeant's vicious phases being the offspring of impulse, and his virtuous phases of cool meditation, the latter had a modest tendency to be oftener heard of than seen. Troy was full of activity, but his activities were less of a locomotive than a vegetative nature; and, never being based upon any original choice of foundation or direc- tion, they were exercised on whatever object chance might place in their way. Hence, whilst he sometimes reached the brilliant in speech because that -was spontaneous, he fell below the commonplace in action, from inability to guide incipient effort. He had a quick comprehension and considerable force of char- acter; but, being without the power to combine them, the comprehension became engaged with trivialities whilst waiting for the will to direct it, and the force wasted itself in useless grooves through unheeding the comprehension. He was a fairly well-educated man for one of middle class -- exceptionally well educated for a common soldier. He spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could in this way be one thing and seem another: for instance, he could speak of love and think of dinner; call on the intend to owe. The wondrous power of flattery in passados at woman is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like, without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home. When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness it seems co-ordinate with a belief that this flattery must be reasonable to be effective. It is to the credit of men that few attempt to settle the question by experi- ment, and it is for their happiness, perhaps, that accident has never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that a male dissembler who by deluging her with untenable fictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powers reaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and wringing occurrences. And some profess to have attained to the same knowledge by experiment as aforesaid, and jauntily continue their indulgence in such experiments with terrible effect. Sergeant Troy was one. He had been known to observe casually that in dealing with womankind the only alternative to flattery was cursing and swearing. There was no third method. "Treat them fairly, and you are a lost man." he would say. This philosopher's public appearance in Weatherbury promptly followed his arrival there. A week or two after the shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a nameless relief of spirits on account of Boldwood's absence, approached her hayfields and looked over the hedge towards the haymakers. They consisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being the men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead they were already loading hay, the women raking it into cocks and windrows, and the men tossing it upon the waggon. From behind the waggon a bright scarlet spot emerged, and went on loading unconcernedly with the rest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had come hay- making for pleasure; and nobody could deny that he was doing the mistress of the farm real knight-service by this voluntary contribution of his labour at a busy time. As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her, and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and picking up his crop or cane, he came forward. Bathsheba blushed with half-angry embarrassment, and adjusted her eyes as well as her feet to the direct line of her path. CHAPTER XXVI SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD "AH, Miss Everdene!" said the sergeant, touching his diminutive cap. "Little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night. And yet, if I had reflected, the "Queen of the Corn-market" (truth is truth at any hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in Casterbridge yesterday), the "Queen of the Corn-market." I say, could be no other woman. I step across now to beg your forgiveness a thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a stranger. To be sure I am no stranger to the place -- I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad. I have been doing the same for you today." "I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy." said the Queen of the Corn-market, in an in- differently grateful tone. The sergeant looked hurt and sad. "Indeed you must not, Miss Everdene." he said. "Why could you think such a thing necessary?" "I am glad it is not." "Why? if I may ask without offence." "Because I don't much want to thank you for any" thing." "I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never mend. O these intolerable times: that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful! 'Twas the most I said -- you must own that; and the least I could say -- that I own myself." "There is some talk I could do without more easily than money." "Indeed. That remark is a sort of digression." "No. It means that I would rather have your room than your company." "And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman; so I'll stay here." Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And yet she could not help feeling that the assistance he was render- ing forbade a harsh repulse. "Well." continued Troy, "I suppose there is a praise which is rudeness, and that may be mine. At the same time there is a treatment which is injustice, and that may be yours. Because a plain blunt man, who has never been taught concealment, speaks out his mind without exactly intending it, he's to be snapped off like the son of a sinner." "Indeed there's no such case between us." she said, turning away. "I don't allow strangers to be bold and impudent -- even in praise of me." "Ah -- it is not the fact but the method which offends you." he said, carelessly. "But I have the sad satis- faction of knowing that my words, whether pleasing or offensive, are unmistakably true. Would you have had me look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you are quite a common-place woman, to save you the embar- rassment of being stared at if they come near you? Not I. I couldn't tell any such ridiculous lie about a beauty to encourage a single woman in England in too excessive a modesty." "It is all pretence -- what you are saying!" exclaimed Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the sergeant's sly method. "You have a rare invention, Sergeant Troy. Why couldn't you have passed by me that night, and said nothing? -- that was all I meant to reproach you for." "Because I wasn't going to. Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out mine. It would have been just the same if you had been the reverse person -- ugly and old -- I should have exclaimed about it in the same way. " "How long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling, then?" "Oh, ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from deformity." "'Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of doesn't stop at faces, but extends to morals as well. " "I won't speak of morals or religion -- my own or anybody else's. Though perhaps I should have been a very good Christian if you pretty women hadn't made me an idolater." Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimp- lings of merriment. Troy followed, whirling his crop. "But -- Miss Everdene -- you do forgive me?" "Hardly. " "Why?" "You say such things." "I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still; for, by -- so you are! The most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall dead this instant! Why, upon my -- -- " "Don't -- don't! I won't listen to you -- you are so profane!" she said, in a restless state between distress at hearing him and a penchant to hear more. "I again say you are a most fascinating woman. There's nothing remarkable in my saying so, is there? I'm sure the fact is evident enough. Miss Everdene, my opinion may be too forcibly let out to please you, and, for the matter of that, too insignificant to convince you, but surely it is honest, and why can't it be ex- cused? " "Because it -- it isn't a correct one." she femininely murmured. "O, fie -- fie-! Am I any worse for breaking the third of that Terrible Ten than you for breaking the ninth?" "Well, it doesn't seem quite true to me that I am fascinating." she replied evasively. "Not so to you: then I say with all respect that, if so, it is owing to your modesty, Miss Everdene. But surely you must have been told by everybody of what everybody notices? and you should take their words for it." "They don't say so exactly." "O yes, they must!" "Well, I mean to my face, as you do." she went on, allowing herself to be further lured into a conversation that intention had rigorously forbidden. "But you know they think so?" "No -- that is -- I certainly have heard Liddy say they do, but -- --" She paused. Capitulation -- that was the purport of the simple reply, guarded as it was -- capitulation, unknown to her- self. Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the moment was the turning- point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the chink: the remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes. "There the truth comes out!" said the soldier, in reply. "Never tell me that a young lady can live in a buzz of admiration without knowing something about it. Ah." well, Miss Everdene, you are -- pardon my blunt way -- you are rather an injury to our race than other- wise. "How -- indeed?" she said, opening her eyes. "O, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of much account, but it will do for a rough soldier), and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and without hoping or intending to get your pardon. Why, Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that your good looks may do more. harm than good in the world." The sergeant looked down the mead in critical abstrac- ion. "Probably some one man on an average falls in" love, with each ordinary woman. She can marry him: he is content, and leads a useful life. Such women as you a hundred men always covet -- your eyes will be- 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 espised love in drink; twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in he world, because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you; twenty more -- the susceptible person myself possibly among them -- will be always draggling after you, getting where they may just see you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant fools! The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all these men will be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have married are saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Ever- dene, is hardly a blessing to her race." The handsome sergeant's features were during this speech as rigid and stern as John Knox's in addressing his gay young queen. Seeing she made no reply, he said, "Do you read French?" "No; I began, but when I got to the verbs, father died." she said simply. "I do -- when I have an opportunity, which latterly has not been often (my mother was a Parisienne) -- and there's a proverb they have, Qui aime bien chatie bien -- "He chastens who loves well." Do you understand me? "Ah!" she replied, and there was even a little tremu- lousness in the usually cool girl's voice; "if you can only fight half as winningly as you can talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound!" And then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this admission: in hastily trying to retrieve it, she went from bad to worse. "Don't, however, suppose that I derive any pleasure from what you tell me." "I know you do not -- I know it perfectly." said Troy, with much hearty conviction on the exterior of his face: and altering the expression to moodiness; "when a dozen men arfe ready to speak tenderly to you, and give the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you need, it stands to reason that my poor rough-and-ready mixture of praise and blame cannot convey much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am not so conceited as to suppose that!" "I think you -- are conceited, nevertheless." said Bathsheba, looking askance at a reed she was fitfully pulling with one hand, having lately grown feverish under the soldier's system of procedure -- not because the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but because its vigour was overwhelming. "I would not own it to anybody else -- nor do I exactly to you. Still, there might have been some self- conceit in my foolish supposition the other night. I knew that what I said in admiration might be an opinion too often forced upon you to give any pleasure but I certainly did think that the kindness of your nature might prevent you judging an uncontrolled tongue harshly -- which you have done -- and thinking badly of me and wounding me this morning, when I am working hard to save your hay." "Well, you need not think more of that: perhaps you did not mean to be rude to me by speaking out your mind: indeed, I believe you did not." said the shrewd woman, in painfully innocent earnest. "And I thank you for giving help here. But -- but mind you don't speak to me again in that way, or in any other, unless I speak to you." "O, Miss Bathsheba! That is to 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 miser- able monotony of drill -- and perhaps our regiment will be ordered out soon. And yet you take away the one little ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life of mine. Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's most marked characteristic." "When are you going from here?" she asked, with some interest. "In a month." "But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?" "Can you ask Miss Everdene -- knowing as you do -- what my offence is based on?" "I you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then, I don't mind doing it." she uncertainly and doubtingly answered. "But you can't really care for a word from me? you only say so -- I think you only say so." "that's unjust -- but I won't repeat the remark. I am too gratified to get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavil at the tone. I do Miss Everdene, care for it. You may think a man foolish to want a mere word -- just a good morning. Perhaps he is -- I don't know. But you have never been a man looking upon a woman, and that woman yourself." "Well." "Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like -- and Heaven forbid that you ever should!" "Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing." "Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture." "Ah, sergeant, it won't do -- you are pretending!" she said, shaking her head." Your words are too dashing to be true." "I am not, upon the honour of a soldier" "But why is it so? -- Of course I ask for mere pas- time." 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 in- stantaneously. I loved you then, at once -- as I do now." Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upward, as high as she liked to venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his eyes. "You cannot and you don"t." she said demurely. "There is-no such sudden feeling in people. I won't listen to you any longer. Hear me, I wish I knew what o'clock it is -- I am going -- I have wasted too much time here already!" The sergeant looked at his watch and told her. "What, haven't you a watch, miss?" he inquired. "I have not just at present -- I am about to get a new one." "No. You shall be given one. Yes -- you shall. A gift, Miss Everdene -- a gift." And before she knew what the young -- man was intending, a heavy gold watch was in her hand. "It is an unusually good one for a man like me to possess." he quietly said. "That watch has a history. Press the spring and open the back." She did so. "What do you see?" "A crest and a motto." "A coronet with five points, and beneath, Cedit amor rebus -- "Love yields to circumstance." It's the motto of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the last lord, and was given to my mother's husband, a medical man, for his use till I came of age, when it was to be given to me. It was all the fortune that ever I inherited. That watch has regulated imperial interests in its time -- the stately ceremonial, the courtly assigna- tion, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. Now it is yours. "But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this -- I cannot!" she exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. "A gold watch! What are you doing? Don't be such a dissembler!" The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she held out persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired. "Keep it -- do, Miss Everdene -- keep it!" said the erratic child of impulse. "The fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten times as much to me. A more plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well, and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats against -- well, I won't speak of that. It is in far worthier hands than ever it has been in before." "But indeed I can't have it!" she said, in a perfect simmer of distress. "O, how can you do such a thing; that is if you really mean it! Give me your dead father's watch, and such a valuable one! You should not be so reckless, indeed, Sergeant Troy!" "I loved my father: good; but better, I love you more. That's how I can do it." said the sergeant, with an intonation of such exquisite fidelity to nature that it. was evidently not all acted now. Her beauty, which, whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest, had in its animated phases moved him to earnest; and though his seriousness was less than she imagined, it was probably more than he imagined himself. Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in half-suspicious accents of feeling, "Can it be! O, how can it be, that you care for me, and so suddenly,! You have seen so little of me: I may not be really so -- so nice-looking as I seem to you. Please, do take it; O, do! I cannot and will not have it. Believe me, your generosity is too great. I have never done you a single kindness, and why should you be so kind to me?" A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but it was again suspended, and he looked at her with an arrested eye. The truth was, that as she now stood -- excited, wild, and honest as the day -- her alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it that he was quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as false. He said mechanically, "Ah, why?" and continued to look at her. "And my workfolk see me following you about the field, and are wondering. O, this is dreadful!" she went on, unconscious of the transmutation she was effecting. "I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it as 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." "bet it be, then, let it be." he said, receiving back the watch at last; "I must be leaving you now. And will you speak to me for these few weeks of my stay?" "Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will! O, why did you come and disturb me so!" "Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. Such things have happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields?" he coaxed. "Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you." "Miss Everdene, I thank you. "No, no." "Good-bye!" The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head, saluted, and returned to the distant group of haymakers. Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. Her heart erratically flitting hither and thither from per- plexed excitement, hot, and almost tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, O, what have I done! What does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true! CHAPTER XXVII HIVING THE BEES THE Weatherbury bees were late in their swarming this year. It was in the latter part of June, and the day after the interview with Troy in the hayfield, that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, watching a swarm in the air and guessing their probable settling place. Not only were they late this year, but unruly. Sometimes through- out a whole season all the swarms would alight on the lowest attainable bough -- such as part of a currant-bush or espalier apple-tree; next year they would, with just the same unanimity, make straight off to the uppermost member of some tall, gaunt costard, or quarrenden, and there defy all invaders who did not come armed with ladders and staves to take them. This was the case at present. Bathsheba's eyes, shaded by one hand, were following the ascending multitude against the unexplorable stretch of blue till they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy trees spoken of. A process somewhat analogous to that of alleged formations of the universe, time and times ago, was observable. The bustling swarm had swept the sky in a scattered and uniform haze, which now thickened to a nebulous centre: this glided on to a bough and grew still denser, till it formed a solid black spot upon the light. The men and women being all busily engaged in saving the hay -- even Liddy had left the house for the purpose of lending a hand -- Bathsheba resolved to hive the bees herself, if possible. She had dressed the hive with herbs and honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook, made herself impregnable with armour of leather gloves, straw hat, and large gauze veil -- once green but now faded to snuff colour -- and ascended a dozen rungs of the ladder. At once she heard, not ten yards off, a voice that was beginning to have a strange power in agitating her. "Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should not attempt such a thing alone." Troy was just opening the garden gate. Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook, and empty hive, pulled the skirt of her dress tightly round her ankles in a tremendous flurry, and as well as she could slid down the ladder. By the time she reached the bottom Troy was there also, and he stooped to pick up the hive. "How fortunate I am to have dropped in at this moment!" exclaimed the sergeant. She found her voice in a minute. "What! and will you shake them in for me?" she asked, in what, for a defiant girl, was a faltering way; though, for a timid girl, it would have seemed a brave way enough. "Will I!" said Troy. "Why, of course I will. How blooming you are to-day!" Troy flung down his cane and put his foot on the ladder to ascend. "But you must have on the veil and gloves, or you'll be stung fearfully!" "Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. Will you kindly show me how to fix them properly?" "And you must have the broad-brimmed hat, too, for your cap has no brim to keep the veil off, and they'd reach your face." "The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means." So a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be taken off -- veil and all attached -- and placed upon his head, Troy tossing his own into a gooseberry bush. Then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge round his collar and the gloves put on him. He looked such an extraordinary object in this guise that, flurried as she was, she could not avoid laughing outright. It was the removal of yet another stake from the palisade of cold manners which had kept him off Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst he was busy sweeping and shaking the bees from the tree, holding up the hive with the other hand for them to fall into. She made use of an unobserved minute whilst his attention was absorbed in the operation to arrange her plumes a little. He came down holding the hive at arm's length, behind which trailed a cloud of bees. "Upon my life." said Troy, through the veil," holding up this hive makes one's arm ache worse than a week of sword-exercise." When the manoeuvre was complete he approached her. "Would you be good enough to untie me and let me out? I am nearly stifled inside this silk cage." To hide her embarrassment during the unwonted process of untying the string about his neck, she said: -- "I have never seen that you spoke of." "What?" "The sword-exercise." "Ah! would you like to?" said Troy. Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous reports from time to time by dwellers in Weatherbury, who had by chance sojourned awhile in Casterbridge, near the barracks, of this strange and glorious perform- ance, *tlie sword-exercise. Men and boys who had peeped through chinks or over walls into the barrack- yard returned with accounts of its being the most flashing affair conceivable; accoutrements and weapons glistening like stars-here,there,around-yet all by rule and compass. So she said mildly what she felt strongly. "Yes; I should like to see it very much." "And so you shall; you shall see me go through it." "No! How?" "Let me consider." "Not with a walking-stick -- I don't care to see that. lt 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?" "O no, indeed!" said Bathsheba, blushing." Thank you very much, but I couldn't on any account. "Surely you might? Nobody would know." She shook her head, but with a weakened negation. "If I were to." she said, "I must bring Liddy too. Might I not?" Troy looked far away. "I don't see why you want to bring her." he said coldly. An unconscious look of assent in Bathsheba's eyes betrayed that something more than his coldness had made her also feel that Liddy Would be superfluous in the suggested scene. She had felt it, even whilst making the proposal. "Well, I won't bring Liddy -- and I'll come. But only for a very short time." she added; "a very short time." "It will not take five minutes." said Troy. CHAPTER XXVIII THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS THE hill opposite Bathsheba's dwelling extended, a mile off, into an uncultivated tract of land, dotted at this season with tall thickets of brake fern, plump and diaphanous from recent rapid growth, and radiant in hues of clear and untainted green. At eight o'clock this midsummer evening, whilst the bristling ball of gold in the west still swept the tips of the ferns with its long, luxuriant rays, a soft brushing- by of garments might have been heard among them, and Bathsheba appeared in their midst, their soft, feathery arms caressing her up to her shoulders. She paused, turned, went back over the hill and half-way to her own door, whence she cast a farewell glance upon the spot she had just left, having resolved not to remain near the place after all. She saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round the shoulder of the rise. It disappeared on the other side. She waited one minute -- two minutes -- thought of Troy's disappointment at her non-fulfilment of a promised engagement, till she again ran along the field, clambered over the bank, and followed the original direction. She was now literally trembling and panting at this her temerity in such an errant undertaking; her breath came and went quickly, and her eyes shone with an in- frequent light. Yet go she must. She reached the verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns. Troy stood in the bottom, looking up towards her. "I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw you." he said, coming up and giving her his hand to help her down the slope. The pit was a saucer-shaped concave, naturally formed, with a top diameter of about thirty feet, and shallow enough to allow the sunshine to reach their heads. Standing in the centre, the sky overhead was met by a circular horizon of fern: this grew nearly to the bottom of the slope and then abruptly ceased. The middle within the belt of verdure was floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss and grass intermingled, so yielding that the foot was half-buried within it. "Now." said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he raised it into the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a living thing, "first, we have four right and four left cuts; four right and four left thrusts. Infantry cuts and guards are more interesting than ours, to my mind; but they are not so swashing. They have seven cuts and three thrusts. So much as a preliminary. Well, next, our cut one is as if you were sowing your corn -- so." Bathsheba saw a sort of rainbow, upside down in the air, and Troy's arm was still again. "Cut two, as if you were hedging -- so. Three, as if you were reaping -- so." Four, as if you were threshing -- in that way. "Then the same on the left. The thrusts are these: one, two, three, four, right; one, two, three, four, left." He repeated them. "Have 'em again?" he said. "One, two -- -- " She hurriedly interrupted: "I'd rather not; though I don't mind your twos and fours; but your ones and threes are terrible!" "Very well. I'll let you off the ones and threes. Next, cuts, points and guards altogether." Troy duly exhibited them. "Then there's pursuing practice, in this way." He gave the movements as before. "There, those are the stereotyped forms. The infantry have two most diabolical upward cuts, which we are too humane to use. Like this -- three, four." "How murderous and bloodthirsty!" "They are rather deathy. Now I'll be more inter- esting, and let you see some loose play -- giving all the cuts and points, infantry and cavalry, quicker than lightning, and as promiscuously -- with just enough rule to regulate instinct and yet not to fetter it. You are my antagonist, with this difference from real warfare, that I shall miss you every time by one hair's breadth, or perhaps two. Mind you don't flinch, whatever you do." I'll be sure not to!" she said invincibly. He pointed to about a yard in front of him. Bathsheba's adventurous spirit was beginning to find some grains of relish in these highly novel proceedings. She took up her position as directed, facing Troy. "Now just to learn whether you have pluck enough to let me do what I wish, I'll give you a preliminary test." He flourished the sword by way of introduction number two, and the next thing of which she was conscious was that the point and blade of the sword were darting with a gleam towards her left side, just above her hip; then of their reappearance on her right side, emerging as it were from between her ribs, having apparently passed through her body. The third item of consciousness was that of seeing the same sword, perfectly clean and free from blood held vertically in Troy's hand (in the position technically called "recover swords"). All was as quick as electricity. "Oh!" she cried out in affright, pressing her hand to her side." Have you run me through? -- no, you have not! Whatever have you done!" "I have not touched you." said Troy, quietly. "It was mere sleight of hand. The sword passed behind you. Now you are not afraid, are you? Because if you are l can't perform. I give my word that l will not only not hurt you, but not once touch you." "I don't think I am afraid. You are quite sure you will not hurt me?" "Quite sure." "Is the sWord very sharp?" "O no -- only stand as still as a statue. Now!" In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba's eyes. Beams of light caught from the low sun's rays, above, around, in front of her, well-nigh shut out earth and heaven -- all emitted in the marvellous evolutions of Troy's reflecting blade, which seemed everywhere at once, and yet nowherre specially. These circling gleams were accompanied by a keen rush that was almost a whistling -- also springing from all sides of her at once. In short, she was enclosed in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses, resembling a sky-full of meteors close at hand. Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been more dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of Sergeant Troy, and never had he been in such splendid temper for the performance as now in the evening sunshine among the ferns with Bathsheba. It may safely be asserted with respect to the closeness of his cuts, that had it been possible for the edge of the sword to leave in the air a permanent substance wherever it flew past, the space left untouched would have been almost a mould of Bathsheba's figure. Behind the luminous streams of this aurora militaris, she could see the hue of Troy's sword arm, spread in a scarlet haze over the space covered by its motions, like a twanged harpstring, and behind all Troy himself, mostly facing her; sometimes, to show the rear cuts, half turned away, his eye nevertheless always keenly measuring her breadth and outline, and his lips tightly closed in sustained effort. Next, his movements lapsed slower, and she could see them individually. The hissing of the sword had ceased, and he stopped entirely. "That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying, he said, before she had moved or spoken. "Wait: I'll do it for you." An arc of silver shone on her right side: the sword had descended. The lock droped to the ground. "Bravely borne!" said Troy. "You didn't flinch a shade's thickness. Wonderful in a woman!" "It was because I didn't expect it. O, you have spoilt my hair!" "Only once more." "No -- no! I am afraid of you -- indeed I am!" she cried. "I won't touch you at all -- not even your hair. I am only going to kill that caterpillar settling on you. Now: still!" It appeared that a caterpillar had come from the fern and chosen the front of her bodice as his resting place. She saw the point glisten towards her bosom, and seemingly enter it. Bathsheba closed her eyes in the full persuasion that she was killed at last. How- ever, feeling just as usual, she opened them again. "There it is, look." said the sargeant, holding his sword before her eyes. The caterpillar was spitted upon its point. "Why, it is magic!" said Bathsheba, amazed. "O no -- dexterity. I merely gave point to your bosom where the caterpillar was, and instead of running you through checked the extension a thousandth of an inch short of your surface." "But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has no edge?" "No edge! This sword will shave like a razor. Look here." He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it, showed her a thin shaving of scarf- skin dangling therefrom. "But you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn't cut me!" "That was to get you to stand still, and so make sure of your safety. The risk of injuring you through your moving was too great not to force me to tell you a fib to escape it." She shuddered. "I have been within an inch of my life, and didn't know it!" "More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five tinies." "Cruel, cruel, 'tis of you!" "You have been perfectly safe, nevertheless. My sword never errs." And Troy returned the weapon to the scabbard. Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred tumultuous feel- ings resulting from the scene, abstractedly sat down on a tuft of heather. "I must leave you now." said Troy, softly. "And I'll venture to take and keep this in remembrance of you." She saw him stoop to the grass, pick up the winding lock which he had severed from her manifold tresses, twist it round his fingers, unfasten a button in the breast of his coat, and carefully put it inside. She felt power- less to withstand or deny him. He was altogether too much for her, and Bathsheba seemed as one who, facing a reviving wind, finds it blow so strongly that it stops the breath. He drew near and said, "I must be leaving you." He drew nearer still. A minute later and she saw his scarlet form disappear amid the ferny thicket, almost in a flash, like a brand swiftly waved. That minute's interval had brought the blood beating into her face, set her stinging as if aflame to the very hollows of her feet, and enlarged emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought. It had brought upon her a stroke resulting, as did that of Moses in Horeh, in a liquid stream -- here a stream of tears. She felt like one who has sinned a great sin. The circumstance had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards upon her own. He had kissed her. CHAPTER XXIX PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK WE now see the element of folly distinctly mingling with the many varying particulars which made up the character of Bathsheba Everdene. It was almost foreign to her intrinsic nature. Introduced as lymph on the dart of Eros, it eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution. Bathsheba, though she had too much understanding to be entirely governed by her womanliness, had too much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage. Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses of believing cajoleries that she knows to be false -- except, indeed, in that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she knows to be true. Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new. Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this matter. Though in one sense a woman of the world, it was, after all, that world of daylight coteries and green carpets wherein cattle form the passing crowd and winds the busy hum; where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on the other side of your party-wall, where your neigh- bour is everybody in the tything, and where calculation formulated self-indulgence of bad, nothing at all. Had her utmost thoughts in this direction been distinctly worded (and by herself they never were), they would only have amounted to such a matter as that she felt her impulses to be pleasanter guides than her discretion . Her love was entire as a child's, and though warm as summer it was fresh as spring. Her culpability lay in her making no attempt to control feeling by subtle and careful inquiry into consciences. She could show others the steep and thorny way, but 'reck'd not her own rede," And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose vertues were as metals in a mine. The difference between love and respect was mark- edly shown in her conduct. Bathsheba had spoken of her interest in Boldwood with the greatest freedom to Liddy, but she had only communed with her own heart concerning "Troy". All this infatuation Gabriel saw, and was troubled thereby from the time of his daily journey a-field to the time of his return, and on to the small hours of many a night. That he was not beloved had hitherto been his great that Bathsheba was getting into the toils was now a sorrow greater than the first, and one which nearly obscured it. It was a result which paralleled the oft-quoted observation of Hippocrates concerning physical pains. That is a noble though perhaps an unpromising love which not even the fear of breeding aversion in the bosom of the one beloved can deter from combating his or her errors. Oak determined to speak to his mistress. He would base his appeal on what he considered her unfair treatment of Farmer Boldwood, now absent from home. An opportunity occurred one evening when she had gone for a short walk by a path through the neighbour- ing cornfields. It was dusk when Oak, who had not been far a-field that day, took the same path and met her returning, quite pensively, as he thought. The wheat was now tall, and the path was narrow; thus the way was quite a sunken groove between the embowing thicket on either side. Two persons could not walk abreast without damaging the crop, and Oak stood aside to let her pass. "Oh, is it Gabriel?" she said. "You are taking a walk too. Good-night." "I thought I would come to meet you, as it is rather late," said Oak, turning and following at her heels when she had brushed somewhat quickly by him. "Thank you, indeed, but I am not very fearful." "O no; but there are bad characters about." "I never meet them." Now Oak, with marvellous ingenuity, had been going to introduce the gallant sergeant through the channel of "bad characters." But all at once the scheme broke down, it suddenly occurring to him that this was rather a clumsy way, and too barefaced to begin with. He tried another preamble. "And as the man who would naturally come to meet you is away from home, too -- I mean Farmer Boldwood -- why, thinks I, I'll go." he said. "Ah, yes." She walked on without turning her head, and for many steps nothing further was heard from her quarter than the rustle of her dress against the heavy corn-ears. Then she resumed rather tartly -- "I don't quite understand what you meant by saying that Mr. Boldwood would naturally come to meet me." I meant on account of the wedding which they say is likely to take place between you and him, miss. For- give my speaking plainly." "They say what is not true." she returned quickly. No marriage is likely to take place between us." Gabriel now put forth his unobscured opinion, for the moment had come. "Well, Miss Everdene." he said, "putting aside what people say, I never in my life saw any courting if his is not a courting of you." Bathsheba would probably have terminated the con- versation there and then by flatly forbidding the subject, had not her conscious weakness of position allured her to palter and argue in endeavours to better it. "Since this subject has been mentioned." she said very emphatically, "I am glad of the opportunity of clearing up a mistake which is very common and very provoking. I didn't definitely promise Mr. Boldwood anything. I have never cared for him. I respect him, and he has urged me to marry him. But I have given him no distinct answer. As soon as he returns I shall do so; and the answer will be that I cannot think of marrying him." "People are full of mistakes, seemingly." "They are." The other day they said you were trifling with him, and you almost proved that you were not; lately they have said that you be not, and you straightway begin to show -- -- " That I am, I suppose you mean." "Well, I hope they speak the truth." They do, but wrongly applied. I don't trifle with him; but then, I have nothing to do with him." Oak was unfortunately led on to speak of Boldwood's rival in a wrong tone to her after all. "I wish you had never met that young Sergeant Troy, miss." he sighed. Bathsheba's steps became faintly spasmodic. "Why?" she asked. "He is not good enough for 'ee." "Did any one tell you to speak to me like this?" "Nobody at all." "Then it appears to me that Sergeant Troy does not concern us here." she said, intractably." Yet I must say that Sergeant Troy is an educated man, and quite worthy of any woman. He is well born." "His being higher in learning and birth than the ruck o' soldiers is anything but a proof of his worth. It show's his course to be down'ard." "I cannot see what this has to do with our conversa- tion. Mr. Troy's course is not by any means downward; and his superiority IS a proof of his worth!" "I believe him to have no conscience at all. And I cannot help begging you, miss, to have nothing to do with him. Listen to me this once -- only this once! I don't say he's such a bad man as I have fancied -- I pray to God he is not. But since we don't exactly know what he is, why not behave as if he MIGHT be bad, simply for your own safety? Don't trust him, mistress; I ask you not to trust him so." "Why, pray?" "I like soldiers, but this one I do not like." he said, sturdily. "His cleverness in his calling may have tempted him astray, and what is mirth to the neighbours is ruin to the woman. When he tries to talk to 'ee again, why not turn away with a short "Good day," and when you see him coming one way, turn the other. When he says anything laughable, fail to see the point and don't smile, and speak of him before those who will report your talk as "that fantastical man." or " that Sergeant What's-his-name." "That man of a family that has come to the dogs." Don't be unmannerly towards en, but harmless-uncivil, and so get rid of the man." No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane ever pulsed as did Bathsheba now. I say -- I say again -- that it doesn't become you to talk about him. Why he should be mentioned passes me quite . she exclaimed desperately. "I know this, th-th-that he is a thoroughly conscientious man -- blunt sometimes even to rudeness -- but always speaking his mind about you plain to your face!" "Oh." "He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too, about going to church -- yes, he is!" "I am afraid nobody saw him there. I never did certainly." "The reason of that is." she said eagerly, " that he goes in privately by the old tower door, just when the service commences, and sits at the back of the gallery. He told me so." This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like the thirteenth stroke of crazy clock. It was not only received with utter incredulity as re- garded itself, but threw a doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it. Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted him. He brimmed with deep feeling as he replied in a steady voice, the steadiness of which was spoilt by the 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: beyond that I put it aside. I have lost in the race for money and good things, and I am not such a fool as to pretend to 'ee now I am poor, and you have got alto- gether above me. But Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider -- that, both to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, and in common generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, you PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK should be more discreet in your bearing towards this soldier." "Don't, don't, don't!" she exclaimed, in a choking voice. "Are ye not more to me than my own affairs, and even life!" he went on. "Come, listen to me! I am six years older than you, and Mr. Boldwood is ten years older than I, and consider -- I do beg of 'ee to consider before it is too late -- how safe you would be in his hands!" Oak's allusion to his own love for her lessened, to some extent, her anger at his interference; but she could not really forgive him for letting his wish to marry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her good, any more than for his slighting treatment of Troy. "I wish you to go elsewhere." she commanded, a paleness of face invisible to the eye being suggested by the trembling words. "Do not remain on this farm any longer. I don't want you -- I beg you to go!" "That's nonsense." said Oak, calmly. "This is the second time you have pretended to dismiss me; and what's the use o' it?" "Pretended! You shall go, sir -- your lecturing I will not hear! I am mistress here." "Go, indeed -- what folly will you say next? Treating me like Dick, Tom and Harry when you know that a short time ago my position was as good as yours! Upon my life, Bathsheba, it is too barefaced. You know, too, that I can't go without putting things in such a strait as you wouldn't get out of I can't tell when. Unless, indeed, you'll promise to have an understanding man as bailiff, or manager, or something. I'll go at once if you'll promise that." "I shall have no bailiff; I shall continue to be my own manager." she said decisively. "Very well, then; you should be thankful to me for biding. How would the farm go on with nobody to mind it but a woman? But mind this, I don't wish "ee to feel you owe me anything. Not I. What I do, I do. Sometimes I say I should be as glad as a bird to leave the place -- for don't suppose I'm content to be a nobody. I was made for better things. However, I don't like to see your concerns going to ruin, as they must if you keep in this mind.... I hate taking my own measure so plain, but, upon my life, your provok- ing ways make a man say what he wouldn't dream of at other times! I own to being rather interfering. But you know well enough how it is, and who she is that I like too well, and feel too much like a fool about to be civil to her!" It is more than probable that she privately and un- consciously respected him a little for this grim fidelity, which had been shown in his tone even more than in his words. At any rate she murmured something to the effect that he might stay if he wished. She said more distinctly, " Will you leave me alone now? I don't order it as a mistress -- I ask it as a woman, and I expect you not to be so uncourteous as to refuse." "Certainly I will, Miss Everdene." said Gabriel, gently. He wondered that the request should have come at this moment, for the strife was over, and they were on a most desolate hill, far from every human habitation, and the hour was getting late. He stood still and allowed her to get far ahead of him till he could only see her form upon the sky. A distressing explanation of this anxiety to be rid of him at that point now ensued. A figure apparently rose from the earth beside her. The shape beyond all doubt was Troy's. Oak would not be even a possible listener, and at once turned back till a good two hundred yards were between the lovers and himself. Gabriel went home by way of the churchyard. In passing the tower he thought of what she had said about the sergeant's virtuous habit of entering the church un- PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK perceived at the beginning of service. Believing that the little gallery door alluded to was quite disused, he ascended the external flight of steps at the top of which it stood, and examined it. The pale lustre yet hanging in the north-western heaven was sufficient to show that a sprig of ivy had grown from the wall across the door to a length of more than a foot, delicately tying the panel to the stone jamb. It was a decisive proof that the door had not been opened at least since Troy came back to Weatherbury. CHAPTER XXX HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES HALF an hour later Bathsheba entered her own house. There burnt upon her face when she met the light of the candles the flush and excitement which were little less than chronic with her now. The farewell words of Troy, who had accompanied her to the very door, still lingered in her ears. He had bidden her adieu for two days, which were so he stated, to be spent at Bath in visiting some friends. He had also kissed her a second time. It is only fair to Bathsheba to explain here a little fact which did not come to light till a long time after- wards: that Troy's presentation of himself so aptly at the roadside this evening was not by any distinctly pre- concerted arrangement. He had hinted -- she had forbidden; and it was only on the chance of his still coming that she had dismissed Oak, fearing a meeting between them just then. She now sank down into a chair, wild and perturbed by all these new and fevering sequences. Then she jumped up with a manner of decision, and fetched her desk from a side table. In three minutes, without pause or modification, she had written a letter to Boldwood, at his address beyond Casterbridge, saying mildly but firmly that she had well considered the whole subject he had brought before her and kindly given her time to decide upon; that her final decision was that she could not marry him. She had expressed to Oak an intention to wait till Boldwood came home before communicating to him her conclusive reply. But Bathsheba found that she could not wait. It was impossible to send this letter till the next day; yet to quell her uneasiness by getting it out of her hands, and so, as it were, setting the act in motion at once, she arose to take it to any one of the women who might be in the kitchen. She paused in the passage. A dialogue was going on in the kitchen, and Bathsheba and Troy were the subject of it. "If he marry her, she'll gie up farming." "Twill be a gallant life, but may bring some trouble between the mirth -- so say I." "Well, I wish I had half such a husband." Bathsheba had too much sense to mind seriously what her servitors said about her; but too much womanly redundance of speech to leave alone what was said till it died the natural death of unminded things. She burst in upon them. "Who are you speaking of?" she asked. There was a pause before anybody replied. At last Liddy said frankly," What was passing was a bit of a word about yourself, miss." "I thought so! Maryann and Liddy and Temper- ance -- now I forbid you to suppose such things. You know I don't care the least for Mr. Troy -- not I. Every- body knows how much I hate him. -- Yes." repeated the froward young person, "HATE him!" "We know you do, miss." said Liddy; "and so do we all." "I hate him too." said Maryann. "Maryann -- O you perjured woman! How can you speak that wicked story!" said Bathsheba, excitedly. "You admired him from your heart only this morning in the very world, you did. Yes, Maryann, you know it!" "Yes, miss, but so did you. He is a wild scamp now, and you are right to hate him." "He's NOT a wild scamp! How dare you to my face! I have no right to hate him, nor you, nor anybody. But I am a silly woman! What is it to me what he is? You know it is nothing. I don't care for him; I don"t mean to defend his good name, not I. Mind this, if any of you say a word against him you'll be dismissed instantly!" She flung down the letter and surged back into the parlour, with a big heart and tearful eyes, Liddy following her. "O miss!" said mild Liddy, looking pitifully into Bathsheba's face. "I am sorry we mistook you so! did think you cared for him; but I see you don't now." "Shut the door, Liddy." Liddy closed the door, and went on: " People always say such foolery, miss. I'll make answer hencefor'ard, "Of course a lady like Miss Everdene can't love him;" I'll say it out in plain black and white." Bathsheba burst out: "O Liddy, are you such a simpleton? Can't you read riddles? Can't you see? Are you a woman yourself?" Liddy's clear eyes rounded with wonderment. "Yes; you must be a blind thing, Liddy!" she said, in reckless abandonment and grief. "O, I love him to very distraction and misery and agony! Don't be frightened at me, though perhaps I am enough to frighten any innocent woman. Come closer -- closer." She put her arms round Liddy's neck. "I must let it out to somebody; it is wearing me away! Don't you yet know enough of me to see through that miserable denial of mine? O God, what a lie it was! Heaven and my Love forgive me. And don't you know that a woman who loves at all thinks nothing of perjury when it is balanced against her love? There, go out of the room; I want to be quite alone." Liddy went towards the door. "Liddy, come here. Solemnly swear to me that he's not a fast man; that it is all lies they say about him!" "Put, miss, how can I say he is not if -- -- " "You graceless girl! How can you have the cruel heart to repeat what they say? Unfeeling thing that you are.... But I'LL see if you or anybody else in the village, or town either, dare do such a thing!" She started off, pacing from fireplace to door, and back again. "No, miss. I don't -- I know it is not true!" said Liddy, frightened at Bathsheba's unwonted vehemence. I suppose you only agree with me like that to please me. But, Liddy, he CANNOT BE had, as is said. Do you
Back to Full Books |