OAK'S ADVANCEMENT--A GREAT HOPE

The later autumn and the winter drew on apace, and the leaves lay
thick upon the turf of the glades and the mosses of the woods.
Bathsheba, having previously been living in a state of suspended
feeling which was not suspense, now lived in a mood of quietude which
was not precisely peacefulness.  While she had known him to be alive
she could have thought of his death with equanimity; but now that it
might be she had lost him, she regretted that he was not hers still.
She kept the farm going, raked in her profits without caring keenly
about them, and expended money on ventures because she had done so
in bygone days, which, though not long gone by, seemed infinitely
removed from her present.  She looked back upon that past over a
great gulf, as if she were now a dead person, having the faculty of
meditation still left in her, by means of which, like the mouldering
gentlefolk of the poet's story, she could sit and ponder what a gift
life used to be.

However, one excellent result of her general apathy was the
long-delayed installation of Oak as bailiff; but he having virtually
exercised that function for a long time already, the change, beyond
the substantial increase of wages it brought, was little more than a
nominal one addressed to the outside world.

Boldwood lived secluded and inactive.  Much of his wheat and all his
barley of that season had been spoilt by the rain.  It sprouted,
grew into intricate mats, and was ultimately thrown to the pigs in
armfuls.  The strange neglect which had produced this ruin and waste
became the subject of whispered talk among all the people round; and
it was elicited from one of Boldwood's men that forgetfulness had
nothing to do with it, for he had been reminded of the danger to his
corn as many times and as persistently as inferiors dared to do.
The sight of the pigs turning in disgust from the rotten ears seemed
to arouse Boldwood, and he one evening sent for Oak.  Whether it
was suggested by Bathsheba's recent act of promotion or not, the
farmer proposed at the interview that Gabriel should undertake the
superintendence of the Lower Farm as well as of Bathsheba's, because
of the necessity Boldwood felt for such aid, and the impossibility
of discovering a more trustworthy man. Gabriel's malignant star was
assuredly setting fast.

Bathsheba, when she learnt of this proposal--for Oak was obliged to
consult her--at first languidly objected.  She considered that the
two farms together were too extensive for the observation of one
man.  Boldwood, who was apparently determined by personal rather than
commercial reasons, suggested that Oak should be furnished with a
horse for his sole use, when the plan would present no difficulty,
the two farms lying side by side.  Boldwood did not directly
communicate with her during these negotiations, only speaking to Oak,
who was the go-between throughout.  All was harmoniously arranged at
last, and we now see Oak mounted on a strong cob, and daily trotting
the length and breadth of about two thousand acres in a cheerful spirit
of surveillance, as if the crops all belonged to him--the actual
mistress of the one-half and the master of the other, sitting in
their respective homes in gloomy and sad seclusion.

Out of this there arose, during the spring succeeding, a talk in the
parish that Gabriel Oak was feathering his nest fast.

"Whatever d'ye think," said Susan Tall, "Gable Oak is coming it quite
the dand.  He now wears shining boots with hardly a hob in 'em, two
or three times a-week, and a tall hat a-Sundays, and 'a hardly knows
the name of smockfrock.  When I see people strut enough to be cut up
into bantam cocks, I stand dormant with wonder, and says no more!"

It was eventually known that Gabriel, though paid a fixed wage by
Bathsheba independent of the fluctuations of agricultural profits,
had made an engagement with Boldwood by which Oak was to receive a
share of the receipts--a small share certainly, yet it was money of
a higher quality than mere wages, and capable of expansion in a way
that wages were not.  Some were beginning to consider Oak a "near"
man, for though his condition had thus far improved, he lived in no
better style than before, occupying the same cottage, paring his own
potatoes, mending his stockings, and sometimes even making his bed
with his own hands.  But as Oak was not only provokingly indifferent
to public opinion, but a man who clung persistently to old habits and
usages, simply because they were old, there was room for doubt as to
his motives.

A great hope had latterly germinated in Boldwood, whose unreasoning
devotion to Bathsheba could only be characterized as a fond madness
which neither time nor circumstance, evil nor good report, could
weaken or destroy.  This fevered hope had grown up again like a grain
of mustard-seed during the quiet which followed the hasty conjecture
that Troy was drowned.  He nourished it fearfully, and almost shunned
the contemplation of it in earnest, lest facts should reveal the
wildness of the dream.  Bathsheba having at last been persuaded to
wear mourning, her appearance as she entered the church in that
guise was in itself a weekly addition to his faith that a time was
coming--very far off perhaps, yet surely nearing--when his waiting on
events should have its reward.  How long he might have to wait he had
not yet closely considered.  What he would try to recognize was that
the severe schooling she had been subjected to had made Bathsheba
much more considerate than she had formerly been of the feelings of
others, and he trusted that, should she be willing at any time in the
future to marry any man at all, that man would be himself.  There was
a substratum of good feeling in her: her self-reproach for the injury
she had thoughtlessly done him might be depended upon now to a much
greater extent than before her infatuation and disappointment.  It
would be possible to approach her by the channel of her good nature,
and to suggest a friendly businesslike compact between them for
fulfilment at some future day, keeping the passionate side of his
desire entirely out of her sight.  Such was Boldwood's hope.

To the eyes of the middle-aged, Bathsheba was perhaps additionally
charming just now.  Her exuberance of spirit was pruned down; the
original phantom of delight had shown herself to be not too bright
for human nature's daily food, and she had been able to enter this
second poetical phase without losing much of the first in the
process.

Bathsheba's return from a two months' visit to her old aunt at
Norcombe afforded the impassioned and yearning farmer a pretext for
inquiring directly after her--now possibly in the ninth month of her
widowhood--and endeavouring to get a notion of her state of mind
regarding him.  This occurred in the middle of the haymaking, and
Boldwood contrived to be near Liddy, who was assisting in the fields.

"I am glad to see you out of doors, Lydia," he said pleasantly.

She simpered, and wondered in her heart why he should speak so
frankly to her.

"I hope Mrs. Troy is quite well after her long absence," he
continued, in a manner expressing that the coldest-hearted neighbour
could scarcely say less about her.

"She is quite well, sir."

"And cheerful, I suppose."

"Yes, cheerful."

"Fearful, did you say?"

"Oh no.  I merely said she was cheerful."

"Tells you all her affairs?"

"No, sir."

"Some of them?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mrs. Troy puts much confidence in you, Lydia, and very wisely,
perhaps."

"She do, sir.  I've been with her all through her troubles, and was
with her at the time of Mr. Troy's going and all.  And if she were
to marry again I expect I should bide with her."

"She promises that you shall--quite natural," said the strategic
lover, throbbing throughout him at the presumption which Liddy's
words appeared to warrant--that his darling had thought of
re-marriage.

"No--she doesn't promise it exactly.  I merely judge on my own
account."

"Yes, yes, I understand.  When she alludes to the possibility of
marrying again, you conclude--"

"She never do allude to it, sir," said Liddy, thinking how very
stupid Mr. Boldwood was getting.

"Of course not," he returned hastily, his hope falling again.  "You
needn't take quite such long reaches with your rake, Lydia--short
and quick ones are best.  Well, perhaps, as she is absolute mistress
again now, it is wise of her to resolve never to give up her
freedom."

"My mistress did certainly once say, though not seriously, that she
supposed she might marry again at the end of seven years from last
year, if she cared to risk Mr. Troy's coming back and claiming her."

"Ah, six years from the present time.  Said that she might.  She
might marry at once in every reasonable person's opinion, whatever
the lawyers may say to the contrary."

"Have you been to ask them?" said Liddy, innocently.

"Not I," said Boldwood, growing red.  "Liddy, you needn't stay here
a minute later than you wish, so Mr. Oak says.  I am now going on a
little farther.  Good-afternoon."

He went away vexed with himself, and ashamed of having for this one
time in his life done anything which could be called underhand.  Poor
Boldwood had no more skill in finesse than a battering-ram, and he
was uneasy with a sense of having made himself to appear stupid and,
what was worse, mean.  But he had, after all, lighted upon one fact
by way of repayment.  It was a singularly fresh and fascinating fact,
and though not without its sadness it was pertinent and real.  In
little more than six years from this time Bathsheba might certainly
marry him.  There was something definite in that hope, for admitting
that there might have been no deep thought in her words to Liddy
about marriage, they showed at least her creed on the matter.

This pleasant notion was now continually in his mind.  Six years were
a long time, but how much shorter than never, the idea he had for so
long been obliged to endure!  Jacob had served twice seven years for
Rachel: what were six for such a woman as this?  He tried to like the
notion of waiting for her better than that of winning her at once.
Boldwood felt his love to be so deep and strong and eternal, that
it was possible she had never yet known its full volume, and this
patience in delay would afford him an opportunity of giving sweet
proof on the point.  He would annihilate the six years of his life as
if they were minutes--so little did he value his time on earth beside
her love.  He would let her see, all those six years of intangible
ethereal courtship, how little care he had for anything but as it
bore upon the consummation.

Meanwhile the early and the late summer brought round the week in
which Greenhill Fair was held.  This fair was frequently attended by
the folk of Weatherbury.

THE SHEEP FAIR--TROY TOUCHES HIS WIFE'S HAND

Greenhill was the Nijni Novgorod of South Wessex; and the busiest,
merriest, noisiest day of the whole statute number was the day of
the sheep fair.  This yearly gathering was upon the summit of a
hill which retained in good preservation the remains of an ancient
earthwork, consisting of a huge rampart and entrenchment of an oval
form encircling the top of the hill, though somewhat broken down here
and there.  To each of the two chief openings on opposite sides a
winding road ascended, and the level green space of ten or fifteen
acres enclosed by the bank was the site of the fair.  A few permanent
erections dotted the spot, but the majority of visitors patronized
canvas alone for resting and feeding under during the time of their
sojourn here.

Shepherds who attended with their flocks from long distances started
from home two or three days, or even a week, before the fair, driving
their charges a few miles each day--not more than ten or twelve--and
resting them at night in hired fields by the wayside at previously
chosen points, where they fed, having fasted since morning.  The
shepherd of each flock marched behind, a bundle containing his kit
for the week strapped upon his shoulders, and in his hand his crook,
which he used as the staff of his pilgrimage.  Several of the sheep
would get worn and lame, and occasionally a lambing occurred on the
road.  To meet these contingencies, there was frequently provided, to
accompany the flocks from the remoter points, a pony and waggon into
which the weakly ones were taken for the remainder of the journey.

The Weatherbury Farms, however, were no such long distance from the
hill, and those arrangements were not necessary in their case.  But
the large united flocks of Bathsheba and Farmer Boldwood formed a
valuable and imposing multitude which demanded much attention, and
on this account Gabriel, in addition to Boldwood's shepherd and Cain
Ball, accompanied them along the way, through the decayed old town of
Kingsbere, and upward to the plateau,--old George the dog of course
behind them.

When the autumn sun slanted over Greenhill this morning and lighted
the dewy flat upon its crest, nebulous clouds of dust were to be seen
floating between the pairs of hedges which streaked the wide prospect
around in all directions.  These gradually converged upon the base of
the hill, and the flocks became individually visible, climbing the
serpentine ways which led to the top.  Thus, in a slow procession,
they entered the opening to which the roads tended, multitude after
multitude, horned and hornless--blue flocks and red flocks, buff
flocks and brown flocks, even green and salmon-tinted flocks,
according to the fancy of the colourist and custom of the farm.
Men were shouting, dogs were barking, with greatest animation, but
the thronging travellers in so long a journey had grown nearly
indifferent to such terrors, though they still bleated piteously at
the unwontedness of their experiences, a tall shepherd rising here
and there in the midst of them, like a gigantic idol amid a crowd
of prostrate devotees.

The great mass of sheep in the fair consisted of South Downs and the
old Wessex horned breeds; to the latter class Bathsheba's and Farmer
Boldwood's mainly belonged.  These filed in about nine o'clock, their
vermiculated horns lopping gracefully on each side of their cheeks in
geometrically perfect spirals, a small pink and white ear nestling
under each horn.  Before and behind came other varieties, perfect
leopards as to the full rich substance of their coats, and only
lacking the spots.  There were also a few of the Oxfordshire breed,
whose wool was beginning to curl like a child's flaxen hair, though
surpassed in this respect by the effeminate Leicesters, which were in
turn less curly than the Cotswolds.  But the most picturesque by far
was a small flock of Exmoors, which chanced to be there this year.
Their pied faces and legs, dark and heavy horns, tresses of wool
hanging round their swarthy foreheads, quite relieved the monotony
of the flocks in that quarter.

All these bleating, panting, and weary thousands had entered and were
penned before the morning had far advanced, the dog belonging to each
flock being tied to the corner of the pen containing it.  Alleys for
pedestrians intersected the pens, which soon became crowded with
buyers and sellers from far and near.

In another part of the hill an altogether different scene began
to force itself upon the eye towards midday.  A circular tent, of
exceptional newness and size, was in course of erection here.  As
the day drew on, the flocks began to change hands, lightening the
shepherd's responsibilities; and they turned their attention to
this tent and inquired of a man at work there, whose soul seemed
concentrated on tying a bothering knot in no time, what was going
on.

"The Royal Hippodrome Performance of Turpin's Ride to York and the
Death of Black Bess," replied the man promptly, without turning his
eyes or leaving off tying.

As soon as the tent was completed the band struck up highly
stimulating harmonies, and the announcement was publicly made, Black
Bess standing in a conspicuous position on the outside, as a living
proof, if proof were wanted, of the truth of the oracular utterances
from the stage over which the people were to enter.  These were so
convinced by such genuine appeals to heart and understanding both
that they soon began to crowd in abundantly, among the foremost being
visible Jan Coggan and Joseph Poorgrass, who were holiday keeping
here to-day.

"That's the great ruffen pushing me!" screamed a woman in front of
Jan over her shoulder at him when the rush was at its fiercest.

"How can I help pushing ye when the folk behind push me?" said
Coggan, in a deprecating tone, turning his head towards the aforesaid
folk as far as he could without turning his body, which was jammed as
in a vice.

There was a silence; then the drums and trumpets again sent forth
their echoing notes.  The crowd was again ecstasied, and gave another
lurch in which Coggan and Poorgrass were again thrust by those behind
upon the women in front.

"Oh that helpless feymels should be at the mercy of such ruffens!"
exclaimed one of these ladies again, as she swayed like a reed shaken
by the wind.

"Now," said Coggan, appealing in an earnest voice to the public at
large as it stood clustered about his shoulder-blades, "did ye ever
hear such onreasonable woman as that?  Upon my carcase, neighbours,
if I could only get out of this cheese-wring, the damn women might
eat the show for me!"

"Don't ye lose yer temper, Jan!" implored Joseph Poorgrass, in a
whisper.  "They might get their men to murder us, for I think by the
shine of their eyes that they be a sinful form of womankind."

Jan held his tongue, as if he had no objection to be pacified to
please a friend, and they gradually reached the foot of the ladder,
Poorgrass being flattened like a jumping-jack, and the sixpence, for
admission, which he had got ready half-an-hour earlier, having become
so reeking hot in the tight squeeze of his excited hand that the
woman in spangles, brazen rings set with glass diamonds, and with
chalked face and shoulders, who took the money of him, hastily
dropped it again from a fear that some trick had been played to burn
her fingers.  So they all entered, and the cloth of the tent, to the
eyes of an observer on the outside, became bulged into innumerable
pimples such as we observe on a sack of potatoes, caused by the
various human heads, backs, and elbows at high pressure within.

At the rear of the large tent there were two small dressing-tents.
One of these, alloted to the male performers, was partitioned into
halves by a cloth; and in one of the divisions there was sitting on
the grass, pulling on a pair of jack-boots, a young man whom we
instantly recognise as Sergeant Troy.

Troy's appearance in this position may be briefly accounted for.  The
brig aboard which he was taken in Budmouth Roads was about to start
on a voyage, though somewhat short of hands.  Troy read the articles
and joined, but before they sailed a boat was despatched across the
bay to Lulwind cove; as he had half expected, his clothes were gone.
He ultimately worked his passage to the United States, where he made
a precarious living in various towns as Professor of Gymnastics,
Sword Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism.  A few months were sufficient
to give him a distaste for this kind of life.  There was a certain
animal form of refinement in his nature; and however pleasant a
strange condition might be whilst privations were easily warded off,
it was disadvantageously coarse when money was short.  There was ever
present, too, the idea that he could claim a home and its comforts
did he but chose to return to England and Weatherbury Farm.  Whether
Bathsheba thought him dead was a frequent subject of curious
conjecture.  To England he did return at last; but the fact of
drawing nearer to Weatherbury abstracted its fascinations, and his
intention to enter his old groove at the place became modified.  It
was with gloom he considered on landing at Liverpool that if he
were to go home his reception would be of a kind very unpleasant
to contemplate; for what Troy had in the way of emotion was an
occasional fitful sentiment which sometimes caused him as much
inconvenience as emotion of a strong and healthy kind.  Bathsheba was
not a woman to be made a fool of, or a woman to suffer in silence;
and how could he endure existence with a spirited wife to whom at
first entering he would be beholden for food and lodging?  Moreover,
it was not at all unlikely that his wife would fail at her farming,
if she had not already done so; and he would then become liable for
her maintenance: and what a life such a future of poverty with her
would be, the spectre of Fanny constantly between them, harrowing
his temper and embittering her words!  Thus, for reasons touching on
distaste, regret, and shame commingled, he put off his return from
day to day, and would have decided to put it off altogether if he
could have found anywhere else the ready-made establishment which
existed for him there.

At this time--the July preceding the September in which we find
at Greenhill Fair--he fell in with a travelling circus which was
performing in the outskirts of a northern town.  Troy introduced
himself to the manager by taming a restive horse of the troupe,
hitting a suspended apple with a pistol-bullet fired from the
animal's back when in full gallop, and other feats.  For his
merits in these--all more or less based upon his experiences as a
dragoon-guardsman--Troy was taken into the company, and the play
of Turpin was prepared with a view to his personation of the chief
character.  Troy was not greatly elated by the appreciative spirit in
which he was undoubtedly treated, but he thought the engagement might
afford him a few weeks for consideration.  It was thus carelessly,
and without having formed any definite plan for the future, that Troy
found himself at Greenhill Fair with the rest of the company on this
day.

And now the mild autumn sun got lower, and in front of the pavilion
the following incident had taken place.  Bathsheba--who was driven
to the fair that day by her odd man Poorgrass--had, like every one
else, read or heard the announcement that Mr. Francis, the Great
Cosmopolitan Equestrian and Roughrider, would enact the part of
Turpin, and she was not yet too old and careworn to be without a
little curiosity to see him.  This particular show was by far the
largest and grandest in the fair, a horde of little shows grouping
themselves under its shade like chickens around a hen.  The crowd had
passed in, and Boldwood, who had been watching all the day for an
opportunity of speaking to her, seeing her comparatively isolated,
came up to her side.

"I hope the sheep have done well to-day, Mrs. Troy?" he said,
nervously.

"Oh yes, thank you," said Bathsheba, colour springing up in the
centre of her cheeks.  "I was fortunate enough to sell them all just
as we got upon the hill, so we hadn't to pen at all."

"And now you are entirely at leisure?"

"Yes, except that I have to see one more dealer in two hours' time:
otherwise I should be going home.  He was looking at this large tent
and the announcement.  Have you ever seen the play of 'Turpin's Ride
to York'?  Turpin was a real man, was he not?"

"Oh yes, perfectly true--all of it.  Indeed, I think I've heard Jan
Coggan say that a relation of his knew Tom King, Turpin's friend,
quite well."

"Coggan is rather given to strange stories connected with his
relations, we must remember.  I hope they can all be believed."

"Yes, yes; we know Coggan.  But Turpin is true enough.  You have
never seen it played, I suppose?"

"Never.  I was not allowed to go into these places when I was young.
Hark!  What's that prancing?  How they shout!"

"Black Bess just started off, I suppose.  Am I right in supposing
you would like to see the performance, Mrs. Troy?  Please excuse my
mistake, if it is one; but if you would like to, I'll get a seat for
you with pleasure."  Perceiving that she hesitated, he added, "I
myself shall not stay to see it: I've seen it before."

Now Bathsheba did care a little to see the show, and had only
withheld her feet from the ladder because she feared to go in alone.
She had been hoping that Oak might appear, whose assistance in such
cases was always accepted as an inalienable right, but Oak was
nowhere to be seen; and hence it was that she said, "Then if you will
just look in first, to see if there's room, I think I will go in for
a minute or two."

And so a short time after this Bathsheba appeared in the tent with
Boldwood at her elbow, who, taking her to a "reserved" seat, again
withdrew.

This feature consisted of one raised bench in a very conspicuous
part of the circle, covered with red cloth, and floored with a piece
of carpet, and Bathsheba immediately found, to her confusion, that
she was the single reserved individual in the tent, the rest of
the crowded spectators, one and all, standing on their legs on the
borders of the arena, where they got twice as good a view of the
performance for half the money.  Hence as many eyes were turned upon
her, enthroned alone in this place of honour, against a scarlet
background, as upon the ponies and clown who were engaged in
preliminary exploits in the centre, Turpin not having yet appeared.
Once there, Bathsheba was forced to make the best of it and remain:
she sat down, spreading her skirts with some dignity over the
unoccupied space on each side of her, and giving a new and feminine
aspect to the pavilion.  In a few minutes she noticed the fat red
nape of Coggan's neck among those standing just below her, and Joseph
Poorgrass's saintly profile a little further on.

The interior was shadowy with a peculiar shade.  The strange luminous
semi-opacities of fine autumn afternoons and eves intensified into
Rembrandt effects the few yellow sunbeams which came through holes
and divisions in the canvas, and spirted like jets of gold-dust
across the dusky blue atmosphere of haze pervading the tent, until
they alighted on inner surfaces of cloth opposite, and shone like
little lamps suspended there.

Troy, on peeping from his dressing-tent through a slit for a
reconnoitre before entering, saw his unconscious wife on high before
him as described, sitting as queen of the tournament.  He started
back in utter confusion, for although his disguise effectually
concealed his personality, he instantly felt that she would be sure
to recognize his voice.  He had several times during the day thought
of the possibility of some Weatherbury person or other appearing and
recognizing him; but he had taken the risk carelessly.  If they see
me, let them, he had said.  But here was Bathsheba in her own person;
and the reality of the scene was so much intenser than any of his
prefigurings that he felt he had not half enough considered the
point.

She looked so charming and fair that his cool mood about Weatherbury
people was changed.  He had not expected her to exercise this power
over him in the twinkling of an eye.  Should he go on, and care
nothing?  He could not bring himself to do that.  Beyond a politic
wish to remain unknown, there suddenly arose in him now a sense of
shame at the possibility that his attractive young wife, who already
despised him, should despise him more by discovering him in so mean a
condition after so long a time.  He actually blushed at the thought,
and was vexed beyond measure that his sentiments of dislike towards
Weatherbury should have led him to dally about the country in this
way.

But Troy was never more clever than when absolutely at his wit's end.
He hastily thrust aside the curtain dividing his own little dressing
space from that of the manager and proprietor, who now appeared as
the individual called Tom King as far down as his waist, and as the
aforesaid respectable manager thence to his toes.

"Here's the devil to pay!" said Troy.

"How's that?"

"Why, there's a blackguard creditor in the tent I don't want to see,
who'll discover me and nab me as sure as Satan if I open my mouth.
What's to be done?"

"You must appear now, I think."

"I can't."

"But the play must proceed."

"Do you give out that Turpin has got a bad cold, and can't speak his
part, but that he'll perform it just the same without speaking."

The proprietor shook his head.

"Anyhow, play or no play, I won't open my mouth," said Troy, firmly.

"Very well, then let me see.  I tell you how we'll manage," said the
other, who perhaps felt it would be extremely awkward to offend his
leading man just at this time.  "I won't tell 'em anything about your
keeping silence; go on with the piece and say nothing, doing what
you can by a judicious wink now and then, and a few indomitable nods
in the heroic places, you know.  They'll never find out that the
speeches are omitted."

This seemed feasible enough, for Turpin's speeches were not many or
long, the fascination of the piece lying entirely in the action; and
accordingly the play began, and at the appointed time Black Bess
leapt into the grassy circle amid the plaudits of the spectators.
At the turnpike scene, where Bess and Turpin are hotly pursued at
midnight by the officers, and the half-awake gatekeeper in his
tasselled nightcap denies that any horseman has passed, Coggan
uttered a broad-chested "Well done!" which could be heard all over
the fair above the bleating, and Poorgrass smiled delightedly with a
nice sense of dramatic contrast between our hero, who coolly leaps
the gate, and halting justice in the form of his enemies, who must
needs pull up cumbersomely and wait to be let through.  At the death
of Tom King, he could not refrain from seizing Coggan by the hand,
and whispering, with tears in his eyes, "Of course he's not really
shot, Jan--only seemingly!"  And when the last sad scene came on, and
the body of the gallant and faithful Bess had to be carried out on a
shutter by twelve volunteers from among the spectators, nothing could
restrain Poorgrass from lending a hand, exclaiming, as he asked
Jan to join him, "Twill be something to tell of at Warren's in
future years, Jan, and hand down to our children."  For many a year
in Weatherbury, Joseph told, with the air of a man who had had
experiences in his time, that he touched with his own hand the hoof
of Bess as she lay upon the board upon his shoulder.  If, as some
thinkers hold, immortality consists in being enshrined in others'
memories, then did Black Bess become immortal that day if she never
had done so before.

Meanwhile Troy had added a few touches to his ordinary make-up for
the character, the more effectually to disguise himself, and though
he had felt faint qualms on first entering, the metamorphosis
effected by judiciously "lining" his face with a wire rendered him
safe from the eyes of Bathsheba and her men.  Nevertheless, he was
relieved when it was got through.

There was a second performance in the evening, and the tent was
lighted up.  Troy had taken his part very quietly this time,
venturing to introduce a few speeches on occasion; and was just
concluding it when, whilst standing at the edge of the circle
contiguous to the first row of spectators, he observed within a
yard of him the eye of a man darted keenly into his side features.
Troy hastily shifted his position, after having recognized in the
scrutineer the knavish bailiff Pennyways, his wife's sworn enemy,
who still hung about the outskirts of Weatherbury.

At first Troy resolved to take no notice and abide by circumstances.
That he had been recognized by this man was highly probable; yet
there was room for a doubt.  Then the great objection he had felt to
allowing news of his proximity to precede him to Weatherbury in the
event of his return, based on a feeling that knowledge of his present
occupation would discredit him still further in his wife's eyes,
returned in full force.  Moreover, should he resolve not to return at
all, a tale of his being alive and being in the neighbourhood would
be awkward; and he was anxious to acquire a knowledge of his wife's
temporal affairs before deciding which to do.

In this dilemma Troy at once went out to reconnoitre.  It occurred
to him that to find Pennyways, and make a friend of him if possible,
would be a very wise act.  He had put on a thick beard borrowed from
the establishment, and in this he wandered about the fair-field.  It
was now almost dark, and respectable people were getting their carts
and gigs ready to go home.

The largest refreshment booth in the fair was provided by an
innkeeper from a neighbouring town.  This was considered an
unexceptionable place for obtaining the necessary food and rest:
Host Trencher (as he was jauntily called by the local newspaper)
being a substantial man of high repute for catering through all the
country round.  The tent was divided into first and second-class
compartments, and at the end of the first-class division was a yet
further enclosure for the most exclusive, fenced off from the body
of the tent by a luncheon-bar, behind which the host himself stood
bustling about in white apron and shirt-sleeves, and looking as if
he had never lived anywhere but under canvas all his life.  In these
penetralia were chairs and a table, which, on candles being lighted,
made quite a cozy and luxurious show, with an urn, plated tea and
coffee pots, china teacups, and plum cakes.

Troy stood at the entrance to the booth, where a gipsy-woman was
frying pancakes over a little fire of sticks and selling them at a
penny a-piece, and looked over the heads of the people within.  He
could see nothing of Pennyways, but he soon discerned Bathsheba
through an opening into the reserved space at the further end.  Troy
thereupon retreated, went round the tent into the darkness, and
listened.  He could hear Bathsheba's voice immediately inside the
canvas; she was conversing with a man.  A warmth overspread his
face: surely she was not so unprincipled as to flirt in a fair!
He wondered if, then, she reckoned upon his death as an absolute
certainty.  To get at the root of the matter, Troy took a penknife
from his pocket and softly made two little cuts crosswise in the
cloth, which, by folding back the corners left a hole the size of a
wafer.  Close to this he placed his face, withdrawing it again in a
movement of surprise; for his eye had been within twelve inches of
the top of Bathsheba's head.  It was too near to be convenient.  He
made another hole a little to one side and lower down, in a shaded
place beside her chair, from which it was easy and safe to survey
her by looking horizontally.

Troy took in the scene completely now.  She was leaning back, sipping
a cup of tea that she held in her hand, and the owner of the male
voice was Boldwood, who had apparently just brought the cup to her,
Bathsheba, being in a negligent mood, leant so idly against the
canvas that it was pressed to the shape of her shoulder, and she was,
in fact, as good as in Troy's arms; and he was obliged to keep his
breast carefully backward that she might not feel its warmth through
the cloth as he gazed in.

Troy found unexpected chords of feeling to be stirred again within
him as they had been stirred earlier in the day.  She was handsome
as ever, and she was his.  It was some minutes before he could
counteract his sudden wish to go in, and claim her.  Then he thought
how the proud girl who had always looked down upon him even whilst it
was to love him, would hate him on discovering him to be a strolling
player.  Were he to make himself known, that chapter of his life
must at all risks be kept for ever from her and from the Weatherbury
people, or his name would be a byword throughout the parish.  He
would be nicknamed "Turpin" as long as he lived.  Assuredly before
he could claim her these few past months of his existence must be
entirely blotted out.

"Shall I get you another cup before you start, ma'am?" said Farmer
Boldwood.

"Thank you," said Bathsheba.  "But I must be going at once.  It was
great neglect in that man to keep me waiting here till so late.  I
should have gone two hours ago, if it had not been for him.  I had no
idea of coming in here; but there's nothing so refreshing as a cup of
tea, though I should never have got one if you hadn't helped me."

Troy scrutinized her cheek as lit by the candles, and watched each
varying shade thereon, and the white shell-like sinuosities of her
little ear.  She took out her purse and was insisting to Boldwood on
paying for her tea for herself, when at this moment Pennyways entered
the tent.  Troy trembled: here was his scheme for respectability
endangered at once.  He was about to leave his hole of espial,
attempt to follow Pennyways, and find out if the ex-bailiff had
recognized him, when he was arrested by the conversation, and found
he was too late.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Pennyways; "I've some private information
for your ear alone."

"I cannot hear it now," she said, coldly.  That Bathsheba could not
endure this man was evident; in fact, he was continually coming to
her with some tale or other, by which he might creep into favour at
the expense of persons maligned.

"I'll write it down," said Pennyways, confidently.  He stooped over
the table, pulled a leaf from a warped pocket-book, and wrote upon
the paper, in a round hand--

"YOUR HUSBAND IS HERE.  I'VE SEEN HIM.  WHO'S THE FOOL NOW?"

This he folded small, and handed towards her.  Bathsheba would not
read it; she would not even put out her hand to take it.  Pennyways,
then, with a laugh of derision, tossed it into her lap, and, turning
away, left her.

From the words and action of Pennyways, Troy, though he had not been
able to see what the ex-bailiff wrote, had not a moment's doubt that
the note referred to him.  Nothing that he could think of could be
done to check the exposure.  "Curse my luck!" he whispered, and
added imprecations which rustled in the gloom like a pestilent wind.
Meanwhile Boldwood said, taking up the note from her lap--

"Don't you wish to read it, Mrs. Troy?  If not, I'll destroy it."

"Oh, well," said Bathsheba, carelessly, "perhaps it is unjust not to
read it; but I can guess what it is about.  He wants me to recommend
him, or it is to tell me of some little scandal or another connected
with my work-people.  He's always doing that."

Bathsheba held the note in her right hand.  Boldwood handed towards
her a plate of cut bread-and-butter; when, in order to take a slice,
she put the note into her left hand, where she was still holding
the purse, and then allowed her hand to drop beside her close to
the canvas.  The moment had come for saving his game, and Troy
impulsively felt that he would play the card.  For yet another time
he looked at the fair hand, and saw the pink finger-tips, and the
blue veins of the wrist, encircled by a bracelet of coral chippings
which she wore: how familiar it all was to him!  Then, with the
lightning action in which he was such an adept, he noiselessly
slipped his hand under the bottom of the tent-cloth, which was far
from being pinned tightly down, lifted it a little way, keeping his
eye to the hole, snatched the note from her fingers, dropped the
canvas, and ran away in the gloom towards the bank and ditch, smiling
at the scream of astonishment which burst from her.  Troy then slid
down on the outside of the rampart, hastened round in the bottom of
the entrenchment to a distance of a hundred yards, ascended again,
and crossed boldly in a slow walk towards the front entrance of
the tent.  His object was now to get to Pennyways, and prevent a
repetition of the announcement until such time as he should choose.

Troy reached the tent door, and standing among the groups there
gathered, looked anxiously for Pennyways, evidently not wishing to
make himself prominent by inquiring for him.  One or two men were
speaking of a daring attempt that had just been made to rob a young
lady by lifting the canvas of the tent beside her.  It was supposed
that the rogue had imagined a slip of paper which she held in her
hand to be a bank note, for he had seized it, and made off with
it, leaving her purse behind.  His chagrin and disappointment at
discovering its worthlessness would be a good joke, it was said.
However, the occurrence seemed to have become known to few, for it
had not interrupted a fiddler, who had lately begun playing by the
door of the tent, nor the four bowed old men with grim countenances
and walking-sticks in hand, who were dancing "Major Malley's Reel"
to the tune.  Behind these stood Pennyways.  Troy glided up to him,
beckoned, and whispered a few words; and with a mutual glance of
concurrence the two men went into the night together.

BATHSHEBA TALKS WITH HER OUTRIDER

The arrangement for getting back again to Weatherbury had been that
Oak should take the place of Poorgrass in Bathsheba's conveyance and
drive her home, it being discovered late in the afternoon that Joseph
was suffering from his old complaint, a multiplying eye, and was,
therefore, hardly trustworthy as coachman and protector to a woman.
But Oak had found himself so occupied, and was full of so many
cares relative to those portions of Boldwood's flocks that were not
disposed of, that Bathsheba, without telling Oak or anybody, resolved
to drive home herself, as she had many times done from Casterbridge
Market, and trust to her good angel for performing the journey
unmolested.  But having fallen in with Farmer Boldwood accidentally
(on her part at least) at the refreshment-tent, she found it
impossible to refuse his offer to ride on horseback beside her as
escort.  It had grown twilight before she was aware, but Boldwood
assured her that there was no cause for uneasiness, as the moon
would be up in half-an-hour.

Immediately after the incident in the tent, she had risen to
go--now absolutely alarmed and really grateful for her old lover's
protection--though regretting Gabriel's absence, whose company she
would have much preferred, as being more proper as well as more
pleasant, since he was her own managing-man and servant.  This,
however, could not be helped; she would not, on any consideration,
treat Boldwood harshly, having once already ill-used him, and the
moon having risen, and the gig being ready, she drove across the
hilltop in the wending way's which led downwards--to oblivious
obscurity, as it seemed, for the moon and the hill it flooded with
light were in appearance on a level, the rest of the world lying as
a vast shady concave between them.  Boldwood mounted his horse, and
followed in close attendance behind.  Thus they descended into the
lowlands, and the sounds of those left on the hill came like voices
from the sky, and the lights were as those of a camp in heaven.  They
soon passed the merry stragglers in the immediate vicinity of the
hill, traversed Kingsbere, and got upon the high road.

The keen instincts of Bathsheba had perceived that the farmer's
staunch devotion to herself was still undiminished, and she
sympathized deeply.  The sight had quite depressed her this evening;
had reminded her of her folly; she wished anew, as she had wished
many months ago, for some means of making reparation for her fault.
Hence her pity for the man who so persistently loved on to his own
injury and permanent gloom had betrayed Bathsheba into an injudicious
considerateness of manner, which appeared almost like tenderness,
and gave new vigour to the exquisite dream of a Jacob's seven years
service in poor Boldwood's mind.

He soon found an excuse for advancing from his position in the rear,
and rode close by her side.  They had gone two or three miles in
the moonlight, speaking desultorily across the wheel of her gig
concerning the fair, farming, Oak's usefulness to them both, and
other indifferent subjects, when Boldwood said suddenly and simply--

"Mrs. Troy, you will marry again some day?"

This point-blank query unmistakably confused her, and it was not till
a minute or more had elapsed that she said, "I have not seriously
thought of any such subject."

"I quite understand that.  Yet your late husband has been dead nearly
one year, and--"

"You forget that his death was never absolutely proved, and may not
have taken place; so that I may not be really a widow," she said,
catching at the straw of escape that the fact afforded.

"Not absolutely proved, perhaps, but it was proved circumstantially.
A man saw him drowning, too.  No reasonable person has any doubt of
his death; nor have you, ma'am, I should imagine."

"I have none now, or I should have acted differently," she said,
gently.  "I certainly, at first, had a strange unaccountable feeling
that he could not have perished, but I have been able to explain that
in several ways since.  But though I am fully persuaded that I shall
see him no more, I am far from thinking of marriage with another.  I
should be very contemptible to indulge in such a thought."

They were silent now awhile, and having struck into an unfrequented
track across a common, the creaks of Boldwood's saddle and her gig
springs were all the sounds to be heard. Boldwood ended the pause.

"Do you remember when I carried you fainting in my arms into the
King's Arms, in Casterbridge?  Every dog has his day: that was mine."

"I know--I know it all," she said, hurriedly.

"I, for one, shall never cease regretting that events so fell out as
to deny you to me."

"I, too, am very sorry," she said, and then checked herself.  "I
mean, you know, I am sorry you thought I--"

"I have always this dreary pleasure in thinking over those past times
with you--that I was something to you before HE was anything, and
that you belonged ALMOST to me.  But, of course, that's nothing.  You
never liked me."

"I did; and respected you, too."

"Do you now?"

"Yes."

"Which?"

"How do you mean which?"

"Do you like me, or do you respect me?"

"I don't know--at least, I cannot tell you.  It is difficult for a
woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men
to express theirs.  My treatment of you was thoughtless, inexcusable,
wicked!  I shall eternally regret it.  If there had been anything
I could have done to make amends I would most gladly have done
it--there was nothing on earth I so longed to do as to repair the
error.  But that was not possible."

"Don't blame yourself--you were not so far in the wrong as you
suppose.  Bathsheba, suppose you had real complete proof that you are
what, in fact, you are--a widow--would you repair the old wrong to me
by marrying me?"

"I cannot say.  I shouldn't yet, at any rate."

"But you might at some future time of your life?"

"Oh yes, I might at some time."

"Well, then, do you know that without further proof of any kind you
may marry again in about six years from the present--subject to
nobody's objection or blame?"

"Oh yes," she said, quickly.  "I know all that.  But don't talk of
it--seven or six years--where may we all be by that time?"

"They will soon glide by, and it will seem an astonishingly short
time to look back upon when they are past--much less than to look
forward to now."

"Yes, yes; I have found that in my own experience."

"Now listen once more," Boldwood pleaded.  "If I wait that time, will
you marry me?  You own that you owe me amends--let that be your way
of making them."

"But, Mr. Boldwood--six years--"

"Do you want to be the wife of any other man?"

"No indeed!  I mean, that I don't like to talk about this matter now.
Perhaps it is not proper, and I ought not to allow it.  Let us drop
it.  My husband may be living, as I said."

"Of course, I'll drop the subject if you wish.  But propriety has
nothing to do with reasons.  I am a middle-aged man, willing to
protect you for the remainder of our lives.  On your side, at least,
there is no passion or blamable haste--on mine, perhaps, there is.
But I can't help seeing that if you choose from a feeling of pity,
and, as you say, a wish to make amends, to make a bargain with me for
a far-ahead time--an agreement which will set all things right and
make me happy, late though it may be--there is no fault to be found
with you as a woman.  Hadn't I the first place beside you?  Haven't
you been almost mine once already?  Surely you can say to me as much
as this, you will have me back again should circumstances permit?
Now, pray speak!  O Bathsheba, promise--it is only a little
promise--that if you marry again, you will marry me!"

His tone was so excited that she almost feared him at this moment,
even whilst she sympathized.  It was a simple physical fear--the weak
of the strong; there was no emotional aversion or inner repugnance.
She said, with some distress in her voice, for she remembered vividly
his outburst on the Yalbury Road, and shrank from a repetition of his
anger:--

"I will never marry another man whilst you wish me to be your wife,
whatever comes--but to say more--you have taken me so by surprise--"

"But let it stand in these simple words--that in six years' time you
will be my wife?  Unexpected accidents we'll not mention, because
those, of course, must be given way to.  Now, this time I know you
will keep your word."

"That's why I hesitate to give it."

"But do give it!  Remember the past, and be kind."

She breathed; and then said mournfully: "Oh what shall I do?  I don't
love you, and I much fear that I never shall love you as much as a
woman ought to love a husband.  If you, sir, know that, and I can
yet give you happiness by a mere promise to marry at the end of six
years, if my husband should not come back, it is a great honour to
me.  And if you value such an act of friendship from a woman who
doesn't esteem herself as she did, and has little love left, why
I--I will--"

"Promise!"

"--Consider, if I cannot promise soon."

"But soon is perhaps never?"

"Oh no, it is not!  I mean soon.  Christmas, we'll say."

"Christmas!"  He said nothing further till he added: "Well, I'll say
no more to you about it till that time."

Bathsheba was in a very peculiar state of mind, which showed how
entirely the soul is the slave of the body, the ethereal spirit
dependent for its quality upon the tangible flesh and blood.  It is
hardly too much to say that she felt coerced by a force stronger than
her own will, not only into the act of promising upon this singularly
remote and vague matter, but into the emotion of fancying that she
ought to promise.  When the weeks intervening between the night of
this conversation and Christmas day began perceptibly to diminish,
her anxiety and perplexity increased.

One day she was led by an accident into an oddly confidential
dialogue with Gabriel about her difficulty.  It afforded her a little
relief--of a dull and cheerless kind.  They were auditing accounts,
and something occurred in the course of their labours which led Oak
to say, speaking of Boldwood, "He'll never forget you, ma'am, never."

Then out came her trouble before she was aware; and she told him how
she had again got into the toils; what Boldwood had asked her, and
how he was expecting her assent.  "The most mournful reason of all
for my agreeing to it," she said sadly, "and the true reason why I
think to do so for good or for evil, is this--it is a thing I have
not breathed to a living soul as yet--I believe that if I don't give
my word, he'll go out of his mind."

"Really, do ye?" said Gabriel, gravely.

"I believe this," she continued, with reckless frankness; "and Heaven
knows I say it in a spirit the very reverse of vain, for I am grieved
and troubled to my soul about it--I believe I hold that man's future
in my hand.  His career depends entirely upon my treatment of him.  O
Gabriel, I tremble at my responsibility, for it is terrible!"

"Well, I think this much, ma'am, as I told you years ago," said Oak,
"that his life is a total blank whenever he isn't hoping for 'ee; but
I can't suppose--I hope that nothing so dreadful hangs on to it as
you fancy.  His natural manner has always been dark and strange, you
know.  But since the case is so sad and odd-like, why don't ye give
the conditional promise?  I think I would."

"But is it right?  Some rash acts of my past life have taught me that
a watched woman must have very much circumspection to retain only a
very little credit, and I do want and long to be discreet in this!
And six years--why we may all be in our graves by that time, even if
Mr. Troy does not come back again, which he may not impossibly do!
Such thoughts give a sort of absurdity to the scheme.  Now, isn't
it preposterous, Gabriel?  However he came to dream of it, I cannot
think.  But is it wrong?  You know--you are older than I."

"Eight years older, ma'am."

"Yes, eight years--and is it wrong?"

"Perhaps it would be an uncommon agreement for a man and woman to
make: I don't see anything really wrong about it," said Oak, slowly.
"In fact the very thing that makes it doubtful if you ought to marry
en under any condition, that is, your not caring about him--for I
may suppose--"

"Yes, you may suppose that love is wanting," she said shortly.  "Love
is an utterly bygone, sorry, worn-out, miserable thing with me--for
him or any one else."

"Well, your want of love seems to me the one thing that takes away
harm from such an agreement with him.  If wild heat had to do wi'
it, making ye long to over-come the awkwardness about your husband's
vanishing, it mid be wrong; but a cold-hearted agreement to oblige a
man seems different, somehow.  The real sin, ma'am in my mind, lies
in thinking of ever wedding wi' a man you don't love honest and
true."

"That I'm willing to pay the penalty of," said Bathsheba, firmly.
"You know, Gabriel, this is what I cannot get off my conscience--that
I once seriously injured him in sheer idleness.  If I had never
played a trick upon him, he would never have wanted to marry me.  Oh
if I could only pay some heavy damages in money to him for the harm
I did, and so get the sin off my soul that way!...  Well, there's
the debt, which can only be discharged in one way, and I believe
I am bound to do it if it honestly lies in my power, without any
consideration of my own future at all.  When a rake gambles away his
expectations, the fact that it is an inconvenient debt doesn't make
him the less liable.  I've been a rake, and the single point I ask
you is, considering that my own scruples, and the fact that in the
eye of the law my husband is only missing, will keep any man from
marrying me until seven years have passed--am I free to entertain
such an idea, even though 'tis a sort of penance--for it will be
that?  I HATE the act of marriage under such circumstances, and the
class of women I should seem to belong to by doing it!"

"It seems to me that all depends upon whe'r you think, as everybody
else do, that your husband is dead."

"Yes--I've long ceased to doubt that.  I well know what would have
brought him back long before this time if he had lived."

"Well, then, in a religious sense you will be as free to THINK o'
marrying again as any real widow of one year's standing.  But why
don't ye ask Mr. Thirdly's advice on how to treat Mr. Boldwood?"

"No.  When I want a broad-minded opinion for general enlightenment,
distinct from special advice, I never go to a man who deals in
the subject professionally.  So I like the parson's opinion on
law, the lawyer's on doctoring, the doctor's on business, and my
business-man's--that is, yours--on morals."

"And on love--"

"My own."

"I'm afraid there's a hitch in that argument," said Oak, with a grave
smile.

She did not reply at once, and then saying, "Good evening, Mr. Oak."
went away.

She had spoken frankly, and neither asked nor expected any reply
from Gabriel more satisfactory than that she had obtained.  Yet in
the centremost parts of her complicated heart there existed at this
minute a little pang of disappointment, for a reason she would not
allow herself to recognize.  Oak had not once wished her free that he
might marry her himself--had not once said, "I could wait for you as
well as he."  That was the insect sting.  Not that she would have
listened to any such hypothesis.  O no--for wasn't she saying all
the time that such thoughts of the future were improper, and wasn't
Gabriel far too poor a man to speak sentiment to her?  Yet he might
have just hinted about that old love of his, and asked, in a playful
off-hand way, if he might speak of it.  It would have seemed pretty
and sweet, if no more; and then she would have shown how kind and
inoffensive a woman's "No" can sometimes be.  But to give such cool
advice--the very advice she had asked for--it ruffled our heroine all
the afternoon.

The lengthy Chapter 49 covers several months after Troy's supposed death, from late autumn to late summer of the next year. It charts Gabriel's increasing success. Bathsheba relinquishes control of the farm, letting Gabriel oversee it. Similarly, Boldwood, who has lost all his crops from the previous year because of his neglect, decides to hire Gabriel, as well. Gabriel is given a horse and acts as bailiff for both farms. Boldwood even gives Gabriel a share of his profits. The farm laborers comment that Gabriel is miserly because he refuses to change his lifestyle despite his new property. In the meantime, Bathsheba lives in a state of abstraction. She does not fully believe that Troy is dead and only reluctantly wears clothes of mourning. Boldwood develops hopes that in six years , Bathsheba may be willing to forget Troy and marry him. He quizzes Liddy about the likelihood of her mistress remarrying. His preoccupation is turning into a full-blown obsession. Chapter 50 is built around the Greenhill Sheep Fair, where farmers and shepherds meet from all over the countryside in September. Hardy describes the fair in detail. Gabriel's sheep, from both Boldwood and Bathsheba's farms, are universally admired. The fair also contains a "circular tent, of exceptional newness and size" in which a theatrical show is being performed. Called "The Royal Hippodrome Performance of Turpin's Ride to York and the Death of Black Bess," it stars Troy as the lead role. We see the farm laborers, Poorgrass and Coggan, in the audience, engaged in comical bickering. The narrator briefly explains that Troy has been wandering through England and America over the past few months. In America he has worked as a professor of gymnastics and sword exercises, but, not liking it, he has returned to England. He intends to wait and see what Bathsheba's financial situation is before revealing his presence to her, not wanting to be held financially "liable for her maintenance." In the meantime, he has taken up with a traveling circus. Boldwood approaches Bathsheba once the sheep have been sold, and he gets her a seat at the show. Troy recognizes her, and, explaining to the manager that he has a creditor in the audience, asks if he might perform the rest of the play in pantomime, in order to disguise his identity. After the show, Troy thinks that Pennyways, Bathsheba's former bailiff, may have recognized him nonetheless. Pennyways approaches Bathsheba, giving her a note saying her husband is alive, but Troy hides behind her and snatches the note from her before she can read it. Troy and Pennyways go off together to talk. Boldwood contrives to take Bathsheba home from the fair, and on the way, he reminds her that Troy is dead and asks her whether she would consider marrying him. He asks her to take pity on him, even though she does not love him. Bathsheba is intimidated by him almost to the point of fear, and through timidity and guilt, she tells him, "I will never marry another man whilst you wish me to be your wife, whatever comes--but to say more--" It is another half- promise. Finally, she agrees to tell him for certain at Christmas whether she is willing to marry him six years later. Bathsheba asks Gabriel for advice a few weeks later, telling him that if she does not give Boldwood her word, she thinks he will go out of his mind. Gabriel replies that "The real sin, ma'am, in my mind, lies in thinking of every wedding wi' a man you don't love honest and true." After their conversation, Bathsheba feels piqued that Gabriel has not mentioned his own love for her.

Commentary The Greenhill Fair chapter, Chapter 50, contains an enormous amount of factual information about life in Dorsetshire. One of Hardy's projects in this novel is to preserve a detailed account of the rural habits of the region that he saw becoming extinct in an age of increasing industrialization. The agricultural economy would suffer in the late 1800s through competition with produce from other countries. Faster transportation and technological advances in refrigeration meant that by 1900, the English no longer had to subsist on food grown on British soil alone. The agricultural fair, then, is a ritual that Hardy sees dying out, and the chapter serves as a sort of historical document or record. Much of the plot of this chapter is built around unlikely coincidence: Troy meeting up with Bathsheba, being recognized by Pennyways but not by his wife, being able to steal the note that Pennyways gives Bathsheba. The intense acceleration of events in this part of the novel makes it seem far less realistic than the slower, more carefully drawn scenes in the novel. Yet Hardy's somewhat contrived states of affairs allow him to experiment with interesting psychological situations. The way the characters respond to their strange circumstances sheds light on their personalities and minds. For example, the fact that Troy persists in hiding from Bathsheba, despite being in her immediate presence, exposes the depth of his callousness: he has not seen her in months, she is in mourning for him, and yet he still waits to see how financially well-off she is before making his presence known.