COMING HOME--A CRY

On the turnpike road, between Casterbridge and Weatherbury, and about
three miles from the former place, is Yalbury Hill, one of those
steep long ascents which pervade the highways of this undulating
part of South Wessex.  In returning from market it is usual for the
farmers and other gig-gentry to alight at the bottom and walk up.

One Saturday evening in the month of October Bathsheba's vehicle was
duly creeping up this incline.  She was sitting listlessly in the
second seat of the gig, whilst walking beside her in a farmer's
marketing suit of unusually fashionable cut was an erect, well-made
young man.  Though on foot, he held the reins and whip, and
occasionally aimed light cuts at the horse's ear with the end of the
lash, as a recreation.  This man was her husband, formerly Sergeant
Troy, who, having bought his discharge with Bathsheba's money, was
gradually transforming himself into a farmer of a spirited and very
modern school.  People of unalterable ideas still insisted upon
calling him "Sergeant" when they met him, which was in some degree
owing to his having still retained the well-shaped moustache of his
military days, and the soldierly bearing inseparable from his form
and training.

"Yes, if it hadn't been for that wretched rain I should have cleared
two hundred as easy as looking, my love," he was saying.  "Don't you
see, it altered all the chances?  To speak like a book I once read,
wet weather is the narrative, and fine days are the episodes, of our
country's history; now, isn't that true?"

"But the time of year is come for changeable weather."

"Well, yes.  The fact is, these autumn races are the ruin of
everybody.  Never did I see such a day as 'twas!  'Tis a wild open
place, just out of Budmouth, and a drab sea rolled in towards us like
liquid misery.  Wind and rain--good Lord!  Dark?  Why, 'twas as black
as my hat before the last race was run.  'Twas five o'clock, and
you couldn't see the horses till they were almost in, leave alone
colours.  The ground was as heavy as lead, and all judgment from a
fellow's experience went for nothing.  Horses, riders, people, were
all blown about like ships at sea.  Three booths were blown over,
and the wretched folk inside crawled out upon their hands and knees;
and in the next field were as many as a dozen hats at one time.  Ay,
Pimpernel regularly stuck fast, when about sixty yards off, and when
I saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart against the lining
of my ribs, I assure you, my love!"

"And you mean, Frank," said Bathsheba, sadly--her voice was painfully
lowered from the fulness and vivacity of the previous summer--"that
you have lost more than a hundred pounds in a month by this dreadful
horse-racing?  O, Frank, it is cruel; it is foolish of you to take
away my money so.  We shall have to leave the farm; that will be the
end of it!"

"Humbug about cruel.  Now, there 'tis again--turn on the waterworks;
that's just like you."

"But you'll promise me not to go to Budmouth second meeting, won't
you?" she implored.  Bathsheba was at the full depth for tears, but
she maintained a dry eye.

"I don't see why I should; in fact, if it turns out to be a fine day,
I was thinking of taking you."

"Never, never!  I'll go a hundred miles the other way first. I hate
the sound of the very word!"

"But the question of going to see the race or staying at home has
very little to do with the matter.  Bets are all booked safely enough
before the race begins, you may depend.  Whether it is a bad race for
me or a good one, will have very little to do with our going there
next Monday."

"But you don't mean to say that you have risked anything on this one
too!" she exclaimed, with an agonized look.

"There now, don't you be a little fool.  Wait till you are told.
Why, Bathsheba, you have lost all the pluck and sauciness you
formerly had, and upon my life if I had known what a chicken-hearted
creature you were under all your boldness, I'd never have--I know
what."

A flash of indignation might have been seen in Bathsheba's dark eyes
as she looked resolutely ahead after this reply.  They moved on
without further speech, some early-withered leaves from the trees
which hooded the road at this spot occasionally spinning downward
across their path to the earth.

A woman appeared on the brow of the hill.  The ridge was in a
cutting, so that she was very near the husband and wife before she
became visible.  Troy had turned towards the gig to remount, and
whilst putting his foot on the step the woman passed behind him.

Though the overshadowing trees and the approach of eventide enveloped
them in gloom, Bathsheba could see plainly enough to discern the
extreme poverty of the woman's garb, and the sadness of her face.

"Please, sir, do you know at what time Casterbridge Union-house
closes at night?"

The woman said these words to Troy over his shoulder.

Troy started visibly at the sound of the voice; yet he seemed to
recover presence of mind sufficient to prevent himself from giving
way to his impulse to suddenly turn and face her.  He said, slowly--

"I don't know."

The woman, on hearing him speak, quickly looked up, examined the side
of his face, and recognized the soldier under the yeoman's garb.  Her
face was drawn into an expression which had gladness and agony both
among its elements.  She uttered an hysterical cry, and fell down.

"Oh, poor thing!" exclaimed Bathsheba, instantly preparing to alight.

"Stay where you are, and attend to the horse!" said Troy,
peremptorily throwing her the reins and the whip.  "Walk the horse
to the top: I'll see to the woman."

"But I--"

"Do you hear?  Clk--Poppet!"

The horse, gig, and Bathsheba moved on.

"How on earth did you come here?  I thought you were miles away, or
dead!  Why didn't you write to me?" said Troy to the woman, in a
strangely gentle, yet hurried voice, as he lifted her up.

"I feared to."

"Have you any money?"

"None."

"Good Heaven--I wish I had more to give you!  Here's--wretched--the
merest trifle.  It is every farthing I have left.  I have none but
what my wife gives me, you know, and I can't ask her now."

The woman made no answer.

"I have only another moment," continued Troy; "and now listen.  Where
are you going to-night?  Casterbridge Union?"

"Yes; I thought to go there."

"You shan't go there; yet, wait.  Yes, perhaps for to-night; I can
do nothing better--worse luck!  Sleep there to-night, and stay there
to-morrow.  Monday is the first free day I have; and on Monday
morning, at ten exactly, meet me on Grey's Bridge just out of the
town.  I'll bring all the money I can muster.  You shan't want--I'll
see that, Fanny; then I'll get you a lodging somewhere.  Good-bye
till then.  I am a brute--but good-bye!"

After advancing the distance which completed the ascent of the
hill, Bathsheba turned her head.  The woman was upon her feet, and
Bathsheba saw her withdrawing from Troy, and going feebly down the
hill by the third milestone from Casterbridge.  Troy then came on
towards his wife, stepped into the gig, took the reins from her hand,
and without making any observation whipped the horse into a trot.  He
was rather agitated.

"Do you know who that woman was?" said Bathsheba, looking searchingly
into his face.

"I do," he said, looking boldly back into hers.

"I thought you did," said she, with angry hauteur, and still
regarding him.  "Who is she?"

He suddenly seemed to think that frankness would benefit neither of
the women.

"Nothing to either of us," he said.  "I know her by sight."

"What is her name?"

"How should I know her name?"

"I think you do."

"Think if you will, and be--" The sentence was completed by a smart
cut of the whip round Poppet's flank, which caused the animal to
start forward at a wild pace.  No more was said.

ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY

For a considerable time the woman walked on.  Her steps became
feebler, and she strained her eyes to look afar upon the naked road,
now indistinct amid the penumbrae of night.  At length her onward walk
dwindled to the merest totter, and she opened a gate within which was
a haystack.  Underneath this she sat down and presently slept.

When the woman awoke it was to find herself in the depths of a
moonless and starless night.  A heavy unbroken crust of cloud
stretched across the sky, shutting out every speck of heaven; and a
distant halo which hung over the town of Casterbridge was visible
against the black concave, the luminosity appearing the brighter by
its great contrast with the circumscribing darkness.  Towards this
weak, soft glow the woman turned her eyes.

"If I could only get there!" she said.  "Meet him the day after
to-morrow: God help me!  Perhaps I shall be in my grave before then."

A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour,
one, in a small, attenuated tone.  After midnight the voice of a
clock seems to lose in breadth as much as in length, and to diminish
its sonorousness to a thin falsetto.

Afterwards a light--two lights--arose from the remote shade, and grew
larger.  A carriage rolled along the road, and passed the gate.  It
probably contained some late diners-out.  The beams from one lamp
shone for a moment upon the crouching woman, and threw her face into
vivid relief.  The face was young in the groundwork, old in the
finish; the general contours were flexuous and childlike, but the
finer lineaments had begun to be sharp and thin.

The pedestrian stood up, apparently with revived determination, and
looked around.  The road appeared to be familiar to her, and she
carefully scanned the fence as she slowly walked along.  Presently
there became visible a dim white shape; it was another milestone.
She drew her fingers across its face to feel the marks.

"Two more!" she said.

She leant against the stone as a means of rest for a short interval,
then bestirred herself, and again pursued her way.  For a slight
distance she bore up bravely, afterwards flagging as before.  This
was beside a lone copsewood, wherein heaps of white chips strewn upon
the leafy ground showed that woodmen had been faggoting and making
hurdles during the day.  Now there was not a rustle, not a breeze,
not the faintest clash of twigs to keep her company.  The woman
looked over the gate, opened it, and went in.  Close to the entrance
stood a row of faggots, bound and un-bound, together with stakes of
all sizes.

For a few seconds the wayfarer stood with that tense stillness which
signifies itself to be not the end, but merely the suspension, of
a previous motion.  Her attitude was that of a person who listens,
either to the external world of sound, or to the imagined discourse
of thought.  A close criticism might have detected signs proving that
she was intent on the latter alternative.  Moreover, as was shown by
what followed, she was oddly exercising the faculty of invention upon
the speciality of the clever Jacquet Droz, the designer of automatic
substitutes for human limbs.

By the aid of the Casterbridge aurora, and by feeling with her hands,
the woman selected two sticks from the heaps.  These sticks were
nearly straight to the height of three or four feet, where each
branched into a fork like the letter Y.  She sat down, snapped off
the small upper twigs, and carried the remainder with her into the
road.  She placed one of these forks under each arm as a crutch,
tested them, timidly threw her whole weight upon them--so little that
it was--and swung herself forward.  The girl had made for herself a
material aid.

The crutches answered well.  The pat of her feet, and the tap of
her sticks upon the highway, were all the sounds that came from
the traveller now.  She had passed the last milestone by a good
long distance, and began to look wistfully towards the bank as if
calculating upon another milestone soon.  The crutches, though so
very useful, had their limits of power.  Mechanism only transfers
labour, being powerless to supersede it, and the original amount of
exertion was not cleared away; it was thrown into the body and arms.
She was exhausted, and each swing forward became fainter.  At last
she swayed sideways, and fell.

Here she lay, a shapeless heap, for ten minutes and more.  The
morning wind began to boom dully over the flats, and to move afresh
dead leaves which had lain still since yesterday.  The woman
desperately turned round upon her knees, and next rose to her feet.
Steadying herself by the help of one crutch, she essayed a step, then
another, then a third, using the crutches now as walking-sticks only.
Thus she progressed till descending Mellstock Hill another milestone
appeared, and soon the beginning of an iron-railed fence came into
view.  She staggered across to the first post, clung to it, and
looked around.

The Casterbridge lights were now individually visible. It was getting
towards morning, and vehicles might be hoped for, if not expected
soon.  She listened.  There was not a sound of life save that acme
and sublimation of all dismal sounds, the bark of a fox, its three
hollow notes being rendered at intervals of a minute with the
precision of a funeral bell.

"Less than a mile!" the woman murmured.  "No; more," she added, after
a pause.  "The mile is to the county hall, and my resting-place is on
the other side Casterbridge.  A little over a mile, and there I am!"
After an interval she again spoke.  "Five or six steps to a yard--six
perhaps.  I have to go seventeen hundred yards.  A hundred times six,
six hundred.  Seventeen times that.  O pity me, Lord!"

Holding to the rails, she advanced, thrusting one hand forward upon
the rail, then the other, then leaning over it whilst she dragged her
feet on beneath.

This woman was not given to soliloquy; but extremity of feeling
lessens the individuality of the weak, as it increases that of the
strong.  She said again in the same tone, "I'll believe that the end
lies five posts forward, and no further, and so get strength to pass
them."

This was a practical application of the principle that a half-feigned
and fictitious faith is better than no faith at all.

She passed five posts and held on to the fifth.

"I'll pass five more by believing my longed-for spot is at the next
fifth.  I can do it."

She passed five more.

"It lies only five further."

She passed five more.

"But it is five further."

She passed them.

"That stone bridge is the end of my journey," she said, when the
bridge over the Froom was in view.

She crawled to the bridge.  During the effort each breath of the
woman went into the air as if never to return again.

"Now for the truth of the matter," she said, sitting down.  "The
truth is, that I have less than half a mile."  Self-beguilement with
what she had known all the time to be false had given her strength to
come over half a mile that she would have been powerless to face in
the lump.  The artifice showed that the woman, by some mysterious
intuition, had grasped the paradoxical truth that blindness may
operate more vigorously than prescience, and the short-sighted effect
more than the far-seeing; that limitation, and not comprehensiveness,
is needed for striking a blow.

The half-mile stood now before the sick and weary woman like a stolid
Juggernaut.  It was an impassive King of her world.  The road here
ran across Durnover Moor, open to the road on either side.  She
surveyed the wide space, the lights, herself, sighed, and lay down
against a guard-stone of the bridge.

Never was ingenuity exercised so sorely as the traveller here
exercised hers.  Every conceivable aid, method, stratagem, mechanism,
by which these last desperate eight hundred yards could be overpassed
by a human being unperceived, was revolved in her busy brain,
and dismissed as impracticable.  She thought of sticks, wheels,
crawling--she even thought of rolling.  But the exertion demanded
by either of these latter two was greater than to walk erect.  The
faculty of contrivance was worn out.  Hopelessness had come at last.

"No further!" she whispered, and closed her eyes.

From the stripe of shadow on the opposite side of the bridge a
portion of shade seemed to detach itself and move into isolation
upon the pale white of the road.  It glided noiselessly towards the
recumbent woman.

She became conscious of something touching her hand; it was softness
and it was warmth.  She opened her eyes, and the substance touched
her face.  A dog was licking her cheek.

He was a huge, heavy, and quiet creature, standing darkly against the
low horizon, and at least two feet higher than the present position
of her eyes.  Whether Newfoundland, mastiff, bloodhound, or what
not, it was impossible to say.  He seemed to be of too strange and
mysterious a nature to belong to any variety among those of popular
nomenclature.  Being thus assignable to no breed, he was the ideal
embodiment of canine greatness--a generalization from what was common
to all.  Night, in its sad, solemn, and benevolent aspect, apart from
its stealthy and cruel side, was personified in this form.  Darkness
endows the small and ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power,
and even the suffering woman threw her idea into figure.

In her reclining position she looked up to him just as in earlier
times she had, when standing, looked up to a man.  The animal, who
was as homeless as she, respectfully withdrew a step or two when the
woman moved, and, seeing that she did not repulse him, he licked her
hand again.

A thought moved within her like lightning.  "Perhaps I can make use
of him--I might do it then!"

She pointed in the direction of Casterbridge, and the dog seemed to
misunderstand: he trotted on.  Then, finding she could not follow, he
came back and whined.

The ultimate and saddest singularity of woman's effort and invention
was reached when, with a quickened breathing, she rose to a stooping
posture, and, resting her two little arms upon the shoulders of the
dog, leant firmly thereon, and murmured stimulating words.  Whilst
she sorrowed in her heart she cheered with her voice, and what was
stranger than that the strong should need encouragement from the weak
was that cheerfulness should be so well stimulated by such utter
dejection.  Her friend moved forward slowly, and she with small
mincing steps moved forward beside him, half her weight being thrown
upon the animal.  Sometimes she sank as she had sunk from walking
erect, from the crutches, from the rails.  The dog, who now
thoroughly understood her desire and her incapacity, was frantic in
his distress on these occasions; he would tug at her dress and run
forward.  She always called him back, and it was now to be observed
that the woman listened for human sounds only to avoid them.  It was
evident that she had an object in keeping her presence on the road
and her forlorn state unknown.

Their progress was necessarily very slow.  They reached the bottom
of the town, and the Casterbridge lamps lay before them like fallen
Pleiads as they turned to the left into the dense shade of a deserted
avenue of chestnuts, and so skirted the borough.  Thus the town was
passed, and the goal was reached.

On this much-desired spot outside the town rose a picturesque
building.  Originally it had been a mere case to hold people.  The
shell had been so thin, so devoid of excrescence, and so closely
drawn over the accommodation granted, that the grim character of what
was beneath showed through it, as the shape of a body is visible
under a winding-sheet.

Then Nature, as if offended, lent a hand.  Masses of ivy grew up,
completely covering the walls, till the place looked like an abbey;
and it was discovered that the view from the front, over the
Casterbridge chimneys, was one of the most magnificent in the
county. A neighbouring earl once said that he would give up a year's
rental to have at his own door the view enjoyed by the inmates from
theirs--and very probably the inmates would have given up the view
for his year's rental.

This stone edifice consisted of a central mass and two wings, whereon
stood as sentinels a few slim chimneys, now gurgling sorrowfully to
the slow wind.  In the wall was a gate, and by the gate a bellpull
formed of a hanging wire.  The woman raised herself as high as
possible upon her knees, and could just reach the handle.  She moved
it and fell forwards in a bowed attitude, her face upon her bosom.

It was getting on towards six o'clock, and sounds of movement were
to be heard inside the building which was the haven of rest to this
wearied soul.  A little door by the large one was opened, and a man
appeared inside.  He discerned the panting heap of clothes, went back
for a light, and came again.  He entered a second time, and returned
with two women.

These lifted the prostrate figure and assisted her in through the
doorway.  The man then closed the door.

"How did she get here?" said one of the women.

"The Lord knows," said the other.

"There is a dog outside," murmured the overcome traveller.  "Where is
he gone?  He helped me."

"I stoned him away," said the man.

The little procession then moved forward--the man in front bearing
the light, the two bony women next, supporting between them the small
and supple one.  Thus they entered the house and disappeared.

SUSPICION--FANNY IS SENT FOR

Bathsheba said very little to her husband all that evening of their
return from market, and he was not disposed to say much to her.  He
exhibited the unpleasant combination of a restless condition with a
silent tongue.  The next day, which was Sunday, passed nearly in the
same manner as regarded their taciturnity, Bathsheba going to church
both morning and afternoon.  This was the day before the Budmouth
races.  In the evening Troy said, suddenly--

"Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?"

Her countenance instantly sank. "Twenty pounds?" she said.

"The fact is, I want it badly."  The anxiety upon Troy's face was
unusual and very marked.  It was a culmination of the mood he had
been in all the day.

"Ah! for those races to-morrow."

Troy for the moment made no reply.  Her mistake had its advantages
to a man who shrank from having his mind inspected as he did now.
"Well, suppose I do want it for races?" he said, at last.

"Oh, Frank!" Bathsheba replied, and there was such a volume of
entreaty in the words.  "Only such a few weeks ago you said that I
was far sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and that
you would give them all up for me; and now, won't you give up this
one, which is more a worry than a pleasure?  Do, Frank.  Come, let
me fascinate you by all I can do--by pretty words and pretty looks,
and everything I can think of--to stay at home.  Say yes to your
wife--say yes!"

The tenderest and softest phases of Bathsheba's nature were prominent
now--advanced impulsively for his acceptance, without any of the
disguises and defences which the wariness of her character when she
was cool too frequently threw over them.  Few men could have resisted
the arch yet dignified entreaty of the beautiful face, thrown a
little back and sideways in the well known attitude that expresses
more than the words it accompanies, and which seems to have been
designed for these special occasions.  Had the woman not been his
wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly; as it was, he thought he
would not deceive her longer.

"The money is not wanted for racing debts at all," he said.

"What is it for?" she asked.  "You worry me a great deal by these
mysterious responsibilities, Frank."

Troy hesitated.  He did not now love her enough to allow himself
to be carried too far by her ways.  Yet it was necessary to be
civil.  "You wrong me by such a suspicious manner," he said.  "Such
strait-waistcoating as you treat me to is not becoming in you at so
early a date."

"I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay," she said,
with features between a smile and a pout.

"Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to the
latter.  Bathsheba, fun is all very well, but don't go too far, or
you may have cause to regret something."

She reddened.  "I do that already," she said, quickly.

"What do you regret?"

"That my romance has come to an end."

"All romances end at marriage."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that.  You grieve me to my soul by
being smart at my expense."

"You are dull enough at mine.  I believe you hate me."

"Not you--only your faults.  I do hate them."

"'Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure them.
Come, let's strike a balance with the twenty pounds, and be friends."

She gave a sigh of resignation.  "I have about that sum here for
household expenses.  If you must have it, take it."

"Very good.  Thank you.  I expect I shall have gone away before you
are in to breakfast to-morrow."

"And must you go?  Ah! there was a time, Frank, when it would have
taken a good many promises to other people to drag you away from me.
You used to call me darling, then.  But it doesn't matter to you how
my days are passed now."

"I must go, in spite of sentiment."  Troy, as he spoke, looked at his
watch, and, apparently actuated by _non lucendo_ principles, opened
the case at the back, revealing, snugly stowed within it, a small
coil of hair.

Bathsheba's eyes had been accidentally lifted at that moment, and she
saw the action and saw the hair.  She flushed in pain and surprise,
and some words escaped her before she had thought whether or not it
was wise to utter them.  "A woman's curl of hair!" she said.  "Oh,
Frank, whose is that?"

Troy had instantly closed his watch.  He carelessly replied, as one
who cloaked some feelings that the sight had stirred.  "Why, yours,
of course.  Whose should it be?  I had quite forgotten that I had
it."

"What a dreadful fib, Frank!"

"I tell you I had forgotten it!" he said, loudly.

"I don't mean that--it was yellow hair."

"Nonsense."

"That's insulting me.  I know it was yellow.  Now whose was it?  I
want to know."

"Very well--I'll tell you, so make no more ado.  It is the hair of a
young woman I was going to marry before I knew you."

"You ought to tell me her name, then."

"I cannot do that."

"Is she married yet?"

"No."

"Is she alive?"

"Yes."

"Is she pretty?"

"Yes."

"It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful
affliction!"

"Affliction--what affliction?" he inquired, quickly.

"Having hair of that dreadful colour."

"Oh--ho--I like that!" said Troy, recovering himself.  "Why, her hair
has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she has worn it
loose, which has not been long.  It is beautiful hair.  People used
to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!"

"Pooh! that's nothing--that's nothing!" she exclaimed, in incipient
accents of pique.  "If I cared for your love as much as I used to I
could say people had turned to look at mine."

"Bathsheba, don't be so fitful and jealous.  You knew what married
life would be like, and shouldn't have entered it if you feared these
contingencies."

Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in
her throat, and the ducts to her eyes were painfully full.  Ashamed
as she was to show emotion, at last she burst out:--

"This is all I get for loving you so well!  Ah! when I married you
your life was dearer to me than my own.  I would have died for
you--how truly I can say that I would have died for you!  And now
you sneer at my foolishness in marrying you.  O! is it kind to me to
throw my mistake in my face?  Whatever opinion you may have of my
wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am
in your power."

"I can't help how things fall out," said Troy; "upon my heart, women
will be the death of me!"

"Well you shouldn't keep people's hair.  You'll burn it, won't you,
Frank?"

Frank went on as if he had not heard her.  "There are considerations
even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made--ties
you know nothing of.  If you repent of marrying, so do I."

Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled
tones of wretchedness and coaxing, "I only repent it if you don't
love me better than any woman in the world!  I don't otherwise,
Frank.  You don't repent because you already love somebody better
than you love me, do you?"

"I don't know.  Why do you say that?"

"You won't burn that curl.  You like the woman who owns that pretty
hair--yes; it is pretty--more beautiful than my miserable black mane!
Well, it is no use; I can't help being ugly.  You must like her best,
if you will!"

"Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never looked upon
that bit of hair for several months--that I am ready to swear."

"But just now you said 'ties'; and then--that woman we met?"

"'Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair."

"Is it hers, then?"

"Yes.  There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are
content."

"And what are the ties?"

"Oh! that meant nothing--a mere jest."

"A mere jest!" she said, in mournful astonishment.  "Can you jest
when I am so wretchedly in earnest?  Tell me the truth, Frank.  I
am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman's
moments.  Come! treat me fairly," she said, looking honestly and
fearlessly into his face.  "I don't want much; bare justice--that's
all!  Ah! once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the
highest homage from the husband I should choose.  Now, anything
short of cruelty will content me.  Yes! the independent and spirited
Bathsheba is come to this!"

"For Heaven's sake don't be so desperate!" Troy said, snappishly,
rising as he did so, and leaving the room.

Directly he had gone, Bathsheba burst into great sobs--dry-eyed sobs,
which cut as they came, without any softening by tears.  But she
determined to repress all evidences of feeling.  She was conquered;
but she would never own it as long as she lived.  Her pride was
indeed brought low by despairing discoveries of her spoliation by
marriage with a less pure nature than her own.  She chafed to and fro
in rebelliousness, like a caged leopard; her whole soul was in arms,
and the blood fired her face.  Until she had met Troy, Bathsheba had
been proud of her position as a woman; it had been a glory to her to
know that her lips had been touched by no man's on earth--that her
waist had never been encircled by a lover's arm.  She hated herself
now.  In those earlier days she had always nourished a secret
contempt for girls who were the slaves of the first good-looking
young fellow who should choose to salute them.  She had never taken
kindly to the idea of marriage in the abstract as did the majority of
women she saw about her.  In the turmoil of her anxiety for her lover
she had agreed to marry him; but the perception that had accompanied
her happiest hours on this account was rather that of self-sacrifice
than of promotion and honour.  Although she scarcely knew the
divinity's name, Diana was the goddess whom Bathsheba instinctively
adored.  That she had never, by look, word, or sign, encouraged a man
to approach her--that she had felt herself sufficient to herself,
and had in the independence of her girlish heart fancied there was
a certain degradation in renouncing the simplicity of a maiden
existence to become the humbler half of an indifferent matrimonial
whole--were facts now bitterly remembered.  Oh, if she had never
stooped to folly of this kind, respectable as it was, and could only
stand again, as she had stood on the hill at Norcombe, and dare Troy
or any other man to pollute a hair of her head by his interference!

The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and had the horse
saddled for her ride round the farm in the customary way.  When she
came in at half-past eight--their usual hour for breakfasting--she
was informed that her husband had risen, taken his breakfast, and
driven off to Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet.

After breakfast she was cool and collected--quite herself in
fact--and she rambled to the gate, intending to walk to another
quarter of the farm, which she still personally superintended as
well as her duties in the house would permit, continually, however,
finding herself preceded in forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom she
began to entertain the genuine friendship of a sister.  Of course,
she sometimes thought of him in the light of an old lover, and had
momentary imaginings of what life with him as a husband would have
been like; also of life with Boldwood under the same conditions.
But Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given to futile
dreaming, and her musings under this head were short and entirely
confined to the times when Troy's neglect was more than ordinarily
evident.

She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood.  It was Mr.
Boldwood.  Bathsheba blushed painfully, and watched.  The farmer
stopped when still a long way off, and held up his hand to Gabriel
Oak, who was in a footpath across the field.  The two men then
approached each other and seemed to engage in earnest conversation.

Thus they continued for a long time.  Joseph Poorgrass now passed
near them, wheeling a barrow of apples up the hill to Bathsheba's
residence.  Boldwood and Gabriel called to him, spoke to him for a
few minutes, and then all three parted, Joseph immediately coming
up the hill with his barrow.

Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with some surprise,
experienced great relief when Boldwood turned back again.  "Well,
what's the message, Joseph?" she said.

He set down his barrow, and, putting upon himself the refined aspect
that a conversation with a lady required, spoke to Bathsheba over the
gate.

"You'll never see Fanny Robin no more--use nor principal--ma'am."

"Why?"

"Because she's dead in the Union."

"Fanny dead--never!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What did she die from?"

"I don't know for certain; but I should be inclined to think it was
from general neshness of constitution.  She was such a limber maid
that 'a could stand no hardship, even when I knowed her, and 'a went
like a candle-snoff, so 'tis said.  She was took bad in the morning,
and, being quite feeble and worn out, she died in the evening.  She
belongs by law to our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a
waggon at three this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her."

"Indeed I shall not let Mr. Boldwood do any such thing--I shall do
it!  Fanny was my uncle's servant, and, although I only knew her
for a couple of days, she belongs to me.  How very, very sad this
is!--the idea of Fanny being in a workhouse."  Bathsheba had begun to
know what suffering was, and she spoke with real feeling....  "Send
across to Mr. Boldwood's, and say that Mrs. Troy will take upon
herself the duty of fetching an old servant of the family....  We
ought not to put her in a waggon; we'll get a hearse."

"There will hardly be time, ma'am, will there?"

"Perhaps not," she said, musingly.  "When did you say we must be at
the door--three o'clock?"

"Three o'clock this afternoon, ma'am, so to speak it."

"Very well--you go with it.  A pretty waggon is better than an ugly
hearse, after all.  Joseph, have the new spring waggon with the blue
body and red wheels, and wash it very clean.  And, Joseph--"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put upon her
coffin--indeed, gather a great many, and completely bury her in
them.  Get some boughs of laurustinus, and variegated box, and yew,
and boy's-love; ay, and some bunches of chrysanthemum.  And let old
Pleasant draw her, because she knew him so well."

"I will, ma'am.  I ought to have said that the Union, in the form of
four labouring men, will meet me when I gets to our churchyard gate,
and take her and bury her according to the rites of the Board of
Guardians, as by law ordained."

"Dear me--Casterbridge Union--and is Fanny come to this?" said
Bathsheba, musing.  "I wish I had known of it sooner.  I thought she
was far away.  How long has she lived there?"

"On'y been there a day or two."

"Oh!--then she has not been staying there as a regular inmate?"

"No.  She first went to live in a garrison-town t'other side o'
Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a living at seampstering
in Melchester for several months, at the house of a very respectable
widow-woman who takes in work of that sort.  She only got handy the
Union-house on Sunday morning 'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and
there that she had traipsed every step of the way from Melchester.
Why she left her place, I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a
lie, why, I wouldn't tell it.  That's the short of the story, ma'am."

"Ah-h!"

No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one more rapidly than
changed the young wife's countenance whilst this word came from her
in a long-drawn breath.  "Did she walk along our turnpike-road?" she
said, in a suddenly restless and eager voice.

"I believe she did....  Ma'am, shall I call Liddy?  You bain't well,
ma'am, surely?  You look like a lily--so pale and fainty!"

"No; don't call her; it is nothing.  When did she pass Weatherbury?"

"Last Saturday night."

"That will do, Joseph; now you may go."

"Certainly, ma'am."

"Joseph, come hither a moment.  What was the colour of Fanny Robin's
hair?"

"Really, mistress, now that 'tis put to me so judge-and-jury like, I
can't call to mind, if ye'll believe me!"

"Never mind; go on and do what I told you.  Stop--well no, go on."

She turned herself away from him, that he might no longer notice the
mood which had set its sign so visibly upon her, and went indoors
with a distressing sense of faintness and a beating brow.  About an
hour after, she heard the noise of the waggon and went out, still
with a painful consciousness of her bewildered and troubled look.
Joseph, dressed in his best suit of clothes, was putting in the horse
to start.  The shrubs and flowers were all piled in the waggon, as
she had directed; Bathsheba hardly saw them now.

"Died of what? did you say, Joseph?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, ma'am, quite sure."

"Sure of what?"

"I'm sure that all I know is that she arrived in the morning and died
in the evening without further parley.  What Oak and Mr. Boldwood
told me was only these few words.  'Little Fanny Robin is dead,
Joseph,' Gabriel said, looking in my face in his steady old way.
I was very sorry, and I said, 'Ah!--and how did she come to die?'
'Well, she's dead in Casterbridge Union,' he said, 'and perhaps
'tisn't much matter about how she came to die.  She reached the
Union early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon--that's clear
enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing lately, and Mr. Boldwood
turned round to me then, and left off spitting a thistle with the end
of his stick.  He told me about her having lived by seampstering in
Melchester, as I mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at
the end of last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk.
They then said I had better just name a hint of her death to you, and
away they went.  Her death might have been brought on by biding in
the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people used to say she'd go off
in a decline: she used to cough a good deal in winter time.  However,
'tisn't much odds to us about that now, for 'tis all over."

"Have you heard a different story at all?" She looked at him so
intently that Joseph's eyes quailed.

"Not a word, mistress, I assure 'ee!" he said.  "Hardly anybody in
the parish knows the news yet."

"I wonder why Gabriel didn't bring the message to me himself.  He
mostly makes a point of seeing me upon the most trifling errand."
These words were merely murmured, and she was looking upon the
ground.

"Perhaps he was busy, ma'am," Joseph suggested.  "And sometimes he
seems to suffer from things upon his mind, connected with the time
when he was better off than 'a is now.  'A's rather a curious item,
but a very understanding shepherd, and learned in books."

"Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was speaking to you about
this?"

"I cannot but say that there did, ma'am.  He was terrible down, and
so was Farmer Boldwood."

"Thank you, Joseph.  That will do.  Go on now, or you'll be late."

Bathsheba, still unhappy, went indoors again.  In the course of the
afternoon she said to Liddy, who had been informed of the occurrence,
"What was the colour of poor Fanny Robin's hair?  Do you know?  I
cannot recollect--I only saw her for a day or two."

"It was light, ma'am; but she wore it rather short, and packed away
under her cap, so that you would hardly notice it.  But I have seen
her let it down when she was going to bed, and it looked beautiful
then.  Real golden hair."

"Her young man was a soldier, was he not?"

"Yes.  In the same regiment as Mr. Troy.  He says he knew him very
well."

"What, Mr. Troy says so?  How came he to say that?"

"One day I just named it to him, and asked him if he knew Fanny's
young man.  He said, 'Oh yes, he knew the young man as well as he
knew himself, and that there wasn't a man in the regiment he liked
better.'"

"Ah!  Said that, did he?"

"Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness between himself and the
other young man, so that sometimes people mistook them--"

"Liddy, for Heaven's sake stop your talking!" said Bathsheba, with
the nervous petulance that comes from worrying perceptions.

JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN--BUCK'S HEAD

A wall bounded the site of Casterbridge Union-house, except along a
portion of the end.  Here a high gable stood prominent, and it was
covered like the front with a mat of ivy.  In this gable was no
window, chimney, ornament, or protuberance of any kind.  The single
feature appertaining to it, beyond the expanse of dark green leaves,
was a small door.

The situation of the door was peculiar.  The sill was three or four
feet above the ground, and for a moment one was at a loss for an
explanation of this exceptional altitude, till ruts immediately
beneath suggested that the door was used solely for the passage of
articles and persons to and from the level of a vehicle standing on
the outside.  Upon the whole, the door seemed to advertise itself as
a species of Traitor's Gate translated to another sphere.  That entry
and exit hereby was only at rare intervals became apparent on noting
that tufts of grass were allowed to flourish undisturbed in the
chinks of the sill.

As the clock over the South-street Alms-house pointed to five minutes
to three, a blue spring waggon, picked out with red, and containing
boughs and flowers, passed the end of the street, and up towards this
side of the building.  Whilst the chimes were yet stammering out a
shattered form of "Malbrook," Joseph Poorgrass rang the bell, and
received directions to back his waggon against the high door under
the gable.  The door then opened, and a plain elm coffin was slowly
thrust forth, and laid by two men in fustian along the middle of the
vehicle.

One of the men then stepped up beside it, took from his pocket a lump
of chalk, and wrote upon the cover the name and a few other words in
a large scrawling hand.  (We believe that they do these things more
tenderly now, and provide a plate.) He covered the whole with a
black cloth, threadbare, but decent, the tail-board of the waggon
was returned to its place, one of the men handed a certificate of
registry to Poorgrass, and both entered the door, closing it behind
them.  Their connection with her, short as it had been, was over for
ever.

Joseph then placed the flowers as enjoined, and the evergreens
around the flowers, till it was difficult to divine what the waggon
contained; he smacked his whip, and the rather pleasing funeral car
crept down the hill, and along the road to Weatherbury.

The afternoon drew on apace, and, looking to the right towards the
sea as he walked beside the horse, Poorgrass saw strange clouds and
scrolls of mist rolling over the long ridges which girt the landscape
in that quarter.  They came in yet greater volumes, and indolently
crept across the intervening valleys, and around the withered papery
flags of the moor and river brinks.  Then their dank spongy forms
closed in upon the sky.  It was a sudden overgrowth of atmospheric
fungi which had their roots in the neighbouring sea, and by the time
that horse, man, and corpse entered Yalbury Great Wood, these silent
workings of an invisible hand had reached them, and they were
completely enveloped, this being the first arrival of the autumn
fogs, and the first fog of the series.

The air was as an eye suddenly struck blind.  The waggon and its load
rolled no longer on the horizontal division between clearness and
opacity, but were imbedded in an elastic body of a monotonous pallor
throughout.  There was no perceptible motion in the air, not a
visible drop of water fell upon a leaf of the beeches, birches,
and firs composing the wood on either side.  The trees stood in an
attitude of intentness, as if they waited longingly for a wind to
come and rock them.  A startling quiet overhung all surrounding
things--so completely, that the crunching of the waggon-wheels
was as a great noise, and small rustles, which had never obtained
a hearing except by night, were distinctly individualized.

Joseph Poorgrass looked round upon his sad burden as it loomed
faintly through the flowering laurustinus, then at the unfathomable
gloom amid the high trees on each hand, indistinct, shadowless, and
spectre-like in their monochrome of grey.  He felt anything but
cheerful, and wished he had the company even of a child or dog.
Stopping the horse, he listened.  Not a footstep or wheel was audible
anywhere around, and the dead silence was broken only by a heavy
particle falling from a tree through the evergreens and alighting
with a smart rap upon the coffin of poor Fanny.  The fog had by this
time saturated the trees, and this was the first dropping of water
from the overbrimming leaves.  The hollow echo of its fall reminded
the waggoner painfully of the grim Leveller.  Then hard by came down
another drop, then two or three.  Presently there was a continual
tapping of these heavy drops upon the dead leaves, the road, and
the travellers.  The nearer boughs were beaded with the mist to the
greyness of aged men, and the rusty-red leaves of the beeches were
hung with similar drops, like diamonds on auburn hair.

At the roadside hamlet called Roy-Town, just beyond this wood,
was the old inn Buck's Head.  It was about a mile and a half from
Weatherbury, and in the meridian times of stage-coach travelling
had been the place where many coaches changed and kept their relays
of horses.  All the old stabling was now pulled down, and little
remained besides the habitable inn itself, which, standing a little
way back from the road, signified its existence to people far up and
down the highway by a sign hanging from the horizontal bough of an
elm on the opposite side of the way.

Travellers--for the variety _tourist_ had hardly developed into a
distinct species at this date--sometimes said in passing, when they
cast their eyes up to the sign-bearing tree, that artists were fond
of representing the signboard hanging thus, but that they themselves
had never before noticed so perfect an instance in actual working
order.  It was near this tree that the waggon was standing into which
Gabriel Oak crept on his first journey to Weatherbury; but, owing to
the darkness, the sign and the inn had been unobserved.

The manners of the inn were of the old-established type.  Indeed,
in the minds of its frequenters they existed as unalterable formulae:
_e.g._--

   Rap with the bottom of your pint for more liquor.
   For tobacco, shout.
   In calling for the girl in waiting, say, "Maid!"
   Ditto for the landlady, "Old Soul!" etc., etc.

It was a relief to Joseph's heart when the friendly signboard came in
view, and, stopping his horse immediately beneath it, he proceeded to
fulfil an intention made a long time before.  His spirits were oozing
out of him quite.  He turned the horse's head to the green bank, and
entered the hostel for a mug of ale.

Going down into the kitchen of the inn, the floor of which was a
step below the passage, which in its turn was a step below the
road outside, what should Joseph see to gladden his eyes but two
copper-coloured discs, in the form of the countenances of Mr. Jan
Coggan and Mr. Mark Clark.  These owners of the two most appreciative
throats in the neighbourhood, within the pale of respectability, were
now sitting face to face over a three-legged circular table, having
an iron rim to keep cups and pots from being accidentally elbowed
off; they might have been said to resemble the setting sun and the
full moon shining _vis-a-vis_ across the globe.

"Why, 'tis neighbour Poorgrass!" said Mark Clark.  "I'm sure your
face don't praise your mistress's table, Joseph."

"I've had a very pale companion for the last four miles," said
Joseph, indulging in a shudder toned down by resignation.  "And to
speak the truth, 'twas beginning to tell upon me.  I assure ye, I
ha'n't seed the colour of victuals or drink since breakfast time
this morning, and that was no more than a dew-bit afield."

"Then drink, Joseph, and don't restrain yourself!" said Coggan,
handing him a hooped mug three-quarters full.

Joseph drank for a moderately long time, then for a longer time,
saying, as he lowered the jug, "'Tis pretty drinking--very pretty
drinking, and is more than cheerful on my melancholy errand, so to
speak it."

"True, drink is a pleasant delight," said Jan, as one who repeated a
truism so familiar to his brain that he hardly noticed its passage
over his tongue; and, lifting the cup, Coggan tilted his head
gradually backwards, with closed eyes, that his expectant soul
might not be diverted for one instant from its bliss by irrelevant
surroundings.

"Well, I must be on again," said Poorgrass.  "Not but that I should
like another nip with ye; but the parish might lose confidence in me
if I was seed here."

"Where be ye trading o't to to-day, then, Joseph?"

"Back to Weatherbury.  I've got poor little Fanny Robin in my waggon
outside, and I must be at the churchyard gates at a quarter to five
with her."

"Ay--I've heard of it.  And so she's nailed up in parish boards after
all, and nobody to pay the bell shilling and the grave half-crown."

"The parish pays the grave half-crown, but not the bell shilling,
because the bell's a luxery: but 'a can hardly do without the grave,
poor body.  However, I expect our mistress will pay all."

"A pretty maid as ever I see!  But what's yer hurry, Joseph?  The
pore woman's dead, and you can't bring her to life, and you may as
well sit down comfortable, and finish another with us."

"I don't mind taking just the least thimbleful ye can dream of more
with ye, sonnies.  But only a few minutes, because 'tis as 'tis."

"Of course, you'll have another drop.  A man's twice the man
afterwards.  You feel so warm and glorious, and you whop and slap at
your work without any trouble, and everything goes on like sticks
a-breaking.  Too much liquor is bad, and leads us to that horned man
in the smoky house; but after all, many people haven't the gift of
enjoying a wet, and since we be highly favoured with a power that
way, we should make the most o't."

"True," said Mark Clark.  "'Tis a talent the Lord has mercifully
bestowed upon us, and we ought not to neglect it. But, what with the
parsons and clerks and school-people and serious tea-parties, the
merry old ways of good life have gone to the dogs--upon my carcase,
they have!"

"Well, really, I must be onward again now," said Joseph.

"Now, now, Joseph; nonsense!  The poor woman is dead, isn't she, and
what's your hurry?"

"Well, I hope Providence won't be in a way with me for my doings,"
said Joseph, again sitting down.  "I've been troubled with weak
moments lately, 'tis true.  I've been drinky once this month already,
and I did not go to church a-Sunday, and I dropped a curse or two
yesterday; so I don't want to go too far for my safety.  Your next
world is your next world, and not to be squandered offhand."

"I believe ye to be a chapelmember, Joseph.  That I do."

"Oh, no, no!  I don't go so far as that."

"For my part," said Coggan, "I'm staunch Church of England."

"Ay, and faith, so be I," said Mark Clark.

"I won't say much for myself; I don't wish to," Coggan continued,
with that tendency to talk on principles which is characteristic of
the barley-corn.  "But I've never changed a single doctrine: I've
stuck like a plaster to the old faith I was born in.  Yes; there's
this to be said for the Church, a man can belong to the Church and
bide in his cheerful old inn, and never trouble or worry his mind
about doctrines at all.  But to be a meetinger, you must go to chapel
in all winds and weathers, and make yerself as frantic as a skit.
Not but that chapel members be clever chaps enough in their way.
They can lift up beautiful prayers out of their own heads, all about
their families and shipwrecks in the newspaper."

"They can--they can," said Mark Clark, with corroborative feeling;
"but we Churchmen, you see, must have it all printed aforehand, or,
dang it all, we should no more know what to say to a great gaffer
like the Lord than babes unborn."

"Chapelfolk be more hand-in-glove with them above than we," said
Joseph, thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Coggan.  "We know very well that if anybody do go to
heaven, they will.  They've worked hard for it, and they deserve to
have it, such as 'tis.  I bain't such a fool as to pretend that we
who stick to the Church have the same chance as they, because we
know we have not.  But I hate a feller who'll change his old ancient
doctrines for the sake of getting to heaven.  I'd as soon turn
king's-evidence for the few pounds you get.  Why, neighbours, when
every one of my taties were frosted, our Parson Thirdly were the man
who gave me a sack for seed, though he hardly had one for his own
use, and no money to buy 'em.  If it hadn't been for him, I shouldn't
hae had a tatie to put in my garden.  D'ye think I'd turn after that?
No, I'll stick to my side; and if we be in the wrong, so be it: I'll
fall with the fallen!"

"Well said--very well said," observed Joseph.--"However, folks, I
must be moving now: upon my life I must.  Pa'son Thirdly will be
waiting at the church gates, and there's the woman a-biding outside
in the waggon."

"Joseph Poorgrass, don't be so miserable!  Pa'son Thirdly won't mind.
He's a generous man; he's found me in tracts for years, and I've
consumed a good many in the course of a long and shady life; but he's
never been the man to cry out at the expense.  Sit down."

The longer Joseph Poorgrass remained, the less his spirit was
troubled by the duties which devolved upon him this afternoon.
The minutes glided by uncounted, until the evening shades began
perceptibly to deepen, and the eyes of the three were but sparkling
points on the surface of darkness.  Coggan's repeater struck six
from his pocket in the usual still small tones.

At that moment hasty steps were heard in the entry, and the door
opened to admit the figure of Gabriel Oak, followed by the maid of
the inn bearing a candle.  He stared sternly at the one lengthy
and two round faces of the sitters, which confronted him with the
expressions of a fiddle and a couple of warming-pans.  Joseph
Poorgrass blinked, and shrank several inches into the background.

"Upon my soul, I'm ashamed of you; 'tis disgraceful, Joseph,
disgraceful!" said Gabriel, indignantly.  "Coggan, you call yourself
a man, and don't know better than this."

Coggan looked up indefinitely at Oak, one or other of his eyes
occasionally opening and closing of its own accord, as if it were not
a member, but a dozy individual with a distinct personality.

"Don't take on so, shepherd!" said Mark Clark, looking reproachfully
at the candle, which appeared to possess special features of interest
for his eyes.

"Nobody can hurt a dead woman," at length said Coggan, with the
precision of a machine.  "All that could be done for her is
done--she's beyond us: and why should a man put himself in a tearing
hurry for lifeless clay that can neither feel nor see, and don't know
what you do with her at all?  If she'd been alive, I would have been
the first to help her.  If she now wanted victuals and drink, I'd pay
for it, money down.  But she's dead, and no speed of ours will bring
her to life.  The woman's past us--time spent upon her is throwed
away: why should we hurry to do what's not required?  Drink,
shepherd, and be friends, for to-morrow we may be like her."

"We may," added Mark Clark, emphatically, at once drinking himself,
to run no further risk of losing his chance by the event alluded
to, Jan meanwhile merging his additional thoughts of to-morrow in a
song:--

                          To-mor-row, to-mor-row!
    And while peace and plen-ty I find at my board,
       With a heart free from sick-ness and sor-row,
    With my friends will I share what to-day may af-ford,
       And let them spread the ta-ble to-mor-row.
                          To-mor-row', to-mor--

"Do hold thy horning, Jan!" said Oak; and turning upon Poorgrass, "as
for you, Joseph, who do your wicked deeds in such confoundedly holy
ways, you are as drunk as you can stand."

"No, Shepherd Oak, no!  Listen to reason, shepherd.  All that's the
matter with me is the affliction called a multiplying eye, and that's
how it is I look double to you--I mean, you look double to me."

"A multiplying eye is a very bad thing," said Mark Clark.

"It always comes on when I have been in a public-house a little
time," said Joseph Poorgrass, meekly.  "Yes; I see two of every
sort, as if I were some holy man living in the times of King Noah
and entering into the ark....  Y-y-y-yes," he added, becoming much
affected by the picture of himself as a person thrown away, and
shedding tears; "I feel too good for England: I ought to have lived
in Genesis by rights, like the other men of sacrifice, and then I
shouldn't have b-b-been called a d-d-drunkard in such a way!"

"I wish you'd show yourself a man of spirit, and not sit whining
there!"

"Show myself a man of spirit? ...  Ah, well! let me take the name of
drunkard humbly--let me be a man of contrite knees--let it be!  I
know that I always do say 'Please God' afore I do anything, from my
getting up to my going down of the same, and I be willing to take as
much disgrace as there is in that holy act.  Hah, yes! ...  But not
a man of spirit?  Have I ever allowed the toe of pride to be lifted
against my hinder parts without groaning manfully that I question
the right to do so?  I inquire that query boldly?"

"We can't say that you have, Hero Poorgrass," admitted Jan.

"Never have I allowed such treatment to pass unquestioned!  Yet the
shepherd says in the face of that rich testimony that I be not a man
of spirit!  Well, let it pass by, and death is a kind friend!"

Gabriel, seeing that neither of the three was in a fit state to take
charge of the waggon for the remainder of the journey, made no reply,
but, closing the door again upon them, went across to where the
vehicle stood, now getting indistinct in the fog and gloom of this
mildewy time.  He pulled the horse's head from the large patch of
turf it had eaten bare, readjusted the boughs over the coffin, and
drove along through the unwholesome night.

It had gradually become rumoured in the village that the body to be
brought and buried that day was all that was left of the unfortunate
Fanny Robin who had followed the Eleventh from Casterbridge through
Melchester and onwards.  But, thanks to Boldwood's reticence
and Oak's generosity, the lover she had followed had never been
individualized as Troy.  Gabriel hoped that the whole truth of the
matter might not be published till at any rate the girl had been in
her grave for a few days, when the interposing barriers of earth
and time, and a sense that the events had been somewhat shut into
oblivion, would deaden the sting that revelation and invidious
remark would have for Bathsheba just now.

By the time that Gabriel reached the old manor-house, her residence,
which lay in his way to the church, it was quite dark.  A man came
from the gate and said through the fog, which hung between them like
blown flour--

"Is that Poorgrass with the corpse?"

Gabriel recognized the voice as that of the parson.

"The corpse is here, sir," said Gabriel.

"I have just been to inquire of Mrs. Troy if she could tell me the
reason of the delay.  I am afraid it is too late now for the funeral
to be performed with proper decency.  Have you the registrar's
certificate?"

"No," said Gabriel.  "I expect Poorgrass has that; and he's at the
Buck's Head.  I forgot to ask him for it."

"Then that settles the matter.  We'll put off the funeral till
to-morrow morning.  The body may be brought on to the church, or
it may be left here at the farm and fetched by the bearers in the
morning. They waited more than an hour, and have now gone home."

Gabriel had his reasons for thinking the latter a most objectionable
plan, notwithstanding that Fanny had been an inmate of the farm-house
for several years in the lifetime of Bathsheba's uncle.  Visions
of several unhappy contingencies which might arise from this delay
flitted before him.  But his will was not law, and he went indoors
to inquire of his mistress what were her wishes on the subject.  He
found her in an unusual mood: her eyes as she looked up to him were
suspicious and perplexed as with some antecedent thought.  Troy
had not yet returned.  At first Bathsheba assented with a mien of
indifference to his proposition that they should go on to the church
at once with their burden; but immediately afterwards, following
Gabriel to the gate, she swerved to the extreme of solicitousness on
Fanny's account, and desired that the girl might be brought into the
house.  Oak argued upon the convenience of leaving her in the waggon,
just as she lay now, with her flowers and green leaves about her,
merely wheeling the vehicle into the coach-house till the morning,
but to no purpose.  "It is unkind and unchristian," she said, "to
leave the poor thing in a coach-house all night."

"Very well, then," said the parson.  "And I will arrange that the
funeral shall take place early to-morrow.  Perhaps Mrs. Troy is
right in feeling that we cannot treat a dead fellow-creature too
thoughtfully.  We must remember that though she may have erred
grievously in leaving her home, she is still our sister: and it is
to be believed that God's uncovenanted mercies are extended towards
her, and that she is a member of the flock of Christ."

The parson's words spread into the heavy air with a sad yet
unperturbed cadence, and Gabriel shed an honest tear.  Bathsheba
seemed unmoved.  Mr. Thirdly then left them, and Gabriel lighted
a lantern.  Fetching three other men to assist him, they bore the
unconscious truant indoors, placing the coffin on two benches in the
middle of a little sitting-room next the hall, as Bathsheba directed.

Every one except Gabriel Oak then left the room.  He still
indecisively lingered beside the body.  He was deeply troubled at the
wretchedly ironical aspect that circumstances were putting on with
regard to Troy's wife, and at his own powerlessness to counteract
them.  In spite of his careful manoeuvering all this day, the very
worst event that could in any way have happened in connection with
the burial had happened now.  Oak imagined a terrible discovery
resulting from this afternoon's work that might cast over Bathsheba's
life a shade which the interposition of many lapsing years might but
indifferently lighten, and which nothing at all might altogether
remove.

Suddenly, as in a last attempt to save Bathsheba from, at any rate,
immediate anguish, he looked again, as he had looked before, at the
chalk writing upon the coffin-lid.  The scrawl was this simple one,
"FANNY ROBIN AND CHILD."  Gabriel took his handkerchief and carefully
rubbed out the two latter words, leaving visible the inscription
"FANNY ROBIN" only.  He then left the room, and went out quietly by
the front door.

The narrative jumps ahead two months to a Saturday evening in October. Bathsheba and Troy are traveling up the steep Yarbury Hill, coming from Casterbridge to Weatherbury. They have been at the markets. Bathsheba rides in the gig, while Troy walks alongside her. This is the first glimpse we have of the two of them alone together, and the marriage does not seem to be going well. Bathsheba complains about all the money Troy has lost at the horse races. Troy has bought his discharge from the army and is dressed as a fashionable farmer. As they argue, Bathsheba begins to cry, and Troy tells her, "You have lost all the pluck and sauciness you formerly had," implying that he regrets having married her. As they proceed, they pass a woman who asks Troy the way to Casterbridge. When he replies, she utters a cry and falls down, recognizing his voice: The woman is Fanny. Bathsheba is alarmed, but Troy makes the horse carry her on up the hill while he stays and talks to Fanny. We learn that he has had no idea where to reach her, and that she was afraid to write to him. He realizes that she needs money, and agrees to meet her two days from then at Casterbridge. When he catches up with Bathsheba she is suspicious, accusing him of knowing the woman's name and not telling her. Troy denies all acquaintance with the woman. Chapter 40 tells the extraordinary story of Fanny's difficult walk to Casterbridge that night. We know it is Fanny, but the narrator identifies her only as "the woman." Stumbling weakly, she comes to a haystack and falls asleep beneath it. Upon waking, she thinks she may be dead by the time she is to meet Troy. She persuades herself to go on by counting the milestones, frequently pausing. She takes two sticks to use as crutches but falls. A dog appears, and she leans on him the rest of the way. Finally, near morning, she reaches Casterbridge. In the meantime, Bathsheba and Troy have been sullenly avoiding all conversation. On Sunday evening, Troy asks her for 20 pounds, saying that he needs it badly. He eventually admits that it is not for horse racing, but he will not tell her what it is for. As they argue she notices a curl of yellow hair in his watch and asks him about it. He explains that it belongs to "a young woman I was going to marry before I knew you." After she demands that he burn it and he refuses, Bathsheba bursts into great sobs, hating herself for being so weak as to fall for Troy. The next day as she rides around the farm, she sees the laborer Joseph Poorgrass talking to Gabriel and Boldwood. Poorgrass then approaches her with the news that Fanny Robin is dead from an unknown cause. As the chapter continues, Bathsheba begins to suspect that Fanny Robin is the woman Troy had loved and that she has died giving birth to a child. She questions Poorgrass and Liddy to test her suspicions. She offers to bury Fanny, as Fanny worked for Bathsheba's uncle, and sends Poorgrass to collect the body. Chapter 42 describes Joseph Poorgrass's journey from Casterbridge with the body. As he carts the coffin back, a fog descends, and Poorgrass begins to fear the dead body. He stops at Buck's Head to have drinks with his friends Mark Clark and Jan Coggan, and gradually these men persuade him to stay later and later, drinking. As the men converse, Poorgrass keeps announcing he will continue on, but his friends persuade him not to. After some hours have passed Gabriel finds them there, chastises them for their carelessness, and brings the coffin to the farm himself. Gabriel is eager to keep the truth from Bathsheba, but by the time he reaches the farm, the parson has postponed the funeral to the following morning and asks Gabriel to leave the coffin in the farm for the night; Gabriel reluctantly brings it to a sitting room for the night. Before he leaves, he partially rubs off the chalk marks on the coffin, which read "Fanny Robin and child," leaving only the name "Fanny Robin."

Commentary Hardy waits until this section to give his readers any insight into the workings of Troy and Bathsheba's marriage. He leaves us to imagine for ourselves the quality of their life together, based on a few conversations. Through Troy's harsh words to her, we see how weak she has become after maintaining such independence for so long. Chapter 42 is notably slower in pace than other chapters in this novel, and Hardy's description of Fanny's intense exhaustion painstakingly depicts every step that Fanny has to take, as well as the heaviness of her body, making us feel them with her. Throughout the novel, the sections dealing with Fanny together constitute a study of the type of person who slips through the cracks in society; what kind of person is this, neglected by others, forced to live a transient and impoverished life? Hardy uses an anonymous, distanced tone to describe Fanny, thus, conveying the lack of attention that others pay her. Much of this section centers around Bathsheba's attempt to solve the mystery of Fanny Robin's relationship to Troy, and Hardy carefully structures the narrative to keep his readers in suspense, as well. We do not know of Fanny's death until Bathsheba does: The narrative leaves Fanny in Casterbridge, and on Monday morning, Troy leaves, presumably to meet Fanny, but we hear nothing more of him even once we know that Fanny is dead. Hardy's most powerful tension-building device is his plodding description of Poorgrass' trip with the coffin: He gives us detailed accounts of the men's conversation at Buck's Head, which does nothing to advance the plot, while the whole time the reader must wait, waiting to hear how Fanny died, wondering if something might happen to her untended coffin outside, wondering where Troy is, whether he yet knows of Fanny's death, and anticipating Bathsheba's imminent discovery of Fanny and Troy's previous relations. In addition to building tension, Poorgrass' comic drinking scene offers insight into the leisure time of the laborers. On a more profound level, this episode analyzes the effect of chance and circumstance on human lives. Had Poorgrass gone straight home, the funeral would have occurred that day, the coffin would never have lay waiting in the sitting room, and Bathsheba might never have suffered under the knowledge she is about to attain: that Fanny died giving birth to Troy's child.