AFTER THE SHOCK

Boldwood passed into the high road and turned in the direction of
Casterbridge.  Here he walked at an even, steady pace over Yalbury
Hill, along the dead level beyond, mounted Mellstock Hill, and
between eleven and twelve o'clock crossed the Moor into the town.
The streets were nearly deserted now, and the waving lamp-flames only
lighted up rows of grey shop-shutters, and strips of white paving
upon which his step echoed as his passed along.  He turned to the
right, and halted before an archway of heavy stonework, which was
closed by an iron studded pair of doors.  This was the entrance
to the gaol, and over it a lamp was fixed, the light enabling the
wretched traveller to find a bell-pull.

The small wicket at last opened, and a porter appeared.  Boldwood
stepped forward, and said something in a low tone, when, after a
delay, another man came.  Boldwood entered, and the door was closed
behind him, and he walked the world no more.

Long before this time Weatherbury had been thoroughly aroused, and
the wild deed which had terminated Boldwood's merrymaking became
known to all.  Of those out of the house Oak was one of the first to
hear of the catastrophe, and when he entered the room, which was
about five minutes after Boldwood's exit, the scene was terrible.
All the female guests were huddled aghast against the walls like
sheep in a storm, and the men were bewildered as to what to do.  As
for Bathsheba, she had changed.  She was sitting on the floor beside
the body of Troy, his head pillowed in her lap, where she had herself
lifted it.  With one hand she held her handkerchief to his breast and
covered the wound, though scarcely a single drop of blood had flowed,
and with the other she tightly clasped one of his.  The household
convulsion had made her herself again.  The temporary coma had
ceased, and activity had come with the necessity for it.  Deeds of
endurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are rare in conduct,
and Bathsheba was astonishing all around her now, for her philosophy
was her conduct, and she seldom thought practicable what she did
not practise.  She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers
are made.  She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea
parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises.  Troy recumbent in
his wife's lap formed now the sole spectacle in the middle of the
spacious room.

"Gabriel," she said, automatically, when he entered, turning up a
face of which only the well-known lines remained to tell him it
was hers, all else in the picture having faded quite.  "Ride to
Casterbridge instantly for a surgeon.  It is, I believe, useless,
but go.  Mr. Boldwood has shot my husband."

Her statement of the fact in such quiet and simple words came with
more force than a tragic declamation, and had somewhat the effect of
setting the distorted images in each mind present into proper focus.
Oak, almost before he had comprehended anything beyond the briefest
abstract of the event, hurried out of the room, saddled a horse and
rode away.  Not till he had ridden more than a mile did it occur to
him that he would have done better by sending some other man on this
errand, remaining himself in the house.  What had become of Boldwood?
He should have been looked after.  Was he mad--had there been a
quarrel?  Then how had Troy got there?  Where had he come from?  How
did this remarkable reappearance effect itself when he was supposed
by many to be at the bottom of the sea?  Oak had in some slight
measure been prepared for the presence of Troy by hearing a rumour
of his return just before entering Boldwood's house; but before he
had weighed that information, this fatal event had been superimposed.
However, it was too late now to think of sending another messenger,
and he rode on, in the excitement of these self-inquiries
not discerning, when about three miles from Casterbridge, a
square-figured pedestrian passing along under the dark hedge in the
same direction as his own.

The miles necessary to be traversed, and other hindrances incidental
to the lateness of the hour and the darkness of the night, delayed
the arrival of Mr. Aldritch, the surgeon; and more than three hours
passed between the time at which the shot was fired and that of his
entering the house.  Oak was additionally detained in Casterbridge
through having to give notice to the authorities of what had
happened; and he then found that Boldwood had also entered the town,
and delivered himself up.

In the meantime the surgeon, having hastened into the hall at
Boldwood's, found it in darkness and quite deserted.  He went on to
the back of the house, where he discovered in the kitchen an old man,
of whom he made inquiries.

"She's had him took away to her own house, sir," said his informant.

"Who has?" said the doctor.

"Mrs. Troy.  'A was quite dead, sir."

This was astonishing information.  "She had no right to do that,"
said the doctor.  "There will have to be an inquest, and she should
have waited to know what to do."

"Yes, sir; it was hinted to her that she had better wait till the law
was known.  But she said law was nothing to her, and she wouldn't let
her dear husband's corpse bide neglected for folks to stare at for
all the crowners in England."

Mr. Aldritch drove at once back again up the hill to Bathsheba's.
The first person he met was poor Liddy, who seemed literally to have
dwindled smaller in these few latter hours.  "What has been done?" he
said.

"I don't know, sir," said Liddy, with suspended breath.  "My mistress
has done it all."

"Where is she?"

"Upstairs with him, sir.  When he was brought home and taken
upstairs, she said she wanted no further help from the men.  And then
she called me, and made me fill the bath, and after that told me I
had better go and lie down because I looked so ill.  Then she locked
herself into the room alone with him, and would not let a nurse come
in, or anybody at all.  But I thought I'd wait in the next room in
case she should want me.  I heard her moving about inside for more
than an hour, but she only came out once, and that was for more
candles, because hers had burnt down into the socket.  She said we
were to let her know when you or Mr. Thirdly came, sir."

Oak entered with the parson at this moment, and they all went
upstairs together, preceded by Liddy Smallbury.  Everything was
silent as the grave when they paused on the landing.  Liddy knocked,
and Bathsheba's dress was heard rustling across the room: the key
turned in the lock, and she opened the door.  Her looks were calm and
nearly rigid, like a slightly animated bust of Melpomene.

"Oh, Mr. Aldritch, you have come at last," she murmured from her lips
merely, and threw back the door.  "Ah, and Mr. Thirdly.  Well, all is
done, and anybody in the world may see him now."  She then passed by
him, crossed the landing, and entered another room.

Looking into the chamber of death she had vacated they saw by the
light of the candles which were on the drawers a tall straight
shape lying at the further end of the bedroom, wrapped in white.
Everything around was quite orderly.  The doctor went in, and after a
few minutes returned to the landing again, where Oak and the parson
still waited.

"It is all done, indeed, as she says," remarked Mr. Aldritch, in a
subdued voice.  "The body has been undressed and properly laid out in
grave clothes.  Gracious Heaven--this mere girl!  She must have the
nerve of a stoic!"

"The heart of a wife merely," floated in a whisper about the ears
of the three, and turning they saw Bathsheba in the midst of them.
Then, as if at that instant to prove that her fortitude had been
more of will than of spontaneity, she silently sank down between
them and was a shapeless heap of drapery on the floor.  The simple
consciousness that superhuman strain was no longer required had at
once put a period to her power to continue it.

They took her away into a further room, and the medical attendance
which had been useless in Troy's case was invaluable in Bathsheba's,
who fell into a series of fainting-fits that had a serious aspect
for a time.  The sufferer was got to bed, and Oak, finding from the
bulletins that nothing really dreadful was to be apprehended on her
score, left the house.  Liddy kept watch in Bathsheba's chamber,
where she heard her mistress, moaning in whispers through the dull
slow hours of that wretched night: "Oh it is my fault--how can I
live!  O Heaven, how can I live!"

After shooting and killing Troy, Boldwood walks to the nearby town of Casterbridge and turns himself in to the authorities. Meanwhile, Bathsheba orders Gabriel Oak to grab a horse and get the local doctor. Because of the distance and the lateness of the hour, though, it's three hours before he's able to get the doctor. During his trip, he has to go to the police in Casterbridge to tell them what's happened. It's only at this point that he learns Boldwood has already turned himself in. When the doctor finally shows up at Boldwood's house, he learns that Bathsheba has already taken Troy's dead body back to her house. The doctor is angry because this is an illegal thing to do. When he gets to Bathsheba's, the doctor has to help her through a series of fainting fits. Throughout these fits, Bathsheba keeps blaming herself for all the awful stuff that has happened.


THE MARCH FOLLOWING--"BATHSHEBA BOLDWOOD"

We pass rapidly on into the month of March, to a breezy day without
sunshine, frost, or dew.  On Yalbury Hill, about midway between
Weatherbury and Casterbridge, where the turnpike road passes over
the crest, a numerous concourse of people had gathered, the eyes of
the greater number being frequently stretched afar in a northerly
direction.  The groups consisted of a throng of idlers, a party of
javelin-men, and two trumpeters, and in the midst were carriages, one
of which contained the high sheriff.  With the idlers, many of whom
had mounted to the top of a cutting formed for the road, were several
Weatherbury men and boys--among others Poorgrass, Coggan, and Cain
Ball.

At the end of half-an-hour a faint dust was seen in the expected
quarter, and shortly after a travelling-carriage, bringing one of the
two judges on the Western Circuit, came up the hill and halted on the
top.  The judge changed carriages whilst a flourish was blown by the
big-cheeked trumpeters, and a procession being formed of the vehicles
and javelin-men, they all proceeded towards the town, excepting the
Weatherbury men, who as soon as they had seen the judge move off
returned home again to their work.

"Joseph, I seed you squeezing close to the carriage," said Coggan, as
they walked.  "Did ye notice my lord judge's face?"

"I did," said Poorgrass.  "I looked hard at en, as if I would read
his very soul; and there was mercy in his eyes--or to speak with the
exact truth required of us at this solemn time, in the eye that was
towards me."

"Well, I hope for the best," said Coggan, "though bad that must be.
However, I shan't go to the trial, and I'd advise the rest of ye
that bain't wanted to bide away.  'Twill disturb his mind more than
anything to see us there staring at him as if he were a show."

"The very thing I said this morning," observed Joseph, "'Justice is
come to weigh him in the balances,' I said in my reflectious way,
'and if he's found wanting, so be it unto him,' and a bystander said
'Hear, hear!  A man who can talk like that ought to be heard.' But I
don't like dwelling upon it, for my few words are my few words, and
not much; though the speech of some men is rumoured abroad as though
by nature formed for such."

"So 'tis, Joseph.  And now, neighbours, as I said, every man bide at
home."

The resolution was adhered to; and all waited anxiously for the news
next day.  Their suspense was diverted, however, by a discovery which
was made in the afternoon, throwing more light on Boldwood's conduct
and condition than any details which had preceded it.

That he had been from the time of Greenhill Fair until the fatal
Christmas Eve in excited and unusual moods was known to those who had
been intimate with him; but nobody imagined that there had shown in
him unequivocal symptoms of the mental derangement which Bathsheba
and Oak, alone of all others and at different times, had momentarily
suspected.  In a locked closet was now discovered an extraordinary
collection of articles.  There were several sets of ladies' dresses
in the piece, of sundry expensive materials; silks and satins,
poplins and velvets, all of colours which from Bathsheba's style of
dress might have been judged to be her favourites.  There were two
muffs, sable and ermine.  Above all there was a case of jewellery,
containing four heavy gold bracelets and several lockets and rings,
all of fine quality and manufacture.  These things had been bought in
Bath and other towns from time to time, and brought home by stealth.
They were all carefully packed in paper, and each package was
labelled "Bathsheba Boldwood," a date being subjoined six years in
advance in every instance.

These somewhat pathetic evidences of a mind crazed with care and love
were the subject of discourse in Warren's malt-house when Oak entered
from Casterbridge with tidings of sentence. He came in the afternoon,
and his face, as the kiln glow shone upon it, told the tale
sufficiently well.  Boldwood, as every one supposed he would do, had
pleaded guilty, and had been sentenced to death.

The conviction that Boldwood had not been morally responsible for his
later acts now became general.  Facts elicited previous to the trial
had pointed strongly in the same direction, but they had not been of
sufficient weight to lead to an order for an examination into the
state of Boldwood's mind.  It was astonishing, now that a presumption
of insanity was raised, how many collateral circumstances were
remembered to which a condition of mental disease seemed to afford
the only explanation--among others, the unprecedented neglect of his
corn stacks in the previous summer.

A petition was addressed to the Home Secretary, advancing
the circumstances which appeared to justify a request for a
reconsideration of the sentence.  It was not "numerously signed"
by the inhabitants of Casterbridge, as is usual in such cases, for
Boldwood had never made many friends over the counter.  The shops
thought it very natural that a man who, by importing direct from
the producer, had daringly set aside the first great principle of
provincial existence, namely that God made country villages to supply
customers to county towns, should have confused ideas about the
Decalogue.  The prompters were a few merciful men who had perhaps too
feelingly considered the facts latterly unearthed, and the result was
that evidence was taken which it was hoped might remove the crime in
a moral point of view, out of the category of wilful murder, and lead
it to be regarded as a sheer outcome of madness.

The upshot of the petition was waited for in Weatherbury with
solicitous interest.  The execution had been fixed for eight o'clock
on a Saturday morning about a fortnight after the sentence was
passed, and up to Friday afternoon no answer had been received.  At
that time Gabriel came from Casterbridge Gaol, whither he had been
to wish Boldwood good-bye, and turned down a by-street to avoid the
town.  When past the last house he heard a hammering, and lifting
his bowed head he looked back for a moment.  Over the chimneys he
could see the upper part of the gaol entrance, rich and glowing
in the afternoon sun, and some moving figures were there.  They
were carpenters lifting a post into a vertical position within the
parapet.  He withdrew his eyes quickly, and hastened on.

It was dark when he reached home, and half the village was out to
meet him.

"No tidings," Gabriel said, wearily.  "And I'm afraid there's no
hope.  I've been with him more than two hours."

"Do ye think he REALLY was out of his mind when he did it?" said
Smallbury.

"I can't honestly say that I do," Oak replied.  "However, that we can
talk of another time.  Has there been any change in mistress this
afternoon?"

"None at all."

"Is she downstairs?"

"No.  And getting on so nicely as she was too.  She's but very little
better now again than she was at Christmas.  She keeps on asking
if you be come, and if there's news, till one's wearied out wi'
answering her.  Shall I go and say you've come?"

"No," said Oak.  "There's a chance yet; but I couldn't stay in town
any longer--after seeing him too.  So Laban--Laban is here, isn't
he?"

"Yes," said Tall.

"What I've arranged is, that you shall ride to town the last thing
to-night; leave here about nine, and wait a while there, getting home
about twelve.  If nothing has been received by eleven to-night, they
say there's no chance at all."

"I do so hope his life will be spared," said Liddy.  "If it is not,
she'll go out of her mind too.  Poor thing; her sufferings have been
dreadful; she deserves anybody's pity."

"Is she altered much?" said Coggan.

"If you haven't seen poor mistress since Christmas, you wouldn't know
her," said Liddy.  "Her eyes are so miserable that she's not the same
woman.  Only two years ago she was a romping girl, and now she's
this!"

Laban departed as directed, and at eleven o'clock that night several
of the villagers strolled along the road to Casterbridge and awaited
his arrival--among them Oak, and nearly all the rest of Bathsheba's
men.  Gabriel's anxiety was great that Boldwood might be saved, even
though in his conscience he felt that he ought to die; for there had
been qualities in the farmer which Oak loved.  At last, when they all
were weary the tramp of a horse was heard in the distance--

     First dead, as if on turf it trode,
     Then, clattering on the village road
     In other pace than forth he yode.

"We shall soon know now, one way or other." said Coggan, and they all
stepped down from the bank on which they had been standing into the
road, and the rider pranced into the midst of them.

"Is that you, Laban?" said Gabriel.

"Yes--'tis come.  He's not to die.  'Tis confinement during Her
Majesty's pleasure."

"Hurrah!" said Coggan, with a swelling heart.  "God's above the devil
yet!"

Three months after Boldwood's Christmas party, we hear about how Boldwood's trial has been going. The guy's only hope for survival is to be declared insane. A few of Bathsheba's workmen are chatting about whether Boldwood will be given a death sentence. While the trial is happening, some new evidence is found in Boldwood's home. Or to put it another way, there are tons of coats and scarves and other lady's clothing found in boxes marked "Bathsheba Boldwood," meaning that Boldwood's fantasies of marrying her were completely obsessive. This, of course, becomes a topic of discussion in the town for weeks afterward. The people use this evidence to petition for Boldwood's cause. The man's execution date has been set. But only one day before Boldwood's date with death, he gets pardoned for being insane.


BEAUTY IN LONELINESS--AFTER ALL

Bathsheba revived with the spring.  The utter prostration that
had followed the low fever from which she had suffered diminished
perceptibly when all uncertainty upon every subject had come to
an end.

But she remained alone now for the greater part of her time, and
stayed in the house, or at furthest went into the garden.  She
shunned every one, even Liddy, and could be brought to make no
confidences, and to ask for no sympathy.

As the summer drew on she passed more of her time in the open air,
and began to examine into farming matters from sheer necessity,
though she never rode out or personally superintended as at former
times.  One Friday evening in August she walked a little way along
the road and entered the village for the first time since the sombre
event of the preceding Christmas.  None of the old colour had as yet
come to her cheek, and its absolute paleness was heightened by the
jet black of her gown, till it appeared preternatural.  When she
reached a little shop at the other end of the place, which stood
nearly opposite to the churchyard, Bathsheba heard singing inside the
church, and she knew that the singers were practising.  She crossed
the road, opened the gate, and entered the graveyard, the high sills
of the church windows effectually screening her from the eyes of
those gathered within.  Her stealthy walk was to the nook wherein
Troy had worked at planting flowers upon Fanny Robin's grave, and
she came to the marble tombstone.

A motion of satisfaction enlivened her face as she read the complete
inscription.  First came the words of Troy himself:--

     ERECTED BY FRANCIS TROY
      IN BELOVED MEMORY OF
          FANNY ROBIN,
    WHO DIED OCTOBER 9, 18--,
          AGED 20 YEARS

Underneath this was now inscribed in new letters:--

      IN THE SAME GRAVE LIE
   THE REMAINS OF THE AFORESAID
          FRANCIS TROY,
   WHO DIED DECEMBER 24TH, 18--,
          AGED 26 YEARS

Whilst she stood and read and meditated the tones of the organ
began again in the church, and she went with the same light step
round to the porch and listened.  The door was closed, and the
choir was learning a new hymn.  Bathsheba was stirred by emotions
which latterly she had assumed to be altogether dead within her.
The little attenuated voices of the children brought to her ear
in distinct utterance the words they sang without thought or
comprehension--

     Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
       Lead Thou me on.

Bathsheba's feeling was always to some extent dependent upon her
whim, as is the case with many other women.  Something big came into
her throat and an uprising to her eyes--and she thought that she
would allow the imminent tears to flow if they wished.  They did
flow and plenteously, and one fell upon the stone bench beside her.
Once that she had begun to cry for she hardly knew what, she could
not leave off for crowding thoughts she knew too well.  She would
have given anything in the world to be, as those children were,
unconcerned at the meaning of their words, because too innocent to
feel the necessity for any such expression.  All the impassioned
scenes of her brief experience seemed to revive with added emotion at
that moment, and those scenes which had been without emotion during
enactment had emotion then.  Yet grief came to her rather as a luxury
than as the scourge of former times.

Owing to Bathsheba's face being buried in her hands she did not
notice a form which came quietly into the porch, and on seeing
her, first moved as if to retreat, then paused and regarded her.
Bathsheba did not raise her head for some time, and when she looked
round her face was wet, and her eyes drowned and dim.  "Mr. Oak,"
exclaimed she, disconcerted, "how long have you been here?"

"A few minutes, ma'am," said Oak, respectfully.

"Are you going in?" said Bathsheba; and there came from within the
church as from a prompter--

     I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
     Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

"I was," said Gabriel.  "I am one of the bass singers, you know.  I
have sung bass for several months."

"Indeed: I wasn't aware of that.  I'll leave you, then."

     Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile,

sang the children.

"Don't let me drive you away, mistress.  I think I won't go in
to-night."

"Oh no--you don't drive me away."

Then they stood in a state of some embarrassment, Bathsheba trying to
wipe her dreadfully drenched and inflamed face without his noticing
her.  At length Oak said, "I've not seen you--I mean spoken to
you--since ever so long, have I?"  But he feared to bring distressing
memories back, and interrupted himself with: "Were you going into
church?"

"No," she said.  "I came to see the tombstone privately--to see if
they had cut the inscription as I wished.  Mr. Oak, you needn't mind
speaking to me, if you wish to, on the matter which is in both our
minds at this moment."

"And have they done it as you wished?" said Oak.

"Yes.  Come and see it, if you have not already."

So together they went and read the tomb.  "Eight months ago!" Gabriel
murmured when he saw the date.  "It seems like yesterday to me."

"And to me as if it were years ago--long years, and I had been dead
between.  And now I am going home, Mr. Oak."

Oak walked after her.  "I wanted to name a small matter to you as
soon as I could," he said, with hesitation.  "Merely about business,
and I think I may just mention it now, if you'll allow me."

"Oh yes, certainly."

"It is that I may soon have to give up the management of your farm,
Mrs. Troy.  The fact is, I am thinking of leaving England--not yet,
you know--next spring."

"Leaving England!" she said, in surprise and genuine disappointment.
"Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?"

"Well, I've thought it best," Oak stammered out.  "California is the
spot I've had in my mind to try."

"But it is understood everywhere that you are going to take poor Mr.
Boldwood's farm on your own account."

"I've had the refusal o' it 'tis true; but nothing is settled yet,
and I have reasons for giving up.  I shall finish out my year there
as manager for the trustees, but no more."

"And what shall I do without you?  Oh, Gabriel, I don't think you
ought to go away.  You've been with me so long--through bright times
and dark times--such old friends as we are--that it seems unkind
almost.  I had fancied that if you leased the other farm as master,
you might still give a helping look across at mine.  And now going
away!"

"I would have willingly."

"Yet now that I am more helpless than ever you go away!"

"Yes, that's the ill fortune o' it," said Gabriel, in a distressed
tone.  "And it is because of that very helplessness that I feel bound
to go.  Good afternoon, ma'am" he concluded, in evident anxiety to
get away, and at once went out of the churchyard by a path she could
follow on no pretence whatever.

Bathsheba went home, her mind occupied with a new trouble, which
being rather harassing than deadly was calculated to do good by
diverting her from the chronic gloom of her life.  She was set
thinking a great deal about Oak and of his wish to shun her;
and there occurred to Bathsheba several incidents of her latter
intercourse with him, which, trivial when singly viewed, amounted
together to a perceptible disinclination for her society.  It broke
upon her at length as a great pain that her last old disciple was
about to forsake her and flee.  He who had believed in her and argued
on her side when all the rest of the world was against her, had at
last like the others become weary and neglectful of the old cause,
and was leaving her to fight her battles alone.

Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of interest in
her was forthcoming.  She noticed that instead of entering the small
parlour or office where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or
leaving a memorandum as he had hitherto done during her seclusion,
Oak never came at all when she was likely to be there, only entering
at unseasonable hours when her presence in that part of the house
was least to be expected.  Whenever he wanted directions he sent a
message, or note with neither heading nor signature, to which she was
obliged to reply in the same offhand style.  Poor Bathsheba began to
suffer now from the most torturing sting of all--a sensation that she
was despised.

The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy
conjectures, and Christmas-day came, completing a year of her legal
widowhood, and two years and a quarter of her life alone.  On
examining her heart it appeared beyond measure strange that the
subject of which the season might have been supposed suggestive--the
event in the hall at Boldwood's--was not agitating her at all; but
instead, an agonizing conviction that everybody abjured her--for what
she could not tell--and that Oak was the ringleader of the recusants.
Coming out of church that day she looked round in hope that Oak,
whose bass voice she had heard rolling out from the gallery overhead
in a most unconcerned manner, might chance to linger in her path in
the old way.  There he was, as usual, coming down the path behind
her.  But on seeing Bathsheba turn, he looked aside, and as soon
as he got beyond the gate, and there was the barest excuse for a
divergence, he made one, and vanished.

The next morning brought the culminating stroke; she had been
expecting it long.  It was a formal notice by letter from him that he
should not renew his engagement with her for the following Lady-day.

Bathsheba actually sat and cried over this letter most bitterly.  She
was aggrieved and wounded that the possession of hopeless love from
Gabriel, which she had grown to regard as her inalienable right for
life, should have been withdrawn just at his own pleasure in this
way.  She was bewildered too by the prospect of having to rely on her
own resources again: it seemed to herself that she never could again
acquire energy sufficient to go to market, barter, and sell.
Since Troy's death Oak had attended all sales and fairs for her,
transacting her business at the same time with his own.  What should
she do now?  Her life was becoming a desolation.

So desolate was Bathsheba this evening, that in an absolute hunger
for pity and sympathy, and miserable in that she appeared to have
outlived the only true friendship she had ever owned, she put on her
bonnet and cloak and went down to Oak's house just after sunset,
guided on her way by the pale primrose rays of a crescent moon a few
days old.

A lively firelight shone from the window, but nobody was visible in
the room.  She tapped nervously, and then thought it doubtful if
it were right for a single woman to call upon a bachelor who lived
alone, although he was her manager, and she might be supposed to call
on business without any real impropriety.  Gabriel opened the door,
and the moon shone upon his forehead.

"Mr. Oak," said Bathsheba, faintly.

"Yes; I am Mr. Oak," said Gabriel.  "Who have I the honour--O how
stupid of me, not to know you, mistress!"

"I shall not be your mistress much longer, shall I Gabriel?" she
said, in pathetic tones.

"Well, no.  I suppose--But come in, ma'am.  Oh--and I'll get a
light," Oak replied, with some awkwardness.

"No; not on my account."

"It is so seldom that I get a lady visitor that I'm afraid I haven't
proper accommodation.  Will you sit down, please? Here's a chair, and
there's one, too.  I am sorry that my chairs all have wood seats, and
are rather hard, but I--was thinking of getting some new ones."  Oak
placed two or three for her.

"They are quite easy enough for me."

So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces,
and upon the old furniture,

            all a-sheenen
     Wi' long years o' handlen, [3]

   [Footnote 3: W. Barnes]

that formed Oak's array of household possessions, which sent back a
dancing reflection in reply.  It was very odd to these two persons,
who knew each other passing well, that the mere circumstance of their
meeting in a new place and in a new way should make them so awkward
and constrained.  In the fields, or at her house, there had never
been any embarrassment; but now that Oak had become the entertainer
their lives seemed to be moved back again to the days when they were
strangers.

"You'll think it strange that I have come, but--"

"Oh no; not at all."

"But I thought--Gabriel, I have been uneasy in the belief that I
have offended you, and that you are going away on that account.  It
grieved me very much and I couldn't help coming."

"Offended me!  As if you could do that, Bathsheba!"

"Haven't I?" she asked, gladly.  "But, what are you going away for
else?"

"I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn't aware that you would
wish me not to when I told 'ee or I shouldn't ha' thought of doing
it," he said, simply.  "I have arranged for Little Weatherbury Farm
and shall have it in my own hands at Lady-day.  You know I've had a
share in it for some time.  Still, that wouldn't prevent my attending
to your business as before, hadn't it been that things have been said
about us."

"What?" said Bathsheba, in surprise.  "Things said about you and me!
What are they?"

"I cannot tell you."

"It would be wiser if you were to, I think.  You have played the part
of mentor to me many times, and I don't see why you should fear to do
it now."

"It is nothing that you have done, this time.  The top and tail
o't is this--that I am sniffing about here, and waiting for poor
Boldwood's farm, with a thought of getting you some day."

"Getting me!  What does that mean?"

"Marrying of 'ee, in plain British.  You asked me to tell, so you
mustn't blame me."

Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been
discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected.  "Marrying
me!  I didn't know it was that you meant," she said, quietly.  "Such
a thing as that is too absurd--too soon--to think of, by far!"

"Yes; of course, it is too absurd.  I don't desire any such thing;
I should think that was plain enough by this time.  Surely, surely
you be the last person in the world I think of marrying.  It is too
absurd, as you say."

"'Too--s-s-soon' were the words I used."

"I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, 'too
absurd,' and so do I."

"I beg your pardon too!" she returned, with tears in her eyes.  "'Too
soon' was what I said.  But it doesn't matter a bit--not at all--but
I only meant, 'too soon.'  Indeed, I didn't, Mr. Oak, and you must
believe me!"

Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight being faint
there was not much to be seen.  "Bathsheba," he said, tenderly and in
surprise, and coming closer: "if I only knew one thing--whether you
would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all--if
I only knew that!"

"But you never will know," she murmured.

"Why?"

"Because you never ask."

"Oh--Oh!" said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness.  "My own
dear--"

"You ought not to have sent me that harsh letter this morning," she
interrupted.  "It shows you didn't care a bit about me, and were
ready to desert me like all the rest of them!  It was very cruel of
you, considering I was the first sweetheart that you ever had, and
you were the first I ever had; and I shall not forget it!"

"Now, Bathsheba, was ever anybody so provoking," he said, laughing.
"You know it was purely that I, as an unmarried man, carrying on a
business for you as a very taking young woman, had a proper hard part
to play--more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for
'ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it
might injure your good name.  Nobody knows the heat and fret I have
been caused by it."

"And was that all?"

"All."

"Oh, how glad I am I came!" she exclaimed, thankfully, as she rose
from her seat.  "I have thought so much more of you since I fancied
you did not want even to see me again.  But I must be going now, or
I shall be missed.  Why Gabriel," she said, with a slight laugh, as
they went to the door, "it seems exactly as if I had come courting
you--how dreadful!"

"And quite right too," said Oak.  "I've danced at your skittish
heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long
day; and it is hard to begrudge me this one visit."

He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of
his forthcoming tenure of the other farm.  They spoke very little
of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being
probably unnecessary between such tried friends.  Theirs was that
substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the
two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher
sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on,
the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic
reality.  This good-fellowship--_camaraderie_--usually occurring
through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded
to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in
their labours, but in their pleasures merely.  Where, however, happy
circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves
itself to be the only love which is strong as death--that love which
many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the
passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.

As the spring turns to summer, Bathsheba's bad mood slowly lifts. She still spends most of her time alone, though. She visits her husband's grave one day, and smiles at the fact that he now lies right next to his true love, Fanny Robin. The two of them even share a tombstone. Then she starts to cry uncontrollably. When she turns back, she finds that Gabriel Oak is standing behind her. She wipes her tears and asks if he's going into the church. He answers that he is indeed. Mr. Oak apologizes for bringing up a business matter, but he feels that he needs to tell her right away that he will soon leave England to live in California. Bathsheba begs him not to leave, but he says that there's no longer anything for him in Weatherbury. She awaits his departure with total dread, since now she'll barely have anyone left, especially no one as loyal as Gabriel. She also notices that in the weeks leading up to his departure, he starts to walk the other way whenever he sees her coming on a path. When she finally receives a letter saying that he is about to go, Bathsheba starts to cry bitter tears. Finally, she forgets her pride and goes to his house in the evening, even though it's not appropriate for a single woman to go to a single man's place at night. She complains one last time about how he's leaving her all alone. He simply answers that if she doesn't want him to leave, he won't. She just has to ask him to stay. Finally, Gabriel comes out and says that now that he has inherited Boldwood's farm , he thinks he's rich enough to marry Bathsheba. And after just a little more hemming and hawing, Bathsheba and Oak decide to get married. If she'd only said yes at the beginning of the book, she could have saved everyone a lot of trouble.


A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING--CONCLUSION

"The most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to
have."

Those had been Bathsheba's words to Oak one evening, some time after
the event of the preceding f, and he meditated a full hour by
the clock upon how to carry out her wishes to the letter.

"A license--O yes, it must be a license," he said to himself at last.
"Very well, then; first, a license."

On a dark night, a few days later, Oak came with mysterious steps
from the surrogate's door, in Casterbridge.  On the way home he heard
a heavy tread in front of him, and, overtaking the man, found him to
be Coggan.  They walked together into the village until they came to
a little lane behind the church, leading down to the cottage of Laban
Tall, who had lately been installed as clerk of the parish, and was
yet in mortal terror at church on Sundays when he heard his lone
voice among certain hard words of the Psalms, whither no man ventured
to follow him.

"Well, good-night, Coggan," said Oak, "I'm going down this way."

"Oh!" said Coggan, surprised; "what's going on to-night then, make so
bold Mr. Oak?"

It seemed rather ungenerous not to tell Coggan, under the
circumstances, for Coggan had been true as steel all through the time
of Gabriel's unhappiness about Bathsheba, and Gabriel said, "You can
keep a secret, Coggan?"

"You've proved me, and you know."

"Yes, I have, and I do know.  Well, then, mistress and I mean to get
married to-morrow morning."

"Heaven's high tower!  And yet I've thought of such a thing from time
to time; true, I have.  But keeping it so close!  Well, there, 'tis
no consarn of of mine, and I wish 'ee joy o' her."

"Thank you, Coggan.  But I assure 'ee that this great hush is not
what I wished for at all, or what either of us would have wished if
it hadn't been for certain things that would make a gay wedding seem
hardly the thing.  Bathsheba has a great wish that all the parish
shall not be in church, looking at her--she's shy-like and nervous
about it, in fact--so I be doing this to humour her."

"Ay, I see: quite right, too, I suppose I must say.  And you be now
going down to the clerk."

"Yes; you may as well come with me."

"I am afeard your labour in keeping it close will be throwed away,"
said Coggan, as they walked along.  "Labe Tall's old woman will horn
it all over parish in half-an-hour."

"So she will, upon my life; I never thought of that," said Oak,
pausing.  "Yet I must tell him to-night, I suppose, for he's working
so far off, and leaves early."

"I'll tell 'ee how we could tackle her," said Coggan.  "I'll knock
and ask to speak to Laban outside the door, you standing in the
background.  Then he'll come out, and you can tell yer tale.  She'll
never guess what I want en for; and I'll make up a few words about
the farm-work, as a blind."

This scheme was considered feasible; and Coggan advanced boldly, and
rapped at Mrs. Tall's door.  Mrs. Tall herself opened it.

"I wanted to have a word with Laban."

"He's not at home, and won't be this side of eleven o'clock.  He've
been forced to go over to Yalbury since shutting out work.  I shall
do quite as well."

"I hardly think you will.  Stop a moment;" and Coggan stepped round
the corner of the porch to consult Oak.

"Who's t'other man, then?" said Mrs. Tall.

"Only a friend," said Coggan.

"Say he's wanted to meet mistress near church-hatch to-morrow morning
at ten," said Oak, in a whisper.  "That he must come without fail,
and wear his best clothes."

"The clothes will floor us as safe as houses!" said Coggan.

"It can't be helped," said Oak.  "Tell her."

So Coggan delivered the message.  "Mind, het or wet, blow or snow,
he must come," added Jan.  "'Tis very particular, indeed.  The fact
is, 'tis to witness her sign some law-work about taking shares wi'
another farmer for a long span o' years.  There, that's what 'tis,
and now I've told 'ee, Mother Tall, in a way I shouldn't ha' done
if I hadn't loved 'ee so hopeless well."

Coggan retired before she could ask any further; and next they called
at the vicar's in a manner which excited no curiosity at all.  Then
Gabriel went home, and prepared for the morrow.

"Liddy," said Bathsheba, on going to bed that night, "I want you to
call me at seven o'clock to-morrow, In case I shouldn't wake."

"But you always do wake afore then, ma'am."

"Yes, but I have something important to do, which I'll tell you of
when the time comes, and it's best to make sure."

Bathsheba, however, awoke voluntarily at four, nor could she by any
contrivance get to sleep again.  About six, being quite positive that
her watch had stopped during the night, she could wait no longer.
She went and tapped at Liddy's door, and after some labour awoke her.

"But I thought it was I who had to call you?" said the bewildered
Liddy.  "And it isn't six yet."

"Indeed it is; how can you tell such a story, Liddy?  I know it must
be ever so much past seven.  Come to my room as soon as you can; I
want you to give my hair a good brushing."

When Liddy came to Bathsheba's room her mistress was already waiting.
Liddy could not understand this extraordinary promptness.  "Whatever
IS going on, ma'am?" she said.

"Well, I'll tell you," said Bathsheba, with a mischievous smile in
her bright eyes.  "Farmer Oak is coming here to dine with me to-day!"

"Farmer Oak--and nobody else?--you two alone?"

"Yes."

"But is it safe, ma'am, after what's been said?" asked her companion,
dubiously.  "A woman's good name is such a perishable article that--"

Bathsheba laughed with a flushed cheek, and whispered in Liddy's ear,
although there was nobody present.  Then Liddy stared and exclaimed,
"Souls alive, what news!  It makes my heart go quite bumpity-bump!"

"It makes mine rather furious, too," said Bathsheba.  "However,
there's no getting out of it now!"

It was a damp disagreeable morning.  Nevertheless, at twenty minutes
to ten o'clock, Oak came out of his house, and

              Went up the hill side
              With that sort of stride
     A man puts out when walking in search of a bride,

and knocked Bathsheba's door.  Ten minutes later a large and a
smaller umbrella might have been seen moving from the same door, and
through the mist along the road to the church.  The distance was not
more than a quarter of a mile, and these two sensible persons deemed
it unnecessary to drive.  An observer must have been very close
indeed to discover that the forms under the umbrellas were those of
Oak and Bathsheba, arm-in-arm for the first time in their lives, Oak
in a greatcoat extending to his knees, and Bathsheba in a cloak that
reached her clogs.  Yet, though so plainly dressed, there was a
certain rejuvenated appearance about her:--

     As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.

Repose had again incarnadined her cheeks; and having, at Gabriel's
request, arranged her hair this morning as she had worn it years ago
on Norcombe Hill, she seemed in his eyes remarkably like a girl of
that fascinating dream, which, considering that she was now only
three or four-and-twenty, was perhaps not very wonderful.  In the
church were Tall, Liddy, and the parson, and in a remarkably short
space of time the deed was done.

The two sat down very quietly to tea in Bathsheba's parlour in the
evening of the same day, for it had been arranged that Farmer Oak
should go there to live, since he had as yet neither money, house,
nor furniture worthy of the name, though he was on a sure way towards
them, whilst Bathsheba was, comparatively, in a plethora of all
three.

Just as Bathsheba was pouring out a cup of tea, their ears were
greeted by the firing of a cannon, followed by what seemed like a
tremendous blowing of trumpets, in the front of the house.

"There!" said Oak, laughing, "I knew those fellows were up to
something, by the look on their faces"

Oak took up the light and went into the porch, followed by Bathsheba
with a shawl over her head.  The rays fell upon a group of male
figures gathered upon the gravel in front, who, when they saw the
newly-married couple in the porch, set up a loud "Hurrah!" and at the
same moment bang again went the cannon in the background, followed by
a hideous clang of music from a drum, tambourine, clarionet, serpent,
hautboy, tenor-viol, and double-bass--the only remaining relics
of the true and original Weatherbury band--venerable worm-eaten
instruments, which had celebrated in their own persons the victories
of Marlborough, under the fingers of the forefathers of those who
played them now.  The performers came forward, and marched up to the
front.

"Those bright boys, Mark Clark and Jan, are at the bottom of all
this," said Oak.  "Come in, souls, and have something to eat and
drink wi' me and my wife."

"Not to-night," said Mr. Clark, with evident self-denial.  "Thank
ye all the same; but we'll call at a more seemly time.  However, we
couldn't think of letting the day pass without a note of admiration
of some sort.  If ye could send a drop of som'at down to Warren's,
why so it is.  Here's long life and happiness to neighbour Oak and
his comely bride!"

"Thank ye; thank ye all," said Gabriel.  "A bit and a drop shall be
sent to Warren's for ye at once.  I had a thought that we might very
likely get a salute of some sort from our old friends, and I was
saying so to my wife but now."

"Faith," said Coggan, in a critical tone, turning to his companions,
"the man hev learnt to say 'my wife' in a wonderful naterel way,
considering how very youthful he is in wedlock as yet--hey,
neighbours all?"

"I never heerd a skilful old married feller of twenty years'
standing pipe 'my wife' in a more used note than 'a did," said Jacob
Smallbury.  "It might have been a little more true to nater if't had
been spoke a little chillier, but that wasn't to be expected just
now."

"That improvement will come wi' time," said Jan, twirling his eye.

Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily
now), and their friends turned to go.

"Yes; I suppose that's the size o't," said Joseph Poorgrass with a
cheerful sigh as they moved away; "and I wish him joy o' her; though
I were once or twice upon saying to-day with holy Hosea, in my
scripture manner, which is my second nature, 'Ephraim is joined to
idols: let him alone.'  But since 'tis as 'tis, why, it might have
been worse, and I feel my thanks accordingly."

Gabriel and Bathsheba agree to have the plainest, most secretive wedding they can possibly have. They go through a huge hassle to keep the word from spreading all around Weatherbury. The only person Gabriel bothers telling is Jan Coggan, whom he feels he can trust. The next thing is to get a hold of the local parson, and to get hold of a marriage certificate. Bathsheba gets her servant Liddy to be a witness. Jan is Gabriel's man. And just like that, the two of them get married. It isn't long, though, before people come marching up to Bathsheba's house to congratulate them. There's only so long you can keep something like this secret in Weatherbury. The book ends with everyone being happy about the marriage, but not too happy. After all, a man is dead and another man is in jail for the rest of his life. Stuff is pretty bittersweet.


DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK--AN INCIDENT

When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they
were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were
reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them,
extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch
of the rising sun.

His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young
man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good
character.  On Sundays he was a man of misty views, rather given to
postponing, and hampered by his best clothes and umbrella: upon the
whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middle space
of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion people of
the parish and the drunken section,--that is, he went to church, but
yawned privately by the time the congregation reached the Nicene
creed, and thought of what there would be for dinner when he meant to
be listening to the sermon. Or, to state his character as it stood
in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in
tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased,
he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose
moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.

Since he lived six times as many working-days as Sundays, Oak's
appearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his own--the mental
picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him being always
dressed in that way.  He wore a low-crowned felt hat, spread out at
the base by tight jamming upon the head for security in high winds,
and a coat like Dr. Johnson's; his lower extremities being encased
in ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically large, affording
to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that any wearer might
stand in a river all day long and know nothing of damp--their maker
being a conscientious man who endeavoured to compensate for any
weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension and solidity.

Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be called a
small silver clock; in other words, it was a watch as to shape and
intention, and a small clock as to size. This instrument being
several years older than Oak's grandfather, had the peculiarity of
going either too fast or not at all.  The smaller of its hands, too,
occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the minutes
were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of the hour
they belonged to.  The stopping peculiarity of his watch Oak remedied
by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any evil consequences from the
other two defects by constant comparisons with and observations of
the sun and stars, and by pressing his face close to the glass of his
neighbours' windows, till he could discern the hour marked by the
green-faced timekeepers within.  It may be mentioned that Oak's fob
being difficult of access, by reason of its somewhat high situation
in the waistband of his trousers (which also lay at a remote height
under his waistcoat), the watch was as a necessity pulled out by
throwing the body to one side, compressing the mouth and face to a
mere mass of ruddy flesh on account of the exertion required, and
drawing up the watch by its chain, like a bucket from a well.

But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one
of his fields on a certain December morning--sunny and exceedingly
mild--might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these.
In his face one might notice that many of the hues and curves of
youth had tarried on to manhood: there even remained in his remoter
crannies some relics of the boy.  His height and breadth would
have been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been
exhibited with due consideration.  But there is a way some men have,
rural and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than
flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions by their
manner of showing them.  And from a quiet modesty that would have
become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him that he
had no great claim on the world's room, Oak walked unassumingly and
with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the
shoulders.  This may be said to be a defect in an individual if he
depends for his valuation more upon his appearance than upon his
capacity to wear well, which Oak did not.

He had just reached the time of life at which "young" is ceasing to
be the prefix of "man" in speaking of one.  He was at the brightest
period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were
clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the influence
of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse,
and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united
again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and
family.  In short, he was twenty-eight, and a bachelor.

The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called Norcombe
Hill.  Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between Emminster
and Chalk-Newton.  Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak saw coming
down the incline before him an ornamental spring waggon, painted
yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a waggoner walking
alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly.  The waggon was laden with
household goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat
a woman, young and attractive.  Gabriel had not beheld the sight for
more than half a minute, when the vehicle was brought to a standstill
just beneath his eyes.

"The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss," said the waggoner.

"Then I heard it fall," said the girl, in a soft, though not
particularly low voice.  "I heard a noise I could not account for
when we were coming up the hill."

"I'll run back."

"Do," she answered.

The sensible horses stood--perfectly still, and the waggoner's steps
sank fainter and fainter in the distance.

The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by
tables and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle,
and ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses,
together with a caged canary--all probably from the windows of the
house just vacated.  There was also a cat in a willow basket, from
the partly-opened lid of which she gazed with half-closed eyes, and
affectionately surveyed the small birds around.

The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and the
only sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary up
and down the perches of its prison.  Then she looked attentively
downwards.  It was not at the bird, nor at the cat; it was at an
oblong package tied in paper, and lying between them.  She turned her
head to learn if the waggoner were coming.  He was not yet in sight;
and her eyes crept back to the package, her thoughts seeming to run
upon what was inside it.  At length she drew the article into her
lap, and untied the paper covering; a small swing looking-glass was
disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself attentively.  She
parted her lips and smiled.

It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow the
crimson jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright
face and dark hair.  The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses packed
around her were fresh and green, and at such a leafless season they
invested the whole concern of horses, waggon, furniture, and girl
with a peculiar vernal charm.  What possessed her to indulge in
such a performance in the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and
unperceived farmer who were alone its spectators,--whether the smile
began as a factitious one, to test her capacity in that art,--nobody
knows; it ended certainly in a real smile.  She blushed at herself,
and seeing her reflection blush, blushed the more.

The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of such an
act--from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling out
of doors--lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not intrinsically
possess.  The picture was a delicate one.  Woman's prescriptive
infirmity had stalked into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the
freshness of an originality.  A cynical inference was irresistible by
Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous though he fain would
have been.  There was no necessity whatever for her looking in the
glass.  She did not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a
dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that any such intention
had been her motive in taking up the glass.  She simply observed
herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine kind, her
thoughts seeming to glide into far-off though likely dramas in which
men would play a part--vistas of probable triumphs--the smiles being
of a phase suggesting that hearts were imagined as lost and won.
Still, this was but conjecture, and the whole series of actions was
so idly put forth as to make it rash to assert that intention had any
part in them at all.

The waggoner's steps were heard returning.  She put the glass in the
paper, and the whole again into its place.

When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel withdrew from his point of
espial, and descending into the road, followed the vehicle to the
turnpike-gate some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where the
object of his contemplation now halted for the payment of toll.
About twenty steps still remained between him and the gate, when he
heard a dispute.  It was a difference concerning twopence between the
persons with the waggon and the man at the toll-bar.

"Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that's
enough that I've offered ye, you great miser, and she won't pay any
more."  These were the waggoner's words.

"Very well; then mis'ess's niece can't pass," said the turnpike-keeper,
closing the gate.

Oak looked from one to the other of the disputants, and fell into
a reverie.  There was something in the tone of twopence remarkably
insignificant.  Threepence had a definite value as money--it was an
appreciable infringement on a day's wages, and, as such, a higgling
matter; but twopence--"Here," he said, stepping forward and handing
twopence to the gatekeeper; "let the young woman pass."  He looked up
at her then; she heard his words, and looked down.

Gabriel's features adhered throughout their form so exactly to the
middle line between the beauty of St. John and the ugliness of Judas
Iscariot, as represented in a window of the church he attended, that
not a single lineament could be selected and called worthy either of
distinction or notoriety.  The red-jacketed and dark-haired maiden
seemed to think so too, for she carelessly glanced over him, and told
her man to drive on.  She might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on
a minute scale, but she did not speak them; more probably she felt
none, for in gaining her a passage he had lost her her point, and we
know how women take a favour of that kind.

The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle.  "That's a
handsome maid," he said to Oak.

"But she has her faults," said Gabriel.

"True, farmer."

"And the greatest of them is--well, what it is always."

"Beating people down? ay, 'tis so."

"O no."

"What, then?"

Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely traveller's
indifference, glanced back to where he had witnessed her performance
over the hedge, and said, "Vanity."

Twenty-eight-year-old Gabriel Oak was surveying his fields one mild December morning. From behind a hedge, he watched a yellow wagon come down the highway, the wagoner walking beside it. When the wagoner retraced his path to retrieve a lost tailboard, the horses halted. This delay permitted Oak to view the wagon's motley array of household goods, complete with plants and pots. Enthroned atop everything sat a pretty, dark-haired young woman in a crimson jacket. Looking to make sure the wagoner was out of sight, she took out a mirror. Her smile, tentative at first, widened at her satisfying reflection. She flushed as "she simply observed herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine kind." Hearing the wagoner return, she replaced the glass. After the two resumed their journey, Gabriel left his "point of espial" and followed them down the road. At the tollgate, the wagon was stopped. Unimpressed by the wagoner's protest that the girl refused to pay an additional two pence, the gatekeeper would not let the wagon pass. Stepping forward, Gabriel handed two pence to the keeper, saying, "Let the young woman pass." The girl glanced carelessly at him. "She might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she did not speak them; more probably, she felt none." Gabriel did not disagree with the gamekeeper's comment on the attractiveness of the retreating girl. But, perhaps irked by her snub, he maintained that she had her faults, the greatest of them being "what it is always . . . Vanity."

"Far from the madding crowd" was how Thomas Hardy wished us to view his beloved native country and the types who inhabited it. Thus isolation furnished both the theme and the title of the novel. Far from the Madding Crowd might well entitle his whole series of Wessex novels. In the first paragraph, the friendly face of Gabriel Oak smiles at us. His features are average, his clothes ordinary, and his "moral color was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture." Even his idiosyncrasy is a mild one: He wears a large watch with a faulty hour hand. Undismayed, he checks the time by peering into neighbors' windows or by referring to the position of the stars. Unconcerned with time's passing, he leisurely continues to do what he thinks is right. He cares for his fellow beings and is capable of judging them. Hardy, with the eye of the artist, loved the color and line of the landscape. Thus he personalized nature. His horses were "sensible," his cat "with half-closed eyes" viewed birds "affectionately." His delineation of people was part caricature, as with Gabriel, and part portraiture, as with the young woman whom Hardy shows through Gabriel's eyes. Hardy's first picture of these two young people will be counterbalanced by a well-illuminated, mellowed portrait in the final chapter, when both have matured. Critics credit Hardy's first profession, that of architecture, with responsibility for his sense of form, both literary and aesthetic. This, his first successful novel, was designed to appear serially; one result of this is the inclusion of a bit of suspense at the close of each installment to keep the reader eager for the next one.


NIGHT--THE FLOCK--AN INTERIOR--ANOTHER INTERIOR

It was nearly midnight on the eve of St. Thomas's, the shortest day
in the year.  A desolating wind wandered from the north over the hill
whereon Oak had watched the yellow waggon and its occupant in the
sunshine of a few days earlier.

Norcombe Hill--not far from lonely Toller-Down--was one of the spots
which suggest to a passer-by that he is in the presence of a shape
approaching the indestructible as nearly as any to be found on
earth.  It was a featureless convexity of chalk and soil--an ordinary
specimen of those smoothly-outlined protuberances of the globe which
may remain undisturbed on some great day of confusion, when far
grander heights and dizzy granite precipices topple down.

The hill was covered on its northern side by an ancient and decaying
plantation of beeches, whose upper verge formed a line over the
crest, fringing its arched curve against the sky, like a mane.
To-night these trees sheltered the southern slope from the keenest
blasts, which smote the wood and floundered through it with a sound
as of grumbling, or gushed over its crowning boughs in a weakened
moan.  The dry leaves in the ditch simmered and boiled in the same
breezes, a tongue of air occasionally ferreting out a few, and
sending them spinning across the grass.  A group or two of the latest
in date amongst the dead multitude had remained till this very
mid-winter time on the twigs which bore them and in falling rattled
against the trunks with smart taps.

Between this half-wooded half-naked hill, and the vague still horizon
that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet of
fathomless shade--the sounds from which suggested that what it
concealed bore some reduced resemblance to features here.  The thin
grasses, more or less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in
breezes of differing powers, and almost of differing natures--one
rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly, another
brushing them like a soft broom.  The instinctive act of humankind
was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the
trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular
antiphonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to
leeward then caught the note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and
how the hurrying gust then plunged into the south, to be heard no
more.

The sky was clear--remarkably clear--and the twinkling of all the
stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.
The North Star was directly in the wind's eye, and since evening the
Bear had swung round it outwardly to the east, till he was now at
a right angle with the meridian.  A difference of colour in the
stars--oftener read of than seen in England--was really perceptible
here.  The sovereign brilliancy of Sirius pierced the eye with a
steely glitter, the star called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and
Betelgueux shone with a fiery red.

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as
this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement.
The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past
earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness,
or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the
wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression
of riding along is vivid and abiding.  The poetry of motion is a
phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification
it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night,
and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass
of civilised mankind, who are dreamwrapt and disregardful of all
such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately
progress through the stars.  After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is
hard to get back to earth, and to believe that the consciousness of
such majestic speeding is derived from a tiny human frame.

Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this
place up against the sky.  They had a clearness which was to be found
nowhere in the wind, and a sequence which was to be found nowhere in
nature.  They were the notes of Farmer Oak's flute.

The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air: it seemed
muffled in some way, and was altogether too curtailed in power to
spread high or wide.  It came from the direction of a small dark
object under the plantation hedge--a shepherd's hut--now presenting
an outline to which an uninitiated person might have been puzzled
to attach either meaning or use.

The image as a whole was that of a small Noah's Ark on a small
Ararat, allowing the traditionary outlines and general form of
the Ark which are followed by toy-makers--and by these means are
established in men's imaginations among their firmest, because
earliest impressions--to pass as an approximate pattern.  The hut
stood on little wheels, which raised its floor about a foot from the
ground.  Such shepherds' huts are dragged into the fields when the
lambing season comes on, to shelter the shepherd in his enforced
nightly attendance.

It was only latterly that people had begun to call Gabriel "Farmer"
Oak.  During the twelvemonth preceding this time he had been enabled
by sustained efforts of industry and chronic good spirits to lease
the small sheep-farm of which Norcombe Hill was a portion, and stock
it with two hundred sheep.  Previously he had been a bailiff for a
short time, and earlier still a shepherd only, having from his
childhood assisted his father in tending the flocks of large
proprietors, till old Gabriel sank to rest.

This venture, unaided and alone, into the paths of farming as master
and not as man, with an advance of sheep not yet paid for, was a
critical juncture with Gabriel Oak, and he recognised his position
clearly.  The first movement in his new progress was the lambing of
his ewes, and sheep having been his speciality from his youth, he
wisely refrained from deputing the task of tending them at this
season to a hireling or a novice.

The wind continued to beat about the corners of the hut, but the
flute-playing ceased.  A rectangular space of light appeared in the
side of the hut, and in the opening the outline of Farmer Oak's
figure.  He carried a lantern in his hand, and closing the door
behind him, came forward and busied himself about this nook of the
field for nearly twenty minutes, the lantern light appearing and
disappearing here and there, and brightening him or darkening him
as he stood before or behind it.

Oak's motions, though they had a quiet-energy, were slow, and their
deliberateness accorded well with his occupation.  Fitness being the
basis of beauty, nobody could have denied that his steady swings and
turns in and about the flock had elements of grace.  Yet, although if
occasion demanded he could do or think a thing with as mercurial a
dash as can the men of towns who are more to the manner born, his
special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static, owing
little or nothing to momentum as a rule.

A close examination of the ground hereabout, even by the wan
starlight only, revealed how a portion of what would have been
casually called a wild slope had been appropriated by Farmer Oak for
his great purpose this winter.  Detached hurdles thatched with straw
were stuck into the ground at various scattered points, amid and
under which the whitish forms of his meek ewes moved and rustled.
The ring of the sheep-bell, which had been silent during his absence,
recommenced, in tones that had more mellowness than clearness, owing
to an increasing growth of surrounding wool.  This continued till Oak
withdrew again from the flock.  He returned to the hut, bringing in
his arms a new-born lamb, consisting of four legs large enough for
a full-grown sheep, united by a seemingly inconsiderable membrane
about half the substance of the legs collectively, which constituted
the animal's entire body just at present.

The little speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before the small
stove, where a can of milk was simmering.  Oak extinguished the
lantern by blowing into it and then pinching the snuff, the cot being
lighted by a candle suspended by a twisted wire.  A rather hard
couch, formed of a few corn sacks thrown carelessly down, covered
half the floor of this little habitation, and here the young man
stretched himself along, loosened his woollen cravat, and closed his
eyes.  In about the time a person unaccustomed to bodily labour would
have decided upon which side to lie, Farmer Oak was asleep.

The inside of the hut, as it now presented itself, was cosy and
alluring, and the scarlet handful of fire in addition to the candle,
reflecting its own genial colour upon whatever it could reach, flung
associations of enjoyment even over utensils and tools.  In the
corner stood the sheep-crook, and along a shelf at one side were
ranged bottles and canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to
ovine surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar, magnesia,
ginger, and castor-oil being the chief.  On a triangular shelf across
the corner stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or cider,
which was supplied from a flagon beneath.  Beside the provisions lay
the flute, whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely
watcher to beguile a tedious hour.  The house was ventilated by two
round holes, like the lights of a ship's cabin, with wood slides.

The lamb, revived by the warmth began to bleat, and the sound entered
Gabriel's ears and brain with an instant meaning, as expected
sounds will.  Passing from the profoundest sleep to the most alert
wakefulness with the same ease that had accompanied the reverse
operation, he looked at his watch, found that the hour-hand had
shifted again, put on his hat, took the lamb in his arms, and carried
it into the darkness.  After placing the little creature with its
mother, he stood and carefully examined the sky, to ascertain the
time of night from the altitudes of the stars.

The Dog-star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were
half-way up the Southern sky, and between them hung Orion, which
gorgeous constellation never burnt more vividly than now, as it
soared forth above the rim of the landscape.  Castor and Pollux with
their quiet shine were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy
Square of Pegasus was creeping round to the north-west; far away
through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the
leafless trees, and Cassiopeia's chair stood daintily poised on the
uppermost boughs.

"One o'clock," said Gabriel.

Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some
charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky
as a useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit,
as a work of art superlatively beautiful.  For a moment he seemed
impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with
the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and
sounds of man.  Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and joys
were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on the shaded
hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save himself; he could
fancy them all gone round to the sunny side.

Occupied thus, with eyes stretched afar, Oak gradually perceived
that what he had previously taken to be a star low down behind the
outskirts of the plantation was in reality no such thing.  It was an
artificial light, almost close at hand.

To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable
and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by
far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when
intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability,
induction--every kind of evidence in the logician's list--have united
to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation.

Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and pushed through its lower
boughs to the windy side.  A dim mass under the slope reminded him
that a shed occupied a place here, the site being a cutting into the
slope of the hill, so that at its back part the roof was almost level
with the ground.  In front it was formed of board nailed to posts and
covered with tar as a preservative.  Through crevices in the roof and
side spread streaks and dots of light, a combination of which made
the radiance that had attracted him.  Oak stepped up behind, where,
leaning down upon the roof and putting his eye close to a hole, he
could see into the interior clearly.

The place contained two women and two cows.  By the side of the
latter a steaming bran-mash stood in a bucket.  One of the women was
past middle age.  Her companion was apparently young and graceful;
he could form no decided opinion upon her looks, her position being
almost beneath his eye, so that he saw her in a bird's-eye view, as
Milton's Satan first saw Paradise.  She wore no bonnet or hat, but
had enveloped herself in a large cloak, which was carelessly flung
over her head as a covering.

"There, now we'll go home," said the elder of the two, resting her
knuckles upon her hips, and looking at their goings-on as a whole.
"I do hope Daisy will fetch round again now.  I have never been more
frightened in my life, but I don't mind breaking my rest if she
recovers."

The young woman, whose eyelids were apparently inclined to fall
together on the smallest provocation of silence, yawned without
parting her lips to any inconvenient extent, whereupon Gabriel caught
the infection and slightly yawned in sympathy.

"I wish we were rich enough to pay a man to do these things," she
said.

"As we are not, we must do them ourselves," said the other; "for you
must help me if you stay."

"Well, my hat is gone, however," continued the younger. "It went over
the hedge, I think.  The idea of such a slight wind catching it."

The cow standing erect was of the Devon breed, and was encased in a
tight warm hide of rich Indian red, as absolutely uniform from eyes
to tail as if the animal had been dipped in a dye of that colour, her
long back being mathematically level.  The other was spotted, grey
and white.  Beside her Oak now noticed a little calf about a day old,
looking idiotically at the two women, which showed that it had not
long been accustomed to the phenomenon of eyesight, and often turning
to the lantern, which it apparently mistook for the moon, inherited
instinct having as yet had little time for correction by experience.
Between the sheep and the cows Lucina had been busy on Norcombe Hill
lately.

"I think we had better send for some oatmeal," said the elder woman;
"there's no more bran."

"Yes, aunt; and I'll ride over for it as soon as it is light."

"But there's no side-saddle."

"I can ride on the other: trust me."

Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more curious to observe her
features, but this prospect being denied him by the hooding effect of
the cloak, and by his aerial position, he felt himself drawing upon
his fancy for their details.  In making even horizontal and clear
inspections we colour and mould according to the wants within us
whatever our eyes bring in.  Had Gabriel been able from the first to
get a distinct view of her countenance, his estimate of it as very
handsome or slightly so would have been as his soul required a
divinity at the moment or was ready supplied with one.  Having for
some time known the want of a satisfactory form to fill an increasing
void within him, his position moreover affording the widest scope for
his fancy, he painted her a beauty.

By one of those whimsical coincidences in which Nature, like a busy
mother, seems to spare a moment from her unremitting labours to turn
and make her children smile, the girl now dropped the cloak, and
forth tumbled ropes of black hair over a red jacket.  Oak knew
her instantly as the heroine of the yellow waggon, myrtles, and
looking-glass: prosily, as the woman who owed him twopence.

They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the lantern,
and went out, the light sinking down the hill till it was no more
than a nebula.  Gabriel Oak returned to his flock.

Swirling winds blew over Norcombe Hill one St. Thomas' Eve. "The trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir." Mingling with the wintry midnight sounds came the sounds of a flute. They issued from a small, arklike structure on wheels, of the type shepherds dragged about the fields to shelter themselves as they attended to their ewes at lambing time. Gabriel was keeping vigil. After less than a year "as master and not as man," he now owned two hundred ewes, which he kept on leased land. With his lantern, he made the rounds of the straw-thatched hurdles around which the ewes stood. Cradling a fragile, newborn lamb, he hastened back to his hut and placed it on some hay before the bit of fire. The hut's furnishings were meager: they consisted of a small stove, a bed of corn sacks, a few medications and ointments, some food, and the flute. Not stopping to adjust the two round ventilating holes, Oak instantly fell asleep on his cornshuck bed. Soon the warmth restored the lamb, which began to bleat. Gabriel roused instantly and carried it back to its mother. The stars told him, his timepiece having failed as usual, that scarcely an hour had passed. Perceiving a faint light on the horizon, Gabriel went to the edge of the plantation to check. The light came from a hut built into the slope. As he looked through the chinks in the roof, the light illuminated two women tending an ailing cow, and a second cow just delivered of a calf. The older woman was glad the cow was improving; the younger lamented that there was no man to do these heavy chores and that she had lost her hat. All the same, she volunteered to ride to town to fetch cereals in the morning. As the enshrouding cloak fell from her head, Gabriel discerned the dark tresses and red jacket of the girl he had seen in the wagon.

One cannot be unaware of Hardy's sense of the unity of man with nature: the eternal hills of his Wessex, the sounds of wind and weather, the ever-circling constellations, the light at different times of day and different seasons, the growth of vegetation, and the behavior of living creatures. His characters convey a general feeling of being a part of the universe; his narrative captures its rhythms. Far from the madding crowd, he seems to say, man comes into his own. Gabriel is so perfectly attuned to nature that he does his tasks, at whatever hour, faithfully and unquestioningly. The notes of Gabriel's flute, "a sequence which was to be found nowhere in nature," remind us of Hardy's own participation in a church choir and his playing in an orchestra in his youth; there is an obvious musical dimension to his art appreciation. Hardy notes that a limited view causes our imagination to fill in the outlines "according to the wants within us." And so it is with Gabriel: "Having for some time known the want of a satisfactory form to fill an increasing void within him, his position moreover affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a beauty." This statement shows us another side of Gabriel. He has a romantic as well as a practical sensibility.