CONVERGING COURSES

Christmas-eve came, and a party that Boldwood was to give in the
evening was the great subject of talk in Weatherbury.  It was not
that the rarity of Christmas parties in the parish made this one a
wonder, but that Boldwood should be the giver.  The announcement
had had an abnormal and incongruous sound, as if one should hear of
croquet-playing in a cathedral aisle, or that some much-respected
judge was going upon the stage.  That the party was intended to be
a truly jovial one there was no room for doubt.  A large bough of
mistletoe had been brought from the woods that day, and suspended
in the hall of the bachelor's home.  Holly and ivy had followed in
armfuls.  From six that morning till past noon the huge wood fire
in the kitchen roared and sparkled at its highest, the kettle, the
saucepan, and the three-legged pot appearing in the midst of the
flames like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; moreover, roasting
and basting operations were continually carried on in front of the
genial blaze.

As it grew later the fire was made up in the large long hall into
which the staircase descended, and all encumbrances were cleared out
for dancing.  The log which was to form the back-brand of the evening
fire was the uncleft trunk of a tree, so unwieldy that it could be
neither brought nor rolled to its place; and accordingly two men were
to be observed dragging and heaving it in by chains and levers as the
hour of assembly drew near.

In spite of all this, the spirit of revelry was wanting in the
atmosphere of the house.  Such a thing had never been attempted
before by its owner, and it was now done as by a wrench.  Intended
gaieties would insist upon appearing like solemn grandeurs, the
organization of the whole effort was carried out coldly, by
hirelings, and a shadow seemed to move about the rooms, saying that
the proceedings were unnatural to the place and the lone man who
lived therein, and hence not good.

Bathsheba was at this time in her room, dressing for the event.  She
had called for candles, and Liddy entered and placed one on each side
of her mistress's glass.

"Don't go away, Liddy," said Bathsheba, almost timidly. "I am
foolishly agitated--I cannot tell why.  I wish I had not been obliged
to go to this dance; but there's no escaping now.  I have not spoken
to Mr. Boldwood since the autumn, when I promised to see him at
Christmas on business, but I had no idea there was to be anything of
this kind."

"But I would go now," said Liddy, who was going with her; for
Boldwood had been indiscriminate in his invitations.

"Yes, I shall make my appearance, of course," said Bathsheba.  "But I
am THE CAUSE of the party, and that upsets me!--Don't tell, Liddy."

"Oh no, ma'am.  You the cause of it, ma'am?"

"Yes.  I am the reason of the party--I.  If it had not been for me,
    there would never have been one.  I can't explain any more--there's
    no more to be explained.  I wish I had never seen Weatherbury."

    "That's wicked of you--to wish to be worse off than you are."

    "No, Liddy.  I have never been free from trouble since I have lived
    here, and this party is likely to bring me more.  Now, fetch my black
    silk dress, and see how it sits upon me."

    "But you will leave off that, surely, ma'am?  You have been a
    widow-lady fourteen months, and ought to brighten up a little on
    such a night as this."

    "Is it necessary?  No; I will appear as usual, for if I were to wear
    any light dress people would say things about me, and I should seem
    to be rejoicing when I am solemn all the time.  The party doesn't
    suit me a bit; but never mind, stay and help to finish me off."

    Boldwood was dressing also at this hour.  A tailor from Casterbridge
    was with him, assisting him in the operation of trying on a new coat
    that had just been brought home.

    Never had Boldwood been so fastidious, unreasonable about the fit,
    and generally difficult to please.  The tailor walked round and round
    him, tugged at the waist, pulled the sleeve, pressed out the collar,
    and for the first time in his experience Boldwood was not bored.
    Times had been when the farmer had exclaimed against all such
    niceties as childish, but now no philosophic or hasty rebuke whatever
    was provoked by this man for attaching as much importance to a crease
    in the coat as to an earthquake in South America.  Boldwood at last
    expressed himself nearly satisfied, and paid the bill, the tailor
    passing out of the door just as Oak came in to report progress for
    the day.

    "Oh, Oak," said Boldwood.  "I shall of course see you here to-night.
    Make yourself merry.  I am determined that neither expense nor
    trouble shall be spared."

    "I'll try to be here, sir, though perhaps it may not be very early,"
    said Gabriel, quietly.  "I am glad indeed to see such a change in
    'ee from what it used to be."

    "Yes--I must own it--I am bright to-night: cheerful and more than
    cheerful--so much so that I am almost sad again with the sense that
    all of it is passing away.  And sometimes, when I am excessively
    hopeful and blithe, a trouble is looming in the distance: so that I
    often get to look upon gloom in me with content, and to fear a happy
    mood.  Still this may be absurd--I feel that it is absurd.  Perhaps
    my day is dawning at last."

    "I hope it 'ill be a long and a fair one."

    "Thank you--thank you.  Yet perhaps my cheerfulness rests on a
    slender hope.  And yet I trust my hope.  It is faith, not hope.  I
    think this time I reckon with my host.--Oak, my hands are a little
    shaky, or something; I can't tie this neckerchief properly.  Perhaps
    you will tie it for me.  The fact is, I have not been well lately,
    you know."

    "I am sorry to hear that, sir."

    "Oh, it's nothing.  I want it done as well as you can, please.  Is
    there any late knot in fashion, Oak?"

    "I don't know, sir," said Oak.  His tone had sunk to sadness.

    Boldwood approached Gabriel, and as Oak tied the neckerchief the
    farmer went on feverishly--

    "Does a woman keep her promise, Gabriel?"

    "If it is not inconvenient to her she may."

    "--Or rather an implied promise."

    "I won't answer for her implying," said Oak, with faint bitterness.
    "That's a word as full o' holes as a sieve with them."

    "Oak, don't talk like that.  You have got quite cynical lately--how
    is it?  We seem to have shifted our positions: I have become the
    young and hopeful man, and you the old and unbelieving one.  However,
    does a woman keep a promise, not to marry, but to enter on an
    engagement to marry at some time?  Now you know women better than
    I--tell me."

    "I am afeard you honour my understanding too much.  However, she may
    keep such a promise, if it is made with an honest meaning to repair
    a wrong."

    "It has not gone far yet, but I think it will soon--yes, I know it
    will," he said, in an impulsive whisper.  "I have pressed her upon
    the subject, and she inclines to be kind to me, and to think of me
    as a husband at a long future time, and that's enough for me.  How
    can I expect more?  She has a notion that a woman should not marry
    within seven years of her husband's disappearance--that her own self
    shouldn't, I mean--because his body was not found.  It may be merely
    this legal reason which influences her, or it may be a religious
    one, but she is reluctant to talk on the point. Yet she has
    promised--implied--that she will ratify an engagement to-night."

    "Seven years," murmured Oak.

    "No, no--it's no such thing!" he said, with impatience.  "Five years,
    nine months, and a few days.  Fifteen months nearly have passed since
    he vanished, and is there anything so wonderful in an engagement of
    little more than five years?"

    "It seems long in a forward view.  Don't build too much upon such
    promises, sir.  Remember, you have once be'n deceived.  Her meaning
    may be good; but there--she's young yet."

    "Deceived?  Never!" said Boldwood, vehemently.  "She never promised
    me at that first time, and hence she did not break her promise!  If
    she promises me, she'll marry me.  Bathsheba is a woman to her word."

    Troy was sitting in a corner of The White Hart tavern at
    Casterbridge, smoking and drinking a steaming mixture from a glass.
    A knock was given at the door, and Pennyways entered.

    "Well, have you seen him?" Troy inquired, pointing to a chair.

    "Boldwood?"

    "No--Lawyer Long."

    "He wadn' at home.  I went there first, too."

    "That's a nuisance."

    "'Tis rather, I suppose."

    "Yet I don't see that, because a man appears to be drowned and was
    not, he should be liable for anything.  I shan't ask any lawyer--not
    I."

    "But that's not it, exactly.  If a man changes his name and so forth,
    and takes steps to deceive the world and his own wife, he's a cheat,
    and that in the eye of the law is ayless a rogue, and that is ayless
    a lammocken vagabond; and that's a punishable situation."

    "Ha-ha!  Well done, Pennyways," Troy had laughed, but it was with
    some anxiety that he said, "Now, what I want to know is this, do you
    think there's really anything going on between her and Boldwood?
    Upon my soul, I should never have believed it!  How she must detest
    me!  Have you found out whether she has encouraged him?"

    "I haen't been able to learn.  There's a deal of feeling on his side
    seemingly, but I don't answer for her.  I didn't know a word about
    any such thing till yesterday, and all I heard then was that she was
    gwine to the party at his house to-night.  This is the first time she
    has ever gone there, they say.  And they say that she've not so much
    as spoke to him since they were at Greenhill Fair: but what can folk
    believe o't?  However, she's not fond of him--quite offish and quite
    careless, I know."

    "I'm not so sure of that....  She's a handsome woman, Pennyways, is
    she not?  Own that you never saw a finer or more splendid creature
    in your life.  Upon my honour, when I set eyes upon her that day I
    wondered what I could have been made of to be able to leave her by
    herself so long.  And then I was hampered with that bothering show,
    which I'm free of at last, thank the stars."  He smoked on awhile,
    and then added, "How did she look when you passed by yesterday?"

    "Oh, she took no great heed of me, ye may well fancy; but she looked
    well enough, far's I know.  Just flashed her haughty eyes upon my
    poor scram body, and then let them go past me to what was yond, much
    as if I'd been no more than a leafless tree.  She had just got off
    her mare to look at the last wring-down of cider for the year; she
    had been riding, and so her colours were up and her breath rather
    quick, so that her bosom plimmed and fell--plimmed and fell--every
    time plain to my eye.  Ay, and there were the fellers round her
    wringing down the cheese and bustling about and saying, 'Ware o' the
    pommy, ma'am: 'twill spoil yer gown.'  'Never mind me,' says she.
    Then Gabe brought her some of the new cider, and she must needs go
    drinking it through a strawmote, and not in a nateral way at all.
    'Liddy,' says she, 'bring indoors a few gallons, and I'll make some
    cider-wine.'  Sergeant, I was no more to her than a morsel of scroff
    in the fuel-house!"

    "I must go and find her out at once--O yes, I see that--I must go.
    Oak is head man still, isn't he?"

    "Yes, 'a b'lieve.  And at Little Weatherbury Farm too.  He manages
    everything."

    "'Twill puzzle him to manage her, or any other man of his compass!"

    "I don't know about that.  She can't do without him, and knowing it
    well he's pretty independent.  And she've a few soft corners to her
    mind, though I've never been able to get into one, the devil's in't!"

    "Ah, baily, she's a notch above you, and you must own it: a higher
    class of animal--a finer tissue.  However, stick to me, and neither
    this haughty goddess, dashing piece of womanhood, Juno-wife of mine
    (Juno was a goddess, you know), nor anybody else shall hurt you.  But
    all this wants looking into, I perceive.  What with one thing and
    another, I see that my work is well cut out for me."

    "How do I look to-night, Liddy?" said Bathsheba, giving a final
    adjustment to her dress before leaving the glass.

    "I never saw you look so well before.  Yes--I'll tell you when you
    looked like it--that night, a year and a half ago, when you came in
    so wildlike, and scolded us for making remarks about you and Mr.
    Troy."

    "Everybody will think that I am setting myself to captivate Mr.
    Boldwood, I suppose," she murmured.  "At least they'll say so.  Can't
    my hair be brushed down a little flatter? I dread going--yet I dread
    the risk of wounding him by staying away."

    "Anyhow, ma'am, you can't well be dressed plainer than you are,
    unless you go in sackcloth at once.  'Tis your excitement is what
    makes you look so noticeable to-night."

    "I don't know what's the matter, I feel wretched at one time, and
    buoyant at another.  I wish I could have continued quite alone as I
    have been for the last year or so, with no hopes and no fears, and
    no pleasure and no grief."

    "Now just suppose Mr. Boldwood should ask you--only just suppose
    it--to run away with him, what would you do, ma'am?"

    "Liddy--none of that," said Bathsheba, gravely.  "Mind, I won't hear
    joking on any such matter.  Do you hear?"

    "I beg pardon, ma'am.  But knowing what rum things we women be, I
    just said--however, I won't speak of it again."

    "No marrying for me yet for many a year; if ever, 'twill be for
    reasons very, very different from those you think, or others will
    believe!  Now get my cloak, for it is time to go."

    "Oak," said Boldwood, "before you go I want to mention what has been
    passing in my mind lately--that little arrangement we made about
    your share in the farm I mean.  That share is small, too small,
    considering how little I attend to business now, and how much time
    and thought you give to it.  Well, since the world is brightening
    for me, I want to show my sense of it by increasing your proportion
    in the partnership.  I'll make a memorandum of the arrangement which
    struck me as likely to be convenient, for I haven't time to talk
    about it now; and then we'll discuss it at our leisure.  My intention
    is ultimately to retire from the management altogether, and until you
    can take all the expenditure upon your shoulders, I'll be a sleeping
    partner in the stock.  Then, if I marry her--and I hope--I feel I
    shall, why--"

    "Pray don't speak of it, sir," said Oak, hastily.  "We don't know
    what may happen.  So many upsets may befall 'ee.  There's many a
    slip, as they say--and I would advise you--I know you'll pardon me
    this once--not to be TOO SURE."

    "I know, I know.  But the feeling I have about increasing your share
    is on account of what I know of you.  Oak, I have learnt a little
    about your secret: your interest in her is more than that of bailiff
    for an employer.  But you have behaved like a man, and I, as a sort
    of successful rival--successful partly through your goodness of
    heart--should like definitely to show my sense of your friendship
    under what must have been a great pain to you."

    "O that's not necessary, thank 'ee," said Oak, hurriedly. "I must get
    used to such as that; other men have, and so shall I."

    Oak then left him.  He was uneasy on Boldwood's account, for he saw
    anew that this constant passion of the farmer made him not the man
    he once had been.

    As Boldwood continued awhile in his room alone--ready and dressed to
    receive his company--the mood of anxiety about his appearance seemed
    to pass away, and to be succeeded by a deep solemnity.  He looked out
    of the window, and regarded the dim outline of the trees upon the
    sky, and the twilight deepening to darkness.

    Then he went to a locked closet, and took from a locked drawer
    therein a small circular case the size of a pillbox, and was about to
    put it into his pocket.  But he lingered to open the cover and take
    a momentary glance inside.  It contained a woman's finger-ring, set
    all the way round with small diamonds, and from its appearance had
    evidently been recently purchased.  Boldwood's eyes dwelt upon its
    many sparkles a long time, though that its material aspect concerned
    him little was plain from his manner and mien, which were those of
    a mind following out the presumed thread of that jewel's future
    history.

    The noise of wheels at the front of the house became audible.
    Boldwood closed the box, stowed it away carefully in his pocket, and
    went out upon the landing.  The old man who was his indoor factotum
    came at the same moment to the foot of the stairs.

    "They be coming, sir--lots of 'em--a-foot and a-driving!"

    "I was coming down this moment.  Those wheels I heard--is it Mrs.
    Troy?"

    "No, sir--'tis not she yet."

    A reserved and sombre expression had returned to Boldwood's face
    again, but it poorly cloaked his feelings when he pronounced
    Bathsheba's name; and his feverish anxiety continued to show its
    existence by a galloping motion of his fingers upon the side of
    his thigh as he went down the stairs.

    "How does this cover me?" said Troy to Pennyways.  "Nobody would
    recognize me now, I'm sure."

    He was buttoning on a heavy grey overcoat of Noachian cut, with cape
    and high collar, the latter being erect and rigid, like a girdling
    wall, and nearly reaching to the verge of a travelling cap which was
    pulled down over his ears.

    Pennyways snuffed the candle, and then looked up and deliberately
    inspected Troy.

    "You've made up your mind to go then?" he said.

    "Made up my mind?  Yes; of course I have."

    "Why not write to her?  'Tis a very queer corner that you have got
    into, sergeant.  You see all these things will come to light if you
    go back, and they won't sound well at all.  Faith, if I was you I'd
    even bide as you be--a single man of the name of Francis.  A good
    wife is good, but the best wife is not so good as no wife at all.
    Now that's my outspoke mind, and I've been called a long-headed
    feller here and there."

    "All nonsense!" said Troy, angrily.  "There she is with plenty of
    money, and a house and farm, and horses, and comfort, and here am I
    living from hand to mouth--a needy adventurer.  Besides, it is no use
    talking now; it is too late, and I am glad of it; I've been seen and
    recognized here this very afternoon.  I should have gone back to her
    the day after the fair, if it hadn't been for you talking about the
    law, and rubbish about getting a separation; and I don't put it off
    any longer.  What the deuce put it into my head to run away at all, I
    can't think!  Humbugging sentiment--that's what it was.  But what man
    on earth was to know that his wife would be in such a hurry to get
    rid of his name!"

    "I should have known it.  She's bad enough for anything."

    "Pennyways, mind who you are talking to."

    "Well, sergeant, all I say is this, that if I were you I'd go abroad
    again where I came from--'tisn't too late to do it now.  I wouldn't
    stir up the business and get a bad name for the sake of living with
    her--for all that about your play-acting is sure to come out, you
    know, although you think otherwise.  My eyes and limbs, there'll
    be a racket if you go back just now--in the middle of Boldwood's
    Christmasing!"

    "H'm, yes.  I expect I shall not be a very welcome guest if he has
    her there," said the sergeant, with a slight laugh.  "A sort of
    Alonzo the Brave; and when I go in the guests will sit in silence and
    fear, and all laughter and pleasure will be hushed, and the lights in
    the chamber burn blue, and the worms--Ugh, horrible!--Ring for some
    more brandy, Pennyways, I felt an awful shudder just then!  Well,
    what is there besides?  A stick--I must have a walking-stick."

    Pennyways now felt himself to be in something of a difficulty, for
    should Bathsheba and Troy become reconciled it would be necessary
    to regain her good opinion if he would secure the patronage of her
    husband.  "I sometimes think she likes you yet, and is a good woman
    at bottom," he said, as a saving sentence.  "But there's no telling
    to a certainty from a body's outside.  Well, you'll do as you like
    about going, of course, sergeant, and as for me, I'll do as you tell
    me."

    "Now, let me see what the time is," said Troy, after emptying his
    glass in one draught as he stood.  "Half-past six o'clock.  I shall
    not hurry along the road, and shall be there then before nine."

CONCURRITUR--HORAE MOMENTO

Outside the front of Boldwood's house a group of men stood in the
dark, with their faces towards the door, which occasionally opened
and closed for the passage of some guest or servant, when a golden
rod of light would stripe the ground for the moment and vanish again,
leaving nothing outside but the glowworm shine of the pale lamp amid
the evergreens over the door.

"He was seen in Casterbridge this afternoon--so the boy said," one of
them remarked in a whisper.  "And I for one believe it.  His body was
never found, you know."

"'Tis a strange story," said the next.  "You may depend upon't that
she knows nothing about it."

"Not a word."

"Perhaps he don't mean that she shall," said another man.

"If he's alive and here in the neighbourhood, he means mischief,"
said the first.  "Poor young thing: I do pity her, if 'tis true.
He'll drag her to the dogs."

"O no; he'll settle down quiet enough," said one disposed to take a
more hopeful view of the case.

"What a fool she must have been ever to have had anything to do with
the man!  She is so self-willed and independent too, that one is more
minded to say it serves her right than pity her."

"No, no.  I don't hold with 'ee there.  She was no otherwise than a
girl mind, and how could she tell what the man was made of?  If 'tis
really true, 'tis too hard a punishment, and more than she ought to
hae.--Hullo, who's that?"  This was to some footsteps that were heard
approaching.

"William Smallbury," said a dim figure in the shades, coming up and
joining them.  "Dark as a hedge, to-night, isn't it? I all but missed
the plank over the river ath'art there in the bottom--never did such
a thing before in my life.  Be ye any of Boldwood's workfolk?"  He
peered into their faces.

"Yes--all o' us.  We met here a few minutes ago."

"Oh, I hear now--that's Sam Samway: thought I knowed the voice, too.
Going in?"

"Presently.  But I say, William," Samway whispered, "have ye heard
this strange tale?"

"What--that about Sergeant Troy being seen, d'ye mean, souls?" said
Smallbury, also lowering his voice.

"Ay: in Casterbridge."

"Yes, I have.  Laban Tall named a hint of it to me but now--but I
don't think it.  Hark, here Laban comes himself, 'a b'lieve."  A
footstep drew near.

"Laban?"

"Yes, 'tis I," said Tall.

"Have ye heard any more about that?"

"No," said Tall, joining the group.  "And I'm inclined to think we'd
better keep quiet.  If so be 'tis not true, 'twill flurry her, and do
her much harm to repeat it; and if so be 'tis true, 'twill do no good
to forestall her time o' trouble.  God send that it mid be a lie, for
though Henery Fray and some of 'em do speak against her, she's never
been anything but fair to me.  She's hot and hasty, but she's a brave
girl who'll never tell a lie however much the truth may harm her, and
I've no cause to wish her evil."

"She never do tell women's little lies, that's true; and 'tis a thing
that can be said of very few.  Ay, all the harm she thinks she says
to yer face: there's nothing underhand wi' her."

They stood silent then, every man busied with his own thoughts,
during which interval sounds of merriment could be heard within.
Then the front door again opened, the rays streamed out, the
well-known form of Boldwood was seen in the rectangular area of
light, the door closed, and Boldwood walked slowly down the path.

"'Tis master," one of the men whispered, as he neared them. "We'd
better stand quiet--he'll go in again directly.  He would think it
unseemly o' us to be loitering here."

Boldwood came on, and passed by the men without seeing them, they
being under the bushes on the grass.  He paused, leant over the gate,
and breathed a long breath.  They heard low words come from him.

"I hope to God she'll come, or this night will be nothing but misery
to me!  Oh my darling, my darling, why do you keep me in suspense
like this?"

He said this to himself, and they all distinctly heard it.  Boldwood
remained silent after that, and the noise from indoors was again
just audible, until, a few minutes later, light wheels could be
distinguished coming down the hill.  They drew nearer, and ceased at
the gate.  Boldwood hastened back to the door, and opened it; and the
light shone upon Bathsheba coming up the path.

Boldwood compressed his emotion to mere welcome: the men marked her
light laugh and apology as she met him: he took her into the house;
and the door closed again.

"Gracious heaven, I didn't know it was like that with him!" said one
of the men.  "I thought that fancy of his was over long ago."

"You don't know much of master, if you thought that," said Samway.

"I wouldn't he should know we heard what 'a said for the world,"
remarked a third.

"I wish we had told of the report at once," the first uneasily
continued.  "More harm may come of this than we know of.  Poor Mr.
Boldwood, it will be hard upon en.  I wish Troy was in--Well, God
forgive me for such a wish!  A scoundrel to play a poor wife such
tricks.  Nothing has prospered in Weatherbury since he came here.
And now I've no heart to go in.  Let's look into Warren's for a few
minutes first, shall us, neighbours?"

Samway, Tall, and Smallbury agreed to go to Warren's, and went out at
the gate, the remaining ones entering the house.  The three soon drew
near the malt-house, approaching it from the adjoining orchard, and
not by way of the street.  The pane of glass was illuminated as
usual.  Smallbury was a little in advance of the rest when, pausing,
he turned suddenly to his companions and said, "Hist!  See there."

The light from the pane was now perceived to be shining not upon the
ivied wall as usual, but upon some object close to the glass.  It was
a human face.

"Let's come closer," whispered Samway; and they approached on tiptoe.
There was no disbelieving the report any longer.  Troy's face was
almost close to the pane, and he was looking in.  Not only was he
looking in, but he appeared to have been arrested by a conversation
which was in progress in the malt-house, the voices of the
interlocutors being those of Oak and the maltster.

"The spree is all in her honour, isn't it--hey?" said the old man.
"Although he made believe 'tis only keeping up o' Christmas?"

"I cannot say," replied Oak.

"Oh 'tis true enough, faith.  I cannot understand Farmer Boldwood
being such a fool at his time of life as to ho and hanker after this
woman in the way 'a do, and she not care a bit about en."

The men, after recognizing Troy's features, withdrew across
the orchard as quietly as they had come.  The air was big with
Bathsheba's fortunes to-night: every word everywhere concerned her.
When they were quite out of earshot all by one instinct paused.

"It gave me quite a turn--his face," said Tall, breathing.

"And so it did me," said Samway.  "What's to be done?"

"I don't see that 'tis any business of ours," Smallbury murmured
dubiously.

"But it is!  'Tis a thing which is everybody's business," said
Samway.  "We know very well that master's on a wrong tack, and that
she's quite in the dark, and we should let 'em know at once.  Laban,
you know her best--you'd better go and ask to speak to her."

"I bain't fit for any such thing," said Laban, nervously.  "I should
think William ought to do it if anybody.  He's oldest."

"I shall have nothing to do with it," said Smallbury.  "'Tis a
ticklish business altogether.  Why, he'll go on to her himself in a
few minutes, ye'll see."

"We don't know that he will.  Come, Laban."

"Very well, if I must I must, I suppose," Tall reluctantly answered.
"What must I say?"

"Just ask to see master."

"Oh no; I shan't speak to Mr. Boldwood.  If I tell anybody, 'twill be
mistress."

"Very well," said Samway.

Laban then went to the door.  When he opened it the hum of bustle
rolled out as a wave upon a still strand--the assemblage being
immediately inside the hall--and was deadened to a murmur as he
closed it again.  Each man waited intently, and looked around at
the dark tree tops gently rocking against the sky and occasionally
shivering in a slight wind, as if he took interest in the scene,
which neither did.  One of them began walking up and down, and then
came to where he started from and stopped again, with a sense that
walking was a thing not worth doing now.

"I should think Laban must have seen mistress by this time," said
Smallbury, breaking the silence.  "Perhaps she won't come and speak
to him."

The door opened.  Tall appeared, and joined them.

"Well?" said both.

"I didn't like to ask for her after all," Laban faltered out.  "They
were all in such a stir, trying to put a little spirit into the
party.  Somehow the fun seems to hang fire, though everything's there
that a heart can desire, and I couldn't for my soul interfere and
throw damp upon it--if 'twas to save my life, I couldn't!"

"I suppose we had better all go in together," said Samway, gloomily.
"Perhaps I may have a chance of saying a word to master."

So the men entered the hall, which was the room selected and arranged
for the gathering because of its size.  The younger men and maids
were at last just beginning to dance.  Bathsheba had been perplexed
how to act, for she was not much more than a slim young maid herself,
and the weight of stateliness sat heavy upon her.  Sometimes she
thought she ought not to have come under any circumstances; then she
considered what cold unkindness that would have been, and finally
resolved upon the middle course of staying for about an hour only,
and gliding off unobserved, having from the first made up her mind
that she could on no account dance, sing, or take any active part in
the proceedings.

Her allotted hour having been passed in chatting and looking on,
Bathsheba told Liddy not to hurry herself, and went to the small
parlour to prepare for departure, which, like the hall, was decorated
with holly and ivy, and well lighted up.

Nobody was in the room, but she had hardly been there a moment when
the master of the house entered.

"Mrs. Troy--you are not going?" he said.  "We've hardly begun!"

"If you'll excuse me, I should like to go now."  Her manner was
restive, for she remembered her promise, and imagined what he was
about to say.  "But as it is not late," she added, "I can walk home,
and leave my man and Liddy to come when they choose."

"I've been trying to get an opportunity of speaking to you," said
Boldwood.  "You know perhaps what I long to say?"

Bathsheba silently looked on the floor.

"You do give it?" he said, eagerly.

"What?" she whispered.

"Now, that's evasion!  Why, the promise.  I don't want to intrude
upon you at all, or to let it become known to anybody.  But do give
your word!  A mere business compact, you know, between two people who
are beyond the influence of passion."  Boldwood knew how false this
picture was as regarded himself; but he had proved that it was the
only tone in which she would allow him to approach her.  "A promise
to marry me at the end of five years and three-quarters.  You owe it
to me!"

"I feel that I do," said Bathsheba; "that is, if you demand it.  But
I am a changed woman--an unhappy woman--and not--not--"

"You are still a very beautiful woman," said Boldwood.  Honesty and
pure conviction suggested the remark, unaccompanied by any perception
that it might have been adopted by blunt flattery to soothe and win
her.

However, it had not much effect now, for she said, in a passionless
murmur which was in itself a proof of her words: "I have no feeling
in the matter at all.  And I don't at all know what is right to do
in my difficult position, and I have nobody to advise me.  But I
give my promise, if I must.  I give it as the rendering of a debt,
conditionally, of course, on my being a widow."

"You'll marry me between five and six years hence?"

"Don't press me too hard.  I'll marry nobody else."

"But surely you will name the time, or there's nothing in the promise
at all?"

"Oh, I don't know, pray let me go!" she said, her bosom beginning to
rise.  "I am afraid what to do! I want to be just to you, and to be
that seems to be wronging myself, and perhaps it is breaking the
commandments.  There is considerable doubt of his death, and then it
is dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!"

"Say the words, dear one, and the subject shall be dismissed;
a blissful loving intimacy of six years, and then marriage--O
Bathsheba, say them!" he begged in a husky voice, unable to sustain
the forms of mere friendship any longer.  "Promise yourself to me; I
deserve it, indeed I do, for I have loved you more than anybody in
the world!  And if I said hasty words and showed uncalled-for heat
of manner towards you, believe me, dear, I did not mean to distress
you; I was in agony, Bathsheba, and I did not know what I said.  You
wouldn't let a dog suffer what I have suffered, could you but know
it!  Sometimes I shrink from your knowing what I have felt for you,
and sometimes I am distressed that all of it you never will know.  Be
gracious, and give up a little to me, when I would give up my life
for you!"

The trimmings of her dress, as they quivered against the light,
showed how agitated she was, and at last she burst out crying.  "And
you'll not--press me--about anything more--if I say in five or six
years?" she sobbed, when she had power to frame the words.

"Yes, then I'll leave it to time."

She waited a moment.  "Very well.  I'll marry you in six years from
this day, if we both live," she said solemnly.

"And you'll take this as a token from me."

Boldwood had come close to her side, and now he clasped one of her
hands in both his own, and lifted it to his breast.

"What is it?  Oh I cannot wear a ring!" she exclaimed, on seeing
what he held; "besides, I wouldn't have a soul know that it's an
engagement!  Perhaps it is improper?  Besides, we are not engaged in
the usual sense, are we?  Don't insist, Mr. Boldwood--don't!"  In her
trouble at not being able to get her hand away from him at once, she
stamped passionately on the floor with one foot, and tears crowded to
her eyes again.

"It means simply a pledge--no sentiment--the seal of a practical
compact," he said more quietly, but still retaining her hand in
his firm grasp.  "Come, now!" And Boldwood slipped the ring on her
finger.

"I cannot wear it," she said, weeping as if her heart would break.
"You frighten me, almost.  So wild a scheme!  Please let me go home!"

"Only to-night: wear it just to-night, to please me!"

Bathsheba sat down in a chair, and buried her face in her
handkerchief, though Boldwood kept her hand yet.  At length she
said, in a sort of hopeless whisper--

"Very well, then, I will to-night, if you wish it so earnestly.  Now
loosen my hand; I will, indeed I will wear it to-night."

"And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret courtship of six
years, with a wedding at the end?"

"It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!" she said, fairly
beaten into non-resistance.

Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop in her lap.  "I am
happy now," he said.  "God bless you!"

He left the room, and when he thought she might be sufficiently
composed sent one of the maids to her.  Bathsheba cloaked the effects
of the late scene as she best could, followed the girl, and in a few
moments came downstairs with her hat and cloak on, ready to go.  To
get to the door it was necessary to pass through the hall, and before
doing so she paused on the bottom of the staircase which descended
into one corner, to take a last look at the gathering.

There was no music or dancing in progress just now.  At the lower
end, which had been arranged for the work-folk specially, a group
conversed in whispers, and with clouded looks.  Boldwood was standing
by the fireplace, and he, too, though so absorbed in visions arising
from her promise that he scarcely saw anything, seemed at that moment
to have observed their peculiar manner, and their looks askance.

"What is it you are in doubt about, men?" he said.

One of them turned and replied uneasily: "It was something Laban
heard of, that's all, sir."

"News?  Anybody married or engaged, born or dead?" inquired the
farmer, gaily.  "Tell it to us, Tall.  One would think from your
looks and mysterious ways that it was something very dreadful
indeed."

"Oh no, sir, nobody is dead," said Tall.

"I wish somebody was," said Samway, in a whisper.

"What do you say, Samway?" asked Boldwood, somewhat sharply.  "If you
have anything to say, speak out; if not, get up another dance."

"Mrs. Troy has come downstairs," said Samway to Tall.  "If you want
to tell her, you had better do it now."

"Do you know what they mean?" the farmer asked Bathsheba, across the
room.

"I don't in the least," said Bathsheba.

There was a smart rapping at the door.  One of the men opened it
instantly, and went outside.

"Mrs. Troy is wanted," he said, on returning.

"Quite ready," said Bathsheba.  "Though I didn't tell them to send."

"It is a stranger, ma'am," said the man by the door.

"A stranger?" she said.

"Ask him to come in," said Boldwood.

The message was given, and Troy, wrapped up to his eyes as we have
seen him, stood in the doorway.

There was an unearthly silence, all looking towards the newcomer.
Those who had just learnt that he was in the neighbourhood recognized
him instantly; those who did not were perplexed.  Nobody noted
Bathsheba.  She was leaning on the stairs.  Her brow had heavily
contracted; her whole face was pallid, her lips apart, her eyes
rigidly staring at their visitor.

Boldwood was among those who did not notice that he was Troy.  "Come
in, come in!" he repeated, cheerfully, "and drain a Christmas beaker
with us, stranger!"

Troy next advanced into the middle of the room, took off his cap,
turned down his coat-collar, and looked Boldwood in the face.  Even
then Boldwood did not recognize that the impersonator of Heaven's
persistent irony towards him, who had once before broken in upon his
bliss, scourged him, and snatched his delight away, had come to do
these things a second time.  Troy began to laugh a mechanical laugh:
Boldwood recognized him now.

Troy turned to Bathsheba.  The poor girl's wretchedness at this time
was beyond all fancy or narration.  She had sunk down on the lowest
stair; and there she sat, her mouth blue and dry, and her dark eyes
fixed vacantly upon him, as if she wondered whether it were not all
a terrible illusion.

Then Troy spoke.  "Bathsheba, I come here for you!"

She made no reply.

"Come home with me: come!"

Bathsheba moved her feet a little, but did not rise.  Troy went
across to her.

"Come, madam, do you hear what I say?" he said, peremptorily.

A strange voice came from the fireplace--a voice sounding far off
and confined, as if from a dungeon.  Hardly a soul in the assembly
recognized the thin tones to be those of Boldwood.  Sudden despair
had transformed him.

"Bathsheba, go with your husband!"

Nevertheless, she did not move.  The truth was that Bathsheba was
beyond the pale of activity--and yet not in a swoon.  She was in a
state of mental _gutta serena_; her mind was for the minute totally
deprived of light at the same time no obscuration was apparent from
without.

Troy stretched out his hand to pull her her towards him, when she
quickly shrank back.  This visible dread of him seemed to irritate
Troy, and he seized her arm and pulled it sharply.  Whether his grasp
pinched her, or whether his mere touch was the cause, was never
known, but at the moment of his seizure she writhed, and gave a
quick, low scream.

The scream had been heard but a few seconds when it was followed by
sudden deafening report that echoed through the room and stupefied
them all.  The oak partition shook with the concussion, and the place
was filled with grey smoke.

In bewilderment they turned their eyes to Boldwood.  At his back,
as stood before the fireplace, was a gun-rack, as is usual in
farmhouses, constructed to hold two guns.  When Bathsheba had cried
out in her husband's grasp, Boldwood's face of gnashing despair had
changed.  The veins had swollen, and a frenzied look had gleamed in
his eye.  He had turned quickly, taken one of the guns, cocked it,
and at once discharged it at Troy.

Troy fell.  The distance apart of the two men was so small that
the charge of shot did not spread in the least, but passed like a
bullet into his body.  He uttered a long guttural sigh--there was
a contraction--an extension--then his muscles relaxed, and he lay
still.

Boldwood was seen through the smoke to be now again engaged with the
gun.  It was double-barrelled, and he had, meanwhile, in some way
fastened his hand-kerchief to the trigger, and with his foot on the
other end was in the act of turning the second barrel upon himself.
Samway his man was the first to see this, and in the midst of the
general horror darted up to him.  Boldwood had already twitched
the handkerchief, and the gun exploded a second time, sending its
contents, by a timely blow from Samway, into the beam which crossed
the ceiling.

"Well, it makes no difference!" Boldwood gasped.  "There is another
way for me to die."

Then he broke from Samway, crossed the room to Bathsheba, and kissed
her hand.  He put on his hat, opened the door, and went into the
darkness, nobody thinking of preventing him.

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!"

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!"

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.

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."

The novel builds toward its climax in Chapter 52, appropriately named "Converging Courses." Hardy divides the chapter into seven sections, charting the activities of Boldwood, Bathsheba, Gabriel, and Troy as they prepare for and attend Boldwood's Christmas Eve party. The party is talked about all over Weatherbury, largely because it is so unusual for Boldwood to give a party. He has decorated his long hall meticulously, but, we are told, "In spite of all this, the spirit of revelry was wanting in the atmosphere of the house"; Boldwood is not a natural host. Bathsheba is dressing for the party. She tells Liddy, "I am foolishly agitated: I am the cause of the party, and that upsets me!" She decides to continue to wear her mourning and dress in black for the festivities. Boldwood, too, is dressing and has given an inordinate amount of attention to his clothes, hiring a tailor to alter everything. Gabriel visits him and Boldwood asks for his assistance in tying his tie. He asks, "'Does a woman keep her promise, Gabriel?'" and Gabriel answers, "If it is not inconvenient to her she may.'" Gabriel warns him not to build too much on promises, and it is clear that Boldwood harbors fear of Bathsheba's refusal; he is highly agitated. We also see Troy and Pennyways as they prepare to go to Boldwood's party. Troy asks Pennyways about Bathsheba's relationships with Boldwood and Gabriel. Troy finally sets off for the party in disguise, thinking that Bathsheba is on the verge of marrying Boldwood. He plans to arrive at nine. Now we are shown Boldwood at his farm again, as he offers Gabriel a larger part of the farm's profits, saying that he hopes to retire from the management altogether. Boldwood says he knows Gabriel loves Bathsheba and says he believes he has won the competition for Bathsheba, in part, because of Gabriel's "goodness of heart." As the guests arrive, Boldwood shows "feverish anxiety." The climax of the novel comes in Chapter 53. The villagers gather outside Boldwood's house, whispering that Troy has been seen that day in Casterbridge. The night is "dark as a hedge." Boldwood is waiting desperately for Bathsheba, and the workers overhear him say, "Oh my darling, my darling, why do you keep me in suspense like this?" Bathsheba arrives, and the workers try to decide whether to tell Boldwood about Troy. Then, they spot his face at the window. After an hour, Bathsheba prepares for departure, and Boldwood finds her alone in the parlor. He pressures her and she agrees to "give the promise, if I must." Boldwood finally presses her to take a ring, persuading her to wear it for just that night, and she begins to cry. He is almost violent in his firmness, and she is "beaten into non-resistance." Just then, a stranger is announced, and in front of the whole party, Troy announces, "Bathsheba, I am come for you! " She does not move. He reaches out to pull her toward him, but she shrinks back; her dread irritates Troy, who seizes her arm violently; she screams. The sound of the scream is followed by a deafening bang: Boldwood has shot Troy dead. He is about to shoot himself, as well, when a worker stops him. Boldwood leaves the hall. In the next chapter, we learn that Boldwood has turned himself in at the Casterbridge prison, while Bathsheba has tended to Troy and called for a surgeon. Troy, however, is dead. Months later, in March, Boldwood's trial occurs. The onlookers learn that Boldwood had prepared a set of ladies' dresses in expensive fabrics in a closet in his home and several sets of jewelry in packages labeled "Bathsheba Boldwood. " Boldwood is sentenced to death by hanging. However, the residents of Weatherbury are convinced that Boldwood is not "morally responsible" for his actions, and Gabriel sends a petition to the Home Secretary requesting a reconsideration of the sentence. Finally, on the eve of his execution the news comes that he has been pardoned and given "confinement during Her Majesty's pleasure" instead. Troy is buried in the same grave as Fanny Robin. Bathsheba's spirits slowly revive as the spring turns to summer. One day, as she is visiting the grave, she sees Gabriel singing in the church choir. He joins her at the grave and tells her that he intends to leave Weatherbury. Upset, she begs him to stay, but he will not. When she receives his official final notice as bailiff, she cries and decides to visit him at his cottage. He invites her in and explains that one of his motivations for leaving are the rumors going around the village about a romance between the two of them. After some confusion, Bathsheba admits that she has come "courting him" and the two agree to marry. The last chapter portrays the quiet wedding of Gabriel and Bathsheba. After the wedding, the two dine at the farm, and all the men of the village gather to sing and play for them.

Commentary The tension builds through the use of the villagers' comments about Troy, just as in a Greek tragedy in which the conflicts about to be unleashed are commented on by the chorus. They alone know what the reader knows--that Troy is alive and may turn up at the party. Yet also like the reader, they are powerless to intervene. The villagers articulate all the fears the readers have about how Boldwood and Bathsheba will react to Troy's presence. The tension they instill makes the somewhat melodramatic climax--Boldwood's murder of Troy--more plausible. Knowing how deeply Boldwood hopes that Troy's death will allow him to possess Bathsheba, we understand his urge to kill Troy. The scene-by-scene structure of Chapter 52 contributes to this dramatic suspense, as we imagine three separate sets of people each about to come together and each deeply anxious, wondering how it will all be resolved. Notice that Gabriel fulfills his classic role of the intelligent, sensible observer, who does not take part in the action. The final chapters serve to release this tension and to make sense of what has happened. Boldwood's trial looks back upon all the recent events and causes the readers to develop sympathy for his misdeed so that we, like the villagers, may forgive him. Similarly, by burying Troy with Fanny, Bathsheba shows acceptance of their previous bonds to each other. In the wake of these three ruined lives, only Gabriel and Bathsheba remain. Bathsheba's trip to Gabriel's cottage is the final instance of the series of intimate discussions about marriage the two have from the very outset of the novel, beginning with Gabriel's first proposal. In the previous scenes, Bathsheba has been hurt when Gabriel has not confessed his devotion to her. Here, finally, she is driven to admit her own love for him. This time, she is the one who introduces the notion of their marrying. Hardy is careful to show that the love that Gabriel and Bathsheba share is not the passion of a first love but a sadder and wiser connection. In the final scene, Jan Coggan makes a joke, and the narrator tells us, "Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled , and their friends turned to go." While the ending is ostensibly a happy one, that happiness is tempered by all that has happened.