he certainly was. Boldwood always carried with him a
social atmosphere of his own, which everybody felt who
came near him; and the talk, which Bathsheba's
presence had somewhat suppressed, was now totally
suspended.
He crossed over towards Bathsheba, who turned to
greet him with a carriage of perfect ease. He spoke to
her in low tones, and she instinctively modulated her
own to the same pitch, and her voice ultimately even
caught the inflection of his. She was far from having
a wish to appear mysteriously connected with him; but
woman at the impressionable age gravitates to the larger
body not only in her choice of words, which is apparent
every day, but even in her shades of tone and humour,
when the influence is great.
What they conversed about was not audible to
Gabriel, who was too independent to get near, though
too concerned to disregard. The issue of their dialogue
was the taking of her hand by the courteous farmer to
help her over the spreading-board into the bright June
sunlight outside. Standing beside the sheep already
shorn, they went on talking again. Concerning the
flock? Apparently not. Gabriel theorized, not without
truth, that in quiet discussion of any matter within reach
of the speakers' eyes, these are usually fixed upon it.
Bathsheba demurely regarded a contemptible straw lying
upon the ground, in a way which suggested less ovine
criticism than womanly embarrassment. She became
more or less red in the cheek, the blood wavering in
uncertain flux and reflux over the sensitive space between
ebb and flood. Gabriel sheared on, constrained and
sad.
She left Boldwood's side, and he walked up and
down alone for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then she
reappeared in her new riding-habit of myrtle-green, which
fitted her to the waist as a rind fits its fruit; and young
Bob Coggan led -on -her mare, Boldwood fetching his
own horse from the tree under which it had been tied.
Oak's eyes could not forsake them; and in en-
deavouring to continue his shearing at the same time
that he watched Boldwood's manner, he snipped the
sheep in the groin. The animal plunged; Bathsheba
instantly gazed towards it, and saw the blood.
"O, Gabriel!" she exclaimed, with severe remon-
strance you who are so strict with the other men - see
what you are doing yourself!"
To an outsider there was not much to complain of
in this remark; but to Oak, who "knew Bathsheba to be
well aware that she herself was the cause of the poor
ewe's wound, because she had wounded the ewe's shearer
in a - still more vital part, it had a sting which the abiding
sense of his inferiority to both herself and Boldwood was
not calculated to heal. But a manly resolve to recognize
boldly that he had no longer a lover's interest in her,
helped him occasionally to conceal a feeling.
"Bottle!" he shouted, in an unmoved voice of routine.
Cainy Ball ran up, the wound was anointed, and the
shearing continued.
Boldwood gently tossed Bathsheba into the saddle,
and before they turned away she again spoke out to Oak
with the same dominative and tantalizing graciousness.
"I am going now to see Mr. Boldwood's Leicesters.
Take my place in the barn, Gabriel, and keep the men
carefully to their work."
The horses' heads were put about, and they trotted
away.
Boldwood's deep attachment was a matter of great
interest among all around him; but, after having been
pointed out for so many years as the perfect exemplar
of thriving bachelorship, his lapse was an anticlimax
somewhat resembling that of St. John Long's death by
consumption in the midst of his proofs that it was not
a fatal disease.
"That means matrimony." said Temperance Miller,
following them out of sight with her eyes.
"I reckon that's the size o't." said Coggan, working
along without looking up.
"Well, better wed over the mixen than over the moor,"
said Laban Tall, turning his sheep.
Henery Fray spoke, exhibiting miserable eyes at the
same time: "I don't see why a maid should take a
husband when she's bold enough to fight her own
battles, and don't want a home; for 'tis keeping another
woman out. But let it be, for 'tis a pity he and she
should trouble two houses."
As usual with decided characters, Bathsheba invari-
ably provoked the criticism of individuals like Henery
Fray. Her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced
in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her
likings. We learn that it is not the rays which bodies
absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the
colours they are known by; and win the same way people
are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst
their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all.
Henery continued in a more complaisant mood: "I
once hinted my mind to her on a few things, as nearly
as a battered frame dared to do so to such a froward
piece. You all know, neighbours, what a man I be,
and how I come down with my powerful words when
my pride is boiling wi' scarn?"
"We do, we do, Henery."
"So I said, " Mistress Everdene, there's places empty,
and there's gifted men willing; but the spite - no. not
the spite - I didn't say spite - "but the villainy of the
contrarikind." I said (meaning womankind), " keeps 'em
out." That wasn't too strong for her, say?"
"Passably well put."
"Yes; and I would have said it, had death and
salvation overtook me for it. Such is my spirit when I
have a mind."
"A true man, and proud as a lucifer."
"You see the artfulness? Why, 'twas about being
baily really; but I didn't put it so plain that she could
understand my meaning, so I could lay it on all the
stronger. That was my depth! ... However, let her
marry an she will. Perhaps 'tis high time. I believe
Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the
sheep-washing t'other day - that I do."
"What a lie!" said Gabriel.
"Ah, neighbour Oak - how'st know?" said, Henery,
mildly.
"Because she told me all that passed." said Oak, with
a pharisaical sense that he was not as other shearers in
this matter.
"Ye have a right to believe it." said Henery, with
dudgeon; "a very true right. But I mid see a little
distance into things! To be long-headed enough for a
baily's place is a poor mere trifle - yet a trifle more than
nothing. However, I look round upon life quite cool.
Do you heed me, neighbours? My words, though made
as simple as I can, mid be rather deep for some heads."
"O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye."
"A strange old piece, goodmen - whirled about from
here to yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped,
too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my great
depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to
brain. But no - O no!"
"A strange old piece, ye say!" interposed the maltster,
in a querulous voice. "At the same time ye be no old
man worth naming - no old man at all. Yer teeth
bain't half gone yet; and what's a old man's standing
if se be his teeth bain't gone? Weren't I stale in
wedlock afore ye were out of arms? 'Tis a poor thing
to be sixty, when there's people far past four-score - a
boast'weak as water."
It was the unvaying custom in Weatherbury to
sink minor differences when the maltster had to be
pacified.
"Weak as-water! yes." said Jan Coggan.- "Malter,
we feel ye to be a wonderful veteran man, and nobody
can gainsay it."
"Nobody." said Joseph Poorgrass. "Ye be a very
rare old spectacle, malter, and we all admire ye for that
gift. "
"Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in
prosperity, I was likewise liked by a good-few who
knowed me." said the maltster.
"'Ithout doubt you was - 'ithout doubt."
The bent and hoary 'man was satisfied, and so
apparently was Henery Frag. That matters should
continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her
brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty
linsey, had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch
in oils - notably some of Nicholas Poussin's: -
"Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or
any second-hand fellow at all that would do for poor
me?" said Maryann. "A perfect one I don't expect to
at my time of life. If I could hear of such a thing
twould do me more good than toast and ale."
Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on
with his shearing, and said not another word. Pestilent
moods had come, and teased away his quiet. Bathsheba
had shown indications of anointing him above his
fellows by installing him as the bailiff that the farm
imperatively required. He did not covet the post
relatively to the farm: in relation to herself, as beloved
by him and unmarried to another, he had coveted it.
His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and
indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one of
the absurdest mistakes. Far from coquetting with
Boldwood, she had trifled with himself in thus feigning
that she had trifled with another. He was inwardly
convinced that, in accordance with the anticipations of
his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that day
would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss
Everdene. Gabriel at this time of his life had out-
grown the instinctive dislike which every Christian
boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite
frequently, and he inwardly said, "I find more bitter
than death the woman whose heart is snares and
nets!" This was mere exclamation - the froth of the
storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same.
"We workfolk shall have some lordly- junketing
to-night." said Cainy Ball, casting forth his thoughts in
a new direction. "This morning I see'em making the
great puddens in the milking-pails - lumps of fat as big
as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I've never seed such
splendid large knobs of fat before in the days of my
life - they never used to be bigger then a horse-bean.
And there was a great black crock upon the brandish
with his legs a-sticking out, but I don't know what was
in within."
"And there's two bushels of biffins for apple-pies,"
said Maryann.
"Well, I hope to do my duty by it all." said Joseph
Poorgrass, in a pleasant, masticating manner of anticipa-
tion. "Yes; victuals and drink is a cheerful thing,
and gives nerves to the nerveless, if the form of words
may be used. 'Tis the gospel of the body, without
which we perish, so to speak it."
CHAPTER XXIII
EVENTIDE - A SECOND DECLARATION
FOR the shearing-supper a long table was placed on the
grass-plot beside the house, the end of the table being
thrust over the sill of the wide parlour window and a
foot or two into the room. Miss Everdene sat inside
the window, facing down the table. She was thus at
the head without mingling with the men.
This evening Bathsheba was unusually excited, her
red cheeks and lips contrasting lustrously with the mazy
skeins of her shadowy hair. She seemed to expect
assistance, and the seat at the bottom of the table was
at her request left vacant until after they had begun
and the duties appertaining to that end, which he did
with great readiness.
At this moment Mr. Boldwood came in at the gate,
and crossed the green to Bathsheba at the window.
He apologized for his lateness: his arrival was evidently
by arrangement.
"Gabriel." said she, " will you move again, please,
and let Mr. Boldwood come there?"
Oak moved in silence back to his original seat.
The gentleman-farmer was dressed in cheerful style,
in a new coat and white waistcoat, quite contrasting
with his usual sober suits of grey. Inwardy, too, he
was blithe, and consequently chatty to an exceptional
degree. So also was Bathsheba now that he had come,
though the uninvited presence of Pennyways, the bailiff
who had been dismissed for theft, disturbed her equan-
imity for a while.
Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own
private account, without reference to listeners: -
l've lost my love and l care not,
I've lost my love, and l care not;
I shall soon have another
That's better than t'other!
I've lost my love, and I care not.
This lyric, when concluded, was received with a
silently appreciative gaze at the table, implying that the
performance, like a work by those established authors
who are independent of notices in the papers, was a
well-known delight which required no applause.
"Now, Master Poorgrass, your song!" said Coggan.
"I be all but in liquor, and the gift is wanting in
me." said Joseph, diminishing himself.
"Nonsense; wou'st never be so ungrateful, Joseph -
never!" said Coggan, expressing hurt feelings by an
inflection of voice. "And mistress is looking hard at
ye, as much as to say, "Sing at once, Joseph Poor-
grass."
"Faith, so she is; well, I must suffer it! ... Just
eye my features, and see if the tell-tale blood overheats
me much, neighbours?"
"No, yer blushes be quite reasonable." said Coggan.
"I always tries to keep my colours from rising when
a beauty's eyes get fixed on me." said Joseph, differently;
"but if so be 'tis willed they do, they must."
"Now, Joseph, your song, please." said Bathsheba,
from the window.
"Well, really, ma'am." he replied, in a yielding tone,
"I don't know what to say. It would be a poor plain
ballet of my own composure."
Hear, hear!" said the supper-party.
Poorgrass, thus assured, trilled forth a flickering yet
commendable piece of sentiment, the tune of which
consisted of the key-note and another, the latter being
the sound chiefly dwelt upon. This was so successful
that he rashly plunged into a second in the same
breath, after a few false starts: -
I sow'-ed th'-e
I sow'-ed
I sow'-ed the'-e seeds' of love',
I-it was' all' i'-in the'-e spring',
I-in A'-pril', Ma'-ay, a'-nd sun'-ny' June',
When sma'-all bi'-irds they' do' sing.
"Well put out of hand." said Coggan, at the end of the
verse. `They do sing' was a very taking paragraph."
"Ay; and there was a pretty place at "seeds of
love." and 'twas well heaved out. Though "love " is
a nasty high corner when a man's voice is getting
crazed. Next verse, Master Poorgrass."
But during this rendering young Bob Coggan ex-
hibited one of those anomalies which will afflict little
people when other persons are particularly serious: in
trying to check his laughter, he pushed down his throat
as much of the tablecloth as he could get hold of, when,
after continuing hermetically sealed for a short time, his
mirth burst out through his nose. Joseph perceived it,
and with hectic cheeks of indignation instantly ceased
singing. Coggan boxed Bob's ears immediately.
"Go on, Joseph - go on, and never mind the young
scamp." said Coggan. "'Tis a very catching ballet.
Now then again - the next bar; I'll help ye to flourish
up the shrill notes where yer wind is rather wheezy: -
O the wi'-il-lo'-ow tree' will' twist',
And the wil'-low' tre'-ee wi'ill twine'.
But the singer could not be set going again. Bob
Coggan was sent home for his ill manners, and tran-
quility was restored by Jacob Smallbury, who volunteered
a ballad as inclusive and interminable as that with which
the worthy toper old Silenus amused on a similar occasion
the swains Chromis and Mnasylus, and other jolly dogs
of his day.
It was still the beaming time of evening, though
night was stealthily making itself visible low down upon
the ground, the western lines of light taking the earth
without alighting upon it to any extent, or illuminating
the dead levels at all. The sun had crept round the
tree as a last effort before death, and then began to
sink, the shearers' lower parts becoming steeped in
embrowning twilight, whilst their heads and shoulders
were still enjoying day, touched with a yellow of self-
sustained brilliancy that seemed inherent rather than
acquired.
The sun went down in an ochreous mist; but they
sat, and talked on, and grew as merry as the gods in
Homer's heaven. Bathsheba still remained enthroned
inside the window, and occupied herself in knitting,
from which she sometimes looked up to view the fading
scene outside. The slow twilight expanded and enveloped
them completely before the signs of moving were shown.
Gabriel suddenly missed Farmer Boldwood from his
place at the bottom of the table. How long he had
been gone Oak did not know; but he had apparently
withdrawn into the encircling dusk. Whilst he was
thinking of this, Liddy brought candles into the back
part of the room overlooking the shearers, and their
lively new flames shone down the table and over the
men, and dispersed among the green shadows behind.
Bathsheba's form, still in its original position, was now
again distinct between their eyes and the light, which
revealed that Boldwood had gone inside the room, and
was sitting near her.
Next came the question of the evening. Would Miss
Everdene sing to them the song she always sang so
charmingly - " The Banks of Allan Water" - before they
went home?
After a moment's consideration Bathsheba assented,
beckoning to Gabriel, who hastened up into the coveted
atmosphere.
"Have you brought your flute? " she whispered.
"Yes, miss."
"Play to my singing, then."
She stood up in the window-opening, facing the
men, the candles behind her, Gabriel on her right hand,
immediately outside the sash-frame. Boldwood had
drawn up on her left, within the room. Her singing
was soft and rather tremulous at first, but it soon swelled
to a steady clearness. Subsequent events caused one
of the verses to be remembered for many months, and
even years, by more than one of those who were gathered
there: -
For his bride a soldier sought her,
And a winning tongue had he:
On the banks of Allan Water
None was gay as she!
In addition to the dulcet piping of Gabriel's flute,
Boldwood supplied a bass in his customary profound
voice, uttering his notes so softly, however, as to abstain
entirely from making anything like an ordinary duet of
the song; they rather formed a rich unexplored shadow,
which threw her tones into relief. The shearers reclined
against each other as at suppers in the early ages of the
world, and so silent and absorbed were they that her
breathing could almost be heard between the bars; and
at the end of the ballad, when the last tone loitered on
to an inexpressible close, there arose that buzz of
pleasure which is the attar of applause.
It is scarcely necessary to state that Gabriel could
not avoid noting the farmer's bearing to-night towards
their entertainer. Yet there was nothing exceptional in
his actions beyond what appertained to his time of
performing them. It was when the rest were all looking
away that Boldwood observed her; when they regarded
her he turned aside; when they thanked or praised he
was silent; when they were inattentive he murmured
his thanks. The meaning lay in the difference between
actions, none of which had any meaning of itself;
and the necessity of being jealous, which lovers are
troubled with, did not lead Oak to underestimate these
signs.
Bathsheba then wished them good-night, withdrew
from the window, and retired to the back part of the
room, Boldwood thereupon closing the sash and the
shutters, and remaining inside with her. Oak wandered
away under the quiet and scented trees. Recovering
from the softer impressions produced by Bathsheba's
voice, the shearers rose to leave, Coggan turning to
Pennyways as he pushed back the bench to pass out: -
"I like to give praise where praise is due, and the
man deserves it - that 'a do so." he remarked, looking at
the worthy thief, as if he were the masterpiece of some
world-renowned artist.
"I'm sure I should never have believed it if we hadn't
proved it, so to allude," hiccupped Joseph Poorgrass, "that
every cup, every one of the best knives and forks, and
every empty bottle be in their place as perfect now as
at the beginning, and not one stole at all.
"I'm sure I don't deserve half the praise you give
me." said the virtuous thief, grimly.
"Well, I'll say this for Pennyways." added Coggan,
"that whenever he do really make up his mind to do a
noble thing in the shape of a good action, as I could
see by his face he. did to-night afore sitting down, he's
generally able to carry it out. Yes, I'm proud to say.
neighbours, that he's stole nothing at all.
"Well." - 'tis an honest deed, and we thank ye for it,
Pennyways." said Joseph; to which opinion the remainder
of the company subscribed unanimously.
At this time of departure, when nothing more was
visible of the inside of the parlour than a thin and still
chink of light between the shutters, a passionate scene
was in course of enactment there."
Miss Everdene and Boldwood were alone. Her
cheeks had lost a great deal of their healthful fire from
the very seriousness of her position; but her eye was
bright with the excitement of a triumph - though it was
a triumph which had rather been contemplated than
desired.
She was standing behind a low arm-chair, from which
she had just risen, and he was kneeling in it - inclining
himself over its back towards her, and holding her hand
in both his own. His body moved restlessly, and it was
with what Keats daintily calls a too happy happiness.
This unwonted abstraction by love of all dignity from
a man of whom it had ever seemed the chief component,
was, in its distressing incongruity, a pain to her which
quenched much of the pleasure she derived from the
proof that she was idolized.
"I will try to love you." she was saying, in a trembling
voice quite unlike her usual self-confidence. "And if I
can believe in any way that I shall make you a good
wife I shall indeed be willing to marry you. But, Mr.
Boldwood, hesitation on so high a matter is honourable
in any woman, and I don't want to give a solemn
promise to-night. I would rather ask you to wait a few
weeks till I can see my situation better."But you have every reason to
believe that then - - "
"I have every reason to hope that at the end of the five or
six weeks, between this time and harvest, that
you say you are going to be away from home, I shall be
able to promise to be your wife." she said, firmly. "But
remember this distinctly, I don't promise yet."
"It is enough I don't ask more. I can wait on
those dear words. And now, Miss Everdene, good-
night!"
"Good-night." she said, graciously - almost tenderly;
and Boldwood withdrew with a serene smile.
Bathsheba knew more of him now; he had entirely
bared his heart before her, even until he had almost
worn in her eyes the sorry look of a grand bird without
the feathers that make it grand. She had been awe-
struck at her past temerity, and was struggling to make
amends without thinking whether the sin quite deserved
the penalty she was schooling herself to pay. To have
brought all this about her ears was terrible; but after a
while the situation was not without a fearful joy. The
facility with which even the most timid woman some-
times acquire a relish for the dreadful when that is
amalgamated with a little triumph, is marvellous.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SAME NIGHT - THE FIR PLANTATION
AMONG the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had
voluntarily imposed upon herself by dispensing with the
services of a bailiff, was the particular one of looking
round the homestead before going to bed, to see that
all was right and safe for the night. Gabriel had almost
constantly preceded her in this tour every evening,
watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed
officer of surveillance could have done; but this tender
devotion was to a great extent unknown to his mistress,
and as much as was known was somewhat thanklessly
received. Women are never tired of bewailing man's
fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his con-
stancy.
As watching is best done invisibly, she usually carried
a dark lantern in her hand, and every now and then
turned on the light to examine nooks and corners with
the coolness of a metropolitan policeman. This cool-
ness may have owed its existence not so much to her
fearlessness of expected danger as to her freedom from
the suspicion of any; her worst anticipated discovery
being that a horse might not be well bedded, the fowls
not all in, or a door not closed.
This night the buildings were inspected as usual,
and she went round to the farm paddock. Here the
only sounds disturbing the stillness were steady munch-
ings of many mouths, and stentorian breathings from all
but invisible noses, ending in snores and puffs like the
blowing of bellows slowly. Then the munching would
recommence, when the lively imagination might assist
the eye to discern a group of pink-white nostrils, shaped
as caverns, and very clammy and humid on their sur-
faces, not exactly pleasant to the touch until one got
used to them; the mouths beneath having a great
partiality for closing upon any loose end of Bathsheba's
apparel which came within reach of their tongues.
Above each of these a still keener vision suggested a
brown forehead and two staring though not unfriendly
eyes, and above all a pair of whitish crescent-shaped
horns like two particularly new moons, an occasional
stolid " moo!" proclaiming beyond the shade of a doubt
that these phenomena were the features and persons of
Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonny-lass, Jolly-O, Spot, Twinkle-eye,
etc., etc. - the respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging
to Bathsheba aforesaid.
Her way back to the house was by a path through a
young plantation of tapering firs, which had been planted
some years earlier to shelter the premises from the north
wind. By reason of the density of the interwoven foliage
overhead, it was gloomy there at cloudless noontide,
twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and
black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight. To
describe the spot is to call it a vast, low, naturally formed
hall, the plumy ceiling of which was supported by slender
pillars of living wood, the floor being covered with a soft
dun carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed cones, with
a tuft of grass-blades here and there.
This bit of the path was always the crux of the
night's ramble, though, before starting, her apprehen-
sions of danger were not vivid enough to lead her to
take a companion. Slipping along here covertly as
Time, Bathsheba fancied she could hear footsteps enter-
ing the track at the opposite end. It was certainly a
rustle of footsteps. Her own instantly fell as gently as
snowflakes. She reassured herself by a remembrance
that the path was public, and that the traveller was
probably some villager returning home; regetting, at
the same time, that the meeting should be about to
occur in the darkest point of her route, even though
only just outside her own door.
The noise approached, came close, and a figure was
apparently on the point of gliding past her when some-
thing tugged at her skirt and pinned it forcibly to the
ground. The instantaneous check nearly threw Bath-
sheba off her balance. In recovering she struck against
warm clothes and buttons.
"A rum start, upon my soul!" said a masculine voice,
a foot or so above her head. "Have I hurt you, mate?"
"No." said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink a way.
"We have got hitched together somehow, I think."
"Yes."
"Are you a woman?"
"Yes."
"A lady, I should have said."
"It doesn't matter."
"I am a man."
"Oh!"
Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose.
"Is that a dark lantern you have? I fancy so." said
the man.
"Yes."
"If you'll allow me I'll open it, and set you free."
A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the
rays burst out from their prison, and Bathsheba beheld
her position with astonishment.
The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in
brass and scarlet. He was a soldier. His sudden
appearance was to darkness what the sound of a trumpet
is to silense. Gloom, the genius loci at all times hitherto,
was now totally overthrown, less by the lantern-light
than by what the lantern lighted. The contrast of this
revelation with her anticipations of some sinister figure
in sombre garb was so great that it had upon her the
effect of a fairy transformation.
It was immediately apparent that the military man's
spur had become entangled in the gimp which decorated
the skirt of her dress. He caught a view of her face.
"I'll unfasten you in one moment, miss." he said,
with new-born gallantry.
"O no - I can do it, thank you." she hastily replied,
and stooped for the performance.
The unfastening was not such a trifling affair. The
rowel of the spur had so wound itself among the gimp
cords in those few moments, that separation was likely
to be a matter of time.
He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the
ground betwixt them threw the gleam from its open side
among the fir-tree needles and the blades of long damp
grass with the effect of a large glowworm. It radiated
upwards into their faces, and sent over half the planta-
tion gigantic shadows of both man and woman, each
dusky shape becoming distorted and mangled upon the
tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing.
He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them
for a moment; Bathsheba looked down again, for his
gaze was too strong to be received point-blank with her
own. But she had obliquely noticed that he was young
and slim, and that he wore three chevrons upon his
sleeve.
Bathsheba pulled again.
"You are a prisoner, miss; it is no use blinking the
matter." said the soldier, drily. "I must cut your dress
if you are in such a hurry."
"Yes - please do!" she exclaimed, helplessly. "
"It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a
moment," and he unwound a cord from the little
wheel. She withdrew her own hand, but, whether by
accident or design, he touched it. Bathsheba was
vexed; she hardly knew why.
His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed
coming to no end. She looked at him again.
"Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face!"
said the young sergeant, without ceremony.
She coloured with embarrassment. "'Twas un-
willingly shown." she replied, stiffly, and with as much
dignity - which was very little - as she could infuse into
a position of captivity
"I like you the better for that incivility, miss." he
said.
"I should have liked - I wish - you had never shown
yourself to me by intruding here!" She pulled again,
and the gathers of her dress began to give way like
liliputian musketry.
"I deserve the chastisement your words give me.
But why should such a fair and dutiful girl have such
an aversion to her father's sex?"
"Go on your way, please."
"What, Beauty, and drag you after me? Do but
look; I never saw such a tangle!"
"O, 'tis shameful of you; you have been making
it worse on purpose to keep me here - you have!"
"Indeed, I don't think so." said the sergeant, with a
merry twinkle.
"I tell you you have!" she exclaimed, in high
temper. I insist upon undoing it. Now, allow me!"
"Certainly, miss; I am not of steel." He added a
sigh which had as much archness in it as a sigh could
possess without losing its nature altogether. "I am
thankful for beauty, even when 'tis thrown to me like
a bone to a dog. These moments will be over too
soon!"
She closed her lips in a determined silence.
Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether by a
bold and desperate rush she could free herself at the
risk of leaving her skirt bodily behind her. The
thought was too dreadful. The dress - which she had
put on to appear stately at the supper - was the head
and front of her wardrobe; not another in her stock
became her so well. What woman in Bathsheba's
position, not naturally timid, and within call of her
retainers, would have bought escape from a dashing
soldier at so dear a price?
"All in good time; it will soon be done, I perceive,"
said her cool friend.
"This trifling provokes, and - and - - "
"Not too cruel!"
" - Insults me!"
"It is done in order that I may have the pleasure
of apologizing to so charming a woman, which I
straightway do most humbly, madam." he said, bowing
low.
Bathsheba really knew not what to say.
"I've seen a good many women in my time,
continued the young man in a murmur, and more
thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding her bent
head at the same time; "but I've never seen a woman
so beautiful as you. Take it or leave it - be offended
or like it - I don't care."
"Who are you, then, who can so well afford to
despise opinion?"
"No stranger. Sergeant Troy. I am staying in
this place. - There! it is undone at last, you see.
Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I wish it
had been the knot of knots, which there's no untying!"
This was worse and worse. She started up, and so
did he. How to decently get away from him - that
was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch by inch,
the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness
of his coat no longer.
"Ah, Beauty; good-bye!" he said.
She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of
twenty or thirty yards, turned about, and ran indoors.
Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her
own chamber, Bathsheba opened the girl's door an
inch or two, and, panting, said -
"Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village -
sergeant somebody - rather gentlemanly for a sergeant,
and good looking - a red coat with blue facings?"
"No, miss ... No, I say; but really it might be
Sergeant Troy home on furlough, though I have not
seen him. He was here once in that way when the
regiment was at Casterbridge."
"Yes; that's the name. Had he a moustache - no
whiskers or beard?"
"He had."
"What kind of a person is he?"
"O! miss - I blush to name it - a gay man! But
I know him to be very quick and trim, who might have
made his thousands, like a squire. Such a clever
young dandy as he is! He's a doctor's son by name,
which is a great deal; and he's an earl's son by
nature!"
"Which is a great deal more. Fancy! Is it true?"
"Yes. And, he was brought up so well, and sent to
Casterbridge Grammar School for years and years.
Learnt all languages while he was there; and it was
said he got on so far that he could take down Chinese
in shorthand; but that I don't answer for, as it was
only reported. However, he wasted his gifted lot,
and listed a soldier; but even then he rose to be a
sergeant without trying at all. Ah! such a blessing it
is to be high-born; nobility of blood will shine out even
in the ranks and files. And is he really come home,
miss?"
"I believe so. Good-night, Liddy."
After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts
be permanently offended with the man? There are
occasions when girls like Bathsheba will put up with
a great deal of unconventional behaviour. When they
want to be praised, which is often, when they want to
be mastered, which is sometimes; and when they want
no nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first
feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba, with a dash
of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the
ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being
a handsome stranger who had evidently seen better
days.
So she could not clearly decide whether it was her
opinion that he had insulted her or not. "
"Was ever anything so odd!" she at last exclaimed
to herself, in her own room. "And was ever anything
so meanly done as what I did do to sulk away like that
from a man who was only civil and kind!" Clearly she
did not think his barefaced praise of her person an
insult now.
It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had
never once told her she was beautiful.
CHAPTER XXV
THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED
IDIOSYNCRASY and vicissitude had combined to
stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being.
He was a man to whom memories were an in-
cumbrance, and anticipations a superfluity. Simply
feeling, considering, and caring for what was before his
eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His out-
look upon time was as a transient flash of the eye now
and then: that projection of consciousness into days
gone by and to come, which makes the past a synonym
for the pathetic and the future a word for circum-
spection, was foreign to Troy. With him the past
was yesterday; the future, to-morrow; never, the day
after.
On this account he might, in certain lights, have
been regarded as one of the most fortunate of his
order. For it may be argued with great plausibility
that reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease,
and that expectation in its only comfortable form - that
of absolute faith - is practically an impossibility; whilst
in the form of hope and the secondary compounds,
patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity, it is a constant
fluctuation between pleasure and pain.
Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent of the
practice of expectation, was never disappointed. To
set against this negative gain there may have been
some positive losses from a certain narrowing of the
higher tastes and sensations which it entailed. But
limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss
by the loser therefrom: in this attribute moral or
aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since
those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind
it soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anything
to have been always without it, and what Troy had
never enjoyed he did not miss; but, being fully
conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed,
his capacity, though really less, seemed greater than
theirs.
He was moderately truthful towards men, but to
women lied like a Cretan - a system of ethics above all
others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of
admission into lively society; and the possibility of the
favour gained being transitory had reference only to
the future.
He never passed the line which divides the spruce
vices from the ugly; and hence, though his morals had
hardly been applauded, disapproval of them" had fre-
quently been tempered with a smile. This treatment
had led to his becoming a sort of regrater of other
men's gallantries, to his own aggrandizement as a
Corinthian, rather than to the moral profit of his
hearers.
His reason and his propensities had seldom any
reciprocating influence, having separated by mutual
consent long ago: thence it sometimes happened that,
while his intentions were as honourable as could be
wished, any particular deed formed a dark background
which threw them into fine relief. The sergeant's
vicious phases being the offspring of impulse, and
his virtuous phases of cool meditation, the latter
had a modest tendency to be oftener heard of than
seen.
Troy was full of activity, but his activities were less of
a locomotive than a vegetative nature; and, never being
based upon any original choice of foundation or direc-
tion, they were exercised on whatever object chance
might place in their way. Hence, whilst he sometimes
reached the brilliant in speech because that -was
spontaneous, he fell below the commonplace in action,
from inability to guide incipient effort. He had a
quick comprehension and considerable force of char-
acter; but, being without the power to combine them,
the comprehension became engaged with trivialities
whilst waiting for the will to direct it, and the force
wasted itself in useless grooves through unheeding the
comprehension.
He was a fairly well-educated man for one of middle
class - exceptionally well educated for a common soldier.
He spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could in this
way be one thing and seem another: for instance, he
could speak of love and think of dinner; call on the
intend to owe.
The wondrous power of flattery in passados at woman
is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by
many people almost as automatically as they repeat a