proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like,
without thinking much of the enormous corollaries
which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted
upon for the good of the complemental being alluded
to. With the majority such an opinion is shelved with
all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe
to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home.
When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness it
seems co-ordinate with a belief that this flattery must
be reasonable to be effective. It is to the credit of
men that few attempt to settle the question by experi-
ment, and it is for their happiness, perhaps, that accident
has never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that a
male dissembler who by deluging her with untenable
fictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powers
reaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught
to many by unsought and wringing occurrences. And
some profess to have attained to the same knowledge
by experiment as aforesaid, and jauntily continue their
indulgence in such experiments with terrible effect.
Sergeant Troy was one.
He had been known to observe casually that in
dealing with womankind the only alternative to flattery
was cursing and swearing. There was no third method.
"Treat them fairly, and you are a lost man." he would
say.
This philosopher's public appearance in Weatherbury
promptly followed his arrival there. A week or two
after the shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a nameless relief
of spirits on account of Boldwood's absence, approached
her hayfields and looked over the hedge towards the
haymakers. They consisted in about equal proportions
of gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being the
men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets
covered with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upon
their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing
in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to
the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no attempt
to keep time with his. In the first mead they were
already loading hay, the women raking it into cocks
and windrows, and the men tossing it upon the
waggon.
From behind the waggon a bright scarlet spot
emerged, and went on loading unconcernedly with the
rest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had come hay-
making for pleasure; and nobody could deny that he
was doing the mistress of the farm real knight-service
by this voluntary contribution of his labour at a busy
time.
As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her,
and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and picking
up his crop or cane, he came forward. Bathsheba
blushed with half-angry embarrassment, and adjusted
her eyes as well as her feet to the direct line of her
path.
CHAPTER XXVI
SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD
"AH, Miss Everdene!" said the sergeant, touching his
diminutive cap. "Little did I think it was you I was
speaking to the other night. And yet, if I had reflected,
the "Queen of the Corn-market" (truth is truth at any
hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in
Casterbridge yesterday), the "Queen of the Corn-market."
I say, could be no other woman. I step across now to
beg your forgiveness a thousand times for having been
led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a
stranger. To be sure I am no stranger to the place -
I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted
your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a
lad. I have been doing the same for you today."
"I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant
Troy." said the Queen of the Corn-market, in an in-
differently grateful tone.
The sergeant looked hurt and sad. "Indeed you
must not, Miss Everdene." he said. "Why could you
think such a thing necessary?"
"I am glad it is not."
"Why? if I may ask without offence."
"Because I don't much want to thank you for any"
thing."
"I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue
that my heart will never mend. O these intolerable
times: that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly
telling a woman she is beautiful! 'Twas the most I
said - you must own that; and the least I could say -
that I own myself."
"There is some talk I could do without more easily
than money."
"Indeed. That remark is a sort of digression."
"No. It means that I would rather have your room
than your company."
"And I would rather have curses from you than
kisses from any other woman; so I'll stay here."
Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And yet she
could not help feeling that the assistance he was render-
ing forbade a harsh repulse.
"Well." continued Troy, "I suppose there is a praise
which is rudeness, and that may be mine. At the
same time there is a treatment which is injustice, and
that may be yours. Because a plain blunt man, who
has never been taught concealment, speaks out his
mind without exactly intending it, he's to be snapped
off like the son of a sinner."
"Indeed there's no such case between us." she said,
turning away. "I don't allow strangers to be bold and
impudent - even in praise of me."
"Ah - it is not the fact but the method which offends
you." he said, carelessly. "But I have the sad satis-
faction of knowing that my words, whether pleasing or
offensive, are unmistakably true. Would you have had
me look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you are
quite a common-place woman, to save you the embar-
rassment of being stared at if they come near you?
Not I. I couldn't tell any such ridiculous lie about
a beauty to encourage a single woman in England in
too excessive a modesty."
"It is all pretence - what you are saying!" exclaimed
Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the sergeant's
sly method. "You have a rare invention, Sergeant
Troy. Why couldn't you have passed by me that
night, and said nothing? - that was all I meant to
reproach you for."
"Because I wasn't going to. Half the pleasure of
a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of
the moment, and I let out mine. It would have been
just the same if you had been the reverse person - ugly
and old - I should have exclaimed about it in the same
way. "
"How long is it since you have been so afflicted with
strong feeling, then?"
"Oh, ever since I was big enough to know loveliness
from deformity."
"'Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you
speak of doesn't stop at faces, but extends to morals as
well. "
"I won't speak of morals or religion - my own or
anybody else's. Though perhaps I should have been a
very good Christian if you pretty women hadn't made
me an idolater."
Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimp-
lings of merriment. Troy followed, whirling his crop.
"But - Miss Everdene - you do forgive me?"
"Hardly. "
"Why?"
"You say such things."
"I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still; for,
by - so you are! The most beautiful ever I saw, or
may I fall dead this instant! Why, upon my - - "
"Don't - don't! I won't listen to you - you are so
profane!" she said, in a restless state between distress
at hearing him and a penchant to hear more.
"I again say you are a most fascinating woman.
There's nothing remarkable in my saying so, is there?
I'm sure the fact is evident enough. Miss Everdene,
my opinion may be too forcibly let out to please you,
and, for the matter of that, too insignificant to convince
you, but surely it is honest, and why can't it be ex-
cused? "
"Because it - it isn't a correct one." she femininely
murmured.
"O, fie - fie-! Am I any worse for breaking the
third of that Terrible Ten than you for breaking the
ninth?"
"Well, it doesn't seem quite true to me that I am
fascinating." she replied evasively.
"Not so to you: then I say with all respect that, if
so, it is owing to your modesty, Miss Everdene. But
surely you must have been told by everybody of what
everybody notices? and you should take their words
for it."
"They don't say so exactly."
"O yes, they must!"
"Well, I mean to my face, as you do." she went on,
allowing herself to be further lured into a conversation
that intention had rigorously forbidden.
"But you know they think so?"
"No - that is - I certainly have heard Liddy say
they do, but - - " She paused.
Capitulation - that was the purport of the simple
reply, guarded as it was - capitulation, unknown to her-
self. Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a
more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled
within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from
a loop-hole in Tophet, for the moment was the turning-
point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond
mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation
had taken root in the chink: the remainder was a mere
question of time and natural changes.
"There the truth comes out!" said the soldier, in
reply. "Never tell me that a young lady can live in a
buzz of admiration without knowing something about it.
Ah." well, Miss Everdene, you are - pardon my blunt
way - you are rather an injury to our race than other-
wise.
"How - indeed?" she said, opening her eyes.
"O, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for
a sheep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of much
account, but it will do for a rough soldier), and so I
will speak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and
without hoping or intending to get your pardon. Why,
Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that your good
looks may do more. harm than good in the world."
The sergeant looked down the mead in critical abstrac-
ion. "Probably some one man on an average falls in"
love, with each ordinary woman. She can marry him:
he is content, and leads a useful life. Such women as
you a hundred men always covet - your eyes will be-
witch scores on scores into an unavailing fancy for you
you can only marry one of that many. Out of these
say twenty will endeavour to. drown the bitterness of
espised love in drink; twenty more will mope away
their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in
he world, because they have no ambition apart from
their attachment to you; twenty more - the susceptible
person myself possibly among them - will be always
draggling after you, getting where they may just see
you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant
fools! The rest may try to get over their passion with
more or less success. But all these men will be
saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but
the ninety-nine women they might have married are
saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I
say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Ever-
dene, is hardly a blessing to her race."
The handsome sergeant's features were during this
speech as rigid and stern as John Knox's in addressing
his gay young queen.
Seeing she made no reply, he said, "Do you read
French?"
"No; I began, but when I got to the verbs, father
died." she said simply.
"I do - when I have an opportunity, which latterly
has not been often (my mother was a Parisienne) - and
there's a proverb they have, Qui aime bien chatie bien
- "He chastens who loves well." Do you understand
me?
"Ah!" she replied, and there was even a little tremu-
lousness in the usually cool girl's voice; "if you can
only fight half as winningly as you can talk, you are
able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound!" And
then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in
making this admission: in hastily trying to retrieve it,
she went from bad to worse. "Don't, however, suppose
that I derive any pleasure from what you tell me."
"I know you do not - I know it perfectly." said Troy,
with much hearty conviction on the exterior of his face:
and altering the expression to moodiness; "when a
dozen men arfe ready to speak tenderly to you, and
give the admiration you deserve without adding the
warning you need, it stands to reason that my poor
rough-and-ready mixture of praise and blame cannot
convey much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am not so
conceited as to suppose that!"
"I think you - are conceited, nevertheless." said
Bathsheba, looking askance at a reed she was fitfully
pulling with one hand, having lately grown feverish
under the soldier's system of procedure - not because
the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but
because its vigour was overwhelming.
"I would not own it to anybody else - nor do I
exactly to you. Still, there might have been some self-
conceit in my foolish supposition the other night. I
knew that what I said in admiration might be an
opinion too often forced upon you to give any pleasure
but I certainly did think that the kindness of your
nature might prevent you judging an uncontrolled
tongue harshly - which you have done - and thinking
badly of me and wounding me this morning, when I
am working hard to save your hay."
"Well, you need not think more of that: perhaps you
did not mean to be rude to me by speaking out your
mind: indeed, I believe you did not." said the shrewd
woman, in painfully innocent earnest. "And I thank
you for giving help here. But - but mind you don't
speak to me again in that way, or in any other, unless
I speak to you."
"O, Miss Bathsheba! That is to hard!"
"No, it isn't. Why is it?"
"You will never speak to me; for I shall not be
here long. I am soon going back again to the miser-
able monotony of drill - and perhaps our regiment will
be ordered out soon. And yet you take away the one
little ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life
of mine. Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's
most marked characteristic."
"When are you going from here?" she asked, with
some interest.
"In a month."
"But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?"
"Can you ask Miss Everdene - knowing as you do
- what my offence is based on?"
"I you do care so much for a silly trifle of that
kind, then, I don't mind doing it." she uncertainly and
doubtingly answered. "But you can't really care for a
word from me? you only say so - I think you only
say so."
"that's unjust - but I won't repeat the remark. I
am too gratified to get such a mark of your friendship
at any price to cavil at the tone. I do Miss Everdene,
care for it. You may think a man foolish to want a
mere word - just a good morning. Perhaps he is - I
don't know. But you have never been a man looking
upon a woman, and that woman yourself."
"Well."
"Then you know nothing of what such an experience
is like - and Heaven forbid that you ever should!"
"Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am
interested in knowing."
"Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or
look in any direction except one without wretchedness,
nor there without torture."
"Ah, sergeant, it won't do - you are pretending!" she
said, shaking her head." Your words are too dashing
to be true."
"I am not, upon the honour of a soldier"
"But why is it so? - Of course I ask for mere pas-
time."
Because you are so distracting - and I am so
distracted. "
"You look like it."
"I am indeed."
"Why, you only saw me the other night!"
"That makes no difference. The lightning works in-
stantaneously. I loved you then, at once - as I do now."
Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet
upward, as high as she liked to venture her glance,
which was not quite so high as his eyes.
"You cannot and you don"t." she said demurely.
"There is-no such sudden feeling in people. I won't
listen to you any longer. Hear me, I wish I knew what
o'clock it is - I am going - I have wasted too much time
here already!"
The sergeant looked at his watch and told her.
"What, haven't you a watch, miss?" he inquired.
"I have not just at present - I am about to get a
new one."
"No. You shall be given one. Yes - you shall.
A gift, Miss Everdene - a gift."
And before she knew what the young - man was
intending, a heavy gold watch was in her hand.
"It is an unusually good one for a man like me to
possess." he quietly said. "That watch has a history.
Press the spring and open the back."
She did so.
"What do you see?"
"A crest and a motto."
"A coronet with five points, and beneath, Cedit amor
rebus - "Love yields to circumstance." It's the motto
of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the
last lord, and was given to my mother's husband, a
medical man, for his use till I came of age, when it was
to be given to me. It was all the fortune that ever I
inherited. That watch has regulated imperial interests
in its time - the stately ceremonial, the courtly assigna-
tion, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. Now it is
yours.
"But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this - I cannot!"
she exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. "A gold watch!
What are you doing? Don't be such a dissembler!"
The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his
gift, which she held out persistently towards him.
Bathsheba followed as he retired.
"Keep it - do, Miss Everdene - keep it!" said the
erratic child of impulse. "The fact of your possessing
it makes it worth ten times as much to me. A more
plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well, and
the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats
against - well, I won't speak of that. It is in far
worthier hands than ever it has been in before."
"But indeed I can't have it!" she said, in a perfect
simmer of distress. "O, how can you do such a thing;
that is if you really mean it! Give me your dead
father's watch, and such a valuable one! You should
not be so reckless, indeed, Sergeant Troy!"
"I loved my father: good; but better, I love you
more. That's how I can do it." said the sergeant, with
an intonation of such exquisite fidelity to nature that it.
was evidently not all acted now. Her beauty, which,
whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest,
had in its animated phases moved him to earnest; and
though his seriousness was less than she imagined, it
was probably more than he imagined himself.
Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment,
and she said, in half-suspicious accents of feeling, "Can
it be! O, how can it be, that you care for me, and
so suddenly,! You have seen so little of me: I may
not be really so - so nice-looking as I seem to you.
Please, do take it; O, do! I cannot and will not have
it. Believe me, your generosity is too great. I have
never done you a single kindness, and why should you
be so kind to me?"
A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but
it was again suspended, and he looked at her with an
arrested eye. The truth was, that as she now stood -
excited, wild, and honest as the day - her alluring
beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed
upon it that he was quite startled at his temerity in
advancing them as false. He said mechanically, "Ah,
why?" and continued to look at her.
"And my workfolk see me following you about the
field, and are wondering. O, this is dreadful!" she
went on, unconscious of the transmutation she was
effecting.
"I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it
as my one poor patent of nobility." he broke out,
bluntly; "but, upon my soul, I wish you would now.
Without any shamming, come! Don't deny me the
happiness of wearing it for my sake? But you are too
lovely even to care to be kind as others are."
"No, no; don"t say so! I have reasons for reserve
which I cannot explain."
"bet it be, then, let it be." he said, receiving back
the watch at last; "I must be leaving you now. And
will you speak to me for these few weeks of my stay?"
"Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will! O,
why did you come and disturb me so!"
"Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself.
Such things have happened. Well, will you let me
work in your fields?" he coaxed.
"Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you."
"Miss Everdene, I thank you.
"No, no."
"Good-bye!"
The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the
slope of his head, saluted, and returned to the distant
group of haymakers.
Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. Her
heart erratically flitting hither and thither from per-
plexed excitement, hot, and almost tearful, she retreated
homeward, murmuring, O, what have I done! What
does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was
true!
CHAPTER XXVII
HIVING THE BEES
THE Weatherbury bees were late in their swarming this
year. It was in the latter part of June, and the day after
the interview with Troy in the hayfield, that Bathsheba
was standing in her garden, watching a swarm in the
air and guessing their probable settling place. Not only
were they late this year, but unruly. Sometimes through-
out a whole season all the swarms would alight on the
lowest attainable bough - such as part of a currant-bush
or espalier apple-tree; next year they would, with just
the same unanimity, make straight off to the uppermost
member of some tall, gaunt costard, or quarrenden,
and there defy all invaders who did not come armed
with ladders and staves to take them.
This was the case at present. Bathsheba's eyes,
shaded by one hand, were following the ascending
multitude against the unexplorable stretch of blue till
they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy trees
spoken of. A process somewhat analogous to that of
alleged formations of the universe, time and times ago,
was observable. The bustling swarm had swept the sky
in a scattered and uniform haze, which now thickened to
a nebulous centre: this glided on to a bough and grew
still denser, till it formed a solid black spot upon the
light.
The men and women being all busily engaged in
saving the hay - even Liddy had left the house for the
purpose of lending a hand - Bathsheba resolved to hive
the bees herself, if possible. She had dressed the hive
with herbs and honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and
crook, made herself impregnable with armour of leather
gloves, straw hat, and large gauze veil - once green but
now faded to snuff colour - and ascended a dozen rungs
of the ladder. At once she heard, not ten yards off,
a voice that was beginning to have a strange power in
agitating her.
"Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should not
attempt such a thing alone."
Troy was just opening the garden gate.
Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook, and empty
hive, pulled the skirt of her dress tightly round her
ankles in a tremendous flurry, and as well as she could
slid down the ladder. By the time she reached the
bottom Troy was there also, and he stooped to pick
up the hive.
"How fortunate I am to have dropped in at this
moment!" exclaimed the sergeant.
She found her voice in a minute. "What! and will
you shake them in for me?" she asked, in what, for a
defiant girl, was a faltering way; though, for a timid
girl, it would have seemed a brave way enough.
"Will I!" said Troy. "Why, of course I will. How
blooming you are to-day!" Troy flung down his cane
and put his foot on the ladder to ascend.
"But you must have on the veil and gloves, or you'll
be stung fearfully!"
"Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. Will
you kindly show me how to fix them properly?"
"And you must have the broad-brimmed hat, too, for
your cap has no brim to keep the veil off, and they'd
reach your face."
"The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means."
So a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be
taken off - veil and all attached - and placed upon his
head, Troy tossing his own into a gooseberry bush.
Then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge round
his collar and the gloves put on him.
He looked such an extraordinary object in this guise
that, flurried as she was, she could not avoid laughing
outright. It was the removal of yet another stake from
the palisade of cold manners which had kept him off
Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst he was
busy sweeping and shaking the bees from the tree,
holding up the hive with the other hand for them to
fall into. She made use of an unobserved minute
whilst his attention was absorbed in the operation to
arrange her plumes a little. He came down holding
the hive at arm's length, behind which trailed a cloud
of bees.
"Upon my life." said Troy, through the veil," holding
up this hive makes one's arm ache worse than a week
of sword-exercise." When the manoeuvre was complete
he approached her. "Would you be good enough to
untie me and let me out? I am nearly stifled inside
this silk cage."
To hide her embarrassment during the unwonted
process of untying the string about his neck, she said: -
"I have never seen that you spoke of."
"What?"
"The sword-exercise."
"Ah! would you like to?" said Troy.
Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous
reports from time to time by dwellers in Weatherbury,
who had by chance sojourned awhile in Casterbridge,
near the barracks, of this strange and glorious perform-
ance, *tlie sword-exercise. Men and boys who had
peeped through chinks or over walls into the barrack-
yard returned with accounts of its being the most
flashing affair conceivable; accoutrements and weapons
glistening like stars-here,there,around-yet all by rule
and compass. So she said mildly what she felt strongly.
"Yes; I should like to see it very much."
"And so you shall; you shall see me go through it."
"No! How?"
"Let me consider."
"Not with a walking-stick - I don't care to see that.
lt must be a real sword."
"Yes, I know; and I have no sword here; but I
think I could get one by the evening. Now, will you
do this?"
"O no, indeed!" said Bathsheba, blushing." Thank
you very much, but I couldn't on any account.
"Surely you might? Nobody would know."
She shook her head, but with a weakened negation.
"If I were to." she said, "I must bring Liddy too. Might
I not?"
Troy looked far away. "I don't see why you want
to bring her." he said coldly.
An unconscious look of assent in Bathsheba's eyes
betrayed that something more than his coldness had
made her also feel that Liddy Would be superfluous in
the suggested scene. She had felt it, even whilst making
the proposal.
"Well, I won't bring Liddy - and I'll come. But
only for a very short time." she added; "a very short
time."
"It will not take five minutes." said Troy.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS
THE hill opposite Bathsheba's dwelling extended, a
mile off, into an uncultivated tract of land, dotted at
this season with tall thickets of brake fern, plump and
diaphanous from recent rapid growth, and radiant in
hues of clear and untainted green.
At eight o'clock this midsummer evening, whilst the
bristling ball of gold in the west still swept the tips of
the ferns with its long, luxuriant rays, a soft brushing-
by of garments might have been heard among them,
and Bathsheba appeared in their midst, their soft,
feathery arms caressing her up to her shoulders. She
paused, turned, went back over the hill and half-way
to her own door, whence she cast a farewell glance upon
the spot she had just left, having resolved not to remain
near the place after all.
She saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round
the shoulder of the rise. It disappeared on the other
side.
She waited one minute - two minutes - thought of
Troy's disappointment at her non-fulfilment of a promised
engagement, till she again ran along the field, clambered
over the bank, and followed the original direction. She
was now literally trembling and panting at this her
temerity in such an errant undertaking; her breath
came and went quickly, and her eyes shone with an in-
frequent light. Yet go she must. She reached the
verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns. Troy stood
in the bottom, looking up towards her.
"I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw
you." he said, coming up and giving her his hand to help
her down the slope.
The pit was a saucer-shaped concave, naturally
formed, with a top diameter of about thirty feet, and
shallow enough to allow the sunshine to reach their
heads. Standing in the centre, the sky overhead was
met by a circular horizon of fern: this grew nearly to
the bottom of the slope and then abruptly ceased. The
middle within the belt of verdure was floored with a
thick flossy carpet of moss and grass intermingled, so
yielding that the foot was half-buried within it.
"Now." said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he
raised it into the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting,
like a living thing, "first, we have four right and four
left cuts; four right and four left thrusts. Infantry cuts
and guards are more interesting than ours, to my mind;
but they are not so swashing. They have seven cuts
and three thrusts. So much as a preliminary. Well,
next, our cut one is as if you were sowing your corn -
so." Bathsheba saw a sort of rainbow, upside down in
the air, and Troy's arm was still again. "Cut two, as if
you were hedging - so. Three, as if you were reaping
- so." Four, as if you were threshing - in that way.
"Then the same on the left. The thrusts are these: one,
two, three, four, right; one, two, three, four, left." He
repeated them. "Have 'em again?" he said. "One,
two - - "
She hurriedly interrupted: "I'd rather not; though
I don't mind your twos and fours; but your ones and
threes are terrible!"
"Very well. I'll let you off the ones and threes.
Next, cuts, points and guards altogether." Troy duly
exhibited them. "Then there's pursuing practice, in
this way." He gave the movements as before. "There,
those are the stereotyped forms. The infantry have
two most diabolical upward cuts, which we are too
humane to use. Like this - three, four."
"How murderous and bloodthirsty!"
"They are rather deathy. Now I'll be more inter-
esting, and let you see some loose play - giving all the
cuts and points, infantry and cavalry, quicker than
lightning, and as promiscuously - with just enough rule
to regulate instinct and yet not to fetter it. You are
my antagonist, with this difference from real warfare,
that I shall miss you every time by one hair's breadth,
or perhaps two. Mind you don't flinch, whatever you
do."
I'll be sure not to!" she said invincibly.
He pointed to about a yard in front of him.
Bathsheba's adventurous spirit was beginning to find
some grains of relish in these highly novel proceedings.
She took up her position as directed, facing Troy.
"Now just to learn whether you have pluck enough
to let me do what I wish, I'll give you a preliminary
test."
He flourished the sword by way of introduction
number two, and the next thing of which she was
conscious was that the point and blade of the sword
were darting with a gleam towards her left side, just
above her hip; then of their reappearance on her right
side, emerging as it were from between her ribs, having
apparently passed through her body. The third item
of consciousness was that of seeing the same sword,
perfectly clean and free from blood held vertically in
Troy's hand (in the position technically called "recover
swords"). All was as quick as electricity.
"Oh!" she cried out in affright, pressing her hand to
her side." Have you run me through? - no, you have
not! Whatever have you done!"
"I have not touched you." said Troy, quietly. "It
was mere sleight of hand. The sword passed behind
you. Now you are not afraid, are you? Because if
you are l can't perform. I give my word that l will
not only not hurt you, but not once touch you."
"I don't think I am afraid. You are quite sure you
will not hurt me?"
"Quite sure."
"Is the sWord very sharp?"
"O no - only stand as still as a statue. Now!"
In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to
Bathsheba's eyes. Beams of light caught from the low
sun's rays, above, around, in front of her, well-nigh shut
out earth and heaven - all emitted in the marvellous
evolutions of Troy's reflecting blade, which seemed
everywhere at once, and yet nowherre specially. These
circling gleams were accompanied by a keen rush that
was almost a whistling - also springing from all sides of
her at once. In short, she was enclosed in a firmament
of light, and of sharp hisses, resembling a sky-full of
meteors close at hand.
Never since the broadsword became the national
weapon had there been more dexterity shown in its
management than by the hands of Sergeant Troy, and
never had he been in such splendid temper for the
performance as now in the evening sunshine among the
ferns with Bathsheba. It may safely be asserted with
respect to the closeness of his cuts, that had it been
possible for the edge of the sword to leave in the air a
permanent substance wherever it flew past, the space
left untouched would have been almost a mould of
Bathsheba's figure.
Behind the luminous streams of this aurora militaris,
she could see the hue of Troy's sword arm, spread in a
scarlet haze over the space covered by its motions, like
a twanged harpstring, and behind all Troy himself,
mostly facing her; sometimes, to show the rear cuts,
half turned away, his eye nevertheless always keenly
measuring her breadth and outline, and his lips tightly
closed in sustained effort. Next, his movements lapsed
slower, and she could see them individually. The
hissing of the sword had ceased, and he stopped
entirely.
"That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying, he
said, before she had moved or spoken. "Wait: I'll do
it for you."
An arc of silver shone on her right side: the sword
had descended. The lock droped to the ground.
"Bravely borne!" said Troy. "You didn't flinch a
shade's thickness. Wonderful in a woman!"
"It was because I didn't expect it. O, you have
spoilt my hair!"
"Only once more."
"No - no! I am afraid of you - indeed I am!" she
cried.
"I won't touch you at all - not even your hair. I
am only going to kill that caterpillar settling on you.
Now: still!"
It appeared that a caterpillar had come from the
fern and chosen the front of her bodice as his resting
place. She saw the point glisten towards her bosom,
and seemingly enter it. Bathsheba closed her eyes in
the full persuasion that she was killed at last. How-
ever, feeling just as usual, she opened them again.
"There it is, look." said the sargeant, holding his
sword before her eyes.
The caterpillar was spitted upon its point.
"Why, it is magic!" said Bathsheba, amazed.
"O no - dexterity. I merely gave point to your
bosom where the caterpillar was, and instead of running
you through checked the extension a thousandth of an
inch short of your surface."
"But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with
a sword that has no edge?"
"No edge! This sword will shave like a razor.
Look here."
He touched the palm of his hand with the blade,
and then, lifting it, showed her a thin shaving of scarf-
skin dangling therefrom.
"But you said before beginning that it was blunt and
couldn't cut me!"
"That was to get you to stand still, and so make sure
of your safety. The risk of injuring you through your
moving was too great not to force me to tell you a
fib to escape it."
She shuddered. "I have been within an inch of my
life, and didn't know it!"
"More precisely speaking, you have been within half
an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five
tinies."
"Cruel, cruel, 'tis of you!"
"You have been perfectly safe, nevertheless. My
sword never errs." And Troy returned the weapon to
the scabbard.
Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred tumultuous feel-
ings resulting from the scene, abstractedly sat down on
a tuft of heather.
"I must leave you now." said Troy, softly. "And I'll
venture to take and keep this in remembrance of you."
She saw him stoop to the grass, pick up the winding
lock which he had severed from her manifold tresses,
twist it round his fingers, unfasten a button in the breast
of his coat, and carefully put it inside. She felt power-
less to withstand or deny him. He was altogether too
much for her, and Bathsheba seemed as one who, facing
a reviving wind, finds it blow so strongly that it stops
the breath.
He drew near and said, "I must be leaving you."
He drew nearer still. A minute later and she saw his
scarlet form disappear amid the ferny thicket, almost in
a flash, like a brand swiftly waved.
That minute's interval had brought the blood beating
into her face, set her stinging as if aflame to the very
hollows of her feet, and enlarged emotion to a compass
which quite swamped thought. It had brought upon
her a stroke resulting, as did that of Moses in Horeh, in
a liquid stream - here a stream of tears. She felt like
one who has sinned a great sin.
The circumstance had been the gentle dip of Troy's
mouth downwards upon her own. He had kissed her.
CHAPTER XXIX
PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK
WE now see the element of folly distinctly mingling
with the many varying particulars which made up the
character of Bathsheba Everdene. It was almost foreign
to her intrinsic nature. Introduced as lymph on the
dart of Eros, it eventually permeated and coloured
her whole constitution. Bathsheba, though she had too
much understanding to be entirely governed by her
womanliness, had too much womanliness to use her
understanding to the best advantage. Perhaps in no
minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more
than in the strange power she possesses of believing
cajoleries that she knows to be false - except, indeed, in
that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she
knows to be true.
Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant
women love when they abandon their self-reliance.
When a strong woman recklessly throws away her
strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never
had any strength to throw away. One source of her
inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has
never had practice in making the best of such a
condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.
Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this matter.
Though in one sense a woman of the world, it was, after
all, that world of daylight coteries and green carpets
wherein cattle form the passing crowd and winds the
busy hum; where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives
on the other side of your party-wall, where your neigh-
bour is everybody in the tything, and where calculation
formulated self-indulgence of bad, nothing at all. Had
her utmost thoughts in this direction been distinctly
worded (and by herself they never were), they would
only have amounted to such a matter as that she felt
her impulses to be pleasanter guides than her discretion .
Her love was entire as a child's, and though warm as
summer it was fresh as spring. Her culpability lay in
her making no attempt to control feeling by subtle and
careful inquiry into consciences. She could show others
the steep and thorny way, but 'reck'd not her own rede,"
And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a
woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon
the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak,
whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose
vertues were as metals in a mine.
The difference between love and respect was mark-
edly shown in her conduct. Bathsheba had spoken of
her interest in Boldwood with the greatest freedom to
Liddy, but she had only communed with her own heart
concerning "Troy".
All this infatuation Gabriel saw, and was troubled
thereby from the time of his daily journey a-field to the
time of his return, and on to the small hours of many a
night. That he was not beloved had hitherto been his
great that Bathsheba was getting into the toils
was now a sorrow greater than the first, and one which
nearly obscured it. It was a result which paralleled
the oft-quoted observation of Hippocrates concerning
physical pains.
That is a noble though perhaps an unpromising love
which not even the fear of breeding aversion in the