Far from the Madding Crowd

UTSIDE THE BARRACKS—SNOW—A MEETING

For dreariness nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of a
certain town and military station, many miles north of Weatherbury, at
a later hour on this same snowy evening—if that may be called a
prospect of which the chief constituent was darkness.

It was a night when sorrow may come to the brightest without causing
any great sense of incongruity: when, with impressible persons, love
becomes solicitousness, hope sinks to misgiving, and faith to hope:
when the exercise of memory does not stir feelings of regret at
opportunities for ambition that have been passed by, and anticipation
does not prompt to enterprise.

The scene was a public path, bordered on the left hand by a river,
behind which rose a high wall. On the right was a tract of land, partly
meadow and partly moor, reaching, at its remote verge, to a wide
undulating upland.

The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind
than amid woodland scenery. Still, to a close observer, they are just
as perceptible; the difference is that their media of manifestation are
less trite and familiar than such well-known ones as the bursting of
the buds or the fall of the leaf. Many are not so stealthy and gradual
as we may be apt to imagine in considering the general torpidity of a
moor or waste. Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in
well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively observed the
retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of
the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse of
the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.

This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the aforesaid
moor, and for the first time in the season its irregularities were
forms without features; suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing,
and without more character than that of being the limit of something
else—the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic skyful
of crowding flakes the mead and moor momentarily received additional
clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast arch
of cloud above was strangely low, and formed as it were the roof of a
large dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its floor; for the
instinctive thought was that the snow lining the heavens and that
encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass without any
intervening stratum of air at all.

We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics; which were
flatness in respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall
behind it, and darkness as to both. These features made up the mass. If
anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if any
thing could be gloomier than the wall it was the river beneath. The
indistinct summit of the façade was notched and pronged by chimneys
here and there, and upon its face were faintly signified the oblong
shapes of windows, though only in the upper part. Below, down to the
water’s edge, the flat was unbroken by hole or projection.

An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their
regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy
atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in
the open air, and being overlaid with several inches of muffling snow,
had lost its voice for the time.

About this hour the snow abated: ten flakes fell where twenty had
fallen, then one had the room of ten. Not long after a form moved by
the brink of the river.

By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer might
have seen that it was small. This was all that was positively
discoverable, though it seemed human.

The shape went slowly along, but without much exertion, for the snow,
though sudden, was not as yet more than two inches deep. At this time
some words were spoken aloud:—

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

Between each utterance the little shape advanced about half a dozen
yards. It was evident now that the windows high in the wall were being
counted. The word “Five” represented the fifth window from the end of
the wall.

Here the spot stopped, and dwindled smaller. The figure was stooping.
Then a morsel of snow flew across the river towards the fifth window.
It smacked against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. The
throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No
man who had ever seen bird, rabbit, or squirrel in his childhood, could
possibly have thrown with such utter imbecility as was shown here.

Another attempt, and another; till by degrees the wall must have become
pimpled with the adhering lumps of snow. At last one fragment struck
the fifth window.

The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep smooth sort
which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any
irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small
whirlpool. Nothing was heard in reply to the signal but the gurgle and
cluck of one of these invisible wheels—together with a few small sounds
which a sad man would have called moans, and a happy man
laughter—caused by the flapping of the waters against trifling objects
in other parts of the stream.

The window was struck again in the same manner.

Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the
window. This was followed by a voice from the same quarter.

“Who’s there?”

The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise. The high wall
being that of a barrack, and marriage being looked upon with disfavour
in the army, assignations and communications had probably been made
across the river before to-night.

“Is it Sergeant Troy?” said the blurred spot in the snow, tremulously.

This person was so much like a mere shade upon the earth, and the other
speaker so much a part of the building, that one would have said the
wall was holding a conversation with the snow.

“Yes,” came suspiciously from the shadow. “What girl are you?”

“Oh, Frank—don’t you know me?” said the spot. “Your wife, Fanny Robin.”

“Fanny!” said the wall, in utter astonishment.

“Yes,” said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion.

There was something in the woman’s tone which is not that of the wife,
and there was a manner in the man which is rarely a husband’s. The
dialogue went on:

“How did you come here?”

“I asked which was your window. Forgive me!”

“I did not expect you to-night. Indeed, I did not think you would come
at all. It was a wonder you found me here. I am orderly to-morrow.”

“You said I was to come.”

“Well—I said that you might.”

“Yes, I mean that I might. You are glad to see me, Frank?”

“Oh yes—of course.”

“Can you—come to me!”

“My dear Fan, no! The bugle has sounded, the barrack gates are closed,
and I have no leave. We are all of us as good as in the county gaol
till to-morrow morning.”

“Then I shan’t see you till then!” The words were in a faltering tone
of disappointment.

“How did you get here from Weatherbury?”

“I walked—some part of the way—the rest by the carriers.”

“I am surprised.”

“Yes—so am I. And Frank, when will it be?”

“What?”

“That you promised.”

“I don’t quite recollect.”

“O you do! Don’t speak like that. It weighs me to the earth. It makes
me say what ought to be said first by you.”

“Never mind—say it.”

“O, must I?—it is, when shall we be married, Frank?”

“Oh, I see. Well—you have to get proper clothes.”

“I have money. Will it be by banns or license?”

“Banns, I should think.”

“And we live in two parishes.”

“Do we? What then?”

“My lodgings are in St. Mary’s, and this is not. So they will have to
be published in both.”

“Is that the law?”

“Yes. O Frank—you think me forward, I am afraid! Don’t, dear Frank—will
you—for I love you so. And you said lots of times you would marry me,
and—and—I—I—I—”

“Don’t cry, now! It is foolish. If I said so, of course I will.”

“And shall I put up the banns in my parish, and will you in yours?”

“Yes”

“To-morrow?”

“Not to-morrow. We’ll settle in a few days.”

“You have the permission of the officers?”

“No, not yet.”

“O—how is it? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge.”

“The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming like this is so sudden and
unexpected.”

“Yes—yes—it is. It was wrong of me to worry you. I’ll go away now. Will
you come and see me to-morrow, at Mrs. Twills’s, in North Street? I
don’t like to come to the Barracks. There are bad women about, and they
think me one.”

“Quite, so. I’ll come to you, my dear. Good-night.”

“Good-night, Frank—good-night!”

And the noise was again heard of a window closing. The little spot
moved away. When she passed the corner a subdued exclamation was heard
inside the wall.

“Ho—ho—Sergeant—ho—ho!” An expostulation followed, but it was
indistinct; and it became lost amid a low peal of laughter, which was
hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the tiny whirlpools outside.