Far from the Madding Crowd

LL SAINTS’ AND ALL SOULS’

On a week-day morning a small congregation, consisting mainly of women
and girls, rose from its knees in the mouldy nave of a church called
All Saints’, in the distant barrack-town before-mentioned, at the end
of a service without a sermon. They were about to disperse, when a
smart footstep, entering the porch and coming up the central passage,
arrested their attention. The step echoed with a ring unusual in a
church; it was the clink of spurs. Everybody looked. A young cavalry
soldier in a red uniform, with the three chevrons of a sergeant upon
his sleeve, strode up the aisle, with an embarrassment which was only
the more marked by the intense vigour of his step, and by the
determination upon his face to show none. A slight flush had mounted
his cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these women; but,
passing on through the chancel arch, he never paused till he came close
to the altar railing. Here for a moment he stood alone.

The officiating curate, who had not yet doffed his surplice, perceived
the new-comer, and followed him to the communion-space. He whispered to
the soldier, and then beckoned to the clerk, who in his turn whispered
to an elderly woman, apparently his wife, and they also went up the
chancel steps.

“’Tis a wedding!” murmured some of the women, brightening. “Let’s
wait!”

The majority again sat down.

There was a creaking of machinery behind, and some of the young ones
turned their heads. From the interior face of the west wall of the
tower projected a little canopy with a quarter-jack and small bell
beneath it, the automaton being driven by the same clock machinery that
struck the large bell in the tower. Between the tower and the church
was a close screen, the door of which was kept shut during services,
hiding this grotesque clockwork from sight. At present, however, the
door was open, and the egress of the jack, the blows on the bell, and
the mannikin’s retreat into the nook again, were visible to many, and
audible throughout the church.

The jack had struck half-past eleven.

“Where’s the woman?” whispered some of the spectators.

The young sergeant stood still with the abnormal rigidity of the old
pillars around. He faced the south-east, and was as silent as he was
still.

The silence grew to be a noticeable thing as the minutes went on, and
nobody else appeared, and not a soul moved. The rattle of the
quarter-jack again from its niche, its blows for three-quarters, its
fussy retreat, were almost painfully abrupt, and caused many of the
congregation to start palpably.

“I wonder where the woman is!” a voice whispered again.

There began now that slight shifting of feet, that artificial coughing
among several, which betrays a nervous suspense. At length there was a
titter. But the soldier never moved. There he stood, his face to the
south-east, upright as a column, his cap in his hand.

The clock ticked on. The women threw off their nervousness, and titters
and giggling became more frequent. Then came a dead silence. Every one
was waiting for the end. Some persons may have noticed how
extraordinarily the striking of quarters seems to quicken the flight of
time. It was hardly credible that the jack had not got wrong with the
minutes when the rattle began again, the puppet emerged, and the four
quarters were struck fitfully as before. One could almost be positive
that there was a malicious leer upon the hideous creature’s face, and a
mischievous delight in its twitchings. Then followed the dull and
remote resonance of the twelve heavy strokes in the tower above. The
women were impressed, and there was no giggle this time.

The clergyman glided into the vestry, and the clerk vanished. The
sergeant had not yet turned; every woman in the church was waiting to
see his face, and he appeared to know it. At last he did turn, and
stalked resolutely down the nave, braving them all, with a compressed
lip. Two bowed and toothless old almsmen then looked at each other and
chuckled, innocently enough; but the sound had a strange weird effect
in that place.

Opposite to the church was a paved square, around which several
overhanging wood buildings of old time cast a picturesque shade. The
young man on leaving the door went to cross the square, when, in the
middle, he met a little woman. The expression of her face, which had
been one of intense anxiety, sank at the sight of his nearly to terror.

“Well?” he said, in a suppressed passion, fixedly looking at her.

“Oh, Frank—I made a mistake!—I thought that church with the spire was
All Saints’, and I was at the door at half-past eleven to a minute as
you said. I waited till a quarter to twelve, and found then that I was
in All Souls’. But I wasn’t much frightened, for I thought it could be
to-morrow as well.”

“You fool, for so fooling me! But say no more.”

“Shall it be to-morrow, Frank?” she asked blankly.

“To-morrow!” and he gave vent to a hoarse laugh. “I don’t go through
that experience again for some time, I warrant you!”

“But after all,” she expostulated in a trembling voice, “the mistake
was not such a terrible thing! Now, dear Frank, when shall it be?”

“Ah, when? God knows!” he said, with a light irony, and turning from
her walked rapidly away.