Far from the Madding Crowd

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 infrequent 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 deathly. Now I’ll be more interesting, 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 I can’t perform. I give my word that I 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 nowhere 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 dropped 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. Oh, 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. However, feeling just
as usual, she opened them again.

“There it is, look,” said the sergeant, holding his sword before her
eyes.

The caterpillar was spitted upon its point.

“Why, it is magic!” said Bathsheba, amazed.

“Oh 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 times.”

“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 feelings 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 powerless 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 Horeb, 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.