Far from the Madding Crowd

THE SUN—A HARBINGER

A week passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there
any explanation of her Gilpin’s rig.

Then a note came for Maryann, stating that the business which had
called her mistress to Bath still detained her there; but that she
hoped to return in the course of another week.

Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were
a-field under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air and
short shadows of noon. Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning
of blue-bottle flies; out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss
of tressy oat-ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of
amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath. Every drop of moisture not in
the men’s bottles and flagons in the form of cider was raining as
perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. Drought was everywhere
else.

They were about to withdraw for a while into the charitable shade of a
tree in the fence, when Coggan saw a figure in a blue coat and brass
buttons running to them across the field.

“I wonder who that is?” he said.

“I hope nothing is wrong about mistress,” said Maryann, who with some
other women was tying the bundles (oats being always sheafed on this
farm), “but an unlucky token came to me indoors this morning. I went to
unlock the door and dropped the key, and it fell upon the stone floor
and broke into two pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful bodement. I
wish mis’ess was home.”

“’Tis Cain Ball,” said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his reaphook.

Oak was not bound by his agreement to assist in the corn-field; but the
harvest month is an anxious time for a farmer, and the corn was
Bathsheba’s, so he lent a hand.

“He’s dressed up in his best clothes,” said Matthew Moon. “He hev been
away from home for a few days, since he’s had that felon upon his
finger; for ’a said, since I can’t work I’ll have a hollerday.”

“A good time for one—a’ excellent time,” said Joseph Poorgrass,
straightening his back; for he, like some of the others, had a way of
resting a while from his labour on such hot days for reasons
preternaturally small; of which Cain Ball’s advent on a week-day in his
Sunday-clothes was one of the first magnitude. “’Twas a bad leg allowed
me to read the Pilgrim’s Progress, and Mark Clark learnt All-Fours in
a whitlow.”

“Ay, and my father put his arm out of joint to have time to go
courting,” said Jan Coggan, in an eclipsing tone, wiping his face with
his shirt-sleeve and thrusting back his hat upon the nape of his neck.

By this time Cainy was nearing the group of harvesters, and was
perceived to be carrying a large slice of bread and ham in one hand,
from which he took mouthfuls as he ran, the other being wrapped in a
bandage. When he came close, his mouth assumed the bell shape, and he
began to cough violently.

“Now, Cainy!” said Gabriel, sternly. “How many more times must I tell
you to keep from running so fast when you be eating? You’ll choke
yourself some day, that’s what you’ll do, Cain Ball.”

“Hok-hok-hok!” replied Cain. “A crumb of my victuals went the wrong
way—hok-hok! That’s what ’tis, Mister Oak! And I’ve been visiting to
Bath because I had a felon on my thumb; yes, and I’ve seen—ahok-hok!”

Directly Cain mentioned Bath, they all threw down their hooks and forks
and drew round him. Unfortunately the erratic crumb did not improve his
narrative powers, and a supplementary hindrance was that of a sneeze,
jerking from his pocket his rather large watch, which dangled in front
of the young man pendulum-wise.

“Yes,” he continued, directing his thoughts to Bath and letting his
eyes follow, “I’ve seed the world at last—yes—and I’ve seed our
mis’ess—ahok-hok-hok!”

“Bother the boy!” said Gabriel. “Something is always going the wrong
way down your throat, so that you can’t tell what’s necessary to be
told.”

“Ahok! there! Please, Mister Oak, a gnat have just fleed into my
stomach and brought the cough on again!”

“Yes, that’s just it. Your mouth is always open, you young rascal!”

“’Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly down yer throat, pore boy!” said
Matthew Moon.

“Well, at Bath you saw—” prompted Gabriel.

“I saw our mistress,” continued the junior shepherd, “and a sojer,
walking along. And bymeby they got closer and closer, and then they
went arm-in-crook, like courting complete—hok-hok! like courting
complete—hok!—courting complete—” Losing the thread of his narrative at
this point simultaneously with his loss of breath, their informant
looked up and down the field apparently for some clue to it. “Well, I
see our mis’ess and a soldier—a-ha-a-wk!”

“Damn the boy!” said Gabriel.

“’Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if ye’ll excuse it,” said Cain Ball,
looking reproachfully at Oak, with eyes drenched in their own dew.

“Here’s some cider for him—that’ll cure his throat,” said Jan Coggan,
lifting a flagon of cider, pulling out the cork, and applying the hole
to Cainy’s mouth; Joseph Poorgrass in the meantime beginning to think
apprehensively of the serious consequences that would follow Cainy
Ball’s strangulation in his cough, and the history of his Bath
adventures dying with him.

“For my poor self, I always say ‘please God’ afore I do anything,” said
Joseph, in an unboastful voice; “and so should you, Cain Ball. ’Tis a
great safeguard, and might perhaps save you from being choked to death
some day.”

Mr. Coggan poured the liquor with unstinted liberality at the suffering
Cain’s circular mouth; half of it running down the side of the flagon,
and half of what reached his mouth running down outside his throat, and
half of what ran in going the wrong way, and being coughed and sneezed
around the persons of the gathered reapers in the form of a cider fog,
which for a moment hung in the sunny air like a small exhalation.

“There’s a great clumsy sneeze! Why can’t ye have better manners, you
young dog!” said Coggan, withdrawing the flagon.

“The cider went up my nose!” cried Cainy, as soon as he could speak;
“and now ’tis gone down my neck, and into my poor dumb felon, and over
my shiny buttons and all my best cloze!”

“The poor lad’s cough is terrible unfortunate,” said Matthew Moon. “And
a great history on hand, too. Bump his back, shepherd.”

“’Tis my nater,” mourned Cain. “Mother says I always was so excitable
when my feelings were worked up to a point!”

“True, true,” said Joseph Poorgrass. “The Balls were always a very
excitable family. I knowed the boy’s grandfather—a truly nervous and
modest man, even to genteel refinery. ’Twas blush, blush with him,
almost as much as ’tis with me—not but that ’tis a fault in me!”

“Not at all, Master Poorgrass,” said Coggan. “’Tis a very noble quality
in ye.”

“Heh-heh! well, I wish to noise nothing abroad—nothing at all,”
murmured Poorgrass, diffidently. “But we be born to things—that’s true.
Yet I would rather my trifle were hid; though, perhaps, a high nater is
a little high, and at my birth all things were possible to my Maker,
and he may have begrudged no gifts.... But under your bushel, Joseph!
under your bushel with ’ee! A strange desire, neighbours, this desire
to hide, and no praise due. Yet there is a Sermon on the Mount with a
calendar of the blessed at the head, and certain meek men may be named
therein.”

“Cainy’s grandfather was a very clever man,” said Matthew Moon.
“Invented a’ apple-tree out of his own head, which is called by his
name to this day—the Early Ball. You know ’em, Jan? A Quarrenden
grafted on a Tom Putt, and a Rathe-ripe upon top o’ that again. ’Tis
trew ’a used to bide about in a public-house wi’ a ’ooman in a way he
had no business to by rights, but there—’a were a clever man in the
sense of the term.”

“Now then,” said Gabriel, impatiently, “what did you see, Cain?”

“I seed our mis’ess go into a sort of a park place, where there’s
seats, and shrubs and flowers, arm-in-crook with a sojer,” continued
Cainy, firmly, and with a dim sense that his words were very effective
as regarded Gabriel’s emotions. “And I think the sojer was Sergeant
Troy. And they sat there together for more than half-an-hour, talking
moving things, and she once was crying a’most to death. And when they
came out her eyes were shining and she was as white as a lily; and they
looked into one another’s faces, as far-gone friendly as a man and
woman can be.”

Gabriel’s features seemed to get thinner. “Well, what did you see
besides?”

“Oh, all sorts.”

“White as a lily? You are sure ’twas she?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what besides?”

“Great glass windows to the shops, and great clouds in the sky, full of
rain, and old wooden trees in the country round.”

“You stun-poll! What will ye say next?” said Coggan.

“Let en alone,” interposed Joseph Poorgrass. “The boy’s meaning is that
the sky and the earth in the kingdom of Bath is not altogether
different from ours here. ’Tis for our good to gain knowledge of
strange cities, and as such the boy’s words should be suffered, so to
speak it.”

“And the people of Bath,” continued Cain, “never need to light their
fires except as a luxury, for the water springs up out of the earth
ready boiled for use.”

“’Tis true as the light,” testified Matthew Moon. “I’ve heard other
navigators say the same thing.”

“They drink nothing else there,” said Cain, “and seem to enjoy it, to
see how they swaller it down.”

“Well, it seems a barbarian practice enough to us, but I daresay the
natives think nothing o’ it,” said Matthew.

“And don’t victuals spring up as well as drink?” asked Coggan, twirling
his eye.

“No—I own to a blot there in Bath—a true blot. God didn’t provide ’em
with victuals as well as drink, and ’twas a drawback I couldn’t get
over at all.”

“Well, ’tis a curious place, to say the least,” observed Moon; “and it
must be a curious people that live therein.”

“Miss Everdene and the soldier were walking about together, you say?”
said Gabriel, returning to the group.

“Ay, and she wore a beautiful gold-colour silk gown, trimmed with black
lace, that would have stood alone ’ithout legs inside if required.
’Twas a very winsome sight; and her hair was brushed splendid. And when
the sun shone upon the bright gown and his red coat—my! how handsome
they looked. You could see ’em all the length of the street.”

“And what then?” murmured Gabriel.

“And then I went into Griffin’s to hae my boots hobbed, and then I went
to Riggs’s batty-cake shop, and asked ’em for a penneth of the cheapest
and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy, but not quite. And
whilst I was chawing ’em down I walked on and seed a clock with a face
as big as a baking trendle—”

“But that’s nothing to do with mistress!”

“I’m coming to that, if you’ll leave me alone, Mister Oak!”
remonstrated Cainy. “If you excites me, perhaps you’ll bring on my
cough, and then I shan’t be able to tell ye nothing.”

“Yes—let him tell it his own way,” said Coggan.

Gabriel settled into a despairing attitude of patience, and Cainy went
on:—

“And there were great large houses, and more people all the week long
than at Weatherbury club-walking on White Tuesdays. And I went to grand
churches and chapels. And how the parson would pray! Yes; he would
kneel down and put up his hands together, and make the holy gold rings
on his fingers gleam and twinkle in yer eyes, that he’d earned by
praying so excellent well!—Ah yes, I wish I lived there.”

“Our poor Parson Thirdly can’t get no money to buy such rings,” said
Matthew Moon, thoughtfully. “And as good a man as ever walked. I don’t
believe poor Thirdly have a single one, even of humblest tin or copper.
Such a great ornament as they’d be to him on a dull afternoon, when
he’s up in the pulpit lighted by the wax candles! But ’tis impossible,
poor man. Ah, to think how unequal things be.”

“Perhaps he’s made of different stuff than to wear ’em,” said Gabriel,
grimly. “Well, that’s enough of this. Go on, Cainy—quick.”

“Oh—and the new style of parsons wear moustaches and long beards,”
continued the illustrious traveller, “and look like Moses and Aaron
complete, and make we fokes in the congregation feel all over like the
children of Israel.”

“A very right feeling—very,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“And there’s two religions going on in the nation now—High Church and
High Chapel. And, thinks I, I’ll play fair; so I went to High Church in
the morning, and High Chapel in the afternoon.”

“A right and proper boy,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“Well, at High Church they pray singing, and worship all the colours of
the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray preaching, and worship drab
and whitewash only. And then—I didn’t see no more of Miss Everdene at
all.”

“Why didn’t you say so afore, then?” exclaimed Oak, with much
disappointment.

“Ah,” said Matthew Moon, “she’ll wish her cake dough if so be she’s
over intimate with that man.”

“She’s not over intimate with him,” said Gabriel, indignantly.

“She would know better,” said Coggan. “Our mis’ess has too much sense
under they knots of black hair to do such a mad thing.”

“You see, he’s not a coarse, ignorant man, for he was well brought up,”
said Matthew, dubiously. “’Twas only wildness that made him a soldier,
and maids rather like your man of sin.”

“Now, Cain Ball,” said Gabriel restlessly, “can you swear in the most
awful form that the woman you saw was Miss Everdene?”

“Cain Ball, you be no longer a babe and suckling,” said Joseph in the
sepulchral tone the circumstances demanded, “and you know what taking
an oath is. ’Tis a horrible testament mind ye, which you say and seal
with your blood-stone, and the prophet Matthew tells us that on
whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now, before all
the work-folk here assembled, can you swear to your words as the
shepherd asks ye?”

“Please no, Mister Oak!” said Cainy, looking from one to the other with
great uneasiness at the spiritual magnitude of the position. “I don’t
mind saying ’tis true, but I don’t like to say ’tis damn true, if
that’s what you mane.”

“Cain, Cain, how can you!” asked Joseph sternly. “You be asked to swear
in a holy manner, and you swear like wicked Shimei, the son of Gera,
who cursed as he came. Young man, fie!”

“No, I don’t! ’Tis you want to squander a pore boy’s soul, Joseph
Poorgrass—that’s what ’tis!” said Cain, beginning to cry. “All I mane
is that in common truth ’twas Miss Everdene and Sergeant Troy, but in
the horrible so-help-me truth that ye want to make of it perhaps ’twas
somebody else!”

“There’s no getting at the rights of it,” said Gabriel, turning to his
work.

“Cain Ball, you’ll come to a bit of bread!” groaned Joseph Poorgrass.

Then the reapers’ hooks were flourished again, and the old sounds went
on. Gabriel, without making any pretence of being lively, did nothing
to show that he was particularly dull. However, Coggan knew pretty
nearly how the land lay, and when they were in a nook together he said—

“Don’t take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose
sweetheart she is, since she can’t be yours?”

“That’s the very thing I say to myself,” said Gabriel.