Far from the Madding Crowd

NDER A TREE—REACTION

Bathsheba went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring about
the direction or issue of her flight. The first time that she
definitely noticed her position was when she reached a gate leading
into a thicket overhung by some large oak and beech trees. On looking
into the place, it occurred to her that she had seen it by daylight on
some previous occasion, and that what appeared like an impassable
thicket was in reality a brake of fern now withering fast. She could
think of nothing better to do with her palpitating self than to go in
here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spot sheltered from the
damp fog by a reclining trunk, where she sank down upon a tangled couch
of fronds and stems. She mechanically pulled some armfuls round her to
keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes.

Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was not clearly aware.
But it was with a freshened existence and a cooler brain that, a long
time afterwards, she became conscious of some interesting proceedings
which were going on in the trees above her head and around.

A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound.

It was a sparrow just waking.

Next: “Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!” from another retreat.

It was a finch.

Third: “Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!” from the hedge.

It was a robin.

“Chuck-chuck-chuck!” overhead.

A squirrel.

Then, from the road, “With my ra-ta-ta, and my rum-tum-tum!”

It was a ploughboy. Presently he came opposite, and she believed from
his voice that he was one of the boys on her own farm. He was followed
by a shambling tramp of heavy feet, and looking through the ferns
Bathsheba could just discern in the wan light of daybreak a team of her
own horses. They stopped to drink at a pond on the other side of the
way. She watched them flouncing into the pool, drinking, tossing up
their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling from their lips in
silver threads. There was another flounce, and they came out of the
pond, and turned back again towards the farm.

She looked further around. Day was just dawning, and beside its cool
air and colours her heated actions and resolves of the night stood out
in lurid contrast. She perceived that in her lap, and clinging to her
hair, were red and yellow leaves which had come down from the tree and
settled silently upon her during her partial sleep. Bathsheba shook her
dress to get rid of them, when multitudes of the same family lying
round about her rose and fluttered away in the breeze thus created,
“like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.”

There was an opening towards the east, and the glow from the as yet
unrisen sun attracted her eyes thither. From her feet, and between the
beautiful yellowing ferns with their feathery arms, the ground sloped
downwards to a hollow, in which was a species of swamp, dotted with
fungi. A morning mist hung over it now—a fulsome yet magnificent
silvery veil, full of light from the sun, yet semi-opaque—the hedge
behind it being in some measure hidden by its hazy luminousness. Up the
sides of this depression grew sheaves of the common rush, and here and
there a peculiar species of flag, the blades of which glistened in the
emerging sun, like scythes. But the general aspect of the swamp was
malignant. From its moist and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the
essences of evil things in the earth, and in the waters under the
earth. The fungi grew in all manner of positions from rotting leaves
and tree stumps, some exhibiting to her listless gaze their clammy
tops, others their oozing gills. Some were marked with great splotches,
red as arterial blood, others were saffron yellow, and others tall and
attenuated, with stems like macaroni. Some were leathery and of richest
browns. The hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences small and great, in
the immediate neighbourhood of comfort and health, and Bathsheba arose
with a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the brink of
so dismal a place.

There were now other footsteps to be heard along the road. Bathsheba’s
nerves were still unstrung: she crouched down out of sight again, and
the pedestrian came into view. He was a schoolboy, with a bag slung
over his shoulder containing his dinner, and a book in his hand. He
paused by the gate, and, without looking up, continued murmuring words
in tones quite loud enough to reach her ears.

“‘O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord’:—that I know out o’ book.
‘Give us, give us, give us, give us, give us’:—that I know. ‘Grace
that, grace that, grace that, grace that’:—that I know.” Other words
followed to the same effect. The boy was of the dunce class apparently;
the book was a psalter, and this was his way of learning the collect.
In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a
superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to
the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the boy’s
method, till he too passed on.

By this time stupor had given place to anxiety, and anxiety began to
make room for hunger and thirst. A form now appeared upon the rise on
the other side of the swamp, half-hidden by the mist, and came towards
Bathsheba. The woman—for it was a woman—approached with her face
askance, as if looking earnestly on all sides of her. When she got a
little further round to the left, and drew nearer, Bathsheba could see
the newcomer’s profile against the sunny sky, and knew the wavy sweep
from forehead to chin, with neither angle nor decisive line anywhere
about it, to be the familiar contour of Liddy Smallbury.

Bathsheba’s heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that she was
not altogether deserted, and she jumped up. “Oh, Liddy!” she said, or
attempted to say; but the words had only been framed by her lips; there
came no sound. She had lost her voice by exposure to the clogged
atmosphere all these hours of night.

“Oh, ma’am! I am so glad I have found you,” said the girl, as soon as
she saw Bathsheba.

“You can’t come across,” Bathsheba said in a whisper, which she vainly
endeavoured to make loud enough to reach Liddy’s ears. Liddy, not
knowing this, stepped down upon the swamp, saying, as she did so, “It
will bear me up, I think.”

Bathsheba never forgot that transient little picture of Liddy crossing
the swamp to her there in the morning light. Iridescent bubbles of dank
subterranean breath rose from the sweating sod beside the
waiting-maid’s feet as she trod, hissing as they burst and expanded
away to join the vapoury firmament above. Liddy did not sink, as
Bathsheba had anticipated.

She landed safely on the other side, and looked up at the beautiful
though pale and weary face of her young mistress.

“Poor thing!” said Liddy, with tears in her eyes, “Do hearten yourself
up a little, ma’am. However did—”

“I can’t speak above a whisper—my voice is gone for the present,” said
Bathsheba, hurriedly. “I suppose the damp air from that hollow has
taken it away. Liddy, don’t question me, mind. Who sent you—anybody?”

“Nobody. I thought, when I found you were not at home, that something
cruel had happened. I fancy I heard his voice late last night; and so,
knowing something was wrong—”

“Is he at home?”

“No; he left just before I came out.”

“Is Fanny taken away?”

“Not yet. She will soon be—at nine o’clock.”

“We won’t go home at present, then. Suppose we walk about in this
wood?”

Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or anything, in this
episode, assented, and they walked together further among the trees.

“But you had better come in, ma’am, and have something to eat. You will
die of a chill!”

“I shall not come indoors yet—perhaps never.”

“Shall I get you something to eat, and something else to put over your
head besides that little shawl?”

“If you will, Liddy.”

Liddy vanished, and at the end of twenty minutes returned with a cloak,
hat, some slices of bread and butter, a tea-cup, and some hot tea in a
little china jug.

“Is Fanny gone?” said Bathsheba.

“No,” said her companion, pouring out the tea.

Bathsheba wrapped herself up and ate and drank sparingly. Her voice was
then a little clearer, and trifling colour returned to her face. “Now
we’ll walk about again,” she said.

They wandered about the wood for nearly two hours, Bathsheba replying
in monosyllables to Liddy’s prattle, for her mind ran on one subject,
and one only. She interrupted with—

“I wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?”

“I will go and see.”

She came back with the information that the men were just taking away
the corpse; that Bathsheba had been inquired for; that she had replied
to the effect that her mistress was unwell and could not be seen.

“Then they think I am in my bedroom?”

“Yes.” Liddy then ventured to add: “You said when I first found you
that you might never go home again—you didn’t mean it, ma’am?”

“No; I’ve altered my mind. It is only women with no pride in them who
run away from their husbands. There is one position worse than that of
being found dead in your husband’s house from his ill usage, and that
is, to be found alive through having gone away to the house of somebody
else. I’ve thought of it all this morning, and I’ve chosen my course. A
runaway wife is an encumbrance to everybody, a burden to herself and a
byword—all of which make up a heap of misery greater than any that
comes by staying at home—though this may include the trifling items of
insult, beating, and starvation. Liddy, if ever you marry—God forbid
that you ever should!—you’ll find yourself in a fearful situation; but
mind this, don’t you flinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces.
That’s what I’m going to do.”

“Oh, mistress, don’t talk so!” said Liddy, taking her hand; “but I knew
you had too much sense to bide away. May I ask what dreadful thing it
is that has happened between you and him?”

“You may ask; but I may not tell.”

In about ten minutes they returned to the house by a circuitous route,
entering at the rear. Bathsheba glided up the back stairs to a disused
attic, and her companion followed.

“Liddy,” she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and hope had begun
to reassert themselves; “you are to be my confidante for the
present—somebody must be—and I choose you. Well, I shall take up my
abode here for a while. Will you get a fire lighted, put down a piece
of carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable. Afterwards, I
want you and Maryann to bring up that little stump bedstead in the
small room, and the bed belonging to it, and a table, and some other
things.... What shall I do to pass the heavy time away?”

“Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing,” said Liddy.

“Oh no, no! I hate needlework—I always did.”

“Knitting?”

“And that, too.”

“You might finish your sampler. Only the carnations and peacocks want
filling in; and then it could be framed and glazed, and hung beside
your aunt’s ma’am.”

“Samplers are out of date—horribly countrified. No Liddy, I’ll read.
Bring up some books—not new ones. I haven’t heart to read anything
new.”

“Some of your uncle’s old ones, ma’am?”

“Yes. Some of those we stowed away in boxes.” A faint gleam of humour
passed over her face as she said: “Bring Beaumont and Fletcher’s
Maid’s Tragedy, and the Mourning Bride, and—let me see—Night
Thoughts, and the Vanity of Human Wishes.”

“And that story of the black man, who murdered his wife Desdemona? It
is a nice dismal one that would suit you excellent just now.”

“Now, Liddy, you’ve been looking into my books without telling me; and
I said you were not to! How do you know it would suit me? It wouldn’t
suit me at all.”

“But if the others do—”

“No, they don’t; and I won’t read dismal books. Why should I read
dismal books, indeed? Bring me Love in a Village, and Maid of the
Mill, and Doctor Syntax, and some volumes of the Spectator.”

All that day Bathsheba and Liddy lived in the attic in a state of
barricade; a precaution which proved to be needless as against Troy,
for he did not appear in the neighbourhood or trouble them at all.
Bathsheba sat at the window till sunset, sometimes attempting to read,
at other times watching every movement outside without much purpose,
and listening without much interest to every sound.

The sun went down almost blood-red that night, and a livid cloud
received its rays in the east. Up against this dark background the west
front of the church tower—the only part of the edifice visible from the
farm-house windows—rose distinct and lustrous, the vane upon the summit
bristling with rays. Hereabouts, at six o’clock, the young men of the
village gathered, as was their custom, for a game of Prisoners’ base.
The spot had been consecrated to this ancient diversion from time
immemorial, the old stocks conveniently forming a base facing the
boundary of the churchyard, in front of which the ground was trodden
hard and bare as a pavement by the players. She could see the brown and
black heads of the young lads darting about right and left, their white
shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun; whilst occasionally a shout and a
peal of hearty laughter varied the stillness of the evening air. They
continued playing for a quarter of an hour or so, when the game
concluded abruptly, and the players leapt over the wall and vanished
round to the other side behind a yew-tree, which was also half behind a
beech, now spreading in one mass of golden foliage, on which the
branches traced black lines.

“Why did the base-players finish their game so suddenly?” Bathsheba
inquired, the next time that Liddy entered the room.

“I think ’twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge and
began putting up a grand carved tombstone,” said Liddy. “The lads went
to see whose it was.”

“Do you know?” Bathsheba asked.

“I don’t,” said Liddy.