Far from the Madding Crowd

ONCURRITUR—HORÆ MOMENTO

Outside the front of Boldwood’s house a group of men stood in the dark,
with their faces towards the door, which occasionally opened and closed
for the passage of some guest or servant, when a golden rod of light
would stripe the ground for the moment and vanish again, leaving
nothing outside but the glowworm shine of the pale lamp amid the
evergreens over the door.

“He was seen in Casterbridge this afternoon—so the boy said,” one of
them remarked in a whisper. “And I for one believe it. His body was
never found, you know.”

“’Tis a strange story,” said the next. “You may depend upon’t that she
knows nothing about it.”

“Not a word.”

“Perhaps he don’t mean that she shall,” said another man.

“If he’s alive and here in the neighbourhood, he means mischief,” said
the first. “Poor young thing: I do pity her, if ’tis true. He’ll drag
her to the dogs.”

“O no; he’ll settle down quiet enough,” said one disposed to take a
more hopeful view of the case.

“What a fool she must have been ever to have had anything to do with
the man! She is so self-willed and independent too, that one is more
minded to say it serves her right than pity her.”

“No, no. I don’t hold with ’ee there. She was no otherwise than a girl
mind, and how could she tell what the man was made of? If ’tis really
true, ’tis too hard a punishment, and more than she ought to
hae.—Hullo, who’s that?” This was to some footsteps that were heard
approaching.

“William Smallbury,” said a dim figure in the shades, coming up and
joining them. “Dark as a hedge, to-night, isn’t it? I all but missed
the plank over the river ath’art there in the bottom—never did such a
thing before in my life. Be ye any of Boldwood’s workfolk?” He peered
into their faces.

“Yes—all o’ us. We met here a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, I hear now—that’s Sam Samway: thought I knowed the voice, too.
Going in?”

“Presently. But I say, William,” Samway whispered, “have ye heard this
strange tale?”

“What—that about Sergeant Troy being seen, d’ye mean, souls?” said
Smallbury, also lowering his voice.

“Ay: in Casterbridge.”

“Yes, I have. Laban Tall named a hint of it to me but now—but I don’t
think it. Hark, here Laban comes himself, ’a b’lieve.” A footstep drew
near.

“Laban?”

“Yes, ’tis I,” said Tall.

“Have ye heard any more about that?”

“No,” said Tall, joining the group. “And I’m inclined to think we’d
better keep quiet. If so be ’tis not true, ’twill flurry her, and do
her much harm to repeat it; and if so be ’tis true, ’twill do no good
to forestall her time o’ trouble. God send that it mid be a lie, for
though Henery Fray and some of ’em do speak against her, she’s never
been anything but fair to me. She’s hot and hasty, but she’s a brave
girl who’ll never tell a lie however much the truth may harm her, and
I’ve no cause to wish her evil.”

“She never do tell women’s little lies, that’s true; and ’tis a thing
that can be said of very few. Ay, all the harm she thinks she says to
yer face: there’s nothing underhand wi’ her.”

They stood silent then, every man busied with his own thoughts, during
which interval sounds of merriment could be heard within. Then the
front door again opened, the rays streamed out, the well-known form of
Boldwood was seen in the rectangular area of light, the door closed,
and Boldwood walked slowly down the path.

“’Tis master,” one of the men whispered, as he neared them. “We’d
better stand quiet—he’ll go in again directly. He would think it
unseemly o’ us to be loitering here.”

Boldwood came on, and passed by the men without seeing them, they being
under the bushes on the grass. He paused, leant over the gate, and
breathed a long breath. They heard low words come from him.

“I hope to God she’ll come, or this night will be nothing but misery to
me! Oh my darling, my darling, why do you keep me in suspense like
this?”

He said this to himself, and they all distinctly heard it. Boldwood
remained silent after that, and the noise from indoors was again just
audible, until, a few minutes later, light wheels could be
distinguished coming down the hill. They drew nearer, and ceased at the
gate. Boldwood hastened back to the door, and opened it; and the light
shone upon Bathsheba coming up the path.

Boldwood compressed his emotion to mere welcome: the men marked her
light laugh and apology as she met him: he took her into the house; and
the door closed again.

“Gracious heaven, I didn’t know it was like that with him!” said one of
the men. “I thought that fancy of his was over long ago.”

“You don’t know much of master, if you thought that,” said Samway.

“I wouldn’t he should know we heard what ’a said for the world,”
remarked a third.

“I wish we had told of the report at once,” the first uneasily
continued. “More harm may come of this than we know of. Poor Mr.
Boldwood, it will be hard upon en. I wish Troy was in—Well, God forgive
me for such a wish! A scoundrel to play a poor wife such tricks.
Nothing has prospered in Weatherbury since he came here. And now I’ve
no heart to go in. Let’s look into Warren’s for a few minutes first,
shall us, neighbours?”

Samway, Tall, and Smallbury agreed to go to Warren’s, and went out at
the gate, the remaining ones entering the house. The three soon drew
near the malt-house, approaching it from the adjoining orchard, and not
by way of the street. The pane of glass was illuminated as usual.
Smallbury was a little in advance of the rest when, pausing, he turned
suddenly to his companions and said, “Hist! See there.”

The light from the pane was now perceived to be shining not upon the
ivied wall as usual, but upon some object close to the glass. It was a
human face.

“Let’s come closer,” whispered Samway; and they approached on tiptoe.
There was no disbelieving the report any longer. Troy’s face was almost
close to the pane, and he was looking in. Not only was he looking in,
but he appeared to have been arrested by a conversation which was in
progress in the malt-house, the voices of the interlocutors being those
of Oak and the maltster.

“The spree is all in her honour, isn’t it—hey?” said the old man.
“Although he made believe ’tis only keeping up o’ Christmas?”

“I cannot say,” replied Oak.

“Oh ’tis true enough, faith. I cannot understand Farmer Boldwood being
such a fool at his time of life as to ho and hanker after this woman in
the way ’a do, and she not care a bit about en.”

The men, after recognizing Troy’s features, withdrew across the orchard
as quietly as they had come. The air was big with Bathsheba’s fortunes
to-night: every word everywhere concerned her. When they were quite out
of earshot all by one instinct paused.

“It gave me quite a turn—his face,” said Tall, breathing.

“And so it did me,” said Samway. “What’s to be done?”

“I don’t see that ’tis any business of ours,” Smallbury murmured
dubiously.

“But it is! ’Tis a thing which is everybody’s business,” said Samway.
“We know very well that master’s on a wrong tack, and that she’s quite
in the dark, and we should let ’em know at once. Laban, you know her
best—you’d better go and ask to speak to her.”

“I bain’t fit for any such thing,” said Laban, nervously. “I should
think William ought to do it if anybody. He’s oldest.”

“I shall have nothing to do with it,” said Smallbury. “’Tis a ticklish
business altogether. Why, he’ll go on to her himself in a few minutes,
ye’ll see.”

“We don’t know that he will. Come, Laban.”

“Very well, if I must I must, I suppose,” Tall reluctantly answered.
“What must I say?”

“Just ask to see master.”

“Oh no; I shan’t speak to Mr. Boldwood. If I tell anybody, ’twill be
mistress.”

“Very well,” said Samway.

Laban then went to the door. When he opened it the hum of bustle rolled
out as a wave upon a still strand—the assemblage being immediately
inside the hall—and was deadened to a murmur as he closed it again.
Each man waited intently, and looked around at the dark tree tops
gently rocking against the sky and occasionally shivering in a slight
wind, as if he took interest in the scene, which neither did. One of
them began walking up and down, and then came to where he started from
and stopped again, with a sense that walking was a thing not worth
doing now.

“I should think Laban must have seen mistress by this time,” said
Smallbury, breaking the silence. “Perhaps she won’t come and speak to
him.”

The door opened. Tall appeared, and joined them.

“Well?” said both.

“I didn’t like to ask for her after all,” Laban faltered out. “They
were all in such a stir, trying to put a little spirit into the party.
Somehow the fun seems to hang fire, though everything’s there that a
heart can desire, and I couldn’t for my soul interfere and throw damp
upon it—if ’twas to save my life, I couldn’t!”

“I suppose we had better all go in together,” said Samway, gloomily.
“Perhaps I may have a chance of saying a word to master.”

So the men entered the hall, which was the room selected and arranged
for the gathering because of its size. The younger men and maids were
at last just beginning to dance. Bathsheba had been perplexed how to
act, for she was not much more than a slim young maid herself, and the
weight of stateliness sat heavy upon her. Sometimes she thought she
ought not to have come under any circumstances; then she considered
what cold unkindness that would have been, and finally resolved upon
the middle course of staying for about an hour only, and gliding off
unobserved, having from the first made up her mind that she could on no
account dance, sing, or take any active part in the proceedings.

Her allotted hour having been passed in chatting and looking on,
Bathsheba told Liddy not to hurry herself, and went to the small
parlour to prepare for departure, which, like the hall, was decorated
with holly and ivy, and well lighted up.

Nobody was in the room, but she had hardly been there a moment when the
master of the house entered.

“Mrs. Troy—you are not going?” he said. “We’ve hardly begun!”

“If you’ll excuse me, I should like to go now.” Her manner was restive,
for she remembered her promise, and imagined what he was about to say.
“But as it is not late,” she added, “I can walk home, and leave my man
and Liddy to come when they choose.”

“I’ve been trying to get an opportunity of speaking to you,” said
Boldwood. “You know perhaps what I long to say?”

Bathsheba silently looked on the floor.

“You do give it?” he said, eagerly.

“What?” she whispered.

“Now, that’s evasion! Why, the promise. I don’t want to intrude upon
you at all, or to let it become known to anybody. But do give your
word! A mere business compact, you know, between two people who are
beyond the influence of passion.” Boldwood knew how false this picture
was as regarded himself; but he had proved that it was the only tone in
which she would allow him to approach her. “A promise to marry me at
the end of five years and three-quarters. You owe it to me!”

“I feel that I do,” said Bathsheba; “that is, if you demand it. But I
am a changed woman—an unhappy woman—and not—not—”

“You are still a very beautiful woman,” said Boldwood. Honesty and pure
conviction suggested the remark, unaccompanied by any perception that
it might have been adopted by blunt flattery to soothe and win her.

However, it had not much effect now, for she said, in a passionless
murmur which was in itself a proof of her words: “I have no feeling in
the matter at all. And I don’t at all know what is right to do in my
difficult position, and I have nobody to advise me. But I give my
promise, if I must. I give it as the rendering of a debt,
conditionally, of course, on my being a widow.”

“You’ll marry me between five and six years hence?”

“Don’t press me too hard. I’ll marry nobody else.”

“But surely you will name the time, or there’s nothing in the promise
at all?”

“Oh, I don’t know, pray let me go!” she said, her bosom beginning to
rise. “I am afraid what to do! I want to be just to you, and to be that
seems to be wronging myself, and perhaps it is breaking the
commandments. There is considerable doubt of his death, and then it is
dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!”

“Say the words, dear one, and the subject shall be dismissed; a
blissful loving intimacy of six years, and then marriage—O Bathsheba,
say them!” he begged in a husky voice, unable to sustain the forms of
mere friendship any longer. “Promise yourself to me; I deserve it,
indeed I do, for I have loved you more than anybody in the world! And
if I said hasty words and showed uncalled-for heat of manner towards
you, believe me, dear, I did not mean to distress you; I was in agony,
Bathsheba, and I did not know what I said. You wouldn’t let a dog
suffer what I have suffered, could you but know it! Sometimes I shrink
from your knowing what I have felt for you, and sometimes I am
distressed that all of it you never will know. Be gracious, and give up
a little to me, when I would give up my life for you!”

The trimmings of her dress, as they quivered against the light, showed
how agitated she was, and at last she burst out crying. “And you’ll
not—press me—about anything more—if I say in five or six years?” she
sobbed, when she had power to frame the words.

“Yes, then I’ll leave it to time.”

She waited a moment. “Very well. I’ll marry you in six years from this
day, if we both live,” she said solemnly.

“And you’ll take this as a token from me.”

Boldwood had come close to her side, and now he clasped one of her
hands in both his own, and lifted it to his breast.

“What is it? Oh I cannot wear a ring!” she exclaimed, on seeing what he
held; “besides, I wouldn’t have a soul know that it’s an engagement!
Perhaps it is improper? Besides, we are not engaged in the usual sense,
are we? Don’t insist, Mr. Boldwood—don’t!” In her trouble at not being
able to get her hand away from him at once, she stamped passionately on
the floor with one foot, and tears crowded to her eyes again.

“It means simply a pledge—no sentiment—the seal of a practical
compact,” he said more quietly, but still retaining her hand in his
firm grasp. “Come, now!” And Boldwood slipped the ring on her finger.

“I cannot wear it,” she said, weeping as if her heart would break. “You
frighten me, almost. So wild a scheme! Please let me go home!”

“Only to-night: wear it just to-night, to please me!”

Bathsheba sat down in a chair, and buried her face in her handkerchief,
though Boldwood kept her hand yet. At length she said, in a sort of
hopeless whisper—

“Very well, then, I will to-night, if you wish it so earnestly. Now
loosen my hand; I will, indeed I will wear it to-night.”

“And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret courtship of six
years, with a wedding at the end?”

“It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!” she said, fairly
beaten into non-resistance.

Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop in her lap. “I am
happy now,” he said. “God bless you!”

He left the room, and when he thought she might be sufficiently
composed sent one of the maids to her. Bathsheba cloaked the effects of
the late scene as she best could, followed the girl, and in a few
moments came downstairs with her hat and cloak on, ready to go. To get
to the door it was necessary to pass through the hall, and before doing
so she paused on the bottom of the staircase which descended into one
corner, to take a last look at the gathering.

There was no music or dancing in progress just now. At the lower end,
which had been arranged for the work-folk specially, a group conversed
in whispers, and with clouded looks. Boldwood was standing by the
fireplace, and he, too, though so absorbed in visions arising from her
promise that he scarcely saw anything, seemed at that moment to have
observed their peculiar manner, and their looks askance.

“What is it you are in doubt about, men?” he said.

One of them turned and replied uneasily: “It was something Laban heard
of, that’s all, sir.”

“News? Anybody married or engaged, born or dead?” inquired the farmer,
gaily. “Tell it to us, Tall. One would think from your looks and
mysterious ways that it was something very dreadful indeed.”

“Oh no, sir, nobody is dead,” said Tall.

“I wish somebody was,” said Samway, in a whisper.

“What do you say, Samway?” asked Boldwood, somewhat sharply. “If you
have anything to say, speak out; if not, get up another dance.”

“Mrs. Troy has come downstairs,” said Samway to Tall. “If you want to
tell her, you had better do it now.”

“Do you know what they mean?” the farmer asked Bathsheba, across the
room.

“I don’t in the least,” said Bathsheba.

There was a smart rapping at the door. One of the men opened it
instantly, and went outside.

“Mrs. Troy is wanted,” he said, on returning.

“Quite ready,” said Bathsheba. “Though I didn’t tell them to send.”

“It is a stranger, ma’am,” said the man by the door.

“A stranger?” she said.

“Ask him to come in,” said Boldwood.

The message was given, and Troy, wrapped up to his eyes as we have seen
him, stood in the doorway.

There was an unearthly silence, all looking towards the newcomer. Those
who had just learnt that he was in the neighbourhood recognized him
instantly; those who did not were perplexed. Nobody noted Bathsheba.
She was leaning on the stairs. Her brow had heavily contracted; her
whole face was pallid, her lips apart, her eyes rigidly staring at
their visitor.

Boldwood was among those who did not notice that he was Troy. “Come in,
come in!” he repeated, cheerfully, “and drain a Christmas beaker with
us, stranger!”

Troy next advanced into the middle of the room, took off his cap,
turned down his coat-collar, and looked Boldwood in the face. Even then
Boldwood did not recognize that the impersonator of Heaven’s persistent
irony towards him, who had once before broken in upon his bliss,
scourged him, and snatched his delight away, had come to do these
things a second time. Troy began to laugh a mechanical laugh: Boldwood
recognized him now.

Troy turned to Bathsheba. The poor girl’s wretchedness at this time was
beyond all fancy or narration. She had sunk down on the lowest stair;
and there she sat, her mouth blue and dry, and her dark eyes fixed
vacantly upon him, as if she wondered whether it were not all a
terrible illusion.

Then Troy spoke. “Bathsheba, I come here for you!”

She made no reply.

“Come home with me: come!”

Bathsheba moved her feet a little, but did not rise. Troy went across
to her.

“Come, madam, do you hear what I say?” he said, peremptorily.

A strange voice came from the fireplace—a voice sounding far off and
confined, as if from a dungeon. Hardly a soul in the assembly
recognized the thin tones to be those of Boldwood. Sudden despair had
transformed him.

“Bathsheba, go with your husband!”

Nevertheless, she did not move. The truth was that Bathsheba was beyond
the pale of activity—and yet not in a swoon. She was in a state of
mental gutta serena; her mind was for the minute totally deprived of
light at the same time no obscuration was apparent from without.

Troy stretched out his hand to pull her towards him, when she quickly
shrank back. This visible dread of him seemed to irritate Troy, and he
seized her arm and pulled it sharply. Whether his grasp pinched her, or
whether his mere touch was the cause, was never known, but at the
moment of his seizure she writhed, and gave a quick, low scream.

The scream had been heard but a few seconds when it was followed by
sudden deafening report that echoed through the room and stupefied them
all. The oak partition shook with the concussion, and the place was
filled with grey smoke.

In bewilderment they turned their eyes to Boldwood. At his back, as
stood before the fireplace, was a gun-rack, as is usual in farmhouses,
constructed to hold two guns. When Bathsheba had cried out in her
husband’s grasp, Boldwood’s face of gnashing despair had changed. The
veins had swollen, and a frenzied look had gleamed in his eye. He had
turned quickly, taken one of the guns, cocked it, and at once
discharged it at Troy.

Troy fell. The distance apart of the two men was so small that the
charge of shot did not spread in the least, but passed like a bullet
into his body. He uttered a long guttural sigh—there was a
contraction—an extension—then his muscles relaxed, and he lay still.

Boldwood was seen through the smoke to be now again engaged with the
gun. It was double-barrelled, and he had, meanwhile, in some way
fastened his hand-kerchief to the trigger, and with his foot on the
other end was in the act of turning the second barrel upon himself.
Samway his man was the first to see this, and in the midst of the
general horror darted up to him. Boldwood had already twitched the
handkerchief, and the gun exploded a second time, sending its contents,
by a timely blow from Samway, into the beam which crossed the ceiling.

“Well, it makes no difference!” Boldwood gasped. “There is another way
for me to die.”

Then he broke from Samway, crossed the room to Bathsheba, and kissed
her hand. He put on his hat, opened the door, and went into the
darkness, nobody thinking of preventing him.