Far from the Madding Crowd
forms without features; suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing,
and without more character than that of being the limit of something
else—the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic skyful
of crowding flakes the mead and moor momentarily received additional
clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast arch
of cloud above was strangely low, and formed as it were the roof of a
large dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its floor; for the
instinctive thought was that the snow lining the heavens and that
encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass without any
intervening stratum of air at all.
We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics; which were
flatness in respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall
behind it, and darkness as to both. These features made up the mass. If
anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if any
thing could be gloomier than the wall it was the river beneath. The
indistinct summit of the façade was notched and pronged by chimneys
here and there, and upon its face were faintly signified the oblong
shapes of windows, though only in the upper part. Below, down to the
water’s edge, the flat was unbroken by hole or projection.
An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their
regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy
atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in
the open air, and being overlaid with several inches of muffling snow,
had lost its voice for the time.
About this hour the snow abated: ten flakes fell where twenty had
fallen, then one had the room of ten. Not long after a form moved by
the brink of the river.
By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer might
have seen that it was small. This was all that was positively
discoverable, though it seemed human.
The shape went slowly along, but without much exertion, for the snow,
though sudden, was not as yet more than two inches deep. At this time
some words were spoken aloud:—
“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”
Between each utterance the little shape advanced about half a dozen
yards. It was evident now that the windows high in the wall were being
counted. The word “Five” represented the fifth window from the end of
the wall.
Here the spot stopped, and dwindled smaller. The figure was stooping.
Then a morsel of snow flew across the river towards the fifth window.
It smacked against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. The
throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No
man who had ever seen bird, rabbit, or squirrel in his childhood, could
possibly have thrown with such utter imbecility as was shown here.
Another attempt, and another; till by degrees the wall must have become
pimpled with the adhering lumps of snow. At last one fragment struck
the fifth window.
The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep smooth sort
which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any
irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small
whirlpool. Nothing was heard in reply to the signal but the gurgle and
cluck of one of these invisible wheels—together with a few small sounds
which a sad man would have called moans, and a happy man
laughter—caused by the flapping of the waters against trifling objects
in other parts of the stream.
The window was struck again in the same manner.
Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the
window. This was followed by a voice from the same quarter.
“Who’s there?”
The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise. The high wall
being that of a barrack, and marriage being looked upon with disfavour
in the army, assignations and communications had probably been made
across the river before to-night.
“Is it Sergeant Troy?” said the blurred spot in the snow, tremulously.
This person was so much like a mere shade upon the earth, and the other
speaker so much a part of the building, that one would have said the
wall was holding a conversation with the snow.
“Yes,” came suspiciously from the shadow. “What girl are you?”
“Oh, Frank—don’t you know me?” said the spot. “Your wife, Fanny Robin.”
“Fanny!” said the wall, in utter astonishment.
“Yes,” said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion.
There was something in the woman’s tone which is not that of the wife,
and there was a manner in the man which is rarely a husband’s. The
dialogue went on:
“How did you come here?”
“I asked which was your window. Forgive me!”
“I did not expect you to-night. Indeed, I did not think you would come
at all. It was a wonder you found me here. I am orderly to-morrow.”
“You said I was to come.”
“Well—I said that you might.”
“Yes, I mean that I might. You are glad to see me, Frank?”
“Oh yes—of course.”
“Can you—come to me!”
“My dear Fan, no! The bugle has sounded, the barrack gates are closed,
and I have no leave. We are all of us as good as in the county gaol
till to-morrow morning.”
“Then I shan’t see you till then!” The words were in a faltering tone
of disappointment.
“How did you get here from Weatherbury?”
“I walked—some part of the way—the rest by the carriers.”
“I am surprised.”
“Yes—so am I. And Frank, when will it be?”
“What?”
“That you promised.”
“I don’t quite recollect.”
“O you do! Don’t speak like that. It weighs me to the earth. It makes
me say what ought to be said first by you.”
“Never mind—say it.”
“O, must I?—it is, when shall we be married, Frank?”
“Oh, I see. Well—you have to get proper clothes.”
“I have money. Will it be by banns or license?”
“Banns, I should think.”
“And we live in two parishes.”
“Do we? What then?”
“My lodgings are in St. Mary’s, and this is not. So they will have to
be published in both.”
“Is that the law?”
“Yes. O Frank—you think me forward, I am afraid! Don’t, dear Frank—will
you—for I love you so. And you said lots of times you would marry me,
and—and—I—I—I—”
“Don’t cry, now! It is foolish. If I said so, of course I will.”
“And shall I put up the banns in my parish, and will you in yours?”
“Yes”
“To-morrow?”
“Not to-morrow. We’ll settle in a few days.”
“You have the permission of the officers?”
“No, not yet.”
“O—how is it? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge.”
“The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming like this is so sudden and
unexpected.”
“Yes—yes—it is. It was wrong of me to worry you. I’ll go away now. Will
you come and see me to-morrow, at Mrs. Twills’s, in North Street? I
don’t like to come to the Barracks. There are bad women about, and they
think me one.”
“Quite, so. I’ll come to you, my dear. Good-night.”
“Good-night, Frank—good-night!”
And the noise was again heard of a window closing. The little spot
moved away. When she passed the corner a subdued exclamation was heard
inside the wall.
“Ho—ho—Sergeant—ho—ho!” An expostulation followed, but it was
indistinct; and it became lost amid a low peal of laughter, which was
hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the tiny whirlpools outside.
CHAPTER XII
FARMERS—A RULE—AN EXCEPTION
The first public evidence of Bathsheba’s decision to be a farmer in her
own person and by proxy no more was her appearance the following
market-day in the cornmarket at Casterbridge.
The low though extensive hall, supported by beams and pillars, and
latterly dignified by the name of Corn Exchange, was thronged with hot
men who talked among each other in twos and threes, the speaker of the
minute looking sideways into his auditor’s face and concentrating his
argument by a contraction of one eyelid during delivery. The greater
number carried in their hands ground-ash saplings, using them partly as
walking-sticks and partly for poking up pigs, sheep, neighbours with
their backs turned, and restful things in general, which seemed to
require such treatment in the course of their peregrinations. During
conversations each subjected his sapling to great varieties of
usage—bending it round his back, forming an arch of it between his two
hands, overweighting it on the ground till it reached nearly a
semicircle; or perhaps it was hastily tucked under the arm whilst the
sample-bag was pulled forth and a handful of corn poured into the palm,
which, after criticism, was flung upon the floor, an issue of events
perfectly well known to half-a-dozen acute town-bred fowls which had as
usual crept into the building unobserved, and waited the fulfilment of
their anticipations with a high-stretched neck and oblique eye.
Among these heavy yeomen a feminine figure glided, the single one of
her sex that the room contained. She was prettily and even daintily
dressed. She moved between them as a chaise between carts, was heard
after them as a romance after sermons, was felt among them like a
breeze among furnaces. It had required a little determination—far more
than she had at first imagined—to take up a position here, for at her
first entry the lumbering dialogues had ceased, nearly every face had
been turned towards her, and those that were already turned rigidly
fixed there.
Two or three only of the farmers were personally known to Bathsheba,
and to these she had made her way. But if she was to be the practical
woman she had intended to show herself, business must be carried on,
introductions or none, and she ultimately acquired confidence enough to
speak and reply boldly to men merely known to her by hearsay. Bathsheba
too had her sample-bags, and by degrees adopted the professional pour
into the hand—holding up the grains in her narrow palm for inspection,
in perfect Casterbridge manner.
Something in the exact arch of her upper unbroken row of teeth, and in
the keenly pointed corners of her red mouth when, with parted lips, she
somewhat defiantly turned up her face to argue a point with a tall man,
suggested that there was potentiality enough in that lithe slip of
humanity for alarming exploits of sex, and daring enough to carry them
out. But her eyes had a softness—invariably a softness—which, had they
not been dark, would have seemed mistiness; as they were, it lowered an
expression that might have been piercing to simple clearness.
Strange to say of a woman in full bloom and vigor, she always allowed
her interlocutors to finish their statements before rejoining with
hers. In arguing on prices, she held to her own firmly, as was natural
in a dealer, and reduced theirs persistently, as was inevitable in a
woman. But there was an elasticity in her firmness which removed it
from obstinacy, as there was a _naïveté_ in her cheapening which saved
it from meanness.
Those of the farmers with whom she had no dealings (by far the greater
part) were continually asking each other, “Who is she?” The reply would
be—
“Farmer Everdene’s niece; took on Weatherbury Upper Farm; turned away
the baily, and swears she’ll do everything herself.”
The other man would then shake his head.
“Yes, ’tis a pity she’s so headstrong,” the first would say. “But we
ought to be proud of her here—she lightens up the old place. ’Tis such
a shapely maid, however, that she’ll soon get picked up.”
It would be ungallant to suggest that the novelty of her engagement in
such an occupation had almost as much to do with the magnetism as had
the beauty of her face and movements. However, the interest was
general, and this Saturday’s _début_ in the forum, whatever it may have
been to Bathsheba as the buying and selling farmer, was unquestionably
a triumph to her as the maiden. Indeed, the sensation was so pronounced
that her instinct on two or three occasions was merely to walk as a
queen among these gods of the fallow, like a little sister of a little