Far from the Madding Crowd
kind as others are.”
“No, no; don’t say so! I have reasons for reserve which I cannot
explain.”
“Let it be, then, let it be,” he said, receiving back the watch at
last; “I must be leaving you now. And will you speak to me for these
few weeks of my stay?”
“Indeed I will. Yet, I don’t know if I will! Oh, why did you come and
disturb me so!”
“Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. Such things have
happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields?” he coaxed.
“Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you.”
“Miss Everdene, I thank you.”
“No, no.”
“Good-bye!”
The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head,
saluted, and returned to the distant group of haymakers.
Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. Her heart erratically
flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot, and almost
tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, “Oh, what have I done! What
does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true!”
CHAPTER XXVII
HIVING THE BEES
The Weatherbury bees were late in their swarming this year. It was in
the latter part of June, and the day after the interview with Troy in
the hayfield, that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, watching a
swarm in the air and guessing their probable settling place. Not only
were they late this year, but unruly. Sometimes throughout a whole
season all the swarms would alight on the lowest attainable bough—such
as part of a currant-bush or espalier apple-tree; next year they would,
with just the same unanimity, make straight off to the uppermost member
of some tall, gaunt costard, or quarrenden, and there defy all invaders
who did not come armed with ladders and staves to take them.
This was the case at present. Bathsheba’s eyes, shaded by one hand,
were following the ascending multitude against the unexplorable stretch
of blue till they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy trees spoken
of. A process somewhat analogous to that of alleged formations of the
universe, time and times ago, was observable. The bustling swarm had
swept the sky in a scattered and uniform haze, which now thickened to a
nebulous centre: this glided on to a bough and grew still denser, till
it formed a solid black spot upon the light.
The men and women being all busily engaged in saving the hay—even Liddy
had left the house for the purpose of lending a hand—Bathsheba resolved
to hive the bees herself, if possible. She had dressed the hive with
herbs and honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook, made herself
impregnable with armour of leather gloves, straw hat, and large gauze
veil—once green but now faded to snuff colour—and ascended a dozen
rungs of the ladder. At once she heard, not ten yards off, a voice that
was beginning to have a strange power in agitating her.
“Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should not attempt such a thing
alone.”
Troy was just opening the garden gate.
Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook, and empty hive, pulled the skirt
of her dress tightly round her ankles in a tremendous flurry, and as
well as she could slid down the ladder. By the time she reached the
bottom Troy was there also, and he stooped to pick up the hive.
“How fortunate I am to have dropped in at this moment!” exclaimed the
sergeant.
She found her voice in a minute. “What! and will you shake them in for
me?” she asked, in what, for a defiant girl, was a faltering way;
though, for a timid girl, it would have seemed a brave way enough.
“Will I!” said Troy. “Why, of course I will. How blooming you are
to-day!” Troy flung down his cane and put his foot on the ladder to
ascend.
“But you must have on the veil and gloves, or you’ll be stung
fearfully!”
“Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. Will you kindly show me
how to fix them properly?”
“And you must have the broad-brimmed hat, too, for your cap has no brim
to keep the veil off, and they’d reach your face.”
“The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means.”
So a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be taken off—veil and
all attached—and placed upon his head, Troy tossing his own into a
gooseberry bush. Then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge round
his collar and the gloves put on him.
He looked such an extraordinary object in this guise that, flurried as
she was, she could not avoid laughing outright. It was the removal of
yet another stake from the palisade of cold manners which had kept him
off.
Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst he was busy sweeping and
shaking the bees from the tree, holding up the hive with the other hand
for them to fall into. She made use of an unobserved minute whilst his
attention was absorbed in the operation to arrange her plumes a little.
He came down holding the hive at arm’s length, behind which trailed a
cloud of bees.
“Upon my life,” said Troy, through the veil, “holding up this hive
makes one’s arm ache worse than a week of sword-exercise.” When the
manœuvre was complete he approached her. “Would you be good enough to
untie me and let me out? I am nearly stifled inside this silk cage.”
To hide her embarrassment during the unwonted process of untying the
string about his neck, she said:—
“I have never seen that you spoke of.”
“What?”
“The sword-exercise.”
“Ah! would you like to?” said Troy.
Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous reports from time to time
by dwellers in Weatherbury, who had by chance sojourned awhile in
Casterbridge, near the barracks, of this strange and glorious
performance, the sword-exercise. Men and boys who had peeped through
chinks or over walls into the barrack-yard returned with accounts of
its being the most flashing affair conceivable; accoutrements and
weapons glistening like stars—here, there, around—yet all by rule and
compass. So she said mildly what she felt strongly.
“Yes; I should like to see it very much.”
“And so you shall; you shall see me go through it.”
“No! How?”
“Let me consider.”
“Not with a walking-stick—I don’t care to see that. It must be a real
sword.”
“Yes, I know; and I have no sword here; but I think I could get one by
the evening. Now, will you do this?”
Troy bent over her and murmured some suggestion in a low voice.
“Oh no, indeed!” said Bathsheba, blushing. “Thank you very much, but I
couldn’t on any account.”
“Surely you might? Nobody would know.”
She shook her head, but with a weakened negation. “If I were to,” she
said, “I must bring Liddy too. Might I not?”
Troy looked far away. “I don’t see why you want to bring her,” he said
coldly.
An unconscious look of assent in Bathsheba’s eyes betrayed that
something more than his coldness had made her also feel that Liddy
would be superfluous in the suggested scene. She had felt it, even
whilst making the proposal.
“Well, I won’t bring Liddy—and I’ll come. But only for a very short
time,” she added; “a very short time.”
“It will not take five minutes,” said Troy.
CHAPTER XXVIII
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