Far from the Madding Crowd
was her husband, formerly Sergeant Troy, who, having bought his
discharge with Bathsheba’s money, was gradually transforming himself
into a farmer of a spirited and very modern school. People of
unalterable ideas still insisted upon calling him “Sergeant” when they
met him, which was in some degree owing to his having still retained
the well-shaped moustache of his military days, and the soldierly
bearing inseparable from his form and training.
“Yes, if it hadn’t been for that wretched rain I should have cleared
two hundred as easy as looking, my love,” he was saying. “Don’t you
see, it altered all the chances? To speak like a book I once read, wet
weather is the narrative, and fine days are the episodes, of our
country’s history; now, isn’t that true?”
“But the time of year is come for changeable weather.”
“Well, yes. The fact is, these autumn races are the ruin of everybody.
Never did I see such a day as ’twas! ’Tis a wild open place, just out
of Budmouth, and a drab sea rolled in towards us like liquid misery.
Wind and rain—good Lord! Dark? Why, ’twas as black as my hat before the
last race was run. ’Twas five o’clock, and you couldn’t see the horses
till they were almost in, leave alone colours. The ground was as heavy
as lead, and all judgment from a fellow’s experience went for nothing.
Horses, riders, people, were all blown about like ships at sea. Three
booths were blown over, and the wretched folk inside crawled out upon
their hands and knees; and in the next field were as many as a dozen
hats at one time. Ay, Pimpernel regularly stuck fast, when about sixty
yards off, and when I saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart
against the lining of my ribs, I assure you, my love!”
“And you mean, Frank,” said Bathsheba, sadly—her voice was painfully
lowered from the fulness and vivacity of the previous summer—“that you
have lost more than a hundred pounds in a month by this dreadful
horse-racing? O, Frank, it is cruel; it is foolish of you to take away
my money so. We shall have to leave the farm; that will be the end of
it!”
“Humbug about cruel. Now, there ’tis again—turn on the waterworks;
that’s just like you.”
“But you’ll promise me not to go to Budmouth second meeting, won’t
you?” she implored. Bathsheba was at the full depth for tears, but she
maintained a dry eye.
“I don’t see why I should; in fact, if it turns out to be a fine day, I
was thinking of taking you.”
“Never, never! I’ll go a hundred miles the other way first. I hate the
sound of the very word!”
“But the question of going to see the race or staying at home has very
little to do with the matter. Bets are all booked safely enough before
the race begins, you may depend. Whether it is a bad race for me or a
good one, will have very little to do with our going there next
Monday.”
“But you don’t mean to say that you have risked anything on this one
too!” she exclaimed, with an agonized look.
“There now, don’t you be a little fool. Wait till you are told. Why,
Bathsheba, you have lost all the pluck and sauciness you formerly had,
and upon my life if I had known what a chicken-hearted creature you
were under all your boldness, I’d never have—I know what.”
A flash of indignation might have been seen in Bathsheba’s dark eyes as
she looked resolutely ahead after this reply. They moved on without
further speech, some early-withered leaves from the trees which hooded
the road at this spot occasionally spinning downward across their path
to the earth.
A woman appeared on the brow of the hill. The ridge was in a cutting,
so that she was very near the husband and wife before she became
visible. Troy had turned towards the gig to remount, and whilst putting
his foot on the step the woman passed behind him.
Though the overshadowing trees and the approach of eventide enveloped
them in gloom, Bathsheba could see plainly enough to discern the
extreme poverty of the woman’s garb, and the sadness of her face.
“Please, sir, do you know at what time Casterbridge Union-house closes
at night?”
The woman said these words to Troy over his shoulder.
Troy started visibly at the sound of the voice; yet he seemed to
recover presence of mind sufficient to prevent himself from giving way
to his impulse to suddenly turn and face her. He said, slowly—
“I don’t know.”
The woman, on hearing him speak, quickly looked up, examined the side
of his face, and recognized the soldier under the yeoman’s garb. Her
face was drawn into an expression which had gladness and agony both
among its elements. She uttered an hysterical cry, and fell down.
“Oh, poor thing!” exclaimed Bathsheba, instantly preparing to alight.
“Stay where you are, and attend to the horse!” said Troy, peremptorily
throwing her the reins and the whip. “Walk the horse to the top: I’ll
see to the woman.”
“But I—”
“Do you hear? Clk—Poppet!”
The horse, gig, and Bathsheba moved on.
“How on earth did you come here? I thought you were miles away, or
dead! Why didn’t you write to me?” said Troy to the woman, in a
strangely gentle, yet hurried voice, as he lifted her up.
“I feared to.”
“Have you any money?”
“None.”
“Good Heaven—I wish I had more to give you! Here’s—wretched—the merest
trifle. It is every farthing I have left. I have none but what my wife
gives me, you know, and I can’t ask her now.”
The woman made no answer.
“I have only another moment,” continued Troy; “and now listen. Where
are you going to-night? Casterbridge Union?”
“Yes; I thought to go there.”
“You shan’t go there; yet, wait. Yes, perhaps for to-night; I can do
nothing better—worse luck! Sleep there to-night, and stay there
to-morrow. Monday is the first free day I have; and on Monday morning,
at ten exactly, meet me on Grey’s Bridge just out of the town. I’ll
bring all the money I can muster. You shan’t want—I’ll see that, Fanny;
then I’ll get you a lodging somewhere. Good-bye till then. I am a
brute—but good-bye!”
After advancing the distance which completed the ascent of the hill,
Bathsheba turned her head. The woman was upon her feet, and Bathsheba
saw her withdrawing from Troy, and going feebly down the hill by the
third milestone from Casterbridge. Troy then came on towards his wife,
stepped into the gig, took the reins from her hand, and without making
any observation whipped the horse into a trot. He was rather agitated.
“Do you know who that woman was?” said Bathsheba, looking searchingly
into his face.
“I do,” he said, looking boldly back into hers.
“I thought you did,” said she, with angry hauteur, and still regarding
him. “Who is she?”
He suddenly seemed to think that frankness would benefit neither of the
women.
“Nothing to either of us,” he said. “I know her by sight.”
“What is her name?”
“How should I know her name?”
“I think you do.”
“Think if you will, and be—” The sentence was completed by a smart cut
of the whip round Poppet’s flank, which caused the animal to start
forward at a wild pace. No more was said.
CHAPTER XL
ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY
For a considerable time the woman walked on. Her steps became feebler,
and she strained her eyes to look afar upon the naked road, now
indistinct amid the penumbræ of night. At length her onward walk
dwindled to the merest totter, and she opened a gate within which was a
haystack. Underneath this she sat down and presently slept.
When the woman awoke it was to find herself in the depths of a moonless
and starless night. A heavy unbroken crust of cloud stretched across
the sky, shutting out every speck of heaven; and a distant halo which
hung over the town of Casterbridge was visible against the black
concave, the luminosity appearing the brighter by its great contrast
with the circumscribing darkness. Towards this weak, soft glow the
woman turned her eyes.
“If I could only get there!” she said. “Meet him the day after
to-morrow: God help me! Perhaps I shall be in my grave before then.”
A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour, one,
in a small, attenuated tone. After midnight the voice of a clock seems
to lose in breadth as much as in length, and to diminish its
sonorousness to a thin falsetto.
Afterwards a light—two lights—arose from the remote shade, and grew
larger. A carriage rolled along the road, and passed the gate. It
probably contained some late diners-out. The beams from one lamp shone
for a moment upon the crouching woman, and threw her face into vivid
relief. The face was young in the groundwork, old in the finish; the
general contours were flexuous and childlike, but the finer lineaments
had begun to be sharp and thin.
The pedestrian stood up, apparently with revived determination, and
looked around. The road appeared to be familiar to her, and she
carefully scanned the fence as she slowly walked along. Presently there
became visible a dim white shape; it was another milestone. She drew
her fingers across its face to feel the marks.
“Two more!” she said.
She leant against the stone as a means of rest for a short interval,
then bestirred herself, and again pursued her way. For a slight
distance she bore up bravely, afterwards flagging as before. This was
beside a lone copsewood, wherein heaps of white chips strewn upon the
leafy ground showed that woodmen had been faggoting and making hurdles
during the day. Now there was not a rustle, not a breeze, not the
faintest clash of twigs to keep her company. The woman looked over the
gate, opened it, and went in. Close to the entrance stood a row of
faggots, bound and unbound, together with stakes of all sizes.
For a few seconds the wayfarer stood with that tense stillness which
signifies itself to be not the end, but merely the suspension, of a
previous motion. Her attitude was that of a person who listens, either
to the external world of sound, or to the imagined discourse of
thought. A close criticism might have detected signs proving that she
was intent on the latter alternative. Moreover, as was shown by what
followed, she was oddly exercising the faculty of invention upon the
speciality of the clever Jacquet Droz, the designer of automatic
substitutes for human limbs.
By the aid of the Casterbridge aurora, and by feeling with her hands,
the woman selected two sticks from the heaps. These sticks were nearly
straight to the height of three or four feet, where each branched into
a fork like the letter Y. She sat down, snapped off the small upper
twigs, and carried the remainder with her into the road. She placed one
of these forks under each arm as a crutch, tested them, timidly threw
her whole weight upon them—so little that it was—and swung herself
forward. The girl had made for herself a material aid.
The crutches answered well. The pat of her feet, and the tap of her
sticks upon the highway, were all the sounds that came from the
traveller now. She had passed the last milestone by a good long
distance, and began to look wistfully towards the bank as if
calculating upon another milestone soon. The crutches, though so very
useful, had their limits of power. Mechanism only transfers labour,
being powerless to supersede it, and the original amount of exertion
was not cleared away; it was thrown into the body and arms. She was
exhausted, and each swing forward became fainter. At last she swayed
sideways, and fell.
Here she lay, a shapeless heap, for ten minutes and more. The morning
wind began to boom dully over the flats, and to move afresh dead leaves
which had lain still since yesterday. The woman desperately turned
round upon her knees, and next rose to her feet. Steadying herself by
the help of one crutch, she essayed a step, then another, then a third,
using the crutches now as walking-sticks only. Thus she progressed till