Far from the Madding Crowd
leopards as to the full rich substance of their coats, and only lacking
the spots. There were also a few of the Oxfordshire breed, whose wool
was beginning to curl like a child’s flaxen hair, though surpassed in
this respect by the effeminate Leicesters, which were in turn less
curly than the Cotswolds. But the most picturesque by far was a small
flock of Exmoors, which chanced to be there this year. Their pied faces
and legs, dark and heavy horns, tresses of wool hanging round their
swarthy foreheads, quite relieved the monotony of the flocks in that
quarter.
All these bleating, panting, and weary thousands had entered and were
penned before the morning had far advanced, the dog belonging to each
flock being tied to the corner of the pen containing it. Alleys for
pedestrians intersected the pens, which soon became crowded with buyers
and sellers from far and near.
In another part of the hill an altogether different scene began to
force itself upon the eye towards midday. A circular tent, of
exceptional newness and size, was in course of erection here. As the
day drew on, the flocks began to change hands, lightening the
shepherd’s responsibilities; and they turned their attention to this
tent and inquired of a man at work there, whose soul seemed
concentrated on tying a bothering knot in no time, what was going on.
“The Royal Hippodrome Performance of Turpin’s Ride to York and the
Death of Black Bess,” replied the man promptly, without turning his
eyes or leaving off tying.
As soon as the tent was completed the band struck up highly stimulating
harmonies, and the announcement was publicly made, Black Bess standing
in a conspicuous position on the outside, as a living proof, if proof
were wanted, of the truth of the oracular utterances from the stage
over which the people were to enter. These were so convinced by such
genuine appeals to heart and understanding both that they soon began to
crowd in abundantly, among the foremost being visible Jan Coggan and
Joseph Poorgrass, who were holiday keeping here to-day.
“That’s the great ruffen pushing me!” screamed a woman in front of Jan
over her shoulder at him when the rush was at its fiercest.
“How can I help pushing ye when the folk behind push me?” said Coggan,
in a deprecating tone, turning his head towards the aforesaid folk as
far as he could without turning his body, which was jammed as in a
vice.
There was a silence; then the drums and trumpets again sent forth their
echoing notes. The crowd was again ecstasied, and gave another lurch in
which Coggan and Poorgrass were again thrust by those behind upon the
women in front.
“Oh that helpless feymels should be at the mercy of such ruffens!”
exclaimed one of these ladies again, as she swayed like a reed shaken
by the wind.
“Now,” said Coggan, appealing in an earnest voice to the public at
large as it stood clustered about his shoulder-blades, “did ye ever
hear such onreasonable woman as that? Upon my carcase, neighbours, if I
could only get out of this cheese-wring, the damn women might eat the
show for me!”
“Don’t ye lose yer temper, Jan!” implored Joseph Poorgrass, in a
whisper. “They might get their men to murder us, for I think by the
shine of their eyes that they be a sinful form of womankind.”
Jan held his tongue, as if he had no objection to be pacified to please
a friend, and they gradually reached the foot of the ladder, Poorgrass
being flattened like a jumping-jack, and the sixpence, for admission,
which he had got ready half-an-hour earlier, having become so reeking
hot in the tight squeeze of his excited hand that the woman in
spangles, brazen rings set with glass diamonds, and with chalked face
and shoulders, who took the money of him, hastily dropped it again from
a fear that some trick had been played to burn her fingers. So they all
entered, and the cloth of the tent, to the eyes of an observer on the
outside, became bulged into innumerable pimples such as we observe on a
sack of potatoes, caused by the various human heads, backs, and elbows
at high pressure within.
At the rear of the large tent there were two small dressing-tents. One
of these, alloted to the male performers, was partitioned into halves
by a cloth; and in one of the divisions there was sitting on the grass,
pulling on a pair of jack-boots, a young man whom we instantly
recognise as Sergeant Troy.
Troy’s appearance in this position may be briefly accounted for. The
brig aboard which he was taken in Budmouth Roads was about to start on
a voyage, though somewhat short of hands. Troy read the articles and
joined, but before they sailed a boat was despatched across the bay to
Lulwind cove; as he had half expected, his clothes were gone. He
ultimately worked his passage to the United States, where he made a
precarious living in various towns as Professor of Gymnastics, Sword
Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism. A few months were sufficient to give
him a distaste for this kind of life. There was a certain animal form
of refinement in his nature; and however pleasant a strange condition
might be whilst privations were easily warded off, it was
disadvantageously coarse when money was short. There was ever present,
too, the idea that he could claim a home and its comforts did he but
chose to return to England and Weatherbury Farm. Whether Bathsheba
thought him dead was a frequent subject of curious conjecture. To
England he did return at last; but the fact of drawing nearer to
Weatherbury abstracted its fascinations, and his intention to enter his
old groove at the place became modified. It was with gloom he
considered on landing at Liverpool that if he were to go home his
reception would be of a kind very unpleasant to contemplate; for what
Troy had in the way of emotion was an occasional fitful sentiment which
sometimes caused him as much inconvenience as emotion of a strong and
healthy kind. Bathsheba was not a woman to be made a fool of, or a
woman to suffer in silence; and how could he endure existence with a
spirited wife to whom at first entering he would be beholden for food
and lodging? Moreover, it was not at all unlikely that his wife would
fail at her farming, if she had not already done so; and he would then
become liable for her maintenance: and what a life such a future of
poverty with her would be, the spectre of Fanny constantly between
them, harrowing his temper and embittering her words! Thus, for reasons
touching on distaste, regret, and shame commingled, he put off his
return from day to day, and would have decided to put it off altogether
if he could have found anywhere else the ready-made establishment which
existed for him there.
At this time—the July preceding the September in which we find at
Greenhill Fair—he fell in with a travelling circus which was performing
in the outskirts of a northern town. Troy introduced himself to the
manager by taming a restive horse of the troupe, hitting a suspended
apple with a pistol-bullet fired from the animal’s back when in full
gallop, and other feats. For his merits in these—all more or less based
upon his experiences as a dragoon-guardsman—Troy was taken into the
company, and the play of Turpin was prepared with a view to his
personation of the chief character. Troy was not greatly elated by the
appreciative spirit in which he was undoubtedly treated, but he thought
the engagement might afford him a few weeks for consideration. It was
thus carelessly, and without having formed any definite plan for the
future, that Troy found himself at Greenhill Fair with the rest of the
company on this day.
And now the mild autumn sun got lower, and in front of the pavilion the
following incident had taken place. Bathsheba—who was driven to the
fair that day by her odd man Poorgrass—had, like every one else, read
or heard the announcement that Mr. Francis, the Great Cosmopolitan
Equestrian and Roughrider, would enact the part of Turpin, and she was
not yet too old and careworn to be without a little curiosity to see
him. This particular show was by far the largest and grandest in the
fair, a horde of little shows grouping themselves under its shade like
chickens around a hen. The crowd had passed in, and Boldwood, who had
been watching all the day for an opportunity of speaking to her, seeing
her comparatively isolated, came up to her side.
“I hope the sheep have done well to-day, Mrs. Troy?” he said,
nervously.
“Oh yes, thank you,” said Bathsheba, colour springing up in the centre
of her cheeks. “I was fortunate enough to sell them all just as we got
upon the hill, so we hadn’t to pen at all.”
“And now you are entirely at leisure?”
“Yes, except that I have to see one more dealer in two hours’ time:
otherwise I should be going home. He was looking at this large tent and
the announcement. Have you ever seen the play of ‘Turpin’s Ride to
York’? Turpin was a real man, was he not?”
“Oh yes, perfectly true—all of it. Indeed, I think I’ve heard Jan
Coggan say that a relation of his knew Tom King, Turpin’s friend, quite
well.”
“Coggan is rather given to strange stories connected with his
relations, we must remember. I hope they can all be believed.”
“Yes, yes; we know Coggan. But Turpin is true enough. You have never
seen it played, I suppose?”
“Never. I was not allowed to go into these places when I was young.
Hark! What’s that prancing? How they shout!”
“Black Bess just started off, I suppose. Am I right in supposing you
would like to see the performance, Mrs. Troy? Please excuse my mistake,
if it is one; but if you would like to, I’ll get a seat for you with
pleasure.” Perceiving that she hesitated, he added, “I myself shall not
stay to see it: I’ve seen it before.”
Now Bathsheba did care a little to see the show, and had only withheld
her feet from the ladder because she feared to go in alone. She had
been hoping that Oak might appear, whose assistance in such cases was
always accepted as an inalienable right, but Oak was nowhere to be
seen; and hence it was that she said, “Then if you will just look in
first, to see if there’s room, I think I will go in for a minute or
two.”
And so a short time after this Bathsheba appeared in the tent with
Boldwood at her elbow, who, taking her to a “reserved” seat, again
withdrew.
This feature consisted of one raised bench in a very conspicuous part
of the circle, covered with red cloth, and floored with a piece of
carpet, and Bathsheba immediately found, to her confusion, that she was
the single reserved individual in the tent, the rest of the crowded
spectators, one and all, standing on their legs on the borders of the
arena, where they got twice as good a view of the performance for half
the money. Hence as many eyes were turned upon her, enthroned alone in
this place of honour, against a scarlet background, as upon the ponies
and clown who were engaged in preliminary exploits in the centre,
Turpin not having yet appeared. Once there, Bathsheba was forced to
make the best of it and remain: she sat down, spreading her skirts with
some dignity over the unoccupied space on each side of her, and giving
a new and feminine aspect to the pavilion. In a few minutes she noticed
the fat red nape of Coggan’s neck among those standing just below her,
and Joseph Poorgrass’s saintly profile a little further on.
The interior was shadowy with a peculiar shade. The strange luminous
semi-opacities of fine autumn afternoons and eves intensified into
Rembrandt effects the few yellow sunbeams which came through holes and
divisions in the canvas, and spirted like jets of gold-dust across the
dusky blue atmosphere of haze pervading the tent, until they alighted
on inner surfaces of cloth opposite, and shone like little lamps
suspended there.