Far from the Madding Crowd
motion of his fingers upon the side of his thigh as he went down the
stairs.
VII
“How does this cover me?” said Troy to Pennyways. “Nobody would
recognize me now, I’m sure.”
He was buttoning on a heavy grey overcoat of Noachian cut, with cape
and high collar, the latter being erect and rigid, like a girdling
wall, and nearly reaching to the verge of a travelling cap which was
pulled down over his ears.
Pennyways snuffed the candle, and then looked up and deliberately
inspected Troy.
“You’ve made up your mind to go then?” he said.
“Made up my mind? Yes; of course I have.”
“Why not write to her? ’Tis a very queer corner that you have got into,
sergeant. You see all these things will come to light if you go back,
and they won’t sound well at all. Faith, if I was you I’d even bide as
you be—a single man of the name of Francis. A good wife is good, but
the best wife is not so good as no wife at all. Now that’s my outspoke
mind, and I’ve been called a long-headed feller here and there.”
“All nonsense!” said Troy, angrily. “There she is with plenty of money,
and a house and farm, and horses, and comfort, and here am I living
from hand to mouth—a needy adventurer. Besides, it is no use talking
now; it is too late, and I am glad of it; I’ve been seen and recognized
here this very afternoon. I should have gone back to her the day after
the fair, if it hadn’t been for you talking about the law, and rubbish
about getting a separation; and I don’t put it off any longer. What the
deuce put it into my head to run away at all, I can’t think! Humbugging
sentiment—that’s what it was. But what man on earth was to know that
his wife would be in such a hurry to get rid of his name!”
“I should have known it. She’s bad enough for anything.”
“Pennyways, mind who you are talking to.”
“Well, sergeant, all I say is this, that if I were you I’d go abroad
again where I came from—’tisn’t too late to do it now. I wouldn’t stir
up the business and get a bad name for the sake of living with her—for
all that about your play-acting is sure to come out, you know, although
you think otherwise. My eyes and limbs, there’ll be a racket if you go
back just now—in the middle of Boldwood’s Christmasing!”
“H’m, yes. I expect I shall not be a very welcome guest if he has her
there,” said the sergeant, with a slight laugh. “A sort of Alonzo the
Brave; and when I go in the guests will sit in silence and fear, and
all laughter and pleasure will be hushed, and the lights in the chamber
burn blue, and the worms—Ugh, horrible!—Ring for some more brandy,
Pennyways, I felt an awful shudder just then! Well, what is there
besides? A stick—I must have a walking-stick.”
Pennyways now felt himself to be in something of a difficulty, for
should Bathsheba and Troy become reconciled it would be necessary to
regain her good opinion if he would secure the patronage of her
husband. “I sometimes think she likes you yet, and is a good woman at
bottom,” he said, as a saving sentence. “But there’s no telling to a
certainty from a body’s outside. Well, you’ll do as you like about
going, of course, sergeant, and as for me, I’ll do as you tell me.”
“Now, let me see what the time is,” said Troy, after emptying his glass
in one draught as he stood. “Half-past six o’clock. I shall not hurry
along the road, and shall be there then before nine.”
CHAPTER LIII
CONCURRITUR—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