Far from the Madding Crowd (35 page)

“Now then,” said Gabriel, impatiently, “what did you see, Cain?”

“I seed our mis'ess go into a sort of a park place, where there's seats, and shrubs and flowers, arm-in-crook with a sojer,” continued Cainy, firmly, and with a dim sense that his words were very effective as regarded Gabriel's emotions. “And I think the sojer was Sergeant Troy. And they sat there together for more than half-an-hour, talking moving things, and she once was crying almost to death. And then he kissed her, more than once, and she put her hand on his hair, and ruffled it, and laughed. And when they came out of the park her eyes were shining and she was as white as a lily; and they looked into one another's faces, as far-gone friendly as a man and woman can be.”

Gabriel's features seemed to get thinner. “Well, what did you see besides?”

“Oh, all sorts.”

“White as a lily? You are sure ‘twas she?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what besides?”

“Great glass windows to the shops, and great clouds in the sky, full of rain, and old wooden trees in the country round.”

“You stun-poll! What will ye say next?” said Coggan.

“Let en alone,” interposed Joseph Poorgrass. “The boy's meaning is that the sky and the earth in the kingdom of Bath is not altogether different from ours here. ‘Tis for our good to gain knowledge of strange cities, and as such the boy's words should be suffered, so to speak it.”

“And the people of Bath,” continued Cain, “never need to light their fires except as a luxury, for the water springs up out of the earth ready boiled for use.”

“'Tis true as the light,” testified Matthew Moon. “I've heard other navigators say the same thing.”

“They drink nothing else there,” said Cain, “and seem to enjoy it, to see how they swaller it down.”

“Well, it seems a barbarian practice enough to us, but I daresay the natives think nothing o' it,” said Matthew.

“And don't victuals spring up as well as drink?” asked Coggan, twirling his eye.

“No — I own to a blot there in Bath — a true blot. God didn't provide ‘em with victuals as well as drink, and ‘twas a drawback I couldn't get over at all.”

“Well, ‘tis a curious place, to say the least,” observed Moon; “and it must be a curious people that live therein.”

“Miss Everdene and the soldier were walking about together, you say?” said Gabriel, returning to the group.

“Ay, and she wore a beautiful gold-colour silk gown, trimmed with black lace, that would have stood alone ‘ithout legs inside if required. ‘Twas a very winsome sight; and her hair was brushed splendid. And when the sun shone upon the bright gown and his red coat — my! how handsome they looked. You could see ‘em all the length of the street.”

“And what then?” murmured Gabriel.

“And then I went into Griffin's to hae my boots hobbed, and then I went to Riggs's batty-cake shop, and asked ‘em for a penneth of the cheapest and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy, but not quite. And whilst I was chawing ‘em down I walked on and seed a clock with a face as big as a baking trendle — ”

“But that's nothing to do with mistress!”

“I'm coming to that, if you'll leave me alone, Mister Oak!” remonstrated Cainy. “If you excites me, perhaps you'll bring on my cough, and then I shan't be able to tell ye nothing.”

“Yes — let him tell it his own way,” said Coggan.

Gabriel settled into a despairing attitude of patience, and Cainy went on: “And there were great large houses, and more people all the week long than at Weatherbury club-walking on White Tuesdays. And I went to grand churches and chapels. And how the parson would pray! Yes; he would kneel down and put up his hands together, and make the holy gold rings on his fingers gleam and twinkle in yer eyes, that he'd earned by praying so excellent well! — Ah yes, I wish I lived there.”

“Our poor Parson Thirdly can't get no money to buy such rings,” said Matthew Moon, thoughtfully. “And as good a man as ever walked. I don't believe poor Thirdly have a single one, even of humblest tin or copper. Such a great ornament as they'd be to him on a dull afternoon, when he's up in the pulpit lighted by the wax candles! But ‘tis impossible, poor man. Ah, to think how unequal things be.”

“Perhaps he's made of different stuff than to wear ‘em,” said Gabriel, grimly. “Well, that's enough of this. Go on, Cainy — quick.”

“Oh — and the new style of parsons wear moustaches and long beards,” continued the illustrious traveller, “and look like Moses and Aaron complete, and make we fokes in the congregation feel all over like the children of Israel.”

“A very right feeling — very,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“And there's two religions going on in the nation now — High Church and High Chapel. And, thinks I, I'll play fair; so I went to High Church in the morning, and High Chapel in the afternoon.”

“A right and proper boy,” said Joseph Poorgrass.

“Well, at High Church they pray singing, and worship all the colours of the rainbow; and at High Chapel they pray preaching, and worship drab and whitewash only. And then — I didn't see no more of Miss Everdene at all.”

“Why didn't you say so afore, then?” exclaimed Oak, with much disappointment.

“Ah,” said Matthew Moon, “she'll wish her cake dough if so be she's over intimate with that man.”

“She's not over intimate with him,” said Gabriel, indignantly.

“She would know better,” said Coggan. “Our mis'ess has too much sense under they knots of black hair to do such a mad thing.”

“You see, he's not a coarse, ignorant man, for he was well brought up,” said Matthew, dubiously. “'Twas only wildness that made him a soldier, and maids rather like your man of sin.”

“Now, Cain Ball,” said Gabriel restlessly, “can you swear in the most awful form that the woman you saw was Miss Everdene?”

“Cain Ball, you be no longer a babe and suckling,” said Joseph in the sepulchral tone the circumstances demanded, “and you know what taking an oath is. ‘Tis a horrible testament mind ye, which you say and seal with your blood-stone, and the prophet Matthew tells us that on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder. Now, before all the work-folk here assembled, can you swear to your words as the shepherd asks ye?”

“Please no, Mister Oak!” said Cainy, looking from one to the other with great uneasiness at the spiritual magnitude of the position. “I don't mind saying ‘tis true, but I don't like to say ‘tis damn true, if that's what you mane.”

“Cain, Cain, how can you!” asked Joseph sternly. “You be asked to swear in a holy manner, and you swear like wicked Shimei, the son of Gera, who cursed as he came. Young man, fie!”

“No, I don't! ‘Tis you want to squander a pore boy's soul, Joseph Poorgrass — that's what ‘tis!” said Cain, beginning to cry. “All I mane is that in common truth ‘twas Miss Everdene and Sergeant Troy, but in the horrible so-help-me truth that ye want to make of it perhaps ‘twas somebody else!”

“There's no getting at the rights of it,” said Gabriel, turning to his work.

“Cain Ball, you'll come to a bit of bread!” groaned Joseph Poorgrass.

Then the reapers' hooks were flourished again, and the old sounds went on. Gabriel, without making any pretence of being lively, did nothing to show that he was particularly dull. However, Coggan knew pretty nearly how the land lay, and when they were in a nook together he said —

“Don't take on about her, Gabriel. What difference does it make whose sweetheart she is, since she can't be yours?”

“That's the very thing I say to myself,” said Gabriel.

HOME AGAIN — A TRICKSTER

That same evening at dusk Gabriel was leaning over Coggan's garden-gate, taking an up-and-down survey before retiring to rest.

A vehicle of some kind was softly creeping along the grassy margin of the lane. From it spread the tones of two women talking. The tones were natural and not at all suppressed. Oak instantly knew the voices to be those of Bathsheba and Liddy.

The carriage came opposite and passed by. It was Miss Everdene's gig, and Liddy and her mistress were the only occupants of the seat. Liddy was asking questions about the city of Bath, and her companion was answering them listlessly and unconcernedly. Both Bathsheba and the horse seemed weary.

The exquisite relief of finding that she was here again, safe and sound, overpowered all reflection, and Oak could only luxuriate in the sense of it. All grave reports were forgotten.

He lingered and lingered on, till there was no difference between the eastern and western expanses of sky, and the timid hares began to limp courageously round the dim hillocks. Gabriel might have been there an additional half-hour when a dark form walked slowly by. “Good-night, Gabriel,” the passer said.

It was Boldwood. “Good-night, sir,” said Gabriel.

Boldwood likewise vanished up the road, and Oak shortly afterwards turned indoors to bed.

Farmer Boldwood went on towards Miss Everdene's house. He reached the front, and approaching the entrance, saw a light in the parlour. The blind was not drawn down, and inside the room was Bathsheba, looking over some papers or letters. Her back was towards Boldwood. He went to the door, knocked, and waited with tense muscles and an aching brow.

Boldwood had not been outside his garden since his meeting with Bathsheba in the road to Yalbury. Silent and alone, he had remained in moody meditation on woman's ways, deeming as essentials of the whole sex the accidents of the single one of their number he had ever closely beheld. By degrees a more charitable temper had pervaded him, and this was the reason of his sally to-night. He had come to apologize and beg forgiveness of Bathsheba with something like a sense of shame at his violence, having but just now learnt that she had returned — only from a visit to Liddy, as he supposed, the Bath escapade being quite unknown to him.

He inquired for Miss Everdene. Liddy's manner was odd, but he did not notice it. She went in, leaving him standing there, and in her absence the blind of the room containing Bathsheba was pulled down. Boldwood augured ill from that sign. Liddy came out.

“My mistress cannot see you, sir,” she said.

The farmer instantly went out by the gate. He was unforgiven — that was the issue of it all. He had seen her who was to him simultaneously a delight and a torture, sitting in the room he had shared with her as a peculiarly privileged guest only a little earlier in the summer, and she had denied him an entrance there now.

Boldwood did not hurry homeward. It was ten o'clock at least, when, walking deliberately through the lower part of Weatherbury, he heard the carrier's spring van entering the village. The van ran to and from a town in a northern direction, and it was owned and driven by a Weatherbury man, at the door of whose house it now pulled up. The lamp fixed to the head of the hood illuminated a scarlet and gilded form, who was the first to alight.

“Ah!” said Boldwood to himself, “come to see her again.”

Troy entered the carrier's house, which had been the place of his lodging on his last visit to his native place. Boldwood was moved by a sudden determination. He hastened home. In ten minutes he was back again, and made as if he were going to call upon Troy at the carrier's. But as he approached, someone opened the door and came out. He heard this person say “Good-night” to the inmates, and the voice was Troy's. This was strange, coming so immediately after his arrival. Boldwood, however, hastened up to him. Troy had what appeared to be a carpet-bag in his hand — the same that he had brought with him. It seemed as if he were going to leave again this very night.

Troy turned up the hill and quickened his pace. Boldwood stepped forward.

“Sergeant Troy?”

“Yes — I'm Sergeant Troy.”

“Just arrived from up the country, I think?”

“Just arrived from Bath.”

“I am William Boldwood.”

“Indeed.”

The tone in which this word was uttered was all that had been wanted to bring Boldwood to the point.

“I wish to speak a word with you,” he said.

“What about?”

“About her who lives just ahead there — and about a woman you have wronged.”

“I wonder at your impertinence,” said Troy, moving on.

“Now look here,” said Boldwood, standing in front of him, “wonder or not, you are going to hold a conversation with me.”

Troy heard the dull determination in Boldwood's voice, looked at his stalwart frame, then at the thick cudgel he carried in his hand. He remembered it was past ten o'clock. It seemed worthwhile to be civil to Boldwood.

“Very well, I'll listen with pleasure,” said Troy, placing his bag on the ground, “only speak low, for somebody or other may overhear us in the farmhouse there.”

“Well then — I know a good deal concerning your Fanny Robin's attachment to you. I may say, too, that I believe I am the only person in the village, excepting Gabriel Oak, who does know it. You ought to marry her.”

“I suppose I ought. Indeed, I wish to, but I cannot.”

“Why?”

Troy was about to utter something hastily; he then checked himself and said, “I am too poor.” His voice was changed. Previously it had had a devil-may-care tone. It was the voice of a trickster now.

Boldwood's present mood was not critical enough to notice tones. He continued, “I may as well speak plainly; and understand, I don't wish to enter into the questions of right or wrong, woman's honour and shame, or to express any opinion on your conduct. I intend a business transaction with you.”

“I see,” said Troy. “Suppose we sit down here.”

An old tree trunk lay under the hedge immediately opposite, and they sat down.