any rate, the large ones upon the stone staddles?”
“They are not.”
“Them under the hedge?”
“No. I forgot to tell the thatcher to set about it.”
“Nor the little one by the stile?”
“Nor the little one by the stile. I overlooked the ricks this year.”
“Then not a tenth of your corn will come to measure, sir.”
“Possibly not.”
“Overlooked them,” repeated Gabriel slowly to himself. It is difficult to describe the intensely dramatic effect that announcement had upon Oak at such a moment. All the night he had been feeling that the neglect he was labouring to repair was abnormal and isolated — the only instance of the kind within the circuit of the county. Yet at this very time, within the same parish, a greater waste had been going on, uncomplained of and disregarded. A few months earlier Boldwood’s forgetting his husbandry would have been as preposterous an idea as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship. Oak was just thinking that whatever he himself might have suffered from Bathsheba’s marriage, here was a man who had suffered more, when Boldwood spoke in a changed voice — that of one who yearned to make a confidence and relieve his heart by an outpouring.
“Oak, you know as well as I that things have gone wrong with me lately. I may as well own it. I was going to get a little settled in life; but in some way my plan has come to nothing.”
“I thought my mistress would have married you,” said Gabriel, not knowing enough of the full depths of Boldwood’s love to keep silence on the farmer’s account, and determined not to evade discipline by doing so on his own. “However, it is so sometimes, and nothing happens that we expect,” he added, with the repose of a man whom misfortune had inured rather than subdued.
“I daresay I am a joke about the parish,” said Boldwood, as if the subject came irresistibly to his tongue, and with a miserable lightness meant to express his indifference.
“Oh no — I don’t think that.”
“— But the real truth of the matter is that there was not, as some fancy, any jilting on — her part. No engagement ever existed between me and Miss Everdene. People say so, but it is untrue: she never promised me!” Boldwood stood still now and turned his wild face to Oak. “Oh, Gabriel,” he continued, “I am weak and foolish, and I don’t know what, and I can’t fend off my miserable grief! . . . I had some faint belief in the mercy of God till I lost that woman. Yes, He prepared a gourd to shade me, and like the prophet I thanked Him and was glad. But the next day He prepared a worm to smite the gourd and wither it; and I feel it is better to die than to live!”
A silence followed. Boldwood aroused himself from the momentary mood of confidence into which he had drifted, and walked on again, resuming his usual reserve.
“No, Gabriel,” he resumed, with a carelessness which was like the smile on the countenance of a skull: “it was made more of by other people than ever it was by us. I do feel a little regret occasionally, but no woman ever had power over me for any length of time. Well, good morning; I can trust you not to mention to others what has passed between us two here.”
Chapter 39
Coming Home — A Cry
On the turnpike road, between Casterbridge and Weatherbury, and about three miles from the former place, is Yalbury Hill, one of those steep long ascents which pervade the highways of this undulating part of South Wessex. In returning from market it is usual for the farmers and other gig-gentry to alight at the bottom and walk up.
One Saturday evening in the month of October Bathsheba’s vehicle was duly creeping up this incline. She was sitting listlessly in the second seat of the gig, whilst walking beside her in farmer’s marketing suit of unusually fashionable cut was an erect, well-made young man. Though on foot, he held the reins and whip, and occasionally aimed light cuts at the horse’s ear with the end of the lash, as a recreation. This man 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.”
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