66 the parish that I hear prophesying bad of" And how Farmer James would cuss, our mistress, why"-(here the fist was and call thee a fool, wouldn't he, Joseph, raised and let fall, as Thor might have when 'a seed his name looking so insidedone with his hammer in essaying it) out-like?" continued Matthew Moon, "he'll smell and taste that or I'm a with feeling. Dutchman." Ay'a would," said Joseph, meekly. All earnestly expressed by their fea-"But, you see, I wasn't so much to blame, tures that their minds did not wander to for them J's and E's are such trying sons Holland for a moment on account of this of dogs for the memory to mind whether statement, well knowing it was but a pow- they face backward or forward; and I erful form of speech; but were deploring always had such a forgetful memory, too." the difference which gave rise to the figure; and Mark Clark cried, "Hear, hear, as the undertaker said." The dog George looked up at the same time after the shepherd's menace, and though he understood English but imperfectly, began to growl. "Tis a very bad affliction for ye, Joseph Poorgrass-being such a man of calamity in other ways." "Well, 'tis; but a happy providence ordered that it should be no worse, and I feel my thanks. As to shepherd, there, I'm sure mis'ess ought to have made ye her baily-such a fitting man for't as you be." "I don't mind owning that I expected it," said Oak, frankly. Indeed I hoped "Now, don't ye take on so, shepherd, and sit down!" said Henery, with a deprecating peacefulness equal to anything of the kind in Christianity. "We hear that ye be a extraordinary for the place. At the same time Miss good and clever man, shepherd," said Everdene has a right to be her own baily Joseph Poorgrass with considerable if she chooses - and to keep me down to anxiety from behind the maltster's bed- be a common shepherd only." Oak drew stead, whither he had retired for safety. a slow breath, looked sadly into the "Tis a great thing to be clever, I'm bright ashpit, and seemed lost in thoughts sure," he added, making small move-not of the most hopeful hue. ments associated with states of mind rather than body; "we wish we were, don't we, neighbours?' 66 Yes, I can do a little that way,” said Gabriel, as a man of medium sentiments on the subject. "And that ye can make sun-dials, and prent folks' names upon their waggons almost like copper-plate, with beautiful flourishes, and great long tails. A excellent fine thing for ye to be such a clever man, shepherd. Joseph Poorgrass used to prent to Farmer James Everdene's waggons before you came, and 'a could never mind which way to turn J's and E's - could ye, Joseph ?" Joseph shook his head to express how absolute was the fact that he couldn't. "And so you used to do 'em the wrong way, like this, didn't ye, Joseph?" Matthew marked on the dusty floor with his whip-handle The genial warmth of the fire now began to stimulate the nearly lifeless lambs to bleat and move their limbs briskly upon the hay, and to recognize for the first time the fact that they were born. Their noise increased to a chorus of baas, upon which Oak pulled the milk-can from before the fire, and taking a small teapot from the pocket of his smockfrock, filled it with milk, and taught those of the helpless creatures which were not to be restored to their dams how to drink from the spout-a trick they acquired with astonishing aptitude. "And she don't even let ye have the skins of the dead lambs, I hear?" resumed Joseph Poorgrass, his eyes lingering on the operations of Oak with the necessary melancholy. "I don't have them," said Gabriel. "Ye be very badly used, shepherd," hazarded Joseph again, in the hope of getting Oak as an ally in lamentation after all. "I think she's took against ye - that I do." between friendliness and condescension. I mother, a French governess, was mar“Ah! Oak, I thought you were here," ried to a poor medical man, and while he said. "I met the mail-cart ten min- money was forthcoming all went on well. utes ago, and a letter was put into my Unfortunately for the boy, his best friends hand, which I opened, without reading died; and he got then a situation as the address. I believe it is yours. You must excuse the accident, please." "O, yes not a bit of difference, Mr. Boldwood not a bit," said Gabriel, readily. He had not a correspondent on earth, nor was there a possible letter coming to him, whose contents the whole parish would not have been welcome to peruse. 66 Oak stepped aside and read the following in an unknown hand :— second clerk at a lawyer's in Casterbridge. He stayed there for some time, and might have worked himself into a dignified position of some sort had he not indulged in the wild freak of enlisting. I have much doubt if ever little Fanny will surprise us in the way she mentions very much doubt. Á silly girl silly girl!" The door was hurriedly burst open again, and in came running Cainy Ball out of breath, mouth red and open, like the bell of a penny trumpet, and coughing with noisy vigour and great distension of face. hok!" "DEAR FRIEND, — I do not know your name, but I think these few lines will reach you, which I write to thank you for your kindness to me the night I left "Now, Cain Ball," said Oak, sternly, Weatherbury in a reckless way. I also" why will you run so fast and lose your return the money I owe you, which you breath so? I'm always telling you of it." will excuse my not keeping as a gift. 66 All "O—I—A puff of mee breath has ended well, and I am happy to say I went the wrong way, please, Mister am going to be married to the young man Oak, and made me cough-hok-hok – who has courted me for some time Sergeant Troy, of the 11th Dragoon Guards, now quartered in Melchester. He would, I know, object to my having received anything except as a loan, being a man of great respectability and high honour- indeed, a nobleman by blood. "I should be much obliged to you if you would keep the contents of this letter a secret for the present, dear friend. We mean to surprise Weatherbury by coming there soon as husband and wife, though I blush to state it to one nearly a stranger. The sergeant grew up in Weatherbury. Thanking you again for your kindness, "I am your sincere well-wisher, "Well-what have you come for?" "I've run to tell ye," said the junior shepherd, supporting his exhausted youthful frame against the doorpost, "that you must come directly. Two more have twinned that's what's the matter, Shepherd Oak." ewes "O, that's it," said Oak, jumping up, and dismissing for the present his thoughts on poor Fanny. "You are a good boy to run and tell me, Cain, and you shall smell a large plum-pudding some day as a treat. But, before we go, Cainy, bring the tar-pot, and we'll mark this lot and have done with 'em." Oak took from his illimitable pockets a marking iron, dipped it into the pot and imprinted on the buttocks of the infant sheep the initials of her he delighted to muse on "B. E.," which signified to all the region round that thenceforth the lambs belonged to Farmer Bathsheba Everdene, and to no one else. "Now, Cainy, shoulder your two, and off. Good morning, Mr. Boldwood." The shepherd lifted the sixteen large legs and four small bodies he had himself brought, and vanished with them in the direction of the lambing field hard by — their frames being now in a sleek and hopeful state, pleasantly contrasting with their death's-door plight of half-anhour before. "H'm - I am afraid not one to build much hope upon in such a case as this," the farmer murmured, "though he's a clever fellow, and up to everything. A Boldwood followed him a little way up slight romance attaches to him, too. His the field, hesitated and turned back. He followed him again with a last resolve, aisle, with an embarrassment which was annihilating return. On approaching only the more accented by the intense the nook in which the fold was con- vigour of his step, and by the determinastructed, the farmer drew out his pocket- tion upon his face to show none. A book, unfastened it, and allowed it to lie open on his hand. A letter was revealed Bathsheba's. "I was going to ask you, Oak," he said, with unreal carelessness, "if you know whose writing this is?" Oak glanced into the book, and replied instantly, with a flushed face, "Miss Everdene's." Oak had coloured simply at the consciousness of sounding her name. He now felt a strangely distressing qualm from a new thought. The letter could of course be no other than anonymous, or the inquiry would not have been necessary. Boldwood mistook his confusion: sensitive persons are always ready with their "Is it I?" in preference to objective reasoning. "The question was perfectly fair," he returned and there was something incongruous in the serious earnestness with which he applied himself to an argument on a valentine. "You know it is always expected that privy inquiries will be made that's where the fun lies." If the word "fun" had been "torture," it could not have been uttered with a more constrained and restless countenance than was Boldwood's then. Soon parting from Gabriel, the lonely and reserved man returned to his house to breakfast-feeling twinges of shame and regret at having so far exposed his mood by those fevered questions to a stranger. He again placed the letter on the mantelpiece, and sat down to think of the circumstances attending it by the light of Gabriel's information. CHAPTER XVI. slight flush had mounted his cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these females; but, passing on through the chancel arch, he never paused till he came close to the altar railing. Here for a moment he stood alone. The officiating curate, who had not yet doffed his surplice, perceived the newcomer and followed him to the communion-space. He whispered to the soldier, and then beckoned to the clerk, who in his turn whispered to an elderly woman, apparently his wife, and they also went up the chancel steps. 66 "'Tis a wedding!" murmured some of the women, brightening. "Let's wait!" The majority again sat down. There was a creaking of machinery behind, and some of the young ones turned their heads. From the interior face of the west wall of the tower projected a little canopy with a quarter-jack and small bell beneath it, the automaton being driven by the same clock machinery that struck the large bell in the tower. Between the tower and the church was a close screen, the door of which was kept shut during services, hiding this grotesque clockwork from sight. At present, however, the door was open, and the egress of the jack, the blows on the bell, and the mannikin's retreat into the nook again, were visible to many, and audible throughout the church. The jack had struck half-past eleven. "Where's the woman?" whispered some of the spectators. The young sergeant stood still with the abnormal rigidity of the old pillars around. He faced the south-east, and was as silent as he was still. The silence grew to be a noticeable thing as the minutes went on, and nobody else appeared, and not a soul moved. The rattle of the quarter-jack again from its niche, its blows for three-quarters, its fussy retreat,, were almost painfully abrupt, and caused many of the congregation to start palpably. "I wonder where the woman is!" a voice whispered again. ALL SAINTS' AND ALL SOULS'. ON a week-day morning a small congregation, consisting mainly of women and girls, rose from its knees in the mouldy nave of All Saints' Church, Melchester, at the end of a service without a sermon. They were about to disperse, when a smart footstep, entering the porch and coming up the central passage, There began now that slight shifting arrested their attention. The step of feet, that artificial coughing among echoed with a ring unusual in a church; several, which betrays a nervous susit was the clink of spurs. Everybody pense. At length there was a titter. But looked. A young cavalry soldier in a the soldier never moved. There he red uniform, with the three chevrons of a stood, his face to the south-east, upright sergeant upon his sleeve, strode up the as a column, his cap in his hand. The clock ticked on. The women threw off their nervousness, and titters and gigglings became more frequent. Then came a dead silence. Every one was waiting for the end. Some persons may have noticed how extraordinarily the striking of quarters seems to quicken the flight of time. It was hardly credible that the jack had not got wrong with the minutes when the rattle began again, the puppet emerged, and the four quarters were struck fitfully as before. One could almost be positive that there was a malicious leer upon the hideous creature's face, and a mischievous delight in its twitchings. Then followed the dull and remote resonance of the twelve heavy strokes in the tower above. The women were impressed, and there was no giggle this time. The clergyman glided into the vestry, and the clerk vanished. The sergeant had not yet turned; every woman in the church was waiting to see his face, and he appeared to know it. At last he did turn, and stalked resolutely down the nave, braving them all, with a compressed lip. Two bowed and toothless old almsmen then looked at each other and chuckled, innocently enough; but the sound had a strange, weird effect in that place. Opposite to the church was a paved square, around which several over-hanging wood buildings of old time cast a picturesque shade. The young man on leaving the door went to cross the square, when, in the middle, he met a little woman. The expression of her face, which had been one of intense anxiety, sank at the sight of his nearly to terror. "Well?" he said, in a suppressed passion, without looking at her. "O, Frank - I made a mistake! I thought that church with the spire was All Saints', and I was at the door at halfpast eleven to a minute, as you said. I waited till a quarter to twelve, and found then that I was in All Souls'. But I wasn't much frightened, for I thought it could be to-morrow as well." "You fool, for so fooling me! But say no more." "Shall it be to-morrow, Frank?" she asked blankly. "To-morrow!" and he gave vent to a hoarse laugh. "I don't go through that experience again for some time, I warrant you!" "But after all," she expostulated in a trembling voice, "the mistake was not such a terrible thing! Now, dear Frank, when shall it be?" LIVING AGE. VOL. VI. 280 "Ah, when? God knows!" he said, with a light irony, and turning from her walked rapidly away. CHAPTER XVII. IN THE MARKET-PLACE. ON Saturday Boldwood was in the Market-House as usual, when the disturber of his dreams entered, and became visible to him. Adam had awakened from his deep sleep; and, behold, there was Eve. The farmer took courage, and, for the first time, really looked at her. Emotional causes and effects are not proportionable equations to all. The result from capital employed in the production of any movement of a mental nature is sometimes as tremendous as the cause itself is absurdly minute. When women are in a freakish mood, their usual intuition, either from carelessness or inherent defect, seemingly fails to teach them this, and hence it was that Bathsheba was fated to be astonished to-day. Boldwood looked at her - not slily, critically, or understandingly, but blankly at gaze, in the way a reaper looks up at a passing train- -as something foreign to his element, and but dimly understood. To Boldwood women had been remote phenomena rather than necessary complements-comets of such uncertain aspect, movement, and permanence, that whether their orbits were as geometrical, unchangeable, and as subject to laws as his own, or as absolutely erratic as they superficially appeared, he had not deemed it his duty to consider. He saw her black hair, her correct facial curves and profile, and the roundness of her chin and throat. He saw then the side of her eyelids, eyes, and lashes, and the shape of her ear. Next he noticed her figure, her skirt, and the very soles of her shoes. Boldwood thought her beautiful, but wondered whether he was right in his thought, for it seemed impossible that this romance in the flesh, if so sweet as he imagined, could have been going on long without creating a commotion of delight among men, and provoking more enquiry than Bathsheba had done, even though that was not a little. To the best of his judgment neither nature nor art could improve this perfect one of an imperfect many. His heart began to move within him. Boldwood, it must be remembered, though forty years of age, had never before inspected a woman with the very centre and force of his glance; they had struck upon all his senses at wide angles. Was she really beautiful? He could not assure himself that his opinion was true even now. He furtively said to a neighbour, "Is Miss Everdene considered handsome?" "Oh, yes; she was a good deal noticed the first time she came, if you remember. A very handsome girl indeed." She that day nearly formed the intention of begging his pardon on the very next occasion of their meeting. The worst features of this arrangement were that, if he thought she ridiculed him, an apology would increase the offence by being disbelieved; and if he thought she wanted him, it would read like additional evidence of her forwardness. CHAPTER XVIII. BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION: A VISIT. A man is never more credulous than in receiving favourable opinions on the beauty of a woman he is half, or quite, in love with a mere child's word on the point has the weight of an R. A.'s. Bold-called the Lower Farm, and his person wood was satisfied now. was the nearest approach to aristocracy And this charming woman had in effect that this remoter quarter of Weatherbury said to him, "Marry me." Why should she have done that strange thing? Boldwood's blindness to the difference between approving of what circumstances suggest, and originating what they do not suggest, was well matched by Bathsheba's insensibility to the possibly great issues of little beginnings. could boast of. Genteel strangers, whose god was their town, who might happen to be compelled to linger about this nook for a day, heard the sound of light wheels, and prayed to see good society, to the degree of a solitary lord, or squire at the very least, but it was only Mr. Boldwood going out for the day. They heard the sound of wheels yet once more, and were re-animated to expectancy: it was only Mr. Boldwood coming home again. His house stood recessed from the road, and the stables, which are to a farm what a fireplace is to a house, were behind, their lower portions being lost amid bushes of laurel. Inside the blue door, open half-way down, were to be seen at this time the backs and tails of half-a-dozen warm and contented horses standing in their stalls; and, thus viewed, presenting alternations of roan and bay, She was at this moment coolly dealing with a dashing young farmer, adding up accounts with him as indifferently as if his face had been the pages of a ledger. It was evident that such a nature as his had no attraction for a woman of Bathsheba's taste. But Boldwood grew hot down to his hands with an incipient jealousy; he trod for the first time the threshold of "the injured lover's hell." His first impulse was to go and thrust himself between them. This could be done, but only in one way-by asking to see a sample of her corn. Boldwood re-in shapes like a Moorish arch, the tail nounced the idea. He could not make the request; it was debasing loveliness to ask it to buy and sell, and jarred with his conceptions of her. All this time Bathsheba was conscious of having broken into that dignified stronghold at last. His eyes, she knew, were following her everywhere. This was a triumph; and had it come naturally, such a triumph would have been the sweeter to her for this piquing delay. But it had been brought about by misdirected ingenuity, and she valued it only as she valued an artificial flower or a wax fruit. Being a woman with some good sense in reasoning on subjects wherein her heart was not involved, Bathsheba genuinely repented that a freak which had owed its existence as much to Liddy as to herself, should ever have been undertaken, to disturb the placidity of a man she respected too highly to deliberately tease. being a streak down the midst of each. Over these, and lost to the eye gazing in from the outer light, the mouths of the same animals could be heard busily sustaining the above-named warmth and plumpness by quantities of oats and hay. The restless and shadowy figure of a colt wandered up and down a loose-box at the end, whilst the steady grind of all the eaters was occasionally diversified by the rattle of a rope or the stamp of a foot. Pacing up and down at the heels of the animals was Farmer Boldwood himself. This place was his almonry and cloister in one! here, after looking to the feeding of his four-footed dependents, the celibate would walk and meditate of an evening till the moon's rays streamed in through the cobwebbed windows, or total darkness enveloped the scene. His square-framed perpendicularity showed more fully now than in the crowd |