Far from the Madding Crowd (33 page)

“Straight on!” Jan exclaimed. “Tracks like that mean a stiff gallop. No wonder we don't hear him. And the horse is harnessed — look at the ruts. Ay, that's our mare sure enough!”

“How do you know?”

“Old Jimmy Harris only shoed her last week, and I'd swear to his make among ten thousand.”

“The rest of the gipsies must ha' gone on earlier, or some other way,” said Oak. “You saw there were no other tracks?”

“True.” They rode along silently for a long weary time. Coggan carried an old pinchbeck repeater which he had inherited from some genius in his family; and it now struck one. He lighted another match, and examined the ground again.

“'Tis a canter now,” he said, throwing away the light. “A twisty, rickety pace for a gig. The fact is, they over-drove her at starting; we shall catch ‘em yet.”

Again they hastened on, and entered Blackmore Vale. Coggan's watch struck one. When they looked again the hoof-marks were so spaced as to form a sort of zigzag if united, like the lamps along a street.

“That's a trot, I know,” said Gabriel.

“Only a trot now,” said Coggan, cheerfully. “We shall overtake him in time.”

They pushed rapidly on for yet two or three miles. “Ah! a moment,” said Jan. “Let's see how she was driven up this hill. ‘Twill help us.” A light was promptly struck upon his gaiters as before, and the examination made.

“Hurrah!” said Coggan. “She walked up here — and well she might. We shall get them in two miles, for a crown.”

They rode three, and listened. No sound was to be heard save a millpond trickling hoarsely through a hatch, and suggesting gloomy possibilities of drowning by jumping in. Gabriel dismounted when they came to a turning. The tracks were absolutely the only guide as to the direction that they now had, and great caution was necessary to avoid confusing them with some others which had made their appearance lately.

“What does this mean? — though I guess,” said Gabriel, looking up at Coggan as he moved the match over the ground about the turning. Coggan, who, no less than the panting horses, had latterly shown signs of weariness, again scrutinized the mystic characters. This time only three were of the regular horseshoe shape. Every fourth was a dot.

He screwed up his face and emitted a long “Whew-w-w!”

“Lame,” said Oak.

“Yes. Dainty is lamed; the near-foot-afore,” said Coggan slowly, staring still at the footprints.

“We'll push on,” said Gabriel, remounting his humid steed.

Although the road along its greater part had been as good as any turnpike-road in the country, it was nominally only a byway. The last turning had brought them into the high road leading to Bath. Coggan recollected himself.

“We shall have him now!” he exclaimed.

“Where?”

“Sherton Turnpike. The keeper of that gate is the sleepiest man between here and London — Dan Randall, that's his name — knowed ‘en for years, when he was at Casterbridge gate. Between the lameness and the gate ‘tis a done job.”

They now advanced with extreme caution. Nothing was said until, against a shady background of foliage, five white bars were visible, crossing their route a little way ahead.

“Hush — we are almost close!” said Gabriel.

“Amble on upon the grass,” said Coggan.

The white bars were blotted out in the midst by a dark shape in front of them. The silence of this lonely time was pierced by an exclamation from that quarter.

“Hoy-a-hoy! Gate!”

It appeared that there had been a previous call which they had not noticed, for on their close approach the door of the turnpike-house opened, and the keeper came out half-dressed, with a candle in his hand. The rays illumined the whole group.

“Keep the gate close!” shouted Gabriel. “He has stolen the horse!”

“Who?” said the turnpike-man.

Gabriel looked at the driver of the gig, and saw a woman — Bathsheba, his mistress.

On hearing his voice she had turned her face away from the light. Coggan had, however, caught sight of her in the meanwhile.

“Why, ‘tis mistress — I'll take my oath!” he said, amazed.

Bathsheba it certainly was, and she had by this time done the trick she could do so well in crises not of love, namely, mask a surprise by coolness of manner.

“Well, Gabriel,” she inquired quietly, “where are you going?”

“We thought — ” began Gabriel.

“I am driving to Bath,” she said, taking for her own use the assurance that Gabriel lacked. “An important matter made it necessary for me to give up my visit to Liddy, and go off at once. What, then, were you following me?”

“We thought the horse was stole.”

“Well — what a thing! How very foolish of you not to know that I had taken the trap and horse. I could neither wake Maryann nor get into the house, though I hammered for ten minutes against her window-sill. Fortunately, I could get the key of the coach-house, so I troubled no one further. Didn't you think it might be me?”

“Why should we, miss?”

“Perhaps not. Why, those are never Farmer Boldwood's horses! Goodness mercy! what have you been doing — bringing trouble upon me in this way? What! mustn't a lady move an inch from her door without being dogged like a thief?”

“But how was we to know, if you left no account of your doings?” expostulated Coggan, “and ladies don't drive at these hours, miss, as a jineral rule of society.”

“I did leave an account — and you would have seen it in the morning. I wrote in chalk on the coach-house doors that I had come back for the horse and gig, and driven off; that I could arouse nobody, and should return soon.”

“But you'll consider, ma'am, that we couldn't see that till it got daylight.”

“True,” she said, and though vexed at first she had too much sense to blame them long or seriously for a devotion to her that was as valuable as it was rare. She added with a very pretty grace, “Well, I really thank you heartily for taking all this trouble; but I wish you had borrowed anybody's horses but Mr. Boldwood's.”

“Dainty is lame, miss,” said Coggan. “Can ye go on?”

“It was only a stone in her shoe. I got down and pulled it out a hundred yards back. I can manage very well, thank you. I shall be in Bath by daylight. Will you now return, please?”

She turned her head — the gateman's candle shimmering upon her quick, clear eyes as she did so — passed through the gate, and was soon wrapped in the embowering shades of mysterious summer boughs. Coggan and Gabriel put about their horses, and, fanned by the velvety air of this July night, retraced the road by which they had come.

“A strange vagary, this of hers, isn't it, Oak?” said Coggan, curiously.

“Yes,” said Gabriel, shortly.

“She won't be in Bath by no daylight!”

“Coggan, suppose we keep this night's work as quiet as we can?”

“I am of one and the same mind.”

“Very well. We shall be home by three o'clock or so, and can creep into the parish like lambs.”

Bathsheba's perturbed meditations by the roadside had ultimately evolved a conclusion that there were only two remedies for the present desperate state of affairs. The first was merely to keep Troy away from Weatherbury till Boldwood's indignation had cooled; the second to listen to Oak's entreaties, and Boldwood's denunciations, and give up Troy altogether.

Alas! Could she give up this new love — induce him to renounce her by saying she did not like him — could no more speak to him, and beg him, for her good, to end his furlough in Bath, and see her and Weatherbury no more?

It was a picture full of misery, but for a while she contemplated it firmly, allowing herself, nevertheless, as girls will, to dwell upon the happy life she would have enjoyed had Troy been Boldwood, and the path of love the path of duty — inflicting upon herself gratuitous tortures by imagining him the lover of another woman after forgetting her; for she had penetrated Troy's nature so far as to estimate his tendencies pretty accurately, but unfortunately loved him no less in thinking that he might soon cease to love her — indeed, considerably more.

She jumped to her feet. She would see him at once. Yes, she would implore him by word of mouth to assist her in this dilemma. A letter to keep him away could not reach him in time, even if he should be disposed to listen to it.

Was Bathsheba altogether blind to the obvious fact that the support of a lover's arms is not of a kind best calculated to assist a resolve to renounce him? Or was she sophistically sensible, with a thrill of pleasure, that by adopting this course for getting rid of him she was ensuring a meeting with him, at any rate, once more? Or was it the bald fact, clearly evident to anyone except herself, that she was quite mad, infatuated with lust to do those things with him she scorned to do with any other?

It was now dark, and the hour must have been nearly ten. The only way to accomplish her purpose was to give up her idea of visiting Liddy at Yalbury, return to Weatherbury Farm, put the horse into the gig, and drive at once to Bath. The scheme seemed at first impossible: the journey was a fearfully heavy one, even for a strong horse, at her own estimate; and she much underrated the distance. It was most venturesome for a woman, at night, and alone.

But could she go on to Liddy's and leave things to take their course? No, no; anything but that. Bathsheba was full of a stimulating turbulence, beside which caution vainly prayed for a hearing. She turned back towards the village.

Her walk was slow, for she wished not to enter Weatherbury till the cottagers were in bed, and, particularly, till Boldwood was secure. Her plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell, and dismiss him: then to rest the horse thoroughly (herself to weep the while, she thought), starting early the next morning on her return journey. By this arrangement she could trot Dainty gently all the day, reach Liddy at Yalbury in the evening, and come home to Weatherbury with her whenever they chose — so nobody would know she had been to Bath at all. Such was Bathsheba's scheme. But in her topographical ignorance as a late comer to the place, she misreckoned the distance of her journey as not much more than half what it really was.

It was not that night, nor the next morning, that she reached her destination. Early on the following day, she finally arrived on the outskirts, where muddy lanes and green hedges gave way to the broad and elegant cobbled streets of the town of Bath.

Ashamed to ask any stranger for her destination, she paid an urchin to bring her to the Lower Bristol Road, direct to the barracks, being forced to walk along with him, since Dainty still hobbled.

The gloomy and forbidding outer walls soon stood before her, and uncertainty and need duelled within her bosom at the barred and bolted gate.

She was afeared to arouse attention, but when her timid knock on the gate received no response, she was bold enough to take off her green shoe and hammer with it till the spyhole opened a crack, and an unfriendly eye surveyed her.

“Is Sergeant Troy in the barracks?”

“What business have you with Sergeant Troy, madam?” was the none too civil reply.

She was compelled to acknowledge that her appearing so suddenly might seem to be the act of a loose woman, a follower of the regiment. Thus it was that Bathsheba took her first step in duplicity, marvelling at how easily the lie came to her lips.

“I am a — friend of his sister. I bring him news of her that he must hear.”

Still the gate remained shut, and the face at the spyhole looked her up and down, and inspected from that vantage point her gig and her pony.

“I have sent to his quarters,' said the unknown vigilant. “Do you know your horse is lame?”

At last the word came. Sergeant Troy was still on furlough and not within.

“Can you tell me where he lodges?”

“One of a dozen places. He may be playing at cards at Weatherbury, or he may be at the Royal Oak, a half mile hence.”

“I will go there and stable my horse, at least, thank ‘ee.”

She gathered the reins and prepared to walk the dragging steps along the muddy road. How weary she was now! She had hardly slept the previous night.

She asked again for Troy at the Royal Oak, and to her relief and terror she was shown up to a room they said was his.

He was within. She could hear him whistling.

Whatever her intentions, Bathsheba, when faced with the object of her journey, was so far at a loss to begin that she hesitated to knock on the door, and when she did so, it was a knock of such a timid and deferential nature that, by his response, she knew he had no inkling of her arrival.

“Bessy, is that you with my shaving water? Hurry in, girl, I have been waiting this half hour for — ”

“It is not Bessy. It is I. The object, I venture to hope, of your affections,” said Bathsheba in uncertain tones.

Troy stood stock still, his shirt open at the neck, and legs bare. He had a towel in his hand.

“Well, madam.” He seemed to have no further need of speech, but gazed upon her as if she, not himself, had been the undressed figure. There was not one scruple of her appearance that escaped his eye, from her elegant gold silk dress, her pale green shoes, to her tumbling ebony hair and rosy cheeks, combined with a blushing confusion and an air of maidenly modesty.

It was a small, dark room, with a mean little window and a ceiling under eaves so low that Troy seemed a giant in a dolls' house.

Bathsheba, seeing an armchair chair covered in a pleasing chintz, took some steps toward it and was about seat herself, but the chair was occupied. Sergeant Troy's sword and belt lay across it.

She reached out her hand, then withdrew it. Her heart fluttered within her like a covey of partridges. Beseechingly she turned her eyes upon Troy.

“O, you may move them. My weapon can do you no harm while it is sheathed,”' he said with a careless laugh. That all women should be so easily conquered and won, he had long ceased to wonder at. Nor had he any doubt that Bathsheba had come to him yielding to the promptings of her passion.