Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy [best ereader for pdf txt] 📗

points of its diameter. Shepherd Oak, Jan Coggan, Moon, Poorgrass, Cain Ball, and several others were assembled here, all dripping wet to the very roots of their hair, and Bathsheba was standing by in a new riding-habit⁠—the most elegant she had ever worn⁠—the reins of her horse being looped over her arm. Flagons of cider were rolling about upon the green. The meek sheep were pushed into the pool by Coggan and Matthew Moon, who stood by the lower hatch, immersed to their waists; then Gabriel, who stood on the brink, thrust them under as they swam along, with an instrument like a crutch, formed for the purpose, and also for assisting the exhausted animals when the wool became saturated and they began to sink. They were let out against the stream, and through the upper opening, all impurities flowing away below. Cainy Ball and Joseph, who performed this latter operation, were if possible wetter than the rest; they resembled dolphins under a fountain, every protuberance and angle of their clothes dribbling forth a small rill.

Boldwood came close and bade her good morning, with such constraint that she could not but think he had stepped across to the washing for its own sake, hoping not to find her there; more, she fancied his brow severe and his eye slighting. Bathsheba immediately contrived to withdraw, and glided along by the river till she was a stone’s throw off. She heard footsteps brushing the grass, and had a consciousness that love was encircling her like a perfume. Instead of turning or waiting, Bathsheba went further among the high sedges, but Boldwood seemed determined, and pressed on till they were completely past the bend of the river. Here, without being seen, they could hear the splashing and shouts of the washers above.

“Miss Everdene!” said the farmer.

She trembled, turned, and said “Good morning.” His tone was so utterly removed from all she had expected as a beginning. It was lowness and quiet accentuated: an emphasis of deep meanings, their form, at the same time, being scarcely expressed. Silence has sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more impressive than speech. In the same way, to say a little is often to tell more than to say a great deal. Boldwood told everything in that word.

As the consciousness expands on learning that what was fancied to be the rumble of wheels is the reverberation of thunder, so did Bathsheba’s at her intuitive conviction.

“I feel⁠—almost too much⁠—to think,” he said, with a solemn simplicity. “I have come to speak to you without preface. My life is not my own since I have beheld you clearly, Miss Everdene⁠—I come to make you an offer of marriage.”

Bathsheba tried to preserve an absolutely neutral countenance, and all the motion she made was that of closing lips which had previously been a little parted.

“I am now forty-one years old,” he went on. “I may have been called a confirmed bachelor, and I was a confirmed bachelor. I had never any views of myself as a husband in my earlier days, nor have I made any calculation on the subject since I have been older. But we all change, and my change, in this matter, came with seeing you. I have felt lately, more and more, that my present way of living is bad in every respect. Beyond all things, I want you as my wife.”

“I feel, Mr. Boldwood, that though I respect you much, I do not feel⁠—what would justify me to⁠—in accepting your offer,” she stammered.

This giving back of dignity for dignity seemed to open the sluices of feeling that Boldwood had as yet kept closed.

“My life is a burden without you,” he exclaimed, in a low voice. “I want you⁠—I want you to let me say I love you again and again!”

Bathsheba answered nothing, and the horse upon her arm seemed so impressed that instead of cropping the herbage she looked up.

“I think and hope you care enough for me to listen to what I have to tell!”

Bathsheba’s momentary impulse at hearing this was to ask why he thought that, till she remembered that, far from being a conceited assumption on Boldwood’s part, it was but the natural conclusion of serious reflection based on deceptive premises of her own offering.

“I wish I could say courteous flatteries to you,” the farmer continued in an easier tone, “and put my rugged feeling into a graceful shape: but I have neither power nor patience to learn such things. I want you for my wife⁠—so wildly that no other feeling can abide in me; but I should not have spoken out had I not been led to hope.”

“The valentine again! O that valentine!” she said to herself, but not a word to him.

“If you can love me say so, Miss Everdene. If not⁠—don’t say no!”

“Mr. Boldwood, it is painful to have to say I am surprised, so that I don’t know how to answer you with propriety and respect⁠—but am only just able to speak out my feeling⁠—I mean my meaning; that I am afraid I can’t marry you, much as I respect you. You are too dignified for me to suit you, sir.”

“But, Miss Everdene!”

“I⁠—I didn’t⁠—I know I ought never to have dreamt of sending that valentine⁠—forgive me, sir⁠—it was a wanton thing which no woman with any self-respect should have done. If you will only pardon my thoughtlessness, I promise never to⁠—”

“No, no, no. Don’t say thoughtlessness! Make me think it was something more⁠—that it was a sort of prophetic instinct⁠—the beginning of a feeling that you would like me. You torture me to say it was done in thoughtlessness⁠—I never thought of it in that light, and I can’t endure it. Ah! I wish I knew how to win you! but that I can’t do⁠—I can only ask if I have already got you. If I have not, and it is not true that you have come