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

and talked on, and grew as merry as the gods in Homer’s heaven. Bathsheba still remained enthroned inside the window, and occupied herself in knitting, from which she sometimes looked up to view the fading scene outside. The slow twilight expanded and enveloped them completely before the signs of moving were shown.

Gabriel suddenly missed Farmer Boldwood from his place at the bottom of the table. How long he had been gone Oak did not know; but he had apparently withdrawn into the encircling dusk. Whilst he was thinking of this, Liddy brought candles into the back part of the room overlooking the shearers, and their lively new flames shone down the table and over the men, and dispersed among the green shadows behind. Bathsheba’s form, still in its original position, was now again distinct between their eyes and the light, which revealed that Boldwood had gone inside the room, and was sitting near her.

Next came the question of the evening. Would Miss Everdene sing to them the song she always sang so charmingly⁠—“The Banks of Allan Water”⁠—before they went home?

After a moment’s consideration Bathsheba assented, beckoning to Gabriel, who hastened up into the coveted atmosphere.

“Have you brought your flute?” she whispered.

“Yes, miss.”

“Play to my singing, then.”

She stood up in the window-opening, facing the men, the candles behind her, Gabriel on her right hand, immediately outside the sash-frame. Boldwood had drawn up on her left, within the room. Her singing was soft and rather tremulous at first, but it soon swelled to a steady clearness. Subsequent events caused one of the verses to be remembered for many months, and even years, by more than one of those who were gathered there:⁠—

For his bride a soldier sought her,
And a winning tongue had he:
On the banks of Allan Water
None was gay as she!

In addition to the dulcet piping of Gabriel’s flute, Boldwood supplied a bass in his customary profound voice, uttering his notes so softly, however, as to abstain entirely from making anything like an ordinary duet of the song; they rather formed a rich unexplored shadow, which threw her tones into relief. The shearers reclined against each other as at suppers in the early ages of the world, and so silent and absorbed were they that her breathing could almost be heard between the bars; and at the end of the ballad, when the last tone loitered on to an inexpressible close, there arose that buzz of pleasure which is the attar of applause.

It is scarcely necessary to state that Gabriel could not avoid noting the farmer’s bearing tonight towards their entertainer. Yet there was nothing exceptional in his actions beyond what appertained to his time of performing them. It was when the rest were all looking away that Boldwood observed her; when they regarded her he turned aside; when they thanked or praised he was silent; when they were inattentive he murmured his thanks. The meaning lay in the difference between actions, none of which had any meaning of itself; and the necessity of being jealous, which lovers are troubled with, did not lead Oak to underestimate these signs.

Bathsheba then wished them good night, withdrew from the window, and retired to the back part of the room, Boldwood thereupon closing the sash and the shutters, and remaining inside with her. Oak wandered away under the quiet and scented trees. Recovering from the softer impressions produced by Bathsheba’s voice, the shearers rose to leave, Coggan turning to Pennyways as he pushed back the bench to pass out:⁠—

“I like to give praise where praise is due, and the man deserves it⁠—that ’a do so,” he remarked, looking at the worthy thief, as if he were the masterpiece of some world-renowned artist.

“I’m sure I should never have believed it if we hadn’t proved it, so to allude,” hiccupped Joseph Poorgrass, “that every cup, every one of the best knives and forks, and every empty bottle be in their place as perfect now as at the beginning, and not one stole at all.”

“I’m sure I don’t deserve half the praise you give me,” said the virtuous thief, grimly.

“Well, I’ll say this for Pennyways,” added Coggan, “that whenever he do really make up his mind to do a noble thing in the shape of a good action, as I could see by his face he did tonight afore sitting down, he’s generally able to carry it out. Yes, I’m proud to say, neighbours, that he’s stole nothing at all.”

“Well, ’tis an honest deed, and we thank ye for it, Pennyways,” said Joseph; to which opinion the remainder of the company subscribed unanimously.

At this time of departure, when nothing more was visible of the inside of the parlour than a thin and still chink of light between the shutters, a passionate scene was in course of enactment there.

Miss Everdene and Boldwood were alone. Her cheeks had lost a great deal of their healthful fire from the very seriousness of her position; but her eye was bright with the excitement of a triumph⁠—though it was a triumph which had rather been contemplated than desired.

She was standing behind a low armchair, from which she had just risen, and he was kneeling in it⁠—inclining himself over its back towards her, and holding her hand in both his own. His body moved restlessly, and it was with what Keats daintily calls a too happy happiness. This unwonted abstraction by love of all dignity from a man of whom it had ever seemed the chief component, was, in its distressing incongruity, a pain to her which quenched much of the pleasure she derived from the proof that she was idolized.

“I will try to love you,” she was saying, in a trembling voice quite unlike her usual self-confidence. “And if I can believe in any way that I shall make you a good wife I shall indeed be willing to marry you. But, Mr. Boldwood, hesitation on so high a matter is honourable in any woman, and I don’t want to