Thirty Five: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy - At An Upper Window

Next morning was of sun and dew.  Birds' songs spread into the healthy air. Barren clouds were suspended here and there in the wan sky.  The creeping plants about the old manor house were bowed with heavy water drops. 

Gabriel Oak and Jan Coggan passed the village cross and went on together to the fields.  They were near the house of Bathsheba, when Oak fancied he saw one of the casement in one of the upper windows.  The two men were at this moment partially screened by a bush now beginning to be encircled with black bunches of berries, and they paused before emerging from its shade. 

A handsome man leaned idly from the lattice.  He looked east and then west, in the manner of one who makes a first morning survey.  It was sergeant Troy.   His red jacket was loosely thrown on, but not buttoned, and he had altogether the relaxed bearing of a soldier taking his ease. 

Looking quietly at the window, Coggan spoke first, "She has married him." 

Gabriel too, heheld the sight.  "I fancy we should know something today," said Jan Coggan.  "I heard wheels pass my door just after dark - you were out somewhere." He glanced round upon Gabriel.  "Good heaven above us, Oak, how white your face is; you look like a corpse!" 

"Do I?" said Oak with a faint smile.

"Lean on the gate, I'll wait a bit." 

"All right, all right." 

They stood by the gate for a while, Gabriel listlessly staring at the ground.  His mind sped into the future, and he found scenes of repentance that would ensue from this work of haste. That they were married, he instantly decided. Why had it been so mysteriously managed? It was not at all Bathsheba's way of doing things.  With all her faults, she was candour itself. Could she have been entrapped? It amazed him, and grieved him. 

In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house.  The sergeant still looked from the window. 

"Morning, comrades!" he shouted in a cheerful voice when they came up. 

Jan Coggan replied to the greetings.

"Aren't you going to answer the man?" he then said to Gabriel, "you needn't spend half penny worh of time, yet keep civil to the man." 

Gabriel then decided to put the best face upon the matter. 

"Good morning, sergeant Troy," he returned. 

"A rambling, gloomy house." said Troy. 

"Why, they may not be married," suggested Coggan. "Perhaps she is not there." 

Gabriel shook his head.  The soldier turned a little towards the east, and the sun kindled  his scarlet coat to an orange glow. 

"But it is a nice old house," said Gabriel. 

"Yes --- I suggest so; but I feel like new wine in old bottle.  My notion is that sash-windows should be put throughout, and these old wains coated walls be brightened up a bit; or the oak cleared quite away, and the walls papered." 

"It would be a pity, I think." 

"Well, no.  A philosopher once said, in my hearing that, the old builders, who worked when art was a living thing, had no respect for the work of builders, who went before them, but pulled down and altered as they thought fit; and why shouldn't we? Creation and preservation don't go well together.  I want to make this place more modern." 

The sergeant turned and surveyed the interim of the room.  Gabriel and Coggan began to move on. 

"Oh, Coggan," said Troy, as if inspired by a recollection, "do you know if insanity has ever appeared in Mr Boldwood's family?" 

Jan Coggan reflected for a moment. 

"I heard that an uncle of his was queer in head; but I don't know the right of it," said he. 

"It is of no importance," said Troy.  "Well, I shall be down in the fields with you sometime this week, but I have a few matters to attend to first. 

So, Good day to you.  We shall of course keep on good terms. I am not a proud man.  Nobody is ever able to say that of sergeant Troy.  However, what is must be, and here's half a crown to drink my health men." 

Troy threw the coin dexterously across the front plot towards Gabriel, who shunned it in its fall, his face turning to an angry red.  Coggan twirled his eye, edged forward caught it in its ricochet upon the grass. 

"Very well, you keep it Coggan," said Gabriel with disdain.  "As far me I will do without gifts from him."

"Don't show it too much," said Coggan musingly.  For if he's married to her, mark my words, he will buy his discharge, and be our master here, and it is going to be a trouble house." 

"Perhaps, it is best to be silent," said Gabriel.

A horseman whom they had seen for some time now appeared close to them.

"There is Mr Boldwood," said Oak, "I wonder what Troy meant by his question."

Coggan and Oak nodded respectfully to Mr Boldwood and checked their paces to discover if they were wanted, and finding they were not stood back to let him pass on.

The only signs of terrible sorrow Boldwood had been enduring were the want of colour in his well-defined face, the enlarged appearance of veins in his forehead and temples, and the sharper lines about his mouth.  Gabriel, for a minute, rose above his own grief in noticing Boldwood's.  He swa him sitting upon the horse, the head straight, the elbows steady by the hip, until the keen edges of Boldwood's shape sank.by degrees over the hill.

    END OF THE CHAPTER