Thirty Six: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy - The Wedding Celebration

Towards the end of August. Night. Bathshebs was still a novice in her married life. Dry and sultry weather. A man stood motionless in the stackyard of Weatherbury Upper Farm looking at the moon and sky. 

The night had a sinister aspect.  A hot breeze from the south slowly fanned the summits of lofty objects, and broken clouds were sailing in the breeze. The moon had a lurid metallic look.  The fields were sallow; the sheep had trailed homeward, the rooks were confused. A long rain was expected. The end of harvesting season.  Oak looked without disbelief at the ricks in the open space.  He went on to the barn. 

This was the night chosen by sergeant Troy for giving harvest supper and dance.  As Oak approached the building, the sounds of violins, and a tambourine, and the regular jigs of many feet grew more distinct.  He came close to the large doors, one of which stood slightly ajar, and looked in. 

The central space together with the recess was emptied, and this area was appropriated for the gathering.  The remaining end was piled to the ceiling with oats, and screened off with sail-cloth. Tufts and garlands of green foliage decorated the walls, beams and off-the-cuff chandeliers. Immediately opposite to Oak a rostrum had been erected, bearing a table and and chairs.  Here sat three fiddlers, and beside them stood a frantic man with his hair on end, and his perspiration streaming down his cheeks, and a tambourine quivering in his hand.  The dancing ended and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row of couples formed for another. 

"Now ma'am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would like next?" said the first violin. 

"Really it makes no difference," said the clear voice of Bathsheba who stood at the inner end of the building, observing the scene from behind a table covered with cups and viands. Troy was lolling beside her. 

"Then," said the fiddler, "I'll venture to name that the right and proper thing is 'The Soldier's Joy' there being a gallant soldier married into the farm - hey, my sonnies and gentlemen all? 

"It shall be "The Soldier's Joy," exclaimed a chorus. 

"Thanks for the compliment," said the seargent gaily, taking Bathsheba by the hand, and leading her to the top of the dance.  "For though I have purchased my discharge from Her Most   Gracious Majesty's regiment of cavalry, the 11th Dragoon Guards, to attend the new duties here, I shall continue a soldier in spirit and feeling as long as I live." 

The dance began.  As to the merits of Soldier's Joy there never were two opinions. It has been observed in musical circles of Weatherbury, and its presence across many lands and many generations has been a stimulus for the heel and toe.

Gabriel no longer delayed his entry.. He avoided Bathsheba, and got near to the platform, where sergeant Troy was now seated, drinking brandy and water, though the others drink cider and ale.  Gabriel could not easily thrust himself within speaking distance of the sergeant, and he sent a message, asking him to come down a moment.  The sergeant said he could not attend.

"Will you tell him, then,"  said Gabriel, "that I only stepped athwart to say that a heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and something should be done to protect the ricks ?" 

"Mr Troy says it will not rain," returned the messenger, "and he cannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets." 

Gabriel had a melancholy disposition to look like a candle beside gas, and ill at ease, he went out again, thinking he would go home; for he had no heart for the scene in the barn.  At the door he paused for a moment. Troy was speaking: "Friends, it is not only the Harvest Home that we are celebrating tonight, this is also a Wedding Feast. A short time ago I had the happiness to lead to the altar this lady, your mistress, and not until now have we been able to give any public flourish to the event in Weatherbury.  That it may be thoroughly well done, and that every man may go happy to bed, I have ordered to bring here some bottles of brandy and kettles of hot water.  A treble strong goblet will be handed round to each guest." 

Bathsheba put her hand upon his arm, and with upturned pale face, said imploringly, "No -- don't give it to them, pray don't, Frank.  It will only do them harm; they have had enough of everything."

"True --- we don't wish for more, thank you," said one or two.

"Pooh!" said the sergeant contemptously, and raised his voice as if lighted up by a new idea.  "Friends," he said, "we'll send the women folk home.  'Tis time they were in bed.  Then we cockbirds will have jolly carouse to ourselves.  If any of the men show white feather let them look elsewhere for a winter's work."

Bathsheba indignantly left the barn followed by all women and children.  The musicians not looking upon themselves as a company, slipped quietly away to their spring wagon and put in the horse.  Thus Troy and the men on the farm were left sole occupants of the place. Oak not to appear unnecessarily disagreeable stayed a little while;  then he too arose and quietly took his departure, followed by a friendly oath from the sergeant for not staying to a second round of grog.

Gabriel proceeded towards his home. In approaching the door, his toe touched something, which felt and sounded soft, leathery, and distended, like a boxing glove.  It was a large toad humbly travelling across the path.  Oak took it up, thinking it might be better to kill it to save it from pain; but finding it uninjured, he placed it again in the grass.  He knew what this direct message from the Great Mother meant.  And soon came another.

When he struck a light indoors there appeared upon the table a thin glistening streak, as if a brush of varnish had been lightly dragged across it. Oak's eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the other side, where it led upto a huge brown garden-slug, which had come indoors tonight for its own reasons. It was Nature's second way of hinting to him that he was to prepare for foul weather. 

Oak sat meditating for nearly an hour. During this time two black spiders of the kind common in thatched houses, crawled the ceiling, and ultimately dropped to the floor.  It reminded him of the sheep and how they respond to the changes in Nature.  He left the room for fields.

They were crowded and close together around some furze bushes.  At his appearance they did not stir or run away. Without a single exception, their tails were in the direction from where the wind was blowing.  There was an inner circle closely huddled, and outside these they radiated apart, the pattern formed by the flock as a whole being, to which the clump of furze-bushes stood in the position of a wearer's neck.  Every voice in nature  unanimous in bespeaking  change.

Oak returned to the stackyard.  All was silent here, and the conical tips of ricks jutted darkly into the sky.  There were five wheat ricks in this yard, and three stacks of barley.  The wheat when threaded would average about thirty quarters to each stack; the barley at least forty. A value of £750. Oak decided to save it.  "I will help, to my last effort, the woman I have loved so dearly." 

Oak went to the barn.  All was silent within.  A dim light yellow as saffron streamed through a knot-hole in the folding doors.

Gabriel looked in.  The candles suspended among the evergreens had burnt down to the socket, and in some cases the leaves tied about were scorched.  Many of the lights had quite gone out, others smoked and stank, grease dropping from them upon the floor.  Here, under the table, and leaning against forms and chairs in every conceivable attitude, except the perpendicular, were the wretched persons of all the workfolk, the hair of their heads at such low levels, being suggestive of mops and brooms.  In the midst of this shone red and distinct, the figure of sergeant Troy, leaning back in a chair.  Coggan was on his back, with his mouth open, buzzing forth snores, as were several others; the united breathings of the horizontal assemblage forming a subdued roar like London from a distance. Joseph Poorgrass was curled round in the fashion of a hedgehog, apparently in attempts to present the least possible portion of his surface to the air; and behind him was dimly visible an unimportant remnant of William Smallbury.  The glasses and cups still remained upon the table; a water jug being overturned, from which a small rill, after tracing its course with marvelous precision down the centre of the long table, fell into the neck of the unconscious Mark Clark, in a steady monotonous drip, like the dripping of  stalactites  in a cave.

Gabriel glanced hopelessly at the group, which, with one or two exceptions comprised all the able bodied men upon the farm.  He saw at once that if the ricks were to be saved that night, or even the next morning, he must save them with his own hands.

A faint "ting-ting"  resounded from Coggan's waistcoat.  It was Coggan's watch striking hour two.

Oak went to the recumbent form of Mathew Moon, who usually undertake the rough thatching of homestead, and shook him. The shaking was without effect. Gabriel shouted in his ear, "where is your thatching beetle, and the rick-stick and spars?" 

"Under the staddles," said Moon mechanically. 

Gabriel let go his head, and it dropped upon the floor like a bowl.  Then he went to Susan Tall's husband.

"Where is the key of granery?" 

No answer.  The question was repeated. No result.  Oak turned away.  It was not the fault of work folk.  A glass in hand, sergeant Troy had insisted that drinks should be the bond of their union.  But they had not been accustomed to any liquor other than cider or mild ale. They had been succumbed one and all to the brandy within half an hour.

Gabriel was greatly depressed.  The indulgence in excessive drinking boded ill for Bathsheba whom Gabriel saw an embodiment of all that was sweet and bright.  He put out all lights, closed the door upon the men in deep sleep, and went out again into the lone night.  A hot breeze fanned him from the south, while directly opposite in the north rose a grim shapeless body of cloud in the very teeth of the wind.

Gabriel was now outside the window of Laban Tall's bedroom and he knocked at it, expecting Susan Tall to open it.  Nobody stirred.  He went round to the backdoor.  It had been left unfastened for the entry of Laban.  He passed in to the foot of staircase.

"Mrs Tall, I have come for the key of granary, to get at the rick-cloths," said Oak.

"Is that you?" said Susan Tall, half awake.

"Yes," said Gabriel.

"Come along to bed, do, draw-latching rogue -- keeping a body awake like this." 

"It isn't Laban -- tis Gabriel Oak. I want the key of granary." 

"Gabriel!  What in the name of fortune did you pretend to be Laban for?" 

"I didn't.  I thought you meant," ---

'

"Yes you did.  What do.you want here?" 

"The key of the granery." 

"Take it then. 'Tis on the nail.  Coming disturbing woman at this time of the night ought" 

Gabriel took the key, without waiting to hear the conclusion of the tirade. Then he drew four large water-proof coverings across the yard and two heaps of grains were covered comfortably.  Two hundred pounds of grain are secured.  Three wheat stacks remained open and there were no more cloths.  He looked under the staddles and found a fork.  He mounted the third pile and began operating, adopting the plan of sloping the upper sheaves one over the other.

So far all was well.  By this hurried contrivance wheat was safe for a weak or two.

Next came barley.  It can be saved by systematic thatching. Time went on and the moon vanished.  Nothing was heard in the yard, but the dull thuds of beetle which drove in the spars, and the rustle of the thatch in the intervals.

          END OF THE CHAPTER