Fifty: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy: Greenhill Fair

Greenhill was the Nijni Novgorod of Wessex. Greenhill sheep Fair was a yearly gathering. It used to take place upon the summit of a hill.  There on the hill remains an ancient rampart of  earthwork in oval shape encircled by a trench. There were two openings face to face.  Two winding roads ascended to each of these openings.  The summit had a level green spce of twenty or thirty acres. A few permanent erections dotted the space, but the majority patronized canvas alone for resting and feeding during the time of their sojourn here.

Shepherds who attended with their flocks from long distances started from two or three days before the fair, driving their charges a few miles each day, and resting them at night in hired fields at way side, at previously chosen points.  The shepherd of each flock marched behind; a bundle containing his kit for the week strapped upon his shoulders; and in his hand his crook, which he used as the staff of his pilgrimage.  Sheep would get worn and lame, and occasionally a lambing occurred en route. A pony and a wagon would accompany the sojourners, and the weak and lame were taken for the remainder of the journey. 

Weatherbury farms were not away from the hills; and such arrangements were not necessary for them.  The large united flocks of Bathsheba and Boldwood were accompanied by Gabriel, Cain Ball and Boldwood's shepherd. The old dog, George behind them. 

The autumn sun slanted over Greenhill, and lighted dewy flat upon its crest. Clouds of dust were floating between the pairs of hedges, which streaked around in all directions. They gradually converged upon the base of the hill, and started climbing the serpentine ways which led to the top.  The slow procession began to enter the openings, multitude after multitude, horned and hornless, blue and red, buff and brown, green and salmon coloured, according to the fancy of the colourist, and the custom of the farm.  Shouts of men, and bark of dogs, bleat of sheep, shepherd rising here and there in the midst of flocks.

The great mass of sheep in the fair consisted of South Downs and the old Wessex horned breeds; to the latter class Bathsheba's and Farmer Boldwood's mainly belonged.

To these field around nine o'clock, the sheep, their vermiculated horns lopping gracefully on each side of their cheeks in geometrically perfect spirals, a small pink and white ear nestling under each horn, walked.  Before and behind came other varieties, perfect leopards but lacking spots.

There was Oxfordshire breed whose wool was beginning to curl like a child's flaxen hair, and behind effiminate Leicesters, which were less curly than Cotswolds.  The most picturesque was a small flock of Exmoors, the new comers.  Their pied face and legs, dark and heavy horns, tresses of wools hanging round their swarthy foreheads, quite relieved the monotony of the show.

All the bleating, panting, weary thousands had entered, and had penned before the morning, the dog belonging to each flock being tied to the corner of the pen.  Alleys intersected the pens, which soon crowded with buyers and sellers.

In another part of the hill, by midday, a circus tent of exceptional newness and size was in the course of erection.  As the day drew on the flocks began to change hands and the shepherds' responsibilities reduced, and their attention turned to the circus tent. They asked what was going on to a man at work, who was bothered in tying a knot, and the answer came, " Royal Hippodrome Performance of Turpin's Ride to York and the Death of Black Bess" 

The tent was completed.  The band struck up stimulating harmonies.  The announcement was publicly made. Black Bess standing in a conspicuous position, outside the tent.  The people began to crowd in abundantly, and among them were Jan Coggan and Joseph Poorgrass.

"That's the great ruffin pushing me," screamed a woman, in front of Jan Coggan, over her shoulder to him, when the rush was at its fiercest.

"How can I help pushing you when the folk behind push me?" said Coggan in a deprecating tone, turning his head towards the aforesaid folk as far as he could without turning his body, which was jammed as in a vice.

There was silence; then the drums and trumpets again sent forth their echoing notes.  The crowd again was ecstasied, and gave another lurch, in which Coggan and Poorgrass were again thrust by those behind upon the women in front.

"Oh, that helpless females should be at the mercy of such ruffians!" exclaimed one of these ladies again, as she swayed like a reed shaken by wind.

"Now," said Coggan, appealing in earnest voice to the public at large as it stood clustered on his shoulder blades, "did you ever heard such an unreasonable woman as that?  Upon my carcass, neighbours, if I could only get out of this cheese-wring, the 

d----- women might eat the show for me." 

"Don't you lose your temper, Jan!" implored Poorgrass, in a whisper.  "They might get their men to murder us, for I think by the shine of their eyes that they are a sinful form of womankind."

Jan held his tongue, as if he had no objection to please his friend, and they gradually reached the foot of the ladder, Poorgrass being flattened like a jumping jack, and the sixpence for admission, which he had got ready half an hour earlier, having become so reeking hot in his tight squeeze that the woman in spangles, brazen ring sets with glass diamonds, and with a chalked face and shoulders, who took the money of him, hastily dropped it again from fear that some 

trick had been played to burn her fingers.  So they all entered.  To an observer on the outside, the sides of the tent became bulged into innumerable pimples, such as we observe on a sack of potatoes, caused by the various human heads, backs, and elbows at high pressure within.

At the rear end of the tent there were two small dressing tents.  One of these allotted to the male performers, was partitioned into halves by a cloth; and in one of the divisions, there was sitting on the grass, pulling on a pair of jack-boots, a young man whom we instantly recognise as Sergeant Troy.

The brig aboard which he was taken in Budmouth was about to start on a voyage.  He understood that his clothes were lost, and he worked his passage to United States, where he made a precarious living in various towns as professor of gymnastics, and fencing.  A few months in this life, he was fed up with it.  The idea that he could claim a home and its comforts encouraged him to return to England and Weatherbury Farm.

Whether Bathsheba thought him dead was a frequent subject of curious conjecture.  To England he did return at last.  The fact of drawing near to Weatherbury lost its fascination.  He was gloomy when he landed at Liverpool.  If he were to go home his reception would be unpleasant.  Bathsheba was not a fool.  She would not suffer in silence.

It was not unlikey that she would fail at her farming.  Then he would become liable for her maintainance.

Troy fell in with a travelling circus, which was performing in the outskirts of a northern town.  He introduced himself to the manager by taming a festive horse of the troupe, hitting a suspended apple with a pistol-bullet fired from the animal's back when in full gallop, and other feats.  His merits in these all were based upon his experience as a dragoon guardsman, and he was taken into the company, and the play of Turpin's was prepared with a view to his personation of the chief character.  Troy was not greatly elated by the appreciative spirit in which he was undoubtedly treated, but he thought the engagement might afford him a few weeks for consideration.  This was how Troy was found himself at Greenhill Fair with the rest of the company.

The mild autumn sun got lower in front of the pavallion.  Bathsheba was driven to the fair by her farm worker Joseph Poorgrass who informed her of the announcement that Mr Francis, the Great Cosmopolite Equestrian and Roughrider would enact the part of Turpin.  She was young enough to be curious to see him. This particular show was grand and large, among a horde of little shows under it like chickens around a hen. The crowd had been waiting eagerly.  Among them Boldwood, who had been watching for an opportunity to talk to Bathsheba, saw her comparatively isolated, came up to her side.

"I hope the sheep have done well today, Mrs Troy?" 

"Oh yes, thank you," said Bathsheba, colour springing up in the centre of her cheeks, "I was fortunate enough to sell them all before we got upon the hill, so we hadn't to pen at all." 

"And now you are entirely at leisure?" 

"Yes, except that I have to see one more dealer in two hours time: otherwise I should be going home.  I was looking at this large tent and the announcement. Have you ever seen the play of Turpin's Ride to York?  Turpin was a real man, was he not? 

"Oh yes, perfectly true, all of it.  Indeed I think I have heard Jan Coggan say that a relation of his knew Tom King, Turpin's friend, quite well." 

"Coggan is rather given to strange stories connected with his relations, we remember.  I hope they can all be believed." 

"Yes, yes; we know Coggan.  But Turpin is true enough.  You have never seen it played, I suppose?" 

"Never.  I was not allowed to go into these places when I was young.  Hark! [1] What's that prancing ?  How they shout!" 

"Black Bess just starting off, I suppose. Would you like to see the performance, Mrs Troy?" If you would like, I will get a seat for you with pleasure."  Perceiving that she hesitated he added: "I myself shall not stay to see it.  I have seen it before." 

Now Bathsheba did care a little to see the show, and had only withheld her feet from the ladder because she feared to go in alone.  She had been hoping that Oak might come, whose assistance in such cases was always accepted as inalienable right, and Oak was nowhere; and hence she said, "And then if you will just look in to see if there's room, I think I will go in for a minute or two." 

A short time afterwards Bathsheba appeared in the tent with Boldwood at her elbow, who, taking her to a reserved seat, withdrew.

The reseved seat was a raised bench in a conspicuous part of the circle, covered with red cloth, floored with a carpet, and Bathsheba immediately found, to her confusion, that she was the single reserved individual in the tent, the rest of the crowded spectators one and all standing on their legs on the boarders of arena where they got twice as good a view of the performance for half the money.  Hence, as many eyes were turned upon her, enthroned alone in this place of honour, against a scarlet background, as upon the ponies and clown who were engaged in preliminary exploits in the centre, Turpin not yet having appeared.  Once there, Bathsheba made the best of it; she sat down spreading her skirts with some dignity over the unoccupied space on each side of her, and giving a faminine aspect to the pavallion.  In a few minutes she noticed the fat red nape of Coggan's 

neck among those just standing below her, and Joseph Poorgrass's saintly profile little farther on.

The interior of the tent had a peculiar shade, added by the luminous semi-opacity of the fine autumn afternoon and eves intensified into Rambrandt

effects the few sunbeams which came through holes and divisions in the canvas, and spirited like gems of gold dust across the dusky blue atmosphere of haze pervading the tent until they alighted on inner surfaces of cloth opposite, and shone like little lamps.

Troy, on peeping through his dressing tent through a slit for a general survey found his wife sitting as a queen.  He started back in utter  confusion, for although his disguise 

concealed his person, he instantly felt that she would be sure to recognise his voice.  He thought of the possibility of Weatherbury person recognising him; but he had taken the risk. But here was Bathsheba, and the reality of the scene was much intense than any of his prefigurings, that he felt he had not considered.  She looked so charming and fair.  He had not expected her to exercise this power over him.  But at the thought of  the sense of shame when she discovers him in Turpin's garments prevented his further advance.  He suddenly withdrew from the peephole, to see the presence of the proprietor Tom King, and said "Here's the devil to pay." 

"How's that?" 

"There's a good for nothing scamp in the tent I don't want to see, who will discover me and nab me, if I open my mouth." 

"You must appear now, I think."

"I can't." 

"But the play must proceed." 

"You must give our that Turpin has got a bad cold, and can't speak his part, but will perform it just the same without speaking." 

The proprietor shook his head.

"Anyhow, play or no play, I won't open my mouth," Troy said firmly.

"Very well then, let me see. I will tell you how we will manage," said the other, who did not want to offend his leading man.  "I won't tell them anything about your keeping silence, go on with the piece and say nothing, doing what you can by a judicious wink now and then, and a few indomitable nods in the heroic places, you know.  They'll never find out that the speeches are omitted."

This seemed feasible enough, for Turpin's speeches were not so many or long, the fascination of the piece lying entirely in the action.  And accordingly the play began, and at the appointed time Black Bess leapt into the grassy circle amid the plaudits of the spectators.  At the turn-pike scene, where Bess and Turpin are hotly pursued at midnight by the officers, and the half awake gate-keeper in his tasseled nightcap denies that any horseman has passed, Coggan uttered a broad chested, " well done!" which could be heard all over the fair above the bleating, and Poorgrass smiled delightedly with a nice sense of dramatic contrast between our hero who coolly leaps the gate, and haltng justice in the form of his enemies, who needs pull up cumbersomely and wait to be let through.  At the death of Tom King, he could not refrain from seizing Coggan by the hand and whispering, with tears in his eyes, "of course he is not really shot, Jan --- only seemingly !" And when the last sad scene came on, and the body of the gallant and faithful Bess had to be carried out on a shutter by twelve volunteers from among the spectators, nothing could restrain Poorgrass from lending a hand, exclaiming as he asked Jan to join him, " 'Twill be something to tell of Warren's in future years, Jan, and hand down to our children."  For many years in Weatherbury Joseph told with the air of a man who had had experiences in his time, that he touched with his own hand the hoof of Bess as she lay upon the board upon his shoulder.  Black Bess, thus became immortal in the memory of Weatherbury.

Meanwhile, Troy had added a few touches to his usual make-up, to disguise himself, and he had felt a faint qualms on entering the ring, but the metamorphosis came by lining his face with a wire,  He was safe from the eyes of Bathsheba and her men.

There was a second performance in the evening.  This time, Troy had added a few speeches.  But on concluding, he observed the eye of a man within a yard of him, darted keenly into his side features.  Troy instantly recognised him as knavish bailiff, Pennyways, his wife's sworn enemy.

At first, Troy resolved to take no notice, and abide by circumstances.

Highly probable that he had been recognised by Pennyways; yet there was a room for doubt. Knowledge of his present occupation would discredit him still in the eyes of his wife.  If he does not return, a tale of his being alive would be awkward. He was anxious to acquire the  knowledge of his wife's temporal affairs before he takes a decision whether to remain or to leave.  He wanted to meet Pennyways and befriend him.  He had put on a thick beard borrowed from the establishment, and in this he wandered about the fair-field.

It was now almost dark, and people were getting their carts and jigs ready to go home.  Host Trencher was the exceptional refreshment booth in the Greenhill Fair. The Host Trencher was set in the First Class lobby fenced off exclusively at a penetralia where Host stood bustling about in white apron and shirt sleeves and looking as if he had never lived anywhere but under canvas only.  The candles being lighted the chairs and tables made quite a cosey and luxurious show.

Troy stood at the entrance of the booth.  Over a little fire of sticks,  a gypsy woman was making paan cakes, and selling them at a penny apiece.  He looked over the heads of people within.  He could see nothing of Pennyways, but he soon discerned Bathsheba through an opening into the reserved space at the farther end.  Troy thereupon retreated and went round the tent into darkness, and listened.  He could hear Bathsheba's voice immediately inside the canvas; she was conversing with a man.  A warmth overspread his face: surely she was not so unprincipled as to flirt in a fair.  He wondered, if then, she reckoned upon his death as an absolute certainty.  To get at the root of the matter, Troy took a penknife from his pocket and softly made two little cuts crosswise in the cloth, which, by folding back the corners, left a hole in the size of a wafer.  Close to this he placed his face, withdrawing it again in a movement of surprise; for his eye had been within twelve inches of the top of Bathsheba's head.  It was too near to be convenient.  He made another hole a little to one side and lower down, in a shaded place beside her chair, from which it was very easy and safe to survey her looking horizontally.

Troy took in the scene completely now.  She was leaning back, sipping a cup of tea that she held in her hand, and the owner of the male voice was Boldwood, who had apparently just brought the cup to her.  Bathsheba, being in a negligent mood, leant so idly against the canvas that it was pressed to the shape of her shoulder, and she was, in fact, as good as in Troy's arms; and he was obliged to keep his breast carefully backward that she might not feel its warmth through the cloth as he gazed in.

Unexpected chords of feeling stirred within him, as they had been stirred earlier.  She was handsome as ever, and she was his.  Some minutes before he could resist his sudden wish to claim her.  Then he thought how she had always looked down upon him, even while it was to love him, would hate him on discovering him a strolling player.  Were he to keep that chapter of life from her and all Weatherbury people, or make it a byword throughout parish?  He would be nicknamed "Turpin" as long as he lived.  These past few months' existence must be blotted out before he could claim her.

"Shall I get another cup before you start, ma'am?" asked Boldwood.

"Thank you," said Bathsheba, "but I must be going at once.  That man is keeping me wait here till so late.  I should have gone two hours ago, if it had been not for him.  I had no idea of coming in here; but there's nothing so refreshing as a cup of tea, though I should never have got one, if you hadn't helped me." 

Troy scrutinized her cheek as lit by the candles, and watched each varying shade thereon, and the white shell like sinuosities of her little ear.  She took her purse and was insisting to Boldwood on paying for her tea for herself when, at this moment Pennyways entered the tent.  Troy trembled: here was his scheme endangered.  He was about to leave his hole of espial, attempt to follow Pennyways, and find out the ex-bailiff had recognised him, when he was arrested by the conversation and found he was too late.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Pennyways, "I have some private information for you."

"I cannot hear it now," she said coldly.

Bathsheba could not endure this man.  He was continually coming to her with some tale or other, by which he might creep into her favour.

"I'll write it down," said Pennyways, confidently.  He stooped over the table, pulled a leaf from warped pocket book, and wrote upon the paper, in a round hand -

"Your husband is here. I have seen him.  Who is the fool now?" 

This he folded small, and handed towards her.  Bathsheba would not read it; she would not even put out her hand to take it.  Pennyways then, with a laugh of derision, tossed it into her lap, and turning away, left her.

From the words and actions of Pennyways, Troy, though he had not been able to see what the bailiff wrote, had not a moment's doubt that the note referred to him.  Nothing that he could think of could be done to check the exposure.  Meanwhile Boldwood said, taking up the note from her lap, "Don't you wish to read it, Mrs Troy? If not I will destroy it."

"Oh, well," said Bathsheba, carelessly, "perhaps it is unjust not to read it; but I can guess what it is about.  He wants me to recommend him, or it is to tell me of some little scandal or another connected with my workmen.  He is always doing that." 

Bathsheba held the note in her right hand.  Boldwood handed towards her a plate of cut bread and butter; when in order to take a slice, she put the note in her left hand, where she was still holding her purse, and then allowed her hand to drop beside her close to the canvas.  The moment had come for Troy to play his card.  With the lightning action, in which he was such an adept, he noiselessly slipped his hand under the bottom of the tent-cloth, lifted it a little way, keeping his eye to the hole, snatched 

the note from her fingers, dropped the canvas, ran away in the gloom towards the bank and ditch, smiling at the scream of astonishment which burst from her.

Troy then slid down on the outside of the rampart hastened round in the bottom of the entrenchment to a distance of hundred yards, ascended again, and crossed boldly in a slow walk towards the front entrance of the tent.  He wanted to get Pennyways and prevent the repetition of the announcement.

Troy reached at the tent door and standing among the groups gathered there, looked anxiously for Pennyways.  One or two men were speaking of a daring attempt that had just been made to rob a young lady by lifting the canvas of the tent beside her.  The rogue mistook a piece of paper which she held in her hand a banknote; he had seized it, and made off with it leaving her purse behind.  A good joke, when he sees its worthlessness.  Not much people knew about it.  It had not interrupted the fiddler, who had lately begun playing by the door of the tent, nor the four bowed old men with grim countenances and walking sticks in hand, who were dancing "Major Malley's Reel" to the tune.

Behind these stood Pennyways.

Troy glided up to him, beckoned and 

whispered a few words; and with a mutual glance of concurrence the two men went into the night together.

          END OF THE CHAPTER 

Notes:-

1. Hark means listen closely or pay attention.  The word is rarely used in modern conversation.