finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_22_part_0.txt
Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 23
chapter 23
{"name": "Chapter 23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-23", "summary": "Bathsheba decides to have a special supper to celebrate the shearing of her sheep. Everyone can tell that there's something that's gotten Bathsheba worked up, but no one knows what. Soon, though, Boldwood shows up for supper. As they all sit down, there's one man at the table that Bathsheba doesn't recognize at first. It turns out that the man is Pennyways, the old bailiff she caught stealing from her and fired. She demands that he leave, but the workmen convince her to let him stay. Besides, Pennyways is there because he has news about the runaway Fanny Robin. He says that he saw her in a nearby town of Melchester. Bathsheba wants him to continue with his story, but that's really all he has to say. There's some talk of Jan Coggan's wife having another baby, but she won't say one way or the other. When the eating is over, Jan Coggan sings a song for the table. Then Poorgrass sings one. Finally, they ask Bathsheba to sing to them, which she does with Gabriel accompanying her on his flute. Boldwood sings with her, too, shyly at first, but quickly swelling into a rich tone. Dude can sing. Later, Bathsheba wishes them all a good night and heads off, with Boldwood following her. Gabriel Oak goes off to walk alone under the trees. In the room with Bathsheba and Boldwood, we hear Bathsheba saying that she'll try to love Boldwood as best she can. However, she doesn't want to give him a promise right away. But she says there's a good chance she'll say yes soon. She just wants a few more weeks to think about it. She wishes him goodnight and he leaves.", "analysis": ""}


EVENTIDE--A SECOND DECLARATION


For the shearing-supper a long table was placed on the grass-plot
beside the house, the end of the table being thrust over the sill
of the wide parlour window and a foot or two into the room.  Miss
Everdene sat inside the window, facing down the table.  She was
thus at the head without mingling with the men.

This evening Bathsheba was unusually excited, her red cheeks and lips
contrasting lustrously with the mazy skeins of her shadowy hair.  She
seemed to expect assistance, and the seat at the bottom of the table
was at her request left vacant until after they had begun the meal.
She then asked Gabriel to take the place and the duties appertaining
to that end, which he did with great readiness.

At this moment Mr. Boldwood came in at the gate, and crossed the
green to Bathsheba at the window.  He apologized for his lateness:
his arrival was evidently by arrangement.

"Gabriel," said she, "will you move again, please, and let Mr.
Boldwood come there?"

Oak moved in silence back to his original seat.

The gentleman-farmer was dressed in cheerful style, in a new coat
and white waistcoat, quite contrasting with his usual sober suits of
grey.  Inwardy, too, he was blithe, and consequently chatty to an
exceptional degree.  So also was Bathsheba now that he had come,
though the uninvited presence of Pennyways, the bailiff who had been
dismissed for theft, disturbed her equanimity for a while.

Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own private account, without
reference to listeners:--


   I've lost my love, and I care not,
   I've lost my love, and I care not;
     I shall soon have another
     That's better than t'other;
   I've lost my love, and I care not.


This lyric, when concluded, was received with a silently appreciative
gaze at the table, implying that the performance, like a work by
those established authors who are independent of notices in the
papers, was a well-known delight which required no applause.

"Now, Master Poorgrass, your song!" said Coggan.

"I be all but in liquor, and the gift is wanting in me," said Joseph,
diminishing himself.

"Nonsense; wou'st never be so ungrateful, Joseph--never!" said
Coggan, expressing hurt feelings by an inflection of voice.  "And
mistress is looking hard at ye, as much as to say, 'Sing at once,
Joseph Poorgrass.'"

"Faith, so she is; well, I must suffer it! ... Just eye my features,
and see if the tell-tale blood overheats me much, neighbours?"

"No, yer blushes be quite reasonable," said Coggan.

"I always tries to keep my colours from rising when a beauty's eyes
get fixed on me," said Joseph, differently; "but if so be 'tis willed
they do, they must."

"Now, Joseph, your song, please," said Bathsheba, from the window.

"Well, really, ma'am," he replied, in a yielding tone, "I don't know
what to say.  It would be a poor plain ballet of my own composure."

"Hear, hear!" said the supper-party.

Poorgrass, thus assured, trilled forth a flickering yet commendable
piece of sentiment, the tune of which consisted of the key-note and
another, the latter being the sound chiefly dwelt upon.  This was so
successful that he rashly plunged into a second in the same breath,
after a few false starts:--


   I sow'-ed th'-e .....
   I sow'-ed .....
   I sow'-ed th'-e seeds' of' love',
      I-it was' all' i'-in the'-e spring',
   I-in A'-pril', Ma'-ay, a'-nd sun'-ny' June',
      When sma'-all bi'-irds they' do' sing.


"Well put out of hand," said Coggan, at the end of the verse.  "'They
do sing' was a very taking paragraph."

"Ay; and there was a pretty place at 'seeds of love.' and 'twas well
heaved out.  Though 'love' is a nasty high corner when a man's voice
is getting crazed.  Next verse, Master Poorgrass."

But during this rendering young Bob Coggan exhibited one of those
anomalies which will afflict little people when other persons are
particularly serious: in trying to check his laughter, he pushed down
his throat as much of the tablecloth as he could get hold of, when,
after continuing hermetically sealed for a short time, his mirth
burst out through his nose.  Joseph perceived it, and with hectic
cheeks of indignation instantly ceased singing.  Coggan boxed Bob's
ears immediately.

"Go on, Joseph--go on, and never mind the young scamp," said Coggan.
"'Tis a very catching ballet.  Now then again--the next bar; I'll
help ye to flourish up the shrill notes where yer wind is rather
wheezy:--


   "Oh the wi'-il-lo'-ow tree' will' twist',
   And the wil'-low' tre'-ee wi'-ill twine'."


But the singer could not be set going again.  Bob Coggan was sent
home for his ill manners, and tranquility was restored by Jacob
Smallbury, who volunteered a ballad as inclusive and interminable
as that with which the worthy toper old Silenus amused on a similar
occasion the swains Chromis and Mnasylus, and other jolly dogs of
his day.

It was still the beaming time of evening, though night was stealthily
making itself visible low down upon the ground, the western lines of
light raking the earth without alighting upon it to any extent, or
illuminating the dead levels at all.  The sun had crept round the
tree as a last effort before death, and then began to sink, the
shearers' lower parts becoming steeped in embrowning twilight, whilst
their heads and shoulders were still enjoying day, touched with a
yellow of self-sustained brilliancy that seemed inherent rather than
acquired.

The sun went down in an ochreous mist; but they sat, 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 to-night 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 to-night 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 arm-chair, 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 give a solemn promise to-night.  I
would rather ask you to wait a few weeks till I can see my situation
better.

"But you have every reason to believe that THEN--"

"I have every reason to hope that at the end of the five or six
weeks, between this time and harvest, that you say you are going to
be away from home, I shall be able to promise to be your wife," she
said, firmly.  "But remember this distinctly, I don't promise yet."

"It is enough; I don't ask more.  I can wait on those dear words.
And now, Miss Everdene, good-night!"

"Good-night," she said, graciously--almost tenderly; and Boldwood
withdrew with a serene smile.

Bathsheba knew more of him now; he had entirely bared his heart
before her, even until he had almost worn in her eyes the sorry look
of a grand bird without the feathers that make it grand.  She had
been awe-struck at her past temerity, and was struggling to make
amends without thinking whether the sin quite deserved the penalty
she was schooling herself to pay.  To have brought all this about her
ears was terrible; but after a while the situation was not without
a fearful joy.  The facility with which even the most timid women
sometimes acquire a relish for the dreadful when that is amalgamated
with a little triumph, is marvellous.




Chapter 23
Bathsheba decides to have a special supper to celebrate the shearing of her sheep. Everyone can tell that there's something that's gotten Bathsheba worked up, but no one knows what. Soon, though, Boldwood shows up for supper. As they all sit down, there's one man at the table that Bathsheba doesn't recognize at first. It turns out that the man is Pennyways, the old bailiff she caught stealing from her and fired. She demands that he leave, but the workmen convince her to let him stay. Besides, Pennyways is there because he has news about the runaway Fanny Robin. He says that he saw her in a nearby town of Melchester. Bathsheba wants him to continue with his story, but that's really all he has to say. There's some talk of Jan Coggan's wife having another baby, but she won't say one way or the other. When the eating is over, Jan Coggan sings a song for the table. Then Poorgrass sings one. Finally, they ask Bathsheba to sing to them, which she does with Gabriel accompanying her on his flute. Boldwood sings with her, too, shyly at first, but quickly swelling into a rich tone. Dude can sing. Later, Bathsheba wishes them all a good night and heads off, with Boldwood following her. Gabriel Oak goes off to walk alone under the trees. In the room with Bathsheba and Boldwood, we hear Bathsheba saying that she'll try to love Boldwood as best she can. However, she doesn't want to give him a promise right away. But she says there's a good chance she'll say yes soon. She just wants a few more weeks to think about it. She wishes him goodnight and he leaves.