finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_49_part_0.txt
Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 50
chapter 50
{"name": "Chapter 50", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-50", "summary": "Now it's time for the annual sheep fair that takes place a few towns away from Weatherbury. According to the narrator, this fair is a big deal for anyone who raises sheep, which includes Bathsheba. To make the journey, Bathsheba and Boldwood's flocks unite, driven on by Gabriel Oak. When Oak, Bathsheba, and Boldwood get to the fair, they find a huge circular tent in the middle of all the action. It turns out that there's going to be a show in this tent later in the day, and everyone around wants to see it. There is a huge crowd waiting to get tickets, and some of Bathsheba's workers join this crowd, trying to shove their way toward the ticket counter. Meanwhile, the narrator shows us what's going on in some of the small dressing rooms nearby given to the performers in the show. One of the men getting dressed in these rooms is none other than Sergeant Troy. The narrator gives us a quick description of how Troy went with the sailors to America, did a few odd jobs, and then decided to return home to live off of his wife's money once again. On his journey home, though, he joined group of travelling performers in order to make a little extra money, since they needed his skills as a swordsman. Ok, who wants to read a spin-off novel about Troy's escapades in America and as a travelling performer? Meanwhile, we find Farmer Boldwood asking Bathsheba if she's done well selling off her sheep. She says that indeed she has. Boldwood offers to get her a seat, and only after saying that he's not going himself does she agreed to attend. Before the show, Sergeant Troy peeks out through the tent's curtains and sees Bathsheba sitting in the audience. He knew when he started performing that he'd risk running into someone who knew him. But this is just plain bad luck. He knows he'll never hear the end of it if Bathsheba catches him working with a bunch of travelling performers like some loser. Troy lies to his boss by saying that there's someone in the crowd he owes money to, and that he can't go onstage. The boss says the show must go on, though, so Troy negotiates it so that he won't have to speak any of his lines. On top of that, he wears extra stage makeup to hide his identity. With this all figured out, we have a comedic look at Bathsheba's workmen--Poorgrass and Jan Coggan--reacting to the entire play as if it were real. At one point, though, Troy knows that he's been found out. Not by Bathsheba or her workers though, but by Pennyways, the disgruntled man that Bathsheba fired as her bailiff toward the beginning of the book. After the show, Troy realizes that he needs to track down Pennyways before the guy blows his cover. He puts on a fake beard and goes looking for the guy. While looking for Pennyways, Troy overhears Bathsheba talking inside a tent. He goes and looks through a slit in the tent to see Bathsheba talking to Boldwood. As he looks into the tent, he realizes that Bathsheba is truly good-looking and that she's all his if he only wants to appear and claim her as his wife. While he watches, Pennyways enters the tent and gives a note to Bathsheba. She tells him she won't give him the satisfaction of reading it, though, and he eventually leaves. She sits for a while with the note dangling from her hand. Eventually, Troy reaches through the tent and grabs it from her. The note, of course, says that Pennyways has seen Troy alive. But luckily for Troy, Bathsheba will never see this note. Now, he goes to find Pennyways and strike a deal with him, saying he'll help the guy financially if he just keeps his mouth shut.", "analysis": ""}


THE SHEEP FAIR--TROY TOUCHES HIS WIFE'S HAND


Greenhill was the Nijni Novgorod of South Wessex; and the busiest,
merriest, noisiest day of the whole statute number was the day of
the sheep fair.  This yearly gathering was upon the summit of a
hill which retained in good preservation the remains of an ancient
earthwork, consisting of a huge rampart and entrenchment of an oval
form encircling the top of the hill, though somewhat broken down here
and there.  To each of the two chief openings on opposite sides a
winding road ascended, and the level green space of ten or fifteen
acres enclosed by the bank was the site of the fair.  A few permanent
erections dotted the spot, but the majority of visitors patronized
canvas alone for resting and feeding under during the time of their
sojourn here.

Shepherds who attended with their flocks from long distances started
from home two or three days, or even a week, before the fair, driving
their charges a few miles each day--not more than ten or twelve--and
resting them at night in hired fields by the wayside at previously
chosen points, where they fed, having fasted since morning.  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.  Several of the sheep
would get worn and lame, and occasionally a lambing occurred on the
road.  To meet these contingencies, there was frequently provided, to
accompany the flocks from the remoter points, a pony and waggon into
which the weakly ones were taken for the remainder of the journey.

The Weatherbury Farms, however, were no such long distance from the
hill, and those arrangements were not necessary in their case.  But
the large united flocks of Bathsheba and Farmer Boldwood formed a
valuable and imposing multitude which demanded much attention, and
on this account Gabriel, in addition to Boldwood's shepherd and Cain
Ball, accompanied them along the way, through the decayed old town of
Kingsbere, and upward to the plateau,--old George the dog of course
behind them.

When the autumn sun slanted over Greenhill this morning and lighted
the dewy flat upon its crest, nebulous clouds of dust were to be seen
floating between the pairs of hedges which streaked the wide prospect
around in all directions.  These gradually converged upon the base of
the hill, and the flocks became individually visible, climbing the
serpentine ways which led to the top.  Thus, in a slow procession,
they entered the opening to which the roads tended, multitude after
multitude, horned and hornless--blue flocks and red flocks, buff
flocks and brown flocks, even green and salmon-tinted flocks,
according to the fancy of the colourist and custom of the farm.
Men were shouting, dogs were barking, with greatest animation, but
the thronging travellers in so long a journey had grown nearly
indifferent to such terrors, though they still bleated piteously at
the unwontedness of their experiences, a tall shepherd rising here
and there in the midst of them, like a gigantic idol amid a crowd
of prostrate devotees.

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.  These filed in about nine o'clock, 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.  Before and behind came other varieties, perfect
leopards as to the full rich substance of their coats, and only
lacking the spots.  There were also a few of the Oxfordshire breed,
whose wool was beginning to curl like a child's flaxen hair, though
surpassed in this respect by the effeminate Leicesters, which were in
turn less curly than the Cotswolds.  But the most picturesque by far
was a small flock of Exmoors, which chanced to be there this year.
Their pied faces and legs, dark and heavy horns, tresses of wool
hanging round their swarthy foreheads, quite relieved the monotony
of the flocks in that quarter.

All these bleating, panting, and weary thousands had entered and were
penned before the morning had far advanced, the dog belonging to each
flock being tied to the corner of the pen containing it.  Alleys for
pedestrians intersected the pens, which soon became crowded with
buyers and sellers from far and near.

In another part of the hill an altogether different scene began
to force itself upon the eye towards midday.  A circular tent, of
exceptional newness and size, was in course of erection here.  As
the day drew on, the flocks began to change hands, lightening the
shepherd's responsibilities; and they turned their attention to
this tent and inquired of a man at work there, whose soul seemed
concentrated on tying a bothering knot in no time, what was going
on.

"The Royal Hippodrome Performance of Turpin's Ride to York and the
Death of Black Bess," replied the man promptly, without turning his
eyes or leaving off tying.

As soon as the tent was completed the band struck up highly
stimulating harmonies, and the announcement was publicly made, Black
Bess standing in a conspicuous position on the outside, as a living
proof, if proof were wanted, of the truth of the oracular utterances
from the stage over which the people were to enter.  These were so
convinced by such genuine appeals to heart and understanding both
that they soon began to crowd in abundantly, among the foremost being
visible Jan Coggan and Joseph Poorgrass, who were holiday keeping
here to-day.

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

"How can I help pushing ye 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 a silence; then the drums and trumpets again sent forth
their echoing notes.  The crowd was again ecstasied, and gave another
lurch in which Coggan and Poorgrass were again thrust by those behind
upon the women in front.

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

"Now," said Coggan, appealing in an earnest voice to the public at
large as it stood clustered about his shoulder-blades, "did ye ever
hear such onreasonable woman as that?  Upon my carcase, neighbours,
if I could only get out of this cheese-wring, the damn women might
eat the show for me!"

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

Jan held his tongue, as if he had no objection to be pacified to
please a 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 the tight squeeze of his excited hand that the
woman in spangles, brazen rings set with glass diamonds, and with
chalked face and shoulders, who took the money of him, hastily
dropped it again from a fear that some trick had been played to burn
her fingers.  So they all entered, and the cloth of the tent, to the
eyes of an observer on the outside, 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 of the large tent there were two small dressing-tents.
One of these, alloted 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.

Troy's appearance in this position may be briefly accounted for.  The
brig aboard which he was taken in Budmouth Roads was about to start
on a voyage, though somewhat short of hands.  Troy read the articles
and joined, but before they sailed a boat was despatched across the
bay to Lulwind cove; as he had half expected, his clothes were gone.
He ultimately worked his passage to the United States, where he made
a precarious living in various towns as Professor of Gymnastics,
Sword Exercise, Fencing, and Pugilism.  A few months were sufficient
to give him a distaste for this kind of life.  There was a certain
animal form of refinement in his nature; and however pleasant a
strange condition might be whilst privations were easily warded off,
it was disadvantageously coarse when money was short.  There was ever
present, too, the idea that he could claim a home and its comforts
did he but chose 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; but the fact of
drawing nearer to Weatherbury abstracted its fascinations, and his
intention to enter his old groove at the place became modified.  It
was with gloom he considered on landing at Liverpool that if he
were to go home his reception would be of a kind very unpleasant
to contemplate; for what Troy had in the way of emotion was an
occasional fitful sentiment which sometimes caused him as much
inconvenience as emotion of a strong and healthy kind.  Bathsheba was
not a woman to be made a fool of, or a woman to suffer in silence;
and how could he endure existence with a spirited wife to whom at
first entering he would be beholden for food and lodging?  Moreover,
it was not at all unlikely that his wife would fail at her farming,
if she had not already done so; and he would then become liable for
her maintenance: and what a life such a future of poverty with her
would be, the spectre of Fanny constantly between them, harrowing
his temper and embittering her words!  Thus, for reasons touching on
distaste, regret, and shame commingled, he put off his return from
day to day, and would have decided to put it off altogether if he
could have found anywhere else the ready-made establishment which
existed for him there.

At this time--the July preceding the September in which we find
at Greenhill Fair--he fell in with a travelling circus which was
performing in the outskirts of a northern town.  Troy introduced
himself to the manager by taming a restive 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.  For his
merits in these--all more or less based upon his experiences as a
dragoon-guardsman--Troy was taken into the company, and the play
of Turpin 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.  It was thus carelessly,
and without having formed any definite plan for the future, that Troy
found himself at Greenhill Fair with the rest of the company on this
day.

And now the mild autumn sun got lower, and in front of the pavilion
the following incident had taken place.  Bathsheba--who was driven
to the fair that day by her odd man Poorgrass--had, like every one
else, read or heard the announcement that Mr. Francis, the Great
Cosmopolitan Equestrian and Roughrider, would enact the part of
Turpin, and she was not yet too old and careworn to be without a
little curiosity to see him.  This particular show was by far the
largest and grandest in the fair, a horde of little shows grouping
themselves under its shade like chickens around a hen.  The crowd had
passed in, and Boldwood, who had been watching all the day for an
opportunity of speaking to her, seeing her comparatively isolated,
came up to her side.

"I hope the sheep have done well to-day, Mrs. Troy?" he said,
nervously.

"Oh yes, thank you," said Bathsheba, colour springing up in the
centre of her cheeks.  "I was fortunate enough to sell them all just
as 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.  He 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've 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 must 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!  What's that prancing?  How they shout!"

"Black Bess just started off, I suppose.  Am I right in supposing
you would like to see the performance, Mrs. Troy?  Please excuse my
mistake, if it is one; but if you would like to, I'll get a seat for
you with pleasure."  Perceiving that she hesitated, he added, "I
myself shall not stay to see it: I've 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 appear, whose assistance in such
cases was always accepted as an inalienable right, but Oak was
nowhere to be seen; and hence it was that she said, "Then if you will
just look in first, to see if there's room, I think I will go in for
a minute or two."

And so a short time after this Bathsheba appeared in the tent with
Boldwood at her elbow, who, taking her to a "reserved" seat, again
withdrew.

This feature consisted of one raised bench in a very conspicuous
part of the circle, covered with red cloth, and floored with a piece
of 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
borders of the 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 having yet appeared.
Once there, Bathsheba was forced to make the best of it and remain:
she sat down, spreading her skirts with some dignity over the
unoccupied space on each side of her, and giving a new and feminine
aspect to the pavilion.  In a few minutes she noticed the fat red
nape of Coggan's neck among those standing just below her, and Joseph
Poorgrass's saintly profile a little further on.

The interior was shadowy with a peculiar shade.  The strange luminous
semi-opacities of fine autumn afternoons and eves intensified into
Rembrandt effects the few yellow sunbeams which came through holes
and divisions in the canvas, and spirted like jets 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 suspended there.

Troy, on peeping from his dressing-tent through a slit for a
reconnoitre before entering, saw his unconscious wife on high before
him as described, sitting as queen of the tournament.  He started
back in utter confusion, for although his disguise effectually
concealed his personality, he instantly felt that she would be sure
to recognize his voice.  He had several times during the day thought
of the possibility of some Weatherbury person or other appearing and
recognizing him; but he had taken the risk carelessly.  If they see
me, let them, he had said.  But here was Bathsheba in her own person;
and the reality of the scene was so much intenser than any of his
prefigurings that he felt he had not half enough considered the
point.

She looked so charming and fair that his cool mood about Weatherbury
people was changed.  He had not expected her to exercise this power
over him in the twinkling of an eye.  Should he go on, and care
nothing?  He could not bring himself to do that.  Beyond a politic
wish to remain unknown, there suddenly arose in him now a sense of
shame at the possibility that his attractive young wife, who already
despised him, should despise him more by discovering him in so mean a
condition after so long a time.  He actually blushed at the thought,
and was vexed beyond measure that his sentiments of dislike towards
Weatherbury should have led him to dally about the country in this
way.

But Troy was never more clever than when absolutely at his wit's end.
He hastily thrust aside the curtain dividing his own little dressing
space from that of the manager and proprietor, who now appeared as
the individual called Tom King as far down as his waist, and as the
aforesaid respectable manager thence to his toes.

"Here's the devil to pay!" said Troy.

"How's that?"

"Why, there's a blackguard creditor in the tent I don't want to see,
who'll discover me and nab me as sure as Satan if I open my mouth.
What's to be done?"

"You must appear now, I think."

"I can't."

"But the play must proceed."

"Do you give out that Turpin has got a bad cold, and can't speak his
part, but that he'll perform it just the same without speaking."

The proprietor shook his head.

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

"Very well, then let me see.  I tell you how we'll manage," said the
other, who perhaps felt it would be extremely awkward to offend his
leading man just at this time.  "I won't tell 'em 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 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 turnpike scene, where Bess and Turpin are hotly pursued at
midnight by the officers, and the half-awake gatekeeper in his
tasselled 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 halting justice in the form of his enemies, who must
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's 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 at Warren's in
future years, Jan, and hand down to our children."  For many a year
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.  If, as some
thinkers hold, immortality consists in being enshrined in others'
memories, then did Black Bess become immortal that day if she never
had done so before.

Meanwhile Troy had added a few touches to his ordinary make-up for
the character, the more effectually to disguise himself, and though
he had felt faint qualms on first entering, the metamorphosis
effected by judiciously "lining" his face with a wire rendered him
safe from the eyes of Bathsheba and her men.  Nevertheless, he was
relieved when it was got through.

There was a second performance in the evening, and the tent was
lighted up.  Troy had taken his part very quietly this time,
venturing to introduce a few speeches on occasion; and was just
concluding it when, whilst standing at the edge of the circle
contiguous to the first row of spectators, he observed within a
yard of him the eye of a man darted keenly into his side features.
Troy hastily shifted his position, after having recognized in the
scrutineer the knavish bailiff Pennyways, his wife's sworn enemy,
who still hung about the outskirts of Weatherbury.

At first Troy resolved to take no notice and abide by circumstances.
That he had been recognized by this man was highly probable; yet
there was room for a doubt.  Then the great objection he had felt to
allowing news of his proximity to precede him to Weatherbury in the
event of his return, based on a feeling that knowledge of his present
occupation would discredit him still further in his wife's eyes,
returned in full force.  Moreover, should he resolve not to return at
all, a tale of his being alive and being in the neighbourhood would
be awkward; and he was anxious to acquire a knowledge of his wife's
temporal affairs before deciding which to do.

In this dilemma Troy at once went out to reconnoitre.  It occurred
to him that to find Pennyways, and make a friend of him if possible,
would be a very wise act.  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 respectable people were getting their carts
and gigs ready to go home.

The largest refreshment booth in the fair was provided by an
innkeeper from a neighbouring town.  This was considered an
unexceptionable place for obtaining the necessary food and rest:
Host Trencher (as he was jauntily called by the local newspaper)
being a substantial man of high repute for catering through all the
country round.  The tent was divided into first and second-class
compartments, and at the end of the first-class division was a yet
further enclosure for the most exclusive, fenced off from the body
of the tent by a luncheon-bar, behind which the host himself stood
bustling about in white apron and shirt-sleeves, and looking as if
he had never lived anywhere but under canvas all his life.  In these
penetralia were chairs and a table, which, on candles being lighted,
made quite a cozy and luxurious show, with an urn, plated tea and
coffee pots, china teacups, and plum cakes.

Troy stood at the entrance to the booth, where a gipsy-woman was
frying pancakes over a little fire of sticks and selling them at a
penny a-piece, and looked over the heads of the people within.  He
could see nothing of Pennyways, but he soon discerned Bathsheba
through an opening into the reserved space at the further end.  Troy
thereupon retreated, went round the tent into the 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 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 easy and safe to survey
her by 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.

Troy found unexpected chords of feeling to be stirred again within
him as they had been stirred earlier in the day.  She was handsome
as ever, and she was his.  It was some minutes before he could
counteract his sudden wish to go in, and claim her.  Then he thought
how the proud girl who had always looked down upon him even whilst it
was to love him, would hate him on discovering him to be a strolling
player.  Were he to make himself known, that chapter of his life
must at all risks be kept for ever from her and from the Weatherbury
people, or his name would be a byword throughout the parish.  He
would be nicknamed "Turpin" as long as he lived.  Assuredly before
he could claim her these few past months of his existence must be
entirely blotted out.

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

"Thank you," said Bathsheba.  "But I must be going at once.  It was
great neglect in that man to keep me waiting here till so late.  I
should have gone two hours ago, if it had not been 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 out 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 for respectability
endangered at once.  He was about to leave his hole of espial,
attempt to follow Pennyways, and find out if the ex-bailiff had
recognized him, when he was arrested by the conversation, and found
he was too late.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Pennyways; "I've some private information
for your ear alone."

"I cannot hear it now," she said, coldly.  That Bathsheba could not
endure this man was evident; in fact, he was continually coming to
her with some tale or other, by which he might creep into favour at
the expense of persons maligned.

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

"YOUR HUSBAND IS HERE.  I'VE SEEN HIM.  WHO'S 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 action of Pennyways, Troy, though he had not been
able to see what the ex-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.  "Curse my luck!" he whispered, and
added imprecations which rustled in the gloom like a pestilent wind.
Meanwhile Boldwood said, taking up the note from her lap--

"Don't you wish to read it, Mrs. Troy?  If not, I'll 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 work-people.  He's 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 into her left hand, where she was still holding
the purse, and then allowed her hand to drop beside her close to
the canvas.  The moment had come for saving his game, and Troy
impulsively felt that he would play the card.  For yet another time
he looked at the fair hand, and saw the pink finger-tips, and the
blue veins of the wrist, encircled by a bracelet of coral chippings
which she wore: how familiar it all was to him!  Then, with the
lightning action in which he was such an adept, he noiselessly
slipped his hand under the bottom of the tent-cloth, which was far
from being pinned tightly down, lifted it a little way, keeping his
eye to the hole, snatched the note from her fingers, dropped the
canvas, and 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 a hundred yards, ascended again,
and crossed boldly in a slow walk towards the front entrance of
the tent.  His object was now to get to Pennyways, and prevent a
repetition of the announcement until such time as he should choose.

Troy reached the tent door, and standing among the groups there
gathered, looked anxiously for Pennyways, evidently not wishing to
make himself prominent by inquiring for him.  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.  It was supposed
that the rogue had imagined a slip of paper which she held in her
hand to be a bank note, for he had seized it, and made off with
it, leaving her purse behind.  His chagrin and disappointment at
discovering its worthlessness would be a good joke, it was said.
However, the occurrence seemed to have become known to few, for it
had not interrupted a 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.




Chapter 50
Now it's time for the annual sheep fair that takes place a few towns away from Weatherbury. According to the narrator, this fair is a big deal for anyone who raises sheep, which includes Bathsheba. To make the journey, Bathsheba and Boldwood's flocks unite, driven on by Gabriel Oak. When Oak, Bathsheba, and Boldwood get to the fair, they find a huge circular tent in the middle of all the action. It turns out that there's going to be a show in this tent later in the day, and everyone around wants to see it. There is a huge crowd waiting to get tickets, and some of Bathsheba's workers join this crowd, trying to shove their way toward the ticket counter. Meanwhile, the narrator shows us what's going on in some of the small dressing rooms nearby given to the performers in the show. One of the men getting dressed in these rooms is none other than Sergeant Troy. The narrator gives us a quick description of how Troy went with the sailors to America, did a few odd jobs, and then decided to return home to live off of his wife's money once again. On his journey home, though, he joined group of travelling performers in order to make a little extra money, since they needed his skills as a swordsman. Ok, who wants to read a spin-off novel about Troy's escapades in America and as a travelling performer? Meanwhile, we find Farmer Boldwood asking Bathsheba if she's done well selling off her sheep. She says that indeed she has. Boldwood offers to get her a seat, and only after saying that he's not going himself does she agreed to attend. Before the show, Sergeant Troy peeks out through the tent's curtains and sees Bathsheba sitting in the audience. He knew when he started performing that he'd risk running into someone who knew him. But this is just plain bad luck. He knows he'll never hear the end of it if Bathsheba catches him working with a bunch of travelling performers like some loser. Troy lies to his boss by saying that there's someone in the crowd he owes money to, and that he can't go onstage. The boss says the show must go on, though, so Troy negotiates it so that he won't have to speak any of his lines. On top of that, he wears extra stage makeup to hide his identity. With this all figured out, we have a comedic look at Bathsheba's workmen--Poorgrass and Jan Coggan--reacting to the entire play as if it were real. At one point, though, Troy knows that he's been found out. Not by Bathsheba or her workers though, but by Pennyways, the disgruntled man that Bathsheba fired as her bailiff toward the beginning of the book. After the show, Troy realizes that he needs to track down Pennyways before the guy blows his cover. He puts on a fake beard and goes looking for the guy. While looking for Pennyways, Troy overhears Bathsheba talking inside a tent. He goes and looks through a slit in the tent to see Bathsheba talking to Boldwood. As he looks into the tent, he realizes that Bathsheba is truly good-looking and that she's all his if he only wants to appear and claim her as his wife. While he watches, Pennyways enters the tent and gives a note to Bathsheba. She tells him she won't give him the satisfaction of reading it, though, and he eventually leaves. She sits for a while with the note dangling from her hand. Eventually, Troy reaches through the tent and grabs it from her. The note, of course, says that Pennyways has seen Troy alive. But luckily for Troy, Bathsheba will never see this note. Now, he goes to find Pennyways and strike a deal with him, saying he'll help the guy financially if he just keeps his mouth shut.