finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_23_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 24
chapter 24
{"name": "Chapter 24", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-24", "summary": "Bathsheba was in the habit of inspecting the homestead before retiring. Almost always, Gabriel preceded her on this tour, \"watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of surveillance could have done; but this tender devotion was to a great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was somewhat thanklessly received. Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy.\" Bathsheba carried a dark lantern, lighting it to peer in corners. She heard the contented munching of animals as she made her return through a pitch-dark fir plantation. Suddenly she heard footsteps and almost immediately stumbled, for her skirt was caught. Recovering her balance, she was aware of the figure of a man seeking to pass her. He asked her to turn on her lantern. The light revealed a scarlet military jacket and also the fact that the soldier's spur had caught the braid trimming of Bathsheba's skirt. His attempts to free her were not very earnest, and finally Bathsheba herself completed the disentanglement. Gallantly, the handsome soldier, who identified himself as Sergeant Troy, thanked her for the opportunity of seeing how lovely she was. His lavish compliments included the remark, \"I wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's no untying!\" Flattered and confused, Bathsheba ran to the house, where Liddy told her something of Troy's reputation as a dandy. Bathsheba now regretted having been rude when Troy had probably meant only to be kind. Boldwood suffered by comparison with the sergeant: \"It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her she was beautiful.\"", "analysis": "Hardy has complicated the design in his pastoral tapestry once again. Bathsheba appears to have won a new admirer. In addition to the faithful, stable Gabriel, who has been dismissed as not good enough for her, and the enamored, troubled Boldwood, a man of property who is still under consideration although Bathsheba does not love him, is the charming Sergeant Troy, who has literally -- and perhaps symbolically -- snared her."}


THE SAME NIGHT--THE FIR PLANTATION


Among the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had voluntarily imposed
upon herself by dispensing with the services of a bailiff, was the
particular one of looking round the homestead before going to bed,
to see that all was right and safe for the night.  Gabriel had
almost constantly preceded her in this tour every evening, watching
her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of
surveillance could have done; but this tender devotion was to a
great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was
somewhat thanklessly received.  Women are never tired of bewailing
man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy.

As watching is best done invisibly, she usually carried a dark
lantern in her hand, and every now and then turned on the light
to examine nooks and corners with the coolness of a metropolitan
policeman.  This coolness may have owed its existence not so much
to her fearlessness of expected danger as to her freedom from the
suspicion of any; her worst anticipated discovery being that a horse
might not be well bedded, the fowls not all in, or a door not closed.

This night the buildings were inspected as usual, and she went round
to the farm paddock.  Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness
were steady munchings of many mouths, and stentorian breathings from
all but invisible noses, ending in snores and puffs like the blowing
of bellows slowly.  Then the munching would recommence, when the
lively imagination might assist the eye to discern a group of
pink-white nostrils, shaped as caverns, and very clammy and humid on
their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to the touch until one got used
to them; the mouths beneath having a great partiality for closing
upon any loose end of Bathsheba's apparel which came within reach of
their tongues.  Above each of these a still keener vision suggested a
brown forehead and two staring though not unfriendly eyes, and above
all a pair of whitish crescent-shaped horns like two particularly
new moons, an occasional stolid "moo!" proclaiming beyond the shade
of a doubt that these phenomena were the features and persons of
Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonny-lass, Jolly-O, Spot, Twinkle-eye, etc.,
etc.--the respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging to Bathsheba
aforesaid.

Her way back to the house was by a path through a young plantation of
tapering firs, which had been planted some years earlier to shelter
the premises from the north wind.  By reason of the density of
the interwoven foliage overhead, it was gloomy there at cloudless
noontide, twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and
black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight.  To describe the spot
is to call it a vast, low, naturally formed hall, the plumy ceiling
of which was supported by slender pillars of living wood, the floor
being covered with a soft dun carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed
cones, with a tuft of grass-blades here and there.

This bit of the path was always the crux of the night's ramble,
though, before starting, her apprehensions of danger were not vivid
enough to lead her to take a companion.  Slipping along here covertly
as Time, Bathsheba fancied she could hear footsteps entering the
track at the opposite end.  It was certainly a rustle of footsteps.
Her own instantly fell as gently as snowflakes.  She reassured
herself by a remembrance that the path was public, and that the
traveller was probably some villager returning home; regretting,
at the same time, that the meeting should be about to occur in the
darkest point of her route, even though only just outside her own
door.

The noise approached, came close, and a figure was apparently on the
point of gliding past her when something tugged at her skirt and
pinned it forcibly to the ground.  The instantaneous check nearly
threw Bathsheba off her balance.  In recovering she struck against
warm clothes and buttons.

"A rum start, upon my soul!" said a masculine voice, a foot or so
above her head.  "Have I hurt you, mate?"

"No," said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink away.

"We have got hitched together somehow, I think."

"Yes."

"Are you a woman?"

"Yes."

"A lady, I should have said."

"It doesn't matter."

"I am a man."

"Oh!"

Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose.

"Is that a dark lantern you have?  I fancy so," said the man.

"Yes."

"If you'll allow me I'll open it, and set you free."

A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the rays burst
out from their prison, and Bathsheba beheld her position with
astonishment.

The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in brass and scarlet.
He was a soldier.  His sudden appearance was to darkness what the
sound of a trumpet is to silence.  Gloom, the _genius loci_ at all
times hitherto, was now totally overthrown, less by the lantern-light
than by what the lantern lighted.  The contrast of this revelation
with her anticipations of some sinister figure in sombre garb was so
great that it had upon her the effect of a fairy transformation.

It was immediately apparent that the military man's spur had become
entangled in the gimp which decorated the skirt of her dress.  He
caught a view of her face.

"I'll unfasten you in one moment, miss," he said, with new-born
gallantry.

"Oh no--I can do it, thank you," she hastily replied, and stooped for
the performance.

The unfastening was not such a trifling affair.  The rowel of the
spur had so wound itself among the gimp cords in those few moments,
that separation was likely to be a matter of time.

He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the ground betwixt them
threw the gleam from its open side among the fir-tree needles and the
blades of long damp grass with the effect of a large glowworm.  It
radiated upwards into their faces, and sent over half the plantation
gigantic shadows of both man and woman, each dusky shape becoming
distorted and mangled upon the tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing.

He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them for a moment;
Bathsheba looked down again, for his gaze was too strong to be
received point-blank with her own.  But she had obliquely noticed
that he was young and slim, and that he wore three chevrons upon his
sleeve.

Bathsheba pulled again.

"You are a prisoner, miss; it is no use blinking the matter," said
the soldier, drily.  "I must cut your dress if you are in such a
hurry."

"Yes--please do!" she exclaimed, helplessly.

"It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a moment," and he unwound
a cord from the little wheel.  She withdrew her own hand, but,
whether by accident or design, he touched it.  Bathsheba was vexed;
she hardly knew why.

His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed coming to no end.
She looked at him again.

"Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face!" said the young
sergeant, without ceremony.

She coloured with embarrassment.  "'Twas unwillingly shown," she
replied, stiffly, and with as much dignity--which was very little--as
she could infuse into a position of captivity.

"I like you the better for that incivility, miss," he said.

"I should have liked--I wish--you had never shown yourself to me by
intruding here!" She pulled again, and the gathers of her dress began
to give way like liliputian musketry.

"I deserve the chastisement your words give me.  But why should such
a fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to her father's sex?"

"Go on your way, please."

"What, Beauty, and drag you after me?  Do but look; I never saw such
a tangle!"

"Oh, 'tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose
to keep me here--you have!"

"Indeed, I don't think so," said the sergeant, with a merry twinkle.

"I tell you you have!" she exclaimed, in high temper.  "I insist upon
undoing it.  Now, allow me!"

"Certainly, miss; I am not of steel."  He added a sigh which had as
much archness in it as a sigh could possess without losing its nature
altogether.  "I am thankful for beauty, even when 'tis thrown to me
like a bone to a dog.  These moments will be over too soon!"

She closed her lips in a determined silence.

Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether by a bold and desperate
rush she could free herself at the risk of leaving her skirt bodily
behind her.  The thought was too dreadful.  The dress--which she had
put on to appear stately at the supper--was the head and front of her
wardrobe; not another in her stock became her so well.  What woman
in Bathsheba's position, not naturally timid, and within call of her
retainers, would have bought escape from a dashing soldier at so dear
a price?

"All in good time; it will soon be done, I perceive," said her cool
friend.

"This trifling provokes, and--and--"

"Not too cruel!"

"--Insults me!"

"It is done in order that I may have the pleasure of apologizing to
so charming a woman, which I straightway do most humbly, madam," he
said, bowing low.

Bathsheba really knew not what to say.

"I've seen a good many women in my time," continued the young man in
a murmur, and more thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding
her bent head at the same time; "but I've never seen a woman so
beautiful as you.  Take it or leave it--be offended or like it--I
don't care."

"Who are you, then, who can so well afford to despise opinion?"

"No stranger.  Sergeant Troy.  I am staying in this place.--There!
it is undone at last, you see.  Your light fingers were more eager
than mine.  I wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's no
untying!"

This was worse and worse.  She started up, and so did he.  How to
decently get away from him--that was her difficulty now.  She sidled
off inch by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see the
redness of his coat no longer.

"Ah, Beauty; good-bye!" he said.

She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of twenty or thirty
yards, turned about, and ran indoors.

Liddy had just retired to rest.  In ascending to her own chamber,
Bathsheba opened the girl's door an inch or two, and, panting, said--

"Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village--sergeant somebody--
rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good looking--a red coat with
blue facings?"

"No, miss ... No, I say; but really it might be Sergeant Troy home on
furlough, though I have not seen him.  He was here once in that way
when the regiment was at Casterbridge."

"Yes; that's the name.  Had he a moustache--no whiskers or beard?"

"He had."

"What kind of a person is he?"

"Oh! miss--I blush to name it--a gay man!  But I know him to be very
quick and trim, who might have made his thousands, like a squire.
Such a clever young dandy as he is!  He's a doctor's son by name,
which is a great deal; and he's an earl's son by nature!"

"Which is a great deal more.  Fancy!  Is it true?"

"Yes.  And, he was brought up so well, and sent to Casterbridge
Grammar School for years and years.  Learnt all languages while he
was there; and it was said he got on so far that he could take down
Chinese in shorthand; but that I don't answer for, as it was only
reported.  However, he wasted his gifted lot, and listed a soldier;
but even then he rose to be a sergeant without trying at all.  Ah!
such a blessing it is to be high-born; nobility of blood will shine
out even in the ranks and files.  And is he really come home, miss?"

"I believe so.  Good-night, Liddy."

After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts be permanently
offended with the man?  There are occasions when girls like Bathsheba
will put up with a great deal of unconventional behaviour.  When they
want to be praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered,
which is sometimes; and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom.
Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba,
with a dash of the second.  Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the
ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome
stranger who had evidently seen better days.

So she could not clearly decide whether it was her opinion that he
had insulted her or not.

"Was ever anything so odd!" she at last exclaimed to herself, in her
own room.  "And was ever anything so meanly done as what I did--to
skulk away like that from a man who was only civil and kind!" Clearly
she did not think his barefaced praise of her person an insult now.

It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her
she was beautiful.




Chapter 24
Bathsheba was in the habit of inspecting the homestead before retiring. Almost always, Gabriel preceded her on this tour, "watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of surveillance could have done; but this tender devotion was to a great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was somewhat thanklessly received. Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy." Bathsheba carried a dark lantern, lighting it to peer in corners. She heard the contented munching of animals as she made her return through a pitch-dark fir plantation. Suddenly she heard footsteps and almost immediately stumbled, for her skirt was caught. Recovering her balance, she was aware of the figure of a man seeking to pass her. He asked her to turn on her lantern. The light revealed a scarlet military jacket and also the fact that the soldier's spur had caught the braid trimming of Bathsheba's skirt. His attempts to free her were not very earnest, and finally Bathsheba herself completed the disentanglement. Gallantly, the handsome soldier, who identified himself as Sergeant Troy, thanked her for the opportunity of seeing how lovely she was. His lavish compliments included the remark, "I wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's no untying!" Flattered and confused, Bathsheba ran to the house, where Liddy told her something of Troy's reputation as a dandy. Bathsheba now regretted having been rude when Troy had probably meant only to be kind. Boldwood suffered by comparison with the sergeant: "It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her she was beautiful."
Hardy has complicated the design in his pastoral tapestry once again. Bathsheba appears to have won a new admirer. In addition to the faithful, stable Gabriel, who has been dismissed as not good enough for her, and the enamored, troubled Boldwood, a man of property who is still under consideration although Bathsheba does not love him, is the charming Sergeant Troy, who has literally -- and perhaps symbolically -- snared her.