CHAPTER XI

OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS—SNOW—A MEETING

For dreariness nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of a

certain town and military station, many miles north of Weatherbury, at

a later hour on this same snowy evening—if that may be called a

prospect of which the chief constituent was darkness.

It was a night when sorrow may come to the brightest without causing

any great sense of incongruity: when, with impressible persons, love

becomes solicitousness, hope sinks to misgiving, and faith to hope:

when the exercise of memory does not stir feelings of regret at

opportunities for ambition that have been passed by, and anticipation

does not prompt to enterprise.

The scene was a public path, bordered on the left hand by a river,

behind which rose a high wall. On the right was a tract of land, partly

meadow and partly moor, reaching, at its remote verge, to a wide

undulating upland.

The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind

than amid woodland scenery. Still, to a close observer, they are just

as perceptible; the difference is that their media of manifestation are

less trite and familiar than such well-known ones as the bursting of

the buds or the fall of the leaf. Many are not so stealthy and gradual

as we may be apt to imagine in considering the general torpidity of a

moor or waste. Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in

well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively observed the

retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of

the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse of

the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.

This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the aforesaid

moor, and for the first time in the season its irregularities were

forms without features; suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing,

and without more character than that of being the limit of something

else—the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic skyful

of crowding flakes the mead and moor momentarily received additional

clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast arch

of cloud above was strangely low, and formed as it were the roof of a

large dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its floor; for the

instinctive thought was that the snow lining the heavens and that

encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass without any

intervening stratum of air at all.

We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics; which were

flatness in respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall

behind it, and darkness as to both. These features made up the mass. If

anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if any

thing could be gloomier than the wall it was the river beneath. The

indistinct summit of the façade was notched and pronged by chimneys

here and there, and upon its face were faintly signified the oblong

shapes of windows, though only in the upper part. Below, down to the

water’s edge, the flat was unbroken by hole or projection.

An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their

regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy

atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in

the open air, and being overlaid with several inches of muffling snow,

had lost its voice for the time.

About this hour the snow abated: ten flakes fell where twenty had

fallen, then one had the room of ten. Not long after a form moved by

the brink of the river.

By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer might

have seen that it was small. This was all that was positively

discoverable, though it seemed human.

The shape went slowly along, but without much exertion, for the snow,

though sudden, was not as yet more than two inches deep. At this time

some words were spoken aloud:—

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

Between each utterance the little shape advanced about half a dozen

yards. It was evident now that the windows high in the wall were being

counted. The word “Five” represented the fifth window from the end of

the wall.

Here the spot stopped, and dwindled smaller. The figure was stooping.

Then a morsel of snow flew across the river towards the fifth window.

It smacked against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. The

throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No

man who had ever seen bird, rabbit, or squirrel in his childhood, could

possibly have thrown with such utter imbecility as was shown here.

Another attempt, and another; till by degrees the wall must have become

pimpled with the adhering lumps of snow. At last one fragment struck

the fifth window.

The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep smooth sort

which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any

irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small

whirlpool. Nothing was heard in reply to the signal but the gurgle and

cluck of one of these invisible wheels—together with a few small sounds

which a sad man would have called moans, and a happy man

laughter—caused by the flapping of the waters against trifling objects

in other parts of the stream.

The window was struck again in the same manner.

Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the

window. This was followed by a voice from the same quarter.

“Who’s there?”

The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise. The high wall

being that of a barrack, and marriage being looked upon with disfavour

in the army, assignations and communications had probably been made

across the river before to-night.

“Is it Sergeant Troy?” said the blurred spot in the snow, tremulously.

This person was so much like a mere shade upon the earth, and the other

speaker so much a part of the building, that one would have said the

wall was holding a conversation with the snow.

“Yes,” came suspiciously from the shadow. “What girl are you?”

“Oh, Frank—don’t you know me?” said the spot. “Your wife, Fanny Robin.”

“Fanny!” said the wall, in utter astonishment.

“Yes,” said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion.

There was something in the woman’s tone which is not that of the wife,

and there was a manner in the man which is rarely a husband’s. The

dialogue went on:

“How did you come here?”

“I asked which was your window. Forgive me!”

“I did not expect you to-night. Indeed, I did not think you would come

at all. It was a wonder you found me here. I am orderly to-morrow.”

“You said I was to come.”

“Well—I said that you might.”

“Yes, I mean that I might. You are glad to see me, Frank?”

“Oh yes—of course.”

“Can you—come to me!”

“My dear Fan, no! The bugle has sounded, the barrack gates are closed,

and I have no leave. We are all of us as good as in the county gaol

till to-morrow morning.”

“Then I shan’t see you till then!” The words were in a faltering tone

of disappointment.

“How did you get here from Weatherbury?”

“I walked—some part of the way—the rest by the carriers.”

“I am surprised.”

“Yes—so am I. And Frank, when will it be?”

“What?”

“That you promised.”

“I don’t quite recollect.”

“O you do! Don’t speak like that. It weighs me to the earth. It makes

me say what ought to be said first by you.”

“Never mind—say it.”

“O, must I?—it is, when shall we be married, Frank?”

“Oh, I see. Well—you have to get proper clothes.”

“I have money. Will it be by banns or license?”

“Banns, I should think.”

“And we live in two parishes.”

“Do we? What then?”

“My lodgings are in St. Mary’s, and this is not. So they will have to

be published in both.”

“Is that the law?”

“Yes. O Frank—you think me forward, I am afraid! Don’t, dear Frank—will

you—for I love you so. And you said lots of times you would marry me,

and—and—I—I—I—”

“Don’t cry, now! It is foolish. If I said so, of course I will.”

“And shall I put up the banns in my parish, and will you in yours?”

“Yes”

“To-morrow?”

“Not to-morrow. We’ll settle in a few days.”

“You have the permission of the officers?”

“No, not yet.”

“O—how is it? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge.”

“The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming like this is so sudden and

unexpected.”

“Yes—yes—it is. It was wrong of me to worry you. I’ll go away now. Will

you come and see me to-morrow, at Mrs. Twills’s, in North Street? I

don’t like to come to the Barracks. There are bad women about, and they

think me one.”

“Quite, so. I’ll come to you, my dear. Good-night.”

“Good-night, Frank—good-night!”

And the noise was again heard of a window closing. The little spot

moved away. When she passed the corner a subdued exclamation was heard

inside the wall.

“Ho—ho—Sergeant—ho—ho!” An expostulation followed, but it was

indistinct; and it became lost amid a low peal of laughter, which was

hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the tiny whirlpools outside.