CHAPTER XXXVI

WEALTH IN JEOPARDY—THE REVEL

One night, at the end of August, when Bathsheba’s experiences as a

married woman were still new, and when the weather was yet dry and

sultry, a man stood motionless in the stockyard of Weatherbury Upper

Farm, looking at the moon and sky.

The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the south slowly

fanned the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashes of buoyant

cloud were sailing in a course at right angles to that of another

stratum, neither of them in the direction of the breeze below. The

moon, as seen through these films, had a lurid metallic look. The

fields were sallow with the impure light, and all were tinged in

monochrome, as if beheld through stained glass. The same evening the

sheep had trailed homeward head to tail, the behaviour of the rooks had

been confused, and the horses had moved with timidity and caution.

Thunder was imminent, and, taking some secondary appearances into

consideration, it was likely to be followed by one of the lengthened

rains which mark the close of dry weather for the season. Before twelve

hours had passed a harvest atmosphere would be a bygone thing.

Oak gazed with misgiving at eight naked and unprotected ricks, massive

and heavy with the rich produce of one-half the farm for that year. He

went on to the barn.

This was the night which had been selected by Sergeant Troy—ruling now

in the room of his wife—for giving the harvest supper and dance. As Oak

approached the building the sound of violins and a tambourine, and the

regular jigging of many feet, grew more distinct. He came close to the

large doors, one of which stood slightly ajar, and looked in.

The central space, together with the recess at one end, was emptied of

all incumbrances, and this area, covering about two-thirds of the

whole, was appropriated for the gathering, the remaining end, which was

piled to the ceiling with oats, being screened off with sail-cloth.

Tufts and garlands of green foliage decorated the walls, beams, and

extemporized chandeliers, and immediately opposite to Oak a rostrum had

been erected, bearing a table and chairs. Here sat three fiddlers, and

beside them stood a frantic man with his hair on end, perspiration

streaming down his cheeks, and a tambourine quivering in his hand.

The dance ended, and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row of

couples formed for another.

“Now, ma’am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would like

next?” said the first violin.

“Really, it makes no difference,” said the clear voice of Bathsheba,

who stood at the inner end of the building, observing the scene from

behind a table covered with cups and viands. Troy was lolling beside

her.

“Then,” said the fiddler, “I’ll venture to name that the right and

proper thing is ‘The Soldier’s Joy’—there being a gallant soldier

married into the farm—hey, my sonnies, and gentlemen all?”

“It shall be ‘The Soldier’s Joy,’” exclaimed a chorus.

“Thanks for the compliment,” said the sergeant gaily, taking Bathsheba

by the hand and leading her to the top of the dance. “For though I have

purchased my discharge from Her Most Gracious Majesty’s regiment of

cavalry the 11th Dragoon Guards, to attend to the new duties awaiting

me here, I shall continue a soldier in spirit and feeling as long as I

live.”

So the dance began. As to the merits of “The Soldier’s Joy,” there

cannot be, and never were, two opinions. It has been observed in the

musical circles of Weatherbury and its vicinity that this melody, at

the end of three-quarters of an hour of thunderous footing, still

possesses more stimulative properties for the heel and toe than the

majority of other dances at their first opening. “The Soldier’s Joy”

has, too, an additional charm, in being so admirably adapted to the

tambourine aforesaid—no mean instrument in the hands of a performer who

understands the proper convulsions, spasms, St. Vitus’s dances, and

fearful frenzies necessary when exhibiting its tones in their highest

perfection.

The immortal tune ended, a fine DD rolling forth from the bass-viol

with the sonorousness of a cannonade, and Gabriel delayed his entry no

longer. He avoided Bathsheba, and got as near as possible to the

platform, where Sergeant Troy was now seated, drinking

brandy-and-water, though the others drank without exception cider and

ale. Gabriel could not easily thrust himself within speaking distance

of the sergeant, and he sent a message, asking him to come down for a

moment. The sergeant said he could not attend.

“Will you tell him, then,” said Gabriel, “that I only stepped ath’art

to say that a heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and that something

should be done to protect the ricks?”

“Mr. Troy says it will not rain,” returned the messenger, “and he

cannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets.”

In juxtaposition with Troy, Oak had a melancholy tendency to look like

a candle beside gas, and ill at ease, he went out again, thinking he

would go home; for, under the circumstances, he had no heart for the

scene in the barn. At the door he paused for a moment: Troy was

speaking.

“Friends, it is not only the harvest home that we are celebrating

to-night; but this is also a Wedding Feast. A short time ago I had the

happiness to lead to the altar this lady, your mistress, and not until

now have we been able to give any public flourish to the event in

Weatherbury. That it may be thoroughly well done, and that every man

may go happy to bed, I have ordered to be brought here some bottles of

brandy and kettles of hot water. A treble-strong goblet will be handed

round to each guest.”

Bathsheba put her hand upon his arm, and, with upturned pale face, said

imploringly, “No—don’t give it to them—pray don’t, Frank! It will only

do them harm: they have had enough of everything.”

“True—we don’t wish for no more, thank ye,” said one or two.

“Pooh!” said the sergeant contemptuously, and raised his voice as if

lighted up by a new idea. “Friends,” he said, “we’ll send the

women-folk home! ’Tis time they were in bed. Then we cockbirds will

have a jolly carouse to ourselves! If any of the men show the white

feather, let them look elsewhere for a winter’s work.”

Bathsheba indignantly left the barn, followed by all the women and

children. The musicians, not looking upon themselves as “company,”

slipped quietly away to their spring waggon and put in the horse. Thus

Troy and the men on the farm were left sole occupants of the place.

Oak, not to appear unnecessarily disagreeable, stayed a little while;

then he, too, arose and quietly took his departure, followed by a

friendly oath from the sergeant for not staying to a second round of

grog.

Gabriel proceeded towards his home. In approaching the door, his toe

kicked something which felt and sounded soft, leathery, and distended,

like a boxing-glove. It was a large toad humbly travelling across the

path. Oak took it up, thinking it might be better to kill the creature

to save it from pain; but finding it uninjured, he placed it again

among the grass. He knew what this direct message from the Great Mother

meant. And soon came another.

When he struck a light indoors there appeared upon the table a thin

glistening streak, as if a brush of varnish had been lightly dragged

across it. Oak’s eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the other side,

where it led up to a huge brown garden-slug, which had come indoors

to-night for reasons of its own. It was Nature’s second way of hinting

to him that he was to prepare for foul weather.

Oak sat down meditating for nearly an hour. During this time two black

spiders, of the kind common in thatched houses, promenaded the ceiling,

ultimately dropping to the floor. This reminded him that if there was

one class of manifestation on this matter that he thoroughly

understood, it was the instincts of sheep. He left the room, ran across

two or three fields towards the flock, got upon a hedge, and looked

over among them.

They were crowded close together on the other side around some furze

bushes, and the first peculiarity observable was that, on the sudden

appearance of Oak’s head over the fence, they did not stir or run away.

They had now a terror of something greater than their terror of man.

But this was not the most noteworthy feature: they were all grouped in

such a way that their tails, without a single exception, were towards

that half of the horizon from which the storm threatened. There was an

inner circle closely huddled, and outside these they radiated wider

apart, the pattern formed by the flock as a whole not being unlike a

vandyked lace collar, to which the clump of furze-bushes stood in the

position of a wearer’s neck.

This was enough to re-establish him in his original opinion. He knew

now that he was right, and that Troy was wrong. Every voice in nature

was unanimous in bespeaking change. But two distinct translations

attached to these dumb expressions. Apparently there was to be a

thunder-storm, and afterwards a cold continuous rain. The creeping

things seemed to know all about the later rain, but little of the

interpolated thunder-storm; whilst the sheep knew all about the

thunder-storm and nothing of the later rain.

This complication of weathers being uncommon, was all the more to be

feared. Oak returned to the stack-yard. All was silent here, and the

conical tips of the ricks jutted darkly into the sky. There were five

wheat-ricks in this yard, and three stacks of barley. The wheat when

threshed would average about thirty quarters to each stack; the barley,

at least forty. Their value to Bathsheba, and indeed to anybody, Oak

mentally estimated by the following simple calculation:—

5 × 30 = 150 quarters = 500 £.

3 × 40 = 120 quarters = 250 £.

––––

Total . . 750 £.

Seven hundred and fifty pounds in the divinest form that money can

wear—that of necessary food for man and beast: should the risk be run

of deteriorating this bulk of corn to less than half its value, because

of the instability of a woman? “Never, if I can prevent it!” said

Gabriel.

Such was the argument that Oak set outwardly before him. But man, even

to himself, is a palimpsest, having an ostensible writing, and another

beneath the lines. It is possible that there was this golden legend

under the utilitarian one: “I will help to my last effort the woman I

have loved so dearly.”

He went back to the barn to endeavour to obtain assistance for covering

the ricks that very night. All was silent within, and he would have

passed on in the belief that the party had broken up, had not a dim

light, yellow as saffron by contrast with the greenish whiteness

outside, streamed through a knot-hole in the folding doors.

Gabriel looked in. An unusual picture met his eye.

The candles suspended among the evergreens had burnt down to their

sockets, and in some cases the leaves tied about them were scorched.

Many of the lights had quite gone out, others smoked and stank, grease

dropping from them upon the floor. Here, under the table, and leaning

against forms and chairs in every conceivable attitude except the

perpendicular, were the wretched persons of all the work-folk, the hair

of their heads at such low levels being suggestive of mops and brooms.

In the midst of these shone red and distinct the figure of Sergeant

Troy, leaning back in a chair. Coggan was on his back, with his mouth

open, huzzing forth snores, as were several others; the united

breathings of the horizonal assemblage forming a subdued roar like

London from a distance. Joseph Poorgrass was curled round in the

fashion of a hedge-hog, apparently in attempts to present the least

possible portion of his surface to the air; and behind him was dimly

visible an unimportant remnant of William Smallbury. The glasses and

cups still stood upon the table, a water-jug being overturned, from

which a small rill, after tracing its course with marvellous precision

down the centre of the long table, fell into the neck of the

unconscious Mark Clark, in a steady, monotonous drip, like the dripping

of a stalactite in a cave.

Gabriel glanced hopelessly at the group, which, with one or two

exceptions, composed all the able-bodied men upon the farm. He saw at

once that if the ricks were to be saved that night, or even the next

morning, he must save them with his own hands.

A faint “ting-ting” resounded from under Coggan’s waistcoat. It was

Coggan’s watch striking the hour of two.

Oak went to the recumbent form of Matthew Moon, who usually undertook

the rough thatching of the home-stead, and shook him. The shaking was

without effect.

Gabriel shouted in his ear, “where’s your thatching-beetle and

rick-stick and spars?”

“Under the staddles,” said Moon, mechanically, with the unconscious

promptness of a medium.

Gabriel let go his head, and it dropped upon the floor like a bowl. He

then went to Susan Tall’s husband.

“Where’s the key of the granary?”

No answer. The question was repeated, with the same result. To be

shouted to at night was evidently less of a novelty to Susan Tall’s

husband than to Matthew Moon. Oak flung down Tall’s head into the

corner again and turned away.

To be just, the men were not greatly to blame for this painful and

demoralizing termination to the evening’s entertainment. Sergeant Troy

had so strenuously insisted, glass in hand, that drinking should be the

bond of their union, that those who wished to refuse hardly liked to be

so unmannerly under the circumstances. Having from their youth up been

entirely unaccustomed to any liquor stronger than cider or mild ale, it

was no wonder that they had succumbed, one and all, with extraordinary

uniformity, after the lapse of about an hour.

Gabriel was greatly depressed. This debauch boded ill for that wilful

and fascinating mistress whom the faithful man even now felt within him

as the embodiment of all that was sweet and bright and hopeless.

He put out the expiring lights, that the barn might not be endangered,

closed the door upon the men in their deep and oblivious sleep, and

went again into the lone night. A hot breeze, as if breathed from the

parted lips of some dragon about to swallow the globe, fanned him from

the south, while directly opposite in the north rose a grim misshapen

body of cloud, in the very teeth of the wind. So unnaturally did it

rise that one could fancy it to be lifted by machinery from below.

Meanwhile the faint cloudlets had flown back into the south-east corner

of the sky, as if in terror of the large cloud, like a young brood

gazed in upon by some monster.

Going on to the village, Oak flung a small stone against the window of

Laban Tall’s bedroom, expecting Susan to open it; but nobody stirred.

He went round to the back door, which had been left unfastened for

Laban’s entry, and passed in to the foot of the staircase.

“Mrs. Tall, I’ve come for the key of the granary, to get at the

rick-cloths,” said Oak, in a stentorian voice.

“Is that you?” said Mrs. Susan Tall, half awake.

“Yes,” said Gabriel.

“Come along to bed, do, you drawlatching rogue—keeping a body awake

like this!”

“It isn’t Laban—’tis Gabriel Oak. I want the key of the granary.”

“Gabriel! What in the name of fortune did you pretend to be Laban for?”

“I didn’t. I thought you meant—”

“Yes you did! What do you want here?”

“The key of the granary.”

“Take it then. ’Tis on the nail. People coming disturbing women at this

time of night ought—”

Gabriel took the key, without waiting to hear the conclusion of the

tirade. Ten minutes later his lonely figure might have been seen

dragging four large water-proof coverings across the yard, and soon two

of these heaps of treasure in grain were covered snug—two cloths to

each. Two hundred pounds were secured. Three wheat-stacks remained

open, and there were no more cloths. Oak looked under the staddles and

found a fork. He mounted the third pile of wealth and began operating,

adopting the plan of sloping the upper sheaves one over the other; and,

in addition, filling the interstices with the material of some untied

sheaves.

So far all was well. By this hurried contrivance Bathsheba’s property

in wheat was safe for at any rate a week or two, provided always that

there was not much wind.

Next came the barley. This it was only possible to protect by

systematic thatching. Time went on, and the moon vanished not to

reappear. It was the farewell of the ambassador previous to war. The

night had a haggard look, like a sick thing; and there came finally an

utter expiration of air from the whole heaven in the form of a slow

breeze, which might have been likened to a death. And now nothing was

heard in the yard but the dull thuds of the beetle which drove in the

spars, and the rustle of thatch in the intervals.