CHAPTER XLVII

ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE

Troy wandered along towards the south. A composite feeling, made up of

disgust with the, to him, humdrum tediousness of a farmer’s life,

gloomy images of her who lay in the churchyard, remorse, and a general

averseness to his wife’s society, impelled him to seek a home in any

place on earth save Weatherbury. The sad accessories of Fanny’s end

confronted him as vivid pictures which threatened to be indelible, and

made life in Bathsheba’s house intolerable. At three in the afternoon

he found himself at the foot of a slope more than a mile in length,

which ran to the ridge of a range of hills lying parallel with the

shore, and forming a monotonous barrier between the basin of cultivated

country inland and the wilder scenery of the coast. Up the hill

stretched a road nearly straight and perfectly white, the two sides

approaching each other in a gradual taper till they met the sky at the

top about two miles off. Throughout the length of this narrow and

irksome inclined plane not a sign of life was visible on this garish

afternoon. Troy toiled up the road with a languor and depression

greater than any he had experienced for many a day and year before. The

air was warm and muggy, and the top seemed to recede as he approached.

At last he reached the summit, and a wide and novel prospect burst upon

him with an effect almost like that of the Pacific upon Balboa’s gaze.

The broad steely sea, marked only by faint lines, which had a semblance

of being etched thereon to a degree not deep enough to disturb its

general evenness, stretched the whole width of his front and round to

the right, where, near the town and port of Budmouth, the sun bristled

down upon it, and banished all colour, to substitute in its place a

clear oily polish. Nothing moved in sky, land, or sea, except a frill

of milkwhite foam along the nearer angles of the shore, shreds of which

licked the contiguous stones like tongues.

He descended and came to a small basin of sea enclosed by the cliffs.

Troy’s nature freshened within him; he thought he would rest and bathe

here before going farther. He undressed and plunged in. Inside the cove

the water was uninteresting to a swimmer, being smooth as a pond, and

to get a little of the ocean swell, Troy presently swam between the two

projecting spurs of rock which formed the pillars of Hercules to this

miniature Mediterranean. Unfortunately for Troy a current unknown to

him existed outside, which, unimportant to craft of any burden, was

awkward for a swimmer who might be taken in it unawares. Troy found

himself carried to the left and then round in a swoop out to sea.

He now recollected the place and its sinister character. Many bathers

had there prayed for a dry death from time to time, and, like Gonzalo

also, had been unanswered; and Troy began to deem it possible that he

might be added to their number. Not a boat of any kind was at present

within sight, but far in the distance Budmouth lay upon the sea, as it

were quietly regarding his efforts, and beside the town the harbour

showed its position by a dim meshwork of ropes and spars. After

well-nigh exhausting himself in attempts to get back to the mouth of

the cove, in his weakness swimming several inches deeper than was his

wont, keeping up his breathing entirely by his nostrils, turning upon

his back a dozen times over, swimming _en papillon_, and so on, Troy

resolved as a last resource to tread water at a slight incline, and so

endeavour to reach the shore at any point, merely giving himself a

gentle impetus inwards whilst carried on in the general direction of

the tide. This, necessarily a slow process, he found to be not

altogether so difficult, and though there was no choice of a

landing-place—the objects on shore passing by him in a sad and slow

procession—he perceptibly approached the extremity of a spit of land

yet further to the right, now well defined against the sunny portion of

the horizon. While the swimmer’s eyes were fixed upon the spit as his

only means of salvation on this side of the Unknown, a moving object

broke the outline of the extremity, and immediately a ship’s boat

appeared manned with several sailor lads, her bows towards the sea.

All Troy’s vigour spasmodically revived to prolong the struggle yet a

little further. Swimming with his right arm, he held up his left to

hail them, splashing upon the waves, and shouting with all his might.

From the position of the setting sun his white form was distinctly

visible upon the now deep-hued bosom of the sea to the east of the

boat, and the men saw him at once. Backing their oars and putting the

boat about, they pulled towards him with a will, and in five or six

minutes from the time of his first halloo, two of the sailors hauled

him in over the stern.

They formed part of a brig’s crew, and had come ashore for sand.

Lending him what little clothing they could spare among them as a

slight protection against the rapidly cooling air, they agreed to land

him in the morning; and without further delay, for it was growing late,

they made again towards the roadstead where their vessel lay.

And now night drooped slowly upon the wide watery levels in front; and

at no great distance from them, where the shoreline curved round, and

formed a long riband of shade upon the horizon, a series of points of

yellow light began to start into existence, denoting the spot to be the

site of Budmouth, where the lamps were being lighted along the parade.

The cluck of their oars was the only sound of any distinctness upon the

sea, and as they laboured amid the thickening shades the lamp-lights

grew larger, each appearing to send a flaming sword deep down into the

waves before it, until there arose, among other dim shapes of the kind,

the form of the vessel for which they were bound.