by Thomas Hardy
CHAPTER XXXVI
WEALTH IN JEOPARDY--THE REVEL
One night, at the end of August, when Bathsheba's experiences as amarried woman were still new, and when the weather was yet dry andsultry, a man stood motionless in the stockyard of Weatherbury UpperFarm, looking at the moon and sky.
The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the southslowly fanned the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashesof buoyant cloud were sailing in a course at right angles to thatof another stratum, neither of them in the direction of the breezebelow. The moon, as seen through these films, had a lurid metalliclook. The fields were sallow with the impure light, and all weretinged in monochrome, as if beheld through stained glass. The sameevening the sheep had trailed homeward head to tail, the behaviour ofthe rooks had been confused, and the horses had moved with timidityand caution.
Thunder was imminent, and, taking some secondary appearances intoconsideration, it was likely to be followed by one of the lengthenedrains which mark the close of dry weather for the season. Beforetwelve 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 forthat year. He went on to the barn.
This was the night which had been selected by Sergeant Troy--rulingnow 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 cameclose to the large doors, one of which stood slightly ajar, andlooked in.
The central space, together with the recess at one end, was emptiedof all incumbrances, and this area, covering about two-thirds ofthe whole, was appropriated for the gathering, the remaining end,which was piled to the ceiling with oats, being screened off withsail-cloth. Tufts and garlands of green foliage decorated the walls,beams, and extemporized chandeliers, and immediately opposite to Oaka rostrum had been erected, bearing a table and chairs. Here satthree fiddlers, and beside them stood a frantic man with his hairon end, perspiration streaming down his cheeks, and a tambourinequivering in his hand.
The dance ended, and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row ofcouples formed for another.
"Now, ma'am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would likenext?" 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 frombehind a table covered with cups and viands. Troy was lolling besideher.
"Then," said the fiddler, "I'll venture to name that the right andproper thing is 'The Soldier's Joy'--there being a gallant soldiermarried 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, takingBathsheba by the hand and leading her to the top of the dance. "Forthough I have purchased my discharge from Her Most Gracious Majesty'sregiment of cavalry the 11th Dragoon Guards, to attend to the newduties awaiting me here, I shall continue a soldier in spirit andfeeling as long as I live."
So the dance began. As to the merits of "The Soldier's Joy," therecannot be, and never were, two opinions. It has been observed in themusical circles of Weatherbury and its vicinity that this melody, atthe end of three-quarters of an hour of thunderous footing, stillpossesses more stimulative properties for the heel and toe than themajority of other dances at their first opening. "The Soldier's Joy"has, too, an additional charm, in being so admirably adapted to thetambourine aforesaid--no mean instrument in the hands of a performerwho understands the proper convulsions, spasms, St. Vitus's dances,and fearful frenzies necessary when exhibiting its tones in theirhighest perfection.
The immortal tune ended, a fine DD rolling forth from the bass-violwith the sonorousness of a cannonade, and Gabriel delayed his entryno longer. He avoided Bathsheba, and got as near as possibleto the platform, where Sergeant Troy was now seated, drinkingbrandy-and-water, though the others drank without exception cider andale. Gabriel could not easily thrust himself within speaking distanceof the sergeant, and he sent a message, asking him to come down for amoment. The sergeant said he could not attend.
"Will you tell him, then," said Gabriel, "that I only stepped ath'artto say that a heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and that somethingshould be done to protect the ricks?"
"Mr. Troy says it will not rain," returned the messenger, "and hecannot stop to talk to you about such fidgets."
In juxtaposition with Troy, Oak had a melancholy tendency to looklike a candle beside gas, and ill at ease, he went out again,thinking he would go home; for, under the circumstances, he had noheart 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 celebratingto-night; but this is also a Wedding Feast. A short time ago I hadthe happiness to lead to the altar this lady, your mistress, and notuntil now have we been able to give any public flourish to the eventin Weatherbury. That it may be thoroughly well done, and that everyman may go happy to bed, I have ordered to be brought here somebottles of brandy and kettles of hot water. A treble-strong gobletwill 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! Itwill 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 asif lighted up by a new idea. "Friends," he said, "we'll send thewomen-folk home! 'Tis time they were in bed. Then we cockbirds willhave a jolly carouse to ourselves! If any of the men show the whitefeather, let them look elsewhere for a winter's work."
Bathsheba indignantly left the barn, followed by all the women andchildren. 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 theplace. Oak, not to appear unnecessarily disagreeable, stayed alittle while; then he, too, arose and quietly took his departure,followed by a friendly oath from the sergeant for not staying to asecond round of grog.
Gabriel proceeded towards his home. In approaching the door, histoe kicked something which felt and sounded soft, leathery, anddistended, like a boxing-glove. It was a large toad humblytravelling across the path. Oak took it up, thinking it might bebetter to kill the creature to save it from pain; but finding ituninjured, he placed it again among the grass. He knew what thisdirect message from the Great Mother meant. And soon came another.
When he struck a light indoors there appeared upon the table a thinglistening streak, as if a brush of varnish had been lightly draggedacross it. Oak's eyes followed the serpentine sheen to the otherside, where it led up to a huge brown garden-slug, which had comeindoors to-night for reasons of its own. It was Nature's second wayof hinting to him that he was to prepare for foul weather.
Oak sat down meditating for nearly an hour. During this time twoblack spiders, of the kind common in thatched houses, promenaded theceiling, ultimately dropping to the floor. This reminded him thatif there was one class of manifestation on this matter that hethoroughly understood, it was the instincts of sheep. He left theroom, ran across two or three fields towards the flock, got upon ahedge, and looked over among them.
They were crowded close together on the other side around some furzebushes, and the first peculiarity observable was that, on the suddenappearance of Oak's head over the fence, they did not stir or runaway. They had now a terror of something greater than their terrorof man. But this was not the most noteworthy feature: they were allgrouped in such a way that their tails, without a single exception,were towards that half of the horizon from which the stormthreatened. There was an inner circle closely huddled, and outsidethese they radiated wider apart, the pattern formed by the
flock as awhole not being unlike a vandyked lace collar, to which the clump offurze-bushes stood in the position of a wearer's neck.
This was enough to re-establish him in his original opinion. He knewnow that he was right, and that Troy was wrong. Every voice in naturewas unanimous in bespeaking change. But two distinct translationsattached to these dumb expressions. Apparently there was to be athunder-storm, and afterwards a cold continuous rain. The creepingthings seemed to know all about the later rain, but little of theinterpolated thunder-storm; whilst the sheep knew all about thethunder-storm and nothing of the later rain.
This complication of weathers being uncommon, was all the more to befeared. Oak returned to the stack-yard. All was silent here, andthe conical tips of the ricks jutted darkly into the sky. There werefive wheat-ricks in this yard, and three stacks of barley. The wheatwhen threshed would average about thirty quarters to each stack; thebarley, at least forty. Their value to Bathsheba, and indeed toanybody, Oak mentally estimated by the following simplecalculation:--
5 x 30 = 150 quarters = 500 L. 3 x 40 = 120 quarters = 250 L. ------- Total . . 750 L.
Seven hundred and fifty pounds in the divinest form that money canwear--that of necessary food for man and beast: should the risk berun 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, andanother beneath the lines. It is possible that there was this goldenlegend under the utilitarian one: "I will help to my last effort thewoman I have loved so dearly."
He went back to the barn to endeavour to obtain assistance forcovering the ricks that very night. All was silent within, and hewould have passed on in the belief that the party had broken up, hadnot a dim light, yellow as saffron by contrast with the greenishwhiteness 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 theirsockets, 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, andleaning against forms and chairs in every conceivable attitude exceptthe perpendicular, were the wretched persons of all the work-folk,the hair of their heads at such low levels being suggestive of mopsand brooms. In the midst of these shone red and distinct the figureof 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 subduedroar like London from a distance. Joseph Poorgrass was curled roundin the fashion of a hedge-hog, apparently in attempts to present theleast possible portion of his surface to the air; and behind himwas dimly visible an unimportant remnant of William Smallbury.The glasses and cups still stood upon the table, a water-jug beingoverturned, from which a small rill, after tracing its course withmarvellous precision down the centre of the long table, fell into theneck 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 twoexceptions, composed all the able-bodied men upon the farm. He sawat once that if the ricks were to be saved that night, or even thenext morning, he must save them with his own hands.
A faint "ting-ting" resounded from under Coggan's waistcoat. It wasCoggan's watch striking the hour of two.
Oak went to the recumbent form of Matthew Moon, who usually undertookthe rough thatching of the home-stead, and shook him. The shakingwas without effect.
Gabriel shouted in his ear, "where's your thatching-beetle andrick-stick and spars?"
"Under the staddles," said Moon, mechanically, with the unconsciouspromptness 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 beshouted to at night was evidently less of a novelty to Susan Tall'shusband than to Matthew Moon. Oak flung down Tall's head into thecorner again and turned away.
To be just, the men were not greatly to blame for this painful anddemoralizing termination to the evening's entertainment. SergeantTroy had so strenuously insisted, glass in hand, that drinking shouldbe the bond of their union, that those who wished to refuse hardlyliked to be so unmannerly under the circumstances. Having from theiryouth up been entirely unaccustomed to any liquor stronger than cideror 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 thatwilful and fascinating mistress whom the faithful man even now feltwithin him as the embodiment of all that was sweet and bright andhopeless.
He put out the expiring lights, that the barn might not beendangered, closed the door upon the men in their deep and oblivioussleep, and went again into the lone night. A hot breeze, as ifbreathed from the parted lips of some dragon about to swallow theglobe, fanned him from the south, while directly opposite in thenorth rose a grim misshapen body of cloud, in the very teeth of thewind. So unnaturally did it rise that one could fancy it to belifted by machinery from below. Meanwhile the faint cloudlets hadflown back into the south-east corner of the sky, as if in terror ofthe large cloud, like a young brood gazed in upon by some monster.
Going on to the village, Oak flung a small stone against the windowof Laban Tall's bedroom, expecting Susan to open it; but nobodystirred. He went round to the back door, which had been leftunfastened for Laban's entry, and passed in to the foot of thestaircase.
"Mrs. Tall, I've come for the key of the granary, to get at therick-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 awakelike 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 Labanfor?"
"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 atthis time of night ought--"
Gabriel took the key, without waiting to hear the conclusion of thetirade. Ten minutes later his lonely figure might have been seendragging four large water-proof coverings across the yard, and soontwo of these heaps of treasure in grain were covered snug--two clothsto each. Two hundred pounds were secured. Three wheat-stacksremained open, and there were no more cloths. Oak looked under thestaddles and found a fork. He mounted the third pile of wealth andbegan operating, adopting the plan of sloping the upper sheaves oneover the other; and, in addition, filling the interstices with thematerial of some untied sheaves.
So far all was well. By this hurried contrivance Bathsheba'sproperty in wheat was safe for at any rate a week or two, providedalways that there was not much wind.
Next came the barley. This it was only possible to protect bysystematic thatching. Time went on, and the moon vanished not toreappear. It was the farewell of the ambassador previous to war.The night had a haggard look, like a sick thing; and there camefinally an utter expiration of air from the whole heaven in the formof a slow breeze, which might have been likened to a death. And nownothing was heard in the yard but the dull thuds of the beetle whichdrove in the spars, and the rustle of thatch in the intervals.