Far from the Madding Crowd (57 page)

A man puts out when walking in search of a bride, and knocked at Bathsheba’s door. Ten minutes later a large and smaller umbrella might have been seen moving from the same door, and through the mist along the road to the church. The distance was not more than a quarter of a mile, and these two sensible persons deemed it unnecessary to drive. An observer must have been very close indeed to discover that the forms under the umbrellas were those of Oak and Bathsheba, arm-in-arm for the first time in their lives, Oak in a greatcoat extending to his knees, and Bathsheba in a cloak that reached her clogs. Yet, though so plainly dressed, there was a certain rejuvenated appearance about her:—

Repose had again incarnadined her cheeks; and having, at Gabriel’s request, arranged her hair this morning as she had worn it years ago on Norcombe Hill, she seemed in his eyes remarkably like the girl of that fascinating dream, which, considering that she was now only three or four-and-twenty, was perhaps not very wonderful. In the church were Tall, Liddy, and the parson, and in a remarkably short space of time the deed was done.

The two sat down very quietly to tea in Bathsheba’s parlour in the evening of the same day, for it had been arranged that Farmer Oak should go there to live, since he had as yet neither money, house, nor furniture worthy of the name, though he was on a sure way towards them, whilst Bathsheba was, comparatively, in a plethora of all three.

Just as Bathsheba was pouring out a cup of tea, their ears were greeted by the firing of a cannon, followed by what seemed like a tremendous blowing of trumpets, in the front of the house.

“There!” said Oak, laughing, “I knew those fellows were up to something, by the look on their faces.”

Oak took up the light and went into the porch, followed by Bathsheba with a shawl over her head. The rays fell upon a group of male figures gathered upon the gravel in front, who, when they saw the newly-married couple in the porch, set up a loud “Hurrah!” and at the same moment bang again went the cannon in the background, followed by a hideous clang of music from a drum, tambourine, clarionet, serpent, hautboy, tenor-viol, and double-bass—the only remaining relics of the true and original Weatherbury band—venerable worm-eaten instruments, which had celebrated in their own persons the victories of Marlborough, under the fingers of the forefathers of those who played them now. The performers came forward, and marched up to the front.

“Those bright boys, Mark Clark and Jan, are at the bottom of all this,” said Oak. “Come in, souls, and have something to eat and drink wi’ me and my wife.”

“Not to-night,” said Mr. Clark, with evident self-denial. “Thank ye all the same; but we’ll call at a more seemly time. However, we couldn’t think of letting the day pass without a note of admiration of some sort. If ye could send a drop of som’at down to Warren’s, why so it is. Here’s long life and happiness to neighbour Oak and his comely bride!”

“Thank ye; thank ye all,” said Gabriel. “A bit and a drop shall be sent to Warren’s for ye at once. I had a thought that we might very likely get a salute of some sort from our old friends, and I was saying so to my wife but now.”

“Faith,” said Coggan, in a critical tone, turning to his companions, “the man hev learnt to say ‘my wife’ in a wonderful naterel way, considering how very youthful he is in wedlock as yet—hey, neighbours all?”

“I never heerd a skilful old married feller of twenty years’ standing pipe ‘my wife’ in a more used note than ’a did,” said Jacob Smallbury. “It might have been a little more true to nater if’t had been spoke a little chill ier, but that wasn’t to be expected just now.”

“That improvement will come wi’ time,” said Jan, twirling his eye.

Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily now), and their friends turned to go.

“Yes; I suppose that’s the size o’t,” said Joseph Poorgrass with a cheerful sigh as they moved away; “and I wish him joy o’ her; though I were once or twice upon saying to-day with holy Hosea, in my scripture manner, which is my second nature, ‘Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.’ But since ’tis as ’tis, why, it might have been worse, and I feel my thanks accordingly.”

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Under the Greenwood Tree,
1872 Novel

A Pair of Blue Eyes,
1873 Novel

Far from the Madding Crowd,
1874 Novel (Signet Classic 0451-52856-5)

The Return of the Native,
1878 Novel (Signet Classic 0451-52738-0)

The Trumpet-Major,
1880 Novel

A Laodicean,
1881 Novel

Two on a Tower,
1882 Novel

The Mayor of Casterbridge,
1886 Novel (Signet Classic 0451-52735-6)

The Woodlanders,
1887 Novel

Wessex Tales,
1888 Stories

A Group of Noble Dames,
1891 Stories

Tess of the d’Urbervilles,
1891 Novel (Signet Classic 0451-52722-4)

Life’s Little Ironies,
1894 Stories

Jude the Obscure,
1896 Novel (Signet Classic 0451-52725-9)

Wessex Poems,
1898

Poems of the Past and Present,
1901

The Dynasts,
1904-1908 Play

Time’s Laughingstocks,
1909 Poems

Satires of Circumstance,
1914 Poems

Moments of Vision,
1917 Poems

The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall,
1923 Play

Human Shows,
1925 Poems

Winter Words,
1928 Poems

Bayley, John.
An Essay on Hardy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Blunden, Edmund.
Thomas Hardy.
London, 1942; rpt. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967.

Brown, Douglas.
Thomas Hardy.
London and New York: Longman, Green, 1954.

Cecil, Lord David.
Hardy the Novelist.
New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1946.

Gibson, James.
Thomas Hardy: A Literary Life.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Gittings, Robert.
Young Thomas Hardy.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1975.

——.
Thomas Hardy’s Later Years.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.

Guerard, Albert J.
Thomas Hardy: The Novels and Stories.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949.

——, ed.
Hardy: A Collection of Critical Essays.
Twentieth Century Views. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.

Hardy, Evelyn.
Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1954.

Hardy, Florence Emily.
The Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928
. London: Macmillan, 1962.

Howe, Irving.
Thomas Hardy.
Masters of World Literature Series. New York: Macmillan, 1967.

Johnson, Lionel.
The Art of Thomas Hardy.
1894; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965.

Langbaum, Robert Woodrow.
Thomas Hardy in Our Time.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.

Lawrence, D. M.
Phoenix.
Ed. Edward D. McDonald. 1936; rpt. London: Heinemann, 1968.

Miller, J. Hillis.
Thomas Hardy: Distance and Desire.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Millgate, Michael.
Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Pettit, Charles, ed.
Reading Thomas Hardy.
New York: Macmillan, St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Pinion, F. B.
A Hardy Companion.
London: Macmillan, 1968.

——.
Thomas Hardy: Art and Thought.
London: Macmillan, 1977.

Purdy, Richard L.
Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study.
New York, 1954; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

Stave, Shirley A.
The Decline of the Goddess: Nature, Culture, and Women in Thomas Hardy’s Fiction.
West-port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995.

Stewart, J. I. M.
Eight Modern Writers.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.

Turner, Paul.
The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

Weber, Carl.
Hardy of Wessex.
1940; New York: Columbia University Press, 1965.