BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION -- REGRET
BOLDWOOD was tenant of what was called LittleWeatherbury Farm, and his person was the nearest ap-proach to aristocracy that this remoter quarter of theparish could boast of. Genteel strangers, whose godwas their town, who might happen to be compelled tolinger about this nook for a day, heard the sound oflight wheels, and prayed to see good society, to thedegree of a solitary lord, or squire at the very least,but it was only Mr. Boldwood going out for the day.They heard the sound of wheels yet once more, andwere re-animated to expectancy: it was only Mr. Bold-wood coming home again.His house stood recessed from the road, and thestables, which are to a farm what a fireplace is to aroom, were behind, their lower portions being lostamid bushes of laurel. Inside the blue door, openhalf-way down, were to be seen at this time the backsand tails of half-a-dozen warm and contented horsesstanding in their stalls; and as thus viewed, they pre-sented alternations of roan and bay, in shapes like aMoorish arch, the tail being a streak down the midstof each. Over these, and lost to the eye gazing infrom the outer light, the mouths of the same animalscould be heard busily sustaining the above-namedwarmth and plumpness by quantities of oats and hay.The restless and shadowy figure of a colt wanderedabout a loose-box at the end, whilst the steady grindof all the eaters was occasionally diversified by therattle of a rope or the stamp of a foot.Pacing up and down at the heels of the animals wasFarmer Boldwood himself. This place was his almonryand cloister in one: here, after looking to the feedingof his four-footed dependants, the celibate would walkand meditate of an evening till the moon's rays streamedin through the cobwebbed windows, or total darknessenveloped the scene.His square-framed perpendicularity showed more fullynow than in the crowd and bustle of the market-house.In this meditative walk his foot met the floor with heeland toe simultaneously, and his fine reddish-fleshed facewas bent downwards just enough to render obscure thestill mouth and the well-rounded though rather prominentand broad chin. A few clear and thread-like horizontallines were the only interruption to the otherwise smoothsurface of his large forehead.The phases of Boldwood's life were ordinary enough,but his was not an ordinary nature. That stillness,which struck casual observers more than anything elsein his character and habit, and seemed so preciselylike the rest of inanition, may have been the perfectbalance of enormous antagonistic forces -- positives andnegatives in fine adjustment. His equilibrium disturbed,he was in extremity at once. If an emotion possessedhim at all, it ruled him; a feeling not mastering himwas entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, it was neverslow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed.He had no light and careless touches in his constitu-tion, either for good or for evil. Stern in the outlines ofaction, mild in the details, he was serious throughout all.He saw no absurd sides to the follies of life, and thus,though not quite companionable in the eyes of merrymen and scoffers, and those to whom all things showlife as a jest, he was not intolerable to the earnest andthose acquainted with grief. Being a man -who readall the dramas of life seriously, if he failed to pleasewhen they were comedies, there was no frivolous treat-ment to reproach him for when they chanced to endtragically.Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark andsilent shape upon which she had so carelessly thrown aseed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she knownBoldwood's moods, her blame would have been fearful,and the stain upon her heart ineradicable. Moreover,had she known her present power for good or evil overthis man, she would have trembled at her responsibility.Luckily for her present, unluckily for her future tran-quillity, her understanding had not yet told her whatBoldwood was. Nobody knew entirely; for though itwas possible to form guesses concerning his wild capa-bilities from old floodmarks faintly visible, he had neverbeen seen at the high tides which caused them.Farmer Boldwood came to the stable-door and lookedforth across the level fields. Beyond the first enclosurewas a hedge, and on the other side of this a meadowbelonging to Bathsheba's farm.It was now early spring -- the time of going to grasswith the sheep, when they have the first feed of themeadows, before these are laid up for mowing. Thewind, which had been blowing east for several weeks,had veered to the southward, and the middle of springhad come abruptly -- almost without a beginning. Itwas that period in the vernal quarter when we mapsuppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. Thevegetable world begins to move and swell and the sapsto rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardensand trackless plantations, where- everything seems -help-less and still after the bond and slavery of frost, thereare bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs ofcranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts.Boldwood, looking into the distant meadows, sawthere three figures. They were those of Miss Everdene,Shepherd Oak, and Cainy Ball.When Bathsheba's figure shone upon the farmer'seyes it lighted him up as the moon lights up a greattower. A man's body is as the shell; or the tablet, ofhis soul, as he is reserved or ingenuous, overflowing orself-contained. There was a change in Boldwood'sexterior from its former impassibleness; and his faceshowed that he was now living outside his defencesfor the first time, and with a fearful sense of exposure.It is the usual experience of strong natures when theylove.At last he arrived at a conclusion. It was to goacross and inquire boldly of her.The insulation of his heart by reserve during thesemany years, without a channel of any kind for disposableemotion, had worked its effect. It has been observedmore than once that the causes of love are chieflysubjective, and Boldwood was a living testimony tothe truth of the proposition. No mother existed toabsorb his devotion, no sister for his tenderness, noidle ties for sense. He became surcharged with thecompound, which was genuine lover's love.He approached the gate of the meadow. Beyondit the ground was melodious with ripples, and the skywith larks; the low bleating of the flock mingling withboth. Mistress and man were engaged in the operationof making a lamb take. which is performed wheneveran ewe has lost her own offspring, one of the twins ofanother ewe being given her as a substitute. Gabrielhad skinned the dead lamb, and was tying the skinover the body of the live lamb, in the customary manner,whilst Bathsheba was holding open a little pen of fourhurdles, into which the Mother and foisted lamb weredriven, where they would remain till the old sheepconceived an affection for the young one.Bathsheba looked up at the completion of themanouvre, and saw the farmer by the gate, where hewas overhung by a willow tree in full bloom. Gabriel,to whom her face was as the uncertain glory of an Aprilday, was ever regardful of its faintest changes, andinstantly discerned thereon the mark of some influencefrom without, in the form of a keenly self-consciousreddening. He also turned and beheld Boldwood.At onee connecting these signs with the letter Bold-wood had shown him, Gabriel suspected her of somecoquettish procedure begun by that means, and carriedon since, he knew not how.Farmer Boldwood had read the pantomime denotingthat they were aware of his presence, and the perceptionwas as too much light turned upon his new sensibility.He was still in the road, and by moving on he hopedthat neither would recognize that he had originallyintended to enter the field. He passed by with anutter and overwhelming sensation of ignorance, shyness,and doubt. Perhaps in her manner there were signsthat she wished to see him -- perhaps not -- he could notread a woman. The cabala of this erotic philosophyseemed to consist of the subtlest meanings expressed inmisleading ways. Every turn, look, word, and accentcontained a mystery quite distinct from its obviousimport, and not one had ever been pondered by himuntil now.As for Bathsheba, she was not deceived into thebelief that Farmer Boldwood had walked by on businessor in idleness. She collected the probabilities of thecase, and concluded that she was herself responsible forBoldwood's appearance there. It troubled her muchto see what a great flame a little Wildfire was likely tokindle. Bathsheba was no schemer for marriage, norwas she deliberately a trifler with the affections of men,and a censor's experience on seeing an actual flirt afterobserving her would have been a feeling of surprisethat Bathsheba could be so different from such a one,and yet so like what a flirt is supposed to be.She resolved never again, by look or by sign, tointerrupt the steady flow of this man's life. But aresolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evilis so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.
CHAPTER XIX