Page 37 of Far from the Madding Crowd

THE STORM -- THE TWO TOGETHER

A LIGHT flapped over the scene, as if reflected fromphosphorescent wings crossing the sky, and a rumblefilled the air. It was the first move of the approachingstorm.The second peal was noisy, with comparatively littlevisible lightning. Gabriel saw a candle shining in Bath-sheba's bedroom, and soon a shadow swept to and froupon the blind.Then there came a third flash. Manoeuvres of amost extraordinary kind were going on in the vastfirmamental hollows overhead. The lightning now wasthe colour of silver, and gleamed in the heavens like amailed army. Rumbles became rattles. Gabriel fromhis elevated position could see over the landscape atleast half-a-dozen miles in front. Every hedge, bush,and tree was distinct as in a line engraving. In apaddock in the same direction was a herd of heifers,and the forms of these were visible at this moment inthe act of galloping about in the wildest and maddestconfusion, flinging their heels and tails high into the air,their heads to earth. A poplar in the immediate fore-ground was like an ink stroke on burnished tin. Thenthe picture vanished, leaving the darkness so intensethat Gabriel worked entirely by feeling with his hands.He had stuck his ricking-rod, or poniard, as it wasindifferently called -- a long iron lance, polished byhandling -- into the stack, used to support the sheavesinstead of the support called a groom used on houses,A blue light appeared in the zenith, and in some in-describable manner flickered down near the top of therod. It was the fourth of the larger flashes. A momentlater and there was a smack -- smart, clear, and short,Gabriel felt his position to be anything but a safe one,and he resolved to descend.Not a drop of rain had fallen as yet. He wiped hisweary brow, and looked again at the black forms ofthe unprotected stacks. Was his life so valuable tohim after all? What were his prospects that heshould be so chary of running risk, when importantand urgent labour could not be carried on withoutsuch risk? He resolved to stick to the stack. How-ever, he took a precaution. Under the staddles wasa long tethering chain, used to prevent the escape oferrant horses. This he carried up the ladder, andsticking his rod through the clog at one end, allowedthe other end of the chain to trail upon the groundThe spike attached to it he drove in. Under theshadow of this extemporized lightning-conductor hefelt himself comparatively safe.Before Oak had laid his hands upon his tools againout leapt the fifth flash, with the spring of a serpentand the shout of a fiend. It was green as anemerald, and the reverberation was stunning. Whatwas this the light revealed to him? In the openground before him, as he looked over the ridge ofthe rick, was a dark and apparently female form.Could it be that of the only venturesome woman inthe parish -- Bathsheba? The form moved on a step:then he could see no more.”Is that you, ma'am?” said Gabriel to the darkness.”Who is there?” said the voice of Bathsheba,”Gabriel. I am on the rick, thatching.””O, Gabriel! -- and are you? I have come aboutthem. The weather awoke me, and I thought of thecorn. I am so distressed about it -- can we save it any-how? I cannot find my husband. Is he with you?”He is not here.””Do you know where he is?””Asleep in the barn.””He promised that the stacks should be seen to,and now they are all neglected! Can I do anythingto help? Liddy is afraid to come out. Fancy findingyou here at such an hour! Surely I can do something?””You can bring up some reed-sheaves to me, one byone, ma'am; if you are not afraid to come up the ladderin the dark.” said Gabriel. ”Every moment is preciousnow, and that would save a good deal of time. It isnot very dark when the lightning has been gone a bit.””I'll do anything!” she said, resolutely. She instantlytook a sheaf upon her shoulder, clambered up close tohis heels, placed it behind the rod, and descended foranother. At her third ascent the rick suddenly brightenedwith the brazen glare of shining majolica -- every knotin every straw was visible. On the slope in front of himappeared two human shapes, black as jet. The ricklost its sheen -- the shapes vanished. Gabriel turned hishead. It had been the sixth flash which had come fromthe east behind him, and the two dark forms on theslope had been the shadows of himself and Bathsheba.Then came the peal. It hardly was credible thatsuch a heavenly light could be the parent of such adiabolical sound.”How terrible!” she exclaimed, and clutched him bythe sleeve. Gabriel turned, and steadied her on heraerial perch by holding her arm. At the same moment,while he was still reversed in his attitude, there wasmore light, and he saw, as it were, a copy of the tallpoplar tree on the hill drawn in black on the wall ofthe barn. It was the shadow of that tree, thrown acrossby a secondary flash in the west.The next flare came. Bathsheba was on the groundnow, shouldering another sheaf, and she bore its dazzlewithout flinching -- thunder and ali-and again ascendedwith the load. There was then a silence everywherefor four or five minutes, and the crunch of the spars,as Gabriel hastily drove them in, could again be distinctlyheard. He thought the crisis of the storm had passed.But there came a burst of light.”Hold on!” said Gabriel, taking the sheaf from hershoulder, and grasping her arm again.Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash was almosttoo novel for its inexpressibly dangerous nature to beat once realized, and they could only comprehend themagnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west,north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. Theforms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped withblue fire for bones -- dancing, leaping, striding, racingaround, and mingling altogether in unparalleled con-fusion. With these were intertwined undulating snakes ofgreen, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light.Simultaneously came from every part of the tumblingsky what may be called a shout; since, though no shoutever came near it, it was more of the nature of a shoutthan of anything else earthly. In the meantime one ofthe grisly forms had alighted upon the point of Gabriel'srod, to run invisibly down it, down the chain, and intothe earth. Gabriel was almost blinded, and he couldfeel Bathsheba's warm arm tremble in his hand -- asensation novel and thrilling enough; but love, life,everything human, seemed small and trifling in suchclose juxtaposition with an infuriated universe.Oak had hardly time to gather up these impressionsinto a thought, and to see how strangely the red featherof her hat shone in this light, when the tall tree on thehill before mentioned seemed on fire to a white heat,and a new one among these terrible voices mingled withthe last crash of those preceding. It was a stupefyingblast, harsh and pitiless, and it fell upon their ears in adead, flat blow, without that reverberation which lendsthe tones of a drum to more distant thunder. By thelustre reflected from every part of the earth and from thewide domical scoop above it, he saw that the tree wassliced down the whole length of its tall, straight stem, ahuge riband of bark being apparently flung off. Theother portion remained erect, and revealed the baredsurface as a strip of white down the front. Thelightning had struck the tree. A sulphurous smellfilled the air; then all was silent, and black as a cavein Hinnom.”We had a narrow escape!” said Gabriel, hurriedly.”You had better go down.”Bathsheba said nothing; but he could distinctly hearher rhythmical pants, and the recurrent rustle of thesheaf beside her in response to her frightened pulsations.She descended the ladder, and, on second thoughts, hefollowed her. The darkness was now impenetrable bythe sharpest vision. They both stood still at thebottom, side by side. Bathsheba appeared to thinkonly of the weather -- Oak thought only of her just then.At last he said --”The storm seems to have passed now, at anyrate.””I think so too.” said Bathsheba. ”Though thereare multitudes of gleams, look!”The sky was now filled with an incessant light,frequent repetition melting into complete continuity, asan unbroken sound results from the successive strokeson a gong.”Nothing serious.” said he. ”I cannot understandno rain falling. But Heaven be praised, it is all thebetter for us. I am now going up again.””Gabriel, you are kinder than I deserve! I will stayand help you yet. O, why are not some of the othershere!””They would have been here if they could.” said Oak,in a hesitating way.”O, I know it all -- all.” she said, adding slowly:”They are all asleep in the barn, in a drunken sleep, andmy husband among them. That's it, is it not? Don'tthink I am a timid woman and can't endure things.””I am not certain.” said Gabriel. ”I will go and see,”He crossed to the barn, leaving her there alone. Helooked through the chinks of the door. All was intotal darkness, as he had left it, and there still arose, asat the former time, the steady buzz of many snores.He felt a zephyr curling about his cheek, and turned.It was Bathsheba's breath -- she had followed him, andwas looking into the same chink.He endeavoured to put off the immediate and pain-ful subject of their thoughts by remarking gently, ”Ifyou'll come back again, miss -- ma'am, and hand up afew more; it would save much time.”Then Oak went back again, ascended to the top,stepped off the ladder for greater expedition, and wenton thatching. She followed, but without a sheaf”Gabriel.” she said, in a strange and impressive voice.Oak looked up at her. She had not spoken sincehe left the barn. The soft and continual shimmer ofthe dying lightning showed a marble face high againstthe black sky of the opposite quarter. Bathsheba wassitting almost on the apex of the stack, her feet gatheredup beneath her, and resting on the top round of theladder.”Yes, mistress.” he said.”I suppose you thought that when I galloped awayto Bath that night it was on purpose to be married?””I did at last -- not at first.” he answered, somewhatsurprised at the abruptness with which this new subjectwas broached.”And others thought so, too?””Yes.””And you blamed me for it?””Well-a little.””I thought so. Now, I care a little for your goodopinion, and I want to explain something-i havelonged to do it ever since I returned, and you looked sogravely at me. For if I were to die -- and I may diesoon -- it would be dreadful that you should always thinkmistakenly of me. Now, listen.”Gabriel ceased his rustling.”I went to Bath that night in the full intention ofbreaking off my engagement to Mr. Troy. It was owingto circumstances which occurred after I got there that -- that we were married. Now, do you see the matterin a new light?””I do -- somewhat.””I must, I suppose, say more, now that I havebegun. And perhaps it's no harm, for you are certainlyunder no delusion that I ever loved you, or that I canhave any object in speaking, more than that object Ihave mentioned. Well, I was alone in a strange city,and the horse was lame. And at last I didn't knowwhat to do. I saw, when it was too late, that scandalmight seize hold of me for meeting him alone in thatway. But I was coming away, when he suddenly saidhe had that day seen a woman more beautiful than I,and that his constancy could not be counted on unlessI at once became his.... And I was grieved andtroubled -- --” She cleared her voice, and waited amoment, as if to gather breath. ”And then, betweenjealousy and distraction, I married him!” she whisperedwith desperate impetuosity.Gabriel made no reply.”He was not to blame, for it was perfectly true about -- about his seeing somebody else.” she quickly added.”And now I don't wish for a single remark from youupon the subject -- indeed, I forbid it. I only wantedyou to know that misunderstood bit of my history beforea time comes when you could never know it. -- You wantsome more sheaves?”She went down the ladder, and the work proceeded.Gabriel soon perceived a languor in the movements ofhis mistress up and down, and he said to her, gently asa mother --”I think you had better go indoors now, you aretired. I can finish the rest alone. If the wind doesnot change the rain is likely to keep off.””If I am useless I will go.” said Bathsheba, in aflagging cadence. ”But O, if your life should be lost!””You are not useless; but I would rather not tireyou longer. You have done well.””And you better!” she said, gratefully.! Thank youfor your devotion, a thousand times, Gabriel! Good-night-i know you are doing your very best for me.”She diminished in the gloom, and vanished, and heheard the latch of the gate fall as she passed through.He worked in a reverie now, musing upon her story, andupon the contradictoriness of that feminine heart whichhad caused her to speak more warmly to him to-nightthan she ever had done whilst unmarried and free tospeak as warmly as she chose.He was disturbed in his meditation by a gratingnoise from the coach-house. It was the vane on theroof turning round, and this change in the wind was thesignal for a disastrous rain.



CHAPTER XXXVIII