ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE
TROY wandered along towards the south. A compositefeeling, made up of disgust with the, to him, humdrumtediousness of a farmer's life, gloomily images of her wholay in the churchyard, remorse, and a general aversenessto his wife's society, impelled him to seek a home in anyplace on earth save Weatherbury. The sad accessoriesof Fanny's end confronted him as vivid pictures whichthreatened to be indelible, and made life in Bathsheba'shouse intolerable. At three in the afternoon he foundhimself at the foot of a slope more than a mile in length,which ran to the ridge of a range of hills lying parallelwith the shore, and forming a monotonous barrier betweenthe basin of cultivated country inland and the wilderscenery of the coast. Up the hill stretched a roadnearly straight and perfectly white, the two sidesapproaching each other in a gradual taper till theymet the sky at the top about two miles off. Through-out the length of this narrow and irksome inclined planenot a sign of life was visible on this garish afternoonTroy toiled up the road with a languor and depressiongreater than any he had experienced for many a dayand year before. The air was warm and muggy, andthe top seemed to recede as he approached.At last he reached the summit, and a wide andnovel prospect burst upon him with an effect almost likethat of the Pacific upon Balboa's gaze. The broadsteely sea, marked only by faint lines, which had asemblance of being etched thereon to a degree not deepenough to disturb its general evenness, stretched thewhole width of his front and round to the right, where,near the town and port of Budmouth, the sun bristleddown upon it, and banished all colour, to substitute inits place a clear oily polish. Nothing moved in sky,land, or sea, except a frill of milkwhite foam along thenearer angles of the shore, shreds of which licked thecontiguous stones like tongues.He descended and came to a small basin of seaenclosed by the cliffs. Troy's nature freshened withinhim; he thought he would rest and bathe here beforegoing farther. He undressed and plunged in. Insidethe cove the water was uninteresting to a swimmer,being smooth as a pond, and to get a little of the oceanswell, Troy presently swam between the two projectingspurs of rock which formed the pillars of Hercules tothis miniature Mediterranean. Unfortunately for Troya current unknown to him existed outside, which, un-important to craft of any burden, was awkward for aswimmer who might be taken in it unawares. Troyfound himself carried to the left and then round in aswoop out to sea.He now recollected the place and its sinistercharacter. Many bathers had there prayed for a drydeath from time to time, and, like Gonzalo also, hadbeen unanswered; and Troy began to deem it possiblethat he might be added to their number. Not a boatof any kind was at present within sight, but far in thedistance Budmouth lay upon the sea, as it were quietlyregarding his efforts, and beside the town the harbourshowed its position by a dim meshwork of ropes andspars. After wellnigh exhausting himself in attemptsto get back to the mouth of the cove, in his weaknessswimming several inches deeper than was his wont,keeping up his breathing entirely by his nostrils, turningupon his back a dozen times over, swimming EN PAPILLONand so on, Troy resolved as a last resource to treadwater at a slight incline, and so endeavour to reach theshore at any point, merely giving himself a gentleimpetus inwards whilst carried on in the general direc-tion of the tide. This, necessarily a slow process, hefound to be not altogether so difficult, and though therewas no choice of a landing-place -- the objects on shorepassing by him in a sad and slow procession -- he per-ceptibly approached the extremity of a spit of land yetfurther to the right, now well defined against the sunnyportion of the horizon. While the swimmer's eye's werefixed upon the spit as his only means of salvation onthis side of the Unknown, a moving object broke theoutline of the extremity, and immediately a ship's boatappeared manned with several sailor lads, her bowstowards the sea.All Troy's vigour spasmodically revived to prolongthe struggle yet a little further. Swimming with hisright arm, he held up his left to hail them, splashingupon the waves, and shouting with all his might. Fromthe position of the setting sun his white form wasdistinctly visible upon the now deep-hued bosom of thesea to the east of the boat, and the men saw him atonce. Backing their oars and putting the boat about,they pulled towards him with a will, and in five or sixminutes from the time of his first halloo, two of thesailors hauled him in over the stern.They formed part of a brig's crew, and had comeashore for sand. Lending him what little clothing theycould spare among them as a slight protection againstlate they made again towards the roadstead where theirAnd now night drooped slowly upon the wide waterylevels in front; and at no great distance from them,where the shoreline curved round, and formed a longriband of shade upon the horizon, a series of points ofyellow light began to start into existence, denoting thespot to be the site of Budmouth, where the lamps werebeing lighted along the parade. The cluck of theiroars was the only sound of any distinctness upon thesea, and as they laboured amid the thickening shadesthe lamplights grew larger, each appearing to send aflaming sword deep down into the waves before it, untilthere arose, among other dim shapes of the kind, theform of the vessel for which they were bound.
CHAPTER XLVIII