Two varieties only of humanity could have entered the paddock with the ghost-like glide of that mysterious figure. They were a woman and a gipsy man. A woman was out of the question in such an occupation at this hour, and the comer could be no less than a thief, who might probably have known the weakness of the household on this particular night, and have chosen it on that account for his daring attempt. Moreover, to raise suspicion to conviction itself, there were gipsies in Weatherbury Bottom.
Maryann, who had been afraid to shout in the robber’s presence, having seen him depart had no fear. She hastily slipped on her clothes, stumped down the disjointed staircase with its hundred creaks, ran to Coggan’s, the nearest house, and raised an alarm. Coggan called Gabriel, who now again lodged in his house as at first, and together they went to the paddock. Beyond all doubt the horse was gone.
“Hark!” said Gabriel.
They listened. Distinct upon the stagnant air came the sounds of a trotting horse passing up Longpuddle Lane—just beyond the gipsies’ encampment in Weatherbury Bottom.
“That’s our Dainty—I’ll swear to her step,” said Jan.
“Mighty me! Won’t mis’ess storm and call us stupids when she comes back!” moaned Maryann. “How I wish it had happened when she was at home, and none of us had been answerable!”
“We must ride after,” said Gabriel decisively. “I’ll be responsible to Miss Everdene for what we do. Yes, we’ll follow.”
“Faith, I don’t see how,” said Coggan. “All our horses are too heavy for that trick except little Poppet, and what’s she between two of us?—If we only had that pair over the hedge we might do something.”
“Which pair?”
“Mr. Boldwood’s Tidy and Moll.”
“Then wait here till I come hither again,” said Gabriel. He ran down the hill towards Farmer Boldwood’s.
“Farmer Boldwood is not at home,” said Maryann.
“All the better,” said Coggan. “I know what he’s gone for.”
Less than five minutes brought up Oak again, running at the same pace, with two halters dangling from his hand. “Where did you find ’em?” said Coggan, turning round and leaping upon the hedge without waiting for an answer.
“Under the eaves. I knew where they were kept,” said Gabriel, following him. “Coggan, you can ride bare-backed? there’s no time to look for saddles.”
“Like a hero!” said Jan.
“Maryann, you go to bed,” Gabriel shouted to her from the top of the hedge.
Springing down into Boldwood’s pastures, each pocketed his halter to hide it from the horses, who, seeing the men empty-handed, docilely allowed themselves to be seized by the mane, when the halters were dextrously slipped on. Having neither bit nor bridle, Oak and Coggan extemporized the former by passing the rope in each case through the animal’s mouth and looping it on the other side. Oak vaulted astride, and Coggan clambered up by aid of the bank, when they ascended to the gate and galloped off in the direction taken by Bathsheba’s horse and the robber. Whose vehicle the horse had been harnessed to was a matter of some uncertainty.
Weatherbury Bottom was reached in three or four minutes. They scanned the shady green patch by the roadside. The gipsies were gone.
“The villains!” said Gabriel. “Which way have they gone, I wonder?”
“Straight on, as sure as God made little apples,” said Jan.
“Very well; we are better mounted, and must overtake ’em,” said Oak. “Now, on at full speed!”
No sound of the rider in their van could now be discovered. The road-metal grew softer and more clayey as Weatherbury was left behind, and the late rain had wetted its surface to a somewhat plastic, but not muddy state. They came to cross-roads. Coggan suddenly pulled up Moll and slipped off.
“What’s the matter?” said Gabriel.
“We must try to track ’em, since we can’t hear ’em,” said Jan, fumbling in his pockets. He struck a light, and held the match to the ground. The rain had been heavier here, and all foot and horse tracks made previous to the storm had been abraded and blurred by the drops, and they were now so many little scoops of water, which reflected the flame of the match like eyes. One set of tracks was fresh and had no water in them; one pair of ruts was also empty, and not small canals, like the others. The footprints forming this recent impression were full of information as to pace; they were in equidistant pairs, three or four feet apart, the right and left foot of each pair being exactly opposite one another.
“Straight on!” Jan exclaimed. “Tracks like that mean a stiff gallop. No wonder we don’t hear him. And the horse is harnessed—look at the ruts. Ay, that’s our mare, sure enough!”
“How do you know?”
“Old Jimmy Harris only shoed her last week, and I’d swear to his make among ten thousand.”
“The rest of the gipsies must ha’ gone on earlier, or some other way,” said Oak. “You saw there were no other tracks?”
“True.” They rode along silently for a long weary time. Coggan carried an old pinchbeck repeater which he had inherited from some genius in his family; and it now struck one. He lighted another match, and examined the ground again.
“ ’Tis a canter now,” he said, throwing away the light. “A twisty, rickety pace for a gig. The fact is, they over-drove her at starting; we shall catch ’em yet.”
Again they hastened on, and entered Blackmore Vale. Coggan’s watch struck two. When they looked again the hoof-marks were so spaced as to form a sort of zigzag if united, like the lamps along a street.
“That’s a trot, I know,” said Gabriel.
“Only a trot now,” said Coggan cheerfully. “We shall overtake him in time.”
They pushed rapidly on for yet two or three miles. “Ah! a moment,” said Jan. “Let’s see how she was driven up this hill. ’Twill help us.” A light was promptly struck upon his gaiters as before, and the examination made.
“Hurrah!” said Coggan. “She walked up here—and well she might. We shall get them in two miles, for a crown.”
They rode three, and listened. No sound was to be heard save a mill-pond trickling hoarsely through a hatch, and suggesting gloomy possibilities of drowning by jumping in. Gabriel dismounted when they came to a turning. The tracks were absolutely the only guide as to the direction that they now had, and great caution was necessary to avoid confusing them with some others which had made their appearance lately.
“What does this mean?—though I guess,” said Gabriel, looking up at Coggan as he moved the match over the ground about the turning. Coggan, who, no less than the panting horses, had latterly shown signs of weariness, again scrutinized the mystic characters. This time only three were of the regular horseshoe shape. Every fourth was a dot.
He screwed up his face, and emitted a long “whew-w-w!”
“Lame,” said Oak.
“Yes. Dainty is lamed; the near-foot-afore,” said Coggan slowly, staring still at the footprints.
“We’ll push on,” said Gabriel, remounting his humid steed.
Although the road along its greater part had been as good as any turnpike-road in the country, it was nominally only a byway. The last turning had brought them into the high road leading to Bath. Coggan recollected himself.
“We shall have him now!” he exclaimed.
“Where?”
“Sherton Turnpike. The keeper of that gate is the sleepiest man between here and London—Dan Randall, that’s his name—knowed en for years, when he was at Casterbridge gate. Between the lameness and the gate ’tis a done job.”
They now advanced with extreme caution. Nothing was said until, against a shady background of foliage, five white bars were visible, crossing their route a little way ahead.
“Hush—we are almost close!” said Gabriel.
“Amble on upon the grass,” said Coggan.
The white bars were blotted out in the midst by a dark shape in front of them. The silence of this lonely time was pierced by an exclamation from that quarter.
“Hoy-a-hoy! Gate!”
It appeared that there had been a previous call which they had not noticed, for on their close approach the door of the turnpike-house opened, and the keeper came out half-dressed, with a candle in his hand. The rays illumined the whole group.
“Keep the gate close!” shouted Gabriel. “He has stolen the horse!”
“Who?” said the turnpike-man.
Gabriel looked at the driver of the gig, and saw a woman—Bathsheba, his mistress.
On hearing his voice she had turned her face away from the light. Coggan had, however, caught sight of her in the meanwhile.
“Why, ’tis mistress—I’ll take my oath!” he said, amazed.
Bathsheba it certainly was, and she had by this time done the trick she could do so well in crises not of love, namely, mask a surprise by coolness of manner.
“Well, Gabriel,” she inquired quietly, “where are you going?”
“We thought——” began Gabriel.
“I am driving to Bath,” she said, taking for her own use the assurance that Gabriel lacked. “An important matter made it necessary for me to give up my visit to Liddy, and go off at once. What, then, were you following me?”
“We thought the horse was stole.”
“Well—what a thing! How very foolish of you not to know that I had taken the trap and horse. I could neither wake Maryann nor get into the house, though I hammered for ten minutes against her window-sill. Fortunately, I could get the key of the coach-house, so I troubled no one further. Didn’t you think it might be me?”
“Why should we, miss?”
“Perhaps not. Why, those are never Farmer Bold wood’s horses! Goodness mercy! what have you been doing—bringing trouble upon me in this way! What! mustn’t a lady move an inch from her door without being dogged like a thief?”
“But how was we to know, if you left no account of your doings?” expostulated Coggan, “and ladies don’t drive at these hours, miss, as a jineral rule of society.”
“I did leave an account—and you would have seen it in the morning. I wrote in chalk on the coach-house doors that I had come back for the horse and gig, and driven off; that I could arouse nobody, and should return soon.”
“But you’ll consider, ma’am, that we couldn’t see that till it got daylight.”
“True,” she said, and though vexed at first she had too much sense to blame them long or seriously for a devotion to her that was as valuable as it was rare. She added with a very pretty grace, “Well, I really thank you heartily for taking all this trouble; but I wish you had borrowed anybody’s horses but Mr. Boldwood’s.”
“Dainty is lame, miss,” said Coggan. “Can ye go on?”
“It was only a stone in her shoe. I got down and pulled it out a hundred yards back. I can manage very well, thank you. I shall be in Bath by daylight. Will you now return, please?”
She turned her head—the gateman’s candle shimmering upon her quick, clear eyes as she did so—passed through the gate, and was soon wrapped in the embow ering shades of mysterious summer boughs. Coggan and Gabriel put about their horses, and, fanned by the velvety air of this July night, retraced the road by which they had come.
“A strange vagary, this of hers, isn’t it, Oak?” said Coggan curiously.
“Yes,” said Gabriel shortly.
“She won’t be in Bath by no daylight!”
“Coggan, suppose we keep this night’s work as quiet as we can?”
“I am of one and the same mind.”
“Very well. We shall be home by three o’clock or so, and can creep into the parish like lambs.”
Bathsheba’s perturbed meditations by the roadside had ultimately evolved a conclusion that there were only two remedies for the present desperate state of affairs. The first was merely to keep Troy away from Weatherbury till Boldwood’s indignation had cooled; the second to listen to Oak’s entreaties, and Boldwood’s denunciations, and give up Troy altogether.
Alas! Could she give up this new love—induce him to renounce her by saying she did not like him—could no more speak to him, and beg him, for her good, to end his furlough in Bath, and see her and Weatherbury no more?
It was a picture full of misery, but for a while she contemplated it firmly, allowing herself, nevertheless, as girls will, to dwell upon the happy life she would have enjoyed had Troy been Boldwood, and the path of love the path of duty—inflicting upon herself gratuitous tortures by imagining him the lover of another woman after forgetting her; for she had penetrated Troy’s nature so far as to estimate his tendencies pretty accurately, but unfortunately loved him no less in thinking that he might soon cease to love her—indeed, considerably more.
She jumped to her feet. She would see him at once. Yes, she would implore him by word of mouth to assist her in this dilemma. A letter to keep him away could not reach him in time, even if he should be disposed to listen to it.
Was Bathsheba altogether blind to the obvious fact that the support of a lover’s arms is not of a kind best calculated to assist a resolve to renounce him? Or was she sophistically sensible, with a thrill of pleasure, that by adopting this course for getting rid of him she was ensuring a meeting with him, at any rate, once more?
It was now dark, and the hour must have been nearly ten. The only way to accomplish her purpose was to give up her idea of visiting Liddy at Yalbury, return to Weatherbury Farm, put the horse into the gig, and drive at once to Bath. The scheme seemed at first impossible: the journey was a fearfully heavy one, even for a strong horse, at her own estimate; and she much underrated the distance. It was most venturesome for a woman, at night, and alone.
But could she go on to Liddy’s and leave things to take their course? No, no; anything but that. Bathsheba was full of a stimulating turbulence, beside which caution vainly prayed for a hearing. She turned back towards the village.
Her walk was slow, for she wished not to enter Weatherbury till the cottagers were in bed, and, particularly, till Boldwood was secure. Her plan was now to drive to Bath during the night, see Sergeant Troy in the morning before he set out to come to her, bid him farewell, and dismiss him: then to rest the horse thoroughly (herself to weep the while, she thought), starting early the next morning on her return journey. By this arrangement she could trot Dainty gently all the day, reach Liddy at Yalbury in the evening, and come home to Weatherbury with her whenever they chose—so nobody would know she had been to Bath at all.