feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_23_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 24
feat_summary_id: chapter 24
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 24", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-24", "summary": "Before going to bed, Bathsheba decides to walk around the house and the grounds to make sure everything is as it should be. She walks along a dark path and bumps into a man. She tries to walk away, but something is holding her back. Her dress has gotten caught on the spur of the man's boot. It takes them a moment to get untangled. The man uses her lantern to get them untangled, and then turns it on her face. He tells her that she has a pretty face. Bathsheba accuses him of untangling her skirts in order to keep her next to him for longer, but he denies it. Bathsheba just wants to get away from him. She's blushing from all his compliments and doesn't want to stand so close to a strange man in the middle of the night. She notices that the young man is wearing a soldier's uniform. Bathsheba finally runs home and asks her servant Liddy if she knows of a young soldier staying in the village. Liddy says that it might be a man named Sergeant Troy. Yup, that's the same Sergeant Troy who was supposed to marry Fanny Robin. We have no clue where Fanny is, and the only people in the world who know about her engagement to Troy are Boldwood and Oak. Bathsheba asks Liddy what kind of reputation Troy has, and Liddy answer that he's considered a lady-killer. But she also says that he comes from noble blood. His daddy was an earl. The chapter ends with Bathsheba thinking about Sergeant Troy and how he complimented her on her good looks: something the Boldwood has never done.", "analysis": ""}
text: 
  
  THE SAME NIGHT--THE FIR PLANTATION
  
  
  Among the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had voluntarily imposed
  upon herself by dispensing with the services of a bailiff, was the
  particular one of looking round the homestead before going to bed,
  to see that all was right and safe for the night.  Gabriel had
  almost constantly preceded her in this tour every evening, watching
  her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of
  surveillance could have done; but this tender devotion was to a
  great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was
  somewhat thanklessly received.  Women are never tired of bewailing
  man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy.
  
  As watching is best done invisibly, she usually carried a dark
  lantern in her hand, and every now and then turned on the light
  to examine nooks and corners with the coolness of a metropolitan
  policeman.  This coolness may have owed its existence not so much
  to her fearlessness of expected danger as to her freedom from the
  suspicion of any; her worst anticipated discovery being that a horse
  might not be well bedded, the fowls not all in, or a door not closed.
  
  This night the buildings were inspected as usual, and she went round
  to the farm paddock.  Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness
  were steady munchings of many mouths, and stentorian breathings from
  all but invisible noses, ending in snores and puffs like the blowing
  of bellows slowly.  Then the munching would recommence, when the
  lively imagination might assist the eye to discern a group of
  pink-white nostrils, shaped as caverns, and very clammy and humid on
  their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to the touch until one got used
  to them; the mouths beneath having a great partiality for closing
  upon any loose end of Bathsheba's apparel which came within reach of
  their tongues.  Above each of these a still keener vision suggested a
  brown forehead and two staring though not unfriendly eyes, and above
  all a pair of whitish crescent-shaped horns like two particularly
  new moons, an occasional stolid "moo!" proclaiming beyond the shade
  of a doubt that these phenomena were the features and persons of
  Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonny-lass, Jolly-O, Spot, Twinkle-eye, etc.,
  etc.--the respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging to Bathsheba
  aforesaid.
  
  Her way back to the house was by a path through a young plantation of
  tapering firs, which had been planted some years earlier to shelter
  the premises from the north wind.  By reason of the density of
  the interwoven foliage overhead, it was gloomy there at cloudless
  noontide, twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and
  black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight.  To describe the spot
  is to call it a vast, low, naturally formed hall, the plumy ceiling
  of which was supported by slender pillars of living wood, the floor
  being covered with a soft dun carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed
  cones, with a tuft of grass-blades here and there.
  
  This bit of the path was always the crux of the night's ramble,
  though, before starting, her apprehensions of danger were not vivid
  enough to lead her to take a companion.  Slipping along here covertly
  as Time, Bathsheba fancied she could hear footsteps entering the
  track at the opposite end.  It was certainly a rustle of footsteps.
  Her own instantly fell as gently as snowflakes.  She reassured
  herself by a remembrance that the path was public, and that the
  traveller was probably some villager returning home; regretting,
  at the same time, that the meeting should be about to occur in the
  darkest point of her route, even though only just outside her own
  door.
  
  The noise approached, came close, and a figure was apparently on the
  point of gliding past her when something tugged at her skirt and
  pinned it forcibly to the ground.  The instantaneous check nearly
  threw Bathsheba off her balance.  In recovering she struck against
  warm clothes and buttons.
  
  "A rum start, upon my soul!" said a masculine voice, a foot or so
  above her head.  "Have I hurt you, mate?"
  
  "No," said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink away.
  
  "We have got hitched together somehow, I think."
  
  "Yes."
  
  "Are you a woman?"
  
  "Yes."
  
  "A lady, I should have said."
  
  "It doesn't matter."
  
  "I am a man."
  
  "Oh!"
  
  Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose.
  
  "Is that a dark lantern you have?  I fancy so," said the man.
  
  "Yes."
  
  "If you'll allow me I'll open it, and set you free."
  
  A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the rays burst
  out from their prison, and Bathsheba beheld her position with
  astonishment.
  
  The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in brass and scarlet.
  He was a soldier.  His sudden appearance was to darkness what the
  sound of a trumpet is to silence.  Gloom, the _genius loci_ at all
  times hitherto, was now totally overthrown, less by the lantern-light
  than by what the lantern lighted.  The contrast of this revelation
  with her anticipations of some sinister figure in sombre garb was so
  great that it had upon her the effect of a fairy transformation.
  
  It was immediately apparent that the military man's spur had become
  entangled in the gimp which decorated the skirt of her dress.  He
  caught a view of her face.
  
  "I'll unfasten you in one moment, miss," he said, with new-born
  gallantry.
  
  "Oh no--I can do it, thank you," she hastily replied, and stooped for
  the performance.
  
  The unfastening was not such a trifling affair.  The rowel of the
  spur had so wound itself among the gimp cords in those few moments,
  that separation was likely to be a matter of time.
  
  He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the ground betwixt them
  threw the gleam from its open side among the fir-tree needles and the
  blades of long damp grass with the effect of a large glowworm.  It
  radiated upwards into their faces, and sent over half the plantation
  gigantic shadows of both man and woman, each dusky shape becoming
  distorted and mangled upon the tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing.
  
  He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them for a moment;
  Bathsheba looked down again, for his gaze was too strong to be
  received point-blank with her own.  But she had obliquely noticed
  that he was young and slim, and that he wore three chevrons upon his
  sleeve.
  
  Bathsheba pulled again.
  
  "You are a prisoner, miss; it is no use blinking the matter," said
  the soldier, drily.  "I must cut your dress if you are in such a
  hurry."
  
  "Yes--please do!" she exclaimed, helplessly.
  
  "It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a moment," and he unwound
  a cord from the little wheel.  She withdrew her own hand, but,
  whether by accident or design, he touched it.  Bathsheba was vexed;
  she hardly knew why.
  
  His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed coming to no end.
  She looked at him again.
  
  "Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face!" said the young
  sergeant, without ceremony.
  
  She coloured with embarrassment.  "'Twas unwillingly shown," she
  replied, stiffly, and with as much dignity--which was very little--as
  she could infuse into a position of captivity.
  
  "I like you the better for that incivility, miss," he said.
  
  "I should have liked--I wish--you had never shown yourself to me by
  intruding here!" She pulled again, and the gathers of her dress began
  to give way like liliputian musketry.
  
  "I deserve the chastisement your words give me.  But why should such
  a fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to her father's sex?"
  
  "Go on your way, please."
  
  "What, Beauty, and drag you after me?  Do but look; I never saw such
  a tangle!"
  
  "Oh, 'tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose
  to keep me here--you have!"
  
  "Indeed, I don't think so," said the sergeant, with a merry twinkle.
  
  "I tell you you have!" she exclaimed, in high temper.  "I insist upon
  undoing it.  Now, allow me!"
  
  "Certainly, miss; I am not of steel."  He added a sigh which had as
  much archness in it as a sigh could possess without losing its nature
  altogether.  "I am thankful for beauty, even when 'tis thrown to me
  like a bone to a dog.  These moments will be over too soon!"
  
  She closed her lips in a determined silence.
  
  Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether by a bold and desperate
  rush she could free herself at the risk of leaving her skirt bodily
  behind her.  The thought was too dreadful.  The dress--which she had
  put on to appear stately at the supper--was the head and front of her
  wardrobe; not another in her stock became her so well.  What woman
  in Bathsheba's position, not naturally timid, and within call of her
  retainers, would have bought escape from a dashing soldier at so dear
  a price?
  
  "All in good time; it will soon be done, I perceive," said her cool
  friend.
  
  "This trifling provokes, and--and--"
  
  "Not too cruel!"
  
  "--Insults me!"
  
  "It is done in order that I may have the pleasure of apologizing to
  so charming a woman, which I straightway do most humbly, madam," he
  said, bowing low.
  
  Bathsheba really knew not what to say.
  
  "I've seen a good many women in my time," continued the young man in
  a murmur, and more thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding
  her bent head at the same time; "but I've never seen a woman so
  beautiful as you.  Take it or leave it--be offended or like it--I
  don't care."
  
  "Who are you, then, who can so well afford to despise opinion?"
  
  "No stranger.  Sergeant Troy.  I am staying in this place.--There!
  it is undone at last, you see.  Your light fingers were more eager
  than mine.  I wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's no
  untying!"
  
  This was worse and worse.  She started up, and so did he.  How to
  decently get away from him--that was her difficulty now.  She sidled
  off inch by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see the
  redness of his coat no longer.
  
  "Ah, Beauty; good-bye!" he said.
  
  She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of twenty or thirty
  yards, turned about, and ran indoors.
  
  Liddy had just retired to rest.  In ascending to her own chamber,
  Bathsheba opened the girl's door an inch or two, and, panting, said--
  
  "Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village--sergeant somebody--
  rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good looking--a red coat with
  blue facings?"
  
  "No, miss ... No, I say; but really it might be Sergeant Troy home on
  furlough, though I have not seen him.  He was here once in that way
  when the regiment was at Casterbridge."
  
  "Yes; that's the name.  Had he a moustache--no whiskers or beard?"
  
  "He had."
  
  "What kind of a person is he?"
  
  "Oh! miss--I blush to name it--a gay man!  But I know him to be very
  quick and trim, who might have made his thousands, like a squire.
  Such a clever young dandy as he is!  He's a doctor's son by name,
  which is a great deal; and he's an earl's son by nature!"
  
  "Which is a great deal more.  Fancy!  Is it true?"
  
  "Yes.  And, he was brought up so well, and sent to Casterbridge
  Grammar School for years and years.  Learnt all languages while he
  was there; and it was said he got on so far that he could take down
  Chinese in shorthand; but that I don't answer for, as it was only
  reported.  However, he wasted his gifted lot, and listed a soldier;
  but even then he rose to be a sergeant without trying at all.  Ah!
  such a blessing it is to be high-born; nobility of blood will shine
  out even in the ranks and files.  And is he really come home, miss?"
  
  "I believe so.  Good-night, Liddy."
  
  After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts be permanently
  offended with the man?  There are occasions when girls like Bathsheba
  will put up with a great deal of unconventional behaviour.  When they
  want to be praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered,
  which is sometimes; and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom.
  Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba,
  with a dash of the second.  Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the
  ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome
  stranger who had evidently seen better days.
  
  So she could not clearly decide whether it was her opinion that he
  had insulted her or not.
  
  "Was ever anything so odd!" she at last exclaimed to herself, in her
  own room.  "And was ever anything so meanly done as what I did--to
  skulk away like that from a man who was only civil and kind!" Clearly
  she did not think his barefaced praise of her person an insult now.
  
  It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her
  she was beautiful.
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 24
target: Before going to bed, Bathsheba decides to walk around the house and the grounds to make sure everything is as it should be. She walks along a dark path and bumps into a man. She tries to walk away, but something is holding her back. Her dress has gotten caught on the spur of the man's boot. It takes them a moment to get untangled. The man uses her lantern to get them untangled, and then turns it on her face. He tells her that she has a pretty face. Bathsheba accuses him of untangling her skirts in order to keep her next to him for longer, but he denies it. Bathsheba just wants to get away from him. She's blushing from all his compliments and doesn't want to stand so close to a strange man in the middle of the night. She notices that the young man is wearing a soldier's uniform. Bathsheba finally runs home and asks her servant Liddy if she knows of a young soldier staying in the village. Liddy says that it might be a man named Sergeant Troy. Yup, that's the same Sergeant Troy who was supposed to marry Fanny Robin. We have no clue where Fanny is, and the only people in the world who know about her engagement to Troy are Boldwood and Oak. Bathsheba asks Liddy what kind of reputation Troy has, and Liddy answer that he's considered a lady-killer. But she also says that he comes from noble blood. His daddy was an earl. The chapter ends with Bathsheba thinking about Sergeant Troy and how he complimented her on her good looks: something the Boldwood has never done.