The Shearing Supper and Second Proposal — Far from the Madding Crowd

At the shearing-supper a long table runs out from the lawn across the sill of the parlour window, so that Bathsheba sits at its head without mixing with the men. She is more excited than usual. She keeps the bottom seat empty and asks Gabriel to fill it, and when Boldwood arrives by arrangement, in a new coat and a white waistcoat, she asks Gabriel to move again, and he does so in silence. The dismissed bailiff Pennyways has also come, uninvited, and the workfolk later praise him warmly for having stolen nothing at all.

There are songs. Coggan sings of a lost love he does not care about, and Joseph Poorgrass, 'all but in liquor', begins a ballad about sowing the seeds of love until young Bob Coggan laughs through his nose and has his ears boxed. Then Bathsheba is asked for 'The Banks of Allan Water'. She sings it from the window with Gabriel's flute outside the sash and Boldwood's soft bass within, and the verse about a soldier seeking his bride is one that some of the listeners will remember for years. Gabriel reads Boldwood's manner: he looks at her only when the others look away, and turns aside when they look back.

She says good night, and Boldwood closes the sash and the shutters and stays inside with her. Gabriel wanders off under the scented trees. Behind the shutters the dignified farmer is kneeling in an armchair, holding her hand in both of his, and Bathsheba, who has triumphed without exactly wanting to, says she will try to love him but will not promise tonight. She asks him to wait five or six weeks, until he is back from his journey before harvest. 'It is enough,' he says, and goes out with a serene smile. She stays behind the shutters, frightened and a little pleased.