Tangled in the Dark — Far from the Madding Crowd

Among the duties Bathsheba assumed when she dismissed her bailiff is the nightly round of the homestead, lantern in hand, checking stalls and gates with a policeman's coolness. Gabriel almost constantly precedes her on this route, watching her affairs with tender devotion she barely registers; Hardy notes that women bewail men's fickleness yet often snub constancy. After inspecting the dairy cows she crosses the young fir plantation, black as Egypt at midnight, and hears footsteps. Her skirt catches on a spur; a masculine voice above her head offers help. Sergeant Troy opens her dark lantern and stands brilliant in brass and scarlet, a fairy transformation after she expected some sinister villager. His spur has wound itself in her dress gimp; untangling takes time, flirtation, and his refusal to hurry. He calls her beautiful to her face, praises her with barefaced directness, names himself Sergeant Troy, and wishes the knot were one there is no untying. Bathsheba sidles away inch by inch until she can run indoors and pant at Liddy's door, asking whether a handsome sergeant is staying in the village. Liddy identifies Francis Troy: doctor's son, grammar-school prodigy, gifted wastrel, gay man who rose to sergeant without trying. Bathsheba cannot decide whether she was insulted or merely civilly addressed, and Hardy closes with the fatal omission: Boldwood never once told her she was beautiful, and Troy's praise rewires her judgment overnight.