Troy at the Upper Window — Far from the Madding Crowd

Very early next morning, in a time of sun and dew, with the creepers about the old manor-house bowed under their drops, Gabriel and Coggan pass the village cross on their way to the fields. Before the clock strikes five, half hidden behind an elder bush, they see an upper casement open and a handsome man lean out. His red jacket is thrown on and not buttoned, and he looks east and then west like a man making his first survey of his property. It is Troy. "She has married him!" says Coggan. Gabriel has already seen, and has turned his back. Coggan tells him he looks like a corpse.

Gabriel's mind runs ahead to the years of repentance. Why was it done so secretly? It was not Bathsheba's way to do things furtively. With all her faults she was candour itself. Could she have been entrapped? Troy hails them cheerfully, and Gabriel decides that, the deed being done, the greatest kindness to her is to put the best face on it. He answers in a ghastly voice. Troy chatters on about sash windows and papering the old oak walls, since creation and preservation do not do well together. He asks Coggan whether madness has ever run in Mr Boldwood's family, and then waves the question away. He throws half-a-crown for the men to drink his health. Gabriel lets it fall. Coggan catches it, and warns him that the man will buy his discharge and be master here.

Boldwood rides by. His face has lost its colour, the veins stand out on his forehead, and the lines round his mouth are sharper. He sits erect, with his head turned to neither side, his elbows steady, and his hat brim level, until he sinks over the hill. For a moment Gabriel rises above his own grief. Troy has been talking of cheerful rooms, and Boldwood rides past without turning his head.