Bathsheba Promises an Answer by Christmas — Far from the Madding Crowd

Oak was meant to drive Bathsheba home from the fair, because Joseph Poorgrass is suffering from his old complaint, a multiplying eye. But Oak is busy with the unsold flocks, and she decides to drive herself, telling nobody. Then she falls in with Boldwood at the refreshment tent, and finds it impossible to refuse when he offers to ride beside her as escort. She is alarmed by the theft in the tent and truly grateful, though she would have chosen Gabriel's company as more proper. They go down from the moonlit hill into the lowlands, with the lights of the fair above them like a camp in heaven. Bathsheba can see his devotion has not faded, and her pity makes her kind in a way that looks almost like tenderness. It is the worst thing she could have done, for it feeds his dream of Jacob's seven years of service.

Two or three miles on, after talk of the fair and of Oak's usefulness, Boldwood asks if she will marry again. She says Troy's death was never proved. He pushes: in six years the law will set her free, and he asks for a promise, pleading that she owes him amends. Bathsheba says she does not love him and fears she never will, and she remembers his outburst on the Yalbury Road. All she will say is that she will never marry another man while he wishes it, and, pressed again, that she will consider her answer by Christmas. As the weeks run down she grows more anxious, and one day, over the accounts, it all comes out to Gabriel. She believes Boldwood will go out of his mind if she refuses, and that she holds his future in her hand. Oak's advice is plain. He sees no harm in a cold-hearted agreement made to repair a wrong, and thinks the real sin would be marrying a man she did not love.

She says goodnight and leaves, and it is then that a small sting appears which she will not name. Oak did not once say he wished her free so that he might marry her himself, nor that he could wait for her as well as Boldwood. Boldwood has Christmas to wait for. Bathsheba has the advice she asked for, and it ruffles her all the afternoon.