A Promise Under Pressure — Far from the Madding Crowd

Bathsheba drives home from the fair with Boldwood as escort because Gabriel is busy disposing of Boldwood's unsold sheep and Joseph's multiplying eye forbids the reins; she had meant to drive alone as she often did from Casterbridge Market. On the dark road she speaks freely of Troy's possible return and her duty to remarry only after seven years; Boldwood, half wild with hope, calls seven years the law's cruelty when only five remain of her widowhood. He urges that a woman need not sacrifice herself to a ghost, that she should wear brighter dress and not punish herself for Troy's sins, and grows tender enough to alarm her. Gabriel overtakes them at the toll-gate, takes the whip quietly, and lectures Bathsheba on risking night journeys without him; she is nettled by his cool practical tone when she wanted the old tenderness hinted at in better days. She reflects that if Gabriel had ever spoken of his old love she might have listened, but his advice about Boldwood ruffles her pride. Hardy triangulates three kinds of love: Boldwood's impatient calendar counting months toward possession, Bathsheba's proud grief and legal scruples, and Oak's restrained service that reads as indifference though it saves her skin and keeps the farm solvent.