Muse

Thanks for listening tonight. If you'd like to listen ad-free and get access to exclusive bonus episodes, check out our Sleepy Bookshelf premium feed in the show notes. Hello, it's Elizabeth, and I'm excited to share with you the newest show from Slumber Studios. It's called Sleepy History, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Intriguing stories, people, mysteries and events from history, delivered in a supremely calming atmosphere. Explore the legend of El Dorado. See what life was like for the Roman gladiators. Uncover the myths and mysteries of Stonehenge. You'll find interesting but relaxing episodes like these on Sleepy History and the same great production quality you've come to know and love from The Sleepy Bookshelf. So check it out. And perhaps you'll have another way to get a good night's rest. Just search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player. good evening and welcome to the sleepy bookshelf where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book i'm elizabeth your host thank you for being here with me tonight as we continue far from the maddened crowd. But before we do, gently close your eyes and picture yourself walking through a peaceful meadow where the evening breeze is soft and every step feels light and effortless. Ahead a quiet lake reflects the stars like tiny diamonds scattered across still water With each slow breath, imagine the gentle ripples carrying away every thought, every worry and every trace of tension The cool night air fills your lungs with calm while the peaceful silence wraps around you. Stay here, feeling safe, still and at ease while I recap our last episode.

As the men filed out of the malt house, they were interrupted by alarming news. Bathsheba had discovered her dishonest bailiff, Pennyways, stealing barley, and dismissed him. Soon afterwards, even more troubling news spread that her young servant, Fanny Robin, had mysteriously disappeared. Bathsheba organised a quiet search of the neighbouring villages suspecting Fanny may have gone to meet a soldier she had been secretly seeing The following morning Bathsheba and her companion Liddy Smallbury sorted through the belongings left behind by her late uncle A visit from the wealthy neighbouring farmer William Baldwood caught Bathsheba by surprise, but feeling untidy from her work, she refused to see him. Once he had left, Liddy explained that Baldwood had helped Fanny when she was younger and described him as handsome, a wealthy bachelor who had resisted every woman's attempts to win his affection Bathsheba admitted that one man had once wished to marry her but she had refused him and before they could say more the farm workers arrived to report to their new mistress and that is where we pick up tonight so just lie back and relax as I turn to the next pages of Far From The Madding Crowd I'll see you next time. Chapter 10 Mistress and Men Half an hour later, Bathsheba, in finished dress, and followed by Lydie, entered the upper end of the old hall to find that her men had all deposited themselves on a long form and a settle at the lower extremity. She sat down at a table and opened the timebook, pen in her hand, with a canvas money bag beside her. From this, she poured a small heap of coin. Liddy chose a position at her elbow and began to sew

sometimes pausing and looking round or with the air of a privileged person taking up one of the half-sovereigns lying before her and surveying it merely as a work of art while strictly preventing her countenance from expressing any wish to possess it as money Now before I begin, men, said Bathsheba, I have two matters to speak of. The first is that the bailiff is dismissed for thieving, and that I have formed a resolution to have no bailiff at all, but to manage everything with my own head and hands. The men breathed an audible breath of amazement. amazement. The next matter is, have you heard anything of Fanny? Nothing, Mum. Have you done anything? I met Farmer Boldwood, said Jacob Smallbury, and I went with him and two of his men and dragged New Mill Pond, but we found nothing. And the new shepherd had been up to Buck's Head by Yolbury, thinking she'd gone there but nobody'd seen her, said Laban tall. Hasn't William Smallbury been to Casterbridge? Yes, ma'am, but he's not yet come home. He promised to be back by six. It wants a quarter to six at present, said Bathsheba, looking at her watch. I dare say he'll be indirectly. Well, now then, she looked into the book. Uh, Joseph Poorgrass, are you there? Yes, sir, ma'am, I mean, said the person addressed. I be the personal name of Poorgrass. And what are you? Nothing in my own eye, in the eye of other people. Well, I don't say it, though public thought will out. What do you do on the farm? I do do carting things all the year, and in seed time I shoot the rooks and sparrows, and helps at pig killing, sir. How much to you? Please nine and nine pence, and a good half penny, which was a bad one, sir. Ma'am, I mean. Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings, in addition as a small present, as I am a newcomer. Bathsheba blushed slightly at the sense of being generous in public and Henry Frey, who had drawn up towards her chair,

lifted his eyebrows and fingers to express amazement on a small scale. How much do I owe you? That man in the corner, what's your name? continued Bathsheba. a few moon mom said a singular framework of clothes with nothing of any consequence inside them which advanced with the toes in no definite direction forwards but turned in or out as they chanced to swing matthew mark did you say speak out i shall not hurt you inquired the young farmer kindly. Matthew Moon, men, said Henry Frey correctingly from behind her chair, to which point he had edged himself. Matthew Moon, murmured Bathsheba, turning her bright eyes to the book. A ten and two pence half-penny is the sum put down to you, I see. Yes, Mrs., said Matthew, as the rustle of wind among dead.

leaves. Here it is. And ten shillings. Now the next. Andrew Randall, you are a new man,

I hear. How come you to leave your last farm? P-p-p-p-p-p-p-please-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s and other iniquities to the squire and concussed him as well as you or I but he can't speak a common speech to save his life.

Andrew Randall, here's yours. Finish thanking me in a day or two. A temperance, Miller? Oh, here's another. Soberness. Both women, I suppose? Yes, here we be, I believe.

was echoed in shrill unison.

What have you been doing? Tendin' thrasher machine and wimblin' hay barns and say an oosh to the cocks and ends when they go up your seeds and plantin' early flower balls and Thompson's wonderfuls with a dibble. Ah, yes, I see. Are they satisfactory women?

She inquired softly of Henry Frey. Oh, ma'am, don't ask me. Yielding women as scarlet a pair as ever was, groaned Henry under his breath. Sit down. Ooh, mem, sit down. Joseph Paulgrass in the background twitched, and his lips became dry with fear of some terrible consequences, as he saw Bathsheba summarily speaking and Henry slinking off to a corner.

Now the next, a laban tall, you'll stay on working for me?

For you, anybody pays me well, mum, replied the young married man. True, the man must live, said a woman in the back quarter who had just entered with clicking patterns. What woman is that? Bathsheba asked. "'I be his laughful wife,' continued the voice with greater prominence of manner and tone. This lady called herself five and twenty, looked thirty, passed as thirty-five, and was forty. She was a woman who never, like some newly married, showed conjugal tenderness in public, perhaps because she had none to show. "'Oh, you are?' said Bathsheba. "'Well, Laban, will you stay on?' "'Yes, he'll stay, ma'am,' said again the shrill tongue of Laban's lawful wife.

"'Well, he can speak for himself, I suppose. "'Oh, Lord, not he, ma'am. A simple tool. Well enough. But a poor gawk-hammer mortal,'

The wife replied, laughed the married man with a hideous effort of appreciation, for he was as irrepressibly good-humoured under ghastly snubs as a parliamentary candidate on the hustings. The names remaining were called in the same manner. Now, I think I have done with you, said Bathsheba, closing the book and shaking back a stray twine of hair.

Has William Smallbury returned?

No, ma'am. The new shepherd will want a man under him, suggested Henry Frey, trying to make himself official again by a sideway approach towards her chair.

Oh, he will? Uh, who can he have?

Young Cain Ball is a very good lad, Henry said. And Shepherd Oak don't mind his youth? He added, turning with an apologetic smile to the shepherd, who had just appeared on the scene and was now leaning against the doorpost with his arms folded. No, I don't mind that, said Gabriel.

"'How did Cain come by such a name?' asked Bathsheba.

"'Oh, you see, Mem, his poor mother, not being a scripture-read woman, made a mistake at his christening, thinking.'" twas Abel killed Cain, and called him Cain meaning Abel all the time. The parson put it right but was too late, for the name could never be got rid of in the parish. It is very unfortunate for the boy. It is rather unfortunate. Yes, however, we soften it down as much as we can and call him Caney. A poor widow woman, she cried her heart out about it almost. She was brought up by a very even father and mother who never sent her to church or school, and it shows how the sins of parents are visited upon the children, ma'am. Mr. Frey here drew up his features to the mild degree of melancholy required when the persons involved in the given misfortune do not belong

to your own family. Very well, then. Caney ball to be under Shepard? And you quite understand

your duties? You, I mean, Gabriel Oak. Quite well. I thank you, Miss Everdeen, said Shepherd Oak from the doorpost. If I don't, I'll inquire. Gabriel was rather staggered by the remarkable coolness of her manner. Certainly nobody without previous information would have dreamt that Oak and the handsome woman before whom he stood had ever been other than strangers. but perhaps her heir was the inevitable result of the social rise which had advanced her from a cottage to a large house and fields. The case is not unexampled in high places when in the writings of the later poets, Jove and his family are found to have moved from their cramped quarters on the peak of Olympus into the wide sky above it. Their words show a proportionate increase of arrogance and reserve. Footsteps were heard in the passage, combining in their character the qualities of both weight and measure, rather at the expense of velocity. here's billy smallbury coming from casterbridge and what's the news said bathshaba as william after marching to the middle of the hall took a handkerchief from his hat and wiped his forehead from its center to its remoter boundaries i should have been sooner miss he said if it hadn't been for the weather. He then stamped with each foot severely, and on looking down at his boots were perceived to be clogged with snow. Come at last, is it? said Henry. Well, what about Fanny? said Bathsheba. Well, ma'am, in row numbers, she's run away with the soldiers, said William. No, not a steady girl like Fanny. I tell you all particulars when I got to Casterbridge Barracks they said the 11th Dragoon guards be gone away and new troops have come. The 11th left last week for Melchester and onwards. The route came from government like a thief in the night. As is his nature, too, and afore the eleventh knew it almost, they were on the march. They passed near here. Gabriel had listened with interest. I saw them go, he said. Yes, continued William. They pranced down the street playing the girl I

left behind me, so just said in glorious notes of triumph. Every look arounds inside shook with the blows of the great drum to his deepest vitals and there was not a dry eye through the town among the public houses people and the nameless women but they're not gone to any war no ma'am but they began to take the places of them who may she's very close connected and so i said to myself fanny's young man was one of those regimen and she's gone after him there ma'am that's it in black and white. Did you find out his name? No. Nobody knew it. I believe he was higher in rank than a private. Gabriel remained musing and said nothing. He was in doubt.

Well, we are not likely to know more tonight at any rate, said Bathsheba.

but one of you had better run across to farmer baldwoods and tell him that much she then rose but before retiring addressed a few words to them with a pretty dignity to which her morning dress added a soberness that was hardly to be found in the words themselves

now mind you have a mistress instead of a master i don't yet know my powers or my talents in farming, but I shall do my best. And if you serve me well, so shall I serve you. Don't any unfair ones among you, if there are any such, but I hope not, suppose that because I am a woman I don't understand the difference between bad, goings-on, and good. Noam. All. Liddy.

Excellent, well said

I shall be up before you are awake I shall be afield before you are up And I shall have breakfasted before you are afield In short, I shall astonish you all

Yes, and all

And so good night

All Good night, ma'am then this small thesmothet stepped away from the table and surged out of the hall her black dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratching noise upon the floor liddy elevating her feelings to the occasion from a sense of grandeur floated off behind Bathsheba, with a milder dignity, not entirely free from travesty. And the door was closed. Chapter 11 Outside the Barracks Snow A meeting For dreariness, nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of a certain town and military station, many miles north of Weatherbury, at a later hour on this same snowy evening, if that may be called a prospect of which the chief constituent was darkness. it was a night when sorrow may come to the brightest without causing any great sense of incongruity when with impressible persons love becomes solicitousness hope sinks to misgiving and faith to hope. When the exercise of memory does not stir feelings of regret at opportunities for ambition that have been passed by and anticipation does not prompt to enterprise. The scene was a public path bordered on the left hand by a river behind which rose a high wall. On the right was a tract of land, partly meadow and partly moor, reaching at its remote verge to a wide, undulating upland. The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind than amid woodland scenery. Still, to a close observer, they are just as perceptible. The difference is that their media of manifestation are less trite and familiar than such well-known ones as the bursting of the buds or the fall of the leaf.

Many are not so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to imagine in considering the general torpidity of a moor or waste. Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively observed the retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, a rising of fogs, The embrowning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow. This climax of the series had been reached tonight on the aforesaid more, and for the first time in the season, its irregularities were forms without features, suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing, and without more character than that of being the limit of something else, the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic skyful of crowding flakes, the mead and maw momentarily received additional clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast arch of cloud above was strangely low, and formed as it were the roof of a large, dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its floor. for the instinctive thought was that the snow lining, the heavens, and that encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass, without any intervening stratum of air at all. We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics, which were flatness in respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall behind it, and darkness as to both. These features made up the mass. If anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if anything could be gloomier than the wall, it was the river beneath. The indistinct summit of the façade was notched and pronged by chimneys here and there,

and upon its face were faintly signified the oblong shapes of windows, though only in the upper part. Below, down to the water's edge, the flat was unbroken by hole or projection. An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in the open air, and being overlaid with several inches of muffling snow, had lost its voice for the time. About this hour the snow abated. Ten flakes fell where twenty had fallen, and then one had the room of ten. Not long after, a form moved by the brink of the river. By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer might have seen that it was small. This was all that was positively discoverable, though it seemed human. The shape went slowly along but without much exertion, for the snow, though sudden, was not as yet more than two inches deep. At this time, some words were spoken aloud. One, two, three, four, five. Between each utterance, the little shape advanced about half a dozen yards. It was evident now that the windows high in the wall were being counted. The word five represented the fifth window from the end of the wall. Here the spot stopped and dwindled smaller. The figure was stooping. Then a morsel of snow flew across the river towards the fifth window. It smacked against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. the throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman no man who had ever seen a bird rabbit or squirrel in his childhood could possibly have thrown with such utter

other imbecility as was shown here. Another attempt, and another, till by degrees the wall must have become pimpled with the adhering lumps of snow. At last one fragment struck the fifth window. The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep, smooth sort which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small whirlpool. Nothing was heard in reply to the signal but the gurgle and cluck of one of these invisible wheels, together with a few small sounds which a sad man would have called moans. and a happy man, laughter, caused by the flapping of the waters against trifling objects in other parts of the stream. The window was struck again in the same manner. Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the window. This was followed by a voice from the same quarter. Who's there? The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise. The high wall being that of a barrack, and marriage being looked upon with disfavour in the army. Acinations and communications had probably been made across the river before tonight. Is it Sergeant Troy? said the blurred spot in the snow, tremulously. This person was so much like a mere shade upon the earth, and the other speaker so much a part of the building, that one would have said the wall was holding a conversation with the snow. Yes, came suspiciously from the shadow. What girl are you? Oh, Frack, don't you know me? said the spot. Your wife, Fanny Robin. Fanny? said the wall in utter astonishment. Yes, said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion. There was something in the woman's tone which is not that of the wife, and there was a manner in the man which is rarely a husband's. The dialogue went on.

How did you come here?

I asked which was your window. Forgive me.

I did not expect you tonight. Indeed, I did not think you would come at all. It was a wonder you found me here. I am orderly tomorrow.

You said I was to come.

Well, I said that you might.

Yes. I mean that I might. You are glad to see me, friend.

Oh, yes, of course.

Can you come to me?

My dear fan, no. The bugle has sounded, the barric gates are closed, and I have no leave. We are all of us as good as in the country jail till tomorrow morning.

Then I shan't see you till then.

The words were in a faltering tone of disappointment. How did you get here from Weatherbury?

I walked. Some part of the way. The rest by the carriers.

I'm surprised.

Yes. So am I. And Frank, when will it be?

What?

That you promised.

I don't quite recollect.

Oh, you do. Don't speak like that. It weighs me to the earth. makes me say what ought to be said first by you.

Never mind, just say it.

How must I? It is. When shall we be married, Frank?

Oh, I see. Well, you have to get the proper clothes.

I have money. Will it be by bans or license?

Bans, I should think.

Am we to live in two parishes?

Do we? What then?

My lodgings are in St. Mary's, and this is not. So they will have to be published in both.

Is that the law?

Yes. Frank, you think me forward, I'm afraid. Don't, dear Frank, will you? For I love you so. and you said lots of times you would marry me and I I

Don't cry now it is foolish if I said so of course I will

And shall I put up the bands in my parish? And will you in yours?

Yes

Tomorrow?

Not tomorrow, we settle in a few days

You have the permission of the officers?

No, not yet.

How was it? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge.

The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming like this is so sudden and unexpected.

Yes. Yes, it is. It was wrong of me to worry you up. I'll go away now. Will you come and see me tomorrow? At Mrs. Twill's, in North Street. I don't like to come to the barracks. There are bad women about, and they think me one.

Quite so. I'll come to you, my dear. Good night.

Good night, Frank. Good night.

And the noise was again heard of a window closing. The little spot moved away. When she passed the corner, a subdued exclamation was heard inside the wall. Ho-ho, Sergeant! Ho-ho! An expostulation followed, but it was indistinct, and it became lost amid a low peal of laughter, which was hardly distinguishable. from the gurgle of the tiny whirlpools outside.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.