Muse

I'm loving this book, and you must be too since you've listened along this far. If you want to hear some of my other favourites, then check out the Sleepy Bookshelf premium feed. There are no ads, and you can try it free for seven days. You'll find a link in the show notes to learn more and sign up. 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 so much for coming tonight. This evening we'll be continuing, far from the madding crowd, but before we do, breathe in through your nose and fill your lungs completely, then gently exhale through your mouth, feel your stomach soften, your chest rise and fall effortlessly. Let go of any tightness in your shoulders and arms. Feel your hands gently resting, relaxed. Take a moment to imagine in a peaceful, calming scene. Maybe it's a cozy room with soft lighting or the gentle sound of rain. With each breath, feel your body becoming heavier and more relaxed.

the farm workers gathered in the malt house and criticized Bathsheba's decision to manage her own farm without a bailiff they believed her pride and independence would lead to failure although few acknowledged her intelligence and determination Gabriel arrived carrying weak, newborn lambs to warm them by the fire. When he learned the men had been speaking ill about Bathsheba, he firmly defended her, warning them not to criticize their mistress. Although Gabriel admitted he had hoped to become her bailiff, he accepted her decision and remained loyal. Then Farmer Baldwood entered the malt house and returned a letter that had been mistakenly delivered to him but was intended for Gabriel. The letter was from Fanny Robin who thanked Gabriel for helping her and repaid the money he had lent her. She revealed she was going to marry Sergeant Troy and asked Gabriel to keep the news a secret. it. Knowing he had been concerned about Fanny's whereabouts, Gabriel invited Baldwood to read the letter. As Gabriel returned to the field, Baldwood followed and showed him the handwriting in his anonymous Valentine's card, asking Gabriel if he could identify the writer. His heart sank. Gabriel's heart sank as he confirmed it was that of Miss Everdeen. Tonight, we pick up at an unusual church service, so just lie back and relax as I turn to the next pages of Far From The Madding Crowd. Chapter 16 All Saints and All Souls on a weekday morning a small congregation consisting mainly of women and girls rose from its knees in the moldy nave of a church called all saints in the distant barrack town before mentioned, at the end of a service, without a sermon.

They were about to disperse when a smart footstep entered the porch and came up to the central passage, arresting their attention. The step echoed with a ring unusual in a church. It was the clink of spurs. Everybody looked. A young cavalry soldier in a red uniform, with three chevrons of a sergeant upon his sleeve, strode up the aisle, with an embarrassment which was only the more marked by the intense vigour of his step and by the determination upon his face to show none. A slight flush had mounted his cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these women. But passing on through the chancel arch, he paused till he came close to the altar railing. Here, for a moment, he stood, alone. The officiating curate, who had not yet doffed his surplus, perceived the newcomer and followed him to the communion space. He whispered to the soldier, and then beckoned to the clerk, who in his turn whispered to an elderly woman, apparently his wife, and they also went up the chancel steps. "'Tis a wedding!" murmured some of the women, brightening. Let's wait. The majority again sat down. There was a creaking of machinery behind, and some of the young ones turned their heads. From the interior face of the west wall of the tower projected a little canopy, with a quarter jack and a small bell beneath it. the automaton being driven by the same clock machinery that struck the large bell in the tower. Between the tower and the church was a close scream, the door of which was kept shut during services, hiding this grotesque clockwork from sight. At present, however, the door was open,

And the egress of the jack, the blows on the bell, and the mannequin's retreat into the nook again, were visible to many, and audible throughout the church. The jack had struck half past eleven. Where's the woman? whispered some of the spectators. The young sergeant stood still, with the abnormal rigidity of the old pillars around. He faced the southeast, and was as silent as he was still. The silence grew to be a noticeable thing as the minutes went on, and nobody else appeared, and not a soul moved. The rattle of the quarterjack again from its niche, its blows for three quarters, its fussy retreat, were almost... painfully abrupt, and caused many of the congregation to start, palpably. I wonder where the woman is, a voice whispered again. There began now that slight shifting of feet, that artificial coughing among several, which betrays a nervous suspense. At length, there was a titter, but the soldier never moved. There he stood, his face to the southeast, upright as a column, his cap in his hand. The clock ticked on The women threw off their nervousness and titters and giggling became more frequent Then came a dead silence Everyone was waiting for the end Some persons may have noticed how extraordinarily the striking of quarters seems to quicken the flight of time. It was hardly credible that the Jack had not got wrong with the minutes. When the rattle began again, the puppet emerged, and the four quarters were struck, fitfully as before. One could almost be positive that there was a malicious leer upon the hideous creature's face, and a mischievous delight in its twitchings.

Then followed the dull and remote resonance of the twelve heavy strokes in the tower above. The women were impressed, and there was no giggle this time. The clergyman glided into the vestry, and the clerk vanished. The sergeant had not yet turned. Every woman in the church was waiting to see his face, and he appeared to know it. At last, he did turn and stalked resolutely down the nave, braving them all with a compressed lip. Two bowed and toothless old armsmen then looked at each other and chuckled, innocently enough, that the sound had a strange, weird effect in that place. Opposite to the church was a paved square, around which several overhanging wood buildings of old time cast a picturesque shade. The young man, on leaving the door, went to cross the square, when in the middle he met a little woman. The expression of her face, which had been one of intense anxiety, sank at the sight of his nearly to terror. Well, he said in a suppressed passion, fixedly looking at her.

Oh Frank, I made a mistake. I thought that the church with the spire was all saints, and I was at the door at half past eleven, to a minute as you said. I waited till a quarter to twelve, and found then I was in all souls, but I wasn't much frightened, for I thought it could be tomorrow as well.

You fool, for so fooling me. Say no more.

Shall it be tomorrow, Frank?

She asked, blankly. Tomorrow? And he gave vent to a hoarse laugh. I don't go through that experience again for some time, I warrant you. But after all, she expostulated in a trembling voice.

The mistake was not such a terrible thing. Now, dear Frank, when shall it be?

When? God knows, he said with a light irony. and, turning from her, walked rapidly away. Chapter 17 In the Marketplace On Saturday, Boldwood was in Custerbridge Market House, as usual, when the disturber of his dreams entered and became visible to him. Adam had awakened from his deep sleep, and behold, there was Eve. The farmer took courage and for the first time really looked at her. Material causes and emotional effects are not to be arranged in regular equation. The result from capital employed in the production of any movement of a mental nature is sometimes as tremendous as the cause itself is absurdly minute. When women are in a freakish mood, their usual intuition, either from carelessness or inherent defect, seemingly fails to teach them this, and hence it was Bathsheba was fated to be astonished today. Boldwood looked at her, not slyly, critically, or understandingly, but blankly at gaze, in the way a reaper looks up at a passing train as something foreign to his element, and but dimly understood. To Baldwood, women had been remote phenomena rather than necessary compliments. comets of such uncertain aspect, movement, and permanence, that whether their orbits were as geometrical, unchangeable, and as subject to laws as his own, or as absolutely erratic as they superficially appeared. He had not deemed it his duty to consider. He saw her black hair, her correct facial curves and profile, and the roundness of her chin and throat.

He saw then the side of her eyelids, eyes and lashes, and the shape of her ear. next he noticed her figure her skirt and the very soles of her shoes baldwood thought her beautiful but wondered whether he was right in his thought for it seemed impossible that this romance in the flesh if so sweet as he imagined could have been going on long without creating a commotion of delight among men and provoking more inquiry than Bathsheba had done, even though that was not a little. To the best of his judgment, neither nature nor art could improve this perfect one of an imperfect many. his heart began to move within him baldwood it must be remembered though 40 years of age had never before inspected a woman with the very center and force of his glance they had struck upon all his senses at wide angles was she really beautiful he could not assure himself that his opinion was true even now he furtively said to a neighbour is Miss Everdeen considered handsome oh yes she was a good deal noticed the first time she came if you remember a very handsome girl indeed A man is never more credulous than in receiving favourable opinions on the beauty of a woman he is half, or quite, in love with. A mere child's word on the point has the weight of an R.A.'s. Baldwood was now satisfied. And this charming woman had, in effect, said to him, Marry me. Why should she have done that strange thing? Baldwin's blindness to the difference between approving of what circumstances suggest and originating what they do not suggest was well-matched by Bathsheba's insensibility to the possibly great issues of little beginnings. she was at this moment coolly dealing with a dashing young farmer adding up accounts with him as indifferently as if his face had been the pages of a ledger

it was evident that such a nature as his had no attraction for a woman of Bathsheba's taste But Baldwood grew hot down to his hands with an incipient jealousy. He trod, for the first time, the threshold of the injured lover's hell. His first impulse was to go and thrust himself between them. This could be done, but only in one way. by asking to see a sample of her corn. Boldwood renounced the idea. He could not make that request. It was debasing loveliness to ask it to buy and sell, and jarred with his conceptions of her. All this time Bathsheba was conscious of having broken into that dignified stronghold at last. his eyes she knew were following her everywhere this was a triumph and had it come naturally such a triumph would have been the sweeter to her for this peaking delay but it had been brought about by misdirected ingenuity and she valued it only as she valued an artificial flower or a wax fruit. Being a woman with some good sense in reasoning on subjects wherein her heart was not involved, Bathsheba genuinely repented that a freak which had owed its existence as much to Lydie as to herself should ever have been undertaken to disturb the placidity of a man she respected too highly to deliberately tease. Since that day nearly formed the intention of begging his pardon on the very next occasion of their meeting, the worst features of this arrangement were that, if he thought she ridiculed him, an apology would increase the offence by being disbelieved. And if he thought she wanted him to woo her, it would read like additional evidence of her forwardness. Chapter 18. Boldwood in Meditation. Regret. baldwood was a tenant of what was called little weatherbury farm and his person was the nearest approach to aristocracy that this remoter quarter of the parish could boast of

genteel strangers whose god was their town who might happen to be compelled to linger about this nook for a day, heard the sound of light wheels, and prayed to see good society, to the degree of a solitary lord, or squire at the very least. But it was only Mr. Baldwood going out for the day. They heard the sound of wheels yet once more, and were reanimated to expectancy. It was only Mr. Baldwood coming home again. His house stood, recessed from the road, and the stables, which are to a farm what a fireplace is to a room, were behind, their lower portions being lost amid bushes of laurel. Inside the blue door, open halfway down. were to be seen at this time the backs and tails of half a dozen warm and contented horses standing in their stalls. And as thus viewed, they presented alternations of Rowan and Bay in shapes like a Moorish arch, the tail being a streak down the midst of each. Over these, and lost to the eye, gazing in from the outer light, the mouths of the same animals could be heard busily sustaining the above-named warmth and plumpness by quantities of oats and hay. The restless and shadowy figure of a colt wandered about a loose box at the end, whilst the steady grind of all the eaters was occasionally diversified by the rattle of a rope or the stamp of a foot. Pacing up and down at the heels of the animals was Farmer Boldwood himself. This place was his almonery and cloister in one. Here, after looking to the feeding of his four-footed dependents,

The celibate would walk and meditate of an evening till the moon's rays streamed in through the cobbed-webbed windows, or total darkness enveloped the scene. his square framed perpendicularity showed more fully now than in the crowd and bustle of the market house in this meditative walk his foot met the floor with heel and toe simultaneously And his fine, reddish-fleshed face was bent downwards, just enough to render obscure the still mouth and the well-rounded, though rather prominent and broad, chin. A few clear and thread-like horizontal lines were the only interruption to the otherwise smooth surface of his large forehead. The phases of Baldwood's life were ordinary enough, but his was not an ordinary nature. that stillness which struck casual observers more than anything else in his character and habit and seemed so precisely like the rest of inanation may have been the perfect balance of enormous antagonistic forces positives and negatives in fine adjustment. His equilibrium disturbed, he was in extremity at once. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him. A feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed. He had no light and careless touches in his constitution, either for good or for evil. Stern in the outlines of action, mild in the details, he was serious throughout all.

He saw no absurd sides to the follies of life, and thus though not quite companionable in the eyes of merry men and scoffers, and those to whom all things show life as a jest, he was not intolerable to the earnest and those acquainted with grief. Being a man who read all the dramas of life seriously if he failed to please when they were comedies there was no frivolous treatment to reproach him for when they chanced to end tragically. Bathsheba was as far from dreaming that the dark and silent shape upon which she had so carelessly thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she known Baldwood's moods, her blame would have been fearful, and the strain upon her heart, ineradicable. Moreover, had she known her present power for good or evil over this man, she would have trembled at her responsibility. Luckily for her present, unluckily for her future tranquility, her understanding had not yet told her what Baldwood was. Nobody knew entirely, for though it was possible to form guesses concerning his wild capabilities from old flood marks faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused them. Farmer Boldwood came to the stable door and looked forth across the level fields. Beyond the first enclosure was a hedge, and on the other side of this, a meadow belonging to Bathsheba's farm. It was now early spring, the time of going to grass with the sheep when they have the first feed of the meadows, before these are laid up for mowing. The wind, which had been blowing east for several weeks, had veered to the southward, and the middle of spring had come abruptly, almost without a beginning. It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the dryads to be waking for the season.

The vegetable world begins to move and swell, and the saps to rise, Till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still, after the bond and slavery of Frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pools all together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pygmy efforts. Baldwood, looking into the distant meadows, saw there three figures. They were those of Miss Everdeen, Shepherd Oak, and Caney Ball. When Bathsheba's figure shone upon the farmer's eyes, it lighted him up as the moon lights up a great tower. A man's body is as the shell or the tablet of his soul, as he is reserved or ingenuous, overflowing or self-contained. There was a change in Baldwood's exterior from its former impassableness, and his face showed that he was now living outside his defences for the first time, and with a fearful sense of exposure. It is the usual experience of strong natures when they love. At last he arrived at a conclusion. It was to go across and inquire boldly of her. The insulation of his heart, by reserve during these many years, without a channel of any kind for disposable emotion, had worked its effect. It has been observed more than once that the causes of love are chiefly subjective and Baldwood was living testimony to the truth of proposition. No mother existed. to absorb his devotion. No sister for his tenderness. No idle ties for sense.

He became surcharged with the compound which was genuine lover's love. he approached the gate of the meadow beyond it the ground was melodious with ripples and the sky with laughs the low bleating of the flock mingling with both both mistress and man were engaged in the operation of making a lamb take which is performed whenever a ewe has lost her own offspring one of the twins of another ewe being given her as a substitute Gabriel had skinned the dead lamb and was tying the skin over the body of the live lamb in the customary manner, whilst Bathsheba was holding open a little pen of four hurdles, into which the mother and foisted lamb were driven, where they would remain till the old sheep conceived in affection for the younger one. Bathsheba looked up at the completion of the manoeuvre and saw the farmer by the gate, where he was overhung by a willow tree in full bloom. Gabriel, to whom her face was the uncertain glory of an April day, was ever regardful of its faintest changes, and instantly discerned thereon the mark of some influence from without, in the form of a keenly self-conscious reddening. He also turned and beheld Baldwood. At once, connecting these signs with the letter Boldwood had shown him, Gabriel suspected her of some coquettish procedure begun by that means, and carried on since he knew not how. Farmer Boldwood had read the pantomime, denoting that they were aware of his presence, and the perception was as too much light turned upon his new sensibility. He was still in the road, and by moving on he hoped that neither would recognize that he had originally intended to enter the field.

He passed by with an utter and overwhelming sensation of ignorance, shyness, and doubt. Perhaps in her manner there were signs that she wished to see him. Perhaps not. He could not read a woman. The Kabbalah of this erotic philosophy seemed to consist of the subtlest meanings, expressed in misleading ways. Every turn, look, word and accent contained a mystery quite distinct from its obvious import, and not one had ever been pondered by him until now. As for Bathsheba, she was not deceived into the belief that Farmer Boldwood had walked by on business or in idleness. She collected the probabilities of the case and concluded that she was, herself, responsible for Baldwood's appearance there. It troubled her much to see what a great flame a little wildfire was likely to kindle. Bathsheba was no schemer for marriage, nor was she deliberately a trifler with the affections of men, And a senses experience on seeing an actual flirt after observing her would have been a feeling of surprise that Bathsheba could be so different from such a one, and yet so like what a flirt is supposed to be. She resolved never again, by look or by sign. to interrupt the steady flow of this man's life. But a resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

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

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.