Far From The Madding Crowd

Joseph Poorgrass collects the coffin from Casterbridge Union and begins his journey back. On the way back, he takes a short break to stop at the Buck’s Head Inn for a drink, where he encounters Coggan and Mark Clark. He has his drink, then says he is going to head on; however, the others remind him that Fanny is dead and, thus, in no hurry, so he might as well have another drink with them.

This continues on for some time, and the “longer Joseph Poorgrass remained, the less his spirit was troubled by the duties which devolved upon him this afternoon” (343). At six, Gabriel arrives and chastises Coggan, Joseph, and the others. Seeing that none of them were in a state to drive the wagon, Gabriel leaves and returns the wagon and coffin himself.

Fortunately, Gabriel thinks, only he and Boldwood ever came to know that Fanny had left to follow Troy, and his hope is that the truth won’t come out until after she has been buried. By the time he reaches Bathsheba’s, it is too late for a funeral; the parson tells him the funeral will have to be the next day, and he can either leave the body at the farm or bring it to the church. Gabriel prefers to take it to the church, but Bathsheba wishes to bring the coffin into the house for the evening. Gabriel gets some help to bring the coffin inside the house as requested, but before he leaves, he erases the chalk marking the coffin as containing “Fanny Robin and child” (348). 

Bathsheba is sitting up alone by the fire, having just dismissed Liddy, when Liddy returns to ask about a rumor she heard regarding Fanny, that Fanny’s coffin contains both her and her child. Bathsheba is shocked, particularly as only one name is on the coffin. However, she cannot get the rumor out of her mind given what she learned about her husband’s past.

Bathsheba walks to Gabriel’s cottage, hoping to speak with him as a friend, but is unable to knock once there. She instead wanders back to the house and decides that she must open the coffin to discover the truth. Upon opening it, she discovers both Fanny and Fanny’s deceased child.

She passes through various feelings of anger, jealousy, and distress. She is still with the coffin when Troy returns, unaware of what has happened. When he looks upon Fanny’s corpse, though, his demeanor drops. He drops to his knees, leans over, and gently kisses Fanny.

Unable to contain herself, Bathsheba launches herself at Troy, begging him not to kiss them but to kiss her instead. Troy refuses, though, telling her, “This woman is more to me, dead as she is, then ever you were, or are, or can be” (360). Bathsheba asks what she is to Troy then; Troy replies that she is nothing to him.

Bathsheba spends the night walking around Weatherbury, eventually settling near a swamp. Liddy finds her, telling her that she had heard Troy’s voice late at night and worried that something bad had happened to her as a result. Liddy tries to get her to come inside, but she tells her that she may never go back inside again; Liddy responds by fetching her some food and tea, as well as a bit more clothing for warmth.

Once Fanny’s body has been taken away, Bathsheba consents to returning to the house. She has Liddy and Maryann convert the attic into a small apartment and locks herself away in it for the remainder of the day, alternating between reading and looking out the window. At one point, she observes children suddenly stop their game and asks Liddy why they might have stopped; Liddy replies that someone has arrived from Casterbridge with a large gravestone, but she doesn’t know whose it is. 

Troy, that Monday morning, had collected as much money as he could, added it to the money Bathsheba had given him, then driven to Casterbridge to meet Fanny; however, unbeknownst to him, she had already passed away nearby. Believing she had stood him up yet again, rather than checking the Union, he angrily left for the Budmouth races. He began to reconsider throughout the day but arrived at home to find her body in the coffin.

The next morning, he arises at dawn, finds Fanny’s grave plot, and departs for Casterbridge. Once there, he finds a mason and has a special gravestone engraved for her, ordering it to be completed that day and sent to Weatherbury. At ten that night, Troy takes a basket of various kinds of flowers and begins planting them all around the grave. When it begins raining around midnight, he decides to leave the rest for the morning and falls asleep on a nearby porch. 

As Troy sleeps, the rain begins to flow with force through the church gargoyle, and the stream reaches directly into Fanny’s grave. The rising water undoes all of Troy’s work. Troy rises in the morning to find the flowers he planted the previous evening strewn about the cemetery, dismaying him greatly. Troy gives up his efforts, leaves the grave, and takes the high road out of town.

Although Bathsheba, still in the attic, had observed the light from Troy’s lantern the night before, she had not known that it was him. She and Liddy breakfast together; Bathsheba inquires about Troy and is told that he is on his way to Budmouth, as Laban Tall had seen him on that road earlier that day.

Relieved, Bathsheba goes to Fanny’s grave, finding Gabriel already there, along with the gravestone commissioned by Troy, reading “Erected by Francis Troy / In Beloved Memory of Fanny Robin” (384). Gabriel turns to gauge Bathsheba’s reaction, but she merely asks him to fill in the hole. As he does, she collects the flowers strewn about and replants them; she also asks Gabriel to have the gurgoyle’s spout turned to avoid a repeat of the accident, cleans the stone, and departs. 

Troy continues south toward Budmouth for a time, before stopping to bathe in a cove. However, an undercurrent sweeps him out to sea. Though swept far from the cove, he is rescued by a ship’s boat. They lend him clothes and agree to land him in the morning.

Bathsheba takes the lengthening disappearance of Troy “with a slight feeling of surprise, and a slight feeling of relief; yet neither sensation rose at any time far above the level commonly designated as indifference” (391). She presumed that he would be home again at one point, and along with that, that they would eventually lose the farm as a result. She “accepted her position, and waited coldly for the end” (392).

The Saturday after Troy’s departure, while in Casterbridge at the market, Bathsheba is informed that Troy has drowned. Bathsheba faints in disbelief. Boldwood, nearby, lifts her up and cares for her. Once she is well, she drives herself home.

She is greeted by Liddy, who has already heard the news and is preparing to dress her for mourning. However, Bathsheba denies that Troy is dead, arguing only that things should be different if he is truly dead. She remains convinced until the next week, when she is forced to confront both an eyewitness report of Troy being swept out to sea, and the fact that his clothes found on the shore suggests that his disappearance was unintended.

Bathsheba wonders briefly if Troy’s love for Fanny had pushed him to attempt suicide. Later, she comes back upon the lock of hair that had caused their earlier fight; she briefly considers burning it, then decides against it.

Bathsheba continues to operate the farm but is consumed by a general depression otherwise. As a result, Gabriel is finally installed, officially, as bailiff.

Most of Boldwood’s produce was discarded due to the heavy storm. He becomes the talk of the town, and it becomes known that Boldwood had been warned on numerous occasions of the impending storm, yet he simply didn’t care to do anything about it.

Boldwood finally snaps out of his stupor; realizing he needs help, he proposes to Gabriel that he take superintendence of both his and Bathsheba’s farms. Bathsheba initially objects, but Boldwood promises to provide Oak with his own horse to facilitate his labor, and the two eventually reach an agreement. So, Gabriel spends his days surveying the two farms, “the actual mistress of the one-half and the master of the other, sitting in their respective homes in gloomy and sad seclusion” (398).

Gabriel’s position, and thus the town’s view of him, begins to shift. He becomes a shareholder in Boldwood’s farm; between this and his substantial increase in wages from Bathsheba, he is much better off than he once was. However, he is considered a “near man”—rather than using his increased income to improve his lifestyle, he continues to live essentially the same spartan life as before.

Boldwood begins to wonder if Bathsheba will be willing to marry again in the future and presumes that if she will, it must be to him. At the next haymaking season, Boldwood uses the opportunity to seek out Liddy, who is assisting in the fields, to see what Bathsheba’s ideas are about remarrying. Liddy gets frustrated with his roundabout line of questioning but lets loose that Bathsheba once mentioned that she might remarry seven years from Troy’s disappearance.