e middle of Boldwood's
Christmasing!"

"H'm, yes. I expect I shall not be a very welcome guest if he has
her there," said the sergeant, with a slight laugh. "A sort of
Alonzo the Brave; and when I go in the guests will sit in silence and
fear, and all laughter and pleasure will be hushed, and the lights in
the chamber burn blue, and the worms--Ugh, horrible!--Ring for some
more brandy, Pennyways, I felt an awful shudder just then! Well,
what is there besides? A stick--I must have a walking-stick."

Pennyways now felt himself to be in something of a difficulty, for
should Bathsheba and Troy become reconciled it would be necessary
to regain her good opinion if he would secure the patronage of her
husband. "I sometimes think she likes you yet, and is a good woman
at bottom," he said, as a saving sentence. "But there's no telling
to a certainty from a body's outside. Well, you'll do as you like
about going, of course, sergeant, and as for me, I'll do as you tell
me."

"Now, let me see what the time is," said Troy, after emptying his
glass in one draught as he stood. "Half-past six o'clock. I shall
not hurry along the road, and shall be there then before nine."

CHAPTER LIII

CONCURRITUR--HORAE MOMENTO

Outside the front of Boldwood's house a group of men stood in the
dark, with their faces towards the door, which occasionally opened
and closed for the passage of some guest or servant, when a golden
rod of light would stripe the ground for the moment and vanish again,
leaving nothing outside but the glowworm shine of the pale lamp amid
the evergreens over the door.

"He was seen in Casterbridge this afternoon--so the boy said," one of
them remarked in a whisper. "And I for one believe it. His body was
never found, you know."

"'Tis a strange story," said the next. "You may depend upon't that
she knows nothing about it."

"Not a word."

"Perhaps he don't mean that she shall," said another man.

"If he's alive and here in the neighbourhood, he means mischief,"
said the first. "Poor young thing: I do pity her, if 'tis true.
He'll drag her to the dogs."

"O no; he'll settle down quiet enough," said one disposed to take a
more hopeful view of the case.

"What a fool she must have been ever to have had anything to do with
the man! She is so self-willed and independent too, that one is more
minded to say it serves her right than pity her."

"No, no. I don't hold with 'ee there. She was