Her beauty, which, whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest, had in its animated phases moved him to earnest; and though his seriousness was less than she imagined, it was probably more than he imagined himself.
Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in half-suspicious accents of feeling,
"Can it be!
O, how can it be, that you care for me, and so suddenly,!
You have seen so little of me: I may not be really so nice-looking as I seem to you.
Please, do take it; O, do!
I cannot and will not have it.
Believe me, your generosity is too great.
I have never done you a single kindness, and why should you be so kind to me?"
A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but it was again suspended, and he looked at her with an arrested eye.
The truth was, that as she now stood — excited, wild, and honest as the day — her alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it that he was quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as false.
He said mechanically, "Ah, why?" and continued to look at her.
"And my workfolk see me following you about the field, and are wondering.
O, this is dreadful!" she went on, unconscious of the transmutation she was effecting.
"I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it as my one poor patent of nobility." he broke out, bluntly; "but, upon my soul, I wish you would now.
Without any shamming, come!
Don't deny me the happiness of wearing it for my sake?
But you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are."
"No, no; don"t say so!
I have reasons for reserve which I cannot explain." "bet it be, then, let it be." he said, receiving back the watch at last;
"I must be leaving you now.
And will you speak to me for these few weeks of my stay?"
"Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will!
O, why did you come and disturb me so!"
"Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself.
Such things have happened.
Well, will you let me work in your fields?" he coaxed.
"Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you."
"Miss Everdene, I thank you.
"No, no."
"Good-bye!"
The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head, saluted, and returned to the distant group of haymakers.
Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now.
Her heart erratically flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot, and almost tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, O, what have I done!
What does it mean!
I wish I knew how much of it was true!
CHAPTER XXVII
HIVING THE BEES
THE Weatherbury bees were late in their swarming this year.
It was in the latter part of June, and the day after the interview with Troy in the hayfield, that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, watching a swarm in the air and guessing their probable settling place.
Not only were they late this year, but unruly.
Sometimes throughout a whole season all the swarms would alight on the lowest attainable bough — such as part of a currant-bush or espalier apple-tree; next year they would, with just the same unanimity, make straight off to the uppermost member of some tall, gaunt costard, or quarrenden, and there defy all invaders who did not come armed with ladders and staves to take them.
This was the case at present.
Bathsheba's eyes, shaded by one hand, were following the ascending multitude against the unexplorable stretch of blue till they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy trees spoken of.
A process somewhat analogous to that of alleged formations of the universe, time and times ago, was observable.
The bustling swarm had swept the sky in a scattered and uniform haze, which now thickened to a nebulous centre: this glided on to a bough and grew still denser, till it formed a solid black spot upon the light.
The men and women being all busily engaged in saving the hay — even Liddy had left the house for the purpose of lending a hand — Bathsheba resolved to hive the bees herself, if possible.
She had dressed the hive with herbs and honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook, made herself impregnable with armour of leather gloves, straw hat, and large gauze veil — once green but now faded to snuff colour — and ascended a dozen rungs of the ladder.
At once she heard, not ten yards off, a voice that was beginning to have a strange power in agitating her.
"Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should not attempt such a thing alone."