t of South Wessex. In returning from market it is usual for the
farmers and other gig-gentry to alight at the bottom and walk up.

One Saturday evening in the month of October Bathsheba's vehicle was
duly creeping up this incline. She was sitting listlessly in the
second seat of the gig, whilst walking beside her in a farmer's
marketing suit of unusually fashionable cut was an erect, well-made
young man. Though on foot, he held the reins and whip, and
occasionally aimed light cuts at the horse's ear with the end of the
lash, as a recreation. This man was her husband, formerly Sergeant
Troy, who, having bought his discharge with Bathsheba's money, was
gradually transforming himself into a farmer of a spirited and very
modern school. People of unalterable ideas still insisted upon
calling him "Sergeant" when they met him, which was in some degree
owing to his having still retained the well-shaped moustache of his
military days, and the soldierly bearing inseparable from his form
and training.

"Yes, if it hadn't been for that wretched rain I should have cleared
two hundred as easy as looking, my love," he was saying. "Don't you
see, it altered all the chances? To speak like a book I once read,
wet weather is the narrative, and fine days are the episodes, of our
country's history; now, isn't that true?"

"But the time of year is come for changeable weather."

"Well, yes. The fact is, these autumn races are the ruin of
everybody. Never did I see such a day as 'twas! 'Tis a wild open
place, just out of Budmouth, and a drab sea rolled in towards us like
liquid misery. Wind and rain--good Lord! Dark? Why, 'twas as black
as my hat before the last race was run. 'Twas five o'clock, and
you couldn't see the horses till they were almost in, leave alone
colours. The ground was as heavy as lead, and all judgment from a
fellow's experience went for nothing. Horses, riders, people, were
all blown about like ships at sea. Three booths were blown over,
and the wretched folk inside crawled out upon their hands and knees;
and in the next field were as many as a dozen hats at one time. Ay,
Pimpernel regularly stuck fast, when about sixty yards off, and when
I saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart against the lining
of my ribs, I assure you, my love!"

"And you mean, Frank," said Bathsheba, sadly--her voice was painfully
lowered from the fulness and vivacity of the previous summer--"that
you have lost more tha