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CHAPTER XLVII
ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE
TROY wandered along towards the south. A composite feeling,
made up of disgust with the, to him, humdrum tediousness of
a farmer's life, gloomily images of her who lay in the
churchyard, remorse, and a general averseness to his wife's
society, impelled him to seek a home in any place on earth
save Weatherbury. The sad accessories of Fanny's end
confronted him as vivid pictures which threatened to be
indelible, and made life in Bathsheba's house intolerable.
At three in the afternoon he found himself at the foot of a
slope more than a mile in length, which ran to the ridge of
a range of hills lying parallel with the shore, and forming
a monotonous barrier between the basin of cultivated country
inland and the wilder scenery of the coast. Up the hill
stretched a road nearly straight and perfectly white, the
two sides approaching each other in a gradual taper till
they met the sky at the top about two miles off. Throughout
the length of this narrow and irksome inclined plane not a
sign of life was visible on this garish afternoon. Troy
toiled up the road with a languor and depression greater
than any he had experienced for many a day and year before.
The air was warm and muggy, and the top seemed to recede as
he approached.
At last he reached the summit, and a wide and novel prospect
burst upon him with an effect almost like that of the
Pacific upon Balboa's gaze. The broad steely sea, marked
only by faint lines, which had a semblance of being etched
thereon to a degree not deep enough to disturb its general
evenness, stretched the whole width of his front and round
to the right, where, near the town and port of Budmouth, the
sun bristled down upon it, and banished all colour, to
substitute in its place a clear oily polish. Nothing moved
in sky, land, or sea, except a frill of milkwhite foam along
the nearer angles of the shore, shreds of which licked the
contiguous stones like tongues.
He descended and came to a small basin of sea enclosed by
the cliffs. Troy's nature freshened within him; he thought
he would rest and bathe here before going farther. He
undressed and plunged in. Inside the cove the water was
uninteresting to a swimmer, being smooth as a pond, and to
get a little of the ocean swell, Troy presently swam between
the two projecting spurs of rock which formed the pillars of
Hercules to this miniature Mediterranean. Unfortunately for
Troy a current unknown to him existed outside, which,
unimportant to craft of any burden, was awkward for a
swimmer who might be taken in it unawares. Troy found
himself carried to the left and then round in a swoop out to
sea.
He now recollected the place and its sinister character.
Many bathers had there prayed for a dry death from time to
time, and, like Gonzalo also, had been unanswered; and Troy
began to deem it possible that he might be added to their
number. Not a boat of any kind was at present within sight,
but far in the distance Budmouth lay upon the sea, as it
were quietly regarding his efforts, and beside the town the
harbour showed its position by a dim meshwork of ropes and
spars. After well-nigh exhausting himself in attempts to
get back to the mouth of the cove, in his weakness swimming
several inches deeper than was his wont, keeping up his
breathing entirely by his nostrils, turning upon his back a
dozen times over, swimming EN PAPILLON and so on, Troy
resolved as a last resource to tread water at a slight
incline, and so endeavour to reach the shore at any point,
merely giving himself a gentle impetus inwards whilst
carried on in the general direction of the tide. This,
necessarily a slow process, he found to be not altogether so
difficult, and though there was no choice of a landing-place
-- the objects on shore passing by him in a sad and slow
procession -- he perceptibly approached the extremity of a
spit of land yet further to the right, now well defined
against the sunny portion of the horizon. While the
swimmer's eye's were fixed upon the spit as his only means
of salvation on this side of the Unknown, a moving object
broke the outline of the extremity, and immediately a ship's
boat appeared manned with several sailor lads, her bows
towards the sea.
All Troy's vigour spasmodically revived to prolong the
struggle yet a little further. Swimming with his right arm,
he held up his left to hail them, splashing upon the waves,
and shouting with all his might. From the position of the
setting sun his white form was distinctly visible upon the
now deep-hued bosom of the sea to the east of the boat, and
the men saw him at once. Backing their oars and putting the
boat about, they pulled towards him with a will, and in five
or six minutes from the time of his first halloo, two of the
sailors hauled him in over the stern.
They formed part of a brig's crew, and had come ashore for
sand. Lending him what little clothing they could spare
among them as a slight protection against the rapidly
cooling air, they agreed to land him in the morning; and
without further delay, for it was growing late, they made
again towards the roadstead where their vessel lay.
And now night drooped slowly upon the wide watery levels in
front; and at no great distance from them, where the
shoreline curved round, and formed a long riband of shade
upon the horizon, a series of points of yellow light began
to start into existence, denoting the spot to be the site of
Budmouth, where the lamps were being lighted along the
parade. The cluck of their oars was the only sound of any
distinctness upon the sea, and as they laboured amid the
thickening shades the lamplights grew larger, each appearing
to send a flaming sword deep down into the waves before it,
until there arose, among other dim shapes of the kind, the
form of the vessel for which they were bound.
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