Far From the Madding Crowd Chapter 44 Summary

Under a Tree: Reaction

  • We find Bathsheba running along the dark road leading away from her house. Eventually, she gets tired and falls asleep among some trees. She wakes up the next morning with birds singing all around her.
  • Soon enough, the servant Liddy comes walking by while searching for Bathsheba. She is happy when she realizes she's found her. Liddy even hitches up her skirts and walks through a swamp to be with Bathsheba.
  • Liddy tells her that Sergeant Troy has left the house, but that Fanny's coffin is still in the sitting room.
  • Liddy and Bathsheba walk together and eat some of the food Liddy brought along. Bathsheba seems determined not to return to the house until she's certain that Fanny's coffin is gone.
  • Bathsheba also decides that there's no way she'll ever leave Troy, since she thinks it's only women with no pride who leave their husbands.
  • To kill time and get her mind off things, Bathsheba asks Liddy to bring a bunch of books to her bedroom so the two of them can read without being disturbed. They have nothing to fear, though, since Troy never returns home that day.
  • Outside, a group of children suddenly stop playing one of their games to check out a huge tombstone that's being put up in the cemetery. Bathsheba would like to know whose it is, but Liddy admits she doesn't know.