Whilst
Oak was doing as she desired, Bathsheba collected the
flowers, and began planting them with that sympathetic
manipulation of roots and leaves which is so conspicuous
in a woman's gardening, and which flowers seem to
understand and thrive upon. She requested Oak to
get the churchwardens to turn the leadwork at the
mouth of the gurgoyle that hung gaping down upon
them, that by this means the stream might be directed
sideways, and a repetition of the accident prevented.
Finally, with the superfluous magnanimity of a woman
whose narrower instincts have brought down bitterness
upon her instead of love, she wiped the mud spots from
the tomb as if she rather liked its words than otherwise,
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.
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