Finished: Far From The Madding Crowd (Hardy) Another Hardy classic, and this one with a happy ending...eventually. A headstrong, beautiful young woman, Bathsheba Everdene, inherits her uncle's farm in England and decides to run it by herself rather than be dependent on a man to do so. She's not full of herself or manipulative, but she most definitely has three different men in love with her. Early on, before she inherits the farm, she's at work helping a different aunt on a different farm when she meets neighboring farmer, Gabriel Oak. He has invested all his money in the sheep he keeps, and is doing just fine. He is, at that time, higher ranking in society than Bathsheba. Gabriel and Bathsheba share a brief closeness, and she runs from her feelings and leaves her aunt's farm...soon after that she inherit her other uncle's farm. In their brief encounter, Gabriel falls in love with Bathsheba, but can do nothing about it when she leaves. Sadly, Gabriel's entire investment is lost, and thus his farm, when an inexperienced sheep herding dog leads all his sheep over a cliff to their deaths! Gabriel is then forced to travel from town to town looking for work. When he ends up in Bathsheba's town, he ends up saving her farm crops from a fire without even knowing it's her farm. She hires him on immediately to be her shepherd, but it's a very lowly job compared to what he once was. She doesn't acknowledge their prior closeness, but does come to depend on his advice, honesty, dependability, and friendship. Gabriel's a good man and does all he can to help Bathsheba to succeed in the farming and sheep raising field of mostly men. And, despite still being in love with Bathsheba, Gabriel even goes so far as to give her advice to marry Farmer Boldwood when he comes courting, because Boldwood is in love with Bathsheba and with his neighboring farm, would provide Bathsheba security and a good future. Boldwood borders on craziness in his love for Bathsheba, though, and she doesn't really return his feelings. She promises to think about his marriage proposal while he's away for six weeks....but, of course, while Boldwood is away, the dashing Sergeant Troy comes to town and turns Bathsheba's head. Unfortunately, Sergeant Troy is not a nice guy. He's already responsible for wooing Bathsheba's uncle's maid, Fanny, to the point where Fanny left her job and followed Troy's regiment, giving herself in every way to Troy. Troy dumps Fanny, as he truly has no respect for women. He woos Bathsheba and convinces her to marry him, against the solid advice of Gabriel, who is one of only two people who knows that Troy compromised Fanny's reputation and then left her. Bathsheba, with hearts in her eyes, though, falls completely for Troy and marries him. She comes to regret it soon enough when he doesn't care nearly as much about the farm as she does. He resigns his commission in the British military and would rather spend his time drinking with the boys and going off to gamble away Bathsheba's money at the horse races. When Boldwood returns to town and realizes that Troy has swooped in and taken his soon to be fiance, he's devastated. Of course, Bathsheba tries to tell him that she never promised him she'd marry him, but he's still very affected. One day, Bathsheba and Troy meet a very sick and fragile Fanny on the road. Bathsheba has no idea who the woman is, but Troy begs Fanny to meet him the next day in the next town over. Sadly, Fanny is in terrible shape. She makes it to the town, but dies, along with her newly born baby. Bathsheba finds out what Fanny meant to Troy and they have a huge fight. Troy leaves the farm and is presumed dead when his clothes are found by the shore of a treacherous whirlpool spot near the ocean. We couldn't possibly be so lucky for him to be dead though. No, a fishing boat picks him up. Instead of going home to Bathsheba, though, Troy stays gone for several weeks and makes ends meet. He doesn't love Bathsheba any more and he's afraid if he goes back, he'll be legally responsible for her failing farm...or the farm he assumes must now be failing because he's not there. In fact, Bathsheba doesn't truly believe that Troy is dead, but she keeps her farm going with the able help of Gabriel, who is now also doing most of the work on Boldwood's farm, since Boldwood is still a bit despondent. Boldwood gets it into his head, though, that once six years has passed and Troy is truly considered legally dead, that Bathsheba will marry him. He begs, pleads, and guilts Bathsheba into saying she'll give him an answer by Christmas as to whether she'll become his betrothed in six years. It's pretty strange! Boldwood holds a huge Christmas party where he plans to put a ring on Bathsheba's finger. He's practically just forced her to say yes she'll marry him in six years (even though she does not love him at all, but feels she owes him) when who should crash the party but Sergeant Troy!! He's Alive! He has seen that Bathsheba has been successful on the farm and decided to go back and live off her money rather than live hand to mouth. When he grabs Bathsheba and insists that his wife come back with him to the farm, Bathsheba has a momentary female moment and screams. When she screams, Boldwood, thinking her harmed, grabs a gun and kills Troy. Boldwood's men prevent him from then killing himself, but he goes to town and turns himself in at the prison. Gabriel, as usual, is there as a rock for Bathsheba. He is actually given control of Boldwood's farm by Boldwood, who is sentenced to life in prison, so Gabriel comes back up in the world from hard work and honesty. However, Gabriel still loves Bathsheba and thinks that she would never love him, especially after what she's been through. When he tells Bathsheba that he's going to leave and make his way in America, she gets terribly upset and asks why he would desert her. He says he knows she would never have agreed to a life with him, even though she's always known he loves her. She says, but you never asked, did you? So...they have this admission of loving each other and get quietly married with the farm men that work for Bathsheba very thrilled for the both of them. A happy ending! Yay! I was so worried that Bathsheba was going to be pregnant by Troy and die or be raped by Boldwood or something. She ended up being a good, hardworking person who got the good, hardworking guy in the end! I really enjoy Hardy's writing. He's very descriptive in setting up his nature scenes and environment and slowly letting you get to know the supporting characters as well as the main characters. A good book!