 and satins, poplins and
velvets, all of colours which from Bathsheba's style of dress might have been
judged to be her favourites. There were two muffs, sable and ermine. Above all
there was a case of jewellery, containing four heavy gold bracelets and several
lockets and rings, all of fine quality and manufacture. These things had been
bought in Bath and other towns from time to time, and brought home by stealth.
They were all carefully packed in paper, and each package was labelled Bathsheba
Boldwood, a date being subjoined six years in advance in every instance.
    These somewhat pathetic evidences of a mind crazed with care and love were
the subject of discourse in Warren's malt-house when Oak entered from
Casterbridge with tidings of the sentence. He came in the afternoon, and his
face, as the kiln glow shone upon it, told the tale sufficiently well. Boldwood,
as every one supposed he would do, had pleaded guilty, and had been sentenced to
death.
    The conviction that Boldwood had not been morally responsible for his later
acts now became general. Facts elicited previous to the trial had pointed
strongly in the same direction, but they had not been of sufficient weight to
lead to an order for an examination into the state of Boldwood's mind. It was
astonishing, now that a presumption of insanity was raised, how many collateral
circumstances were remembered to which a condition of mental disease seemed to
afford the only explanation - among others, the unprecedented neglect of his
corn stacks in the previous summer.
    A petition was addressed to the Home Secretary, advancing the circumstances
which appeared to justify a request for a reconsideration of the sentence. It
was not numerously signed by the inhabitants of Casterbridge, as is usual in
such cases, for Boldwood had never made many friends over the counter. The shops
thought it very natural that a man who, by importing direct from the producer,
had daringly set aside the first great principle of provincial existence,
namely, that God made country villages to supply customers to country towns,
should have confused ideas about the Decalogue. The prompters were a few
merciful men who had perhaps too feelingly considered the facts latterly
unearthed, and the result was that evidence was taken which it was hoped might
remove the crime, in a moral point of view, out of the category of wilful
murder, and lead it to be regarded as a sheer outcome of madness.
    The upshot of the petition was waited for in Weatherbury with solicitous
interest. The execution had been fixed for eight o'clock on a Saturday morning
about a fortnight after the sentence was
