Pray for their souls with harty desyre
That both may be sure of Eternall Lyght;
Calling to Remembrance that evoy wyhgt
Most nedys dye, and therefore lett us pray
As others for us may do Another day."
The last of the Martins was the Knight Nicholas who was buried here in 1595, and the last passage of his epitaph are the words, "Good-night, Nicholas!" With these appropriate words they put Nicholas to rest, like a child who had grown sleepy before it was dark. After all, we are all children, and when the shadows lengthen and the birds get back to the protecting eaves, we too grow tired—tired of playing with things much too large for us—much too full of meaning.
The church of Puddletown, or "Weatherbury," brings us to the crowning catastrophe of the sad love tale of Francis Troy and Fanny Robin, for it is the scene of the sergeant's agony of remorse. Having set up a tombstone over the poor girl's grave, Troy proceeds to plant the mound beneath with flowers. "There were bundles of snowdrops, hyacinth and crocus bulbs, violets and double daisies, which were to bloom in early spring, and of carnations, pinks, picotees, lilies of the valley, forget-me-not, summer's farewell, meadow saffron, and others, for the later seasons of the year." The author minutely describes the planting of these by Troy, with his "impassive face," on that dark night when the rays from his lantern spread into the old yews "with a strange, illuminating power, flickering, as it seemed, up to the black ceiling of cloud above." He works till midnight and sleeps in the church porch; and then comes the storm and the doings of the gargoyle. The stream of water from the church roof spouting through the mouth of this "horrible stone entity" rushes savagely into the new-made grave, turning the mould into a welter of mud and washing away all the flowers so carefully planted by Fanny's repentant lover. At the sight of the havoc, we are told, Troy "hated himself." He stood and meditated, a miserable human derelict. Where should he turn for sanctuary? But the words that burnt and withered his soul could not be banished: "He that is accursed, let him be accursed still."
The ill-named River Piddle—a rippling, tortoiseshell-coloured stream at times—runs through the streets. An old thatched house is peculiar by reason of the fact that it has broken out into a spacious Georgian bow window—a "window worthy of a town hall," as Sir Frederick Treves has remarked. It is supported by pillars, and has a porch-like space beneath devoted to a flower-bed.
"Weatherbury Upper Farm," the home of Bathsheba, which she inherited from her uncle, is not to be found in Puddletown, but if the pilgrim desires to find it he must proceed up the valley of the Puddle, in the direction of Piddlehinton. Before reaching the village he will come to Lower Walterstone, where a fine Jacobean manor-house, bearing the date 1586, will be easily recognised as the original which Thomas Hardy made to serve as the "Upper Farm" in Far from the Madding Crowd.