feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_15_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 16
feat_summary_id: chapter 16
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-16", "summary": "Cut to a scene inside a church. A young man in a military jacket talks to a priest and goes up to the altar as if he's getting ready to be married. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be a bride anywhere around. Eventually, the priest leaves. Finally, the young man turns and looks around the church. Not seeing anyone he knows, he walks out of the church and meets a young woman in a park. She says she got the church mixed up and that she hopes they can be married the next day just as easily. The dude is mad, though, and he says that he won't be ready to make another go at it for some time. The woman ends the chapter by asking when the wedding will be. The guy just says, \"God knows!\" and walks away from her.", "analysis": ""}
text: 
  
  ALL SAINTS' AND ALL SOULS'
  
  
  On a week-day morning a small congregation, consisting mainly of
  women and girls, rose from its knees in the mouldy nave of a church
  called All Saints', in the distant barrack-town before-mentioned, at
  the end of a service without a sermon.  They were about to disperse,
  when a smart footstep, entering the porch and coming up the central
  passage, arrested their attention.  The step echoed with a ring
  unusual in a church; it was the clink of spurs.  Everybody looked.  A
  young cavalry soldier in a red uniform, with the three chevrons of a
  sergeant upon his sleeve, strode up the aisle, with an embarrassment
  which was only the more marked by the intense vigour of his step, and
  by the determination upon his face to show none.  A slight flush had
  mounted his cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these
  women; but, passing on through the chancel arch, he never paused till
  he came close to the altar railing.  Here for a moment he stood
  alone.
  
  The officiating curate, who had not yet doffed his surplice,
  perceived the new-comer, and followed him to the communion-space.  He
  whispered to the soldier, and then beckoned to the clerk, who in his
  turn whispered to an elderly woman, apparently his wife, and they
  also went up the chancel steps.
  
  "'Tis a wedding!" murmured some of the women, brightening.  "Let's
  wait!"
  
  The majority again sat down.
  
  There was a creaking of machinery behind, and some of the young ones
  turned their heads.  From the interior face of the west wall of the
  tower projected a little canopy with a quarter-jack and small bell
  beneath it, the automaton being driven by the same clock machinery
  that struck the large bell in the tower.  Between the tower and the
  church was a close screen, the door of which was kept shut during
  services, hiding this grotesque clockwork from sight.  At present,
  however, the door was open, and the egress of the jack, the blows on
  the bell, and the mannikin's retreat into the nook again, were
  visible to many, and audible throughout the church.
  
  The jack had struck half-past eleven.
  
  "Where's the woman?" whispered some of the spectators.
  
  The young sergeant stood still with the abnormal rigidity of the old
  pillars around.  He faced the south-east, and was as silent as he was
  still.
  
  The silence grew to be a noticeable thing as the minutes went on,
  and nobody else appeared, and not a soul moved.  The rattle of the
  quarter-jack again from its niche, its blows for three-quarters, its
  fussy retreat, were almost painfully abrupt, and caused many of the
  congregation to start palpably.
  
  "I wonder where the woman is!" a voice whispered again.
  
  There began now that slight shifting of feet, that artificial
  coughing among several, which betrays a nervous suspense.  At length
  there was a titter.  But the soldier never moved.  There he stood,
  his face to the south-east, upright as a column, his cap in his hand.
  
  The clock ticked on.  The women threw off their nervousness, and
  titters and giggling became more frequent.  Then came a dead silence.
  Every one was waiting for the end.  Some persons may have noticed how
  extraordinarily the striking of quarters seems to quicken the flight
  of time.  It was hardly credible that the jack had not got wrong with
  the minutes when the rattle began again, the puppet emerged, and the
  four quarters were struck fitfully as before.  One could almost be
  positive that there was a malicious leer upon the hideous creature's
  face, and a mischievous delight in its twitchings.  Then followed the
  dull and remote resonance of the twelve heavy strokes in the tower
  above.  The women were impressed, and there was no giggle this time.
  
  The clergyman glided into the vestry, and the clerk vanished.  The
  sergeant had not yet turned; every woman in the church was waiting to
  see his face, and he appeared to know it.  At last he did turn, and
  stalked resolutely down the nave, braving them all, with a compressed
  lip.  Two bowed and toothless old almsmen then looked at each other
  and chuckled, innocently enough; but the sound had a strange weird
  effect in that place.
  
  Opposite to the church was a paved square, around which several
  overhanging wood buildings of old time cast a picturesque shade.  The
  young man on leaving the door went to cross the square, when, in the
  middle, he met a little woman.  The expression of her face, which had
  been one of intense anxiety, sank at the sight of his nearly to
  terror.
  
  "Well?" he said, in a suppressed passion, fixedly looking at her.
  
  "Oh, Frank--I made a mistake!--I thought that church with the spire
  was All Saints', and I was at the door at half-past eleven to a
  minute as you said.  I waited till a quarter to twelve, and found
  then that I was in All Souls'.  But I wasn't much frightened, for
  I thought it could be to-morrow as well."
  
  "You fool, for so fooling me!  But say no more."
  
  "Shall it be to-morrow, Frank?" she asked blankly.
  
  "To-morrow!" and he gave vent to a hoarse laugh.  "I don't go through
  that experience again for some time, I warrant you!"
  
  "But after all," she expostulated in a trembling voice, "the mistake
  was not such a terrible thing!  Now, dear Frank, when shall it be?"
  
  "Ah, when?  God knows!" he said, with a light irony, and turning from
  her walked rapidly away.
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 16
target: Cut to a scene inside a church. A young man in a military jacket talks to a priest and goes up to the altar as if he's getting ready to be married. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be a bride anywhere around. Eventually, the priest leaves. Finally, the young man turns and looks around the church. Not seeing anyone he knows, he walks out of the church and meets a young woman in a park. She says she got the church mixed up and that she hopes they can be married the next day just as easily. The dude is mad, though, and he says that he won't be ready to make another go at it for some time. The woman ends the chapter by asking when the wedding will be. The guy just says, "God knows!" and walks away from her.