Far from the Madding Crowd she screams. At this, Boldwood shoots Troy dead and tries unsuccessfully to turn the gun on himself. Although Boldwood is convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged, his friends petition the Home Secretary for mercy, claiming insanity. This is granted, and Boldwood's sentence is commuted to "confinement during Her Majesty's pleasure". Bathsheba, profoundly chastened by guilt and grief, buries her husband in the same grave as Fanny Robin and her child and adds a suitable inscription. Throughout her tribulations, Bathsheba comes to rely increasingly on her oldest and, as she admits to herself, only real friend, Gabriel. When he
The Frogs Who Desired a King of a new reign", a study of Russia written in 1895 by the political assassin Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, using the pen-name S. Stepniak. The book contrasts the policy of the reactionary Tsar Alexander III with the likely policy under Nicholas II, who had only just succeeded to the throne. There is a passing reference to the fable in the title of Alyse Gregory's feminist novel "King Log and Lady Lea" (1929), whereas one of Margaret Atwood's four short fictions in a 2005 issue of the magazine "Daedalus" engages with it directly. Entitled "King Log in Exile", it features the deposed king