Far from the Madding Crowd help. Afterwards, she offers him back his job and their friendship is restored. At this point, the dashing Sergeant Francis "Frank" Troy returns to his native Weatherbury and by chance encounters Bathsheba one night. Her initial dislike turns to infatuation after he excites her with a private display of swordsmanship. Gabriel observes Bathsheba's interest in the young soldier and tries to discourage it, telling her she would be better off marrying Boldwood. Boldwood becomes aggressive towards Troy, and Bathsheba goes to Bath to prevent Troy returning to Weatherbury, as she fears Troy may be harmed on meeting Boldwood. On their
Far from the Madding Crowd an extreme plot ... he is out to subvert his readers' complacency". "Far from the Madding Crowd" offers in ample measure the details of English rural life that Hardy so relished. Hardy first employed the term "Wessex" in "Far from the Madding Crowd" to describe the "partly real, partly dream-country" that unifies his novels of South West England. He found the word in the pages of early English history as a designation for an extinct, pre-Norman conquest kingdom, the Wessex from which Alfred the Great established England. In the first edition, the word "Wessex" is used only once, in chapter