Boldwood shoots Troy dead at the Christmas gathering in his house, transforming a celebration into a public catastrophe. Troy’s sudden return overturns Bathsheba’s reluctant promise to Boldwood, and Boldwood’s act kills her husband, precipitates his own surrender to the gaol, and leaves Bathsheba to take charge of the immediate aftermath.

Causes and Background

Before the shooting, Bathsheba has yielded to Boldwood’s insistent appeal. She agrees to wear the ring that night and accepts, with evident reluctance, his proposal for a secret courtship lasting six years and ending in marriage. Boldwood presses her hand and leaves the room believing himself happy. The promise is therefore newly made and fragile: it has been secured through pressure rather than presented as a freely chosen attachment.

The workmen’s subdued conversation interrupts the apparent celebration. When Boldwood asks what has happened, they report that a stranger has arrived and that Mrs. Troy is wanted. Bathsheba says she does not know what they mean; she has not sent for anyone. The distinction between the name by which she is known at the gathering and the fact of her marriage becomes immediately consequential when the visitor is revealed as Troy.

Troy’s Return and the Shooting

Troy enters wrapped up, initially unrecognized by Boldwood. He removes his cap and turns down his coat collar, and Boldwood then recognizes the man whose return had once before destroyed his hopes. Troy addresses Bathsheba and orders her to come home with him. She does not answer or rise. When he goes across to her and seizes her arm, she recoils and cries out.

Boldwood’s response is immediate. He turns to the gun rack by the fireplace, takes one of its guns, cocks it, and fires at Troy from close range. Troy falls and lies still. The scene’s decisive reversal is stark: moments earlier Boldwood had imagined the beginning of a promised courtship; now Bathsheba’s husband is dead, and the promise that seemed to secure Boldwood’s future has been overtaken by violence.

The Attempt on Boldwood’s Life

After shooting Troy, Boldwood tries to use the double-barrelled gun against himself. He has attached his handkerchief to the trigger and is in the act of turning the second barrel on himself when Samway intervenes. The gun goes off, but Samway’s timely blow diverts its discharge into a ceiling beam. Boldwood says that this makes no difference and that there is another way for him to die.

Instead of remaining with the gathering, Boldwood crosses to Bathsheba, kisses her hand, puts on his hat, and leaves into the darkness. The gesture follows the collapse of his hopes, but the text gives no further account of what he means by it. The guests do not prevent him from going.

Immediate Consequences

Boldwood walks steadily towards Casterbridge, crossing Yalbury Hill and Mellstock Hill before reaching the town between eleven and midnight. He finds the gaol entrance, speaks quietly to the porter, and is admitted. His departure ends his life outside confinement; the narrative states that he walked the world no more. The news of the shooting meanwhile spreads through Weatherbury.

Gabriel Oak arrives at the house about five minutes after Boldwood has left. The guests are stunned, but Bathsheba has recovered from her temporary, motionless shock. She has lifted Troy’s head into her lap and holds a handkerchief to his chest while clasping one of his hands. In quiet, practical words, she tells Oak that Boldwood has shot her husband and sends him to Casterbridge for a surgeon, although she believes the effort useless. Oak rides out, then realizes that he should have considered who would remain to look after Boldwood and the household.

Narrative Significance

The event brings three conflicting claims into one room: Boldwood’s newly renewed hope, Troy’s return as Bathsheba’s husband, and Bathsheba’s inability to act when the two men confront one another. Boldwood’s promise of a future is not resolved through a choice between suitors; Troy’s arrival makes the conflict suddenly irreversible. The gathering’s movement from whispered news to recognition, shooting, and stunned silence gives the scene its force as a sequence of abrupt reversals.

The aftermath also marks a sharp change in Bathsheba’s conduct. She is initially unable to respond, but the need for action restores her practical composure: she tends to Troy and directs Oak to seek medical help. The contrast makes the crisis more than the end of Troy’s life. It exposes, under pressure, Bathsheba’s capacity to act, while Boldwood’s departure toward the gaol leaves the consequences of his act extending beyond the room where it occurred.