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 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 BY THOMAS HAEDY, 
 
 AUTHOR or 
 " A PAIR OF BLUE EYES," " UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE," ETC. 
 
 WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1874. 
 
 (All rights reserved. ^
 
 
 CONTENTS OF YOL. T. 
 
 I. Description of Farmer Oak — An Incident . 1 
 
 II. Night — The Flock — An Interior — Another 
 
 Interior 11 
 
 III. A Girl on Horseback — Conversation . . 24 
 
 IV. Gabriel's Resolve — The Visit — The Mistake . 38 
 V. Departure op Bathsheba — A Pastoral Tragedy 54 
 
 VI. The Fair — The Journey — The Fire . . 62 
 
 VII. Recognition — A Timid Girl .... 79 
 
 VIII. The Malthouse — The Chat^N'ews . . 85 
 
 IX. The Homestead — ^A Visitor — BLalf Confidences 118 
 
 X. Mistress and Men 128 
 
 XI. Melchester Moor — Snow — A Meeting . , 139 
 
 XII. Farmers — ^A Rule — An Exception . . 148 
 
 XIII. SoRTBS Sanctorum — The Valentine , . 157 
 
 XIV. Effect op the Letter — Sunrise . . 164 
 XV. A Morning Meeting — The Letter Again . 171 
 
 XVI. All Saints' and All Souls' .... 189 
 
 XVII. In the Market-place 194
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVIII. BoLDwooD IN Meditation — A Visit . . 199 
 XIX. The Sheep-washing — The Offer . . 207 
 XX. Peeplexity — Grinding the Shears — A Quar- 
 rel . . 217 
 
 XXI, Troubles in the Fold — A Message . .227 
 
 XXII. The Great Barn and the Sheep-shearers 238 
 
 XXIII. Eventide — A Second Declaration . . 256 
 
 XXIV. The Same Night— The Fir Plantation . 267 
 XXV. The New Acquaintance Described .278 
 
 XXVI. Scene on the Verge of the Hay-mead 284 
 
 XXVII. Hiving the Bees 299 
 
 XXVIII. The Hollow Amid the Ferns . . 305 
 
 XXIX. Particulars of a Twilight Walk . . . 314 
 
 XXX. Hot Cheeks and Tearful Eyes . . . 326 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 " Do YOU happen to want a Shepherd, Ma'am ? " Frontispiece. 
 Hands were Loosening his Neckerchief . To face page 32 
 " Get THE Front Door Key." Liddy fetched it „ 158 
 
 "I feel — ALMOST TOO MUCH — TO THINK," HE SAID „ 211 
 
 She stood up in the Window-opening, facing 
 
 THE Men „ 262 
 
 She took up her Position as directed . „ 308
 
 FAE FEOM THE MADDING CEOWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK— AN INCIDENT. 
 
 When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his 
 mouth spread till they were within an unimport- 
 ant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to 
 mere chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared 
 round them, extending upon his countenance like 
 the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun. 
 His Christian name was Gahriel, and on work- 
 ing days he was a young man of sound judgment, 
 easy motions, proper dress, and general good 
 character. On Sundays he was a man of misty 
 views, rather given to a postponing treatment of 
 things, whose best clothes and seven-and-sixpenny 
 umbrella were always hampering him: upon the 
 whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally 
 that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrahty
 
 2 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 whicli lay between the Sacrament people of the 
 parish and the drunken division of its inhabitants 
 — that is, he went to church, but yawned privately 
 by the time the congregation reached the Nicene 
 creed, and thought of what there would be for 
 dinner when he meant to be Ustening to the 
 sermon. Or, to state his character as it stood in 
 the scale of pubhc opinion, when his friends and 
 critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather 
 a bad man ; when they were pleased, he was 
 rather a good man ; when they were neither, he 
 was a man whose moral colour was a kind of 
 pepper-and-salt mixtui'e. 
 
 Since he hved six times as many working days 
 as Sundays, Oak's appearance in his old clothes 
 was most peculiarly his own — the mental picture 
 formed by his neighbours always presenting him 
 as dressed in that way when theii' imaginations 
 answered to the thought "Gabriel Oak." He 
 wore a low-crowned felt hat, spread out at the 
 base by tight jamming upon the head for security 
 in high winds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson's; 
 his lower extremities being encased in ordinary 
 leather leggings and boots emphatically large, 
 affording to each foot a roomy apartment so con- 
 structed that any wearer might stand in a river 
 all day long and know nothing about it — their 
 maker being a conscientious man who always
 
 DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK. 3 
 
 endeavoured to compensate for any weakness in 
 his cut by unstinted dimension and soKdity. 
 
 Mr. Oak carried about bim, by way of watch, 
 what may be called a small silver clock ; in other 
 words, it was a watch as to shape and intention, 
 and a small clock as to size. This instrument 
 being several years older than Oak's grandfather, 
 had the peculiarity of going either too fast or 
 not at all. The smaller of its hands, too, occa- 
 sionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, 
 though the minutes were told with the greatest 
 precision, nobody could be quite certain of the 
 hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity 
 of his watch Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, 
 when it always went on again immediately, and 
 he escaped any evil consequences from the other 
 two defects by constant comparisons with and 
 observations of the sun and stars, and by pressing 
 his face close to the glass of his neighbours' 
 windows when passing by their houses, till he 
 could discern the horn* marked by the gi'een- 
 faced timekeepers within. It may be mentioned 
 that Oak's fob being painfully difficult of access, 
 by reason of its somewhat high situation in the 
 waistband of his trousers (which also lay at" a 
 remote height under his waistcoat), the watch 
 was as a necessity pulled out by throwing the 
 body extremely to one side, compressing the
 
 4 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 moutli and face to a mere mass of raddy flesh 
 on account of the exertion required, and drawing 
 up the watch by its chain, hke a bucket from 
 a well. 
 
 But some thoughtful persons, who had seen 
 him walking across one of his fields on a certain 
 December morning — sunny and exceedingly mild 
 — might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other 
 aspects than these. In his face one might notice 
 that many of the hues and curves of youth had 
 tarried on to manhood : there even remained in 
 his remoter crannies some rehcs of the boy. His 
 height and breadth would have been sufficient to 
 make his presence imposing, had they been ex- 
 hibited with due consideration. But there is a 
 way some men have, rural and urban alike — for 
 which the mind is more responsible than flesh 
 and sinew — a way of curtailing their dimensions 
 by their manner of showing them ; and from a 
 quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, 
 which seemed continually to impress upon him 
 that he had no great claim on the world's room, 
 Oak walked unassumingly, and with a faintly 
 perceptible bend, quite distinct from a bowing of 
 the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect 
 in an individual if he depends for his valuation 
 as a total more upon his appearance than upon 
 his capacity to wear well, which Oak did not.
 
 AN INCIDENT. 5 
 
 He had just reached the time of life at which 
 "young" is ceasing to be the prefix of "man" 
 in speaking of one. He was at the brightest 
 period of masculine life, for his intellect and his 
 emotions were clearly separated : he had passed 
 the time during which the influence of youth 
 indiscriminately mingles them in the character 
 of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the 
 stage wherein they become united again, in the 
 character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife 
 and family. In short, he was twenty-eight, and 
 a bachelor. 
 
 The field he was in sloped steeply to a ridge 
 called Norcombe HiU. Through a spur of this 
 hill ran the highway from Norcombe to Caster- 
 bridge, sunk in a deep cutting. Casually glancing 
 over the hedge, Oak saw coming down the incline 
 before him an ornamental spring waggon, painted 
 yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a 
 waggoner walking alongside bearing a whip per- 
 pendicularly. The waggon was laden with house- 
 hold goods and window plants, and on the apex 
 of the whole sat a woman, young and attractive. 
 Gabriel had not beheld the sight for more than 
 haK a minute, when the vehicle was brought to 
 a standstill just beneath his eyes. 
 
 " The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss," 
 said the waggoner.
 
 6 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 '■ Then I heard it fall," said the girl, in a soft, 
 though not particularly low voice. "I heard a 
 noise I could not account for when we were 
 coming up the hill." 
 
 "I'll run hack." 
 
 "Do," she answered. 
 
 The sensible horses stood perfectly still, and 
 the waggoner's steps sank fainter and fainter in 
 the distance. 
 
 The girl on the summit of the load sat motion- 
 less, surrounded by tables and chairs with their 
 legs upwards, backed by an oak settle, and orna- 
 mented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, 
 and cactuses, together with a caged canary — all 
 probably from the windows of the house just 
 vacated. There was also a cat in a willow 
 basket, from the partly-opened lid of which she 
 gazed with half-closed eyes, and affectionately 
 surveyed the small birds around. 
 
 The handsome girl waited for some time idly 
 in her place, and the only sound heard in the 
 stilhiess was the hopping of the canary up and 
 down the perches of its prison. Then she looked 
 attentively downwards. It was not at the bird, 
 nor at the cat ; it was at an oblong package tied 
 in paper, and lying between them. She turned 
 her head to learn if the waggoner were coming. 
 He was not yet in sight ; and then her eyes crept
 
 AN INCIDENT. 7 
 
 back to tlie package, her thoiiglits seeming to run 
 upon what was inside it. At length she drew the 
 article into her lap, and untied the paper covering ; 
 a small swing looking-glass was disclosed, in which 
 she proceeded to survey herself attentively. Then 
 she parted her Hps and smiled. 
 
 It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up 
 to a scarlet glow the crimson jacket she wore, and 
 painted a soft lustre upon her bright face and 
 black hair. The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses 
 packed around her were fresh and green, and at 
 such a leafless season they invested the whole 
 concern of horses, waggon, furniture, and girl 
 with a peculiar charm of rarity. What possessed 
 her to indulge in such a performance in the sight 
 of the sparrows, blackbirds, and unperceived far- 
 mer, who were alone its spectators — whether the 
 smile began as a factitious one, to test her capacity 
 in that art, nobody knows ; it ended certainly in a 
 real smile. She blushed at herself, and seeing her 
 reflection blush, blushed the more. 
 
 The change from the customary spot and 
 necessary occasion of such an act — ^from the 
 dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling 
 out of doors — lent to the idle deed a novelty it 
 certainly did not intrinsically possess. The pictui'e 
 was a delicate one. Woman's prescriptive in- 
 firmity had stalked into the sunhght, which had
 
 8 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 t. 
 
 invested it with the freshness of an origiQality. 
 A cynical inference was irresistible by Gabriel 
 Oak as he regarded the scene, generous though 
 he fain would have been. There was no necessity 
 whatever for her looking in the glass. She did 
 not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a 
 dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that 
 any such intention had been her motive in taking 
 up the glass. She simply observed herself as a 
 fair product of Nature in a feminine direction, 
 her expressions seeming to glide into far-off 
 though likely dramas iu which men would play 
 a part — vistas of probable triumphs — the smiles 
 beiQg of a phase suggesting that hearts were 
 imagined as lost and won. Still, this was but 
 conjecture, and the whole series of actions were 
 so idly put forth as to make it rash to assert that 
 intention had any part in them at all. 
 
 The waggoner's steps were heard returning. 
 She put the glass in the paper, and the whole 
 again into its place. 
 
 When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel with- 
 drew from his pohit of espial, and descending into 
 the road, followed the vehicle to the turnpike-gate 
 at the bottom of the hiQ, where the object of his 
 contemplation now halted for the payment of toU. 
 About twenty steps still remained between him 
 and the gate, when he heard a dispute. It was a
 
 AN INCIDENT. 9 
 
 t 
 
 difference concerning twopence between the per- 
 sons with the waggon and the man at the toU-har. 
 
 " Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, 
 and she says that's enough that I've offered ye, 
 you grate miser, and she won't pay any more." 
 These were the waggoner's words. 
 
 "Yery well; then mis'ess's niece can't pass," 
 said the turnpike -keeper, closing the gate. 
 
 Oak looked from one to the other of the dis- 
 putants, and fell into a reverie. There was 
 something in the tone of twopence remarkably 
 insignificant. Threepence had a definite value 
 as money — it was an appreciable infringement on 
 a day's wages, and, as such, a higgHng matter ; 
 but twopence "Here," he said, stepping for- 
 ward and handing twopence to the gatekeeper ; 
 "let the young woman pass." He looked up at 
 her then ; she heard his words, and looked down. 
 
 Gabriel's featm'es adhered throughout their form 
 so exactly to the middle Hne between the beauty 
 of St. John and the ughness of Judas Iscariot, as 
 represented in a window of the church he attended, 
 that not a siQgle lineament could be selected and 
 called worthy either of distinction or notoriety. 
 The red-jacketed and dark-haii-ed maiden seemed 
 to think so too, for she carelessly glanced over him, 
 and told her man to drive on. She might have 
 looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale,
 
 10 FAR FROM TEE M ADDING CROWD. 
 
 but she did not speak them; more probably she 
 felt none, for in gaining her a passage he had lost 
 her her point, and we know how women take a 
 favour of that kind. 
 
 The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle. 
 '' That's a handsome maid," he said to Oak. 
 
 " But she has her faults," said Gabriel. 
 
 " True, farmer." 
 
 " And the greatest of them is — well, what it is 
 always." 
 
 *' Beating people down? ay, 'tis so." 
 
 '' Oh no." 
 
 ''What, then?" 
 
 Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely 
 traveller's indifference, glanced back to where he 
 had witnessed her performance over the hedge, 
 and said, ''Vanity."
 
 ( 11 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 NIGHT— THE FLOCK— AN INTEEIOR— ANOTHER 
 INTERIOR. 
 
 It was nearly midnight on the eve of St. Thomas's, 
 the shortest day in the year. A desolating wind 
 wandered from the north over the hill whereon 
 Oak had watched the yellow waggon and its occu- 
 pant in the smishine of a few days earher. 
 
 Norcomhe Hill — forming part of Norcombe 
 Ewelease — ^was one of the spots which suggest to 
 a passer-by that he is in the presence of a shape 
 approaching the indestructible as nearly as any to 
 be found on earth. It was a featureless convexity 
 of chalk and soil — an ordinary specimen of those 
 smoothly outHned protuberances of the globe 
 which may remain undisturbed on some great 
 day of confusion, when far grander heights and 
 dizzy granite precipices topple down. 
 
 The hiU was covered on its noi-thern side by an 
 ancient and decaying plantation of beeches, whose 
 upper verge formed a Kne over the crest, fringing
 
 12 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 its arched curve against the sky, like a mane. To- 
 night these trees sheltered the southern slope 
 from the keenest blasts, which smote the wood and 
 floundered through it with a sound as of grumbling, 
 or gushed over its crowning boughs hi a weakened 
 moan. The dry leaves in the ditch simmered 
 and boiled in the same breezes, a tongue of air 
 occasionally ferreting out a few, and sending them 
 spuming across the grass. A group or two of the 
 latest in date amongst this dead multitude had 
 remained on the twigs which bore them till this 
 very mid- winter time, and ui falling rattled agauist 
 the trunks with smart taps. 
 
 Between this half-wooded, half-naked hill, and 
 the vague, stni horizon its summit indistinctly 
 commanded, was a mysterious sheet of fathomless 
 shade — the sounds only from which suggested that 
 what it concealed bore some humble resemblance 
 to features here. The thin grasses, more or less 
 coating the hill, were touched by the wind ui 
 breezes of differtag powers and ahnost differing 
 natures — one rubbing the blades heavily, another 
 raking them piercingly, another brushuig them like 
 a soft broom. The instinctive act of human-kind 
 here was to stand and listen, and learn how the 
 trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed 
 or chaunted to each other in the regular anti- 
 phonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges and
 
 NIGHT. 13 
 
 other shapes to leeward then caught the note, 
 lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the 
 hurrying gust then plunged into the south, to be 
 heard no more. 
 
 The sky was clear — remarkably clear — and the 
 twinkling of aU the stars seemed to be but throbs 
 of one body, timed by a common pulse. The 
 North star was directly in the wind's eye, and 
 since evening the Bear had swung round it out- 
 wardly to the east, till it was now at a right angle 
 with the meridian. A difference of colour in the 
 stars — offcener read of than seen in England — 
 was really perceptible here. The kingly brilliancy 
 of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely ghtter, the 
 star called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and 
 Betelgueux shone with a fiery red. 
 
 To persons standing alone on a hill dming a 
 clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world 
 eastward is almost a palpable movement. The 
 sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of 
 the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible 
 in a few minutes of stillness, or by a fancy that 
 the better outlook upon space afforded by a hill 
 emphasizes terrestrial revolution, or by the wind, 
 or by the sohtude ; but whatever be its origin, the 
 impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. 
 The poetry of motion is a phrase much in use, 
 and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification it
 
 14 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 is necessary to stand on a Mil at a small hour of 
 the night, and, first enlarging the consciousness 
 with a sense of difference from the mass of civilized 
 mankind, who are horizontal and disregardfiil of all 
 such proceedings at this time, long and quietly 
 watch your stately progress through the stars. 
 After such a nocturnal reconnoitre among these 
 astral clusters, aloft from the customary haunts of 
 thought and vision, some men may feel raised to 
 a capabihty for eternity at once. 
 
 Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began 
 to be heard in this place up against the sky. They 
 had a clearness which was to be found nowhere in 
 the wind, and a sequence which was to be found 
 nowhere in nature. They were the notes of 
 Farmer Oak's flute. 
 
 The tune was not floating unhindered into the 
 open air, but it seemed muffled in some way, and 
 was altogether too curtailed in power to spread 
 high or wide. It came from the direction of a 
 small dark object under the plantation hedge — a 
 shepherd's hut — now presenting an outhne to 
 which an uninitiated person might have been 
 puzzled to attach either meaning or use. 
 
 The image as a whole was that of a small 
 Noah's Ark on a small Ararat, allowing the tra- 
 ditionary outhnes and general form of the Ark 
 which are followed by toymakers — and by these
 
 TEE FLOCK. 15 
 
 means are established in men's imaginations 
 among their firmest, because earliest impressions — 
 to pass as an approximate pattern. The hut stood 
 on small wheels, which raised its floor about a 
 foot from the ground. Such shepherds' huts are 
 dragged into the fields when the lambing season 
 comes on, to shelter the shepherd in his enforced 
 nightly attendance. 
 
 It was only latterly that people had begun to 
 call Gabriel " Farmer " Oak. Dming the twelve- 
 month preceding this time he had been enabled 
 by sustained efforts of industry and chronic good 
 spirits to lease the small sheep-farm of which Nor- 
 combe Hill was a portion, and stock it with two 
 hundred sheep. Previously he had been a bailiff 
 for a short time, and earher still a shepherd only, 
 having from his childhood assisted his father in 
 tending the flocks of lai'ge proprietors, till old 
 Gabriel sank to rest. 
 
 This venture, unaided and alone, into the paths 
 of farming as master and not as man, with an 
 advance of sheep not yet paid for, was a critical 
 juncture with Gabriel Oak, and he recognized his 
 position clearly. The first movement in his new 
 progress was the lambing of his ewes, and sheep 
 having been his specialty fi*om his youth, he 
 wisely refrained from deputing the task of tending 
 them at this season to a hii'eling or a novice.
 
 16 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 The wind continued to beat about the corners 
 of the but, but the flute-playing ceased. A rect- 
 angular space of light appeared in the side of the 
 hut, and in the opening the outline of Farmer 
 Oak's figure. He carried a lantern in his hand, 
 and closing the door behind him, came forward and 
 busied himself about this nook of the field for 
 nearly twenty minutes, the lantern light appearing 
 and disappearing here and there, and brighten- 
 ing him or darkening him as he stood before or 
 behind it. 
 
 Oak's motions, though they had a quiet energy, 
 were slow, and their deliberateness accorded well 
 with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of 
 all beauty, nobody could have denied that his 
 steady swings and turns in and about the flock 
 had elements of grace. Yet, although if occasion 
 demanded he could do or think a thing with as 
 mercurial a dash as can the men of towns who 
 are more to the manner born, his special power, 
 morally, physically, and mentally, was static, 
 owing little or nothing to momentum, as a rule. 
 
 A close examination of the ground hereabout, 
 even by the wan starlight only, revealed how a 
 portion of what would have been casually called a 
 wild slope had been appropriated by Farmer Oak 
 for his great pm-pose this winter. Detached 
 hurdles thatched with straw were stuck into the
 
 AN INTERIOR. 17 
 
 ground at various scattered points, amid and under 
 which the whitish forms of his meek ewes moved 
 and rustled. The ring of the sheep-bell, which 
 had been silent during his absence, recommenced, 
 in tones which had more mellowness than clear- 
 ness, owing to an increasing growth of surrounding 
 wool, and continued till Oak withdrew again from 
 the flock. He retui-ned to the hut, bringing in his 
 arms a new-born lamb, consisting of four legs large 
 enough for a full-grown sheep, united by an un- 
 important membrane about half the substance of 
 the legs collectively, which constituted the animal's 
 entire body just at present. 
 
 The Httle speck of life he placed on a wisp of 
 hay before the small stove, where a can of Tm'lk 
 was simmering. Oak extinguished the lantern by 
 blowing into it and then pinching out the snuff, 
 the cot being Hghted by a candle suspended by a 
 twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of a 
 few corn sacks thrown carelessly dov^Ti, covered 
 half the floor of this Httle habitation, and here the 
 young man stretched himself along, loosened his 
 woollen cravat, and closed his eyes. In about the 
 time a person unaccustomed to bodily labour would 
 have decided upon which side to he. Farmer Oak 
 was asleep. 
 
 The inside of this hut, as it now presented itself, 
 was cosy and alluiing, and the scarlet handful of
 
 18 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 fire in addition to the candle, reflecting its own 
 genial colour upon whatever it could reach, flung 
 associations of enjoyment even over utensils and 
 tools. In the corner stood the sheep-crook, and 
 along a shelf at one side were ranged bottles and 
 canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to 
 ovine surgery and physic ; spirits of wine, turpen- 
 tine, tar, magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being 
 the chief. On a triangular shelf across the corner 
 stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or 
 cider, which was supplied from a flagon beneath. 
 Beside the provisions lay the flute, whose notes 
 had lately been called forth by the lonely watcher 
 to beguile a tedious hour. The house was venti- 
 lated by two round holes, like the lights of a cabin, 
 with wood sHdes. 
 
 The lamb, revived by the warmth, began to 
 bleat, and the sound entered Gabriel's ears and 
 brain with an instant meaning, as expected sounds 
 will. Passing fi'om the profoundest sleep to the 
 most alert wakefulness with the same ease that 
 had accompanied the reverse operation, he looked 
 at his watch, found that the hour-hand had shifted 
 again, put on his hat, took the lamb in his arms, 
 and carried it into the darkness. After placing 
 the little creature with its mother, he stood and 
 carefully examined the sky, to ascertain the time 
 of night fi'om the altitudes of the stars.
 
 AN INTERIOE. 19 
 
 The Dog-star and Aldebaran pointing to the 
 restless Pleiades were half way up the Southern 
 sky, and between them hung Orion, which gor- 
 geous constellation never burnt more vividly than 
 now, as it swung itseK forth above the rim of the 
 landscape. Castor and Pollux with their quiet 
 shine were almost on the meridian : the barren 
 and gloomy Square of Pegasus was creeping round 
 to the north-west ; far away through the planta- 
 tion, Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid 
 the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia's chair stood 
 daintily poised on the uppermost boughs. 
 
 *' One o'clock," said Gabriel. 
 
 Being a man not without a frequent conscious- 
 ness that there was some beauty in this life he led, 
 he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful 
 instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative 
 spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful. 
 For a moment he seemed impressed with the 
 speaking lonehness of the scene, or rather with 
 the complete abstraction from aU its compass of 
 the sights and sounds of man. Human shapes, 
 interferences, troubles, and joys were all as if they 
 were not, and there seemed to be on the shaded 
 hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save 
 himseK; he could fancy them all gone round to 
 the sunny side. 
 
 Occupied thus, with eyes stretched afar. Oak
 
 20 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 gradually perceived that what he had previously- 
 taken to be a star low down behind the outskirts 
 of the plantation was in reality no such thing. It 
 was an artificial light, almost close at hand. 
 
 To find themselves utterly alone at night where 
 company is desirable and expected makes some 
 people fearful ; but a case more trying by far to 
 the nerves is to discover some mysterious com- 
 panionship when intuition, sensation, memory, 
 analogy, testimony, probabihty, induction — every 
 kind of evidence in the logician's hst — have united 
 to persuade consciousness that it is quite alone. 
 
 Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and 
 pushed through its lower boughs to the windy side. 
 A dim mass under the slope reminded him that a 
 shed occupied a place here, the site being a cutting 
 into the slope of the hill, so that at its back part 
 the roof was almost level with the ground. In 
 front it was formed of boards nailed to posts 
 and covered with tar as a preservative. Through 
 crevices in the roof and side spread streaks and 
 dots of light, a combination of which made up the 
 radiance that had attracted him. Oak stepped up 
 behind, where, leaning down upon the roof and 
 putting his eye close to a hole, he could see into 
 the interior clearly. 
 
 The place contained two women and two cows. 
 By the side of the latter a steaming bran-mash
 
 ANOTHER INTERIOR. 21 
 
 stood in a bucket. One of tlie women was past 
 middle age. Her companion was apparently young 
 and graceful; tie could form no decided opinion 
 upon her looks, lier position being almost beneath 
 his eye, so that he saw her in a bird's-eye aerial 
 view, as Milton's Satan first saw Paradise. She 
 wore no bonnet or hat, but had enveloped herself 
 in a large cloak, which was carelessly flung over 
 her head as a covering. 
 
 ''There, now we'll go home," said the elder of 
 the two, resting her knuckles upon her hips, and 
 looking at their goings-on as a whole. " I do hope 
 Daisy will fetch round again now. I have never 
 been more frightened in my life, but I don't mind 
 breaking my rest if she recovers." 
 
 The young woman, whose eyelids were appa- 
 rently inclined to fall together on the smallest 
 provocation of silence, yawned without parting 
 her Hps to any inconvenient extent, whereupon 
 Gabriel caught the infection and sHghtly yawned 
 in sympathy. " I wish we were rich enough to 
 pay a man to do these things," she said. 
 
 "As we are not, we must do them ourselves," 
 said the other; "for you must help me if you 
 stay." 
 
 " Well, my hat is gone, however," continued the 
 younger. " It went over the hedge, I think. The 
 idea of such a slight wind catching it."
 
 22 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 The cow standing erect was of the Devon breed, 
 and was encased in a tight warm hide of rich 
 Indian red, as absolutely uniform from eyes to tail 
 as if the animal had been dipped in a dye of that 
 coloTii*, her long back being mathematically level. 
 The other was spotted, grey and white. Beside 
 her, Oak now noticed a little calf about a day old, 
 looking idiotically at the two women, which showed 
 that it had not long been accustomed to the 
 phenomenon of eyesight, and often turning to the 
 lantern, which it apparently mistook for the moon, 
 inherited instinct having as yet had Uttle time for 
 correction by experience. Between the sheep and 
 the cows, Lucina had been busy on Norcombe 
 HiU lately. 
 
 *' I think we had better send for some oatmeal," 
 said the elder woman ; " there's no more bran." 
 
 *' Yes, aunt ; and I'll ride over for it as soon as 
 it is light." 
 
 *' But there's no side-saddle." 
 " I can ride on the other : trust me." 
 Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more 
 curious to observe her featui-es, but this prospect 
 being denied him by the hooding effect of the 
 cloak, and by her forehead coming in the way of 
 what the cloak did not cover, he felt himself 
 drawing upon his fancy for their details. In 
 making even horizontal and clear inspections, we
 
 ANOTHER INTERIOR. 23 
 
 colour and mould according to the wants witliin 
 us whatever our eyes bring in. Had Gabriel been 
 able from the first to get a distinct view of her 
 countenance, his estimate of it as very handsome 
 or slightly so would have been as his soul required 
 a divinity at the moment or was ready supplied 
 with one. Having for some time known the want 
 of a satisfactory form to fill an increasing void 
 within him, his position moreover affording the 
 widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a 
 beauty. 
 
 By one of those whimsical coincidences in which 
 Nature, like a busy mother, seems to spare a 
 moment from her unremitting labours to turn and 
 make her children smile, the girl now dropped the 
 cloak, and forth tumbled ropes of black hair 
 over a red jacket. Oak knew her instantly as 
 the heroine of the yellow waggon, myrtles, and 
 looking-glass : prosily, as the woman who owed 
 him twopence. 
 
 They placed the caK beside its mother again, 
 took up the lantern, and went out, the hght 
 sinking down the hill till it was no more than 
 a nebula. Gabriel Oak retui'ned to his flock.
 
 24j far from tee madding crowd. 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 A GIRL ON HORSEBACK— CONVERSATION. 
 
 The sluggish day began to break. Even its posi- 
 tion terrestrially is one of the elements of a new 
 interest, and for no particular reason save that the 
 incident of the night had occurred there, Oak went 
 again into the plantation. Lingering and musing 
 here, he heard the steps of a horse at the foot of 
 the hill, and soon there appeared in view an auburn 
 pony with a girl on its back, ascending by the path 
 leading past the cattle-shed. She was the young 
 woman of the night before. Gabriel instantly 
 thought of the hat she had mentioned as having 
 lost in the wind ; possibly she had come to look 
 for it. He hastily scanned the ditch, and after 
 walking about ten yards along it, found the hat 
 among the leaves. Gabriel took it in his hand 
 and returned to his hut. Here he ensconced 
 himself, and looked through the loophole in the 
 direction of the rider's approach. 
 
 She came up and looked around — then on the
 
 A GIRL ON HORSEBACK. 25 
 
 other side of the hedge. Gahriel was about to 
 advance and restore the missing article, when an 
 unexpected performance induced him to suspend 
 the action for the present. The path, after passing 
 the cowshed, bisected the plantation. It was not 
 a bridle-path — merely a pedestrian's track, and the 
 boughs spread horizontally at a height not gi-eater 
 than seven feet above the ground, which made it 
 impossible to ride erect beneath them. The girl, 
 who wore no riding-habit, looked around for a 
 moment, as if to assure herself that all humanity 
 was out of view, then dexterously di'opped back- 
 wards flat upon the pony's back, her head over its 
 tail, her feet against its shoulder, and her eyes to 
 the sky. The rapidity of her gHde into this 
 position was that of a kingfisher — its noiselessness 
 that of a hawk. Gabriel's eyes had scarcely been 
 able to follow her. The tall lank pony seemed 
 used to such phenomena, and ambled along uncon- 
 cerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs. 
 
 The performer seemed quite at home anywhere 
 between a horse's head and its tail, and the 
 necessity for this abnormal attitude having ceased 
 with the passage of the plantation, she began to 
 adopt another, even more obviously convenient 
 than the first. She had no side-saddle, and it was 
 very apparent that a firm seat upon the smooth 
 leather beneath her was unattainable sideways.
 
 26 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 Springing to lier accustomed perpendicular like a 
 bowed sapling, and satisfying herseK tliat nobody 
 was in sight, she seated herself in the manner 
 demanded by the saddle, though hardly expected 
 of the woman, and trotted off in the direction of 
 TewneH MiU. 
 
 Oak was amused, perhaps a little astonished, 
 and hanging up the hat in his hut, went again 
 among his ewes. An hour passed, the girl re- 
 turned, properly seated now, with a bag of bran 
 in front of her. On nearing the cattle-shed she 
 was met by a boy bringing a milking-pail, who 
 held the reins of the pony whilst she shd off. The 
 boy led away the horse, leaving the pail with the 
 young woman. 
 
 Soon a soft spirt, alternating with a loud spu't, 
 came in regular succession fi'om within the shed. 
 They were the sounds of a person milking a cow. 
 Gabriel took the lost hat in his hand, and waited 
 beside the path she would follow in leaving the 
 hiU. 
 
 She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against 
 her knee. The left arm was extended as a balance, 
 enough of it being shown bare to make Oak wish 
 that the event had happened in summer, when the 
 whole would have been revealed. There was a 
 bright air and manner about her now, by which 
 she seemed to imply that the desirability of her
 
 A GIRL ON HORSEBACK. 27 
 
 ex^tence could not be questioned ; and this rather 
 saucy assumption failed in being offensive, because 
 a beholder felt it to be, upon the whole, true. 
 Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius, 
 that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous 
 was an addition to recognized power. It was with 
 some sm-prise that she saw Gabriel's face rising 
 like the moon behind the hedge. 
 
 The adjustment of the farmer's hazy conceptions 
 of her charms to the portrait of herself she now 
 presented him with was less a diminution than a 
 difference. The starting-point selected by the 
 judgment was her height. She seemed tall, but 
 the pail was a small one, and the hedge diminu- 
 tive ; hence, making allowance for error by com- 
 parison with these, she could have been not above 
 the height to be chosen by women as best. All 
 features of consequence were severe and regular. 
 It may have been observed by persons who go 
 about the shires with eyes for beauty, that in 
 Englishwomen a classically formed face is seldom 
 found to be united with a figure of the same 
 pattern, the highly-finished features being gene- 
 rally too large for the remainder of the frame ; that 
 a graceful and proportionate figure of eight heads 
 usually goes off into random facial curves. With- 
 out throwing a Nymphean tissue over a milkmaid, 
 let it be said that here criticism checked itself
 
 28 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 in examining details to return to where it began, 
 and looked at her proportions with a long con- 
 sciousness of pleasure. From the contours of her 
 figure in its upper part, she must have had a 
 beautiful neck and shoulders ; but it may be stated 
 that since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. 
 Had she been put into a low dress she would have 
 run and thrust her head into a bush. Yet she was 
 not a shy girl by any means ; it was merely her 
 instinct to draw the line dividing the seen from 
 the unseen higher than they do it in towns. 
 
 That the girl's thoughts hovered about her face 
 and form as soon as she caught Oak's eyes conning 
 the same page was natural, and almost certain. 
 The seK-consciousness shown would have been 
 vanity if a Httle more pronounced, dignity if a 
 Kttle less. Eays of male vision seem to have a 
 tickling efi'ect upon virgin faces in rural districts ; 
 she hastily brushed hers with her hand, as if 
 Gabriel had been irritatiag its pink surface with 
 a straw, and the free air of her previous move- 
 ments was reduced at the same time to a chastened 
 phase of itself. Yet it was the man who blushed, 
 the maid not at all. 
 
 " I found a hat," said Oak. 
 
 " It is mine," said she, and, from a sense of pro- 
 portion, kept down to a small smile an inclination 
 to laugh distinctly : "it flew away last night."
 
 CONVERSATION. 29 
 
 '' One o'clock this morning ? " 
 
 " Well — it was." She was surprised. '' How 
 did you know ? " she said. 
 
 " I was here." 
 
 *' You are Farmer Oak, are you not ? " 
 
 " That or thereabouts. I'm lately come to this 
 place." 
 
 *' A large farm ? " she inquired, casting her eyes 
 round, and swinging back her hair, which was 
 black in the shaded hollows of its mass ; but it 
 being now an hour past sunrise, the rays touched 
 its prominent curves with a colour of their own. 
 
 " No ; not large. About a hundred." (In 
 speaking of farms the word " acres " is omitted by 
 the natives, by analogy to such old expressions as 
 '' a stag of ten.") 
 
 "I wanted my hat this morning," she went on. 
 " I had to ride to TewneU MUl." 
 
 '' Yes, you had." 
 
 '' How do you know ? " 
 
 *' I saw you." 
 
 "Where?" she inquired, a misgiving bringing 
 every muscle of her lineaments and frame to a 
 standstill. 
 
 " Here — going through the plantation, and all 
 down the hill," said Farmer Oak, Tvith an aspect 
 excessively knowing with regard to some matter in 
 his mind, as he gazed at a remote point in the
 
 30 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 direction named, and then turned back to meet his 
 colloquist's eyes. 
 
 A perception caused him to withdraw his own 
 from hers as suddenly as if he had been caught in 
 a theft. EecoUection of the strange antics she 
 had indulged in when passing through the trees, 
 was succeeded in the girl by a nettled palpitation, 
 and that by a hot face. It was a time to see a 
 woman redden who was not given to reddening 
 as a rule ; not a point in the milkmaid but was of 
 the deepest rose-colour. From the Maiden's 
 Blush, through all varieties of the Provence down 
 to the Crimson Tuscany, the countenance of Oak's 
 acquaintance quickly graduated; whereupon he, 
 in considerateness, had tui-ned away his head. 
 
 The sympathetic man still looked the other way, 
 and wondered when she would recover whiteness 
 sufficient to justify him in facing her again. He 
 heard what seemed to be the flitting of a dead leaf 
 upon the breeze, and looked. She had gone 
 away. 
 
 With an air between that of Tragedy and 
 Comedy, Gabriel returned to his work. 
 
 Five mornings and evenings passed. The 
 young woman came regularly to milk the healthy 
 cow or to attend to the sick one, but never allowed 
 her vision to stray in the direction of Oak's 
 person. His want of tact had deeply offended her
 
 CONVERSATION. 31 
 
 — not by seeing what he could not help, but by 
 letting her know that he had seen it. For, as 
 without law there is no sin, without eyes there is 
 no indecorum ; and she appeared to feel that 
 Gabriel's espial had made her an indecorous 
 woman without her own connivance. It was food 
 for great regret with him ; it was also a contre- 
 temps which touched into life a latent heat he had 
 experienced in that direction. 
 
 The acquaintanceship might, however, have 
 ended in a slow forgetting, but for an incident 
 which occurred at the end of the same week. One 
 afternoon it began to freeze, and the frost in- 
 creased with evening, which di-ew on Hke a 
 stealthy tightening of bonds. It was a time when 
 in cottages the breath of the sleepers freezes to 
 the sheets, when round the drawing-room fire 
 of a thick-walled mansion the sitters' backs are 
 cold, even whilst their faces are aU aglow. Many 
 a small bird went to bed supperless that night 
 among the bare boughs. 
 
 As the mil king-hour drew near. Oak kept his 
 usual watch upon the cowshed. At last he felt 
 cold, and shaking an extra quantity of bedding 
 round the yeaning ewes, he entered the hut and 
 heaped more fuel upon the stove. The wind 
 came in at the bottom of the door, to prevent which 
 Oak wheeled the cot round a Uttle more to the
 
 o2 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 south. Then the wind spouted in at a ventilating 
 hole — of which there was one on each side of 
 the hut. 
 
 Gahriel had always known that when the fire 
 was hghted and the door closed one of these must 
 be kept open — that chosen being always on the 
 side away from the wind. Closing the shde to 
 windward, he turned to open the other; on second 
 thoughts, the farmer considered he would first sit 
 down, leaving both closed for a minute or two, till 
 the temperature of the hut was a httle raised. 
 He sat down. 
 
 His head began to ache in an unwonted manner, 
 and, fancying himseK weary by reason of the 
 broken rests of the preceding nights, Oak decided 
 to get up, open the shde, and then allow himself 
 to fall asleep. He fell asleep without having per- 
 formed the necessary prehminary. 
 
 How long he remained unconscious Gabriel 
 never knew. Dm'ing the first stages of his retm-n 
 to perception pecuHar deeds seemed to be in course 
 of enactment. His dog was howling, his head was 
 aching fearfully — somebody was pulling him about, 
 hands were loosening his neckerchief. 
 
 On opening his eyes, he found that evening had 
 sunk to dusk, in a strange manner of unexpected- 
 ness. The young girl with the remarkably plea- 
 sant lips and white teeth was beside him. More
 
 CONVERSATIOX. 33 
 
 than this — astonishingly more — his head was 
 upon her lap, his face and neck were disagree- 
 ably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning his 
 collar. 
 
 *' Whatever is the matter ? " said Oak, vacant^. 
 
 She seemed to experience a sensation of mLii;h, 
 but of too insignificant a kind to start the capacity 
 of enjoyment. 
 
 "Nothing now," she answered, ''since you are 
 not dead. It was a wonder you were not suffo- 
 cated in this hut of yom-s." 
 
 ''Ah, the hut! " murmured Grabriel. "I gave 
 ten pounds for that hut. But I'll sell it, and sit 
 under thatched hurdles as they did in old times, 
 and curl up to sleep in a lock of straw ! It played 
 me nearly the same trick the other day ! " Gabriel, 
 by way of emphasis, brought down his fist upon 
 the floor. 
 
 "It was not exactly the fault of the hut," she 
 observed, speaking in a tone which showed her to 
 be that novelty among women — one who finished a 
 thought before beginning the sentence which was 
 to convey it. "You should, I think, have con- 
 sidered, and not have been so foohsh as to leave 
 the slides closed." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose I should," said Oak, absently. 
 He was endeavouring to catch and appreciate the 
 sensation of being thus with her — his head upon 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 FAB FBOM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 lier dress — before the event passed on into the 
 heap of bygone things. He wished she knew his 
 impressions; but he would as soon have thought 
 of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to 
 convey the intangibihties of his feeling in the 
 coarse meshes of language. So he remained 
 silent. 
 
 She made him sit up, and then Oak began 
 wiping his face and shaking himself like a Samson. 
 " How can I thank ye ? " he said at last, grate- 
 fully, some of the natural rusty red having returned 
 to his face. 
 
 " Oh, never mind that," said the girl, smiling, 
 and allowing her smile to hold good for Gabriel's 
 next remark, whatever that might prove to be. 
 
 " How did you find me ? " 
 
 ''I heard your dog howling and scratching at 
 the door of the hut when I came to the milking 
 (it was so lucky, Daisy's milking is almost over for 
 the season, and I shall not come here after this 
 week or the next). The dog saw me, and jumped 
 over to me, and laid hold of my dress. I came 
 across and looked round the hut the very fii'st 
 thing to see if the shdes were closed. My uncle 
 has a hut like this one, and I have heard him tell 
 his shepherd not to go to sleep without leaving a 
 shde open. I opened the door, and there you 
 were like dead. I threw the milk over you, as
 
 CONVERSATION. 35 
 
 there was no water, forgetting it was warm, and 
 no use." 
 
 *' I wonder if I should have died ? " Gabriel said, 
 in a low voice, which was rather meant to travel 
 back to himself than on to her. 
 
 " Oh no," the gui repHed. She seemed to pre- 
 fer a less tragic probability ; to have saved a man 
 from death involved talk that should harmonize 
 with the dignity of such a deed — and she shunned it. 
 
 "I beHeve you saved my life. Miss I don't 
 
 know your name. I know your aunt's, but not 
 yom's." 
 
 "I would just as soon not tell it — rather not. 
 There is no reason either why I should, as you 
 probably will never have much to do with me." 
 
 " StiU, I should like to know." 
 
 ''You can inquire at my aunt's — she will tell 
 you." 
 
 " My name is Gabriel Oak." 
 
 "And mine isn't. You seem fond of yours in 
 speaking it so decisively, Gabriel Oak." 
 
 "You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, 
 and I must make the most of it." 
 
 "I always think mine sounds odd and disagree- 
 able." 
 
 " I should think you might soon get a new one." 
 
 "Mercy! — how many opinions you keep about 
 you concerning other people, Gabriel Oak."
 
 36 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Well, Miss — excuse the words — I tliouglit you 
 would like tliem. But I can't matcli you, I know, 
 in mapping out my mind upon my tongue, as I 
 may say. I never was very clever in my inside. 
 But I thank you. Come, give me your hand ! " 
 
 She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted at Oak's 
 old-fashioned earnest conclusion to a dialogue 
 lightly carried on. "Very well," she said, and 
 gave him her hand, compressing her lips to a 
 demm'e impassivity. He held it hut an instant, 
 and in his fear of heing too demonstrative, swerved 
 to the opposite extreme, touching her fingers with 
 the lightness of a small-hearted person. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said, the instant after, regret- 
 fully. 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 *' Letting your hand go so quickly." 
 
 "You may have me again if you like; there it 
 is." She gave him her hand again. 
 
 Oak held it longer this time — indeed, cmiously 
 long. " How soft it is — heing winter time, too — 
 not chapped or rough, or anything ! " he said. 
 
 "There — that's long enough," said she, though 
 without pulling it away. "But I suppose you are 
 thinking you would like to kiss it ? You may if 
 you want to." 
 
 "I wasn't thinking of any such thing," said 
 Gabriel, simply ; " but I will "
 
 CONVERSATION, 27 
 
 '' That you wont ! " She snatched back her 
 hand. 
 
 Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of 
 tact. 
 
 "Now find out my name," she said, teasingly; 
 and withdi-ew.
 
 S8 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 GABRIEL'S RESOLVE— THE VISIT— THE MISTAKE. 
 
 The only superiority in women that is tolerable to 
 the rival sex is, as a rule, that of the unconscious 
 kind, but a superiority which recognizes itself may 
 sometimes please by suggesting at the same time 
 possibilities of impropriation to the subordinated 
 man. 
 
 This well-favoured and comely girl soon made 
 appreciable inroads upon the emotional constitu- 
 tion of young Farmer Oak. 
 
 Love, being an extremely exacting usurer (a 
 sense of exorbitant profit, spiritually, by an ex- 
 change of hearts, being at the bottom of pm'e 
 passions, as that of exorbitant profit, bodily or 
 materially, is at the bottom of those of lower 
 atmosj)here), eveiy morning his feelings were as 
 sensitive as the money-market in calculations 
 upon his chances. His dog waited for his meals 
 in a way so like that in which Oak waited for the 
 girl's presence, that the farmer was quite strack
 
 GABBIErS BESOLVE. 39 
 
 with the resemblance, felt it lowering, and would 
 not look at the dog. However, he continued to 
 watch through the hedge at her regular coming, 
 and thus his sentiments towards her were deepened 
 without any corresponding effect being produced 
 upon herself. Oak had nothing finished and ready 
 to say as yet, and not being able to fi-ame love- 
 phrases which end where they begin; passionate 
 tales — 
 
 — Full of sound and fury 
 Signifying nothing — 
 
 he said no word at all. 
 
 By making inquiries he found that the gui's 
 name was Bathsheba Everdene, and that the cow 
 would go dry in about seven days. He dreaded 
 the eighth day. 
 
 At last the eighth day came. The cow had 
 ceased to give milk for that year, and Bathsheba 
 Everdene came up the hill no more. Gabriel 
 had reached a pitch of existence he never could 
 have anticipated a short time before. He liked 
 saying "Bathsheba" as a private enjoyment in- 
 stead of whistling ; turned over his taste to black 
 hau', though he had sworn by broviii ever since 
 he was a boy, isolated himself till the space he 
 filled in the pubHc eye was contemptibly small. 
 Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. 
 Maniage transforms a distraction into a support.
 
 40 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 the power of which should be, and happily often 
 is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecihty 
 it supplants. Oak began now to see light in this 
 direction, and said to himself, "I'll make her my 
 wife, or upon my soul I shall be good for nothing ! " 
 
 All this while he was perplexing himself about 
 an errand on which he might consistently visit the 
 cottage of Bathsheba's aunt. 
 
 He found his opportunity in the death of a 
 ewe, mother of a Uving lamb. On a day which 
 had a summer face and a winter constitution — a 
 fine January morning, when there was just enough 
 blue sky visible to make cheerfully disposed people 
 wish for more, and an occasional sunshiny gleam 
 of silvery whiteness. Oak put the lamb into a 
 respectable Sunday basket, and stalked across the 
 fields to the house of Mrs. Hurst, the aunt — 
 George, the dog, walking behind, with a counte- 
 nance of great concern at the serious turn pastoral 
 affairs seemed to be taking. 
 
 Gabriel had watched the blue wood-smoke curl- 
 ing from the chimney with strange meditation. 
 At evening he had fancifully traced it down the 
 chimney to the spot of its origin — seen the hearth 
 and Bathsheba beside it — beside it in her out-door 
 dress ; for the clothes she had worn on the hill 
 were by association equally with her person in- 
 cluded in the compass of his affection; they
 
 THE VISIT. 4.1 
 
 seemed at this early time of his love a necessary 
 ingredient of the sweet mixtm'e called Bathsheba 
 Everdene. 
 
 He had made a toilet of a nicely adjusted kind 
 — of a natm-e between the carefully neat and the 
 carelessly ornate — of a degree between fine-market- 
 day and wet- Sunday selection. He thoroughly 
 cleaned his sHver watch-chain with whiting, put 
 new lacing straps to his boots, looked to the brass 
 eyelet-holes, went to the inmost heart of the 
 plantation for a new walking-stick, and trimmed 
 it vigorously on his way back ; took a new hand- 
 kerchief fi'om the bottom of his clothes-box, put 
 on the light waistcoat patterned all over with 
 sprigs of an elegant flower uniting the beauties 
 of both rose and lily without the defects of either, 
 and used ah the hair-oil he possessed upon his 
 nsually dry, sandy and inextricably curly hair, till 
 he had deepened it to a splendidly novel colom-, 
 between that of guano and Koman cement, making 
 it stick to his head like mace round a nutmeg, or 
 wet seaweed round a boulder after the ebb. 
 
 Nothing disturbed the stillness of the cottage 
 save the chatter of a knot of sparrows on the 
 eaves ; one might fancy scandal and tracasseries 
 to be no less the staple subject of these Httle 
 coteries on roofs than of those under them. It 
 seemed that the omen was an impropitious one,
 
 42 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 for, as the rather untoward commencement of 
 Oak's overtures, just as he arrived by the garden 
 gate he saw a cat inside, going into various arched 
 shapes and fiendish convulsions at the sight of 
 his dog George. The dog took no notice, for he 
 had arrived at an age at which all superfluous 
 harking was cynically avoided as a waste of breath 
 — in fact he never barked even at the sheep except 
 to order, when it was done mth an absolutely 
 neutral countenance, as a hturgical form of Com- 
 mination-service, which, though offensive, had to 
 be gone through once now and then just to 
 frighten the flock for then* own good. 
 
 A voice came from behind some laurel-bushes 
 into which the cat had run : 
 
 "Poor dear! Did a nasty brute of a dog want 
 to kill it ! — did he, poor dear ! " 
 
 *' I beg yer pardon," said Oak to the voice, *' but 
 George was walking on behind me with a temper 
 as mild as milli." 
 
 Almost before he had ceased speaking. Oak was 
 seized with a misgiving as to whose ear was the 
 recipient of his answer. Nobody appeared, and 
 he heard the person retreat among the bushes. 
 
 Gabriel meditated, and so deeply that he brought 
 small furrows into his forehead by sheer force of 
 reverie. Where the issue of an interview is as 
 likely to be a vast change for the worse as for
 
 THE VISIT. 4a 
 
 the better, any initial difference from expectation 
 causes nipping sensations of failure. Oak Tvent 
 up to tlie door a little abashed : Ms mental re- 
 hearsal and the reality had had no common 
 grounds of opening. 
 
 Bathsheba's aunt T\'as indoors. "Will you tell 
 Miss Everdene that somebody would be glad to 
 speak to her?" said Mr. Oak. (Calling yom'self 
 merely Somebody, and not giving a name, is not 
 by any means to be taken as an example of the 
 ill-breeding of the rural world : it springs fr'om a 
 refined sense of modesty, of which townspeople^ 
 with theii* cards and announcements, have no 
 notion whatever.) 
 
 Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently 
 been hers. 
 
 '' Will you come in, Mr. Oak ? " 
 
 " Oh, thank ye," said Gabriel, following her to 
 the fireplace. "I've brought a lamb for Miss 
 Everdene. I thought she might Hke one to rear : 
 giiis do." 
 
 " She might," said Mrs. Hurst, musingly ; 
 "though she's only a visitor here. If you will 
 wait a minute, Bathsheba will be in." 
 
 " Yes, I mU wait," said Gabriel, sitting doTVTi. 
 " The lamb isn't really the business I came about, 
 Mrs. Hurst. In short, I was going to ask her if 
 she'd like to be married."
 
 44 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " And were you indeed ? " 
 
 " Yes. Because if she would, I should be very- 
 glad to marry her. D'ye know if she's got any 
 other young man hanging about her at all ? " 
 
 "Let me think," said Mrs. Hurst, poking the 
 fire superfluously. . . . ''Yes — bless you, ever so 
 many young men. You see, Farmer Oak, she's so 
 good-looking, and an excellent scholar besides — 
 she was going to be a governess once, you know, 
 only she was too wild. Not that her young men 
 ever come here — but. Lord, in the nature of 
 women, she must have a dozen ! " 
 
 " That's unfortunate," said Farmer Oak, con- 
 templating a crack in the stone floor with sorrow. 
 '' I'm only an every-day sort of man, and my only 
 chance was in being the first comer. . . . Well, 
 there's no use in my waiting, for that was all I 
 came about : so I'll take myself off home-along, 
 Mrs. Hurst." 
 
 When Gabriel had gone about two hundred yards 
 along the down, he heard a " hoi-hoi ! " uttered 
 behind him, in a piping note of more treble quahty 
 than that in which the exclamation usually em- 
 bodies itself when shouted across a field. He 
 looked round, and saw a giil racing after him, 
 waving a white handkerchief. 
 
 Oak stood still — and the runner drew nearer. 
 It was Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel's colour
 
 THE MISTAKE. 45 
 
 deepened : liers was abeady deep, not, as it ap- 
 peared, from emotion, but from ninning. 
 
 " Farmer Oak — I — " she said, pausing for want 
 of breath, pulling up in fr'ont of him with a slanted 
 face, and putting her hand to her side. 
 
 "I have just called to see you," said Gabriel, 
 pending her fui'ther speech. 
 
 "Yes — I know that," she said, panting like a 
 robin, her face red and moist fr'om her exeiiions, 
 like a peony petal before the sun di'ies off the dew. 
 ''I didn't know you had come (pant) to ask tcr 
 have me, or I should have come in fr-om the 
 garden instantly. I ran after you to say (pant) 
 that my aunt made a mistake in sending you away 
 from coui-ting me (pant) " 
 
 Gabriel expanded. " I'm sony to have made 
 jovi run so fast, my dear," he said, with a grateful 
 sense of favom's to come. " Wait a bit till you've 
 found yoiu' breath." 
 
 '' — It was quite a mistake — aunt's teUing you I 
 had a young man afready," Bathsheba went on. 
 " I haven't a sweetheai-t at all (pant), and I never 
 had one, and I thought that, as times go with 
 women, it was such a pity to send you away think- 
 ing that I had several." 
 
 " EeaUy and trewly I am glad to hear that ! " 
 said Farmer Oak, smiling one of his long special 
 smiles, and blushing with gladness. He held out
 
 46 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 his iiand to take hers, which, when she had eased 
 her side by pressing it there, was prettily extended 
 upon her bosom to still her loud-beating heart. 
 Directly he seized it she put it behind her, so that 
 it sHpped through his fingers like an eel. 
 
 " I have a nice snug httle farm," said Gabriel, 
 with half a degree less assurance than when he 
 had seized her hand. 
 
 "Yes; you have." 
 
 " A man has advanced me money to begin with, 
 but still, it will soon be paid off, and, though I am 
 only an every-day sort of man, I have got on a 
 little since I was a boy." Gabriel uttered " a 
 httle " in a tone to show her that it was the 
 complacent form of "a great deal." He con- 
 tinued: "When we are married, I am quite sm'e 
 I can work twice as hard as I do now." 
 
 He went forward and stretched out his arm 
 again. Bathsheba had overtaken him at a point 
 beside which stood a low, stunted holly-bush, now 
 laden with red berries. Seeing his advance take 
 the form of an attitude threatening a possible 
 enclosure, if not compression, of her person she 
 edged off round the bush. 
 
 "Why, Farmer Oak," she said, over the top, 
 looking at him with rounded eyes, " I never said 
 I was going to marry you." 
 
 " Well — that is a tale ! " said Oak, with dismay.
 
 THE MISTAKE. 47 
 
 " To run after anybody like tliis, and then say you 
 don't want me ! " 
 
 " Wliat I meant to tell you was only this," she 
 said eagerly, and yet half conscious of the absm-dity 
 of the position she had made for herself; "that 
 nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of 
 my having a dozen, as my aunt said ; I hate to be 
 thought men's property in that way, though 
 possibly I shall be to be had some day. Why, 
 if I'd wanted you I shouldn't have run after you 
 like this ; 'twould have been the forivardest thing ! 
 But there was no harm in hurrj-ing to correct a 
 piece of false news that had been told you." 
 
 " Oh no — no harm at all." But there is such a 
 thing as being too generous in expressing a judg- 
 ment impulsively, and Oak added with a more 
 appreciative sense of all the circumstances — 
 "Well, I am not quite certain it was no harm." 
 
 " Indeed, I hadn't time to think before starting 
 whether I wanted to marry or not, for you'd have 
 been gone over the hill." 
 
 " Come," said Gabriel, freshening again; "think 
 a minute or two. I'll wait awhile. Miss Everdene. 
 Will you marry me ? Do, Bathsheba. I love you 
 far more than common ! " 
 
 "I'll try to think," she observed, rather more 
 timorously ; "if I can think out of doors; but my 
 mind spreads away so."
 
 48 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ''But you can give a guess." 
 
 " Then give me time." Bathsheba looked 
 thoughtfully into the distance, away from the 
 direction in which Gabriel stood. 
 
 " I can make you happy," said he to the back of 
 her head, across the bush. " You shall have a 
 piano in a year or two — farmers' wives are getting 
 to have pianos now — and I'll practise up the flute 
 right well to play with you in the evenings." 
 
 " Yes ; I should like that." 
 
 " And have one of those Kttle ten-pound gigs for 
 market — and nice flowers, and birds — cocks and 
 hens I mean, because they are useful," continued 
 Gabriel, feeling balanced between prose and verse. 
 
 " I should like it very much." 
 
 " And a frame for cucumbers — like a gentleman 
 and lady." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And when the wedding was over, we'd have it 
 put in the newspaper list of marriages." 
 
 " Dearly I should Hke that." 
 
 "And the babies in the bij'ths — every man jack 
 of 'em ! And at home by the fire, whenever you 
 look up, there I shall be — and whenever I look up, 
 there will be you." 
 
 "Wait, wait, and don't be improper ! " 
 
 Her countenance fell, and she was silent awhile. 
 He contemplated the red berries between them
 
 THE MISTAKE. 4.9 
 
 over and over again, to such, an extent, that 
 holly seemed in his after-life to he a cypher sig- 
 nifying a proposal of marriage. Bathsheha 
 decisively tui-ned to him. 
 
 " No ; 'tis no use," she said. " I don't want to 
 marry you." 
 
 u Try." 
 
 '' I have tried hard all the time I've heen think- 
 ing ; for a marriage would he very nice in one 
 sense. People would talk ahout me, and think I 
 had won my battle, and I should feel triumphant, 
 and all that. But a husband " 
 
 '' WeU!" 
 
 '' Why, he'd always be there, as you say ; when- 
 ever I looked up, there he'd be." 
 
 '' Of course he would — I, that is." 
 
 '' Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind 
 being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one with- 
 out having a husband. But since a woman can't 
 show off iji that way by herself, I shan't marry — 
 at least yet." 
 
 '' That's a terrible wooden story." 
 
 At this elegant criticism of her statement, Bath- 
 sheha made an addition to her dignity by a slight 
 sweep away from him. 
 
 " Upon my heart and soul, I don't know what a 
 maid can say stupider than that," said Oak. 
 " But, dearest," he continued in a palliative voice,
 
 50 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 '' don't be like it ! " Oak sighed a deep honest 
 sigh — none the less so in that, being like the sigh 
 of a pine plantation, it was rather noticeable as a 
 distui'bance of the atmosphere. " Why won't you 
 have me?" he said appeahngly, creeping round 
 the holly to reach her side. 
 
 "I cannot," she said, retreating. 
 
 ''But why? " he persisted, standing still at last 
 in despaii- of ever reaching her, and facing over 
 the bush. 
 
 " Because I don't love you." 
 
 " Yes, but " 
 
 She contracted a yawn to an inoffensive small- 
 ness, so that it was hardly ill-mannered at all. ''I 
 don't love you," she said. 
 
 "But I love you — and, as for myself, I am con- 
 tent to be liked." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Oak— that's very fine ! You'd get to 
 despise me." 
 
 "Never," said Mr. Oak, so earnestly that he 
 seemed to be coming, by the force of his words, 
 straight through the bush and into her aims. " I 
 shall do one thing in this life — one thing certain — 
 that is, love you, and long for you, and keep 
 ivanting you till I die." His voice had a genuine 
 pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly 
 trembled. 
 
 "It seems dreadfully wrong not to have you
 
 TBE MISTAKE. 61 
 
 when you feel so much," she said with a little 
 distress, and looking hopelessly around for some 
 means of escape from her moral dilemma. '' How 
 I wish I hadn't run after you ! " However, she 
 seemed to have a short cut for getting back to 
 cheerfulness, and set her face to signify archness. 
 ''It wouldn't do, Mr. Oak. I want somebody to 
 tame me ; I am too independent ; and you would 
 never be able to, I know." 
 
 Oak cast his eyes down the field in a way im- 
 plying that it was useless to attempt argument. 
 
 " Mr. Oak," she said, with luminous distinctness 
 and common sense, "you are better off than I. I 
 have hai'dly a penny in the world — I am staying 
 with my aunt for my bare sustenance. I am 
 better educated than you — and I don't love you a 
 bit : that's my side of the case. Now yours : you 
 are a farmer just beginning, and you ought in 
 common prudence, if you marry at all (which you 
 should certainly not think of doing at present) to 
 many a woman with money, who would stock a 
 larger farm for you than you have now." 
 
 Gabriel looked at her with a httle surprise and 
 much admiration. 
 
 " That's the veiy thing I had been thinking 
 myself! " he naively said. 
 
 Farmer Oak had one-and-a-half Christian cha- 
 racteristics too many to succeed with Bathsheba :
 
 52 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 his humility, and a superfluous moiety of honesty. 
 Bathsheba was decidedly disconcerted. 
 
 " Well, then, why did you come and disturb 
 me?" she said, almost angrily, if not quite, an 
 enlarging red spot rising in each cheek. 
 
 "I can't do what I think would be — would 
 be " 
 
 " Eight ? " 
 
 "No : wise." 
 
 " You have made an admission now, Mr. Oak," 
 she exclaimed, with even more hauteur, and rock- 
 ing her head disdainfully. '' After that, do you 
 think I could marry you ? Not if I know it." 
 
 He broke in, passionately: "But don't mistake 
 me like that. Because I am open enough to own 
 what every man in my position would have thought 
 of, you make your colours come up your face,, and 
 get crabbed with me. That about your not being 
 good enough for me is nonsense. You speak like a 
 lady — all the parish notice it, and your uncle at 
 Weatherbury is, I have heard, a large farmer — 
 much larger than ever I shall be. May I call in 
 the evening, or will you walk along with me on 
 Sundays ? I don't want you to make up your 
 mind at once, if you'd rather not." 
 
 u ]v[q — ]20 — I cannot. Don't press me any more 
 — don't. I don't love you — so 'twould be ridicu- 
 lous ! " she said, with a laugh.
 
 THE MISTAKE. 53 
 
 No man likes to see Ms emotions the sport of a 
 merry-go-round of skittisliness. ''Very well," 
 said Oak, firmly, with the healing of one who was 
 going to give his days and nights to Ecclesiastes 
 for ever. " Then I'U ask you no more."
 
 54 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 DEPARTURE OF BATHSHEBA— A PASTORAL TRAGEDY. 
 
 The news wliich one day readied Gabriel, that 
 Bathsheba Everdene bad left tbe neigbbourliood, 
 had an influence npon him which might have sm'- 
 prised any who never suspected that the more 
 emphatic the renunciation the less absolute its 
 character. 
 
 It may have been observed that there is no 
 regular path for getting out of love as there is 
 for getting in. Some people look upon marriage 
 as a short cut that way, but it has been known 
 to fail. Separation, which was the means that 
 chance offered to Gabriel Oak by Bathsheba's 
 disappearance, though effectual with people of 
 certain humours, is apt to idealize the removed 
 object with others — notably those whose affection, 
 placid and regular as it may be, flows deep and 
 long. Oak belonged to the even-tempered order of 
 humanity, and felt the secret fusion of himself in 
 Bathsheba to be burning with a finer flame now 
 that she was gone — that was all.
 
 DEPARTURE OF BATHSHEBA. 55 
 
 His incipient friendsiiip with her aunt had been 
 nipped by the failiu'e of his suit, and all that Oak 
 learnt of Bathsheba's movements was done in- 
 directly. It appeared that she had gone to a 
 place called Weatherbury, more than twenty miles 
 off, but in what capacity — whether as a visitor, or 
 permanently, he could not discover. 
 
 Gabriel had two dogs. G-eorge, the elder, ex- 
 hibited an ebony-tipped nose, surrounded by a 
 narrow margin of pink flesh, and a coat marked 
 in random splotches approximating in colour to 
 white and slaty grey, but the grey, after years of 
 sun and rain, had been scorched and washed out 
 of the more prominent locks, leaving them of a 
 reddish-brown, as if the blue component of the 
 grey had faded, like the indigo from the same 
 kind of colour in Turner's pictures. In substance, 
 it had originally been haii-, but long contact with 
 sheep seemed to be turning it by degrees into wool 
 of a poor quahty and staple. 
 
 This dog had originally belonged to a shepherd 
 of inferior morals and dreadful temper, and the 
 result was that George knew the exact degree of 
 condemnation signified by cursing and swearing 
 of all descriptions better than the wickedest old 
 man in the neighbourhood. Long experience had 
 so precisely taught the animal the difference 
 between such exclamations as " Come in ! " and
 
 56 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "D — ye, come in!" that he knew to a hair's 
 breadth the rate of trotting back from the ewes' 
 tails that each e d involved, if a staggerer with 
 the sheep-croo"" as to be escaped. Though old, 
 he was clever and trustworthy still. 
 
 The yoimg dog, George's son, might possibly 
 have been the image of his mother, for there was 
 not much resemblance between him and George. 
 He was learning the sheep-keeping business, so as 
 to follow on at the flock when the other should 
 die, bat had got no further than the rudiments 
 as yet — still finding an insuperable difi&culty in 
 distinguishing between doing a thing well enough 
 and doing it too well. So earnest and yet so 
 wi'ong-headed was this young dog (he had no 
 name in particular, and answered with perfect 
 readiness to any pleasant interjection), that if sent 
 behind the flock to help them on, he did it so 
 thoroughly that he would have chased them across 
 the whole county with the greatest pleasure if 
 not' called off, or reminded when to stop by the 
 example of old George. 
 
 Thus much for the dogs. On the fru'ther side of 
 Norcombe Hill was a chalk-pit, from which chalk 
 had been di'awn for generations, and spread over 
 adjacent farms. Two hedges converged uj)on it in 
 the form of a Y, but without quite meeting. The 
 narrow opening left, which was immediately over
 
 A PASTORAL TRAGEDY. 57 
 
 tlie brow of the pit, was protected by a rough 
 raihng. 
 
 One night, when Farmer Oak had returned to 
 his house, believing there wou}y1 ibe no fui-ther 
 necessity for his attendance oIi the down, he 
 called as usual to the dogs, previously to shutting 
 them up in the outhouse till next morning. Only 
 one responded — old George ; the other could not 
 be found, either in the house, lane, or garden. 
 Gabriel then remembered that he had left the 
 two dogs on the hill eating a dead lamb (a kind 
 of meat he usually kept fi'om them, except when 
 other food ran short), and concluding that the 
 young one had not finished his meal, he went 
 indoors to the luxury of a bed, which latterly he 
 had only enjoyed on Sundays. 
 
 It was a still, moist night. Just before dawn 
 he was assisted in waking by the abnormal rever- 
 beration of famihar music. To the shepherd, the 
 note of the sheep-bell, like the ticking of the 
 clock to other people, is a chronic sound that 
 only makes itself noticed by ceasing or altering 
 in some unusual manner from the well-known 
 idle tinkle which signifies to the accustomed ear, 
 however distant, that all is well in the fold. In 
 the solemn calm of the awakening mom that note 
 was heard by Gabriel, beating with unusual violence 
 and rapidity. This exceptional ringing may be
 
 58 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 I 
 
 caused in two ways — by the rapid feeding of the 
 sheep bearing the bell, as when the flock breaks 
 into new pasture, which gives it an intermittent 
 rapidity, or by the sheep starting off in a run, 
 when the sound has a regular palpitation. The 
 experienced ear of Oak knew the sound he now 
 heard to be caused by the running of the flock 
 with great velocity. 
 
 He jumped out of bed, dressed, tore down the 
 lane through a foggy dawn, and ascended the hiU. 
 The forward ewes were kept apart from those 
 among which the fall of lambs would be later, 
 there being two hundred of the latter class in 
 Gabriel's flock. These two hundred seemed to 
 have absolutely vanished from the hill. There 
 were the fifty with thefr lambs, enclosed at the 
 other end as he had left them, but the rest, form- 
 ing the bulk of the flock, were nowhere. Gabriel 
 called at the top of his voice the shepherd's call. 
 
 " Ovey, ovey, ovey ! " 
 
 Not a single bleat. He went to the hedge — 
 a gap had been broken through it, and in the gap 
 were the footprints of the sheep. Kather sur- 
 prised to find them break fence at this season, 
 yet putting it down instantly to their great fond- 
 ness for ivy in winter-time, of which a great deal 
 grew in the plantation, he followed through the 
 hedge. They were not in the plantation. He
 
 A PASTORAL TRAGEDY. 59 
 
 called again: the valleys and furtliest hills re- 
 sounded as when the sailors invoked the lost 
 Hylas on the Mysian shore ; but no sheep. He 
 passed through the trees and along the ridge of the 
 hill. On the extreme sumit, where the ends of the 
 two converging hedges of which we have spoken 
 were stopped short by meeting the brow of the 
 chalk-pit, he saw the younger dog standing against 
 the sky — dark and motionless as Napoleon at St. 
 Helena. 
 
 A horrible conviction darted through Oak. 
 With a sensation of bodily faintness he advanced : 
 at one point the rails were broken through, and 
 there he saw the footprints of his ewes. The dog 
 came up, licked his hand, and made signs implying 
 that he expected some great reward for signal 
 services rendered. Oak looked over the precipice. 
 The ewes lay dead and dying at its foot — a heap of 
 two hundred mangled carcases, representing in their 
 condition just now at least two hundred more. 
 
 Oak was an intensely humane man : indeed, his 
 humanity often tore in pieces any poHtic intentions 
 of his bordering on strategy, and carried him on as 
 by gravitation. A shadow in his life had always 
 been that his flock ended in mutton — that a day 
 came and found every shepherd an arrant traitor 
 to his defenceless sheep. His first feeling now was 
 one of pity for the untimely fate of these gentle 
 ewes and their unborn lambs.
 
 60 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 It was a second to remember another phase of 
 the matter. The sheep were not insured. All the 
 savings of a frugal life had been dispersed at a 
 blow ; his hopes of being an independent farmer 
 were laid low — possibly for ever. Gabriel's ener- 
 gies, patience, and industry had been so severely 
 taxed during the years of his life between eighteen 
 and eight-and-twenty, to reach his present stage 
 of progress, that no more seemed to be left in 
 him. He leant down upon a rail, and covered 
 his face with his hands. 
 
 Stupors, however, do not last for ever, and 
 Farmer Oak recovered from his. It was as re- 
 markable as it was characteristic that the one 
 sentence he uttered was in thankfulness : — 
 
 " Thank God I am not married : what would she 
 have done in the poverty now coming upon me ! " 
 
 Oak raised his head, and wondering what he 
 could do, hstlessly surveyed the scene. By the 
 outer margin of the pit was an oval pond, and over 
 it hung the attenuated skeleton of a chrome-yeUow 
 moon, which had only a few days to last — ^the 
 morning star dogging her on the right hand. 
 The pool glittered like a dead man's eye, and as 
 the world awoke a breeze blew, shaking and 
 elongating the reflection of the moon 'v^ithout 
 breaking it, and turning the image of the star to 
 a phosphoric streak upon the water. All this 
 Oak saw and remembered.
 
 A PASTORAL TRAGEDY. 61 
 
 As far as could be learnt it appeared tliat the 
 poor young dog, still under the impression that 
 since he was kept for running after sheep, the 
 more he ran after them the better, had at the end 
 of his meal off the dead lamb, which may have 
 given him additional energy and spirits, collected 
 all the ewes into a corner, driven the timid crea- 
 tures through the hedge, across the upper field, 
 and by main force of worrying had given them 
 momentum enough to break down a portion of the 
 rotten raihng, and so hurled them over the edge. 
 
 George's son had done his work so thoroughly 
 that he was considered too good a workman to 
 Hve, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at 
 twelve o'clock that same day — another instance of 
 the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and 
 other philosophers who follow out a train of reason- 
 ing to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly 
 consistent conduct in a world made up so largely 
 of compromise. 
 
 Gabriel's farm had been stocked by a dealer — 
 on the strength of Oak's promising look and cha- 
 racter — ^who was receiving a per-centage from the 
 farmer till such time as the advance should be 
 cleared off. Oak found that the value of stock, 
 plant, and implements which were really his own 
 would be about sufficient to pay his debts, leaving 
 himself a free man with the clothes he stood up 
 in, and nothing more.
 
 62 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE FAIR— THE JOURNEY— THE FIRE. 
 
 Two montlis passed away. We are bronglit on to 
 a day in February, on whicli was held tlie yearly 
 statute or hiring fair in the town of Casterbridge. 
 
 At one end of the street stood from two to three 
 hundred bhthe and hearty labourers waiting upon 
 Chance — all men of the stamp to whom labour 
 suggests nothing worse than a wrrestle with gravi- 
 tation, and pleasure nothing better than a renun- 
 ciation of the same. Among these, carters and 
 waggoners were distinguished by having a piece of 
 whip-cord twisted round their hats ; thatchers wore 
 a fragment of woven straw ; shepherds held their 
 sheep-crooks in their hands ; and thus the situation 
 required was known to the hirers at a glance. 
 
 In the crowd was an athletic young fellow of 
 somewhat superior appearance to the rest — in fact, 
 his superiority was marked enough to lead several 
 ruddy peasants standing by to speak to him 
 inquiringly, as to a farmer, and to use " Sir " as a 
 terminational word. His answer always was, —
 
 THE FAIR. 63 
 
 ^* I am looking for a place myself — a bailiff's. 
 Do you know of anybody who wants one ? " 
 
 Gabriel was paler now. His eyes were more 
 meditative, and his expression was more sad. He 
 had passed through an ordeal of wretchedness 
 which had given him more then it had taken 
 away. He had sunk from his modest elevation as 
 pastoral king into the very slime-pits of Siddim ; 
 but there was left to him a dignified calm he had 
 never before known, and that indifference to fate 
 which, though it often makes a villaLQ of a man, 
 is the basis of his sublimity when it does not. 
 And thus the abasement had been exaltation, and 
 the loss gain. 
 
 In the morning a regiment of cavalry had left 
 the town, and a sergeant and his party had been 
 beatiQg up for recruits through the four streets. 
 As the end of the day drew on, and he found 
 himself not hired, Gabriel almost wished that he 
 had joined them, and gone off to serve his country. 
 Weary of standing in the market-place, and not 
 much minding the kind of work he tui'ned his 
 hand to, he decided to offer himself in some other 
 capacity than that of baiUff. 
 
 All the farmers seemed to be wanting shepherds. 
 Sheep-tending was Gabriel's specialty. Tm-ning 
 down an obscure street and entering an obscm*er 
 lane, he went up to a smith's shop.
 
 64 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ^' How long would it take you to make a shep- 
 herd's crook ? " 
 
 " Twenty minutes." 
 
 ''Howmncli?" 
 
 " Two shillings." 
 
 He sat on a bench and the crook was made, a 
 stem being given him into the bargain. 
 
 He then went to a ready-made clothes' shop, the 
 owner of which had a large rural connection. As 
 the crook had absorbed most of Gabriel's money, 
 he attempted, and carried out, an exchange of his 
 overcoat for a shepherd's regulation smock-frock. 
 
 This transaction having been completed, he 
 again hurried off to the centre of the town, and 
 stood on the kerb of the pavement, as a shepherd, 
 crook in hand. 
 
 Now that Oak had turned himself into a shep- 
 herd, it seemed that bailiffs were most in demand. 
 However, two or three farmers noticed him and 
 drew near. Dialogues followed, more or less in the 
 subjoined form : — 
 
 " Where do you come from ? " 
 
 "Norcombe." 
 
 '' That's a long way." 
 
 " Twenty miles." 
 
 '' Whpse farm were you upon last ? " 
 
 ''My own." 
 
 This reply invariably operated like a rumour of
 
 THE FAIR. 65 
 
 cholera. The inqniring farmer would edge away 
 and shake Ms head dubiously. Gabriel, like his 
 dog, was too good to be trustworthy, and he never 
 made any advance beyond this point. 
 
 It is better to accept any chance that offers 
 itself, and then extemporize a procedure to fit it, 
 than to get a good plan matured, and wait for 
 a chance of using it. Gabriel wished he had not 
 nailed up his colours as a shepherd, but had 
 instead laid himself out for anything in the whole 
 cycle of labour that was required in the fair. 
 It grew dusk. Some merry men were whistling 
 and singing by the corn-exchange. Gabriel's hand, 
 which had lain for some time idle in his smock- 
 frock pocket, touched his flute, which he carried 
 there. Here was an opportunity for putting his 
 dearly bought wisdom into practice. 
 
 He drew out his flute and began to play ''Jockey 
 to the Fair " in the style of a man who had never 
 known a moment's sorrow. Oak could pipe with 
 Arcadian sweetness, and the sound of the weU- 
 known notes cheered his own heart as weU as those 
 of the loungers. He played on with spirit, and 
 in half an hour had earned in pence what was 
 a smaU fortune to a destitute man. 
 
 By making inquiries he learnt that there was 
 another fail- at Shottsford the next day. 
 
 ''Where is Shottsford?" 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 66 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Eight miles t'other side of Weatherbury." 
 
 Weatherbmy ! It was where Bathsheba had 
 gone two months before. This information was 
 like coining fi'om night into noon. 
 
 " How far is it to Weatherbm^y ? " 
 
 " Five or six miles." 
 
 Bathsheba had probably left Weatherbnry long 
 before this time, but the place had enough interest 
 attaching to it to lead Oak to choose Shottsford 
 fail' as his next field of inquiry, because it lay 
 in the Weatherbmy quarter. Moreover, the 
 Weatherbury folk were by no means uninteresting 
 intrinsically. If report spoke truly they were 
 as hardy, merry, thriving, wicked a set as any 
 in the whole county. Oak resolved to sleep at 
 Weatherbmy that night on his way to Shottsford, 
 and struck out at once into a footpath which had 
 been recommended as a short cut to the village 
 in question. 
 
 The path wended through water-meadows tra- 
 versed by little brooks, whose quivering surfaces 
 were braided along their centres, and folded into 
 creases at the sides, or, where the flow was more 
 rapid, the stream was pied with spots of white 
 froth, which rode on in undisturbed serenity. On the 
 high-road the dead and dry carcases of leaves 
 tapj)ed the ground as they bowled along helter- 
 skelter upon the shoulders of the wiad, and Httle
 
 THE JOURNEY. 67 
 
 birds in the hedges were rustling tlieu' feathers 
 and tucking themselves in comfortably for the 
 night, retaining their places if Oak kept moving, 
 but flying away if he stopped to look at them. He 
 passed through a wood where the game-birds were 
 rising to their roosts, and heard the crack-voiced 
 cock-pheasants' " cu-uck, cuck," and the wheezy 
 whistle of the hens. 
 
 By the time he had walked three or four miles, 
 every shape on the landscape had assumed a uniform 
 hue of blackness. He ascended a hill and could 
 just discern ahead of him a waggon, drawn up 
 under a great overhanging tree on the roadside. 
 
 On coming close, he found there were no horses 
 attached to it, the spot being apparently quite 
 deserted. The waggon, from its position, seemed 
 to have been left there for the night, for beyond 
 about half a truss of hay which was heaped in the 
 bottom, it was quite empty. Gabriel sat down 
 on the shafts of the vehicle and considered his 
 position. He calculated that he had walked 
 a very fair proportion of the journey; and having 
 been on foot since daybreak, he felt tempted to lie 
 down upon the hay in the waggon instead of push- 
 ing on to the village of Weatherbury, and having 
 to pay for a lodging. 
 
 Eating his last shces of bread and ham, and 
 drinking from the bottle of cider he had taken the
 
 68 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 precaution to bring with Mm, lie got into the lonely 
 waggon. Here he spread haK of the hay as a bed, 
 and, as well as he could in the darkness, pulled the 
 other half over him by way of bed-clothes, covering 
 himself entirely, and feehng, physically, as comfort- 
 able as ever he had been in his life. Inward 
 melancholy it was impossible for a man Hke Oak, 
 introspective far beyond his neighbours, to banish 
 quite, whilst conning the present untoward page 
 of his history. So, thinking of his misfortunes, 
 amorous and pastoral, he fell asleep, shepherds 
 enjoying, in common with sailors, the privilege 
 of being able to summon the god instead of having 
 to wait for him. 
 
 On somewhat suddenly awaking, after a sleep 
 of whose length he had no idea. Oak found that 
 the waggon was in motion. He was being carried 
 along the road at a rate rather considerable for 
 a vehicle without springs, and under circumstances 
 of physical uneasiness, his head being dandled 
 up and down on the bed of the waggon like 
 a kettle drum- stick. He then distinguished voices 
 in conversation, coming from the forepart of the 
 waggon. His concern at this dilemma (which 
 would have been alarm, had he been a thriving 
 man ; but misfortune is a fine opiate to personal 
 terror) led him to peer cautiously from the hay, 
 and the first sight he beheld was the stars above
 
 TEE JOURNEY. 69 
 
 him. Charles's Wain was getting towards a right 
 angle with the Pole star, and Gahriel concluded 
 that it must be about nine o'clock — in other words, 
 that he had slept two hours. This small astro- 
 nomical calculation was made without any positive 
 effort, and whilst he was stealthily turning to dis- 
 cover, if possible, into whose hands he had fallen. 
 
 Two figures were dimly visible in front, sitting 
 with their legs outside the waggon, one of whom 
 was driving. Gabriel soon found that this was 
 the waggoner, and it appeared they had come from 
 Casterbridge fair, hke himself. 
 
 A conversation was in progress, which continued 
 thus : — 
 
 "Be as 'twill, she's a fine handsome body as 
 far's looks be concerned. But that's only the skin 
 of the woman, and these dandy cattle be as proud 
 as a Lucifer in their insides." 
 
 "Ay — so 'a seem, Billy Smallbury — so 'a seem." 
 This utterance was very shaky by nature, and more 
 so by circumstance, the jolting of the waggon not 
 being without its effect upon the speaker's larynx. 
 It came fi'om the man who held the reins. 
 
 " She's a very vain feymell — so 'tis said here and 
 there." 
 
 "Ah, now. If so be 'tis like that, I can't look 
 her in the face. Lord, no : not I — heh-heh-heh ! 
 Such a shy man as I be ! "
 
 70 FAR FROM THF MADDING CROWD, 
 
 "Yes — she's very vain. 'Tis said that every 
 night at going to bed she looks in the glass to put 
 on her nightcap properly." 
 
 " And not a married woman. Oh, the world ! " 
 
 " And 'a can play the peanner, so 'tis said. Can 
 play so clever that 'a can make a psalm tune sound 
 as well as the merriest loose song a man can wish 
 for." 
 
 " D'ye tell o't ! A happy mercy for us, and I 
 feel quite unspeakable ! And how do she pay ? " 
 
 " That I don't know. Master Poorgrass." 
 
 On hearing these and other similar remarks, a 
 wild thought flashed into Gabriel's mind that they 
 might be speaking of Bathsheba. There were, 
 however, no gi'ounds for retaining such a supposi- 
 tion, for the waggon, though going in the direction 
 of Weatherbury, might be going beyond it, and 
 the woman alluded to seemed to be the mistress of 
 some estate. They were now apparently close 
 upon Weatherbmy, and not to alarm the speakers 
 unnecessarily, Gabriel sHpped out of the waggon 
 unseen. 
 
 He turned to an opening in the hedge, which he 
 found to be a stile, and mounting thereon, he sat 
 meditating whether to seek a cheap lodging in the 
 village, or to ensui'e a cheaper one by lying under 
 some hay or corn-stack. The crunching jangle ol 
 the waggon died upon his ear. He was about to
 
 THE FIBE. 71 
 
 walk on, wlien tie noticed on liis left hand an 
 unusual light — appearing about half a mile distant. 
 Oak watched it, and the glow increased. Some- 
 thing was on fire. 
 
 Grabriel again mounted the stile, and, leaping 
 down on the other side upon what he found to be 
 ploughed soil, made across the field in the exact 
 direction of the fii'e. The blaze, enlarging in a double 
 ratio by his approach and its own increase, showed 
 him as he drew nearer the outlines of ricks beside 
 it, lighted up to great distinctness. A rick- 
 yard was the source of the fire. His weary face 
 now began to be painted over with a rich orange 
 glow, and the whole front of his smock-frock and 
 gaiters was covered with a dancing shadow- 
 pattern of thorn-twigs — the light reaching him 
 through a leafless intervening hedge — and the 
 metallic curve of his sheep-crook shone silver- 
 bright in the same abounding rays. He came up 
 to the boundary fence, and stood to regain breath. 
 It seemed as if the spot was unoccupied by a 
 living soul. 
 
 The fire was issuing from a long straw-stack, 
 which was so far gone as to preclude a possibility 
 of saving it. A rick bums differently from a house. 
 As the wind blows the fire inwards, the portion in 
 flames completely disappears like melting sugar, 
 and the outline is lost to the eye. However, a hay
 
 72 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 or a wheat-rick, well put together, will resist com- 
 bustion for a length of time, if it begins on the 
 outside. 
 
 This before Gabriel's eyes was a rick of straw, 
 loosely put together, and the flames darted into it 
 with Hghtning swiftness. It glowed on the wind- 
 ward side, rising and falling in intensity, like the 
 coal of a cigar. Then a superincumbent bundle 
 rolled down,mth a whisking noise, flames elongated, 
 and bent themselves about, with a quiet roar, but 
 no crackle. Banks of smoke went off horizontally 
 at the back like passing clouds, and behind these 
 burned hidden pyres, illuminating the semi-trans- 
 parent sheet of smoke to a lustrous yellow uni- 
 formity. Individual straws in the foreground were 
 consumed in a creeping movement of ruddy heat, 
 as if they were knots of red worms, and above 
 shone imaginary fiery faces, tongues hanging from 
 Hps, glaring eyes, and other impish forms, fi-om 
 which at intervals sparks flew in clusters like birds 
 fi'om a nest. 
 
 Oak suddenly ceased from being a mere spectator 
 by discovering the case to be more serious than he 
 had at first imagined. A scroll of smoke blew 
 aside and revealed to him a wheat-rick in startling 
 juxtaposition with the decaying one, and behind 
 this a series of others, composing the main corn 
 produce of the farm ; so that instead of the straw-
 
 THE FIRE. 73 
 
 stack standing, as he had imagined, comparatively 
 isolated, there was a regular connection between 
 it and the remaining stacks of the group. 
 
 Gabriel leapt over the hedge, and saw that he 
 was not alone. The first man he came to was 
 running about in a great huiiy, as if his thoughts 
 were several yards in advance of his body, which 
 they could never drag on fast enough. 
 
 " Oh, man — fire, fire ! A good master and a bad 
 servant is fire, fire ! — I mane a bad servant and a 
 good master. Oh, Mark Clark — come ! And you, 
 Billy Smallbuiy — and you, Maryann Money — and 
 you, Joseph Poorgrass, and Matthew there, for his 
 mercy endureth for ever ! " Other figui'es now 
 appeared behind this shoutiag man and among the 
 smoke, and Gabriel found that, far from being 
 alone, he was in a great company — whose shadows 
 danced merrily up and down, timed by the jigging 
 of the flames, and not at all by their owner's move- 
 ments. The assemblage — belonging to that class 
 of society which casts its thoughts into the form 
 of feehng, and its feelings into the form of com- 
 motion — set to work with a remarkable confusion 
 of purpose. 
 
 " Stop the draught under the wheat-rick ! " cried 
 Gabriel to those nearest to him. The corn stood 
 on stone staddles, and between these, tongues of 
 yellow hues from the bui'inng straw licked and
 
 74 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 darted playfully. If the fire once got under tliis 
 stack, all would be lost. 
 
 " Get a tarpaulin — quick ! " said Gabriel. 
 
 A rick-cloth was brought, and they hung it like 
 a curtain across the channel. The flames imme- 
 diately ceased to go under the bottom of the corn- 
 stack, and stood up vertical. 
 
 " Stand here with a bucket of water and keep 
 the cloth wet," said Gabriel again. 
 
 The flames, now driven upwards, began to 
 attack the angles of the huge roof covering the 
 wheat-stack. 
 
 *' A ladder," cried Gabriel. 
 
 " The ladder was agahist the straw-rick and 
 is burnt to a cinder," said a spectre-like form 
 in the smoke. 
 
 Oak seized the cut ends of the sheaves, as if 
 he were going to engage in the operation of 
 "reed-drawing," and digging in his feet, and 
 occasionally sticking in the stem of his sheep- 
 crook, he clambered up the beethng face. He 
 at once sat astride the very apex, and began 
 with his crook to beat off the fiery fragments 
 which had lodged thereon, shouting to the 
 others to get him a bough and a ladder, and 
 some water. 
 
 Billy Smallbmy — one of the men who had 
 been on the waggon — by this time had found
 
 THE FIRE. 75 
 
 a ladder, wMcli Mark Clark ascended, holding 
 on beside Oak upon the thatch. The smoke 
 at this comer was stifling, and Clark, a nimble 
 fellow, having been handed a bucket of water, 
 bathed Oak's face and sprinkled him generally, 
 whilst Gabriel, now with a long beech-bough in 
 one hand, in addition to his crook in the other, 
 kept sweeping the stack and dislodging all fiery- 
 particles. 
 
 On the ground the groups of villagers were 
 stni occupied in doing all they could to keep 
 down the conflagration, which was not much. 
 They were all tiaged orange, and backed up by 
 shadows as tall as fir-trees. Eound the comer 
 of the largest stack, out of the direct rays of 
 the fire, stood a pony, bearing a young woman 
 on its back. By her side was another female, 
 on foot. These two seemed to keep at a dis- 
 tance fi'om the fire, that the horse might not 
 become restive. 
 
 '' He's a shepherd," said the woman on foot. 
 "Yes — he is. See how his crook shines as he 
 beats the rick with it. And his smock-fi'ock 
 is burnt in two holes, I declare ! A fine young 
 shepherd he is too, ma'am." 
 
 "Whose shepherd is he?" said the equestrian 
 in a clear voice. 
 
 " Don't know, ma'am."
 
 76 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "Don't any of the others know? " 
 
 " Nobody at all — I've asked 'em. Quite a 
 stranger, they say." 
 
 The young woman on the pony rode out fi'om 
 the shade and looked anxiously around. 
 
 " Do you think the barn is safe ? " she said. 
 
 "D'ye think the barn is safe, Jan Coggan ? " 
 said the second woman, passing on the question 
 to the nearest man in that direction. 
 
 " Safe now — leastwise I think so. If this 
 rick had gone the barn would have followed. 
 'Tis that bold shepherd up there that have 
 done the most good — he sitting on the top 
 o' rick, whizzing his great long arms about hke 
 a windmill." 
 
 " He does work hard," said the young woman 
 on horseback, looking up at Gabriel through her 
 thick woollen veil. " I wish he was shepherd 
 here. Don't any of you know his name ? " 
 
 " Never heard the man's name in my life, or 
 seed his form afore." 
 
 The fire began to get worsted, and Gabriel's 
 elevated position being no longer required of 
 him, he made as if to descend. 
 
 " Maryann," said the girl on horseback, " go 
 to him as he comes down, and say that the 
 farmer wishes to thank him for the great 
 service he has done."
 
 THE FIRE. 77 
 
 Maryann stalked off towards the rick and met 
 Oak at the foot of the ladder. She dehvered 
 her message. 
 
 "Where is your master the farmer?" asked 
 Gabriel, kindling with the idea of getting em- 
 ployment that seemed to strike him now. 
 
 " 'Tisn't a master; 'tis a mistress, shepherd." 
 
 " A woman farmer ? " 
 
 "Ay, 'a b'lieve, and a rich one too!" said 
 a bystander. " Lately 'a come here fi'om a 
 distance. Took on her uncle's farm, who died 
 suddenly. Used to measure his money in half- 
 pint cups. They say now that she've business 
 in every bank in Casterbridge, and thinks no more 
 of playing pitch-and-toss-sovereign than you and 
 I do pitch-halfpenny — not a bit in the world, 
 shepherd." 
 
 " That's she, back there upon the pony," said 
 Maryann; "wi' her face a-covered up in a cloth 
 with holes in it." 
 
 Oak, his featiu*es black, grimy, and undis- 
 coverable from the smoke and heat, his smock- 
 frock burnt into holes, dripping with water, 
 the ash-stem of his sheep-crook charred six 
 inches shorter than it had been, advanced with 
 the humility stern adversity had thrust upon 
 him up to the shght female form in the saddle. 
 He lifted his hat with respect, and not with-
 
 78 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 out gallantry : stepping close to her hanging 
 feet, he said in a hesitating voice, — 
 
 " Do you happen to want a shepherd, ma'am?" 
 
 She lifted the Shetland veil tied round her face, 
 and looked all astonishment. Gabriel and his 
 cold-hearted darling, Bathsheba Everdene, were 
 face to face. 
 
 Bathsheba did not speak, and he mechanically 
 repeated in an abashed and sad voice, — 
 
 ''Do you want a shepherd, ma'am ? "
 
 ( 79 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RECOGNITION— A TIMID GIRL. 
 
 Bathsheba withdrew into the shade. She scarcely 
 knew whether most to be amused at the singularity 
 of the meeting, or to be concerned at its awkward- 
 ness. There was room for a little pity, also for 
 a very Httle exultation : the former at his posi- 
 tion, the latter at her own. Embarrassed she 
 was not, and she remembered Gabriel's declara- 
 tion of love to her at Norcombe only to think she 
 had nearly forgotten it. 
 
 " Yes," she murmured, putting on an air of dig- 
 nity, and turning again to him with a Httle 
 warmth of cheek ; " I do want a shepherd. 
 
 But " 
 
 '^ He's the very man, ma'am," said one of the 
 villagers, quietly. 
 
 Conviction breeds conviction. ''Ay, that 'a is," 
 said a second, decisively. 
 
 ^' The man, truly ! " said a third, with heartiness. 
 
 " He's all there ! " said number four, fervidly.
 
 80 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Then will you tell him to speak to the bailiff," 
 said Bathsheba. 
 
 All was practical again now. A summer eve and 
 loneHness would have been necessary to give the 
 meeting its proper fulness of romance. 
 
 The bailiff was pointed out to Gabriel, who, 
 checking the palpitation within his breast at 
 discovering that this Ashtoreth of strange report 
 was only a modification of Yenus the well-known 
 and admired, retired with him to talk over the 
 necessary preHminaries of huing. 
 
 The fire before them wasted away. "Men," 
 said Bathsheba, " you shall take a Httle refresh- 
 ment after this extra work. Will you come to the 
 house ? " 
 
 " We could knock in a bit and a drop a good 
 deal freer. Miss, if so be ye'd send it to Warren's 
 Malthouse," rephed the spokesman. 
 
 Bathsheba then rode off into the darkness, and 
 the men straggled on to the village in twos and 
 threes — Oak and the baihff being left by the rick 
 alone. 
 
 '' And now," said the bailiff, finally, "all is 
 settled, I think, about yer coming, and I am going 
 home-along. Good-night to ye, shej)herd." 
 
 " Can you get me a lodging ? " inquired Gabriel. 
 
 "That I can't, indeed," he said, moving past 
 Oak as a Christian edges past an offertory-plate
 
 A TIMID GIBL. 81 
 
 when lie does not mean to contribnte. "If you 
 follow on the road till yon come to Warren's Malt- 
 house, where they are all gone to have their snap 
 of victuals, I dare say some of 'em will tell you of 
 a place. Good-night to ye, shepherd." 
 
 The bailiff, who showed this nervous dread of 
 loving his neighbours as himself, went up the hill, 
 and Oak walked on to the village, still astonished 
 at the rencontre with Bathsheba, glad of his near- 
 ness to her, and perplexed at the rapidity with 
 which the unpractised girl of Norcombe had 
 developed into the supervising and cool woman 
 here. But some women only requu*e an emer- 
 gency to make them fit for one. 
 
 Obhged, to some extent, to forego dreaming in 
 order to find the way, he reached the churchyard, 
 and passed round it under the wall where several 
 old chestnuts grew. There was a wide margin of 
 grass along here, and Gabriel's footsteps were 
 deadened by its softness, even at this indm-ating 
 period of the year. When abreast of a trunk which 
 appeared to be the oldest of the old, he became 
 aware that a figure was standing behind it on the 
 other side. Gabriel did not pause in his walk, and 
 in another moment he accidentally kicked a loose 
 stone. The noise was enough to disturb the 
 motionless stranger, who started and assumed a 
 careless position. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad. 
 
 " Good-night to yon," said Gabriel, heartily. 
 
 ^' Good-night," said the girl to Gabriel. 
 
 The voice was unexpectedly attractive ; it was 
 the low and dulcet note suggestive of romance ; 
 common in descriptions, rare in experience. 
 
 *' I'll thank you to teU me if I'm in the way for 
 Warren's Malthouse ? " Gabriel resumed, primaiily 
 to gain the information, indirectly to get more of 
 the music. 
 
 " Quite right. It's at the bottom of the hill. 
 
 And do you know " The girl hesitated and 
 
 then went on again. " Do you know how late they 
 keep open the ' Buck's Head Inn ? ' " She seemed 
 to be won by Gabriel's heartiness, as Gabriel had 
 been won by her modulations. 
 
 "I don't know where the ' Buck's Head' is, or 
 anything about it. Do you think of goiag there 
 to-night ? " 
 
 "Yes ." The female again paused. There 
 
 was no necessity for any continuance of speech, 
 and the fact that she did add more seemed to 
 proceed fi*om an unconscious desire to show un- 
 concern by making a remark, which is noticeable 
 in the ingenuous when they are acting by stealth. 
 "You are not a Weatherbury man?" she said, 
 timorously. 
 
 "I am not. I am the new shepherd — -just arrived."
 
 A TIMID QIRL. 83 
 
 "Only a shepherd — and you seem almost a 
 farmer by your ways." 
 
 " Only a shepherd," Gabriel repeated, in a dull 
 cadence of finality. His thoughts were directed 
 to the past, his eyes to the feet of the girl, and for 
 the first time he saw lying there a bundle of some 
 sort. She may have perceived the direction of his 
 face, for she said coaxingly, — 
 
 "You won't say anything in the parish about 
 having seen me here, will you — at least, not for a 
 day or two ? " 
 
 " I won't if you wish me not to," said Oak. 
 
 " Thank you, indeed," the other rephed. " I am 
 rather poor, and I don't want people to know any- 
 thing about me." Then she was silent and 
 shivered. 
 
 " You ought to have a cloak on such a cold 
 night," Gabriel observed. " I would advise you to 
 get indoors." 
 
 " Oh no ! Would you mind going on and leav- 
 ing me ? I thank you much for what you have 
 told me." 
 
 "I will go on," he said; adding hesitatingly, — 
 " Since you are not veiy well off, perhaps you 
 would accept this trifle from me. It is only a 
 shilKng, but it is all I have to spare." 
 
 " Yes, I will take it," said the stranger, grate- 
 foUy.
 
 84 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 She extended her hand ; Gabriel his. In feeling 
 for each other's palms in the gloom before the 
 money could be passed, a minute incident occurred 
 which told much. Gabriel's fingers ahghted on 
 the young woman's wrist. It was beating with a 
 throb of tragic intensity. He had fi-equently felt 
 the same quick, hard beat in the femoral artery of 
 his lambs when overdriven. It suggested a con- 
 sumption too great of a vitality which, to judge 
 fi'om her figure and statm^e, was already too Httle. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " But there is ? " 
 
 *' No, no, no ! Let yom- having seen me be a 
 secret ! " 
 
 " Very weU ; I will. Good-night, again." 
 
 *' Good-night." 
 
 The young girl remained motionless by the tree 
 and Gabriel descended into the village. He fancied 
 that he had felt himself in the penumbra of a very 
 deep sadness when touching that sHght and fi'agile 
 creature. But wisdom lies in moderating mere im- 
 pressions, and Gabriel endeavoured to think little 
 of this.
 
 ( 85 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE MALTHOUSE— THE CHAT— NEWS. 
 
 Waeren's Malthoiise was inclosed by an old wall 
 inwrapped with ivy, and though not much of the 
 exterior was visible at this hour, the character and 
 purposes of the building were clearly enough 
 shown by its outhne upon the sky. From the 
 walls an overhanging thatched roof sloped up to 
 a point in the centre, upon which rose a small 
 wooden lantern, fitted with louvre-boards on all 
 the four sides, and from these openings a mist was 
 dimly perceived to be escaping into the night aii'. 
 There was no window in front ; but a square hole 
 in the door was glazed with a single pane, through 
 which red, comfortable rays now stretched out upon 
 the ivied wall in front. Voices were to be heard 
 inside. 
 
 Oak's hand skimmed the surface of the door 
 with fingers extended to an Elymas-the- Sorcerer 
 pattern, till he found a leathern strap, which he 
 pulled. This lifted a wooden latch, and the door 
 swung open.
 
 8G FAB FROM THE M ADDING CROWD. 
 
 The room inside was lighted only by the ruddy 
 glow from the kiln mouth, which shone over the 
 floor with the streaming horizontahty of the set- 
 ting sun, and threw upwards the shadows of all 
 facial irregularities in those assembled around, 
 with the effect of the footlights upon the features 
 of her Majesty's servants when they approach too 
 near the front. The stone-flag floor was worn 
 into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into 
 undulations everywhere. A curved settle of un- 
 planed oak stretched along one side, and in a 
 remote corner was a small bed and bedstead, the 
 owner and frequent occupier of which was the 
 maltster. 
 
 This aged man was now sitting opposite the fire, 
 his frosty white hair and beard overgrowing his 
 gnarled figure like the grey moss and hchen upon 
 a leafless apple-tree. He wore breeches and the 
 laced-up shoes called ankle-jacks; he kept his eyes 
 fixed upon the fire. 
 
 Gabriel's nose was greeted by an atmosphere 
 laden with the sweet smell of new malt. The 
 conversation (which seemed to have been concern- 
 ing the origin of the fire) immediately ceased, and 
 every one ocularly criticized him to the degree 
 expressed by contracting the flesh of thefr fore- 
 heads and looking at him with narrowed eyehds, 
 as if he had been a light too strong for their sight.
 
 THE CHAT. 87 
 
 Several exclaimed meditatively, after this opera- 
 tion had been completed : — 
 
 " Oh, 'tis the new shepherd, a' b'lieve." 
 
 " We thought we heai'd a hand pawing about 
 the door for the bobbin, but weren't sure 'twere 
 not a dead leaf blowed across," said another. 
 '' Come in, shepherd ; sm-e ye be welcome, though 
 we don't know yer name." 
 
 " Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbom's." 
 
 The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned 
 at this — his turning being as the tm-ning of a 
 rusty crane. 
 
 " That's never Gable Oak's grandson over at 
 Norcombe — never ! " he said, as a formula expres- 
 sive of sm-prise, which nobody was supposed for a 
 moment to take hterally. 
 
 " My father and my grandfather were old men 
 of the name of Gabriel," said the shepherd, 
 placidly. 
 
 " Thought I knowed the man's face as I seed 
 him on the rick ! — thought I did ! And where be 
 ye trading o't to now, shepherd ? " 
 
 '' I'm thinking of bidiag here," said Mr. Oak. 
 
 " Knowed yer grandfather for years and years ! " 
 continued the maltster, the words coming forth of 
 their own accord as if the momentimi previously 
 imparted had been sufficient. 
 
 ''Ah— and did you!"
 
 88 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 '' Ivnowed yer grandmother." 
 
 ''And her too!" 
 
 " Likewise knowed yer father when he was a 
 child. Why, my boy Jacob there and your father 
 were sworn brothers — that they were sure — weren't 
 ye, Jacob ? " 
 
 '' Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about 
 sixty-five, with a semi-bald head and one tooth in 
 the left centre of his upper jaw, which made much 
 of itself by standing prominent, like a milestone in 
 a bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do with 
 him. However, my son William must have 
 knowed the very man afore us — didn't ye, Billy, 
 afore ye left Norcombe ? " 
 
 " No, 'twas Andrew," said Jacob's son Billy, a 
 child of forty, or thereabouts, who manifested the 
 peculiarity of possessing a cheerful soul in a 
 gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assuming 
 a chinchilla shade here and there. 
 
 " I remember Andrew," said Oak, " as being a 
 man in the place when I was quite a child." 
 
 "Ay — the other day I and my youngest 
 daughter, Liddy, were over at my grandson's 
 christening," continued Billy. "We were talking 
 about this very family, and 'twas only last Puiifi- 
 cation Day in this very world, when the use- 
 money is gied away to the second-best poor folk, 
 you know, shepherd, and I can mind the day
 
 TEE CHAT. 89 
 
 because they all had to traypse up to tlie Yestry — 
 yes, this very man's family." 
 
 " Come, shepherd, and di'ink. 'Tis gape and 
 swaller with us — a di-ap of sommit, but not of 
 much account," said the maltster, removing from 
 the fire his eyes, which were vermiHon-red and 
 bleared by gaziug into it for so many years. 
 " Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if 'tis 
 warm, Jacob." 
 
 Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was 
 a two-handled tall mug standing in the ashes, 
 cracked and charred with heat, rather furred with 
 extraneous matter about the outside, especially 
 in the crevices of the handles, the innermost 
 curves of which may not have seen dayhght for 
 several years by reason of this encrustation there- 
 on — formed of ashes accidentally wetted with cider 
 and baked hard ; but to the mind of any sensible 
 drinker the cup was no worse for that, being 
 incontestably clean on the inside and about the 
 rim. It may be obsei'ved that such a class of mug 
 is called a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and its 
 vicinity for uncertain reasons ; probably because 
 its size makes any given toper feel ashamed of 
 himseK when he sees its bottom in drinking it 
 empty : this idea is, however, a mere guess. 
 
 Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor 
 was warm enough, placidly dipped his forefinger
 
 90 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 into it by way of thermometer, and having 
 pronounced it nearly of the proper degi'ee, raised 
 the cup and veiy civilly attempted to dust some 
 of the ashes from the bottom with the skii't of 
 his smock-frock, because Shepherd Oak was a 
 stranger. 
 
 *' A clane cup for the shepherd," said the malt- 
 ster commandingly. 
 
 " No — not at all," said Gabriel, in a reproving 
 tone of considerateness. '' I never fuss about dirt 
 in its natm-al state, and when I know what sort 
 it is." Taking the mug he drank an inch or more 
 from the depth of its contents, and duly passed 
 it to the next man. *' I wouldn't think of giving 
 such trouble to neighbours in washing up when 
 there's so much work to be done in the world 
 already," contiaued Oak, in a moister tone, after 
 recovering fi'om the stoppage of breath ever 
 occasioned by proper pulls at large mugs. 
 
 " A right sensible man," said Jacob. 
 
 " True, true, as the old woman said," observed 
 a brisk young man — Mark Clark by name, a genial 
 and pleasant gentleman, whom to meet anywhere 
 in yom' travels was to know, to know was to di'ink 
 with, and to drink with was, unfoi-tunately, to 
 pay for. 
 
 " And here's a mouthful of bread and bacon 
 that mis' ess have sent, shepherd. The cider will
 
 THE CHAT. 91 
 
 go do^Ti better with a bit of victuals. Don't ye 
 cliaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the bacon 
 fall in the road outside as I was bringing it along, 
 and may be 'tis rather gritty. There, 'tis clane 
 dift ; and we all know what that is, as you say,, 
 and you hain't a particular man we see, shepherd." 
 
 *' True, true — not at all," said the friendly Oak. 
 
 " Don't let yer teeth quite meet, and you won't 
 feel the sandiness at all. Ah ! 'tis wonderful 
 what can be done by contrivance ! " 
 
 " My own mind exactly, neighbour." 
 
 "Ah, he's his grandfer's own grandson! — his 
 gi'andfer were just such a nice unparticular man ! "' 
 said the maltster. 
 
 " Drink, Henry Fray — drink," magnanimously 
 said Jan Coggan, a person who held Saint- 
 Simonian notions of share and share alike where 
 liquor was concerned, as the vessel showed signs 
 of approaching him in its gradual revolution 
 among them. 
 
 Having at this moment reached the end of a 
 wistful gaze into mid-air, Heniy did not refuse. 
 He was a man of more than middle age, with eye- 
 brows high up in his forehead, who laid it down 
 that the law of the world was bad, with a long- 
 suffering look through his hsteners at the world 
 alluded to, as it presented itself to his imagination.. 
 He always signed his name "Henery" — strenu-
 
 92 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ously insisting upon that spelling, and if any 
 passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that the 
 second " e " was superfluous and old-fashioned, he 
 received the reply that '' H-e-n-e-r-y " was the 
 name he was christened and the name he would 
 stick to — in the tone of one to whom ortho- 
 graphical differences were matters which had 
 a great deal to do with personal character. 
 
 Mr, Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to 
 Henery, was a crimson man with a spacious 
 countenance, and private glimmer in his eye, 
 whose name had appeared on the marriage 
 register of Weatherbury and neighbouring 
 parishes as best man and chief witness in 
 countless unions of the previous twenty years ; 
 he also very frequently filled the post of head 
 god-father in baptisms of the subtly -jovial kind. 
 
 " Come, Mark Clark — come. Ther's plenty 
 more in the barrel," said Jan. 
 
 "Ay — that I will, as the doctor said," replied 
 Mr. Clark, who, twenty years younger than Jan 
 Coggan, revolved in the same orbit. He secreted 
 mirth on all occasions for special discharge at 
 popular parties — his productions of this class being 
 more noticeably advanced than Coggan's, inflict- 
 ing a faint sense of redupHcation and similitude 
 upon the elder members of such companies. 
 
 "Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye ha'n't had a
 
 THE CHAT. 9.^ 
 
 drop ! " said Mr. Coggan to a very ski'iiikmg man 
 in the backgi*ound, tknisting the cup towards him. 
 
 *' Such a shy man as he is ! " said Jacob Small- 
 bury. ''Why, ye've hardly had strength of eye 
 enough to look in om* young mis'ess's face, so 
 I hear, Joseph ? " 
 
 All looked at Joseph Poorgi-ass with pitying- 
 reproach. 
 
 "No — I've hardly looked at her at all," 
 faltered Joseph, reducing his body smaller whilst 
 talking, apparently from a meek sense of undue 
 prominence. " And when I seed her, 'twas nothing 
 but blushes with me ! " 
 
 ''Poor feUer," said Mr. Clark. 
 
 " 'Tis a cm-ious nature for a man," said Jan 
 Coggan. 
 
 " Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass — his shy- 
 ness, which was so painful as a defect, just 
 beginning to fill him with a Httle complacency 
 now that it was regarded in the Hght of an 
 interesting study. " 'Twere blush, blush, blush 
 with me every minute of the time, when she was 
 speaking to me." 
 
 " I beheve ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all 
 know ye to be a very bashful man." 
 
 " 'Tis tenible bad for a man, poor soul," said 
 the maltster. "And how long have ye suffered 
 from it, Joseph ? "
 
 '94 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Oil, ever since I was a boy. Yes — mother was 
 -concerned to lier heart about it — yes. But 'twas 
 all nought." 
 
 '' Did ye ever take anything to try and stop it, 
 Joseph Poorgrass ? " 
 
 " Oh ay, tried all sorts. They took me to 
 Greenhill Fair, and into a grate large jerry-go- 
 nimble show, where there were women-folk riding 
 round — standing upon horses, with hardly any- 
 thing on but their smocks, but it didn't cure me 
 a morsel — no, not a morsel. And then I was 
 put errand-man at the Woman's Skittle Alley at 
 the back of the ' Tailor's Arms ' in Casterbridge. 
 'Twas a horrible gross situation, and altogether a 
 very curious place for a good man. I had to 
 stand and look wicked people in the face from 
 morning till night ; but 'twas no use — I was just 
 as bad as ever after all. Blushes hev been in the 
 family for generations. There, 'tis a happy provi- 
 dence that I be no worse, so to speak it — yes, a 
 happy thing, and I feel my few poor gratitudes." 
 
 *' True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his 
 thoughts to a profounder view of the subject. 
 ^' 'Tis a thought to look at, that ye might have 
 been worse ; but even as you be, 'tis a very bad 
 affliction for ye, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, 
 though 'tis very well for a woman, dang it all, 'tis 
 awkward for a man hke him, poor feUer." He 
 appealed to the shepherd by a heart-feehng glance.
 
 THE GHAT. 95 
 
 " 'Tis — 'tis," said Gabriel, recovering from a 
 meditation as to whettier the saving to a man's 
 soul in the run of a twelvemonth by saying 
 "dang" instead of what it stood for, made it 
 worth while to use the word. "Yes, very awkward 
 for the man." 
 
 " Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan 
 Coggan. " Once he had been working late at 
 Windleton, and had had a drap of di'ink, and lost 
 his way as he was coming home-along through 
 Yalbury Wood, didn't ye. Master Poorgrass ? " 
 
 " No, no, no ; not that story ! " expostulated the 
 modest man, forcing a laugh to bury his concern, 
 and forcing out too much for the purpose — laugh- 
 ing over the greater part of his skin, round to 
 his ears, and up among his hair, insomuch that 
 Shepherd Oak, who was rather sensitive himself, 
 was surfeited, and felt he would never adopt that 
 plan for hiding trepidation any more. 
 
 " And so 'a lost himself quite," continued 
 
 Mr. Coggan, with an impassive face, implying that 
 a true narrative, like time and tide, must run its 
 com-se and would wait for no man. " And as he 
 was coming along in the middle of the night, 
 much afeard, and not able to find his way out of 
 the trees, nohow, 'a cried out, ' Man-a-lost ! man- 
 a-lost !' A owl in a tree happened to be crjdng 
 ' Whoo-whoo-whoo ! ' as owls do, you know, shep-
 
 96 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 herd" (G-abriel nodded), "and Joseph, all in a 
 tremble, said ' Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbmy, 
 sii-!'" 
 
 ''No, no, now — that's too much!" said the 
 timid man, becoming a man of brazen courage all 
 of a sudden. " I didn't say sir. I'll take my oath 
 I didn't say ' Joseph Poorgrass o' Weatherbury, 
 sir.' No, no ; what's right is right, and I never 
 said sir to the bhd, knowing very well that no 
 person of a gentleman's rank would be hollering 
 there at that time o' night. ' Joseph Poorgrass of 
 Weatherbury,' — that's every word I said, and I 
 shouldn't ha' said that if 't hadn't been for Keeper 
 Day's metheglin. . . . There, 'twas a merciful 
 thing it ended where it did, as I may say," 
 continued Joseph, swallowing his breath in con- 
 tent. 
 
 The question of which was right being tacitly 
 waived by the company, Jan went on medita- 
 tively : — 
 
 " And he's the feai-fullest man, bain't ye, 
 Joseph ? Ay, another time ye were lost by 
 Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph ?" 
 
 " I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were 
 some matters too serious even for modesty to 
 remember itseK under, and this was one. 
 
 " Yes ; that were the middle of the night, too. 
 The gate would not open, try how he would, and
 
 THE CHAT. 97 
 
 knowing there was tlie Devil's hand in it, lie 
 kneeled down." 
 
 " Ay," said Joseph, acquiring confidence from 
 the warmth of the fire, the cider, and a growing 
 perception of the narrative capabilities of the 
 experience alluded to. " My heart died within 
 me, that time ; hut I kneeled down and said the 
 Lord's Prayer, and then the Belief right through, 
 and then the Ten Commandments, in earnest 
 prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't open ; and 
 then I went on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, 
 and, thinks I, this makes four, and 'tis all I know 
 out of book, and if this don't do it nothing will, 
 and I'm a lost man. Well, when I got to Saying 
 After Me, I rose from my knees and found 
 the gate would open — yes, neighbom's, the gate 
 opened the same as ever." 
 
 A meditation on the obvious inference was in- 
 dulged in by all, and during its continuance each 
 directed his vision into the ashpit, which glowed 
 like a desert in the tropics under a vertical sun, 
 shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of 
 the light, partly from the depth of the subject dis- 
 cussed — each man severally drawing upon the 
 tablet of his imagination a clear and correct 
 picture of Joseph Poorgrass under the remarkable 
 conditions he had related, and surveying the posi- 
 tion in aU its bearings with critical exactness. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 Gabriel broke the silence. *' What sort of a 
 place is this to live at, and what sort of a mis'ess 
 is she to work under?" G-abriel's bosom thrilled 
 gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the 
 assembly the innermost subject of his heart. 
 
 " We d' know httle of her — nothing. She only 
 showed herseK a few days ago. Her imcle was 
 took bad, and the doctor was called with his 
 world-wide skill; but he couldn't save the man. 
 As I take it, she's going to keep on the farm." 
 
 " That's about the shape o't, 'a b'heve," said 
 Jan Coggan. ''Ay, 'tis a very good family. I'd 
 as soon be under 'em as under one here and there. 
 Her uncle was a very fair sort of man. Did ye 
 know en, shepherd — a bachelor-man ? " 
 
 "Not at aU." 
 
 The inquirer paused a moment, and then con- 
 tinued his relation, which, as did every remark he 
 made, instead of being casual, seemed the result 
 of a slow convergence of forces that had com- 
 menced their operation in times far remote. 
 
 *' I used to go to his house a-courting my first 
 wife, Charlotte, who was his daii-ymaid. Well, a 
 very good-hearted man were Farmer Everdene, 
 and I being a respectable young fellow was allowed 
 to call and see her and drink as much ale as I 
 liked, but not to carry away any — outside my skin 
 I mane, of course."
 
 THE CHAT. 99 
 
 " Ay, ay, Jan Coggan ; we know yer maning." 
 
 "And so yon see 'twas beantifol ale, and I 
 wished to value kLs kindness as much as I could, 
 and not to be so ill-mannered as to di'ink only a 
 thimbleful, which would have been insulting the 
 man's generosity " 
 
 " True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corrobo- 
 rated Mark Clark. ^^ 
 
 *' And so I used to eat a lot of salt afore 
 
 going, and then by the time I got there I were 
 as dry as a lime-basket — so thorough dry that 
 that ale would sHp down — ah, 'twould sHp down 
 sweet ! Happy times ! heavenly times ! Ay, 'twere 
 like drinking blessedness itself. Pints and pints ! 
 Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house. 
 You can mind, Jacob ? You used to go wi' me 
 sometimes." 
 
 " I can — I can," said Jacob. " That one, too, 
 that we had at Buck's Head on a White Monday 
 was a pretty tipple — a very pretty tipple, indeed." 
 
 *' 'Twas. But for a diimk of really a noble class 
 and on the highest principles, that brought you 
 no nearer to the dark man than you were afore 
 you begun, there was none like those in Farmer 
 Everdene's kitchen. Not a single damn allowed; 
 no, not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful 
 moment when all were blindest, though the good 
 old word of sin thrown m here and there would 
 have been a great rehef to a "merry soul."
 
 100 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "True," said the maltster. "Nature requires 
 her swearing at the regular times, or she's not her- 
 self ; and unholy exclamations is a necessity of life." 
 
 "But Charlotte," continued Coggan — "not a 
 word of the sort would Charlotte allow, nor the 
 smallest item of taking in vain. . . . Ay, poor 
 Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good fortune 
 to get into Heaven when 'a died ! But 'a was 
 never much in luck's way, and perhaps 'a went 
 downwards after all, poor soul." 
 
 "And did any of you know Miss Everdene's 
 father and mother?" inquired the shepherd, who 
 found some difficulty in keeping the conversation 
 in the desired channel. 
 
 "I knew them a little," said Jacoh Smallhury ; 
 "hut they were townsfolk, and didn't hve here. 
 They've heen dead for years. Father, what sort 
 of people were mis'ess' father and mother?" 
 
 "Well," said the maltster, "he wasn't much to 
 look at ; hut she was a lovely woman. He was 
 fond enough of her as his sweetheart." 
 
 " Used to kiss her in scores and long-hundreds, 
 so 'twas said here and there," ohserved Coggan. 
 
 " He was very proud of her, too, when they 
 were married, as I've been told," said the maltster. 
 
 "Ay," said Coggan. "He admired his wife 
 so much, that he used to hght the candle three 
 times every night to look at her."
 
 THE CEAT. 101 
 
 " Boundless love ; I shouldn't have supposed 
 it in the world's universe!" murmured Joseph 
 Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale 
 in his moral reflections. 
 
 "Well, to he sure," said Gabriel. 
 
 '* Oh, 'tis true enough. I knowed the man and 
 woman both well. Levi Everdene — that was the 
 man's name, sure enough. * Man,' saith I in my 
 hurry, but he were of a higher circle of life than 
 that — 'a was a gentleman-tailor really, worth 
 scores of pounds. And he became a very cele- 
 brated bankrupt two or three times." 
 
 '' Oh, I thought he was quite a common man ! " 
 said Joseph. 
 
 " Oh no, no ! That man failed for heaps of 
 money; hundreds in gold and silver." 
 
 The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. 
 Coggan, after absently scrutinizing a coal which 
 had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative, 
 with a private twirl of his eye : — 
 
 "Well, now, you'd hardly beheve it, but that 
 man — our Miss Everdene 's father — was one of the 
 ficklest husbands ahve, after a while. Understand, 
 'a didn't want to be fickle, but he couldn't help it. 
 The pore feller were faithful and true enough to 
 her in his wish, but his heart would rove, do what 
 he would. Ay, 'a spoke to me in real tribulation 
 about it once. ' Coggan,' he said, ' I could never
 
 102 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 wish for a handsomer woman than I've got, but 
 feeling she's ticketed as my la^^ul wife, I can't 
 help my Tvdcked heart wandering, do what I will.' 
 But at last I believe he cured it by making her 
 take off her wedding-ring and calling her by her 
 maiden name as they sat together after the shop 
 was shut, and so 'a would get to fancy she was 
 only his sweetheart, and not married to him at all. 
 And so as soon as he could thoroughly fancy he 
 was doing wrong and committing the seventh, 'a 
 got to like her as well as ever, and they lived on 
 a perfect example of mutel love." 
 
 " Well, 'twas a most ungodly remedy," mur- 
 mured Joseph Poorgi'ass; "but we ought to feel 
 deep cheerfulness, as I may say, that a happy 
 Providence kept it from being any worse. You 
 see, he might have gone the bad road and given 
 his eyes to unlawfulness entirely — yes, gross 
 unlawfulness, so to say it." 
 
 "You see," said Billy Smallbury, with testi- 
 monial emphasis, " the man's will was to do 
 right, sure enough, but his heart didn't chime in." 
 
 "He got so much better, that he was quite 
 rehgious in his later years, wasn't he, Jan?" 
 said Joseph Poorgrass. "He got himseK con- 
 firmed over again in a more serious way, and 
 took to saying ' Amen ' almost as loud as a clerk, 
 and he liked to copy comforting verses from the
 
 THE CEAT. 103 
 
 tombstones. He used, too, to hold the holy 
 money-plate at Let Your Light so Shine, and stand 
 godfather to poor little come-by-chance children 
 that had no father at all in the eye of matrimony, 
 and he kept a missionary box upon his table 
 to nab folks unawares when they called ; yes, 
 and he would box the charity-boys' ears, if 
 they laughed in church, till they could hardly 
 stand upright, and do other deeds of piety com- 
 mon to the saintly inclined." 
 
 "Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but 
 righteousness," added Billy Smallbury. "One 
 day Parson Thirdly met him and said, ' Good- 
 morning, Mister Everdene ; 'tis a fine day ! ' 
 'Amen,' said Everdene, quite absent-Hke, think- 
 ing only of religion when he seed a parson. 
 Yes, he was a very Christian man." 
 
 " His second-cousin, John, was the most reli- 
 gious of the family, however," said the old 
 maltster. "None of the others were so pious as 
 he, for they never went past us Church people 
 in their Christianity, but John's feelings growed 
 as strong as a chapel member's. 'A was a 
 watch and clock maker by trade, and thought 
 of nothing but godliness, poor man. * I judge 
 every clock according to his works,' he used 
 to say when he were in his holy frame of mind. 
 Ay, he likewise was a very Christian man."
 
 104 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Their daughter was not at all a pretty chiel 
 at that time," said Henery Fray. " Never should 
 have thought she'd have growed up such a hand- 
 some body as she is." 
 
 '' 'Tis to be hoped her temper is as good as 
 her face." 
 
 "Well, yes; but the baily will have most to 
 do with the business and ourselves. Ah ! " 
 Henery shook his head, gazed into the ashpit, 
 and smiled volumes of ironical knowledge. 
 
 "A queer Christian, as the D said of the 
 
 owl," volunteered Mark Clark. 
 
 "He is," said Henery, with a manner imply- 
 ing that irony must necessarily cease at a 
 certain point. "Between we two, man and 
 man, I beheve that man would as soon tell a 
 He Sundays as working-days, that I do so." 
 
 " Good faith, you do talk ! " said Gabriel, 
 with apprehension. 
 
 " True enough," said the man of bitter moods, 
 looking round upon the company, with the anti- 
 thetic laughter that comes from a keener appre- 
 ciation of the untold miseries of life than ordin- 
 ary men are capable of. "Ah, there's people of 
 one sort, and people of another, but that man — 
 bless your souls ! " 
 
 The company suspended consideration of 
 whether they wanted their souls blessed that
 
 THE CHAT. 105 
 
 moment, as the shortest way to the end of the 
 story. 
 
 " I heheve that if so be that Baily Penny- 
 ways' heart were put inside a nutshell, he'd 
 rattle," continued Henery. " He'll strain for 
 money as a salmon will strain for the river's 
 head. 'Tis a thief and a robber, that's what 'tis." 
 Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. 
 " You must be a very aged man, maltster, to have 
 sons growed up so old and ancient," he remarked. 
 '' Father^s so old that 'a can't mind his age, 
 can ye, father?" interposed Jacob. ''And he's 
 growed terrible crooked, too, lately," Jacob con- 
 tinued, surveying his father's figm^e, which was 
 rather more bowed than his own. "Eeally, one 
 may say that father there is three-double." 
 
 '' Crooked folk will last a long while," said 
 the maltster, grimly, and not in the best humour. 
 '' Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree 
 of yer hfe, father — wouldn't ye, shepherd?" 
 
 "Ay, that I should," said Gabriel, with the 
 heartiness of a man who had longed to hear it 
 for several months. " What may your age be, 
 maltster?" 
 
 The maltster cleared his throat in an exagge- 
 rated form for emphasis, and elongating his gaze 
 to the remotest point of the ashpit, said, in the 
 slow speech justifiable when the importance of a
 
 106 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 subject is so generally felt that any mannerism 
 must be tolerated in getting at it, '^ WeU, I 
 don't mind the year I were born in, but per- 
 haps I can reckon up the places I've Hved at, 
 and so get it that way. I bode at Juddle Farm 
 across there " (nodding to the north) " till I 
 were eleven. I bode seven, at Lower Twifford " 
 (nodding to the east), *' where I took to malt- 
 ing. I went therefrom to Norcombe, and 
 malted there two-and-twenty years, and two- 
 and-twenty years I was there tui'nip-hoeing and 
 harvesting. Ah, I knowed that old place, Nor- 
 combe, years afore you were thought of. Master 
 Oak " (Oak smiled a corroboration of the fact). 
 '' Then I malted at Snoodly-under-Drool four 
 year, and four year turnip hoeing; and I was 
 fourteen times eleven months at Moreford St. 
 Jude's " (nodding north-west-by-north). "Old 
 Twills wouldn't hire me for more than eleven 
 months at a time, to keep me from being 
 chargeable to the parish if so be I was disabled. 
 Then I was three year at Mellstock, and I've 
 been here one-and-thirty year come Candlemas. 
 How much is that ? " 
 
 " Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another 
 old gentleman, given to mental arithmetic and 
 little conversation, who had hitherto sat unob- 
 served in a corner.
 
 THE CHAT. 107 
 
 "AVell, tlien, that's my age," said the maltster, 
 emphatically. 
 
 " Oh, no, father ! " Jacob remonstrated. 
 "Your turnip-hoeing were in the siunmer and 
 your malting in the winter of the same years, 
 and ye don't ought to count both halves, father." 
 
 " Chok' it all ! I lived through the summers, 
 didn't I ? That's my question. I suppose ye'll 
 say next I be no age at all to speak of?" 
 
 " Sure we sha'n't," said Gabriel, soothingly. 
 
 "Ye be a very old- aged person, maltster," at- 
 tested Jan Coggan, also soothingly. " We all 
 know that, and ye must have a wonderful talented 
 constitution to be able to live so long, mustn't he, 
 neighbours ? " 
 
 " True, true ; ye must, maltster, a wondei-ful 
 talented constitution," said the meeting unani- 
 mously. 
 
 The maltster, being now pacified, was even 
 generous enough to voluntarily disparage in a 
 sHght degree the virtue of having Hved a great 
 many years, by mentioning that the cup they 
 were diinking out of was three years older than he. 
 
 "While the cup was being examined, the end 
 of Gabriel Oak's flute became visible over his 
 smock-frock pocket, and Henery Fray exclaimed, 
 " Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a grate 
 flute by-no w at Casterbridge ? "
 
 108 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly. I've 
 been in great trouble, neighbours, and was driven 
 to it. I used not to be so poor as I be now." 
 
 " Never mind, heart ! " said Mark Clark. " You 
 should take it careless-Hke, shepherd, and your 
 time will come. But we could thank ye for a 
 tune, if ye hain't too tired ? " 
 
 *' Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard this 
 Christmas," said Jan Coggan. " Come, raise a 
 tune. Master Oak!" 
 
 "Ay, that I wiU," said Grabriel readily, pulling 
 out his flute and putting it together. " A poor 
 tool, neighbours ; an everyday chap ; but such 
 as I can do ye shall have and welcome." 
 
 Oak then struck up " Jockey to the Fair," and 
 played that sparkling melody three times through* 
 accenting the notes in the third round in a most 
 artistic and lively manner by bending his body in 
 small jerks and tapping with his foot to beat time. 
 
 " He can blow the flute very well — that 'a can," 
 said a young married man, who having no indivi- 
 duahty worth mentioning was known as " Susan 
 Tail's husband." He continued admiringly, "I'd 
 as lief as not be able to blow into a flute as weU 
 as that." 
 
 " He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort 
 for us to have such a shepherd," murmured 
 Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft and complacent
 
 THE CHAT. 109 
 
 cadence. "We ought to feel real thanksgiving 
 that he's not a player of loose songs instead of 
 these merry tunes ; for 'twould have been just 
 as easy for God to have made the shepherd a 
 lewd low man — a man of iniquity, so to speak 
 it — as what he is. Yes, for our wives' and daugh- 
 ters' sakes we should feel real thanksgiving." 
 
 ''True, true, as the old woman said," dashed 
 in Mark Clark conclusively, not feeling it to be 
 of any consequence to his opinion that he had 
 only heard about a word and three-quarters of 
 what Joseph had said. 
 
 " Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like 
 a man in the Bible; "for evil does thrive so in 
 these times that ye may be as much deceived in 
 the clanest shaved and whitest shirted man as 
 in the raggedest tramp upon the turnpike, if I 
 may term it so." 
 
 "Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd," said 
 Henery Fray, criticising Gabriel with misty eyes 
 as he entered upon his second tune. " Yes — 
 now I see ye blowing into the flute I know ye to 
 be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for 
 yer mouth were scrimped up and yer eyes a-star- 
 ing out like a strangled man's — just as they be 
 now." 
 
 " 'Tis a pity that playing the flute should make 
 a man look such a scarecrow," observed Mr.
 
 110 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 Mark Clark, with additional criticism of Gabriel's 
 countenance, the latter person jerking out un- 
 concernedly, with the ghastly grimace required 
 by the instrument, the chorus of "Dame 
 Durden : " — 
 
 'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate' 
 And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle TaH'. 
 
 ''I hope you don't mind that young man Mark 
 Clark's bad manners in naming your features ? " 
 whispered Joseph to Gabriel privately. 
 
 " Not at all," said Mr. Oak. 
 
 " For by nature ye be a very handsome man, 
 shepherd," continued Joseph Poogi'ass, with win- 
 ning suavity. 
 
 " Ay, that ye be, shepherd," said the company. 
 
 " Thank you very much," said Oak, in the 
 modest tone good manners demanded, privately 
 thinking, however, that he would never let Bath- 
 sheba see him playing the flute ; in this resolve 
 showing a discretion equal to that related of its 
 sagacious inventress, the divine Minerva herself. 
 
 " Ah, when I and my wife were married at 
 Norcombe Church," said the old maltster, not 
 pleased at finding himself left out of the subject, 
 " we were called the handsomest couple in the 
 neighbourhood — everybody said so." 
 
 *' Danged if ye hain't altered now, maltster," 
 said a voice, with the vigour natural to the enun-
 
 THE CHAT. Ill 
 
 elation of a remarkably evident truism. It came 
 from the old man in the background, whose 
 general offensivenesss and spiteful ways were 
 barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle he 
 contributed to general laughs. 
 
 " Oh, no, no," said Gabriel. 
 
 *' Don't ye play no more, shepherd," said Susan 
 Tail's husband, the young married man who had 
 spoken once before. " I must be moving, and 
 when there's tunes going on I seem as if hung 
 in wires. If I thought after I'd left that music 
 was still playing, and I not there, I should be 
 quite melancholy-like." 
 
 "What's yer hurry then, Laban ?" inquired 
 Coggan. " You used to bide as late as the latest." 
 
 " Well, ye see, neighbours, I was lately married 
 to a woman, and she's my vocation now, and so 
 ye see . . ." The young man halted lamely. 
 
 *' New lords new laws, as the saying is, I sup- 
 pose," remarked Coggan, with a very compressed 
 countenance ; that the fi'igidity impUed by this 
 arrangement of facial muscles was not the true 
 mood of his soul being only discernible from a 
 private ghmmer in the outer corner of one of his 
 eyes — this eye being nearly closed, and the other 
 only half open. 
 
 "Ay, 'a b'Heve— ha, ha!" said Susan TaU's 
 husband, hi a tone intended to imply his habitual
 
 112 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 reception of jokes without minding them at all. 
 The young man then wished them good-night 
 and withdrew. 
 
 Henery Fray was the first to follow. Then 
 Gabriel arose and went off with Jan Coggan, 
 who had offered him a lodging. A few minutes 
 later, when the remaining ones were on their legs 
 and about to depart, Fray came back again in a 
 hurry. Flourishing his finger ominously he threw 
 a gaze teeming with tidings just where his glance 
 alighted by accident, which happened to be in 
 Joseph Poorgrass's eye. 
 
 " Oh — what's the matter, what's the matter, 
 Henery?" said Joseph, starting back. 
 
 " What's a-brewing, Henery ? " asked Jacob and 
 Mark Clark. 
 
 *'Baily Pennyways — Baily Pennyways — I said 
 so; yes, I said so." 
 
 '' What, found out stealing anything ? " 
 
 *' Stealing it is. The news is, that after Miss 
 Everdene got home she went out again to see 
 aU was safe, as she usually do, and coming in 
 found Baily Pennyways creeping down the granary 
 steps with half a bushel of barley. She flewed at 
 him like a cat — never such a tom-boy as she is — of 
 course I speak with closed doors ? " 
 
 '' You do — you do, Henery." 
 
 " She fiewed at him, and, to cut a long story
 
 NEWS. 113 
 
 short, Jhe owned to having carried off five sack 
 altogether, upon her promising not to persecute 
 him. Well, he's turned out neck and crop, and 
 my question is, who's going to he haily now ? " 
 
 The question was such a profound one that 
 Henery was obliged to drink there and then from 
 the large cup till the bottom was distinctly visible 
 inside. Before he had replaced it on the table, 
 in came the young man, Susan Tali's husband, 
 in a still greater hurry. 
 
 " Have ye heard the news that's all over 
 parish ?" 
 
 *' About Baily Pennyways ? " 
 
 " Ah— but besides that ? " 
 
 " No — not a morsel of it ! " they all repUed, 
 looking into the very midst of Laban Tall, and, 
 as it were, advancing their inteUigence to meet 
 his words half way down his thi'oat. 
 
 "What anight of horrors!" murmured Joseph 
 Poorgrass, waving his hands spasmodically. 
 "I've had the news-bell ringing in my left ear 
 quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seed a 
 magpie all alone ! " 
 
 " Fanny Eobin — Miss Everdene's youngest ser- 
 vant — can't be found. They've been wanting to 
 lock up the door these two hours, but she isn't 
 come in. And they don't know what to do about 
 going to bed for fear of locking her out. They
 
 114 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 wouldn't be so concerned if slie hadn't been 
 noticed in such low spirits these last few days, 
 and Marryann d' think the beginning of a crow- 
 ner's inquest has happened to the poor girl," 
 
 *' Oh — 'tis burned — 'tis burned ! " said Joseph 
 Poorgrass with dry lips.' 
 
 " No— 'tis drowned ! " said Tall. 
 
 *' Or 'tis her father's razor ! " suggested Billy 
 Smallbury, with a vivid sense of detail. 
 
 " Well — Miss Everdene wants to speak to one 
 or two of us before we go to bed. What with 
 this trouble about the baily, and now about the 
 girl, mis'ess is almost wild." 
 
 They all hastened up the rise to the farm-house, 
 excepting the old maltster, whom neither news, 
 fire, rain, nor thunder could draw fi-om his hole. 
 There, as the others' footsteps died away, he sat 
 down again, and continued gazing as usual into 
 the furnace with his red, bleared eyes. 
 
 From the bed-room window above their heads 
 Bathsheba's head and shoulders, robed in mystic 
 white, were dimly seen extended into the air. 
 
 "Are any of my men among you?" she said 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, several," said Susan Tail's hus- 
 band. 
 
 " To-morrow morning I wish two or three of 
 you to make inquiries in the villages round
 
 XEWS. 115 
 
 if they have seen such a person as Fanny Eobin. 
 Do it quietly ; there is no reason for alarm as 
 yet. She must have leffc whilst we were all at 
 the fire." 
 
 " I beg yer pardon, but had she any young 
 man courting her in the parish, ma'am?" asked 
 Jacob Smallbury. 
 
 '* I don't know," said Bathsheba. 
 
 " I've never heard of any such thing, ma'am," 
 said two or three. 
 
 "It is hardly Likely, either," continued Bath- 
 sheba. " For any lover of hers might have come 
 to the house if he had been a respectable lad. 
 The most mysterious matter connected with her 
 absence — indeed, the only thing which gives me 
 serious alarm — is that she was seen to go out of 
 the house by Maryann with only her indoor work- 
 ing gown on — not even a bonnet." 
 
 " And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, 
 that a young woman would hardly go to see her 
 yoimg man without dressing up," said Jacob, tm-n- 
 ing his mental vision upon past experiences. 
 *' That's tnie — she would not, ma'am." 
 
 " She had, I think, a bimdle, though I couldn't 
 see very well," said a female voice fi'om another 
 "window, which seemed to belong to Maryann. 
 *'"But she had no young man about here. Hers 
 lives in Casterbridge, and I believe he's a soldier."
 
 116 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Do yon know his name ? " Bathslieba said. 
 
 '' No, mistress ; she was very close abont it." 
 
 " PerhajDS I might be able to find ont if I went 
 to Casterbridge barracks," said William Smallbiuy. 
 
 " Very well ; if she doesn't return to-morrow, 
 mind you go there and try to discover which man 
 it is, and see him. I feel more responsible than 
 I should if she had had any fiiends or relations 
 alive. I do hope she has come to no harm through 
 a man of that kind. . . . And then there's 
 this disgraceful affair of the baihff — but I can't 
 speak of him now." 
 
 Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness 
 that it seemed she did not think it worth while 
 to dwell upon any particular one. ''Do as I told 
 you, then," she said in conclusion, closing the 
 casement. 
 
 "Ay, ay, mistress; we ^\ill," they replied, and 
 moved away. 
 
 That night at Coggan's, Gabriel Oak, beneath 
 the screen of closed eyehds, was busy with fancies, 
 and full of movement, like a river flowing rapidlj' 
 under its ice. Night had always been the time at 
 which he saw Bathsheba most vividly, and through 
 the slow hours of shadow he tenderly regarded her 
 image now. It is rarely that the pleasures of the 
 imagination will compensate for the pain of sleep- 
 lessness, but they possibly did ^dth Oak to-night.
 
 XEWS. 117 
 
 for the delight of merely seeing effaced for the 
 time his perception of the great difference between 
 seeing and possessing. 
 
 He also thought of plans for fetching his few 
 utensils and books from Norcombe. The Young 
 Man's Best Comioanioiiy The Farrier's Sure Guide, 
 The Veterinary Surgeon, Paradise Lost, The 
 Pilgrim's Progress, Bohinson Crusoe, Ash's Dic- 
 tionary, and Walhingame's Arithmetic, consti- 
 tuted his library ; and though a limited series, it 
 was one from which he had acquired more sound 
 information by diligent perusal than many a man 
 of opportunities has done from a fuiiong of laden 
 shelves.
 
 118 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 THE HOMESTEAD— A VISITOR— HALF-CONFIDENCES. 
 
 By daylight, the bower of Oak's new-found mis- 
 tress, Bathsheba Everdene, presented itself as a 
 hoary building, of the Jacobean stage of Classic 
 Eenaissance as regards its architectui-e, and of a 
 proportion which told at a glance that, as is so 
 frequently the case, it had. once been the manorial 
 hall upon a small estate around it, now altogether 
 effaced as a distinct property, and merged in the 
 vast tract of a non-resident landlord, which com- 
 prised several such modest demesnes. 
 
 Fluted pilasters, worked from the sohd stone, 
 decorated its fi'ont, and above the roof paii's of 
 chimneys were here and there linked by an arch, 
 some gables and other unmanageable features still 
 retaining traces of their Gothic extraction. Soft 
 brown mosses, like faded velveteen, formed 
 cushions upon the stone tiling, and tufts of the 
 houseleek or sengreen sprouted fi-om the eaves 
 of the low surrounding buildings. A gi-avel walk
 
 THE HOMESTEAD. 119 
 
 leading from the door to the road in front was 
 encrusted at the sides with more moss — here it 
 was a silver-green variety — the n"at-hro-\;vTi of the 
 gravel being visible to the mdth of only a foot or 
 two in the centre. This cu'cmnstance, and the 
 generally sleepy aii' of the whole prospect here, 
 together with the animated and contrasting state of 
 the reverse fa9ade, suggested to the imaghiation 
 that on the adaptation of the building for farming 
 j)iirposes the vital principle of the house had 
 tiu-ned round inside its body to face the other 
 way. Eeversals of this kind, strange deformities, 
 tremendous paralyses, are often seen to be inflicted 
 by trade upon edifices — either individual or in 
 the aggregate as streets and towns — which were 
 originally planned for pleasure alone. 
 
 Lively voices were heard this morning in the 
 upper rooms, the main staircase to which was 
 of hard oak, the balusters, heavy as bed-posts, 
 being turned and moulded in the quaint fashion of 
 their century, the handi-ail as stout as a parapet- 
 top, and the stairs themselves continually twistiag 
 round like a person trying to look over his shoulder. 
 Going up, we find the floors above to have a very 
 irregular surface, rising to ridges, shiking into 
 valleys, and being at present uncarpeted, the face 
 of the boards is shown to be eaten into innumerable 
 vermiculations. Every window rephes by a clang
 
 120 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 to tlie opening and shutting of every door, a 
 tremble follows every bustKng movement, and a 
 creak accompanies a walker about tbe house, hke 
 a spirit, wherever he goes. 
 
 In the room from which the conversation pro- 
 ceeded, Bathsheba and her servant-companion, 
 Liddy Smallbury, were to be discovered sitting upon 
 the floor, and sorting a complication of papers, 
 books, bottles, and rubbish spread out thereon — 
 remnants from the household stores of the 
 late occupier. Liddy, the maltster's great-grand- 
 daughter, was about Bathsheba's equal in age, and 
 her face was a prominent advertisement of the 
 light-hearted English country girl. The beauty 
 her features might have lacked in form was amply 
 made up for by perfection of hue, which at this 
 winter time was the softened ruddiness on a surface 
 of high rotundity that we meet with in a Terburg 
 or a Gerard Douw, and like the presentations of 
 those great colourists, it was a face which always 
 kept on the natural side of the boundary between 
 comehness and the ideal. Though elastic in 
 bearing, she was less daring than Bathsheba, and 
 occasionally showed some earnestness, which con- 
 sisted half of genuine feeling, and half of factitious 
 mannerliness superadded by way of duty. 
 
 Through a partly-opened door, the noise of a 
 scrubbing-brush led up to the charwoman, Maryann
 
 A VISITOR. 121 
 
 Money, a person who for a face had a circular 
 disc, farrowed less by age than by long gazes of 
 perplexity at distant objects. To think of her 
 was to get good-humoured ; to speak of her was 
 to raise the image of a dried Normandy-pippin. 
 
 " Stop your scrubbing a moment," said Bath- 
 sheba through the door to her. " I hear some- 
 thing. " 
 
 Maryann suspended the brush. 
 
 The tramp of a horse was apparent, approaching 
 the fi'ont of the building. The paces slackened, 
 turned in at the wicket, and, what was most un- 
 usual, came up the mossy path close to the door. 
 The door was tapped with the end of a whip or 
 stick. 
 
 " ^Tiat impertinence ! " said Liddy in a low 
 voice. '' To ride up the footpath Hke that ! Why 
 didn't he stop at the gate ? Lord ! 'tis a gentle- 
 man ! I see the top of his hat." 
 
 *' Be quiet ! " said Bathsheba. 
 
 The further expression of Liddy's concern was 
 •continued by exhibition instead of relation. 
 
 "Why doesn't Mrs. Coggan go to the door?" 
 Bathsheba continued. 
 
 Eat-tat-tat-tat, resounded more decisively from 
 Bathsheba's oak. 
 
 " Maryann, you go ! " said she, fluttering under 
 the onset of a crowd of romantic possibilities.
 
 122 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 '' Oh, ma'am — see, here's a mess ! " 
 
 The argument was unanswerable after a glance 
 at Marj^ann. 
 
 " Liddy — you must," said Bathsheba. 
 
 Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated 
 ^ith dust from the rubbish they were sorting, 
 and looked imploringly at her mistress. 
 
 " There — Mrs. Coggan is going ! " said Bath- 
 sheba, exhahng her relief in the form of a long 
 breath, which had lain in her bosom a minute or 
 more. 
 
 The door opened, and a deep voice said, — 
 
 " Is Miss Everdene at home ? " 
 
 "I'll see, sir," said Mrs. Coggan, and in a 
 minute appeared in the room. 
 
 "Dear, dear, what a universe this world is!" 
 continued Mrs. Coggan (a wholesome-looking lady 
 who had a voice for each class of remark according 
 to the emotion involved : who could toss a pancake 
 or twirl a mop with the accm-acy of pure mathe- 
 matics, and who appeared at this moment with 
 hands shaggy with fragments of dough and arms 
 encrusted with flour). " I am never up to my 
 elbows, Miss, in making a pudding but one of two 
 things happens — either my nose must needs begin 
 tickling, and I can't Hve without scratching it, or 
 somebody knocks at the door. Here's Mr. Bold- 
 wood wanting to see you, Miss Everdene."
 
 A VISITOR. 123'. 
 
 A woman's dress being a part of her counte- 
 nance, and any disorder in the one being of the 
 same natm'e with a malformation or wound in the 
 other, Bathsheba said at once, — 
 
 "I can't see him in this state. Whatever 
 shaUIdo?" 
 
 Not-at-homes were hardly natm^alized in 
 Weatherbnry farm-houses, so Liddy suggested — 
 " Say you're a fright with dust, and can't come 
 down." 
 
 "Yes — that sounds veiy well," said Mrs- 
 Coggan, critically. 
 
 " Say I can't see him — that will do." 
 
 Mrs. Coggan went downstairs, and returned the 
 answer as requested, adding, however, on her own 
 responsibility, '' Miss is dusting bottles, sir, and is 
 quite a object — that's why 'tis." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said the deep voice, indiffer- 
 ently. " All I wanted to ask was, if anything had 
 been heard of Fanny Eobin ? " 
 
 ''Nothing, su' — but we may know to-night- 
 William Smallbury is gone to Casterbridge, where 
 her young man lives, as is supposed, and the other- 
 men be inquii'ing about everywhere." 
 
 The horse's tramp then recommenced and 
 retreated, and the door closed. 
 
 " Who is Mr. Boldwood ? " said Bathsheba. 
 
 "A gentleman-farmer at Lower Weatherbmy."
 
 124 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ''Married?" 
 
 "No, miss." 
 
 " How old is lie ? " 
 
 "Eorty, I should say — very handsome — rather 
 stern-looking — and rich." 
 
 "What a bother this dusting is! I am always 
 in some nnfortnnate phght or other," Bathsheha 
 said, complainingly. "Why should he inquire 
 about Fanny? " 
 
 " Oh, because, as she had no friends in her child- 
 hood, he took her and put her to school, and got 
 her her place here under yom- uncle. He's a very 
 kind man that way, but Lord — there ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Never was such a hopeless man for a woman ! 
 He's been courted by sixes and sevens — all the 
 girls, gentle and simple, for miles round, have tried 
 him.. Jane Perkins worked at him for two months 
 like a slave, and the two Miss Taylors spent a year 
 upon him, and he cost Farmer Ives's daughter 
 nights of tears and twenty pounds' worth of new 
 clothes ; but Lord — the money might as well have 
 been thrown out of the window." 
 
 A little boy came up at this moment and looked 
 in upon them. This child was one of the Coggans 
 (Smallburys and Coggans were as common among 
 the families of this district as the Avons and 
 Derwents among our rivers), and he always had a
 
 HALF-CONFIDENCES. 125' 
 
 loosened tooth or a cut finger to show to particular 
 friends, which he did with a complacent air of 
 being thereby elevated above the common herd of 
 afflictionless hmnanity — to which exhibition people 
 were expected to say, ''Poor child! " with a dash 
 of congratulation as well as pity. 
 
 " I've got a pen-nee ! " said Master Coggan in a 
 scanning measure. 
 
 '' Well — who gave it you, Teddy ? " said Liddy. 
 
 *' Mis-terr Bold- wood ! He gave it to me for 
 opening the gate." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He said, ' Where are you goings my little 
 man ? ' and I said, ' To Miss Everdene's, please ; ' 
 and he said, ' She is a staid woman, isn't she, m}- 
 httle man ? ' and I said, ' Yes.' " 
 
 "You naughty child! What did you say that 
 for?" 
 
 " 'Cause he gave me the penny I " 
 
 "What a pucker everything is in ! " said Bath- 
 sheba, discontentedly, when the child had gone. 
 " Get away, Maryann, or go on with youi* scrub- 
 bing, or do something ! You ought to be married 
 by this time, and not here troubling me." 
 
 "Ay, mistress — so I did. But what between 
 the poor men I won't have, and the rich men who 
 won't have me, I stand forlorn as a pehcau in the 
 wilderness. Ah, poor soul of me !"
 
 126 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ''Did anybody ever want to marry yon, miss?" 
 Liddy ventured to ask when they were again 
 alone. " Lots of 'em, I daresay ?" 
 
 Bathslieba paused as if about to refuse a reply, 
 but the temptation to say yes, since it really was 
 in her power, was irresistible by aspiring vLi*ginity, 
 in spite of her spleen at having been pubHshed 
 as old. 
 
 "A man wanted to once," she said, in a highly 
 experienced tone, and the image of Gabriel Oak, 
 as the farmer, rose before her. 
 
 '' How nice it must seem ! " said Liddy, with the 
 fixed features of mental realization. "And you 
 wouldn't have him ? " 
 
 " He wasn't quite good enough for me." 
 
 "How sweet to be able to disdain, when most 
 of us are glad to say ' Thank you !' I seem I hear 
 it. ' No, sir — I'm your better,' or ' Kiss my foot, 
 sir ; my face is for mouths of consequence.' And 
 did you love him, miss ?" 
 
 " Oh no. But I rather liked him." 
 
 " Do you now ? " 
 
 " Of course not — what footsteps are those I 
 liear?" 
 
 Liddy looked from a back window into the 
 courtyard behind, which was now getting low- 
 toned and dim with the earliest films of nisiht. A 
 crooked file of men was approaching the back door.
 
 HALF-CONFIDENCES. 127 
 
 The whole string of trailing individuals advanced 
 in the completest balance of intention, like the 
 remarkable creatures known as Chain Salpae, 
 which, distinctly organized in other respects, have 
 one will common to a whole family. Some were, 
 as usual, in snow-white smock-frocks of Eussia 
 duck, and some in whitey-brown ones of di-abbet 
 — marked on the wrists, breasts, backs, and sleeves 
 with honeycomb -work. Two or three women in 
 pattens brought up the rear. 
 
 *' The PhiHstines are upon us," said Liddy, 
 making her nose white against the glass. 
 
 " Oh, very well. Maryann, go down and keep 
 them in the kitchen till I am dressed, and then 
 show them in to me in the hall."
 
 128 FAR FROM THE MADDINa CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 MISTRESS AND MEN. 
 
 Half-an-hour later Bathstieba, in finished di-ess, 
 and followed by Liddy, entered the upper end of 
 the old hall to find that her men had all de- 
 posited themselves on a long form and a settle 
 at the lower extremity. She sat down at a table 
 and opened the time-book, pen in her hand, and 
 a canvas money-bag beside her. From this she 
 poured a small heap of coin. Liddy took up a 
 position at her elbow and began to sew, sometimes 
 pausing and looking round, or with the air of 
 a privileged person, taking up one of the half- 
 sovereigns lying before her, and admmngly sur- 
 veying it as a work of art merely, strictly prevent- 
 ing her countenance from expressing any wish to 
 possess it as money. 
 
 "Now, before I begin, men," said Bathsheba, 
 ''I have two matters to speak of. The first is 
 that the bailiff is dismissed for thieving, and that
 
 MISTRESS AND MEN. 129 
 
 I have formed a resolution to have no baih'ff at 
 all, but to manage everything with my own head 
 and hands." 
 
 The men breathed an audible breath of amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 '' The next matter is, have you heard anything 
 of Fanny ?" 
 
 '' Nothing, ma'am." 
 
 '* Have you done anything ?" 
 
 *' I met Farmer Boldwood," said Jacob Small- 
 bury, '' and I went with him and two of his men, 
 and dragged Wood Pond, but we found nothing." 
 
 '' And the new shepherd have been to Buck's 
 Head, thinking she had gone there, but nobody 
 had seed her," said Laban Tall. 
 
 '' Hasn't William Smallbury been to Caster- 
 bridge?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am, but he's not yet come home. 
 He promised to be back by six." 
 
 '' It wants a quarter to six at present," said 
 Bathsheba, looking at her watch. " I daresay 
 he'll be in directly. Well, now then " — she looked 
 into the book — '' Joseph Poorgrass, are you 
 there?" 
 
 " Yes, sir — ma'am I mane," said the person 
 addressed. *' I am the personal name of Poor- 
 grass — a small matter who is nothing in his own 
 eye. Perhaps it is different in the eye of other 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 people — but I don't say it ; though public thought 
 will out." 
 
 *' What do you do on the farm ?" 
 " I does carting things all the year, and in seed 
 time I shoots the rooks and sparrows, and helps 
 at pig-killing, sii\" 
 
 " How much to you ?" 
 
 " Please nine and ninepence and a good half- 
 penny where 'twas a bad one, su' — ma'am I mane." 
 " Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings 
 in addition as a small present, as I am a new 
 comer." 
 
 Bathsheba blushed slightly as she spoke at the 
 sense of being generous in public, and Henery Fray, 
 who had di'awn up towards her chair, lifted his 
 eyebrows and fingers to express amazement on a 
 small scale. 
 
 "How much do I owe you — that man in the 
 corner — what's your name ?" continued Bathsheba. 
 " Matthew Moon, ma'am," said a singular 
 framework of clothes with nothing of any con- 
 sequence inside them, which advanced with the 
 toes in no definite direction forwards, but turned 
 in or out as they chanced to swing. 
 
 "Matthew Mark, did you say? — speak out — I 
 shall not hurt you," enquired the young farmer, 
 kindly. 
 
 " Matthew Moon, mem," said Henery Fray,
 
 MISTBE8S AND MEN. 131 
 
 correctingly from betiind her cliair, to widcli 
 point he had edged himself. 
 
 ''Matthew Moon," murmured Bathsheha, turn- 
 ing her bright eyes to the book. " Ten and 
 two-pence halfpenny is the sum put down to 
 you, I see? " 
 
 "Yes, mis'ess," said Matthew, as the rustle of 
 wind among dead leaves. 
 
 "Here it is, and ten shillings. Now the next 
 — Andrew Candle, you are a new man, I hear. 
 How came you to leave your last farm?" 
 
 " P-p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-1-l-l-l-ease, ma'am, p-p-p- 
 p-pl-pl-pl-pl-please ma'am-please'm-please'm " 
 
 " 'A's a stammering man, mem," said Henery 
 Fray in an undertone, "and they turned him 
 away because the only time he ever did speak 
 plain he said his soul was his own, and other 
 iniquities, to the squire. 'A can cuss, mem, as 
 well as you or I, but 'a can't speak a common 
 speech to save his life." 
 
 " Andrew Candle, here's yours — finish thanking 
 me in a day or two. Temperance Miller — oh, 
 here's another. Soberness, both women, I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes'm. Here we be, 'a b'Heve," was echoed 
 in shrill unison. 
 
 "What have you been doing?" 
 
 " Tending thrashing-machine, and Tsdmbling 
 haybonds, and saying ' Hoosh ! ' to the cocks and
 
 132 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 hens wlien they go upon your seeds, and planting 
 Early Flouiballs and Thompson's Wonderfuls with 
 a dibble." 
 
 '' Yes — I see. Are they satisfactory women?" 
 she inquired softly of Henery Eray. 
 
 " Oh, mem — don't ask me ! Yielding women — 
 as scarlet a pair as ever was ! " groaned Henery 
 under his breath. 
 
 " Sit down." 
 
 ''Who, mem?" 
 
 " Sit down ! " 
 
 Joseph Poorgrass, in the background, twitched, 
 and his hps became dry with fear of some terrible 
 consequences as he saw Bathsheba summarily 
 speaking, and Henery slinking off to a corner. 
 
 " Now the next. Laban Tall. You'll stay on 
 working for me ? ' ' 
 
 "For you or anybody that pays me well, 
 ma'am," replied the young married man. 
 
 " True — the man must live ! " said a woman in 
 the back quarter, who had just entered with click- 
 ing pattens. 
 
 "What woman is that?" Bathsheba asked. 
 
 "I be his lawful wife!" continued the voice 
 with greater prominence of manner and tone. 
 This lady called herself five-and-twenty, looked 
 thirty, passed as thii'ty-five, and was forty. She 
 was a woman who never, hke some newly married,
 
 MISTBESS AND MEN. 133 
 
 showed conjugal tenderness in public, perhaps 
 because she bad none to show. 
 
 '' Ob, you are," said Batbsbeba. " Well, Laban, 
 will you stay on ? " 
 
 *' Yes, he'll stay, ma'am ! " said again the shrill 
 tongue of Laban's lawful wife. 
 
 "Well, he can speak for himseK, I suppose?" 
 
 " Oh, Lord, no, ma'am. A simple tool. Well 
 enough, but a poor gawkhammer mortal," the wife 
 rephed. 
 
 " Heh-heh-heh ! " laughed the married man with 
 a hideous effort of appreciation, for he was as 
 irrepressibly good-humoured under ghastly snubs 
 as a parhamentary candidate on the hustings. 
 
 The names remaining were called in the same 
 manner. 
 
 "Now I think I have done with you," said 
 Bathsheba, closing the book and shaking back a 
 stray twine of hair. "Has Wilham Smallbury 
 returned ? " 
 
 "No, ma'am." 
 
 "The new shepherd T\ill want a man under 
 him," suggested Henery Fray, trj-ing to make 
 himseK official agaiu by a sideway approach to- 
 wards her chair. 
 
 " Oh— he wiU. Who can he have ? " 
 
 "Young Cain Ball is a very good lad," Henery 
 said, " and Shepherd Oak don't mind his youth? "
 
 134 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 he added, turning with an apologetic smile to the 
 shepherd, who had just appeared on the scene, and 
 was now leaning against the doorpost with his 
 arms folded. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind that," said Gahriel. 
 
 " How did Cain come by such a name ? " asked 
 Bathsheha. 
 
 " Oh you see, mem, his pore mother, not being 
 a Scripture-read woman, made a mistake at his 
 christening, thinking 'twas Abel killed Cain, and 
 called en Cain, meaning Abel all the time. The 
 parson put it right, but 'twas too late, for the 
 name could never be got rid of in the parish. 'Tis 
 very unfortunate for the boy." 
 
 "It is rather unfortunate." 
 
 '' Yes. However, we soften it down as much 
 as we can, and call him Cainy. Ah, pore widow- 
 woman ! she cried her heart out about it almost. 
 She was brought up by a very heathen father and 
 mother, who never sent her to church or school, 
 and it shows how the sins of the parents are 
 visited upon the children, mem." 
 
 Mr. Fray here drew up his featm-es to the mild 
 degree of melancholy required when the persons 
 involved in the given misfoiiiune do not belong to 
 your own family. 
 
 " Very well, then, Cainy Ball to be under-shep- 
 herd. And you quite understand your duties ? — 
 you I mean, Gabriel Oak."
 
 MISTRESS AND MEN. 135 
 
 '' Quite well, I thank you, Miss Everdene," said 
 Shepherd Oak from the doorpost. '' K I don't, 
 I'll inquire." Gabriel was rather staggered by 
 the remarkable coolness of her manner. Certainly 
 nobody without previous information would ever 
 have dreamt that Oak and the handsome woman 
 before whom he stood had ever been other than 
 strangers. But perhaps her air was the inevitable 
 result of the social rise which had advanced her 
 from a cottage to a large house and fields. The 
 case is not unexampled in high places. When, in 
 the writings of the later poets, Jove and his family 
 are found to have moved fi*om their cramped 
 quarters on the peak of Olympus into the wide 
 sky above it their words show a proportionate 
 increase of arrogance and reserve. 
 
 Footsteps were heard in the passage, combining 
 in their character the qualities both of weight and 
 measure, rather at the expense of velocity. 
 
 (All.) "Here's Billy Smallbury come from Caster- 
 bridge." 
 
 "And what's the news?" said Bathsheba, as 
 Wilham, after marching to the middle of the hall, 
 took a handkerchief from his hat and wiped his 
 forehead from its centre to its remoter boundaries. 
 
 " I should have been sooner, miss," he said, " if 
 it hadn't been for the weather." He then stamped 
 with each foot severely, and on looking down his 
 boots were perceived to be clogged with snow.
 
 136 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "Come at last, is it?" said Henery. 
 
 "Well, what about Fanny?" said Bathsheba. 
 
 " Well, ma'am, in round numbers, she's run 
 away with the soldiers," said William. 
 
 " No ; not a steady girl like Fanny ! " 
 
 "I'll tell ye all particulars. When I got to 
 Casterbridge Barracks, they said, ' The 11th 
 Dragoon-Guards be gone away, and new troops 
 have come.' The Eleventh left last week for 
 Melchester. The Eoute came from Government 
 like a thief in the night, as is his nature to, and 
 afore the Eleventh knew it almost, they were 
 on the march." 
 
 Gabriel had Kstened with interest. " I saw 
 them go," he said. 
 
 " Yes," continued William, " they pranced down 
 the street playing ' The Girl I Left Behind Me,* 
 so 'tis said, in glorious notes of triumph. Every 
 looker-on's inside shook with the blows of the 
 great drum to his deepest vitals, and there was 
 not a dry eye throughout the town among the 
 pubhc-house people and the nameless women ! " 
 
 "But they're not gone to any war?" 
 
 "No, ma'am; but they be gone to take the 
 places of them who may, which is very close con- 
 nected. And so I said to myself, Fanny's young 
 man was one of the regiment, and she's gone 
 after him. There, ma'am, that's it in black and 
 white."
 
 MISTRESS AND MEN. 137 
 
 "Did you find out liis name ? " 
 
 " No ; nobody knew it. I believe be was bigber 
 in rank tban a private." 
 
 Gabriel remained musing and said notbing, for 
 be was in doubt. 
 
 " Well, we are not likely to know more to-nigbt, 
 at any rate," said Batbsbeba. " But one of you 
 bad better run across to Farmer Boldwood's and 
 tell bim tbat mucb." 
 
 Sbe tben rose ; but before retiring, addi^essed a 
 few words to tbem witb a pretty dignity, to wbicb 
 ber mourning dress added a soberness tbat was 
 bardly to be found in tbe words tbemselves. 
 
 ''Now mind, you bave a mistress instead of a 
 master. I don't yet know my powers or my 
 talents in farming ; but I sball do my best, and 
 if you serve me well, so sball I serve you. Don't 
 any unfair ones among you (if tbere are any sucb, 
 but I bope not) suppose tbat because I'm a woman 
 I don't imderstand tbe difference between bad 
 goings-on and good." 
 
 (AU.) " No'm ! " 
 
 (Liddy.) " ExceUent weU said." 
 
 " I sball be up before you are awake ; I sball be 
 afield before you are up ; and I sball bave break- 
 fasted before you are afield. In sboi*t, I sbaU 
 astonisb you aU." 
 
 (AU.) "Yes'm!"
 
 138 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ''And SO good-night." 
 
 (AU.) '' Good-night, ma'am." 
 
 Then this small thesmothete stepped from the 
 table, and surged out of the hall, her black silk 
 dress licking up a few staws and di-agging them 
 along with a scratching noise upon the floor. 
 Liddy, elevating her feelings to the occasion from 
 a sense of grandeur, floated off behind Bathsheba 
 with a milder dignity not entirely free from 
 travesty, and the door was closed.
 
 ( 139 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 MELCHESTER MOOR— SNOW— A MEETING. 
 
 For dreariness, nothing could surpass a prospect in 
 the outskirts of the city of Melchester at a later 
 houi' on this same snowy evening — if that may be 
 called a prospect of which the chief constituent 
 was darkness. 
 
 It was a night when sorrow may come to the 
 brightest without causing any great sense of in- 
 congruity : when, with impressible persons, love 
 becomes solicitousness, hope sinks to misgiving, 
 and faith to hope : when the exercise of memory 
 does not stir feelings of regret at opportunities for 
 ambition that have been passed by, and anticipa- 
 tion does not prompt to enterprise. 
 
 The scene was a pubhc path, bordered on the 
 left hand by a river, behind which rose a high 
 wall. On the right was a tract of land, partly 
 meadow and partly moor, reaching, at its remote 
 verge, to a wide undulating heath. 
 
 The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on
 
 140 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 spots of this kind than amid woodland scenery. 
 Still, to a close observer, they are just as per- 
 ceptible ; the difference is that their media of 
 manifestation are less trite and familiar than 
 such well-known ones as the bursting of the 
 buds or the fall of the leaf. Many are not so 
 stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to 
 imagine in considering the general torpidity of 
 a moor or heath. Winter, in coming to the 
 place under notice, advanced in some such well- 
 marked stages as the following : — 
 
 The retreat of the snakes. 
 
 The transformation of the ferns. 
 
 The fining of the pools. 
 
 A rising of fogs. 
 
 The embrowning by frost. 
 
 The collapse of the fungi. 
 
 An obliteration by snow. 
 This climax of the series had been reached to- 
 night on Melchester Moor, and for the first time 
 in the season its irregularities were forms with- 
 out features ; suggestive of anything, proclaiming 
 nothing, and without more character than that of 
 being the limit of something else — the lowest layer 
 of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic sky- 
 full of crowding flakes the heath and moor 
 momentarily received additional clothing, only 
 to appear momentarily more naked thereby.
 
 SNOW. 141 
 
 The vast dome of cloud above was strangely 
 low, and formed as it were the roof of a large 
 dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its floor; 
 for the instinctive thought was that the snow 
 Hning the heavens and that encrusting the earth 
 would soon unite into one mass without any 
 intervening stratum of air at all. 
 
 We turn our attention to the left-hand charac- 
 teristics. They were flatness as regards the river, 
 verticahty as regards the wall behind it, and dark- 
 ness as regards both. These features made up the 
 mass. If anything could be darker than the sky, 
 it was the wall ; if anything could be gloomier 
 than the wall, it was the river beneath. The in- 
 distinct summit of the fagade was notched and 
 pronged by chimneys here and there, and upon its 
 face were faintly signified the oblong shapes of 
 windows, though only in the upper part. Below, 
 down to the water's edge, the flat was unbroken 
 by hole or projection. 
 
 An indescribable succession of dull blows, per- 
 plexing in their regularity, sent their sound with 
 difiiculty through the fluff'y atmosphere. It was a 
 neighbouring clock striking ten. The beU was in 
 the open air, and being overlaid with several inches 
 of muffling snow, had lost its voice for the time. 
 
 About this hour the snow abated : ten flakes fell 
 where twenty had fallen, then one had the room of
 
 142 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ten. Not long after a form moved by tlie brink of 
 the river. 
 
 By its outline upon the colourless background, a 
 close observer might have seen that it was small. 
 This was all that was positively discoverable. 
 Human it seemed. 
 
 The shape went slowly along, but without much 
 exertion, for the snow, though sudden, was not as 
 yet more than two inches deep. At this time 
 some words were spoken aloud : — 
 
 ''One. Two. Three. Four. Five." 
 
 Between each utterance the little shape ad- 
 vanced about haK a dozen yards. It was evident 
 now that the windows high in the wall were being 
 counted. The word " Five " represented the fifth 
 window from the end of the wall. 
 
 Here the spot stopped, and dwindled small. 
 The figure was stooping. Then a morsel of snow 
 flew across the river towards the fifth window. It 
 smacked against the wall at a point several yards 
 from its mark. The throw was the idea of a man 
 conjoined with the execution of a woman. No 
 man who had ever seen bii'd, rabbit, or squirrel in 
 his childhood, could possibly have thrown with 
 such utter imbecility as was shown here. 
 
 Another attempt, and another; till by degrees 
 the wan must have become pimpled with the 
 adhering lumps of snow. At last one fi'agment 
 struck the fifth window.
 
 A MEETING. 143 
 
 The river would have heen seen by day to be 
 of that deep smooth sort which races middle and 
 sides with the same ghding precision, any irregu- 
 larities of speed being immediately corrected by 
 a small whirlpool. Nothing was heard in reply 
 to the signal but the gurgle and cluck of one of 
 these invisible wheels — together with a few small 
 sounds which a sad man would have called moans, 
 and a happy man laughter — caused by the flapping 
 of the waters against trifling objects in other parts 
 of the stream. 
 
 The window was struck again in the same 
 manner. 
 
 Then a noise was heard, apparently produced 
 by the opening of the window. This was followed 
 by a voice from the same quarter. 
 
 '^ Who's there ? " 
 
 The tones were masculine, and not those of 
 surprise. The high wall being that of a barrack, 
 and marriage being looked upon with disfavour in 
 the army, assignations and communications had 
 probably been made across the river before to- 
 night. 
 
 *' Is it Sergeant Troy?" said the blurred spot 
 m the snow, tremulously. 
 
 This person was so much like a mere shade upon 
 the earth, and the other speaker so much a part 
 of the building, that one would have said the wall 
 was holding converse with the snow.
 
 144 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Yes," came suspiciously from the shadow. 
 " What girl are you ?" 
 
 "Oh, Frank — don't you know me?" said the 
 spot. " Your wife, Fanny Eobin." 
 
 " Fanny ! " said the wall, in utter astonishment. 
 
 " Yes," said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp 
 of emotion. 
 
 There was a tone in the woman which is not 
 that of the wife, and there was a maimer in the 
 man which is rarely a husband's. The dialogue 
 went on. 
 
 " How did you come here ? " 
 
 " I asked which was your window. Forgive 
 me!" 
 
 " I did not expect you to-night. Indeed, I 
 did not think you would come at all. It was a 
 wonder you found me here. I am orderly to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " You said I was to come." 
 
 ''Well — I said that you might." 
 
 "Yes, I mean that I might. You are glad to 
 see me, Frank? " 
 
 " Oh yes — of course." 
 
 " Can you — come to me ! " 
 
 " My dear Fan, no ! The bugle has sounded, 
 the barrack gates are closed, and I have no leave. 
 We are all of us as good as in Melchester Gaol 
 till to-morrow morning."
 
 A MEETING. 145 
 
 *' Then I shan't see you till then ! " The words 
 were in a faltering tone of disappointment. 
 
 "How did you get here from Weatherbury ? " 
 
 " I walked — some part of the way — the rest 
 by the carrier." 
 
 '' I am surprised." 
 
 " Yes — so am I. And Frank, when will it be ? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " That you promised." 
 
 "I don't quite recollect." 
 
 " Oh you do ! Don't speak like that. It weighs 
 me to the earth. It makes me say what ought 
 to be said first by you." 
 
 "Never mind — say it." 
 
 " Oh, must I ? — it is, when shall we be married, 
 Frank?" 
 
 " Oh, I see. Well — you have to get proper 
 clothes." 
 
 " I have money. Will it be by banns or 
 hcense ? " 
 
 " Banns, I should think." 
 
 "And we live in two parishes." 
 
 "Do we? What then?" 
 
 " My lodgings are in St. Mary's, and this is 
 not. So they will have to be pubHshed in 
 both." 
 
 "Is that the law?" 
 
 "Yes. Oh, Frank — you think me forward, I 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 am afraid! Don't, dear Frank — will you — for I 
 love yon so. And yon said lots of times yon 
 would marry me, and — and — I — I — I " 
 
 "Don't cry, now! It is foolish. If I said so, 
 of course I will." 
 
 "And shall I put up the banns in my parish, 
 and will you in yours ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "To-morrow?" 
 
 " Not to-morrow. We'll settle in a few days." 
 
 "You have the permission of the officers?" 
 
 " No— not yet." 
 
 " Oh — how is it ? You said you almost had 
 before you left Casterbridge." 
 
 " The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming 
 like this is so sudden and unexpected." 
 
 " Yes — yes — it is. It was wrong of me to worry 
 you. I'll go away now. WiU you come and see 
 me to-morrow, at Mrs. Twills's, in North Street ? 
 I don't like to come to the Barracks. There are 
 bad women about, and they think me one." 
 
 " Quite so. I'll come to you, my dear. Good- 
 night." 
 
 " Good-night, Frank — good-night ! " 
 And the noise was again heard of a window 
 closing. The httle spot moved away. When she 
 passed the corner a subdued exclamation was 
 heard inside the waU.
 
 A MEETING. 147 
 
 "Ho — ho — Sergeant — ^ho — ho ! " An expostula- 
 tion followed, but it was indistinct ; and it 
 became lost amid a low peal of laughter, which 
 was hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the 
 tiny whirlpools outside.
 
 148 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 FARMERS— A RULE— AN EXCEPTION. 
 
 The first public evidence of Batlisheba's decision 
 to be a farmer in her own person and by proxy 
 no more was her appearance tbe following market- 
 day in the corn-market at Casterbridge. 
 
 The low though extensive hall, supported by 
 Tuscan pillars, and latterly dignified by the name 
 of Corn-Exchange, was thronged with hot men 
 who talked among each other in twos and threes, 
 the speaker of the minute looking sideways into 
 his auditor's face and concentrating ,his argu- 
 ment by a contraction of one eyeHd dm-ing 
 dehvery. The greater number carried in their 
 hands ground-ash saplings, using them partly as 
 walking-sticks and partly for poking up pigs, sheep, 
 neighbours with their backs tm'ned, and restful 
 things in general, which seemed to require such 
 treatment in the com'se of their peregrinations. 
 During conversations each subjected his sapling to 
 great varieties of usage — ^bending it round his back,
 
 FARMERS. 149 
 
 forming an arch of it between Lis two hands, 
 overweighting it on the ground till it reached 
 nearly a semi-circle ; or perhaps it was hastily 
 tucked under the arm whilst the sample-bag 
 was pulled forth and a handful of com poured 
 into the palm, which, after criticism, was flung 
 upon the floor, an issue of events perfectly well 
 known to half a dozen acute town-bred fowls 
 which had as usual crept into the building unob- 
 served, and waited the fulfilment of their anti- 
 cipations with a high-stretched neck and obhque 
 eye. 
 
 Among these heavy yeomen a feminine figure 
 ghded, the single one of her sex that the room 
 contained. She was prettily and even daintily 
 dressed. She moved between them as a chaise 
 between carts, was heard after them as a romance 
 after sermons, was felt among them like a breeze 
 among furnaces. It had required a Httle deter- 
 mination — far more than she had at first imagined 
 — to take up a position here, for at her first entry 
 the lumbering dialogues had ceased, nearly every 
 face had been turned towards her, and those that 
 were already tm-ned rigidly fixed there. 
 
 Two or three only of the farmers were personally 
 known to Bathsheba, and to these she had made 
 her way. But if she was to be the practical 
 woman she had intended to show herseK, business
 
 150 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 must be carried on, introductions or none, and 
 she ultimately acquired confidence enough to 
 speak and reply boldly to men merely known to 
 her by hearsay. Bathsheba too had her sample- 
 bags, and by degrees adopted the professional 
 pour into the hand — holding up the grains in her 
 narrow palm for inspection, in perfect Casterbridge 
 manner. 
 
 Something in the exact arch of her upper 
 unbroken row of teeth, and in the keenly pointed 
 corners of her red mouth when, with parted Hps, 
 she somewhat defiantly turned up her face to 
 argue a point with a tall man, suggested that 
 there was depth enough in that hthe slip of 
 humanity for alarming potentiaHties of exploit, 
 and daring enough to carry them out. But her 
 eyes had a softness — invariably a softness — which, 
 had they not been dark, would have seemed, 
 mistiness ; as they were, it lowered an expres- 
 sion that might have been piercing to simple 
 clearness. 
 
 Strange to say of a female in full bloom and 
 vigour, she always allowed her interlocutors to 
 finish their statements before rejoining with hers. 
 In arguing on prices, she held to her own firmly, 
 as was natural in a dealer, and reduced theirs 
 persistently, as was inevitable in a woman. But 
 there was an elasticity in her firmness which
 
 A RULE. 151 
 
 removed it from obstinacy, as there was a naivete 
 in her cheapening which saved it from meanness. 
 
 Those of the farmers with whom she had no 
 deahngs (by far the greater part) were continually 
 asking each other, " Who is she?" The reply 
 would be, — 
 
 " Farmer Everdene's niece ; took on Weather- 
 bury Upper Farm ; turned away the baily, and 
 swears she'll do everything herself." 
 
 The other man would then shake his head. 
 
 " Yes, 'tis a pity she's so headstrong," the 
 first would say. *' But we ought to be proud 
 of her here — she lightens up the old place. 'Tis 
 such a shapely maid, however, that she'll soon get 
 picked up." 
 
 It would be ungallant to suggest that the 
 novelty of her engagement in such an occupation 
 had almost as much to do with the magnetism as 
 had the beauty of her face and movements. How- 
 ever, the interest was general, and this Saturday's 
 debut in the forum, whatever it may have been to 
 Bathsheba as the buying and selling farmer, was 
 imquestionably a triumph to her as the maiden. 
 Indeed, the sensation was so pronounced that 
 her instinct on two or three occasions was to 
 merely walk as a queen among these gods of the 
 fallow, like a little sister of a Httle Jove, and to 
 neglect closing prices altogether.
 
 152 FAE FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 The numerous evidences of her power to attract 
 were only thrown into greater reHef by a marked 
 exception. Women seem to have eyes in theii* 
 ribbons for such matters as these. Bathsheba, 
 without looking within a right angle of him, was 
 conscious of a black sheep among the flock. 
 
 It perplexed her first. If there had been a 
 respectable minority on either side, the case would 
 have been most natural. If nobody had regarded 
 her, she would have taken the matter indif- 
 ferently — such cases had occurred. If everybody, 
 this man included, she would have taken it as 
 a matter of course— people had done so before. 
 But the exception, added to its smallness, made 
 the mystery — just as when the difference between 
 the state of an insignificant fleece and the state 
 of all around it, rather than any novelty in 
 the states themselves, arrested the attention of 
 Gideon. 
 
 She soon knew thus much of the recusant's 
 appearance. He was a gentlemanly man, with 
 fuU and distinctly outlined Eoman featui-es, the 
 prominences of which glowed in the sun with a 
 bronze-Hke richness of tone. He was ' erect in 
 attitude, and quiet in demeanour. One cha- 
 racteristic pre-eminently marked him — dignity. 
 
 Apparently he had some time ago reached that 
 entrance to middle age at which a man's aspect
 
 AN EXCEPTION. 153 
 
 naturally ceases to alter for the term of a dozen 
 years or so ; and, artificially, a woman's does 
 likewise. Thirty-five and fifty were his Hmits of 
 variation — he might have heen either, or anywhere 
 between the two. 
 
 It may be said that married men of forty are 
 usually ready and generous enough to fling pass- 
 ing glances at any specimen of moderate beauty 
 they may discern by the way. Probably, as with 
 persons playing whist for love, the consciousness 
 of a certain immunity under any cii'cumstances 
 from that worst possible ultimate, the having to 
 pay, makes them imduly speculative. Bathsheba 
 was convinced that this unmoved person was not 
 a married man. 
 
 When marketing was over, she rushed ofi" to 
 Liddy, who was waiting for her beside the yeUow 
 gig in which they had driven to town. The horse 
 was put in, and on they trotted — Bathsheba's sugar, 
 tea, and drapery parcels being packed behind, and 
 expressing in some indescribable manner, by their 
 colour, shape, and general lineaments, that they 
 were that young lady-farmer's property, and the 
 grocer's and draper's no more. 
 
 " I've been through it, Liddy, and it is over. 
 I sha'n't mind it again, for they will aU have grown 
 accustomed to seeing me there ; but this morning 
 it was as bad as being married — eyes everyrvhere ! "
 
 154 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " I knowed it would be," Liddy said. *' Men 
 be such a terrible class of society to look at a 
 body." 
 
 "But there was one man who had more sense 
 than to waste his time upon me." The informa- 
 tion was put in this form that Liddy might not 
 for a moment suppose her mistress was at all 
 piqued. " A very good-looking man," she con- 
 tinued, " upright ; about forty, I should think. 
 Do you know at all who he could be ?" 
 
 Liddy couldn't think. 
 
 " Can't you guess at all?" said Bathsheba with 
 some disappointment. 
 
 " I haven't a notion ; besides, 'tis no difference, 
 since he took less notice of you than any of the 
 rest. Now, if he'd taken more, it would have 
 mattered a great deal." 
 
 Bathsheba was suffering fi-om the reverse feeling 
 just then, and they bowled along in silence. A 
 low carriage, bowling along still more rapidly 
 behind a horse of unimpeachable breed, overtook 
 and passed them. 
 
 " Why, there he is ! " she said. 
 
 Liddy looked. "That! That's Farmer Bold- 
 wood — of course 'tis — the man you couldn't see 
 the other day when he called." 
 
 " Oh, Farmer Boldwood," murmured Bathsheba, 
 and looked at him as he outstripped them. The
 
 AN EXCEPTION. 155 
 
 farmer had never turned his head once, bnt with 
 eyes fixed on the most advanced point along the 
 road, passed as unconsciously and abstractedly as 
 if Bathsheba and her charms were thia air. 
 
 " He's an interesting man — don't you think 
 so ? " she remarked. 
 
 " Oh yes, very. Everybody owns it," repHed 
 Liddy. 
 
 "I wonder why he is so wrapt up and indif- 
 ferent, and seemingly so far away from all he sees 
 around him." 
 
 "It is said — but not known for certain — that 
 he met with some bitter disappointment when he 
 was a young man and merry. A woman jilted 
 him, they say." 
 
 "People always say that — and we know very 
 well women scarcely ever jilt men ; 'tis the men 
 who jnt us. I expect it is simply his nature to be 
 so reserved." 
 
 " Simply his nature — I expect so, miss — nothing 
 else in the world." 
 
 " Still, 'tis more romantic to think he has been 
 served cruelly, poor thing ! Perhaps, after all, 
 he has." 
 
 " Depend upon it he has. Oh yes, miss, he has. 
 I feel he must have." 
 
 " However, we are very apt to think extremes 
 of people. I shouldn't wonder after all if it
 
 156 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 wasn't a little of both — just between tbe two — 
 rather cruelly used and rather reserved." 
 
 " Oh dear no, miss — I can't think it between 
 the two ! " 
 
 '' That's most likely." 
 
 '' Well, yes, so it is. I am convinced it is most 
 likely. You may take my word, miss, that that's 
 what's the matter with him."
 
 ( 157 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 SORTES SANCTORUM— THE VALENTINE. 
 
 It was Sunday afternoon in the farm-house, on 
 the thirteenth of February. Dinner being over, 
 Bathsheba, for want of a better companion, had 
 asked Liddy to come and sit with her. The 
 mouldy pile was dreary in winter-time before the 
 candles were lighted and the shutters closed ; the 
 atmosphere of the place seemed as old as the 
 walls ; every nook behind the farnitui'e had a 
 temperature of its own, for the fire was not 
 kindled in this part of the house early in the 
 day; and Bathsheba's new piano, which was an 
 old one in other annals, looked particularly sloping 
 and out of level on the warped floor before night 
 threw a shade over its less prominent angles and 
 hid the unpleasantness. Liddy, like a little brook, 
 though shallow, was always rippling ; her presence 
 had not so much weight as to task thought, and 
 yet enough to exercise it.
 
 158 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 On the table lay an old quarto Bible, bound in 
 leather. Liddy looking at it said, — 
 
 '' Did you ever find out, miss, who you are 
 going to marry by means of the Bible and key ? " 
 
 *' Don't be so fooUsb, Liddy. As if such things 
 could be." 
 
 "Well, there's a good deal in it, aU the same." 
 
 "Nonsense, child." 
 
 " And it makes your heart beat fearfully. Some 
 beheve in it ; some don't ; I do." 
 
 " Very well, let's try it," said Bathsheba, bound- 
 ing from her seat with that total disregard of 
 consistency which can be indulged in towards 
 a dependent, and entering into the spuit of 
 divination at once. " Go and get the front 
 door key." 
 
 Liddy fetched it. "I wish it wasn't Sunday," 
 she said, on returning. "Perhaps 'tis wi'ong." 
 
 "What's right week days is right Sundays," 
 rephed her companion in a tone which was a 
 proof in itself. 
 
 The book was opened — the leaves, di-ab with 
 age, being quite worn away at much-read verses 
 by the forefingers of unpractised readers in former 
 days, where they were moved along under the line 
 as an aid to the vision. The special verse in the 
 Book of Euth was sought out by Bathsheba, and 
 the subHme words met her eye. They shghtly
 
 ^^-^§^^ 
 
 -^Ie^' >-:^':^l g=?; t^i^-'t-^ 
 
 ^^^t^i?^-^^ 
 
 ->k-jQ.^t^j^i^:^^gE^L^,^^kr^ 
 
 'CRT TlIK l''l!l>NT DOOI! K\:\." I.IDDY KICR'IIKH IT.
 
 SOBTES SANCTORUM. 159 
 
 tlirilled and abashed her. It was Wisdom in the 
 abstract facing Folly in the concrete. Folly in 
 the concrete blushed, persisted in her intention, 
 and placed the key on the book. A rnsty patch 
 immediately upon the verse, caused by previous 
 pressure of an iron substance thereon, told that 
 this was not the first time the old volume had 
 been used for the purpose. 
 
 "Now keep steady, and be silent," said Bath- 
 sheba. 
 
 The verse was repeated; the book turned 
 round ; Bathsheba blushed guiltily. 
 
 "Who did you try?" said Liddy curiously. 
 
 "I shaU not teU you." 
 
 "Did you notice Mr. Boldwood's doings in 
 church this morning, miss?" Liddy continued, 
 adumbrating by the remark the track her thoughts 
 had taken. 
 
 "No, indeed," said Bathsheba, with serene 
 indifference. 
 
 "His pew is exactly opposite yours, miss." 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 " And you did not see his goings on ? " 
 
 "Certainly I did not, I tell you." 
 
 Liddy assumed a smaller physiognomy, and shut 
 her hps decisively. 
 
 This move was unexpected, and proportionately 
 disconcerting. "What did he do?" Bathsheba 
 said perforce.
 
 160 FAE FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Didn't tiu'n liis head to look at you once all 
 ttie service." 
 
 ''"Why should he?" again demanded her mis- 
 tress, wearing a nettled look. ''I didn't ask him 
 to." 
 
 " Oh no. But everyhody else was noticing you ; 
 and it was odd he didn't. There, 'tis Hke him. 
 Eich and gentlemanly, what does he care ?" 
 
 Bathsheha dropped into a silence intended to 
 express that she had opinions on the matter too 
 ahstruse for Liddy's comprehension, rather than 
 that she had nothing to say. 
 
 *' Dear me — I had nearly forgotten the valentine 
 I hought yesterday," she exclaimed at length. 
 
 *' Valentine ! who for, miss ? " said Liddy. 
 ''Farmer Boldwood?" 
 
 It was the single name among all possihle wrong 
 ones that just at this moment seemed to Bath- 
 sheha more pertinent than the right. 
 
 "Well, no. It is only for Httle Teddy Coggan. 
 I have promised him something, and this will he a 
 pretty surprise for him. Liddy, you may as weU 
 bring me my desk and I'll dii'ect it at once." 
 
 Bathsheha took from her desk a gorgeously 
 illuminated and embossed design in post-octavo, 
 which had been bought on the previous market-day 
 at the chief stationer's in Casterbridge. In the 
 centre was a small oval enclosm'e ; this was left
 
 THE VALENTINE. 161 
 
 blank, that the sender might insert tender words 
 more appropriate to the special occasion than any 
 generahties by a printer could possibly be. 
 
 "Here is a place for writing," said Bathsheba. 
 " What shall I put ? " 
 
 '' Something of this sort, I should think," 
 returned Liddy promptly : — 
 
 " The rose is red, 
 The violet blue. 
 Carnation's sweet, 
 And so are you." 
 
 "Yes, that shall be it. It just suits itself to a 
 chubby-faced child hke him," said Bathsheba. 
 She inserted the words in a small though legible 
 handwriting ; enclosed the sheet in an envelope, 
 and dipped her pen for the direction. 
 
 " What fun it would be to send it to the stupid 
 old Boldwood, and how he would wonder!" said 
 the irrepressible Liddy, lifting her eyebrows, and 
 indulging in an awful mirth on the verge of fear as 
 she thought of the moral and social magnitude of 
 the man contemplated. 
 
 Bathsheba paused to regard the idea at full 
 length. Boldwood's had begim to be a trouble- 
 some image — a species of Daniel in her kingdom 
 who persisted in kneeling eastward when reason 
 and common sense said that he might just as 
 well follow suit with the rest, and afford her the 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 official glance of admiration which cost nothing at 
 all. She was far from being seriously concerned 
 about his non-conformity. Still, it was faintly 
 depressing that the most dignified and valuable 
 man in the parish should withhold his eyes, and 
 that a girl like Liddy should talk about it. So 
 Liddy's idea was at first rather harassing than 
 piquant. 
 
 "No, I won't do that. He wouldn't see any 
 humour in it." 
 
 " He'd worry to death," said the persistent 
 Liddy. 
 
 " ReaUy, I don't care particularly to send it to 
 Teddy," remarked her mistress. '' He's rather a 
 naughty child sometimes." 
 
 "Yes— that he is." 
 
 "Let's toss, as men do," said Bathsheba, idly. 
 "Now then, head, Boldwood; tail, Teddy. No, 
 we won't toss money on a Sunday, that would be 
 tempting the devil indeed." 
 
 " Toss this hymn-book ; there can't be no sinful- 
 ness in that, miss." 
 
 "Very well. Open, Boldwood — shut, Teddy. 
 No ; it's more likely to fall open. Open, Teddy — 
 shut, Boldwood." 
 
 The book went fluttering in the air and came 
 down shut. 
 
 Bathsheba, a small yawn upon her mouth, took
 
 THE VALENTINE. 163 
 
 the pen, and with off-hand serenity dii'ected the 
 missive to Boldwood. 
 
 "Now light a candle, Liddy. Which seal shall 
 we use ? Here's a unicorn's head — there's nothing 
 in that. What's this? — ^two doves — no. It ought 
 to be something extraordinary, ought it not, Lidd ? 
 Here's one with a motto — I remember it is some 
 fanny one, but I can't read it. We'll try this, and 
 if it doesn't do we'll have another." 
 
 A large red seal was duly affixed. Bathsheba 
 looked closely at the hot wax to discover the 
 words. 
 
 "Capital!" she exclaimed, throwing down the 
 letter frolicsomely. " 'Twould upset the solemnity 
 of a parson and clerk too." 
 
 Liddy looked at the words of the seal, and 
 read — 
 
 '^Pnrvjj me/' 
 
 The same evening the letter was sent, and Avas 
 duly sorted in Casterbridge post-office that night, 
 to be retm*ned to Weatherbury again in the 
 morning. 
 
 So very idly and imreflectiagly was this deed 
 done. Of love as a spectacle Bathsheba had a fair 
 knowledge ; but of love subjectively she knew 
 nothing.
 
 164 FAB FROM THE MADDIXG CEOWJ). 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 EFFECT OF THE LETTER— SUNRISE. 
 
 At dusk, on tlie evening of St. Valentine's Day, 
 Boldwood sat down to supper as usual, by a beam- 
 ing fire of aged logs. Upon tbe mantel-shelf before 
 bim was a time-piece, surmounted by a spread 
 eagle, and upon the eagle's wings was the letter 
 Batbsbeba bad sent. Here tbe bachelor's gaze 
 was continually fastening itself, till the large red 
 seal became as a blot of blood on the retina of 
 his eye ; and as he eat and drank he still read in 
 fancy the words thereon, although they were too 
 remote for his sight, — 
 
 The pert injunction was like those crystal sub- 
 stances which, colourless themselves, assume the 
 tone of objects about them. Here, in the quiet of 
 Boldwood's parlour, where everything that was not 
 grave was extraneous, and where the atmosphere 
 was that of a Pmitan Sunday lasting all the week^ 
 the letter and its dictum changed their tenor fi'om
 
 EFFECT OF THE LETTER. 165 
 
 the tliouglitlessness of their origin to a deep 
 solemnity, imhibed fi'om their accessories now. 
 
 Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, 
 Boldwood had felt the spherical completeness of 
 his existence heretofore to be slowly spreading into 
 an abnormal distortion in the particular direction 
 of an ideal passion. The distiu'bance was as the 
 first floating weed to Columbus — the contemptibly 
 little suggesting possibilities of the iofinitely gi-eat. 
 
 The letter must have had an origui and a 
 motive. That the latter was of the smallest 
 magnitude compatible mth its existence at aU, 
 Boldwood, of course, did not know. And such an 
 explanation did not strike him as a possibility 
 even. It is foreign to a mystified condition of 
 mind to reahze of the mystifier that the veiy 
 dissimilar processes of approviQg a com-se sug- 
 gested by circumstance, and striking out a com-se 
 from inner impulse and intention piu*ely, would 
 look the same in the result. The vast difference 
 between starting a train of events, and directing 
 into a particular groove a series already started, 
 is rarely apparent to the person confounded by 
 the issue. 
 
 When Boldwood went to bed, he j)laced the 
 valentine in the corner of the looking-glass. He 
 was conscious of its presence, even when his back 
 was turned upon it. It was the first time in Bold-
 
 1G6 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, 
 
 wood's life that such an event had occuiTed. The 
 same fascination that caused him to think it an 
 act which had a dehberate motive prevented him 
 from regarding it as an impertinence. He looked 
 again at the direction. The mysterious influences 
 of night invested the 'uniting with the presence of 
 the unknown writer. Somebody's — some ivoman's 
 — hand had travelled softly over the paper 
 bearing his name : her um*evealed eyes had 
 watched every cui've as she formed it : her brain 
 had seen him in imagination the while. Why 
 shoxdd she have imagined him ? Her mouth — 
 were the Hps red or pale, plump or creased? — 
 had curved itself to a certain expression as the 
 pen went on — the corners had moved with all 
 their natural tremulousness : what had been the 
 expression ? 
 
 The vision of the woman TVTiting, as a supple- 
 ment to the words written, had no individuality. 
 She was a misty shape, and well she might be, 
 considering that her original was at that moment 
 sound asleep and obH^ious of all love and letter- 
 TVTiting under the sky. "Whenever Boldwood 
 dozed she took a form, and comparatively ceased 
 to be a vision : when he awoke there was the 
 letter justifying the dream. 
 
 The moon shone to-night, and its Hght was not 
 of a customary kind. His window only admitted
 
 EFFECT OF THE LETTER. 167 
 
 a reflection of its rays, and the pale sheen had 
 that reversed direction which snow gives, coming 
 upward and lighting up his ceiling in a phe- 
 nomenal way, casting shadows in strange places, 
 and putting lights where shadows had used to be. 
 The substance of the epistle had occupied him 
 but little in comparison with the fact of its arrival. 
 He suddenly wondered if anything more might be 
 found in the envelope than what he had with- 
 drawn. He jumped out of bed in the weii'd 
 light, took the letter, pulled out the flimsy sheet, 
 shook the envelope — searched it. Nothing more 
 was there. Boldwood looked, as he had a hundred 
 times the preceding day, at the insistent red seal : 
 " Marry me,^' he said aloud. 
 
 The solemn and reser^^ed yeoman again closed 
 the letter, and stuck it in the frame of the glass. 
 In doing so he caught sight of his reflected 
 features, wan in expression, and insubstantial in 
 form. He saw how closely compressed was his 
 mouth, and that his eyes were wide-spread and 
 vacant. Feehng imeasy and dissatisfied with 
 himseK for this nervous excitability, he returned 
 to bed. 
 
 Then the dawn drew on. The full power of the 
 clear heaven was not equal to that of a cloudy 
 sky at noon, when Boldwood arose and dressed 
 himself. He descended the stairs and went out
 
 168 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 towards the gate of a field to the east, leaning 
 over which he paused and looked around. 
 
 It was one of the usual slow sunrises of this 
 time of the year, and the sky, pure violet in 
 the zenith, was leaden to the northward, and 
 murky to the east, where, over the snowy down 
 or ewe-lease on Weatherbuiy Upper Farm, and 
 apparently resting upon the ridge, the only half 
 of the sun yet visible burnt incandescent and ray- 
 less, like a red and flameless fire shining over a 
 white hearthstone. The whole effect resembled 
 a simset as childhood resembles age. 
 
 In other directions, the fields and sky were so 
 much of one colour by the snow, that it was 
 difficult in a hasty glance to tell whereabouts the 
 horizon occm-red ; and in general there was here, 
 too, that before-mentioned preternatural inversion 
 of Hght and shade which attends the prospect 
 when the garish brightness commonly in the sky 
 is found on the earth, and the shades of earth ai'e 
 in the sky. Over the west hung the wasting 
 moon, now dull and greenish-yeUow, like tarnished 
 brass. 
 
 Boldwood was listlessly noting how the frost 
 had hardened and glazed the surface of the snow, 
 till it shone in the red eastern Hght with the pohsh 
 of marble; how, in some portions of the slope, 
 withered grass-bents, encased in icicles, bristled
 
 SUNRISE. 169 
 
 thi'Oiigli the smooth wan coverHt in the twisted and 
 curved shapes of old Venetian glass ; and how the 
 footprints of a few bii'ds, which had hopped over 
 the snow whilst it lay in the state of a soft fleece 
 were now frozen to a short permanency. A half- 
 muffled noise of hght wheels interrupted him. 
 Boldwood turned back into the road. It was the 
 mail-cart — a crazy, two-wheeled vehicle, hardly 
 heavy enough to resist a puff of wind. The driver 
 held out a letter. Boldwood seized it and opened 
 it, expecting another anonymous one. So greatly 
 are people's ideas of probabihty a mere sense that 
 precedent will repeat itself, that they often do not 
 stop to think whether the fact of an event having 
 once occurred is not in many cases the very cir- 
 cumstance which makes its repetition urdikely. 
 
 " I don't think it is for you, sii'," said the man, 
 when he saw Boldwood's action. " Though there 
 is no name, I think it is for yom- shepherd." 
 
 Boldwood looked then at the address : — 
 
 To the Neiu Bhepkerd, 
 
 Weatherhury Farm, 
 Near Casterhridge. 
 
 " Oh — what a mistake ! — it is not mine. Nor is 
 it for my shepherd. It is for Miss Everdene's. 
 You had better take it on to him — Gabriel Oak — 
 and say I opened it in mistake."
 
 170 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 At this moment, on the ridge, up against the 
 blazing sky, a. figure was visible, like the black 
 snuff in the midst of a candle-flame. Then it 
 moved and began to bustle about vigorously from 
 place to place, carrying square skeleton masses, 
 which were riddled by the same rays. A small 
 figm-e on all fours followed behind. The tall form 
 was that of Gabriel Oak ; the small one that of 
 George ; the articles in course of transit were 
 hurdles. 
 
 "Wait," said Boldwood. "That's the man on 
 the hill. I'll take the letter to him myself." 
 
 To Boldwood it was now no longer merely a 
 letter to another man. It was an opportunity. 
 Exhibiting a face pregnant with intention, he 
 entered the snowy field. 
 
 Gabriel, at that minute, descended the hill to- 
 wards the right. The glow stretched down in this 
 direction now, and touched the distant roof of 
 Warren's Malthouse — whither the shepherd was 
 apparently bent. Boldwood followed at a dis- 
 tance.
 
 ( I'l ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XY. 
 
 A MORNING MEETING— THE LETTER AGAIN. 
 
 The scarlet and orange light outside the malt- 
 house did not penetrate to its interior, which was, 
 as usual, hghted by a rival glow of similar hue,, 
 radiating from the hearth. 
 
 The maltster, after having lain down in his- 
 clothes for a few hom's, was now sitting beside a 
 three-legged table, breakfasting off bread and 
 l)acon. This was eaten on the plateless system, 
 which is performed by placing a slice of bread 
 upon the table, the meat flat upon the bread, a 
 mustard plaster upon the meat, and a pinch of salt 
 upon the whole, then cutting them vertically 
 downwards T\'ith a large pocket-knife till wood is- 
 reached, when the severed lump is impaled on the 
 knife, elevated, and sent the proper way of food. 
 The maltster's lack of teeth appeared not to 
 sensibly diminish his powers as a miU. He had 
 been without them for so many years that tooth- 
 lessness was felt less to be a defect than hard
 
 172 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 gums an acquisition. Indeed, lie seemed to ap- 
 proach the grave as a hyperbolic ciu've approaches 
 a line — sheering off as he got nearer, till it was 
 doubtful if he would ever reach it at all. 
 
 In the ashpit was a heap of potatoes roasting, 
 and a boiling pipkin of charred bread, called 
 ^' coffee," for the benefit of whomsoever should 
 call, for Warren's was a sort of village clubhouse, 
 there being no inn in the place. 
 
 " I say, says I, we get a fine day, and then down 
 comes a snapper at night," was a remark now 
 suddenly heard spreading into the malthouse from 
 the door, which had been opened the previous 
 moment, and the form of Henery Fray advanced 
 to the fire, stamping the snow from his boots when 
 about half-way there. The speech and entry had 
 not seemed to be at all an abrupt beginning to the 
 maltster, introductory matter being often omitted 
 in this neighbourhood, both fi'om word and deed, 
 and the maltster having the same latitude allowed 
 him, did not hurry to reply. He picked up a frag- 
 ment of cheese, by pecking upon it with his knife, 
 as a butcher picks up skewers. 
 
 Henery appeared in a drab kerseymere great- 
 coat, buttoned over his smock-frock, the white 
 skirts of the latter being visible to the distance 
 of about a foot below the coat-tails, which, when 
 you got used to the style of dress, looked natural
 
 A MORNING MEETING. 173: 
 
 enoiigli, and even ornamental — it certainly was 
 comfortable. 
 
 Matthew Moon, Joseph Poorgrass, and other 
 carters and waggoners followed at his heels, with 
 great lanterns dangHng fi'om their hands, which 
 showed that they had just come from the cart- 
 horse stables, where they had been busily engaged 
 ■since four o'clock that morning. 
 
 " And how is she getting on without a baily ? "" 
 the maltster inquired. 
 
 Henery shook his head, and smiled one of the 
 bitter smiles, di*agging all the flesh of his forehead 
 into a corrugated heap in the centre. 
 
 "She'll rue it — surely, surely!" he said. 
 " Benjy Pennyways were not a true man or an 
 honest baily — as big a betrayer as Joey Iscariot 
 himself. But to think she can manage alone ! " 
 He allowed his head to swing laterally three or 
 four times in silence. *' Never in all my creeping 
 up — never ! " 
 
 This was recognized by aU as the conchision of 
 some gloomy speech which had been expressed in 
 thought alone during the shake of the head;. 
 Henery meanwhile retained several marks of 
 despair upon his face, to imply that they would 
 be required for use again directly he should go on 
 speaking. 
 
 *' AU wiU be ruined, and ourselves too, or there's
 
 174 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 no meat in gentlemen's houses ! " said Mark Clark, 
 in the manner of a man ready to burst all links of 
 habit. 
 
 "A headstrong maid, that's what she is — and 
 won't listen to no advice at all. Pride and vanity 
 have ruined many a cobbler's dog. Dear, dear, 
 when I think of it, I sorrows like a man in travel! " 
 
 *' True, Henery, you do, I've heard ye," said. 
 Joseph Poorgrass, in a voice of thorough attes- 
 tation, and with a wu'e-drawn smile of misery. 
 
 " 'T would do a martel man no harm to have 
 what's under her bonnet," said Billy Smallbuiy, 
 who had just entered, bearing his one tooth 
 before him. *' She can spaik real language, and 
 must have some sense somewhere. Do ye con- 
 ceive me?" 
 
 "I do, I do; but no baily — I deserved that 
 place," wailed Henery, signifying wasted genius 
 by gazing blankly at visions of a high destiny 
 apparently visible to him on Billy Smallbury's 
 smock-frock. " There, 'twas to be, I suppose. 
 Your lot is your lot, and Scripture is nothing; 
 for if you do good you don't get rewarded 
 according to your works, but are cheated in 
 some mean way out of your recompense." 
 
 ''No, no; I don't agree with'ee there," said 
 Mark Clark, decisively. " God's a perfect gentle- 
 man in that respect."
 
 A MORNING MEETING. 175 
 
 " Good works good pay, so to speak it," attested 
 Joseph Poorgrass. 
 
 A short pause ensued, and as a sort of entr^acte 
 Henery turned and blew out the lanterns, which 
 the increase of dayhght rendered no longer 
 necessary even in the malthouse, with its one 
 pane of glass. 
 
 " I wonder what a farmer- woman can want with 
 a harpsichord, dulcimer, planner, or whatever 'tis 
 they d'call it," said the maltster. *' Liddy saith 
 she've a new one." 
 
 " Got a planner? " 
 
 *'Ay. Seems her old uncle's things were not 
 good enough for her. She've bought all but 
 everything new. There's heavy chahs for the 
 stout, weak and wiry ones for the slender; great 
 watches, getting on to the size of clocks, to stand 
 upon the chimbley-piece." 
 
 "Pictures, for the most part wonderful fi'ames." 
 
 "Long horse-hair settles for the drunk, with 
 horse-hair pillows at each end." 
 
 "Looking-glasses for the pretty." 
 
 "Lying books for the wicked." 
 
 A firm loud tread was now heard stamping out- 
 side ; the door was opened about six inches, and 
 somebody on the other side exclaimed, — 
 
 "Neighbours, have ye got room for a few new- 
 born lambs ? "
 
 176 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "Ay, sure, shepherd," said the conclave. 
 
 The door was flirng back till it kicked the waU 
 and trembled from top to bottom with the blow. 
 Mr. Oak appeared in the entry with a steaming 
 face, hay-bands womid about his ankles to keep 
 out the snow, a leather strap round his waist out- 
 side the smock-frock, and looking altogether an 
 epitome of the world's health and ^dgom\ Four 
 lambs hung in various embarrassing attitudes over 
 his shoulders, and the dog George, which Gabriel 
 had contrived to fetch from Norcombe, stalked 
 solemnly behind. 
 
 " Well, Shepherd Oak, and how's lambing this 
 year, if I may say it ? " inquired Joseph Poorgrass. 
 
 " Terrible trying," said Oak. " I've been wet 
 through twice a-day, either in snow or rain, this 
 last foi-tnight. Cainy and I haven't tined oiu* eyes 
 to-night." 
 
 '' A good few twins, too, I hear, so to speak it ? " 
 
 " Too many by half. Yes ; 'tis a very queer 
 lambing this year. We sha'n't have done by Lady 
 Day." 
 
 "And last year 'twer all over by Sexagessamine 
 Sunday," Joseph remarked. 
 
 "Bring on the rest, Cain," said Gabriel, "and 
 then ran back to the ewes. I'll foUow you soon." 
 
 Cainy Ball — a cherry-faced yoimg lad, ^dth a 
 smaU circular orifice by way of mouth, advanced
 
 A MORNING MEETING. 177 
 
 and deposited two others, and retired as he 
 was bidden. Oak lowered the lambs from their 
 unnatm-al elevation, wi*apped them in hay, and 
 placed them round the fire. 
 
 " We've no lambing-hut here, as I used to 
 have at Norcombe," said Gabriel, "and 'tis such 
 a plague to bring the weakly ones to a house. 
 If 'twasn't for your place here, maltster, I don't 
 know what I should do, this keen weather. 
 And how is it with you to-day, maltster?" 
 
 " Oh, neither sick nor sorry, shepherd ; but no 
 yoimger." 
 
 "Ay — I understand." 
 
 " Sit down, Shepherd Oak," continued the 
 ancient man of malt. " And how was the old 
 place at Norcombe when ye went for yom- dog? 
 I should like to see the old famiHar spot; but 
 faith, I shouldn't know a soul there now." 
 
 " I suppose you wouldn't. 'Tis altered very 
 much." 
 
 "Is it true that Dicky Hill's wooden cider- 
 house is pulled down?" 
 
 ** Oh yes — years ago, and Dicky's cottage just 
 above it." 
 
 "WeU, to be sure!" 
 
 *'Yes; and Tompkins's old apple-tree is rooted 
 that used to bear two hogsheads of cider with its 
 own apples, and no help from other trees." 
 
 VOL. I. V
 
 178 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "Eooted? — ^you don't say it! Ah! stirring 
 times we live in — stirring times." 
 
 " And yon can mind the old well that used to 
 be in the middle of the place ? That's tm-ned into 
 a solid iron pump with a large stone trough, and 
 all complete." 
 
 " Dear, dear — how the face of nations alter, and 
 what great revolutions we hve to see now-a-days ! 
 Yes — and 'tis the same here. They've been talk- 
 ing hut now of the mis'ess's strange doings." 
 
 "What have you been saying about her?" 
 inquired Oak, sharply turning to the rest, and 
 getting very warm. 
 
 '' These middle-aged men have been pulling her 
 over the coals for pride and vanity," said Mark 
 Clark; ''but I say, let her have rope enough. 
 Bless her pretty face — shouldn't I like to do so 
 
 upon her cherry lips ! " The gallant Mark 
 
 Clark here made a pecuHar and well-known soimd 
 with his own. 
 
 " Mark," said Gabriel, sternly, " now you mind 
 this : none of that daUiance-talk — that philander- 
 ing way — that dandle-smack-and-coddle style of 
 yours — about Miss Everdene. I don't allow it. 
 Do you hear? " 
 
 "With all my heart, as the old woman said," 
 rephed Mr. Clark, heartily. 
 
 "I suppose you've been speaking against her? "
 
 A MOBNING MEETING. 179 
 
 said Oak, turning to Joseph Poorgrass with a very 
 grim look. 
 
 " No, no — not a word I — 'tis a real joyful thing 
 that she's no worse, that's what I say," said 
 Joseph, trembling and blushing with terror. 
 "Matthew just said " 
 
 *' Matthew Moon, what have you been saying ? " 
 asked Oak. 
 
 " I ? Why ye know I wouldn't harm a worm — 
 no, not one underground worm ! " said Matthew 
 Moon, looldng very uneasy. 
 
 "Well, somebody has — and look here, neigh- 
 bom's. " Gabriel, though one of the quietest and 
 most gentle men on earth, rose to the occasion, 
 with martial promptness and vigour. " That's my 
 fist." Here he placed his fist, rather smaller in 
 size than a common loaf, in the mathematical 
 centre of the maltster's little table, and with it 
 gave a bump or two thereon, as if to ensure that 
 their eyes all thoroughly took in the idea of fisti- 
 ness before he went fiu-tlier. " Now — the first man 
 in the parish that I hear prophesying bad of om* 
 mistress, why" — (here the fist was raised and let 
 fall, as Thor might have done with his hammer in 
 assaying it) — "he'll smell and taste that — or 
 I'm a Dutchman." 
 
 All earnestly expressed by their features that 
 their minds did not wander to Holland for a
 
 180 FAR FROM THE MADDIXG CROWD. 
 
 moment on accoimt of this statement, well know- 
 ing it was but a powerful form of speech ; but were 
 deploring the difference which gave rise to the 
 figure; and Mark Clark cried "Hear, hear, as the 
 undertaker said." The dog George looked up at 
 the same time after the shepherd's menace, and 
 though he understood Enghsh but imperfectly, 
 began to growl. 
 
 "Now, don't ye take on so, shepherd, and sit 
 down ! " said Henery, with a deprecating peace- 
 fulness equal to anything of the kmd in Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 "We hear that ye be a extraordinary good and 
 clever man, shepherd," said Joseph Poorgrass with 
 considerable anxiety fi'om behind the maltster's 
 bedstead, whither he had rethed for safety. 
 " ' Tis a great thing to be clever, I'm sure," he 
 added, making small movements associated with 
 states of mind rather than body ; "we wish we 
 were, don't we, neighbom-s?" 
 
 "Ay, that we do, sure," said Matthew Moon, 
 with a small anxious laugh towards Oak, to show 
 how very friendly disposed he was likewise. 
 
 "Who's been telling you I'm clever?" said 
 
 Oak. 
 
 " 'Tis blowed about fi'om pillar to post quite 
 
 common," said Matthew. "We hear that ye can 
 
 tell the time as well by the stars as we can by the 
 
 Sim and moon, shepherd."
 
 A MORNING MEETING. 181 
 
 "Yes, I can do a little that way," said Gabriel, 
 as a man of medium sentiments on the subject. 
 
 "And that ye can make sim-dials, and prent 
 folks' names upon their waggons almost lilie 
 copper-plate, with beautiful flomishes, and great 
 long tails. A excellent fine thing for ye to be 
 such a clever man, shepherd. Joseph Poorgrass 
 used to prent to Farmer James Everdene's 
 waggons before you came, and 'a could never mind 
 which way to turn the J's and E's — could ye, 
 Joseph? " Joseph shook his head to express how 
 absolute was the fact that he couldn't. "And so 
 you used to do 'em the wrong way, like this, didn't 
 ye, Joseph ? " Matthew marked on the dusty floor 
 with his whip-handle 
 
 IAM3S. 
 
 "And how Farmer James would cuss, and call 
 thee a fool, wouldn't he, Joseph, when 'a seed 
 his name looking so inside-out-like ? " continued 
 Matthew Moon, with feeling. 
 
 "Ay — 'a would," said Joseph, meekly. "But, 
 you see, I wasn't so much to blame, for them J's 
 and E's are such trying sons of dogs for the 
 memory to mind whether they face backward or 
 forward; and I always had such a forgetful 
 memory, too." 
 
 " 'Tis a very bad affliction for ye, Joseph Poor-
 
 182 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 grass — being such a man of calamity in other 
 ways." 
 
 " Well, 'tis ; but a happy Providence ordered 
 that it should be no worse, and I feel my thanks. 
 As to shepherd, there, I'm sure mis'ess ought to 
 have made ye her baily — such a fitting man for't 
 as you be." 
 
 "I don't mind owning that I expected it," said 
 Oak, frankly. "Indeed, I hoped for the place. 
 At the same time. Miss Everdene has a right to 
 be her own baily if she chooses — and to keep me 
 down to be a common shepherd only." Oak di'ew 
 a slow breath, looked sadly into the bright ashpit, 
 and seemed lost in thoughts not of the most 
 hopeful hue. 
 
 The genial warmth of the fire now began to 
 stimulate the nearly lifeless lambs to bleat and 
 move their limbs briskly upon the hay, and to 
 recognize for the first time the fact that they were 
 born. Then* noise increased to a chorus of baas, 
 upon which Oak pulled the milk-can from before 
 the fire, and taking a small teapot from the pocket 
 of his smock-frock, filled it with milk, and taught 
 those of the helpless creatures which were not to 
 be restored to their dams how to drink fi'om the 
 spout — a trick they acquired with astonishing 
 aptitude. 
 
 "And she don't even let jq have the skins of
 
 A MORNING MEETING. 183 
 
 the dead lambs, I hear?" resumed Joseph Poor- 
 grass, his eyes lingering on the operations of Oak 
 mth the necessaiy melancholy. 
 
 "I don't have them," said Gabriel. 
 
 "Ye be very badly used, shepherd," hazarded 
 Joseph again, in the hope of getting Oak as an 
 ally in lamentation after all. " I think she's took 
 against ye — that I do." 
 
 "Oh no — not at all," replied Gabriel, hastily, 
 and a sigh escaped him, which the deprivation 
 of lamb skins could hardly have caused. 
 
 Before any further remark had been added a 
 shade darkened the door, and Boldwood entered 
 the malthouse, bestowing around upon each a 
 nod, of a quality between friendliness and conde- 
 scension. 
 
 "Ah! Oak, I thought you were here," he said. 
 " I met the mail-cart ten minutes ago, and a letter 
 was put into my hand, which I opened without 
 reading the address. I beHeve it is yours. You 
 must excuse the accident, please." 
 
 " Oh yes — not a bit of difference, Mr. Boldwood 
 — not a bit," said Gabriel, readily. He had not a 
 correspondent on earth, nor was there a possible 
 letter coming to him whose contents the whole 
 parish would not have been welcome to peiiise. 
 
 Oak stepped aside, and read the following in an 
 unknown hand : —
 
 184 FAR FBOM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ^' Dear Friend, — I do not know your name, but 
 I tliink these few lines will reach you, which I 
 write to thank you for your kindness to me the 
 night I left Weatherbury in a reckless way. I also 
 return the money I owe you, which you will excuse 
 my not keeping as a gift. All has ended weU, and 
 I am happy to say I am going to be married to the 
 young man who has com'ted me for some time — 
 Sergeant Troy, of the 11th Dragoon Guards, now 
 quartered in Melchester. He would, I know, 
 object to my having received anything except as 
 a loan, being a man of great respectabihty and 
 high honour — indeed, a nobleman by blood. 
 
 " I should be much obliged to you if you would 
 keep the contents of this letter a secret for the 
 present, dear friend. We mean to surprise Weather- 
 bury by coming there soon as husband and wife, 
 though I blush to state it to one nearly a stranger. 
 The sergeant gi*ew up in Weatherbury. Thanking 
 you agaiQ for your kindness, 
 
 " I am, your sincere well-wisher, 
 
 "Eanny Eobin." 
 
 '^ Have you read it, Mr. Boldwood?" said 
 Gabriel; "if not, you had better do so. I know 
 you are interested in Fanny Eobin." 
 
 Boldwood read the letter and looked grieved. 
 
 "Fanny — poor Fanny! the end she is so con-
 
 A MORNING MEETING. 185 
 
 fident of has not yet come, slie slioiild remember 
 — and may never come." 
 
 " What sort of a man is this Sergeant Troy? " 
 said Gabriel. 
 
 " H'm — I am afraid not one to build much hope 
 upon in such a case as this," the farmer mui-mured, 
 " though he's a clever fellow, and up to everything. 
 A shght romance attaches to him, too. His mother 
 was a French governess, and it seems that a secret 
 attachment existed between her and the late Lord 
 Severn. Soon after she was married to a poor 
 medical man, and while money was forthcoming 
 aU went on well. Unfortunately for her boy, his 
 best friends died ; and he got then a situation as 
 second clerk at a lawyer's in Casterbridge. He 
 stayed there for some time, and might have worked 
 himseK into a dignified position of some sort had 
 he not indulged in the ^ild fi^eak of enlisting. I 
 have much doubt if ever little Fanny wiU surprise 
 us in the way she mentions — very much doubt. A 
 silly gii*l — siUy giii ! " 
 
 The door was hm-riedly bm'st open again, and in 
 came running Cainy BaU out of breath, mouth red 
 and open, like the bell of a penny trumpet, and 
 coughing with noisy vigour and great distension 
 of face. 
 
 '' Now, Cain BaU," said Oak, sternly, " why wiU 
 you rim so fast and lose yom- breath so ? I'm 
 always telhng you of it."
 
 186 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Oil — I — Apuff ofmee breath — ^went — the wrong 
 way, please, Mister Oak, and made me cough — 
 hok hok— hok ! '* 
 
 " Well — what have you come for ? " 
 
 "I've run to tell ye," said the junior-shepherd, 
 supporting his exhausted youthful frame against 
 the doorpost, " that you must come directly. Two 
 more ewes have twinned — that's what's the matter. 
 Shepherd Oak." 
 
 " Oh, that's it," said Oak, jumping up, and dis- 
 missing for the present his thoughts on poor 
 Panny. ** You are a good boy to run and tell me, 
 Cain, and you shall smell a large plum-pudding 
 some day as a treat. But, before we go, Cainy, 
 bring the tarpot, and we'll mark this lot and have 
 done with 'em." 
 
 Oak took from his illimitable pockets a marking 
 iron, dipped it into the pot, and imprinted on the 
 buttocks of the infant sheep the initials of her he 
 dehghted to muse on — " B. E.," which signified to 
 all the region round that thenceforth the lambs 
 belonged to farmer Bathsheba Everdene, and to 
 no one else. 
 
 *' Now, Cainy, shoulder yom* two, and off. Good 
 morning, Mr. Boldwood." The shepherd lifted 
 the sixteen large legs and four small bodies he had 
 himself brought, and vanished with them in the 
 dii'ection of the lambing field hard by — their fi'ames
 
 TEE LETTER AGAIN. 187 
 
 being now in a sleek and hopeful state, pleasantly 
 contrasting with theii* death's- do or plight of half- 
 an-hour before. 
 
 Boldwood followed him a little way up the field,, 
 hesitated, and turned back. He followed him 
 again with a last resolve, annihilating retm^n. On 
 approaching the nook in which the fold was con- 
 structed, the farmer di'ew out his pocket-book, 
 unfastened it, and allowed it to lie open on his 
 hand. A letter was revealed — Bathsheba's. 
 
 ''I was going to ask you. Oak," he said, with 
 unreal carelessness, *'if you know whose writing 
 this is ? " 
 
 Oak glanced into the book, and replied instantly, 
 wdth a flushed face, " Miss Everdene's." 
 
 Oak had coloured simply at the consciousness of 
 sounding her name. He now felt a strangely dis- 
 tressing qualm from a new thought. The letter 
 could of course be no other than anonymous, or 
 the inquiry would not have been necessary. 
 
 Boldwood mistook his confusion : sensitive 
 persons are always ready with their "Is it I?" 
 in preference to objective reasoning. 
 
 " The question was perfectly fail*," he retm-ned — 
 and there was something incongruous in the serious 
 earnestness with which he applied himself to an 
 argument on a valentine. " You know it is always 
 expected that privy inquiries will be made : that's
 
 188 FAE FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 where the — fun lies." If the word "fun" had 
 been "torture," it could not have been uttered 
 with a more constrained and restless countenance 
 than was Boldwood's then. 
 
 Soon parting from Gabriel, the lonely and re- 
 served man returned to his house to breakfast — 
 feeling twinges of shame and regret at having 
 so far exposed his mood by those fevered questions 
 to a stranger. He again placed the letter on the 
 mantelpiece, and sat down to think of the circum- 
 stances attending it by the light of Gabriel's in- 
 formation.
 
 ( 189 ) 
 
 CHAPTEK XYI. 
 
 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 All Saints' 
 Chm-cli, Melchester, at the end of a service with- 
 out a sermon. They were ahout to disperse, 
 when a smart footstep, enterhig the porch and 
 coming up the central passage, arrested their 
 attention. The step echoed with a ring imusual 
 in a church ; it was the clink of spurs. Every- 
 body looked. A young cavahy soldier in a red 
 imiform, with the three chevi'ons of a sergeant 
 upon his sleeve, strode up the aisle, with an em- 
 barrassment which was only the more accented 
 by the intense \dgom' of his step, and by the deter- 
 mination upon his face to show none. A slight 
 flush had mounted his cheek by the time he had 
 nm the gauntlet between these females ; but, pass- 
 ing on through the chancel arch, he never paused 
 tni he came close to the altar railing. Here for 
 a moment he stood alone.
 
 190 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 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, appa- 
 rently 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 machineiy 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 quater-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 chm^ch was a close screen, the door 
 of which was kept shut dm'ing 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
 
 ALL SAINTS' AND ALL SOULS'. 191 
 
 rigidity of the old pillars around. He faced tlie 
 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 blow for three- 
 quarters, its fiissy 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 shght 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 thi-ew off 
 their nervousness, and titters and giggling became 
 more fi'equent. Then came a dead silence. 
 Every one was waiting for the end. Some per- 
 sons 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 Tvith 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 maHcious
 
 192 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 leer upon ttie hideous creature's face, and a mis- 
 chievous deHght in its twitchings. Then followed 
 the dull and remote resonance of the twelve heavy 
 strokes in the tower above. The women were im- 
 pressed, 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 Kp. Two 
 bowed and toothless old almsmen then looked 
 at each other and chuckled, innocently enough ; 
 but the sound had a strange weu'd 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, 
 without 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
 
 ALL SAINTS' AND ALL SOULS.' 193 
 
 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 
 hght irony, and turning from her walked rapidly 
 away. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 
 
 On Saturday Boldwood was in the market-house 
 as usual, when the disturber of his dreams 
 entered, and became visible to him. Adam 
 had awakened from his deep sleep, and behold ! 
 there was Eve. The farmer took courage, and for 
 the first time really looked at her. 
 
 Emotional causes and effects are not to be 
 arranged in regular equation. The result from 
 capital employed in the production of any 
 movement of a mental nature is sometimes as 
 tremendous as the cause itself is absurdly 
 minute. When women are in a freakish mood, 
 their usual intuition, either fi'om carelessness or 
 iaherent defect, seemingly fails to teach them 
 this, and hence it was that Bathsheba was fated 
 to be astonished to-day. 
 
 Boldwood looked at her — not slily, critically, 
 or understandingly, but blankly at gaze, in 
 the way a reaper looks up at a passing train
 
 IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 195 
 
 — as sometliing foreign to his element, and but 
 dimly understood. To Boldwood women had 
 been remote phenomena rather than necessary 
 complements — comets of such uncertain aspect, 
 movement, and permanence, that whether their 
 orbits were as geometrical, unchangeable, and as 
 subject to laws as his own, or as absolutely 
 erratic as they superficially appeared, he had 
 not deemed it his duty to consider. 
 
 He saw her black hair, her correct facial 
 curves and profile, and the roundness of her 
 chin and throat. He saw then the side of her 
 eyehds, eyes, and lashes, and the shape of her 
 ear. Next he noticed her figure, her skirt, and 
 the very soles of her shoes. 
 
 Boldwood thought her beautiful, but wondered 
 whether he was right in his thought, for it 
 seemed impossible that this romance in the 
 flesh, if so sweet as he imagined, could have 
 been going on long without creating a com- 
 motion of dehght among men, and provoking 
 more inquiry than Bathsheba had done, even 
 though that was not a httle. To the best of his 
 judgment neither nature nor art could improve 
 this perfect one of an imperfect many. His 
 heart began to move within him. Boldwood, 
 it must be remembered, though forty years of 
 age, had never before inspected a woman with
 
 196 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 the very centre and force of his glance ; they 
 had struck upon all his senses at wide angles. 
 
 Was she really beautiful ? He could not assure 
 himself that his opinion was true even now. 
 He furtively said to a neighbour, "Is Miss 
 Everdene considered handsome ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; she was a good deal noticed the 
 first time she came, if you remember. A very 
 handsome gui indeed." 
 
 A man is never more credulous than in re- 
 ceiving favourable opinions on the beauty of a 
 woman he is half, or quite, in love with; a 
 mere child's word on the point has the weight 
 of an E.A.'s. Boldwood was satisfied now. 
 
 And this charming woman had in effect said 
 to him " Marry me." Why should she have 
 done that strange thing ? Boldwood's bhndness 
 to the difi'erence between approving of what 
 circumstances suggest, and originating what 
 they do not suggest, was well matched by 
 Bathsheba's iusensibihty to the possibly great 
 issues of httle beginnings. 
 
 She was at this moment coolly dealing with 
 a dashing young farmer, adding up accounts 
 with him as indifferently as if his face had 
 been the pages of a ledger. It was evident that 
 such a nature as his had no attraction for a 
 woman of Bathsheba's taste. But Boldwood
 
 IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 197 
 
 grew hot down to Ms hands with an incipient 
 jealousy ; he trod for the first time the thres- 
 hold of "the injured lover's hell." His first 
 impulse was to go and thrust himself between 
 them. This could he done, but only in one 
 way — by asking to see a sample of her corn. 
 Boldwood renoimced the idea. He could not 
 make the request; it was debasing loveliness to 
 ask it to buy and sell, and jarred with his con- 
 ceptions of her. 
 
 All this time Bathsheba was conscious of 
 having broken into that dignified stronghold 
 at last. His eyes, she knew, were following 
 her everywhere. This was a triumph; and had 
 it come naturally, such a triumph would have 
 been the sweeter to her for this piquing delay. 
 But it had been brought about by misdirected 
 ingenuity, and she valued it only as she valued 
 an artificial flower or a wax fruit. 
 
 Being a woman with some good sense in 
 reasoning on subjects wherein her heart was 
 not involved, Bathsheba genuinely repented that 
 a freak which had owed its existence as much 
 to Liddy as to herself, should ever have been 
 undertaken, to distm-b the placidity of a man 
 she respected too highly to deliberately tease. 
 
 She that day nearly formed the intention of 
 beggiQg his pardon on the very next occasion
 
 198 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 of their meeting. The worst features of this 
 arrangement were that, if he thought she 
 ridiculed him, an apology would increase the 
 offence by being disbelieved ; and if he thought 
 she wanted him, it would read like additional 
 evidence of her forwardness.
 
 ( 199 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XVin. 
 
 BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION— A VISIT, 
 
 Bold WOOD was tenant of what was called the 
 Lower Farm, and his person was the nearest 
 approach to aristocracy that this remoter quarter 
 of Weatherbury coidd boast of. Genteel strangers, 
 whose god was their town, who might happen 
 to be compelled to linger about this nook for 
 a day, heard the sound of Hght wheels, and 
 prayed to see good society, to the degree of a 
 sohtary lord, or squire at the very least, but it 
 was only Mr. Boldwood going out for the day. 
 They heard the sound of wheels yet once more, 
 and were re-animated to expectancy : it was 
 only Mr. Boldwood coming home again. 
 
 His house stood recessed from the road, and 
 the stables, which are to a farm what a fireplace 
 is to a house, were behind, their lower portions 
 being lost amid bushes of laurel. Inside the 
 blue door, open half-way down, were to be seen 
 at this time the backs and tails of half-a-dozen 
 warm and contented horses standing in their
 
 200 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 stalls ; and thus viewed, presenting alternations 
 of roan and bay, in shapes like a Moorish arch, 
 the tail being a streak down the midst of each. 
 Over these, and lost to the eye gazing in from 
 the outer Hght, the mouths of the same animals 
 could be heard busily sustaining the above- 
 named warmth and plumpness by quantities of 
 oats and hay. The restless and shadowy figure 
 of a colt wandered up and down a loose-box at 
 the end, whilst the steady grind of all the eaters 
 was occasionally diversified by the rattle of a 
 ope or the stamp of a foot. 
 
 Pacing up and down at the heels of the animals 
 was Farmer Boldwood himself. This place was 
 his almonry and cloister in one : here, after 
 looking to the feeding of his four-footed de- 
 pendents, the cehbate would walk and meditate 
 of an evening till the moon's rays streamed ia 
 thi'ough the cobwebbed windows, or total dark- 
 ness enveloped the scene. 
 
 His square-framed perpendicularity showed more 
 fully now than in the crowd and bustle of the 
 market-house. In this meditative walk his foot 
 met the floor with heel and toe simultaneously, 
 and his fine, reddish-fleshed face was bent down- 
 ward just enough to render obscure the still mouth 
 and the well-rounded though rather prominent and 
 broad chin. A few clear and thread-like horizontal
 
 BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION. 201 
 
 lines were the only interruption to the otherwise 
 smooth surface of his large forehead. 
 
 The phases of Boldwood's life were ordinary- 
 enough, but his was not an ordinary nature. 
 Spiritually and mentally, no less than socially, 
 a commonplace general condition is no conclusive 
 proof that a man has not potentiahties above 
 that level. 
 
 In all cases this state may be either the 
 mediocrity of inadequacy, as was Oak's, or 
 what we will venture to call the mediocrity of 
 counterpoise, as was Boldwood's. The quiet mean 
 to which we originally found him adhering, and 
 in which, with few exceptions, he had continually 
 moved, was that of neutrahzation : it was not 
 structural at all. That stillness, which struck 
 casual observers more than anything else in his 
 character and habit, and seemed so precisely like 
 the rest of inanition, may have been the perfect 
 balance of enormous antagonistic forces — positives 
 and negatives in fine adjustment. His equilibrium 
 disturbed, he was in extremity at once. 
 
 Boldwood was thus either hot or cold. If an 
 emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him ; a 
 feehng not mastering him was entirely latent. 
 Stagnant or rapid, it was never slow. He was 
 always hit mortally, or he was missed. The 
 shallows in the characters of ordinary men were
 
 202 FAB FROM THE 3IADDING CROWD. 
 
 sterile strands in his, but Ids depths were so 
 profound as to be practically bottomless. 
 
 He bad no light and careless touches in his 
 constitution, either for good or for evil. Stern 
 in the outlines of action, mild in the details, he 
 was serious throughout all. He saw no absurd 
 side to the follies of life, and thus, though not 
 quite companionable in the eyes of merry men 
 and scoffers, and those to whom all things show 
 life as a jest, he was not intolerable to the earnest 
 and those acquainted with grief. Being a man 
 who read all the dramas of life seriously, if he 
 failed to please when they were comedies, there 
 was no frivolous treatment to reproach him for 
 when they chanced to end tragically. 
 
 Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark 
 and silent shape upon which she had so carelessly 
 thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. 
 Had she known Boldwood's moods, ' her blame 
 would have been fearful, and the stain upon her 
 heart ineradicable. Moreover, had she known her 
 present power for good or evil over this man, 
 she would have trembled at her responsibihty. 
 Luckily for her present, unluckily for her future 
 tranquillity, her understanding had not yet told 
 her what Boldwood was. Nobody knew entirely ; 
 for though it was possible to form guesses con- 
 cerning his spirited capabilities fi'om old flood-
 
 BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION. 203 
 
 marks faintly visible, he had never been seen at 
 the high tides which caused them. 
 
 Farmer Boldwood came to the stable-door, and 
 looked forth across the level fields. Beyond the 
 first enclosure was a hedge, and on the other side 
 of this a meadow, belonging to Bathsheba's farm. 
 
 It was now early spring — the time of going to 
 grass with the sheep, when they have the first 
 feed of the meadows, before these are laid up for 
 mowing. The wind, which had been blowing east 
 for several weeks, had veered to the southward, 
 and the middle of spring had come abruptly — 
 almost without a beginning. It was that period 
 in the vernal quarter when we may suppose 
 the Dryads to be waking for the season. The 
 vegetable world begins to move and swell and 
 the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of 
 lone gardens and trackless plantations, where 
 everything seems helpless and still after the bond 
 and slavery of frost, there are bustlings,, strainings, 
 united thrusts, and pulls- all-together, in compari- 
 son with which the powerful tugs of cranes and 
 pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts. 
 
 Boldwood, looking into the distant meadows, 
 saw there three figures. They were those of 
 Miss Everdene, Shepherd Oak, and Cainy BaU. 
 
 When Bathsheba's figure shone upon the 
 farmer's eyes, it Ughted him up as the moon
 
 204 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 lights up a great tower. A man's body is as 
 the shell, or the tablet, of his soul, as he is 
 reserved or ingenuous, overflowing or self-con- 
 tained. There was a change in Boldwood's ex- 
 terior fi'om its former impassibleness ; and his 
 face showed that he was now living outside his 
 defences for the first time, and with a fearful 
 sense of exposure. It is the usual experience of 
 strong natures when they love. 
 
 At last he arrived at a conclusion. It was to 
 go across and inquire boldly of her. 
 
 The insulation of his heart by his reserve during 
 these many years, without a duct of any kind 
 for disposable emotion, had worked its effect. It 
 has been observed more than once that the causes 
 of love are chiefly subjective, and Boldwood was 
 a living testimony to the truth of the proposition. 
 No mother existed to absorb his devotion, no 
 sister for his tenderness, no idle ties for sense. 
 He became surcharged with the compound, which 
 was genuine lover's love. 
 
 He approached the gate of the meadow. 
 Beyond it the ground was melodious with ripples, 
 and the sky with larks ; the low bleating of the 
 flock mingling with both. Mistress and man were 
 engaged in the operation of making a lamb 
 '* take," which is performed whenever a ewe 
 has lost her own offspring, one of the twins of
 
 A VISIT. 205 
 
 anotlier ewe being given her as a substitute. 
 Gabriel had skinned the dead lamb, and was tying 
 the skin over the body of the live lamb, in the 
 customary manner, whilst Bathsheba was hold- 
 ing open a httle pen of four- hui'dles, into which 
 the mother and foisted lamb were diiven, where 
 they would remain till the old sheep conceived 
 an affection for the young one. 
 
 Bathsheba looked up at the completion of the 
 manGeu^Te, and saw the farmer by the gate, where 
 he was overhung by a willow tree in fall bloom. 
 Gabriel, to whom her face was as the uncertain 
 gloiy of an April day, ever regardful of its faintest 
 changes, instantly discerned thereon the mark of 
 some influence fi'om without, in the form of a 
 keenly seK-conscious reddening. He also turned 
 and beheld Boldwood. 
 
 At once connecting these signs with the letter 
 Boldwood had shown him, Gabriel suspected her 
 of some coquettish procedm-e begun by that 
 means, and carried on since he knew not how. 
 
 Farmer Boldwood had read the pantomime 
 denoting that they were conscious of his pre- 
 sence, and the perception was as too much hght 
 turned upon his new sensibihty. He was still in 
 the road, and by moving on he hoped that neither 
 would recognize that he had originally intended to 
 enter the field. He passed by with an utter and
 
 206 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 overwiielming sensation of ignorance, shyness, 
 and doubt. Perhaps in her manner there were 
 signs that she wished to see him — perhaps not — 
 he could not read a woman. The cabala of this 
 erotic philosophy seemed to consist of the subtlest 
 meanings expressed in misleading ways. Every 
 turn, look, word, and accent contained a mystery 
 quite distinct from its obvious import, and not one 
 had ever been pondered by him until now. 
 
 As for Bathsheba, she was not deceived into 
 the belief that Farmer Boldwood had walked by 
 on business or in idleness. She collected the pro- 
 babilities of the case, and concluded that she was 
 herself responsible for Boldwood's appearance 
 there. It troubled her much to see what a 
 great flame a Httle wildfire was likely to kindle. 
 Bathsheba was no schemer for marriage, nor was 
 she dehberately a trifler with the affections of 
 men, and a censor's experience on seeing an 
 actual flirt after observing her would have been 
 a feeling of surprise that Bathsheba could be so 
 different from such a one, and yet so like what a 
 flirt is supposed to be. 
 
 She resolved never again, by look or by sign, 
 to interrupt the steady flow of this man's life. 
 But a resolution to avoid an evil is seldom 
 framed till the evil is so far advanced as to 
 make avoidance impossible.
 
 ( 207 ) 
 
 CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 THE SHEEP- WASHING— THE OFFER. 
 
 BoLDWooD did eventually call upon her. Slie was 
 not at home. " Of course not," lie murmured. 
 In contemplating Bathslieba as a woman, lie had 
 forgotten the accidents of her position as an agri- 
 culturist — that being as much of a farmer, and as 
 extensive a farmer, as himself, her probable where- 
 abouts was out-of-doors at this time of the year. 
 This, and the other oversights Boldwood was 
 guilty of, were natural to the mood, and still 
 more natural to the circumstances. The great 
 aids to ideahzation in love were present here : 
 occasional observation of her fi'om a distance, 
 and the absence of social intercourse with her — 
 visual familiarity, oral strangeness. The smaller 
 human elements were kept out of sight ; the 
 pettinesses that enter so largely into all earthly 
 hving and doing were disguised by the accident 
 of lover and loved-one not being on visiting terms, 
 and there was hardly awakened a thought in Bold-
 
 208 FAR FROM THE MADDINO CROWD. 
 
 wood that sorry household reahties appertained 
 to her, or that she, Kke all others, had moments 
 of commonplace, when to he least plainly seen 
 was to be most prettily remembered. Thus a 
 mild sort of apotheosis took place in his fancy, 
 whilst she still lived and breathed within his own 
 horizon, a troubled creature hke himself. 
 
 It was the end of May when the farmer deter- 
 mined to be no longer repulsed by triviaUties or 
 distracted by suspense. He had by this time 
 grown used to being in love ; the passion now 
 startled him less even when it tortured him more, 
 and he felt himseK adequate to the situation. On 
 inquiring for her at her house they had told him 
 she was at the sheep-washing, and he went off to 
 seek her there. 
 
 The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular 
 basin of stonework in the meadows, full of the 
 clearest water. To birds on the wing its glassy 
 surface, reflecting the light sky, must have been 
 visible for miles round as a ghstening Cyclop 's 
 eye in a green face. The grass about the margin 
 at this season was a sight to remember long — ^in 
 a minor sort of way. Its activity in sucking the 
 moisture from the rich damp sod was almost a 
 process observable by the eye. The outskirts of 
 this level water-meadow were diversified by 
 rounded and hollow pastures, where just now
 
 THE SHEEP-WASHING. 209 
 
 everything that was not a buttercup was a daisy, 
 losing this character somewhat as they sank to 
 the verge of the intei-vening river. It sHd along 
 noiselessly as a shade, the swelling reeds and 
 sedge formmg a flexible pahsade along its moist 
 brink. To the north of the mead were trees, the 
 leaves of which were new, soft, moist, and flexible, 
 not yet having stiffened and darkened under 
 summer sun and di'ought, then* coloiu* being 
 yellow beside a green, green beside a yellow. 
 From the recesses of this knot of fohage the 
 loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding 
 through the still air. 
 
 Boldwood went meditating down the slopes with 
 his eyes on his boots, which the yellow pollen fi*om 
 the buttercups had bronzed in artistic gradations. 
 A tributary of the main stream flowed thi'ough 
 the basin of the pool by means of an inlet and 
 outlet at opposite points of its diameter. Shep- 
 herd Oak, Jan Coggan, Moon, Poorgrass, Cain 
 Ball, and several others were assembled here, all 
 diipping wet to the very roots of their hair, and 
 Bathsheba was standing by in a new riding-habit 
 — the most elegant she had ever worn — the reins 
 of her horse being looped over her aiTO. Flagons 
 of cider were rolling about upon the green. The 
 meek sheep were pushed into the pool by Coggan 
 and Matthew Moon, who stood by the lower hatch, 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 immersed to their waists ; then Gabriel, who stood 
 on the brink, thrust them nnder as they swam 
 along, with an instrmnent like a crutch, formed 
 for the purpose, and also for assisting the ex- 
 hausted animals when the wool became saturated 
 and they began to sink. They were then let out 
 against the stream, and through the upper open- 
 ing, all impurities thus flowing away below — Cainy 
 Ball and Joseph, who performed this latter opera- 
 tion, being if possible wetter than the rest; they 
 resembled dolphins under a fountain, every pro- 
 tuberance and angle of their clothes dribbling forth 
 a small rill. 
 
 Boldwood came close and bid her good-morning, 
 with such constraint that she could not but think 
 he had stepped across to the washing for its own 
 sake, hoping not to find her there ; more, she 
 fancied his brow severe and his eye slighting. 
 Bathsheba immediately contrived to withdraw, 
 and glided along by the river till she was a stone's 
 throw off : she heard footsteps brushing the grass, 
 and had a consciousness that love was encu'cling 
 her Hke a perfume. Instead of turning or waiting, 
 Bathsheba went farther among the high sedges, 
 but Boldwood seemed determined, and pressed on 
 till they were completely past the bend of the 
 river. Here, without being seen, they could hear 
 the splashing and shouts of the washers above.
 
 
 'mmmi:mm 
 
 I FKEI- ALMOST- TOO JIUCII TO THINK," HE SAID.
 
 THE OFFER. 211 
 
 '' Miss Everdene ! " said the farmer. 
 
 She trembled, turned, and said " Good-morn- 
 ing." His tone was so utterly removed from all 
 she had expected as a begiiming. It was lowness 
 and quiet accented : an emphasis of deep mean- 
 ings, theu" form, at the same time, being scarcely 
 expressed. Silence has sometimes a remarkable 
 power of showing itself as the disembodied soul 
 of feehng wandering without its carcase, and it 
 is then more impressive than speech. In the same 
 way, to say a Httle is often to tell more than to say 
 a great deal. Boldwood told everything in that 
 word. 
 
 As the consciousness expands on learning that 
 what was fancied to be the rumble of wheels is 
 the reverberation of thunder, so did Bathsheba's 
 at her intuitive conviction. 
 
 ''I feel — almost too much — to think," he said, 
 with a solemn simpHcity. '' I have come to speak 
 to you without preface. My life is not my own 
 since I have beheld you clearly. Miss Everdene 
 — I come to make you an offer of marriage." 
 
 Bathsheba tried to preserve an absolutely 
 neutral countenance, and all the motion she 
 made was that of closing lips which had pre- 
 viously been a Httle parted. 
 
 " I am now forty-one years old," he went on. 
 *' I may have been called a confirmed bachelor,
 
 212 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 and I was a confirmed baclielor. I had never 
 any views of myseK as a husband in my earHer 
 days, nor have I made any calcnlation on the 
 subject since I have been older. But we all 
 change, and my change, in this matter, came 
 with seeing you. I have felt lately, more and 
 more, that my present way of Hving is bad in 
 every respect. Beyond all things, I want you 
 as my wife." 
 
 *'I feel, Mr. Boldwood, that though I respect 
 3'ou much, I do not feel — what would justify 
 me to — in accepting yoiu' offer," she stammered. 
 
 This giving back of dignity for dignity seemed 
 to open the sluices of feeling that Boldwood had 
 as yet kept closed. 
 
 " My life is a burden without you," he 
 exclaimed, in a low voice. "I want you — I 
 want you to let me say I love you again and 
 again ! " 
 
 Bathsheba answered nothing, and the horse 
 upon her arm seemed so impressed, that instead 
 of cropping the herbage it looked up, 
 
 " I think and hope you care enough for me 
 to listen to what I have to tell!" 
 
 Bathsheba's momentary impulse at hearing this 
 was to ask why he thought that, till she remem- 
 bered that, far from being a conceited assumption 
 on Boldwood's pai-t, it was but the natural con-
 
 THE OFFER. 213 
 
 elusion of serious reflection based on deceptive 
 premises of her own offering. 
 
 " I wish I could say coiu'teous flatteries to you," 
 the farmer continued in an easier tone, " and put 
 my rugged feeling into a graceful shape": but I 
 have neither power nor patience to learn such 
 things. I want you for my wife — so wildly that 
 no other feeling- can abide in me ; but I should 
 not have spoken out had I not been led to hope." 
 
 " The valentine again ! Oh that valentine ! " she 
 said to herself, but not a word to him. 
 
 " If you can love me, say so. Miss Everdene. If 
 not — don't say no," 
 
 " Mr. Boldwood, it is painful to have to say I 
 am surprised, so that I don't know how to answer 
 you with propriety and respect — but am only just 
 able to speak out my feeling — I mean my mean- 
 ing ; that I am afraid I can't marry you, much as 
 I respect you. You are too dignified for me to 
 suit you, sir." 
 
 ''But, Miss Everdene!" 
 
 '' I — I didn't — I know I ought never to have 
 dreamt of sending that valentine — forgive me, 
 sir — it was a wanton thing which no woman 
 with any self-respect should have done. If you 
 will only pardon my thoughtlessness, I promise 
 never to " 
 
 " No, no, no. Don't say thoughtlessness ! Make
 
 214 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 me thiiLk: it was sometliing more — that it was a 
 sort of prophetic instinct — the beginning of a 
 feeling that you would like me. You torture me 
 to say it was done in thoughtlessness — I never 
 thought of it in that hght, and I can't endure 
 it. Ah ! I wish I knew how to win you ! but 
 that I can't do — I can only ask if I have 
 abeady got you. If I have not, and it is not 
 true that you have come unwittingly to me as I 
 have to you, I can say no more." 
 
 " I have not fallen in love with you, Mr. Bold- 
 wood — certainly I may say that." She allowed 
 a very small smile to creep for the first time over 
 her serious face in saying this, and the white row 
 of upper teeth, and keenly cut lips already noticed, 
 suggested an idea of heartlessness, which was 
 immediately contradicted by the pleasant eyes. 
 
 " But you wiU just think — in kindness and con- 
 descension think — if you cannot bear with me as 
 a husband ! I fear I am too old for you, but 
 believe me I will take more care of you than 
 would many a man of your own age. I ^dll 
 protect and cherish you with all my strength — 
 I will indeed. You shall have no cares — be 
 worried by no household affairs, and live quite at 
 ease, Miss Everdene. The dairy superintendence 
 shall be done by a man — I can afford it well — 
 you shall never have so much as to look out of
 
 THE OFFER. 215 
 
 doors at hay-making time, or to tliink of weather 
 in the harvest. I rather cling to the chaise, 
 because it is the same my poor father and mother 
 di'ove, but if you don't like it I will sell it, and 
 you shall have a pony-caniage of your own. I 
 cannot say how far above every other idea and 
 object on earth you seem to me — nobody knows 
 — God only knows — how much you are to me ! " 
 
 Bathsheba's heart was young, and it swelled 
 with sympathy for the deep-natured man who 
 spoke so simply. 
 
 " Don't say it : don't ! I cannot bear you to 
 feel so much, and me to feel nothing. And I am 
 afraid they will notice us, Mr. Boldwood. Will 
 you let the matter rest now? I cannot think 
 collectedly. I did not know you were going to 
 say this to me. Oh, I am wicked to have made 
 you suffer so ! " She was frightened as well as 
 agitated at his vehemence. 
 
 " Say then, that you don't absolutely refuse. 
 Do not quite refuse ! " 
 
 "I can do nothing. I cannot answer." 
 
 "I may speak to you again on the subject?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I may think of you? " 
 
 "Yes, I suppose you may think of me." 
 
 "And hope to obtain you?" 
 
 "No — do not hope! Let us go on."
 
 216 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 '' I will call upon you again to-morrow." 
 " No — please not. Give me time." 
 *'Yes — I will give you any time," lie said 
 earnestly and gratefully. "I am happier now." 
 
 ''No — I beg you! Don't be happier if happi- 
 ness only comes from my agreeing. Be neutral, 
 Mr. Boldwood! I must think." 
 "I T\ill wait," he said. 
 
 And then she tui'ned away. Boldwood dropped 
 his eyes to the ground, and stood long like a man 
 who did not know where he was. Eeahties then 
 returned upon him like the pain of a wound re- 
 ceived in an excitement which ecHpses it, and 
 he, too, then went on.
 
 ( 217 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PERPLEXITY— GRINDING THE SHEARS— A QUARREL. 
 
 *' He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all 
 that I can desire," Bathsheba said, musingly. 
 
 Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by natni-e kind 
 or the reverse to kind, did not exercise kindness 
 here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are 
 but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all. 
 
 Bathsheba, not being the least in love with him, 
 was eventually able to look calmly at his offer. It 
 was one which many women of her own station 
 in the neighboui-hood, and not a few of higher 
 rank, would have been wild to accept and proud 
 to publish. In every point of view, ranging from 
 pohtic to passionate, it was deshable that she, 
 a lonely girl, should marry, and many this 
 earnest, well-to-do, and respected man. He was 
 close to her doors : his standing was sufficient : 
 his quahties were even supererogatory. Had she 
 felt, which she did not, any wish whatever for 
 the married state in the abstract, she could not
 
 218 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 reasonably have rejected liim as a woman who 
 frequently appealed to her understanding for 
 deliverance fi'om her whims. Boldwood as a 
 means to marriage was unexceptionable : she 
 esteemed and hked him : yet she did not want 
 him. It appears that men take wives because 
 l^ossession is not possible without marriage, and 
 that women accept husbands because marriage 
 is not possible without possession ; with totally 
 differing aims the method is the same on both 
 sides. But the understood incentive on the 
 woman's part was wanting here. Besides, Bath- 
 sheba's position as absolute mistress of a farm 
 and house was a novel one, and the novelty had 
 not yet begun to wear off. 
 
 But a disquiet filled her which was somewhat 
 to her credit, for it would have affected few. 
 Beyond the mentioned reasons with which she 
 combated her objections, she had a strong feeling- 
 that having been the one who began the game, 
 she ought in honesty to accept the consequences. 
 Still the reluctance remained. She said in the 
 same breath that it would be ungenerous not to 
 marry Boldwood, and that she couldn't do it to 
 save her life. 
 
 Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a 
 dehberative aspect. An Elizabeth in brain and 
 a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed
 
 GRINDING THE SHEABS. 219 
 
 actions of the greatest temerity with a manner 
 of extreme discretion. Many of her thoughts 
 were perfect syllogisms ; unluckily they always 
 remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational 
 assumptions ; but, unfortunately, they were the 
 ones which most frequently grew into deeds. 
 
 The next day to that of the declaration, she 
 found Gabriel Oak at the bottom of her garden, 
 grinding his shears for the sheep-shearing. All 
 the surrounding cottages were more or less scenes 
 of the same operation ; the scurr of whetting 
 spread into the sky from all parts of the village 
 as from an armoury previous to a campaign. 
 Peace and war kiss each other at then* hours of 
 preparation, sickles, scythes, shears, and pruning- 
 hooks mingling with swords, bayonets, and lances, 
 in their common necessity for point and edge. 
 
 Cainy Ball tm-ned the handle of Gabriel's grind- 
 stone, his head performing a melancholy see-saw 
 up and down with each turn of the wheel. Oak 
 stood somewhat as Eros is represented when in the 
 act of sharpening his arrows : his figure slightly 
 bent, the weight of his body thrown over on the 
 shears, and his head balanced sideways, with a 
 critical compression of the lips and contraction of 
 the eyelids to crown the attitude. 
 
 His mistress came up and looked upon them in 
 silence for a minute or two ; then she said, —
 
 220 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Cain, go to the lower mead and catch the bay 
 mare. I'll turn the which of the grmdstone. I 
 want to speak to you, Gabriel." 
 
 Cain departed, and Bathsheba took the handle. 
 Gabriel had glanced up in intense sm-prise, quelled 
 its expression, and looked down again. Bathsheba 
 turned the winch, and Gabriel applied the shears. 
 
 The pecuHar motion involved in tm'ning a wheel 
 has a wonderful tendency to benumb the mind. 
 It is a sort of attenuated variety of Ixion's punish- 
 ment, and contributes a dismal chapter to the 
 history of gaols. The brain gets muddled, the 
 head grows heavy, and the body's centre of gravity 
 seems to settle by degrees in a leaden lump some- 
 where between the eyebrows and the crown. Bath- 
 sheba felt the impleasant symptoms after two or 
 three dozen turns. 
 
 "Will you tm*n, Gabriel, and let me hold the 
 shears?" she said. "My head is in a whui, and 
 I can't talk." 
 
 Gabriel turned. Bathsheba then began, with 
 some awkwardness, allowing her thoughts to stray 
 occasionally from her story to attend to the shears, 
 which required a little nicety in sharpening. 
 
 "I wanted to ask you if the men made any 
 observations on my going behind the sedge with 
 Mr. Boldwood yesterday ? " 
 
 " Yes, they did," said Gabriel. " You don't hold
 
 GRINDING THE SHEABS. 221 
 
 the shears right, miss — I knew yoii -wouldn't know, 
 the way — hold like this." 
 
 He relinquished the "\\^nch, and inclosing her 
 two hands completely in his own (taking each as 
 we sometimes clasp a child's hand in teaching him 
 to wiite), grasped the shears with her. " Inchne 
 the edge so," he said. 
 
 Hands and shears were inclined to suit the 
 words, and held thns for a peciiHarly long time 
 by the instructor as he spoke. 
 
 " That will do," exclaimed Bathsheba. " Loose 
 my hands. I won't have them held ! Tm-n the 
 winch." 
 
 Gabriel freed her hands quietly, retired to his 
 handle, and the grinding went on. 
 
 "Did the men think it odd? " she said again. 
 
 *' Odd was not the idea, miss." 
 
 "What did they say?" 
 
 " That Farmer Boldwood's name and your own 
 were likely to be flung over pulpit together before 
 the year was out." 
 
 "I thought so by the look of them! Why, 
 there's nothing in it. A more foolish remark was 
 never made, and I want you to contradict it : that's 
 what I came for." 
 
 Gabriel looked incredulous and sad, but between 
 his movements of incredulity, relieved. 
 
 " They must have heard our conversation," she 
 continued.
 
 222 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "Well, then, Bathsheba ! " said Oak, stopping 
 the handle, and gazing into her face with astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 "Miss Everdene, you mean," she said, with 
 dignity. 
 
 " I mean this, that if Mr. Boldwood really spoke 
 of marriage, I am not going to tell a story and say 
 he didn't to please you. I have abeady tried to 
 please you too much for my own good." 
 
 Bathsheha regarded him with round-eyed per- 
 plexity. She did not know whether to pity him 
 for disappointed love of her, or to be angiy with 
 him for having got over it — his tone being am- 
 biguous. 
 
 " I said I wanted you just to mention that it was 
 not true I was going to be married to him," she 
 murmured, with a sHght decline in her assm*ance. 
 
 " I can say that to them if you wish. Miss 
 Everdene. And I could likewise give an opinion 
 to you on what you have done." 
 
 " I daresay. But I don't want your opinion." 
 
 " I suppose not," said Gabriel bitterly, and going 
 on with his turning, his words rising and falhng in 
 a regular swell and cadence as he stooped or rose 
 with the winch, which dii-ected them, according to 
 his position, perpendicularly into the earth, or 
 horizontally along the garden, his eyes being fixed 
 on a leaf upon the gi'ound.
 
 GRINDING TEE SHEARS. 223 
 
 With Batlislieba a hastened act was a rash act ; 
 but, as does not always happen, time gained was 
 prudence insured. It must be added, however, 
 that time was very seldom gained. At this period 
 the single opinion in the parish on herself and her 
 doings that she valued as sounder than her own 
 was Gabriel Oak's. And the outspoken honesty of 
 his character was such that on any subject, even 
 that of her love for, or marriage with, another man, 
 the same disinterestedness of opinion might be cal- 
 culated on, and be had for the asking. Thoroughly 
 convinced of the impossibility of his own suit, a 
 high resolve constrained him not to injui-e that of 
 another. This is a lover's most stoical virtue, as 
 the lack of it is a lover's most venial sin. Knowing 
 he would reply truly, she asked the question, pain- 
 ful as she must have known the subject would be. 
 Such is the selfishness of some charming women. 
 Perhaps it was some excuse for her thus torturing 
 honesty to her own advantage, that she had abso- 
 lutely no other sound judgment within easy reach. 
 
 "Well, what is your opinion of my conduct?" 
 she said, quietly. 
 
 " That it is unworthy of any thoughtful, and 
 meek, and comely woman." 
 
 In an instant Bathsheba's face coloured Tvith 
 the angry crimson of a Danby sunset. But she 
 forbore to utter this feeling, and the reticence of
 
 224 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 her tongue only made the loquacity of her face the 
 more noticeable. 
 
 The next thing Gabriel did was to make a 
 mistake. 
 
 " Perhaps you don't like the rudeness of my 
 reprimanding you, for I Imow it is rudeness ; but 
 I thought it would do good." 
 
 She instantly replied sarcastically, — 
 
 '' On the contrary, my opinion of you is so 
 low, that I see in your abuse the praise of discern- 
 ing people." 
 
 "I am glad you don't mind it, for I said it 
 honestly, and with every serious meaning." 
 
 '' I see. But, unfortunately, when you try 
 not to speak in jest you are amusing — just as 
 when you wish to avoid seriousness you some- 
 times say a sensible word." 
 
 It was a hard hit, but Bathsheba had unmis- 
 takably lost her temper, and on that account 
 Gabriel had never in his life kept his own better. 
 He said nothing. She then broke out, — 
 
 "I may ask, I suppose, where in particular 
 my unworthiness lies ? In my not marrying you, 
 perhaps! " 
 
 '' Not by any means," said Gabriel quietly. *' I 
 have long given up thinking of that matter." 
 
 " Or wishing it, I suppose," she said ; and it 
 was apparent that she expected an unhesitating 
 denial of this supposition.
 
 A QUARREL. 225 
 
 Whatever Gabriel felt, lie coolly echoed her 
 words, — 
 
 "Or wishing it either." 
 
 A woman may be treated with a bitterness 
 which is sweet to her, and with a rudeness 
 which is not offensive. Bathsheba would have 
 submitted to an indignant chastisement for her 
 levity had Gabriel protested that he was loving 
 her at the same time ; the impetuosity of passion 
 unrequited is bearable, even if it stings and 
 anathematizes — there is a triumph in the humi- 
 liation, and a tenderness in the strife. This was 
 what she had been expecting, and what she had 
 not got. To be lectm^ed because the lecturer 
 saw her in the cold morning light of open- 
 shuttered disillusion was exasperating. He had 
 not finished, either. He continued in a more 
 agitated voice : — 
 
 " My opinion is (since you ask it) that you are 
 gi'eatly to blame for playing pranks upon a man 
 like Mr. Boldwood, merely as a pastime. Leading 
 on a man you don't care for is not a praiseworthy 
 action. And even. Miss Everdene, if you seri- 
 ously inclined towards him, you might have let 
 him discover it in some way of true loving-kind- 
 ness, and not by sending him a valentine's letter." 
 
 Bathsheba laid down the shears. 
 
 " I cannot allow any man to — to criticise my 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 private conduct!" she exclaimed. "Nor will 
 I for a minute. So you'll please leave the farm 
 at the end of the week ! " 
 
 It may have been a peculiarity — at any rate 
 it was a fact — that when Bathsheba was swayed 
 by an emotion of an earthly sort her lower lip 
 trembled : when by a refined emotion, her upper 
 or heavenward one. Her nether Hp quivered now. 
 
 "Very well, so I will," said Gabriel, calmly. 
 He had been held to her by a beautiful thi-ead 
 which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather 
 than by a chain he could not break. " I should 
 be even better pleased to go at once," he added. 
 
 "Go at once then, in Heaven's name ! " said 
 she, her eyes flashing at his, though never meeting 
 them. " Don't let me see your face any more." 
 
 " Very well, Miss Everdene — so it shall be." 
 
 And he took his shears and went away fi'om 
 her in placid dignity, as Moses left the presence 
 of Pharaoh.
 
 (227 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 TROUBLES IN THE FOLD— A MESSAGE. 
 
 Gaeeiel Oak had ceased to feed the Weather- 
 bury flock for about four- and- twenty hours, when 
 on Sunday afternoon the elderly gentlemen, Joseph 
 Poorgrass, Matthew Moon, Fray, and half-a-dozen 
 others came running up to the house of the mis- 
 tress of the Upper Farm. 
 
 "Whatever is the matter, men?" she said 
 meeting them at the door just as she was on the 
 point of coming out on her way to chm*ch, and 
 ceasing in a moment fi*om the close compression of 
 her two red hps, with which she had accompanied 
 the exertion of pulling on a tight glove. 
 
 Sixty ! " said Joseph Poorgrass. 
 
 Seventy ! " said Moon. 
 
 Fifty-nine ! " said Susan Tail's husband. 
 
 — Sheep have broke fence," said Fray. 
 ■ — And got into a field of young clover," said 
 Tall. 
 
 " — Young clover ! " said Moon.
 
 228 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " — Clover! " said Joseph Poorgrass. 
 
 "And they be getting blasted," said Heneiy 
 Fray. 
 
 " That they be," said Joseph. 
 
 " And will all die as dead as nits, if they hain't 
 got out and cured ! " said Tall. 
 
 Joseph's countenance was drawn into lines and 
 puckers by his concern. Fray's forehead was 
 wi'inkled both perpendicularly and crosswise, after 
 the pattern of a portcuUis, expressive of a double 
 despair. Laban Tail's Hps were thin, and his face 
 was rigid. Matthew's jaws sank, and his eyes 
 turned whichever way the strongest muscle hap- 
 pened to pull them. 
 
 " Yes," said Joseph, '' and I was sitting at home, 
 looking for Ephesians, and says I to myself, ' 'Tis 
 nothing but Corinthians and Thessalonians in this 
 danged Testament,' when who should come in but 
 Henery there : ' Joseph,' he said, '■ the sheep have 
 blasted themselves ' " 
 
 With Bathsheba it was a moment when thought 
 was speech and speech exclamation. Moreover, 
 she had hardly recovered her equanimity since the 
 disturbance which she had suffered fi'om Oak's 
 remarks. 
 
 "That's enough — that's enough! — oh, you 
 fools ! " she cried, throwing the parasol and prayer- 
 book into the passage, and running out of doors in
 
 TROUBLES IN THE FOLD. 229 
 
 the direction signified. " To come to me, and not 
 go and get them out directly ! Oh, the stupid 
 numskulls ! ' ' 
 
 Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest 
 now. Bathsheba's beauty belonging rather to the 
 redeemed-demonian than to the blemished-angelic 
 school, she never looked so well as when she was 
 angry — and pai-ticularly when the effect was 
 heightened by a rather dashing velvet dress, 
 carefully put on before a glass. 
 
 All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng 
 after her to the clover-field, Joseph sinking down 
 in the midst when about half way, hke an indi- 
 vidual withering in a world which got more and 
 more unstable. Having once received the stimulus 
 that her presence always gave them, they went 
 round among the sheep with a will. The majority 
 of the afflicted animals were lying down, and could 
 not be stirred. These were bodily lifted out, and 
 the others driven into the adjoining field. Here, 
 after the lapse of a few minutes, several more fel 
 down, and lay helpless and livid as the rest. 
 
 Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at 
 these primest specimens of her prime flock as they 
 rolled there, — 
 
 Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew. 
 
 Many of them foamed at the mouth, theii* breath-
 
 230 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 ing being quick and short, wliilst the bodies of all 
 were fearfully distended. 
 
 " Oh, what can I do, what can I do ! " said 
 Bathsheba, helplessly. " Sheep are such unfor- 
 tunate animals ! — there's always something hap- 
 pening to them ! I never knew a flock pass a year 
 without getting into some scrape or other." 
 
 " There's only one way of saving them," said 
 Tall. 
 
 " What way ? Tell me quick ! " 
 
 *' They must be pierced in the side with a thing 
 made on purpose." 
 
 "Can you do it? Can I?" 
 
 " No, ma'am. We can't, nor you neither. It 
 must be done in a particular spot. If ye go to the 
 right or left but an inch you stab the ewe and kill 
 her. Not even a shepherd can do it, as a rule." 
 
 *' Then they must die," she said, in a resigned 
 tone. 
 
 " Only one man in the neighbourhood knows 
 the way," said Joseph, now just come up. " He 
 could cure 'em all if he were here." 
 
 " Who is he ? Let's get him ! " 
 
 " Shepherd Oak," said Matthew. ''Ah, he's a 
 clever man in talents ! " 
 
 " Ah, that he is so ! " said Joseph Poorgrass. 
 
 " True — he's the man," said Laban Tall. 
 
 " How dare you name that man in my presence ! "
 
 TROUBLES IN THE FOLD. 231 
 
 she said excitedly. " I told you never to allude to 
 Mm, nor shall you if you stay with me. Ah ! " she 
 added, brightening, " Farmer Boldwood knows ! " 
 
 ** Oh no, ma'am," said Matthew. " Two of his 
 store ewes got into some vetches t'other day, and 
 were just like these. He sent a man on horseback 
 here posthaste for Gable, and Gable went and saved 
 'em. Farmer Boldwood hev got the thing they do 
 it with. 'Tis a holler pipe, with a sharp pricker 
 inside. Isn't it, Joseph ? " 
 
 "Ay — a holler pipe," echoed Joseph. " That's 
 what 'tis." 
 
 *'Ay, sm'e — that's the machine," chimed in 
 Henery Fray, reflectively, with an Oriental in- 
 difference to the flight of time. 
 
 " Well," bm'st out Bathsheba, " don't stand there 
 with your ' ayes ' and yom- ' sm-es,' talking at me ! 
 Get somebody to cure the sheep, instantly ! " 
 
 All then stalked off in consternation, to get 
 somebody as directed, without any idea of who it 
 was to be. In a minute they had vanished thi'ough 
 the gate, and she stood alone with the dying flock. 
 
 " Never will I send for him — never ! " she said, 
 firmly. 
 
 One of the ewes here contracted its muscles 
 horribly, extended itself, and jumped high into the 
 air. The leap was an astonishing one. The ewe 
 feU heavily, and lay still.
 
 232 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD, 
 
 Batlisheba went up to it. The sheep was dead. 
 
 " Oh, what shall I do — what shall I do ! " she 
 again exclaimed, wringing her hands. " I won't 
 send for him. No, I won't ! " 
 
 The most vigorous expression of a resolution 
 does not always coincide with the greatest vigom- 
 of the resolution itself. It is often flung out as 
 a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction 
 which, whilst strong, required no enunciation to 
 prove it so. The " No, I won't " of Bathsheba 
 meant vu'tually, " I think I must." 
 
 She followed her assistants through the gate, and 
 lifted her hand to one of them. Laban answered 
 to her signal. 
 
 " Where is Oak stajdng ? " 
 
 *' Across the valley at Nest Cottage." 
 
 " Jump on the bay mare, and ride across, and 
 say he must return instantly — that I say so." 
 
 TaU scrambled off to the field, and in two 
 minutes was on Poll, the bay, bare-backed, and 
 with only a halter by way of rein. He diminished 
 down the hill. 
 
 Bathsheba watched. So did all the rest. Tall 
 cantered along the bridle-path through Sixteen 
 Acres, Sheeplands, Middle Field, The Plats, 
 Cappel's Piece, shrank almost to a point, crossed 
 the bridge, and ascended from the valley through 
 Springmead and Whitepits on the other side. The
 
 A MESSAGE. 233 
 
 cottage to wliicli Gabriel had retired before taking 
 Ms final departure from tbe locality was visible as 
 a white spot on the opposite hill, backed by blue 
 firs. Bathsheba walked up and down. The men 
 entered the field and endeavoured to ease the 
 anguish of the dumb creatui'es by rubbing them. 
 Nothing availed. 
 
 Bathsheba contiaued walking. The horse was 
 seen descending the hill, and the wearisome series 
 had to be repeated in reverse order : Whitepits, 
 Springmead, Cappel's Piece, The Flats, Middle 
 Field, Sheeplands, Sixteen Acres. She hoped TaU 
 had had presence of miud enough to give the mai'e 
 up to Gabriel, and return himself on foot. The 
 rider neared them. It was Tall. 
 
 " Oh, what foUy ! " said Bathsheba. 
 
 Gabriel was not visible anywhere. 
 
 " Perhaps he is akeady gone," she said. 
 
 Tall came into the inclosure, and leapt off, his 
 face tragic as Morton's after the Battle of Shrews- 
 bury. 
 
 "Well?" said Bathsheba, un-^dHing to believe 
 that her verbal lettre-de-cachet could possibly have 
 miscarried. 
 
 " He says beggars mustn't he chooser s^" repHed 
 Laban. 
 
 " What ! " said the young farmer, opening her 
 eyes and drawing in her breath for an outburst.
 
 234 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 Joseph Poorgrass retired a few steps behind a 
 hurdle. 
 
 " He says he shall not come unless you request 
 him to come civilly and in a proper manner, as 
 becomes any person begging a favour." 
 
 " Oh, ho, that's his answer ! Where does he get 
 his airs ? Who am I, then, to be treated Hke that ? 
 Shall I beg to a man who has begged to me ? " 
 
 Another of the flock sprang into the air, and fell 
 dead. , 
 
 The men looked grave, as if they suppressed 
 opinion. 
 
 Bathsheba turned aside, her eyes full of tears. 
 The strait she was in through pride and shrewish- 
 ness could not be disguised longer : she burst out 
 crying bitterly ; they all saw it ; and she attempted 
 no further concealment. 
 
 " I wouldn't cry about it, miss," said William 
 Smallbury, compassionately. "Why not ask him 
 softer like ? I'm sure he'd come then. Gable is a 
 true man in that way." 
 
 Bathsheba checked her grief and wiped her eyes. 
 " Oh, it is a wicked cruelty to me — it is — it is ! " she 
 murmured. " And he drives me to do what I 
 wouldn't ; yes, he does ! — Tall, come indoors." 
 
 After this collapse, not very dignified for the 
 head of an estabhshment, she went into the house, 
 Tall at her heels. Here she sat down and hastily
 
 A MESSAGE. 235 
 
 scribbled a note between the small convulsive 
 sobs of convalescence which follow a fit of crying 
 as a ground-swell follows a storm. The note was 
 none the less pohte for being written in a hurry. 
 She held it at a distance, was about to fold it, 
 then added these words at the bottom : 
 
 " Do not desert nie, Gabriel ! " 
 
 She looked a little redder in refolding it, and 
 closed her Hps, as if thereby to suspend till too 
 late the action of conscience in examining whether 
 such strategy was justifiable. The note was 
 despatched as the message had been, and Bath- 
 sheba waited indoors for the result. 
 
 It was an anxious quarter of an hour that 
 intervened between the messenger's departure and 
 the sound of the horse's tramp again outside. 
 She could not watch this time, but, leaning over 
 the old bureau at which she had written the 
 letter, closed her eyes, as if to keep out both 
 hope and fear. 
 
 The case, however, was a promising one. 
 Gabriel was not angry, he was simply neutral, 
 although her first command had been so haughty. 
 Such imperiousness would have damned a little 
 less beauty ; and on the other hand, such beauty 
 would have redeemed a little less imperiousness. 
 
 She went out when the horse was heard, and
 
 236 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 looked lip. A mounted figure passed between lier 
 and the sky, and went on towards the field of 
 sheep, the rider turning his face in receding. 
 Gabriel looked at her. It was a moment when 
 a woman's eyes and tongue tell distinctly opposite 
 tales. Bathsheba looked full of gratitude, and she 
 said : — 
 
 " Oh, Gabriel, how could you serve me so 
 unkindly !" 
 
 Such a tenderly-shaped reproach for his previous 
 delay was the one speech in the language that he 
 could pardon for not being commendation of his 
 readiness now. 
 
 Gabriel murmured a confused reply, and hast- 
 ened on. She knew fi'om the look which sentence 
 in her note had brought him. Bathsheba followed 
 to the field. 
 
 Gabriel was akeady among the turgid prostrate 
 forms. He had flung off his coat, rolled up his 
 shii't-sleeves, and taken fi'om his pocket the 
 instrument of salvation. It was a smaU tube or 
 trochar, with a lance passing down the inside ; and 
 Gabriel began to use it with a dexterity that 
 would have graced a hospital-surgeon. Passing 
 his hand over the sheep's left flank, and selecting 
 the proper point, he punctured the skin and mmen 
 with the lance as it stood in the tube ; then 
 he suddenly withdi'ew the lance, retaining the
 
 A MESSAGE. 237 
 
 tube in its place. A current of aii* rushed up the 
 tube, forcible enough to have extinguished a 
 candle held at the orifice. 
 
 It has been said that mere ease after torment 
 is dehght for a time ; and the countenances of 
 these poor creatures expressed it now. Forty-nine 
 operations were successfully performed. Owing 
 to the great huny necessitated by the far-gone 
 state of some of the flock, Gabriel missed his 
 aim in one case, and in one only — striking wide 
 of the mark, and inflicting a mortal blow at once 
 upon the suffering ewe. Four had died ; three 
 recovered without an operation. The total 
 number of sheep which had thus strayed and 
 injured themselves so dangerously was fifty-seven. 
 
 When the love-led man had ceased from his 
 labom's, Bathsheba came and looked him in the 
 face. 
 
 " Gabriel, will you stay on with me ? " she said, 
 smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her 
 lips quite together again at the end, because there 
 was going to be another smile soon. 
 
 " I will," said Gabriel. 
 
 And she smiled on him again.
 
 238 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS. 
 
 Men ttdn away to insignificance and oblivion quite 
 as often by not making the most of good spirits 
 when tbey have them as by lacking good spiiits 
 when they are indispensable. Gabriel lately, for 
 the first time since his prostration by misfortiinej 
 had been independent in thought and vigorous 
 in action to a marked extent — conditions which, 
 powerless without an opportunity as an oppor- 
 tunity without them is barren, would have given 
 him a sure and certain hft upwards when the 
 favourable conjunction should have occm-red. 
 But this incm-able loitering beside Bathsheba 
 Everdene stole his time ruinously. The spring 
 tides were going by without floating him off, and 
 the neap might soon come which could not. 
 
 It was the first day of June, and the sheep- 
 shearing season culminated, the landscape, even 
 to the leanest pasture, being all health and 
 colour. Every green was young, every pore was
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 239 
 
 open, and every stalk was swollen with racing 
 currents of juice. God was palpably present in 
 the country, and the devil had gone with the 
 world to town. Flossy catkins of the later kinds, 
 fern-fronds Hke bishops' crosiers, the square- 
 headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint — like an 
 apoplectic saint in a niche of malachite — clear 
 white ladies'-smocks, the toothwort, approximating 
 to human flesh, the enchanter's nightshade, and 
 the black-petaled doleful-beUs were among the 
 quainter objects of the vegetable world in and 
 about Weatherbury at this teeming time ; and of 
 the animal, the metamorphosed figures of Mr. Jan 
 Coggan, the master-shearer ; the second and third 
 shearers, who travelled in the exercise of their 
 calling, and do not require definition by name ; 
 Henery Fray the fourth shearer, Susan Tail's 
 husband the fifth, Joseph Poorgrass the sixth, 
 young Cain Ball as assistant-shearer, and Gabriel 
 Oak as general supervisor. None of these were 
 clothed to any extent worth mentioning, each 
 appeariQg to have hit in the matter of raiment 
 the decent mean between a high and low caste 
 Hindoo. An angularity of lineament, and a fixity 
 of facial machiuery in general, proclaimed that 
 serious work was the order of the day. 
 
 They sheared in the great barn, called for 
 the nonce the Shearing-barn, which on groimd-
 
 240 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 plan resembled a cliurcli with transepts. It not 
 only emulated the form of the neighbouring 
 church of the parish, but vied with it in antiquity. 
 Whether the barn had ever formed one of a group 
 of conventual buildings nobody seemed to be 
 aware ; no trace of such surroundings remained. 
 The vast porches at the sides, lofty enough to 
 admit a waggon laden to its highest with corn in 
 the sheaf, were spanned by hea\^-pointed arches 
 of stone, broadly and boldly cut, whose very 
 simphcity was the origin of a grandeur not 
 apparent in erections where more ornament has 
 been attempted. The dusky, filmed, chestnut roof, 
 braced and tied in by huge collars, curves, and 
 diagonals, was far nobler in design, because more 
 wealthy in material, than nine-tenths of those 
 in our modern chui'ches. Along each side waU 
 was a range of striding buttresses, throwing 
 deep shadows on the spaces between them, which 
 were perforated by lancet openings, combining 
 in their proportions the precise requirements 
 both of beauty and ventilation. 
 
 One could say about this barn, what could 
 hardly be said of either the chm*ch or the castle, 
 akin to it in age and style, that the pm-pose which 
 had dictated its original erection was the same 
 with that to which it was still appHed. UnHke 
 and superior to either of those two typical 
 
 1
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND TEE SHEEP SHEARERS. 241 
 
 remnants of mediaevaKsm, the old bam embodied 
 practices wldcli bad suffered no mutilation at the 
 bands of time. Here at least tbe spirit of tbe 
 builders then was at one witb tbe spirit of tbe 
 bebolder now. Standing before this abraded pile 
 tbe eye regarded its present usage, tbe mind dwelt 
 upon its past bistory, witb a satisfied sense of 
 functional continuity tbrougbout — a feeling almost 
 of gratitude, and quite of pride, at tbe permanence 
 of tbe idea wbicb bad beaped it up. Tbe fact 
 tbat four centuries bad neither proved it to be 
 founded on a mistake, inspired any hatred of its 
 purpose, nor given rise to any reaction that bad 
 battered it down, invested this simple grey effort 
 of old minds with a repose, if not a grandeur, 
 which a too curious reflection was apt to disturb 
 in its ecclesiastical and mihtary compeers. For 
 once mediaevahsm and modernism bad a common 
 standpoint. The lanceolate windows, the time- 
 eaten arch-stones and chamfers, the orientation 
 of the axis, the misty chestnut work of the 
 rafters, referred to no exploded fortifying art or 
 worn-out rehgious creed. The defence and salva- 
 tion of the body by daily bread is still a study, 
 a rehgion, and a desire. 
 
 To-day the large side doors were thrown open 
 towards the sun to admit a bountiful Hght to tbe 
 immediate spot of the shearers' operations, which 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 242 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. - 
 
 1 
 
 was tlie wood threshing-floor in the centre, formed 
 of thick oak, black with age and poHshed by the 
 beating of flails for many generations, till it had 
 grown as slippery and as rich in hue as the 
 state-room floors of an Elizabethan mansion. 
 Here the shearers knelt, the sun slanting in 
 upon their bleached shirts, tanned arms, and the 
 polished shears they flourished, causing them to 
 bristle with a thousand rays strong enough to 
 blind a weak-eyed man. Beneath them a captive 
 sheep lay panting, increasing the rapidity of its 
 pants as misgiving merged in terror, till it 
 quivered like the hot landscape outside. 
 
 This picture of to-day in its frame of four 
 hundred years ago did not produce that marked 
 contrast between ancient and modern which is 
 impHed by the contrast of date. In comparison 
 with cities, Weatherbury was immutable. The 
 citizen's Then is the rustic's Noiu. In London, 
 twenty or thirty years ago are old times ; in Paris 
 ten years, or five ; in Weatherbuiy thi-ee or four 
 score years were included in the mere present, 
 and nothing less than a century set a mark on its 
 face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the 
 cut of a gaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, 
 by the breadth of a hair. Ten generations failed 
 to alter the turn of a single phrase. In these 
 nooks the busy outsider's ancient times are only
 
 THE GBEAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 243 
 
 old; Ms old times are still new; liis present is 
 futurity. 
 
 So the bam was natnral to the shearers, and the 
 shearers were in harmony with the barn. 
 
 The spacious ends of the building, answering 
 ecclesiastically to nave and chancel extremities, 
 were fenced off with hurdles, the sheep being all 
 collected in a crowd within these two enclosures ; 
 and in one angle a catching-pen was formed, in 
 which three or four sheep were continuously kept 
 ready for the shearers to seize without loss of 
 time. In the background, mellowed by tawny 
 shade, were the three women, Marj^ann Money, 
 and Temperance and Soberness Miller, gathering 
 up the fleeces and twisting ropes of wool with 
 a wimble for tying them round. They were 
 iadifferently well assisted by the old maltster, 
 who, when the malting season from October to 
 April had passed, made himself useful updii any 
 of the bordering farmsteads. 
 
 Behind all was Bathsheba, carefully watching 
 the men to see that there was no cutting or 
 wounding through carelessness, and that the 
 animals were shorn close. Gabriel, who flitted 
 and hovered under her bright eyes like a moth, 
 did not shear continuously, half his time being 
 spent in attending to the others and selecting the 
 sheep for them. At the present moment ho was
 
 244 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 engaged in handing round a mug of mild liquor, 
 supplied from a barrel in the corner, and cut 
 pieces of bread and cheese. 
 
 Bathsheba, after throwing a glance here, a 
 caution there, and lecturing one of the younger 
 operators who had allowed his last finished sheep 
 to go off among the flock without re-stamping it 
 with her initials, came again to Gabriel, as he put 
 down the luncheon to drag a frightened ewe to 
 his shear-station, flinging it over upon its back 
 with a dexterous twist of the arm. He lopped off 
 the tresses about its head, and opened up the 
 neck and collar, his mistress quietly looking on. 
 *' She blushes at the insult," murmured Bath- 
 sheba, watching the pink flush which arose and 
 overspread the neck and shoulders of the ewe 
 where they were left bare by the choking shears 
 — a flush which was enviable, for its dehcacy, 
 by many queens of the coteries, and would have 
 been creditable, for its promptness, to any woman 
 in the world. 
 
 Poor Gabriel's soul was fed with a luxury of 
 content by having her over him, her eyes critically 
 regarding his skilful shears, which apparently were 
 going to gather up a piece of the flesh at every 
 close, and yet never did so. Like Guildenstern, 
 Oak was happy in that he was not over happy. He 
 had no wish to converse with her : that his bright 
 
 i
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 245 
 
 lady and himself formed one group, exclusively 
 their own, and containing no others in the world, 
 was enough. 
 
 So the chatter was all on her side. There is 
 a loquacity that tells nothing, which was Bath- 
 sheba's ; and there is a silence which says much : 
 that was Gabriel's. Full of this dim and tem- 
 perate bliss, he went on to fling the ewe over 
 upon her other side, covering her head with his 
 knee, gradually running the shears line after line 
 round her dew-lap, thence about her flank and 
 back, and finishing over the tail. 
 
 "Well done, and done quickly!" said Bath- 
 sheba, looking at her watch as the last snip re- 
 sounded. 
 
 "How long, miss?" said Gabriel, wiping his 
 brow. 
 
 " Three- and- twenty minutes and a half since 
 you took the first lock from its forehead. It is 
 the first time that I have ever seen one done in 
 less than half an hour." 
 
 The clean, sleek creature arose from its fleece 
 — how perfectly like Aphrodite rising from the 
 foam, should have been seen to be reaHzed — 
 looking startled and shy at the loss of its gar- 
 ment, which lay on the floor in one soft cloud, 
 united throughout, the portion visible being the 
 inner surface only, which, never before exposed,
 
 246 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 was white as snow, and without flaw or blemish 
 of the minutest kind. 
 
 ''Cain BaU!" 
 
 *'Yes, Mister Oak; here I be ! " 
 
 Cainy now runs forward with the tar-pot. 
 "B. E." is newly stamped upon the shorn skin, 
 and away the simple dam leaps, panting, over 
 the board into the shirtless flock outside. Then 
 up comes Maryann; throws the loose locks into 
 the middle of the fleece, rolls it up, and carries it 
 into the background as three-and-a-half pounds of 
 unadulterated warmth for the winter enjoyment of 
 persons unknown and far away, who will, how- 
 ever, never experience the superlative comfort 
 derivable fi'om the wool as it here exists, new 
 and pure — before the unctuousness of its nature 
 whilst in a living state has dried, stiffened, and 
 been washed out — rendering it just now as superior 
 to anything woollen as cream is superior to milk- 
 and-water. 
 
 But heartless circumstance could not leave 
 entire Gabriel's happiness of this morning. The 
 rams, old ewes, and two-shear ewes had duly 
 undergone their stripping, and the men were pro- 
 ceeding with the shearlings and hogs, when Oak's 
 belief that she was goiag to stand pleasantly by 
 and time him through another performance was 
 painfully interrupted by Farmer Boldwood's ap-
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 247 
 
 pearance in the extremest corner of the barn. 
 Nobody seemed to have perceived his entry, but 
 there he certainly was. Boldwood always carried 
 with him a social atmosphere of his own, which 
 everybody felt who came near him ; and the talk, 
 which Bathsheba's presence had somewhat sup- 
 pressed, was now totally suspended. 
 
 He crossed over towards Bathsheba, who turned 
 to greet him with a carriage of perfect ease. He 
 spoke to her in low tones, and she instinctively 
 modulated her own to the same pitch, and her 
 voice ultimately even caught the infection of his. 
 She was far from having a wish to appear mys- 
 teriously connected with him; but woman at 
 the impressible age gravitates to the larger body 
 not only in her choice of words, which is apparent 
 every day, but even in her shades of tone and 
 humour, when the influence is great. 
 
 What they conversed about was not audible to 
 Gabriel, who was too independent to get near, 
 though too concerned to disregard. The issue of 
 their dialogue was the taking of her hand by the 
 courteous farmer to help her over the spreading- 
 board into the bright May sunlight outside. 
 Standing beside the sheep abeady shorn, they 
 went on talking again. Concerning the flock ? 
 Apparently not. Gabriel theorized, not without 
 truth, that in quiet discussion of any matter with-
 
 248 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 in reach of tlie speakers' eyes, these are nsually 
 fixed upon it. Bathsheba demurely regarded a 
 contemptible straw lying upon the ground, in a 
 way which suggested less ovine criticism than 
 womanly embarrassment. She became more or 
 less red in the cheek, the blood wavering in un- 
 certain flux and reflux over the sensitive space 
 between ebb and flood. Gabriel sheared on, con- 
 strained and sad. 
 
 She left Boldwood's side, and he walked up 
 and down alone for nearly a quarter of an hour. 
 Then she reappeared in a new riding-habit of 
 myrtle green, which fitted her to the waist as 
 a rind fits its fruit ; and young Bob Coggan led 
 on her mare, Boldwood fetching his own horse 
 from the tree under which it had been tied. 
 
 Oak's eyes could not forsake them; and in 
 endeavouring to continue his shearing at the 
 same time that he watched Boldwood's manner, 
 he snipped the sheep in the groiQ. The animal 
 plunged ; Bathsheba instantly gazed towards it, 
 and saw the blood. 
 
 " Oh Gabriel ! " she exclaimed, with severe 
 remonstrance, '' you who are so strict with the 
 other men — see what you are doing yourseK! " 
 
 To an outsider there was not much to complain 
 of in this remark ; but to Oak, who knew Bath- 
 sheba to be well aware that she herself was the
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 249 
 
 cause of the poor ewe's wound, because she 
 had wounded the ewe's shearer in a still more 
 vital part, it had a sting which the abiding 
 sense of his inferiority to both herself and Bold- 
 wood was not calculated to heal. But a manly- 
 resolve to recognize boldly that he had no longer 
 a lover's interest in her, helped him occasionally 
 to conceal a feeling. 
 
 " Bottle ! " he shouted, in an unmoved voice 
 of routine. Cainy Ball ran up, the wound was 
 anointed, and the shearing continued. 
 
 Boldwood gently tossed Bathsheba into the 
 saddle, and before they turned away she again 
 spoke out to Oak with the same dominative and 
 tantahzing graciousness. 
 
 " I am going now to see Mr. Boldwood's 
 Leicesters. Take my place in the barn, Gabriel, 
 and keep the men carefully to their work." 
 
 The horses' heads were put about, and they 
 trotted away. 
 
 Boldwood's deep attachment was a matter of 
 great interest among all around him ; but, after 
 having been pointed out for so many years as 
 the perfect exemplar of thriving bachelorship, his 
 lapse was an anticHmax somewhat resembling 
 that of St. John Long's death by consumption 
 in the midst of his proofs that it was not a 
 fatal disease.
 
 250 FAB FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "That means matrimony," said Temperance 
 Miller, following tliem out of sight with her 
 eyes. 
 
 '' I reckon that's the size o't," said Coggan, 
 working along without looking up. 
 
 ''Well, better wed over the mixen than over 
 the moor," said Laban Tall, turning his sheep. 
 
 Henery Fray spoke, exhibiting miserable eyes at 
 the same time : "I don't see why a maid should 
 take a husband when she's bold enough to fight 
 her own battles, and don't want a home ; for 'tis 
 keeping another woman out. But let it be, for 'tis 
 a pity he and she should trouble two houses." 
 
 As usual with decided characters, Bathsheba 
 invariably provoked the criticism of individuals 
 like Henery Fray. Her emblazoned fault was to 
 be too pronounced in her objections, and not 
 sufficiently overt in her likings. We learn that 
 it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those 
 which they reject, that give them the colours they 
 are known by ; and in the same way people are 
 speciahzed by their dislikes and antagonisms, 
 whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no 
 attribute at all. 
 
 Henery continued in a more complaisant mood : 
 '' I once hinted my mind to her on a few things, 
 as nearly as a battered frame dared to do so to 
 such a froward piece. You all know, neighbours,
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 251 
 
 what a man I be, and how I come down with my 
 powerful words when my pride is boiling with 
 indignation ? " 
 
 " We do, we do, Henery." 
 
 " So I said, ' Mistress Everdene, there's places 
 empty, and there's gifted men willing ; but the 
 spite ' — no, not the spite — I didn't say spite — ' but 
 the yillany of the contrarikind,' I said (meaning 
 womankind), 'keeps 'em out.' That wasn't too 
 strong for her, say?" 
 
 " Passably well put." 
 
 " Yes ; and I would have said it, had death and 
 salvation overtook me for it. Such is my spirit 
 when I have a mind ! " 
 
 •*' A true man, and proud as a Lucifer." 
 
 '' You see the artfulness ? Why, 'twas about 
 being baily really; but I didn't put it so plain 
 that she could understand my meaning, so I 
 could lay it on all the stronger. That was my 
 depth r . . . However, let her marry an she will. 
 Perhaps 'tis high time. I beheve Farmer Bold- 
 wood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the 
 sheep-washing t'other day — that I do." 
 
 "What a He! " said Gabriel. 
 
 "Ah, neighbour Oak — how'st know?" said 
 Henery, mildly. 
 
 "Because she told me aU that passed," said 
 Oak, with a pharisaical sense that he was not as 
 other shearers in this matter.
 
 252 PAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "Ye liave a right to believe it," said Henery, 
 with dudgeon; "a very true right. But I may 
 see a little distance into things. To be long- 
 headed enough for a baily's place is a poor mere 
 trifle — yet a trifle more than nothing. However, 
 I look round upon life quite promiscuous. Do you 
 conceive me, neighbours ? My words, though 
 made as simple as I can, may be rather deep 
 for some heads." 
 
 " Oh yes, Henery, we quite conceive ye." 
 
 *' A strange old piece, goodmen — whirled about 
 from here to yonder, as if I were nothing worth. 
 A Httle warped, too. But I have my depths ; ha, 
 and even my great depths ! I might close with a 
 certain shepherd, brain to brain. But no — Oh no ! " 
 
 "A strange old piece, ye say!" interposed the 
 maltster, in a querulous voice. " At the same 
 time ye be no old man worth naming — no old 
 man at all. Yer teeth baint half gone yet ; and 
 what's a old man's standing if so be his teeth 
 baint gone ? Weren't I stale in wedlock afore 
 ye were out of arms ? 'Tis a poor thing to be 
 sixty, when there's people far past four-score — 
 a boast weak as water." 
 
 It was the unvarying custom in Weatherbury 
 to sink minor differences when the maltster had 
 to be pacified. 
 
 " Weak as water ! yes," said Jan Coggan.
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 253 
 
 " Maltster, we feel ye to be a wonderful old 
 veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it." 
 
 "Nobody," said Joseph Poorgrass. "Ye are 
 a very rare old spectacle, maltster, and we all 
 respect ye for that gift." 
 
 " Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were 
 in prosperity, I was likewise liked by a good-few 
 who knowed me," said the maltster. 
 
 " 'Ithont doubt you was — 'ithout doubt." 
 
 The bent and hoary man was satisfied, and so 
 apparently was Henery Fray. That matters 
 should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, 
 what with her brown complexion, and the work- 
 ing wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the 
 mellow hue of an old sketch in oils — notably 
 some of Nicholas Poussin's : — 
 
 " Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, 
 or any second-hand fellow at all that would do for 
 poor me ? " said Maryann. " A perfect article I 
 don't expect to get at my time of life. If I could 
 hear of such a thing 'twould do me more good 
 than toast and ale." 
 
 Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went 
 on with his shearing, and said not another word. 
 Pestilent moods had come, and teased away his 
 quiet. Bathsheba had shown indications of 
 anointing him above his fellows by installing 
 him as the baihff that the farm imperatively
 
 254 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 required. He did not covet the post relatively 
 to the farm : in relation to herself, as beloved 
 by him and -unmarried to another, he had 
 coveted it. His readings of her seemed now 
 to be vapoury and indistinct. ^ His lecture to 
 her was, he thought, one of the absurdest mis- 
 takes. Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she 
 had trifled with himself in thus feigning that she 
 had trifled with another. He was inwardly con- 
 vinced that, in accordance with .the anticipations 
 of his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, 
 that day would see Boldwood the accepted 
 husband of Miss Everdene. Gabriel at this 
 time of his life had outgrown the instinctive 
 dislike which every Christian boy has for read- 
 ing the Bible, perusing it now quite frequently, 
 and he inwardly said, "'I find more bitter than 
 death the woman whose heart is snares and 
 nets ! ' " This was mere exclamation — the froth 
 of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just the 
 same. 
 
 " We workfolk shall have some lordly junketing, 
 to-night," said Cainy Ball, casting forth his 
 thoughts in a new direction. " This morning I 
 see 'em making the great puddens in the milking- 
 pails — lumps of fat as big as yer thumb. Mister 
 Oak ! I've never seed such splendid large knobs 
 of fat before in the days of my life — they never
 
 THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP SHEARERS. 255 
 
 used to be bigger than a horse-bean. And there 
 was a great black crock upon the brandise with 
 his legs a-sticking out, but I don't know what 
 was in within." 
 
 " And there's two bushels of biflSus for apple- 
 pies," said Mary arm. 
 
 "Well, I hope to do my duty by it all," said 
 Joseph Poorgrass, in a pleasant, masticating 
 manner of anticipation. " Yes ; victuals and 
 drink is a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to 
 the nerveless, if the form of words may be used. 
 'Tis the gospel of the body, without which he 
 perish, so to speak it."
 
 256 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 EVENTIDE— A SECOND DECLARATION. 
 
 For the shearing-supper a long table was placed 
 on the grass-plot beside the house, the end of the 
 table being thrust over the sill of the wide parlour- 
 window and a foot or two into the room. Miss 
 Everdene sat inside the window, facing down the 
 table. She was thus at the head without minghng 
 with the men. 
 
 This evening Bathsheba was unusually excited, 
 her red cheeks and hps contrasting lustrously with 
 the mazy skeins of her shadowy hair. She seemed 
 to expect assistance, and the seat at the bottom 
 of the table was at her request left vacant until 
 after they had begun the meal. She then asked 
 Gabriel to take the place and the duties apper- 
 taining to that end, which he did with great 
 readiness. 
 
 At this moment Mr. Boldwood came in at the 
 gate, and crossed the green to Bathsheba at the 
 window. He apologized for his lateness : his 
 arrival was evidently by arrangement.
 
 EVENTIDE. 257 
 
 " Gabriel," said she, " will you move again, 
 please, and let Mr. Boldwood come there?" 
 
 Oak moved in silence back to his original seat. 
 
 The gentleman-farmer was dressed in cheerful 
 style, in a new coat and white waistcoat, quite 
 contrasting with his usual sober suits of grey. 
 Inwardly, too, he was bhthe, and consequently 
 chatty to an exceptional degree. So also was 
 Bathsheba now that he had come, though the 
 uninvited presence of Pennyways, the baihff who 
 had been dismissed for theft, disturbed her 
 equanimity for a while. 
 
 Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own 
 private account, without reference to listeners : — 
 
 " I've lost my love, and I care not, 
 I've lost my love, and I care not ; 
 
 I shall soon have another 
 
 That's better than t'other ; 
 I've lost my love, and I care not." 
 
 This melody, when concluded, was received 
 with a silently appreciative gaze at the table, 
 implying that the performance, like a work by 
 those established authors who are independent 
 of notices in the papers, was a well-known 
 dehght which required no applause. 
 
 " Now, Master Poorgrass, your song," said 
 Coggan. 
 
 "I be all but a shadder, and the gift is
 
 258 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 wanting in me," said Joseph, diminisMng him- 
 seK. 
 
 "Nonsense; wou'st never be so ungrateful, 
 Joseph. — never!" said Coggan, expressing hurt 
 feelings by an inflection of voice. '' And mistress 
 is looking hard at ye, as much as to say, * Sing 
 at once, Joseph Poorgrass.' " 
 
 " Faith, so she is ; well, I must suffer it ! . . . 
 How do I bear her gaze ? Do I blush prodigally ? 
 Just eye my features, and see if the tell-tale 
 blood overpowers me much, neighbours." 
 
 " No, yer blushes be quite reasonable," said 
 Coggan. 
 
 "A very reasonable depth indeed," testified 
 Oak. 
 
 " I always tries to keep my colours from rising 
 when a beauty's eyes get fixed on me," said 
 Joseph, diffidently; "but if so be 'tis willed they 
 do, they must." 
 
 " Now, Joseph, your song, please," said Bath- 
 sheba, from the window. 
 
 "Well, really, ma'am," he rephed, in a yielding 
 tone, "I don't know what to say. It would be 
 a poor plain ballet of my own composure." 
 "Hear, hear!" said the supper-party. 
 Poorgrass, thus assured, trilled forth a flicker- 
 ing yet commendable piece of sentiment, the tune 
 of which consisted of the key-note and another,
 
 EVENTIDE. 259 
 
 ' the latter being the sound chiefly dwelt upon. 
 This was so successful that he rashly plunged 
 into a second in the same breath, after a few 
 false starts : — 
 
 " I sow'-ed th'-e 
 
 I sow'-ed 
 
 I sow'-ed the'-e seeds' of love', 
 
 I-it was' all' i'-in the'-e spring', 
 I-in A'-pril', Ma'-ay, a'-nd sun'-ny' June', 
 
 When sma'-aU bi'-irds they' do' sing'. " 
 
 '' Well put out of hand," said Coggan, at the 
 end of the verse. *' ' They do sing' was a very 
 taking paragraph." 
 
 "Ay; and there was a pretty place at 'seeds 
 of love/ and 'twas weU let out. Though ' love ' 
 is a nasty high corner when a man's voice is 
 getting crazed. Next verse, Master Poorgrass.'\ 
 
 But during this rendering young Bob Coggan 
 evinced one of those anomahes which wiU afflict 
 little people when other persons are particularly 
 serious, and, in trying to check his laughter, 
 pushed down his throat as much of the table- 
 cloth as he could get hold of, when after con- 
 tinuing hermetically sealed for a short time, 
 his mirth ultimately burst out through his nose. 
 Joseph perceived it, and with hectic cheeks of 
 indignation instantly ceased singing. Coggan 
 boxed Bob's ears immediately. 
 
 " Go on, Joseph — go on, and never mind the
 
 260 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 young scamp," said Coggan. " 'Tis a very catching 
 ballet. Now then again — the next bar ; I'll 
 help ye to flourish up the shrill notes where 
 yer wind is rather wheezy : — 
 
 " Oh the wi'-il-lo'-ow tree' will' twist', 
 And the wil'-low' tre'-ee wi'-ill twine'." 
 
 But the singer could not be set going again. 
 Bob Coggan was sent home for his ill manners, 
 and tranquility was restored by Jacob Small- 
 bury, who volunteered a ballad as inclusive and 
 interminable as that with which the worthy 
 toper old Silenus amused on a similar occasion 
 the swains Chromis and Mnasylus, and other 
 jolly dogs of his day. 
 
 It was stiU the beaming time of evening, 
 though night was stealthily making itself visible 
 low down upon the ground, the western lines of 
 light raking the earth without alighting upon it 
 to any extent, or illuminating the dead levels at 
 all. The sun had crept round the tree as a 
 last effort before death, and then began to sink, 
 the shearers' lower parts becoming steeped 
 in embrowning twilight, whilst their heads and 
 shoulders were still enjoying day, lacquered with 
 a yeUow of self-sustained brilliancy that seemed 
 inherent rather than acquired. 
 
 The sun went down in an ochreous mist ; but 
 they sat, and talked on, and grew as merry as
 
 EVENTIDE. 261 
 
 the gods in Homer's heaven. Bathsheba still 
 remained enthroned inside the window, and occu- 
 pied herself in knitting, from which she some- 
 times looked up to view the fading scene out- 
 side. The slow twilight expanded and enveloped 
 them completely before the signs of moving were 
 shown. 
 
 Gabriel suddenly missed Farmer Boldwood 
 from his place at the bottom of the table. How 
 long he had been gone Oak did not know ; but 
 he had apparently withdrawn into the encirchng 
 dusk. Whilst he was thinking of this, Liddy 
 brought candles into the back part of the room 
 overlooking the shearers, and their lively new 
 flames shone down the table and over the men, 
 and dispersed among the green shadows behind. 
 Bathsheba's form, still in its original position, 
 was now again distinct between their eyes and 
 the hght, which revealed that Boldwood had 
 gone inside the room, and was now sitting 
 near her. 
 
 Next came the question of the evening. 
 Would Miss Everdene sing to them the song 
 she always sang so charmingly — " The Banks 
 of Allan Water " — before they went home ? 
 
 After a moment's consideration Bathsheba 
 assented, beckoning to Gabriel, who hastened 
 up into the coveted atmosphere at once.
 
 262 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Have you brought your flute ?" she whispered. 
 
 " Yes, miss." 
 
 " Play to my singing, then." 
 
 She stood up in the window-opening, facing 
 the men, the candles behind her, Gabriel on her 
 right hand, immediately outside the sash-frame. 
 Boldwood had drawn up on her left, within the 
 room. Her singing was soft and rather tremulous 
 at first, but it soon swelled to a steady clearness. 
 Subsequent events caused one of the verses to 
 be remembered for many months, and even 
 years, by more than one of those who were 
 gathered there : — 
 
 " For his bride a soldier sought her, 
 And a winning tongue had he : 
 On the banks of Allan Water 
 None was gay as she ! " 
 
 In addition to the dulcet piping of Gabriel's 
 flute, Boldwood supplied a bass in his customary 
 profound voice, uttering his notes so softly, how- 
 ever, as to abstain entirely from making any- 
 thing like an ordinary duet of the song; they 
 rather formed a rich unexplored shadow, which 
 threw her tones into rehef. The shearers recHned 
 against each other as at suppers in the early 
 ages of the world, and so silent and absorbed 
 were they that her breathing could almost be 
 heard between the bars ; and at the end of the
 
 EVENTIDE. 263 
 
 ballad, when the last tone loitered on to an 
 inexpressible close, there arose that buzz of 
 pleasure which is the attar of applause. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to state that Gabriel 
 could not avoid noting the farmer's bearing to- 
 night towards their entertainer. Yet there was 
 nothing exceptional in his actions beyond what 
 appertained to his time of performing them. It 
 was when the rest were all looking away that 
 Boldwood observed her ; when they regarded 
 her he turned aside ; when they thanked or 
 praised he was silent ; when they were inatten- 
 tive he mm'mured his thanks. The meaning 
 lay in the difference between actions, none of 
 which had any meaning of themselves ; and the 
 necessity of being jealous, which lovers are 
 troubled with, did not lead Oak to under-esti- 
 mate these signs. 
 
 Bathsheba then wished them good-night, with- 
 drew from the window, and retired to the back 
 part of the room, Boldwood thereupon closing 
 the sash and the shutters, and shutting himself 
 inside with her. Oak wandered away under the 
 quiet and scented trees. Eecovering from the 
 softer impressions produced by Bathsheba's voice, 
 the shearers rose to leave, Coggan turning to 
 Pennyways as he pushed back the bench to pass 
 out : —
 
 264 FAR FROM THE MADDING qROWD. 
 
 " I like to give praise where praise is due, 
 and the man deserves it — that 'a do so," he 
 remarked, looking at the worthy thief compre- 
 hensively, as if he were the masterpiece of some 
 world-renowned artist. 
 
 " I'm sure I should never have beHeved it if we 
 hadn't proved it, so to allude," said Joseph Poor- 
 grass, " that every cup, every one of the best 
 knives and forks, and every empty bottle be in 
 their place as perfect now as at the beginning, 
 and not one stole at all." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't deserve half the praise you 
 give me," said the virtuous thief, grimly. 
 
 ''WeU, I'U say this for Penny ways," added 
 Coggan, "that whenever he do really make up 
 his mind to do a noble thing in the shape of a 
 good action, as I could see by his face he did 
 to-night afore sitting down, he's generally able to 
 carry it out. Yes, I'm proud to say, neighbours, 
 that he's stole nothing at all." 
 
 " Well, 'tis an honest deed, and we thank ye 
 for it, Pennyways," said Joseph ; to which 
 opinion the remainder of the company subscribed 
 unanimously. 
 
 At this time of departure, when nothing more 
 was visible of the inside of the parlour than a 
 thin and still chink of light between the shutters, 
 a passionate scene was in course of enactment 
 there.
 
 A SECOND DECLARATION. 265 
 
 Miss Everdene and Boldwood were alone. Her 
 cheeks had lost a great deal of their healthful 
 fire from the very seriousness of her position ; 
 but her eye was bright with the excitement of 
 a triumph — though it was a triumph which had 
 rather been contemplated than desired. 
 
 She was standing behind a low arm-chair, from 
 which she had just risen, and he was kneeling in 
 it — inclining himself over its back towards her, 
 and holding her hand in both his own. His body 
 moved restlessly, and it was with what the poet 
 calls a too happy happiness. This unwonted 
 abstraction by love of all dignity from a man of 
 whom it had ever seemed the chief component, 
 was, in its distressing incongruity, a pain to her 
 which quenched much of the pleasure she derived 
 from the proof that she was idolized. 
 
 "I will try to love you," she was saying, in a 
 trembling voice quite unHke her usual self-con- 
 fidence. ''And if I can believe in any way that 
 I shall make you a good wife I shall indeed be 
 willing to marry you. But, Mr. Boldwood, 
 hesitation on so high a matter is honourable in 
 any woman, and I don't want to give a solemn 
 promise to-night. I woald rather ask you to wait 
 a few weeks till I can see my situation better. 
 
 " But you have every reason to believe that 
 then ..."
 
 266 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "I have every reason to hope that at the end 
 of the five or six weeks, between this time and 
 harvest, that you say you are going to be away 
 from home, I shall be able to promise to be your 
 wife," she said, firmly. "But remember this 
 distinctly, I don't promise yet." 
 
 "It is enough; I don't ask more. I can wait 
 on those dear words. And now, Miss Everdene, 
 good-night ! " 
 
 " Good-night," she said, graciously — almost 
 tenderly; and Boldwood withdrew with a serene 
 smile. 
 
 Bathsheba knew more of him now; he had 
 entirely bared his heart before her, even until he 
 had almost worn in her eyes the sorry look of a 
 grand bird without the feathers that make it 
 grand. She had been awestruck at her past 
 temerity, and was struggling to make amends 
 without thinking whether the sin quite deserved 
 the penalty she was schooling herseK to pay. To 
 have brought all this about her ears was terrible ; 
 but after a while the situation was not without 
 a fearful joy. The facility with which even the 
 most timid women sometimes acquire a rehsh 
 for the dreadful when that is amalgamated with 
 a little triumph, is marvellous.
 
 ( 267 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 THE SAME NIGHT— THE FIR PLANTATION. 
 
 Among tiie multifarious duties which Bathsheba 
 had voluntarily imposed upon herseK by dispens- 
 ing with the services of a bailiff, was the pai-ticular 
 one of looking round the homestead before going 
 to bed, to see that all was right and safe for the 
 night. Gabriel had almost constantly preceded 
 her in this tour every evening, watching her 
 affairs as carefully as any specially appointed 
 officer of surveillance could have done ; but this 
 tender devotion was to a great extent unknown 
 to his mistress, and as much as was known was 
 somewhat thanklessly received. Women are 
 never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, 
 but they only seem to snub his constancy. 
 
 As watching is best done invisibly, she usually 
 carried a dark lantern in her hand, and every 
 now ' and then turned on the light to examine 
 nooks and corners with the coolness of a metro- 
 pohtan policeman. This coolness may have owed
 
 268 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 its existence not so much to her fearlessness of 
 expected danger as to her freedom fi'om the 
 suspicion of any ; her worst anticipated discovery- 
 being that a horse might not be well bedded, 
 the fowls not all in, or a door not closed. 
 
 This night the buildings were inspected as 
 usual, and she went round to the farm paddock. 
 Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness 
 were steady munchings of many mouths, and 
 stentorian breathings from all but invisible noses, 
 ending in snores and puffs like the blowing of 
 bellows slowly. Then the munching would re- 
 commence, when the hvely imagination might 
 assist the eye to discern a group of pink-white 
 nostrils, large as caverns, and very clammy and 
 humid on their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to 
 the touch until one got used to them ; the mouths 
 beneath them having a great partiahty for closing 
 upon any fragment of Bathsheba's apparel which 
 came within reach of their tongues. Above each 
 of these a still keener vision suggested a brown 
 forehead and two staring though not unfriendly 
 eyes, and above all a pair of whitish crescent- 
 shaped horns like two particularly new moons, an 
 occasional stolid '^ moo ! " proclaiming beyond the 
 shade of a doubt that these phenomena were the 
 features and persons of Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonny- 
 lass, Jolly-0, Spot, Twinkle-eye, etc., etc. — the
 
 THE FIR PLANTATION. 269 
 
 respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging to 
 Bathsheba aforesaid. 
 
 Her way back to the bouse was by a path 
 through a young plantation of tapering firs, 
 which had been planted some years earUer to 
 shelter the premises from the north wind. By 
 reason of the density overhead of the interwoven 
 fohage it was gloomy there at cloudless noontide, 
 twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, 
 and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at mid- 
 night. To describe the spot is to call it a vast, 
 low, naturally formed hall, the plumy ceiUng of 
 which was supported by slender pillars of living 
 wood, the floor being covered with a soft dun 
 carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed cones, 
 with a tuft of grass-blades here and there. 
 
 This bit of the path was always the crux of the 
 night's ramble, though, before starting, her ap- 
 prehensions of danger were not vivid enough to 
 lead her to take a companion. Slipping along 
 here covertly as Time, Bathsheba fancied she 
 could here footsteps entering the track at the 
 opposite end. It was certainly a rustle of foot- 
 steps. Her own instantly fell as gently as snow- 
 flakes. She reassured herself by a remembrance 
 that the path was public, and that the traveller 
 was probably some villager returning home, re- 
 gretting, at the same time, that the meeting
 
 270 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 should be about to occur in the darkest point of 
 her route, even though only just outside her 
 own door. 
 
 The noise approached, came close, and a figure 
 was apparently on the point of gliding past her 
 when something tugged at her skirt and piimed 
 it forcibly to the ground. The instantaneous 
 check nearly threw Bathsheba off her balance. 
 In recovering she struck against warm clothes 
 and buttons. 
 
 "A rum start, upon my soul ! " said a masculine 
 voice, a foot or so above her head. " Have I hurt 
 you, mate ? " 
 
 "No," said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink 
 away. 
 
 "We have got hitched together somehow, I 
 think." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Are you a woman ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " A lady, I should have said." 
 
 " It doesn't matter." 
 
 " I am a man." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose. 
 
 " Is that a dark lantern you have ? I fancy so," 
 said the man. 
 
 "Yes."
 
 THE FIR PLANTATION. 271 
 
 "If you'll allow me I'll open it, and set you 
 free." 
 
 A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, 
 the rays burst out from their prison, and Bath- 
 sheba beheld her position with astonishment. 
 
 The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant 
 in brass and scarlet. He was a soldier. His 
 sudden appearance was to darkness what the 
 sound of a trumpet is to silence. Gloom, the 
 genius loci at all times hitherto, was now totally 
 overthrown, less by the lantern light than by 
 what the lantern lighted. The contrast of this 
 revelation with her anticipations of some sinister 
 figure in sombre garb was so great that it had 
 upon her the effect of a fairy transformation. 
 
 It was immediately apparent that the military 
 man's spur had become entangled in the gimp 
 which decorated the skirt of her dress. He 
 caught a view of her face. 
 
 " I'll unfasten you in one moment, miss," he 
 said, with new-born gallantry. 
 
 '' Oh no — I can do it, thank you," she hastily 
 replied, and stooped for the performance. 
 
 The unfastening was not such a trifling affair. 
 The rowel of the spur had so wound itself among 
 the gimp cords in those few moments, that separa- 
 tion was likely to be a matter of time. 
 
 He too stooped, and the lantern standing on
 
 272 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 the ground betwixt them threw the gleam from 
 its open side among the fir-tree debris and the 
 blades of long damp grass with the effect of a 
 large glowworm. It radiated upwards into their 
 faces, and sent over half the plantation gigantic 
 shadows of both man and woman, each dusky 
 shape becoming distorted and mangled upon the 
 tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing. 
 
 He looked hard into her eyes when she raised 
 them for a moment ; Bathsheba looked down 
 again, for his gaze was too strong to be re- 
 ceived pointblank with her own. But she had 
 obliquely noticed that he was young and slim, 
 and that he wore three chevrons upon his sleeve. 
 
 Bathsheba pulled again. 
 
 "You are a prisoner, miss; it is no use 
 blinking the matter," said the soldier, drily. 
 " I must cut your dress if you are in such a 
 hurry." 
 
 "Yes — please do ! " she exclaimed, helplessly. 
 
 " It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a 
 moment ; " and he unwomid a cord from the little 
 wheel. She withdrew her own hand, but, whether 
 by accident or design, he touched it. Bathsheba 
 was vexed ; she hardly knew why. 
 
 His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless 
 seemed coming to no end. She looked at him 
 again.
 
 TEE FIR PLANTATION. 273 
 
 '' Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful 
 face ! " said the young sergeant, without ceremony. 
 
 She coloured with embarrassment. ** 'Twas 
 unwillingly shown," she repHed, stiffly, and with 
 as much dignity — which was very Httle — as she 
 could infuse into a position of utter captivity. 
 
 " I like you the better for that incivility, miss," 
 he said. 
 
 "I should have liked — I wish — you had never 
 shown yom'self to me by intruding here ! " She 
 pulled again, and the gathers of her di'ess began 
 to give way like lilliputian musketry. 
 
 "I deserve such a chastisement as your words 
 give me. But why should such a fair and dutiful 
 girl have such an aversion to her father's sex? " 
 
 " Go on your way, please." 
 
 "What, Beauty, and drag you after me? Do 
 but look ; I never saw such a tangle ! " 
 
 " Oh, 'tis shameful of you ; you have been making 
 it worse on purpose to keep me here — you have ! " 
 
 "Indeed, I don't think so," said the sergeant, 
 with a merry twinkle. 
 
 " I tell you you have ! " she exclaimed, in high 
 temper. " I insist upon undoing it. Now, allow 
 me!" 
 
 " Certainly, miss ; I am not of steel." He 
 added a sigh which had as much archness in it as 
 a sigh could possess without losing its nature 
 
 VOL, I. T
 
 274 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 altogether. '' I am thaiikM for beauty, even when 
 ' tis thrown to me like a bone to a dog. These 
 moments will be over too soon ! " 
 
 She closed her lips in a determined silence. 
 
 Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether 
 by a bold and desperate rush she could free herself 
 at the risk of leaving a portion of her skii't bodily 
 behind her. The thought was too dreadfal. The 
 dress — which she had put on to appear stately at 
 the supper — was the head and front of her ward- 
 robe ; not another in her stock became her so well. 
 And then, her appearance with half a skirt gone ! 
 What woman in Bathsheba's position, not natiu'- 
 ally timid, and within call of her retainers, would 
 have bought escape from a dashing soldier at so 
 dear a price ? 
 
 '' AU in good time ; it will soon be done, I 
 perceive," said her cool fiiend. 
 
 '' This trifling provokes, and — and " 
 
 '' Not too cruel ! " 
 
 " — Insults me ! " 
 
 "It is done in order that I may have the 
 pleasure of apologizing to so charming a woman, 
 which I straightway do most humbly, madam," he 
 said, bowing low. 
 
 Bathsheba really knew not what to say. 
 
 *' I've seen a good many women in my time," 
 continued the young man in a mm-mur, and more
 
 THE FIR PLANTATION. 275 
 
 thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding her 
 bent head at the same time ; " but I've never seen 
 a woman so beautifal as you. Take it or leave it 
 — be offended or like it — I don't care." 
 
 "Who are you, then, who can so well afford to 
 despise opinion ? " 
 
 '' No stranger. Sergeant Troy. I am staying 
 in this place. — There ! it is undone at last, you see. 
 Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I 
 wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's 
 no untying." 
 
 This was worse and worse. She started up, and* 
 so did he. How to decently get away from him — 
 that was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch 
 by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see 
 the redness of his coat no longer. 
 
 " Ah, Beauty ; good-bye ! " he said. 
 
 She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of 
 twenty or thirty yards, turned about, and ran 
 indoors. 
 
 Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending 
 to her own chamber, Bathsheba opened the gui's 
 door an inch or two, and said, — 
 
 ''Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village — 
 sergeant somebody — rather gentlemanly for a 
 sergeant, and good looking — a red coat with blue 
 facings ? " 
 
 *' No, miss. . . . No, I say ; but really it might
 
 276 FAIi FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 be Sergeant Troy home on farlougli, though I have 
 not seen him. He was here once in that way 
 when the regiment was at Casterbridge." 
 
 "Yes; that's the name. Had he a moustache 
 — no whiskers or beard ? " 
 
 "He had." 
 
 " What kind of a person is he ? " 
 
 " Oh ! miss — I bhish to name it — a gay man. 
 But I know him to be very quick and trim, who 
 might have made his thousands, Hke a squire. 
 Such a clever young dand as he is ! He's a 
 doctor's son by name, which is a great deal ; and 
 he's an earl's son by natm'e ! " 
 
 "Which is a great deal more. Fancy! Is it 
 true ? " 
 
 "Yes. And he was brought up so well, and 
 sent to Casterbridge Grammar School for years 
 and years. Learnt all languages while he was 
 there ; and it was said he got on so far that he 
 could take down Chinese in shorthand; but that 
 I don't answer for, as it was only reported. 
 However, he wasted his gifted lot, and Hsted a 
 soldier ; but even then he rose to be a sergeant 
 without trying at all. Ah ! such a blessing it is 
 to be high-born; nobility of blood will shine 
 out even in the ranks and files. And is he really 
 come home, miss ? " 
 
 " I believe so. Good-night, Liddy."
 
 THE FIR PLANTATION. Til 
 
 After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts 
 be permanently offended with the man? There 
 are occasions when ghls like Bathsheha will put 
 up with a great deal of unconventional behaviom*. 
 When they want to be praised, which is often ; 
 when they want to be mastered, which is some- 
 times ; and when they want no nonsense, which 
 is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the 
 ascendant with Bathsheba, with a dash of the 
 second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the 
 ministrant was antecedently made interesting by 
 being a handsome stranger who had evidently 
 seen better days. 
 
 So she could not clearly decide whether it was 
 her opinion that he had insulted her or not. 
 
 ''Was ever anything so odd!" she at last 
 exclaimed to herself, in her own room, ''And 
 was ever anything so meanly done as what I did 
 — to skulk away like that from a man who was 
 only civil and kind!" Clearly she did not think 
 his bare-faced praise of her person an insult now. 
 
 It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he 
 had never once told her she was beautiful.
 
 278 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCEIBED. 
 
 Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to 
 stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being. 
 . He was a man to whom memories were an in- 
 cumbrance, and anticipations a superfluity. Simply 
 feeling, considering, and caring for what was before 
 his eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. 
 His outlook upon time was as a transient flash of 
 the eye now and then : that projection of conscious- 
 ness into days gone by and to come, which makes 
 the past a synonym for the pathetic and the future 
 a word for circumspection, was foreign to Troy. 
 With him the past was yesterday; the futm'e, to- 
 mon-ow ; never, the day after. 
 
 On this account he might, in certain hghts, have 
 been regarded as one of the most fortunate of his 
 order. For it may be argued with great plausibility 
 that reminiscence is less an endowment than a 
 disease, and that expectation in its only comfort- 
 able form — that of absolute faith — is practically
 
 THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED. 279 
 
 an impossibility ; whilst iq the form of hope and 
 the secondary compomids, patience, impatience, 
 resolve, cmiosity, it is a constant fluctuation be- 
 tween pleasure and pain. 
 
 Sergeant Troy, being entii'ely innocent of the 
 practice of expectation, was never disappointed. 
 To set agaiust this negative gain there may have 
 been some positive losses from a certain narrowing 
 of the higher tastes and sensations which it entailed. 
 But Hmitation of the capacity is never recognized 
 as a loss by the loser therefrom : in this attribute 
 moral or aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with 
 material, since those who suffer do not mind it, 
 whilst those who mind it soon cease to suffer. It 
 is not a denial of anything to have been always 
 without it, and what Troy had never enjoyed he 
 did not miss ; but, being fully conscious that 
 what sober people missed he enjoyed, his capacity, 
 though really less, seemed greater than theirs. 
 
 He was perfectly truthful towards men, but to 
 women lied like a Cretan — a system of ethics, 
 above all others, calculated to win popularity at 
 the first flush of admission into lively society ; and 
 the possibihty of the favour gained being but 
 transient had reference only to the future. 
 
 He never passed the line which divides the 
 spruce vices from the ugly ; and hence, though his 
 morals had never been applauded, disapproval of
 
 280 FAIi FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 them had frequently been tempered with a smile. 
 This treatment had led to his becoming a sort of 
 forestaller of other men's experiences of the glorious 
 class, to his own aggrandizement as a Corinthian, 
 rather than to the moral profit of his hearers. 
 
 His reason and his propensities had seldom any 
 reciprocating influence, having separated by mutual 
 consent long ago : thence it sometimes happened 
 that, while his intentions were as honom'able as 
 could he wished, any particular deed formed a dark 
 background which threw them into fine rehef. 
 The sergeant's vicious phases being the offspring 
 of impulse, and his vhtuous phases of cool medita- 
 tion, the latter had a modest tendency to be oftener 
 heard of than seen. 
 
 Troy was full of activity, but his activities were 
 less of a locomotive than a vegetative nature ; and, 
 never being based upon any original choice of 
 foundation or direction, they were exercised on 
 whatever object chance might place in theii* way. 
 Hence, whilst he sometunes reached the brilliant 
 in speech, because that was spontaneous, he fell 
 below the commonplace in action, from inability 
 to guide incipient effort. He had a quick compre- 
 hension and considerable force of character ; but, 
 being without the power to combine them, the 
 comprehension became engaged with trivialities 
 whilst waiting for the will to direct it, and the
 
 THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED. 281 
 
 force wasted itseK in useless grooves through un- 
 heeding the comprehension. 
 
 He was a fairly well-educated man for one of 
 middle class — exceptionally well educated for a 
 common soldier. He spoke fluently and unceas- 
 ingly. He could in this way be one thing and 
 seem another : for instance, he could speak of love 
 and think of dinner ; call on the husband to look 
 at the wife ; be eager to pay and intend to owe. 
 
 The wondrous power of flattery in passados 
 at woman is a perception so universal as to 
 be remarked upon by many people almost as 
 automatically as they repeat a proverb, or say 
 that they are Christians and the like, mthout 
 thinking much of the enormous corollaries which 
 spring from the preposition. Still less is it acted 
 upon for the good of the complemental being- 
 alluded to. With the majority such an opinion 
 is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which 
 require some catastrophe to bring theii- tre- 
 mendous meanings thoroughly home. When 
 expressed with some amount of reflectiveness 
 it seems co-ordinate with a belief that this flattery 
 must be reasonable to be eflective. It is to the 
 credit of men that few attempt to settle the 
 question by experiment, and it is for their happiness, 
 perhaps, that accident has never settled it for 
 them. Nevertheless, that the power of a male
 
 282 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 dissembler, who by the simple process of deluging 
 lier with untenable fictions charms the female 
 wisely, becomes limitless and absolute to the 
 extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many 
 by imsought and wringing occm'rences. And 
 some — frequently those who are definable as 
 middle-aged youths, though not always — profess to 
 have attained the same knowledge by other and 
 converse experiences, and jauntily continue theu* 
 indulgence in such experiences with terrible 
 effect. Sergeant Troy was one. He had been 
 known to observe casually that in dealing with 
 womankind the only alternative to flattery was 
 cursing and swearing. There was no third 
 method. " Treat them faMy, and you are a lost 
 man," he would say. 
 
 This person's public appearance in Weather- 
 bury promptly followed his arrival there. A week 
 or two after the shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a 
 nameless relief of spirits on account of Boldwood's 
 absence, approached her hayfields and looked over 
 the hedge towards the haymakers. They con- 
 sisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and 
 flexuous forms, the former being the men, the 
 latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered 
 with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upon their 
 shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing 
 in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune
 
 THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED. 28S 
 
 to the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no 
 attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead 
 they were aheady loading hay, the women raking 
 it into cocks and windi'ows, and the men tossing 
 it upon the waggon. 
 
 From behind the waggon a bright scarlet spot 
 emerged, and went on loading unconcernedly with 
 the rest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had 
 come haymaking for pleasui*e ; and nobody could 
 deny that he was doing the mistress of the farm 
 real knight-service by this voluntary contribution 
 of his labour at a busy time. 
 
 As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw 
 her, and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and 
 picking up his walking-cane, he came forward. 
 Bathsheba blushed with half-angry embarrassment, 
 and adjusted her eyes as well as her feet to the 
 direct line of her path.
 
 284 FAE FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-IMEAD. 
 
 '' Ah, Miss Everdene ! " said the sergeant, lifting 
 his diminutive cap. " Little did I think it was 
 you I was speaking to the other night. And yet, 
 if I had reflected, the ' Queen of the Corn-market ' 
 (truth is truth at any hour of the day or night, and 
 I heard you so named in Casterbridge yesterday), 
 the ' Queen of the Corn-market,' I say, could be 
 no other woman. I step across now to beg your 
 forgiveness a thousand times for having been led 
 by my feelings to express myself too strongly for 
 a stranger. To be sui'e I am no stranger to the 
 place — I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I 
 have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of 
 times when I was a lad. I have been doing the 
 same for you to-day." 
 
 *' I suppose I must thank you for that. Sergeant 
 Troy," said the *' Queen of the Corn-market," in 
 an indifferently grateful tone. 
 
 The sergeant looked hurt and sad. *' Indeed
 
 SCENE ON THE VERGE OF TEE HAY-MEAD. 285 
 
 you must not, Miss Everdene," he said. " Wliy 
 could you think such a thing necessary ? " 
 
 " I am glad it is not." 
 
 " Why ? if I may ask without offence." 
 
 '' Because I don't much want to thank you for 
 anything." 
 
 " I am afraid I have made a hole with my 
 tongue that my heart will never mend. Oh these 
 intolerable times : that ill-luck should follow a 
 man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful ! 
 'Twas the most I said — you must own that ; 
 and the least I could say — that I own myself." 
 
 " There is some talk I could do without more 
 easily than money." 
 
 " Indeed. That remark seems somewhat digres- 
 sive." 
 
 " It means that I would rather have your room 
 than your company." 
 
 *' And I would rather have cm'ses fi'om you 
 than kisses from any other woman; so I'll stay 
 here." 
 
 Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And yet 
 she could not help feeling that the assistance he 
 was rendering forbade a harsh repulse. 
 
 ''Well/' continued Troy, "I suppose there is a 
 praise which is i-udeness, and that may be mine. 
 At the same time there is a treatment which is 
 injustice, and that may be yours. Because a plain
 
 286 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 blunt man, wlio has never been taught conceal- 
 ment, speaks out his mind without exactly in- 
 tending it, he's to be snapped off like the son of 
 a sinner." 
 
 *' Indeed there's no such case between us," she 
 said, turning away. '' I don't allow strangers to 
 be bold and impudent — even in praise of me." 
 
 ** Ah — it is not the fact but the method which 
 offends you," he said, carelessly. " But I have 
 the sad satisfaction of knowing that my words, 
 whether pleasing or offensive, are unmistakably 
 true. Would you have had me look at you, and 
 tell my acquaintance that you are quite a com- 
 monplace woman, to save you the embarrassment 
 of being stared at if they come near you ? Not I. 
 I couldn't tell any such ridiculous He about a 
 beauty to encourage a single woman in England 
 in too excessive a modesty." 
 
 "It is aU pretence — what you are saying ! " 
 exclaimed Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself 
 at the sergeant's sly method. ''You have a rare 
 invention, Sergeant Troy. Why couldn't you have 
 passed by me that night, and said nothing ? — that 
 was all I meant to reproach you for." 
 
 " Because I wasn't going to. Half the pleasure 
 of a feeling hes in being able to express it on the 
 spur of the moment, and I let out mine. It would 
 have been just the same if you had been the reverse
 
 SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD. 287 
 
 person — ugly and old — I should liave exclaimed 
 about it in the same way." 
 
 '^ How long is it since you have been so afflicted 
 with strong feeling, then? " 
 
 ** Oh, ever since I was big enough to know 
 loveliness from deformity." 
 
 *' 'Tis to be hoped yom* sense of the difference 
 you speak of doesn't stop at faces, but extends to 
 morals as well." 
 
 " I won't speak of morals or religion — my o-^ti 
 or anybody else's. Though perhaps I should have 
 been a very good Christian if you pretty women 
 hadn't made me an idolater." 
 
 Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible 
 dimpHngs of merriment. Troy followed, whirling 
 his cane. 
 
 " But — Miss Everdene — yqu do forgive me ? " 
 
 ''Hardly." 
 
 *'Why?" 
 
 " You say such things." 
 
 '' I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still, 
 for, by — , so you are ! The most beautiful ever I 
 saw, or may I fall dead this instant ! Why, upon 
 my " 
 
 " Don't — don't ! I won't listen to you — you are 
 so profane ! " she said, in a restless state between 
 distress at hearing him and di. ])enchant to hear more. 
 
 *' I again say you are a most fascinating woman.
 
 288 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 There's nothing remarkable in my saying so, is 
 there ? I'm sm-e the fact is evident enough. Miss 
 Everdene, my opinion may be too forcibly let out 
 to please you, and, for the matter of that, too 
 insignificant to convince you, but surely it is 
 honest, and why can't it be excused ? " 
 
 " Because it — it isn't a correct one," she 
 femininely murmured. 
 
 " Oh, fie — fie ! Am I any worse for breaking the 
 third of that Terrible Ten than you for breaking 
 the ninth ? " 
 
 *' Well, it doesn't seem quite true to me that I 
 am fascinating," she replied evasively. 
 
 " Not so to you : then I say with all respect 
 that, if so, it is owing to yom* modesty, Miss 
 Everdene. But surely you must have been told 
 by everybody of what everybody notices ? and you 
 should take their words for it." 
 
 " They don't say so exactly." 
 
 " Oh yes, they must ! " 
 
 '' Well, I mean to my face, as you do," she went 
 on, allowing herseK to be farther lured into a con- 
 versation that intention had rigorously forbidden. 
 
 " But you know they think so ? " 
 
 " No — that is — I certainly have heard Liddy say 
 they do, but . . . " She paused. 
 
 Capitulation — that was the pm-port of the simple 
 reply, guarded as it was — capitulation, unknown
 
 SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD. 289 
 
 to herself. Never did a fragile tailless sentence 
 convey a more perfect meaning. The careless 
 sergeant smiled within himself, and probably the 
 devil smiled too from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the 
 moment was the turning-point of a career. Her 
 tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the 
 seed which was to lift the foundation had taken 
 root in the chink : the remainder was a mere 
 question of time and natural seriate changes. 
 
 ^' There the truth comes out ! " said the soldier, 
 in reply. " Never tell qfe that a young lady can 
 hve in a buzz of admiration without knowing 
 something about it. Ah, well, Miss Everdene, you 
 are — pardon my blunt way — you are rather an 
 injury to our race than otherwise." 
 
 " How — indeed ? " she said, opening her eyes. 
 
 '' Oh, it is true enough. I may as well be hung 
 for a sheep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of 
 much account, but it will do for a rough soldier), 
 and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your 
 pleasm'e, and without hoping or intending to get 
 your pardon. Why, Miss Everdene, it is in this 
 manner that your good looks may do more harm 
 than good in the world." [The Sergeant looked 
 down the mead in critical abstraction.] " Probably 
 some one man on an average falls in love with each 
 ordinary woman. She can marry him : he is 
 content, and leads a useful life. Such women as 
 
 VOL. I. IT
 
 290 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 you a hundred men always covet — your eyes will 
 bewitch scores on scores into an unavailing fancy 
 for you — you can only marry one of that many. 
 Out of these say twenty will endeavour to drown 
 the bitterness of despised love in drink : twenty 
 more will mope away their Hves without a wish or 
 attempt to make a mark in the world, because they 
 have no ambition apart from their attachment to 
 you : twenty more — the susceptible person myseK 
 possibly among them — will be always di'aggling 
 after you, getting wher^ they may just see you, 
 doing desperate things. Men are such constant 
 fools ! The rest may try to get over their passion 
 with more or less success. But all these men will 
 be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine 
 men, but the ninety-nine women they might have 
 married are saddened with them. There's my tale. 
 That's why I say that a woman so charming as 
 yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to 
 her race." 
 
 The handsome sergeant's features were during 
 this speech as rigid and stern as John Knox's in 
 addi'essing his gay young queen. 
 
 Seeing she made no reply, he said, '' Do you 
 read French ? " 
 
 " No ; I began, but when I got to the verbs, 
 father died," she said simply. 
 
 " I do — when I have an opportunity, which
 
 SCENE ON THE VERQE OF TEE E AY-MEAD. 291 
 
 latterly has not been often (my mother was a 
 Parisienne) — and there's a proverb they have, ' Qui 
 aime bien, chatie bien ' — ' He chastens who loves 
 weU.' Do you understand me?" 
 
 " Ah ! " she repHed, and there was even a Httle 
 tremulousness in the usually cool gui's voice ; " if 
 you can only fight half as winningly as you can 
 talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet 
 wound ! " And then poor Bathsheba instantly 
 perceived her sHp in making this admission : in 
 hastily tryiug to retrieve it, she went from bad 
 to worse. " Don't, however, suppose that I derive 
 any pleasure from what you teU me." 
 
 " I know you do not — I know it perfectly," 
 said Troy, with much hearty conviction on the 
 exterior of his face : and altering the expression 
 to moodiness; "when a dozen men are ready to 
 speak tenderly to you, and give the admiration 
 you deserve without adding the warning you 
 need, it stands to reason that my poor rough- 
 and-ready mixtm'e of praise and blame cannot 
 convey much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am 
 not so conceited as to suppose that." 
 
 " I think you — are conceited, nevertheless," 
 said Bathsheba, hesitatingly, and looking askance 
 at a reed she was fitfully puUing with one hand, 
 having lately grown feverish under the soldier's 
 system of procedure — not because the nature
 
 292 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but 
 because its vigour was overwhelniiiig. 
 
 '' I would not own it to anybody else — ^nor do 
 I exactly to you. Still, there might have been 
 some self-conceit in my foohsh supposition the 
 other night. I knew that what I said in admi- 
 ration might be an opinion too often forced upon 
 you to give any pleasure, but I certainly did think 
 that the kindness of your nature might prevent 
 you judging an uncontrolled tongue harshly — 
 which you have done — and thinking badly of 
 me, and wounding me this morning, when I am 
 working hard to save your hay." 
 
 "Well, you need not think more of that: per- 
 haps you did not mean to be rude to me by 
 speaking out your mind : indeed, I beHeve you 
 did not," said the shrewd woman, in painfully 
 innocent earnest. " And I thank you for giving 
 help here. But — but mind you don't speak to 
 me again in that way, or in any other, unless I 
 speak to you." 
 
 "Oh, Miss Bathsheba! That is too hard!" 
 
 "No, it isn't. Why is it?" 
 
 "You will never speak to me; for I shall not 
 be here long. I am soon going back again to 
 the miserable monotony of drill — and perhaps our 
 regiment will be ordered out soon. And yet you 
 take away the one little ewe-lamb of pleasure
 
 SCENE ON THE VEBGE OF TEE HAY-MEAD. 293 
 
 that I have in this dull life of mine. "Well, per- 
 haps generosity is not a woman's most marked 
 characteristic." 
 
 "When are you going from here?" she asked, 
 with some interest. 
 
 '' In a month." 
 
 " But how can it give you pleasure to speak to 
 me?" 
 
 " Can you ask, Miss Everdene — ^knowing as 
 you do — what my offence is hased on?" 
 
 "If you do care so much for a silly trifle of 
 that kind, then, I don't mind doing it," she un- 
 certainly and doubtingly answered. " But you 
 can't really care for a word fi'om me ? you only 
 say so — I think you only say so." 
 
 " That's unjust — but I won't repeat the remark. 
 I am too gratified to get such a mark of your 
 friendship at any price to cavil at the tone. I 
 do, Miss Everdene, care for it. You may think 
 a man foolish to want a mere word — just a good 
 morning. Perhaps he is — I don't know. But 
 you have never been a man looking upon a woman, 
 and that woman yourself." 
 
 "WeU." 
 
 " Then you know nothing of what such an 
 experience is like — and Heaven forbid that you 
 ever should." 
 
 " Nonsense, flatterer ! WTiat is it Hke ? I am 
 interested in knowing."
 
 294 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Put shortly, it is not being able to tbink, 
 hear, or look in any direction except one without 
 wretchedness, nor there without torture." 
 
 *' Ah, sergeant, it won't do — you are pretend- 
 ing," she said, shaking her head dubiously. 
 "Your words are too dashing to be true." 
 
 "I am not, upon the honour of a soldier." 
 
 " But why is it so ? — Of coui'se I ask for mere 
 pastime." 
 
 '' Because you are so distracting — and I am so 
 distracted." 
 
 " You look Hke it." 
 
 *' I am indeed." 
 
 " Why you only saw me the other night." 
 
 " That makes no difference. The hghtning 
 works instantaneously. I loved you then, at once 
 — as I do now." 
 
 Bathsheba sm'veyed him curiously, from the 
 feet upward, as high as she liked to Tenture 
 her glance, which was not quite so high as his 
 eyes. 
 
 "You cannot and you don't," she said, de- 
 murely. " There is no such sudden feeling in 
 people. I won't hsten to you any longer. Dear 
 me, I wish I knew what o'clock it is — I am going 
 — I have wasted too much time here already." 
 
 The sergeant looked at his watch and told her. 
 " What, haven't you a watch, miss ? " he inquired.
 
 SCENE ON TEE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD. 295 
 
 ■*' I have not just at present — I am about to 
 get a new one." 
 
 " No. You shall be given one. Yes — you shall. 
 A gift, Miss Everdene — a gift." 
 
 And before she knew what the young man was 
 intending, a heavy gold watch was in her hand. 
 
 "It is an unusually good one for a man like me 
 to possess," he quietly said. '' That watch has a 
 history. Press the spring and open the back." 
 
 She did so. 
 
 ''What do you see?" 
 
 *' A crest and a motto." 
 
 ** A coronet with five points, and beneath, Cedit 
 amor rebus — ' Love yields to circumstance.' Its 
 the motto of the Earls of Severn. That watch 
 belonged to the last lord, and was given to my 
 mother's husband, a medical man, for his use till 
 I came of age, when it was to be given to me. 
 It was all the fortune that ever I inherited. 
 That watch has regulated imperial interests in 
 its time — the stately ceremonial, the courtly 
 assignation, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. 
 Now it is yours." 
 
 " But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this — I 
 cannot ! " she exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. 
 *'A gold watch! What are you doing? Don't be 
 such a dissembler ! " 
 
 The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back
 
 298 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 '' No, no ; don't say so. I have reasons for 
 reserve which I cannot explain." 
 
 " Let it be, then, let it be," he said, receiving 
 back the watch at last; "I must be leaving you 
 now. And will you speak to me for these few 
 weeks of my stay?" 
 
 " Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will ! 
 Oh, why did you come and disturb me so ! " 
 
 " Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught my- 
 self. Such things have happened. Well, will 
 you let me work in your fields? " he coaxed. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so ; if it is any pleasure to 
 you." 
 
 ''Miss Everdene, I thank you." 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 The sergeant lifted his cap from the slope of 
 his head, bowed, replaced it, and returned to the 
 distant group of haymakers. 
 
 Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. 
 Her heart erratically flitting hither and thither 
 from perplexed excitement, hot, and almost 
 tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, 
 " Oh, what have I done ! what does it mean ! 
 I Tsdsh I knew how much of it was true ! "
 
 ( 299 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 HIVING THE BEES. 
 
 The Weatlierbmy bees were late in their swarming 
 this year. It was in the latter pai-t of June, and 
 the day after the interview with Troy in the hay- 
 field, that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, 
 watching a swarm in the air and guessing their 
 probable settling-place. Not only were they late 
 this year, but unruly. Sometimes throughout a 
 whole season all the swarms would aHght on the 
 lowest attainable bough — such as part of a ciuTant- 
 bush or espaHer apple-tree ; next year they would, 
 with just the same unanimity, make straight off to 
 the uppermost member of some tall, gaunt costard, 
 or quarrington, and there defy all invaders who did 
 not come armed with ladders and staves to take 
 them. 
 
 This was the case at present. Bathsheba's eyes, 
 shaded by one hand, were following the ascending 
 multitude against the unexplored stretch of blue 
 till they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldly
 
 298 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 *' No, no ; don't say so. I have reasons for 
 reserve which I cannot explain." 
 
 " Let it be, then, let it be," he said, receiving 
 back the watch at last ; "I must be leaving you 
 now. And will you speak to me for these few 
 weeks of my stay?" 
 
 '' Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will ! 
 Oh, why did you come and disturb me so ! " 
 
 " Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught my- 
 seK. Such things have happened. Well, will 
 you let me work in your fields? " he coaxed. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so ; if it is any pleasure to 
 
 you." 
 
 '' Miss Everdene, I thank you." 
 
 "No, no." 
 
 " Good-bye ! " 
 
 The sergeant lifted his cap from the slope of 
 his head, bowed, replaced it, and returned to the 
 distant group of haymakers. 
 
 Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. 
 Her heart eiTatically flitting hither and thither 
 from perplexed excitement, hot, and almost 
 tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, 
 "Oh, what have I done! what does it mean! 
 I wish I knew how much of it was true ! "
 
 ( 299 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 HIVING THE BEES. 
 
 The Weatherbniy bees were late in their swarming 
 this year. It was in the latter part of June, and 
 the day after the interview with Troy in the hay- 
 field, that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, 
 watching a swarm in the air and guessing their 
 probable setthng-place. Not only were they late 
 this year, but unruly. Sometimes throughout a 
 whole season all the swarms would ahght on the 
 lowest attainable bough — such as part of a cmTant- 
 bush or espalier apple-tree ; next year they would, 
 with just the same unanimity, make straight off to 
 the uppermost member of some taU, gaunt costard, 
 or quarrington, and there defy aU invaders who did 
 not come armed with ladders and staves to take 
 them. 
 
 This was the case at present. Bathsheba's eyes, 
 shaded by one hand, were following the ascending 
 multitude against the unexplored stretch of blue 
 tiU they ultimately halted by one of the unwdeldly
 
 300 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 trees spoken of. A process was observable some- 
 what analogous to that of alleged formations of the 
 universe, time and times ago. The bustling swarm 
 had swept the sky in a scattered and uniform haze, 
 which now thickened to a nebulous centre : this 
 ghded on to a bough and grew still denser, till it 
 formed a soHd black spot upon the light. 
 
 The men and women being all busily engaged 
 in saving the hay — even Liddy had left the house 
 for the purpose of lending a hand — Bathsheba 
 resolved to hive the bees herself, if possible. She 
 had dressed the hive with herbs and honey, 
 fetched a ladder, brush and crook, made herseK 
 impregnable with armour of leather gloves, straw 
 hat and large gauze veil — once green but now 
 faded to snuff colour — and ascended a dozen rungs 
 of the ladder. At once she heard, not ten yards 
 off, a voice that was beginning to have a strange 
 power in agitating her. 
 
 "Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should 
 not attempt such a feat alone." 
 
 Troy was just opening the garden gate. 
 
 Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook and 
 empty hive, pulled the skirt of her di'ess tightly 
 round her ankles in a tremendous flurry, and as 
 well as she could slid down the ladder. By the 
 time she reached the bottom Troy was there 
 also, and he stooped to pick up the hive.
 
 HIVING TEE BEES. 301 
 
 ''How fortunate I am to have dropped in at 
 this moment ! " exclaimed the sergeant. 
 
 She found her voice in a minute. " What ! 
 and will you shake them in for me ? " she asked, 
 in what, for a defiant girl, was a faltering way; 
 though, for a timid girl, it would have seemed 
 a brave way enough. 
 
 "Will I!" said Troy. "Why, of com'se I 
 will. How blooming you are to-day ! " Troy 
 flung down his cane and put his foot on the 
 ladder to ascend. 
 
 "But you must have on the veil and gloves, 
 or you'll be stung fearfully ! " 
 
 " Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. 
 Will you kindly show me how to fix them 
 properly? " 
 
 "And you must have the broad-brimmed hat, 
 too ; for j^our cap has no brim to keep the veil 
 off, and they'd reach you face." 
 
 " The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means." 
 
 So a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should 
 be taken off — veil and all attached — and placed 
 upon his head, Troy tossing his own into a 
 gooseberry bush. Then the veil had to bo 
 tied at its lower edge round his collar and the 
 gloves put on him. 
 
 He looked such an extraordinary object in 
 this guise that, flurried as she was, she could
 
 302 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 not avoid langhing outright. It was the removal 
 of yet another stake from the palisade of cold 
 manners which had kept him off. 
 
 Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst 
 he was busy sweeping and shaking the bees from 
 the tree, holding up the hive with the other 
 hand for them to fall into. She made use of 
 an unobserved minute whilst his attention was 
 absorbed in the operation to arrange her plumes 
 a little. He came down holding the hive at 
 arm's length, behind which trailed a cloud of bees. 
 
 " Upon my life," said Troy, through the veil, 
 '' holding up this hive makes one's arm ache 
 worse than a week of sword- exercise." When 
 the manoeuvre was complete he approached her. 
 "Would you be good enough to untie me and 
 let me out ? I am nearly stifled inside this silk 
 cage." 
 
 To hide her embarrassment during the un- 
 wonted process of untying the string about his 
 neck, she said : — 
 
 "I have never seen that you spoke of." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " The sword-exercise." 
 
 " Ah ! would you like to ? " said Troy, 
 
 Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous 
 reports fi'om time to time by dwellers in Weather- 
 bury, who had by chance sojourned awhile in
 
 HIVING THE BEES. 303 
 
 Casterbridge, near the barracks, of this strange 
 and glorious performance, the sword-exercise. 
 Men and boys who had peeped through chinks 
 or over walls into the barrack-yard returned with 
 accounts of its being the most flashing affair 
 conceivable ; accoutrements and weapons ghsten- 
 ing like stars — here, there, around — yet all by 
 rule and compass. So she said mildly what she 
 felt strongly. 
 
 ''Yes; I should hke to see it veiy much." 
 
 "And so you shall; you shall see me go 
 through it." 
 
 "No! How?" 
 
 "Let me consider." 
 
 " Not with a walking-stick — I don't care to 
 see that. It must be a real sword." 
 
 "Yes, I know; and I have no sword here; 
 but I think I could get one by the evening. 
 Now, will you do this ? " 
 
 Troy bent over her and mm'mured some sug- 
 gestion in a low voice. 
 
 " Oh no, indeed ! " said Bathsheba, blushing. 
 " Thank you very much, but I couldn't on any 
 account." 
 
 " Surely you might ? Nobody would know." 
 
 She shook her head, but with a weakened 
 negation. "If I were to," she said, "I must 
 bring Liddy too. Might I not?"
 
 304 FAR FR03I THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 Troy looked far away. "I don't see why you 
 want to bring her," he said coldly. 
 
 An unconscious look of assent in Bathsheba's 
 eyes betrayed that something more than his 
 coldness had made her also feel that Liddy 
 would be superfluous in the suggested scene. 
 She had felt it, even whilst making the proposal. 
 
 ''Well, I won't bring Liddy — and I'll come. 
 But only for a very short time," she added ; 
 *'a very short time." 
 
 "It will not take five minutes," said Troy.
 
 ( 305 ) 
 
 CHAPTEK XXVIII. 
 
 THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS. 
 
 The hiU opposite one end of Bathslieba's dwelling 
 extended into an uncultivated tract of land, 
 covered at this season with taU thickets of brake 
 fern, plump and diaphanous from recent rapid 
 growth, and radiant in hues of clear and untainted 
 green. 
 
 At eight o'clock this midsummer evening, whilst 
 the bristling baU of gold in the west still swept the 
 tips of the ferns with its long, luxuriant rays, a 
 soft brushing-by of garments might have been heard 
 among them, and Bathsheba appeared in their 
 midst, their soft, feathery arms caressing her up to 
 her shoulders. She paused, tm-ned, went back over 
 the hill and down again to her own door, whence 
 she cast a fareweU glance upon the spot she had 
 just left, having resolved not to remain near the 
 place after aU. 
 
 She saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round 
 the shoulder of the rise. It disappeared on the 
 other side.
 
 306 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 She waited one minute — two minutes — thought 
 of Troy's disappointment at her non-fulfilment of 
 a promised engagement, tossed on her hat again, 
 ran up the garden, clambered over the bank and 
 followed the original direction. She was now 
 literally trembling and panting at this her temerity 
 in such an errant undertaking ; her breath came 
 and went quickly, and her eyes shone with an 
 infrequent Hght. Yet go she must. She reached 
 the verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns. 
 Troy stood in the bottom, looking up towards her. 
 
 " I heard you rustling through the fern before 
 I saw you," he said, coming up and giving her his 
 hand to help her down the slope. 
 
 The pit was a hemispherical concave, naturally 
 formed, with a top diameter of about thirty feet, 
 and shallow enough to allow the sunshine to reach 
 their heads. Standing in the centre, the sky over- 
 head was met by a circular horizon of fern : this 
 grew nearly to the bottom of the slope and then 
 abruptly ceased. The middle within the belt of 
 verdure was floored with a thick flossy carpet of 
 moss and grass intermingled, so yielding that the 
 foot was half buried within it. 
 
 *'Now," said Troy, producing the sword, which, 
 as he raised it into the sunhght, gleamed a sort of 
 greeting, like a living thing, ''first, we have four 
 right and four left cuts; four right and four left
 
 THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS. 307 
 
 thrusts. Infantry cuts and guards are more inte- 
 resting than oui's, to my mind ; but they are not 
 so swashing. They have seven cuts and three 
 thrusts. So much as a preHminary. Well, next, 
 our cut one is as if you were sowing your corn — 
 so." Bathsheba saw a sort of rainbow, upside 
 down in the air, and Troy's arm was still again. 
 *' Cut two, as if you were hedging — so. Three, as 
 if you were reaping — so. Four, as if you were 
 threshing — in that way. Then the same on the 
 left. The thrusts are these : one, two, three, four, 
 right ; one, two, three, four, left." He repeated 
 them. "Have 'em again?" he said. "One, 
 two " 
 
 She huiTiedly interrupted : "I'd rather not ; 
 though I don't mind your twos and fours ; but your 
 ones and threes are terrible ! " 
 
 " Very well. I'll let you off the ones and threes. 
 Next, cuts, points and guards altogether." Troy 
 duly exhibited them. "Then there's pursuing 
 practice, in this way." He gave the movements 
 as before. " There, those are the stereotyped 
 forms. The infantry have two most diabolical 
 upward cuts, which we are too humane to use. 
 Like this — three, four." 
 
 " How murderous and bloodthirsty ! " 
 
 " They are rather deathy. Now I'll be more inte- 
 resting, and let you see some loose play — giving all
 
 308 FAR FROM THE MADDINO CROWD. 
 
 the cuts and points, infantry and cavalry, quicker 
 tlian lightning, and as promiscuously — with just 
 enough rule to regulate instinct and yet not 
 to fetter it. You are my antagonist, with this 
 difference from real warfare, that I shall miss 
 you every time by one hair's breadth, or perhaps 
 two. Mind you don't flinch, whatever you do." 
 
 " I'll be sure not to ! " she said invincibly. 
 
 He pointed to about a yard in front of him. 
 
 Bathsheba's adventurous spirit was beginning to 
 find some grains of relish in these highly novel 
 proceedings. She took up her position as directed, 
 facing Troy. 
 
 ''Now just to learn whether you have ]3luck 
 enough to let me do what I wish, I'll give you a 
 preUminary test." 
 
 He flourished the sword by way of introduction 
 number two, and the next thing of which she was 
 conscious was that the point and blade of the sword 
 were darting with a gieato towards her left side, 
 just above her hip ; then of then- reappearance on 
 her right side, emerging as it were from between 
 her ribs, having apparently passed through her 
 body. The third item of consciousness was that of 
 seeing the same sword, perfectly clean and fi'ee 
 from blood held vertically in Troy's hand (in the 
 position technically called "recover swords"). All 
 was as quick as electricity.
 
 TEE HOLLOW AMID TEE FERNS. 309 
 
 " Oil ! " she cried out in affright, pressing her 
 hand to her side. "Have you run me through? 
 — no, you have not ! Whatever have you done ! " 
 
 ''I have not touched you," said Troy quietly. 
 "It was mere sleight of hand. The sword passed 
 behind you. Now you are not afraid, are you ? 
 Because if you are I can't perform. I give my 
 word that I will not only not hurt you, but not 
 once touch you." 
 
 " I don't think I am afraid. You are quite sm-e 
 you will not hurt me ? " 
 
 " Quite sure." 
 
 " Is the sword very sharp ? " 
 
 " Oh no — only stand as stiU as a statue. 
 Now ! " 
 
 In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to 
 Bathsheba's eyes. Beams of light caught from the 
 low sun's rays, above, around, in front of her, weU- 
 nigh shut out earth and heaven — all emitted in the 
 marvellous evolutions of Troy's reflecting blade, 
 which seemed everywhere at once, and yet no- 
 where specially. These circumambient gleams were 
 accompanied by a keen sibilation that was almost 
 a whisthng — also springing from aU sides of her at 
 once. In short, she was enclosed in a firmament 
 of hght, and of sharp hisses, resembling a sky-full 
 of meteors close at hand. y 
 
 Never since the broad-sword became the
 
 310 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 national weapon, liad there been more dexterity 
 shown in its management than by the hands of 
 Sergeant Troy, and never had he been in such 
 splendid temper for the performance as now in the 
 evening sunshine among the ferns with Bathsheba. 
 It may safely be asserted with respect to the 
 closeness of his cuts, that had it been possible 
 for the edge of the sword to leave in the air a 
 permanent substance wherever it flew past, the 
 space left untouched would have been a complete 
 mould of Bathsheba's figure. 
 
 Behind the luminous streams of this aurora 
 militaris, she could see the hue of Troy's sword- 
 arm, spread in a scarlet haze over the space 
 covered by its motions, like a twanged bowstring, 
 and behind all Troy himself, mostly facing her; 
 sometimes, to show the rear cuts, half turned 
 away, his eye nevertheless always keenly measur- 
 ing her breadth and outline, and his lips tightly 
 closed in sustained effort. Next, his movements 
 lapsed slower, and she could see them individually. 
 The hissing of the sword had ceased, and he 
 stopped entirely. 
 
 " That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying," 
 he said, before she had moved or spoken. " Wait: 
 I'U do it for you." 
 
 An arc of silver shone on her right side : 
 the sword had descended. The lock di'opped to 
 the ground.
 
 THE EOLLOW AMID THE FERNS. 311 
 
 *' Bravely borne ! " said Troy. " You didn't 
 flincli a shade's thickness. Wonderful in a 
 woman ! " 
 
 " It was because I didn't expect it. Ob you 
 have spoilt my hair ! " 
 
 ** Only once more." 
 
 " No — no ! I am afraid of you — ^indeed I am ! " 
 she cried. 
 
 " I won't touch you at aU — not even your hair. 
 I am only going to kill that caterpillar settling on 
 you. Now : still ! " 
 
 It appeared that a caterpillar had come from the 
 fern and chosen the front of her bodice as his 
 resting place. She saw the point glisten towards 
 her bosom, and seemingly enter it. Bathsheba 
 closed her eyes in the full persuasion that she was 
 killed at last. However, feeHng just as usual, she 
 opened them again. 
 
 *' There it is, look," said the sergeant, holding 
 his sword before her eyes. 
 
 The caterpillar was spitted upon its point. 
 
 << Why it is magic ! " said Bathsheba, amazed. 
 
 " Oh no — dexterity. I merely gave point to your 
 bosom where the caterpillar was, and instead of 
 running you through checked the extension a 
 thousandth of an inch short of your surface." 
 
 " But how could you chop off a curl of my haii' 
 with a sword that has no edge ? "
 
 312 FAR FROM TEE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 "No edge ! This sword will shave like a razor. 
 Look here." 
 
 He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, 
 and then, lifting it, showed her a thin shaving of 
 scarf-skin dangling therefrom. 
 
 " Bnt you said before beginning that it was 
 blunt and couldn't cut me ! " 
 
 " That was to get you to stand still, and so 
 ensure your safety. The risk of injuring you 
 through your moving was too great not to compel 
 me to tell you an untruth to obviate it." 
 
 She shuddered. " I have been within an inch of 
 my life, and didn't know it ! " 
 
 " More precisely speaking, you have been within 
 half an inch of being pared alive two hundi'ed and 
 ninety-five times." 
 
 " Cruel, cruel, 'tis of you !" 
 
 " You have been perfectly safe nevertheless. 
 My sword never errs." And Troy returned the 
 weapon to the scabbard. 
 
 Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred tumultuous 
 feeUngs resulting from the scene, abstractedly sat 
 down on a tuft of heather. 
 
 " I must leave you now," said Troy softly. 
 " And I'U ventui'e to take and keep this in 
 remembrance of you." 
 
 She saw him stoop to the gi-ass, pick up the 
 winding lock which he had severed fi'om her
 
 THE HOLLOW AMLD THE FERNS. 313 
 
 manifold tresses, twist it round Ms fingers, 
 unfasten a button in the breast of bis coat, and 
 carefully put it inside. Sbe felt powerless to with- 
 stand or deny bim. He was altogether too much 
 for her, and Bathsheba seemed as one who, facing 
 a reviving wind, finds it to blow so strongly that it 
 stops the breath. 
 
 He drew near and said, '' I must be leaving 
 you." He drew nearer still. A minute later and 
 she saw his scarlet form disappear amid the ferny 
 thicket, ahnost in a flash, like a brand swiftly 
 waved. 
 
 That minute's iuterval had brought the blood 
 beating into her face, set her stinging as if aflame 
 to the very hollows of her feet, and enlarged 
 emotion to a compass which quite swamped 
 thought. It had brought upon her a stroke 
 resulting, as did that of Moses in Horeb, in a 
 liquid stream — here a stream of tears. She felt 
 like one who has sinned a great sin. 
 
 The circumstance had been the gentle dip of 
 Troy's mouth downwards upon her own. He had 
 kissed her.
 
 314 FAB FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX. 
 
 PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK. 
 
 We now see the element of folly distinctly 
 mingling with the many varying particulars which 
 made up the character of Bathsheba Everdene. 
 It was almost foreign to her intrinsic nature. It 
 was introduced as lymph on the dart of Eros, and 
 eventually permeated and coloured her whole con- 
 stitution. Bathsheba, though she had too much 
 understanding to be entirely governed by her 
 womanliness, had too much womanHness to use 
 her understanding to the best advantage. Per- 
 haps in no minor point does woman astonish her 
 helpmate more than in the strange power she 
 possesses of beheving cajoleries that she knows to 
 be false — except, indeed, in that of being utterly 
 sceptical on strictures that she knows to be true. 
 Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self- 
 reliant women love when they abandon their self- 
 reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws 
 away her strength she is worse than a weak woman 
 who has never had any strength to throw away.
 
 PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK. 315 
 
 One source of lier inadequacy is the novelty of the 
 occasion. She has never had practice in making 
 the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly 
 weak by being new. 
 
 Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this 
 matter. Though in one sense a woman of the 
 world, it was, after all, that world of daylight 
 coteries, and green carpets, wherein cattle form 
 the passing crowd and winds the busy hum ; where 
 a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on the other 
 side of your party-wall, where your neighbour is 
 everybody in the tything, and where calculation is 
 confined to market-days. Of the fabricated tastes 
 of good fashionable society she knew but little, 
 and of the formulated self-indulgence of bad, 
 nothing at all. Had her utmost thoughts in this 
 direction been distinctly worded (and by herself 
 they never were) they would only have amounted 
 to such a matter as that she felt her impulses to be 
 pleasanter guides than her discretion. Her love 
 was entire as a child's, and though warm as summer 
 it was fresh as spring. Her culpabihty lay in her 
 making no attempt to control feeling by subtle and 
 careful inquiry into consequences. She could show 
 others the steep and thorny way, but " reck'd not 
 her own rede." 
 
 And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a 
 woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were
 
 316 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 upon the very surface; thus contrasting with 
 homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the 
 blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a 
 mine. 
 
 The difference between love and respect was 
 markedly sho^Ti in her conduct. Bathsheba had 
 spoken of her interest in Boldwood with the 
 greatest freedom to Liddy, but she had only com- 
 muned with her own heart concerning Troy. 
 
 All this infatuation Gabriel saw, and was troubled 
 thereby from the time of his daily jom'ney a-field 
 to the time of his return, and on to the small hours 
 of many a night. That he was not beloved had 
 hitherto been his great sorrow; that Bathsheba 
 was getting into the toils was now a sorrow greater 
 than the first, and one which nearly obscured it. 
 It was a result which paralleled the oft-quoted 
 observation of Hippocrates concerning physical 
 pains. 
 
 That is a noble though perhaps an impromisiag 
 love which not even the fear of breeding aversion 
 in the bosom of the one beloved can deter from 
 combating his or her errors. Oak determined to 
 speak to his mistress. He would base his appeal 
 on what he considered her unfair treatment of 
 Farmer Boldwood, now absent from home. 
 
 An opportunity occmTed one evening when she 
 had gone for a short ws^k by a path through the
 
 PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK. 317 
 
 neighbouriiig corn-fields. It was dusk when Oak, 
 who had not been far a-field that day, took the 
 same path and met her returning, quite pensively, 
 as he thought. 
 
 The wheat was now tall, and the path was 
 narrow ; thus the way was quite a sunken groove 
 between the embrowing thicket on either side. 
 Two persons could not walk abreast without 
 damaging the crop, and Oak stood aside to let 
 her pass. 
 
 *' Oh, is it G-abriel ? " she said. " You are taking 
 a walk too. Good-night." 
 
 *' I thought I would come to meet you, as it is 
 rather late," said Oak, turning and following at 
 her heels when she had brushed somewhat quickly 
 by him. 
 
 *' Thank you, indeed, but I am not very fearful." 
 
 '* Oh no ; but there are bad characters about." 
 
 " I never meet them." 
 
 Now Oak, with marvellous ingenuity, had been 
 going to introduce the gallant sergeant through 
 the channel of '' bad characters." But all at once 
 the scheme broke down, it suddenly occurring to 
 him that this was rather a clumsy way, and too bare- 
 faced to begin with. He tried another preamble. 
 
 " And as the man who would natm-ally come to 
 meet you is away fi-om home, too — I mean Farmer 
 Boldwood — why, thinks I, I'll go," he said.
 
 318 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Ah, yes." She walked on without turning her 
 head, and for many steps nothing further was 
 heard from her quarter than the rustle of her dress 
 against the heavy corn-ears. Then she resumed 
 rather tartly : — 
 
 "I don't quite understand what you meant by 
 saying that Mr. Boldwood would naturally come 
 to meet me." 
 
 "I meant on account of the wedding which 
 they say is likely to take place between you and 
 him, miss. Forgive my speaking plainly." 
 
 '' They say what is not true," she returned 
 quickly. " No marriage is likely to take place 
 between us." 
 
 Gabriel now put forth his unobscured opinion, 
 for the moment had come. " Well, Miss Everdene," 
 he said, " putting aside what people say, I never in 
 my life saw any courting if his is not a courting of 
 you." 
 
 Bathsheba would probably have terminated the 
 conversation there and then by flatly forbidding 
 the subject, had not her conscious weakness 
 of position allured her to palter and argue in 
 endeavours to better it. 
 
 ** Since this subject has been mentioned," she 
 said very emphatically, ''I am glad of the oppor- 
 tunity of clearing up a mistake which is very com- 
 mon and very provoking. I didn't definitely
 
 PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK. 319 
 
 promise Mr. Boldwood anytlmig. I have never 
 cared for kiin. I respect him, and he has urged 
 me to marry him. But I have given him no 
 distinct answer. As soon as he returns I shall do 
 so ; and the answer will be that I cannot think of 
 marrying him." 
 
 " People are full of mistakes, seemingly." 
 
 '' They are." 
 
 " The other day they said you were trifling with 
 him, and you almost proved that you were not ; 
 lately they have said that you are not, and you 
 straightway begin to show " 
 
 '' That I am, I suppose you mean." 
 
 " "Well, I hope they speak the truth." 
 
 " They do, but wrongly appHed. I don't trifle 
 with him ; but then, I have nothing to do with 
 him." 
 
 Oak was unfortunately led on to speak of Bold- 
 wood's rival in a wrong tone to her after all. " I 
 wish you had never met that young Sergeant 
 Troy, miss," he sighed. 
 
 Bathsheba's steps became faintly spasmodic. 
 "Why?" she asked. 
 
 " He is not good enough for you." 
 
 " Did any one tell you to speak to me like 
 this?" 
 
 " Nobody at all." 
 
 " Then it appears to me that Sergeant Troy
 
 320 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 does not concern us here," she said, intractably. 
 *' Yet I must say that Sergeant Troy is an 
 educated man, and quite worthy of any woman. 
 He is well born." 
 
 *' His being higher in learning and birth than 
 the ruck of soldiers is anything but a proof of 
 his worth. It shows his coui'se to be downward." 
 
 '' I cannot see what this has to do with our 
 conversation. Mr. Troy's course is not by any 
 means downward; and his superiority is a proof 
 of his worth." 
 
 " I beheve him to have no conscience at all. 
 And I cannot help begging you, miss, to have 
 nothing to do with him. Listen to me this once — 
 only this once ! I don't say he's such a bad man 
 as I have fancied — I pray to God he is not. But 
 since we don't exactly know what he is, why not 
 behave as if he might be bad, simply for your 
 own safety ? Don't trust him, mistress ; I ask 
 you not to trust him so." 
 
 ''Why, pray?" 
 
 *' I like soldiers, but this one I do not hke," 
 he said, sturdily. " The nature of his calling 
 may have tempted him astray, and what is 
 mirth to the neighbours is ruin to the woman. 
 When he tries to talk to you again, why not 
 turn away with a short ' Good day ; ' and when 
 you see him coming one way, turn the other.
 
 PARTICVLAES OF A TWILIGHT WALK. 321 
 
 When tie says anything laughable, fail to see the 
 point and don't smile, and speak of him before 
 those who will report your talk as ' that fantasti- 
 cal man,' or ' that Sergeant What's-his-name.' 
 ' That man of a family that has come to the 
 dogs.' Don't be unmannerly towards him, but 
 harmless-uncivil, and so get rid of the man." 
 
 No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane 
 ever pulsed as did Bathsheba now. 
 
 "I say — I say again — that it doesn't become 
 you to talk about him. Why he should be men- 
 tioned passes me quite ! " she exclaimed desper- 
 ately. " I know this, th-th-that he is a thoroughly 
 conscientious man — blunt sometimes even to 
 rudeness — but always speaking his mind about 
 3'ou plain to your face ! " 
 
 *' Oh." 
 
 " He is as good as anybody in this parish ! He 
 is very particular too, about going to church — 
 yes, he is ! " 
 
 " I am afeard nobody ever saw him there. I 
 never did certainly." 
 
 " The reason of that is," she said eagerly, " that 
 he goes in privately by the old tower door, just 
 when the service commences, and sits at the back 
 of the gallery. He told me so." 
 
 This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell 
 upon Gabriel's ears like the thirteenth stroke of
 
 322 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 a crazy clock. It was not only received witti utter 
 incredulity as regarded itself, but threw a doubt 
 on all the assurances that had preceded it. 
 
 Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted 
 him. He brimmed with deep feeling as he 
 rephed in a steady voice, the steadiness of which 
 was spoilt by the palpableness of his great effort 
 to keep it so : — 
 
 " You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall 
 love you always. I only mention this to bring to 
 your mind that at any rate I would wish to do you 
 no harm : beyond that I put it aside. I have lost 
 in the race for money and good things, and I am 
 not such a fool as to pretend to you now I am 
 poor, and you have got altogether above me. But 
 Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to con- 
 sider — that, both to keep yourself well honoured 
 among the workfolk, and in common generosity 
 to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, 
 you should be more discreet in your bearing to- 
 wards this soldier." 
 
 " Don't, don't, don't ! " she exclaimed, in a 
 choking voice. 
 
 "Are you not more to me than my own affair's, 
 and even life ! " he went on. " Come, hsten to 
 me ! I am six years older than you, and Mr. 
 Boldwood is ten years older than I, and consider 
 — I do beg of you to consider before it is too late 
 — how safe you would be in his hands ! "
 
 PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK. 323 
 
 Oak's allusion to his o^vn love for her lessened, 
 to some extent, her anger at his interference ; 
 but she could not really forgive him for letting 
 his wish to many her be ecKpsed by his wish to 
 do her good, any more than for his slighting 
 treatment of Troy. 
 
 " I wish you to go elsewhere," she said, a pale- 
 ness of face invisible to the eye being suggested 
 by the trembling words. "Do not remain on 
 this farm any longer. I don't want you — I beg 
 you to go ! " 
 
 " That's nonsense," said Oak, calmly. " This 
 is the second time you have pretended to dismiss 
 me ; and what's the use of it? " 
 
 " Pretended ! You shall go, su* — ^yom* lecturing 
 I will not hear ! I am mistress here." 
 
 " Go, indeed — what folly will you say next ? 
 Treating me like Dick, Tom and Harry when you 
 know that a short time ago my position was as 
 good as yours ! Upon my life, Bathsheba, it is 
 too barefaced. You know, too, that I can't go 
 without putting things in such a strait as you 
 wouldn't get out of I can't tell when. Unless, 
 indeed, you'll promise to have an imderstanding 
 man as bailiff, or manager, or something. I'll 
 go at once if you'll promise that." 
 
 " I shall have no bailiff; I shall continue to be 
 my own manager," she said decisively.
 
 324 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 " Yeiy well, tlieu ; you should be thankful to 
 me for staying. How would the farm go on 
 with nobody to mind it but a woman ? But 
 mind this, I don't wish you to feel you owe me 
 anything. Not I. What I do, I do. Some- 
 times I say I should be as glad as a bird to 
 leave the place — for don't suppose I'm content 
 to be a nobody. I was made for better things. 
 However, I don't like to see yom' concerns going 
 to ruin, as they must if you keep in this mind. 
 ... I hate taking my own measiu'es so j^lainly^ 
 but upon my life, your provoking ways make a 
 man say what he wouldn't di'eam of other times I 
 I own to being rather interfering. But you know 
 well enough how it is, and who she is that I like 
 too well, and feel too much like a fool about 
 to be civil to her." 
 
 It is more than probable that she privatelj' 
 and unconsciously respected hun a little for this 
 grim fidelity, which had been shown in his tone 
 even more than in his words. At any rate she 
 murmm-ed something to the effect that he might 
 stay if he wished. She said more distinctly, 
 "Will you leave me alone now? I don't order 
 it as a mistress — I ask it as a woman, and I 
 expect you not to be so uncourteous as to refuse." 
 
 " Certainly I will, Miss Everdene," said 
 Gabriel, gently. He wondered that the request
 
 PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK. 
 
 n-X' 
 
 sliould have come at this moment, for the strife 
 was over, and they were on a most desolate hill, 
 far from every human habitation, and the hour 
 was getting late. He stood still and allowed her 
 to get far ahead of him till he could only see her 
 form upon the sky. 
 
 A distressing explanation of this anxiety to 
 be rid of him at that point now ensued. A 
 figui'e apparently rose from the earth beside her. 
 The shape beyond all doubt was Troy's. Oalv 
 would not be even a possible hstener, and at 
 once tm-ned back till a good two hundred yards 
 were between the lovers and himself. 
 
 Gabriel went home by way of the churchyard. 
 In passing the tower he thought of what she had 
 said about the sergeant's vu-tuous habit of 
 entering the chm-ch imperceived at the begiiming 
 of service. Behoving that the httle gaUery 
 door alluded to was quite disused, he ascended the 
 external flight of steps at the top of which it 
 stood, and examined it. The pale lustre yet 
 hanging in the north-western heaven was sufli- 
 cient to show that a sprig of ivy had grown from 
 the wall across the door to a length of more than 
 a foot, dehcately tying the panel to the stone 
 jamb. It was a decisive proof that the door 
 had not been opened at least since Troy came 
 back to Weatherbury.
 
 32G FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, 
 
 CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES. 
 
 Half an hour later Batlislieba entered her ovm 
 liouse. There burnt upon lier face when she met 
 the light of the candles the flush and excitement 
 which were Httle less than chronic with her now. 
 The farewell words of Troy, who had accompanied 
 her to the very door, still lingered in her ears. 
 He had bidden her adieu for two days, which were, 
 so he stated, to be spent at Bath in visiting some 
 friends. He had also kissed her a second time. 
 
 It is only fair to Bathsheba to explain here a 
 little fact which did not come to Hght till a long 
 time afterwards : that Troy's j)resentation of 
 himself so aptly at the roadside this evening- 
 was not by any distinctly preconcerted arrange- 
 ment. He had hinted — she had forbidden; and 
 it was only on the chance of his still coming 
 that she had dismissed Oak, fearing a meeting 
 between them just then. 
 
 She now sank down into a chah, wild and
 
 HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES. 327 
 
 l^erturbed by all these new and fevering sequences. 
 Then she jumped up with a manner of decision, 
 and fetched her desk from a side table. 
 
 In three minutes, without pause or modifi- 
 cation, she had written a letter to Boldwood, at 
 his address beyond Casterbridge, saying mildly 
 but firmly that she had well considered the whole 
 subject he had brought before her and kindty 
 given her time to decide upon ; that her final 
 decision was that she could. not marry him. She 
 had expressed to Oak an intention to wait till 
 Boldwood came home before communicating to 
 liim her conclusive reply. But Bathsheba found 
 that she could not wait. 
 
 It was impossible to send this letter till the 
 next day; yet to quell her uneasiness by getting 
 it out of her hands, and so, as it were, setting the 
 act in motion at once, she arose to take it to anj'- 
 one of the women who might be in the kitchen. 
 
 She paused in the passage. A dialogue was 
 going on in the kitchen, and Bathsheba and 
 Troy were the subject of it. 
 
 "If he many her, she'll gie up farming." 
 
 " 'Twill be a gallant hfe, but may bring some 
 trouble between the mirth — so say I." 
 
 " Well, I wish I had half such a husband." 
 
 Bathsheba had too much sense to mind 
 seriously what her servitors said about her ; but
 
 328 FAP. FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 too much womanly redimclance of speech to leave 
 alone what was said till it died the natural death 
 of imminded things. She burst in upon them. 
 
 ''Who are you speaking of?" she asked. 
 
 There was a pause before anybody replied. At 
 last Liddy said frankly, "What was passing was 
 a bit of a word about yourself, miss." 
 
 " I thought so ! Maryann and Liddy and 
 Temperance — now I forbid you to suppose such 
 things. You know I don't care the least for 
 Mr. Troy — ^not I. Everybody knows how much I 
 hate him. — ^Yes," repeated the froward young 
 person, " hate him ! " 
 
 "We know you do, miss," said Liddy; "and 
 so do we all." 
 
 " I hate him to," said Maryann. 
 
 " Maryann — Oh you perjured woman ! How you 
 can speak that wicked story!" said Bathsheba, 
 excitedly. "You admired him from your heart 
 only this morning in the very world, you did. 
 Yes, Maryann, you know it!" 
 
 " Yes, miss, but so did you. He is a wild 
 scamp now, and you are right to hate him." 
 
 " He's not a wild scamp ! How dare you to my 
 face ! I have no right to hate him, nor you, nor 
 anybody. But I am a silly woman. What is 
 it to me what he is ? You know it is nothing. 
 I don't care for him ; I don't mean to defend his
 
 ^ 
 
 BOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES. 329 
 
 good name, not I. Mind tliis, if any of yon 
 say a word against liim yon'll be dismissed 
 instantlj^" 
 
 She flung down tlie letter and surged back 
 into the parlour, with a big heart and tearful 
 eyes, Liddy following her. 
 
 ''Oh miss! " said mild Liddy, looldng pitifully 
 into Bathsheba's face. "I am sorry we mistook 
 you so ! I did think you cared for him ; but I 
 see you don't now." 
 
 " Shut the door, Liddy." 
 
 Liddy closed the door, and went on: "People 
 :always say such foolery, miss. I'll make answer 
 hencefor'ard, ' Of course a lady hke Miss Everdene 
 •can't love him ; ' I'll say it out in plain black and 
 white." 
 
 Bathsheba bui-st out: "0 Liddy, are you sucli 
 .a simpleton ? Can't you read riddles ? Can't you 
 see ? Are you a woman yourself? " 
 
 Liddy's clear eyes rounded with wonderment. 
 
 " Yes ; you must be a blind thing, Liddy ! " she. 
 said, in reckless abandonment and grief. "Oh, I 
 love him to very distraction and misery and agony. 
 Don't be frightened at me, though perhaps I am 
 enough to frighten any innocent woman. Come 
 closer — closer." She put her arms round Liddy's 
 neck. "I must let it out to somebody; it is 
 wearing me away. Don't you yet know enough
 
 330 FAi: FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 of me to see througli tliat miserable denial of 
 mine ? God, what a lie it was ! Heaven and 
 my Love forgive me. And don't yon know that 
 a woman who loves at all thinks nothing of per- 
 jury when it is balanced against her love ? There , 
 go out of the room ; I want to be quite alone." 
 
 Liddy went towards the door. 
 
 *' Liddy, come here. Solemnly swear to me 
 that he's not a bad man ; that it is all lies they 
 say about him! " 
 
 " But, miss, how can I say he is not if " 
 
 " Yon gi-aceless girl. How can yon have the 
 cruel heai-t to repeat what they say ? Unfeeling 
 
 thing that you are But TU see if you or 
 
 anybody else in the village, or town either, dare 
 do such a thing!" She started off, pacing from 
 fireplace to door, and back again. 
 
 "No, miss. I don't — I linow it is not tnie," 
 said Liddy, fi-ightened at Bathsheba's unwonted 
 vehemence. 
 
 " I suppose you only agree with me like that 
 to please me. But, Liddy, he cannot be bad, as 
 is said. Do you hear ? " 
 
 *' Yes, miss, yes." 
 
 " And you don't beheve he is ? " 
 
 "I don't know^ what to say, miss," said Liddy^ 
 beginning to cry. " If I say No, you don't beheve 
 me ; and if I say Yes, you rage at me."
 
 HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES. .^>31 
 
 " Say you don't believe it — say 5^011 don't ! " 
 
 " I don't believe him to be so bad as they make 
 out." 
 
 " He is not bad at all My poor life and 
 
 lieart, bow weak I am!" slie moaned, in a re- 
 laxed, desultory way, heedless of Liddy's presence. 
 " Oh, how I wish I had never seen him ! Loving- 
 is misery for women always. I shall never forgive 
 my Maker for making me a woman, and dearly am 
 I beginning to pay for the honour of owning a 
 j)retty face." She freshened and turned to Liddy 
 suddenly. " Mind this, Lydia Smallbury, if you 
 repeat anywhere a single word of what I have 
 said to you inside this closed door, I'U never 
 trust you, or love you, or have you with me 
 a moment longer — not a moment." 
 
 " I don't w^ant to repeat anything," said Liddy 
 T\dth w^omanly dignity of a diminutive order ; ^' but 
 I don't wish to stay with 3-ou. And, if you please, 
 I'll go at the end of the hai-vest, or this week, or 
 to-day .... I don't see that I deserve to be put 
 upon and stormed at for nothing ! " concluded the 
 small woman, bigly. 
 
 "No, no, Liddy; you must stay!" said Bath- 
 sheba, dropping fi'om haughtiness to entreat}- 
 with capricious inconsequence. "You must not 
 notice my being in a taking just now. You arc 
 not as a servant — you are a companion to me.
 
 332 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. 
 
 Dear, dear — I don't know what I am doing since 
 this miserable ache o' my heart has weighted and 
 worn nj^on me so. What shall I come to ! I 
 suppose I shall get further and further into 
 troubles. I wonder sometimes if I am doomed 
 to die in the Union. I am fiiendless enough, 
 God know^s." 
 
 '' I won't notice anything, nor will I leave 
 you!" sobbed Lidd}^, impulsively putting up her 
 lips to Bathsheba's, and kissing her. 
 
 Then Bathsheba kissed Liddy, and all was 
 smooth again. 
 
 ''I don't often cry, do I, Lidd? but you have 
 made tears come into my eyes," she said, a smile 
 shining through the moisture. *' Try to think him 
 a good man, won't you, dear Liddy ?" 
 
 *' I will, miss, indeed." 
 
 *' He is a sort of steady man in a wild way, you 
 know. That's better than to be as some are, wild 
 in a steady way. I am afraid that's how I am. 
 And promise me to keep my secret — do, Liddy ! 
 And do not let them know that I have been 
 crying about him, because it will be dreadful 
 for me, and no good to him, poor thing ! " 
 
 " Death's head himself shan't wring it fi'om me, 
 mistress, if I've a mind to keep anything ; and I'll 
 always be yom- friend," rephed Liddy, emphati- 
 cally, at the same time bringing a few more tears
 
 HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES. 333 
 
 iuto her own eyes, not from any particular neces- 
 sity, but from an artistic sense of making herself 
 in keeping with the remainder of the picture, 
 which seems to influence women at such times. 
 ^'I think God likes us to be good friends, don't 
 3'ou?" 
 
 "Indeed I do." 
 
 "And, dear miss, you won't harry me and storm 
 at me, will you ? because you seem to swell so tall 
 as a Hon then, and it frightens me. Do you know, 
 I fancy you would be a match for any man when 
 you are in one o'your takings." 
 
 "Never! do you?" said Bathsheba, shghtty 
 laughing, though somewhat seriously alarmed by 
 this Amazonian picture of herself. "I hope I am 
 not a bold sort of maid — mannish ? ' ' she con- 
 tinued, with some anxiety. 
 
 " Oh no, not mannish ; but so almighty 
 womanish that 'tis getting on that way some- 
 times. Ah ! miss," she said, after having drawn 
 her breath very sadly in and sent it very sadly 
 out, " I wish I had lialf 3'our failing that way. 
 'Tis a great protection to a poor maid in these 
 days ! " 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed hy WilUam Moore ^'' Co.
 
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