Far from the Madding Crowd
imply that they would be required for use again directly he should go
on speaking.
“All will be ruined, and ourselves too, or there’s no meat in
gentlemen’s houses!” said Mark Clark.
“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 o’ it, I sorrows like a man in travel!”
“True, Henery, you do, I’ve heard ye,” said Joseph Poorgrass in a voice
of thorough attestation, and with a wire-drawn smile of misery.
“’Twould do a martel man no harm to have what’s under her bonnet,” said
Billy Smallbury, who had just entered, bearing his one tooth before
him. “She can spaik real language, and must have some sense somewhere.
Do ye foller 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
be cheated in some mean way out of your recompense.”
“No, no; I don’t agree with’ee there,” said Mark Clark. “God’s a
perfect gentleman in that respect.”
“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 daylight 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,
pianner, or whatever ’tis they d’call it?” said the maltster. “Liddy
saith she’ve a new one.”
“Got a pianner?”
“Ay. Seems her old uncle’s things were not good enough for her. She’ve
bought all but everything new. There’s heavy chairs 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 frames.”
“And long horse-hair settles for the drunk, with horse-hair pillows at
each end,” said Mr. Clark. “Likewise looking-glasses for the pretty,
and lying books for the wicked.”
A firm loud tread was now heard stamping outside; 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?”
“Ay, sure, shepherd,” said the conclave.
The door was flung back till it kicked the wall and trembled from top
to bottom with the blow. Mr. Oak appeared in the entry with a steaming
face, hay-bands wound about his ankles to keep out the snow, a leather
strap round his waist outside the smock-frock, and looking altogether
an epitome of the world’s health and vigour. Four lambs hung in various
embarrassing attitudes over his shoulders, and the dog George, whom
Gabriel had contrived to fetch from Norcombe, stalked solemnly behind.
“Well, Shepherd Oak, and how’s lambing this year, if I mid say it?”
inquired Joseph Poorgrass.
“Terrible trying,” said Oak. “I’ve been wet through twice a-day, either
in snow or rain, this last fortnight. Cainy and I haven’t tined our
eyes to-night.”
“A good few twins, too, I hear?”
“Too many by half. Yes; ’tis a very queer lambing this year. We shan’t
have done by Lady Day.”
“And last year ’twer all over by Sexajessamine Sunday,” Joseph
remarked.
“Bring on the rest Cain,” said Gabriel, “and then run back to the ewes.
I’ll follow you soon.”
Cainy Ball—a cheery-faced young lad, with a small circular orifice by
way of mouth, advanced and deposited two others, and retired as he was
bidden. Oak lowered the lambs from their unnatural elevation, wrapped
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, malter, I don’t know what I should do
i’ this keen weather. And how is it with you to-day, malter?”
“Oh, neither sick nor sorry, shepherd; but no younger.”
“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 your dog? I should like
to see the old familiar 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.”
“Well, to be sure!”
“Yes; and Tompkins’s old apple-tree is rooted that used to bear two
hogsheads of cider; and no help from other trees.”
“Rooted?—you don’t say it! Ah! stirring times we live in—stirring
times.”
“And you can mind the old well that used to be in the middle of the
place? That’s turned into a solid iron pump with a large stone trough,
and all complete.”
“Dear, dear—how the face of nations alter, and what we live to see
nowadays! Yes—and ’tis the same here. They’ve been talking but 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 peculiar and well known sound with
his own.
“Mark,” said Gabriel, sternly, “now you mind this! none of that
dalliance-talk—that smack-and-coddle style of yours—about Miss
Everdene. I don’t allow it. Do you hear?”
“With all my heart, as I’ve got no chance,” replied Mr. Clark,
cordially.
“I suppose you’ve been speaking against her?” 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, looking very uneasy.
“Well, somebody has—and look here, neighbours,” 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 fistiness before he went further. “Now—the first man in the
parish that I hear prophesying bad of our 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 moment on account of this statement, but were
deploring the difference which gave rise to the figure; and Mark Clark
cried “Hear, hear; just what I should ha’ said.” The dog George looked
up at the same time after the shepherd’s menace, and though he
understood English but imperfectly, began to growl.
“Now, don’t ye take on so, shepherd, and sit down!” said Henery, with a
deprecating peacefulness equal to anything of the kind in Christianity.
“We hear that ye be a extraordinary good and clever man, shepherd,”
said Joseph Poorgrass with considerable anxiety from behind the
maltster’s bedstead, whither he had retired for safety. “’Tis a great
thing to be clever, I’m sure,” he added, making movements associated
with states of mind rather than body; “we wish we were, don’t we,
neighbours?”
“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 from 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
sun and moon, shepherd.”
“Yes, I can do a little that way,” said Gabriel, as a man of medium
sentiments on the subject.
“And that ye can make sun-dials, and prent folks’ names upon their
waggons almost like copper-plate, with beautiful flourishes, 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
“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 be such trying sons o’ witches 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, being such a man of calamities 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 choose—and to keep me down to be a common shepherd
only.” Oak drew 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. Their
noise increased to a chorus of baas, upon which Oak pulled the milk-can
from before the fire, and taking a small tea-pot 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 from
the spout—a trick they acquired with astonishing aptitude.
“And she don’t even let ye have the skins of the dead lambs, I hear?”
resumed Joseph Poorgrass, his eyes lingering on the operations of Oak
with the necessary 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 upon each a nod of a quality
between friendliness and condescension.
“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 believe 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 peruse.
Oak stepped aside, and read the following in an unknown hand:—
DEAR FRIEND,—I do not know your name, but I think these few lines will
reach you, which I wrote to thank you for your kindness to me the night