Far from the Madding Crowd
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 still occupied in doing all
they could to keep down the conflagration, which was not much. They
were all tinged orange, and backed up by shadows of varying pattern.
Round the corner 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 woman, on foot. These two seemed to keep at a distance from 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-frock 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.”
“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 from 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
like 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.”
Maryann stalked off towards the rick and met Oak at the foot of the
ladder. She delivered her message.
“Where is your master the farmer?” asked Gabriel, kindling with the
idea of getting employment 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 came
here from 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 that black cloth with holes in it.”
Oak, his features smudged, grimy, and undiscoverable from the smoke and
heat, his smock-frock burnt into holes and dripping with water, the ash
stem of his sheep-crook charred six inches shorter, advanced with the
humility stern adversity had thrust upon him up to the slight female
form in the saddle. He lifted his hat with respect, and not without
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 wool 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?”
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
awkwardness. There was room for a little pity, also for a very little
exultation: the former at his position, the latter at her own.
Embarrassed she was not, and she remembered Gabriel’s declaration of
love to her at Norcombe only to think she had nearly forgotten it.
“Yes,” she murmured, putting on an air of dignity, and turning again to
him with a little 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.
“Then will you tell him to speak to the bailiff?” said Bathsheba.
All was practical again now. A summer eve and loneliness 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 Venus the well-known and admired, retired
with him to talk over the necessary preliminaries of hiring.
The fire before them wasted away. “Men,” said Bathsheba, “you shall
take a little refreshment 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,” replied the spokesman.
Bathsheba then rode off into the darkness, and the men straggled on to
the village in twos and threes—Oak and the bailiff being left by the
rick alone.
“And now,” said the bailiff, finally, “all is settled, I think, about
your coming, and I am going home-along. Good-night to ye, shepherd.”
“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 when he does not mean to contribute. “If you
follow on the road till you come to Warren’s Malthouse, where they are
all gone to have their snap of victuals, I daresay some of ’em will
tell you of a place. Good-night to ye, shepherd.”
The bailiff who showed this nervous dread of loving his neighbour as
himself, went up the hill, and Oak walked on to the village, still
astonished at the reencounter with Bathsheba, glad of his nearness 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 require an emergency to make them fit for one.
Obliged, to some extent, to forgo dreaming in order to find the way, he
reached the churchyard, and passed round it under the wall where
several ancient trees grew. There was a wide margin of grass along
here, and Gabriel’s footsteps were deadened by its softness, even at
this indurating 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. 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.
It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad.
“Good-night to you,” 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 tell me if I’m in the way for Warren’s Malthouse?”
Gabriel resumed, primarily 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 going there to-night?”
“Yes—” The woman again paused. There was no necessity for any
continuance of speech, and the fact that she did add more seemed to
proceed from an unconscious desire to show unconcern 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.”
“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 replied. “I am rather poor, and I don’t
want people to know anything about me.” Then she was silent and
shivered.
“You ought to have a cloak on such a cold night,” Gabriel observed. “I
would advise ’ee to get indoors.”
“O no! Would you mind going on and leaving me? I thank you much for
what you have told me.”
“I will go on,” he said; adding hesitatingly,—“Since you are not very
well off, perhaps you would accept this trifle from me. It is only a
shilling, but it is all I have to spare.”
“Yes, I will take it,” said the stranger gratefully.
She extended her hand; Gabriel his. In feeling for each other’s palm in
the gloom before the money could be passed, a minute incident occurred
which told much. Gabriel’s fingers alighted on the young woman’s wrist.
It was beating with a throb of tragic intensity. He had frequently felt
the same quick, hard beat in the femoral artery of his lambs when
overdriven. It suggested a consumption too great of a vitality which,
to judge from her figure and stature, was already too little.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“But there is?”
“No, no, no! Let your having seen me be a secret!”
“Very well; I will. Good-night, again.”
“Good-night.”
The young girl remained motionless by the tree, and Gabriel descended
into the village of Weatherbury, or Lower Longpuddle as it was
sometimes called. He fancied that he had felt himself in the penumbra
of a very deep sadness when touching that slight and fragile creature.
But wisdom lies in moderating mere impressions, and Gabriel endeavoured
to think little of this.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MALTHOUSE—THE CHAT—NEWS
Warren’s Malthouse was enclosed 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 outline
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 air. 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.
The room inside was lighted only by the ruddy glow from the kiln mouth,
which shone over the floor with the streaming horizontality of the
setting sun, and threw upwards the shadows of all facial irregularities
in those assembled around. The stone-flag floor was worn into a path
from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere. A curved
settle of unplaned 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 lichen