 CHAPTER VIII. Warren's malt-house was enclosed by an old wall enwrapped 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, attached roof sloped up to a point in the centre, upon which rose a small wooden lantern, fitted with louver-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 ivy-wall in front. Voices were to be heard inside. Oak's hand skimmed the surface of the door, with fingers extended to an elemasque saucer or pattern, till he found a leather strap which he pulled. This lifted the 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 through 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 unplanned 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 molster. 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 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 concerning the origin of the fire, immediately ceased, and everyone ocularly criticized him to the degree expressed by contracting the flesh of the foreheads and looking at him with narrowed eyelids, as if he had been a light too strong for their sight. Several exclaimed meditatively after this operation had been completed. Ah! it is in you, shepherd, I believe. We thought we had a handpawn about the door for the bobbin, but we aren't sure if we're not a dead leaf blowed across, said another. Come in, shepherd. Sure you be welcome, though we don't know your name. Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbours. The ancient molster sitting in the midst turned at this, his turning being as the turning of a rusty crane. That's never Gabriel Oak's grandson over at Norcombe. Never. He said, as a formula expressive of surprise, which nobody was supposed for a moment to take literally. And my father and my grandfather, old man of the name of Gabriel, said the shepherd placidly, Thought I know the man's face as I see them on the rick. Thought I did. And where be you trade not to now, shepherd? I'm taking a word near, said Mr. Oak. Knowed your grandfather for years and years. Continued the molster, the words coming forth of their own accord, as if the momentum previously imparted had been sufficient. Ah! And did you? Knowed your grandmother. And her too. Late ways, knowed your father when he was a child. My boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers. That they were sure. Weren't you, Jacob? I 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 was jaw at most to do him? However, my son William must have known the very manner for us. Didn't you, Billy, before you left Norcombe? No, it was Andrew, said Jacob's son, Billy, a child of forty or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a cheerful soul and a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assuming a chinchilla shade here and there. There you can mind Andrew, said Oak, as being a man in the place when I was quite a child. Ah! And 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 it was only last purification day in this very world, when the youths-money used to get away to the second-best poor folk, you know, Shepard, and I can mind the day, because they all had to traipse up to the vestry, yeah, this very man's family. Come, Shepard, and drink, to escape and swallow at us, a drop of summer, but not of much account, said the monster, removing from the fire his eyes, which were ever a million red and bleared by gazing into it for so many years. Take up the God-for-given me, Jacob, and see if it is warm, Jacob. Jacob stooped to the God-for-given me, which was a two-handled tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat. It was rather furred with extraneous matter about the outside, especially in the crevices of the handles, the innermost curves of which may not have seen daylight for several years, by reason of this enclostation thereon. 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 observed that such a class of mug is called God-for-given me in weathery and its vicinity for uncertain reasons, and probably because its size makes any given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees its bottom in drinking it empty. Jacob, un-receiving the order to see if the liquor was warm enough, placidly dipped his forefinger into it by way of a thermometer, and, having pronounced it nearly of the proper degree, raised the cup and very civilly attempted to dust some of the ashes from the bottom with the skirt of his smock-frock, because Shepard Oak was a stranger. "'A clean cup for the shepherd,' said the master commandingly. "'No, not at all,' said Gabriel in a reproving tone of considerateness. "'I never fuss about dirt in its purest day, and when I know what sore it is.' Taking the mug he drank an inch or more from the depths of its contents, and duly passed it to the next man. "'Ah! I wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neighbours and washing up when there's so much work to be done in the world already,' continued Oak in a moister tone, after recovering from the stoppage of bread, which is occasioned by pulls at large mugs. "'A very sensible man,' said Jacob. "'True, true, it can't be gained, said,' observed a brisk young man, Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman, whom to meet anywhere in your travels was to know, to know was to drink with, and to drink with was, unfortunately, to pay for.' "'And here's a mouthful of bread and bacon that Mrs. have sent, Shepard. The cider will go down better with a bit of victuals. Don't you chock quite close, Shepard, for I let the bacon fall in the road outside as I was bringing it along, and it may be, to rather gritty. There it is, plain dirt, and we all know what that is, as you say, and you paint a particular man we see, Shepard. "'True, true, not at all,' said the friendly oak. "'Don't let your teeth quake me, and you won't feel the sandiness at all. Ha! It is wonderful what can be done by contrivance.' "'My own mind, exactly, neighbor.' "'Ah! He's his grandfather's own grandson. His grandfather were just such a nice, unparticular man,' said the molster. "'Drink, Henry Frey, drink,' magnanimously said Jan Coggan, a person who held St. 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, Henry did not refuse. He was a man of more than middle age, with eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it down that the law of the world was bad, with a long suffering look through his listeners that the world alluded to, as it presented itself to his imagination. He always signed his name, Henry, strenuously insisting upon that spelling, and of any passing schoolmaster venture 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 orthographical differences were matters which had a great deal to do with the personal character. Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henry, was a crimson man with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in his eye, whose name had appeared on the marriage-register of Wetherbury and the 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 godfather in baptisms of the subtly jovial kind. Come, Mark Clark, come, there's plenty more in the barrel, said Jan. Ah, I will, it is my only doctor," 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. Why, Joseph Porgrass, you hadn't had a drop, said Mr. Coggan, to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the cup towards him. Such a modest man as he is, said Jacob Smallbury, while he hardly had strength of eye enough to look on our young missus' face away here, Joseph. All looked at Joseph Porgrass with pitying reproach. No, he hardly looked at her at all, simpered Joseph, reducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek sense of undue prominence. And when I said, ah, there was nothing but blushes with me. Poor fellow, said Mr. Clark. To the curious nature of her man, said Jan Coggan. Yes, continued Joseph Porgrass, his shyness which was so painful as it effect, filling him with a mild complacency, now that it was guarded as an interesting study, to where blush, blush, blush would be every minute of the time when she was speaking to me. I believe you, Joseph Porgrass, for we all know you to be a very bashful man. This awkward gift for a man, poor soul, said the molster. And how long have you suffered from it, Joseph? Ah, ever since I was a boy. Yes, mother was concerned to our heart about it, yes, but it was all not. Did you ever go into the world and try to stop it, Joseph Porgrass? I tried all sorts of company. They took me to Greenhill Fair, and into a great gay Jerry Gunnimble show, where there were women folk riding around, standing upon horses, who were hardly anything on but their smocks, but they didn't cure me a morsel. And then I was put ere in man at the woman's skittle alley at the back of the Taylor's Arms and Carcer Bridge. It was a horrible, sinful situation, and a very curious place for a good man. I had to stand and look body-people in the face from morn until night. But there was no use. I was just as bad as ever after all. Blushes have been in the family for generations. There, it is a happy providence that would be no worse. True, said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a profound review of the subject. It is a thought to look at that you might have been worse, but even as you be it is a very bad affliction for you, Joseph, for you see, Shepherd, though it is very well for a woman, naga-all, it is awkward for a man like him, poor fellow. It is, it is, said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation. Yes, very awkward for the man. Aye, and he is very timid too, observed Jan Coggan. Once he had been working late at Yalbury Bomb, and had had a drop of drink and lost his way as he was coming home along through Yalbury Wood, didn't he master poor grass? No. No, no, not that story, expotulated the modest man, forcing a laugh to bury his concern. And so a loss himself quite, continued Mr. Coggan with an impassive face implying that a true narrative like Time and Tide must run its course, and would respect no man. And as he was coming along in the middle of the night, much afraid and not able to find his way out of trees, no-ow, a cry though, man a lost, man a lost. The owl in a tree happened to be crying, Who, who, who, as owls do, you know, Shepherd, and Gabriel nodded. And Joseph, all in a tremble, said, Joseph, poor grass of weather he saw. No, no, no, that's too much, said a timid man, becoming a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. I didn't say soar, I'll take my oath I didn't say Joseph, poor grass of weather he saw. No, no, what's right is right, and I never said soar to the board. No one very well that no man of a gentleman's rank would be hollering there at that time in me. Joseph, poor grass of weather he saw. That's every word I said, and I shouldn't have said that if I hadn't been for keeper days, methiglin. There, because a merciful thing ended where it did. The question of which was right, being tacitly waved by the company, Jan went on meditatively. And he's a fearless man, ain't you, Joseph? Ah, another time you were lost by lambing down gate, weren't you, Joseph? I was, replied poor grass, as if there were some conditions too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one. Yes, that were in the middle of the night too, but the gate would not open, try how he would, and no one there was the devil's hand in it, nailed down. Ah, said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of the fire, the sider, and the perception of the narrative capabilities of the experience alluded to. My heart died within me that time, but I nailed down and said the Lord's prayer, and then the belief writes through, and then the Ten Commandments in earnest prayer, but no, the gate wouldn't open, and then went on with dearly beloved brethren, and thinks, this makes four, and is all I know out with a book, and if this don't do it, nothing will, and I'm a lost man. Well, when I got to say it after me, I rose from my knees and found that the gate would open. Yes, neighbours, the gate opened the same as ever. A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all, and during its continuance, each directed his vision into the ash pit, which glowed like a desert in the tropics under a vertical sun, shaping the rise long and liney, partly because of the light, partly from the depth of the subject disgust. Gabriel broke the silence. What sort of place is this to live at, and what sort of miss is she to walk under? Gabriel's bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the assembly, the innermost subject of his heart. I mean, an old little lover, nothing, she only showed herself a few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor was called with his worldwide skill, but he couldn't save the man. And as I take it, she's going to keep on the farm. I was about to shave it, I believe, said John Coggan. Ah, it is a very good family. I would assume beyond her arm is under one ear in there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of man. Did you know in shepherd, a bachelor man? Not at all. I used to go to his house according to my first wife, Charlotte, who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were farmer Everdeen, 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. How sweet of my skin, I mean, of course. Ah, ah, John Coggan, we know you're meanin'. And you see, it was beautiful ale, and I wished to value his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as to drink only a timbleful, which would have been insulting to the man's generosity. True, Master Coggan, towards all, corroborated Mark Clark. And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish before going, and then, by the time I got there, I was as dry as a lime basket. So thoroughly dry that that ale would slip down. It would slip down sweet. Happy times, heavenly times, such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house. You can mine Jacob. You used to go with me sometimes. I can, I can, said Jacob. That one, too, that we had at the book's head, on a white Monday was a pretty tipple. Twas, but for a wet of the better class, that brought you no nearer to the hard man than you were before you'd be gone, there was none like those in Farmer Everdeen's kitchen. Not a single dam allowed. No, not a bear-poor one, even at the most cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good old ward of sin thrown in here and there at such times as a great relief to a merry soul. True, said the molster, Nita requires her swear when at regular times, or she's not herself, and unallly exclamations is the necessity of life. But Charlotte, continued Coggin, not a word of the sort would Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking and veying. Ah, poor Charlotte! I wonder if she'd had the good fortune to get into heaven when it died, but it never was much in Luck's way, and perhaps it went downwards after all, poor soul. Then did any of you know him as Everdeen's father and mother? Inquired the shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversation in the desired channel. I knew him a little, said Jacob Smallbury, but there were townsfolk that didn't live here. They've been dead for years. Father, what sort of people were Mrs. Father and mother? Well, said the molster, he wasn't much to look at, but she was a lovely woman. He was fond enough of her as a sweetheart. He used to kiss her scores and long under the time, so to have said, observed Coggin. He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as have been told, said the molster. Ah, said Coggin. He admired her so much that he used to light the candle three times a night to look at her. Boundless love! I shouldn't have supposed it in the universe, murmured Joseph Porgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale in his moral reflections. Well, to be sure, said Gabriel. Ah, it is true enough. I know the man and woman both well. Leave me ever, Dean. That was a man's name, sure. Man, sayeth I in my hurry, but ye were of a higher circle of lives than that. I was a gentlemen tailor, really, worked scores of pounds, and he became a very celebrated bankrupt two or three times. Ah, 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 molster, being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggin, after absently scrutinising a coal, which had fallen among the ashes, took up the narrative with a private twirl of his eye. Well, now, ye'd hardly believe it, but that man, our Miss Everdeen's father, was one of the ficklest husbands alive after a while. Understand, I didn't want to be fickle, but he couldn't help it. The poor fellow were fateful and true enough to her in his wish, but his eye would roll, do what he would. He spoke to me in real tribulation about it once. Coggin, he said, I could never wish for a hands-over woman than I've got, but feeling she's ticked in as my lawful wife, I can't help my wicked-eyed wandering, do what I will. But, alas, I believed he cured her by making her take off her wedding ring and calling her by her maiden name, as they sat together, asked her to shop with her, and so I would get to fancy she was only a sweetheart and not married to her at all. And as soon as he could thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing the seventh, I got to like her as well as ever, and they lived on a perfect picture of mutual love. Well, that was our most ungodly remedy, murmured Joseph Porgras, but we ought to feel deep cheerfulness that our 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 Bill Smallbury, the man's will was to do right, sure enough, but his art didn't show him in. He got so much better that he was quite godly in his later years, wasn't he, John? said Joseph Porgras. He got himself confirmed over again in a more serious way and took to say an amen almost as loud as a clerk, and he liked to copy comfort and verses from the tombstones. He used to, to hold the money play, let your light so shine, and stand Godfather to put it to come by chance, children. And he kept the missionary box on his table, to nab folks on the wares when they called. Yeah, and he would box the charity boy's ears. It's a laugh in church, till they could hardly stand upright and do other deeds of piety natural to the saintly inclined. Aye, and at that time he taught of nothing but high things, added Billy Smallbury. One day, Parsons totally met him and said, Good morning, Mr. Everdeen, it is a fine day. Amen, said Everdeen. Quite absolutely, you could take it only religion when you see the Parsons. Yeah, he was a very Christian man. Their daughter was not at all a pretty child at that time, said Henry Frey. Never should have taught she to grow old up such handsome body as she is. Just to be open to her timbers as good as her face. Well, yes, but the Bailey will have most to do the business on ourselves. Ah, Henry gazed in the ash pit and smiled volumes of ironical knowledge. A queer Christian, like a devil's ed in a cowl, as the saying is, volunteered Mark Clark. Footnote, this phrase is a conjectural emanation of the unintelligible expression as the devil said to the owl, used by the natives. End of footnote. He is, said Henry, implying that irony must cease at a certain point. Between we two, man and man, I believe that man would as soon tell a lie on Sundays as working days. That I do. Good faith, you do talk, said Gabriel. It's true enough, said the man of bitter moods, looking round upon the company with the antithetic laughter that comes from a keener appreciation of the miseries of life than ordinary men are capable of. There's the people of one sort and people of another. But that man, bless your souls. Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. You must be a very aged man, Malter, to have sons growed mild and ancient, he remarked. Father so old that I can't mind his age, can he, Father, interposed Jacob, and he's grown terrible crooked too lately? Jacob continued surveying his father's figure, which was rather more bowed than his own. Really, one may say that Father there is treatable. Crooked folk alas a long while, said the master, grimly and not in the best humour. Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of your life, Father, wouldn't you, Shepherd? Aye, 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, Malter? The master cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for emphasis, and elongating his gaze to the remotest point of the ash pit, said in the slow speech justifiable when the importance of a subject is so generally felt that any mannerism must be tolerated in getting at it. Well, we don't mind a year I were born in, but perhaps I can reckon up the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I bowed at up a long puddle across there, nodding to the north, till I were eleven, bowed seven at Kingsborough, nodding to the east, where I took to Malting. I went there from to Norcombe, and malted there two and twenty years, and two and twenty years I was there turnipowing and harvesting. Aye, I know that old place Norcombe years are for you at all, Master Oak. Oak smiled sincere belief in the fact. Then I malted at Dornover, four years, and four-year turnipowing, and I was fourteen times eleven months at Milpons and 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 years at Melstock, and I've been here one and thirty years come candle-mas. Now, how much is that? Hundred-and-seventeen! chuckled another old gentleman given to mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hitherto sat unobserved in a corner. Well, then, that's my age, said the Molster emphatically. Oh, no, Father, said Jacob. Your turnipowing were in the summer and your malting in the winter of the same years, and we don't ought to count both halves, Father. Chuck it all. I lived through the summers, didn't I? That's my question. I suppose you'll say next there'll be no age at all to speak of. Sure we shan't, said Gabriel, soothingly. You be a very old-age person, Malter, attested Jan Coggan, also soothingly. We all know that, and you must have a wonderful, talented constitution to be able to live so long, most in the neighbours. True, true, you must, Malster, wonderful, said the meeting unanimously. The Malster, being now pacified, was even generous enough to voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having lived a great many years by mentioning that the cup they were drinking 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 Henry Frey exclaimed, Surely, Shepherd, I see you blowin' into a great flute by now a cast abridge. 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, my in-heart, said Mark Clark. You should take a careless look, Shepherd, and your time will come. But we could thank you for a tune, if you've been too tired. Neither drum nor trumpet of air since Christmas, said Jan Coggan. Come, raise a tune, Master Oak. Ah, that I will, said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and puttin' it together. I poor tune, neighbours, but such as I can do, you shall have and welcome. Oak then struck up jocky 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 I can, said a young married man, who, having no individuality worth mentioning, was known as Susan Tall's husband. He continued, or in his leaf has not been able to blow a flute as well as that. He's a clever man, and his true comfort first has such a shepherd, murmured Joseph Porgrass, in a soft cadence. He ought to feel full of thanksgiven, that he's not a player of body-songs, instead of these merry tunes, for it would have been just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose, low man, a man of iniquity, so to speak, as what he is. Yes, for our wives and daughters' sakes, we should feel real thanksgiving. True, true, real thanksgiving, dashed in Mark Clark conclusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion, he had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said. Yes, had a Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the Bible, for he will do thrive so in these times, that he may be as much deceived in the cleanest shades and wait as short as man, as in the raggedest tramp on the Torn Peak, if I may term it so. Ah, I can wind your face now, shepherd, said Henry Fray, criticising Gabriel with misty eyes, as he entered upon his second tune. Yes, now I see he blown into the flu, I know he to be the same man I see playing at Castle Ridge, for your mouth were scrimped up when your eyes are staring out like a Strangelman's, just as they be now. Did it appear that playing the flu should make a man look such a scarecrow, observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criticism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out, with the ghastly grimmets required by the instrument, the chorus of Dame Durden. It was Marl and Bette and Darl and Kate, and Dorothy, Draggled Hale. I hope you don't mind that your man's bad manners are naming your features, whispered Joseph to Gabriel. Not at all, said Mr. Oak, for by nature you be very a handsome man, shepherd, continued Joseph, poor grass, with winning swatheady. Ah, that you be, shepherd, said the company. Thank you very much, said Oak, in the modest tone, good man is demanded, thinking, however, that he would never let Bathsheba see him playing the flute. In this resolve, showing a discretion equal to that related to its sagacious inventress, the divine manoeuvre herself. Ah, when I my wife were married at Norcombe Church, said the old Maltzer, not pleased at finding himself left out of the subject, we were called a handsomest couple in the neighborhood. Everybody said so. Dang did you bane all or no, Maltzer? Said a voice with a vigour natural to the annunciation of remarkably evident truism. It came from the old man in the background, whose offensiveness and spiteful ways were barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle he contributed to general laughs. Oh, no, no, said Gabriel. Don't you play no more, shepherd? said Susan Tall'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 on wires. If I tall after I'd left that music was still playing, and I not there, we should be quite melancholy-like. What's your worry then, Laban? inquired Coggin. You used to bide as late as the latest. Well, you see, neighbours, I was lately married to a woman, and she's my vacation now, and so you see, the young man halted lamely. New lords, new laws, as the saying is, I suppose, remarked Coggin. Ah, I believe, said Susan Tall's husband, in a tone intended to employ his habitual reception of jokes without minding them at all. The young man then wished him good night and withdrew. Henry Frey was the first to follow, and then Gabriel arose and went off with John Coggin, who had offered him a lodging. A few minutes later, when the remaining ones were on their legs and about to depart, Frey came back again in a hurry. Flourishing his finger ominously, he threw a gaze teeming with tidings, just with his eye alighted by accident, which happened to be in Joseph Porgrass's face. Ah, what's the matter? What's the matter, Henry? said Joseph, starting back. What's the blue in Henry? asked Jacob and Mark Clark. Bailey Pennyways. Bailey Pennyways. I said so. Yes, I said so. Well, found out stealing anything. Dealing it is. The news is, that after Miss Everdeen got home, she went out again to see how it was safe, as she usually do, and coming in found Bailey Pennyways creeping down the granary steps right after Bushella Barley. She fleed at him like a cat, never such a tomboy as she is. Of course, I speak with closed doors. You do? You do, Henry? She fleed at him, and to cut a long story short, he owned to Evan, carried off five sack altogether, upon our promise and not to prosecute him. Well, he's turned out neck and crop, and my question is, who's going to be Bailey now? The question was such a profound one that Henry 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 Tal's husband, in a still greater hurry. Have you heard any news that's all over Parish? About Bailey Pennyways. But besides that? No, not a morsel of it, they replied, looking into the very midst of layman Tal, as if to meet his words half-way down his throat. What a night of horrors, murmured Joseph Porgras, waving his hands spasmodically. I've had the news bell ringing in my left ear quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seen a magpie all alone. Fanny Robin, Miss Everdeen's youngest servant, can't be found. They've been wanting to lock up the doors these two hours, which he hasn't come in, and they don't know what to do about going to bed for fear of locking her out. They wouldn't be so concerned if she hadn't been noticed in such low spirits these last few days. And Mary Anne, I think, the beginning of a crown of inquest, has happened to the poor girl. Ah! Tis borned! Tis borned! came from Joseph Porgras's dry lips. No! Tis drowned, said Tal. Or to her father's razor, suggested Bill Smallbury with a vivid sense of detail. Well, Miss Everdeen wants to speak to one or two of us before we go to bed. What with this trouble about the Bailey and now about the girl, Mrs. is almost wild. They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting the old molster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder could draw from his hole. There, as the other footsteps died away, he sat down again, and continued gazing as usual into the furnace, with his red bleared eyes. From the bedroom window above their heads, Bathsheba's head and shoulders, lobed 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 Tal's husband. The tomorrow morning I wish two or three of you to make inquiries in the villages round, if they have seen such a person as Fanny Robin. Do it quietly, there's no reason for alarm as yet. She must have left whilst we were all at the fire. Say your pardon, but had she any young man caught in her in the parish, ma'am? asked Jacob Smallbury. I don't know, said Bathsheba. I never heard any such thing, ma'am, said two or three. It is hardly likely, either, continued Bathsheba, 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 Mary Ann with only her indoor working-gown on, and not even a bonnet. And you mean, ma'am, excuse my words, that a young woman would hardly go to see a young man without dressing up, said Jacob, turning his mental vision upon past experiences. That's true, she would not, ma'am. She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn't see very well, said a female voice from another window, which seemed out of Mary Ann. Because she had no young man about ear, hers lives in Casterbridge, and I believe he's a soldier. Do you know his name? Bathsheba said. No, mistress, she was very close about it. Perhaps I might be able to find out if I went to Casterbridge Barracks, said Williams Smallbury. Very well. If she doesn't return tomorrow, 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 friends or relations alive. I do hope she has come to no harm to a man of that kind. And then there's this disgraceful affair of the bailiff, but I can't speak of him now. Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness that it seemed she did not think it worked well to dwell upon any particular one. Do as I told you, then, she said in conclusion, closing the casement. I—I, missus, we will, they replied, and moved away. That night at Coggins, Gabriel Oak, beneath the screen of closed eyelids, was busy with fancies, and full of movement, like a river flowing rapidly under its ice. Night had always been the time at which she 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 their pain of sleeplessness, but they possibly did with Oak to-night, for the delight of merely seeing her, 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 companion, the farrier sure-guide, the veterinary surgeon, Paradise Lost, the pilgrim's progress, Robinson Crusoe, Ash's Dictionary, and Wilkin Games Arithmetic, constituted 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 opportunity has done from a furlong of laden shelves. CHAPTER IX THE HOMESTED, A VISITOR, HALF CONFIDENCES By daylight the bower of Oak's newfound mistress Bathsheba Everdeen presented itself as a hoary building of the early stage of classic renaissance as regards its architecture, and of a proportion which told at a glance that, as is so frequently the case, it had once been the memorial 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 comprised several such modest domains. Fluted pilasters worked from the solid stone, decorated its front, and above the roof the chimneys were panelled or columnar, some coped gables with finials and like features still retaining traces of their Gothic extraction. Soft brown mosses, like faded velveteen, formed cushions upon the stone tiling, and tufts of the house-leak of sand-green sprouted from the eaves of the low surrounding buildings. A gravel walk 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 nut-brown of the gravel being visible to a width of only a foot or two in the centre. This circumstance, and a generally sleepy air of the whole prospect here, together with the animated and contrasting state of the reverse facade, suggested to the imagination that on the adaption of the building for farming purposes the vital principle of the house had turned round inside its body to face the other way. Because of this kind, strange deformities, tremendous paralysis 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 balustre's heaviest bed-posts, being turned and moulded in the quaint fashion of their century, the handrail astounded at the parapet-top, and the stairs themselves continually twisting round like a person trying to look over his shoulder. Going up the floors above were found to have a very irregular surface, rising to ridges, sinking into valleys, and being just then uncarbated, the face of the boards would seem to be eaten into innumerable vermiculations. Every window replied by a clang to the opening and shutting of every door. A tremble followed every bustling movement, and a creak accompanied a walker about the house like a spirit wherever he went. In the room from which the conversation proceeded 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 of the household stores of the late occupier. Liddy, the maulster's great-granddaughter, 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 a soft and ruddiness, on a surface of high retundity that we meet with in a Theriburg or a Gerard Dau, and, like the presentations of these great colourists, it was a face which kept well back from the boundary between comeliness and the ideal. Though elastic in nature, she was less daring than Bathsheba, and occasionally showed some earnestness, which consisted half of genuine feeling and half of mannerliness, super-added by way of duty. Through a party-open door the noise of a scrubbing-brush, led up to the charwoman, Marianne Money, a person who, for a face, had a circular disc, furrowed 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 Bathsheba, through the door to her. I hear something. Marianne suspended the brush. The tramp of a horse was apparent approaching the front of the building. The paces slackened, turned in at the wicket, and, what was most unusual, came up the mussy path close to the door. The door was tapped with the end of a cropper-stick. "'What in pertinence?' said Liddy in a low voice, to ride up the foot-path like that. Why didn't he stop at the gate? Lord! There's a gentleman! I see the top of his hat!' "'Be quiet,' said Bathsheba. The further expression of Liddy's concern was continued by aspect instead of narrative. "'Why doesn't Mrs. Coggin go to the door?' Bathsheba continued. Ratatatat! Resounded more decisively from Bathsheba's oak. "'Marianne, you go!' she said, fluttering under the onset of a crowd of romantic possibilities. "'Oh, ma'am, see, here's a mess!' The argument was unanswerable after it lands at Marianne. "'Liddy, you must,' said Bathsheba. Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated with dust from the rubbish they were sorting, and looked imploringly at our mistress. "'There, Mrs. Coggin is going,' said Bathsheba, exhaling 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 Everdeen at home?' "'I'll see, sir,' said Mrs. Coggin, and in a minute appeared in the room. "'There, what a third-over place this world is,' continued Mrs. Coggin, the wholesome-looking lady who had a voice for each class of a mark according to the emotion involved, who could toss a pancake or twirl them up with the accuracy of pure mathematics, and who, at this moment, showed hands shaggy with fragments of dough and arms encustered with flour. "'I'm never up to my elbows, Miss, in makin' a puddin' but one of two things do happen. Either my nose much needs begin tickling, and I can't live without scratchin' it, or somebody knocks at the door, if Mr. Boll would want to see you, Miss Everdeen.' A woman's dress, being a part of her countenance, and any disorder in one, being of the same nature with a malformation or wound in the other, Bathsheba said at once, "'I can't see him in this state. Whatever shall I do?' Not at home's were hardly naturalised in weathery farmhouses, so Liddy suggested. Say, you're afraid with dust, and you can't come down.' "'Yes, that sounds very well,' said Mrs. Coggin, critically. "'Say, I can't see him. That will do.' Mrs. Coggin went downstairs, and returned the answer as requested, adding, however, on her own responsibility, "'Miss is dusting-bottlesur, and is quite a object. That's where it is.' "'Oh, very well,' said a deep voice, indifferently. All I wanted to ask was if anything had been heard of Fanny Robben.' "'Nothing, sir, but we may know to-nay. William Smallbury has gone to Castlebridge, where a young man lives, as is supposed, and the other men be inquiring about everywhere. The horse has tramped, then recommenced, and retreated, and the door closed. "'Who is Mr. Bollwood?' said Bathsheba. "'A gentleman farmer, a little weather-bury. Married? No, Miss. How old is he?' "'A forty, I should say, very handsome, rather stern-looking and rich.' "'What a bother this dusting is! I am always in some unfortunate plight, or other,' said Bathsheba, complainingly. "'Why should he inquire about Fanny?' "'Ah, because, as she had no friends in her childhood, he took her, and put her to school, and got her a place here under your uncle. He's a very kind man that way, but l'or d'heur.' "'What?' Never was such a hopeless man for a woman. He's been courted by sixes and sevens—all the girls, gentle and simple, from miles around have tried them. Jane Perkins worked them for two months, like a slave, and the two Miss Taylor spent a year upon them, and he cost Farmer Isis' daughter nights of tears and twenty pounds worth of new clothes, but l'or d'heur, 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 Coggins, who, with the small breeze, were as common among the families of the district as the Avons and Derwents among our rivers. He always had a loosened tooth, or a cut finger, to show to particular friends, which he did with an air of being thereby elevated, above the common herd of affectionous humanity, to which exhibition people were expected to say, poor child, with a dash of congratulations, as well as pity. "'I've got a penny,' said Master Coggins, in a scanning measure. "'Well, who gave it to you, Teddy?' said Liddy. "'Mr. Bouldwood, he gave it to me for opening the gate. What did he say?' He said, "'Where are you going, my little man?' And I said, "'To Miss Everdeen's, please?' And he said, "'She's a staid woman, isn't she, my little man?' And I said, "'Yes!' "'You naughty child, what did you say that for?' "'Cause you gave me the penny.' "'What a pucker, everything is in,' said Bathsheba, discontentedly when the child had gone. Get away, Mary Anne, or go on with your scrubbing, or do something. You ought to be married by this time, and not here troubling me.' "'Ah, 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 as a pelican in the wilderness?' "'Did anybody ever want to marry you, Miss?' Did he venture to ask when they were again alone? Lots of them, we dare say.' Bathsheba paused, as if about to refuse a reply, but the temptation to say yes, since it was really in her power, was irresistible by aspiring virginity, in spite of her spleen at having been published 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 realisation, and you wouldn't have them. 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 to hear it. No, sir, I'm your better, or kiss my fuss, or my face is from out of consequence. And did you love a miss?' "'Oh, no, but I rather like them.' "'Do you now?' "'Of course not. What footsteps are those I hear?' Liddy looked from the back window into the courtyard behind, which was now getting glow-toned and dim with the earliest films of night. A crooked file of men was approaching the back door, the old string of trailing individuals advanced in the completest balance of intention. Like the remarkable creatures known as chain salpe, which, distinctly organised in other aspects, have one will common to a whole family. Somewhere as usual in snow-white smock-frocks of Russian duck, and some in whitey-brown ones of dravet, marked under wrists, breasts, backs, and sleeves, with honeycomb work, two or three women and patents brought up the rear. "'If it is done to be upon us,' said Liddy, making her nose white against the glass, "'Oh, very well. Marianne, go down and keep them in the kitchen till I am dressed, and then show them in to me in the hall.' CHAPTER X This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tyge Hines. Far from the Madding crowd by Thomas Hardy. CHAPTER X Half an hour later Bathsheba in finished dress and followed by Liddy entered the upper end of the old hall to find that her men had all deposited themselves on a long form and a settle at the lower extremity. She sat down at a table and opened a time-book, pen in her hand, with a canvas money-bag beside her. From this she poured a small heap of coin. Liddy chose a position at her elbow and began to sow, sometimes pausing and looking round, or with the error of a privileged person taking up one of the half-sovereigns lying before and surveying it merely as a work of art, while strictly preventing 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 attaining, and that I have formed a resolution to have no bailiff at all, but to manage everything with my own head and hands. The men breathed an audible breath of amazement. The next matter is, have you heard anything of Fanny?" "'Nothing, ma'am. Have you done anything?' "'I met Farmer Bollwood,' said Jacob Smallbury, and I went with him and two of his men, and dragged New Mill pond, but we found nothing. And a new shepherd had been to Buck's Head at Yalbury, thinking she had gone there, but nobody had seen her,' said Laban, tall. "'Hasn't Williams Smallbury been to Castlebridge?' "'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 indirectly. Well, now then, she looked into the book. "'Joseph Porgrass, are you there?' "'Yes, sir,' ma'am I made,' said the person addressed. "'I'd be the personal name of Porgrass.' "'And what are you?' "'Nothing in my own eye, in the eye of other people. Well, I don't say it, though public thought will out. "'What do you do on the farm?' "'I do do carton-tings all year, and in sea-time I shoot the rucks and sparrows, and help set pig-killing, sir. "'How much to you?' "'Please, it's nine and ninepence, and a good harpeny, where it was a bad one, sir. Ma'am, we've made. "'You're quite correct. Now, here are ten shillings in addition, as a small present, as I am a newcomer.' Bathsheba blushed slightly at the sense of being generous and public, and Henry Fray, who had drawn 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 consequence inside them, which advanced with the toes in no definite direction forward, but turned in or out as a chance to swing. "'Matthew Mark, did you say? Speak out, I shall not hurt you,' inquired the young farmer kindly. "'Matthew Moon Ma'am,' said Henry Fray, correctingly, from behind her chair, to which point he had edged himself. "'Matthew Moon,' murmured Bathsheba, turning her bright eyes to the book, "'ten and two pence halfpenny as a sum put down to you, I see?' "'Yes, Mrs.' said Matthew, as the rustle of wind among dead leaves.' "'Here it is, and ten shillings. Now, the next, Andrew Randall. You are a new man, I hear. How came you to leave your last farm?' "'Please, ma'am, please, ma'am, please, ma'am,' said Henry Fray in an undertone, and he turned him away, because the only time he ever did speak plain he said his soul was his own and other iniquities to the square. "'I can course, ma'am, as well as you or I, but I can't speak a common speech to save his life.' "'Andrew Randall, here's yours,' finished tanking me in a day or two. "'Temperance Miller, oh, here's another, Soberness, both women, I suppose. "'Yes, ma'am, here we be, I believe,' was echoed in shrill unison. "'Then what have you been doing?' "'Tend and thresh a machine, and wimble in a-bonds, and say an hoosh to the cocks and ends when they go upon your seeds, and plantin' early flower-balls and Thompson's wonderfuls with a dibble. "'Yes, I see.' "'Are they satisfactory women?' she inquired softly of Henry Fray. "'Aww, ma'am, don't ask me.' Yelling women, as scarlet as pear as ever was, groaned Henry under his breath. "'Sit down!' "'Who, ma'am? "'Sit down!' Joseph Porgras in the background twitched, and his lips became dry with fear of some terrible consequences, as he saw Bathsheba summerly speaking, and Henry slinking off to a corner. "'Now, the next. Lave and 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 the woman in the back-quarter, who had just entered with clicking patterns. "'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 for thirty-five, and was forty. She was a woman, who never, like some newly married, showed conjugal tenderless in public, perhaps because she had none to show. "'Oh, you are,' said Bathsheba. "'Well, Lavin, will you stay on?' "'Yes, he'll stay, ma'am,' said again the shrill tongue of Lavin's lawful wife. "'Well, he can speak for himself, I suppose.' "'Oh, Lord, not he, ma'am, a simple tool. Well enough but a poor gockhammer-moral,' the wife replied. "'He he he,' laughed the married man with the hideous effort of appreciation, for he was as irrepressibly good-humoured under ghastly snubs as a parliamentary 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 William Smallbury returned? "'No, ma'am.' "'The new shepherd will want a man under him,' suggested Henry Frey, trying to make himself official again by his sideways approach towards a chair. "'Oh, he will. Who can he have?' "'Young came bald, a very good lad,' Henry said, and shepherd oak don't mind his ute,' he added, turning with an apologetic smile to the shepherd, who had just appeared on the scene, and was now leaning against the door-post with his arms folded. "'No, I don't mind that,' said Gabriel.' "'How did Cain come by such a name?' asked Bathsheba. "'Ah, you see, ma'am, his poor mother, not being a scripture-read woman, made a mistake at his christening, thinking to his able-killed Cain, and calling Cain, main-enable all the time. The person put it right, but it was too late, for the name could never be got rid of in the parish. It is very unfortunate for the boy.' "'It is rather unfortunate.' "'Yes, however, we soften it down as much as we can, and call him Cain-y. Ah, poor 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 them.' The fray here drew up his features to the mild degree of melancholy required, when the persons involved in the given misfortune do not belong to your own family. "'Very well, then, Cain-y-ball, to be under Shepherd. And you quite understand your duties, you, I mean, Gabriel Oak.' "'Quite well, I thank you, Miss Everdeen,' said Shepherd Oak, from the door-post, and if I don't, I'll inquire. Gabriel was rather staggered by the remarkable coolness of our family. Certainly nobody without previous information would have dreamt that Oak and the handsome woman before whom he stood had ever been other than strangers. But perhaps her error 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 an example in high places. When, in the writings of the later poets, Joe and his family were found to have moved from 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 Casterbridge.' "'And what's the news?' said Bathsheba, as William, after marching to the middle of the hall, took a handkerchief from his hat and wiped his forehead from its centre to the remote or boundaries. "'We should have been sooner, Miss,' he said, "'if I 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. "'Come alas,' said Henry. "'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 you all particulars. When I got to Casterbridge Barracks, they said, the 11th Tribune Guards had gone away, and new troops have come. The 11th left last week from Elchester and onwards. The rule came from the government like a thief in the night, as it is nature to do. And before the 11th knew it almost, they were on the march, and they passed near here. Gabriel had listened with interest. "'I saw them go,' he said. "'Yes,' continued William. "'They pranced down the street playing the girl I left behind me,' so to said, in glorious notes at triumph, every looker on the 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 public-house people and the nameless women. But they're not gone to any war?' "'No, ma'am, but they'd be gone to take the places of them who may, which is very close connected. And so I said to myself, Fanny's young man was under the regiment, and she's gone after them. There, ma'am, that's it in black and white.' Did you find out his name?' "'No, nobody knew it. I believe he was higher in rank than a private.' Gabriel remained musing, and said nothing, for he was in doubt. "'Well, we are not likely to know more to-night at any rate,' said Bathsheba. But one of you had better run across the farm of Bouldwoods and tell him that much. She then rose, but before retiring addressed a few words to them with a pretty dignity, to which her morning-dress added a soboness that was hardly to be found in the words themselves. "'Now, mind you have a mistress instead of a master. I don't know yet my powers on my talents in farming, but I shall do my best, and if you serve me well, so shall I serve you. Don't any unfair ones among you, if there are any such, but I hope not. Suppose that because I am a woman I don't understand the difference between bad goings-on and good. All. Known? Liddy. Excellent, well said. I shall be up before you are awake, and I shall be a field before you are up, and I shall have breakfasted before you are a field. In short, I shall astonish you all. All. Yesen. And so good-night. All. Good-night, ma'am. Then this small pesmetheed stepped from the table and surged out of the hall, her black silk-dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratchy 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. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11, not far from the madding crowd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tyge Hines. Far from the madding crowd by Thomas Hardy, Chapter 11. Outside the barracks, snow, a meeting. For dreariness nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of a certain town and military station, many miles north of Wetherbury, at a later hour 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 incongruity, 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 anticipation does not prompt to enterprise. The scene was a public 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 upland. The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind than a mid-woodland scenery. Still to a close observer they are just as perceptible. The difference is that their media of manifestation are less strite and familiar than such well-known ones as the bursting of the bud or the fall of the leaf. Many are not so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to imagine in considering the general torpedoity of a moor or waist. Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have been successfully observed the retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, a rising of fogs, the browning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow. This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the aforesaid moor, and for the first time in the season its irregularities were formed without features, suggestive of anything proclaiming nothing, and without more character than that of being the limit of something else, the lowest layer of affirmament of snow. From this chaotic sky full of crowding flakes, the mead and moor momentarily received additional clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast arch of cloud above was strangely low, and it 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 lining 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 characteristics, which were flatness in respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall behind it, and darkness as to both. These features made up the mass. If anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if anything could be gloomier than the wall, it was the river beneath. The indistinct summit of the façade 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, perplexing in their regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell 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 ten. Not long after a form moved by the 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, though it seemed human. The shape went slowly along, but without much exertion, for the snow, though sudden, was not 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 advanced about half a dozen yards. It was evident now that the windows high in the wall were being counted. The word five represented a fifth window from the end of the wall. Here the spot stopped and dwindled smaller. 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, who no man who had ever seen a bird, 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 wall must have become pimpled with the adhering lumps of snow. That last one fragment struck the fifth window. The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep, smooth sort which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, and irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small whirlpool. Nothing was heard and replied 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 this favour by the army, asignations and communications had probably been made across the river before to-night. Is this Sergeant Troy? said the blurred spot in 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 a conversation with the snow. Yes, came suspiciously from the shadow. What girl are you? Oh, Frank, don't you know me? said the spot. Your wife, Fanny Robben. Fanny, said the wall, in utter astonishment. Yes, said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion. There was something in the woman's tone which was not that of the wife, and there was a manner in the man which was rarely her 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 only if you found me here, I am orderly, to-morrow. You said I was to come. Well, I said 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, and the barricades are closed, and I have no leave. We are all of us as good as in the county Gale till to-morrow morning. 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 carriers. I am surprised. Yes, some 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 heart. 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 bands or license? Bands, 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 published in both. Is that the law? Yes. Oh, Frank, you deem me forward, I am afraid. Don't, dear Frank, will you, for I love you so. And you said lots of times you would marry me, and I—I—don't cry now, it is foolish. If I said so, of course I will. And shall I put up the bands in my parish, and will you in yours? Yes. Is it tomorrow? Not tomorrow. We'll settle in a few days. You have the permission of the officers? No. Not yet. Oh, how is that? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge. The fact is, I forgot to ask, you're 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. Will you come and see me tomorrow at Mrs. Twillises in North Street? We 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 little spot moves away, when she passed the corner a subdued exclamation was heard inside the wall. Ho-ho, sergeant! Ho-ho! An expostulation followed, but it was indistinct, and it became lost amid a low, peel of laughter, which was hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the tiny whirl-pools outside. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. Farmers, a rule, an exception. The first public evidence of Bathsheba's decision to be a farmer in her own person, and by proxy no more, was her appearance the following market day in the corn market at Castor Bridge. The low, though extensive, hall, supported by beams and pillars, and laterally dignified by the name of Corn Exchange, was thronged with hot men who talked among each other in twos and trees, the speaker of the minute looking sideways into his auditor's face and concentrating his argument by a contraction of one eyelid during delivery. 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 turned and restful things in general, which seemed to require such treatment in the course of their peregrinations. During conversations each subjected his sapling to great varieties of usage, and bending it round his neck, forming an arch of it between his two hands, over-weighting it on the ground till it reached nearly a semi-circle, nor perhaps it was hastily tucked under the arm whilst the sample-bag was pulled forth, and a handful of corn 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-bread fowls, which had, as usual, crept into the building unobserved, and weighted the fulfilment of their anticipations with a high-stretched neck and oblique eye. Among these heavy yeoman a feminine figure glided, 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 little determination, 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 turned 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 herself, business must be carried on, introductions are 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 bag, and by degrees adopted a professional pour into the hand, holding up the grains in her narrow palm for inspection, in perfect castor-bridge manner. Something in the exact arch of the upper and broken row of teeth, and in the keenly pointed corners of her red mouth when, with parted lips, she somewhat defiantly turned up her face to argue a point with a tall man, suggested that there was potentiality enough in that lithe slip of humanity for alarming exploits of sex, 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 expression that might have been piercing to simple clearness. Strange to save a woman in full bloom and vigor, 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 removed it from obstinacy, as there was a naivety in her cheapening which saved it from meanness. Those are the farms with whom she had no dealings, and by far the greater part, were continually asking each other, who is she? The reply would be, Farmer Everdeen's niece, took on whether we up our farm, turned away the baili, and swear she'll do everything herself. The other man would then shake his head. Yes, to the pity she so had strong, the first would say, but we ought to be proud of her here. She lightens up the old place, to such a shapely maid, however, that she'll soon get picked up. It would be unglant 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. However 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 unquestionably a triumph to her as the maiden. Indeed the sensation was so pronounced that her instinct on two or three occasions was merely to walk as a queen among these gods of the fallow, like a little sister of a little jove, and to neglect closing prices altogether. The numerous evidences of our power to attract were only thrown into greater relief by a marked exception. Women seemed to have eyes in their ribbons for such matters as these. Bathsheba, without looking within a right angle of them, 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 almost natural. If nobody had regarded her, she would have taken the matter indifferently, since such cases had occurred. If everybody, this man included, she would have taken it as a matter of course, as people had done so before, but the smallness of the exception made the mystery. She soon knew thus much of the recusant's appearance. He was a gentlemanly man, with full and distinctly outlined Roman features, the prominences of which glowed in the sun with a bronze-like richness of tone. He was erect in attitude, and quiet in demeanour. One characteristic preeminently marked him—dignity. He at some time ago reached that entrance to middle-age, at which a man's aspect 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 limits of variation. He might have been either, or anywhere between the two. It may be said that marrymen of forty are usually ready and generous enough to fling passing glances at any specimen of moderate beauty they may discern by the way. Only as with persons playing wist for love, the consciousness of a certain immunity under any circumstances from that worst possible ultimate they are having to pay makes them unduly speculative. Bathsheba was convinced that this unmoved person was not a married man. When marketing was over she rushed off to Liddy, who was waiting for her beside the yellow gig in which they had driven to town. The horse was put in, and on they trodded. There was sugar, tea, and drapery parcels being packed behind, and expressing in some indescribable manner by their colour, shape, and general lineaments that there were the young lady-farmers' property and the grocers and drapers no more. I've been through it, Liddy, and it's over. I shan't mind it again, for they will all have grown accustomed to seeing me there. But this morning it was as bad as being married. I is everywhere. I know there would be, said Liddy, 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 information was put in this form that Liddy might not for a moment suppose her mistress to be at all peaked. A very good-looking man, she continued, upright, about forty, I should think. Do you know at all who he could be? Liddy could not think. Can't you guess at all, said Bathsheba, with some disappointment? I have an notion, besides his no difference, since he took less notes of you than any of the rest. Now, if he had taken more, it would have mattered a great deal. Bathsheba was suffering from the reverse feeling just then, and they bowled along in silence. A low carriage bowling along, still more rapidly behind the horse of unimpeachable breed overtook and passed him. Why, there he is, she said. Liddy looked. That—that's Farmer Bouldwood, of course it is—the man you couldn't see the other day when he called. Oh! Farmer Bouldwood murmured Bathsheba, and looked at him as he outstripped them. The farmer had never turned his head once, but with eyes fixed on the most advanced point along the road, passed as unconsciously and abstractedly as if Bathsheba and her charms were thin air. He's an interesting man, don't you think so? She remarked. Oh! Yes! Very! Everybody owns it! replied Liddy. I wonder why he's so wrapped up and indifferent 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, it is the men who jilt us. I expect it is simply his nature to be so reserved. Eh! Simply his nature. I expect so, Miss. Nothing else in the world. Still, it is more romantic to think he has been served cruelly, poor thing, than perhaps after all he has. Oh! 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 wasn't a little of both, just between the two. Rather cruelly used, and rather reserved. Oh! There no, Miss. I can't think it between the two. That is most likely. Well! Yes, so it is. I am convinced it is most likely. You may take my word, Miss, that that's what some are with him. End of CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. OF FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER XIII. SORTES SANTORUM. THE VALENTINE. It was Sunday afternoon in the farmhouse 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 moldy 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 furniture 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 the task thought, and yet enough to exercise it. On the table lay an old quarto-bible bounden leather. Liddy, looking at it, said, Did you ever find out, Miss, who you were going to marry by means of the Bible and key? Don't be so foolish, Liddy, as if such things could be. Well, there's a good deal in it all the same. Nonsense, child. And it makes your heart beat fearful. Some believe in it, some don't. I do. Very well, let's try it, said Bathsheba, bounding from her seat with a total disregard of consistency, which can be indulgent towards the dependent, and entering into the spirit 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 she's wrong. Just right weekdays is right Sundays, replied her mistress, in a tone which is a proof in itself. The book was opened, the leaves drab with age, being quite worn away at much-red verses by the forefingers of unpracticed 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 Ruth was sought out by Bathsheba, and the sublime words met her eye. They slightly thrilled and abashed her. It was wisdom in the abstract facing folly and the concrete. Folly and the concrete blushed, persisted in her intention, and placed the key on the book. A rusty 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 Bathsheba. The verse was repeated, the book turned round, Bathsheba blushed guiltily. "'Who did you try?' said Liddy, curiously. "'I shall not tell you.' "'Did you notice, Mr. Baldwood's doing in church this morning, Miss?' Liddy continued, adambrating by the remark the track her thoughts had taken. "'No, indeed,' said Bathsheba, with serene indifference. "'His pure 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 lips decisively. This move was unexpected and proportionately disconcerting. "'What did he do?' Bathsheba said perforce. "'Didn't turn his head to look at you once all the service.' "'Why should he?' again demanded a mistress, wearing a nettleed look. I didn't ask him to. "'Oh, no, but everybody else was noticing you, and it was odd he didn't. There, it is like him, rich and gentle many. What does he care?' Bathsheba dropped into a silence, and tended to express that she had opinions on the matter too abstruse for Liddy's comprehension, rather than that she had nothing to say. "'Dear me, I had really forgotten the Valentine I bought yesterday,' she exclaimed at length. "'Valentine?' "'For who, Miss?' said Liddy. "'Famber, Baldwood.' It was a single name among all possible wrong ones, that just at this moment seemed to Bathsheba more pertinent than the right. "'Well, no. It's only for little Teddy Coggin. I have promised him something, and this will be a petty surprise for him. Liddy, you may as well bring me my desk, and I'll direct it at once.' Bathsheba 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 stationers and castor-bridge. In the centre it was a small oval enclosure—this was left blank—that the centre might insert tender words more appropriate to this special occasion than any generalities by a printer could possibly be. "'Here's 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 violets blue, Carnation sweet, and so are you.' "'Yes, that shall be it. It just suits itself to a chubby-faced child like him,' said Bathsheba. She inserted the words in a small, though legible handwriting, and closed the sheet in an envelope, and dipped her pen for the direction. "'What fun it would be to send it to the stupid old bold-wood, 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. Baldwoods had begun to be a troublesome image—a species of Daniel in her kingdom, who persisted in ailing eastward when reason and common sense said that he might just as well follow suit with the rest, and afford her the official glance of admiration, which cost nothing at all. She was far from being seriously concerned about his nonconformity. 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 peak one. "'No, I won't do that. He wouldn't see any humour in it.' "'He'd worry to that,' said the persistent Liddy. "'Really, 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, baldwood, tail, Teddy. "'No, we won't toss money on a Sunday. That would be tempting the devil indeed.' "'Toss this in-book. There can be no sinfulness in that, Miss.' "'Very well. Open, baldwood, shut, Teddy. No, it's more likely to fall open. One Teddy, shut, baldwood.' The book went fluttering in the air, and came down, shut. Bathsheba, a small yawn upon her mouth, took the pen, and with off-hand serenity directed the missive to baldwood. "'Now, light a candle, Liddy. Which seal shall we use? Here's a unicorn's head, and there's nothing in that. What's this? Two doves? No. It ought to be something extraordinary, or did not, Liddy? Here's one with a motto. I remember it is some funny 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 Julie affixed. The Bathsheba looked closely at the hot wax to discover the words. "'Capital,' she exclaimed, throwing down the letter frolic-sumly, to upset the solemnity of a parson and clerk, too. Liddy looked at the words of the seal, and read, "'Marry me.' The same evening the letter was sent, and was Julie sorted in Casteridge post-office that night, to be returned to Wethery again in the morning. So very idly and unreflectingly was this deed done. Of love as a spectacle Bathsheba had a fair knowledge, but of love subjectively she knew nothing. End of CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV of Far from the Madding crowd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. CHAPTER XIV EFFECT OF THE LETTER SUNRISE At dusk on the evening of St. Valentine's Day, Bouldwood sat down to supper as usual, by a beaming fire of aged logs. Upon the mantle-shelf before him was a time-piece, surmounted by a spread eagle, and upon the eagle's wings was the letter Bathsheba had sent. Here the 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 ate and drank, he still read and fancied the words thereon, although they were too remote for his sight. MARRY ME The pertin junction was like those crystal substances which colourless themselves assumed a tone of objects about them. Here in the quiet of Bouldwood's parlour, where everything that was not grave was extraneous, and where the atmosphere was out of a puritan Sunday lasting all the week, the letter and its dictum changed their tenor from the thoughtlessness of their origin to a deep solemnity imbibed from their accessories now. Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, Bouldwood had felt the symmetry of his existence to be slowly getting distorted in the direction of an ideal passion. The disturbance was as the first floating weed to Columbus. The contemptibility little suggesting possibilities of the infinitely great. The letter must have had an origin and a motive, that the latter was of the smallest magnitude compatible with his existence at all, and Bouldwood, 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 realise of the mystifier that the processes of approving a course suggested by circumstance, and of striking out a course from inner impulse, 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 Bouldwood went to bed he placed a 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 Bouldwood's life that such an event had occurred. The same fascination that had caused him to think of an act which had a deliberate motive prevented him from regarding it as an impertinence. He looked again at the direction. The mysterious influences of night invested the writing with the presence of the unknown writer. Somebody's, some woman's hand, had travelled softly over the paper bearing his name. Her unrevealed eyes had watched every curve as she formed it. Her brain had seen him in imagination the while. Why should she have imagined him? Her mouth, where her lips pale or red, 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 writing, as a supplement 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 oblivious of all love and letter writing under the sky. Whenever Baldwin doles, she took a form, and comparatively ceased to be a vision. When he awoke, there was a letter justifying the dream. The moon shone to-night, and its light was not of a customary kind. His window emitted only reflection of its rays, and the pale sheen had that reverse direction which snow gives, coming upward, and lighting up his ceiling in an unnatural 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 withdrawn. He jumped out of bed, in the weird light, took the letter, pulled out the flimsy sheet, shook the envelope, and searched it. Nothing more was there. Baldwin looked, as he had a hundred times the preceding day, at the insistent red seal. Marry me, he said aloud. The solemn and reserved yeoman again closed the letter, and stuck it in the frame of the glass. In doing so he caught sight of his reflected features, one in expression and in substantial inform. He saw how closely compressed was his mouth, and that his eyes were wide-spread and vacant. Feeling uneasy and dissatisfied with himself 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 Baldwin arose and dressed himself. He descended the stairs and went out towards the gate of a field to the east, leaning over which he paused and looked around. It is one of the usual slow sunrises of this time of year, and the sky, pure violet in the zenith, was ledden to the northward and murky to the east, where over the snowy down or eulise on Wetherbury upper farm, and apparently resting upon the ridge, the only half of the sun yet visible burnt rayless, like a red and flameless fire shining over a white heart stone. The whole effect resembled a sunset as childhood resembled 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 occurred, and in general there was here too that before mentioned preternatural inversion of light and shade which attends the prospect when the garish brightness commonly in the sky is found on the earth, and the shades of the earth are in the sky. Over the west hung the wasting moon, now dull and greenish-yellow like tarnished brass. Bouldwood was listlessly noting how the frost had hardened and glazed the surface of the snow till it shone in the red eastern light with the polish of marble, how in some portions of the slope withered grass-bents encased in icicles bristled through the smooth one coverlet in the twisted and curved shapes of old Venetian glass, and how the footprints of a few birds 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 light wheels interrupted him. Bouldwood turned back to 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. Bouldwood seized it and opened it, expecting another anonymous one. So greatly are people's ideas of probability a mere sense that precedent will repeat itself. It only gives for use, sir, to the man when he saw Bouldwood's action, though there's no name on how he thinks it's for your shepherd. Bouldwood looked then at the address. To the new shepherd, Wetherbury Farm, near Castor Bridge. Oh, what a mistake! It is not mine. Nor is it for my shepherd. It is for Miss Everdeen's. You had better take it on to him, gave me a loak, and say I opened it in mistake. At this moment, on the ridge, up against a blazing sky, a figure was visible, like a 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 figure and 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 Bouldwood. That's the man on the hill. I'll take a letter to him myself. To Bouldwood it is 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 towards the right. The glow stretched down in this direction and touched the distant roof of Warren's malt-house, where the shepherd was apparently bent. Bouldwood followed at a distance.