the waggon like a kettledrum-stick. He then dis-
tinguished voices in conversation, coming from the
forpart of the waggon. His concern at this dilemma
(which would have been alarm, had he been a thriving
man; but - misfortune is a fine opiate to personal terror)
led him to peer cautiously from the hay, and the first
sight he beheld was the stars above him. Charles's
Wain was getting towards a right angle with the Pole
star, and Gabriel concluded that it must be about nine
o'clock - in other words, that he had slept two hours.
This small astronomical calculation was made without
any positive effort, and whilst he was stealthily turning
to discover, if possible, into whose hands he had fallen.
Two figures were dimly visible in front, sitting with
their legs outside the waggon, one of whom was driving.
Gabriel soon found that this was the waggoner, and it
appeared they had come from Casterbridge fair, like
himself.
A conversation was in progress, which continued
thus: -
"Be as 'twill, she's a fine handsome body as far's
looks be concerned. But that's only the skin of the
woman, and these dandy cattle be as-proud as a lucifer
in their insides."
"Ay - so 'a do seem, Billy Smallbury - so 'a do seem."
This utterance was very shaky by nature, and more so
by circumstance, the jolting of the waggon not being-
without its effect upon the speaker's larynx. It came
"from the man who held the reins.
"She's a very vain feymell - so 'tis said here and
there."
"Ah, now. If so be 'tis like that, I can't look her in
the face. Lord, no: not I - heh-heh-heh! Such a shy
man as I be!"
"Yes - she's very vain. 'Tis said that every night at
going to bed she looks in the glass to put on her night-
cap properly."
"And not a married woman. Oh, the world!"
"And 'a can play the peanner, so 'tis said. Can
play so clever that 'a can make a psalm tune sound as
well as the merriest loose song a man can wish for."
"D'ye tell o't! A happy time for us, and I feel quite
a new man! And how do she play?"
"That I don't know, Master Poorgrass."
On hearing these and other similar remarks, a wild
thought flashed into Gabriel's mind that they might
be speaking of Bathsheba. There were, however, no
ground for retaining such a supposition, for the waggon,
though going in the direction of Weatherbury, might be
going beyond it, and the woman alluded to seemed to be
the mistress of some estate. They were now apparently
close upon Weatherbury and not to alarm the speakers
unnecessarily, Gabriel slipped out of the waggon unseen.
He turned to an opening in the hedge, which he
found to be a gate, and mounting thereon, he sat
meditating whether to seek a cheap lodging in the
village, or to ensure a cheaper one by lying under
some hay or corn-stack. The crunching jangle of the
waggon died upon his ear. He was about to walk on,
when he noticed on his left hand an unusual light -
appearing about half a mile distant. Oak watched it,
and the glow increased. Something was on fire.
Gabriel again mounted the gate, and, leaping down
on the other side upon what he found to be ploughed
soil, made across the field in the exact direction of the
fire. The blaze, enlarging in a double ratio by his
approach and its own increase, showed him as he drew
nearer the outlines of ricks beside it, lighted up to great
distinctness. A rick-yard was the source of the fire.
His weary face now began to be painted over with a
rich orange glow, and the whole front of his smock-
frock and gaiters was covered with a dancing shadow
pattern of thorn-twigs - the light reaching him through
a leafless intervening hedge - and the metallic curve of
his sheep-crook shone silver-bright in the same abound-
ing rays. He came up to the boundary fence, and
stood to regain breath. It seemed as if the spot was
unoccupied by a living soul.
The fire was issuing from a long straw-stack, which
was so far gone as to preclude a possibility of saving it.
A rick burns differently from a house. As the wind
blows the fire inwards, the portion in flames completely
disappears like melting sugar, and the outline is lost
to the eye. However, a hay or a wheat-rick, well put
together, will resist combustion for a length of time, if
it begins on the outside.
This before Gabriel's eyes was a- rick of straw, loosely
put together, and the flames darted into it with lightning
swiftness. It glowed on the windward side, rising and
falling in intensity, like the coal of a cigar. Then a
superincumbent bundle rolled down, with a whisking
noise; flames elongated, and bent themselves about
with a quiet roar, but no crackle. Banks of smoke
went off horizontally at the back like passing clouds,
and behind these burned hidden pyres, illuminating
the semi-transparent sheet of smoke to a lustrous yellow
uniformity. Individual straws in the foreground were
consumed in a creeping movement of ruddy heat, as
if they were knots of red worms, and above shone
imaginary fiery faces, tongues hanging from lips, glaring
eyes, and other impish forms, from which at intervals
sparks flew in clusters like birds from a nest,
Oak suddenly ceased from being a mere spectator
by discovering the case to be more serious than he had
at first imagined. A scroll of smoke blew aside and
revealed to him a wheat-rick in startling juxtaposition
with the decaying one, and behind this a series of
others, composing the main corn produce of the farm;
so that instead of the straw-stack standing, as he had
imagined comparatively isolated, there was a regular
connection between it and the remaining stacks of the
group.
Gabriel leapt over the hedge, and saw that he was
not alone. The first man he came to was running
about in a great hurry, as if his thoughts were several
yards in advance of his body, which they could never
drag on fast enough.
"O, man - fire, fire! A good master and a. bad
servant is fire, fire! - I mane a bad servant and a good
master O, Mark Clark - come! And you, Billy
Smallbury - and you, Maryann Money - and you, Jan
Coggan, and Matthew there!" Other figures now
appeared behind this shouting man and among the
smoke, and Gabriel found that, far from being alone
he was in a great company - whose shadows danced
merrily up and down, timed by the jigging of the
flames, and not at all by their owners' movements.
The assemblage - belonging to that class of society
which casts its thoughts into the form of feeling, and
its feelings into the form of commotion - set to work
with a remarkable confusion of purpose.
"Stop the draught under the wheat-rick!" cried
Gabriel to those nearest to him. The corn stood on
stone staddles, and between these, tongues of yellow
hue from the burning straw licked and darted playfully.
If the fire once got under this stack, all would be
lost.
"Get a tarpaulin - quick!" said Gabriel.
A rick-cloth was brought, and they hung it like a
curtain across the channel. The flames immediately
ceased to go under the bottom of the corn-stack, and
stood up vertical.
"Stand here with a bucket of water and keep the
cloth wet." said Gabriel again.
The flames, now driven upwards, began to attack
the angles of the huge roof covering the wheat-stack.
"A ladder." cried Gabriel.
"The ladder was against the straw-rick and is burnt
to a cinder." said a spectre-like form in the smoke.
Oak seized the cut ends of the sheaves, as if he
were going to engage in the operation of "reed-drawing,"
and digging in his feet, and occasionally sticking in the
stem of his sheep-crook, he clambered up the beetling
face. He at once sat astride the very apex, and began
with his crook to beat off the fiery fragments which had
lodged thereon, shouting to the others to get him a
bough and a ladder, and some water.
Billy Smallbury - one of the men who had been on
the waggon - by this time had found a ladder, which
Mark Clark ascended, holding on beside Oak upon the
thatch. The smoke at this corner was stifling, and
Clark, a nimble fellow, having been handed a bucket
of water, bathed Oak's face and sprinkled him generally,
whilst Gabriel, now with a long beech-bough in one
hand, in addition to his crook in the other, kept
sweeping the stack and dislodging all fiery particles.
On the ground the groups of villagers were 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 by-
stander. "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 Mary-
ann. "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, advansed 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 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 ren-
counter 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 emerg-
ency 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 impres-
sions, 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-Somerer 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 undula-
tions 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 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 every one ocularly criticised
him to the degree expressed by contracting the flesh of
their foreheads and looking at him with narrowed eye-
lids, as if he had been a light too strong for their sight.
Several exclaimed meditatively, after this operation had
been completed: -
"Oh, 'tis the new shepherd, 'a b'lieve."
"We thought we heard a hand pawing about the
door for the bobbin, but weren't sure 'twere not a dead
leaf blowed across." said another. "Come in, shepherd;
sure ye be welcome, though we don't know yer name."
"Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbours."
The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned up
this - his turning being as the turning of a rusty
crane.
"That's never Gable Oak's grandson over at Nor-
combe - never!" he said, as a formula expressive of
surprise, which nobody was supposed to take literally'.
"My father and my grandfather were old men of the
name of Gabriel." said the shepherd, placidly.
"Thought I knowed the man's face as I seed him
on the rick! - thought I did! And where be ye trading
o't to now, shepherd?"
"I'm thinking of biding here." said Mr. Oak.
"Knowed yer grandfather for years and years!"
continued the maltster, the words coming forth of their
own accord as if the momentum previously imparted
had been sufficient.
"Ah - and did you!"
"Knowed yer grandmother."
"And her too!"
"Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child.
Why, my boy Jacob there and your father were sworn
brothers - that they were sure - weren't ye, Jacob?"
"Ay, sure." said his son, a young man about sixty-
five, with a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left
centre of his upper jaw, which made much of itself by
standing prominent, like a milestone in a bank. "But
"twas Joe had most to do with him. However, my son
William must have knowed the very man afore us -
didn't ye, Billy, afore ye left Norcombe?"
"No, 'twas Andrew." said Jacob's son Billy, a child
of forty, or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity
of possessing a cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and
whose whiskers were assuming a chinchilla shade here
and there.
"I can mind Andrew." said Oak, "as being a man in
the place when I was quite a child."
"Ay - the other day I and my youngest daughter,
Liddy, were over at my grandson's christening." continued
Billy. "We were talking about this very family, and
"twas only last Purification Day in this very world, when
the use-money is gied away to the second-best poor
folk, you know, shepherd, and I can mind the day
because they all had to traypse up to the vestry - yes,
this very man's family."
"Come, shepherd, and drink. 'Tis gape and
swaller with us - a drap of sommit, but not of much
account." said the maltster, removing from the fire his
eyes, which were vermilion-red and bleared by gazing
into it for so many years. "Take up the God-forgive-
me, Jacob. See if 'tis warm, Jacob."
Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a
two-handled tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked
and charred with heat: it was rather furred with ex-
traneous 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 encrustation thereon - formed of ashes accident-
ally 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 a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and its vicinity
for uncertain reasons; probably because its size makes
any given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees
its bottom in drinking it empty.
Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor was
warm enough, placidly dipped his forefinger into it by
way of 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 Shepherd Oak
was a stranger.
"A clane cup for the shepherd." said the maltster
commandingly.
"No - not at all," said Gabriel, in a reproving tone
of considerateness. "I never fuss about dirt in its pure
state, and when I know what sort it is." Taking the
mug he drank an inch or more from the depth of its
contents, and duly passed it to the next man.
wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neighbours in
washing up when there's so much work to be done in
the world already." continued Oak in a moister tone,
after recovering from the stoppage of breath which is
occasioned by pulls at large mugs.
"A right sensible man." said Jacob.
"True, true; it can't be gainsaid!" 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
mis'ess have sent, shepherd. The cider will go down
better with a bit of victuals. Don't ye chaw quite close,
shepherd, for I let the bacon fall in the road outside as
I was bringing it along, and may be 'tis rather gritty.
There, 'tis clane dirt; and we all know what that is,
as you say, and you bain't a particular man we see,
shepherd."
"True, true - not at all." said the friendly Oak.
"Don't let your teeth quite meet, and you won't feel
the sandiness at all. Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be
done by contrivance!"
"My own mind exactly, neighbour."
"Ah, he's his grandfer's own grandson! - his grandfer
were just such a nice unparticular man!" said the maltster.
"Drink, Henry Fray - drink." magnanimously said
Jan Coggan, a person who held Saint-Simonian notions
of share and share alike where liquor was concerned, as
the vessel showed signs of approaching him in its gradual
revolution among them.
Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful
gaze into mid-air, 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
at the world alluded to, as it presented itself to his
imagination. He always signed his name "Henery" -
strenuously insisting upon that spelling, and if any
passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that the second
"e" was superfluous and old-fashioned, he received the
reply that "H-e-n-e-r-y" was the name he was christened
and the name he would stick to - in the tone of one
to whom orthographical differences were matters which
had a great deal to do with personal character.
Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery,
was a crimson man with a spacious countenance, and
private glimmer in his eye, whose name had appeared
on the marriage register of Weatherbury and neighbour-
ing 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. Ther's plenty more
in the barrel." said Jan.
"Ay - that I will, 'tis 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 Poorgrass, ye han'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.
"Why, ye've hardly had strength of eye enough to look
in our young mis'ess's face, so I hear, Joseph?"
All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.
"No - I've 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 seed her, 'twas nothing but blushes with
me!"
"Poor feller." said Mr. Clark.
"'Tis a curious nature for a man." said Jan Coggan.
"Yes." continued Joseph Poorgrass - his shyness,
which was so painful as a defect, filling him with a
mild complacency now that it was regarded as an
interesting study. "'Twere blush, blush, blush with
me every minute of the time, when she was speaking
to me."
"I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye
to be a very bashful man."
"'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul." said the
maltster. "And ye have suffered from it a long time,
we know."
"Ay ever since I was a boy. Yes - mother was
concerned to her heart about it - yes. But twas all
nought."
"Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it,
Joseph Poorgrass?"
"Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company. They took me
to Greenhill Fair, and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble
show, where there were women-folk riding round -
standing upon horses, with hardly anything on but their
smocks; but it didn't cure me a morsel. And then I
was put errand-man at the Women's Skittle Alley at the
back of the Tailor's Arms in Casterbridge. 'Twas a
horrible sinful situation, and a very curious place for a
good man. I had to stand and look ba'dy people in
the face from morning till night; but 'twas no use - I
was just as-bad as ever after all. Blushes hev been
in the family for generations. There, 'tis a happy pro-
vidence that I be no worse."
"True." said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts
to a profounder view of the subject. "'Tis a thought
to look at, that ye might have been worse; but even
as you be, 'tis a very bad affliction for 'ee, Joseph. For
ye see, shepherd, though 'tis very well for a woman,
dang it all, 'tis awkward for a man like him, poor
feller?"
"'Tis - 'tis." said Gabriel, recovering from a medita-
tion. "Yes, very awkward for the man."
"Ay, and he's very timid, too." observed Jan Coggan.
"Once he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom,
and had had a drap of drink, and lost his way as he was
coming home-along through Yalbury Wood, didn't ye,
Master Poorgrass?"
"No, no, no; not that story!" expostulated the
modest man, forcing a laugh to bury his concern.
" - - And so 'a lost 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 afeared, and not able
to find his way out of the trees nohow, 'a cried out,
"Man-a-lost! man-a-lost!" A owl in a tree happened
to be crying "Whoo-whoo-whoo!" as owls do, you
know, shepherd" (Gabriel nodded), " and Joseph, all
in a tremble, said, " Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury,
sir!"
"No, no, now - that's too much!" said the timid
man, becoming a man of brazen courage all of a sudden.
"I didn't say sir. I'll tike my oath I didn't say " Joseph
Poorgrass o' Weatherbury, sir." No, no; what's right
is right, and I never said sir to the bird, knowing very
well that no man of a gentleman's rank would be
hollering there at that time o' night." Joseph Poor-
grass of Weatherbury," - that's every word I said, and
I shouldn't ha' said that if 't hadn't been for Keeper
Day's metheglin.... There, 'twas a merciful thing it
ended where it did."
The question of which was right being tacitly waived
by the company, Jan went on meditatively: -
"And he's the fearfullest man, bain't ye, Joseph?
Ay, another time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate,
weren't ye, Joseph?"
"I was." replied Poorgrass, as if there were some
conditions too serious even for modesty to remember
itself under, this being one.
"Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The
gate would not open, try how he would, and knowing
there was the Devil's hand in it, he kneeled down."
"Ay." said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the
warmth of the fire, the cider, and a perception of the
narrative capabilities of the experience alluded to.
"My heart died within me, that time; but I kneeled
down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then the Belie
right through, and then the Ten Commandments, in
earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't open; and
then I went on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and,
thinks I, this makes four, and 'tis all I know out of
book, and if this don't do it nothing will, and I'm a
lost man. Well, when I got to Saying After Me, I
rose from my knees and found the gate would open
- yes, 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 ashpit, which glowed like a desert in
the tropics under a vertical sun, shaping their eyes long
and liny, partly because of the light, partly from the
depth of the subject discussed.
Gabriel broke the silence. "What sort of a place
is this to live at, and what sort of a mis'ess is she to
work under?" Gabriel's bosom thrilled gently as he
thus slipped under the notice of the assembly the inner-
most subject of his heart.
"We d' know little of her - nothing. She only
showed herself a few days ago. Her uncle was took
bad, and the doctor was called with his world-wide
skill; but he couldn't save the man. As I take it,
she's going to keep on the farm.
"That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve." said Jan
uncle was a very fair sort of man. Did ye know en,
be under 'em as under one here and there. Her
uncle was a very fair sort of man. Did ye know 'en,
shepherd - a bachelor-man?"
"Not at all."
"I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife,
Charlotte, who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-
hearted man were Farmer Everdene, and I being a
respectable young fellow was allowed to call and see
her and drink as much ale as I liked, but not to carry
away any - outside my skin I mane of course."
"Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer meaning."
"And so you see 'twas 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 thimbleful, which
would have been insulting the man's generosity - - "
"True, Master Coggan, 'twould so." corroborated
Mark Clark.
" - - And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore
going, and then by the time I got there I were as dry
as a lime-basket - so thorough dry that that ale would
slip down - ah, 'twould slip down sweet! Happy
times! heavenly times! Such lovely drunks as I
used to have at that house! You can mind, Jacob?
You used to go wi' me sometimes."
"I can - I can." said Jacob. "That one, too, that
we had at Buck's Head on a White Monday was a
pretty tipple."
"'Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that
brought you no nearer to the horned man than you were
afore you begun, there was none like those in Farmer
Everdene's kitchen. Not a single damn allowed; no,
not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful moment
when all were blindest, though the good old word of
sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great
relief to a merry soul."
"True." said the maltster. "Nater requires her
swearing at the regular times, or she's not herself; and
unholy exclamations is a necessity of life."
"But Charlotte." continued Coggan - "not a word of
the sort would Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of
taking in vain.... Ay, poor Charlotte, I wonder if she
had the good fortune to get into Heaven when 'a died!
But 'a was never much in luck's way, and perhaps 'a
went downwards after all, poor soul."
"And did any of you know Miss Everdene's-father
and mother?" inquired the shepherd, who found some
difficulty in keeping the conversation in the desired
channel.
"I knew them a little." said Jacob Smallbury; "but
they were townsfolk, and didn't live here. They've
been dead for years. Father, what sort of people were
mis'ess' father and mother?"
"Well." said the maltster, "he wasn't much to look
at; but she was a lovely woman. He was fond enough
of her as his sweetheart."
"Used to kiss her scores and long-hundreds o times,
so 'twas said." observed Coggan.
"He was very proud of her, too, when they were
married, as I've been told." said the maltster.
"Ay." said Coggan. "He admired her so much that
he used to light the candle three time a night to look
at her."
"Boundless love; I shouldn't have supposed it in the
universe!" murmered Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually
spoke on a large scale in his moral reflections.
"Well, to be sure." said Gabriel.
"Oh, 'tis true enough. I knowed the man and
woman both well. Levi Everdene - that was the man's
name, sure. "Man." saith I in my hurry, but he were
of a higher circle of life than that - 'a was a gentleman-
tailor really, worth scores of pounds. And he became
a very celebrated bankrupt two or three times."
"Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!" said
Joseph.
"O no, no! That man failed for heaps of money;
hundreds in gold and silver."
The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan,
after absently scrutinising a coal which had fallen among
the ashes, took up the narrative, with a private twirl of
his eye: -
"Well, now, you'd hardly believe it, but that man -
husbands alive, after a while. Understand? 'a didn't
want to be fickle, but he couldn't help it. The poor
feller were faithful and true enough to her in his wish,
but his heart would rove, do what he would. He spoke
to me in real tribulation about it once. "Coggan,"
he said, "I could never wish for a handsomer woman
than I've got, but feeling she's ticketed as my lawful
wife, I can't help my wicked heart wandering, do what
I will." But at last I believe he cured it by making her
take off her wedding-ring and calling her by her maiden
name as they sat together after the shop was shut, and
so 'a would get to fancy she was only his sweetheart, and
not married to him at all. And as soon as he could
thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing
the seventh, 'a got to like her as well as ever, and they
lived on a perfect picture of mutel love."
"Well, 'twas a most ungodly remedy." murmured
Joseph Poorgrass; "but we ought to feel deep cheerful-
ness that a happy Providence kept it from being any
worse. You see, he might have gone the bad road and
given his eyes to unlawfulness entirely - yes, gross un-
lawfulness, so to say it."
"You see." said Billy Smallbury, "The man's will was
to do right, sure enough, but his heart didn't chime in."
"He got so much better, that he was quite godly
in his later years, wasn't he, Jan?" said Joseph Poor-
grass. "He got himself confirmed over again in a more
serious way, and took to saying "Amen" almost as loud
as the clerk, and he liked to copy comforting verses
from the tombstones. He used, too, to hold the money-
plate at Let Your Light so Shine, and stand godfather
to poor little come-by-chance children; and he kept a
missionary box upon his table to nab folks unawares
when they called; yes, and he would-box the charity-
boys' ears, if they laughed in church, till they could
hardly stand upright, and do other deeds of piety
natural to the saintly inclined."
"Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high
things." added Billy Smallbury. "One day Parson Thirdly
met him and said, "Good-Morning, Mister Everdene; 'tis
a fine day!" "Amen" said Everdene, quite absent-
like, thinking only of religion when he seed a parson-
"Their daughter was not at all a pretty chile at that
time." said Henery Fray. "Never should have. thought