she'd have growed up such a handsome body as she is."
"'Tis to be hoped her temper is as good as her face."
"Well, yes; but the baily will have most to do with
the business and ourselves. Ah!" Henery gazed into
the ashpit, and smiled volumes of ironical knowledge.
"A queer Christian, like the Devil's head in a cowl,
"He is." said Henery, 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 Sundays as
working-days - that I do so."
"Good faith, you do talk!" said Gabriel.
"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. 'Ah, there's
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's so old that 'a can't mind his age, can ye,
father?" interposed Jacob. "And he growled 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 three-double."
"Crooked folk will last a long while." said the maltster,
grimly, and not in the best humour.
"Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer
life, father - wouldn't ye, shepherd?
"Ay that I should." said Gabriel with the heartiness
of a man who had longed to hear it for several months.
"What may your age be, malter?"
The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated
form for emphasis, and elongating his gaze to the
remotest point of the ashpit! said, in the slow speech
justifiable when the importance of a subject is so
generally felt that any mannerism must be tolerated
in getting at it, "Well, I don't mind the year I were
born in, but perhaps I can reckon up the places I've
lived at, and so get it that way. I bode at Upper Long-
puddle across there" (nodding to the north) "till I were
eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the
east) "where I took to malting. I went therefrom to
Norcombe, and malted there two-and-twenty years, and-
two-and-twenty years I was there turnip-hoeing and
harvesting. Ah, I knowed that old place, Norcombe,
years afore you were thought of, Master Oak" (Oak smiled
sincere belief in the fact). "Then I malted at Dur-
nover four year, and four year turnip-hoeing; and
I was fourteen times eleven months at Millpond St.
Jude's" (nodding north-west-by-north). "Old Twills
wouldn't hire me for more than eleven months at a
time, to keep me from being chargeable to the parish
if so be I was disabled. Then I was three year at
Mellstock, and I've been here one-and-thirty year come
Candlemas. How much is that?"
"Hundred and seventeen." chuckled another old
gentleman, given to mental arithmetic and little con-
versation, who had hitherto sat unobserved in a corner.
"Well, then, that's my age." said the maltster, em-
phatically.
"O no, father!" said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing
were in the summer and your malting in the winter of
the same years, and ye don't ought to count-both halves
father."
"Chok' it all! I lived through the summers, didn't
I? That's my question. I suppose ye'll say next I be
no age at all to speak of?"
"Sure we shan't." said Gabriel, soothingly.
"Ye be a very old aged person, malter." attested Jan
must have a wonderful talented constitution to be able
to live so long, mustn't he, neighbours?"
"True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," said the
meeting unanimously.
The maltster, being know 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
I seed you blowing into a great flute by now at Caster-
bridge?"
"You did." said Gabriel, blushing faintly. "I've been
in great trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it.
take it careless-like, shepherd and your time will come
tired?"
"Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since
Christmas." said Jan Coggan. "Come, raise a tune,
Master Oak!"
"That I will." said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and
putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbours; but
such as I can do ye shall have and welcome."
Oak then struck up "Jockey to the Fair." and played
that sparkling melody three times through accenting the
notes in the third round in a most artistic and lively
manner by bending his body in small jerks and tapping
with his foot to beat time.
"He can blow the flute very well - that 'a can." said
a young married man, who having no individuality worth
mentioning was known as "Susan Tall's husband." He
continued, "I'd as lief as not be able to blow into a
flute as well-as that."
"He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to
have such a shepherd." murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in
a soft cadence. "We ought to feel full o' thanksgiving
that he's not a player of ba'dy songs 'instead of these
merry tunes; for 'twould have been just as easy for God
to have made the shepherd a loose low man - a man of
iniquity, so to speak it - as what he is. Yes, for our wives"
and daughters' sakes we should feel real thanks giving."
"True, true, - real thanksgiving!" dashed in Mark
Clark conclusively, not feeling it to be of any conse-
quence to his opinion that he had only heard about a
word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said.
"Yes." added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in
the Bible; "for evil do thrive so in these times that ye
may be as much deceived in the cleanest shaved and
whitest shirted man as in the raggedest tramp upon the
turnpike, if I may term it so."
"Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd." said
Henery Fray, criticising Gabriel with misty eyes as he
entered upon his second tune. "Yes - now I see 'ee
blowing into the flute I know 'ee to be the same man
I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were scrimped
up and yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man's -
just as they be now."
"'Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man
look such a scarecrow." observed Mr. Mark Clark, with
additional criticism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter
person jerking out, with the ghastly grimace required by
the instrument, the chorus of "Dame Durden!
"I hope you don't mind that young man's bad
manners in naming your features?" whispered Joseph to
Gabriel.
"Not at all." said Mr. Oak.
"For by nature ye be a very handsome man,
shepherd." continued Joseph Poorgrass, with winning
sauvity.
"Ay, that ye be, shepard." said the company.
"Thank you very much." said Oak, in the modest
tone good manners demanded, thinking, however, that
he would never let Bathsheba see him playing the
flute; in this severe showing a discretion equal to that
related to its sagacious inventress, the divine Minerva
herself.
"Ah, when I and my wife were married at Norcombe
Church." said the old maltster, not pleased at finding
himself left out of the subject "we were called the
handsomest couple in the neighbourhood - everybody
said so."
"Danged if ye bain't altered now, malter." said a voice
with the vigour natural to the enunciation of a remark-
ably 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 con-
tributed to general laughs.
"O no, no." said Gabriel.
"Don't ye 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 in wires. If I thought after
I'd left that music was still playing, and I not there, I
should be quite melancholy-like."
"What's yer hurry then, Laban?" inquired Coggan.
"You used to bide as late as the latest."
"Well, ye see, neighbours, I was lately married to a
woman, and she's my vocation now, and so ye see - - "
The young man hated lamely.
"New Lords new laws, as the saying is, I suppose,"
remarked Coggan.
"Ay, 'a b'lieve - ha, ha!" said Susan Tall's husband,
in a tone intended to imply his habitual reception of
jokes without minding them at all. The young man
then wished them good-night and withdrew.
Henery Fray was the first to follow. Then Gabriel
arose and went off with Jan Coggan, who had offered
him a lodging. A few minutes later, when the remaining
ones were on their legs and about to depart, Fray came
back again in a hurry. Flourishing his finger ominously
he threw a gaze teeming with tidings just - where his eye
alighted by accident, which happened to be in Joseph
Poorgrass's face.
"O - what's the matter, what's the matter, Henery?"
said Joseph, starting back.
"What's a-brewing, Henrey?" asked Jacob and Mark
Clark.
"Baily Pennyways - Baily Pennyways - I said so; yes,
I said so!"
"What, found out stealing anything?"
"Stealing it is. The news is, that after Miss
Everdene got home she went out again to see all was
safe, as she usually do, and coming in found Baily
Pennyways creeping down the granary steps with half a
a bushel of 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, Henery."
"She fleed at him, and, to cut a long story short,
he owned to having carried off five sack altogether, upon
her promising not to persecute him. Well, he's turned
out neck and crop, and my question is, who's going to
be baily now?"
The question was such a profound one that Henery
was obliged to drink there and then from the large
cup till the bottom was distinctly visible inside. Before
he had replaced it on the table, in came the young man,
Susan Tall's husband, in a still greater hurry.
"Have ye heard the news that's all over parish?"
"About Baily Pennyways?"
"But besides that?"
"No - not a morsel of it!" they replied, looking into
the very midst of Laban Tall as if to meet his words
half-way down his throat.
"What a night of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poor-
grass, 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 everdene's youngest servant -
can't be found. They've been wanting to lock up the
door these two hours, but she isn't come in. And they
don't know what to do about going to hed 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 Maryann d'think the beginning of a crowner's
inquest has happened to the poor girl."
"O - 'tis burned - 'tis burned!" came from Joseph
Poorgrass's dry lips.
"No - 'tis drowned!" said Tall.
"Or 'tis her father's razor!" suggested Billy Smallbury,
with a vivid sense of detail.
"Well - Miss Everdene wants to speak to one or two
of us before we go to bed. What with this trouble about
the baily, and now about the girl, mis'ess is almost wild."
They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse,
excepting the old maltster, whom neither news, fire,
rain, nor thunder could draw from his hole. There, as
the others' footsteps died away he sat down again and
continued gazing as usual into the furnace with his red,
bleared eyes.
From the bedroom window above their heads Bath-
sheba's head and shoulders, robed in mystic white, were
dimly seen extended into the air.
"Are any of my men among you?" she said anxiously.
"Yes, ma'am, several." said Susan Tall's husband.
"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 is
no reason for alarm as yet. She must have left whilst
we were all at the fire."
"I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man court-
ing her in the parish, ma'am?" asked Jacob Smallbury.
"I don't know." said Bathsheba.
"I've never heard of any such thing, ma'am." said
two or three.
"It is hardly likely, either." continued 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 Maryann with only her
indoor working gown on - not even a bonnet."
"And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, that a
young woman would hardly go to see her 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 that of Maryann. "But she had no
young man about here. 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 William 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 through 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 worth while to dwell
upon any particular one. "Do as I told you, then"
she said in conclusion, closing the casement.
"Ay, ay, mistress; we will." they replied, and moved
away.
That night at Coggan's, 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 he saw Bath-
sheba 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 compen-
sate for the 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 differ-
ence 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's Sure Guide, The Veterinary
Surgeon, Paradise Lost, The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson
Crusoe, Ash's Dictionary, the Walkingame's Arithmetic,
constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was
one from which he had acquired more sound informa-
tion by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities
has done from a furlong of laden shelves.
CHAPTER IX
THE HOMESTEAD - A VISITOR - HALF-CONFIDENCES
By daylight, the Bower of Oak's new-found mistress,
Bathsheba Everdene, presented itself as a hoary build-
ing, 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 com-
prised several such modest demesnes.
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 houseleek or sengreen 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 the
width of only a foot or two in the centre. This circum-
stance, and the 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 adaptation of the building for farming purposes
the vital principle' of the house had turned round inside
its body to face the other way. Reversals of this kind,
strange deformities, tremendous paralyses, are often seen
to be inflicted by trade upon edifices - either individual
or in the aggregate as streets and towns - which were
originally planned for pleasure alone.
Lively voices were heard this morning in the upper
rooms, the main staircase to which was of hard oak, the
balusters, heavy as bed-posts, being turned and moulded
in the quaint fashion of their century, the handrail as
stout as a parapet-top, and the stairs themselves con-
tinually 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 valley; and being just then uncarpeted, the face
of the boards was seen to be eaten into innumerable
the opening and shutting of every door a tremble
followed every bustling movement, and a creak accom-
panied 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 Small-
bury were to be discovered sitting upon the floor, and
sorting a complication of papers, books, bottles, and
rubbish spread out thereon - remnants from the house-
hold stores of the late occupier. Liddy, the maltster's
great-granddaughter, was about Bathsheba's equal in
age, and her face was a prominent advertisement of the
features' might have lacked in form was amply made up
for by perfection of hue, which at this winter-time was
the softened ruddiness on a surface of high rotundity
and, like the presentations of those 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 occa-
sionally showed some earnestness, which consisted half
of genuine feeling, and half of mannerliness superadded
by way of duty.
Through a partly-opened door the noise of a scrubbing-
brush led up to the charwoman, Maryann 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."
Maryann 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 mossy path close to the door. The door was
tapped with the end of a crop or stick.
"What impertinence!" said Liddy, in a low voice.
"To ride up the footpath like that! Why didn't he
stop at the gate? Lord! 'Tis a gentleman! I see the
top of his hat."
"Be quiet!" said Bathsheba.
The further expression of Liddy's concern was con-
tinued by aspect instead of narrative.
"Why doesn't Mrs. Coggan go to the door?" Bath-
sheba continued.
Rat-tat-tat-tat, resounded more decisively from Bath-
sheba's oak.
"Maryann, you go!" said she, fluttering under the
onset of a crowd of romantic possibilities.
"O ma'am - see, here's a mess!"
The argument was unanswerable after a glance at
Maryann.
"Liddy - you must." said Bathsheba.
Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated with dust
from the rubbish they were sorting, and looked implor-
ingly at her mistress.
"There - Mrs. Coggan 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 Everdene at home?"
"I'll see, sir." said Mrs. Coggan, and in a minute
appeared in the room.
"Dear, what a thirtover place this world is!" con-
tinued Mrs. Coggan (a wholesome-looking lady who
had a voice for each class of remark according to the
emotion involved; who could toss a pancake or twirl
a mop with the accuracy of pure mathematics, and
who at this moment showed hands shaggy with frag-
ments of dough and arms encrusted with flour). "I
am never up to my elbows, Miss, in making a pudding
but one of two things do happen - either my nose must
needs begin tickling, and I can't live without scratching
A woman's dress being a part of her countenance,
and any disorder in the 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-homes were hardly naturalized in Weatherbury
farmhouses, so Liddy suggested - "Say you're a fright
with dust, and can't come down."
"Yes - that sounds very well." said Mrs. Coggan,
critically.
"Say I can't see him - that will do."
Mrs. Coggan went downstairs, and returned the
answer as requested, adding, however, on her own
responsibility, "Miss is dusting bottles, sir, and is quite
a object - that's why 'tis."
"Oh, very well." said the deep voice." indifferently.
"All I wanted to ask was, if anything had been heard
of Fanny Robin?"
"Nothing, sir - but we may know to-night. William
Smallbury is gone to Casterbridge, where her young
man lives, as is supposed, and the other men be inquir-
ing about everywhere."
The horse's tramp then recommenced and -retreated,
and the door closed.
"Who is Mr. Boldwood?" said Bathsheba.
"A gentleman-farmer at Little Weatherbury."
"Married?"
"No, miss."
"How old is he?"
"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," Bathsheba said,
complainingly. "Why should he inquire about Fanny?"
"Oh, because, as she had no friends in her childhood,
he took her and put her to school, and got her her
place here under your uncle. He's a very kind man
that way, but Lord - there!"
"What?"
"Never was such a hopeless man for a woman!
He's been courted by sixes and sevens - all the girls,
gentle and simple, for miles round, have tried him. Jane
Perkins worked at him for two months like a slave,
and the two Miss Taylors spent a year upon him,
and he cost Farmer Ives's daughter nights of tears
and twenty pounds' worth of new clothes; but Lord -
the money might as well have been thrown out of the
window."
A little boy came up at this moment and looked in
upon them. This child was one of the Coggans who,
with the Smallburys, were as common among the
families of this 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 afflictionless humanity - to which exhibition
of congratulation as well as pity.
"I've got a pen-nee!" said Master Coggan in a
scanning measure.
"Well - who gave it you, Teddy?" said Liddy.
"Mis-terr Bold-wood! He gave it to me for opening
the gate."
"What did he say?"
"He said "Where are you going, my little man?'"
and I said, "To Miss Everdene's please," and he said,
"She is a staid woman, isn't she, my little man?" and
I said, "Yes."
"You naughty child! What did you say that for?"
"Cause he gave me the penny!"
"What a pucker everything is in!" said Bathsheba,
discontentedly when the child had gone. 'Get away,
thing! You ought to be married by this time, and not
here troubling me!"
"Ay, mistress - so I did. But what between the poor
men I won't have, and the rich men who won't have me,
I stand as a pelicon in the wilderness!"
"Did anybody ever want to marry you miss?" Liddy
ventured to ask when they were again alone. "Lots of
"em, i daresay.?"
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 experi-
enced tone and the image of Gabriel Oak, as the farmer,
rose before her.
"How nice it must seem!" said Liddy, with the fixed
features of mental realization. "And you wouldn't have
him?"
"He wasn't quite good enough for me."
"How sweet to be able to disdain, when most of us
are glad to say, "Thank you!" I seem I hear it.
"No, sir - I'm your better." or "Kiss my foot, sir; my
face is for mouths of consequence." And did you love
him, miss?"
"Oh, no. But I rather liked him."
"Do you now?"
"Of course not - what footsteps are those I hear?"
Liddy looked from a back window into the courtyard
behind, which was now getting low-toned and dim with
the earliest films of night. A crooked file of men was
approaching the back door. The whole string of trailing
individuals advanced in the completest balance of inten-
tion, like the remarkable creatures known as Chain
Salpae, which, distinctly organized in other respects, have
one will common to a whole family. Some were, as
usual, in snow-white smock-frocks of Russia duck, and
some in whitey-brown ones of drabbet - marked on the
wrists, breasts, backs, and sleeves with honeycomb-work.
Two or three women in pattens brought up the rear.
"The Philistines be upon us." said Liddy, making her
nose white against the glass.
"Oh, very well. Maryann, go down and keep them
in the kitchen till I am dressed, and then show them in
to me in the hall."
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 the 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 sew, sometimes
pausing and looking round, or with the air of a privileged
person, taking up one of the half-sovereigns lying before
her and 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 thieving, and that I have formed a resolu-
tion 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 Boldwood." said Jacob Smallbury, 'and
I went with him and two of his men, and dragged New-
mill Pond, but we found nothing."
"And the new shepherd have been to Buck's Head,
by Yalbury, thinking she had gone there, but nobody
had seed her." said Laban Tall.
"Hasn't William Smallbury been to Casterbridge?"
"Yes, ma'am, but he's not yet come home. He
promised to be back by six."
"It wants a quarter to six at present." said Bathsheba,
looking at her watch. "I daresay he'll be in directly.
Well, now then" - she looked into the book - "Joseph
Poorgrass, are you there?"
"Yes, sir - ma'am I mane." said the person addressed.
"I be the personal name of Poorgrass."
"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 carting things all the year, and in seed time I
shoots the rooks and sparrows, and helps at pig-killing, sir."
"How much to you?"
"Please nine and ninepence and a good halfpenny
where 'twas a bad one, sir - ma'am I mane."
"Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings in addi-
tion as a small present, as I am a new comer."
Bathsheba blushed slightly at the sense of being
generous in public, and Henery 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
forwards, but turned in or out as they chanced to swing.
"Matthew Mark, did you say? - speak out - I shall
not hurt you." inquired the young farmer, kindly.
"Matthew Moon mem" said Henery Fray, correct-
ingly, from behind her chair, to which point he had
edged himself.
"Matthew Moon." murmured Bathsheba, turning her
bright eyes to the book. "Ten and twopence halfpenny
is the sum put down to you, I see?"
"Yes, mis'ess." said Matthew, as the rustle of wind
among dead leaves.
"Here it is and ten shillings. Now -the next - Andrew
Randle, you are a new man, I hear. How come you to
leave your last farm?"
"P-p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-l-l-l-l-ease, ma'am, p-p-p-p-pl-pl-
pl-pl-please, ma'am-please'm-please'm - - "
"'A's a stammering man, mem." said Henery Fray in
an undertone, "and they turned him away because the
only time he ever did speak plain he said his soul was
his own, and other iniquities, to the squire. "A can cuss,
mem, as well as you or I, but 'a can't speak a common
speech to save his life."
"Andrew Randle, here's yours - finish thanking me
in a day or two. Temperance Miller - oh, here's another,
Soberness - both women I suppose?"
"Yes'm. Here we be, 'a b'lieve." was echoed in shrill
unison.
"What have you been doing?"
"Tending thrashing-machine and wimbling haybonds,
and saying "Hoosh!" to the cocks and hens when they
go upon your seeds and planting Early Flourballs and
Thompson's Wonderfuls with a dibble."
"Yes - I see. Are they satisfactory women?" she
inquired softly of Henery Fray.
"O mem - don't ask me! Yielding women?" as
scarlet a pair as ever was!" groaned Henery under his
breath.
"Sit down.
"Who, mem?"
"Sit down,"
Joseph Poorgrass, in the background twitched, and
his lips became dry with fear of some terrible conse-
quences, as he saw Bathsheba summarily speaking, and
Henery slinking off to a corner.
"Now the next. Laban Tall, you'll stay on working
for me?"
"For you or anybody that pays me well, ma'am,"
replied the young married man.
"True - the man must live!" said a woman in the
back quarter, who had just entered with clicking pattens.
"What woman is that?" Bathsheba asked.
"I be his lawful wife!" continued the voice with
greater prominence of manner and tone. This lady
called herself five-and-twenty, looked thirty, passed as
thirty-five, and was forty. She was a woman who never,
like some newly married, showed conjugal tenderness in
public, perhaps because she had none to show.
"Oh, you are." said Bathsheba. "Well, Laban, will
you stay on?"
"Yes, he'll stay, ma'am!" said again the shrill tongue
of Laban's lawful wife.
"Well, he can speak for himself, I suppose."
"O Lord, not he, ma'am! A simple tool. Well
enough, but a poor gawkhammer mortal." the wife replied
"Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the married man with a
hideous effort of appreciation, for he was as irrepressibly
good-humoured under ghastly snubs as a 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 Henery Fray, trying to make himself official
again by a sideway approach towards her chair.
"Oh - he will. Who can he have?"
"Young Cain Ball is a very good lad." Henery said,
"and Shepherd Oak don't mind his youth?" he added,
turning with an apologetic smile to the shepherd, who
had just appeared on the scene, and was now leaning
against the doorpost with his arms folded.
"No, I don't mind that." said Gabriel.
"How did Cain come by such a name?" asked
Bathsheba.
"Oh you see, mem, his pore mother, not being a
Scripture-read woman made a mistake at his christening,
thinking 'twas Abel killed Cain, and called en Cain,
but 'twas too late, for the name could never be got rid
of in the parish. 'Tis very unfortunate for the boy."
"It is rather unfortunate."
"Yes. However, we soften it down as much as we
can, and call him Cainey. Ah, pore widow-woman!
she cried her heart out about it almost. She was
brought up by a very heathen father and mother, who
never sent her to church or school, and it shows how
the sins of the parents are visited upon the children,
mem."
Mr. Fray here drew up his 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, Cainey Ball to be under-shepherd
And you quite understand your duties? - you I mean,
Gabriel Oak?"
"Quite well, I thank you Miss Everdene." said
Shepard Oak from the doorpost. "If I don't, I'll
inquire." Gabriel was rather staggered by the remark-
able coolness of her manner. 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 air was
the inevitable result of the social rise which had advanced
her from a cottage to a large house and fields. The
case is not unexampled in high places. When, in the
writings of the later poets, Jove and his family are found
to have moved 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 Caster-
bridge."
"And what's the news?" said Bathsheba, as William,
after marching to the middle of the hall, took a hand-
kerchief from his hat and wiped his forehead from its
centre to its remoter boundaries.
"I should have been sooner, miss." he said, "if it
hadn't been for the weather." He then stamped with
each foot severely, and on looking down his boots were
perceived to be clogged with snow.
"Come at last, is it?" said Henery.
"Well, what about Fanny?" said Bathsheba.
"Well, ma'am, in round numbers, she's run away with
the soldiers." said William.
"No; not a steady girl like Fanny!"
"I'll tell ye all particulars. When I got to Caster,
bridge Barracks, they said, " The Eleventh Dragoon-
Guards be gone away, and new troops have come."
The Eleventh left last week for Melchester and onwards.
The Route came from Government like a thief in the
night, as is his nature to, and afore the Eleventh knew
it almost, they were on the march. 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 'tis
said, in glorious notes of triumph. Every looker-on's
inside shook with the blows of the great drum to his
deepest vitals, and there was not a dry eye throughout
the town among the public-house people and the name-
less women!"
"But they're not gone to any war?"
"No, ma'am; but they be gone to take the places
of them who may, which is very close connected. And
so I said to myself, Fanny's young man was one of the
regiment, and she's gone after him. There, ma'am,
that's it in black and white."
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 to Farmer Boldwood's and tell him that
much."
She then rose; but before retiring, addressed a few
words to them with a pretty dignity, to which her
mourning dress added a soberness that was hardly to
be found in the words themselves.
"Now mind, you have a mistress instead of a master
I don't yet know my powers or 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'm a woman I don't understand the difference
between bad goings-on and good."
(All.) "Nom!"
(Liddy.) "Excellent well said."
"I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be
afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted
before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all.
(All.) "Yes'm!"
"And so good-night."
(All.) "Good-night, ma'am."
Then this small-thesmothete stepped from the table,
and surged out of the hall, her black silk dress licking
up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratch-
ing noise upon the floor. biddy, 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.
CHAPTER XI
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 Weatherbury, 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 solicitous-
ness, 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
uplan.
The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on
spots of this kind than amid woodland scenery. Still,
to a close observer, they are just as perceptible; the
difference is that their media of manifestation are less
trite and familiar than such well-known ones as the
bursting of the buds or the fall of the leaf. Many are
not so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to
imagine in considering the general torpidity of a moor
or waste. Winter, in coming to the country hereabout,
advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have
been successively observed the retreat of the snakes,
the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools,
a rising of fogs, the embrowning 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 forms without features; suggestive
of anything, proclaiming nothing, and without more
character than that of being the limit of something
else - the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From
this chaotic skyful 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 formed as
it were the roof of a large dark cavern, gradually sinking