CHAPTER XXI
TROUBLES IN THE FOLD--A MESSAGE
Gabriel Oak had ceased to feed the Weatherbury flock for aboutfour-and-twenty hours, when on Sunday afternoon the elderly gentlemenJoseph Poorgrass, Matthew Moon, Fray, and half-a-dozen others, camerunning up to the house of the mistress of the Upper Farm.
"Whatever IS the matter, men?" she said, meeting them at the doorjust as she was coming out on her way to church, and ceasing in amoment from the close compression of her two red lips, with whichshe had accompanied the exertion of pulling on a tight glove.
"Sixty!" said Joseph Poorgrass.
"Seventy!" said Moon.
"Fifty-nine!" said Susan Tall's husband.
"--Sheep have broke fence," said Fray.
"--And got into a field of young clover," said Tall.
"--Young clover!" said Moon.
"--Clover!" said Joseph Poorgrass.
"And they be getting blasted," said Henery Fray.
"That they be," said Joseph.
"And will all die as dead as nits, if they bain't got out and cured!"said Tall.
Joseph's countenance was drawn into lines and puckers by his concern.Fray's forehead was wrinkled both perpendicularly and crosswise,after the pattern of a portcullis, expressive of a double despair.Laban Tall's lips were thin, and his face was rigid. Matthew's jawssank, and his eyes turned whichever way the strongest muscle happenedto pull them.
"Yes," said Joseph, "and I was sitting at home, looking forEphesians, and says I to myself, ''Tis nothing but Corinthians andThessalonians in this danged Testament,' when who should come in butHenery there: 'Joseph,' he said, 'the sheep have blastedtheirselves--'"
With Bathsheba it was a moment when thought was speech and speechexclamation. Moreover, she had hardly recovered her equanimity sincethe disturbance which she had suffered from Oak's remarks.
"That's enough--that's enough!--oh, you fools!" she cried, throwingthe parasol and Prayer-book into the passage, and running out ofdoors in the direction signified. "To come to me, and not go and getthem out directly! Oh, the stupid numskulls!"
Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest now. Bathsheba's beautybelonging rather to the demonian than to the angelic school, shenever looked so well as when she was angry--and particularly when theeffect was heightened by a rather dashing velvet dress, carefully puton before a glass.
All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to theclover-field, Joseph sinking down in the midst when about half-way,like an individual withering in a world which was more and moreinsupportable. Having once received the stimulus that her presencealways gave them they went round among the sheep with a will. Themajority of the afflicted animals were lying down, and could not bestirred. These were bodily lifted out, and the others driven intothe adjoining field. Here, after the lapse of a few minutes, severalmore fell down, and lay helpless and livid as the rest.
Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at these primestspecimens of her prime flock as they rolled there--
Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew.
Many of them foamed at the mouth, their breathing being quick andshort, whilst the bodies of all were fearfully distended.
"Oh, what can I do, what can I do!" said Bathsheba, helplessly."Sheep are such unfortunate animals!--there's always somethinghappening to them! I never knew a flock pass a year without gettinginto some scrape or other."
"There's only one way of saving them," said Tall.
"What way? Tell me quick!"
"They must be pierced in the side with a thing made on purpose."
"Can you do it? Can I?"
"No, ma'am. We can't, nor you neither. It must be done in aparticular spot. If ye go to the right or left but an inch you stabthe ewe and kill her. Not even a shepherd can do it, as a rule."
"Then they must die," she said, in a resigned tone.
"Only one man in the neighbourhood knows the way," said Joseph, nowjust come up. "He could cure 'em all if he were here."
"Who is he? Let's get him!"
"Shepherd Oak," said Matthew. "Ah, he's a clever man in talents!"
"Ah, that he is so!" said Joseph Poorgrass.
"True--he's the man," said Laban Tall.
"How dare you name that man in my presence!" she said excitedly. "Itold you never to allude to him, nor shall you if you stay with me.Ah!" she added, brightening, "Farmer Boldwood knows!"
"O no, ma'am" said Matthew. "Two of his store ewes got into somevetches t'other day, and were just like these. He sent a man onhorseback here post-haste for Gable, and Gable went and saved 'em.Farmer Boldwood hev got the thing they do it with. 'Tis a hollerpipe, with a sharp pricker inside. Isn't it, Joseph?"
"Ay--a holler pipe," echoed Joseph. "That's what 'tis."
"Ay, sure--that's the machine," chimed in Henery Fray, reflectively,with an Oriental indifference to the flight of time.
"Well," burst out Bathsheba, "don't stand there with your 'ayes'and your 'sures' talking at me! Get somebody to cure the sheepinstantly!"
All then stalked off in consternation, to get somebody as directed,without any idea of who it was to be. In a minute they had vanishedthrough the gate, and she stood alone with the dying flock.
"Never will I send for him--never!" she said firmly.
One of the ewes here contracted its muscles horribly, extendeditself, and jumped high into the air. The leap was an astonishingone. The ewe fell heavily, and lay still.
Bathsheba went up to it. The sheep was dead.
"Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do!" she again exclaimed, wringingher hands. "I won't send for him. No, I won't!"
The most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincidewith the greatest vigour of the resolution itself. It is often flungout as a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction which, whilststrong, required no enunciation to prove it so. The "No, I won't" ofBathsheba meant virtually, "I think I must."
She followed her assistants through the gate, and lifted her hand toone of them. Laban answered to her signal.
"Where is Oak staying?"
"Across the valley at Nest Cottage!"
"Jump on the bay mare, and ride across, and say he must returninstantly--that I say so."
Tall scrambled off to the field, and in two minutes was on Poll,the bay, bare-backed, and with only a halter by way of rein. Hediminished down the hill.
Bathsheba watched. So did all the rest. Tall cantered along thebridle-path through Sixteen Acres, Sheeplands, Middle Field, TheFlats, Cappel's Piece, shrank almost to a point, crossed the bridge,and ascended from the valley through Springmead and Whitepits on theother side. The cottage to which Gabriel had retired before takinghis final departure from the locality was visible as a white spot onthe opposite hill, backed by blue firs. Bathsheba walked up anddown. The men entered the field and endeavoured to ease the anguishof the dumb creatures by rubbing them. Nothing availed.
Bathsheba continued walking. The horse was seen descending thehill, and the wearisome series had to be repeated in reverse order:Whitepits, Springmead, Cappel's Piece, The Flats, Middle Field,Sheeplands, Sixteen Acres. She hoped Tall had had presence of mindenough to give the mare up to Gabriel, and return himself on foot.The rider neared them. It was Tall.
"Oh, what folly!" said Bathsheba.
Gabriel was not visible anywhere.
"Perhaps he is already gone!" she said.
Tall came into the inclosure, and leapt off, his face tragic asMorton's after the battle of Shrewsbury.
"Well?" said Bathsheba, unwilling to believe that her verbal_lettre-de-cachet_ could possibly have miscarried.
"He says BEGGARS MUSTN'T BE CHOOSERS," replied Laban.
"What!" said the young farmer, opening her eyes and drawing in herbreath for an outburst. Joseph Poorgrass retired a few steps behinda hurdle.
"He says he shall not come onless you request en to come civilly andin a proper manner, as becomes any 'ooman
begging a favour."
"Oh, oh, that's his answer! Where does he get his airs? Who am I,then, to be treated like that? Shall I beg to a man who has beggedto me?"
Another of the flock sprang into the air, and fell dead.
The men looked grave, as if they suppressed opinion.
Bathsheba turned aside, her eyes full of tears. The strait she wasin through pride and shrewishness could not be disguised longer: sheburst out crying bitterly; they all saw it; and she attempted nofurther concealment.
"I wouldn't cry about it, miss," said William Smallbury,compassionately. "Why not ask him softer like? I'm sure he'd comethen. Gable is a true man in that way."
Bathsheba checked her grief and wiped her eyes. "Oh, it is a wickedcruelty to me--it is--it is!" she murmured. "And he drives me to dowhat I wouldn't; yes, he does!--Tall, come indoors."
After this collapse, not very dignified for the head of anestablishment, she went into the house, Tall at her heels. Here shesat down and hastily scribbled a note between the small convulsivesobs of convalescence which follow a fit of crying as a ground-swellfollows a storm. The note was none the less polite for being writtenin a hurry. She held it at a distance, was about to fold it, thenadded these words at the bottom:--
"DO NOT DESERT ME, GABRIEL!"
She looked a little redder in refolding it, and closed her lips,as if thereby to suspend till too late the action of conscience inexamining whether such strategy were justifiable. The note wasdespatched as the message had been, and Bathsheba waited indoorsfor the result.
It was an anxious quarter of an hour that intervened between themessenger's departure and the sound of the horse's tramp againoutside. She could not watch this time, but, leaning over the oldbureau at which she had written the letter, closed her eyes, as ifto keep out both hope and fear.
The case, however, was a promising one. Gabriel was not angry: hewas simply neutral, although her first command had been so haughty.Such imperiousness would have damned a little less beauty; andon the other hand, such beauty would have redeemed a little lessimperiousness.
She went out when the horse was heard, and looked up. A mountedfigure passed between her and the sky, and drew on towards the fieldof sheep, the rider turning his face in receding. Gabriel looked ather. It was a moment when a woman's eyes and tongue tell distinctlyopposite tales. Bathsheba looked full of gratitude, and she said:--
"Oh, Gabriel, how could you serve me so unkindly!"
Such a tenderly-shaped reproach for his previous delay was theone speech in the language that he could pardon for not beingcommendation of his readiness now.
Gabriel murmured a confused reply, and hastened on. She knew fromthe look which sentence in her note had brought him. Bathshebafollowed to the field.
Gabriel was already among the turgid, prostrate forms. He had flungoff his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and taken from his pocketthe instrument of salvation. It was a small tube or trochar, witha lance passing down the inside; and Gabriel began to use it with adexterity that would have graced a hospital surgeon. Passing hishand over the sheep's left flank, and selecting the proper point, hepunctured the skin and rumen with the lance as it stood in the tube;then he suddenly withdrew the lance, retaining the tube in its place.A current of air rushed up the tube, forcible enough to haveextinguished a candle held at the orifice.
It has been said that mere ease after torment is delight for a time;and the countenances of these poor creatures expressed it now.Forty-nine operations were successfully performed. Owing to thegreat hurry necessitated by the far-gone state of some of the flock,Gabriel missed his aim in one case, and in one only--striking wideof the mark, and inflicting a mortal blow at once upon the sufferingewe. Four had died; three recovered without an operation. The totalnumber of sheep which had thus strayed and injured themselves sodangerously was fifty-seven.
When the love-led man had ceased from his labours, Bathsheba came andlooked him in the face.
"Gabriel, will you stay on with me?" she said, smiling winningly,and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end,because there was going to be another smile soon.
"I will," said Gabriel.
And she smiled on him again.