Far from the Madding Crowd

  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, thecharacter and purposes of the building were clearly enough shown byits outline upon the sky. From the walls an overhanging thatchedroof sloped up to a point in the centre, upon which rose a smallwooden lantern, fitted with louvre-boards on all the four sides,and from these openings a mist was dimly perceived to be escapinginto the night air. There was no window in front; but a squarehole 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 toan Elymas-the-Sorcerer pattern, till he found a leathern strap, whichhe pulled. This lifted a wooden latch, and the door swung open.

  The room inside was lighted only by the ruddy glow from the kilnmouth, which shone over the floor with the streaming horizontalityof the setting sun, and threw upwards the shadows of all facialirregularities in those assembled around. The stone-flag floor wasworn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulationseverywhere. A curved settle of unplaned oak stretched along oneside, and in a remote corner was a small bed and bedstead, the ownerand frequent occupier of which was the maltster.

  This aged man was now sitting opposite the fire, his frosty whitehair and beard overgrowing his gnarled figure like the grey moss andlichen upon a leafless apple-tree. He wore breeches and the laced-upshoes called ankle-jacks; he kept his eyes fixed upon the fire.

  Gabriel's nose was greeted by an atmosphere laden with the sweetsmell of new malt. The conversation (which seemed to have beenconcerning the origin of the fire) immediately ceased, and every oneocularly criticised him to the degree expressed by contracting theflesh of their foreheads and looking at him with narrowed eyelids, asif he had been a light too strong for their sight. Several exclaimedmeditatively, 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, butweren't sure 'twere not a dead leaf blowed across," said another."Come in, shepherd; sure ye be welcome, though we don't know yername."

  "Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbours."

  The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned at this--his turningbeing as the turning of a rusty crane.

  "That's never Gable Oak's grandson over at Norcombe--never!" he said,as a formula expressive of surprise, which nobody was supposed for amoment 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!--thoughtI 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 momentumpreviously 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 boyJacob there and your father were sworn brothers--that they weresure--weren't ye, Jacob?"

  "Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with asemi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper jaw,which made much of itself by standing prominent, like a milestone ina bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do with him. However, my sonWilliam 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, orthereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a cheerfulsoul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assuming a chinchillashade here and there.

  "I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a man in the place when Iwas quite a child."

  "Ay--the other day I and my youngest daughter, Liddy, were over atmy grandson's christening," continued Billy. "We were talking aboutthis very family, and 'twas only last Purification Day in this veryworld, 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 totraypse up to the vestry--yes, this very man's family."

  "Come, shepherd, and drink. 'Tis gape and swaller with us--a drap ofsommit, but not of much account," said the maltster, removing fromthe fire his eyes, which were vermilion-red and bleared by gazinginto it for so many years. "Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob. Seeif 'tis warm, Jacob."

  Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled tall mugstanding in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat: it was ratherfurred with extraneous matter about the outside, especially in thecrevices of the handles, the innermost curves of which may not haveseen daylight for several years by reason of this encrustationthereon--formed of ashes accidentally wetted with cider and bakedhard; but to the mind of any sensible drinker the cup was noworse for that, being incontestably clean on the inside and aboutthe rim. It may be observed that such a class of mug is called aGod-forgive-me in Weatherbury and its vicinity for uncertain reasons;probably because its size makes any given toper feel ashamed ofhimself 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, andhaving pronounced it nearly of the proper degree, raised the cup andvery civilly attempted to dust some of the ashes from the bottom withthe 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 ofconsiderateness. "I never fuss about dirt in its pure state, andwhen I know what sort it is." Taking the mug he drank an inch ormore from the depth of its contents, and duly passed it to thenext man. "I wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neighboursin washing up when there's so much work to be done in the worldalready." continued Oak in a moister tone, after recovering from thestoppage 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--MarkClark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman, whom to meet anywherein your travels was to know, to know was to drink with, and to drinkwith 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 inthe road outside as I was bringing it along, and may be 'tis rathergritty. There, 'tis clane dirt; and we all know what that is, as yousay, 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 atall. 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 anice unparticular man!" said the maltster.

  "Drink, Henry Fray--drink," magnanimously said Jan Coggan, a personwho held Saint-Simonian notions of share and share alike where liquorwas concerned, as the vessel showed signs of approaching him in itsgradual 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, witheyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it down that the law ofthe world was bad, with a long-suffering look through his listenersat the world alluded to, as it presented itself to his imagination.He always signed his name "Henery"--strenuously insisting upon thatspelling, and if any passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that thesecond "e" was superfluous and old-fashioned, he received the replythat "H-e-n-e-r-y" was the name he was christened and the name hewould stick to--in the tone of one to whom orthographical differenceswere matte
rs which had a great deal to do with personal character.

  Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery, was a crimson manwith a spacious countenance and private glimmer in his eye, whosename had appeared on the marriage register of Weatherbury andneighbouring parishes as best man and chief witness in countlessunions of the previous twenty years; he also very frequently filledthe post of head godfather in baptisms of the subtly-jovial kind.

  "Come, Mark Clark--come. Ther's plenty more in the barrel," saidJan.

  "Ay--that I will, 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark, who,twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the same orbit. Hesecreted mirth on all occasions for special discharge at popularparties.

  "Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop!" said Mr. Coggan to aself-conscious man in the background, thrusting the cup towards him.

  "Such a modest man as he is!" said Jacob Smallbury. "Why, ye'vehardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young mis'ess'sface, so I hear, Joseph?"

  All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.

  "No--I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph, reducing hisbody smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek sense of undueprominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas nothing but blushes withme!"

  "Poor feller," said Mr. Clark.

  "'Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan.

  "Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass--his shyness, which was so painfulas a defect, filling him with a mild complacency now that it wasregarded as an interesting study. "'Twere blush, blush, blush withme every minute of the time, when she was speaking to me."

  "I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a verybashful man."

  "'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the maltster. "Andhow long have ye have suffered from it, Joseph?" [a]

  [Transcriber's note a: Alternate text, appears in all three editions on hand: "'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..."]

  "Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes--mother was concerned to her heartabout 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 GreenhillFair, and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble show, where there werewomen-folk riding round--standing upon horses, with hardly anythingon but their smocks; but it didn't cure me a morsel. And then Iwas put errand-man at the Women's Skittle Alley at the back of theTailor's Arms in Casterbridge. 'Twas a horrible sinful situation,and a very curious place for a good man. I had to stand and lookba'dy people in the face from morning till night; but 'twas no use--Iwas just as bad as ever after all. Blushes hev been in the familyfor generations. There, 'tis a happy providence that I be no worse."

  "True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a profounderview of the subject. "'Tis a thought to look at, that ye might havebeen 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 meditation. "Yes, veryawkward for the man."

  "Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan. "Once he hadbeen working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap of drink, andlost his way as he was coming home-along through Yalbury Wood, didn'tye, Master Poorgrass?"

  "No, no, no; not that story!" expostulated the modest man, forcing alaugh to bury his concern.

  "--And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan, with animpassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide,must run its course and would respect no man. "And as he was comingalong in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not able tofind 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 ina tremble, said, 'Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!'"

  "No, no, now--that's too much!" said the timid man, becoming a manof brazen courage all of a sudden. "I didn't say SIR. I'll take myoath 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 verywell that no man of a gentleman's rank would be hollering there atthat time o' night. 'Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury,'--that's everyword I said, and I shouldn't ha' said that if 't hadn't been forKeeper Day's metheglin.... There, 'twas a merciful thing it endedwhere 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 timeye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph?"

  "I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions tooserious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one.

  "Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would notopen, 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 theexperience alluded to. "My heart died within me, that time; but Ikneeled down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then the Belief rightthrough, and then the Ten Commandments, in earnest prayer. Butno, the gate wouldn't open; and then I went on with Dearly BelovedBrethren, and, thinks I, this makes four, and 'tis all I know outof 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 foundthe gate would open--yes, neighbours, the gate opened the same asever."

  A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all, andduring 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, partlyfrom 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 bosomthrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the assemblythe inner-most subject of his heart.

  "We d' know little of her--nothing. She only showed herself a fewdays ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor was called with hisworld-wide skill; but he couldn't save the man. As I take it, she'sgoing to keep on the farm.

  "That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan. "Ay, 'tisa very good family. I'd as soon be under 'em as under one here andthere. 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 FarmerEverdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was allowed to calland see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but not to carry awayany--outside my skin I mane of course."

  "Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning."

  "And so you see 'twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value hiskindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as todrink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting the man'sgenerosity--"

  "True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark.

  "--And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and then bythe time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket--so thorough drythat that ale would slip down--ah, 'twould slip down sweet! Happytimes! Heavenly times! Such lovely drunks as I used to have at thathouse! 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'sHead on a White Monday was a pretty tipple."

  "'Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you nonearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun, there wasnone like those in Farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not a single damnallowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful momentwhen all were blindest, though the good old word of sin thrown
inhere and there at such times is a great relief to a merry soul."

  "True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at theregular times, or she's not herself; and unholy exclamations is anecessity of life."

  "But Charlotte," continued Coggan--"not a word of the sort wouldCharlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain.... Ay,poor Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good fortune to get intoHeaven when 'a died! But 'a was never much in luck's way, andperhaps 'a went downwards after all, poor soul."

  "And did any of you know Miss Everdene's father and mother?" inquiredthe shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversationin the desired channel.

  "I knew them a little," said Jacob Smallbury; "but they weretownsfolk, 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 alovely 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 beentold," said the maltster.

  "Ay," said Coggan. "He admired her so much that he used to light thecandle three times a night to look at her."

  "Boundless love; I shouldn't have supposed it in the universe!"murmured Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale inhis moral reflections.

  "Well, to be sure," said Gabriel.

  "Oh, 'tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both well. LeviEverdene--that was the man's name, sure. 'Man,' saith I in myhurry, but he were of a higher circle of life than that--'a was agentleman-tailor really, worth scores of pounds. And he became avery celebrated bankrupt two or three times."

  "Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!" said Joseph.

  "Oh no, no! That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold andsilver."

  The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after absentlyscrutinising a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up thenarrative, with a private twirl of his eye:--

  "Well, now, you'd hardly believe it, but that man--our MissEverdene's father--was one of the ficklest husbands alive, after awhile. Understand? 'a didn't want to be fickle, but he couldn't helpit. The pore feller were faithful and true enough to her in hiswish, but his heart would rove, do what he would. He spoke to me inreal tribulation about it once. 'Coggan,' he said, 'I could neverwish for a handsomer woman than I've got, but feeling she's ticketedas my lawful wife, I can't help my wicked heart wandering, do what Iwill.' But at last I believe he cured it by making her take off herwedding-ring and calling her by her maiden name as they sat togetherafter the shop was shut, and so 'a would get to fancy she was onlyhis sweetheart, and not married to him at all. And as soon as hecould thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing the seventh,'a got to like her as well as ever, and they lived on a perfectpicture of mutel love."

  "Well, 'twas a most ungodly remedy," murmured Joseph Poorgrass; "butwe ought to feel deep cheerfulness that a happy Providence kept itfrom being any worse. You see, he might have gone the bad road andgiven his eyes to unlawfulness entirely--yes, gross unlawfulness, soto 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 Poorgrass. "He got himself confirmedover again in a more serious way, and took to saying 'Amen' almost asloud as the clerk, and he liked to copy comforting verses from thetombstones. He used, too, to hold the money-plate at Let Your Lightso Shine, and stand godfather to poor little come-by-chance children;and he kept a missionary box upon his table to nab folks unawareswhen they called; yes, and he would box the charity-boys' ears, ifthey laughed in church, till they could hardly stand upright, and doother deeds of piety natural to the saintly inclined."

  "Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high things," added BillySmallbury. "One day Parson Thirdly met him and said, 'Good-Morning,Mister Everdene; 'tis a fine day!' 'Amen' said Everdene, quiteabsent-like, thinking only of religion when he seed a parson. Yes,he was a very Christian man."

  "Their daughter was not at all a pretty chiel at that time," saidHenery Fray. "Never should have thought she'd have growed up such ahandsome 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 andourselves. Ah!" Henery gazed into the ashpit, and smiled volumes ofironical knowledge.

  "A queer Christian, like the Devil's head in a cowl, [1] as thesaying is," volunteered Mark Clark.

  [Footnote 1: This phrase is a conjectural emendation of the unintelligible expression, "as the Devil said to the Owl," used by the natives.]

  "He is," said Henery, implying that irony must cease at a certainpoint. "Between we two, man and man, I believe that man would assoon 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 uponthe company with the antithetic laughter that comes from a keenerappreciation of the miseries of life than ordinary men are capableof. "Ah, there's people of one sort, and people of another, butthat man--bless your souls!"

  Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. "You must be a very agedman, 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's growed terrible crooked too, lately,"Jacob continued, surveying his father's figure, which was rathermore bowed than his own. "Really one may say that father there isthree-double."

  "Crooked folk will last a long while," said the maltster, grimly, andnot 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 hadlonged 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, inthe slow speech justifiable when the importance of a subject is sogenerally 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 reckonup the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I bode atUpper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north) "till I wereeleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the east) "whereI took to malting. I went therefrom to Norcombe, and maltedthere two-and-twenty years, and-two-and-twenty years I was thereturnip-hoeing and harvesting. Ah, I knowed that old place, Norcombe,years afore you were thought of, Master Oak" (Oak smiled sincerebelief in the fact). "Then I malted at Durnover four year, andfour year turnip-hoeing; and I was fourteen times eleven months atMillpond St. Jude's" (nodding north-west-by-north). "Old Twillswouldn't hire me for more than eleven months at a time, to keep mefrom being chargeable to the parish if so be I was disabled. Then Iwas three year at Mellstock, and I've been here one-and-thirty yearcome Candlemas. How much is that?"

  "Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another old gentleman, given tomental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hitherto satunobserved in a corner.

  "Well, then, that's my age," said the maltster, emphatically.

  "O no, father!" said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing were in the summerand your malting in the winter of the same years, and ye don't oughtto count-both halves, father."

  "Chok' it all! I lived through the summers, didn't I? That's myquestion. 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 Coggan, alsosoothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a wonderful talentedconstitution to be able to live so long, mustn't he, neighbours?"

  "True, true; ye must,
malter, wonderful," said the meetingunanimously.

  The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough tovoluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having lived agreat many years, by mentioning that the cup they were drinking outof was three years older than he.

  While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's flutebecame visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery Frayexclaimed, "Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a great fluteby now at Casterbridge?"

  "You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly. "I've been in greattrouble, neighbours, and was driven to it. I used not to be so pooras I be now."

  "Never mind, heart!" said Mark Clark. "You should take itcareless-like, shepherd, and your time will come. But we could thankye for a tune, if ye bain't too tired?"

  "Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since Christmas," said JanCoggan. "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!"

  "Ay, that I will," said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and putting ittogether. "A poor tool, neighbours; but such as I can do ye shallhave and welcome."

  Oak then struck up "Jockey to the Fair," and played that sparklingmelody three times through, accenting the notes in the third round ina most artistic and lively manner by bending his body in small jerksand tapping with his foot to beat time.

  "He can blow the flute very well--that 'a can," said a young marriedman, who having no individuality worth mentioning was known as "SusanTall's husband." He continued, "I'd as lief as not be able to blowinto a flute as well as that."

  "He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to have such ashepherd," murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft cadence. "We oughtto feel full o' thanksgiving that he's not a player of ba'dy songsinstead of these merry tunes; for 'twould have been just as easy forGod to have made the shepherd a loose low man--a man of iniquity, soto speak it--as what he is. Yes, for our wives' and daughters' sakeswe should feel real thanksgiving."

  "True, true,--real thanksgiving!" dashed in Mark Clark conclusively,not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion that he hadonly heard about a word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said.

  "Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the Bible; "forevil do thrive so in these times that ye may be as much deceived inthe cleanest shaved and whitest shirted man as in the raggedest trampupon 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 secondtune. "Yes--now I see 'ee blowing into the flute I know 'ee to bethe same man I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were scrimpedup and yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man's--just as they benow."

  "'Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look such ascarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criticism ofGabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out, with theghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of "DameDurden:"--

  'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate', And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle Tail'.

  "I hope you don't mind that young man's bad manners in naming yourfeatures?" whispered Joseph to Gabriel.

  "Not at all," said Mr. Oak.

  "For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd," continued JosephPoorgrass, with winning sauvity.

  "Ay, that ye be, shepard," said the company.

  "Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good mannersdemanded, thinking, however, that he would never let Bathsheba seehim playing the flute; in this resolve showing a discretion equal tothat related to its sagacious inventress, the divine Minerva herself.

  "Ah, when I and my wife were married at Norcombe Church," said theold maltster, not pleased at finding himself left out of the subject,"we were called the handsomest couple in the neighbourhood--everybodysaid so."

  "Danged if ye bain't altered now, malter," said a voice with thevigour natural to the enunciation of a remarkably evident truism.It came from the old man in the background, whose offensiveness andspiteful ways were barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle hecontributed to general laughs.

  "O no, no," said Gabriel.

  "Don't ye play no more shepherd" said Susan Tall's husband, the youngmarried man who had spoken once before. "I must be moving and whenthere's tunes going on I seem as if hung in wires. If I thoughtafter I'd left that music was still playing, and I not there, Ishould be quite melancholy-like."

  "What's yer hurry then, Laban?" inquired Coggan. "You used to bideas late as the latest."

  "Well, ye see, neighbours, I was lately married to a woman, and she'smy vocation now, and so ye see--" The young man halted 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 toneintended to imply his habitual reception of jokes without mindingthem at all. The young man then wished them good-night and withdrew.

  Henery Fray was the first to follow. Then Gabriel arose and went offwith Jan Coggan, who had offered him a lodging. A few minutes later,when the remaining ones were on their legs and about to depart, Fraycame back again in a hurry. Flourishing his finger ominously hethrew a gaze teeming with tidings just where his eye alighted byaccident, 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 shewent out again to see all was safe, as she usually do, and coming infound Baily Pennyways creeping down the granary steps with half a abushel of barley. She fleed at him like a cat--never such a tomboyas 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 havingcarried off five sack altogether, upon her promising not to persecutehim. Well, he's turned out neck and crop, and my question is, who'sgoing to be baily now?"

  The question was such a profound one that Henery was obliged to drinkthere and then from the large cup till the bottom was distinctlyvisible inside. Before he had replaced it on the table, in came theyoung 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 midstof Laban Tall as if to meet his words half-way down his throat.

  "What a night of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving hishands spasmodically. "I've had the news-bell ringing in my left earquite 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 sheisn't come in. And they don't know what to do about going to bed forfear of locking her out. They wouldn't be so concerned if she hadn'tbeen noticed in such low spirits these last few days, and Maryann d'think the beginning of a crowner's inquest has happened to the poorgirl."

  "Oh--'tis burned--'tis burned!" came from Joseph Poorgrass's drylips.

  "No--'tis drowned!" said Tall.

  "Or 'tis her father's razor!" suggested Billy Smallbury, with a vividsense of detail.

  "Well--Miss Everdene wants to speak to one or two of us before we goto bed. What with this trouble about the baily, and now about thegirl, mis'ess is almost wild."

  They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting the oldmaltster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder could draw fromhis hole. There, as the others' footsteps died away he sat downagain and continued gazing as usual into the furnace with his red,bleared eyes.

  From the bedroom window above their heads Bathsheba's head andshoulders, robed in mystic white, were dimly seen extended into theair.

  "Are any of my men among you?" she s
aid anxiously.

  "Yes, ma'am, several," said Susan Tall's husband.

  "To-morrow morning I wish two or three of you to make inquiries inthe 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 haveleft whilst we were all at the fire."

  "I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man courting her in theparish, 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 loverof hers might have come to the house if he had been a respectablelad. The most mysterious matter connected with her absence--indeed,the only thing which gives me serious alarm--is that she was seento go out of the house by Maryann with only her indoor working gownon--not even a bonnet."

  "And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, that a young woman wouldhardly go to see her young man without dressing up," said Jacob,turning his mental vision upon past experiences. "That's true--shewould not, ma'am."

  "She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn't see very well," said afemale voice from another window, which seemed that of Maryann. "Butshe had no young man about here. Hers lives in Casterbridge, and Ibelieve 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 Casterbridgebarracks," said William Smallbury.

  "Very well; if she doesn't return to-morrow, mind you go there and tryto discover which man it is, and see him. I feel more responsiblethan I should if she had had any friends or relations alive. I dohope she has come to no harm through a man of that kind.... And thenthere's this disgraceful affair of the bailiff--but I can't speak ofhim now."

  Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness that it seemed she didnot think it worth while to dwell upon any particular one. "Do as Itold 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 closedeyelids, was busy with fancies, and full of movement, like a riverflowing rapidly under its ice. Night had always been the time atwhich he saw Bathsheba most vividly, and through the slow hoursof shadow he tenderly regarded her image now. It is rarely thatthe pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain ofsleeplessness, but they possibly did with Oak to-night, for thedelight of merely seeing her effaced for the time his perceptionof the great difference between seeing and possessing.

  He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books fromNorcombe. _The Young Man's Best Companion_, _The Farrier's SureGuide_, _The Veterinary Surgeon_, _Paradise Lost_, _The Pilgrim'sProgress_, _Robinson Crusoe_, Ash's _Dictionary_, and Walkingame's_Arithmetic_, constituted his library; and though a limited series,it was one from which he had acquired more sound information bydiligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from afurlong of laden shelves.