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CHAPTER I
DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAKâAN INCIDENT
When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till
they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were
reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them,
extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary
sketch of the rising sun.
His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a
young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and
general good character. On Sundays he was a man of misty views,
rather given to postponing, and hampered by his best clothes and
umbrella: upon the whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally
that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between
the Communion people of the parish and the drunken section,âthat
is, he went to church, but yawned privately by the time the
congregation reached the Nicene creed, and thought of what there
would be for dinner when he meant to be listening to the sermon.
Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public
opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was
considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather
a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour
was a kind of pepperâandâsalt mixture.
Since he lived six times as many workingâdays as Sundays, Oak's
appearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his ownâthe
mental picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him being
always dressed in that way. He wore a lowâcrowned felt hat, spread
out at the base by tight jamming upon the head for security in high
winds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson's; his lower extremities
being encased in ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically
large, affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that
any wearer might stand in a river all day long and know nothing of
dampâtheir maker being a conscientious man who endeavoured to
compensate for any weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension and
solidity.
Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be
called a small silver clock; in other words, it was a watch as to
shape and intention, and a small clock as to size. This instrument
being several years older than Oak's grandfather, had the
peculiarity of going either too fast or not at all. The smaller of
its hands, too, occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus,
though the minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite
certain of the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of
his watch Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any
evil consequences from the other two defects by constant
comparisons with and observations of the sun and stars, and by
pressing his face close to the glass of his neighbours' windows,
till he could discern the hour marked by the greenâfaced
timekeepers within. It may be mentioned that Oak's fob being
difficult of access, by reason of its somewhat high situation in
the waistband of his trousers (which also lay at a remote height
under his waistcoat), the watch was as a necessity pulled out by
throwing the body to one side, compressing the mouth and face to a
mere mass of ruddy flesh on account of the exertion required, and
drawing up the watch by its chain, like a bucket from a well.
But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one
of his fields on a certain December morningâsunny and exceedingly
mildâmight have regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these.
In his face one might notice that many of the hues and curves of
youth had tarried on to manhood: there even remained in his remoter
crannies some relics of the boy. His height and breadth would have
been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been
exhibited with due consideration. But there is a way some men have,
rural and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than
flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions by
their manner of showing them. And from a quiet modesty that would
have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him
that he had no great claim on the world's room, Oak walked
unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from
a bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in an
individual if he depends for his valuation more upon his appearance
than upon his capacity to wear well, which Oak did not.
He had just reached the time of life at which "young" is ceasing
to be the prefix of "man" in speaking of one. He was at the
brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his
emotions were clearly separated: he had passed the time during
which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the
character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage
wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by
the influence of a wife and family. In short, he was twentyâeight,
and a bachelor.
The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called
Norcombe Hill. Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between
Emminster and ChalkâNewton. Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak
saw coming down the incline before him an ornamental spring waggon,
painted yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a waggoner
walking alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was
laden with household goods and window plants, and on the apex of
the whole sat a woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld
the sight for more than half a minute, when the vehicle was brought
to a standstill just beneath his eyes.
"The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss," said the
waggoner.
"Then I heard it fall," said the girl, in a soft, though not
particularly low voice. "I heard a noise I could not account for
when we were coming up the hill."
"I'll run back."
"Do," she answered.
The sensible horses stoodâperfectly still, and the waggoner's
steps sank fainter and fainter in the distance.
The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by
tables and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle,
and ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and
cactuses, together with a caged canaryâall probably from the
windows of the house just vacated. There was also a cat in a willow
basket, from the partlyâopened lid of which she gazed with
halfâclosed eyes, and affectionately surveyed the small birds
around.
The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and
the only sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary
up and down the perches of its prison. Then she looked attentively
downwards. It was not at the bird, nor at the cat; it was at an
oblong package tied in paper, and lying between them. She turned
her head to learn if the waggoner were coming. He was not yet in
sight; and her eyes crept back to the package, her thoughts seeming
to run upon what was inside it. At length she drew the article into
her lap, and untied the paper covering; a small swing lookingâglass
was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself
attentively. She parted her lips and smiled.
It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow
the crimson jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her
bright face and dark hair. The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses
packed around her were fresh and green, and at such a leafless
season they invested the whole concern of horses, waggon,
furniture, and girl with a peculiar vernal charm. What possessed
her to indulge in such a performance in the sight of the sparrows,
blackbirds, and unperceived farmer who were alone its
spectators,âwhether the smile began as a factitious one, to test
her capacity in that art,ânobody knows; it ended certainly in a
real smile. She blushed at herself, and seeing her reflection
blush, blushed the more.
The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of
such an actâfrom the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of
travelling out of doorsâlent to the idle deed a novelty it did not
intrinsically possess. The picture was a delicate one. Woman's
prescriptive infirmity had stalked into the sunlight, which had
clothed it in the freshness of an originality. A cynical inference
was irresistible by Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous
though he fain would have been. There was no necessity whatever for
her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her
hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that
any such intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She
simply observed herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine
kind, her thoughts seeming to glide into farâoff though likely
dramas in which men would play a partâvistas of probable
triumphsâthe smiles being of a phase suggesting that hearts were
imagined as lost and won. Still, this was but conjecture, and the
whole series of actions was so idly put forth as to make it rash to
assert that intention had any part in them at all.
The waggoner's steps were heard returning. She put the glass in
the paper, and the whole again into its place.
When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel withdrew from his point
of espial, and descending into the road, followed the vehicle to
the turnpikeâgate some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where the
object of his contemplation now halted for the payment of toll.
About twenty steps still remained between him and the gate, when he
heard a dispute. It was a difference concerning twopence between
the persons with the waggon and the man at the tollâbar.
"Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, and she says
that's enough that I've offered ye, you great miser, and she won't
pay any more." These were the waggoner's words.
"Very well; then mis'ess's niece can't pass," said the
turnpikeâkeeper, closing the gate.
Oak looked from one to the other of the disputants, and fell
into a reverie. There was something in the tone of twopence
remarkably insignificant. Threepence had a definite value as
moneyâit was an appreciable infringement on a day's wages, and, as
such, a higgling matter; but twopenceâ"Here," he said, stepping
forward and handing twopence to the gatekeeper; "let the young
woman pass." He looked up at her then; she heard his words, and
looked down.
Gabriel's features adhered throughout their form so exactly to
the middle line between the beauty of St. John and the
ugliness of Judas Iscariot, as represented in a window of the
church he attended, that not a single lineament could be selected
and called worthy either of distinction or notoriety. The
redâjacketed and darkâhaired maiden seemed to think so too, for she
carelessly glanced over him, and told her man to drive on. She
might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she
did not speak them; more probably she felt none, for in gaining her
a passage he had lost her her point, and we know how women take a
favour of that kind.
The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle. "That's a
handsome maid," he said to Oak.
"But she has her faults," said Gabriel.
"True, farmer."
"And the greatest of them isâwell, what it is always."
"Beating people down? ay, 'tis so."
"O no."
"What, then?"
Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely traveller's
indifference, glanced back to where he had witnessed her
performance over the hedge, and said, "Vanity."
CHAPTER II
NIGHTâTHE FLOCKâAN INTERIORâANOTHER INTERIOR
It was nearly midnight on the eve of St. Thomas's, the shortest day in the year. A desolating wind wandered from the north over the hill whereon Oak had watched the yellow waggon and its occupant in the sunshine of a few days earlier.
Norcombe Hillânot far from lonely TollerâDownâwas one of the spots which suggest to a passerâby that he is in the presence of a shape approaching the indestructible as nearly as any to be found on earth. It was a featureless convexity of chalk and soilâan ordinary specimen of those smoothlyâoutlined protuberances of the globe which may remain undisturbed on some great day of confusion, when far grander heights and dizzy granite precipices topple down.
The hill was covered on its northern side by an ancient and decaying plantation of beeches, whose upper verge formed a line over the crest, fringing its arched curve against the sky, like a mane. Toânight these trees sheltered the southern slope from the keenest blasts, which smote the wood and floundered through it with a sound as of grumbling, or gushed over its crowning boughs in a weakened moan. The dry leaves in the ditch simmered and boiled in the same breezes, a tongue of air occasionally ferreting out a few, and sending them spinning across the grass. A group or two of the latest in date amongst the dead multitude had remained till this very midâwinter time on the twigs which bore them and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps.
Between this halfâwooded halfânaked hill, and the vague still horizon that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet of fathomless shadeâthe sounds from which suggested that what it concealed bore some reduced resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more or less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes of differing powers, and almost of differing naturesâone rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly, another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive act of humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then caught the note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the hurrying gust then plunged into the south, to be heard no more.
The sky was clearâremarkably clearâand the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse. The North Star was directly in the wind's eye, and since evening the Bear had swung round it outwardly to the east, till he was now at a right angle with the meridian. A difference of colour in the starsâoftener read of than seen in Englandâwas really perceptible here. The sovereign brilliancy of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery red.
To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of motion is a phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilised mankind, who are dreamwrapt and disregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars. After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to get back to earth, and to believe that the consciousness of such majestic speeding is derived from a tiny human frame.
Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place up against the sky. They had a clearness which was to be found nowhere in the wind, and a sequence which was to be found nowhere in nature. They were the notes of Farmer Oak's flute.
The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air: it seemed muffled in some way, and was altogether too curtailed in power to spread high or wide. It came from the direction of a small dark object under the plantation hedgeâa shepherd's hutânow presenting an outline to which an uninitiated person might have been puzzled to attach either meaning or use.
The image as a whole was that of a small Noah's Ark on a small Ararat, allowing the traditionary outlines and general form of the Ark which are followed by toyâmakersâand by these means are established in men's imaginations among their firmest, because earliest impressionsâto pass as an approximate pattern. The hut stood on little wheels, which raised its floor about a foot from the ground. Such shepherds' huts are dragged into the fields when the lambing season comes on, to shelter the shepherd in his enforced nightly attendance.
It was only latterly that people had begun to call Gabriel "Farmer" Oak. During the twelvemonth preceding this time he had been enabled by sustained efforts of industry and chronic good spirits to lease the small sheepâfarm of which Norcombe Hill was a portion, and stock it with two hundred sheep. Previously he had been a bailiff for a short time, and earlier still a shepherd only, having from his childhood assisted his father in tending the flocks of large proprietors, till old Gabriel sank to rest.
This venture, unaided and alone, into the paths of farming as master and not as man, with an advance of sheep not yet paid for, was a critical juncture with Gabriel Oak, and he recognised his position clearly. The first movement in his new progress was the lambing of his ewes, and sheep having been his speciality from his youth, he wisely refrained from deputing the task of tending them at this season to a hireling or a novice.
The wind continued to beat about the corners of the hut, but the fluteâplaying ceased. A rectangular space of light appeared in the side of the hut, and in the opening the outline of Farmer Oak's figure. He carried a lantern in his hand, and closing the door behind him, came forward and busied himself about this nook of the field for nearly twenty minutes, the lantern light appearing and disappearing here and there, and brightening him or darkening him as he stood before or behind it.
Oak's motions, though they had a quietâenergy, were slow, and their deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of beauty, nobody could have denied that his steady swings and turns in and about the flock had elements of grace. Yet, although if occasion demanded he could do or think a thing with as mercurial a dash as can the men of towns who are more to the manner born, his special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static, owing little or nothing to momentum as a rule.
A close examination of the ground hereabout, even by the wan starlight only, revealed how a portion of what would have been casually called a wild slope had been appropriated by Farmer Oak for his great purpose this winter. Detached hurdles thatched with straw were stuck into the ground at various scattered points, amid and under which the whitish forms of his meek ewes moved and rustled. The ring of the sheepâbell, which had been silent during his absence, recommenced, in tones that had more mellowness than clearness, owing to an increasing growth of surrounding wool. This continued till Oak withdrew again from the flock. He returned to the hut, bringing in his arms a newâborn lamb, consisting of four legs large enough for a fullâgrown sheep, united by a seemingly inconsiderable membrane about half the substance of the legs collectively, which constituted the animal's entire body just at present.
The little speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before the small stove, where a can of milk was simmering. Oak extinguished the lantern by blowing into it and then pinching the snuff, the cot being lighted by a candle suspended by a twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of a few corn sacks thrown carelessly down, covered half the floor of this little ...