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CHAPTER II - NIGHT -- THE FLOCK -- AN INTERIOR -- ANOTHER 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 Hill -- not far from lonely Toller-Down -- was one
of the spots which suggest to a passer-by 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 soil -- an ordinary specimen of those smoothly-
outlined 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. To-night 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 mid-winter time on the twigs which bore them
and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps.
Between this half-wooded half naked hill, and the vague
still horizon that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a
mysterious sheet of fathomless shade -- the 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 natures -- one
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 clear -- remarkably clear -- and 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 stars --
oftener read of than seen in England -- was 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 hedge -- a
shepherd's hut -- now 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 toy-makers -- and by
these means are established in men's imaginations among
their firmest, because earliest impressions -- to 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 sheep-farm 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 flute-playing 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 quiet-energy, 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
sheep-bell, 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 new-
born lamb, consisting of four legs large enough for a full-
grown 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 habitation, and here the young man
stretched himself along, loosened his woollen cravat, and
closed his eyes. In about the time a person unaccustomed to
bodily labour would have decided upon which side to lie,
Farmer Oak was asleep.
The inside of the hut, as it now presented itself, was cosy
and alluring, and the scarlet handful of fire in addition to
the candle, reflecting its own genial colour upon whatever
it could reach, flung associations of enjoyment even over
utensils and tools. In the corner stood the sheep-crook,
and along a shelf at one side were ranged bottles and
canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to ovine
surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar,
magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being the chief. On a
triangular shelf across the corner stood bread, bacon,
cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was supplied from
a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute,
whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely
watcher to beguile a tedious hour. The house was ventilated
by two round holes, like the lights of a ship's cabin, with
wood slides.
The lamb, revived by the warmth began to bleat, and the
sound entered Gabriel's ears and brain with an instant
meaning, as expected sounds will. Passing from the
profoundest sleep to the most alert wakefulness with the
same ease that had accompanied the reverse operation, he
looked at his watch, found that the hour-hand had shifted
again, put on his hat, took the lamb in his arms, and
carried it into the darkness. After placing the little
creature with its mother, he stood and carefully examined
the sky, to ascertain the time of night from the altitudes
of the stars.
The Dog-star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless
Pleiades, were half-way up the Southern sky, and between
them hung Orion, which gorgeous constellation never burnt
more vividly than now, as it soared forth above the rim of
the landscape. Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine
were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy Square of
Pegasus was creeping round to the north-west; far away
through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended
amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia's chair stood
daintily poised on the uppermost boughs.
"One o'clock," said Gabriel.
Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there
was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after
looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it
in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively
beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the
speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the
complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and
sounds of man. Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and
joys were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on
the shaded hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save
himself; he could fancy them all gone round to the sunny
side.
Occupied thus, with eyes stretched afar, Oak gradually
perceived that what he had previously taken to be a star low
down behind the outskirts of the plantation was in reality
no such thing. It was an artificial light, almost close at
hand.
To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is
desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case
more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some
mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory,
analogy, testimony, probability, induction -- every kind of
evidence in the logician's list -- have united to persuade
consciousness that it is quite in isolation.
Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and pushed through
its lower boughs to the windy side. A dim mass under the
slope reminded him that a shed occupied a place here, the
site being a cutting into the slope of the hill, so that at
its back part the roof was almost level with the ground. In
front it was formed of board nailed to posts and covered
with tar as a preservative. Through crevices in the roof
and side spread streaks and dots of light, a combination of
which made the radiance that had attracted him. Oak stepped
up behind, where, leaning down upon the roof and putting his
eye close to a hole, he could see into the interior clearly.
The place contained two women and two cows. By the side of
the latter a steaming bran-mash stood in a bucket. One of
the women was past middle age. Her companion was apparently
young and graceful; he could form no decided opinion upon
her looks, her position being almost beneath his eye, so
that he saw her in a bird's-eye view, as Milton's Satan
first saw Paradise. She wore no bonnet or hat, but had
enveloped herself in a large cloak, which was carelessly
flung over her head as a covering.
"There, now we'll go home," said the elder of the two,
resting her knuckles upon her hips, and looking at their
goings-on as a whole. "I do hope Daisy will fetch round
again now. I have never been more frightened in my life,
but I don't mind breaking my rest if she recovers."
The young woman, whose eyelids were apparently inclined to
fall together on the smallest provocation of silence, yawned
without parting her lips to any inconvenient extent,
whereupon Gabriel caught the infection and slightly yawned
in sympathy.
"I wish we were rich enough to pay a man to do these
things," she said.
"As we are not, we must do them ourselves," said the other;
"for you must help me if you stay."
"Well, my hat is gone, however," continued the younger.
"It went over the hedge, I think. The idea of such a slight
wind catching it."
The cow standing erect was of the Devon breed, and was
encased in a tight warm hide of rich Indian red, as
absolutely uniform from eyes to tail as if the animal had
been dipped in a dye of that colour, her long back being
mathematically level. The other was spotted, grey and
white. Beside her Oak now noticed a little calf about a day
old, looking idiotically at the two women, which showed that
it had not long been accustomed to the phenomenon of
eyesight, and often turning to the lantern, which it
apparently mistook for the moon, inherited instinct having
as yet had little time for correction by experience.
Between the sheep and the cows Lucina had been busy on
Norcombe Hill lately.
"I think we had better send for some oatmeal," said the
elder woman; "there's no more bran."
"Yes, aunt; and I'll ride over for it as soon as it is
light."
"But there's no side-saddle."
"I can ride on the other: trust me."
Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more curious to
observe her features, but this prospect being denied him by
the hooding effect of the cloak, and by his aerial position,
he felt himself drawing upon his fancy for their details.
In making even horizontal and clear inspections we colour
and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes
bring in. Had Gabriel been able from the first to get a
distinct view of her countenance, his estimate of it as very
handsome or slightly so would have been as his soul required
a divinity at the moment or was ready supplied with one.
Having for some time known the want of a satisfactory form
to fill an increasing void within him, his position moreover
affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a
beauty.
By one of those whimsical coincidences in which Nature, like
a busy mother, seems to spare a moment from her unremitting
labours to turn and make her children smile, the girl now
dropped the cloak, and forth tumbled ropes of black hair
over a red jacket. Oak knew her instantly as the heroine of
the yellow waggon, myrtles, and looking-glass: prosily, as
the woman who owed him twopence.
They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the
lantern, and went out, the light sinking down the hill till
it was no more than a nebula. Gabriel Oak returned to his
flock.
Content of CHAPTER II - NIGHT -- THE FLOCK -- AN INTERIOR -- ANOTHER INTERIOR [Thomas Hardy's novel: Far From The Madding Crowd]
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Read next: CHAPTER III - A GIRL ON HORSEBACK -- CONVERSATION
Read previous: CHAPTER I - DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK -- AN INCIDENT
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