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CHAPTER VII - RECOGNITION -- A TIMID GIRL
BATHSHEBA withdrew into the shade. She scarcely knew
whether most to be amused at the singularity of the meeting,
or to be concerned at its awkwardness. There was room for a
little pity, also for a very little exultation: the former
at his position, the latter at her own. Embarrassed she was
not, and she remembered Gabriel's declaration of love to her
at Norcombe only to think she had nearly forgotten it.
"Yes," she murmured, putting on an air of dignity, and
turning again to him with a little warmth of cheek; "I do
want a shepherd. But ----"
"He's the very man, ma'am," said one of the villagers,
quietly.
Conviction breeds conviction. "Ay, that 'a is," said a
second, decisively.
"The man, truly!" said a third, with heartiness.
"He's all there!" said number four, fervidly.
"Then will you tell him to speak to the bailiff," said
Bathsheba.
All was practical again now. A summer eve and loneliness
would have been necessary to give the meeting its proper
fulness of romance.
The bailiff was pointed out to Gabriel, who, checking the
palpitation within his breast at discovering that this
Ashtoreth of strange report was only a modification of Venus
the well-known and admired, retired with him to talk over
the necessary preliminaries of hiring.
The fire before them wasted away. "Men," said Bathsheba,
"you shall take a little refreshment after this extra work.
Will you come to the house?"
"We could knock in a bit and a drop a good deal freer, Miss,
if so be ye'd send it to Warren's Malthouse," replied the
spokesman.
Bathsheba then rode off into the darkness, and the men
straggled on to the village in twos and threes -- Oak and
the bailiff being left by the rick alone.
"And now," said the bailiff, finally, "all is settled, I
think, about your coming, and I am going home-along. Good-
night to ye, shepherd."
"Can you get me a lodging?" inquired Gabriel.
"That I can't, indeed," he said, moving past Oak as a
Christian edges past an offertory-plate when he does not
mean to contribute. "If you follow on the road till you
come to Warren's Malthouse, where they are all gone to have
their snap of victuals, I daresay some of 'em will tell you
of a place. Good-night to ye, shepherd."
The bailiff who showed this nervous dread of loving his
neighbour as himself, went up the hill, and Oak walked on to
the village, still astonished at the rencounter with
Bathsheba, glad of his nearness to her, and perplexed at the
rapidity with which the unpractised girl of Norcombe had
developed into the supervising and cool woman here. But
some women only require an emergency to make them fit for
one.
Obliged, to some extent, to forgo dreaming in order to find
the way, he reached the churchyard, and passed round it
under the wall where several ancient trees grew. There was
a wide margin of grass along here, and Gabriel's footsteps
were deadened by its softness, even at this indurating
period of the year. When abreast of a trunk which appeared
to be the oldest of the old, he became aware that a figure
was standing behind it. Gabriel did not pause in his walk,
and in another moment he accidentally kicked a loose stone.
The noise was enough to disturb the motionless stranger, who
started and assumed a careless position.
It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad.
"Good-night to you," said Gabriel, heartily.
"Good-night," said the girl to Gabriel.
The voice was unexpectedly attractive; it was the low and
dulcet note suggestive of romance; common in descriptions,
rare in experience.
"I'll thank you to tell me if I'm in the way for Warren's
Malthouse?" Gabriel resumed, primarily to gain the
information, indirectly to get more of the music.
"Quite right. It's at the bottom of the hill. And do you
know ----" The girl hesitated and then went on again. "Do
you know how late they keep open the Buck's Head Inn?" She
seemed to be won by Gabriel's heartiness, as Gabriel had
been won by her modulations.
"I don't know where the Buck's Head is, or anything about
it. Do you think of going there to-night?"
"Yes ----" The woman again paused. There was no necessity
for any continuance of speech, and the fact that she did add
more seemed to proceed from an unconscious desire to show
unconcern by making a remark, which is noticeable in the
ingenuous when they are acting by stealth. "You are not a
Weatherbury man?" she said, timorously.
"I am not. I am the new shepherd -- just arrived."
"Only a shepherd -- and you seem almost a farmer by your
ways."
"Only a shepherd," Gabriel repeated, in a dull cadence of
finality. His thoughts were directed to the past, his eyes
to the feet of the girl; and for the first time he saw lying
there a bundle of some sort. She may have perceived the
direction of his face, for she said coaxingly, --
"You won't say anything in the parish about having seen me
here, will you -- at least, not for a day or two?"
"I won't if you wish me not to," said Oak.
"Thank you, indeed," the other replied. "I am rather poor,
and I don't want people to know anything about me." Then
she was silent and shivered.
"You ought to have a cloak on such a cold night," Gabriel
observed. "I would advise 'ee to get indoors."
"O no! Would you mind going on and leaving me? I thank you
much for what you have told me."
"I will go on," he said; adding hesitatingly, -- "Since you
are not very well off, perhaps you would accept this trifle
from me. It is only a shilling, but it is all I have to
spare."
"Yes, I will take it," said the stranger gratefully.
She extended her hand; Gabriel his. In feeling for each
other's palm in the gloom before the money could be passed,
a minute incident occurred which told much. Gabriel's
fingers alighted on the young woman's wrist. It was beating
with a throb of tragic intensity. He had frequently felt
the same quick, hard beat in the femoral artery of -- his
lambs when overdriven. It suggested a consumption too great
of a vitality which, to judge from her figure and stature,
was already too little.
"What is the matter?"
"Nothing."
"But there is?"
"No, no, no! Let your having seen me be a secret!"
"Very well; I will. Good-night, again."
"Good-night."
The young girl remained motionless by the tree, and Gabriel
descended into the village of Weatherbury, or Lower
Longpuddle as it was sometimes called. He fancied that he
had felt himself in the penumbra of a very deep sadness when
touching that slight and fragile creature. But wisdom lies
in moderating mere impressions, and Gabriel endeavoured to
think little of this.
Content of CHAPTER VII - RECOGNITION -- A TIMID GIRL [Thomas Hardy's novel: Far From The Madding Crowd]
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Read next: CHAPTER VIII - THE MALTHOUSE -- THE CHAT -- NEWS
Read previous: CHAPTER VI - THE FAIR -- THE JOURNEY -- THE FIRE
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