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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, the character and purposes of the building were
clearly enough shown by its outline upon the sky. From the
walls an overhanging thatched roof sloped up to a point in
the centre, upon which rose a small wooden lantern, fitted
with louvre-boards on all the four sides, and from these
openings a mist was dimly perceived to be escaping into the
night air. There was no window in front; but a square hole
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 to an Elymas-the-Sorcerer pattern, till he found a
leathern strap, which he pulled. This lifted a wooden
latch, and the door swung open.
The room inside was lighted only by the ruddy glow from the
kiln mouth, which shone over the floor with the streaming,
horizontality of the setting sun, and threw upwards the
shadows of all facial irregularities in those assembled
around. The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the
doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere. A
curved settle of unplaned oak stretched along one side, and
in a remote corner was a small bed and bedstead, the owner
and frequent occupier of which was the maltster.
This aged man was now sitting opposite the fire, his frosty
white hair and beard overgrowing his gnarled figure like the
grey moss and lichen upon a leafless apple-tree. He wore
breeches and the laced-up shoes called ankle-jacks; he kept
his eyes fixed upon the fire.
Gabriel's nose was greeted by an atmosphere laden with the
sweet smell of new malt. The conversation (which seemed to
have been concerning the origin of the fire) immediately
ceased, and every one ocularly criticised him to the degree
expressed by contracting the flesh of their foreheads and
looking at him with narrowed eyelids, as if he had been a
light too strong for their sight. Several exclaimed
meditatively, 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, but weren't sure 'twere not a dead leaf blowed
across," said another. "Come in, shepherd; sure ye be
welcome, though we don't know yer name."
"Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbours."
The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned up this --
his turning being 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 a moment 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!
-- thought I 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 momentum previously 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
boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers -- that
they were sure -- weren't ye, Jacob?"
"Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with
a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his
upper jaw, which made much of itself by standing prominent,
like a milestone in a bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do
with him. However, my son William 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, or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of
possessing a cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and whose
whiskers were assuming a chinchilla shade here and there.
"I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a man in the place
when I was quite a child."
"Ay -- the other day I and my youngest daughter, Liddy, were
over at my grandson's christening," continued Billy. "We
were talking about this very family, and 'twas only last
Purification Day in this very world, 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 to traypse up to
the vestry -- yes, this very man's family."
"Come, shepherd, and drink. 'Tis gape and swaller with us --
a drap of sommit, but not of much account," said the
maltster, removing from the fire his eyes, which were
vermilion-red and bleared by gazing into it for so many
years. "Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if 'tis
warm, Jacob."
Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled
tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with
heat: it was rather furred with extraneous matter about the
outside, especially in the crevices of the handles, the
innermost curves of which may not have seen daylight for
several years by reason of this encrustation thereon --
formed of ashes accidentally wetted with cider and baked
hard; but to the mind of any sensible drinker the cup was no
worse for that, being incontestably clean on the inside and
about the rim. It may be observed that such a class of mug
is called a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and its vicinity
for uncertain reasons; probably because its size makes any
given toper feel ashamed of himself 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, and having pronounced it nearly of the proper
degree, raised the cup and very civilly attempted to dust
some of the ashes from the bottom with the 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 of
considerateness. "I never fuss about dirt in its pure
state, and when I know what sort it is." Taking the mug he
drank an inch or more from the depth of its contents, and
duly passed it to the next man. "I wouldn't think of giving
such trouble to neighbours in washing up when there's so
much work to be done in the world already." continued Oak in
a moister tone, after recovering from the stoppage 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 -- Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman,
whom to meet anywhere in your travels was to know, to know
was to drink with, and to drink with 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 in the road outside as I was bringing it
along, and may be 'tis rather gritty. There, 'tis clane
dirt; and we all know what that is, as you say, 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 at all. Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be done by
contrivance!"
"My own mind exactly, neighbour."
"Ah, he's his grandfer's own grandsonn! -- his grandfer were
just such a nice unparticular man!" said the maltster.
"Drink, Henry Fray -- drink," magnanimously said Jan Coggan,
a person who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and share
alike where liquor was concerned, as the vessel showed signs
of approaching him in its gradual 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, with eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid
it down that the law of the world was bad, with a long-
suffering look through his listeners at the world alluded
to, as it presented itself to his imagination. He always
signed his name "Henery" -- strenuously insisting upon that
spelling, and if any passing schoolmaster ventured to remark
that the second "e" was superfluous and old-fashioned, he
received the reply that "H-e-n-e-r-y" was the name he was
christened and the name he would stick to -- in the tone of
one to whom orthographical differences were matters which
had a great deal to do with personal character.
Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery, was a
crimson man with a spacious countenance, and private glimmer
in his eye, whose name had appeared on the marriage register
of Weatherbury and neighbouring parishes as best man and
chief witness in countless unions of the previous twenty
years; he also very frequently filled the post of head
godfather in baptisms of the subtly-jovial kind.
"Come, Mark Clark -- come. Ther's plenty more in the
barrel," said Jan.
"Ay -- that I will, 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark,
who, twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the
same orbit. He secreted mirth on all occasions for special
discharge at popular parties.
"Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop!" said Mr.
Coggan to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting
the cup towards him.
"Such a modest man as he is!" said Jacob Smallbury. "Why,
ye've hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young
mis'ess's face, so I hear, Joseph?"
All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.
"No -- I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph,
reducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a
meek sense of undue prominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas
nothing but blushes with me!"
"Poor feller," said Mr. Clark.
"'Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan.
"Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass -- his shyness, which was
so painful as a defect, filling him with a mild complacency
now that it was regarded as an interesting study. "'Twere
blush, blush, blush with me every minute of the time, when
she was speaking to me."
"I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a
very bashful man."
"'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the
maltster. "And how long have ye have suffered from it,
Joseph?"
[Alternate text: appears in all three additions 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 heart about 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
Greenhill Fair, and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble show,
where there were women-folk riding round -- standing upon
horses, with hardly anything on but their smocks; but it
didn't cure me a morsel. And then I was put errand-man at
the Women's Skittle Alley at the back of the Tailor's Arms
in Casterbridge. 'Twas a horrible sinful situation, and a
very curious place for a good man. I had to stand and look
ba'dy people in the face from morning till night; but 'twas
no use -- I was just as bad as ever after all. Blushes hev
been in the family for generations. There, 'tis a happy
providence that I be no worse."
"True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a
profounder view of the subject. "'Tis a thought to look at,
that ye might have been 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, very awkward for the man."
"Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan. "Once
he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a
drap of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home-along
through Yalbury Wood, didn't ye, Master Poorgrass?"
"No, no, no; not that story!" expostulated the modest man,
forcing a laugh to bury his concern.
"---- And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan,
with an impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like
time and tide, must run its course and would respect no man.
"And as he was coming along in the middle of the night, much
afeared, and not able to find 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 in a
tremble, said, 'Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!'"
"No, no, now -- that's too much!" said the timid man,
becoming a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. "I didn't
say sir. I'll tike my oath 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 very well that no man of
a gentleman's rank would be hollering there at that time o'
night. 'Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury,' -- that's every
word I said, and I shouldn't ha' said that if 't hadn't been
for Keeper Day's metheglin.... There, 'twas a merciful
thing it ended where 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 time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye,
Joseph?"
"I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions
too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this
being one.
"Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate
would not open, 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 the experience alluded to. "My heart died
within me, that time; but I kneeled down and said the Lord's
Prayer, and then the Belief right through, and then the Ten
Commandments, in earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't
open; and then I went on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and,
thinks I, this makes four, and 'tis all I know out of 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 found the gate would open -- yes, neighbours, the gate
opened the same as ever."
A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by
all, and during 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, partly from 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 bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the
notice of the assembly the inner-most subject of his heart.
"We d' know little of her -- nothing. She only showed
herself a few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the
doctor was called with his world-wide skill; but he couldn't
save the man. As I take it, she's going to keep on the
farm.
"That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan.
"Ay, 'tis a very good family. I'd as soon be under 'em as
under one here and there. 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 Farmer Everdene, and I being a respectable young
fellow was allowed to call and see her and drink as much ale
as I liked, but not to carry away any -- 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
his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-
mannered as to drink only a thimbleful, which would have
been insulting the man's generosity ----"
"True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark.
"---- And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going,
and then by the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-
basket -- so thorough dry that that ale would slip down --
ah, 'twould slip down sweet! Happy times! heavenly times!
Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that house! 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's Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple."
"'Twas. But for a wet of the better class, that brought you
no nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun,
there was none like those in Farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not
a single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the
most cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good
old word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a
great relief to a merry soul."
"True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at
the regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy
exclamations is a necessity of life."
"But Charlotte," continued Coggan -- "not a word of the sort
would Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in
vain.... Ay, poor Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good
fortune to get into Heaven when 'a died! But 'a was never
much in luck's way, and perhaps 'a went downwards after all,
poor soul."
"And did any of you know Miss Everdene's father and mother?"
inquired the shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping
the conversation in the desired channel.
"I knew them a little," said Jacob Smallbury; "but they were
townsfolk, 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 a lovely 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 been told," said the maltster.
"Ay," said Coggan. "He admired her so much that he used to
light the candle three time a night to look at her."
"Boundless love; I shouldn't have supposed it in the
universe!" murmered Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke
on a large scale in his moral reflections.
"Well, to be sure," said Gabriel.
"Oh, 'tis true enough. I knowed the man and woman both
well. Levi Everdene -- that was the man's name, sure.
"Man," saith I in my hurry, but he were of a higher circle
of life than that -- 'a was a gentleman-tailor really, worth
scores of pounds. And he became a very 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 and silver."
The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after
absently scrutinising a coal which had fallen among the
ashes, took up the narrative, with a private twirl of his
eye: --
"Well, now, you'd hardly believe it, but that man -- our
Miss Everdene's father -- was one of the ficklest husbands
alive, after a while. Understand? 'a didn't want to be
fickle, but he couldn't help it. The pore feller were
faithful and true enough to her in his wish, but his heart
would rove, do what he would. He spoke to me in real
tribulation about it once. "Coggan," he said, "I could
never wish for a handsomer woman than I've got, but feeling
she's ticketed as my lawful wife, I can't help my wicked
heart wandering, do what I will." But at last I believe he
cured it by making her take off her wedding-ring and calling
her by her maiden name as they sat together after the shop
was shut, and so 'a would get to fancy she was only his
sweetheart, and not married to him at all. And as soon as
he could thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing
the seventh, 'a got to like her as well as ever, and they
lived on a perfect picture of mutel love."
"Well, 'twas a most ungodly remedy," murmured Joseph
Poorgrass; "but we ought to feel deep cheerfulness that a
happy Providence kept it from being any worse. You see, he
might have gone the bad road and given his eyes to
unlawfulness entirely -- yes, gross unlawfulness, so to 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 confirmed over again in a more serious way, and took
to saying 'Amen' almost as loud as the clerk, and he liked
to copy comforting verses from the tombstones. He used,
too, to hold the money-plate at Let Your Light so Shine, and
stand godfather to poor little come-by-chance children; and
he kept a missionary box upon his table to nab folks
unawares when they called; yes, and he would box the
charity-boys' ears, if they laughed in church, till they
could hardly stand upright, and do other deeds of piety
natural to the saintly inclined."
"Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high things,"
added Billy Smallbury. "One day Parson Thirdly met him and
said, 'Good-Morning, Mister Everdene; 'tis a fine day!'
'Amen' said Everdene, quite absent-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,"
said Henery Fray. "Never should have thought she'd have
growed up such a handsome 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 and ourselves. Ah!" Henery gazed into the ashpit,
and smiled volumes of ironical knowledge.
"A queer Christian, like the Devil's head in a cowl,[1] as
the saying is," volunteered Mark Clark.
[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
certain point. "Between we two, man and man, I believe that
man would as soon 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
upon the company with the antithetic laughter that comes
from a keener appreciation of the miseries of life than
ordinary men are capable of. "Ah, there's people of one
sort, and people of another, but that man -- bless your
souls!"
Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. "You must be a
very aged man, 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 rather more bowed than his own.
"Really one may say that father there is three-double."
"Crooked folk will last a long while," said the maltster,
grimly, and not 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 had longed 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, in the slow speech justifiable when the
importance of a subject is so generally 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 reckon up
the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I bode at
Upper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north) "till
I were eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the
east) "where I took to malting. I went therefrom to
Norcombe, and malted there two-and-twenty years, and-two-
and-twenty years I was there turnip-hoeing and harvesting.
Ah, I knowed that old place, Norcombe, years afore you were
thought of, Master Oak" (Oak smiled sincere belief in the
fact). "Then I malted at Durnover four year, and four year
turnip-hoeing; and I was fourteen times eleven months at
Millpond St. Jude's" (nodding north-west-by-north). "Old
Twills wouldn't hire me for more than eleven months at a
time, to keep me from being chargeable to the parish if so
be I was disabled. Then I was three year at Mellstock,
and I've been here one-and-thirty year come Candlemas. How
much is that?"
"Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another old gentleman,
given to mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had
hitherto sat unobserved in a corner.
"Well, then, that's my age," said the maltster,
emphatically.
"O no, father!" said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing were in the
summer and your malting in the winter of the same years, and
ye don't ought to count-both halves father."
"Chok' it all! I lived through the summers, didn't I? That's
my question. 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,
also soothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a
wonderful talented constitution to be able to live so long,
mustn't he, neighbours?"
"True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," said the meeting
unanimously.
The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough
to voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of
having lived a great many years, by mentioning that the cup
they were drinking out of was three years older than he.
While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's
flute became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery
Fray exclaimed, "Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a
great flute by now at Casterbridge?"
"You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly. "I've been in
great trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it. I used not
to be so poor as I be now."
"Never mind, heart!" said Mark Clark. You should take it
careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come. But we
could thank ye for a tune, if ye bain't too tired?"
"Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since Christmas,"
said Jan Coggan. "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!"
"Ay, that I will," said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and
putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbours; but such as
I can do ye shall have and welcome."
Oak then struck up "Jockey to the Fair," and played that
sparkling melody three times through accenting the notes in
the third round in a most artistic and lively manner by
bending his body in small jerks and tapping with his foot to
beat time.
"He can blow the flute very well -- that 'a can," said a
young married man, who having no individuality worth
mentioning was known as "Susan Tall's husband." He
continued, "I'd as lief as not be able to blow into a flute
as well as that."
"He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to have
such a shepherd," murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft
cadence. "We ought to feel full o' thanksgiving that he's
not a player of ba'dy songs 'instead of these merry tunes;
for 'twould have been just as easy for God to have made the
shepherd a loose low man -- a man of iniquity, so to speak
it -- as what he is. Yes, for our wives' and daughters'
sakes we should feel real thanks giving."
"True, true, -- real thanksgiving!" dashed in Mark Clark
conclusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his
opinion that he had only heard about a word and three-
quarters of what Joseph had said.
"Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the
Bible; "for evil do thrive so in these times that ye may be
as much deceived in the cleanest shaved and whitest shirted
man as in the raggedest tramp upon 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
second tune. "Yes -- now I see 'ee blowing into the flute I
know 'ee to be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for
yer mouth were scrimped up and yer eyes a-staring out like a
strangled man's -- just as they be now."
"'Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look
such a scarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional
criticism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person
jerking out, with the ghastly grimace required by the
instrument, the chorus of "Dame Durden:" --
'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 your features?" whispered Joseph to Gabriel.
"Not at all," said Mr. Oak.
"For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd,"
continued Joseph Poorgrass, with winning sauvity.
"Ay, that ye be, shepard," said the company.
"Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good
manners demanded, thinking, however, that he would never let
Bathsheba see him playing the flute; in this resolve showing
a discretion equal to that related to its sagacious
inventress, the divine Minerva herself.
"Ah, when I and my wife were married at Norcombe Church,"
said the old maltster, not pleased at finding himself left
out of the subject, "we were called the handsomest couple in
the neighbourhood -- everybody said so."
"Danged if ye bain't altered now, malter," said a voice with
the vigour natural to the enunciation of a remarkably
evident truism. It came from the old man in the background,
whose offensiveness and spiteful ways were barely atoned for
by the occasional chuckle he contributed to general laughs.
"O no, no," said Gabriel.
"Don't ye play no more shepherd" said Susan Tall's husband,
the young married man who had spoken once before. "I must
be moving and when there's tunes going on I seem as if hung
in wires. If I thought after I'd left that music was still
playing, and I not there, I should be quite melancholy-
like."
"What's yer hurry then, Laban?" inquired Coggan. "You used
to bide as late as the latest."
"Well, ye see, neighbours, I was lately married to a woman,
and she's my 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
tone intended to imply his habitual reception of jokes
without minding them at all. The young man then wished them
good-night and withdrew.
Henery Fray was the first to follow. Then Gabriel arose and
went off with Jan Coggan, who had offered him a lodging. A
few minutes later, when the remaining ones were on their
legs and about to depart, Fray came back again in a hurry.
Flourishing his finger ominously he threw a gaze teeming
with tidings just where his eye alighted by accident, 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 she went out again to see all was safe, as she usually
do, and coming in found Baily Pennyways creeping down the
granary steps with half a a bushel of barley. She fleed at
him like a cat -- never such a tomboy as 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 having carried off five sack altogether, upon her
promising not to persecute him. Well, he's turned out neck
and crop, and my question is, who's going to be baily now?"
The question was such a profound one that Henery was obliged
to drink there and then from the large cup till the bottom
was distinctly visible inside. Before he had replaced it on
the table, in came the young 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 midst of Laban Tall as if to meet his words half-way
down his throat.
"What a night of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving
his hands spasmodically. "I've had the news-bell ringing in
my left ear quite 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 she isn't come in. And they don't know what to
do about going to bed for fear of locking her out. They
wouldn't be so concerned if she hadn't been noticed in such
low spirits these last few days, and Maryann d' think the
beginning of a crowner's inquest has happened to the poor
girl."
"Oh -- 'tis burned -- 'tis burned!" came from Joseph
Poorgrass's dry lips.
"No -- 'tis drowned!" said Tall.
"Or 'tis her father's razor!" suggested Billy Smallbury,
with a vivid sense of detail.
"Well -- Miss Everdene wants to speak to one or two of us
before we go to bed. What with this trouble about the
baily, and now about the girl, mis'ess is almost wild."
They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting
the old maltster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder
could draw from his hole. There, as the others' footsteps
died away he sat down again and continued gazing as usual
into the furnace with his red, bleared eyes.
From the bedroom window above their heads Bathsheba's head
and shoulders, robed in mystic white, were dimly seen
extended into the air.
"Are any of my men among you?" she said anxiously.
"Yes, ma'am, several," said Susan Tall's husband.
"To-morrow morning I wish two or three of you to make
inquiries in the 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 have left whilst we were all at
the fire."
"I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man courting her in
the parish, 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 lover of hers might have come to the house if he had
been a respectable lad. The most mysterious matter
connected with her absence -- indeed, the only thing which
gives me serious alarm -- is that she was seen to go out of
the house by Maryann with only her indoor working gown on --
not even a bonnet."
"And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, that a young woman
would hardly go to see her young man without dressing up,"
said Jacob, turning his mental vision upon past experiences.
"That's true -- she would not, ma'am."
"She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn't see very
well," said a female voice from another window, which seemed
that of Maryann. "But she had no young man about here.
Hers lives in Casterbridge, and I believe 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
Casterbridge barracks," said William Smallbury.
"Very well; if she doesn't return tomorrow, mind you go
there and try to discover which man it is, and see him. I
feel more responsible than I should if she had had any
friends or relations alive. I do hope she has come to no
harm through a man of that kind.... And then there's this
disgraceful affair of the bailiff -- but I can't speak of
him now."
Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness that it seemed
she did not think it worth while to dwell upon any
particular one. "Do as I told 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
closed eyelids, was busy with fancies, and full of movement,
like a river flowing rapidly under its ice. Night had
always been the time at which he saw Bathsheba most vividly,
and through the slow hours of shadow he tenderly regarded
her image now. It is rarely that the pleasures of the
imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness,
but they possibly did with Oak to-night, for the delight of
merely seeing her effaced for the time his perception of the
great difference between seeing and possessing.
He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and
books from Norcombe. THE YOUNG MAN'S BEST COMPANION, THE
FARRIER'S SURE GUIDE, THE VETERINARY SURGEON, PARADISE LOST,
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, ROBINSON CRUSOE, ASH'S DICTIONARY,
the Walkingame's ARITHMETIC, constituted his library; and
though a limited series, it was one from which he had
acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than
many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden
shelves.
Content of CHAPTER VIII - THE MALTHOUSE -- THE CHAT -- NEWS [Thomas Hardy's novel: Far From The Madding Crowd]
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Read next: CHAPTER IX - THE HOMESTEAD -- A VISITOR -- HALF-CONFIDENCES
Read previous: CHAPTER VII - RECOGNITION -- A TIMID GIRL
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