Far from the Madding Crowd

of Farmer Oa

distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round

ally that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion people of the parish and the drunken section,-that 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 t

elt 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

n, 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 green-faced timekeepers within. It may

eight 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

lect 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 n

e 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 an

waggon is gone, Miss

ugh not particularly low voice. "I heard a noise I co

run

she an

still, and the waggoner's steps sank

n front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses, together with a caged canary-all probably from the windows of the house just vacated. There was

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

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 far

s 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

rning. She put the glass in the pape

e 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 betw

ys that's enough that I've offered ye, you great miser, an

ece can't pass," said the tur

eepence had a definite value as money-it was an appreciable infringement on a day's wages, and, as such, a higgling matter; but twopence-"Here," he sa

lineament could be selected and called worthy either of distinction or notoriety. The red-jacketed and dark-haired maiden seemed to think so too, for she carelessly glanced over him, and told her man to drive on. She m

etreating vehicle. "That's a

her faults,"

, far

of them is-well, w

ople down?

n

t, t

er's indifference, glanced back to where he had witnes