Far from the Madding Crowd

ghbourhood, had an influence upon him which might have surprised any who never s

the means that chance offered to Gabriel Oak by Bathsheba's disappearance, though effectual with people of certain humours, is apt to idealize the removed object with others-notably those whose affection, placid and

of Bathsheba's movements was done indirectly. It appeared that she had gone to a place called Weatherbury,

rey; but the grey, after years of sun and rain, had been scorched and washed out of the more prominent locks, leaving them of a reddish-brown, as if the blue component of the grey had faded, like the

riptions better than the wickedest old man in the neighbourhood. Long experience had so precisely taught the animal the difference between such exclamations as "Come in!" and "D–––– ye, come in!" that h

her than the rudiments as yet-still finding an insuperable difficulty in distinguishing between doing a thing well enough and doing it too well. So earnest and yet so wrong-headed was this young dog (he had no name in particular, and answered with perfect read

generations, and spread over adjacent farms. Two hedges converged upon it in the form of a V, but without quite

ll next morning. Only one responded-old George; the other could not be found, either in the house, lane, or garden. Gabriel then remembered that he had left the two dogs on the hill eating a dead lamb (a kind of m

from the well-known idle twinkle which signifies to the accustomed ear, however distant, that all is well in the fold. In the solemn calm of the awakening morn that note was heard by Gabriel, beating with unusual violence and rapidity. This exceptional ringing may be caused in two ways-by the rapid feeding o

d be later, there being two hundred of the latter class in Gabriel's flock. These two hundred seemed to have absolutely vanished from the hill. There were the fifty with the

ovey,

a great deal grew in the plantation, he followed through the hedge. They were not in the plantation. He called again: the valleys and farthest hills resounded as when the sailors invoked the lost Hylas on the Mysian shore; but no sheep. He passed through the trees and a

prints of his ewes. The dog came up, licked his hand, and made signs implying that he expected some great reward for signal services rendered. Oak looked over th

ed him on as by gravitation. A shadow in his life had always been that his flock ended in mutton-that a day came and found every shepherd an a

an independent farmer were laid low-possibly for ever. Gabriel's energies, patience, and industry had been so severely taxed during the years of his life between eight

overed from his. It was as remarkable as it was characteri

what would she have done in t

chrome-yellow moon which had only a few days to last-the morning star dogging her on the left hand. The pool glittered like a dead man's eye, and as the world awoke a breeze ble

had at the end of his meal off the dead lamb, which may have given him additional energy and spirits, collected all the ewes into a corner, driven the timid creatures through

hot at twelve o'clock that same day-another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow

the farmer till such time as the advance should be cleared off. Oak found that the value of stock, plant, and implements which were re