Far from the Madding Crowd

in February, on which was held the yearly statute

le with gravitation, and pleasure nothing better than a renunciation of the same. Among these, carters and waggoners were distinguished by having a piece of whip-cord twisted r

t, his superiority was marked enough to lead several ruddy peasants standing by to speak to

yself-a bailiff's. Do ye kn

away. He had sunk from his modest elevation as pastoral king into the very slime-pits of Siddim; but there was left to him a dignified calm he had never before known, and that in

d of the day drew on, and he found himself not hired, Gabriel almost wished that he had joined them, and gone off to serve his country. Weary of standing

ng was Gabriel's speciality. Turning down an obscure street

take you to make

ty mi

w m

shill

rook was made, a stem being

connection. As the crook had absorbed most of Gabriel's money, he attempted, and

ried off to the centre of the town, and stood on the

ffs were most in demand. However, two or three farmers noticed him an

o you co

rco

s a lo

een m

m were you

ow

mer would edge away and shake his head dubiously. Gabriel, like his dog, w

is colours as a shepherd, but had laid himself out for anything in the whole cycle of labour that was required in the fair. It grew dusk. Some merry men were whistling and singing by the corn-excha

ak could pipe with Arcadian sweetness, and the sound of the well-known notes cheered his own heart as well as those of th

t that there was another fai

is Shot

other side of

gone two months before. This informati

s it to We

or six

n the Weatherbury quarter. Moreover, the Weatherbury folk were by no means uninteresting intrinsically. If report spoke truly they were as hardy, merry, thriving, wicked a set as any in the whole c

disturbed serenity. On the higher levels the dead and dry carcasses of leaves tapped the ground as they bowled along helter-skelter upon the shoulders of the wind, and little birds in the hedges were rustling their feathers and tucking themselves in comfortably for t

sumed a uniform hue of blackness. He descended Yalbury Hill and could just discer

half a truss of hay which was heaped in the bottom, it was quite empty. Gabriel sat down on the shafts of the vehicle and considered his position. He calculated that he had walked a very fair proport

her half over him by way of bed-clothes, covering himself entirely, and feeling, physically, as comfortable as ever he had been in his life. Inward melancholy it was impossible for a man like Oak, introspective far beyond his neighbours, to banish quite

drum-stick. He then distinguished voices in conversation, coming from the forpart of the waggon. His concern at this dilemma (which would have been alarm, had he been a thriving man; but misfortune is a fine opiate to personal terror) led him to peer cautiously from the hay, and the first sight he beheld was the stars above him. Char

he waggon, one of whom was driving. Gabriel soon found that this was the w

in progress, whic

e concerned. But that's only the skin of the woman, and th

by nature, and more so by circumstance, the jolting of the waggon not being witho

feymell-so 'tis s

n't look her in the face. Lord, no: not

ry night at going to bed she looks in th

rried woman.

y so clever that 'a can make a psalm tune sound as

for us, and I feel quite a

t know, Mast

for retaining such a supposition, for the waggon, though going in the direction of Weatherbury, might be going beyond it, and the woman alluded to seemed to be t

lage, or to ensure a cheaper one by lying under some hay or corn-stack. The crunching jangle of the waggon died upon his ear. He was about to walk on

outlines of ricks beside it, lighted up to great distinctness. A rick-yard was the source of the fire. His weary face now began to be painted over with a rich orange glow, and the whole front of his smock-frock and gaiters was covered with a dancing shadow pattern of thorn-

from a house. As the wind blows the fire inwards, the portion in flames completely disappears like melting sugar, and the outline is los

lames elongated, and bent themselves about with a quiet roar, but no crackle. Banks of smoke went off horizontally at the back like passing clouds, and behind these burned hidden pyres, illuminating the semi-transparent sheet of smoke to a lustrous yellow uniformity. Individual stra

ed to him a wheat-rick in startling juxtaposition with the decaying one, and behind this a series of others, composing the main corn produce of the farm; so that

he came to was running about in a great hurry, as if his thoughts were seve

ures now appeared behind this shouting man and among the smoke, and Gabriel found that, far from being alone he was in a great company-whose shadows danced merrily up and down, timed by the jigging of the flames, and not at al

stood on stone staddles, and between these, tongues of yellow hue from the burning stra

ulin-quick!"

across the channel. The flames immediately ceased to go

of water and keep the clot

egan to attack the angles of the

r," crie

rick and is burnt to a cinder," sa

asionally sticking in the stem of his sheep-crook, he clambered up the beetling face. He at once sat astride the very apex, and began with

h. The smoke at this corner was stifling, and Clark, a nimble fellow, having been handed a bucket of water, bathed Oak's face and sprinkled him generally,

orange, and backed up by shadows of varying pattern. Round the corner of the largest stack, out of the direct rays of the fire, stood a pony, bearing a you

rook shines as he beats the rick with it. And his smock-frock is bur

e?" said the equestr

know,

of the ot

asked 'em. Quite a

y rode out from the shade

the barn is sa

said the second woman, passing on the que

llowed. 'Tis that bold shepherd up there that have done the most good-he sit

ooking up at Gabriel through her thick woollen veil. "I w

s name in my life, or

el's elevated position being no longer r

as he comes down, and say that the farmer wishes

ck and met Oak at the foot of the

Gabriel, kindling with the idea of gettin

er; 'tis a mist

man f

died suddenly. Used to measure his money in half-pint cups. They say now that she've business in every bank in Casterbridge,

said Maryann; "wi' her face a-covered

h stem of his sheep-crook charred six inches shorter, advanced with the humility stern adversity had thrust upon him up to the slight female f

to want a she

looked all astonishment. Gabriel and his cold-hear

d he mechanically repeated

nt a sheph