Five: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy

The news that Bathsheba Everdene had left the neighborhood had an influence upon Gabriel Oak. It is heard that she had gone to a place called Weatherbury.

Gabriel had two dogs. George the elder with ebony tipped nose surrounded by a margin of pink flesh, and a coat marked in random splotches approximating in white and slaty colour. The dog had originally belonged to a shepherd of inferior morals and dreadful temper, and the result was that George knew the exact degrees of condemnation signified by curses and swears. Long experience has taught the animal the difference between "come in!" and "D-- -- ye come in!" that he knew to a hairs breadth the rate of trotting back from the ewes' tails that each call involved. Though old he was clever and trustworthy. The young dog, George's son might have been the image of his mother. He was learning the sheep keeping business, but had not got beyond the rudimentary. He was earnest but strong headed. If sent behind the stray sheep to help them on to the herd, he would chase them if not called for to stop.

On the further side of Norcomb Hill was a chalk-pit. Two hedges converged upon it in the form of a V, but without quite meeting. The narrow opening, which was immediately over the brow of the pit, was protected by a rough railing.

One night, when farmer Oak had returned home, believing there would be no further necessity for his attendance on the down, he called as usual to the dogs, previously to shutting them up in the outhouse till next morning. Only George responded. 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 meat he usually kept from them, except when other food run short) He concluded that the young one had not finished his meal. He went indoors to the luxury of bed, which recently he had only enjoyed on Sundays.

The night was moist. To the shepherd, the note of sheep-bell is like the ticking of the clock. In the solemn calm of the awakening the note heard by Gabriel was unusual. The best of the bell was rapid and violent. The experienced ear of Gabriel knew the sound he heard to be caused by the running of the flock with great velocity.

He jumped out of the bed, dressed, tore down the lane through foggy dawn and ascended the hill. The forward ewes were kept apart from those among which fall of lambs would 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 fifty with their lambs, enclosed at other end as he had left them, but the rest,  forming the bulk of flock, were nowhere. Gabriel called at the top of his voice the shepherd's call.

"Ovey, ovey, ovey?"[1]

Not a single bleat. He went to the hedge; a gap had been broken through it, and in the gap were the footprints of the sheep. Gabriel knew that they are very fond of ivy in winter time, and he doubted that they might have gone to the plantation. He searched the plantation. They were not in the plantation. He called again: the valleys and hills resounded. On the extreme summit, where the two ends of converging hedges were stopped by the meeting of the brow of chalk-pit, he saw the younger dog standing against the sky - dark and motionless.

A horrible conviction darted through Oak. With a sensation of bodily faintness he advanced: at one point the rails were broken through, and there he saw the footprins of his ewes. The dog came up and licked his hands, and made signs implying that he expected a great reward for the signal services rendered. Oak looked over the precipice. The ewes lay dead and dying at its foot -- a heap of two hundred mangled carcasses. His first feeling now was one of pity.

It was a second to remember that the sheep were not insured. All savings of a frugal life had been dispersed at a blow; his hopes of being an independent farmer were laid low - possibly for ever. Gabriel's energy, patience, and industry had been so severely taxed during the years of his life between eighteen and eight and twenty, to reach his present stage of progress that no more seemed to be left in him. He leant down upon a rail and covered his face with his hands.

"Thank God I am not married: what would she have done in the poverty now coming upon me."

Oak raised his head, and wondering what he could do, listlessly surveyed the scene. On the outer margin of the pit was an oval pond, and over it hung waning skeleton of chrome-yellow moon, the morning star watching her on the left side. The pool glittered like a dead man's eyes. As the world awoke a breeze blew, and the reflection of moon shivered. The image of the star turned into a phosphoric streak Upton the water.

It appeared that the poor young dog who was kept for running after the sheep had at the end of his meal off the dead lamb, which may have given him additional energy and spirits, collected all the ewes in a corner, driven them through the hedge, across the upper field, and then broke down the portion of rotten railing and so hurled them over the hedge. Gabriel wanted to finish him in his rage and disappointment, but he chased him out of the farm. 

Gabriel's farm had been stocked by a small sheep vendor who was receiving a percentage till the advance was cleared off. Oak found that the value of stock, plant and implements which were really his own would be about sufficient to pay his debts, leaving himself a free man with the clothes he stood up in, and nothing more.

End of the Chapter 

Notes:-

1. Shepherds develope unique calls and whistles to communicate with their sheep. These calls vary from place to place.