Four: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy

The girl who refused to disclose her name to Gabriel Oak soon made appreciable inroads upon the emotional constitution of young farmer. His dog waited for his meal. He waited for the presence of the unknown girl. The resemblance struck him immediately, and he felt it lowering, and hesitated to look at the dog. However he continued to watch through the hedge for her regular coming, and thus his sentiments towards her were deepened without any corresponding effect upon her.

By making enquiries he found that the girl's name was Bathsheba Everdene, and that the cow would go dry in seven days. He dreaded the eighth day.

The eighth day came. The cow had ceased to give milk, and Bathsheba Everdene no more came up the hill. Gabriel had reached a pitch of existence he never could have anticipated before. He liked saying Bathsheba as a private enjoyment instead of whistling, turned over his taste to black hair, though he liked brown ever since he was a boy, isolated himself from public space. Oak began to see his life in a new light, and said to himself, "I will make her my wife, or I shall be good for nothing."

All this while he was perplexing himself about an errand on which he might consistently visit the cottage of Bathsheba's aunt.

He found his opportunity in the death of ewe, mother of a living lamb. On a fine January morning, when the sky was blue and shining, Oak put the lamb into a respectable Sunday basket, walked across the fields to the house of Mrs Hurst, the aunt of Bathsheba Everdene, George the dog walking behind. 

Gabriel had watched with strange meditation, the blue wood-smoke curling from the chimney of Mrs Hurst's cottage. In the evenings, he used to fancy Bathsheba beside the hearth at the bottom of the chimney. 

He made a detailed preparation to his person before the visit to the cottage. He thoroughly cleaned his silver watch chain with whiting [1], put new lacing strap to his boots, looked to the brass eylet holes, went into plantation for a new walking stick, and trimmed it vigorously on his way back; took a new handkerchief from the bottom of his clothes box, put on the light waistcoat patterned all over with the sprigs of an elegant flower, and used all the hair oil he possessed on his dry, sandy, and curly hair.

Nothing disturbed the stillness of the cottage, save the chatter of a knot of sparrows on the eves. Just as Gabriel arrived by the garden gate, he saw a cat go inside, going into various arched shapes, and fiendish convulsions at the sight of his dog George. The dog took no notice, he had arrived at an age at which all superfluous barking was cynically avoided as a waste of breath - in fact he never barked even at sheep, except to order, when it was done with an absolutely neutral countenance, as a sort of communication, which though offensive, had to be performed once or twice to frighten their flock to order.

A voice came from behind a some laurel bushes into which the cat had run: "Poor dear! Did a nasty brute of a dog want to kill it; did he, poor dear!"

"I beg your pardon," said Oak to the voice, but George was walking on behind me with a temper as mild as milk."

Before he had ceased speaking, he had a feeling of doubt as to who was his listner. Nobody appeared, but he heard a person retreating among the bushes. Gabriel meditated deeply, and as a result small furrows appeared on his forehead. Embarassed, Gabriel went upto the door.

Bathsheba's aunt was indoors. "Will you tell Miss Everdene, that somebody [2]would be glad to speak to her," said Mr Oak.

Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently been hers.

"Will you come in, Mr Oak?"

"Oh, thank 'ee," said he, following her to the fireplace. "I have brought a lamb for Miss Everdene. I thought she might like one to rear; girls do."

"She might," said Mrs Hurst musingly; "though she is only a visitor here. If you will wait a minute, Bathsheba will be in."

"Yes, I will wait," said Gabriel, sitting down. "The lamb isn't really the business I came about, Mrs Hurst. In short, I am going to ask her if she would like to be married."

"And were you indeed?"

"Yes, because she would, I should be very glad to marry her. D'ye know if she has got any other man hanging about her?"

"Let me think," said Mrs Hurst, poking the fire superfluously. After a moment, she said, "Yes, bless you, ever so many young men. You see, farmer Oak, she's so good looking, and an excellent scholar besides --she was going to be a governess once, you know, only she was too wild. Not that her young men never come here. But lord, in the nature of women, she must have a dozen!"

"That's fortunate," said farmer Oak, contemplating a crack in the stone floor with sorrow. "I am only an everyday sort of man, and my only chance was in being the first comer. Well, there is no use in my waiting, for that was all I came about: so I will take myself off home along, Mrs Hurst."

When Gabriel had gone about two hundred yards along the down, he heard a "hoi, hoi" uttered behind him in a piping note of more treble quality than that in which the exclamation usually embodies itself when shouted across a field. He looked round, and saw a girl racing after him, waving a white handkerchief.

The runner drew nearer. It was Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel's colour deepened: hers was already deep from running.

"Farmer Oak --I -- --" she said, pausing from want of breath pulling up in front of him with a slanted face.

"I have just called to see you," said Gabriel, pending her further speech.

"Yes, I know that," said she, panting like a robin, her face red and moist from running, like a peony petal before the sun dries off the dew. "I didn't know that you had come to ask to have me, or I should have come in from the garden instantly. I ran after you to say that my aunt made a mistake in sending you away from courting me --" 

Gabriel expanded. "I am sorry to have made you run so fast, my dear," he said with a grateful sense of favours to come. "Wait a bit till you have found your breath."

"-- It was quite a mistake aunt's telling you I had a man already," Bathsheba went on. I haven't a sweetheart at all. And I never had one. It was such a pity to send you away thinking that I had several."

"Really and truly I am glad to hear that!" said farmer Oak, smiling one of his long special smiles, and blushing with gladness. He held out his hand to take hers, and seized it, but she suddenly withdrew it, so that it slipped through his fingers like an eel.

I have a nice snuggy little farm," said Gabriel 

"Yes; you have."

"A man has advanced me money to begin with, but still, it was soon to be paid off and though I only an everyday sort of man, I have got on a little since I was a boy." Gabriel's little reflected a great deal. He continued, "When we be married, I am sure, I can work twice as hard as I do now."

He went forward and stretched out his arm again. Bathsheba had overtaken him where stood a low stunted holly bush, now laden with red berries. She edged off round the bush. 

"Why, farmer Oak," she said over the bush, looking at him with rounded eyes, "I never said I was going to marry you."

"Well -- that's a tale!" said Oak, with dismay. To turn after anybody like this, and then say you don't want him."

"What I meant to tell you was only this," she said eagerly, "that nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of my having a dozen as my aunt said; I hate to be thought men's property in that way, though I shall be had some day. If I had wanted you I shouldn't have run after you like this; there was no harm in hurrying to correct a piece of false news that had been told you."

"Oh, no-- no harm at all." But she was expressing an opinion too impulsively. So Oak added, "Well I was not quite certain it was no harm."

"Indeed, I hadn't time to think before starting whether I wanted to marry or not, for you would have been gone over the hill."

"Come," said Gabriel, freshening again, "think a minute or two. I will wait a while, Miss Everdene. Will you marry me? Do, Bathsheba. I love you far more than common!"

"I'll try to think," she observed timorously; if I can think out of doors; my mind spreads away so."

"But you can give a guess."

"Then, give me time." She looked thoughtfully at a distance, away from the direction in which Gabriel stood.

"I can make you happy," said he to the back of her head, across the bush.

"You shall have a piano in a year or two --- farmer's wives are getting to have pianos now--- and I will practice up the flute right well to play with you in the evenings."

"Yes, I should like that."

"And have one of those little ten poud gigs for market --- and nice flowers, and birds--- cocks and hen I mean, because they be useful," continued Gabriel, being balanced between poetry and practicality.

"I should like it very much."

"And a frame for cucumbers -- like a gentleman and lady."

"Yes."

"And when the wedding was over, we would have put in the newspaper list of marriages."

"Dearly, I should like that."

"And the babies in the births-- every man Jack of 'em! And at home by fire, whenever you look up, -- there I shall be --- and whenever I look up there will be you."

"Wait, wait, don't be improper!"

Here her countenance fell and she was silent awhile. He regarded the red berries between them over and over again that the holly seemed to him a cypher signifying a proposal for marriage. Bathsheba decidedly turned to him.

"No, it's no use," she said. I don't want to marry you."

"Try."

"I have tried hard all the time I have been thinking; for a marriage would be very nice in one sense. People would talk about me, and think I had won my battle, and I should feel triumphant, and all that. But a husband ----"

"Well."

"Why, he would always be there, as you say; whenever I looked up there he would be."

"Of course he would, I, that is." 

"Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. But since a woman can't show off in that way by herself, I shan't marry, at least yet."

"That's a terrible wooden story."

At this criticism of her statement Bathsheba made an addition to her dignity by a slight sweep away from him.

"By my heart and soul, I don't know what a maid can say stupider than that," said Oak. "But dearest," he continued in a soothing voice, "don't be like it!" Oak sighed deeply. "Why won't you have me?" continued he, creeping round the holly to reach her.

"I cannot," she said retreating.

"But why?" he persisted, standing still in despair of not reaching her, and facing over the holly bush.

"Because I don't love you."

"Yes, but ----"

She contracted a yawn, and said, "I don't love you."

"I love you, and content to be liked by you."

"Oh Mr Oak - that's very fine! You would get to despise me."

"Never," said Oak, so earnestly,  that he seemed to be coming by the force of his words, straight through the bush into her arms. I shall do one thing in this life - one thing certain - that is, love you and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die." His voice had a genuine pathos, and his large brown hands trembled.

"It seems dreadfully wrong not to have you when you feel so much!" she said with a little distress, and looking hopelessly around for some means of escape from her moral dilemma.

"Now I wish I hadn't run after you" said she. However, she found a shortcut to getting back to cheerfulness. "It wouldn't do, Mr Oak. I want somebody to tame me; I am too independent; you would never be able to, I know."

Oak cast his eyes down the field: it was useless to argue.

"Mr Oak," she said with clarity and common sense, "You are better off than I. I have hardly a penny in the world - I am staying with my aunt for my bare sustenance. I am better educated than you - and I don't love you a bit. That is my case. And yours: you are a farmer just beginning; you have enough common prudence; marry a woman with money, who would stock a larger farm for you."

Gabriel looked her with a little surprise and admiration. "That's the very thing I have been thinking," he said naively.

Bathsheba was decidedly disconcerted. "Well, then, why did you come and disturb me?" she said angrily.

"I can't do what I think would be -- would be --"

"Right?"

"No: wise."

"You have made an admission now, Mr Oak," she exclaimed with even more hauteur, and rocking her head disdainfully. "After that, do you think I could marry you? Not if you know it."

He broke in passionately. "But don't mistake me like that! I was open enough to show what every man in my shoes would have, you make your colours come up your face. That about your not being good enough for me is nonsense. You speak like a lady. Your uncle at Weatherbury is a large farmer - much larger than ever I shall be. May I call in the evening, or will you walk along with me on Sundays? I don't want you to make a decision at once, if you would rather not."

"No- No, I cannot. Don't press me any more - don't. I don't love you. So it would be ridiculous," she said, with a laugh.

"Very well," said Oak, firmly. Then I'll ask you no more."

End of Chapter Four

Notes:-

1. Whiting: White chalk powder,  traditionally made from ground calcium carbonate derived from natural chalk or limestone. It was used as a cleaning and polishing agent. It is mixed with water, vinegar, or alcohol to make it a paste. With a piece of cloth it was used to polish silver, brass or glass. It was available in general stores or apothecaries. Oak is simply taking care of his appearance before meeting  Bathsheba Everdene.

1. Calling oneself somebody without giving name is rustic modesty.