One: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy

              Wessex Novels

Wessex is a literary landscape conceived by Thomas Hardy. The concept is connected with historical Anglo Saxon Kingdom of Wessex. It covered much of the southern and southwestern England including Hampshire, Hiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, and parts of Devon and Berkshire. Anglo Saxon Kingdom played a major role in the unification of England under King Alfred and his descendants.

In the beginning, Hardy's Wessex was Dorset, a small area in which he grew up. By the time he wrote Jude the obscure it was extended to whole of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire, much of Berkshire, and some of Oxfordshire, with its most northeasterly point being Oxford.

Far From The Madding Crowd was first published in 1874. 

 Chapter One

When farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread upto his ears. His eyes were reduced to slits, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, spreading upon his countenance like rays in a rudimentary sketch.

Gabriel was his Christian name. On working days he was a man of sound judgement. On Sundays he was misty, prone to indecision. His best clothes and umbrella make him a rigid man. In religion he follows a middle path. He is neither indoctrinated, nor intoxicated. He went to church, he could not help but yawn by the time congregation reached Nicene creed [1] and always thought what there would be for dinner. Opinion of him differed according to the mood of his neighbours.

His neighbours see him only on Sundays. They see him in his best clothes and umbrella; a low crowned felt hat, spread out at the base because it was too small for his big head; his ordinary leather leggings, too big for his legs. He carried about him a watch which has the size of a small clock, and which originally  belonged to his late grand father. It is sometimes going fast or at other times stop going. Its small hand occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and could not show the hour. But the minutes are precise. When it stops, Oak sets it right by thumps and shakes. He calculates the hours by looking at the sun or stars, and adjust it with his machine. Occasionally he peeps through his neighbour's window and see the time on the green-faced time keepers. He is twenty eight, and a bachelor.

December morning.

Gabriel Oak was in his field. It sloped to a ridge called Norcomb Hills.[2] Through the spur of the hill ran the highway between Emminster and  Chalktown Newton. [3] An ornamental yellow spring waggon drawn by two horses was coming down the incline. The waggoner was walking alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was laden with household goods and window plants, and on the top of all sat a woman, young and attractive. The waggon suddenly came to a standstill.

"The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss," said the waggoner.

"I heard it fall," said the girl.

"I will run back."

"Do." She answered.

As the waggoner's steps sank fainter and fainter in the distance, the horses stood still.

The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless for some time. The only sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the Canary up and down the perches of its cage among the household goods. Then she looked attentively downwards. It was not at the bird, nor at the cat. It was 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. Her eyes crept back to the passage. At last she drew the article into her lap, and untied the paper covering, a small swing looking-glass was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled.

She wore a crimson jacket, on which the morning sun lighted a scarlet glow, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright face and dark hair. She blushed at herself, and seeing it in the mirror, blushed more. The waggoner's steps were heard, she put the glass in the paper, and the whole again into its place.

"There was no necessity for her at that time to look into the glass," thought Gabriel Oak, who had been watching watching her from behind the hedges.

When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel Oak withdrew from behind the hedges, and descending into the road, followed the vehicle to the turnpike gate, some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where it stopped for the payment of toll. When nearing the gate Oak had heard a dispute about the payment.

"Misses's niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that's enough, and she won't pay anymore," said the waggoner.

"Very well, then Misses's niece can't pass," said the turnpike-keeper.

By this time Gabriel Oak was there, listening to the dispute. He looked the waggoner, and then the turnpike-keeper and found that the threepence is the usual charge. 

"Here," said Oak, stepping forward and handing over the difference to the turnpike-keeper, "let the young woman pass." He looked up at her; she heard his words and looked carelessly over him, and told the waggoner to drive on.

The turnpike-keeper surveyed the forward moving vehicle. "That's a handsome maid," he said to Gabriel Oak.

"But, she has her faults," said Gabriel Oak. 

"True, farmer." 

"And the greatest of them is - well, what it is always," said Gabriel Oak.

"Beating people down," continued the turnpike-keeper, "at, it's so?"

"Oh, no."

"What, then?"

"Vanity."

                  End of Chapter One

Notes:-

1. A very important part of sermon professing the belief in God.

2. Norcomb Hills is based on Toller Down, one of the highest hills in Dorset, England where Hardy grew up.

3. The highway is fictional, and the two points connecting it are also fictional. But it draws from real Dorset.

4. Dorset: A county in northwest England. Look at Google maps, it is on the northern coast of English Channel. North of it is Bristol, Exetor on the west, and Plymouth on Southwest, and London is around 130 miles Northeast.