Three: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy:

The sluggish day began to break. The incident of the night attracted Gabriel Oak again to the plantation. Lingering and musing here and there, he heard the steps of a horse at the foot of the hill, and soon there appeared in view a pony of reddish brown colour with a girl on its back, ascending by the path leading past the cattle-shed. She was the young woman of the night before. Gabriel instantly thought of her hat. Possibly she had come to look for it. He hastily scanned the ditch, and after walking about ten yards along it found the hat among the leaves. Gabriel took it and returned to his hut. Here he settled comfortably and peeped through the slit in the wall of the hut, in the direction of the rider's approach.

She came up and looked around, and then on the other side of the hedge. Gabriel was about to advance and restore the hat, but the unexpected occurrence of a particular incident induced him to suspend the action. The path after passing the cowshed, bisected the plantation. It was merely a pedestrian's track, and not a bridle path. The boughs spread horizontally at a height not greater than seven feet above the ground, which made it impossible to ride erect beneath them. The girl was not in her riding-habit. She looked around for a moment and assured herself that villagers are not around,  dexterously dropped backwards flat upon the pony's back, her head over its tail, her feet against its shoulders, and her eyes to the sky. The rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a kingfisher - its noiselessness that of a hawk. The tall lank pony seemed used to such doings, and walked along unconcernedly. With the passage of the plantation, she began to adopt another position. She had no side-saddle, a firm seat upon the leather beneath her was unattainable sideways. Springing to her accustomed like a bowed sapling, she seated herself in the manner demanded by the saddle, and trotted off in the direction of Tewnel Mill.

Oak was amused, perhaps a little astonished, and hanging up hat in his hut, went again among his ewes. An hour passed, the girl returned, with bag of bran in front of her. On nearing the cattle-shed, she was met by a boy bringing milking-pail, who held the reins of the pony while she slid off. The boy led away the pony leaving the pail with the young woman. 

Soon soft spurts followed by loud spurts came alternatively in regular succession from within the shed from milking into the pail. Gabriel took the lost hat, and waited beside the path she would follow in leaving the hill.

She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee. The left arm was extended as a balance, enough of it being shown bare to make Oak wish that the whole would have been revealed, if it were summer. There was a bright air and manner about her now. It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel's face rising like the moon behind the hedges.

Farmer Oak's hazy imagination of her charms to the portrait she presented herself now was not much different, but it was somewhat reduced. She seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and the hedge was low and by making comparison she could have been not above average. From the contours of her figure in its upper part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; but since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been put into a low dress she would have run and thrust her head into a bush. Yet she was not a shy girl by any means; it was really an instinct to draw the line dividing the seen from the unseen.

The girl's thoughts hovered about her face and form as soon as she caught Oak's eyes conning the same. She brushed her face with her hand.

"I found a hat," said Oak, blushing.

"It is mine," said she smilingly, "it flew away last night."

"One o'clock this morning."

"Well - it was." She was surprised. "How did you know?" she said.

"I was here."

"You are farmer Oak, are you not?"

"That or thereabouts. I am lately come to this place."

"A large farm?" she inquired, casting her eyes round, and swinging back her hair.

"No. Not large. About a hundred." 

"I wanted my hat this morning." She went on. I had to ride to Twenell Mill."

"Yes, you had"

"How do you know?"

"I saw you."

"Where?" she inquired, a misgiving bringing every muscle of her lineaments and frame to a standstill.

"Here, going through the plantation, and down the hill." Farmer Oak said, looking at a remote point, and then back to meet her eyes. But he withdrew his eyes immediately as he had been caught in a theft. She blushed, as she realised that her maneuver on pony's back had been witnessed by the farmer. Oak heard her footsteps on dead leaves, and raised his eyes. She had gone away.

Feeling lost, Gabriel returned to his work.

Five mornings and evenings passed. The woman came regularly to milk the healthy cow or to attend to the sick one. But she never came in the presence of farmer Oak. His want of tact had deeply offended her. Both of them had forgot their acquaintance.

An incident, that occurred at the end of the week changed the situation. One afternoon it began to freeze. The frost increased with the evening. It was a time when in cottages the  breath of sleepers freezes to sheets. They experience difficulty in breathing. Small birds go to sleep without food.

As the milking hour drew near, Oak kept usual watch upon the cowshed.

Cold was severe. Shaking an extra quantity of bedding round the yearling ewes he entered the hut and heaped more fuel upon the stove. The wind came in at the bottom of the door, and to prevent it Oak laid a sack there and wheeled the cot round a little more to the south. Then the wind spouted in at a venttilating hole - of which there was one on  each side of the hut. Gabriel used to keep one of these open, when the fire was lighted and the door was closed. The chosen hole being on the side away from the wind. But on that day he closed both the holes, to get the temperature inside a little raised. He intended to keep it as such for a few minutes, and then open the one on the side away from the wind.

He sat down, to rest, thinking that he would close the hole, but he fell asleep because of the broken rests of the preceding nights.

How long he remained unconscious, Gabriel never knew. His dog was howling, his head was aching fearfully, somebody was pulling him about, hands were loosening his neckerchief.

On opening his eyes he found that evening had sunk to dusk in a strange manner, not expected. The young girl with pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him. More than this, astonishingly, his head was upon her lap, his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbottoning his collar.

"What is the matter?" said Oak vacantaly. 

She was amused, but said, 

"Nothing now, since you are not dead. It is wonder you were not suffocated in this hut of yours."

"Ah, the hut!" murmured Gabriel, "I gave ten pounds for that hut. But I will sell it and sit under thatched hurdles as they did in old times, and curl up to sleep in a log of straw! It played me nearly the same trick the other day!" Gabriel by way of emphasis, brought down his fist upon the floor.

"It is not the fault of the hut," she observed, after considering his opinion to the situation. "You should not have closed the slides, before you went to sleep."

"I thought of it, but sleep overtook me." He was beginning to feel pleasant in her presence. He waited for a thread to pick up the conversation. But she remained silent.

She made him sit up, then Oak began wiping his face and shaking his head.

"How can I thank `ee?" he said at last

gratefully, some of the natural rusty red having returned to his face.

"Oh, never mind that," said the girl, smiling.

"How did you find me?"

"I heard your dog howling and scratching at the door of the hut when I came to the milking. The dog saw me, and jumped over to me, and laid hold of my skirt. I came across and looked round the hut the very first thing to see if the slides were closed. My uncle has a hut like this one, and I have heard him tell his shepherd not to go to sleep without leaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were like dead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no water, forgetting it was warm, and no use."

"I wonder, if I should have died?" Gabriel said in a low voice which was rather to himself than to her.

"Oh no!" the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic probability.

"I believe you saved my life, Miss -- I don't know your name. I know your aunt's, but not yours."

"I would just as soon not tell it - rather not. There is no reason why I should, as you probably will never have much to do with me."

"Still I should like to know."

"You can inquire at my aunt's - she will tell you."

"My name is Gabriel Oak."

"And mine isn't. You mean fond of yours in speaking it so decisively, Gabriel."

"You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the most of it."

"I always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable."

"I should think might soon get a new one."

"Mercy - how many opinions you keep about concerning others, Gabriel Oak."

"Well, miss - excuse me - I thought you would like them. But I can't match you, I know in napping out my mind upon my tongue. I never was very clever in that. But I thank you. Come give me your hand."

She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted, at Oak's old fashioned earnest conclusion to a dialogue lightly carried on. 

"Very well," she said and gave him his hand. He held it, but an instant and in fear of being too demonstrative, swerved to the opposite extreme, touching her fingers with the lighness of a small hearted-person.

"I am sorry," he said the instant after.

"What for?'

"Letting your hand go so quick."

"You may have it again if you like; there it is. She gave him her hand again.

Oak held it longer this time.

"There - that is long enough," said she, though without pulling it away.

"I wasn't thinking of any such thing," said Gabriel simply; but I will -----"

"That you won't." She snatched back her hand.

Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of tact.

"Now find out my name, she said teasingly and withdrew.

END OF CHPTER