Twenty Two: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy - Shearing Season

The first day of June.  The peak of sheep-shearing season. Even the leanest pasture being all health and colour. Every green was young, every pore was open, and every stalk was swollen with racing current of juice. Every catkins of later kind, fern-fronds like bishop's crosiers etc. etc. [1]

The Shearing Barn, in structure resembles a church.  It was an ancient building, and it had a grandeur which the church lacked.  It housed the facilities of both the barn and the shearing house. The large side doors of the barn had been opened and the wooden threshing floor made of thick oak, black with age and polished by the beating of flails received enough sunlight.  A part of the area was fenced with hurdles to make two inclosures. The sheep were collected in these enclosures. In another corner a catching-pen was made. Here four sheep were ready for the shearers. Behind them, three women: Maryann Money, Temperance, and Soberness Miller had been gathering up fleeces, and twisting ropes of wool with a wimble for tying them round. Only their contours were visible because of shade.  They were well assisted by the old malster, who used to help nearby farmsteads during the months of April to October.  Behind all stood Bathsheba carefully watching her men and women. Gabriel, who flitted and hovered under her bright eyes like a moth, spent his time tending to attend to others and selecting the sheep for them. He was handing a mug of mild liquor, taken from a barrel in the corner together with slices of bread and cheese.

Bathsheba, after throwing a glance here, and a caution there, and a lecturing to some young operators who had omitted to mark a sheep with her initials after shearing, came again to Gabriel as he flinged over his lunchoen with a dexterous twist of the arm upon the back of a frightened ewe,  which he dragged a  to his shearing spot.  He lopped off the tresses about its head, and opened up the neck and collar, and Bathsheba quietly looking on.

"She blushes at the insult," murmured Bathsheba, watching the pink flesh which arose and overspread the neck and shoulders of ewe where they were left bare by the clicking shears.

Gabriel felt content by the presence of Bathsheba. He remained stoic and the urgency to talk with her did not arise. She talked a great deal. She wanted to retain him in her farm; and she was tactful to treat him as equal. Her talk was meaningless, but his silence was meaningful.  His had a peaceful tranquil contentment, gentle on the senses and mind. He went on to shear the ewe over upon her other side, covering her head with his knee gradually running the shears line after line round her dewlap, and then about her flank and back, and finishing over the tail.

"Well done, done quickly!" said Bathsheba looking at her watch as the last nip resounded.

"How long, miss?" said Gabriel, wiping his brow.

"Three and twenty minutes and a half since you took the first lock from its forehead. It is the first time that I have ever seen one done in less than half an hour." 

The clean sleek creature arose from its fleece, looking startled and shy at the loss of its garment, which lay on the floor in one soft cloud.  The sheep looked thinner and smaller. It felt much lighter, cleaner, and comfortable.

"Cain Ball!" 

"Yes, Mister Oak; here I be." 

Cainy ran with a tar-pot. "B . E." is newly stamped upon the shorn skin and away the simple dam leaps, panting, over the board into the shirtless flock outside.  Maryann comes up, throws the loose locks into the middle of fleece, rolls it up and carries it into the background. It weighs about three and a half pound of raw wool.

The rams, and ewes had duly undergone shearing, and the fleece were carried away; men were ready to leave, farmer Boldwood appeared in the extreme corner of the barn. He crossed over to Bathsheba, who turned to greet him with perfect ease.  He spoke to her in low tones. And she too modulated her pitch accordingly.

Gabriel could not hear what they conversed. After some time Bathsheba went out. Boldwood walked up and down alone for nearly a quarter of an hour.  Bathsheba reappeared in a riding habit of myrtle green which fitted to her waist as a rind fits its fruit; and young Bob Coggan led on her mare; Boldwood fetching his own horse from the tree under which it had been tied.  Oak's eyes could not leave them; and in endeavouring to continue his shearing and at the same time he watched Boldwood's manner, he snipped the sheep in the groin.  The animal plunged; Bathsheba instantly gazed towards it and saw blood.

"Oh, Gabriel!" she exclaimed, with severe remonstrance. "You who are so strict with other men -- see what you are doing yourself!" Bathsheba had already wounded him; it had a sting, which his sense of inferiority to herself and Boldwood was not calculated to heal.  But his resolve to recognise that he had no longer a lover's interest in her, helped him occasionally to conceal a feeling.

"Bottle!" he shouted in an unmoved voice of routine.  Cainy Ball ran up, the wound was anointed, and the shearing continued.

Boldwood gently tossed Bathsheba into saddle, and before they turned away she again spoke to Oak with same dominative and tantalizing graciousness :-

"I am going to see Boldwood's Leicesters. Take my place in the barn, Gabriel, and keep the men carefully to their work." 

The horses' heads were put about,  and they trotted away.

Boldwood's deep attachment was a matter of great interest among all around him.

"That means matrimony," said Temperance Miller, following them out of sight with her eyes.

"I reckon that's the size of it," said Jan Coggan, working along without looking up.  " Well, better wed over the mixen than over the moor," said  Laban Tall turning his sheep.  Henery Fray was in sad mood, and said, "I don't see why a maid shorts take a husband when she is bold enough to her own battles, and don't want a home; for it is keeping another woman out. But let it be; it is a pity that he and she should trouble two houses." 

People like Henery Fray disliked Bathsheba for her overt dislikes and covert likes.  He continued, "I once hinted my mind to her on a few things, when my pride was boiling with indignation."

"We do, we do, Henery." 

"So I said, "Mistress Everdene, there's places empty, and there are gifted men willing."  But she was not willing to fill it."

"Yes, you put it reasonably well."

"Yes, I would have said it, if death or salvation overtook me for it." 

"A true man, proud as lucifer." 

"You see the artfulness? Why 'twas about being bailey really; but I didn't put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so I could lay it on all the stronger.  That was my depth! ..... But let her marry as she will.  Perhaps it is high time.  I believe farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the sheep washing the other day -- that I do."

"What a lie," said Gabriel 

Ah, Oak, how's  it know" said Henery mildly.

"Because she told me all that passed," said Oak in a self-righteous sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter.

"You have a right to believe it," said Henery with resentment; but I may see a little distance into things.  To be long-headed enough for bailey's place is a mere trifle - yet a trifle more than nothing.  However I look round upon life quite promiscuous.  Do you conceive me, neighbours? My words, though made as simple as I can may be rather deep for some heads." 

"Oh yes, Henery, we quite conceive you."

"A strange old piece, good men --- whirled about from here to yonder; as if I were nothing worth.  A little warped too.  But I have my depths; ha, even my great depths.  I might close with a certain shepherd, brain to brain.  But no -- oh no!"

Henery directed his ire towards the malster and Gabriel.

"A strange old piece, you say," said the malster in a querulous voice. At  the same time you be no old man worth naming -- no old man at all; your teeth be not half yet gone; what's an old man's standing if be his teeth be not gone?  Weren't I stale in  wedlock afore you were out of arms?"  The malster continued his tirade.

Joseph Poorgrass interfered, as was the custom in Weatherbury. "You are very old, malster, and we respect you for that." Maryann came with her pleasant mood to divert. Cainy Ball introduced the subject of fat in milking pail.  The tension thus withered away.

End of the Chapter 

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Notes:-

1. The author extensively describes here the plant life of the sheep farm which may be interesting to botany students, and into this the men of Bathsheba's farm enter for sheep shearing; and after naming each of them, grade them as a mean between high and low caste Hindoo. The simile is a reflection of stratified society.