Far from the Madding Crowd

by Thomas Hardy

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS

  Men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by notmaking the most of good spirits when they have them as by lackinggood spirits when they are indispensable. Gabriel lately, for thefirst time since his prostration by misfortune, had been independentin thought and vigorous in action to a marked extent--conditionswhich, powerless without an opportunity as an opportunity withoutthem is barren, would have given him a sure lift upwards when thefavourable conjunction should have occurred. But this incurableloitering beside Bathsheba Everdene stole his time ruinously. Thespring tides were going by without floating him off, and the neapmight soon come which could not.

  It was the first day of June, and the sheep-shearing seasonculminated, the landscape, even to the leanest pasture, beingall health and colour. Every green was young, every pore wasopen, and every stalk was swollen with racing currents of juice.God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had gonewith the world to town. Flossy catkins of the later kinds,fern-sprouts like bishops' croziers, the square-headed moschatel,the odd cuckoo-pint,--like an apoplectic saint in a niche ofmalachite,--snow-white ladies'-smocks, the toothwort, approximatingto human flesh, the enchanter's night-shade, and the black-petaleddoleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of the vegetable worldin and about Weatherbury at this teeming time; and of the animal,the metamorphosed figures of Mr. Jan Coggan, the master-shearer; thesecond and third shearers, who travelled in the exercise of theircalling, and do not require definition by name; Henery Fray thefourth shearer, Susan Tall's husband the fifth, Joseph Poorgrassthe sixth, young Cain Ball as assistant-shearer, and Gabriel Oak asgeneral supervisor. None of these were clothed to any extent worthmentioning, each appearing to have hit in the matter of raiment thedecent mean between a high and low caste Hindoo. An angularity oflineament, and a fixity of facial machinery in general, proclaimedthat serious work was the order of the day.

  They sheared in the great barn, called for the nonce theShearing-barn, which on ground-plan resembled a church withtransepts. It not only emulated the form of the neighbouring churchof the parish, but vied with it in antiquity. Whether the barn hadever formed one of a group of conventual buildings nobody seemed tobe aware; no trace of such surroundings remained. The vast porchesat the sides, lofty enough to admit a waggon laden to its highestwith corn in the sheaf, were spanned by heavy-pointed arches ofstone, broadly and boldly cut, whose very simplicity was the originof a grandeur not apparent in erections where more ornament has beenattempted. The dusky, filmed, chestnut roof, braced and tied inby huge collars, curves, and diagonals, was far nobler in design,because more wealthy in material, than nine-tenths of those in ourmodern churches. Along each side wall was a range of stridingbuttresses, throwing deep shadows on the spaces between them, whichwere perforated by lancet openings, combining in their proportionsthe precise requirements both of beauty and ventilation.

  One could say about this barn, what could hardly be said of eitherthe church or the castle, akin to it in age and style, that thepurpose which had dictated its original erection was the same withthat to which it was still applied. Unlike and superior to eitherof those two typical remnants of mediaevalism, the old barn embodiedpractices which had suffered no mutilation at the hands of time.Here at least the spirit of the ancient builders was at one withthe spirit of the modern beholder. Standing before this abradedpile, the eye regarded its present usage, the mind dwelt upon itspast history, with a satisfied sense of functional continuitythroughout--a feeling almost of gratitude, and quite of pride, at thepermanence of the idea which had heaped it up. The fact that fourcenturies had neither proved it to be founded on a mistake, inspiredany hatred of its purpose, nor given rise to any reaction that hadbattered it down, invested this simple grey effort of old minds witha repose, if not a grandeur, which a too curious reflection was aptto disturb in its ecclesiastical and military compeers. For oncemediaevalism and modernism had a common stand-point. The lanceolatewindows, the time-eaten archstones and chamfers, the orientation ofthe axis, the misty chestnut work of the rafters, referred to noexploded fortifying art or worn-out religious creed. The defence andsalvation of the body by daily bread is still a study, a religion,and a desire.

  To-day the large side doors were thrown open towards the sun to admita bountiful light to the immediate spot of the shearers' operations,which was the wood threshing-floor in the centre, formed of thickoak, black with age and polished by the beating of flails for manygenerations, till it had grown as slippery and as rich in hue asthe state-room floors of an Elizabethan mansion. Here the shearersknelt, the sun slanting in upon their bleached shirts, tanned arms,and the polished shears they flourished, causing these to bristlewith a thousand rays strong enough to blind a weak-eyed man. Beneaththem a captive sheep lay panting, quickening its pants as misgivingmerged in terror, till it quivered like the hot landscape outside.

  This picture of to-day in its frame of four hundred years ago didnot produce that marked contrast between ancient and modern whichis implied by the contrast of date. In comparison with cities,Weatherbury was immutable. The citizen's THEN is the rustic'sNOW. In London, twenty or thirty-years ago are old times; in Paristen years, or five; in Weatherbury three or four score years wereincluded in the mere present, and nothing less than a century set amark on its face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the cut of agaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, by the breadth of a hair.Ten generations failed to alter the turn of a single phrase. Inthese Wessex nooks the busy outsider's ancient times are only old;his old times are still new; his present is futurity.

  So the barn was natural to the shearers, and the shearers were inharmony with the barn.

  The spacious ends of the building, answering ecclesiastically to naveand chancel extremities, were fenced off with hurdles, the sheepbeing all collected in a crowd within these two enclosures; and inone angle a catching-pen was formed, in which three or four sheepwere continuously kept ready for the shearers to seize without lossof time. In the background, mellowed by tawny shade, were the threewomen, Maryann Money, and Temperance and Soberness Miller, gatheringup the fleeces and twisting ropes of wool with a wimble for tyingthem round. They were indifferently well assisted by the oldmaltster, who, when the malting season from October to April hadpassed, made himself useful upon any of the bordering farmsteads.

  Behind all was Bathsheba, carefully watching the men to see thatthere was no cutting or wounding through carelessness, and that theanimals were shorn close. Gabriel, who flitted and hovered under herbright eyes like a moth, did not shear continuously, half his timebeing spent in attending to the others and selecting the sheep forthem. At the present moment he was engaged in handing round a mug ofmild liquor, supplied from a barrel in the corner, and cut pieces ofbread and cheese.

  Bathsheba, after throwing a glance here, a caution there, andlecturing one of the younger operators who had allowed his lastfinished sheep to go off among the flock without re-stamping it withher initials, came again to Gabriel, as he put down the luncheon todrag a frightened ewe to his shear-station, flinging it over upon itsback with a dexterous twist of the arm. He lopped off the tressesabout its head, and opened up the neck and collar, his mistressquietly looking on.

  "She blushes at the insult," murmured Bathsheba, watching the pinkflush which arose and overspread the neck and shoulders of the ewewhere they were left bare by the clicking shears--a flush which wasenviable, for its delicacy, by many queens of coteries, and wouldhave been creditable, for its promptness, to any woman in the world.

  Poor Gabriel's soul was fed with a luxury of content by having herover him, her eyes critically regarding his skilful shears, whichapparently were going to gather up a piece of the flesh at everyclose, and yet never did so. Like Guildenstern, Oak was happy inthat he was not over happy. He had no wish to converse with her:that his bright lady and himself formed one group, exclusively theirown, and containing no others in t
he world, was enough.

  So the chatter was all on her side. There is a loquacity that tellsnothing, which was Bathsheba's; and there is a silence which saysmuch: that was Gabriel's. Full of this dim and temperate bliss, hewent on to fling the ewe over upon her other side, covering her headwith his knee, gradually running the shears line after line round herdewlap; thence about her flank and back, and finishing over the tail.

  "Well done, and done quickly!" said Bathsheba, looking at her watchas the last snip resounded.

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

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

  The clean, sleek creature arose from its fleece--how perfectlylike Aphrodite rising from the foam should have been seen to berealized--looking startled and shy at the loss of its garment, whichlay on the floor in one soft cloud, united throughout, the portionvisible being the inner surface only, which, never before exposed,was white as snow, and without flaw or blemish of the minutest kind.

  "Cain Ball!"

  "Yes, Mister Oak; here I be!"

  Cainy now runs forward with the tar-pot. "B. E." is newly stampedupon the shorn skin, and away the simple dam leaps, panting, over theboard into the shirtless flock outside. Then up comes Maryann;throws the loose locks into the middle of the fleece, rolls it up,and carries it into the background as three-and-a-half pounds ofunadulterated warmth for the winter enjoyment of persons unknown andfar away, who will, however, never experience the superlative comfortderivable from the wool as it here exists, new and pure--beforethe unctuousness of its nature whilst in a living state has dried,stiffened, and been washed out--rendering it just now as superiorto anything WOOLLEN as cream is superior to milk-and-water.

  But heartless circumstance could not leave entire Gabriel's happinessof this morning. The rams, old ewes, and two-shear ewes had dulyundergone their stripping, and the men were proceeding with theshear-lings and hogs, when Oak's belief that she was going to standpleasantly by and time him through another performance was painfullyinterrupted by Farmer Boldwood's appearance in the extremest cornerof the barn. Nobody seemed to have perceived his entry, but there hecertainly was. Boldwood always carried with him a social atmosphereof his own, which everybody felt who came near him; and the talk,which Bathsheba's presence had somewhat suppressed, was now totallysuspended.

  He crossed over towards Bathsheba, who turned to greet him with acarriage of perfect ease. He spoke to her in low tones, and sheinstinctively modulated her own to the same pitch, and her voiceultimately even caught the inflection of his. She was far fromhaving a wish to appear mysteriously connected with him; but woman atthe impressionable age gravitates to the larger body not only in herchoice of words, which is apparent every day, but even in her shadesof tone and humour, when the influence is great.

  What they conversed about was not audible to Gabriel, who was tooindependent to get near, though too concerned to disregard. Theissue of their dialogue was the taking of her hand by the courteousfarmer to help her over the spreading-board into the bright Junesunlight outside. Standing beside the sheep already shorn, they wenton talking again. Concerning the flock? Apparently not. Gabrieltheorized, not without truth, that in quiet discussion of any matterwithin reach of the speakers' eyes, these are usually fixed uponit. Bathsheba demurely regarded a contemptible straw lying upon theground, in a way which suggested less ovine criticism than womanlyembarrassment. She became more or less red in the cheek, the bloodwavering in uncertain flux and reflux over the sensitive spacebetween ebb and flood. Gabriel sheared on, constrained and sad.

  She left Boldwood's side, and he walked up and down alone for nearlya quarter of an hour. Then she reappeared in her new riding-habit ofmyrtle green, which fitted her to the waist as a rind fits its fruit;and young Bob Coggan led on her mare, Boldwood fetching his own horsefrom the tree under which it had been tied.

  Oak's eyes could not forsake them; and in endeavouring to continuehis shearing at the same time that he watched Boldwood's manner,he snipped the sheep in the groin. The animal plunged; Bathshebainstantly gazed towards it, and saw the blood.

  "Oh, Gabriel!" she exclaimed, with severe remonstrance, "you who areso strict with the other men--see what you are doing yourself!"

  To an outsider there was not much to complain of in this remark; butto Oak, who knew Bathsheba to be well aware that she herself was thecause of the poor ewe's wound, because she had wounded the ewe'sshearer in a still more vital part, it had a sting which the abidingsense of his inferiority to both herself and Boldwood was notcalculated to heal. But a manly resolve to recognize boldly that hehad no longer a lover's interest in her, helped him occasionally toconceal a feeling.

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

  Boldwood gently tossed Bathsheba into the saddle, and before theyturned away she again spoke out to Oak with the same dominative andtantalizing graciousness.

  "I am going now to see Mr. Boldwood's Leicesters. Take my place inthe 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 allaround him; but, after having been pointed out for so many yearsas the perfect exemplar of thriving bachelorship, his lapse was ananticlimax somewhat resembling that of St. John Long's death byconsumption in the midst of his proofs that it was not a fataldisease.

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

  "I reckon that's the size o't," said Coggan, working along withoutlooking up.

  "Well, better wed over the mixen than over the moor," said LabanTall, turning his sheep.

  Henery Fray spoke, exhibiting miserable eyes at the same time: "Idon't see why a maid should take a husband when she's bold enoughto fight her own battles, and don't want a home; for 'tis keepinganother woman out. But let it be, for 'tis a pity he and she shouldtrouble two houses."

  As usual with decided characters, Bathsheba invariably provoked thecriticism of individuals like Henery Fray. Her emblazoned fault wasto be too pronounced in her objections, and not sufficiently overt inher likings. We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb,but those which they reject, that give them the colours they areknown by; and in the same way people are specialized by theirdislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as noattribute at all.

  Henery continued in a more complaisant mood: "I once hinted my mindto her on a few things, as nearly as a battered frame dared to do soto such a froward piece. You all know, neighbours, what a man I be,and how I come down with my powerful words when my pride is boilingwi' scarn?"

  "We do, we do, Henery."

  "So I said, 'Mistress Everdene, there's places empty, and there'sgifted men willing; but the spite'--no, not the spite--I didn't sayspite--'but the villainy of the contrarikind,' I said (meaningwomankind), 'keeps 'em out.' That wasn't too strong for her, say?"

  "Passably well put."

  "Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook mefor it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind."

  "A true man, and proud as a lucifer."

  "You see the artfulness? Why, 'twas about being baily really; butI didn't put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so Icould lay it on all the stronger. That was my depth! ... However,let her marry an she will. Perhaps 'tis high time. I believe FarmerBoldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the sheep-washing t'otherday--that I do."

  "What a lie!" said Gabriel.

  "Ah, neighbour Oak--how'st know?" said, Henery, mildly.

  "Because she told me all that passed," said Oak, with a pharisaicalsense that he was not as other shearers in this matter.

  "Ye have a right to believe it," said Henery, with dudgeon "a verytrue right.
But I mid see a little distance into things! To belong-headed enough for a baily's place is a poor mere trifle--yeta trifle more than nothing. However, I look round upon life quitecool. Do you heed me, neighbours? My words, though made as simpleas I can, mid be rather deep for some heads."

  "O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye."

  "A strange old piece, goodmen--whirled about from here to yonder, asif I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha,and even my great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brainto brain. But no--O no!"

  "A strange old piece, ye say!" interposed the maltster, in aquerulous voice. "At the same time ye be no old man worth naming--noold man at all. Yer teeth bain't half gone yet; and what's a oldman's standing if so be his teeth bain't gone? Weren't I stale inwedlock afore ye were out of arms? 'Tis a poor thing to be sixty,when there's people far past four-score--a boast weak as water."

  It was the unvarying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differenceswhen the maltster had to be pacified.

  "Weak as water! yes," said Jan Coggan. "Malter, we feel ye to be awonderful veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it."

  "Nobody," said Joseph Poorgrass. "Ye be a very rare old spectacle,malter, and we all admire ye for that gift."

  "Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in prosperity, I waslikewise liked by a good-few who knowed me," said the maltster.

  "'Ithout doubt you was--'ithout doubt."

  The bent and hoary man was satisfied, and so apparently was HeneryFray. That matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, whatwith her brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey,had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils--notably someof Nicholas Poussin's:--

  "Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or any second-handfellow at all that would do for poor me?" said Maryann. "A perfectone I don't expect to get at my time of life. If I could hear ofsuch a thing twould do me more good than toast and ale."

  Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on with his shearing,and said not another word. Pestilent moods had come, and teasedaway his quiet. Bathsheba had shown indications of anointing himabove his fellows by installing him as the bailiff that the farmimperatively required. He did not covet the post relatively to thefarm: in relation to herself, as beloved by him and unmarried toanother, he had coveted it. His readings of her seemed now to bevapoury and indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one ofthe absurdest mistakes. Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she hadtrifled with himself in thus feigning that she had trifled withanother. He was inwardly convinced that, in accordance with theanticipations of his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that daywould see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss Everdene. Gabrielat this time of his life had out-grown the instinctive dislike whichevery Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it nowquite frequently, and he inwardly said, "'I find more bitter thandeath the woman whose heart is snares and nets!'" This was mereexclamation--the froth of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just thesame.

  "We workfolk shall have some lordly junketing to-night," said CainyBall, casting forth his thoughts in a new direction. "This morning Isee 'em making the great puddens in the milking-pails--lumps of fatas big as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I've never seed such splendid largeknobs of fat before in the days of my life--they never used to bebigger then a horse-bean. And there was a great black crock upon thebrandish with his legs a-sticking out, but I don't know what was inwithin."

  "And there's two bushels of biffins for apple-pies," said Maryann.

  "Well, I hope to do my duty by it all," said Joseph Poorgrass, in apleasant, masticating manner of anticipation. "Yes; victuals anddrink is a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to the nerveless, if theform of words may be used. 'Tis the gospel of the body, withoutwhich we perish, so to speak it."