Muse

Thanks for coming tonight. Before we get stuck in, did you know you can listen to The Sleepy Bookshelf ad-free by joining our premium feed? You'll also get exclusive bonus episodes and a seven-day free trial, so you can decide whether you like it or not. Follow the link in the show notes to learn more. hello it's elizabeth and i'm excited to share with you the newest show from slumber studios it's called sleepy history and it's exactly what it sounds like intriguing stories people mysteries and events from history delivered in a supremely calming atmosphere Explore the legend of El Dorado See what life was like for the Roman gladiators Uncover the myths and mysteries of Stonehenge You'll find interesting but relaxing episodes like these on Sleepy History and the same great production quality you've come to know and love from The Sleepy Bookshelf So check it out and perhaps you'll have another way to get a good night's rest. Just search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player. Good evening and welcome to The Sleepy Bookshelf where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book. I'm your host, Elizabeth. Thank you for joining us tonight. This evening will be continuing, far from the madding crowd. But before we do, let's take a moment to settle in for the night. Let your body soften into the bed, supported and safe. Notice your breath moving gently in and out with nothing to fix or change With each exhale, release a little of today With each inhale, welcome a quiet sense of ease Gabriel Oak was introduced as a hard-working, modest and capable young farmer whose practical nature and quiet character defined him more than his appearance. While watching a wagon pass through Norcombe Hill,

he noticed a beautiful young woman travelling with her belongings. He observed her admiring herself in a mirror when she thought no one was watching, and later paid a small toll on her behalf when she argued over the fee. Although he was intrigued by her beauty, he concluded that vanity was her greatest fault. A few nights later, Gabriel tended to his sheep alone on the hill during glamming season. After caring for a newborn lamb and reflecting on the beauty of the night sky, he noticed a mysterious light nearby. Investigating, he discovered two women caring for a cow and a calf in a shed. When the younger woman revealed her face, Gabriel recognised her as the same woman from the wagon. interested by the encounter he returned to his flock with her still on his mind tonight we pick up the following morning so just lie back and relax as I turn to the next pages of far from the madding crowd Chapter 3 A Girl on Horseback Conversation The sluggish day began to break. Even its position, terrestrially, is one of the elements of a new interest. And for no particular reason, Satan. that the incident of the night had occurred there, Oak went again into the plantation. Lingering and musing here, he heard the steps of a horse at the foot of the hill, and soon there appeared in view an auburn pony 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 the hat she had mentioned as having glossed in the wind 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 in his hand and returned to his hut Here he ensconced himself and peeped through the loophole in the direction of the rider's approach She came up and looked around Then on the other side of the hedge Gabriel was about to advance and restore the missing article when an unexpected performance induced him to suspend the action for the present. The path, after passing the cowshed, bisected the plantation. It was not a bridle path, merely a pedestrian's track, and 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, who wore no riding habit, looked around for a moment as if to assure herself that all humanity was out of view. Then, 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. Gabriel's eyes had scarcely been able to follow her. The tall, lank pony seemed used to such doings, and ambled along, unconcerned. Thus, she passed under the level boughs. The performer seemed quite at home anywhere between a horse's head and its tail, and the necessity for this abnormal attitude, having ceased with the passage of the plantation, she began to adopt another, even more obviously convenient than the first. She had no side-saddle, and it was very apparent that a firm seat upon the smooth leather beneath her was unattainable sideways. Springing to her accustomed perpendicular like a bowed sapling, and satisfying herself that nobody was in sight, She seated herself in the manner demanded by the saddle, though hardly expected of the woman, and trotted off in the direction of Tunnel Mill.

Oak was amused, perhaps a little astonished, and hanging up the hat in his hut, went again among his ewes. An hour passed. The girl returned. properly seated now, with a bag of bran in front of her. On nearing the cattle shed, she was met by a boy, bringing a milking pail, who held the reins of the pony whilst she slid off. The boy led away the horse, leaving the pail with the young woman. Soon, soft spurts, alternating with loud spurts, came in regular succession from within the shed, the obvious sounds of a person milking a cow. Gabriel took the lost hat in his hand 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 event had happened in the summer, when the whole would have been revealed. There was a bright air and manner about her now, by which she seemed to imply that the desirability of her existence could not be questioned. And this rather saucy assumption failed in being offensive, because a beholder felt it to be, upon the whole, true. Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius, that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was an addition to recognised power. It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel's face rising like the moon behind the hedge. The adjustment of the farmer's hazy conceptions of her charms to the portrait of herself she now presented him with was less a diminution than a difference. the starting point selected by the judgment was her height she seemed tall but the pale was a small one and the hedge diminutive hence making allowance for error by the comparison with these she could have been not above the height to be chosen by women as best all features of consequence were severe and regular it may have been observed by a persons

who go about the shires with eyes for beauty that in english woman a classically formed face is seldom found to be united with a figure of the same pattern the highly finished features being generally too large for the remainder of the frame. That a graceful and proportionate figure of eight heads usually goes off into random facial curves. Without throwing a nymphian tissue over a milkmaid, let it be said that here, criticism checked itself as out of place, and looked at her proportions with a long consciousness of pleasure. 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 merely her instinct to draw the line Dividing the seen from the unseen Higher than they do it in towns That the girl's thoughts hovered about her face and form As soon as she caught Oak's eyes Conning the same page was natural And almost certain the self-consciousness shown would have been vanity if a little more pronounced dignity if a little less rays of male vision seemed to have a tickling effect upon virgin faces in rural districts she brushed hers with her hand as if gabriel had been irritating its pink surface by actual touch, and the free air of her previous movements was reduced at the time to a chastened phase of itself. Yet it was the man who blushed, the maid not at all. I found a hat, said Oak. It is mine, said she, and from a sense of proportion kept down to a small smile, an inclination to laugh distinctly. 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's all thereabouts. I'm lately come to this place.

A large farm? She inquired, casting her eyes round and swinging back her hair, which was black in the shaded hollows of its mass. But it being now an hour past Sunday, rise, the rays touched its prominent curves with a colour of their own. No, not large. About a hundred. In speaking of farms, the word acres is omitted by the natives, by analogy to such old expressions as a stag of ten. I wanted my hat this morning, she went on. I had to ride to Tunnel 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 all down the hill said farmer oak with an aspect excessively knowing with regard to some matter in his mind as he gazed at a remote point in the direction named, and then turned back to meet his colloquist sighs. A perception caused him to withdraw his own eyes from hers, as suddenly as if he had been caught in a theft. Recollection of the strange antics she had indulged in when passing through the trees, was succeeded in the girl by a nettled palpitation, and that by a hot face. It was a time to see a woman redden who was not given to reddening as a rule, not a point in the milkmaid that was of the deepest rose colour. From the maiden's blush, through all varieties of the Provence, down to the crimson Tuscany. The countenance of Oak's acquaintance quickly graduated, whereupon he, in considerateness, turned away his head. The sympathetic man still looked the other way and wondered when would she recover coolness sufficient to justify him in facing her again. He heard what seemed to be the flitting of a dead leaf upon the breeze, and looked. She had gone away. With an air between that of tragedy and comedy, Gabriel returned to his work. Five mornings and evenings passed. The young woman came regularly to milk the healthy cow or to attend to the sick one, but never allowed her vision to stray in the direction of Oak's person.

His want of tact had deeply offended her, not by seeing what he could not help, but by letting her know that he had seen it. For as without law there is no sin, without eyes there is no indecorum, and she appeared to feel that Gabriel's espial had made her an indecorous woman without her own connivance. It was food for great regret with him. It was also a contretemps which touched into life a latent heat he had experienced in that direction. The acquaintanceship might, however, have ended in a slow forgetting, but for an incident which occurred at the end of the same week. One afternoon, it began to freeze, and the frost increased with evening, which drew on like a stealthy tightening of bonds. It was a time when in cottages the breath of the sleepers freezes to the sheets, when round the drawing-room fire of a thick, walled mansion, the sitter's backs are cold, even whilst their faces are all aglow. Many a small bird went to bed supperless that night among the bare boughs. As the milking hour drew near, Oak kept his usual watch upon the cowshed. At last, he felt cold, and 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 ventilating core. hole, of which there was one on each side of the hut. Gabriel had always known that when the fire was lighted and the door closed, one of these must be kept open, that chosen being always on the side away from the wind. Closing the slide to Windward, he turned to open the other. On second thoughts, the farmer considered that he would first sit down, leaving both closed for a minute or two, till the temperature of the hut was a little raised.

his head began to ache in an unwanted manner and fancying himself weary by the reason of the broken rests of the preceding nights oak decided to get up open the slide and then allow himself to fall asleep he fell asleep however without having performed the necessary preliminary How long he remained unconscious Gabriel never knew During the first stages of his return to perception Peculiar deeds seemed to be in the course of enactment 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 of unexpectedness the young girl with the remarkably pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him more than this astonishingly more his head was upon her lap his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning his collar. Whatever is the matter, said Oak vacantly. She seemed to experience mirth, but of too insignificant a kind to start enjoyment. Nothing now, she answered, since you are not dead. Tis a wonder you were not suffocated in this hut of yours. Ah, the hut, murmured Gabriel. I gave ten pounds for that hut, but I'll sell it and sit under thatched hurdles as they did in old times and curl up to sleep in a lock 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 was not exactly the fault of the hut, she observed in a tone which showed her to be that novelty among women, who finished a thought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it. You should, I think, have considered, and not have been so foolish as to leave the sides closed. Yes, I suppose I should, said Oak, absently. He was endeavouring to catch and

appreciate the sensation of being thus with her, his head upon her dress, before the event passed on into the heap of bygone things. He wished she knew his impressions, but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent. She made him sit up, and then Oak began wiping his face and shaking himself like a Samson. How can I thank you? He said at last, grateful, some of the natural rusty red having returned to his face. Oh, never mind that, said the girl, smiling, and allowing her smile to hold good for Gabriel's next remark, whatever that might prove to be. How did you find me? I heard your dog howling and scratching at the door of the hut when I came to the milking. It was so lucky. Daisy's milking is almost... over for the season and I shall not come after this week or the next. The dog saw me and jumped over to me and laid hold of my skirt. I came across and looked around the hut the very first thing to see if the slides were closed. My uncle has a hut like this one and I've 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 meant to travel back to himself than to her. Oh, no, the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic probability. To have such saved a man from death involved talk that should harmonise with the dignity of such a deed. And she shunned it. I believe you saved my life, miss. I don't know your name. I know your aunts, but not yours. I would just as soon not tell it Rather not There is no reason either 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 seem fond of yours in speaking it so decisively Gabriel Oak 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 you might soon get a new one I see How many opinions you keep about you concerning other people, Gabriel Oak? Well, Miss, uh, excuse the words I thought you would like them As I can't match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue. I never was very clear in my inside. 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 her hand compressing her lips to a demure impassivity he held it but an instant and in his fear of being too demonstrative swerved to the opposite extreme touching her fingers with the lightness of a small-hearted person I'm 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 Indeed, curiously long How soft it is being wintertime too not chapped or rough or anything he said there, that's long enough said she, though without pulling it away but I suppose you were thinking you would like to kiss it you may if you want to I wasn't thinking of any such thing said Gabriel simply but I will That she 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. Chapter Four Gabriel's Resolve the visit, the mistake.

The only superiority in women that is tolerable to the rival sex is, as a rule, that of the unconscious kind. But a superiority which recognizes itself may sometimes please by suggesting possibilities of capture to the subordinated man. This well-favoured and comely girl soon made appreciation for her. inroads upon the emotional constitution of young farmer oak. Love, being an extremely exacting usurer, a sense of exorbitant profit, spiritually, by an exchange of hearts, being at the bottom of pure passions, as that of exorbitant profit, it, bodily or materially, is at the bottom of those of lower atmosphere. Every morning Oak's feelings were as sensitive as the money market in calculations upon his chances. His dog waited for his meals, in a way so like that in which Oak waited for the girl's presence, that the farmer was quite struck with the resemblance, felt it lowering, and would not look at the dog. However, he continued to watch through the hedge for her regular coming, and thus his sentiments towards her were deepening, without any corresponding effect being produced upon herself. Oak had nothing finished and ready to say as yet, and not being able to frame love phrases which end where they begin, passionate tales full of sound and fury signifying nothing. He said no word at all. By making inquiries, he found that the girl's name was Bathsheba Everdeen, and that the cow would go dry in about seven days. He dreaded the eighth day. At last, the eighth day came. The cow had ceased to give milk for that year, and Bathsheba Everdeen came up the hill no more. Gabriel had reached a pitch of existence he never could have anticipated in a short time before. He liked saying Bathsheba as a private enjoyment instead of whistling.

Turned over his taste to black hair, though he had sworn by brown ever since he was a boy. isolated himself till the space he filled in the public eye was contemptibly small love is a possible strength in an actual weakness marriage transforms a distraction into a support the power of which should be and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants. Oak began now to see light in this direction, and said to himself, I'll make her my wife, or upon my soul 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 a ewe mother of a living glam on a day which had a summer phase and a winter constitution a fine January morning when there was just enough blue sky visible to make cheerfully disposed people wish for more and an occasional gleam of silvery sunshine. Oak put the lamb into a respectable Sunday basket and stalked across the fields to the house of Mrs. Hurst, the aunt, George the dog walking behind with a countenance of great concern at the serious turn pastoral affairs seemed to be taking. Gabriel had watched the blue wood smoke curling from the chimney with strange meditation. At evening, he had fancifully traced it down the chimney to the spot of its origin, seen the hearth and Bathsheba beside it. Beside it in her outdoor dress. For the clothes she had worn on the hill were by association, equally with her person, included in the comfort. of his affection. They seemed at this early time of his love a necessary ingredient of the sweet mixture called Bathsheba-Everdine. He had made a toilette of a nicely adjusted kind, of a nature between the carefully neat and the carelessly ornate, of a degree between

fine market day and wet Sunday selection. He thoroughly cleaned his silver watch chain with whiting, put new lacing straps to his boots, looked to the brass eyelet holes, went to the inmost heart of the 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 sprigs of an elegant flower, uniting the beauties of both rose and lily without the defects of either, and used all the hair oil he possessed upon his usually dry, sandy, and inextricably curly hair, till he had deepened it to a splendidly novel colour between that of guano and Roman cement, making it stick to his head like mace round a nutmeg, or wet seaweed round a boulder after the ebb. Nothing disturbed the stillness of the cottage save the chatter of a knot of sparrows on the eaves. One might fancy scandal and rumour to be no less the staple topic of these little coteries on roofs than of those under them. It seemed that the omen was an unpropitious one, for as the rather untoward commencement of Oak's overtures, just as he arrived by the garden gate, he saw a cat inside, going into various arched shapes and fiendish convulsions at the sight of his dog, George. The dog took no notice, for 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 the sheep, Except to order, when it was done with an absolutely neutral countenance, as a sort of combination service, which, though offensive, had to be gone through once now and then to frighten the flock for their own good. A voice came from behind 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, that George was just walking on behind me, with a temper as mild as milk.

Almost before he had ceased speaking, Oak was seized with a misgiving as to whose ear was the recipient of his answer. nobody appeared and he heard the person retreat among the bushes gabriel meditated and so deeply that he brought small furrows into his forehead by sheer force of reverie where the issue of an interview is as likely to be a vast change for the worse as for the better. Any initial difference from expectation causes nipping sensations of failure. Oak went up to the door a little abashed, his mental rehearsal and the reality that had no common grounds of opening. Bathsheba's aunt was indoors. Would you tell Miss Everdeen that somebody would be glad to speak to her? said Mr Oak, calling oneself merely somebody without giving a name is not to be taken as an example of the ill-breeding of the rural world. It springs from a refined modesty of which townspeople, with their cards and announcements, have no notion whatever. Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently been hers. Will you come in, Mr Oak?

"'Oh, uh, thank you,' said Gabriel, following her to the fireplace. "'I've brought a lamb for Miss Everdeen. "'I thought she might like one to rear. "'Girls do.' "'She might,' said Mrs. Hurst, musingly.

"'Though she's 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 was going to ask her if she'd like to be married

And were you indeed?

Yes, because if she would, I should be very glad to marry her Do you know if she's got any other young man hanging about her at all? Let me think, said Mrs Hurst poking the fire superfluously. 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 ever come here, but, Lord, in the nature of women, she must have had a dozen.

that's unfortunate said Farmer Oak contemplating a crack in the stone floor with sorrow I'm only an everyday sort of man and my only chance was in being the first comer well there's no use of my waiting but that was all I came about so I'll take myself off home along Mrs Hurst When Gabriel had gone about 200 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. Oak stood still, and the runner drew nearer. It was Bathsheba Everdeen. Gabriel's colour deepened. Hers was already deep, not as it appeared from emotion, but from running. Farmer Oak, she said, pausing for want of breath, pulling up in front of him with a slanted face and putting her hand to her side. I've just called to see you, said Gabriel, pending her further speech. Yes, I know that, she said, panting like a robin, her face red and moist from her exertions, like a peony petal before the sun dries off the dew.

I didn't know you had come to ask to have me. 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'm 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've found your breath.

It was quite a mistake. Aunt's telling you I had a young man already.

Bathsheba went on.

I haven't a sweetheart at all, and I never had one. And I thought that as times go with women, it was such a pity to send you away, thinking that I had several.

Brilliant, truly, I'm glad to hear that, said Farmore, smiling one of his long, special smiles, and blushing with gladness. he held out his hand to take hers which when she had eased her side by pressing it there was prettily extended upon her bosom to still her loud beating heart directly he seized it she put it behind her so that it slipped through his fingers like an eel I have a nice, snug little farm, said Gabriel, with half a degree less assurance than when he had seized her hand.

Yes, you have.

A man has advanced me money to begin with, but still, it will soon be paid off. Though I am only an everyday sort of man, I have got on a little since I was a boy.

Gabriel uttered a little, in a tone to show her that it was the complacent form of a great deal. He continued, When we'd be married, I'm quite sure I can work twice as hard as I do now. He went forward and stretched out his arm again. Bathsheba had overtaken him at a point beside which stood a low, stunted holly bush, now laden with red berries. Seeing his advance take the form of an attitude threatening a possible enclosure, if not compression of her person, she edged off round the bush. My farmer Oak, she said over the top, looking at him with rounded eyes.

I never said I was going to marry you.

Well, that is a tale, said Oak with dismay, to run after anybody like this and then say you don't want him. What I mean to tell you is only this, she said eagerly and yet half conscious of the absurdity of the position she had made for herself.

But nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart. But instead of my having a dozen, as my aunt said, I hate to be thought men's property in that way. Though possibly I shall be had some day. Why, if I'd wanted you, I shouldn't have run after you like this. It would have been the forwardest thing. But 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 there is such a thing as being too generous and expressing a judgement impulsively, and Oak added with a more appreciative sense of all the circumstances. Well, I'm not quite certain it was no harm.

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

Come, said Gabriel, freshening again. Think a minute or two. I'll wait a while, Miss Everdeen. Will you marry me? Do, Bathsheba. I love you far more than common. I'll try to think, she observed more timorously.

If I can think out of doors, my mind spreads away so.

But you can give a guess.

Then give me time.

Bathsheba looked thoughtfully into the distance, away from the direction in which Gabriel stood. I can make you happy, he said 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'll practice up to the flute right well to play with you in the evenings

Yes, I should like that

And I have one of those little ten-pound gigs for market And nice flowers And birds Cocks and hens, I mean, because they'd be useful Continued Gabriel, feeling 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'd have it put in the newspaper list of marriages

dearly I should like that

and the babies in the births every man jack of him and at home by the fire whenever you look up there I shall be and whenever I look up there will be you

Now wait, wait and don't be improper.

Her countenance fell and she was silent a while. He regarded the red berries between them over and over again to such an extent that Holly seemed in his afterlife to be a cipher signifying a proposal of marriage. Bathsheba decisively turned to him.

no it is no use she said i don't want to marry you try i have tried hard all the time i've 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'd always be there As you say. Whenever I looked up, there he'd be. be. Of course he would. That's… But what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a 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. Upon my heart and soul, I don't know what a maid can say stupider than that, said Oak. But dearest, he continued in a palliative voice, don't be like it. Oak sighed a deep, honest sigh. Nonetheless so in that, being like the sigh of a pine plantation, It was rather noticeable as a disturbance of the atmosphere. Why won't you have me? He appealed, creeping ground the holly to reach her side. I cannot, she said, retreating. But why? He persisted, standing still at last, in despair of ever reaching her and facing over the bush.

Because I don't love you.

Yes, but she contracted a yawn to an inoffensive smallness so that it was hardly ill-mannered at all. I don't love you, she said, but I love you, and as for myself, I'm content to be liked.

Oh, Mr. Oak, that's very fine. You'd get to despise me.

Never, said Mr. Oak, so earnestly that he seemed to be coming, by the force of his words, straight through the bush and 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 now and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled

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 how i wish i had not run after you however she seemed to have cut short forgetting back to cheerfulness and set her face to signify archness

it wouldn't do mr oak i want somebody to tame me i'm too independent and you would never be able to

I know. Oak cast his eyes down the field in a way implying that it was useless to attempt argument. Mr. Oak, she said with luminous distinctness and common sense, you are better off than I.

I've hardly a penny in the world. I'm staying with my aunt for my bare sustenance. I am better educated than you, and I don't love you a bit. That's my side of the case. Now yours, you are a farmer, just beginning, and you ought in common prudence, if you marry at all, which you should certainly not think of doing at present, to marry a woman with money, who would stock a larger farm for you than you have now.

Gabriel looked at her with a little surprise and much admiration. That's the very thing I've been thinking myself, he naively said. Farmer Oak had one and a half Christian characteristics too many to succeed with Bathsheba. His humility and a superfluous moiety of honesty, Bathsheba was decidedly disconcerted.

"'Well, then, why did you come and disturb me?' she said almost angrily, if not quite,

an enlarging red spot rising in each cheek. "'I can't do what I think would be... would be bright, 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 I know it.

He broke in passionately. But don't mistake me like that, because I am open enough to own what every man in my shoes would have thought of.

You make your colours come up in your face and get crabbed with me. That about your not being good enough for me is nonsense. You speak like a lady, all the parish notice it. And your uncle at Weatherby is, I have heard, 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 up your mind at once if you'd rather not.

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

No man likes to see his emotions the sport of a merry-go-round of skittishness. Very well, said Oak firmly with the bearing of one who was going to give his days and nights to Ecclesiastes forever. Then I'll ask you no more Oak returned to his flock

Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. You