Muse

Good evening. Imagine how much better the world would be if everyone woke up well-rested every day. That's why I and the team here at Slumber make the Sleepy Bookshelf. You can join us in this mission by supporting the show via our premium feed, which will get you ad-free access to the entire bookshelf and exclusive bonus episodes. If premium isn't for you, that's okay. Recommending your favourite episode to a friend or family member is just as meaningful. Thank you so much for your support, and I hope you sleep well tonight. 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 Elizabeth, your host, and it is so lovely to be here with you tonight. This evening will be continuing far from the maddened crowd, but just have a moment now to take a slow, deep breath in, then gently let it go, feeling your shoulders soften and drop. Relax your jaw, smooth your forehead, and allow every tiny muscle in your face to become completely still. Feel the weight of your arms and legs sinking heavily into the mattress beneath you. And with each gentle breath, release any remaining tightness in

your neck, back, hips, and chest. Let your whole body feel completely warm, loose, and relaxed, as though melting into perfect comfort. Bathsheba Everdeen had become the mistress of her late uncle's prosperous farming estate. Although surprised by the encounter with Gabriel, she remained composed and agreed to hire him as her shepherd. As he made his way into Weatherbury, Gabriel met a timid young woman standing alone in the churchyard. She asked him to keep their meeting a secret, admitted she was poor, and gratefully accepted the last shilling he could spare. Gabriel found a warm welcome at Warren's Malthouse where the local farm workers and elderly maltster shared food, cider and lively conversation. The villagers quickly accepted him after discovering his family connections. The maltster knew of Norcom and of Gabriel's father and grandfather. He listened as they exchanged humorous stories about the shy Joseph Paulgrass in the corner, reflected on village life, and discussed their new mistress, describing her as beautiful, capable, and newly arrived. They talked about her parents and family history, and through the evening, Gabriel quietly learned more about the people and the community where he would now be living and working. And tonight, we pick up still in the Malthouse. So just lie back and relax as I turn to the next pages of Far From The Madding Crowd. Chapter 8 Continued While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's flute became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henry Frey exclaimed,

Surely, Shepard, I seed you blowing into a great flute by now at Casterbridge. You did, said Gabriel, blushing faintly. I've been in great trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it. I used not to be so poor as I be now. Never mind that, said Mark Clark. You should take it careless like shepherd and your time will come. But we could thank you for your tune, if you weren't too tired. "'Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since Christmas,' said Jan Kogan. "'Cum raise a tune, Master Oak.' "'Aye, that I will,' said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and putting it together. "'A poor tool, neighbours, but such as I can do, you shall have and welcome.' Oak then struck up, jockey to the fair, and played that sparkling melody three times through, accenting the notes in the third round in a most artistic and lively manner, by bending his body in small jerks and tapping with his foot to beat time. He can blow the flute very well, that I can, said a young married man, who having no individuality worth mentioning was known as Susan Tall's husband. He continued, I'd as lief as not be able to blow a flute as well as that. He's a clever man. It is a true comfort for us to have such a shepherd, murmured Joseph Porgras in a soft cadence. We ought to feel full of thanksgiving that he's not a player of body songs instead of these merry tunes. For it would have been just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose, low man. A man of iniquity, so to speak it, as what he is. Yes, for our wives and daughters' sake, we should feel real thanksgiving. True, true. Real thanksgiving. Dashing in Mark Clark conclusively. not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion that he had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said. Yes, added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the Bible, for evil do thrive so in these times, that ye may be as much deceived in the cleanest shaved and whitest shirted man as in the raggedest tramp upon the turnpike. if I may term it so.

I can mind your face now, Shepard, said Henry Frey criticising Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his second tune. Yes, now I can see you blowing into the flute I know you to be the same man I see play at Casterbridge for your mouth was scrimped up and your eyes was staring out like a strangled man's, just as they be know. Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look such a scarecrow, observed Mark Clark, with additional criticism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out with the ghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of Dame Durden. "'Twas Maul and Bette and Dolly and Kate and Dorothy Draggletail. "'I hope you don't mind that young man's bad manners in naming your features,' whispered Joseph to Gabriel. Not at all, said Mr. Oak. For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd, continued poor grass with winning suavity. Aye, that ye be, shepherd, said the company. Thank you very much, said Oak, in the modest tone good manners demanded. Thinking, however, that he would never let Bathsheba see him playing the flute. In this resolve, showing a discretion equal to that related to its sagacious inventress, the divine Minerva herself. When I and my wife were married at Norcom Church, said the old maltster, not pleased at finding himself left out of the subject. We were called the handsomest couple in the neighbourhood. Everybody said so. Danged if you ain't altered now, mutter, said a voice with the vigour natural to the enunciation of a remarkably evident truism. It came from the old man in the background, whose offensiveness and spiteful ways were barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle he contributed to general laughs. Oh, no, no, said Gabriel. Don't you play no more, Shepard? said Susan Tull's husband, the young, married man who had spoken once before. I must be moving, and when there's tunes going on, I seem as if I hung in wires.

If I thought after I'd left, that music was still playing, and I not there, I should be quite melancholy-like. "'What's your hurry then, Laban?' inquired Kogan. "'You used to bide as late as the latest.' "'Well, you see, neighbours, I was lately married to a woman "'and she's my vocation now, so you see.' The young man halted lamely. "'New lords, new laws, as the saying is, I suppose,' remarked Kogan. "'Oh, you believe?' Ha ha, said Susan Tall's husband, in a tone intended to imply his habitual reception of jokes without minding them at all. The young man then wished them goodnight and withdrew. Henry Frey was the first to follow. Then Gabriel arose and went off with Jan Kogan, who had offered him a lodging. A few minutes later, when the remaining ones were on their legs and about to depart, Frey came back again in a hurry. Flourishing his finger ominously, he threw a gaze, teeming with tidings, just where his eye alighted by accident, which happened to be in Joseph Porgrass's face. Oh, what's the matter? What's the matter, Henry? said Joseph, snorting back. What's the brewing, Henry? asked Jacob and Mark Clark. Bailey Pennywaste. Bailey Pennywaste. I said so. Yes, I said so. what found out stealing anything stealing it is the news is that after miss everdeen got home she went out again to see all was safe as she usually do and coming in found bailey pennyways creeping down the granary steps with half a bushel of barley she fleed at him like a cat never such a tomboy as she is of course we speak with closed doors you do Henry you do she fleed at him and to cut a long story short he owned having carried off five sack altogether upon her promising not to persecute him well he's turned out neck and crop and my question is who's going to be Bailey now the question was such a profound one that Henry was obliged to drink there and then from the large cup till the bottom was distinctly visible inside. Before he had replaced it on the table, in

came the young man, Susan Tall's husband, in a still greater hurry. Have you heard the news that's all over the parish? About Bailey Pennywise? But besides that, no, not a morsel of it, they replied, looking into the very midst of Laban Tall, as if to meet his words halfway down his throat. What a night of horrors, murmured Joseph Paul Gras, waving his hands spasmodically. We've had the news bells ringing in my left ear quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seen a magpie all alone. "'Fanny Robin, Miss Everdeen's youngest servant, can't be found. "'They've been wanting to lock up the door these two hours, but she hasn't come in, "'and they don't know what to do about her going to bed for fear of locking her out. "'They wouldn't be so concerned if she hadn't been noticed in such low spirits these last few days, "'and Marianne would think the beginning of a crowner's inquest has happened to the poor girl.'" "'Oh, tis burned. Tis burned,' came from Joseph Paul Grass's dry lips. "'No, tis drowned,' said Torr. "'Or tis her father's razor,' suggested Billy Smallbury with a vivid sense of detail. "'Well, Miss Everdeen wants to speak to one or two of us before we go to bed. What with this trouble about the bailey? And now about the girl? Messers is almost wild. They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting the old maltster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder could draw him from his hole. There, as the other's footsteps died away, he sat down again and continued gazing, as usual, into the furnace. with his red, bleared eyes. From the bedroom window above their heads, Bathsheba's head and shoulders, robed in mystic white, were dimly seen extended into the air. Are any of my men among you? she said anxiously. Yes, ma'am, several, said Susan Tall's husband. Tomorrow morning I wish two or three of you to make inquiries in the villages round to see if they have seen such a person as Fanny Robin. Do it quietly. There is no reason for alarm as yet. She must have left whilst we were all at the fire. I beg your pardon, but had she any young man courting her in the parish, ma'am? asked Jacob Smallbury.

I don't know, said Bathsheba. I never heard of any such thing, mum, said two or three. It is hardly likely either, continued Bathsheba, for any lover of hers might have come to the house if he had been a respectable lad, but the most mysterious matter connected with her absence, indeed the only thing which gives me serious alarm, is that she was seen to go out of the house by Marianne with only her indoor working gown on, not even a bonnet. And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, that a young woman would hardly go and see her young ma'am without dressing up, said Jacob, turning his mental vision upon past experiences. That's true. She would not, ma'am. She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn't see it very well. said a female voice from another window, which seemed that of Marianne. But she had no young man round here. Hers lives in Casterbridge, and I believe he's a soldier. Do you know his name? Bathsheba said. No, mistress. She was very close about it. Perhaps I might be able to find out if I went to Casterbridge Barracks, said William Smallbury. very well if she doesn't return tomorrow mind you go there and try to discover which man it is and see him i feel more responsible than i should if she had had any friends or relatives alive i do hope she has come to no harm through a man of that kind and then there's this disgraceful affair of the bailiff but i can't speak of him now Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness, but it did seem she did not think it worthwhile to dwell upon any particular one. Do as I told you then, she said in conclusion, closing the casement. Aye, aye, mistress, we will, they replied, and moved away. That night at Coke organs, Gabriel Oak, beneath the screen of closed eyelids, was busy with fancies and full of movement, like a river flowing rapidly under its ice. Night had always been the time at which he saw Bathsheba most vividly, and through the slow hours of shadow, he tenderly regarded her image now. It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness,

but they possibly did with Oak tonight, for the delight of merely seeing Kerr effaced for the time his perception of the great difference between seeing and possessing. He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcom The Young Man's Best Companion The Farrier's Shore Guide The Veterinary Surgeon Paradise Lost The Pilgrim's Progress Robinson Crusoe Ash's Dictionary and Walking Games Arithmetic constituted his library and though a limited series it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves Chapter 9. The Homestead. A Visitor. Half-Confidences. By daylight, the Bower of Oaks' newfound mistress, Bathsheba Everdeen, presented itself as a hoary building of the early stage of classic Renaissance as regards its architecture, and of a proportion which told at a glance that, as is so frequently the case, it had once been the memorial hall upon a small estate around it, now altogether effaced as a distinct property, and merged in the vast tract of non-resident landlord which comprised several such modest demisners. Fluted pilasters, worked from the stone, decorated its front. And above the roof of the chimneys were panelled or columnar, some coped gables with finials and like features still retaining traces of their gothic extraction. Soft, brown mosses, like faded velveteen, formed cushions upon the stone tiling, and tufts of the house leek, or sen green, sprouted from the eaves of the low surrounding buildings.

A gravel walk leading from the door to the road in front was encrusted at the sides with more moss. Here it was a silver-green variety, the nut-brown of the gravel being visible to the width of only a foot or two in the centre. This circumstance, and the generally sleepy air of the whole prospect here, together with the animated and contrasting state of the reverse facade, suggested to the imagination that on the adaptation of the building for farming purposes, the vital principle of the house had turned round inside its body to face the other way. Reversals of this kind, strange deformities, tremendous paralysis, are often seen to be inflicted by trade upon edifices, either individual or in the aggregate as streets and towns, which were originally planned for pleasure alone. Lively voices were heard this morning in the evening. upper rooms, the main staircase to which was of hard oak, the balusters heavy as bedposts being turned and moulded in the quaint fashion of their century, the handrail as stout as a parapet top, and the stairs themselves continually twisting ground like a person trying to look over his shoulder. Going up, the floors above were found to have a very irregular surface, rising to ridges, sinking into valleys, and being just then uncarpeted. The face of the boards was seen to be eaten into innumerable vermiculations. Every window replied by a clang to the opening and shutting of every door. A tremble followed every bustling movement, and a creak accompanied a walker about the house like a spirit wherever he went.

In the room from which the conversation proceeded, Bathsheba and her servant companion, Liddy Smallbury, were to be discovered sitting upon the floor and sorting a complication of papers, books, bottles, and rubbish spread out thereon. Remnants from the household stores of the late occupier Liddy, the Maltster's great-granddaughter, was about Bathsheba's equal in age and her face was a prominent advertisement of the light-hearted English country girl the beauty her features might have lacked in form was amply made up for by perfection of hue which at this wintertime was the softened ruddiness on a surface of high rotundity that we meet with in a turburg or a gerard dow And like the presentations of these great colourists, it was a face which kept well back from the boundary between comeliness and the ideal. Though elastic in nature, she was less daring than Bathsheba, and occasionally showed some earnestness, which consisted half of genuine feeling and half of mannerliness, superadded by way of duty. Through a partly open door, the noise of a scrubbing brush led up to the charwoman, Mary Ann Money, a person who, for a face, had a circular disc, furrowed less by age than by long gazes of perplexity at distant objects. To think of her was to get good-humoured. To speak of her was to raise the image of a dried Normandy pippin. Stop your scrubbing a moment, said Bathsheba through the door to her. I hear something. Marianne suspended the brush. The tramp of a horse was apparent, approaching the front of the building. The paces slackened, turned in at the wicket, and what was most unusual came up the mossy path close to the door. The door was tapped with the end of a crop or stick.

What impertinence, said Liddy in a low voice, to ride up the footpath like that.

Why didn't he stop at the gate? Lord, tis a gentleman. I see the top of his hat. Be quiet,

said Bathsheba. The further expression of Liddy's concern was continued by aspect Instead of narrative,

Why doesn't Mrs Coggan go to the door?

Bathsheba continued. Rat-a-tat-tat resounded more decisively from Bathsheba's oak.

Marianne, you go, said she,

fluttering under the onset of a crowd of romantic possibilities. Please. Mum, see, here's a mess. The argument was unanswerable after a glance at Marianne. Liddy, you must, said Bathsheba. Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated with dust from the rubbish they were sorting, and looked imploringly at her mistress. Ah, there, Mrs. Coggin is going, said Bathsheba, exhaling her relief in the form of a long breath, which had lain in her bosom a minute or more. The door opened, and a deep voice said, Is Miss Everdeen at home? I'll see, sir, said Mrs. Coggan, and in a minute appeared in the room. Dear, what a dirt-over place this world is, continued Mrs Coggan, a wholesome-looking lady who had a voice for each class of remark according to the emotion involved, who could toss a pancake or twirl a mop with the accuracy of pure mathematics and who at this moment showed hands shaggy with fragments of dough and arms encrusted with flour. I am never up to my elbows, miss, in making a pudding, but one of two things do happen. Either my nose must begin tickling and I can't live without scratching it or somebody knocks at the door. Here's Mr. Boldwood wanting to see you, Miss Everdeen. A woman's dress being a part of her countenance, and any disorder in the one being of the same nature with a malformation or wound in the other, Bathsheba said at once, I can't see him in this state. Whatever shall I do? Not at homes were hardly naturalised in Weatherbury farmhouses. So Liddy suggested, Say you're at a fright with dust and can't come down? Oh yes, that sounds very well, said Mrs Coggan critically. Say I can't see him, that will do. Mrs Coggan went downstairs and returned the answer as requested, adding however on her own responsibility, Mrs Dust in bottles, sir, and it's quite an object, that's why it is. Oh, very well, said the deep voice indifferently. All I wanted to ask was if anything had been heard of Fanny Robin. Nothing, sir, but we may know tonight William Smallbury's gone to Casterbridge,

where a young man lives, as is supposed, and the other men be inquiring about everywhere. The horse's tramp then recommenced and retreated and the door closed. Who is Mr. Baldwood? said Bathsheba. A gentleman farmer at Little Weatherbury. Married? No, miss? How old is he? Forty, I should say. Very handsome. Rather stern-looking. And rich. What a bother this dusting is. I'm always in some unfortunate plight or other. Bathsheba said complainingly Why should he inquire about Fanny? Oh, because she has no friends in her childhood He took her and put her to school and got her a place here under your uncle He's a very kind man that way But Lord there What? Never was such a hopeless man for a woman He's been courted by sixes and sevens All the girls gentle and simple, for miles around have tried him. Jane Perkins worked at him for two months like a slave, and the two Miss Taylors spent a year upon him. And he cast Farmer Ives' daughter nights of tears and twenty pounds' worth of new clothes. But Lord, the money might as well have been thrown out of the window. A little boy came up at this moment and looked in upon them. This child was one of the Coggins, who, with the small breeze, were as common among the families of this district as the Avons and Derwins among our rivers. He always had a loosened tooth, or a cut finger to show to particular friends, which he did with an air of being thereby elevated above the common herd of afflictionless humanity, to which exhibition people were expected to say poor child with a dash of congratulation as well as pity. I've got a penny, said Master Coggan in a scanning measure.

Well, who gave it to you, Teddy? said Liddy. Mr. Baldwood. He gave it to me for opening the gate. What did he say? He said, where are you going, my little man? And I said, to Miss Everdeen's place. And he said, she is a staid woman, isn't she, my little man? And I said, yes. You naughty child, what do you say that for? Because he gave me a penny.

What a pucker everything is in, said Bathsheba, discontentedly when the child had gone.

Get away, Marianne, or go on with your scrubbing or do something. You ought to be married by this time and not here troubling me. My mistress, so I did. What between the poor men I won't have and the rich men who won't have me, I stand as a pelican in the wilderness. Did anybody ever want to marry you, miss?

Liddy ventured to ask when they were again alone.

Lots of them, my dearsay.

Bathsheba paused, as if about to refuse a reply but the temptation to say yes, since it was really in her power was irresistible by aspiring virginity in spite of her spleen at having been published as old A man wanted to, once she said in highly experienced tone and the image of Gabriel Oak as the farmer rose before her. Oh, how nice it must seem, said Liddy with the fixed fixtures of mental realisation.

And you wouldn't have him? Oh, he wasn't quite good enough for me. Oh, how sweet to be able to disdain when most of us are glad to say thank you. You seem I hear it. No, sir, I'm your better. Or, kiss my foot, sir. My face is for mouths of consequence. And did you love him, miss? Oh, no. But I rather liked him. Do you know? Course not. What footsteps are those I hear?

Liddy looked from a back window into the courtyard behind, which was now getting low-toned and dim with the earliest films of night. A crooked file of men was approaching the back door. The whole string of trailing individuals advanced in the completest balance of intention. Like the remarkable creatures known as chain salpé, which, distinctly organized in other respects, have one will common to a whole family. Somewhere, as usual, in snow-white smock-frocks of Russia duck, and some in whitey-brown wands of drabbit, marked on the wrists, breasts, backs, and sleeves with honeycomb work. Two or three women in patterns brought up the rear. The Philistines be upon us, said Liddy, making her nose white against the glass.

Oh, very well. Marianne, go down and keep them in the kitchen till I'm dressed, and then show them to me in the hall.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Transcription by CastingWords

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.