Far From the Madding Crowd | Page 3

the boy. His height and breadth would have been
sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been exhibited with
due consideration. But there is a way some men have, rural and urban
alike, for which the mind is more responsible than flesh and sinew: it is
a way of curtailing their dimensions by their manner of showing them.

And from a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal which
seemed continually to impress upon him that he had no great claim on
the world's room, Oak walked unassumingly and with a faintly
perceptible bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the shoulders. This may
be said to be a defect in an individual if he depends for his valuation
more upon his appearance than upon his capacity to wear well, which
Oak did not.
He had just reached the time of life at which "young" is ceasing to be
the prefix of "man" in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period
of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly
separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth
indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had
not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the
character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short,
he was twenty-eight, and a bachelor.
The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called Norcombe
Hill. Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between Emminster
and Chalk-Newton. Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak saw coming
down the incline before him an ornamental spring waggon, painted
yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a waggoner walking
alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was laden with
household goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat a
woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld the sight for more
than half a minute, when the vehicle was brought to a standstill just
beneath his eyes.
"The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss," said the waggoner.
"Then I heard it fall," said the girl, in a soft, though not particularly low
voice. "I heard a noise I could not account for when we were coming
up the hill."
"I'll run back."
"Do," she answered.

The sensible horses stood -- perfectly still, and the waggoner's steps
sank fainter and fainter in the distance.
The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by tables
and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle, and
ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses,
together with a caged canary -- all probably from the windows of the
house just vacated. There was also a cat in a willow basket, from the
partly-opened lid of which she gazed with half-closed eyes, and
affectionately-surveyed the small birds around.
The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and the only
sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary up and down
the perches of its prison. Then she looked attentively downwards. It
was not at the bird, nor at the cat; it was at an oblong package tied in
paper, and lying between them. She turned her head to learn if the
waggoner were coming. He was not yet in sight; and her eyes crept
back to the package, her thoughts seeming to run upon what was inside
it. At length she drew the article into her lap, and untied the paper
covering; a small swing looking- glass was disclosed, in which she
proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled.
It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow the
crimson jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright face
and dark hair. The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses packed around her
were fresh and green, and at such a leafless season they invested the
whole concern of horses, waggon, furniture, and girl with a peculiar
vernal charm. What possessed her to indulge in such a performance in
the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and unperceived farmer who were
alone its spectators, -- whether the smile began as a factitious one, to
test her capacity in that art, -- nobody knows; it ended certainly in a real
smile. She blushed at herself, and seeing her reflection blush, blushed
the more.
The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of such an
act -- from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling out of
doors -- lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not intrinsically possess.
The picture was a delicate one. Woman's prescriptive infirmity had

stalked into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the