Far From the Madding Crowd | Page 8

by his aerial position, he felt himself drawing upon his
fancy for their details. In making even horizontal and clear inspections
we colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our
eyes bring in. Had Gabriel been able from the first to get a distinct view
of her countenance, his estimate of it as very handsome or slightly so
would have been as his soul required a divinity at the moment or was
ready supplied with one. Having for some time known the want of a
satisfactory form to fill an increasing void within him, his position
moreover affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a
beauty.
By one of those whimsical coincidences in which Nature, like a busy
mother, seems to spare a moment from her unremitting labours to turn
and make her children smile, the girl now dropped the cloak, and forth
tumbled ropes of black hair over a red jacket. Oak knew her instantly as
the heroine of the yellow waggon, myrtles, and looking-glass: prosily,
as the woman who owed him twopence.
They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the lantern, and
went out, the light sinking down the hill till it was no more than a
nebula. Gabriel Oak returned to his flock.


CHAPTER III
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 save 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 lost 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 Tewnell 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 spirts alternating with loud spirts 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