第50章

Troubles in the Fold - A Message Gabriel

Oak had ceased to feed the Weatherbury flock for about four-and-twenty hours, when on Sunday afternoon the elderly gentlemen Joseph Poorgrass, Matthew Moon, Fray, and half-a-dozen others, came running up to the house of the mistress of the Upper Farm.

`Whatever is the matter, men?' she said, meeting them at the door just as she was coming out on her way to church, and ceasing in a moment from the close compression of her two red lips, with which she had accompanied the exertion of pulling on a tight glove.

`Sixty!' said Joseph Poorgrass.

`Seventy!' said Moon.

`Fifty-nine!' said Susan Tall's husband.

` - Sheep have broke fence,' said Fray.

` - And got into a field of young clover,' said Tall.

` - Young clover!' said Moon.

` - Clover!' said Joseph Poorgrass.

`And they be getting blasted,' said Henery Fray.

`That they be,' said Joseph.

`And will all die as dead as nits, if they bain't got out and cured!' said Tall.

Joseph's countenance was drawn into lines and puckers by his concern.

Fray's forehead was wrinkled both perpendicularly and crosswise, after the pattern of a portcullis, expressive of a double despair. Laban Tall's lips were thin, and his face was rigid. Matthew's jaws sank, and his eyes turned whichever way the strongest muscle happened to pull them.

`Yes,' said Joseph, `and I was sitting at home looking for Ephesians, and says I to myself, "'Tis nothing but Corinthians and Thessalonians in this danged Testament," when who should come in but Henery there: "Joseph," he said, "the sheep have blasted theirselves - "'

With Bathsheba it was a moment when thought was speech and speech exclamation.

Moreover, she had hardly recovered her equanimity since the disturbance which she had suffered from Oak's remarks.

`That's enough - that's enough - O you fools!' she cried, throwing the parasol and Prayer-book into the passage, and running out of doors in the direction signified. 'to come to me, and not go and get them out directly!

O, the stupid numskulls!'

Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest now. Bathsheba's beauty belonging rather to the demonian than to the angelic school, she never looked so well as when she was angry - and particularly when the effect was heightened by a rather dashing velvet dress carefully put on before a glass.

All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to the cloverfield, Joseph sinking down in the midst when about halfway, like an individual withering in a world which was more and more insupportable. Having once received the stimulus that her presence always gave them they went round among the sheep with a will. The majority of the afflicted animals were lying down, and could not be stirred. These were bodily lifted out, and the others driven into the adjoining field. Here, after the lapse of a few minutes, several more fell down, and lay helpless and livid as the rest.

Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at these primest specimens of her prime flock as they rolled there-- Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew Many of them foamed at the mouth, their breathing being quick and short, whilst the bodies of all were fearfully distended.

`O, what can I do' what can I do!' said Bathsheba, helplessly. `Sheep are such unfortunate animals! - there's always something happening to them!

I never knew a flock pass a year without getting into some scrape or other.'

`There's only one way of saving them,' said Tall.

`What way? Tell me quick!'

`They must be pierced in the side with a thing made on purpose.

`Can you do it? Can I?'

`No' ma'am. We can't, nor you neither. It must be done in a particular spot. If ye go to the right or left but an inch you stab the ewe and kill her. Not even a shepherd can do it, as a rule.'

`Then they must die,' she said, in a resigned tone.

`Only one man in the neighbourhood knows the way,' said Joseph, now just come up. He could cure 'em all if he were here.'

`Who is he? Let's get him!'

`Shepherd Oak,' said Matthew. `Ah, he's a clever man in talents!'

`Ah, that he is so!' said Joseph Poorgrass.

`True - he's the man,' said Laban Tall.

`How dare you name that man in my presence!' she said excitedly. `I told you never to allude to him, nor shall you if you stay with me. Ah!' she added, brightening, `Farmer Boldwood knows!'

`O no' ma'am,' said Matthew. 'two of his store ewes got into some vetches t'other day, and were just like these. He sent a man on horseback here post-haste for Gable, and Gable went and saved `em. Farmer Boldwood hev got the thing they do it with. 'tis a holler pipe, with a sharp pricker inside. Isn't it, Joseph?'

`Ay - a holler pipe,' echoed Joseph. 'that's what 'tis.'

`Ay, sure - that's the machine,' chimed in Henery Fray reflectively, with an Oriental indifference to the flight of time.

`Well,' burst out Bathsheba, `don't stand there with your "ayes" and your "sures", talking at me! Get somebody to cure the sheep instantly!'

All then stalked off in consternation, to get somebody as directed, without any idea of who it was to be. In a minute they had vanished through the gate, and she stood alone with the dying flock.

`Never will I send for him - never!' she said firmly.

One of the ewes here contracted its muscles horribly, extended itself, and jumped high into the air. The leap was an astonishing one. The ewe fell heavily, and lay still.

Bathsheba went up to it. The sheep was dead.

`O, what shall I do - what shall I do' she again exclaimed, wringing her hands. `I won't send for him. No, I won't!'

The most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the greatest vigour of the resolution itself. It is often flung out as a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction which, whilst strong, required no enunciation to prove it so. The `No,' I won't' of Bathsheba meant virtually, `I think I must.'

She followed her assistants through the gate, and lifted her hand to one of them. Laban answered to her signal.

`Where is Oak staying?'

`Across the valley at Nest Cottage.