第56章

`So I said, "Miss Everdene, there's places empty, and there's gifted men willing; but the spite" - no' not the spite - I didn't say spite -"but the villainy of the contrarikind," I said (meaning womankind), "keeps em out." That wasn't too strong for her, say?'

`Passably well put.'

`Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook me for it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind.'

`A true man, and proud as a lucifer.'

`You see the artfulness? Why, 'twas about being baily really; but I didn't put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so I could lay it on all the stronger. That was my depth!... However, let her marry an she will. Perhaps 'tis high time. I believe Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed' at the sheep-washing t'other day - that I do.'

`What a lie!' said Gabriel.

`Ah, neighbour Oak - how'st know?' said Henery mildly.

`Because she told me all that passed,' said Oak, with a pharisaical sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter.

`Ye have a right to believe it,' said Henery, with dudgeon; `a very true right. But I mid see a little distance into things! To be long-headed enough for a baily's place is a poor mere trifle - yet a trifle more than nothing. However, I look round upon life quite cool. Do you heed me, neighbours?

My words, though made as simple as I can, mid be rather deep for some heads.'

`O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye.'

`A strange old piece, goodmen - whirled about from here to yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to brain.

But no - O no!'

`A strange old piece, ye say!' interposed the maltster, in a querulous voice. `At the same time ye be no old man worth naming - no old man at all. Yer teeth bain't half gone yet; and what's a old man's standing if so be his teeth bain't gone? Weren't I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? 'tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there's people far past four-score - a boast weak as water.'

It was the unvarying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differences when the maltster had to be pacified.

`Weak as water! yes,' said Jan Coggan. `Malter, we feel ye to be a wonderful veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it.'

`Nobody,' said Joseph Poorgrass. `Ye be a very rare old spectacle, malter, and we all admire ye for that gift.'

`Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in prosperity, I was likewise liked by a good-few who knowed me,' said the maltster.

`'Ithout doubt you was--'ithout doubt.'

The bent and hoary man was satisfied, and so apparently was Henery Fray.

That matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils - notably some of Nicholas Poussin's:--`Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or any secondhand fellow at all that would do for poor me?' said Maryann. `A perfect one I don't expect to get at my time of life. If I could hear of such a thing 'twould do me more good than toast and ale.'

Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on with his shearing, and said not another word. Pestilent moods had come, and teased away his quiet.

Bathsheba had shown indications of anointing him above his fellows by' installing him as the bailiff that the farm imperatively required. He did not covet the post relatively to the farm: in relation to herself, as beloved by him and unmarried to another, he had coveted it. His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one of the absurdest mistakes. Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she had trifled with himself in thus feigning that she had trifled with another.

He was inwardly convinced that, in accordance with the anticipations of his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that day would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss Everdene. Gabriel at this time of his life had outgrown the instinctive dislike which every Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite frequently, and he inwardly said, "`I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets!"'

This was mere exclamation - the froth of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same.

`We workfolk shall have some lordly junketing to-night,' said Cainy Ball, casting forth his thoughts in a new direction. 'this morning I see em making the great puddens in the milking-pails - lumps of fat as big as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I've never seed such splendid large knobs of fat before in the days of my life - they never used to be bigger than a horse-bean. And there was a great black crock upon the brandise with his legs a-sticking out, but I don't know what was in within.'

`And there's two bushels of biffins for apple-pies,' said Maryann.

`Well, I hope to do my duty by it all,' said Joseph Poorgrass, in a pleasant, masticating manner of anticipation. `Yes; victuals and drink is a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to the nerveless, if the form of words may be used. 'tis the gospel of the body, without which we perish, so to speak it.'