It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad.
"Goodnight to you," said Gabriel, heartily. "Goodnight," said the girl to Gabriel.
The voice was unexpectedly attractive; it was the low and dulcet note suggestive of romance; common in descriptions, rare in experience.
"I'll thank you to tell me if I'm in the way for Warren's Malthouse?" Gabriel resumed, primarily to gain the information, indirectly to get more of the music.
"Quite right. It's at the bottom of the hill. And do you know--" The girl hesitated and then went on again. "Do you know how late they keep open the Buck's Head Inn?" She seemed to be won by Gabriel's heartiness, as Gabriel had been won by her modulations.
"I don't know where the Buck's Head is, or anything about it. Do you think of going there to-night?"
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"Yes--" The woman again paused. There was no necessity for any continuance of speech, and the fact that she did add more seemed to proceed from an unconscious desire to show unconcern by making a remark, which is noticeable in the ingenuous when they are acting by stealth. "You are not a Weatherbury man?" she said, timorously.
"I am not. I am the new shepherd--just arrived."
"Only a shepherd--and you seem almost a farmer by your ways."
"Only a shepherd," Gabriel repeated, in a dull cadence of finality. His thoughts were directed to the past, his eyes to the feet of the girl; and for the first time he saw lying there a bundle of some sort. She may have perceived the direction of his face, for she said coaxingly,--
"You won't say anything in the parish about having seen me here, will you--at least, not for a day or two?"
"I won't if you wish me not to," said Oak.
"Thank you, indeed," the other replied. "I am rather poor, and I don't want people to know anything about me." Then she was silent and shivered.
"You ought to have a cloak on such a cold night," Gabriel observed. "I would advise 'ee to get indoors."
"O no! Would you mind going on and leaving me? I thank you much for what you have told me."
"I will go on," he said; adding hesitatingly,--"Since you are not very well off, perhaps you would accept this trifle from me. It is only
a shilling, but it is all I have to spare."
"Yes, I will take it," said the stranger gratefully.
She extended her hand; Gabriel his. In feeling for each other's palm in the gloom before the money could be passed, a minute incident occurred which told much. Gabriel's fingers alighted on the young woman's wrist. It was beating with a throb of tragic intensity. He had frequently felt the same quick, hard beat in the femoral artery of his lambs when overdriven. It suggested a consumption too great of a vitality which, to judge from her figure and stature, was already too little.
"What is the matter?" "Nothing."
"But there is?"
"No, no, no! Let your having seen me be a secret!" "Very well; I will. Goodnight, again."
"Goodnight."
The young girl remained motionless by the tree, and Gabriel descended into the village of Weatherbury, or Lower Longpuddle as
it was sometimes called. He fancied that he had felt himself in the penumbra of a very deep sadness when touching that slight and fragile creature. But wisdom lies in moderating mere impressions, and Gabriel endeavoured to think little of this.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MALTHOUSE--THE CHAT--NEWS
Warren's Malthouse was enclosed by an old wall inwrapped with ivy, and though not much of the exterior was visible at this hour,
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the character and purposes of the building were clearly enough shown by its outline upon the sky. From the walls an overhanging thatched roof sloped up to a point in the centre, upon which rose a small wooden lantern, fitted with louvre-boards on all the four sides, and from these openings a mist was dimly perceived to be escaping into the night air. There was no window in front; but a square hole in the door was glazed with a single pane, through which red, comfortable rays now stretched out upon the ivied wall in front. Voices were to be heard inside.
Oak's hand skimmed the surface of the door with fingers extended to an Elymas-the-Sorcerer pattern, till he found a leathern strap,
which he pulled. This lifted a wooden latch, and the door swung open.
The room inside was lighted only by the ruddy glow from the kiln mouth, which shone over the floor with the streaming horizontal-ity of the setting sun, and threw upwards the shadows of all facial irregularities in those assembled around. The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere. A curved settle of unplaned oak stretched along one side, and in a remote corner was a small bed and bedstead, the owner and frequent occupier of which was the maltster.
This aged man was now sitting opposite the fire, his frosty white hair and beard overgrowing his gnarled figure like the grey moss
and lichen upon a leafless apple-tree. He wore breeches and the laced-up shoes called ankle-jacks; he kept his eyes fixed upon the fire.
Gabriel's nose was greeted by an atmosphere laden with the sweet smell of new malt. The conversation (which seemed to have been concerning the origin of the fire) immediately ceased, and every one ocularly criticised him to the degree expressed by contracting the flesh of their foreheads and looking at him with narrowed eyelids, as if he had been a light too strong for their sight. Several exclaimed meditatively, after this operation had been completed:--
"Oh, 'tis the new shepherd, 'a b'lieve."
"We thought we heard a hand pawing about the door for the bobbin, but weren't sure 'twere not a dead leaf blowed across," said another. "Come in, shepherd; sure ye be welcome, though we don't know yer name."
"Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbours."
The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned at this--his turning being as the turning of a rusty crane.
"That's never Gable Oak's grandson over at Norcombe--never!" he said, as a formula expressive of surprise, which nobody was supposed for a moment to take literally.
"My father and my grandfather were old men of the name of Gabriel," said the shepherd, placidly.
"Thought I knowed the man's face as I seed him on the rick!--thought I did! And where be ye trading o't to now, shepherd?" "I'm thinking of biding here," said Mr. Oak.
"Knowed yer grandfather for years and years!" continued the maltster, the words coming forth of their own accord as if the mo-
mentum previously imparted had been sufficient.
"Ah--and did you!" "Knowed yer grandmother." "And her too!"
"Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child. Why, my boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers--that they were sure--weren't ye, Jacob?"
"Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper jaw, which made much of itself by standing prominent, like a milestone in a bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do with him. However, my son William must have knowed the very man afore us--didn't ye, Billy, afore ye left Norcombe?"
"No, 'twas Andrew," said Jacob's son Billy, a child of forty, or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assuming a chinchilla shade here and there.
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