finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_7_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 8
chapter 8
{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8", "summary": "The malthouse was \"inwrapped with ivy\" and had a cupola on the roof and one window, which formed a small square in the door. Inside, the room glowed with light from the hearth. \"The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere.\" At one side were a curved settle and a small bedstead. The fragrance of malt filled the room. As Gabriel entered, everyone turned to look at him. An old maltster recognized Gabriel's name; he had known Oak's father and grandfather, and he launched into a garrulous account of them. This made Gabriel seem less of a stranger. He was offered a drink from the \"God-forgive-me,\" a tall, two-handled mug standing among the coals. Gabriel rejected an offer to get him a cleaner cup, and, thus, drinking with the group, he was accepted by them. There were many country types present, including men of all sorts -- the old and decrepit, the scroungers, the cheerful, the shy, and the aggressive. They recalled other drinking bouts and discussed Miss Everdene's family. Her late uncle, who had left her the farm, and her father, a \"celebrated bankrupt,\" fickle and romantic, were properly gone over. Bathsheba had become a beauty, they thought. And her bailiff was dishonest. Gossip was rampant, and all was punctuated by the reminiscences of the ancient maltster. Gabriel's flute showed from his pocket, and the men asked for a tune. He obliged, confessing that he was down on his luck and the flute had served to earn him a little money. When the men began leaving, Gabriel went off with Jan Coggan, who had offered him a room. Shortly, a man came running in with the news that Miss Everdene had caught her bailiff stealing and had dismissed him, and that Fanny Robin, the mistress's youngest employee, had disappeared. Bathsheba sent word that she would like to talk with one or two of the men, and those who were left in the malthouse went to see her. On their arrival, she spoke to them from an upper window, instructing them to make inquiries about Fanny the next day in the neighboring villages. Someone reported that Fanny had a soldier friend in Casterbridge. Gabriel, in a bed at last, lay awake thinking of Bathsheba, delighted to have seen her again. He resolved to fetch his belongings, which consisted mostly of the few books which \"constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves.\"", "analysis": "The malthouse chapter is important to Hardy's project of depicting his Wessex world. Besides offering some fine sketches of local figures, Hardy presents the atmosphere of the old malthouse, showing us country customs and affording us a general insight into the variety of characters composing this \"simple\" world. There is a veritable gallery of personality types, all speaking variations of the local dialect, and all charming in their idiosyncrasies. They serve as foils for each other and also as the medium for disseminating background information. Most important, together they function as a collective commentator on country life and current events."}


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, 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 horizontality
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 momentum
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.

"I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a man in the place when I
was quite a child."

"Ay--the other day I and my youngest daughter, Liddy, were over at
my grandson's christening," continued Billy.  "We were talking about
this very family, and 'twas only last Purification Day in this very
world, when the use-money is gied away to the second-best poor folk,
you know, shepherd, and I can mind the day because they all had to
traypse up to the vestry--yes, this very man's family."

"Come, shepherd, and drink.  'Tis gape and swaller with us--a drap of
sommit, but not of much account," said the maltster, removing from
the fire his eyes, which were vermilion-red and bleared by gazing
into it for so many years.  "Take up the God-forgive-me, Jacob.  See
if 'tis warm, Jacob."

Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled tall mug
standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat: it was rather
furred with extraneous matter about the outside, especially in the
crevices of the handles, the innermost curves of which may not have
seen daylight for several years by reason of this encrustation
thereon--formed of ashes accidentally wetted with cider and baked
hard; but to the mind of any sensible drinker the cup was no
worse for that, being incontestably clean on the inside and about
the rim.  It may be observed that such a class of mug is called a
God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and its vicinity for uncertain reasons;
probably because its size makes any given toper feel ashamed of
himself when he sees its bottom in drinking it empty.

Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor was warm enough,
placidly dipped his forefinger into it by way of thermometer, and
having pronounced it nearly of the proper degree, raised the cup and
very civilly attempted to dust some of the ashes from the bottom with
the skirt of his smock-frock, because Shepherd Oak was a stranger.

"A clane cup for the shepherd," said the maltster commandingly.

"No--not at all," said Gabriel, in a reproving tone of
considerateness.  "I never fuss about dirt in its pure state, and
when I know what sort it is."  Taking the mug he drank an inch or
more from the depth of its contents, and duly passed it to the
next man.  "I wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neighbours
in washing up when there's so much work to be done in the world
already." continued Oak in a moister tone, after recovering from the
stoppage of breath which is occasioned by pulls at large mugs.

"A right sensible man," said Jacob.

"True, true; it can't be gainsaid!" observed a brisk young man--Mark
Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman, whom to meet anywhere
in your travels was to know, to know was to drink with, and to drink
with was, unfortunately, to pay for.

"And here's a mouthful of bread and bacon that mis'ess have sent,
shepherd.  The cider will go down better with a bit of victuals.
Don't ye chaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the bacon fall in
the road outside as I was bringing it along, and may be 'tis rather
gritty.  There, 'tis clane dirt; and we all know what that is, as you
say, and you bain't a particular man we see, shepherd."

"True, true--not at all," said the friendly Oak.

"Don't let your teeth quite meet, and you won't feel the sandiness at
all.  Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be done by contrivance!"

"My own mind exactly, neighbour."

"Ah, he's his grandfer's own grandson!--his grandfer were just such a
nice unparticular man!" said the maltster.

"Drink, Henry Fray--drink," magnanimously said Jan Coggan, a person
who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and share alike where liquor
was concerned, as the vessel showed signs of approaching him in its
gradual revolution among them.

Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze into mid-air,
Henry did not refuse.  He was a man of more than middle age, with
eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it down that the law of
the world was bad, with a long-suffering look through his listeners
at the world alluded to, as it presented itself to his imagination.
He always signed his name "Henery"--strenuously insisting upon that
spelling, and if any passing schoolmaster ventured to remark that the
second "e" was superfluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply
that "H-e-n-e-r-y" was the name he was christened and the name he
would stick to--in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences
were matters which had a great deal to do with personal character.

Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup to Henery, was a crimson man
with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in his eye, whose
name had appeared on the marriage register of Weatherbury and
neighbouring parishes as best man and chief witness in countless
unions of the previous twenty years; he also very frequently filled
the post of head godfather in baptisms of the subtly-jovial kind.

"Come, Mark Clark--come.  Ther's plenty more in the barrel," said
Jan.

"Ay--that I will, 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark, who,
twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the same orbit.  He
secreted mirth on all occasions for special discharge at popular
parties.

"Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop!" said Mr. Coggan to a
self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the cup towards him.

"Such a modest man as he is!" said Jacob Smallbury.  "Why, ye've
hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young mis'ess's
face, so I hear, Joseph?"

All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.

"No--I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph, reducing his
body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek sense of undue
prominence.  "And when I seed her, 'twas nothing but blushes with
me!"

"Poor feller," said Mr. Clark.

"'Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan.

"Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass--his shyness, which was so painful
as a defect, filling him with a mild complacency now that it was
regarded as an interesting study.  "'Twere blush, blush, blush with
me every minute of the time, when she was speaking to me."

"I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a very
bashful man."

"'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the maltster.  "And
how long have ye have suffered from it, Joseph?" [a]

   [Transcriber's note a: Alternate text, appears in all three
   editions on hand: "'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul,"
   said the maltster.  "And ye have suffered from it a long time, we
   know."

   "Ay, ever since..."]

"Oh, ever since I was a boy.  Yes--mother was concerned to her heart
about it--yes.  But 'twas all nought."

"Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph Poorgrass?"

"Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company.  They took me to Greenhill
Fair, and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble show, where there were
women-folk riding round--standing upon horses, with hardly anything
on but their smocks; but it didn't cure me a morsel.  And then I
was put errand-man at the Women's Skittle Alley at the back of the
Tailor's Arms in Casterbridge.  'Twas a horrible sinful situation,
and a very curious place for a good man.  I had to stand and look
ba'dy people in the face from morning till night; but 'twas no use--I
was just as bad as ever after all.  Blushes hev been in the family
for generations.  There, 'tis a happy providence that I be no worse."

"True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a profounder
view of the subject.  "'Tis a thought to look at, that ye might have
been worse; but even as you be, 'tis a very bad affliction for 'ee,
Joseph.  For ye see, shepherd, though 'tis very well for a woman,
dang it all, 'tis awkward for a man like him, poor feller?"

"'Tis--'tis," said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation.  "Yes, very
awkward for the man."

"Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan.  "Once he had
been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap of drink, and
lost his way as he was coming home-along through Yalbury Wood, didn't
ye, Master Poorgrass?"

"No, no, no; not that story!" expostulated the modest man, forcing a
laugh to bury his concern.

"--And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan, with an
impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide,
must run its course and would respect no man.  "And as he was coming
along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not able to
find his way out of the trees nohow, 'a cried out, 'Man-a-lost!
man-a-lost!'  A owl in a tree happened to be crying 'Whoo-whoo-whoo!'
as owls do, you know, shepherd" (Gabriel nodded), "and Joseph, all in
a tremble, said, 'Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!'"

"No, no, now--that's too much!" said the timid man, becoming a man
of brazen courage all of a sudden.  "I didn't say SIR.  I'll take my
oath I didn't say 'Joseph Poorgrass o' Weatherbury, sir.'  No, no;
what's right is right, and I never said sir to the bird, knowing very
well that no man of a gentleman's rank would be hollering there at
that time o' night.  'Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury,'--that's every
word I said, and I shouldn't ha' said that if 't hadn't been for
Keeper Day's metheglin....  There, 'twas a merciful thing it ended
where it did."

The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the company,
Jan went on meditatively:--

"And he's the fearfullest man, bain't ye, Joseph?  Ay, another time
ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph?"

"I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions too
serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one.

"Yes; that were the middle of the night, too.  The gate would not
open, try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil's hand in it,
he kneeled down."

"Ay," said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of the fire,
the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities of the
experience alluded to.  "My heart died within me, that time; but I
kneeled down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then the Belief right
through, and then the Ten Commandments, in earnest prayer.  But
no, the gate wouldn't open; and then I went on with Dearly Beloved
Brethren, and, thinks I, this makes four, and 'tis all I know out
of book, and if this don't do it nothing will, and I'm a lost man.
Well, when I got to Saying After Me, I rose from my knees and found
the gate would open--yes, neighbours, the gate opened the same as
ever."

A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all, and
during its continuance each directed his vision into the ashpit,
which glowed like a desert in the tropics under a vertical sun,
shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of the light, partly
from the depth of the subject discussed.

Gabriel broke the silence.  "What sort of a place is this to live at,
and what sort of a mis'ess is she to work under?" Gabriel's bosom
thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice of the assembly
the inner-most subject of his heart.

"We d' know little of her--nothing.  She only showed herself a few
days ago.  Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor was called with his
world-wide skill; but he couldn't save the man.  As I take it, she's
going to keep on the farm.

"That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan.  "Ay, 'tis
a very good family.  I'd as soon be under 'em as under one here and
there.  Her uncle was a very fair sort of man.  Did ye know en,
shepherd--a bachelor-man?"

"Not at all."

"I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife, Charlotte,
who was his dairymaid.  Well, a very good-hearted man were Farmer
Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was allowed to call
and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but not to carry away
any--outside my skin I mane of course."

"Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning."

"And so you see 'twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value his
kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered as to
drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting the man's
generosity--"

"True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark.

"--And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and then by
the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket--so thorough dry
that that ale would slip down--ah, 'twould slip down sweet!  Happy
times!  Heavenly times!  Such lovely drunks as I used to have at that
house!  You can mind, Jacob?  You used to go wi' me sometimes."

"I can--I can," said Jacob.  "That one, too, that we had at Buck's
Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple."

"'Twas.  But for a wet of the better class, that brought you no
nearer to the horned man than you were afore you begun, there was
none like those in Farmer Everdene's kitchen.  Not a single damn
allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most cheerful moment
when all were blindest, though the good old word of sin thrown in
here and there at such times is a great relief to a merry soul."

"True," said the maltster.  "Nater requires her swearing at the
regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy exclamations is a
necessity of life."

"But Charlotte," continued Coggan--"not a word of the sort would
Charlotte allow, nor the smallest item of taking in vain....  Ay,
poor Charlotte, I wonder if she had the good fortune to get into
Heaven when 'a died!  But 'a was never much in luck's way, and
perhaps 'a went downwards after all, poor soul."

"And did any of you know Miss Everdene's father and mother?" inquired
the shepherd, who found some difficulty in keeping the conversation
in the desired channel.

"I knew them a little," said Jacob Smallbury; "but they were
townsfolk, and didn't live here.  They've been dead for years.
Father, what sort of people were mis'ess' father and mother?"

"Well," said the maltster, "he wasn't much to look at; but she was a
lovely woman.  He was fond enough of her as his sweetheart."

"Used to kiss her scores and long-hundreds o' times, so 'twas said,"
observed Coggan.

"He was very proud of her, too, when they were married, as I've been
told," said the maltster.

"Ay," said Coggan.  "He admired her so much that he used to light the
candle three times a night to look at her."

"Boundless love; I shouldn't have supposed it in the universe!"
murmured Joseph Poorgrass, who habitually spoke on a large scale in
his moral reflections.

"Well, to be sure," said Gabriel.

"Oh, 'tis true enough.  I knowed the man and woman both well.  Levi
Everdene--that was the man's name, sure.  'Man,' saith I in my
hurry, but he were of a higher circle of life than that--'a was a
gentleman-tailor really, worth scores of pounds.  And he became a
very celebrated bankrupt two or three times."

"Oh, I thought he was quite a common man!" said Joseph.

"Oh no, no!  That man failed for heaps of money; hundreds in gold and
silver."

The maltster being rather short of breath, Mr. Coggan, after absently
scrutinising a coal which had fallen among the ashes, took up the
narrative, with a private twirl of his eye:--

"Well, now, you'd hardly believe it, but that man--our Miss
Everdene's father--was one of the ficklest husbands alive, after a
while.  Understand? 'a didn't want to be fickle, but he couldn't help
it.  The pore feller were faithful and true enough to her in his
wish, but his heart would rove, do what he would.  He spoke to me in
real tribulation about it once.  'Coggan,' he said, 'I could never
wish for a handsomer woman than I've got, but feeling she's ticketed
as my lawful wife, I can't help my wicked heart wandering, do what I
will.'  But at last I believe he cured it by making her take off her
wedding-ring and calling her by her maiden name as they sat together
after the shop was shut, and so 'a would get to fancy she was only
his sweetheart, and not married to him at all.  And as soon as he
could thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing the seventh,
'a got to like her as well as ever, and they lived on a perfect
picture of mutel love."

"Well, 'twas a most ungodly remedy," murmured Joseph Poorgrass; "but
we ought to feel deep cheerfulness that a happy Providence kept it
from being any worse.  You see, he might have gone the bad road and
given his eyes to unlawfulness entirely--yes, gross unlawfulness, so
to say it."

"You see," said Billy Smallbury, "The man's will was to do right,
sure enough, but his heart didn't chime in."

"He got so much better, that he was quite godly in his later years,
wasn't he, Jan?" said Joseph Poorgrass.  "He got himself confirmed
over again in a more serious way, and took to saying 'Amen' almost as
loud as the clerk, and he liked to copy comforting verses from the
tombstones.  He used, too, to hold the money-plate at Let Your Light
so Shine, and stand godfather to poor little come-by-chance children;
and he kept a missionary box upon his table to nab folks unawares
when they called; yes, and he would box the charity-boys' ears, if
they laughed in church, till they could hardly stand upright, and do
other deeds of piety natural to the saintly inclined."

"Ay, at that time he thought of nothing but high things," added Billy
Smallbury.  "One day Parson Thirdly met him and said, 'Good-Morning,
Mister Everdene; 'tis a fine day!'  'Amen' said Everdene, quite
absent-like, thinking only of religion when he seed a parson.  Yes,
he was a very Christian man."

"Their daughter was not at all a pretty chiel at that time," said
Henery Fray.  "Never should have thought she'd have growed up such a
handsome body as she is."

"'Tis to be hoped her temper is as good as her face."

"Well, yes; but the baily will have most to do with the business and
ourselves.  Ah!" Henery gazed into the ashpit, and smiled volumes of
ironical knowledge.

"A queer Christian, like the Devil's head in a cowl, [1] as the
saying is," volunteered Mark Clark.

   [Footnote 1: This phrase is a conjectural emendation of the
   unintelligible expression, "as the Devil said to the Owl,"
   used by the natives.]

"He is," said Henery, implying that irony must cease at a certain
point.  "Between we two, man and man, I believe that man would as
soon tell a lie Sundays as working-days--that I do so."

"Good faith, you do talk!" said Gabriel.

"True enough," said the man of bitter moods, looking round upon
the company with the antithetic laughter that comes from a keener
appreciation of the miseries of life than ordinary men are capable
of.  "Ah, there's people of one sort, and people of another, but
that man--bless your souls!"

Gabriel thought fit to change the subject.  "You must be a very aged
man, malter, to have sons growed mild and ancient," he remarked.

"Father's so old that 'a can't mind his age, can ye, father?"
interposed Jacob.  "And he's growed terrible crooked too, lately,"
Jacob continued, surveying his father's figure, which was rather
more bowed than his own.  "Really one may say that father there is
three-double."

"Crooked folk will last a long while," said the maltster, grimly, and
not in the best humour.

"Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer life, father--
wouldn't ye, shepherd?"

"Ay that I should," said Gabriel with the heartiness of a man who had
longed to hear it for several months.  "What may your age be,
malter?"

The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for emphasis,
and elongating his gaze to the remotest point of the ashpit, said, in
the slow speech justifiable when the importance of a subject is so
generally felt that any mannerism must be tolerated in getting at it,
"Well, I don't mind the year I were born in, but perhaps I can reckon
up the places I've lived at, and so get it that way.  I bode at
Upper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north) "till I were
eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the east) "where
I took to malting.  I went therefrom to Norcombe, and malted
there two-and-twenty years, and-two-and-twenty years I was there
turnip-hoeing and harvesting.  Ah, I knowed that old place, Norcombe,
years afore you were thought of, Master Oak" (Oak smiled sincere
belief in the fact).  "Then I malted at Durnover four year, and
four year turnip-hoeing; and I was fourteen times eleven months at
Millpond St. Jude's" (nodding north-west-by-north).  "Old Twills
wouldn't hire me for more than eleven months at a time, to keep me
from being chargeable to the parish if so be I was disabled.  Then I
was three year at Mellstock, and I've been here one-and-thirty year
come Candlemas.  How much is that?"

"Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another old gentleman, given to
mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hitherto sat
unobserved in a corner.

"Well, then, that's my age," said the maltster, emphatically.

"O no, father!" said Jacob.  "Your turnip-hoeing were in the summer
and your malting in the winter of the same years, and ye don't ought
to count-both halves, father."

"Chok' it all!  I lived through the summers, didn't I?  That's my
question.  I suppose ye'll say next I be no age at all to speak of?"

"Sure we shan't," said Gabriel, soothingly.

"Ye be a very old aged person, malter," attested Jan Coggan, also
soothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a wonderful talented
constitution to be able to live so long, mustn't he, neighbours?"

"True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," said the meeting
unanimously.

The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough to
voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having lived a
great many years, by mentioning that the cup they were drinking out
of was three years older than he.

While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's flute
became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery Fray
exclaimed, "Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a great flute
by now at Casterbridge?"

"You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly.  "I've been in great
trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it.  I used not to be so poor
as I be now."

"Never mind, heart!" said Mark Clark.  "You should take it
careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come.  But we could thank
ye for a tune, if ye bain't too tired?"

"Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since Christmas," said Jan
Coggan.  "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!"

"Ay, that I will," said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and putting it
together.  "A poor tool, neighbours; but such as I can do ye shall
have and welcome."

Oak then struck up "Jockey to the Fair," and played that sparkling
melody three times through, accenting the notes in the third round in
a most artistic and lively manner by bending his body in small jerks
and tapping with his foot to beat time.

"He can blow the flute very well--that 'a can," said a young married
man, who having no individuality worth mentioning was known as "Susan
Tall's husband."  He continued, "I'd as lief as not be able to blow
into a flute as well as that."

"He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to have such a
shepherd," murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft cadence.  "We ought
to feel full o' thanksgiving that he's not a player of ba'dy songs
instead of these merry tunes; for 'twould have been just as easy for
God to have made the shepherd a loose low man--a man of iniquity, so
to speak it--as what he is.  Yes, for our wives' and daughters' sakes
we should feel real thanksgiving."

"True, true,--real thanksgiving!" dashed in Mark Clark conclusively,
not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion that he had
only heard about a word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said.

"Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the Bible; "for
evil do thrive so in these times that ye may be as much deceived in
the cleanest shaved and whitest shirted man as in the raggedest tramp
upon the turnpike, if I may term it so."

"Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd," said Henery Fray,
criticising Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his second
tune.  "Yes--now I see 'ee blowing into the flute I know 'ee to be
the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were scrimped
up and yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man's--just as they be
now."

"'Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look such a
scarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criticism of
Gabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out, with the
ghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of "Dame
Durden:"--

   'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate',
   And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle Tail'.

"I hope you don't mind that young man's bad manners in naming your
features?" whispered Joseph to Gabriel.

"Not at all," said Mr. Oak.

"For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd," continued Joseph
Poorgrass, with winning sauvity.

"Ay, that ye be, shepard," said the company.

"Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good manners
demanded, thinking, however, that he would never let Bathsheba see
him playing the flute; in this resolve showing a discretion equal to
that related to its sagacious inventress, the divine Minerva herself.

"Ah, when I and my wife were married at Norcombe Church," said the
old maltster, not pleased at finding himself left out of the subject,
"we were called the handsomest couple in the neighbourhood--everybody
said so."

"Danged if ye bain't altered now, malter," said a voice with the
vigour natural to the enunciation of a remarkably evident truism.
It came from the old man in the background, whose offensiveness and
spiteful ways were barely atoned for by the occasional chuckle he
contributed to general laughs.

"O no, no," said Gabriel.

"Don't ye play no more shepherd" said Susan Tall's husband, the young
married man who had spoken once before.  "I must be moving and when
there's tunes going on I seem as if hung in wires.  If I thought
after I'd left that music was still playing, and I not there, I
should be quite melancholy-like."

"What's yer hurry then, Laban?" inquired Coggan.  "You used to bide
as late as the latest."

"Well, ye see, neighbours, I was lately married to a woman, and she's
my vocation now, and so ye see--"  The young man halted lamely.

"New Lords new laws, as the saying is, I suppose," remarked Coggan.

"Ay, 'a b'lieve--ha, ha!" said Susan Tall's husband, in a tone
intended to imply his habitual reception of jokes without minding
them at all.  The young man then wished them good-night and withdrew.

Henery Fray was the first to follow.  Then Gabriel arose and went off
with Jan Coggan, who had offered him a lodging.  A few minutes later,
when the remaining ones were on their legs and about to depart, Fray
came back again in a hurry.  Flourishing his finger ominously he
threw a gaze teeming with tidings just where his eye alighted by
accident, which happened to be in Joseph Poorgrass's face.

"O--what's the matter, what's the matter, Henery?" said Joseph,
starting back.

"What's a-brewing, Henrey?" asked Jacob and Mark Clark.

"Baily Pennyways--Baily Pennyways--I said so; yes, I said so!"

"What, found out stealing anything?"

"Stealing it is.  The news is, that after Miss Everdene got home she
went out again to see all was safe, as she usually do, and coming in
found Baily Pennyways creeping down the granary steps with half a a
bushel of barley.  She fleed at him like a cat--never such a tomboy
as she is--of course I speak with closed doors?"

"You do--you do, Henery."

"She fleed at him, and, to cut a long story short, he owned to having
carried off five sack altogether, upon her promising not to persecute
him.  Well, he's turned out neck and crop, and my question is, who's
going to be baily now?"

The question was such a profound one that Henery was obliged to drink
there and then from the large cup till the bottom was distinctly
visible inside.  Before he had replaced it on the table, in came the
young man, Susan Tall's husband, in a still greater hurry.

"Have ye heard the news that's all over parish?"

"About Baily Pennyways?"

"But besides that?"

"No--not a morsel of it!" they replied, looking into the very midst
of Laban Tall as if to meet his words half-way down his throat.

"What a night of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving his
hands spasmodically.  "I've had the news-bell ringing in my left ear
quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seen a magpie all alone!"

"Fanny Robin--Miss Everdene's youngest servant--can't be found.
They've been wanting to lock up the door these two hours, but she
isn't come in.  And they don't know what to do about going to bed for
fear of locking her out.  They wouldn't be so concerned if she hadn't
been noticed in such low spirits these last few days, and Maryann d'
think the beginning of a crowner's inquest has happened to the poor
girl."

"Oh--'tis burned--'tis burned!" came from Joseph Poorgrass's dry
lips.

"No--'tis drowned!" said Tall.

"Or 'tis her father's razor!" suggested Billy Smallbury, with a vivid
sense of detail.

"Well--Miss Everdene wants to speak to one or two of us before we go
to bed.  What with this trouble about the baily, and now about the
girl, mis'ess is almost wild."

They all hastened up the lane to the farmhouse, excepting the old
maltster, whom neither news, fire, rain, nor thunder could draw from
his hole.  There, as the others' footsteps died away he sat down
again and continued gazing as usual into the furnace with his red,
bleared eyes.

From the bedroom window above their heads Bathsheba's head and
shoulders, robed in mystic white, were dimly seen extended into the
air.

"Are any of my men among you?" she said anxiously.

"Yes, ma'am, several," said Susan Tall's husband.

"To-morrow morning I wish two or three of you to make inquiries in
the villages round if they have seen such a person as Fanny Robin.
Do it quietly; there is no reason for alarm as yet.  She must have
left whilst we were all at the fire."

"I beg yer pardon, but had she any young man courting her in the
parish, ma'am?" asked Jacob Smallbury.

"I don't know," said Bathsheba.

"I've never heard of any such thing, ma'am," said two or three.

"It is hardly likely, either," continued Bathsheba.  "For any lover
of hers might have come to the house if he had been a respectable
lad.  The most mysterious matter connected with her absence--indeed,
the only thing which gives me serious alarm--is that she was seen
to go out of the house by Maryann with only her indoor working gown
on--not even a bonnet."

"And you mean, ma'am, excusing my words, that a young woman would
hardly go to see her young man without dressing up," said Jacob,
turning his mental vision upon past experiences.  "That's true--she
would not, ma'am."

"She had, I think, a bundle, though I couldn't see very well," said a
female voice from another window, which seemed that of Maryann.  "But
she had no young man about here.  Hers lives in Casterbridge, and I
believe he's a soldier."

"Do you know his name?" Bathsheba said.

"No, mistress; she was very close about it."

"Perhaps I might be able to find out if I went to Casterbridge
barracks," said William Smallbury.

"Very well; if she doesn't return to-morrow, mind you go there and try
to discover which man it is, and see him.  I feel more responsible
than I should if she had had any friends or relations alive.  I do
hope she has come to no harm through a man of that kind....  And then
there's this disgraceful affair of the bailiff--but I can't speak of
him now."

Bathsheba had so many reasons for uneasiness that it seemed she did
not think it worth while to dwell upon any particular one.  "Do as I
told you, then," she said in conclusion, closing the casement.

"Ay, ay, mistress; we will," they replied, and moved away.

That night at Coggan's, Gabriel Oak, beneath the screen of closed
eyelids, was busy with fancies, and full of movement, like a river
flowing rapidly under its ice.  Night had always been the time at
which he saw Bathsheba most vividly, and through the slow hours
of shadow he tenderly regarded her image now.  It is rarely that
the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of
sleeplessness, but they possibly did with Oak to-night, for the
delight of merely seeing her effaced for the time his perception
of the great difference between seeing and possessing.

He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from
Norcombe.  _The Young Man's Best Companion_, _The Farrier's Sure
Guide_, _The Veterinary Surgeon_, _Paradise Lost_, _The Pilgrim's
Progress_, _Robinson Crusoe_, Ash's _Dictionary_, and Walkingame's
_Arithmetic_, constituted his library; and though a limited series,
it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by
diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a
furlong of laden shelves.




Chapter 8
The malthouse was "inwrapped with ivy" and had a cupola on the roof and one window, which formed a small square in the door. Inside, the room glowed with light from the hearth. "The stone-flag floor was worn into a path from the doorway to the kiln, and into undulations everywhere." At one side were a curved settle and a small bedstead. The fragrance of malt filled the room. As Gabriel entered, everyone turned to look at him. An old maltster recognized Gabriel's name; he had known Oak's father and grandfather, and he launched into a garrulous account of them. This made Gabriel seem less of a stranger. He was offered a drink from the "God-forgive-me," a tall, two-handled mug standing among the coals. Gabriel rejected an offer to get him a cleaner cup, and, thus, drinking with the group, he was accepted by them. There were many country types present, including men of all sorts -- the old and decrepit, the scroungers, the cheerful, the shy, and the aggressive. They recalled other drinking bouts and discussed Miss Everdene's family. Her late uncle, who had left her the farm, and her father, a "celebrated bankrupt," fickle and romantic, were properly gone over. Bathsheba had become a beauty, they thought. And her bailiff was dishonest. Gossip was rampant, and all was punctuated by the reminiscences of the ancient maltster. Gabriel's flute showed from his pocket, and the men asked for a tune. He obliged, confessing that he was down on his luck and the flute had served to earn him a little money. When the men began leaving, Gabriel went off with Jan Coggan, who had offered him a room. Shortly, a man came running in with the news that Miss Everdene had caught her bailiff stealing and had dismissed him, and that Fanny Robin, the mistress's youngest employee, had disappeared. Bathsheba sent word that she would like to talk with one or two of the men, and those who were left in the malthouse went to see her. On their arrival, she spoke to them from an upper window, instructing them to make inquiries about Fanny the next day in the neighboring villages. Someone reported that Fanny had a soldier friend in Casterbridge. Gabriel, in a bed at last, lay awake thinking of Bathsheba, delighted to have seen her again. He resolved to fetch his belongings, which consisted mostly of the few books which "constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves."
The malthouse chapter is important to Hardy's project of depicting his Wessex world. Besides offering some fine sketches of local figures, Hardy presents the atmosphere of the old malthouse, showing us country customs and affording us a general insight into the variety of characters composing this "simple" world. There is a veritable gallery of personality types, all speaking variations of the local dialect, and all charming in their idiosyncrasies. They serve as foils for each other and also as the medium for disseminating background information. Most important, together they function as a collective commentator on country life and current events.