finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_6_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 7
chapter 7
{"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-7", "summary": "\"Bathsheba. . . . scarcely knew whether most to be amused at the singularity of the meeting, or to be concerned at its awkwardness.\" The other firefighters enthusiastically endorsed Gabriel, and so she sent him to her bailiff. All the helpers were to be rewarded with refreshments at Warren's Malthouse. The bailiff, an unfriendly individual, hired Gabriel but could not, or would not, suggest lodgings. He referred Oak to the malthouse, where someone might know where he could stay. As Gabriel plodded along the road, he came upon a young woman standing by a tree. She furnished him with directions to Warren's. But when in turn she asked the way to Buck's Head, Gabriel could not tell her. She realized he was a stranger and said awkwardly, \"Only a shepherd -- and you seem almost a farmer by your ways.\" She asked that he not tell of meeting her. Gabriel perceived her agitation, saw her shiver with the cold, and hesitatingly offered her a shilling, saying, \"It is all I have to spare.\" She accepted it gratefully. He sensed that she was actually trembling. As he went on his way, \"he fancied that he had felt himself in the penumbra of a very deep sadness.\"", "analysis": "Hardy is fond of contrasts and antitheses in his phrases and uses these principles in presenting opposing situations and people. Gabriel's generosity and humility are repeatedly contrasted with Bathsheba's selfishness and vanity. Bathsheba's newly aggrandized position is contrasted with Gabriel's recent fall to poverty. The nasty bailiff, \"moving past Oak as a Christian edges past an offertory-plate when he does not mean to contribute,\" is the direct antithesis to the warm and generous Gabriel who gives his last coins to the trembling girl."}


RECOGNITION--A TIMID GIRL


Bathsheba withdrew into the shade.  She scarcely knew whether most to
be amused at the singularity of the meeting, or to be concerned at
its awkwardness.  There was room for a little pity, also for a very
little exultation: the former at his position, the latter at her own.
Embarrassed she was not, and she remembered Gabriel's declaration of
love to her at Norcombe only to think she had nearly forgotten it.

"Yes," she murmured, putting on an air of dignity, and turning again
to him with a little warmth of cheek; "I do want a shepherd.  But--"

"He's the very man, ma'am," said one of the villagers, quietly.

Conviction breeds conviction.  "Ay, that 'a is," said a second,
decisively.

"The man, truly!" said a third, with heartiness.

"He's all there!" said number four, fervidly.

"Then will you tell him to speak to the bailiff," said Bathsheba.

All was practical again now.  A summer eve and loneliness would have
been necessary to give the meeting its proper fulness of romance.

The bailiff was pointed out to Gabriel, who, checking the palpitation
within his breast at discovering that this Ashtoreth of strange
report was only a modification of Venus the well-known and admired,
retired with him to talk over the necessary preliminaries of hiring.

The fire before them wasted away.  "Men," said Bathsheba, "you shall
take a little refreshment after this extra work.  Will you come to
the house?"

"We could knock in a bit and a drop a good deal freer, Miss, if so be
ye'd send it to Warren's Malthouse," replied the spokesman.

Bathsheba then rode off into the darkness, and the men straggled on
to the village in twos and threes--Oak and the bailiff being left by
the rick alone.

"And now," said the bailiff, finally, "all is settled, I think, about
your coming, and I am going home-along.  Good-night to ye, shepherd."

"Can you get me a lodging?" inquired Gabriel.

"That I can't, indeed," he said, moving past Oak as a Christian edges
past an offertory-plate when he does not mean to contribute.  "If you
follow on the road till you come to Warren's Malthouse, where they
are all gone to have their snap of victuals, I daresay some of 'em
will tell you of a place.  Good-night to ye, shepherd."

The bailiff who showed this nervous dread of loving his neighbour as
himself, went up the hill, and Oak walked on to the village, still
astonished at the reencounter with Bathsheba, glad of his nearness to
her, and perplexed at the rapidity with which the unpractised girl of
Norcombe had developed into the supervising and cool woman here.  But
some women only require an emergency to make them fit for one.

Obliged, to some extent, to forgo dreaming in order to find the way,
he reached the churchyard, and passed round it under the wall where
several ancient trees grew.  There was a wide margin of grass along
here, and Gabriel's footsteps were deadened by its softness, even at
this indurating period of the year.  When abreast of a trunk which
appeared to be the oldest of the old, he became aware that a figure
was standing behind it.  Gabriel did not pause in his walk, and in
another moment he accidentally kicked a loose stone. The noise was
enough to disturb the motionless stranger, who started and assumed
a careless position.

It was a slim girl, rather thinly clad.

"Good-night to you," said Gabriel, heartily.

"Good-night," 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?"

"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.  Good-night, again."

"Good-night."

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 7
"Bathsheba. . . . scarcely knew whether most to be amused at the singularity of the meeting, or to be concerned at its awkwardness." The other firefighters enthusiastically endorsed Gabriel, and so she sent him to her bailiff. All the helpers were to be rewarded with refreshments at Warren's Malthouse. The bailiff, an unfriendly individual, hired Gabriel but could not, or would not, suggest lodgings. He referred Oak to the malthouse, where someone might know where he could stay. As Gabriel plodded along the road, he came upon a young woman standing by a tree. She furnished him with directions to Warren's. But when in turn she asked the way to Buck's Head, Gabriel could not tell her. She realized he was a stranger and said awkwardly, "Only a shepherd -- and you seem almost a farmer by your ways." She asked that he not tell of meeting her. Gabriel perceived her agitation, saw her shiver with the cold, and hesitatingly offered her a shilling, saying, "It is all I have to spare." She accepted it gratefully. He sensed that she was actually trembling. As he went on his way, "he fancied that he had felt himself in the penumbra of a very deep sadness."
Hardy is fond of contrasts and antitheses in his phrases and uses these principles in presenting opposing situations and people. Gabriel's generosity and humility are repeatedly contrasted with Bathsheba's selfishness and vanity. Bathsheba's newly aggrandized position is contrasted with Gabriel's recent fall to poverty. The nasty bailiff, "moving past Oak as a Christian edges past an offertory-plate when he does not mean to contribute," is the direct antithesis to the warm and generous Gabriel who gives his last coins to the trembling girl.