CHAPTER II

NIGHT—THE FLOCK—AN INTERIOR—ANOTHER INTERIOR

It was nearly midnight on the eve of St. Thomas’s, the shortest day in

the year. A desolating wind wandered from the north over the hill

whereon Oak had watched the yellow waggon and its occupant in the

sunshine of a few days earlier.

Norcombe Hill—not far from lonely Toller-Down—was one of the spots

which suggest to a passer-by that he is in the presence of a shape

approaching the indestructible as nearly as any to be found on earth.

It was a featureless convexity of chalk and soil—an ordinary specimen

of those smoothly-outlined protuberances of the globe which may remain

undisturbed on some great day of confusion, when far grander heights

and dizzy granite precipices topple down.

The hill was covered on its northern side by an ancient and decaying

plantation of beeches, whose upper verge formed a line over the crest,

fringing its arched curve against the sky, like a mane. To-night these

trees sheltered the southern slope from the keenest blasts, which smote

the wood and floundered through it with a sound as of grumbling, or

gushed over its crowning boughs in a weakened moan. The dry leaves in

the ditch simmered and boiled in the same breezes, a tongue of air

occasionally ferreting out a few, and sending them spinning across the

grass. A group or two of the latest in date amongst the dead multitude

had remained till this very mid-winter time on the twigs which bore

them and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps.

Between this half-wooded half-naked hill, and the vague still horizon

that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet of

fathomless shade—the sounds from which suggested that what it concealed

bore some reduced resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more

or less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes of

differing powers, and almost of differing natures—one rubbing the

blades heavily, another raking them piercingly, another brushing them

like a soft broom. The instinctive act of humankind was to stand and

listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left

wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a

cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then caught the

note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the hurrying gust then

plunged into the south, to be heard no more.

The sky was clear—remarkably clear—and the twinkling of all the stars

seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse. The North

Star was directly in the wind’s eye, and since evening the Bear had

swung round it outwardly to the east, till he was now at a right angle

with the meridian. A difference of colour in the stars—oftener read of

than seen in England—was really perceptible here. The sovereign

brilliancy of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star

called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery

red.

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as

this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The

sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past

earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or

by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind,

or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of

riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of motion is a phrase

much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is

necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having

first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilised

mankind, who are dreamwrapt and disregardful of all such proceedings at

this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the

stars. After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to get back to

earth, and to believe that the consciousness of such majestic speeding

is derived from a tiny human frame.

Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place

up against the sky. They had a clearness which was to be found nowhere

in the wind, and a sequence which was to be found nowhere in nature.

They were the notes of Farmer Oak’s flute.

The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air: it seemed

muffled in some way, and was altogether too curtailed in power to

spread high or wide. It came from the direction of a small dark object

under the plantation hedge—a shepherd’s hut—now presenting an outline

to which an uninitiated person might have been puzzled to attach either

meaning or use.

The image as a whole was that of a small Noah’s Ark on a small Ararat,

allowing the traditionary outlines and general form of the Ark which

are followed by toy-makers—and by these means are established in men’s

imaginations among their firmest, because earliest impressions—to pass

as an approximate pattern. The hut stood on little wheels, which raised

its floor about a foot from the ground. Such shepherds’ huts are

dragged into the fields when the lambing season comes on, to shelter

the shepherd in his enforced nightly attendance.

It was only latterly that people had begun to call Gabriel “Farmer”

Oak. During the twelvemonth preceding this time he had been enabled by

sustained efforts of industry and chronic good spirits to lease the

small sheep-farm of which Norcombe Hill was a portion, and stock it

with two hundred sheep. Previously he had been a bailiff for a short

time, and earlier still a shepherd only, having from his childhood

assisted his father in tending the flocks of large proprietors, till

old Gabriel sank to rest.

This venture, unaided and alone, into the paths of farming as master

and not as man, with an advance of sheep not yet paid for, was a

critical juncture with Gabriel Oak, and he recognised his position

clearly. The first movement in his new progress was the lambing of his

ewes, and sheep having been his speciality from his youth, he wisely

refrained from deputing the task of tending them at this season to a

hireling or a novice.

The wind continued to beat about the corners of the hut, but the

flute-playing ceased. A rectangular space of light appeared in the side

of the hut, and in the opening the outline of Farmer Oak’s figure. He

carried a lantern in his hand, and closing the door behind him, came

forward and busied himself about this nook of the field for nearly

twenty minutes, the lantern light appearing and disappearing here and

there, and brightening him or darkening him as he stood before or

behind it.

Oak’s motions, though they had a quiet energy, were slow, and their

deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the

basis of beauty, nobody could have denied that his steady swings and

turns in and about the flock had elements of grace. Yet, although if

occasion demanded he could do or think a thing with as mercurial a dash

as can the men of towns who are more to the manner born, his special

power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static, owing little or

nothing to momentum as a rule.

A close examination of the ground hereabout, even by the wan starlight

only, revealed how a portion of what would have been casually called a

wild slope had been appropriated by Farmer Oak for his great purpose

this winter. Detached hurdles thatched with straw were stuck into the

ground at various scattered points, amid and under which the whitish

forms of his meek ewes moved and rustled. The ring of the sheep-bell,

which had been silent during his absence, recommenced, in tones that

had more mellowness than clearness, owing to an increasing growth of

surrounding wool. This continued till Oak withdrew again from the

flock. He returned to the hut, bringing in his arms a new-born lamb,

consisting of four legs large enough for a full-grown sheep, united by

a seemingly inconsiderable membrane about half the substance of the

legs collectively, which constituted the animal’s entire body just at

present.

The little speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before the small

stove, where a can of milk was simmering. Oak extinguished the lantern

by blowing into it and then pinching the snuff, the cot being lighted

by a candle suspended by a twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of

a few corn sacks thrown carelessly down, covered half the floor of this

little habitation, and here the young man stretched himself along,

loosened his woollen cravat, and closed his eyes. In about the time a

person unaccustomed to bodily labour would have decided upon which side

to lie, Farmer Oak was asleep.

The inside of the hut, as it now presented itself, was cosy and

alluring, and the scarlet handful of fire in addition to the candle,

reflecting its own genial colour upon whatever it could reach, flung

associations of enjoyment even over utensils and tools. In the corner

stood the sheep-crook, and along a shelf at one side were ranged

bottles and canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to ovine

surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar, magnesia, ginger,

and castor-oil being the chief. On a triangular shelf across the corner

stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was

supplied from a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute,

whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely watcher to

beguile a tedious hour. The house was ventilated by two round holes,

like the lights of a ship’s cabin, with wood slides.

The lamb, revived by the warmth, began to bleat, and the sound entered

Gabriel’s ears and brain with an instant meaning, as expected sounds

will. Passing from the profoundest sleep to the most alert wakefulness

with the same ease that had accompanied the reverse operation, he

looked at his watch, found that the hour-hand had shifted again, put on

his hat, took the lamb in his arms, and carried it into the darkness.

After placing the little creature with its mother, he stood and

carefully examined the sky, to ascertain the time of night from the

altitudes of the stars.

The Dog-star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were

half-way up the Southern sky, and between them hung Orion, which

gorgeous constellation never burnt more vividly than now, as it soared

forth above the rim of the landscape. Castor and Pollux with their

quiet shine were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy Square

of Pegasus was creeping round to the north-west; far away through the

plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the leafless trees,

and Cassiopeia’s chair stood daintily poised on the uppermost boughs.

“One o’clock,” said Gabriel.

Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some

charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a

useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work

of art superlatively beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with

the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete

abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man. Human

shapes, interferences, troubles, and joys were all as if they were not,

and there seemed to be on the shaded hemisphere of the globe no

sentient being save himself; he could fancy them all gone round to the

sunny side.

Occupied thus, with eyes stretched afar, Oak gradually perceived that

what he had previously taken to be a star low down behind the outskirts

of the plantation was in reality no such thing. It was an artificial

light, almost close at hand.

To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable

and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far

to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when

intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability,

induction—every kind of evidence in the logician’s list—have united to

persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation.

Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and pushed through its lower

boughs to the windy side. A dim mass under the slope reminded him that

a shed occupied a place here, the site being a cutting into the slope

of the hill, so that at its back part the roof was almost level with

the ground. In front it was formed of board nailed to posts and covered

with tar as a preservative. Through crevices in the roof and side

spread streaks and dots of light, a combination of which made the

radiance that had attracted him. Oak stepped up behind, where, leaning

down upon the roof and putting his eye close to a hole, he could see

into the interior clearly.

The place contained two women and two cows. By the side of the latter a

steaming bran-mash stood in a bucket. One of the women was past middle

age. Her companion was apparently young and graceful; he could form no

decided opinion upon her looks, her position being almost beneath his

eye, so that he saw her in a bird’s-eye view, as Milton’s Satan first

saw Paradise. She wore no bonnet or hat, but had enveloped herself in a

large cloak, which was carelessly flung over her head as a covering.

“There, now we’ll go home,” said the elder of the two, resting her

knuckles upon her hips, and looking at their goings-on as a whole. “I

do hope Daisy will fetch round again now. I have never been more

frightened in my life, but I don’t mind breaking my rest if she

recovers.”

The young woman, whose eyelids were apparently inclined to fall

together on the smallest provocation of silence, yawned without parting

her lips to any inconvenient extent, whereupon Gabriel caught the

infection and slightly yawned in sympathy.

“I wish we were rich enough to pay a man to do these things,” she said.

“As we are not, we must do them ourselves,” said the other; “for you

must help me if you stay.”

“Well, my hat is gone, however,” continued the younger. “It went over

the hedge, I think. The idea of such a slight wind catching it.”

The cow standing erect was of the Devon breed, and was encased in a

tight warm hide of rich Indian red, as absolutely uniform from eyes to

tail as if the animal had been dipped in a dye of that colour, her long

back being mathematically level. The other was spotted, grey and white.

Beside her Oak now noticed a little calf about a day old, looking

idiotically at the two women, which showed that it had not long been

accustomed to the phenomenon of eyesight, and often turning to the

lantern, which it apparently mistook for the moon, inherited instinct

having as yet had little time for correction by experience. Between the

sheep and the cows Lucina had been busy on Norcombe Hill lately.

“I think we had better send for some oatmeal,” said the elder woman;

“there’s no more bran.”

“Yes, aunt; and I’ll ride over for it as soon as it is light.”

“But there’s no side-saddle.”

“I can ride on the other: trust me.”

Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more curious to observe her

features, but this prospect being denied him by the hooding effect of

the cloak, and by his aërial position, he felt himself drawing upon his

fancy for their details. In making even horizontal and clear

inspections we colour and mould according to the wants within us

whatever our eyes bring in. Had Gabriel been able from the first to get

a distinct view of her countenance, his estimate of it as very handsome

or slightly so would have been as his soul required a divinity at the

moment or was ready supplied with one. Having for some time known the

want of a satisfactory form to fill an increasing void within him, his

position moreover affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted

her a beauty.

By one of those whimsical coincidences in which Nature, like a busy

mother, seems to spare a moment from her unremitting labours to turn

and make her children smile, the girl now dropped the cloak, and forth

tumbled ropes of black hair over a red jacket. Oak knew her instantly

as the heroine of the yellow waggon, myrtles, and looking-glass:

prosily, as the woman who owed him twopence.

They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the lantern, and

went out, the light sinking down the hill till it was no more than a

nebula. Gabriel Oak returned to his flock.