talked among each other in twos and threes, the
speaker of the minute looking sideways into his auditor's face and
concentrating his argument by a contraction of one eyelid during
delivery. The greater number carried in their hands ground-ash
saplings, using them partly as walking-sticks and partly for poking
up pigs, sheep, neighbours with their backs turned, and restful
things in general, which seemed to require such treatment in the
course of their peregrinations. During conversations each subjected
his sapling to great varieties of usage--bending it round his back,
forming an arch of it between his two hands, overweighting it on the
ground till it reached nearly a semicircle; or perhaps it was hastily
tucked under the arm whilst the sample-bag was pulled forth and a
handful of corn poured into the palm, which, after criticism, was
flung upon the floor, an issue of events perfectly well known to
half-a-dozen acute town-bred fowls which had as usual crept into the
building unobserved, and waited the fulfilment of their anticipations
with a high-stretched neck and oblique eye.

Among these heavy yeomen a feminine figure glided, the single one of
her sex that the room contained. She was prettily and even daintily
dressed. She moved between them as a chaise between carts, was heard
after them as a romance after sermons, was felt among them like a
breeze among furnaces. It had required a little determination--far
more than she had at first imagined--to take up a position here, for
at her first entry the lumbering dialogues had ceased, nearly every
face had been turned towards her, and those that were already turned
rigidly fixed there.

Two or three only of the farmers were personally known to Bathsheba,
and to these she had made her way. But if she was to be the
practical woman she had intended to show herself, business must
be carried on, introductions or none, and she ultimately acquired
confidence enough to speak and reply boldly to men merely known to
her by hearsay. Bathsheba too had her sample-bags, and by degrees
adopted the professional pour into the hand--holding up the grains
in her narrow palm for inspection, in perfect Casterbridge manner.

Something in the exact arch of her upper unbroken row of teeth, and
in the keenly pointed corners of her red mouth when, with parted
lips, she somewhat defiantly turned up her face to argue a point with
a tall man, suggested that there was potentiality enough in