r insides."

"Ay--so 'a do seem, Billy Smallbury--so 'a do seem." This utterance
was very shaky by nature, and more so by circumstance, the jolting of
the waggon not being without its effect upon the speaker's larynx.
It came from the man who held the reins.

"She's a very vain feymell--so 'tis said here and there."

"Ah, now. If so be 'tis like that, I can't look her in the face.
Lord, no: not I--heh-heh-heh! Such a shy man as I be!"

"Yes--she's very vain. 'Tis said that every night at going to bed
she looks in the glass to put on her night-cap properly."

"And not a married woman. Oh, the world!"

"And 'a can play the peanner, so 'tis said. Can play so clever that
'a can make a psalm tune sound as well as the merriest loose song a
man can wish for."

"D'ye tell o't! A happy time for us, and I feel quite a new man!
And how do she pay?"

"That I don't know, Master Poorgrass."

On hearing these and other similar remarks, a wild thought flashed
into Gabriel's mind that they might be speaking of Bathsheba. There
were, however, no grounds for retaining such a supposition, for the
waggon, though going in the direction of Weatherbury, might be going
beyond it, and the woman alluded to seemed to be the mistress of some
estate. They were now apparently close upon Weatherbury and not to
alarm the speakers unnecessarily, Gabriel slipped out of the waggon
unseen.

He turned to an opening in the hedge, which he found to be a gate,
and mounting thereon, he sat meditating whether to seek a cheap
lodging in the village, or to ensure a cheaper one by lying under
some hay or corn-stack. The crunching jangle of the waggon died upon
his ear. He was about to walk on, when he noticed on his left hand
an unusual light--appearing about half a mile distant. Oak watched
it, and the glow increased. Something was on fire.

Gabriel again mounted the gate, and, leaping down on the other side
upon what he found to be ploughed soil, made across the field in the
exact direction of the fire. The blaze, enlarging in a double ratio
by his approach and its own increase, showed him as he drew nearer
the outlines of ricks beside it, lighted up to great distinctness. A
rick-yard was the source of the fire. His weary face now began to
be painted over with a rich orange glow, and the whole front of his
smock-frock and gaiters was covered with a dancing shadow pattern of
thorn-twigs--the light reaching him through a leafless inter