feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_6_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 7
feat_summary_id: chapter 7
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-7", "summary": "The townspeople think that Oak is a real hero and basically convince Bathsheba to hire him as her shepherd. Bathsheba never lets on that she knows who Oak is. She's probably wondering how Gabriel was reduced to the low position of shepherd-for-hire. Everyone moves away to get a celebratory drink at the nearby inn. Gabriel stays behind for a moment and walks alone. He is eventually stopped by a stranger: a very slender young woman in clothes that are too thin for the cold night. He asks her the way to the malt house and she gives him directions. The girl in turn asks him how to get to an inn, but he admits he has no clue because he's new to the area. Before they part ways, the girl makes him promise not to tell anyone that he saw her. He agrees and gives her some money because he thinks she needs it, and because he is the best dude ever. They part ways and he heads to the malt house to meet up with the townspeople.", "analysis": ""}
text: 
  
  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.
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 7
target: The townspeople think that Oak is a real hero and basically convince Bathsheba to hire him as her shepherd. Bathsheba never lets on that she knows who Oak is. She's probably wondering how Gabriel was reduced to the low position of shepherd-for-hire. Everyone moves away to get a celebratory drink at the nearby inn. Gabriel stays behind for a moment and walks alone. He is eventually stopped by a stranger: a very slender young woman in clothes that are too thin for the cold night. He asks her the way to the malt house and she gives him directions. The girl in turn asks him how to get to an inn, but he admits he has no clue because he's new to the area. Before they part ways, the girl makes him promise not to tell anyone that he saw her. He agrees and gives her some money because he thinks she needs it, and because he is the best dude ever. They part ways and he heads to the malt house to meet up with the townspeople.