`'Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul,' said the maltster. `And ye have suffered from it a long time, we know.'

`Ay, ever since I was a boy. Yes mother was concerned to her heart about it - yes. But 'twas all nought.'

`Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph Poorgrass?'

`Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company. They took me to Greenhill Fair, and into a great gay jerry-go-nimble show, where there were women-folk riding round - standing upon horses, with hardly anything on but their smocks; but it didn't cure me a morsel. And then I was put errand-man at the Women's Skittle Alley at the back of the Tailor's Arms in Casterbridge. 'Twas a horrible sinal situation, and a very curious place for a good man. I had to stand and look ba'dy people in the face from morning till night; but 'twas no use - I was just as bad as ever after all. Blushes hev been in the family for generations. There, 'tis a happy providence that I be no worse.

`True,' said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a profounder view of the subject. `'Tis a thought to look at, that ye might have been worse; but even as you be, 'tis a very bad affliction for 'ee, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, though 'tis very well for a woman, dang it all, 'tis awkward for a man like him, poor feller?'

`'Tis--'tis,' said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation. `Yes, very awkward for the man.'

`Ay, and he's very timid, too,' observed Jan Coggan. `Once he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home-along through Yalbury Wood, didn't ye, Master Poorgrass?'

`No, no, no; not that story!' expostulated the modest man, forcing a laugh to bury his concern.

` - And so 'a lost himself quite,' continued Mr Coggan, with an impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide, must run its course and would respect no man. `And as he was coming along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not able to find his way out of the trees nohow, 'a cried out, "Man- a-lost! man-a-lost!" A owl in a tree happened to be crying "Whoo-whoo-whoo!" as owls do' you know, shepherd' (Gabriel nodded), `and Joseph, all in a tremble, said, "Joseph Poorgrass, of Weatherbury, sir!"'

`No, no, now - that's too much!' said the timid man, becoming a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. `I didn't say sir. I'll take my oath I didn't say "Joseph Poorgrass o' Weatherbury, sir." No, no; what's right is right, and I never said sir to the bird, knowing very well that no man of a gentleman's rank would be hollering there at that time o' night. "Joseph Poorgrass of Weatherbury," - that's every word I said, and I shouldn't ha' said that if't hadn't been for Keeper Day's metheglin... There, 'twas a merciful thing it ended where it did.'

The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the company, Jan went on meditatively:--

`And he's the fearfullest man, bain't ye, Joseph? Ay, another time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph?'

`I was,' replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being one.

`Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would not open, try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil's hand in it, he kneeled down.'

`Ay,' said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of the fire, the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities of the experience alluded to. `My heart died within me, that time; but I kneeled down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then the Belief right through, and then the Ten Commandments, in earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't open; and then I went on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and, thinks I,