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by degrees in a leaden lump somewhere between the eyebrows and the crown. Bathsheba felt the unpleasant symptoms after two or three dozen turns. `Will you turn, Gabriel, and let me hold the shears?' she said. `My head is in a whirl, and I can't talk.' Gabriel turned. Bathsheba then began, with some awkwardness, allowing her thoughts to stray occasionally from her story to attend to the shears, which required a little nicety in sharpening. `I wanted to ask you if the men made any observations on my going behind the sedge with Mr Boldwood yesterday?' `Yes, they did,' said Gabriel. `You don't hold the shears right, miss - I knew you wouldn't know the way - hold like this.' He relinquished the winch, and enclosing her two hands completely in his own (taking each as we sometimes clasp a child's hand in teaching him to write), grasped the shears with her. `Incline the edge so' he said. Hands and shears were inclined to suit the words, and held thus for a peculiarly long time by the instructor as he spoke. `That will do,' exclaimed Bathsheba. `Loose my hands. I won't have them held! Turn the winch.' Gabriel freed her hands quietly, retired to his handle, and the grinding went on. `Did the men think it odd?' she said again. `Odd was not the idea, miss.' `What did they say?' `That Farmer Boldwood's name and your own were likely to be flung over pulpit together before the year was out.' `I thought so by the look of them! Why, there's nothing in it. A more foolish remark was never made, and I want you to contradict it: that's what I came for.' Gabriel looked incredulous and sad, but between his moments of incredulity, relieved. `They must have heard our conversation,' she continued. `Well, then, Bathsheba!' said Oak, stopping the handle, and gazing into her face with astonishment. `Miss Everdene, you mean,' she said with dignity. `I mean this, that if Mr Boldwood really spoke of marriage, I bain't going to tell a story and say he didn't to please you. I have already tried to please you too much for my own good!' Bathsheba regarded him with round-eyed perplexity. She did not know whether to pity him for disappointed love of her, or to be angry with him for having got over it - his tone being ambiguous. `I said I wanted you just to mention that it was not true I was going to be married to him,' she murmured, with a slight decline in her assurance. `I can say that to them if you wish, Miss Everdene. And I could likewise give an opinion to 'ee on what you have done.' `I daresay. But I don't want your opinion.' |
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