"
Bathsheba laid down the shears.
"I cannot allow any man to -- to criticise my private
Conduct!" she exclaimed. "Nor will I for a minute.
So you'll please leave the farm at the end of the week!"
It may have been a peculiarity -- at any rate it was
a fact -- that when Bathsheba was swayed by an emotion
of an earthly sort her lower lip trembled: when by a
refined emotion, her upper or heavenward one. Her
nether lip quivered now.
"Very well, so I will." said Gabriel calmly. He had
been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained
him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he
could not break. "I should be even better pleased to
go at once." he added.
"Go at once then, in Heaven's name!" said she,her
eyes flashing at his, though never meeting them.
"Don't let me see your face any more."
"Very well, Miss Everdene -- so it shall be."
And he took his shears and went away from her in
placid dignity, as Moses left the presence of Pharaoh.
CHAPTER XXI
TROUBLES IN THE FOLD -- A MESSAGE
GABRIEL OAK had ceased to feed the Weatherbury
flock for about four-and-twenty hours, when on Sunday
afternoon the elderly gentlemen Joseph Poorgrass,
Matthew Moon, Fray, and half-a-dozen others, came
running up to the house of the mistress of the Upper
Farm.
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