In the background, mellowed by tawny
shade, were the three women, Maryann Money, and
Temperance and Soberness Miller, gathering up the
fleeces and twisting ropes of wool with a wimble for
tying them round. They were indifferently well assisted
by the old maltster, who, when the malting season from
October to April had passed, made himself useful upon
any of the bordering farmsteads.
"Behind all was Bathsheba, carefully watching the
men to see that there was no cutting or wounding
through carelessness, and that the animals were shorn
close. Gabriel, who flitted and hovered under her
bright eyes like a moth, did not shear continuously,
half his time being spent in attending to the others
and selecting the sheep for them. At the present
moment he was engaged in handing round a mug of
mild liquor, supplied from a barrel in the corner,
and cut pieces of bread and cheese.
Bathsheba, after throwing a glance here, a caution
there, and lecturing one of the younger operators who
had allowed his last finished sheep to go off among
the flock without re-stamping it with her initials, came
again to Gabriel, as he put down the luncheon to drag
a frightened ewe to his shear-station, flinging it over
upon its back with a dexterous twist of the arm
He lopped off the tresses about its head, and opened
up the neck and collar, his mistress quietly looking
on:
"She blushes at the insult.
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