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Far from the Madding Crowd: Gabriel

Their heads would have wagged even more had they known that Gabriel Oak, only a few weeks before, had been his own master, and had vainly urged Bathsheba, then a penniless maiden, to marry him. Things that had seemed commonplace enough had abruptly reversed their places in the world. A man had died in Weatherbury; a dog had driven to death a flock of sheep. These were but the inevitable tragedies of life, and yet the one had suddenly made Bathsheba an heiress; the other had driven Gabriel out upon the highways to seek work. Chance or fate had kindled a fire, Gabriel had saved the wheat, and the two lives that had been flung so far apart were brought near again. The pain of seeing another win her whom he loved would be intense, but Gabriel preferred even this to life where he could not see her. He knew that this must happen. Bathsheba was young, beautiful, wealthy, but rarer than these was her high spirit. "She was the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises." This spirit, however, was to flame more brightly later, after her impetuosity had plunged her into the crises that were to prove her worth.