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Far from the Madding Crowd

By THOMAS HARDY Condensation by ALFRED S. CLARK BEFORE Bathsheba Everdene came to Weatherbury as mistress of the manor-house time seemed to have forgotten the village. The smock-clad shepherds in the thatch-roofed cottages might have been, as far as appearances went, their own ancestors of four centuries before. Little happenings seemed tremendous. The pulling down of a hovel was a stirring event; the transformation of a well into a pump shook Weatherbury like a revolution.

The stir of the great world without, its romance and passion and tragedy--these came to Weatherbury--with Bathsheba. There was a new arrival to be discussed, a great-boned, ruddy-faced shepherd, Gabriel Oak, who beat out a fire that menaced the wheat-ricks and who remained to work for Bathsheba. Fanny Robin, a servant, disappeared, lured by a soldier's red coat. These were things to agitate the heads of the rustics who gathered at nightfall in the old malt-house to drink and to moralize.