Page:Far from the Madding Crowd Vol 1.djvu/249

 the direction signified. "To come to me, and not go and get them out directly! Oh, the stupid numskulls!" Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest now. Bathsheba's beauty belonging rather to the redeemed-demonian than to the blemished-angelic school, she never looked so well as when she was angry—and particularly when the effect was heightened by a rather dashing velvet dress, carefully put on before a glass.

All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to the clover-field, Joseph sinking down in the midst when about half way, like an individual withering in a world which got more and more unstable. Having once received the stimulus that her presence always gave them, they went round among the sheep with a will. The majority of the afflicted animals were lying down, and could not be stirred. These were bodily lifted out, and the others driven into the adjoining field. Here, after the lapse of a few minutes, several more fel down, and lay helpless and livid as the rest.

Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at these primest specimens of her prime flock as they rolled there,―

Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew.

Many of them foamed at the mouth, their breath-