On opening his eyes he found that evening had sunk to dusk in a strange manner of unexpectedness. The young girl with the remarkably pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him. More than this - astonishingly more - his head was upon her lap, his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning his collar.
`Whatever is the matter?' said Oak vacantly.
She seemed to experience mirth, but of too insignificant a kind to start enjoyment.
`Nothing now,' she answered, `since you are not dead. It is a wonder you were not suffocated in this hut of yours.'
`Ah, the hut!' murmured Gabriel. `I gave ten pounds for that hut. But I'll sell it, and sit under thatched hurdles as they did in old times, and curl up to sleep in a lock of straw! It played me nearly the same trick the other day!' Gabriel, by way of emphasis, brought down his fist upon the floor.
`It was not exactly the fault of the hut,' she observed in a tone which showed her to be that novelty among women - one who finished a thought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it. `You should, I think, have considered, and not have been so foolish as to leave the slides closed.'
`Yes, I suppose I should,' said Oak absently. He was endeavouring to catch and appreciate the sensation of being thus with her, his head upon her dress, before the event passed on into the heap of bygone things. He wished she knew his impressions; but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent.
She made him sit up, and then Oak began wiping his face and shaking himself like a Samson. `How can I thank 'ee?' he mid at last gratefully, some of the natural, rusty red having returned to his face.
`Oh, never mind that,' mid the girl, smiling, and allowing her smile to hold good for Gabriel's next remark, whatever that might prove to be.
`How did you find me?'
`I heard your dog howling and scratching at the door of the hut when I came to the milking (it was so lucky, Daisy's milking is almost over for the season, and I shall not come here after this week or the next).
The dog saw me, and jumped over to me, and laid hold of my skirt. I came across and looked round the hut the very first thing to see if the slides were closed. My uncle has a hut like this one, and I have heard him tell his shepherd not to go to sleep without leaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were like dead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no water, forgetting it was warm, and no use.'
`I wonder if I should have died?' Gabriel said in a low voice, which was rather meant to travel back to himself than to her.
`O no!' the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic probability; to have saved a man from death involved talk that should harmonize with the dignity of such a deed - and she shunned it.
`I believe you saved my Me, Miss - I don't know your name. I know your aunt's, but not yours.
`I would just as soon not tell it - rather not. There is no reason either why I should, as you probably will never have much to do with me.'
`Still I should like to know.'
`You can inquire at my aunt's - she will tell you.'
`My name is Gabriel Oak.'
`And mine isn't. You seem fond of yours in speaking it so decisively, Gabriel Oak.'
`You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the most of it.'
`I always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable.'
`I should think you might soon get a new one.'
`Mercy! - how many opinions you keep about you concerning other people, Gabriel Oak.'
`Well, Miss - excuse the words - I thought you would like them. But I can't match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue. I never was very clever in my inside. But I thank you. Come, give me your hand!'
She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted at Oak's old-fashioned earnest conclusion to a dialogue lightly carried on. `Very well,' she said, and gave him her hand, compressing her lips to a demure impassivity. He held it but an instant, and in his fear of being too demonstrative, swerved to the opposite extreme, touching her fingers with the lightness of a small-hearted person.
`I am sorry,' he said the instant after.
`What for?'
`Letting your hand go so quick.'
`You may have it again if you like; there it is.' She gave him her hand again.
Oak held it longer this time - indeed, curiously long. `How soft it is - being winter time, too - not chapped or rough, or anything!' he said.
`There - that's long enough,' said she, though without pulling it away.
`But I suppose you are thinking you would like to kiss it? You may if you want to.
`I wasn't thinking of any such thing,' said Gabriel simply; `but I will--'
`That you won't!' She snatched back her hand.
Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of tact.
`Now find out my name,' she said teasingly; and withdrew.
