In the Sun - A Harbinger
A week passed, and there were no tidings of Bathsheba; nor was there any explanation of her Gilpin's rig.
Then a note came for Maryann, stating that the business which had called her mistress to Bath still detained her there; but that she hoped to return in the course of another week.
Another week passed. The oat-harvest began, and all the men were afield under a monochromatic Lammas sky, amid the trembling air and short shadows of noon. Indoors nothing was to be heard save the droning of blue bottle flies; out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and the hiss of tressy oat-ears rubbing together as their perpendicular stalks of amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath. Every drop of moisture not in the men's bottles and flagons in the form of cider was raining as perspiration from their foreheads and cheeks. Drought was everywhere else.
They were about to withdraw for a while into the charitable shade of a tree in the fence, when Coggan saw a figure in a blue coat and brass buttons running to them across the field.
`I wonder who that is?' he said.
`I hope nothing is wrong about mistress,' said Maryann, who with some other women was tying the bundles (oats being always sheafed on this farm), `but an unlucky token came to me indoors this morning. I went to unlock the door and dropped the key, and it fell upon the stone floor and broke into two pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful bodement. I wish mis'ess was home.'
`'Tis Cain Ball,' said Gabriel, pausing from whetting his reaphook.
Oak was not bound by his agreement to assist in the corn-field; but the harvest month is an anxious time for a farmer, and the corn was Bathsheba's, so he lent a hand.
`He's dressed up in his best clothes,' said Matthew Moon. `He hev been away from home for a few days, since he's had that felon upon his finger; for `a said, since I can't work I'll have a hollerday'
`A good time for one - a' excellent time,' said Joseph Poorgrass, straightening his back; for he, like some of the others, had a way of resting a while from his labour on such hot days for reasons preternaturally small; of which Cain Ball's advent on a week-day in his Sunday-clothes was one of the first magnitude. `'Twas a bad leg allowed me to read the Pilgrim's Progress , and Mark Clark learnt All-Fours' in a whitlow.'
`Ay, and my father put his arm out of joint to have time to go courting,' said Jan Coggan, in an eclipsing tone, wiping his face with his shirt-sleeve and thrusting back his hat upon the nape of his neck.
By this time Cainy was nearing the group of harvesters, and was perceived to be carrying a large slice of bread and ham in one hand, from which he took mouthfuls as he ran, the other being wrapped in a bandage. When he came close, his mouth assumed the bell shape and he began to cough violently.
`Now, Cainy!' said Gabriel sternly. `How many more times must I tell you to keep from running so fast when you be eating? You'll choke yourself some day, that's what you'll do, Cain Ball.'
`Hok-hok-hok!' replied Cain. `A crumb of my victuals went the wrong way - hok-hok! That's what 'tis, Mister Oak! And I've been visiting to Bath because I had a felon on my thumb; yes, and I've been - ahok-hok!'
Directly Cain mentioned Bath, they all threw down their hooks and forks and drew round him. Unfortunately the erratic crumb did not improve his narrative powers, and a supplementary hindrance was that of a sneeze, jerking from his pocket his rather large watch, which dangled in front of the young man pendulum-wise.
`Yes,' he continued, directing his thoughts to Bath and letting his eyes follow, `I've seed the world at last - yes - and I've seed our mis'ess - ahok-hok-hok!'
`Bother the boy!' said Gabriel. `Something is always going the wrong way down your throat, so that you can't tell what's necessary to be told.'
`Ahok! there! Please, Mister Oak, a gnat have just fleed into my stomach and brought the cough on again!'
`Yes, that's just it. Your mouth is always open, you young rascal!'
`'Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly down yer throat, pore boy!' said Matthew Moon.
`Well, at Bath you saw--' prompted Gabriel.
`I saw our mistress,' continued the junior shepherd, `and a sojer, walking along. And bymeby they got closer and closer, and then they went arm-in-crook, like courting complete hok-hok! like courting complete - hok! - courting complete--' losing the thread of his narrative at this point simultaneously with his loss of breath, their informant looked up and down the field apparently for some clue to it. `Well, I see our mis'ess and a soldier - a-ha-a-wk!'
`Damn the boy!' said Gabriel.
`'Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if ye'll excuse it,' said Cain Ball, looking reproachfully at Oak, with eyes drenched in their own dew.
`Here's some cider for him - that'll cure his throat,' said Jan Coggan, lifting a flagon of cider, pulling out the cork, and applying the hole to Cainy's mouth; Joseph Poorgrass in the meantime beginning to think apprehensively of the serious consequences that would follow Cainy Ball's strangulation in his cough, and the history of hid Bath adventures dying with him.
`For my poor self, I always say "please God" afore I do anything,' said Joseph, in an unboastful voice; `and so should you, Cain Ball. 'Tis a great safeguard, and might perhaps save you from being choked to death some day.'
Mr Coggan poured the liquor with unstinted liberality at the suffering Cain's circular mouth; half of it running down the side of the flagon, and half of what reached his mouth running down outside his throat, and half of what ran in going the wrong way, and being coughed and sneezed around the persons of the gathered reapers in the form of a cider fog, which for a moment hung in the sunny air like a small exhalation.
`There's a great clumsy sneeze! Why can't ye have better manners, you young dog!' said Coggan, withdrawing the flagon.
`The cider went up my nose!' cried Cainy, as soon as he could speak;`and now 'tis gone down my neck, and into my poor dumb felon, and over my shiny buttons and all my best cloze!'
