n now startled him less
even when it tortured him more, and he felt himself adequate to the
situation. On inquiring for her at her house they had told him she
was at the sheepwashing, and he went off to seek her there.

The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin of brickwork in
the meadows, full of the clearest water. To birds on the wing its
glassy surface, reflecting the light sky, must have been visible for
miles around as a glistening Cyclops' eye in a green face. The grass
about the margin at this season was a sight to remember long--in a
minor sort of way. Its activity in sucking the moisture from the
rich damp sod was almost a process observable by the eye. The
outskirts of this level water-meadow were diversified by rounded and
hollow pastures, where just now every flower that was not a buttercup
was a daisy. The river slid along noiselessly as a shade, the
swelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moist
brink. To the north of the mead were trees, the leaves of which
were new, soft, and moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened
under summer sun and drought, their colour being yellow beside a
green--green beside a yellow. From the recesses of this knot of
foliage the loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding through the
still air.

Boldwood went meditating down the slopes with his eyes on his boots,
which the yellow pollen from the buttercups had bronzed in artistic
gradations. A tributary of the main stream flowed through the
basin of the pool by an inlet and outlet at opposite points of its
diameter. Shepherd Oak, Jan Coggan, Moon, Poorgrass, Cain Ball,
and several others were assembled here, all dripping wet to the
very roots of their hair, and Bathsheba was standing by in a new
riding-habit--the most elegant she had ever worn--the reins of her
horse being looped over her arm. Flagons of cider were rolling about
upon the green. The meek sheep were pushed into the pool by Coggan
and Matthew Moon, who stood by the lower hatch, immersed to their
waists; then Gabriel, who stood on the brink, thrust them under as
they swam along, with an instrument like a crutch, formed for the
purpose, and also for assisting the exhausted animals when the wool
became saturated and they began to sink. They were let out against
the stream, and through the upper opening, all impurities flowing
away below. Cainy Ball and Joseph, who performed this latter
operation, were if possible