y they always
remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but,
unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into
deeds.

The next day to that of the declaration she found Gabriel Oak at the
bottom of her garden, grinding his shears for the sheep-shearing.
All the surrounding cottages were more or less scenes of the same
operation; the scurr of whetting spread into the sky from all parts
of the village as from an armoury previous to a campaign. Peace and
war kiss each other at their hours of preparation--sickles, scythes,
shears, and pruning-hooks, ranking with swords, bayonets, and lances,
in their common necessity for point and edge.

Cainy Ball turned the handle of Gabriel's grindstone, his head
performing a melancholy see-saw up and down with each turn of the
wheel. Oak stood somewhat as Eros is represented when in the act of
sharpening his arrows: his figure slightly bent, the weight of his
body thrown over on the shears, and his head balanced side-ways, with
a critical compression of the lips and contraction of the eyelids to
crown the attitude.

His mistress came up and looked upon them in silence for a minute or
two; then she said--

"Cain, go to the lower mead and catch the bay mare. I'll turn the
winch of the grindstone. I want to speak to you, Gabriel."

Cain departed, and Bathsheba took the handle. Gabriel had glanced up
in intense surprise, quelled its expression, and looked down again.
Bathsheba turned the winch, and Gabriel applied the shears.

The peculiar motion involved in turning a wheel has a wonderful
tendency to benumb the mind. It is a sort of attenuated variety of
Ixion's punishment, and contributes a dismal chapter to the history
of gaols. The brain gets muddled, the head grows heavy, and the
body's centre of gravity seems to settle by degrees in a leaden lump
somewhere between the eyebrows and the crown. Bathsheba felt the
unpleasant symptoms after two or three dozen turns.

"Will you turn, Gabriel, and let me hold the shears?" she said. "My
head is in a whirl, and I can't talk."

Gabriel turned. Bathsheba then began, with some awkwardness,
allowing her thoughts to stray occasionally from her story to attend
to the shears, which required a little nicety in sharpening.

"I wanted to ask you if the men made any observations on my going
behind the sedge with Mr. Boldwood yesterday?"

"Yes, they did," said Gabriel. "You don't hold the shears rig