The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough to voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having lived a great many years, by mentioning that the cup they were drinking out of was three years older than he.
While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak’s flute became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery Fray exclaimed, “Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a great flute by now at Casterbridge?”
“You did,” said Gabriel, blushing faintly. “I’ve been in great trouble, neighbours, and was driven to it. I used not to be so poor as I be now.”
“Never mind, heart!” said Mark Clark. “You should take it careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come. But we could thank ye for a tune, if ye bain’t too tired?”
“Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard since Christmas,” said Jan Coggan. “Come, raise a tune, Master Oak!”
“Ay, that I will,” said Gabriel, pulling out his flute and putting it together. “A poor tool, neighbours; but such as I can do ye shall have and welcome.”
Oak then struck up “Jockey to the Fair,” and played that sparkling melody three times through, accenting the notes in the third round in a most artistic and lively manner by bending his body in small jerks and tapping with his foot to beat time.
“He can blow the flute very well—that ’a can,” said a young married man, who having no individuality worth mentioning was known as “Susan Tall’s husband.” He continued, “I’d as lief as not be able to blow into a flute as well as that.”
“He’s a clever man, and ’tis a true comfort for us to have such a shepherd,” murmured Joseph Poorgrass, in a soft cadence. “We ought to feel full o’ thanksgiving that he’s not a player of ba’dy songs instead of these merry tunes; for ’twould have been just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose low man—a man of iniquity, so to speak it—as what he is. Yes, for our wives’ and daughters’ sakes we should feel real thanksgiving.”
“True, true,—real thanksgiving!” dashed in Mark Clark conclusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion that he had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what Joseph had said.