Far From the Madding Crowd: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Two months later, there is a yearly hiring fair in the town of Casterbridge, with several hundred farm and other laborers waiting. Gabriel is among them, asking if anyone needs a bailiff. He is paler, poorer, now, but also has a dignified air of calm and an indifference to fate which is noble, not villainous.

At the end of the day, Gabriel hasn’t been hired, and he realizes that all the farmers seem to want shepherds. He has a shepherd’s crook made in a smith shop, then exchanges his overcoat for a smockfrock. A few farmers do talk to him, but the news that he had his own farm make many suspicious of him.

That evening Gabriel draws out his flute, playing it with “Arcadian” sweetness, and makes a few shillings that way. He learns of another fair the next day at Shottsford, near Weatherbury. Recognizing the name, Gabriel decides to set off the six miles for Shottsford (though he wants to avoid the sight of Bathsheba). He follows a winding path through the landscape. After six miles all is black. Gabriel ascends a hill and passes by a deserted wagon. He eats some bread and cheese and falls asleep in it.

After awhile, Gabriel awakens to find that the wagon is moving. Peering out from the hay, Gabriel hears the driver and his partner who are speaking, in country slang, about a handsome woman—though she’s also vain. Laughing, they agree that she’s said to look in the mirror before she goes to bed every night. And she’s not married! they exclaim. Gabriel suddenly wonders if they’re talking about Bathsheba.

Gabriel slips out of the wagon, unseen. As he prepares to walk on, he sees an unusual light about half a mile away. He realizes something is on fire. He follows the direction of the flame, and his tired face is covered with an orange glow—it’s the rickyard, where hay is kept. A rick (that is, a haystack) is glowing, flames darting in and out. As smoke is blown aside, Gabriel sees that the rick is part of a large group, making the danger even greater. Then he comes across another man, running about and crying for Mark Clark, Billy Smallbury, Joseph Poorgrass, and Matthew Moon. Other figures appear and confusedly get to work.

Gabriel takes control, and begins to shout orders to the disorganized group. He clambers himself up to the top of the barn, with Billy Smallbury, one of the men who had been in the wagon, and Mark Clark, another farmhand. They beat the stack and try to dislodge any fiery pieces of hay. The villagers below do all they can to keep the blaze under control. At a distance, two women wonder who the young shepherd beating the fire with his crook might be. No one knows, they say. One asks Jan Coggan, nearby, if he thinks the fire is safe—he says he thinks so

One of the women, on horseback, asks if anyone knows the shepherd’s name: she tells the other woman, Mary-ann, to thank him once he gets the fire under control. As she approaches Gabriel, he descends and asks where her master the farmer is. Mary-ann says it’s a mistress: she has recently arrived to take over her uncle’s farm, since he died suddenly. She’s very wealthy, a bystander says. Mary-ann points her out to Gabriel; he lifts his hat in respect, then asks if she happens to need a shepherd. She lifts the veil from her face: it’s Bathsheba. She doesn’t speak, and he mechanically repeats his question.