About this story
You play Bathsheba Everdene, alone on top of the load, unwrapping a mirror to look at yourself because no audience requires it — except somebody is watching through the hedge. He settles your toll at the gate below and refuses to make anything of it. The next evening you find him unconscious in a smoke-filled lambing hut, and still do not give him your name.
Who you’ll meet
Gabriel Oak, the shepherd-farmer who lays two pennies on a toll counter to pay a stranger's way, facing the turnpike keeper whose hand stays on the chain.
How it opens
January sunlight found the yellow wagon halfway down Norcombe Hill.
Myrtles and geraniums rode among boxes while the driver walked beside the team.
WagonerThe tailboard has fallen somewhere above us, miss.
Go back for it. I can keep the team here.
WagonerHold the brake if they shift; the road steepens below this point.
Choose
Bring the board even if the fastening is broken.
Return quickly; the plants dislike this cold wind.