First Impressions and Hidden Truths — Far from the Madding Crowd

Gabriel Oak at twenty-eight is steady rather than spectacular. Hardy sketches a man whose neighbours picture him always in work clothes, who goes to church but daydreams about dinner, and who walks as if he has no great claim on the world's room. His unreliable watch and oversized boots are comic, but they signal a mind that solves practical problems without ceremony. On Norcombe Hill he spots a yellow spring waggon with furniture, plants, a caged canary, and a young woman in a crimson jacket on top.

When the waggoner leaves to find a missing tailboard, the girl unwraps a small looking-glass and studies herself. She smiles, blushes at her reflection, and blushes again. Gabriel watches from behind the hedge and reads vanity into the scene, though Hardy insists intention may be unknowable and the smile may have begun as rehearsal for futures she imagines.

At the turnpike a quarrel over twopence stops the waggon. Gabriel pays without drama. The woman glances at his unremarkable face and tells her driver to move on without thanks. Hardy notes that by settling the dispute Gabriel may have cost her the satisfaction of winning it. The gatekeeper calls her handsome. Gabriel agrees, then glances back toward the hedge and names her greatest fault in one word: vanity.