Letters, Loyalty, and Lambing Season — Far from the Madding Crowd

In Warren's malthouse on a snowy morning the men breakfast and grumble that Bathsheba will rue dismissing her bailiff, mocking her new piano, heavy chairs, and fine furniture while Gabriel Oak bursts in carrying newborn lambs through a brutal lambing season that has kept him wet day and night without a proper lambing hut.

Henery Fray and the carters grumble that pride and vanity will ruin a headstrong mistress who bought a pianner and heavy chairs; their gossip frames Gabriel's entrance with lambs as the farm's real work continuing under scandal. Boldwood enters and apologises to Oak for opening a misdelivered letter: Fanny Robin writes that she is going to marry Sergeant Troy and asks Gabriel to keep it secret. They discuss Troy's poor prospects and Boldwood's grief for Fanny before Cainy Ball interrupts with news of more twin ewes that need immediate tending in the field.

Gabriel marks the lambs with Bathsheba's initials and hurries away. Boldwood follows, asks whether Oak recognises the handwriting on the valentine, and misreads Gabriel's blush when he answers Miss Everdene's. After shameful talk of valentine privy inquiries, Boldwood returns home, replaces the letter on his mantelpiece, and broods on Bathsheba by the light of what Gabriel has unwillingly confirmed about the woman who sent the valentine he cannot put down.