A curved settle of unplaned oak stretched along one side, and in a remote corner was a small bed and bedstead, the owner and frequent occupier of which was the maltster.
This aged man was now sitting opposite the fire, his frosty white hair and beard overgrowing his gnarled figure like the grey moss and lichen upon a leafless apple-tree.

He wore breeches and the laced-up shoes called ankle-jacks; he kept his eyes fixed upon the fire.
Gabriel's nose was greeted by an atmosphere laden with the sweet smell of new malt.

The conversation (which seemed to have been concerning the origin of the fire) immediately ceased, and every one ocularly criticised him to the degree expressed by contracting the flesh of their foreheads and looking at him with narrowed eyelids, as if he had been a light too strong for their sight.

Several exclaimed meditatively, after this operation had been completed:-- "Oh, 'tis the new shepherd, 'a b'lieve." "We thought we heard a hand pawing about the door for the bobbin, but weren't sure 'twere not a dead leaf blowed across," said another.
"Come in, shepherd; sure ye be welcome, though we don't know yer name." "Gabriel Oak, that's my name, neighbours." The ancient maltster sitting in the midst turned at this--his turning being as the turning of a rusty crane.
"That's never Gable Oak's grandson over at Norcombe--never!" he said, as a formula expressive of surprise, which nobody was supposed for a moment to take literally.
"My father and my grandfather were old men of the name of Gabriel," said the shepherd, placidly.
"Thought I knowed the man's face as I seed him on the rick!--thought I did! And where be ye trading o't to now, shepherd ?" "I'm thinking of biding here," said Mr.Oak.
"Knowed yer grandfather for years and years!" continued the maltster, the words coming forth of their own accord as if the momentum previously imparted had been sufficient.
"Ah--and did you!" "Knowed yer grandmother." "And her too!" "Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child.

Why, my boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers--that they were sure--weren't ye, Jacob ?" "Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper jaw, which made much of itself by standing prominent, like a milestone in a bank.