The Fair: The Journey: The Fire
- Now that he's poor, Gabriel Oak needs to walk to the nearby town of Casterbridge to attend a job fair. Yup, they had things like that back around 1874. And Oak is looking for any work he can get his hands on. He's been hardened by misfortune and doesn't think that he's too good for anything.
- Things don't go that well, though. After an unsuccessful morning, Oak wishes he'd gone away with some army recruits who were around a few hours earlier.
- No one wants to hire him to do farmwork because he's been financially ruined. He wears the scarlet "u" for "unemployable."
- When the day is over, Oak is still unemployed. He hears that there'll be another fair in the nearby town of Weatherbury the next day, and he heads for that town on foot. Oh, and Oak knows that Weatherbury is the place that Bathsheba moved to. Bonus.
- He takes a nap in a hay wagon and later wakes up to find the wagon moving. He's been asleep for two hours and has no clue how far he's travelled. He can hear two men in the front of the wagon talking rudely about a pretty young lady who lives in their town. Oak wonders for a moment if the lady might be Bathsheba.
- When he finally hops off the wagon, he sees a chaotic scene on a nearby farm. There's a huge fire burning up the crops and threatening to torch the buildings, too. He jumps into action and succeeds in leading the townspeople's attempts to put the fire out. Oak: 1. Fire: 0.
- Everyone is impressed with his heroism. Oak wants to ride the wave of this sudden celebrity by asking the farmer owner if there's a need for a shepherd with mad shepherding skills.
- When the owner rides up, he sees that it's none other than Bathsheba. Seeing him makes her go temporarily mute with surprise. So Oak takes advantage of this by asking whether she needs a shepherd.