about nine o'clock
Thus , in a slow procession , they entered the opening to which the roads tended , multitude after multitude , horned and hornless -- blue flocks and red flocks , buff flocks and brown flocks , even green and salmon-tinted flocks , according to the fancy of the colourist and custom of the farm . Men were shouting , dogs were barking , with greatest animation , but the thronging travellers in so long a journey had grown nearly indifferent to such terrors , though they still bleated piteously at the unwontedness of their experiences , a tall shepherd rising here and there in the midst of them , like a gigantic idol amid a crowd of prostrate devotees . The great mass of sheep in the fair consisted of South Downs and the old Wessex horned breeds ; to the latter class Bathsheba 's and Farmer Boldwood 's mainly belonged . These filed in about nine o'clock , their vermiculated horns lopping gracefully on each side of their cheeks in geometrically perfect spirals , a small pink and white ear nestling under each horn . Before and behind came other varieties , perfect leopards as to the full rich substance of their coats , and only lacking the spots . There were also a few of the Oxfordshire breed , whose wool was beginning to curl like a child 's flaxen hair , though surpassed in this respect by the effeminate Leicesters , which were in turn less curly than the Cotswolds . But the most picturesque by far was a small flock of Exmoors , which chanced to be there this year .