Gabriel Oak

There is something about Gabriel Oak I don't entirely like. He is a bit domineering. In one chapter he tells the other men they'll taste his fist if they spread nasty rumours about Bathsheba. Who was he to start laying down the law? He had only been at the farm five minutes. It was particularly unpleasant because they were harmless, mostly older men in the main. In a later chapter he basically refuses to accept a dismissal from Bathsheba, arguing that she, as a woman, was not competent to run the farm. A little after that, Gabriel tells a woman to go to bed as he and Jan Coggen take off to track down a horse thief. She doesn't have to take orders from Gabriel.