Arthur’s wife also worked on the farm. Like a number of women she was made of iron and capable of endless work. It was said of her also that at bottom she had a good heart. I think this geographical description was true enough. But I felt that she belonged to the category of those who would gain in amiability what they lost in virtue by having a bad heart at bottom and a hypocritical one on top. All women are more self-conscious than men, and many far more class-conscious. It blows from them like a wind. Arthur Miles ‘didn’t give a damn’ for anyone or anything: ‘I don’t mind ’ow ’e is or wot ’e is’ he’d say – and one liked him for it. Mrs Miles went on the same principle, but in a less engaging way. One of her minor pleasures was to work with some new land girl or amateur assistant. She would work at a pace impossible for the others to keep up, and shout at intervals (she never spoke, always shouted as if there was a gale on), ‘How do you like wurking? This is wurk, you know!’ All remarks addressed to her, whether in terms of the weather, the joke, the grouse, were answered by one sovereign rejoinder – ‘You’re telling me!’
8 The Third Day of Creation
A fortnight to three weeks having elapsed since I had broadcast seed with Arthur, I decided to have a look at that field. Hitherto I had always been too much of a Wordsworthian (not that I can ever bring myself to denigrate in any way the greatest of the nineteenth-century poets) and was content to see things only in the round, feeling that the scientific approach is to peep and botanize upon your mother’s grave. But my chance had come to see the particular, now that I was personally implicated in it.
It was certainly true that in this instance I had little real idea of what precisely I should see. On approaching the field I saw a low green mist clinging to it, which turned out to be substance in the nature of grass, now covering what had been the brown surface of the field. I dug up a spadeful. We had sown a mixture of oats and peas. Those handfuls of round and oblong caskets that I had helped to broadcast had performed a peculiar act after leaving the hand and reaching the soil. Quite dead in the sack, it had seemed; but on touching the soil they had become animated, alive, and full of surprising moves. It were as if that little oat-seed, a tiny and inferior-looking piece of matter such as one might chip off a log, had been galvanized on being touched by Earth – making me think of gunpowder when touched by Fire. The envelopes had exploded. The pea seeds, those hard little balls like dented miniature ping-pong balls, had softened and shot downwards white webs and claws as long as my fingers, and shot upwards into the air a complicated system of green tubing and frills. The oat seeds, the shape of tiny fish, had performed a similar feat below and had sent up into the air long thin pieces of material like green ribbons. No matter how they had fallen on the ground or how they lay when they had fallen, they had all exploded in two directions only – down and straight up. None slanted, all preserved the perpendicular.
We glorify the present only when it has become the past. This is a recognized tendency in terms of history. It is equally true in terms of metaphysics. We imagine that Creation took place in the remote past. No doubt it did; but the same thing takes place today. The third Day of Creation, as fabled in the book of Genesis, happens once every year no less certainly than the Sixth Day happens all the time. If this were not so the world would speedily dissolve. As I stand beside the rising corn I feel no need to have been present on the Third Day of the First Week, since I am witnessing the same thing. The same Force is at work, the same Voice obeyed. That which I would have seen then, I see now – sheer miracle, pure purpose. He who tries to dispose of this, uttering some mumbo-jumbo about ‘chance’ or ‘mechanism’, is the only real heretic, the only real atheist. All other denial, all other unbelief is mere speculation, and of no consequence. But this denial of clear witness is not speculation, and reveals the denier, not as a clever casuist, but as a stupid ass.
I have spent some time in the company of the philosophers and the priests, and have undertaken long journeys with them in search of the Absolute. It was all necessary. For only then could I understand that it was not necessary, and that if we will but look out of the window the answer is there. It is clear to me now that if we take the trouble to regard phenomena, with the eye, not of a child, but of an adult who weds intelligence with wonder, we shall soon find ourselves at ease with the Problem of Purpose and all the rest of it.
9 Some Fallacies
The orchards were now beginning to bloom. The Coxes, the James Grieves, the Beauty of Baths all appearing much more real to me than in the old days, already an ancient time left far behind, when an apple was ‘only’ a fruit which you bought for sixpence a pound, and an orchard just a pretty sight. Having opened the gate of labour I had suddenly stepped inside the world, and could see the objects with fresh eyes.
The spraying-machine had been put aside, of course, and my new job for a time was hoeing. The hoe, unlike the spade, having its knife-edge turned at right angles to the handle, allows you to thump it down into the ground while at the same time pulling it towards you – with the result that you can remove one or more weeds at each stroke. Still, it is not an inspiring job. I have met one or two people who liked it. But on the whole it is far from popular. Indeed, faced with many hours of it, there is a general agreement that it breaks the back and the mind. There is only one way by which it can be conquered – namely by good company. Absorbing conversation alone can overcome hoeing. And one can hardly expect to find that on the land.
Actually, the hoeing I did on this farm was the easiest and the least boring I have ever done. I had a good hoe, sharp and heavy (I never handled its like again). And the ground was soft. Hence one swoop easily removed the thistles and docks. Moreover, I worked not in an open field but between fruit trees. I have never since had a combination of similar qualities for softening the blows of monotony. At first I vastly preferred it to my recent tug-of-war with the hose. Nevertheless I soon began to wish I was doing something else.
This job, and the previous ones, brought me up against one of the fallacies concerning agricultural work held by the citizen of our mean cities. It is supposed that ‘on the land’ you have ‘time to think’, and that conditions are such that the mind can indulge quietly in wise expansive meditations in the open air. Certainly the place in which to think is the open air. But not during work. To be able to think consecutively about anything you must concentrate; and there are few jobs on the land that you can do so automatically as to be free to really think. Perhaps hoeing should be one of these. For a short time it is. Then the body interferes with the mind. The back begins to ache. You become physically preoccupied. You become tired. And then the mind, instead of being able to concentrate upon something consecutively, indulges either in fatuous daydreams or nurses petty grievances or dwells upon the worst traits of one’s least pleasant friends. At such times I have often been appalled at my mind and wondered if others could have such rotten ones. And if a Great Idea does descend, well, I stop working to take it in, and rest on my hoe, and look across the land (as a matter of fact I don’t: I carefully gaze on the ground in case anyone is looking – for he who gazes towards the earth presents a less agriculturally reprehensible spectacle than he who looks towards heaven).
There is another fallacy, closely related. People say to me – ‘It must be wonderful to feel perfectly fit, working on the land as you do.’ I am fit enough, I suppose; but there is a misapprehension here. The best way to feel really fit is through games. A good game of tennis for two hours or a run for half an hour will give you a better feeling of physical well-being than a whole day’s agricultural labour (with about three exceptions concerning the latter). In the former case you perspire and feel fine – and the mind often then moves with remarkable freedom. In agriculture you seldom perspire; you merely keep on keeping on, and at the end of the day do not feel amiably tired but somewhat exhausted – and the mind sticks fast. Neither hoeing nor other agricultural work is really conducive towards the formation of what is called ‘a good figure’.
Arnold Bennett went so far as to say that veteran countrymen resembled ‘starved bus conductors twisted out of shape by lightning’. (Did he mean train-drivers?) Still, I think they match their surroundings better that way than if they stood up with the straightness of a soldier.
He who seeks happiness can find it in two ways. He can find it when the mind is absorbed and the body pleasantly active. This happens during certain games and during one or two agricultural activities. This pleasure is very great. He can find it also when the mind is absorbed and the body forgotten. This happens when reading a great book: on such occasions we as good as leave our bodies and go a journey without them. Few if any pleasures excel this. And the secret is that in both cases the ego is disposed of – quite forgotten. Conscious or not, that is the goal of everyone, to forget his ego, and to subdue the ego’s two servile and obsequious slaves – the restless body and the wandering, lunatic mind.
Such are one or two of my reflections recollected in tranquillity after hoeing. But I would not like it to be thought that I have any grouse against hoeing, against any job that has to be done. I was not seeking pleasure. And I got a good deal of satisfaction from a disciplinarian point of view. Self-discipline is splendid. I am all for it. But I cannot apply it without external pressure. It was now applied for me. I was forced to do what I could not force myself to do. And this was one of the things I wanted to do, which I needed to do if ever I were to understand and know the world instead of only ‘knowing about’ it.
10 My Difficulties as Carter
The carter or horseman (the former term being the most usual but not so satisfactory) had to leave, and I took on the job. I was not wholly unfamiliar with horses from a riding point of view – and at one period could even jump without stirrups or reins and with a sword in my hand. All forgotten – along with horselore. And of cart-horses and harness I knew nothing whatever.
It was now a welcome change to start the morning rounding up the horses that grazed in the field adjoining the old house, and to bring them into the oast-house which served as the lower stable, where I groomed and harnessed them. One was easy to catch and hard to work with – Prince. The other was hard to catch and easy to work with – Beauty, a mare. Any moral? I found, however, that provided I brought out oats I could get hold of Beauty by her excellent forelock all right. It was no good simply going up with a bridle held behind the back, she was too wary. I never tried it that way, but always took a tray of oats which she always fell for, and then I could catch that substantial forelock and lead her into the stable easily enough with Prince following at her heels like a lamb. They were great friends, these horses, grazing together cheek beside cheek, nose by nose, mouth by mouth as they ate the grass – a sight so affecting that I couldn’t bear to think of the day when one would be taken and the other left.
Incidentally, this method of catching Beauty was considered too elaborate. When others went to fetch her they only fell back on the bag of oats trick as a last resort, or did it one time and not the next. I remember reading how a man, having occasionally brought out oats to a difficult horse, and then only pretending to do so for several days on end, was suddenly kicked and killed, my sympathies being with the horse. Arthur was not good at catching Beauty. His blustering methods didn’t work and the mare gave him a clean pair of heels. One day when I wasn’t using the horses Arthur had to fetch in Beauty for some purpose. As usual he went out, holding the bridle behind his back, and consequently couldn’t get hold of her at all. As I happened to be in that direction I said I would get her, which I did (by a lucky stroke really, for I didn’t take out any oats). Whereat he thanked me. This made me smile on the right side of my face for I was secretly both amused and gratified at the resourceful, efficient, always-right Arthur actually thanking me for doing something that he couldn’t do himself.
He seemed to think that horses have horse sense. It is the custom to give your horse food while you harness and groom it. But Arthur on this occasion just chucked the harness on and gave her nothing – in order ‘to teach the sod a lesson’. This seemed to me an inadequate psychological approach to a horse who can read little about crime and punishment, and in any case didn’t learn the lesson.
When I came to deal with harnessing for the first time I was surprised at the weight of the harness. I found that the breeching and attendant straps were as heavy as a saddle. When I tried putting the collar on I found I had put the bridle on first. Having taken off the bridle, the collar still wouldn’t go on – for the simple reason that you must reverse it while negotiating the head, which I had not done, thus following the example of Wordsworth who also failed in this matter. I was no more successful with the hames; I got them the wrong way round, and when at last I got them the right way round, I failed to pin them under the collar in a sufficiently tight notch. This done, I was now ready to put the horse into the cart. But I was not prepared for the difficulty of backing it straight between the shafts nor for the weight of the cart when lifted up by one of the shafts, nor for the difficulties now confronting me in continuing the good work. For, having thrown over the long chain that rests on the breeching, and dodged under the horse’s neck to catch it on the other side, I missed it and it rolled back so that I had to throw it over again, all the time holding up the shaft with one hand while I went to the other side. And after this came the fixing of the remaining chains, all of which I put into the wrong notches.
I hadn’t realized that so ‘simple’ a matter as harnessing a horse and putting it in a cart entailed so many moves. I found that the same held true regarding what must seem to the man on the road to be the elementary performance of going through a gate. Yet it is quite remarkably more easy to gatecrash than to make a smooth passage. The thing must be done skilfully if you don’t want to knock into one of the posts. On the whole I wasn’t too much a post-knocker, but this was due to the absence of many gates. There was something else more difficult than a gate. The track from the house-end of the farm went down an incline and up another. At the bottom was a stream with a bridge over it. This bridge was narrow, breaking down, and with huge ruts near the edges. When it rained the mud was very thick on this clayey soil, and going over the bridge with a heavy load was extremely precarious. One wheel always fell into the rut at the very edge of the fenceless bridge, and in pulling the cart across the horse would generally lurch and slip. This bridge was in direct view of the house, and the boss often watched this part of my journey with some anxiety – lest we fall over and the horse be injured, he explained.
My next difficulty was the negotiation of sacks. The horseman has a great deal to do with sacks. All sorts of sacks, varying from half a hundredweight to two hundredweight, the potatoes or corn or artificial, must be continuously loaded up and carted somewhere. The loading of sacks is an easy job for two if done in the right way (hand linked with hand behind the sack), but not so simple for one. No use hauling the bag about in one’s arms – you must get it on the back and high on the back. Once in that position the weight doesn’t matter much. This is all right when you are taking them from the top layer of a well-built pile; but how about those on the ground? How about the stragglers, the sacks of superphosphate which when moved generally break and pour out the stuff? It was a job to elevate them . . . I was glad to learn that a loaded cart seen going quietly along has to be loaded first.
I never really became a good sack-lifter by myself. Beware of the phrase – ‘It is all a question of knack.’ It isn’t. A certain kind of brute strength is just as much part of it, and although I am reasonably strong I was often surprised at the strength of others. One more thing about sacks, and I’ve done – namely unloading. I’ll never forget how once I had to cart ten loads of potatoes from one end of the farm to the other and unload them in the barn in readiness for collection by a merchant. Believe it or not I just took the sacks out of the cart and dumped them. I was in a hurry, for the merchant was supposed to be arriving at a stated time, but it was ignorance of the first principle in all s
uch operations – tidiness. It is as easy to unload and place the sacks in neat layers as to dump them in an unregulated heap, or nearly as easy, and much more satisfactory. But I didn’t do so. ‘Must you put them down like that?’ asked Morgan, when he saw them later. Until he said that, I hadn’t noticed what the uncorrelated heap looked like. But he was so mild about it, though annoyed, that it made an impression on me never forgotten.
11 New Vision of the Field
Often, then, my day now started with getting a horse harnessed into a cart and then jogging across the farm to load up something. The morning young, the sun slanting, mist clinging to the ground, the bird in the tree, hope in the heart – the eternal, million-times repeated promise of the dawn. While jogging along at such times I often reflected upon some of the strange phrases in common use, so lightly spoke, so obsequiously swallowed by the multitude. We speak of the cost of living, without discomfort. It means that we must pay money to be alive, a definite fee for being in the world, with a heavy Entrance Fee. Everyone must make a living rather than make a Life. What is he going to be? it is asked of boys, for it is understood that it is not sufficient that he shall be himself – only a girl is permitted to say that she already is. I was not making a living at all well by jogging along here, but I could not help feeling Alive, the freedom of the fields, the freedom of the sky, the freedom of movement gratuitously bestowed upon me – far more substantial than if I had been given the Freedom of the City of Birmingham, or had had pressed into my hands huge Atlantic Charters and other paper monuments to the perfidy of Man.
The Worm Forgives the Plough Page 4