The lonely plough

by Constance Holme

The examiner was very pleased to be there that day, and very pleased with results, and everything that had gone wrong had, of course, been pure accident or a passing spasm of forgetfulness or sheer evil fate. Because everybody had meant excellently, and that, of course, was the main thing, as where there was a will there was a way, and the person who made a mistake to-day would most certainly correct it to-morrow, etc., etc. Still, mistakes that day were in such negligible quantity that they were really not worth mentioning. Indeed, he was happy to say that he had been able to place the whole of the competitors in the first-class, with one exception only. Here he looked with such agonised care at least six feet over Dandy’s head that everybody else instantly looked six feet lower. This, of course, did not imply that the aforesaid competitor was hopelessly behind the rest; it only meant that her work was not quite up to the standard. Indeed, any one who had watched this particular competitor could see with half an eye that she knew perfectly well how to make butter, only she had been unfortunate. Everybody knew that butter could turn nasty if it liked, and it had treated her badly. She had had other misfortunes, too—little troubles connected with the plug, etc.—but it was really hardly worth while to dwell upon them. He was most decidedly pleased to be there! And this time he looked six feet down and straight at Dandy, so adoringly that all the audience who had really nice feelings instantly looked six feet up.

Then one of the pretty county ladies rose and said how pleased she was to be there, and how pleased everybody else was pleased, and how more than pleased everybody would be when they read about it in the papers, while the competitors wished she would hurry up and put them out of their misery, and thought how infinitely more desirable it was to stand on a platform and look charming and sweet and say all the right things in exactly the right way, with an adoring husband somewhere behind, than to make the best butter in the Three Kingdoms.

After that, the certificates were given out, and the noble first-class came up blushing and bowing to receive the spoils of war. Finally, Dandy, for her duck-egg.

It seemed to her that the tent was ten miles long and packed like a Military Tournament. She saw the examiner’s eyes bulging with pity, and wondered absently why they didn’t fall out. She heard her father’s big whisper: “Now then, Mother, don’t you fret! Don’t fret, Mother!” and knew that he was patting his wife’s hand. She heard the caretaker’s grunt. And at the foot of the steps she felt exactly as if hot needles were dancing red-slippered all over her, simply because there was one very ordinary person sitting on the platform, engaged in staring at his boots.

But as she curtsied to the pretty lady and the duck-egg, wishing herself at Halsted for the last time in her life, Harriet came suddenly to her rescue.

“Good lad, Dandy!” she bawled, clapping like a small thunderstorm, and the general embarrassment broke in a burst of amusement and applause. Everybody laughed; competitors, audience, the miserable examiner—thrilling with gratitude towards his late tormentor—and Dandy herself. Grumphy waddled forward to the extreme edge, and reached out a long, loving tongue.

“I am sure we all appreciate Miss Shaw’s sporting effort!” the pretty lady said prettily, and there was more applause. Dandy looked up bravely and met Lanty’s eyes, turned on her at last as if they really saw her.

“It was very bad butter!” she said candidly, putting out a hand to the rolling tongue, and raising a fresh laugh by her cheerful honesty. Lancaster leaned forward, smiling.

“May I buy it for that thin dog of mine?” he asked; and instantly the Lane was about them both instead of the crowded tent, and a vision of rippling wind on the turning corn. They had been alien, then; he had almost frankly disliked her; but that was long ago, and in this moment they were all the nearer for it. She had said that she was looking for herself, even as Grumphy, galumphing through new wheat; and in looking for herself she had found somebody—ah, how much dearer! And he had said that the whip was the only teacher. Well, she had come through many a scourging of longing and revolt, unbearable pain, self-hatred and contempt, and had learned many things; but in this hour of absurd humiliation she knew that the one great thing she had learned she had at last taught him also. She turned and went blindly through the still cheering crowd to her seat. But it was twenty miles back, because she went from him.

As they streamed out of the tent, Bluecaster came over a hedge on a splashed hunter, and the Quetta-lings, who had a passion for all locomotion that did not include plain walking upon their own legs, swarmed up him. Harriet stalked after them, and lifted the Little Great Quetta down again, because he was precious. The big, black eyes filled with tears, but he did not rebel. He knew that he was precious, and it had very serious drawbacks.