The lonely plough

by Constance Holme

That fetched Bluecaster at once, as he expected.

“Right you are! I’ll not shirk. I say—can’t you really spare time for a hundred up?”

But Lanty couldn’t. He knew that his eye along the cue would see nothing but the wriggling length of the Lugg, and he got away again as soon as possible, calling to the black spaniel that had waited on the drive. He went out through the gardens and across the park, half his mind busy with the new vexation, the other turned, as usual, upon the general condition of the property. Certainly, he had every reason to be satisfied. The gardens were perfect. The old Tudor house showed plainly enough that a keen eye watched its every need. The park, too, had had its special attention. The winding carriage-road was trim and rolled; the fences were in order, the young trees protected against cattle, and the Home Farm adjoining was a model holding. Bluecaster was certainly very well-groomed.

He climbed a hillock crowned by a ring of oaks, from which he could see for miles in all directions, and pride grew in him as he looked. Bluecaster might have done nothing startling, as its owner had said, might have sent no great statesmen or fighters to its country’s service; but it was known throughout the North for its prosperity, its careful management, tempering justice with mercy. Bluecaster tenantry were envied, for, if not pampered, they were always considered, could always find an ear for a grievance. Class-hatred was almost unknown on this particular property, where so much of it ran into isolated dales and along lonely marsh-borders. The balance between landlord and tenant swung sanely and steadily, for both had trust in the hand that held it. Only the agent himself felt the weight of the scales cut deep.

But he had not failed. He had taken hold where his father had loosed, and had kept his father’s standard, stumbling at first, but steadying himself as the years passed. He was squarely on his feet, now. His back was straight. No. He had not failed.

He allowed himself this fleeting moment of satisfaction and warm pleasure; and then the chill of the new shadow crept over him, a cloud like a man’s hand out of the west, where the marsh-farms lay. He must think the matter out, have his words in order before the tenants met. He turned his back on Bluecaster, and sought his Lane of Vision.

The thunder had passed, and there was a bright breeze flickering over the sun-touched fields like the wind of a gaily-flirted fan. Even in the lane little whiffs of it darted at him over the hedges, kissing his cheek and brushing his lashes, and when he reached the second arch, he saw it twinkling like the racing feet of airy children over the new, green corn. But, as under the brooding sky at Ninekyrkes, so here, in the fresh morning, the foreknowledge of evil weighed him down, and in his state of mental weariness, of reaction from years of over-strain, he was too weak to throw it off.

He had known that Bracken Holliday disliked him, and would be glad to wound him if he got the chance. Fresh home from the colonies, with money in his pocket, Brack was a great man in his own estimation, and if not perhaps quite on the same plane as Bluecaster himself, felt at least a perfect equality with the agent. Lanty had shown him plainly that the feeling was all on one side, and Brack hadn’t forgotten it. His acute mind had soon grasped that he could hurt Lancaster quickest through his father, and the fact that he had not had to forge his weapon, but had found it sprung to his hand, had given it a strength vastly superior to any carefully-invented grudge. Lanty’s confidence stood firm, but his opponent’s equal conviction hacked at his faith like a hedger’s bill. Of course it would pass. The meeting would laugh Brack to scorn, and that would be the end of the matter. But for the first time a tenant had openly and venomously questioned his father’s judgment and his own, and it rankled. There rose in his heart the cold anger waked by cruel criticism of our helpless dead.

He could see nothing but the corn through the Second Gate of Vision, not even the towering Mountain, though it had met him as he first stepped within.

The break came under the hill, and over the timber he could touch the land as it rose close, curved above, and then raced away into the pale sky. The grain had reached the moment when it waits the last fiery kiss of the sun; it was still ungilt and tenderly green. The crop was heavy, this year, rich as he had scarcely ever known it. Standing beneath it, he could see how thick it was down at the roots.