"You must come up the Fair with me next time, John-James," suggested
Ishmael, "and then we'll see. Come and show me the calves now…."
The two went off to the cowsheds and for the next hour were examining livestock, from the calves down to the bees—rather a rarity in those parts and the joy of John-James, who had the bee-gift, and was never stung, being able to move a swarm in his bare hands unscathed. Afterwards they walked over part of the farmlands, and Ishmael's heart began to beat high with pride and joy. There is nothing more romantic than land—its wilfulness, its possibilities, its endless intimacies. Ishmael's land was to prove an exacting mistress, unlike the rich, sleek home counties, which only have to be stroked to smile and yield. On these granite heights the soil needed breaking every three years; if a field did very well it might be left four, but never longer. The deep ploughing of the midlands was impossible—the hard subsoil lay too close to the surface, and little wheat was sown as the shallow soil would not bear it, and what was sown never grew to be like the heavy eight-sided corn of softer counties. Yet Ishmael loved his land already and was to love it more and more, its very hardness and fighting of him helping to make its charm.
Neither his early experiences of farm life nor his opportunities of more scientific study had been wasted on Ishmael, and he looked over pasture and arable now with an eye knowing enough, if not quite as much so as he tried to make it appear to John-James. He found the land in good condition, the early-sown grain showing clear green blades and the grass rich enough, while even in the more neglected pastures towards the sea where the thistles had not been refused a foothold they had been kept cut down to prevent seeding. John-James was conscientious, though handicapped by a rigid conservatism and lack of proper help. For the emigration had been very heavy of late years from that part of the world, to the goldfields both of Australia and California. Times were bad, though not as bad as in the North, where thousands of cotton operatives were literally starving owing to the stoppage of the cotton supplies through the American Civil War. The papers were full for months, amid the greater excitement of Princess Alexandra's wedding, of paragraphs headed "The Distress in the North," that had become as much a regular feature as the weather reports or the society gossip. The consequent uneasiness made itself felt even in Cornwall, and perhaps the Anti-Slavery meetings held in Penzance were not entirely disinterested. Also Botallack mine was then in full work and swallowing young men, though for poor enough wage. One way and another, managing the farm was none too easy, and so John-James had found. He looked with as much interest as his stolid mind could compass to the return of Ishmael, with the power of the purse-strings and the expenses of his own education at an end, to work something of a miracle at Cloom. But he had not imagined the miracle to take the form of Jersey cows, and he began to wonder dolefully what newfangled notions about machinery and manure might not also be hatching in the young owner's brain. They mounted in silence the steepest slope of the rolling land and came to a stone hedge on which John-James leant, Ishmael beside him.
They stood in silence, John-James because he hardly ever spoke unless spoken to, and Ishmael because over his spirit rushed a flood of memory that for an aching moment overwhelmed him. This was the field where the Neck had been cried, when, as a little boy, he had first caught at the flying skirts of happiness, first realised the sharpness of the actual instant—and thought it surely could never, so vivid and insistent was it, cease to be…. Now, as then, his eyes sought the line of twisted hedge, and he saw it, looking so much the same, yet set with leaf and blossom so many seasons away from that August evening, even as he was himself from the child who had thought to arrest Time. Yet, realising that, he again tried to snatch at the present, though with the difference that now he told himself that anyway there was such a long, long time before him to be young in that it wouldn't ever pass….
"That's for ploughing now," announced John-James suddenly. "For the mang'ls. 'Tes as good land as any in the place, and a waste to hav'en grass, so it is. Maybe you'd like to come and have a try at it, if you'm not gwain to be above turnen your own hand to work?"
Ishmael had a moment's qualm. What ploughing he had done had been but slight, and he was not free from an uneasy impression that John-James was laying a trap for him into which he would not be sorry to see him fall. It would be no better to put it off, for he could imagine the comments that would fly, so he nodded his head.
"We'll set to work this morning on it," he agreed lightly; "I suppose you're still using wooden ploughs down here?"
"Wooden ploughs …? And what'd 'ee have ploughs made of, I should like to knaw? Gold, like what Arch'laus has in Australy?"
"Iron. All modern ploughs are made of iron, and so are rollers."
"Iron … iron rollers. What's wrong weth a geart granite roller, lad?"