In the yard, drawn up in columns, were the long waggons with their big strong axles, and their fresh-polished wood agleam. There were the ploughs--a distinguished blue-coated regiment, beginning with a bulky "Ruchadlo," and ending with the slender furrow hedgehog, a beautiful "Fowler" steam plough with double shafts--and an engine at the head. The more delicate machines lay under the shelter of a shed; the drainers and the manure-scatterer, and the newest inventions, just arrived from England. There was also a "Zimmermann" threshing-machine, of the kind Leo himself so earnestly coveted, and a five-tubed apparatus for setting seed.
A feeling of admiration untainted by envy awoke in him. A good deal that he had only seen before at agricultural exhibitions, where he had been apt to regard it all scarcely sympathetically as so much machinery de luxe, was there in everyday use, its working capabilities tested and proved.
In another place, on wooden blocks, boxes out of the potato carts lay huddled together like unslain dragons weltering in the sun. Near the stable stood a company of iron-spouted kettles, in which during the winter the tougher-fibred fodder was soaked, and made easy for the mouths of the cattle to masticate. To crown all, there was a perfect reservoir designed by Wolf, such as only model farms could afford. Black clouds of smoke issued from the tall chimney which flanked the distillery buildings, for, although the distillery itself was not this moment at work, the steam-engine was setting in motion the dairy machinery, which was in full activity. Long rows of milkpails were ranged near it facing the sun, snowy white with gold-gleaming hoops--the tin strainers shining as bright as silver; the butter-churns and butter-separators, and all sorts of implements which Leo didn't even know by sight; at every step some new wonder was revealed to him.
"And what is my old lumber in comparison with this?" he thought.
Then a solemn mood overtook him, a feeling of reverend exultation, which banished all his fears, and for a moment let him forget what had brought him there. If it was within human possibility to accomplish all this by dint of energy and strength of purpose, why should not he succeed in a like achievement? He had only to push on steadily from the point at which he had begun, to throw himself heart and soul in his work, and to abandon frivolity and philandering for evermore. The elevating example of his friend before his eyes, the feeling of deliverance which it would give him to procure secretly his happiness, this alone would prevent his making shipwreck again of his career.
As he drew near the stable, a groom whom he did not know met him, and smiled up in his face with familiar impertinence.
"The mistress is not at home to-day," he remarked. "Two lots have had to ride away without seeing her."
"Speak when you are spoken to, fellow!" Leo thundered at him, so that with an anxious exclamation he nearly jumped out of his skin.
What a delightful understanding must exist between servants and guests when a complete stranger was received with this gratuitous officiousness! And how it was accepted as a matter of course that his visit was intended for the fair lady of the house!
He sprang out of the saddle, and was told that the master was with the horses in the paddock, exercising the two-year-olds. He walked in that direction, and the groom, who was probably in the habit of being tipped by his mistress's admirers, glared after him dumbfounded.