Autumn Glory; Or, The Toilers of the Field

by René Bazin

A quarter of an hour later the farmer passed round his body the strap fixed to the box on wheels in which the cripple was seated and began dragging it as one tows a boat; the oxen, led by François, going on in front. They took the same road which Jean Nesmy had taken the morning of his dismissal; his footprints were still visible in the dust. There were four superb oxen, preceded by a grey mare, Noblet, Cavalier, Paladin, and Matelot, all with tawny coats, widespread horns, high backs, and slow supple gait. With perfect ease they drew the plough, the share raised, up the steep ascent; and when a trail of bramble across their path tempted them, they would simultaneously slacken speed, and the iron chain that linked the foremost couple to the beam would clank on the ground. François walked gloomily beside them, deep in thought on matters not connected with the day's work.

Those following him, the farmer and his crippled son, were equally silent, but their thoughts were centred on the soil over which they were passing; and with the like sense of peaceful content their eyes roamed over gates, ditches, fields, their minds filled with the same simple interests. With them meditation was a sign of their calling, the mark of the noble vocation of those by whose labours the world is fed. Arrived at the top of the knoll in the field of La Cailleterie, his father helped Mathurin out of the little cart to the foot of an ash-tree, whose branches threw a light shadow over the slope. Before them the fallow land, covered with weeds and ferns, fell away in an even descent, surrounded by hedges on the four sides. Looking down the slope and over the lower hedge could be seen the Marais fading away in the distance like a blue plain.

And now the farmer, having loosened the pin that held the share, himself guided the plough to the extreme left of the field, and put it in place.

"You stay there in the sun," he said to Mathurin. "And you, François, lead your oxen straight. This is a grand day for ploughing. Ohé! Noblet, Cavalier, Paladin, Matelot!"

A cut of the whip sent the mare off, the four oxen lowered their horns and extended their hocks, the ploughshare cut into the earth with the noise of a scythe being whetted; the earth parted in brown clods that formed high ridges on either side, falling back in powdery masses upon themselves like water divided by the bow of a ship. The well-trained oxen went straight and steadily. Their muscles under the supple skin moved regularly and without more apparent effort than if they had been drawing an empty cart upon an even road. Weeds lay uprooted in the ruts; trefoil, wild oats, plantains, pimpernels, broom, its yellow blossoms already mixed with brown pods, brakes folded back on their long stems like young oaks cut down. A haze ascended from the upturned earth exposed to the heat of the sun; in front the dust raised by the feet of the oxen caused the team to proceed in a ruddy aureole, through which numberless gnats and flies were darting.

Mathurin, in the shade of the mountain ash, looked on with envy as the team descended the slope of the hill, and the forms of his father and brother, the oxen and mare, grew smaller in the distance.

"François," exclaimed his father, enjoying the feeling of the shaft under his hand, "François, see to Noblet, he is slackening. Touch up Matelot! The mare is drawing to the left. Brisk up, my boy, you look half asleep!"

And, in truth, François was taking no interest in guiding the plough. He was feeling that the time had come for him to speak, and the difficulty of beginning made him walk with head downcast. At the far end of the field they turned and began the ascent, the plough marking a second line of furrows beside the first. From where Mathurin sat he had lost sight of them on the low ground; now the horns of the oxen and his brother's goad came into view, and, to greet the return of the plough, he began with stentorian voice to chant the slow refrain which can be varied or ended at pleasure. The notes were flung far and wide from his powerful chest, embellished with fioriture ancient as the art of ploughing itself. The oxen knew the rhythm, and stepped in time to it; the cadence accompanied the groan of the wheels on their axes; borne on the air, it was wafted afar o'er the hedges, telling other labourers in fields that the plough was at work on the fallow land of La Cailleterie. The cadence rejoiced the farmer's heart. But François remained gloomy. As the plough neared the shade of the ash-tree, Mathurin, whose thoughts were always busied with the future of La Fromentière, said:

"Father, it would be a good thing to re-plant our vineyard that is dying off. As soon as Driot is home we should do it; what think you?"

The farmer stayed his oxen, lifted his hat to cool his hot head, and smiled, well pleased.