Between eleven and twelve the waggons cease to arrive—it is luncheon time: the exact time for luncheon varies a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, or more, according to the state of the work. Messengers come home for cans of beer, and carry out also to the field wooden ‘bottles’—small barrels holding a gallon or two. After a short interval work goes on again till nearly four o’clock, when it is dinner-time. One or two labourers, deputed by the rest and having leave and licence so to do, enter the farmhouse garden and pull up bundles of onions, lettuces, or radishes—sown over wide areas on purpose—and carry them out to the cart-house, or where-ever the men may be. If far from home, the women often boil a kettle for tea under the hedge, collecting dead sticks fallen from the trees. At six o’clock work is over: the women are allowed to leave half an hour or so previously, that they may prepare their husbands’ suppers.
As the sunset approaches the long broad dusty road loses its white glare, and yonder by the hamlet a bright glistening banner reflects the level rays of the sun with dazzling sheen; it is the gilding on the swinging wayside sign transformed for the moment from a wooden board rudely ornamented with a gilt sun, all rays and rotund cheeks, into a veritable oriflamme.
There the men will assemble by-and-by, on the forms about the trestle table, and share each other’s quarts in the fellowship of labour. Or perhaps the work may be pressing, and the waggons are loaded till the white owl noiselessly flits along the hedgerow, and the round moon rises over the hills. Then those who have stayed to assist find their supper waiting for them in the brewhouse, and do it ample justice.
Once during the morning, while busy in the hay-field, not so much with his hands as his eyes, watching that the ‘wallows’ may be turned over properly, and the ‘wakes’ made at a just distance from each other, that the waggon may pass easily between, the farmer is sure to be summoned home with the news of a swarm of bees. If the work be pressing, they must be attended to by deputy; if not, he hurries home himself; for although in these days bee-keeping is no longer what it used to be, yet the old-fashioned folk take a deep interest in the bees still. They tell you that ‘a swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly’—for it is then too late for the young colony to store up a treasure of golden honey before the flowers begin to fade at the approach of autumn.
It is noticeable that those who labour on their own land (as at Wick) keep up the ancient customs much more vigorously than the tenant who knows that he is liable to receive a notice to quit. And farms, for one reason or another, change tenants much more frequently now than they used to do. Here at Wick the owner feels that every apple tree he grafts, every flower he plants, returns not only a money value, but a joy not to be measured by money. So the bees are carefully watched and tended, as the blue tomtits find to their cost if they become too venturesome.
These bold little bandits will sometimes make a dash for the hive, alighting on the miniature platform before the entrance, and playing havoc with the busy inmates. If alarmed they take refuge in the apple trees, as if conscious that the owner will not shoot them there, since every pellet may destroy potential fruit by cutting and breaking those tender twigs on which it would presently grow. It is a pleasant sight in autumn to see the room devoted to the honey—great broad milk-tins full to the brim of the translucent liquid, distilling slowly from pure white comb, from the top of whose cells the waxen covering has been removed.
All the summer through fresh beauties, indeed, wait upon the owner’s footsteps. In the spring the mowing grass rises thick, strong, and richly green, or hidden by the cloth-of-gold thrown over it by the buttercups! He knows when it is ready for the scythe without reference to the almanac, because of the brown tint which spreads over it from the ripening seeds, sometimes tinged with a dull red, when the stems of the sorrel are plentiful. At first the aftermath has a trace of yellow, as if it were fading; but a shower falls, and fresh green blades shoot up. Or, passing from the hollow meads up on the rising slopes where the plough rules the earth, what so beautiful to watch as the wheat through its various phases of colour?
First green and succulent; then, presently, see a modest ear comes forth with promise of the future. By-and-by, when every stalk is tipped like a sceptre, the lower stalk leaves are still green, but the stems have a faint bluish tinge, and the ears are paling into yellow. Next the white pollen—the bloom—shows under the warm sunshine, and then the birds begin to grow busy among it. They perch on the stalk itself—it is at that time strong and stiff enough to uphold their weight, one on a stem—but not now for mischief. You may see the sparrow carry away with him caterpillars for his young upon the housetop hard by; later on, it is true, he will revel on the ripe grains.
Yesterday you came to the wheat and found it pale like this (it seems but twenty-four hours ago—it is really only a little longer); to-day, when you look again, lo! there is a fleeting yellow already on the ears. They have so quickly caught the hue of the bright sunshine pouring on them. Yet another day or two, and the faint fleeting yellow has become fixed and certain, as the colours are deepened by the great artist. Only when the wind blows and the ears bend in those places where the breeze takes most; it looks paler because the under part of the ear is shown and part of the stalk. Finally comes that rich hue for which no exact similitude exists. In it there is somewhat of the red of the orange, somewhat of the tint of bronze, and somewhat of the hue of maize; but these are poor words wherewith to render fixed a colour that plays over the surface of this yellow sea, for if you take one, two, or a dozen ears you shall not find it, but must look abroad, and let your gaze travel to and fro. Nor is every field alike; here are acres and acres more yellow, yonder a space whiter, beyond that a slope richly ruddy, according to the kind of seed that was sown.
Out of the depths of what to it must seem an impenetrable jungle, from visiting a flower hidden below, a humble-bee climbs rapidly up a stalk a yard or two away while you look, and mounting to the top of the ear, as a post of vantage clear of obstructions, sails away upon the wind.