‘Mind opening the gate, you?’ said a voice behind; and turning, the thinker saw a dealer in a trap, who wanted the gate opened, to save him the trouble of getting down to do it himself. The thinker did as he was asked, and held the gate open. The trap went slowly through.
‘Will you come on and take a glass?’ said the dealer, pointing with the butt-end of his whip. ‘Crown.’ This was sententious for the Crown in the hamlet; country-folk speak in pieces, putting the principal word in a sentence for the entire paragraph.
The thinker shook his head and shut the gate, carefully hasping it. The dealer drove on.
‘Who’s that?’ thought the gray man, watching the trap jolt down the rough road. ‘Wants veal, I suppose; no veal here, no good.—Now, look!’
The group by the broken chain beckoned to the trap; a lad went across to it with the chain, got up, and was driven off, so saving himself half a mile on his road to the forge.
‘Anything to save themselves exertion. Nothing will make them move faster—like whipping a carthorse into a gallop; it soon dies away in the old jog-trot. Why—they have actually started again! actually started!’
He watched the teams a little longer, heedless of the wind, which he abused, but which really did not affect him, and then walked along the hedgerow down hill. Two men were sowing a field on the slope, swinging the hand full of grain from the hip regular as time itself, a swing calculated to throw the seed so far, but not too far, and without jerk. The next field had just been manured, and he stopped to glance at the crowds of small birds which were looking over the straw—finches and sparrows, and the bluish gray of pied wagtails. There were hundreds of small birds. While he stood, a hedge-sparrow uttered his thin pleading song on the hedge-top, and a meadow-pipit which had mounted a little way in the air, came down with outspread wings with a short ‘Seep, seep,’ to the ground. Lark and pipit seem near relations; only the skylark sings rising, descending, anywhere; but the pipits chiefly while slowly descending. There had been a rough attempt at market-gardening in the field after this, and rows of cabbage gone up to seed stood forlorn and ragged. On the top of one of these, a skylark was perched, calling at intervals; for though classed as a non-percher, perch he does sometimes. Meadows succeeded on the level ground—one had been covered with the scrapings of roads, a whitish, crumbling dirt, dry and falling to pieces in the wind. The grass was pale, its wintry hue not yet gone, and the clods seemed to make it appear paler. Among these clods, four or five thrushes were seeking their food; on a bare oak, a blackbird was perched, his mate no doubt close by in the hedgerow; at the margin of a pond, a black-and-white wagtail waded in the water; a blue tit flew across to the corner. Brown thrushes, dark blackbird, blue tit, and wagtail, gave a little colour to the angle of the meadow. A gleam of passing sunlight brightened it. Two wood-pigeons came to a thick bush growing over a gray wall on the other side; for ivy-berries, probably.
A cart passed at a little distance, laden with red mangolds, fresh from the pit in which they had been stored; the roots had grown out a trifle, and the rootlets were mauve. A goldfinch perched on a dry dead stalk of wild carrot, a stalk that looked too slender to bear the bird. As the weather-beaten man moved, the goldfinch flew, and the golden wings outspread formed a bright contrast with the dull white clods. Crossing the meadow, and startling the wood-pigeons, our friend scaled the gray wall, putting his foot in a hole left for the purpose. Dark moss lined the interstices between the irregular and loosely placed stones. Above, on the bank, and greener than the grass, grew moss at the roots of ash-stoles and wherever there was shelter. Broad rank green arum leaves crowded each other in places. Red stalks of herb-Robert spread open. The weather-beaten man gathered a white wild violet from the shelter of a dead dry oak-leaf, and as he placed it in his button-hole, paused to listen to the baying of hounds. Yowp! yow! The cries echoed from the bank and filled the narrow beechwood within. A shot followed, and then another, and a third after an interval. More yowping. The gray-brown head of a rabbit suddenly appeared over the top of the bank, within three yards of him, and he could see the creature’s whiskers nervously working, as its mind estimated its chances of escape. Instead of turning back, the rabbit made a rush to get under an ash-stole where was a burrow. The yowping went slowly away; the beeches rang again as if the beagles were in cry. Two assistant-keepers were working the outskirts, and shooting the rabbits which sat out in the brushwood, and so were not to be captured by nets and ferrets. The ground-game was strictly kept down; the noise was made by half-a-dozen puppies they had with them. Passing through the ash-stoles, and next the narrow beechwood, the gray man walked across the open park, and after awhile came in sight of Thardover House. His steps were directed to the great arched porch, beneath which the village-folk boasted a waggon-load could pass. The inner door swung open as if by instinct at his approach. The man who had so neighbourly opened the gate to the dealer in the trap was James Thardover, the owner of the property. Historic as was his name and residence, he was utterly devoid of affectation; a true man of the land.
II.—NEW TITLE-DEEDS.
Deed, seal, and charter give but a feeble hold compared with that which is afforded by labour. James Thardover held his lands again by right of labour; he had taken possession of them once more with thought, design, and actual work, as his ancestors had with the sword. He had laid hands, as it were, on every acre. Those who work, own. There are many who receive rent who do not own; they are proprietors, not owners; like receiving dividends on stock, which stock is never seen or handled. Their rights are legal only; his right was the right of labour, and it might be added, of forbearance. It is a condition of ownership in the United States that the settler clears so much and brings so many acres into cultivation. It was just this condition which he had practically carried out upon the Thardover estate. He had done so much, and in so varied a manner, that it is difficult to select particular acts for enumeration. All the great agricultural movements of the last thirty years he had energetically supported. There was the draining movement. The undulating contour of the country, deep vales alternating with moderate brows, gave a sufficient supply of water to every farm, and on the lower lands led to flooding and the formation of marshes. Horley Bottom, where the hay used to be frequently carried into the river by a June freshet, was now safe from flood. Flag Marsh had been completely drained, and made some of the best wheat-land in the neighbourhood. Part of a bark canoe was found in it; the remnants were preserved at Thardover House, but gradually fell to pieces.