THE GIG AND THE FOUR-IN-HAND. A BICYCLE FARMER
Two vehicles were gradually approaching each other from opposite
directions on a long, straight stretch of country road, which, at the
first glance, appeared level. The glare of the August sunshine reflected
from the white dust, the intense heat that caused a flickering motion of
the air like that which may be seen over a flue, the monotonous low
cropped hedges, the scarcity of trees, and boundless plain of cornfields,
all tended to deceive the eye. The road was not really level, but rose and
fell in narrow, steep valleys, that crossed it at right angles--the glance
saw across these valleys without recognising their existence. It was
curious to observe how first one and then the other vehicle suddenly
disappeared, as if they had sunk into the ground, and remained hidden for
some time. During the disappearance the vehicle was occupied in cautiously
going down one steep slope and slowly ascending the other. It then seemed
to rapidly come nearer till another hollow intervened, and it was abruptly
checked. The people who were driving could observe each other from a long
distance, and might naturally think that they should pass directly,
instead of which they did not seem to get much nearer. Some miles away,
where the same road crossed the Downs, it looked from afar like a white
line drawn perpendicularly up the hill.
The road itself was narrow, hardly wider than a lane, but on either side
was a broad strip of turf, each strip quite twice the width of the
metalled portion. On the verge of the dust the red pimpernel opened its
flowers to the bright blue cloudless sky, and the lowly convolvulus grew
thickly among the tall dusty bennets. Sweet short clover flowers stood but
a little way back; still nearer the hedges the grass was coarser, long,
and wire-like. Tall thistles stood beside the water furrows and beside the
ditch, and round the hawthorn bushes that grew at intervals on the sward
isolated from the hedge. Loose flints of great size lay here and there
among the grass, perhaps rolled aside surreptitiously by the
stone-breakers to save themselves trouble. Everything hot and dusty. The
clover dusty, the convolvulus dusty, the brambles and hawthorn, the small
scattered elms all dusty, all longing for a shower or for a cool breeze.
The reapers were at work in the wheat, but the plain was so level that it
was not possible to see them without mounting upon a flint heap. Then
their heads were just visible as they stood upright, but when they stooped
to use the hook they disappeared. Yonder, however, a solitary man in his
shirt-sleeves perched up above the corn went round and round the field,
and beside him strange awkward arms seemed to beat down the wheat. He was
driving a reaping machine, to which the windmill-like arms belonged.
Beside the road a shepherd lingered, leaning on a gate, while his flock,
which he was driving just as fast and no faster than they cared to eat
their way along the sward, fed part on one side and part on the other. Now
and then two or three sheep crossed over with the tinkling of a bell. In
the silence and stillness and brooding heat, the larks came and dusted
themselves in the white impalpable powder of the road. Farther away the
partridges stole quietly to an anthill at the edge of some barley. By the
white road, a white milestone, chipped and defaced, stood almost hidden
among thistles and brambles. Some white railings guarded the sides of a
bridge, or rather a low arch over a dry watercourse. Heat, dust, a glaring
whiteness, and a boundless expanse of golden wheat on either hand.
After awhile a towering four-in-hand coach rose out of the hollow where it
had been hidden, and came bowling along the level. The rapid hoofs beat
the dust, which sprang up and followed behind in a cloud, stretching far
in the rear, for in so still an atmosphere the particles were long before
they settled again. White parasols and light dust coats--everything that
could be contrived for coolness--gay feathers and fluttering fringes,
whose wearers sat in easy attitudes enjoying the breeze created by the
swift motion. Upon such a day the roof of a coach is more pleasant than
the thickest shade, because of that current of air, for the same leaves
that keep off the sun also prevent a passing zephyr from refreshing the
forehead. But the swifter the horses the sweeter the fresh wind to fan the
delicate cheek and drooping eyelid of indolent beauty. So idle were they
all that they barely spoke, and could only smile instead of laugh if one
exerted himself to utter a good jest. The gentleman who handled the
ribbons was the only one thoroughly awake.
His eyes were downcast, indeed, because they never left his horses, but
his ears were sharply alive to the rhythmic beat of the hoofs and the
faint creak and occasional jingle of the harness. Had a single shoe failed
to send forth the proper sound as it struck the hard dry road, had there
been a creak or a jingle too many, or too few, those ears would instantly
have detected it. The downcast eyes that looked neither to the right nor
left--at the golden wheat or the broad fields of barley--were keenly
watching the ears of the team, and noting how one of the leaders lathered
and flung white froth upon the dust. From that height the bowed backs of
the reapers were visible in the corn. The reapers caught sight of the
coach, and stood up to look, and wiped their brows, and a distant hurrah
came from the boys among them. In all the pomp and glory of paint and
varnish the tall coach rolled on, gently swaying from side to side as the
springs yielded to the irregularities of the road. It came with a heavy
rumble like far-away thunder over the low arch that spanned the dry
water-course.
Meantime the vehicle approaching from the opposite direction had also
appeared out of a hollow. It was a high, narrow gig of ancient make, drawn
by a horse too low for the shafts and too fat for work. In the gig sat two
people closely pressed together by reason of its narrow dimensions. The
lady wore a black silk dress, of good and indeed costly material, but
white with the dust that had settled upon it. Her hands were covered with
black cotton gloves, and she held a black umbrella. Her face was hidden by
a black veil; thin corkscrew curls fringed the back of her head. She was
stout, and sat heavily in the gig. The man wore a grey suit, too short in
the trousers--at least they appeared so as he sat with his knees wide
apart, and the toe of one heavy boot partly projecting at the side of the
dash-board. A much-worn straw hat was drawn over his eyes, and he held a
short whip in his red hand. He did not press his horse, but allowed the
lazy animal to go jog-trot at his own pace. The panels of the gig had lost
their original shining polish; the varnish had cracked and worn, till the
surface was rough and grey. The harness was equally bare and worn, the
reins mended more than once. The whole ramshackle concern looked as if it
would presently fall to pieces, but the horse was in much too good a
condition.
When the four-in-hand had come within about a hundred yards, the farmer
pulled his left rein hard, and drew his gig right out of the road on to
the sward, and then stopped dead, to give the coach the full use of the
way. As it passed he took off his straw hat, and his wife stooped low as a
makeshift for bowing. An outsider might have thought that the aristocratic
coach would have gone by this extremely humble couple without so much as
noticing it. But the gentleman who was driving lifted his hat to the dowdy
lady, with a gesture of marked politeness, and a young and
elegantly-dressed lady, his sister, nodded and smiled, and waved her hand
to her. After the coach had rolled some fifty yards away, the farmer
pulled into the road, and went on through the cloud of dust it had left
behind it, with a complacent smile upon his hard and weather-worn
features. 'A' be a nice young gentleman, the Honourable be,' said he
presently. 'So be Lady Blanche,' replied his wife, lifting her veil and
looking back after the four-in-hand. 'I'm sure her smile's that sweet it
be a pleasure for to see her.'
Half a mile farther the farmer drew out of the road again, drove close to
the hedge, stopped, and stood up to look over. A strongly-built young man,
who had been driving the reaping machine in his shirt-sleeves, alighted
from his seat and came across to the hedge.
'Goes very well to-day,' he said, meaning that the machine answered.
'You be got into a good upstanding piece, John,' replied the old man
sharply in his thin jerky voice, which curiously contrasted with his still
powerful frame. 'You take un in there and try un'--pointing to a piece
where the crop had been beaten down by a storm, and where the reapers were
at work. 'You had better put the rattletrap thing away, John, and go in
and help they. Never wasted money in all my life over such a thing as that
before. What be he going to do all the winter? Bide and rust, I 'spose.
Can you put un to cut off they nettles along the ditch among they stones?'
'It would break the knives,' said the son.
'But you could cut um with a hook, couldn't you?' asked the old man, in a
tone that was meant to convey withering contempt of a machine that could
only do one thing, and must perforce lie idle ten months of the year.
'That's hardly a fair way of looking at it,' the son ventured.
'John,' said his mother, severely, 'I can't think how you young men can
contradict your father. I'm sure young men never spoke so in my time; and
I'm sure your father has been prospered in his farming' (she felt her silk
dress), 'and has done very well without any machines, which cost a deal of
money--and Heaven knows there's a vast amount going out every day.'
A gruff voice interrupted her--one of the reapers had advanced along the
hedge, with a large earthenware jar in his hand.
'Measter,' he shouted to the farmer in the gig, 'can't you send us out
some better tackle than this yer stuff?'
He poured some ale out of the jar on the stubble with an expression of
utter disgust.
'It be the same as I drink myself,' said the farmer, sharply, and
immediately sat down, struck the horse, and drove off.
His son and the labourer--who could hardly have been distinguished apart
so far as their dress went--stood gazing after him for a few minutes. They
then turned, and each went back to his work without a word.
The farmer drove on steadily homewards at the same jog-trot pace that had
been his wont these forty years. The house stood a considerable distance
back from the road: it was a gabled building of large size, and not
without interest. It was approached by a drive that crossed a green, where
some ducks were waddling about, and entered the front garden, which was
surrounded by a low wall. Within was a lawn and an ancient yew tree. The
porch was overgrown with ivy, and the trees that rose behind the grey
tiles of the roof set the old house in a frame of foliage. A fine old
English homestead, where any man might be proud to dwell. But the farmer
did not turn up the drive. He followed the road till he came to a gate
leading into the rickyard, and, there getting out of the gig, held the
gate open while the horse walked through. He never used the drive or the
front door, but always came in and went out at the back, through the
rickyard.
The front garden and lawn were kept in good order, but no one belonging to
the house ever frequented it. Had any stranger driven up to the front
door, he might have hammered away with the narrow knocker--there was no
bell--for half an hour before making any one hear, and then probably it
would have been by the accident of the servant going by the passage, and
not by dint of noise. The household lived in the back part of the house.
There was a parlour well furnished, sweet with flowers placed there fresh
daily, and with the odour of those in the garden, whose scent came in at
the ever open window; but no one sat in it from week's end to week's end.
The whole life of the inmates passed in two back rooms--a sitting-room and
kitchen.
With some slight concessions to the times only, Farmer M---- led the life
his fathers led before him, and farmed his tenancy upon the same
principles. He did not, indeed, dine with the labourers, but he ate very
much the same food as they did. Some said he would eat what no labourer or
servant would touch; and, as he had stated, drank the same smallest of
small beer. His wife made a large quantity of home-made wine every year,
of which she partook in a moderate degree, and which was the liquor
usually set before visitors. They rose early, and at once went about their
work. He saw his men, and then got on his horse and rode round the farm.
He returned to luncheon, saw the men again, and again went out and took a
turn of work with them. He rode a horse because of the distance--the farm
being large--not for pleasure. Without it he could not have visited his
fields often enough to satisfy himself that the labourers were going on
with their work. He did not hunt, nor shoot--he had the right, but never
exercised it; though occasionally he was seen about the newly-sown fields
with a single-barrel gun, firing at the birds that congregated in crowds.
Neither would he allow his sons to shoot or hunt.
One worked with the labourers, acting as working bailiff--it was he who
drove the reaping machine, which, after long argument and much persuasion
the farmer bought, only to grumble at and abuse every day afterwards. The
other was apprenticed as a lad to a builder and carpenter of the market
town, and learned the trade exactly as the rest of the men did there. He
lodged in the town in the cheapest of houses, ate hard bread and cheese
with the carpenters and masons and bricklayers, and was glad when the
pittance he received was raised a shilling a week. Once now and then he
walked over to the farm on Sundays or holidays--he was not allowed to come
too often. They did not even send him in a basket of apples from the great
orchard; all the apples were carefully gathered and sold.
These two sons were now grown men, strong and robust, and better educated
than would have been imagined--thanks to their own industry and good
sense, and not to any schooling they received. Two finer specimens of
physical manhood it would have been difficult to find, yet their wages
were no more than those of ordinary labourers and workmen. The bailiff,
the eldest, had a pound a week, out of which he had to purchase every
necessary, and from which five shillings were deducted for lodgings. It
may be that he helped himself to various little perquisites, but his
income from every source was not equal to that of a junior clerk. The
other nominally received more, being now a skilled workman; but as he had
to pay for his lodgings and food in town, he was really hardly so well
off. Neither of these young men had the least chance of marrying till
their father should die; nothing on earth would induce him to part with
the money required to set the one in business up or the other in a
separate farm. He had worked all his time under his father, and it seemed
to him perfectly natural that his sons should work all their time under
him.
There was one daughter, and she, too, was out at work. She was housekeeper
to an infirm old farmer; that is to say, she superintended the dairy and
the kitchen, and received hardly as much as a cook in a London
establishment. Like the sons, she was finely developed physically, and had
more of the manners of a lady than seemed possible under the
circumstances.
Her father's principles of farming were much the same as his plan of
housekeeping and family government. It consisted of never spending any
money. He bought no machines. The reaping machine was the one exception,
and a bitter point with the old man. He entered on no extensive draining
works, nor worried his landlord to begin them. He was content with the
tumble-down sheds till it was possible to shelter cattle in them no
longer. Sometimes he was compelled to purchase a small quantity of
artificial manure, but it was with extreme reluctance. He calculated to
produce sufficient manure in the stalls, for he kept a large head of
fattening cattle, and sheep to the greatest extent possible. He would
rather let a field lie fallow, and go without the crop from it, till
nature had restored the exhausted fertility, than supply that fertility at
the cost of spending money. The one guiding motto of his life was 'Save,
not invest.' When once he got hold of a sovereign he parted with it no
more; not though all the scientific professors in the world came to him
with their analyses, and statistics, and discoveries. He put it in the
bank, just as his father would have put it into a strong box under his
bed. There it remained, and the interest that accrued, small as it was,
was added to it.
Yet it was his pride to do his land well. He manured it well, because he
kept cattle and sheep, especially the latter, to the fullest capacity of
his acreage; and because, as said before, he could and did afford to let
land lie fallow when necessary. He was in no hurry. He was not anxious for
so much immediate percentage upon an investment in artificial manure or
steam-plough. He might have said, with a greater man, 'Time and I are
two.' It was Time, the slow passage of the years, that gave him his
profit. He was always providing for the future; he was never out of
anything, because he was never obliged to force a sale of produce in order
to get the ready cash to pay the bank its interest upon borrowed money. He
never borrowed; neither did he ever make a speech, or even so much as
attend a farmers' club, to listen to a scientific lecture. But his teams of
horses were the admiration of the country side--no such horses came into
the market town. His rent was paid punctually, and always with country
bank-notes--none of your clean, newfangled cheques, or Bank of England
crisp paper, but soiled, greasy country notes of small denomination.
Farmer M---- never asked for a return or reduction of his rent. The
neighbours said that he was cheaply rented: that was not true in regard to
the land itself. But he certainly was cheaply rented if the condition of
the farm was looked at. In the course of so many long years of careful
farming he had got his place into such a state of cultivation that it
could stand two or three bad seasons without much deterioration. The same
bad seasons quite spoiled the land of such of his neighbours as had relied
upon a constant application of stimulants to the soil. The stimulating
substances being no longer applied, as they could not afford to buy them,
the land fell back and appeared poor.
Farmer M---, of course, grumbled at the weather, but the crops belied his
lips. He was, in fact, wealthy--not the wealth that is seen in cities, but
rich for a countryman. He could have started both his sons in business
with solid capital. Yet he drank small beer which the reapers despised,
and drove about in a rusty old gig, with thousands to his credit at that
old country bank. When he got home that afternoon, he carefully put away
some bags of coin for the wages of the men, which he had been to fetch,
and at once started out for the rickyard, to see how things were
progressing. So the Honourable on the tall four-in-hand saluted with
marked emphasis the humble gig that pulled right out of the road to give
him the way, and the Lady Blanche waved her hand to the dowdy in the dusty
black silk with her sweetest smile. The Honourable, when he went over the
farm with his breechloader, invariably came in and drank a glass of the
small beer. The Lady Blanche, at least once in the autumn, rode up,
alighted, and drank one glass of the home-made wine with the dowdy. Her
papa, the landlord, was an invalid, but he as invariably sent a splendid
basket of hot-house grapes. But Farmer M---- was behind the age.
Had he looked over the hedge in the evening, he might have seen a row of
reapers walking down the road at the sudden sound of a jingling bell
behind them, open their line, and wheel like a squad, part to the right
and part to the left, to let the bicycle pass. After it had gone by they
closed their rank, and trudged on toward the village. They had been at
work all day in the uplands among the corn, cutting away with their hooks
low down the yellow straw. They began in the early morning, and had first
to walk two miles or more up to the harvest field. Stooping, as they
worked, to strike low enough, the hot sun poured his fierce rays upon
their shoulders and the backs of their necks. The sinews of the right arm
had continually to drive the steel through straw and tough weeds entangled
in the wheat. There was no shadow to sit under for luncheon, save that at
the side of the shocks, where the sheaves radiated heat and interrupted
the light air, so that the shadow was warmer than the sunshine. Coarse
cold bacon and bread, cheese, and a jar of small beer, or a tin can of
weak cold tea, were all they had to supply them with fresh strength for
further labour.
At last the evening came, the jackets so long thrown aside were resumed,
and the walk home began. After so many hours of wearisome labour it was
hardly strange that their natural senses were dulled--that they did not
look about them, nor converse gaily. By mutual, if unexpressed consent,
they intended to call at the wayside inn when they reached it, to rest on
the hard bench outside, and take a quart of stronger ale. Thus trudging
homewards after that exhausting day, they did not hear the almost silent
approach of the bicycle behind till the rider rang his bell. When he had
passed, the rider worked his feet faster, and swiftly sped away along the
dry and dusty road. He was a tall young gentleman, whose form was well set
off and shown by the tight-fitting bicycle costume. He rode well and with
perfect command--the track left in the dust was straight, there was no
wobbling or uncertainty.
'That be a better job than ourn, you,' said one of the men, as they
watched the bicycle rapidly proceeding ahead.
'Ay,' replied his mate, 'he be a vine varmer, he be.'
Master Phillip, having a clear stretch of road, put on his utmost speed,
and neither heard the comments made upon him, nor would ha e cared if he
had. He was in haste, for he was late, and feared every minute to hear the
distant dinner bell. It was his vacation, and Master Phillip, having
temporarily left his studies, was visiting a gentleman who had taken a
country mansion and shooting for the season. His host had accumulated
wealth in the 'City,' and naturally considered himself an authority on
country matters. Master Phillip's 'governor' was likewise in a large way
of business, and possessed of wealth, and thought it the correct thing for
one of his sons to 'go in' for agriculture--a highly genteel occupation,
if rightly followed, with capital and intelligence. Phillip liked to ride
his bicycle in the cool of the evening, and was supposed in these
excursions to be taking a survey of the soil and the crops, and to be
comparing the style of agriculture in the district to that to which he had
been trained while pursuing his studies. He slipped past the wayside inn;
he glided by the cottages and gardens at the outskirts of the village; and
then, leaving the more thickly inhabited part on one side, went by a
rickyard. Men were busy in the yard putting up the last load of the
evening, and the farmer in his shirt-sleeves was working among and
directing the rest. The bicyclist without a glance rode on, and shortly
after reached the lodge gates. They were open, in anticipation of his
arrival.
He rode up the long drive, across the park, under the old elms, and
alighted at the mansion before the dinner bell rang, much to his relief;
for his host had more than one daughter, and Phillip liked to arrange his
toilet to perfection before he joined their society. His twenty-five-guinea
dressing-case, elaborately fitted up--too completely indeed, for he had no
use for the razor--soon enabled him to trim and prepare for the
dining-room. His five-guinea coat, elegant studs, spotless shirt and
wristbands, valuable seal ring on one finger, patent leather boots,
keyless watch, eyeglass, gold toothpick in one pocket, were all carefully
selected, and in the best possible style. Mr. Phillip--he would have
scorned the boyish 'master'--was a gentleman, from the perfumed locks
above to the polished patent leather below. There was _ton_ in his very
air, in the 'ah, ah,' of his treble London tone of voice, the antithesis
of the broad country bass. He had a firm belief in the fitness of
things--in the unities, so to speak, of suit, action, and time.
When his team were struggling to force the ball by kick, or other
permitted means, across the tented field, Phillip was arrayed in accurate
football costume. When he stood on the close-mown lawn within the
white-marked square of tennis and faced the net, his jacket was barred or
striped with scarlet. Then there was the bicycle dress, the morning coat,
the shooting jacket, and the dinner coat, not to mention the Ulster or
Connaught overcoat, the dust coat, and minor items innumerable. Whether
Phillip rolled in the mire at football, or bestrode a bicycle, or sat down
to snow-white tablecloth and napkin, he conscientiously dressed the part.
The very completeness of his prescribed studies--the exhaustive character
of the curriculum-naturally induced a frame of mind not to be satisfied
with anything short of absolute precision, and perhaps even apt to extend
itself into dilettanteism.
Like geology, the science of agriculture is so vast, it embraces so wide a
range, that one really hardly knows where it begins or ends. Phillip's
knowledge was universal. He understood all about astronomy, and had
prepared an abstract of figures proving the connection of sun-spots,
rainfall, and the price of wheat. Algebra was the easiest and at the same
time the most accurate mode of conducting the intricate calculations
arising out of the complicated question of food--of flesh formers and heat
generators--that is to say, how much a sheep increased in weight by
gnawing a turnip. Nothing could be more useful than botany-those who could
not distinguish between a dicotyledon and a monocotyledon could certainly
never rightly grasp the nature of a hedgerow. _Bellis perennis_ and
_Sinapis arvensis_ were not to be confounded, and _Triticum repens_ was a
sure sign of a bad farmer. Chemistry proved that too small a quantity of
silicate made John Barleycorn weak in the knee; ammonia, animal
phosphates, nitrogen, and so on, were mere names to many ignorant folk.
The various stages and the different developments of insect life were next
to be considered.
As to the soil and strata--the very groundwork of a farm--geology was the
true guide to the proper selection of suitable seed. Crops had been
garnered by the aid of the electric light, the plough had been driven by
the Gramme machine; electricity, then, would play a foremost part in
future farming, and should be studied with enthusiasm. Without mathematics
nothing could be done; without ornithological study, how know which bird
revelled on grain and which destroyed injurious insects? Spectrum analysis
detected the adulteration of valuable compounds; the photographer recorded
the exact action of the trotting horse; the telephone might convey orders
from one end of an estate to the other; and thus you might go through the
whole alphabet, the whole cyclopaedia of science, and apply every single
branch to agriculture.
It is to be hoped that Phillip's conversational account of his studies has
been correctly reproduced here. The chemical terms look rather weak, but
the memory of an ordinary listener can hardly be expected to retain such a
mass of technicalities. He had piles of strongly-bound books, the reward
of successful examinations, besides diplomas and certificates of
proficiency. These subjects could be pursued under cover, but there was
besides the field work, which had a more practical sound; model farms to
be visited; steam-engines to be seen at work; lectures to be listened to
on the spot; deep-drainage operations, a new drill, or a new sheaf-binder
to be looked at. Then there were the experimental plots--something like
the little _parterres_ seen at the edge of lawns.
One plot was sown without manure, another was sown with manure, a third
had a different kind of manure. The dozen mangolds grown in one patch were
pulled up and carefully weighed. The grains of wheat in an ear standing in
an adjacent patch were counted and recorded. As these plots were about a
yard wide, and could be kept clean, no matter what the weather; and as a
wheelbarrow load of clay, or chalk, or sand thrown down would alter the
geological formation, the results obtained from them were certainly
instructive, and would be very useful as a guide to the cultivation of a
thousand acres. There was also a large, heavy iron roller, which the
scholars could if they chose drag round and round the gravel path.
Architecture, again, touches the agriculturist nearly. He requires
buildings for the pigs, cattle, horses, labourers, engine and machinery,
lastly, for himself. Out of doors almost any farmhouse that could be
visited might be made by a lecturer an illustrative example of what ought
to be avoided. Scarcely one could be found that was not full of
mistakes--utterly wrong, and erected regardless of design and utility.
Within doors, with ink, tracing paper, compasses, straight-edge and ruler,
really valuable ground plans, front elevations, and so on, could be laid
down. Altogether, with this circle of science to study, the future farmer
had very hard work to face. Such exhaustive mental labour induced a
certain nervousness that could only be allayed by relaxation. The bicycle
afforded a grateful change. Mounted upon the slender, swift-revolving
wheel, Mr. Phillip in the cool of the evening, after the long day of
study, sometimes proceeded to stretch his limbs. The light cigar soothed
his weary and overstrained mind.
The bicycle by-and-by, as if drawn by the power of gravitation, approached
more and more nearly to the distant town. It threaded the streets, and
finally stopped in the archway of an inn. There, leaned against the wall,
under the eye of the respectful ostler, the bicycle reposed. The owner
strolled upstairs, and in the company of choice spirits studied the laws
of right angles, of motion, and retarding friction, upon the level surface
of the billiard table. Somewhere in a not much frequented street there
could be seen a small window in which a coloured plate of fashions was
always displayed. There were also some bonnets, trimming, and tasteful
feathers. Nothing could be more attractive than this window. The milliner
was young and pretty, and seemed to have a cousin equally young and
pretty. Poor, lonely, friendless creatures, it was not surprising they
should welcome a little flirtation. The bicycle which so swiftly carries
the young man of the present day beyond the penetrating vision of his aunt
or tutor has much to answer for.
But, as pointed out previously, such exhaustive scientific training
naturally tends to make the mind mathematical. It cannot be satisfied
unless its surroundings--the substantial realisation of the concrete-are
perfect. So Mr. Phillip had a suit for every purpose--for football,
cricket, tennis, bicycle, shooting, dining, and strolling about. In the
same way he possessed a perfect armoury of athletic and other useful
implements. There were fine bats by the best makers for cricket, rods for
trout fishing, splendid modified choke-bores, saddles, jockey caps, and so
on. A gentleman like this could hardly long remain in the solitary halls
of learning--society must claim him for parties, balls, dinners, and the
usual round. It was understood that his 'governor' was a man of
substantial wealth; that Phillip would certainly be placed in an extensive
farm, to play the pleasant part of a gentleman farmer. People with
marriageable daughters looked upon the clever scholar as a desirable
addition to their drawing-rooms. Phillip, in short, found himself by
degrees involved in a whirl of festivities, and was never at a loss where
to go for amusement when he could obtain leave to seek relaxation. If such
social adulation made him a little vain, if it led to the purchase of a
twenty-five-guinea dressing-case, and to frequent consultations with the
tailor, it really was not Phillip's fault. He felt himself popular, and
accepted the position.
When the vacation came, gathering up a fresh pile of grandly-bound prize
books, broad sheets of diplomas, and certificates, Phillip departed to his
friend's mansion for the partridge shooting. Coming down the road on the
bicycle he overtook the reapers, and sprang his bell to warn them. The
reapers thought Phillip's job better than theirs.
At dinner, while sipping his claret, Phillip delivered his opinion upon
the agriculture of the district, which he had surveyed from his bicycle.
It was incomplete, stationary, or retrograde. The form of the fields alone
was an index to the character of the farmers who cultivated them. Not one
had a regular shape. The fields were neither circles, squares,
parallelograms, nor triangles. One side, perhaps, might be straight; the
hedgerow on the other had a dozen curves, and came up to a point. With
such irregular enclosures it was impossible that the farmer could plan out
his course with the necessary accuracy. The same incompleteness ran
through everything--one field was well tilled, the next indifferently, the
third full of weeds. Here was a good modern cattle-shed, well-designed for
the purpose; yonder was a tumble-down building, with holes in the roof and
walls.
So, too, with the implements--a farmer never seemed to have a complete
set. One farmer had, perhaps, a reaping machine, but he had not got an
elevator; another had an elevator, but no steam-plough. No one had a full
set of machinery. If they drained, they only drained one field; the entire
farm was never by any possibility finished straight off. If the farmer had
two new light carts of approved construction, he was sure to have three
old rumbling waggons, in drawing which there was a great waste of power.
Why not have all light carts? There was no uniformity. The farming mind
lacked breadth of view, and dwelt too much on detail. It was not, of
course, the fault of the tenants of the present day, but the very houses
they inhabited were always put in the wrong place. Where the ground was
low, flat, and liable to be flooded, the farmhouse was always built by a
brook. When the storms of winter came the brook overflowed, and the place
was almost inaccessible. In hilly districts, where there was not much
water, the farmhouse was situate on the slope, or perhaps on the plateau
above, and in summer very likely every drop of water used had to be drawn
up there from a distance in tanks.
The whole of rural England, in short, wanted rearranging upon mathematical
principles. To begin at the smallest divisions, the fields should be
mapped out like the squares of a chessboard; next, the parishes; and,
lastly, the counties. You ought to be able to work steam-ploughing tackle
across a whole parish, if the rope could be made strong enough. If you
talked with a farmer, you found him somehow or other quite incapable of
following a logical sequence of argument. He got on very well for a few
sentences, but, just as one was going to come to the conclusion, his mind
seized on some little paltry detail, and refused to move any farther. He
positively could not follow you to a logical conclusion. If you, for
instance, tried to show him that a certain course of cropping was the
correct one for certain fields, he would listen for awhile, and then
suddenly declare that the turnips in one of the said fields last year were
a failure. That particular crop of turnips had nothing at all to do with
the system at large, but the farmer could see nothing else.
What had struck him most, however, in that particular district, as he
traversed it on the bicycle, was the great loss of time that must result
from the absence of rapid means of communication on large farms. The
distance across a large farm might, perhaps, be a mile. Some farms were
not very broad, but extended in a narrow strip for a great way. Hours were
occupied in riding round such farms, hours which might be saved by simple
means. Suppose, for example, that a gang of labourers were at work in the
harvest-field, three-quarters of a mile from the farmhouse. Now, why not
have a field telegraph, like that employed in military operations? The
cable or wire was rolled on a drum like those used for watering a lawn.
All that was needed was to harness a pony, and the drum would unroll and
lay the wire as it revolved. The farmer could then sit in his office and
telegraph his instructions without a moment's delay. He could tap the
barometer, and wire to the bailiff in the field to be expeditious, for the
mercury was falling. Practically, there was no more necessity for the
farmer to go outside his office than for a merchant in Mincing Lane. The
merchant did not sail in every ship whose cargo was consigned to him: why
should the farmer watch every waggon loaded? Steam could drive the
farmer's plough, cut the chaff, pump the water, and, in short, do
everything. The field telegraph could be laid down to any required spot
with the greatest ease, and thus, sitting in his office chair, the farmer
could control the operations of the farm without once soiling his hands.
Mr. Phillip, as he concluded his remarks, reached his glass of claret, and
thus incidentally exhibited his own hand, which was as white as a lady's.