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Title: Gipsy Waggon. The Story of a Ploughman's Progress.
   [apparently published in England in 1933
   as "The Ploughman's Progress"]
Author: Kaye-Smith, Sheila (1887-1956)
Date of first publication: 1933
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1933 (First U.S. Edition)
Date first posted: 17 July 2008
Date last updated: 17 July 2008
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #148

This ebook was produced by: Andrew Templeton




                             Gipsy Waggon

                             The Story of
                        A Ploughman's Progress

                                  By

                          Sheila Kaye-Smith



                     Harper & Brothers Publishers
                          New York and London
                                 1933



CONTENTS

1924
1925
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933



Gipsy
Waggon



                                 1924


                                  1

The cottage seemed asleep under the trees, resting among them as if it
felt the comfort of their sheltering strength. It was about two hundred
years old, but looked much older, for it had been built in a
jerry-building century, and succeeding occupiers had patched and propped
it, tarred and boarded its crumbling brick, and re-thatched its moulting
roof. It had always been a working-man's cottage, and no one had ever
made a complete job of it, with the result that while older dwellings
still stood firm in their integrity of Caen stone or oak beams, the
cottage at Float Farm had a tumbling look, and almost seemed about to
settle back into the earth under the trees.

The little windows were so small that they looked like half-shut eyes.
Fred Sinden stared at them critically. He ought to have pulled down the
blinds--that was what you did for a funeral, and there were blinds on
them too, roller blinds that he had fixed himself. But somehow he had
not thought of it till now, when it was too late. He had bought a black
suit, which would do for Sundays afterwards, and he had ordered a wreath
from the gardener at Cock Marling, and written on a black-edged
card--"Dear Dad. Not lost but gone before, from Fred." But he had
forgotten to pull down the blinds. The fact that the cottage was half a
mile off the road and that no one but himself would have noticed the
failure made no difference at all.

Well, never mind. Perhaps they would not have come down even if he had
pulled them. It was two years since he had fixed them, and Dad would
never have them used, because he didn't like the blind-dark. Most likely
the damp had got into them. He would have to see about that, because Ivy
might like them used; he expected Ivy to be very fine and particular in
some of her notions.

He opened the door and went in. Even though the blinds were up, the
cottage was dark, full of a green shadow from the overhanging trees. In
order to see his way about in the kitchen he had to leave the door open.
The remains of his dinner welcomed him home--bacon rind, a crust of
bread, the peel of an orange, the smell of an onion. He had not had time
to clear away before the Frenches came for Dad. They had done the
funeral well, those Frenches, with Tom Masters to help them and Percy
Smith from Reedbed. They had looked proper undertakers' men in their
black coats and top hats--you forgot having seen them yesterday at the
Garage in their overalls. The flowers had looked nice too, and they had
arranged them so carefully round the coffin, and looked so solemn and
spoken so respectful that you might have thought that Fred Sinden was
paying for the funeral on the nail instead of at a monthly rate that
made it look as if he would be dead himself before poor Dad was paid
for.

After the funeral Ashdown had offered to come home with him, and Mr.
Vincent had walked part of the home but he had told them he was
expecting Ivy, and they had left him. But it had been kind of them all
the same--kinder than he deserved, for he couldn't really pretend that
he was sorry about Dad, not truly, tur'ble sorry. Dad was long past the
proper age for dying, and for many months had been a miserable old
nuisance both to himself and to his son. There was no good pretending
that Fred or anyone would miss him much, poor old chap.

Besides, his death removed the last of the idea that he was ploughman at
Float Farm, with Fred working under him at a labourer's wages. On that
short bit of way between Leasan churchyard and the turning to Float, Mr.
Vincent had offered him his father's job in style.

"You mustn't think I haven't noticed that for this last year you've been
doing the work and he's been taking the wages. But it wasn't a thing we
could change, seeing he's been ploughman at Float since my father's
time--and anyway the wages was in the family, and knowing he had to die
of that growth I kept on, rather than make trouble with a dying man. But
now I tell you I can take you on in his place at two pounds a week."

That sounded good, that sounded fine. It was true that Dad's wages had
stood at two pounds five, but Fred did not expect to step at once into
the whole of his glory. Besides he knew that extra five shillings,
forced up during the war, had always been a trial to Mr. Vincent,
especially since he had bought Float Farm on a mortgage at the Alard
Sale. . . . Young Sinden felt tenderly for his master's purse.

"I'll be glad of that," he said, shutting into those words all the
bounding hopefulness and thankfulness of his heart.

"You'll be able to marry now," said Mr. Vincent.

"Reckon I shall."

"I'm sorry I can't do anything for you about the cottage; till I've paid
for Float I've no money over for repairs. That building society interest
comes heavy every year."

"Reckon it does."

"But I could let you have a bit of corrugated iron if you want to mend
the roof."

"I might do that."

They touched hats and parted at the top of the lane. There was no
denying that the roof wanted mending, and in his heart Fred was grateful
for that promised bit of iron. He went out of the kitchen into the
adjoining parlour. For years this had suffered all the neglect due to it
in a masculine establishment. Three green stuff chairs stood round a
green-draped table, and from the wall green wallpaper depended in strips
bulging in other places into huge warts and blisters as the damp found
its way behind it through the roof, which at the back of the cottage
sloped down almost to the ground. The plaster had dropped away from the
slanting ceiling, revealing the thatch, and those miserable birds had
been pulling it out for their nests, so that in one or two places you
could see the sky. He must get that iron over the gap before it rained,
or the whole place would be spoiled. Ivy would be sure to want a parlour
to sit in, being used to the gentry and their ways. To-day it required a
considerable effort of imagination to picture her sitting in the parlour
at Float Cottage, and for a moment Fred's ruddy face almost matched the
gravity of his funeral attire.



                                  2

A bicycle bell rang outside the cottage. That must be Ivy--and once more
his face was in cheerful contrast with his coat. He ran back into the
kitchen, and found her in the doorway, gazing about her. She looked so
sweet and lovely, standing there, with the shadows of the leaves on her
summer gown, that for a moment his breath seemed to go, and he could not
speak to her.

"Oh, Fred! there you are! I thought you must be still at the . . . and
then I thought you must be back, as the door was open."

"And what do you think now?"

He took her in his arms and kissed her, thrilling with the delicious
feel of her close to his heart.

"Which do you think now?"

She laughed happily, then checked herself; for she remembered that this
was a house of mourning.

"Fred, you didn't mind my not coming to the funeral? They had people to
lunch, and I couldn't get away. I told you I didn't think I could come."

Her eyes were telling him that she didn't like funerals.

"I didn't expect you to come, and it wouldn't really have done if you
had. If you'd come I'd have had to take a cab for us. As it was I rode
on the hearse and saved five shillings."

"How did it go off?"

"Oh, fine. Uncommon fine. Those Frenches did the thing in proper style.
And quite a lot of folk was there--Ashdown and Masters, of course, and
Piper came over from Eggs Hole, and there was Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, both
of 'em, and Mrs. Waters from the shop, and some more besides. I've only
just got back or I'd have made the place tidier for you."

Out of the tail of his eye he had caught sight of the litter of rind and
peel on the table.

"Oh, don't you worry about that. I'll tidy it for you."

"Why should you? You spend your days at tidying. Have a rest now."

"No, let me; I'd rather. And I'll put the kettle on for some tea."

Their voices were in curious contrast, though they had been born and
bred within three miles of each other. Sinden spoke the rough, slurring
speech of the Sussex man, with great broad vowels like pools in which
the consonants drowned. Ivy spoke in a slow, rather conscious voice the
language she heard on the wireless and in the houses of her various
employers. In Leasan parish the women spoke quite differently from the
men. Quicker to adapt themselves to changing conditions they had shed
certain roughnesses of speech and manner which the men, less observant
and more independent, still kept--though it must not be thought that Ivy
conversed with her sweetheart at Float Cottage as she conversed with her
mistress at Cock Marling Place.

Fred loved her little elegances, though he often teased her about them.
This afternoon he felt apologetic, and started on a long-winded account
of his day's work, which would explain why the cottage had not been
swept or dusted for a week.

But Ivy, though a housemaid of diffused experience--having been employed
for periods varying from a month to a year by most of the better-class
houses in Leasan--had no personal objection to a little dust. The
cottage certainly seemed small and poorly furnished in comparison with
Cock Marling Place or Leasan Parsonage, or even with the small
inconvenient house where Mrs. George Alard lived in the village street,
but it was to Ivy that day a place of enchantment, as it was to Fred.
For the first time they were alone in it. A certain chivalry towards the
dead and respect for an old tradition prevented them saying how pleased
they were to be without the presence of a cross and sick old man, either
sitting glaring at them in his corner, or calling down from the bedroom
every other minute, to be moved or to be given something that he wanted,
or simply to know what they were doing.

Ivy's tea-making proceeded slowly. She got the fire to burn, while Fred
filled the kettle with thick green water; then she wiped two cups and
saucers with a cloth (to save him going to the well again), and they sat
down together in the dead man's chair, to pass very pleasantly the half
hour which must elapse before the water could boil.

"Ivy, you know I've been given Dad's job."

"You told me that you would be."

"It means two pound a week."

"Your father got two pound five."

"But that was more than Mr. Vincent could properly afford. He'd never
stand for it now, and anyway it's more than most of the chaps in these
parts are getting--older chaps than me. It'll be enough, to marry on,
love."

"Oh, Fred"--she leaned back against him, teasing his mouth with her
hair, and his nostrils with that vague yet heady smell which was the
smell of Ivy.

"Why not? I'll never get no more if I wait to be a hundred."

"Well, I haven't said anything against it."

"You darling little bird"--he kissed her mouth as it smiled up at
him--"Ivy, we'll be married and live here. You won't mind living here;
will you, girl?"

"Of course I shan't. I shall love it."

"It's only a poor little place. And you've lived in some grand houses."

"And in some uncommon queer ones. You should have seen my bedroom at
Mrs. Alard's with that beastly child of hers. No, I shall love this
place, and I could make it look sweet with just a few yards of cretonne
for curtains."

"Do you like blinds, Ivy?"

"Blinds?"

"Yes, window-blinds. I've got 'em on all the windows here. I meant to
draw them down for the funeral and then I went and disremembered it.
Father would never use them. He didn't like the blind-dark."

"I don't like the dark much, either. I'd rather have curtains, Freddy
dear. And I tell you what I simply must have, and that's an oil stove. I
never could cook properly on a fire, specially if it burns wood."

"It 'ud be, a pity to burn anything else seeing as we get the wood here
for next to nothing. Ashdown always gives me his chucks when he mends
the hedges, and I can pick up what I like after Mr. Pannell when he's
clearing a shaw, and buy a cord of first-class wood off him at five
shillings."

"I like wood well enough to warm us by, but not to cook on. Wouldn't you
be able to buy me an oil stove, Fred?"

"Well, I dunno, my dear. I'm paying eight shilling a month for the
funeral till goodness knows. Father quarrelled with the Buffaloes, as
maybe you've heard."

"But surelye they gave him back his funeral money."

"They did, but he spent a lot of it before he died. He said he'd sooner
spend money on himself alive than dead."

"He might have thought of us. . . ." Ivy checked an uncharitable
criticism of the deceased. "Well, you can buy an oil stove by
instalments, you know."

"Maybe I can. It's easier to buy things that way. I paid cash down for
this suit--thirty shillings. Do you think it would do for the wedding
too?"

Ivy hesitated. Navy blue was the correct attire for weddings. But she
didn't want poor Fred to spend more than he need, and it would be sheer
wicked waste for him to have two good suits.

"It would do well enough if you could afford a fawn hat to go with it,
just to show it isn't black for mourning."

"Reckon I could do that, and coloured socks and a tie and maybe a pair
of brown shoes. I was a fool to buy it, for I knew I should be marrying
you before the year was out. But somehow I felt poor Dad deserved
something better of me than a black band."

Ivy nodded in agreement--she too was grateful to Dad, for dying; but her
mind was busy with an earlier statement.

"What do you mean by saying you knew we should be married this year."

"Well, ain't we getting married at Christmas?"

"But it's September now."

"What of it? That's more'n three months till Christmas. You'll have time
enough to fix your curtains, love."

"But there's everything else--my clothes, and the bedlinen, and that oil
stove, and maybe some other bits of furniture too."

"I'll see that everything's fixed up proper--don't you fret, sweetheart.
As soon as we've had our tea we'll go round the place and see what wants
doing."

"But, Fred . . . aren't we too young to get married?"

"Too young! What tur'ble nonsense! Who ever heard the like of that?
We're twenty-one, both of us--and what should we wait for? I shan't ever
make more money than I'm making now, and as for owing for the funeral,
those Frenches 'ud never press me, and anyways I can afford it. It won't
cost us more'n a pound a week to live here--not for the first year
anyway."

Ivy saw his delicate implication.

"Oh, Fred. . . ."

"Well, what of it, I say? Sweetheart, you'd never leave me lonely here
now that the place is ready and waiting for you, and I've got the money
to keep you with and more beside. It ain't that you're not serious about
me, is it?--oh, Ivy, Ivy, don't say that!"

She was shocked at the distress that showed itself suddenly in his voice
and in his whole body; she could feel his knees shaking under her while
his arms gripped her in a hold that was suddenly hard and fierce.

"No, no, no! I don't mean that. I'm only thinking--oughtn't we to wait
till we've saved a bit?"

"No. Why should we? We can pay for things as we go along--instalments,
as you said. Besides, I shall be living here alone for three months, not
spending a quarter of two pounds a week. I should ought to have saved
twelve to fifteen pounds by Christmas. Ivy, say you'll marry me then.
Oh, sweetheart, I've never said much about things, but now Dad's gone I
can't bear to wait for you."

She understood him, and moved by a sudden tender stir, pressed her mouth
on his. For some moments they did not move. The sunlight filtering
through the thicknesses of trees and old window-glass, faintly lit their
two heads, close together, his a bleached brown, hers a shining black.
Her arms were round his neck and his were round her waist, as they sat
together in the dead man's chair, with the kettle singing to them.



                                  3

The coils of her hair were still neat and shining when two hours later
she set off home. Fred was not a rough lover--indeed in her secret heart
Ivy sometimes wished he would be rougher, more masterful, more like
those strange dark men she saw on rare occasions at the Kinema in Rye.
But she had seen enough of married life in other women to know that this
gentleness, though occasionally a disappointment in courtship, would be
a comfort in marriage. Some women's husbands were a terrible trial and
took a lot too much for granted. It was just as well to have no such
fears of Fred.

Her neatness may also have been owing to the fact that they had a lot to
do besides love-making. Their kisses were like stars washed out in a
greater illumination. In the light that streamed from their marriage at
Christmas--time they had abandoned the fireside chair and had gone up
and down and about the house, inspecting furniture and making plans,
deciding just how much of Dad's old stuff would do, and how much must be
re-renewed, and how much it would cost. Their calculations were swift
and hopeful. Ivy looked rather blank when she saw the parlour, but was
eager to believe Fred's assurances that with Mr. Vincent's corrugated
iron and a few yards of wallpaper at sixpence three-farthings, he could
make the room look as fine and nice as any which she had ever dusted for
other women.

"And then there'll be my curtains. . . ."

Ivy was a great believer in flowered cretonne as an embellisher and
moderniser of ancient dwelling-places.

At six o'clock she had to go. The head housemaid was out, so she must
help wait at table.

"And, Fred, if we're to be married at Christmas, I'd better give notice
at once."

"You could stop another month or two if you liked."

"But I don't like. I shall be much too busy to do my work, and I'd like
to spend the last two months at home with mother."

"Do just as you fancy, sweetheart; but I'm sure they'll be unaccountable
sorry to lose you."

Ivy was not so sure, but she said nothing of her misgivings. She kissed
Fred, invited him to her mother's for next Thursday evening, and went
off, pushing her bicycle up the little rutted lane, which was too rough
and steep for her to ride.

She went southwards, making for Vinehall ridge and Cock Marling Place. A
few minutes later Fred Sinden set out northwards, for Leasan ridge and
the Queen's Head Inn. Float Farm lay in the valley of the River
Tillingham, between the two villages of Vinehall and Leasan on their
hills.



                                  4

The sun was still above the clouds that were piling beyond Starvecrow,
and a golden, rainy light came down the valley, full of the shadows of
trees and hedges that stretched over the grass till they looked no
longer what they were, but became the first dark touches of night. The
little lane that wound up the hill to Leasan was entirely in shadow, and
already chill. But for the light that still stroked the fields on either
side of it, you would have thought the sun had set. As Fred walked up
the hill the radiance seemed to contract, till it was mere strokes of
light on darkness, instead of being a field of light where the shadows
wandered. By the time he had reached the junction of the lane with the
high road, the last of it was gone, and the first shiver of night came
up to him from the valley, making him turn up his coat collar and thrust
his hands deep into his pockets.

He was glad to see the lights of the Queen's Head, warm and welcoming at
the cross-roads, though there was still enough light in the sky to show
the queen's head on the sign and the legend: "Queenshead. Car far hire"
hung on the garden pales. Inside, the bar was lit by two lamps with red
shades standing on the counter, which gave the place a ruddy, cheerful
look, but made the distant corners rather dim, so that at first it was
difficult for him to see who was there.

"Good evening, Mrs. Allwork--good evening, Jack--good evening,
Bill--good evening, Mr. Crouch."

"Good evening, Fred."

There was something subdued about their greeting. Till the moment he
came in they had been wondering if he would show up to-night. There had
been an argument as to whether he would or wouldn't. Some held that his
coming would be an affront to the dead; others that you couldn't expect
the poor chap to sit at home all by himself on the night of the funeral.
Fred had expected a divided opinion--he had faced the fact that he would
offend some; but he had no notion of sitting at home by himself for fear
of upsetting a few old-fashioned chaps. He had stopped away on the
actual night of his father's death and had never felt so bored and
lonely in his life.

Whatever might be the feelings of those present, nothing was said either
in criticism or comfort. Death was too big a thing to be touched by a
casual word. He ordered half a pint of beer from Mrs. Allwork behind the
counter, and went and sat down beside Mr. Crouch, his future
father-in-law.

Fred did not like the old man, and certainly caught no glimpse of his
beloved in that gnarled crimson face, darkened over with a cloud which
was partly whisker and partly soot, for Mr. Crouch was a chimney-sweep
among many professions. But he wanted to be friendly with Ivy's father:
perhaps he hoped to talk to him about her--if so, he was disappointed.

Mr. Crouch wiped his mouth on his sleeve and said:

"I've just come out o' de oast."

"I thought we hadn't seen you here for a long time. Where have you
been?"

"Eyelid's."

"How did their hops do this year?"

"Rotten."

"Everybody's hops seems to have done rotten," said Wood, a farm-hand
from Tanhouse, who sat near Crouch. "How's Mr. Vincent been this time,
Fred?"

"Oh, not so bad."

"Finished yet?"

"We finished Thursday. Cleared over seven hundred bushel. Not so bad."

"You'll have to see what price you get for 'em before you say it's not
so bad, or if you sell 'em at all."

"We'll sell 'em right enough."

"Don't you talk so sure. Last year at Newhouse they never sold a single
pocket."

"That was because they was bad hops. Ours is good hops."

"Good hops, bad hops, 'tis all the same, with rates and taxes and
furriners taking the money, and the brewers growing their own stuff
instead of buying it from the farms. Have you heard as Hobday and Hitch
are buying Perryman's and turning it all into hops?"

Various sounds of incredulity and denial came from the bar.

"Perryman's ain't for sale," said Crouch.

"That shows how much you know," said Wood. "Perryman's been up for sale,
private like, for the last six months."

"How should you know about it, then? Did they ask you to buy it?"

"No; they didn't; but their looker, Ted Springett, happens to be a
friend of mine, and he told me a good six months ago as the old man 'ud
take three thousand for it if he could get it."

"But Perryman's ain't doing so bad."

"Not so bad in the markets, but you've got to think what the old man has
to pay out--rates and taxes and all that building society rent; that's
what comes so heavy."

"I reckon all the farmers are feeling the weight of their farms," said
Pannell, a master wood-cutter, from his seat near the counter,
"leastways all that bought theirs at the Alard sale. I know they was
always cursing the Squire while he was alive, and saying he never spent
any money on the land or kept nothing in order; but at least he paid the
rates and taxes--the farmers had only their rent to find. Now they've
got Sheddle A and Sheddle B and six per cent. and a bit of the principal
as well. Mr. Collins of Winterland was telling me about it only last
week."

"And yet folk said it was a fine thing when they was all given the
chance of buying in their farms before the sale."

"So it would have been, a fine thing, if the farms had been worth
buying. But not a stroke had been done to any of 'em for twenty
years--not a beam nor a tile put in. Mr. Cook's barn fell down on him
only the day after he signed the contract."

"If you ask me," said Brotheridge, a looker at Ethnam on the Rother
Marsh, "it was a bad day for this neighbourhood when the Alards sold up.
Mr. Gervase should never ought to have done it."

"He ain't Mr. Gervase," said Crouch, "he's Sir Gervase Alard now. He
couldn't sell his Bart."

"What's it matter which he is, seeing as he's shut up in a monastery and
can't be called neither? He should never ought to have done it. The
place was his, and he should have stood by it."

"He said the land ought to go back to the people," said Wood.

"Back to 'em? I never knew as it was theirs."

"He said it used to be, in the olden times, when they all danced round
maypoles."

"Well, I can't see what good it's going to do us now--and we ain't got
it, anyway; the farmers have got it, or rather the building societies.
I'd sooner the Squire owned the land than the building societies."

"It's very sad not having anyone now at Conster Manor," said Mrs.
Allwork from behind the bar.

"Anyone, ma'am! Why, it's just about chocked with people."

"Anyone of the Alard family, I mean. I miss having a Squire in the
place. It seems to me so low-class when visitors ask me and say: Who
lives at Conster Manor? And I have to say it's a home for spiritual
healing."

"They spend more money roundabouts than the Squire used to," said Young,
a cowman from Dinglesden.

"And well they may. I'm told they charge twelve guineas a week."

"It's a pity Mr. Gervase didn't run it as a home," said Brotheridge,
"then he could have mended a few of our roofs before he sold 'em to us.
And he could have done the spiritual healing something proper, I should
say, judging by his antics in Vinehall Church. I've heard Miss Doris
went down to him on her knees and begged him to be a Boy Scout instead
of a monk, but he wouldn't listen to her."

"There's nun in the way of a Squire about here," said Pannell, "till
you come to Cock Marling and find Mr. Parish."

"I like Jim Parish; he's a good chap, though he's got only two thousand
acres. Sir John Alard had more'n twice that."

"Two thousand's enough when you've got no money to spend on it. The
Parishes are as broke as the Alards."

"But Jim Parish 'ud never sell the place," declared Brotheridge,
"however broke he was. That's all the difference between him and young
Gervase."

"Young Gervase didn't sell the land on account of his being broke, but
on account of his having notions--and uncommon bad notions too."

"Come, Mr. Pannell," cried Sinden. "Not so bad. There's some chaps doing
pretty well out of their farms."

"Which?"

"Well, my old man. He's doing fine."

"Is he? I'm glad of it. Who else?"

"Well, I've heard they're not so bad at Dinglesden--what d'you say,
Young?"

"They ain't so bad, surelye."

"And I met Mr. Blazier last week from Ellenwhorne and he said he'd done
better with his wheat than he'd ever done before."

"Maybe, maybe. I've heard about that. He put in some stuff for an
agricultural college, some new stuff they wanted tried out, and they
didn't charge him nothing for it and gave him a lot of help. But maybe
next year it won't be so fine. I tell you there ain't going to be
trouble all at once. It's in the next few years that the farmers 'ull
feel the weight. Perryman's been the first, and he's managed to shift it
pretty comfortable; but other men's turns is coming--Float, Tanhouse,
Ethnam, Ellenwhorne, Dinglesden, everyone--and they won't all be able to
sell to the brewers. Then where 'ull you working men be?"

"Working for the next boss."

"I wouldn't feel too sure. I tell you there's bad times coming. I can
see it in my job. Prices are going down. Four years ago I'd pay twenty
or thirty pounds an acre for standing wood, and pay it gladly, because I
knew I'd get twice as much for it as timber. But now . . . Mr. Standen
of Gooseleys said to me only the other day--'My twelve acre's ready to
cut. How much will you give me?' and when I said four pounds an acre he
was nearly took bad. Folk think the high prices are going to last, but
they ain't, of course they ain't."

"Old croaking Jonah, have a drink," said Young.

"Aye, let's have a drink all around," said Wood; "this talk makes me
feel low."

"So it does me," said Sinden. "I don't believe the times are bad."

"No more they are," said Pannell, "but they're going to be."

"Oh, adone do wud this old-fashioned talk. Tell him to be quiet, Mrs.
Allwork. Now, what's yours?"

The company gathered round the bar counter, replenishing its glasses
with the thin mild ale that would never make a man take a rosy view of a
dark situation. While they were ordering their drinks the door opened
and a couple of gipsies came in. Most of the men knew them by sight, for
they had been three weeks at Leasan for the hopping, and often came into
the Queen's Head, but no one took any notice of them. Between these
houseless adventurers of the roads and honest working men there was a
deep gulf fixed.

"Evening, gents," said one of the gipsies.

"Evenun."

"Fine evening, ain't it?"

"Evenun."

Conversation languished. There could be no free interchange of ideas
before these outcasts. The gipsies ordered spirits, and stood leaning
against the bar drinking them. Every now and then they jingled money in
their pockets. How was it that gipsies always had such a lot more money
than honest working men? How was it that they could afford to drink
whiskey at eighteen pence a glass when honest men could scarcely afford
half a pint of ale? No good reason for certain sure.



                                  5

Cock Marling Place had been the chief house of the district ever since
the sale of the Alard property in the parishes of Leasan and Vinehall.
At this sale some dozen farms had changed hands, and some dozen more
become the hopeful burden of their former tenants. About a hundred
scattered acres had gone in building-sites, small holdings and
market-gardens, and an ancient manor house had passed into the care of
amiable eccentrics, who cultivated the body at high prices for mystical
ends.

The collapse of the Alards had been the sensation of two years ago.
Immediately after the war the family, though sunk and shaken, had seemed
firmly established on its five thousand mortgaged acres. Sir John Alard
would never sell so much as a field, and his elder son Peter had seemed
the certain heir not only of his land but of his tradition. Then
suddenly everything had fallen to pieces like a house of cards. Sir John
and Peter had died within a few hours of each other, the Squire of a
stroke, his heir of what was either accident or suicide--Peter had had
an unfortunate love affair, and had been inclined to brood over the
encumbrances of the estate. His death was the end of the house of Alard,
for though married he left only a daughter; Conster Manor and its lands
were entailed on his only surviving brother Gervase, an eccentric,
rebel-minded youth, who had just entered an Anglican monastery. It had
been hoped by the family that Gervase would come back to Conster and
take over the duties of his inheritance. Instead of which he ordered the
whole thing to be put up for sale.

Gervase Alard did not see the Squires as props of the integrity of the
British Empire or as the protectors and benefactors of the English
countryside. He saw them rather as a harmful anachronism, a dangerous
Hanoverian survival. It was a bad joke that had made him the heir of
five thousand acres. With youthful enthusiasm, he had broken up a
glorious if encumbered estate, paid off its fifty thousand pounds' worth
of mortgages, handed over the rest of the money to his mother and
unmarried sister, and gone back into his monastery to dream of England
as a land of yeomen and Anglo-Catholic priests. To make at least a part
of this dream come true he had ordered that specially favourable terms
should be given to those tenants who wished to buy their farms; but the
claims of the mortgagees had prevented any really useful concessions,
and only about half of the Alard farmers had taken advantage of the
offer. Some of the other farms were still unsold, and others had passed
into the hands of "gentry" and become small country houses of an
indefinite kind.

The only large estate in the Rye division now belonged to the Parishes
of Cock Marling, and that was large only by comparison. Cock Marling
owned six farms--Jordans, Road End, Newhouse, Watland, Stonelink and
Pickdick; a seventh, Billingham, had recently been sold to pay death
duties, for old Mr. Sutton Parish had died only a few months after Sir
John. He had left all his money to his wife, and his estate to his
eldest son--not a bad arrangement, on the face of it, for Mrs. Parish
had never cared for Cock Marling, and had always hankered after life in
London, while Jim Parish loved his father's house and land as much as
Peter Alard had loved Conster.

But actually his bequest could have been due only to ignorance or to
paternal malice, for without old Sutton's twenty thousand pounds in five
and six per cents. the Cock Marling estate became an annual loss. It had
never flourished, and it had always been the heir's complaint that his
father's dividends went on luxuries of living rather than on the needs
of fields and farms. He had not been able to refrain from planning what
he would do with them when they became his own. He himself had a
personal income of seven hundred a year, a legacy from his grandfather,
and this had from his first possession of it been poured into the abyss
of Cock Marling; while he went short of many things. Half of it had gone
in interest on mortgages on Jordans and Pickdick, their two best farms,
and the rest had paid the wages of an extra man, mended roofs and walls,
and stocked fields.

He had even refused to let it help forward his marriage with Jenny
Alard, Sir John's youngest daughter, to whom he had been unofficially
engaged for two years; with the result that in the end he had lost his
lady, who imbibing the heresies of her brother Gervase, failed to
understand his renunciation, and had married a yeoman farmer at
Fourhouses in the next parish, for whom she cheerfully scrubbed and
swept and baked, and bore children, only rarely and occasionally
regretting her lost love.

Jim Parish had done his best to make his mother give at least a part of
her money to Cock Marling--a couple of thousand spent on essential
re-stocking and repairs would make all the difference, he felt, between
success and failure, and still leave her enough capital and income for a
very pleasant life. But Mrs. Parish had had too much of Cock Marling
already, and she would have no more, and it should have nothing from
her.

"Why don't you sell the place? I'm sure your father meant you to do
that."

"I dare say he did, but he might have known I never would--and so might
you."

"But why shouldn't you? It isn't as if it were a historic estate like
Conster. You can't say 'There's always been a Parish at Cock Marling.'
You know it was only a moderate-sized farm till your grandfather bought
it."

"I know. I'm not posing as the last scion of an ancient county family.
It's only that I happen to be fond of the place, and to enjoy living in
it and running it."

"Then you must be prepared to pay for your pleasures, Jim. You'll be at
least five hundred out of pocket every year, but as your own income is
seven hundred a year----"

"You know that half of it goes in mortgage interest."

"Why don't you pay off your mortgages?" said Mrs. Parish, who was not a
practical woman.

"Darling mother, why don't I keep a pack of hounds and a racing stable?"

"But you could sell some un-mortgaged land and pay them off that way."
Mrs. Parish was not a proud woman either.

"Yes--follow Gervase Alard's example. You'd like to see me do that,
wouldn't you, dear? After all, I might get a lot for the Vinehall road
frontage if I put it up as building sites, and I could sell the farms to
the tenants and make more gallant yeomen, and I could sell this house as
a home or rest for Pentecostal Dancers. But the queer thing is that I
would rather starve."

"Yes, dear, I think it is a very queer thing."

"But you apparently don't mind if I do."

"I should mind if I really thought you would, but I don't. I think that
if this place gets really hopeless, you will sell it, in spite of all
you say, and then you could come and live with me in London."

"And get some sort of a job there, I suppose? No, mother dear, if I sell
this place I shall imitate Gervase Alard completely, and go into a
monastery, and think what a fine chap I am to have ruined a whole
countryside."

Jim Parish hated Gervase Alard, who had betrayed the Squires.



                                  6

There were three young Parishes besides Jim, who was not very young, and
they were all at dinner together that September evening. Ivy Crouch
helped wait on them, for the head housemaid was out and there was too
much company for Holmes the butler--who was not a real butler, being
only half a married couple, the other half of which was the cook. Ivy
did not care for waiting at table, for she felt shy and afraid of doing
the wrong thing, but she liked listening to the conversation, especially
at Cock Marling, where nobody seemed to mind what was said or to bother
whether she was in the room or not. Mrs. George Alard had always said
something in French about domestics when the talk began to get
interesting.

Not that this had happened often, for Mrs. George Alard had only very
seldom "entertained," as she called having company at meals. She was a
Parson's widow with very little to live on, having married Sir John's
second son, who had been Rector of Leasan and had died just after the
war. She kept only one maid--Ivy in her raw beginnings--and did most of
the work herself. Ivy had not stayed with her long.

To-night there was another Alard present, Mrs. Godfrey of Fourhouses,
who had been Miss Jenny Alard and engaged to Mr. Jim Parish for quite a
long time. Her presence here to-night Ivy thought rather improper,
especially as her husband had not been able to come with her, having
been called upon at the last moment to deliver a valuable cow of her
first calf. In her honour there was an extra course and a cream sweet,
which the servants considered an unnecessary trouble given them, knowing
well what she sat down to at home.

Of the Parish family, Ivy liked Miss Betsy best. She knew that people
told terrible tales about her, said that she was no better than a bad
lot, and that when she was up in London she behaved fit to match her
face, which had shocked the village ever since she took to painting it
during the war. But Ivy liked her because she was careless and kind;
even if she sometimes lost her temper and used bad words, she never
said, "Ivy, I heard you come in ten minutes late last night," or "Ivy,
those stair-rods haven't been cleaned this week," or "Ivy, don't you
ever use that lavatory brush I bought you a month ago?" It was rather
nice having a mistress only a few years older than yourself, who never
troubled about how you did your work, but was much more interested in
your evenings out and your young man and the new hat you had bought in
Rye.

The men of the house were more troublesome. They howled at her if she
was unpunctual, or left the electric light burning or did not bring
their shaving water hot enough. Mr. Vernon, the schoolboy, was the
worst, for sometimes he would be sarcastic and, without scolding or
finding fault, make her feel scolded and silly--she could not forgive
him that, for against such an attack she had neither shield nor sword.
Mr. Jim wasn't so bad, though sometimes he could be very fussy and
particular, and Mr. Ronald was at home only because he had lost his job
two months ago, and still had some of a visitor's reticences.



                                  7

Mr. Jim always talked a lot at meals. He was talking a great deal
to-night, chiefly to Mrs. Godfrey.

"Have some more claret, Jenny--you're looking tired, my dear"--he always
called his women friends "my dear" and "my child," and Ivy knew he meant
nothing special, though she couldn't approve of it. "Holmes, fill up
Mrs. Godfrey's glass. You really do look tired," he repeated. "Has Ben
been making you help him with the cow?"

"No, of course not, or I shouldn't be here. Besides, Ben would never
dream of such a thing."

"He isn't like me, then. When such crises arise I always shriek wildly
for help. I once made even Betsy come out and try to be useful."

"And was I useful?" asked Betsy.

"No, my dear, you were not. But I hold it that no woman should live in
the country if she wants to live like a lady; unless"--with a bow
towards Jenny--"she marries a real farmer."

"I don't want to live in the country," said Betsy, "or to live like a
lady."

She sat with her elbows on the table, smoking a cigarette. She had
lovely long arms and legs, and thick hair of the palest gold that swept
back from her forehead to her ears. Her mouth was like a moist red
flower. Beside her, Jenny Godfrey looked faded, weather-beaten and
countrified.

"I don't want to live in the country either," said Ronald, "but I want
to live like a gentleman."

"I want to live in the country," said Vernon, "and to live like a
gentleman too."

"And I want to live in the country and don't particularly care about
living like a gentleman; and that exhausts all possible choices--like
those menus where you choose either soup or fish with a joint or a bird.
. . . By the way did anyone ever taste a worse fish souffl than this?"

"I have," said Jenny, "many times. It was a favourite dish of my
mother's."

"So it was. I remember it--fish bones in a cave, a sort of marine
landscape. But how we used to enjoy those dinners at Conster, Jenny!"

"I never did."

"Oh, but you must have. There was such lovely wine. One didn't really
notice the food. I should have liked to buy some of your father's
burgundy at the sale, but the London buyers sent up the prices quite out
of my reach. By the way, has Starvecrow gone yet?"

"No, I haven't heard so."

"I keep on asking, because I wish it would go; I don't like Starvecrow
being empty."

"Queer that it should be empty," said Ronald, "for it's got much the
best house of the lot."

"That's the trouble, I'm afraid--too fine a house for a farmer. It used
to be a lovely place. I suppose it was Vera who made old Peter titivate
it out of knowledge."

"I suppose it was," said Jenny. "She didn't really like it as a farm."

"Well, it's all a great pity, for there it is hanging fire in the market
and the land going to pieces, though Elias does his best. By the way,
I've heard that Fuggle has had to sell Perryman's."

"_Had_ to sell it? He only bought it two years ago."

"But it's sunk him already, my child, and the other day Hobday's brewery
came along and made him an offer for it. Tell that to your brother
Gervase when you write next--the first of his yeomen gone."

"I shall tell him nothing of the kind. Anyway, it doesn't concern him
now."

"I think he ought to be concerned with the mess he's left behind him."

"It isn't a mess at all--according to his ideas. He's got rid of the
Alard estate and given back the land to the people, which is all he
cares about."

"But he hasn't given back the land to the people, my dear. Less than a
dozen farms have been bought by their tenants in a bad condition at an
awkward price; a few others have been bought by farmers from other parts
of the country and one or two are still for sale, including his brother
Peter's beloved Starvecrow. The remainder have, as far as I can see,
been bought by retired townsmen and colonials--people, no doubt, but not
The People in any capital sense."

"They're changing all the old names," said Vernon. "I noticed that. I
biked by Medersham yesterday and it had Mandalay painted up on the
gate."

"Speaks for itself, doesn't it?"

"And the postman told me that Dadlands is to be called St. Bernard's. He
was getting quite worried about the changes--they muddle him terribly."

"On the other hand, neither Louse Hall nor Frogs Hole is a really good
address, and Burnt House isn't likely to attract paying guests. But I
should be sorry to see Ellenwhorne become The Gables or Dinglesden turn
into Sunset View."

"They're not likely ever to do that," said Jenny.

"Why not? When you've bought a place you can call it what you damn well
like. By splitting up the neighbourhood into a lot of small-holdings,
which is, after all, what Gervase has done, he has abolished all the
usual safeguards. Starvecrow may be bought as an 'estate' by a
speculative builder. You can't stop it."

"Well, anything's better than a bankrupt family sitting heavily on the
land, for no better reason than that it's sat there for centuries, while
everything slowly deteriorates and falls to pieces for want of money
spent on it."

"And who's going to spend money on it now? Not the farmers who've bought
their farms by raising mortgages on them, and not the 'gentry,' who are
spending only on their houses and letting the land go out of
cultivation. And the uses of a Squire aren't only to spend money--or
else I shouldn't have the face to keep on at Cock Marling; he's a sort
of hub of things--without him they seem to fly from the centre and
disintegrate. . . . I still maintain that the end of the Alards wouldn't
have been half such a tragedy if your mother had stayed on at Conster,
even if she'd kept no more land than the park."

"Gervase did offer her that, but she didn't care about it. She really
didn't want to stay there without father, and she's certainly much
happier living abroad--quite rejuvenated--and Doris is really happier
too, though she didn't like going."

"Do you often hear from Gervase?" asked Betsy.

"Fairly often. About once a fortnight. I took the children over to see
him last month."

"How did he look?"

"Not very well--pale and rather tired."

"I expect you wish he'd come out again."

"For my own personal pleasure I do. Otherwise, I can't. What would he do
if he came out? He's sold everything, and he wouldn't be able to get
back into his old job."

"No," said Ronald bitterly. "I'd guarantee that. And I hope to goodness
he won't try. I wish more people would go into monasteries."

"Instead of swarming round whatever job Ronald's after. Poor Ronald!"
said Betsy lightly. "He and I are the Londoners, Jen, and yet you find
both of us, at Cock Marling."

"Why do I find _you_? You could go away if you liked."

"Yes, I've got my money. I'm one of grandpa's two lucky ones. But the
trouble is I can't get away. I don't like being here, but the place has
a hold on me. I feel I must come down for a week and I stay six months.
It's bloody."

"Don't believe her," said Jim. "She only comes down when she's broke and
stays till she's cleared her next quarter's money. She doesn't care two
hoots about Cock Marling."

"No, I don't, and for days on end I'm bored stiff; and yet, if I plan to
go off, something always comes along to keep me here."

"What sort of thing?" asked Vernon.

"I would scarcely call Sam Hurst a thing," said Parish.

"He's not keeping me here--you needn't think it. He helps me to pass the
time, but I could find many people more amusing in London, even Sam
himself three days a week, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Holborn
Viaduct."

"I like Sam," said Jim. "He's a perfect piece of _urbs in rure_. You
should have married him, Jenny."

"Why?"

"Well, weren't you meant to? I can remember a dinner party at Conster
when life was poisoned for me by hints from your mother and sister that
he was the eligible suitor met at last."

"How sweet mother and Doris used to be to you! But Sam was already
engaged even then."

"And so were you, Jenny. Don't forget."

"I don't. But neither father nor mother would have considered that an
obstacle if I had been free."

"No, I suppose they wouldn't, and they would have been quite right. A
good marriage into the city of London might have saved Conster."

"Not unless everything else had been different too and Peter lived to
inherit the place. Gervase would have done just the same even if we
hadn't been broke."

"I suppose he would. Conster was doomed, and the only difference would
have been that you and Betsy would probably not now be on speaking
terms. On the whole, my dear, I'm glad you married Godfrey, which is a
noble admission. By the way, is he coming here at all to-night?"

"Not at all, I'm afraid. He expects to be busy till quite late."

"Then I will drive you home."

"No, no; why should you?"--her manner became a little sharp and
conscious. "I enjoy driving in the dark. Besides, how would you get
back?"

"Walk. I enjoy walking in the dark. Then I needn't see the thistles or
the empty pastures or the 'land for sale' boards. I can think I'm back
in the eighteenth century, among those Hanoverian Squires your brother
loves so much--walking through well-farmed land, seventy per cent.
arable and producing nineteen hundredweights to the acre----"

"I don't believe it was like that."

"It was, my child. There are plenty of records to prove it. What your
brother persists in talking of as if it had been the Dark Ages was
really a Golden Age. The Squires flourished, and so did the farmers. It
didn't matter to them that they were only tenants. They didn't care who
owned the land as long as they made money out of it. Let me go on
telling you my dream that I shall dream to-night. At the end of my walk
I'll find a comfortable manor-house, furnished in Chippendale, in the
middle of a prosperous estate that brings me in five thousand a year
instead of costing me five hundred. The Parson will be dropping in to
crack a bottle with me and come to an amiable understanding over his
tithe. . . . By the way, Jenny, I've decided to sell the advowson."

"So that when Luce goes you can put in a Hanoverian Parson?"

"Not quite that. I can't be bothered with choosing parsons. It's simply
a question of money, my dear; I must get ready cash for something, and
my solicitors tell me that if I don't do it now I may never be able to,
as there's some talk of making the sale of advowsons illegal."

"Gervase will be sorry if Luce has to go."

"He won't have to go. The new patrons, whoever they may be, can't turn
him out. Parson's freehold and all that. I must say I wish he'd go,
though. I'd like someone a bit more matey at the Parsonage and a bit
less exotic in the Church."

"Someone who'd come in and crack a bottle with you," said Vernon.

"Precisely. We'll have to leave out the amiable compromise about tithe
because Queen Anne's bounty has spoiled all that."

"And in the middle of your bottle the village constable will bring in
some poor blighter who's poached a rabbit and you'll send him off to
twenty-years penal servitude in Van Diemen's land."

"Alas, no! I'm afraid that good custom's gone the same way as friendly
compromises on tithe."

"I think you're as big a reactionary as Gervase," said his brother
heartily.

"Bigger, dear lad. Gervase never knew whether the Golden Age was ahead
of him or behind him, whereas I know definitely that it's behind. But
not so far back as he would put it."

"I think your Golden Age is very gross," said Jenny.

"Not gross at all. I'm rather stressing the material side of things at
present, but there's more to it than that. Think of Burke, Warburton,
Berkeley, Paine, Newton. . . . We've no one to touch them now. In
comparison with them we're not civilized. If you compare these times
with those you're comparing the culture and ideas of grown-up men and
women with the culture and ideas of children. The eighteenth century was
an adult civilization, and most people to-day are mentally aged
somewhere between ten and fifteen. That's why the present age despises
the eighteenth century, and either looks behind it to another childish
age when men told each other fairy tales and tried animals for crime, or
forward to a lovely time when we'll all be grown up and do exactly what
we like. . . ."



                                  8

"He's still talking," said Holmes, gloomily.

"And he'll talk for another half-hour," said Mrs. Holmes. "You should
have taken the coffee into the drawing-room--that would have made 'em
move."

"But he's a good chap, all the same," said Holmes. "I like him."

"I like her," said Ivy.

"I don't. I don't like her sort. If you ask me she's no better than a
tart."

"She's just given me a coat and skirt that she's worn no more than a
dozen times. That isn't what they generally do."

"You may take my word Mr. Hurst didn't like it."

"Mr. Hurst? What's it got to do with Mr. Hurst?"

"A lot, if you ask me; or rather the things that's underneath it."

"Be quiet, Holmes," said his wife. "You shouldn't talk like that before
the girls. Run along, Edie, and wash out those saucepans; and Ivy . . .
there! I do believe I hear them moving."

The dining-room door opened and shut, then voices sounded in the hall.
They did not pass into the drawing-room, but hovered for some time round
the hall door. Then that was flung open, and a minute or two later came
the distinctive rattle of Mrs. Godfrey's car.

"What, gone already?"

"Sounds like it."

"I wonder why."

"Reckon she had to get back to her house and her children. She hasn't
time for dinner parties. I wonder if he's gone with her?"

"Mr. Jim? Why should he?--or why shouldn't he, if it comes to that?"

"Well, I'm going to clear away," said Ivy.

"Right-o, my dear. I'll join you in a minute. By the way, d'you think
you could carry in the drinks for me to-night? There's an eye-witness's
account on the wireless of the match between Heegan and MacFlannery. I
don't want to miss that, if I can help it."

"All right. I'll take them in," said Ivy.

When the time came for her to do so, she found Betsy Parish sitting
alone. The men had gone, either to Fourhouses with Mrs. Godfrey or off
somewhere else. Betsy sat under the lamp, her feet on the fender,
reading a novel. She did not look up as Ivy came in and carefully set
down her tray with the whisky and siphon and barley-water on a Sheraton
table close to the fire. But Ivy had made up her mind.

All the evening she had been bursting with her news. She was going to be
married at Christmas and wanted to leave Cock Marling at the end of the
month. She had abstained from telling the Holmeses or Edie the
kitchen-maid, because she would rather they knew nothing about it till
the deed was done. "I've given notice--I'm leaving next month." They
would be surprised--astounded. They would ask her why, and then she
would tell them: "I'm to be married at Christmas." Two dramatic
announcements, of which at the moment the first seemed as important as
the second. It was not often that Ivy had given notice--only once, in
fact, to Mrs. Alard, whom she had left to better herself. On the other
occasions it was she who had been given it--by Mrs. Williams, because
she stopped out late two evenings in succession, by Mrs. Bateman because
they were "cutting down expenses," by Mrs. Fuller because her sewing
wasn't good enough. But now it was she who would say: "Please, ma'am, I
want to leave you this day month."

She said it--suddenly. Betsy started.

"Hullo, Ivy! What's that?"

"Please'm, I want to leave you."

"In God's name, why?"

"Because I'm getting married at Christmas."

"Once more, in God's name, why?"

Her mistress was not reacting properly. She was showing Ivy the dark
side of her qualities.

"Oh, Miss Betsy, you know about Fred."

"Of course I do. But I didn't know you were going to marry him so soon."

"No, Miss, and I wasn't. But his father's just died, as most likely
you've heard, and now Mr. Vincent's made Fred ploughman at Float at two
pounds a week and his cottage."

"And you'll marry him on that. My brother couldn't marry Jenny Alard
because he'd only seven hundred a year. You're a gambler, Ivy."

"But two pounds a week's a lot more than most of the men are getting on
the farms now, Miss. Thirty-five shillings is more usual."

"Yes, I suppose the war-wages are coming down--and I suppose you can
manage on two pounds a week."

"Oh yes, Miss. I'll do well on that. It's more'n most women----"

"I know. But you are a little different. After all, you've been in
service some years and you're used to a certain amount of--what shall I
say?--comfort."

"But it's not the same as having your own house, Miss."

"Quite. But I can't help thinking that you may find your standard of
living a little high, even for two pounds a week. For instance, most of
the cottages round here let in the wet appallingly."

"I know. Mother's does. But it doesn't worry me."

"Doesn't it? That's convenient for your landlord, anyway. I've never
seen the cottage at Float Farm, but I imagine it's wringing damp in
winter. Float was one of the Alard farms, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Miss. Mr. Vincent bought it at the sale."

"Then I take my oath there's nothing been done to the place for thirty
years."

"It's not a bad little cottage, Miss Betsy. It's got two rooms upstairs,
and two down and a wash-house. I dare say it's not so bad as Mrs. George
Alard's. The rain used to come into my room there, if you like, and she
wouldn't do anything about it."

"I bet she wouldn't. But tell me, Ivy, can you cook?"

"I've cooked things at mother's; and Fred has promised to get me an
oil-stove. I never could cook on a wood fire."

"Oh, I expect you'll manage. I'm not prying on you, Ivy; I'm only
interested. I'm sure you'll do terribly well together really, for you're
fond of Fred, aren't you?"

"Oh, yes, Miss, I am."

"My brother knows him and thinks a lot of him."

"People do think a lot of Fred."

"I'm sure he'll make you very happy. I was only wondering whether the
life would be too rough for you after what you've been used to in places
like this."

"Oh, no, Miss, not in my home."

"That's all right, then. Clear out now--I want to get on with my book."

Ivy went to the door. On the threshold she turned back, to see if she
had remembered to put fresh wood on the fire. The drawing-room was
softly lit by the lamp under which Betsy Parish sat reading. There was
another in a far corner, and between them the room was held in a warm
light, half rosy, half golden. In that mixed light Ivy could not see
colours that were faded and substances that were worn; she could see
only the gleam of dark, polished wood, of ancient, shining silver. There
were flowers, and there were soft dim fabrics on the couches and
arm-chairs, and a pervading scent of flowers and wood-smoke. For the
first time in her life she received a definitely aesthetic impression,
and with it came an almost sensual realization of comfort, of order, of
convenience. She had never thought much before of these things or
troubled much about these other women's homes where she earned her
living, or contrasted them with any home that she herself would have.
She had taken them for granted, without much interest in them except in
so far as their working concerned her personally. But now she saw the
meaning of Miss Betsy's words--there undoubtedly was a difference
between the drawing-room at Cock Marling Place and the parlour at Float
Cottage, and would be even when Fred had nailed Mr. Vincent's corrugated
iron over the roof and she had put up her curtains. But did it matter?
For a moment she wasn't sure, then she decided that it didn't. She shut
the door quietly and went out, forgetting what she had looked back to
see.



                                  9

During Ivy's last month at Cock Marling, the preparations for her
wedding were begun. With her they took the form of sixteen yards of
synthetic _crpe de Chine_ bought at a bargain price in Rye. These were
destined to make three complete sets of underclothes, for which she
further bought the patterns and some transfers of embroidery. Beyond
this point the matter made little progress, as she had not much time for
needlework, all her hours and evenings off being spent with Fred; also
it was not out of mere caprice that Mrs. Fuller had found fault with her
sewing.

Fred moved more briskly with his preparations at Float Cottage. In spite
of his work on the farm and his evenings with Ivy he managed to nail Mr.
Vincent's piece of iron into position. The shaggy windward sprawl of the
cottage roof now gleamed with an enormous patch of corrugated iron, and
the next rain fell harmlessly, if a bit more noisily than usual. Greatly
encouraged, Fred bought some pots of paint--an odd lot Mrs. Waters was
selling off in Leasan--and repainted the woodwork in a favourite shade
of buff. There was not quite enough paint to finish the job, but an
upstairs cupboard and skirting could wait for another time; he had
successfully painted the kitchen and the parlour and the best bedroom,
and very nice they looked.

Ivy was delighted, especially when they had bought the stuff for her
curtains--cornflowers and poppies on a golden background that seemed to
put sunshine into the little dark rooms. She took them home to her
mother, who had promised to make them up for her and also to "cover" the
couch and the arm-chair. Mrs. Crouch had been in service once very long
ago, and still occasionally went out "obliging" here and there. But her
advertised profession was upholsteress, and Vinehall and Leasan ladies
who could not afford Hastings prices would occasionally summon her into
their drawing-rooms, where she would squirm round the furniture with her
mouth full of pins and her hair falling in loops and streaks over her
baffled, good-humoured face. Her style was distinctive, and generally
provoked the comment: "Ah, I see you've had Mrs. Crouch in"; but to her
daughter she was invaluable, as they could not have afforded to pay an
outsider, and when it came to cutting out material Ivy found the arms
and legs of furniture even more confounding than her own.

Those days were full of a restless happiness, which did not seem to
belong to October and the year's resignation. They seemed rather to hold
the fret of spring. They were troubled with promises. Ivy lived in the
future--the future of three months ahead when she and Fred would always
be together, or the future of the next hour when they would meet at the
bottom of the lane. There did not seem to be any savour in the
present--she hardly could bring herself to notice it and its concerns.
She was about as much use at Cock Marling as a swallow that has flown
into the house, just as a noise of beating wings; and no one, except
Betsy, was sorry when the time came for her to go to her parents'
cottage across the valley at Barline.



                                  10

Ivy could not have explained why she looked forward so eagerly to her
marriage, why she was so sure that it would bring her a time of pure
happiness, and give her everything she wanted in the world. None of the
marriages she had observed at close quarters was particularly
encouraging. Her parents got on fairly well together, though it was
obvious that Mrs. Crouch enjoyed life most when her husband was away
charcoal burning or hop-drying. "I'm used to him," was the phrase with
which she would explain certain symptoms of anxiety which showed on rare
occasions when he failed to return from his wood or his oast or his
public-house. But if there had ever been romantic love in the cottage at
Barline, its gold had all been spent before Ivy was born.

Ivy had a married sister living in Walthamstow and a married brother
living in Vinehall. The former she saw only seldom, but certainly her
lot was not a pleasant one as her husband had been out of work for two
years. Her brother, who worked for Mr. Pannell in the woods, had been
forced into a hurried marriage with a girl he did not particularly want,
and was always complaining of her sluttish ways and ready childbearing.
Ivy understood that she "drank," and the Crouch family was inclined to
regard Jack as her victim, though she herself had different views.

As for marriage in another way of life, in the houses of her employers,
it had not appeared very different from in the houses of her friends--if
it had appeared at all, that is to say, for on the whole, Ivy had not
found the ladies of Leasan so prone to matrimony as their working-class
sisters. Miss Betsy Parish was not married, though rumour said she was
twenty-eight, and she was pretty, and knew lots of gentlemen too, both
at home and in London. Perhaps it was true that she was a bad lot and
that no decent fellow would marry her--though in that case she ought to
learn a few things from Jack's Dolly. Mrs. Alard had been a widow and
steadily remained one in spite of being short of money. Mrs. Bateman was
the wife of a rubber planter in Singapore and had not seen him for two
years though she wrote every Tuesday. Mrs. Williams, the rector's wife,
was certainly married to Mr. Williams, but they were both so busy that
they seemed only to meet occasionally and then talked of nothing but
parish affairs. Mrs. Fuller was the only mistress who had ever given her
maid any hint of a romance. She was always showing how tenderly fond she
was of Mr. Fuller, who suffered from his lungs owing to having been
gassed during the war; but every now and then they would have a terrible
row--as bad as any that brought the neighbours in to Jack and Dolly.

Ivy had no reason to view marriage romantically or even hopefully,
except for the fact--she knew it was a fact--that her Fred was unlike
any other man. Certainly it was a fact that he did not drink, nor, with
his good job, was he likely to be out of work, and she would be
exceedingly surprised if he should ever lose his temper and rage and
swear like Mr. Fuller. When she was with him she felt a deep thrilling
peace in her body, a sense of rest and support that was infinitely
comforting--none of that restlessness and excitement that fluttered
through her when he was away. It is true that his love-making was still
unlike that of the picture heroes, but then that too was in its way a
hopeful sign--for though love on the pictures was quite wonderful,
marriage was on the whole even worse than in real life. After marriage
on the pictures came divorce, kidnappings, quarrels, catastrophes--it
was just as well that Fred should be so different. . . .

Sometimes, though, she was disappointed, and once her mother found her
crying because she had gone down to the cottage and Fred had forgotten
to kiss her because he was so excited about the new lid he had put on
the copper. Mrs. Crouch was cryptic rather than consoling.

"Copper lids are safer than kisses before you're married, and you
yourself 'ud sooner have 'em afterwards."



                                  11

The cottage at Barline had once been Alard property. It was only a
little bigger than the cottage at Float, and stood alone in a field,
about half a mile from the lane. It had been sold separately from the
rest of Barline Farm. The latter had been bought by an artist and his
wife, who had completely transformed it. They were nice people, but of
course they knew nothing about farming, and Barline's two hundred acres
were let to Mr. Cooper of Dinglesden, and fast becoming derelict--the
tenant holding that it was the landlord's business to keep his fields in
order, the landlord being quite unaware that grazing land needed any
upkeep at all. As against this, the barns and oasthouses had been put
into an almost startling state of repair. They had become store-places
and studios and even guest-rooms, and were painted black and green and
orange, and thatched with Norfolk reeds, and hung with quaint, swinging
signs. Sometimes the Crouch family looked enviously at them.

Their cottage had been bought by a certain Mr. Miller, who, though
evidently interested in house-property--he owned cottages at Pelsham and
Eggs Hole and Purster as well as at Barline--preferred himself to live
in a caravan. He called every Monday for his rent, and the Crouches both
despised and liked him--despised him for belonging to the outcast order
of the Cart People, liked him for his pleasant, accommodating ways. He
was the ideal landlord--the fact that he did not keep their cottage in
repair in no wise distinguished him from other landlords they had known;
he charged them a rent of half a crown a week, and was always willing to
wait for it if any of Mr. Crouch's trades were not prospering, or if, as
sometimes happened without his meaning it, he had drunk his money.

The weeks passed. November became December with a great drip of rain
into Ivy's bedroom from the place where the thatch met the tiles on the
roof. She did not mind for herself, but she carefully spread her
mackintosh every night over the chest of drawers where her wedding
things were stored. Those three silk nightgowns were finished now and
embroidered in green, pink, and blue respectively, and the chemises and
knickers that went with them would be finished too if only Ivy could
find the time. But what with helping her mother, and seeing Fred, and
going into Rye to buy clothes and sheets and saucepans, she found that
she had even less time for needlework than she used to have at Cock
Marling. Her trousseau was actually finished the night before the
wedding-she and her mother sitting up till four in the morning with a
sewing-machine charitably lent them by Mrs. Fagge, the dressmaker at
Leasan.

Somehow or other those endless seams and hems were stitched, those
aggravating roses and hollyhocks given a silky substance--though seen in
the light of Barline's kitchen lamp, and set in a frame of Mrs. Crouch's
thumb marks, they no longer looked so seductive as they had looked in
the pages of _Miss Modern_--and the women of the house retired to bed
just as the master was leaving it to go chimney-sweeping.

For Mr. Crouch had, to the consternation of his wife and daughter,
announced that he was going out sweeping on the morning of the
twenty-third of December, just as if it was only a common day.

"But you can't!" Mrs. Crouch had cried. "You know it takes me two hours
to get you clean afterwards, and me with Ivy to see to, and the
breakfast and everything else."

"I'm booked to sweep all de chimbleys at Conster tomorrow mornun."

"Since when are you booked? I never booked it." Mrs. Crouch acted as her
husband's clerk, as he could not read or write.

"I booked it myself."

"And how did you do that?"

"Cut two crosses and a nick on my broom sum as is done on de wood
piles."

"Because you knew I'd never book you for to-morrow. What made you choose
to-morrow? You could have gone the day after."

"They couldn't have me de day after--starting Christmas dere dey are.
To-morrow's de only day dey can manage, and if I'd said I couldn't go
dey'd have had a chap out from Hastings."

"I don't believe it. You've only done it out of spite and contrariness;
and next time you can do your own bookings, seeing you're so clever with
your nicks and crosses. I'm shut of it."

She flung out of the room in a temper, and Ivy burst into tears, being
much given that way lately.



                                  12

But all turned out well in the end. Mr. Crouch came back in time to be
cleaned up for the wedding, and the _Sussex Mercury_ put on record with
all the certainty and immortality of print that "the bride, who looked
charming in a dress of saxe blue taffetas with a felt hat to match, was
given away by her father, Mr. Edward Crouch." It had been a delightful
surprise to find that piece in the paper. She had not expected it. It
was true that it had not been given the importance of a separate
announcement, appearing under the general title of "Leasan Jottings";
but the unknown recorder had headed his paragraph "A Pretty Wedding,"
and Ivy cut it out with delight and reverence and kept it carefully for
many years.

She was glad to have the printed assurance of a pretty wedding, for she
herself could not remember much about it. She had felt so confused and
so bothered and so shy. There had been so many people staring at her,
and Mr. Williams had been late, and Fred had dropped his new hat and
grovelled to retrieve it from under a pew, and Connie, her brother's
youngest, dressed in yellow sateen as bridesmaid, had cried loudly and
perseveringly because no one would take her out to satisfy nature's
ill-timed demands.

But Miss Betsy had been there, in her best frock, and Mr. Parish, and
they had both come into the vestry afterwards and signed the register;
and nothing had gone wrong with the wedding-breakfast, or, in the
beautiful words of the _Sussex Mercury_, "Some twenty guests attended
the wedding reception which was held subsequently at Barline Cottage."
And her sister Hilda had sent a telegram of good wishes, being unable to
afford a personal attendance, and, again to quote the _Mercury_, "Mr.
and Mrs. Sinden received many useful and attractive presents."

Actually the presents did not amount to more than a dozen, but they
included a very pretty tea-service from Miss Betsy, a tea-cosy shaped
like a rabbit from Miss Fagge, and a gilt wastepaper-basket threaded
with pink ribbon from Mrs. Waters at the shop. There was also a set of
saucepans from her brother and his wife, sheets and pillow-cases from
her father and mother, and best of all a Valor-Perfectum oil-stove from
Fred, duly installed, though not completely paid for, and awaiting her
at Float Cottage.

On its immaculate heat she cooked the first supper of her married
life--liver and bacon diffusing their aroma through a mingled scent of
oil and varnish and enamel. The smell of her new stove was the smell of
her first evening at Float Cottage, a proud and cosy smell. She cooked
the liver and bacon a little too long and they stuck to the frying-pan,
but that was a misfortune that might have happened to anyone on any
stove. Fred helped her scrape them off, and they sat down together at
the kitchen table with two bottles of beer left over from the
"breakfast," as Ivy called the wedding feast till she had learned better
from the _Sussex Mercury_.

Fred helped her wash up after supper, and then they sat together in the
parlour, which was his glory, just as the oil-stove was her's. He had
re-plastered and whitewashed the ceiling and re-papered the walls, and
there were the new curtains and the new covers made by Mrs. Crouch, to
put soft gay colours into the lamplight and firelight. The arm-chair
from the kitchen had been moved in, and Fred and Ivy sat in it together,
her arms about his neck and his about her waist.

It was not so different from the days of their courtship, when they had
so often sat together in a dead man's chair--and yet it was different.
She knew that she belonged to Fred and he to her, and that the time
would never come when she should slide out of his arms and take her
bicycle from where it leaned against the wall, and ride away on her dark
journey back to Barline.

Just for a moment she felt she would like to be going as usual, to see
the golden beam of her lamp upon the ruts, pedalling with the night wind
on her face and the smell of night rising up from the fields around
her--back to her own little bed under the leaking roof. . . . But the
moment passed, leaving her almost with a sense of treachery; and as if
to compensate him for the unfaithfulness he would never know, she
strained her arms more tightly round him, and made him turn his head so
that she could kiss his mouth.

He held her kiss in a way that was new. She could feel his lips press
almost fiercely down on hers, then she felt his hands move upwards from
her waist, groping for the fastening of her gown. The old Ivy seemed to
be slipping away, to be indeed riding off on her bicycle up the lane,
leaving Mrs. Sinden alone with Mr. Sinden at Float Cottage. Well, nobody
wanted her back. For, after all, Mr. Sinden was only Fred . . . and it
was good to lie back in his arms, with his kisses and the firelight
moving together upon her closed eyes.



                                 1925


                                  1

Fred's position as ploughman on Float Farm was not as glorious as it
would have been fifty years ago when his father started work. Old Sinden
belonged to an earlier day--Fred being the child of his second marriage,
which took place after his two grown-up sons had left him to go to
Australia--a day when Sussex was an arable country and farmers paid
their tithe in some relation to their crops. In those times all the low
fields of the Tillingham valley had been hop-gardens, and the higher
slopes had borne wheat and oats and barley. Now they seemed almost as
remote as the times when the sea had crept up the valley at every tide,
to lie in its last pool between Float and Barline. Of the hops only some
fourteen acres remained at Float, of the corn about twenty-two; the rest
was woodland, and pasture for Mr. Vincent's cows, and keep for marsh
tegs in winter.

Fred's work with the plough was therefore much less than his father's
had been. A lot of his time was given to his horses and to various
carting jobs--sometimes going out on the roads for the County
Council--and to working with the other men as necessity arose.

Besides Fred, Mr. Vincent employed two men and a boy. Ashdown was the
general labourer, a single man living in lodgings in Vinehall. He was a
downright, simple sort of chap, never going out of his way or losing his
temper for anyone. Fred liked him better than Masters, the cowman and
looker, who was a married man with a large family, and always grumbling
and evil-speaking about somebody. The boy was his eldest son who had
reached school-leaving age just in time to step into the job that Fred
had nominally held before his father's death. For Mr. Vincent had not
engaged a man to take Fred's old place. He said he could not afford the
wages and must take a boy instead. Young Masters worked well--indeed
nearly as well as a man--but otherwise he was poor company, for he
hardly ever opened his mouth, possibly because he was scared of his
father, and possibly because he had a queer twitch or stammer in his
speech, which made him take twice as long as most people to say what he
wanted.

Mr. Vincent had only a horse plough, but it was a good make and fairly
new, and once a year he hired a tractor for cleaning the fields and
mowing down the thistles--it was cheaper than spudding them now that the
women gave themselves such airs and wanted to be paid sixpence or even
eightpence an hour for a job their mothers had done for fourpence and
their grandmothers for a penny. For the hay he had a horse-cutter and
rake, but the stacking had all to be done by hand, as it would be some
time before he could afford an elevator.

Every morning from May to October Fred was at work by seven--in winter
he started half an hour or an hour later according to the light. Ivy was
not used to such early rising, for her father's work had either kept him
out all night or called for his appearance at an hour when the women of
his household might reasonably claim to be excused. So he managed for
himself and on the days between his jobs often lay in bed till tea-time.
In her various situations Ivy's rising hour had varied from half-past
six (needless to say at Mrs. Alard's) to a quarter to eightsometimes--at
Cock Marling. But now she was Fred's wife she must get up with the light,
often before it. She would never forget that first morning, waking after
a sleep that had been peculiarly sweet and heavy, to see Fred bending
over her in the dim blue gleam of earliest day.

"Wha-what is it?" she had murmured, drawing his dear warm face down to
her for a kiss.

"Time to get up, sweetheart."

"Oh, must we?--what time is it? it looks like the middle of the
night"--and she had tried to draw him back again beside her into the
thick, billowing warmth of the feathers.

But Fred would not fail Mr. Vincent or his horses even on the morning
after his wedding night. He kissed her and told her he must be off to
work in an hour. Then he said he would run down and make her a cup of
tea. This was a great help and comfort to her, and made easy those first
dark mornings of her married life. By the time Fred had grown into some
of the slackness of the established husband, and no longer saw why he
should be the first to get up, with a long day's work before him, and go
down in his shirt into the cold, dark kitchen, to light the oil-stove
and put on the kettle--when this time came she had learned to do without
it.



                                  2

She had been married six months, and had just watched him go off to work
on a fine morning in July, smoking a contented woodbine after his good
breakfast of tea and bacon and bread, and carrying with him in a parcel
his lunch of bread and cheese and an onion. At twelve o'clock he would
be back to dinner--more bread and cheese, more onions, a dish of faggots
and the remains of a jam suet roll. With her memories of other ways
still clear, Ivy sometimes wondered why the working men of Leasan chose
to cram three meals out of the day's four into the first few hours, and
then exist till bedtime on nothing but a tea-supper at six o'clock. It
made her morning uncomfortably crowded. Not that it mattered now, when
she had only herself and Fred to work for, but later on, when the baby
came. . . .

She ought to be starting on the clothes. Mrs. Hurst at the Women's
Institute had been so kind, cutting out the patterns for her. But so far
married life had been a nightmare of sewing--first all her wedding
clothes to prepare, then Fred to mend and darn for, to say nothing of
her own things, which had not worn well, and now these little dresses
and petticoats and pilches . . . it came hard on the housemaid Mrs.
Fuller had dismissed for slackness with her needle.

Ivy picked up a broom and wandered from the kitchen into the parlour.
She dragged the broom over the carpet and a cloud of dust flew up. Ivy
coughed and made a face, but persevered until the cloud of dust was all
round her. Then she gave it up--it was pleasant to feel that she was her
own mistress, and had no Mrs. Williams or Mrs. Fuller or Mrs. Alard to
come into the room and ask why she hadn't finished it.

The dust had collected on the mirror: she wiped it off with her
handkerchief, and the glass filled itself once more with the window's
square of light. She could see the swaying branches of the ash trees
beyond the window and the spatter of sunlight among the leaves. Between
the mirror and the light was the darkness of her own shape. She examined
it critically. Could you notice anything yet? She did not think so.
After all, she was only three months gone. There was some time to run
yet before she would be like those women she sometimes saw at the shop
or met walking back from the Queen's Head with their beer in a jug . . .
Jack's Dolly often and Mrs. Masters and Mrs. Pannell sometimes . . .
heavy, unwieldy, yet triumphant shapes.

When she was like that would she feel proud or ashamed? Would she walk
about as they did with her coat undone and flapping away from her
burden, or would she hide in the cottage and never come out till after
dark? She was not sure. She did not think she would hide, but it would
be nice to have a long cloak or something--like that thing Miss Betsy
wore, which hung in such graceful lines. She had worn it a long
time--perhaps she would soon be giving it away or sending it to the
jumble. Perhaps there would be no harm in asking her what she meant to
do. . . .



                                  3

A bicycle bell rang outside, and Ivy hurried to the door. Her
meditations had been appropriate, for there on the doorstep stood the
District Nurse.

"Good morning, Mrs. Sinden."

"Good morning, Nurse. Won't you come in?"

Nurse came in and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs, beside the
remains of Fred's breakfast, still on the table. She was a portly,
comfortable creature, and her broad seat overflowed the seat of the
chair. What it must look like on a bicycle Ivy could only imagine.

"I thought I might as well call, as Mrs. Williams said you'd be wanting
me some time near Christmas."

"I don't know what Mrs. Williams knows about it," snapped Ivy--"it was
Mrs. Hurst who cut out the clothes for me at the Institute."

"Well, maybe she told Mrs. Williams, and Mrs. Williams thought you might
be wanting the maternity bag and asked me to find out exactly when the
little dear is expected."

"But I don't want the maternity bag," said Ivy, her nose in the air,
"Mr. Sinden earns two pound a week and we can quite well manage to get
our own things."

"I'm sure you can--quite sure you can; and between ourselves no one
wants that old maternity bag, but she's always trying to push it off on
some poor girl. I think it goes against her not having it used when she
made all the things in it herself."

"Yes, she was making them when I was there, out of some government stuff
left over from the war. I don't want my baby to wear stuff made to cover
zeppelins."

"Nor does anyone, dear. The only people that maternity bag 'ud be any
good to would be the gipsies, who never have a rag. But they either go
into the Infirmary or else they have the baby on the cart steps while
they're cooking the dinner, and don't stop stirring the pot for more
than a minute."

"I wish I was made like that. Do you think I'll have a bad time, Nurse?
Mother says she thinks I will because she had a terrible bad time when
she had me."

"She's no business to say things like that. There's no sense in 'em,
either. Let's have a look at you. You look a fine strong girl--a trifle
on the small side, but most of 'em are nowadays and manage none the
worse. You take care of yourself and behave sensibly and don't
fret--it's fretting does the harm. After all it's more natural for a
woman to have children than not to have them, and if we act according to
nature she takes care of us--at least that's my idea."

She asked Ivy a number of questions and between them they were able to
fix the date of the baby's arrival with a greater preciseness than had
arisen out of any of Ivy's discussions with her mother.

"I'll book you for round and about the first of January," said Nurse,
"and I'll call in now and then just to see how you're getting on. But
don't think of yourself as an invalid for pity's sake; and now I must be
off, for I've a busy morning to get through."

"Won't you stop and have a cup of tea, Nurse? I could boil up the kettle
again in a minute."

"No, thank you, dear. I mustn't spare the time. And here comes someone
else to see you, if I'm not mistaken."



                                  4

There was a slither and suck of wheels on the unmade clay of the lane.
Nurse hurriedly snatched her bicycle out of the way of a huge yellow car
that came nosing between the cottage and the trees.

"It's Miss Betsy--I expect she's come for her washing."

She did a little washing every week for Betsy Parish, silk things which
were too fragile to send to the laundry, and which Ivy had washed
regularly at Cock Marling. She washed well enough and was glad of the
extra money. She thought it a pity that Miss Betsy should call like this
and see her clothes at a time when they were best invisible. There they
hung, drying in the smoky darkness of the kitchen, some on a string,
others on the backs of chairs, all mixed up with Fred's shirts and her
own chemises. It was difficult to imagine how fresh and sweet they would
look when she had ironed them and laid them in their basket.

But Miss Betsy did not seem to notice, as Mrs. Williams or Mrs. Alard
would have noticed. She walked into the room, smoking a cigarette.

"I've come for my washing, Ivy. I hope no one's ill. I saw Nurse Ashley
riding away as I came."

"Oh, no. She only came to see me about something. I'm sorry about the
washing, Miss Betsy, but somehow I didn't seem to have time for anything
last week, and now I'm all behindhand."

"Well, it doesn't really matter, except that I'm running rather short. I
simply must go up to London and buy some more things . . . and anyway
I'm sick of being down here . . . do you think you could get them done
by to-night?"

"Oh, yes. I think so. They're pretty well dry--they've only got to be
ironed. Fred can take them up this evening."

"Thanks terribly. How are you, Ivy? How soon do you expect the baby?"

"Not till after Christmas . . . but how did you know about it?"

"I've no idea--'spect I heard it somewhere. Are you pleased?"

Once again Betsy Parish was not reacting properly to life as understood
by Ivy Sinden.

"Oh yes, Miss"--there was a little stiffness in her reply.

"Well, everybody isn't, you know. Babies cost money, and give you a
tummy-ache."

"Fred earns two pounds a week and I've only been sick three times, and
Nurse says that's very good indeed."

"Excellent, I should think, and I don't want to snarl at your good luck,
Ivy. I'm sure you've done well for yourself and ought to be happy.
Perhaps I'm jealous."

"Oh, Miss, how could you be?"

"Well, I'm not sure I'm not."

"But you could get married any day you chose, for all that people
say"--she bit her tongue, for running on so far.

"What do they say?"

Ivy searched for a polite and plausible evasion, but could not find one.

"That you can't," she answered lamely.

"Well, perhaps I can't."

"Oh, Miss, I'm sure you can."

"I'm not so sure, though; you see, I'm nearly thirty, and most of the
men I like are already married."

Ivy did not know what to say. Miss Betsy had never talked to her like
this in the old days at Cock Marling. Then she had been interested in
her maid's affairs, but had said very little about her own. Now she
walked about the tiny kitchen at Float Cottage, picking up Ivy's
ornaments and putting them down again, without seeming to notice them,
while every now and then she began sentences, or seemed to finish others
of which she had only thought the beginning. Ivy was not sure if she was
talking to her or not. Then suddenly she faced her, and asked----

"Don't you ever want to smash every single thing in this house and run
out of it and never come back?"

Ivy's eyes bulged at her.

"No, Miss--never."

"You really enjoy living with a man and working for him and bringing his
children into the world?"

"Yes, Miss. I'm uncommon fond of Fred."

"You really wouldn't rather go up to Leasan every night and meet any
young man that took your fancy and go off and sleep with him
somewhere--free?"

"No, no, Miss. Certainly not. Whoever heard of such a terrible thing?"

Betsy laughed at her horrified face, but felt a little annoyed with her
for being such a block.

"Ivy, I wonder if I should like it, if life could be as simple for me as
it is for you. I don't think I should like it at all really."

Ivy felt that Miss Betsy was being rude, and answered her with a certain
indignation.

"I don't see that my life's simple at all. You wouldn't find things
simple, Miss, if you had to get up at five in the morning and get ready
three meals before twelve o'clock and clean four rooms, to say nothing
of all this washing and mending, and a baby coming too."

Betsy Parish grinned and Ivy loved her again.

"No, I daresay I shouldn't. And I'm a beast to have plagued you about
the washing. It'll do quite well if Fred brings it up some time
to-morrow."

"Oh, I can get it done by to-night; don't you worry about that, Miss."

The conversation had gone back to the safeties of its beginning, and
took no more dangerous turns before Betsy drove off in her big
Lanchester, grinding the surface of the lane.

She had left a lot of cigarette ash on the floor and on the table-cloth,
and Ivy dusted it off rather contemptuously--"She's got some fine untidy
ways--reckon she'll have to manage better when she comes to have a house
of her own."



                                  5

The Lanchester tore its way up to the Vinehall road, snapping off twigs
from the hedges as it brushed between them. Betsy cursed--"There goes
the paint." The lane debouched on the road at an angle of thirty
degrees, with hedges towering either side of it. Turning blind into the
road she nearly ran into a woman who stood at the corner. The brakes
screamed, the horn honked, the woman scuffled and dropped her shopping
basket. "Hullo, Rose. I'm terribly sorry. But this corner's quite blind,
and you were standing rather near it."

Mrs. George Alard gave her an unforgiving look as she stooped to pick up
a rolling tin of Vim.

"I don't think you sounded your horn."

"I was coming up on bottom gear, and Lord knows that makes as much noise
as fifty horns. But really I'm sorry, Rose. Let me help you"--and she
jumped out of the car in time to catch a tin of cocoa before it started
off down the lane.

"Your parcels are the wrong shape for dropping on a hill. I suppose
you're waiting for the 'bus. Can I run you back to Leasan?"

Rose Alard looked less stern.

"Thank you, Betsy; that would be very kind of you. I go into Vinehall
once a week to get soda. Vennall sells it at nine pounds for sixpence,
and it's a penny a pound at Mrs. Waters'."

"And the bus fare's twopence, so you don't save much in the end."

"It's a penny if you take the bus at Float corner--I always walk as far
as that. And I collect my Savings Club money too. Quite a lot of the
Vinehall women belong to ours, because they've no proper parish
organizations of their own. By the way, have you heard the news?"

She was sitting in the car beside Betsy now, her basket on her knee, her
face already a little reddened by the wind that was meeting them.

"No, what news? You're always full of news, Rose."

"Well, the advowson--the living of Vinehall has been bought by the
Protestant League."

"Oh, that! . . ." that wasn't news as Betsy understood the word--"I've
heard that, of course. Jim had a simply smoking letter from Gervase
Alard this morning."

"Oh, had he? I expect Gervase is furious"--this thought compensated her
a little for Betsy's lack of interest.

"He's cursing mad--but of course it wasn't Jim's fault. His solicitors
sold the advowson to some other solicitors for a client whom Jim took to
be a private person. Not that he really minds who buys it as long as
it's sold, and anyway nothing can be done about it now."

"I expect Father Luce is very angry."

"I expect he is."

"I'm not Low Church myself--George always considered himself a moderate
High Churchman, and of course I was the same. But I must say I'm glad
that all those silly extreme practices should come to an end at
Vinehall. They were simply the ruin of Gervase. I believe he'd be at
Conster Manor now, running the place properly, if it hadn't been for the
nonsense he learned in church."

Betsy said nothing, finding the driving of the car between a stationary
lorry and a gipsy's cart more absorbing than Rose's conversation.

"It's dreadfully sad to see the country changing so," continued Mrs.
George--"ever since the Alard sale there's been nothing but changes. As
for those people at Conster . . . well, I don't know of course but I
should think something would have to be done about it some day. Young
Waters was delivering groceries there last Tuesday, and it just took his
fancy to climb up and look over the kitchen-garden wall, to see if the
melon frames were still there as they used to be . . . and would you
believe it, he saw three women lying out on rugs stark naked."

"How nice for young Waters."

"It wasn't nice at all. He's a good, clean-minded boy, and he was
dreadfully shocked. He came home crying about it--he was really quite
upset; and his mother came round to me, and I took her in to Mr. Cotton,
as it happened to be his day at Leasan. But he said we could do nothing
as it was on private property and behind a wall."

"And it would be difficult to prove that young Waters had looked over
only on the chance of seeing melons."

"Of course it wouldn't have been difficult"--Rose thanked heaven that
she hadn't Betsy's mind--"Tell me," she added suddenly, "when you came
up Float lane, had you been to see Ivy Sinden?"

"I had."

"Did she by any chance tell you when she wanted the maternity bag?"

"We never spoke of maternity bags."

"But you know she's going to have a baby, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. But I take no interest in the technical side of it."

"Well, Mrs. Williams is extremely anxious that she should have the bag.
The women round here are so tiresome about it as a rule, because there's
an absurd rumour that the things are made of Zeppelin cloth."

"And aren't they?"

"No, of course not. They're made of a specially nice sort of calico that
was on sale by some government department directly after the war--stuff
meant for hospitals."

"I expect Ivy wants to dress her baby in silk and lace."

"I expect she does. They all do nowadays, and I always thought Ivy a
very vain little thing. Some of the clothes she made for her wedding
were quite preposterous--so shoddy too. I've always taken an interest in
her, for she was with me as housemaid for a year. She was with you too,
of course. How did you like her?"

"Very Much."

"Oh, she wasn't a bad girl in some ways. But I'm sorry she married that
nice Fred Sinden. How did her cottage look? Was she keeping it clean and
tidy?"

"I didn't notice."

"Oh! . . ." Mrs. Alard was at a loss what to say. It would be rude to
say "you wouldn't," if the cottage had been dirty, and yet Mrs. Alard
was quite sure it had been dirty. Their arrival at her own door saved
her the necessity of speech.

Betsy helped her to lift her shopping bag out of the car and carry it up
the ragged little garden path. Rose's garden had an untended look,
because she was always too busy in the village to do much gardening. The
house itself was scarcely more than a glorified workman's cottage. The
door stood open and a smell of stew came out of it.

"Thank you, Betsy," said Rose, carefully setting her bag on the worn but
highly-polished surface of her hall table--"Won't you come in for a
moment? Won't you come in and see the children?"

"No, thanks terribly: I must be getting home."

"Edna and Lilian often wonder why you never come to see them."

"Why on earth should they wonder? I'm not an aunt."

"No, but they have a great many grown-up friends--through the guides,
you know--and it's nice for them to know people with big houses and
gardens, instead of always being cramped in this little place."

"Bring them up to Cock Marling any day you like"--said Betsy,
understanding her at last "Bring 'em to tea on Monday. But I must dash
back now. The Hursts are coming to lunch."

"Oh, are they?" Rose's large pale eyes brightened at once. "Both of
them?"

"Yes: Tom Hurst hardly ever goes to town on Thursdays."

"I know. I wasn't meaning him----"

Betsy would probably not have noticed the slip if Rose had not suddenly,
checked herself and turned red.

"Oh, I see. You were meaning that you're surprised at Mrs. Hurst
accepting invitations from me while I'm sleeping with her husband----"

"Betsy! You really do say the most awful things. As if I'd ever dream
. . . and do you think I'd ask you if I could bring the children to tea
if I imagined----"

"You can imagine what you like. I'd be sorry to put any restraint on
such a fine, healthy instinct as your imagination."

"But I don't imagine anything. As I said, I'd never ask if I could bring
the children. . . . But you don't often have Mrs. Hurst to lunch, do
you?"

"Quite as often as we have her husband. They both bore me to sobs--like
most people I meet down here. Good-bye, Rose. I really must rush."

She walked down the path to her car.

"Good-bye!" Rose cried after her, in a bright, cheerful tone that was
meant to wipe out any unpleasantness there might have been. I don't
believe he bores her, she thought to herself--I believe she really likes
him very much--too much. Everyone's talking. Though how could she be so
utterly coarse as to say what she did? . . . imagine I thought they had
. . . "sleep"--such a very coarse word.



                                  6

Betsy gripped the wheel of her car, trod on the gas and cursed Rose
Alard. She's a nosing, meddling, grabbing, yapping beast. She's got a
mind like a bad egg--a lot of rot in a narrow space. I never met anyone
so bloody . . . and yet she's like everyone else down here, everyone of
the miserable gentry . . . stinting and scraping what she's got and
trying to grab what she hasn't--so respectable, so economical, so shabby
and proud of it . . . suspecting everyone who's different from herself
. . . enjoying other people's sins because she hasn't the pluck to
commit any of her own . . . I was a fool to let her think I sleep with
Hurst--she'll get a lot of pleasure out of the idea, far more than I
should out of the fact . . . and why in hell's name did I ask those
brats to tea on Monday? I don't want them, and yet I've got to have them
because we're all living together in the country. Hell! how I hate the
country.

She swung in at Cock Marling's gate and down the long untidy
avenue--that was really only a farm-lane strewn with beach--to where the
house hung on the edge of the Tillingham valley. Beyond it the ground
sloped so steeply that it had the look of being balanced above the
marshes . . . a push, and it would slide down on them, sweeping its
oasts and farmyard before it from their perch still farther down the
hill.

The house had been built at two periods at least five centuries apart.
Its Georgian front faced westward with an air of sunny decorum, hiding a
much older, more sinister building of Caen stone, that had been thought
too old to live in even in George the Second's time. A prosperous farmer
of those days had built a new dwelling-house, using the ancient place as
a store-house and auxiliary barn. The Parishes' grandfather had turned
it back to its old uses, largely rebuilding it, and the house was now
quite a big one and raised to the dignity of a Place. Seven hundred
acres of land had been owned by the yeoman who had last held it as a
farm, and old Anthony Parish had bought more and more acres till at last
his land marched with Sir William Alard's down the Tillingham valley;
and though some of it had been sold in his son's time and more in his
grandson's, it was still a big estate, the only big one now that the
Alards were gone.

On that summer day, with a faint breeze moving in the oaks, and with the
sunlight golden on that bland faade, the sight of it calmed the
savagery of Betsy's mood. But she was still frowning as she climbed out
of the car. Her brother stood on the doorstep.

"Hullo, Betsy! Back at last. I was wondering if I should be alone to
receive our guests. How cross you look!"

"I hate the country."

"No, my dear, you hate country life. It isn't the same thing."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, the country's--this," and he waved his arm towards the sunny,
dreaming house, and the oaks and the view of distant pastures--"this,
and my work with George Bates on the cow-lodge, and people like George
Bates and Fred Sinden and John Ehas, and farms like Eggs Hole and
Stonelink and Dinglesden, and this year's harvest even if it's a bad
one, and draining the Tillingham marshes, and hearing owls call at
night, and seeing a vixen and her cubs on the lawn when you look out
early in the morning. . . . That's the country. But country life's all
gardening and shooting and having your neighbours to meals, which I
probably like more than you do; and meeting people like Mrs. Williams
and Rose Alard and those shirkers at Barline, which I probably hate as
much as you----"

"I met Rose Alard on the Vinehall road this morning."

"Ah, that accounts for your ravaged look."

"Yes, and I drove her in to Leasan and invited her two wretched brats to
tea on Monday."

"Betsy, you shouldn't be so kind. It hurts nobody but yourself, as I
shall be in Ashford all Monday. But why did you do it?"

"Oh, I dunno. It's the sort of thing one does in the country--and she
practically made me do it, for the matter of that. And now I must go in
and wash or those Hursts will be upon us. Oh, why did you ask them?"

"Kindness again. Kindness to them and kindness to you. I thought the man
was a flame of yours."

"Bah!"

She walked away from him into the house.



                                  7

The Hursts were late, and arrived apologizing. Ruth Hurst had been
staking her delphiniums against the wireless forecast of a gale, an
excuse of which the Parishes had heard at least a dozen variations.
Plants that must be tied, bulbs that simply had to be got into the
ground, a border whose planting must either, be done at once or else
abandoned for ever provided the country equivalent of the traffic-block
excuse in town. Betsy smiled perfunctorily. Jim said: "How refined,
Ruth! When I'm late for lunch it's generally because I'm digging up a
drain."

Tom Hurst could never understand why Parish, who lived in a big house
and owned a big estate, chose to do so much dirty work himself, instead
of leaving it to properly appointed underlings. He knew that he had
built a pig-sty with his own hands and was now at work upon a cow-lodge,
that he did a lot of his own household repairs and improvements, never
calling in the carpenter or the locksmith or the plumber. If anyone
helped him it would be one of his farm-men, generally George Bates, whom
he consulted as if they were on equal terms and whose sayings he
reported as if quoting from an old, experienced friend.

Peter Alard had been very like him--poor old Peter! Tom himself never
spoke to the country people more than he could help, because he could
not understand them and often they seemed surly. Men like Alard and
Parish, he thought, were letting down the traditions of the countryside.
He himself was not a countryman. His father, who had made the Hurst
money, had bought the Furnace House at Leasan and then cleared out of it
on his son's marriage. Tom had spent a good deal on the house and garden
and was extremely proud of his place. He liked having his nights and
week-ends in the country, driving up to town almost every day in his
enormous Daimler, which went much faster than any local train. It was
nice to come back in the evening to the fresh air and the scents of
earth and flowers, and to his wife, wearing her lace dinner-gown after a
long day in the garden, where--as he had imported several tons of loamy
soil--flowers grew that would grow nowhere else in the country of
Vinehall and Leasan.

It was also nice to make love occasionally to a girl like Betsy Parish.
He could not have found anyone more suitable had he lived in town, nor,
he told himself, could there have been less gossip. People said there
was always such a lot of gossip in the country, but he himself had never
heard a word, and nor, he would swear, had Ruth. The only drawback was
that the affair had not moved so fast as the lady's reputation had
encouraged him to hope; and lately it had shown definite symptoms of
decline--instead of drawing closer to each other they seemed to be
slipping apart.

To-day she seemed specially inclined to silence. Over the cocktails
there was a desultory conversation about delphiniums in which she did
not join at all, and when he pressed her hand with his while lighting
her cigarette, she quickly drew it away. At lunch she was still less
encouraging. There was only the four of them, as Vernon and Ronald were
both in London with their mother; and he found himself seated opposite
her at the beautiful little Sheraton table which was used for meals at
Cock Marling when numbers were few. It was the easiest thing in the
world for him to stretch his legs and take between them her elegant foot
and ankle.

It had often happened before, but this time she kicked out with vicious
indiscretion, sending up his foot against the table in a kick of his own
that made the knives and glasses rattle and the water slop out of the
central rose-bowl. The servants looked anxious, Ruth Hurst, who knew
nothing of what had happened, sat waiting for exclamations of surprise
or else for some explanation; Jim Parish, who guessed pretty well what
had, merely said:

"I heard from young Alard this morning."

"Oh . . . er . . . indeed--have you?"--perhaps it was a dog under the
table--or could it really have been that odious young woman?

"Yes, he's in a fine temper about my having sold Vinehall to some
religious crowd he doesn't approve of. I must say I didn't mean to--I
thought it was a private buyer; but apparently some league or other was
behind him."

"Is it really a bad thing?" said Mrs. Hurst.

"No. To be honest, I think it's a very good thing. I don't like Luce's
ways and I'm glad they're going to end."

"Will he be turned out?"

"Oh, no: they'll have to wait till he dies or runs away. But the whole
things ends when he does, which is a mercy."

"I agree with you there," said Hurst--"I don't like Luce's ways either."

"But won't it be rather hard on the people of Vinehall," said Ruth, "to
get used to one sort of religion and then have to learn another."

"I don't suppose they'll learn anything, or have learned anything. I
don't suppose they'll even notice the change, and I shall tell Gervase
Alard that."

"Oh, but I think people often do notice when a Church is High."

"In which case they're generally glad when it lies low again. I really
see no good in Gervase getting so furious with me. I couldn't help it,
though I don't know that I would if I could. Anyway, he could have got
his own back with Leasan if he hadn't been such a mug as to sell
Conster--and he could have put himself in as successor to Williams if he
hadn't prayed so hard for a golden age that now you aren't allowed to
present yourself with a fat living. I think I shall point that out to
him, too--how much better the Hanoverian system of church patronage was
than the present one, and how, if he and his kind hadn't abolished it,
he could now be looking forward to Romanizing Leasan in revenge for what
I've done to Vinehall. Ruth, will you take hock, or do you share my
passion for old ale?"

Lunch continued, without any more alarms, Jim talking a great deal,
Betsy very nearly silent, Ruth Hurst still a little nervous, Tom Hurst a
little sulky. The food was good of its country kind--a dish of eggs and
cheese, a chicken served with new potatoes and the newest peas, and
gooseberry fool made with cream. Jim Parish was interested in food when
it was the produce of his farm and garden. It was he who had arranged
the meal with Mrs. Holmes. Betsy did not care for housekeeping, and her
erratic appearances and disappearances made it as well that she should
not. Jim was proud of his cellar too, but careful, and had not
considered the Hursts worth more than a bottle of 1920 hock. He himself
drank old ale, and Betsy drank water.

After lunch they walked out into the garden, for the guests to earn the
praises of their own delphiniums by duly admiring those of their host.
Tom Hurst tried more than once to draw Betsy on ahead so that he could
remove any little misunderstanding there might be and win back some of
her favour. But his efforts were frustrated both by the reluctance of
Betsy herself, who dawdled obstinately, and by the pursuit of his wife,
who was determined they should not be alone together, having recently
heard from her sewing woman that they met in London at least one day
every week.



                                  8

At last they were gone, and Jim Parish was left alone, for Betsy also
had disappeared. He pulled out his pipe and heaved a sigh of relief, not
because he was really glad to be rid of his guests, but because he felt
at ease, alone in his afternoon mood, with nothing particular to do at
the moment. He could walk to where the trees cleared just above the
slope, and look down on the Tillingham valley, hazy under a web of mist
and sunshine, through which the river sent sudden stabs of light.

The hay had long been cut and carried, and the new-mown fields were as
green as the fields of May. Only the uncut cornfields showed the coming
golds of August, and there were not so many of them as there used to be.
Parish counted nine--his own four, three at Float and two at Dinglesden,
a poor hundred acres in all. And once all the slopes of the valley had
been golden. He remembered how as a boy when they had sung in church
"the valleys stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing,"
he had always thought of the Tillingham valley, golden to the rims in
the afternoon August light. Now all that was changed--a few yellow
patches on the green, that was all. Of course the southern slopes had
never done so well, but there ought to be more growing north of the
river. Those were Alard farms, long neglected, and now mortgaged to the
building societies that had helped realize Gervase Alard's idle dream.
Blight him! Jim's hand clenching in his pocket met the letter he had
received that morning. Blight him indeed? What business had he to
interfere in an affair like this when he had left a whole countryside to
go to ruin? What did it matter who was Rector of Vinehall? What mattered
was who was Squire of Conster. He took out the letter, and tore it to
pieces. He wouldn't trouble to answer it. There was nothing that he
could trust himself to say.

As the breeze took the fragments and scattered them, his mood seemed to
blow away. He saw that he had been a little silly. After all, it was
hardly Gervase Alard's fault that the Tillingham valley had ceased to be
a corn-growing district. For that he must blame almost every
agricultural and political circumstance since the repeal of the
corn-laws. The immediate causes were the fall in the price of wheat and
the expiry of contracts. No farmer in his senses nowadays grew wheat
except under contract. He himself had a contract with a big firm of
flour merchants in Lewes, and Vincent of Float had one with a firm in
Maidstone. When contracts expired they were seldom renewed, as the price
offered to-day did not make the cultivation of the land worth while. It
was impossible to blame Gervase Alard for that; a succession of Squires
at Conster could not have prevented it, unless they had had money to
blew and to burn.

Indeed his own land was little better off. On his farm at Cock Marling
he had forty-seven acres growing wheat and oats when he ought to have
had a hundred. He could not afford more--he could not afford the labour
or the uncertainties of the market. If only he had a few thousand pounds
behind him he might venture a little. But he was entirely without
capital, and any mistake would have to be paid for out of the place
itself. Cock Marling must be content to be as Conster had been with the
only difference that he would never leave it. He loved it far too much.
He loved it though its fields were Ichabod--though its glory had
departed, and unlike Alard he had not the memories of fifty generations
to bind him to its soil.

He loved it as a man best loves a woman, because it seemed a part of
himself, and bound up with all his thoughts and hopes and experiences.
The countryside of Vinehall and Leasan, the valleys of the Tillingham
and the Brede River, not merely those acres that he owned himself, but
all of it, was his romance, the outlet of those emotions which might
have gone to the wife and children he would never have. He would never
marry now; the only woman he had cared for enough to marry was Jenny
Alard, and he had been unable to love even her better than Cock Marling.
He had let her go, and no one else was worth the fuss. If he had loved
Cock Marling as Peter Alard loved Conster, he would have married to
beget an heir, but his love for his place was not traditional and
possessive but personal and emotional. He was quite content merely to
live in it, working at his pottering improvements, avoiding the worst
disasters, now and then spending a few pounds on a piece of Sheraton or
Chippendale, so that in his house he could dream of the eighteenth
century and the golden days of the Squires, entertaining his friends to
unpretentious meals, and talking to them with a queer pompous garrulity
that he was sometimes himself aware of about the things that interested
him most, gossiping with his men on terms of kindly and most
un-Hanoverian equality, and every now and then, as on a day like this,
brooding over the beauty which had not changed and which he told himself
would never change. Once he might have been disappointed, could he have
known that his middle-age would hold nothing warmer or more stirring
than this; but now he had no regrets, save very gentle ones. He was
content to go on like this till he died--when Cock Marling would be
sold, for none of the others would ever want to live there. But he did
not trouble about that, for by that time his dust would be inseparably a
part of it.



                                  9

He knocked out his pipe against the stump of an oak, and turned back
towards the house. He must change his tidy clothes and get to work again
on the cow-lodge, or George Bates would feel himself forsaken. As he
walked up the steps that spread fan-wise from the columned porch in
Georgian illusion--for he and George Bates had made them out of
cement--Betsy came running down them, a suitcase in each hand.

"Hullo! where are you off to?"

"London."

"London! "--he stared at her--"Why?"

"Because I'm fed-up with this place. I've been here more than eight
months, and I can't stand any more of it."

"When are you coming back?"

"I don't know. At present I feel like never. But I expect I'll come back
some day."

"Shall you stay with Mother?"

"Not at first. I shall go to my club."

"Oh. . . ." He looked blank and hurt; not because he loved Betsy so
dearly that he could not bear her going--after all they had almost
nothing in common--but because she had insulted his place, running away
from it like this, in a hurry as if it had burnt her. But the next
moment he recovered himself, and spoke with his usual slow flippancy:

"Surely there are other ways of avoiding having Rose and her children to
tea on Monday."

"I'd forgotten all about them."

"Then why are you going?"

"I've told you--I'm fed-up."

"But what's fed you so suddenly? You've been here since last August and
borne it pretty well as far as I can see. Why can't you wait a day or
two, and do the thing properly instead of rushing off like this? It
isn't decent."

"I can't help that. Lunch to-day simply finished me."

"Lunch to-day wasn't so bad."

She relented a little at the note of injury in his voice.

"Poor Jim! I don't mean the food, though Lord knows I'm sick of always
having chicken when we've visitors and mutton when we haven't--I mean
everything."

"Poor Tom, in fact. But I thought he was doing his best under the
table."

"Please don't be silly. You bore me so with your archness. And it wasn't
him at all--at least not him only. He's just a part of it."

"Part of what?"

"The whole thing--the silliness, the smallness, the gossip, the
deadness, the delphiniums. Oh hell!"

"I've told you before that you must discriminate between the country and
country-life."

"I can't. They're all mixed up together; and anyhow no amount of cubs on
the lawn at dawn--I forget how your poem went--would make up to me for
having to meet people like Rose Alard and the Hursts and the Williamses
and the Fullers and pretend all their pretences."

"They're not pretending anything at all--don't be so damn superior,
Betsy--they're just living their lives."

"Well, I intend to live mine--so good-bye."

"Good-bye. But what about your luggage? Are those bags all you're
taking?"

"Hilda will pack my trunk and send it after me. I may, be away for a
year."

"No, not as long as that," he said, suddenly feeling angry with her, and
threatening, her. "The place will bring you back. You once said it had a
hold on you. It'll bring you back again, Betsy."

"I dare say it will--It or my overdraft. But I'm going now."

She was already in the driving seat, and as she mocked his threat, her
foot pressed the starter. The car moved forward and hummed away, leaving
him standing rather dismayed in the Georgian illusion of his portico.



                                  10

The Tillingham fields ripened and were reaped. It was a good harvest--a
little heavy in straw, perhaps, owing to early rains, but good in
comparison with other years. Fred Sinden was glad to have such a good
harvest, and felt that with such weather, the credit was all his. They
had a fine spell for the reaping, and though Mr. Vincent had only a
horse-drawn reaper, there was plenty of time to finish the work before
the rain came down again.

Everyone at Float went out on the last day--Mrs. Vincent and her two
children and some of the little Masterses and Ivy--to watch the last
cant being reaped and to see the rabbits bolt out of their last
stronghold in the corn, with the three farm dogs in pursuit. Ivy, who
had not attended this ceremony for some years, thought it rather cruel
and shocking, and even cried when a rabbit was pulled down at her feet.
But no one else had a tear to shed for the arch-enemy of the farms--Mus'
Coney, even a bigger thief and destroyer than Mus' Reynolds the fox.
Fred petted and comforted her, and Mrs. Vincent promised to give her a
puppy from Nell's next litter, since she seemed so fond of animals.

Ivy was quite big now, though she still had four months to go. Her
mother said she was sure she would have twins, which frightened her till
Mrs. Vincent said she was sure she would not. Nurse Ashley advised her
to go and see the doctor, and Ivy had gone once at the start, but could
not bring herself to go again. Dr. Egan was quite a good sort of doctor,
but he was new to the district and still regarded as a stranger. She
would not have minded going to his predecessor, Dr. Mount, who had
worked in the neighbourhood twenty-five years and brought most of the
young people into the world, including Ivy herself. But it was quite
different going to a foreigner, and a young man too. Besides, this was
not a doctor's business at all. There wasn't a married woman in the two
parishes of Vinehall and Leasan who wasn't brimming over with advice,
encouragement and cautionary tales.

As time passed she found she had no inclination to join the sisterhood
who marched, proud of their burdens, on the Leasan road. She felt shy
and shrinking from the eyes that might watch her progress to motherhood,
and before December came had even given up her shopping, buying instead
from the travelling shop that bumped down the lane once a week with a
mean store of groceries, mops, and ancient linoleum. It belonged to two
of that vagrant population she had been taught to despise, but she was
grateful for the privacy it made possible. Mr. and Mrs. Chittenden, the
owners, were always most obliging and would even buy things for her at
Mrs. Waters' shop in the village if she gave them the money. They, of
course, knew the reason for her patronage, and expressed the hope that
she would continue to deal with them when the little dear had come. But
they never stared or asked questions, though Mrs. Chittenden once
offered to give her a charm, which Ivy, full of the wisdom of her
mother, Jack's Dolly, Mrs. Masters, Mrs. Vincent and many others, looked
down on as a low form of superstition.



                                  11

Her time came before she expected it. All Christmas day she had been
feeling ill, and had spent the evening alone with Fred, roasting
chestnuts and listening to the wireless which was his Christmas present
and surprise for her. He had fixed it up, with the help of Sam and
Archie French from the garage, one day while she was out shopping. For
the day before Christmas she had forced herself to go out, and had taken
the 'bus to Vinehall, which, though the larger village of the two, had
seemed to her a more private place, since she was not so well known in
it as in Leasan.

The Chittendens' cart had not called for more than a week, as they had
gone to spend Christmas with a married daughter who camped near
Portsmouth. Anyway, there was a number of special things they could not
be expected to provide--Fred's Christmas present, for example; in Mr.
Vennall's shop she carefully chose the tie and handkerchief, cut out of
the same piece of checked synthetic silk, which were to brighten the
blackness of his best suit for the Christmas festivities. She bought a
new feather mount for her own hat, a green velvet tea-cosy for her
mother, a packet of shag for her father, and a laced-edged handkerchief
for Jack's Dolly. These were all the presents she would give this year,
for ten shillings was her limit, with the baby coming so soon. She made
up the sum with a bag of oranges, some chestnuts, and a packet of
stuffed dates. She and Fred were going to her mother's for Christmas
Day, but he wanted them to have their own little bit of Christmas
together at home.

Then, as things happened, they had it all at home, for when the next day
came she did not feel well enough to go to Barline. But she did not
expect the baby so soon, for all that--nor did her mother when Fred
walked across to the cottage and described his wife's symptoms.

"It'll pass off. It's only come from getting wet and riding in the
'bus," said the oracle, and Fred, who knew nothing of these things,
believed her.

Certainly Ivy had got very wet yesterday, for it had poured with rain as
she came out of Vennall's shop. She had gone into the church for
shelter, for in the shop people would stare at her if she dawdled about,
and her old coat was revealing. What a pity Miss Betsy had gone off in a
hurry like that, so that Ivy had had no chance of asking her for her
white cloak.

The church had been discreetly empty and comfortingly dark. At one end
was the Christmas crib, which had been part of Ivy's reason for going;
most people in Vinehall and Leasan went to see the crib, even if they
never went into the church on other occasions. Ivy had been every year.
But this year it seemed different. Outwardly, no doubt, it was the
same--the stable made of wood and straw, the painted figures that had
been in the same positions for many years. But this time, as she peered
into it, Ivy thought: "This is like me." Never before had she thought of
anyone in the Bible being like anyone on earth, but this evening she did
not gaze so much at sacred, mysterious figures, as at herself and Fred
and the coming child.

Even if she had been well she would not have gone to church on Christmas
Day--she had not been to church, except for her marriage, since the days
when she attended Mrs. George Alard's Sunday School, and the Reverend
George Alard was Vicar of Leasan--but as she jolted home in the 'bus
that evening she almost felt it would be nice to go. Holly and
evergreens and the Herald Angels . . . partly because of these, but more
because of this secret link she had discovered between herself and
Bethlehem. She did not say anything of her discovery, even to Fred, but
the thought of it was with her all through Christmas Day, with the queer
pain that kept coming and going, and the little creep of fear in her
heart.



                                  12

The next morning the sweetness, the pain and the fear were gone
together. Fred went off to work as usual, and she set about her
household tasks. Her mind was full of common little thoughts, such as
wondering when the Chittendens would come back, because she had nearly
run out of tea . . . and it was a deplorable but inescapable fact that
all the baby-clothes were not quite finished yet; she must find a minute
to sit down and hem one of the little frocks.

But before she found that minute, the pain came back, this time
unmistakable. Even her ignorance must know what was happening to her.
Where was Fred? Could she possibly run out and find him? Or must she
wait till he came in to dinner? Directly he came in she must send him to
fetch mother----Oh, mother! mother! She wanted her mother more than
anyone, even more than Fred. Her mother knew all about these things and
would help her. And there was Nurse Ashley too; she must be fetched. But
she wanted her mother most.

Her mother came. Miraculously she stood in the doorway without a
summons.

"Hullo, Ivy! What's the matter?"

"Oh, mother--it's begun--I'm sure. It's the baby coming."

Surely, then, it was Providence that had so chivied and delayed and
bullied and badgered Mrs. Crouch, that the chair-covers she had
faithfully promised Mrs. Fuller for Christmas Eve, had not been ready in
time, and that she should be taking them over to Oak View this morning.
In the night she had dreamed that all her hens had turned black, and as
everyone knows that it is most unlucky to dream of hens, that black
means a funeral, she had for the first time taken alarm at Ivy's
symptoms and decided to call at Float on her way to Mrs. Fuller.

When Fred came home to dinner he found his mother-in-law helping his
wife to bed, and shouting downstairs to him to fetch the Nurse.

"And there's a parcel of my work on the table that I promised Mrs.
Fuller for Christmas Eve, so you might just run over with it--I can't
leave Ivy. But go to Nurse first."

Fred left the parcel on the kitchen table--there was no room in his mind
or life for anything but Ivy. Up till now he had not felt much alarm.
These things, he knew, happened, and happen they must, and he'd very
seldom heard of their not happening safely. Ivy had always looked strong
and well, though such a little thing, and even yesterday, when she had
felt ill and he a trifle anxious, Mrs. Crouch's words had quickly
reassured him. Now he knew that she must have been mistaken--perhaps he
ought not to have believed her--perhaps he ought to have fetched Nurse
yesterday--perhaps Ivy would suffer for his fault. . . . He ran over the
fields to Nurse's cottage.

Here once more he found reassurance. Nurse was at her dinner, and her
business-like reception of his news put him back into his world of
safety. There she sat munching, and telling him it was quite all right
and that she'd be over in a few minutes when she'd finished her dinner.
Fred walked back instead of running.



                                  13

Nurse did not find husbands so temperamental as her sisters in a more
expensive walk of life. The husbands of her patients, and indeed the
patients themselves, took things as a rule pretty quietlymetaphorically
speaking, for actually the women of Leasan and Vinehall were hearty
screamers, having been taught by their mothers that screaming was of
therapeutic value--"Let it go, dear--it loosens everything wonderful."

On the whole, Nurse found mothers far more troublesome than husbands and
would have been glad if she could have sent Mrs. Crouch out to work
instead of Fred that afternoon. She was full of old-fashioned,
discredited lore, tales and scares, and watched modern hospital methods
with clearly expressed foreboding; the worst trouble was that Ivy was
inclined to believe her rather than Nurse and take her obsolete
advice--for had not her mother borne five children herself, while Nurse
was a spinster-virgin? Nurse knew that these were the ultimate values of
the countryside and that as soon as she went away Barline would triumph
over Guy's Hospital. But Mrs. Crouch must stay where she was--anyhow
till Fred came home--and come back every day to cook the meals and tidy
the house till her daughter was about again.

Fred came home at five o'clock, slow and comfortable and tired as usual.
He had felt little or no anxiety as he worked that afternoon, for he
knew that Ivy was in good hands--her clever Nurse's and her experienced
mother's--and that there was nothing he could do at home, whereas at
Float there was a big field that had to go into potash this year and
needed cleaning badly.

It was a good day for such work, cold but without frost, the air being
heavy with a cold puffing moisture which he knew meant rain on the way
with wind. He went about his work just as usual except that he thought
about the child more than he had ever done before. Hitherto he had not
thought much about it--he had thought more than usual about his wife
during these last weeks but not about the child. He and she had often
talked of it of course, and the names they would give it, but that had
not somehow made it seem alive. Fred had wanted it called after himself
if it was a boy, or else after his father. But Ivy said Jeremiah was a
terrible old-fashioned name and Frederick was a dull one. Her brother's
boys were called Ronald and Norman and her sister's were called Clarence
and Stanley and Percy. She would like her little boy to have as good a
name as any of his cousins.

This afternoon he did not think about names, but about the child itself,
which seemed for the first time to come alive in his imagination. He
hoped it would be a boy, so that he could train it up to work with him,
and then perhaps some day it would take his place at Float as he had
taken his father's. He liked to think of things going on--Fred coming
after Jerry and Norman after Fred. He liked to think that young Bertie
Vincent, now a kicking terror, would succeed his father as owner of
Float's two hundred acres. He liked to hear Ashdown say, looking at a
hedge that had not been laid along for thirty years: "I reckon that's my
father's work." First the Jeremiahs and the Solomons and the Amoses, and
then the Freds and the Jacks and the Bills, and soon the Normans and the
Clarences and the Ronalds to come after them. . . . Ivy was right--names
changed and he supposed they must follow the fashions; but the men who
bore the names went on, and that was all he cared about. He saw Norman
as a little knickered figure staggering along by his father's side in
the thick damp earth. . . . One day he would give him his whip to hold,
and then a year or two later he would let him hold the handle of the
plough and think he was guiding it. Of course they might have a motor
plough by then . . . or perhaps Mr. Vincent would not be growing corn at
all . . . a chill wind seemed to blow suddenly over his dreams, as he
remembered that Mr. Vincent's contract with Cope Brothers of Maidstone
came to an end next year. But, after all, that sort of thing had
happened many times before--three years ago his contract had ended and
been renewed. And Float had the best wheat-growing land in the
Tillingham valley. It would be a sin to let it go out of cultivation.
No, no, he needn't worry about that. He could go back to his dream of
little Norman carrying his father's whip. Pray God the child was a boy.



                                  14

It was a boy. The succession was assured--Jeremiah, Fred, Norman. But
before he came Fred had once more been driven out of his safe world into
one of fear and strangeness and uncertainty. When she had cooked his
supper Mrs. Crouch had to go back to cook her old man's; she didn't like
going, because as she said, though Ivy seemed cheerful, there was never
any knowing with a first, and of course there had been that dream about
her hens. . . . But Fred did not share her alarm, for he knew that Nurse
was coming back in an hour or two, and meanwhile Ivy seemed to be
getting on all right. In fact, when Fred went up to see her she seemed
better than she had seemed at dinner-time. The pains had stopped--she
had not had one for half an hour, she said. He made her a cup of tea and
brought it up to her, and still she was without them, sitting up in bed
and trying to get the baby's last frock finished. Her darling face was
hot and dry when he kissed it, but she smiled at him, and fondled his
hand against her breast.

"Poor boy--I'm so sorry to turn you out of your nice warm bed to-night."

"Never mind. I shall sleep uncommon well on the parlour sofa."

"Take the cover off, dear, or you'll mess it up. And there's two extra
blankets folded away in the kitchen cupboard."

He promised to make himself comfortable, and soon afterwards Nurse
arrived, deepening his sense of security. Indeed he felt so confident
that he half thought of going up to the Queen's Head for half an hour,
but on reflection it seemed better to stay where he was in case Ivy
needed him. He ate his supper, washed up his cup and plate and knife,
and settled himself to sleep by the kitchen fire. It was only seven
o'clock, but he could always go to sleep when he wanted to, and there
was nothing else to do to-night, since he did not like to turn on the
wireless.

He must have dropped off, though he did not remember doing so, for he
was in the middle of a queer dream about having an old sheep yoked to
his plough, when he suddenly opened his eyes and saw Nurse standing
beside him. She was shaking his shoulder.

"Wake up," she said kindly, but firmly--"I want you to go for the
doctor."

"The doctor!"

He was still only half-awake, but he could feel terror stabbing through
the daze.

"Yes, you needn't go to his house. You can ring up from Mrs. Waters."

"Has--has anything gone wrong?"

"I hope that everything will be perfectly all right, but at present
there's an obstruction and a doctor ought to see her. Please be quick."

He was off, without waiting to put on his coat. He was so seldom afraid
that fear, when it came, came with all the sinister effects of the
unknown. He could not control it, coax it, or suppress it, as the
naturally fearful learn to do. He was quite sure that Ivy would die. Ivy
and the child would die . . . the little boy with a whip . . . oh, God,
don't let them die. . . . Our Father chartin heaven. . . .

The night was pitch dark, but he knew his way from long custom. He would
go by the fields, for the lane twisted and looped . . . three fields
between him and the telephone . . . the ten-acre, the High and the Dew
Spring. . . . He could smell the wet grass and hear the soak and suck of
his boots in it, but he could see nothing--not even his own body; he was
like a bodiless ghost running over the field.

What was the matter? What had the nurse meant? How he wished he knew
more about these things--perhaps there was something he ought to have
done for Ivy and had not. . . . But he had never had much of that sort
of work on the farm, and Masters had never asked for his help with the
cows till fairly late, when things went wrong . . . as they had gone
wrong with Ivy . . . he remembered a calf being pulled out of a dead cow
with a rope. . . . Oh, Ivy, Ivy. . . . Oh, God, don't let me think of
such things--it's tur'ble--tur'ble. Suppose the doctor isn't in. . . .
Boxing Night--most likely he's out enjoying himself somewhere . . . or
suppose Mrs. Waters' telephone won't work and I have to go catering
after him all the way to Golden Wood. . . . Where am I now? Only in the
High . . . all that way yet to go. Oh, God, don't let them die--don't
let me think of the tur'ble things I'm thinking of. . . .

Whomp! Whoof!

The breath was all out of his body. He had hit a mountain and fallen
across it. He sprawled over a warm moving surface, smelling of milk and
manure. The mountain heaved and a low rumble went through it.

It was only a cow, who made no further protest when she found that no
attack was meant on her and that the blunderer was already on his feet
and hurrying away. At first he had not known what it was--the sudden
impact and fall had been the terror of his mind translated into physical
terms, and somehow the translation gave him a queer relief. The smell of
a cow and the feel of her hide had suddenly become a part of his fear
and had taken away its strangeness, while indignation against Masters
for leaving his cows in the field at such an hour diluted it with a more
manageable emotion. He could control it now, he could argue with
himself--remind himself that the Nurse had said everything ought to be
all right.

At last he was in the lane, running under the lights of the Queen's Head
towards Mrs. Waters' shop. Perhaps she was out. . . . No, she was in
. . . and her telephone worked. Leasan Seventeen. "Is that Dr. Egan's?"
Yes--and the doctor was in, too. A calm, clear voice was answering him,
unhurried, undismayed. "Certainly, I'll come along at once." The doctor
would probably be there before he was, and anyway he had done all he
could, and must leave things to happen, as he had so often left them and
always liked to leave them. Then they would happen right . . . a little
boy with a whip.



                                 1927

                                  1

Mr. Vincent was worried. His trouble had first shown a year or two ago,
a cloud on the horizon no bigger than a man's hand. But by the summer of
1926 his sky was exceeding dark with clouds. In fact, it may be said
that the general heavens of Leasan and Vinehall were none too bright.
Four years of mortgage-interest, tithe, rates, Schedule A and Schedule
B, coupled with the general decline from war-time standards of
agricultural prosperity had not improved the condition of Gervase
Alard's yeomen. Indeed Blazier of Ellenwhorne had given up the struggle
and gone into liquidation: his farm was now for sale "by order of the
mortgagees." Mr. Vincent still felt himself a long way off that, but he
saw it as an ultimate catastrophe unless something was done in the
meanwhile--a vague something, vaguely financial.

He did not say anything to his men--Sinden, Ashdown and Masters--it was
no use scaring them. But he didn't see how he was to go on running the
farm at his present rate of wages. His contract with Cope Brothers
expired this year and probably would not be renewed--he did not expect
them to offer enough to make it worth his while. Wheat at ninety
shillings a quarter . . . that's what it had been at one time during the
war, and of course such a sum had more than paid for the labour and the
material, even at the soaring prices of those days. But now everything
was going down--down--down--down . . . down to fifty and forty and
thirty shillings a quarter--it might go to ten. . . .

If only he had a bit of capital he wouldn't worry so much. A few hundred
pounds would help him get the place on its feet and tide him over the
bad times.

But he hadn't a penny, nor the means of raising it, since the
four-fifths mortgage on Float wiped out his only security. Six years ago
he would have gone to Mr. Peter Alard and talked over matters with him;
but there were no Alards at Conster now, only strangers who would look
at him blankly, who would not even know who he was. It was all very well
owning your place and being your own master, but in times like these it
often meant no more than it had meant to Robinson Crusoe. Standing on
your own feet was all very well if you had dry ground under them and
your boots were paid for.

For some months he pondered the matter, talking of it to no one but his
wife. It was she who finally suggested that he should go to Mr. Parish
and talk things over with him, in the clear yet fragile hope that he
might guarantee an overdraft.

"There was those people at Wassall, got old Mr. Hurst when he was at the
Furnace to guarantee them an overdraft at the bank up to a hundred
pounds."

"A hundred pounds wouldn't be any use to me. They were only poultry
people. I'd want five times that to pull me out."

"Well, perhaps Mr. Parish will guarantee you five hundred."

Vincent shook his head.

"It's a lot of money."

"But he won't have to pay it--at least not if you're sensible. All he
does is to act as security for your paying it back to the bank, which
you're sure to be able to do as soon as times get better."

Mrs. Vincent was a hopeful as well as a hard-working woman. She could
not believe that things would not go back to what they were when she had
married Vincent--in the third year of the war, when wheat was ninety
shillings a quarter and the contractors bought your stuff off you as
fast as you could get it into the ground. But her husband's longer
memory told him that the war had been only a temporary rise in the long
graph of agriculture's decline. Things had been bad before the war, and
even in the good times he had known they would be bad again, and now all
he wondered was how bad.

Events justified him rather than his wife. He went to see Jim Parish,
and the interview took place in the big, untidy, shabby room that was
called "the office." They talked about the weather first, and the
opening of the cricket season, and the general strike that was only just
over, edging to their subject by slow degrees in the decent manner of
South country men. At the end of a quarter of an hour Vincent introduced
it, and made his request. Would Mr. Parish guarantee his overdraft up to
five hundred pounds?

Alas! Mr. Parish's own overdraft stood at three times that sum.

"You know how I'm situated, Vincent. Everybody knows. My father left me
Cock Marling, but no money to run it with. The money belongs to my
mother, and I have to get along as best I can. I'm in exactly the same
trouble as you."

"I take it you've been able to keep up with your mortgages, Sir."

"Till now, but of course I can't say for how long. I may have to sell. I
don't mind telling you in confidence that I'm prepared to part with
everything in the end except Cock Marling and the land belonging to it.
But I shall hang on as long as I can."

"I know, Sir. So shall I. But if it comes to the worst I've only got
Float."

Parish nodded sympathetically. He was sorry, desperately sorry, but he
could do nothing. All he could offer was a little practical advice and
some vague hopes based on a Conservative government.

"They've promised to de-rate agricultural land--that ought to help us."

"As long as the local councils don't put up the assessments on the
buildings."

Parish grinned--"As they're sure to do, you would say. I know. They'll
probably find some way of cancelling out; but at least it's
something--the only thing that's been done for agriculture for many a
long day."

"Yes, Sir. The government don't take much notice of us, does it? When
it's Conservative, they think of nothing but rich men and foreigners;
and when it's Labour, then they don't call us labour at all because' we
don't live in towns; and when it's Liberal, as it used to be years ago,
they only meddled and meddled till they'd smashed up everything."

"You're right, Vincent. You've got the political situation in a nutshell
as it affects agriculture. Still, I shall continue to vote and hope
Conservative for a little while longer yet. I wonder how tariffs would
help us."

The conversation had moved from personal urgencies to the mistier ground
of political remedies. They talked on for another quarter of an hour,
winding up the interview, which was a pleasant interview in spite of its
failure to achieve its purpose, and came to a friendly close, after the
decent manner of the South country.



                                  2

Fred Sinden knew nothing definite about Float's troubles, but he smelt
them as did Ashdown and Masters. Sometimes they talked of them together,
but they thought more than they talked. Fred was, on the whole, the most
anxious of the three, for Ashdown was a single man, and though Masters
was far from single--in fact he might be called a multiple man, if you
counted all the little Masterses--he had long ceased to feel responsible
for nature's reckless arithmetic. Fred, on the other hand, felt
responsible for a comparatively modest sum--he could not help worrying a
little, when he saw Ivy and the baby, dependent on him for everything,
and thought of the other little one who was coming.

For once again his love for Ivy had borne a double fruit of fear and
hope. The hope was for the spring and a little girl called Doris. Ivy's
fear was chiefly for herself, for she knew what to expect this time;
Fred's fear was not only for Ivy, but for the children and himself, and
then spread cloudily over Mr. Vincent and Float Farm.

But on the whole they both of them hoped more than they feared. The
Nurse had told Ivy that if she went regularly to the clinic at Hastings
nothing would go wrong this time, and everyone told her that the second
was never anything like so bad as the first. While Fred took comfort in
the renewal of Messrs. Cope's wheat contract for another year, and told
himself, and sometimes Masters and Ashdown, that everyone was feeling
the pinch but that there wasn't more wrong with Float than with other
farms.

That autumn he took out his plough with a deep sense of relief--what
would have happened if the contract had not been renewed? and let us
forget that it is only for one year. The Hundred field was to be
ploughed for roots--first a shallow ploughing to bury manure, then a
deep ploughing such as the roots like and makes them sing together in
their dark house under the earth. The Clay field was to be ploughed for
oats, and the Knabspot for wheat. Then his plough would rest over
Christmas, while the sods cleaved together in the deep, dank, heavy
deadness of clay in winter time. At the spring ploughings half the Red
field was to go into wheat and half into beans, and the eight-acre into
barley; but between the spring and the autumn ploughings that other seed
which he had sown long months ago would have fruited for his and Ivy's
private joy.

So far most of his joy in his children was yet to come. Even Norman had
not yet given him more than the pleasures of imagination. He was still
more little boy with a whip, who one day would trot beside his father
down the furrows, rather than that crimson, squealing, dribbling atom
that Ivy fed and hugged, and which occasionally spoiled Fred's nights
with windy roarings. Children belonged to the women till they were five
or six years old. Then they became the proper companions and pride of
men. Not that Fred did not do his part as a father--often when the child
cried at nights he would get up and walk about with him in his arms, and
sometimes he helped Ivy wheel him in his push-cart to the Leasan road,
so that he might take the air on summer evenings. But he did it all for
Ivy's rather than for Norman's sake. His love for his son was so far
held in trust by his wife. Before the baby's birth he would not have
believed that he could love Ivy more, but now he knew how big and tender
love can grow, almost till it bursts the heart. It was his love for Ivy
that hurt him, making him feel burdened and anxious, rather than any
definite fears for the fields of Float Farm.



                                  3

Doris was born in March. So far, the Sindens' children had admirably
fulfilled their parents' expectations. She was a fine, healthy little
thing, and Ivy had what the Nurse called a very good time, though Ivy
did not agree with her. Anyway, she was soon up and about again, which
was just as well as she now had two babies to look after.

She had changed a good deal in two years of marriage--she had changed
more than Fred. She had grown rather thicker and stouter, and her skin
had coarsened, especially the skin of her hands. She now looked far more
like her mother's daughter, especially as the clothes she had bought for
her marriage were wearing out and she could not afford new ones.
Mentally she had changed too. She had ceased to compare Fred with the
cinema heroes--partly because she had not been to the cinema since her
marriage, and partly because her ideals of lovemaking had changed.
Marriage had taught her to value tenderness. She also thought less of
her oil-stove and her cretonne curtains--the former lost favour because
things boiled over so easily on it if you forgot them; and the qualities
of the latter were soon lost in a changing scale of values which made
Ivy's ideal a dry house rather than a pretty one.

For Float cottage was beginning to let in the weather. The patch of
corrugated iron which Fred had fixed over the parlour ceiling already
had had to be renewed, and this time was not nearly so satisfactory.
Stains of damp spread from it to the walls, and Fred had an uneasy
feeling that the second lot of nails had cracked the joists. There was
also a place in the roof where for some inexplicable reason the thatch
ended and tiles began. In wet weather the rain would run off the thatch
on to the tiles and then dribble through them into the back of the
kitchen. Ivy told herself that it was a grand thing no water came into
the bedrooms, but every now and then she worried about the state of the
kitchen and the parlour. The latter especially was in a bad way, because
the fire was very seldom lit in it, and patches of mould began to appear
on the walls, and one day she discovered what she described as "a lot of
mushrooms" coming up out of a chink between the outer wall and the
floor.

"Do you think Mr. Vincent 'ud do anything about it?" she asked Fred.

"No; and I don't like to ask him."

Ivy dropped Mr. Vincent out of the conversation--she had not really
expected anything so unreasonable as that he should repair Float
Cottage.

"Do you think we could get into a council house?"

Fred dropped his pipe and gazed at her.

"What! Move! Leave here!"

"Well, we might think of it. It isn't that I really mind the weather
coming in--I'm used to it. But what I feel about this place is that
it'll get worse instead of better, and now we've got both the children.
. . ."

"Aye, and a council house 'ud cost us seven shilling a week, and I'd be
a mile and a half from my work, and anyway if it's wet you mind you'll
get it coming into a council house just as bad as you do here."

"Oh, Fred!"

"It's truth. Old Mus' Jenner was telling me only the other night that
those new council houses at Leasan let in the weather something
tur'ble."

"I can hardly believe it."

"Aye, but he said as all their top-floor ceilings came down in last
week's gale, and the rain was pouring down the chimbleys as if it came
out of a jug. I tell you it makes no difference if you live in an old
house or a new one, or a gentleman's house, neither--it comes in so bad
now at Dr. Egan's that there's two rooms they can't live in at all. And
if I'm to have the weather in I'll choose to have it in my own house
that I've lived in all my life, and that's near my work, and I don't
have to pay more'n two shillun a week for, and that's a good old house
that I know the lay and the ways of."

Ivy looked up at the darkened beams above her, and for the first time
felt a vague respect for so old a place.



                                  4

A month or so later when Fred was harrowing the Red field, Mr. Vincent
came out and watched him. He stood by the hedge, waiting for him to come
back from the farther side. At first Fred wondered what he was doing
there watching, then he thought he knew. Some of the warmth seemed to go
out of the day as he turned his team southward and harrowed back to
where the farmer stood beside the gate, his dog at his feet.

"Well, Fred."

"Well, Mus' Vincent."

"Pretty near through with it now, ain't you?"

"Aye--this is the last of 'em."

"How's it looking all round?"

"Not so bad. There's too many tillers in the Hundred, but the Clay's
doing uncommon well this year and so's the Knabspot. I'm afraid the
birds have got more than they should ought out of here."

"That's the worst of spring sowings. I shan't be doing this again next
year, Fred."

"No, Mus' Vincent."

"I can't afford it and that's a plain fact. I saw Cope's man yesterday,
and he said they wouldn't pay thirty shillings again; he didn't know
what it 'ud be next year, but it wouldn't be thirty anyhow--and thirty
scarcely pays me, so I said I'd quit."

Fred nodded slowly.

"There'll be the hops still of course. I've got them for another year at
least. But I'm done with the corn."

"Aye."

"What about Flossie's hock?--does she go better now?"

The conversation had left its critical level, and wound quietly through
safe channels, till it came to an end, and Mr. Vincent walked off down
the hedge. Fred went back to his harrow, and as he drove it northward up
the field, words came and sang themselves in his head--no more corn, no
more wheat, no more oats, no more barley, no more roots, no more beans,
no more ploughing.

Where's the ploughman's job, then?

Of course there would be the hops. They would have to be ploughed--as
long as they lasted, that's to say. And most likely Mr. Vincent would go
on growing roots for a bit. But he wasn't going to pay anyone two pounds
a week for that. Fred knew what the conversation meant. It didn't mean
that he was going to lose his job--if anyone had to go it would be
Ashdown, as he was a single man. Mr. Vincent was going to reduce his
wages. Two pounds was a lot of money and he couldn't afford to pay it.
That was why he had said what he did, leaving Fred to think out the rest
for himself.

In a day or two Mr. Vincent would tell him how much he was going to
lose, and then he would have to talk to Ivy about it; till then he would
not say anything.

The fact was that Ivy, dear little thing, was not too good a manager,
and it took the whole of that two pounds to buy food for them all and to
pay the rent and insurance and his subscription to the Buffaloes and the
money still owing on Dad's funeral. Many women managed the same on less,
but Ivy could not be expected to do better, being brought up as she was
and having been out in service with her keep and all found and forty
pounds a year to spend as she liked. He must not ask more of her--But he
would have to ask more . . . there was no help for it. They would have
to spend less, even though there were four of them now. He would have to
give up going to the Queen's Head in the evenings. It was a heavy
thought, and for a moment the bar at Queen's Head with its red lights
and good company swam across the field like a mirage. . . . He drove it
away--he mustn't upset himself before the time came.

When he got back to the farm in the evening he found that Mr. Vincent
had been speaking to the other men. Evidently he meant to make changes.

"It'll be me to go," said Ashdown stolidly. "Has he told you?"

"He didn't what you'd call tell me, but he made it properly clear."

"Well, you're a single man," said Masters--"it's right that you should
go, and not us married men who have mouths to feed. I'd change places
with you any day if I could."

"I reckon I'll have some trouble in finding a job."

"But you can go where you like, and don't have to bother about a house.
It's terrifying when you've a family of eight and can't find anywhere to
put 'em."

"Howsumever, I wish I weren't going. I don't like changes."

"It un't only you who'll have the changes. I reckon the old man ull ask
both Sinden and me to take less."

"He can't ask you to take less than what's fixed."

"Can't he? And anyways it's fixed uncommon low. What 'ud you do if you
had to bring up a wife and eight children on thirty shilling a week?"

"My father got eighteen."

"Things were different then--he had his cottage and maybe five cords of
wood, and his milk all in too; and everything cheaper to buy--a pound of
meat for eightpence and beer at twopence a pint. You could live like a
king in those days. These days they grudge you everything."

"Oh, come, Jack," said Fred--"It un't fair to talk like that of Mr.
Vincent. He does the best he can by us, but he's been had all the way
round."

"Aye, I know that. He as good as told me he hasn't paid his tithe for
three years. That old tithe ull come out of our pockets in the long run,
see if it don't--and the interest, too; he'll soon be owing on that."

"I say that nowadays," said Ashdown, "there's too much done with money.
You're always paying for something. When I was a boy you never paid for
nothing. If you wanted roots off a man you gave him a cord of wood
instead, and you never worried about such things as interest and
insurance and the like. Even the tithe--you could take up a pig or a few
fowls to Parson and he'd be just as pleased; but now it's all got to be
written out and paid to the Ecclesiastical Missioners, who have a
hundred million a year of their own to live upon, so I've been told."

Ashdown, though a single man, was getting on in years. Now and then
people asked him why he had never married, but he could not tell them.
Sometimes he just said he hadn't had the time.



                                  5

Mr. Vincent spoke out plainly in a day or two. Ashdown would have to go,
and so would Masters' boy, and both Masters and Sinden would have to
take lower wages. He was extremely sorry, and said so again and again,
but there was no help for it. If he could not cut down expenses he would
have to give up the farm, and then no one would be any better off.

Masters was bitterly aggrieved, and made rather a fuss about having his
boy stood off, but in two days he had found a job for him as gardener's
boy at the Furnace, at fifteen shillings a week, which was more than
twice as much as he had had at Float, and meant a total gain of one
shilling a week to the Masters family even with their father's wages
down. Sinden could expect no such lucky turn to his fortunes. He had to
break the sad news to Ivy that henceforth she would have to manage on
thirty-four shillings a week.

"But how can I, my dear?"

"It's no less than many men get around here, and their wives have to
manage. Ted Young has never had more than thirty-two shilling a week in
his life, and both his children go to the Grammar School at Rye."

But it only discouraged Ivy to hear of such feats.

"My dad scarce ever brings back anything less than thirty-five
shillings, and sometimes it's as much as three pounds. And you can't say
as him and mother are any too well off."

"Because he drinks half of it," said Fred unkindly, "I'm going to cut
down my drinks to two evenings a week and no more'n a pint each time."

"I'd sooner you earned more money and drank the same as usual."

"But I can't earn more money. I tell you I see where Mus' Vincent
stands, and if he don't cut down he'll be sold up--that's plain."

"But there's others can give you a job. Why don't you try and get a job
on some other farm? There's lots would take you, with the good name you
have in these parts."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that. No one wants a ploughman, and even if I
was to find another job I shouldn't get more than thirty-seven shilling
a week these days."

"Well, that's three shillings more than you're getting now--it 'ud pay
the insurance and the Buffaloes and your baccy and more besides."

"I'd never leave Mus' Vincent for three shillings--and anyway I doubt if
I'd get another job, things being as they are."

"But you might try."

Fred began to feel irritated. Ivy was nagging him.

"Surelie--I might try. But I won't. Float's good enough for me."

"So good that you'll see your wife and children go short rather than
leave it."

"No one need go short if you manage properly."

"I don't know what you mean by managing properly. It's been hard enough
to run things on the money you've been getting up till now. I haven't
bought a rag or a stitch for myself since we married, but I can't go on
for ever with my clothes falling to pieces, and the children are growing
so fast you can't keep up with them--Norman ought to have new shoes at
once. If you'd wanted someone who'd scrimp and save and not mind looking
a fright and having the children frights too, you should have married
Nell Standen or Dorothy Dawes,"--naming the two least attractive damsels
of her acquaintance.

"Come now, Ivy, that un't a proper thing to say. Think now what you'd
do if you were Mrs. Masters with Masters down to thirty-two shilling and
Stanley stood off, and seven children beside to manage and do for."

"She's no call to grumble; Stanley's getting fifteen shillings from Mr.
Hurst--a jolly good thing for them that he was stood off if you ask me.
And her second boy's getting three shillings for taking round parcels
for Mrs. Waters out of school hours. It'll be years and years before
either of our poor little things are old enough to earn a penny."

"But they don't cost much as they are now--next to nothing you might
say; and soon we'll have finished paying for Dad's funeral. That'll make
it the same as if I had thirty-six shillings a week, which is a middling
good wage around here. Two pounds was out of the ordinary."

"I believe you'd get it if you looked for it. But you won't try."

"I'm not going to leave Float Farm, if that's what you're after. I like
Mr. Vincent, and I've worked for him ever since I was a boy, and I won't
leave him now till he asks me."

Ivy began to cry.



                                  6

Fred really felt quite upset with her. She wasn't behaving at all
properly--trying to make him give up his job at Float in hopes of
getting a better one. He would be mad to do such a thing--ten to one
they would find themselves tramping the roads in a few months' time
. . . it didn't bear thinking of. And anyway he wasn't going to leave
Float Farm. He did not ask himself how much of his decision to stay was
due to the risks of leaving and how much to his loyalty to Mr. Vincent;
but he was a little shocked that Ivy should view so lightly his
obligations to the place where he was born and the man who had employed
his father. He began to remember what he had heard said about the
Crouches before he married--"an ornery lot--gipsy blood in them."
Perhaps it was true that Ivy had gipsy blood in her veins, an
inheritance which had given her not only her coal-black hair, but this
love of moving and wandering--for so Fred interpreted both her desire to
live in a council house and her desire for him to look for a better job.
It was something born in her--she couldn't help it. When he had thought
this over for some time, he could understand her better and forgive her.

They were friends again over their supper that night, talking about
Norman getting his bottom teeth and being so uncommonly knowing with
that rabbit-skin his father had brought in, telling each other what a
good baby little Doris was, so that you'd never know she was there,
sleeping between them in the bed at nights--there was no need to get
that basket for her that Nurse was always worrying about. But they could
not mention Fred's work at Float without tears, and when he brought home
his first week's reduced money, Ivy made such a scene that he lost his
temper and shook her. She wanted him to go and look for work without
saying anything to Mr. Vincent about it, but just to tell him after he
had fixed himself up. She couldn't understand Fred's not wanting to
treat the farmer in such an ordinary way--she accused him of treating
his wife worse than anybody. It was a terrible way to speak and he
wouldn't listen to it. He went and spent his evening at the Queen's
Head.

Here he unexpectedly found a remedy for his trouble. It came from
Ashdown, who was in good spirits, having found himself in work again
with surprising quickness. He was going as builder's labourer to Mr.
Snashall, the principal builder of the neighbourhood, who had a big job
on, converting Ellenwhorne Farm into a gentleman's residence for some
London people. He would have two pounds a week, and Fred envied him in a
way, and wished he was more of an all-round man himself. But on the
whole he was glad not to have to come off the land. Even though there
wouldn't be much ploughing for him these days he would sooner build
stacks than walls, drain fields than houses. Ashdown was different--he
had always enjoyed puddling about with cement, and putting up walls. He
could thatch too, though when it came to re-roofing the cow-lodge at
Float he had chosen galvanized iron, as being more useful and up to
date.

This evening he stood drinks to both his former workmates, and listened
sympathetically to their tales. He was glad to hear that Masters had
done so well, getting his boy into Mr. Hurst's, and he was sorry to hear
of Ivy's distress and her desire to leave Float.

"Fair terrifying she is," confided Sinden, "always at me to find better
paid work--as if I could, or would, for that matter. I'm better off
where I am."

"Surelie," nodded Ashdown, "but I'm sorry you're getting such bad
money."

"It un't bad--it's only less. I tell Ivy she should ought to do with
it."

"Let her wait till she's eight brats to feed," joked Masters
inopportunely.

"Her father 'ud often bring in over three pound a week, and seldom less
than two. She's used to having money--what with being out in service
besides. It un't what you've got that matters, but what you're used to.
She's used to two pound a week and more."

"Well, she can't have it now, and that's plain."

"Could she go out and work for ladies now and then? I'm told a woman can
get what she asks in some of these new places."

"'At that she can!" broke in Masters--"they'll pay a woman a shilling an
hour for scrubbing a few floors, when they won't give a man tenpence for
digging out a hedge. Soon we'll all be sitting at home and sending our
wives out to work for us."

"Ivy can't go out to work," said Fred, "she's got the children."

"She might take a lodger," said Ashdown.

"Do you know of anyone who wants a room?"--it struck Fred that this was
not a bad idea. A lodger could be asked for five or six shillings a
week.

"I don't rightly know of anyone, but I reckon we could hear of somebody
in no time if we put it around."

"I've got a room and furniture for a single man--the room I used to have
before we married. It 'ud do fine for any young chap at work in these
parts."

"Maybe it 'ud do for one of Snashall's men. One or two of them come from
Hurst Green or thereabouts and 'ud sooner live near their work."

"I'll ask Ivy what she feels about it. It'll mean more work for her, but
not too much, I reckon. He'll take his lunch and dinner out, and being a
single man he won't want to stop at home in the evening."

"If she likes the idea, you pass the word to me and I'll do what I can
about it."



                                  7

Ivy liked the idea very much. Fred had not felt sure how she would
receive it, for of course it would mean extra work and a certain amount
of spoiling their times together--though since they'd taken to
quarrelling they hadn't set such store by these. But Ivy did not think
the work would come to much.

"I have to keep the room clean anyhow. It'll only be his bed to make.
And I reckon he'll have his friends and 'ull go about with them quite a
lot; so we shan't find him much in the way. What a mercy the weather
doesn't come in upstairs."

She was much pleased at the thought of the extra money. In her opinion
the room was well worth six shillings, and she expected to make a bit on
the lodger's food. They would be better off than before. She kissed Fred
and was his old contented Ivy.

It remained only to find the lodger, and for this they relied on Ashdown
and the rumour of the Queen's Head. It soon got about that the Sindens
had a room to let, and after a while applicants came. The first was a
woman, which they had not bargained for--woman in the district of Leasan
and Vinehall had not yet achieved independence. But here was one who
said she'd been taken on as gardener by the artists at Barline Farm--a
foreign woman gardener when the men of the place were hard put to it for
a living. Ivy said she could not do with a woman, and the woman said
that she could not do with Ivy's accommodation, so the interview was
decisive if not satisfactory.

Then came a thin, bald-headed, heavily moustached man who had quarrelled
with his landlady at Bannisters Town, and was, so he earnestly told Ivy,
looking for quiet, clean lodgings with Christian people. Ivy was
uncertain how far Float Cottage fulfilled any of these requirements, nor
did she much like the look of him; but she felt reluctant to send him
away, in case no one else came. However, inquiries at the Queen's Head
revealed that he had paid only three shillings a week for his room at
Mrs. White's, and had insisted on cooking his own food on a primus
stove--the cause of the quarrel. Fred advised her to wait and see if
somebody didn't come along from Snashall's.

She waited, and somebody came--a little young man of two or three and
twenty, whose people lived at Wittersham. He had been taken on by
Snashall's for the Ellenwhorne job, but it was not the distance from his
work that troubled him, as somehow he had managed to save three pounds
and buy a car. In this car, a prewar Morris, he arrived and bewildered
Ivy. She had never met his sort before, though it was to grow
increasingly common. His father was a cowman at Owlie Farm, and he
himself was getting only tenpence an hour at Snashall's for ordinary
digging and trenching, but he wore a suit of plus-fours, and on his
sunburnt cheeks two flat peninsulas of hair gave Ivy a sudden aching
memory of heroes she had forgotten.

Not that in other ways he suggested a cinema star--he was undersized and
far from handsome. He spoke with the voice of the Kent and Sussex
borders, but his words were London words--later on she would hear him
swear, mixing good common speech with oaths that no decent Sussex man
would use, even though he'd learned them in the war, which this chap had
not. She did not know what to make of him, and asked him to call again
and see Fred.

Fred on the whole approved of him. He was quite a pleasant chap, and
just the sort who would be out and about a lot. His car presented
difficulties, but he did not seem to mind where he kept it, and a
disused and almost disintegrated cowshed in the field behind the cottage
was considered adequate. He was likely to keep on at Snashall's, because
his uncle was foreman and would find him a better-paid job as soon as he
could manage it. Anyway, he didn't want to go back to the Isle of Oxney
--he had quarrelled with his dad over a spikall the latter accused him
of having stolen. He told the story at great length with a kind of
dramatic force that was new to the Sindens, and made him appear the
victim of fate.

So they agreed to let him have the room at six shillings a week, and he
was to pay another six shillings for his meals. He told them that he
expected to go out most evenings, but he did not frequent the Queen's
Head--preferring the George at Vinehall. He told Fred that the Leasan
bar was full of nothing but bloody hedgers and ditchers--he liked a
place where he could meet girls.

"I've got the car you see, and I can take 'em out anywhere I like and
anytime I like and do anything with 'em I like, and they're glad of it,
too. I paid three pounds four and six for her at Gillingham and
Golightly's in Ashford, but it's cheaper than getting married."

Fred told him to shut up about it.



                                 1928

                                  1

The year that followed brought a kind of slow fading and changing to the
district of Leasan and Vinehall. The tide of gold ebbed even farther
from the Tillingham valley, as Float's cornlands were sown for grass.
Other farms too were reducing their arable land--it did not pay. Quite a
number grubbed up their hops. The valley, as indeed the whole of Sussex
and most of England, was putting its faith in live stock. Beasts meant
lighter and cheaper labour, smaller risks, larger and quicker returns.

Jim Parish was sorry to see the corn go and the hops go, but he could
not blame the farmers for cutting down their risks. Already they had
risked and lost enough. Ignored by their politicians, deserted by their
Squires, these yeomen born out of due time struggled with difficulties
their fathers never knew. In the good days of the Squires a plentiful
harvest would have made the whole district prosperous for the year, but
now the harvests did not seem so much to matter, as prices bore small
relation to the earth's fruitfulness, being governed by conditions
beyond the reach or even the knowledge of Leasan and Vinehall. Just as
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had taken the place of the Parson as
receivers of tithe, so had vague, sinister abstractions referred to as
"the banks" or "the government" taken the place of the weather and the
soil as influences of prosperity. With these there was no reckoning--no
barometer to foretell change, no manures or chemicals to improve bad
conditions. Agricultural life was losing its substance and becoming a
dream, in which the dreamer has no power over his environment, but must
drift at the mercy of the terrifying unknown.

Parish himself had been able to keep up his arable acreage, though he
did not know how long he would be able to go on. But he was determined
not to make demoralizing changes unless compelled to do so. He knew
that, involved and struggling as he was, he was better off than most of
his neighbours. He must fly his flag for their sakes--it would never do
if they saw him give up the battle to grow hops and corn, and he had not
so far been able to share their one pastoral hope; beasts would be all
very well for a time, then they would slump too. Besides, he must keep
his men--his conscience would not let him economize in labour. Not that
the stood-off labourers of other farms did not find work sooner or
later--there was no real scandal of agricultural unemployment so
far--but most of them found it off the land. The men were coming off the
land, being driven off it, rather, chiefly into the building and
engineering trades; and all the time fools were shouting "Back to the
land! Back to the land!" and deluded idealists among ex-servicemen were
commuting their pensions to start smallholdings and poultry farms.

He no longer blamed Gervase Alard entirely for the present state of
affairs. A great deal would have happened with the Alards still at
Conster, though not so much, nor so quickly. It was the sale of the
Alard estate which was sending the farmers to ruin: on the other hand,
if it had happened ten years earlier, they would probably most of them
have managed to scramble through. As things were, the first months of
1928 saw the beginnings of a regional slide into bankruptcy. Sale
notices appeared on walls and barn-ends, some with the sinister heading
"By order of the Mortgagees." Six years of mortgage-interest, tithe and
income tax, coupled with steadily falling prices, had been too much for
these new yeomen. Agricultural de-rating, came too late to save
them--and anyhow made surprisingly little difference.

Winterland was the first to go, then Gooseleys, then Dinglesden. The
first two sales were compulsory, the third a forlorn hope--Mr. Cooper of
Dinglesden would join a brother who was farming near Luton. He hoped for
better things from better soil and a shorter distance from the town; and
anyway he would be starting afresh, his mortgage and his tithe and his
taxes all paid off, leaving him with little to put into the new business
but his sad experience and a heart that always in the flat, clean fields
of the Shires would ache for marshy bottoms and little tangled woods.

Mr. Muggeridge and Mr. Standen bowed to the inevitable in the shape of
their mortgagees, and watched their farms put up for sale, complete with
stock and furniture. They made no plans for what they would do when they
had lost everything--it didn't bear thinking of. As it happened, none of
the three farms was sold at auction. The bids did not come near the
reserve price. For some time the Muggeridges and the Standens hung on in
their doomed homes, watching desultorily over cattle whose increase they
would never see and sowing what they would never reap. Mrs. Standen even
took in paying guests as usual that summer, risking the chance of
everyone being turned out at a few days' notice.

In the end, Winterland farmhouse and ten acres went to a retired London
surgeon; the test of the land was sold to the new arrivals at
Ellenwhorne, under the threat of "immediate development," and the whole
hundred and fifteen acres was grazed for thirty pounds a year by Mr.
Vidler of Semsted Farm, to whom his neighbours' ill-wind had certainly
blown something good. Gooseleys went in much the same way,
piecemeal--the house to gentry, the land here and there to adjoining
farms, and a few acres near Leasan village as building plots. The gentry
removed Gooseleys' homely, ugly, apple-red front of tiles, and with
whoops of joy discovered par-getting and old oak beams, in fact a
complete sixteenth-century faade which, stripped of its protection, was
to cost them at least fifty pounds a year in repairs. Dinglesden, being
an impossible house with lands useless and inaccessible to builders,
hung on in the market for two years or more, when at last it was sold
for twelve hundred pounds to a farmer from Appledore, moving west,
either in defiance or ignorance of the saying that the best land always
lies eastward.



                                  2

Jim Parish watched these changes with uneasiness. He saw them as a
threat of something more fundamental. He was haunted by a nightmare of
all the neighbouring farms becoming the property of gentlefolk, with
their land neglected--let for grazing or else cut up into building
sites--while their labourers were either driven into the towns or became
country artisans. The rot was spreading, for the sale of the three big
farms had produced a kind of panic, and a great deal of land was
privately for sale. Every farm whose fields adjoined the Parish estate
had offered at least a part of itself to Cock Marling.

"If I wasn't so broke, I'd buy 'em. I could do with more land, and a few
hundreds of ready money would stop some of these chaps feeling jumpy. If
I don't buy they'll probably sell to the builders."

"It would be a shame if this country got built over," said his mother,
to whom he had addressed these remarks. "I was stopping with the
Stewarts near St. Albans last week-end, and it's terrible to see all the
little bungalows that are springing up along the roads."

"Well, Mother, it's for you to stop it. If you'll give or even lend me a
couple of thousand pounds, I'll undertake that there isn't a bungalow
nearer than a mile."

Mrs. Parish laughed the little unreal laugh of her age.

"My dear boy, as if I _could_ lend you two thousand pounds. I'm not so
rich as all that."

Jim stared at her gloomily.

"You're hateful, Mother. I simply can't understand your generation.
You're so irresponsible."

"Because I won't lend you money I can't afford?"

"Because you spend it all on a sickening merry-go-round when you might
spend it on the solid earth. If even you'd so much as live here . . .
but you won't. You dash madly about the place--like Lady Alard. I hear
she's taken to gambling now--won eight thousand francs at Monte Carlo. I
tell you that you old ladies are irresponsible--irresponsible--and shock
your children."

"I don't shock Betsy."

"I bet you do. I haven't seen her for a year, but I bet you shock her."

"I don't, Jim. She shocks me. Really, I feel quite anxious about the
poor child; she never tells me anything, but----"

"I don't want to talk about Betsy. I've almost forgotten who she is. But
seriously, Mother, if you could let me have even one thousand, I'd pay
you five per cent., so you wouldn't lose on it."

"I should lose my capital. Your father used to say that a country estate
is a bottomless well into which all your money goes sooner or later. I'm
sure that's why he left me everything. He knew that whatever you had you
would lose on the land. In time you will be grateful to me."

"Why should I be grateful to you?"

"Because when I'm gone you children will come into nearly
twenty-thousand pounds."

"None of which will be any use, because I shall have been sold up long
before that."

"I hope you will. Then my money may really do you some good."

"What good?"

"You may want to marry."

"I shall never marry."

"Ah, so you say--so everyone says till the time comes."

"And journeys end in lovers' meeting, don't they? And when he thinks
he's past love it's then he meets his last love. Mother, you're as
romantic as you're irresponsible. I believe you'd like Ben Godfrey to
die and me to marry Jenny in the last chapter."

"Yes, I should. I always liked Jenny, and I think you treated her
badly."

"I didn't. I didn't."

He was moved--suddenly angry at this revival of an old conflict. Not
that he had any real regrets, but his mother ought to know better than
to rake things up. It was scarcely decent of her. But then she was
irresponsible--romantic and irresponsible. He must forgive her.

"I forgive you," he said.

"What on earth for?"

"For leaving me in the lurch like this--for punishing me for being
unable to stop caring for what you cared for once."

"I never cared for Cock Marling. Of course when your father was alive I
lived here. I thought it was my duty. But now I really feel I've a right
to live what I've got left of life in my own way."

She spoke with more sincerity than he often had from her.

"Yes, I suppose you're right. But it's rather loathesome to be left like
this holding the baby."

"My dear boy, that's entirely your own choice. Your father made no
restrictions in his will--sell the baby."

His face seemed to close, wrinkling obstinately.

"You know I won't do that. I may have to sell one or two of the farms,
but I won't do it till I'm obliged, and I'll keep this place if I die
bankrupt."

"Then you'll be a fool, my dear."

"You don't understand. If I sell land nowadays I'm selling something
that's much more than land--I'm selling history and tradition. You
simply can have no idea of the wreckage that the Alard sale will have
made of this place, by let's say, nineteen-thirty. It's beginning to
crack up now--farms being sold, not to other farmers, but to the kind of
people who up to the war used to live in towns. They're buying up the
country, and driving the country people out. We're becoming greasily
urban----"

"My dear Jim, don't talk such nonsense--on the strength of two farms
having been bought by town people."

"Two out of three that were for sale--sixty-seven per cent. And I tell
you worse is coming. All this new electricity business that the
government has set up is going to make the country too damn easy to live
in----"

"I think it's going to be a god-send. One of the chief reasons I
disliked Cock Marling was the lamps."

"Now you're being frivolous."

"And you're being reactionary."

"No--I'm not reactionary--I'm an anachronism. I'm a man born out of his
proper time. I ought to have lived in the eighteenth century."

"Then you would have groused because you didn't live in the sixteenth.
You'd be miserable if you couldn't look behind you."

"No, I shouldn't. I tell you, Mother, I'm not a reactionary. I don't
just hanker after the good old times--I hanker after one especial time,
which in every way except mechanical convenience was years ahead of
ours. I'm sick of our childish politics, our childish newspapers, our
childish arts. I want to live in a world of grown-up men."

"That's probably, dear Jim, because you're rather childish yourself--I
always feel as if you were younger than Ronald or even than Vernon."

He turned from her with a sigh. She wearied him with her flutterings
between an intelligent opposition and mere motherishness. At the same
time he felt queerly hurt by her misunderstanding--which was
unreasonable of him. Why should he expect her to understand him? She was
like everyone else--not merely of her own generation but of those before
and after it. She identified progress with invention, prosperity with
comfort, kindness with humanitarianism, tolerance with apathy. She
believed in modern life on the authority of her newspaper. She would
never understand how he longed for an England of unmade roads and
unlighted towns, of slow travel and savage laws, which was yet an
England of wit and sense and learning--the country of Chesterfield,
Newton, Warburton, Burke and Walpole, and other prosperous, tolerant,
kind, progressive men.



                                  3

The day after Mrs. Parish had gone back to London, Rose Alard called at
Cock Marling. Unlike a great many people, Parish approved of Rose.
Theoretically he acknowledged that she was a detestable woman,
interfering, petty and boring, and he had never liked her husband when
he was alive; but he liked Rose. Though born and bred in the suburbs she
was more an Alard than any Alard living. Old Peter used to say the
same--he had agreed with Jim. Rose was loyal. When George died she had
not left the district (as Peter's own Vera alas! had done), but had
settled there, to bring up her children under the shadow of Conster. And
now that Conster itself had become a shadow, there seemed to be a
splinter of it, a relic, surviving in Rose's mean house--a spot which
was for ever Conster.

This morning she was much as usual. She came in with a laden shopping
basket (it was her day for soda in Vinehall) and a "have you heard?"

"What? Sit down, Rose, and have a drink--coffee of course."

"Thank you, Jim, but I mustn't wait. I've that woman to see."

"What woman?"

"Ivy Sinden: I've got to speak to her about her lodger, that dreadful
little Collins boy."

"What's he done?"

"What's he not done?" said Rose darkly, "but I didn't come to tell you
about him. It's about Luce."

"What's _he_ done?"

"He's gone over to Rome."

"I thought he'd done that years ago."

"Oh Jim, how could you? He couldn't go over to Rome and remain a parson
of the Church of England."

"Couldn't he? I didn't know. Some of them behave exactly like Catholics.
Luce did."

"I'm not saying he wasn't a Catholic; in fact, I think he was more of
one then than he is now--" and she embarked on a theological excursion
from which he recalled her plaintively.

"Tell me about Ivy Siden's lodger."

Rose was hurt. He had undervalued the importance of her news. The lodger
at Float was a stale topic now, having been discussed already with five
different people that morning. But Luce's apostacy was hot from the
oven--she had only just heard of it that moment.

"It'll mean a change, you know; for the Protestant Alliance is sure to
put in some one very Low Church. Gervase Alard will be furious."

"I'm glad of that; and I'm not sorry Luce is going. I could do with a
new Parson at Vinehall. Let's hope for a three-bottle man."

"What nonsense you talk. If he's Low Church he'll probably be a
teetotaller."

"I hope not. Luce at least would sometimes take half a glass."

"I think he's behaved very meanly--never saying a word about it to
anyone. He preached twice last Sunday and never gave so much as a hint
of what he was going to do."

"Perhaps it isn't true."

"Of course it is. I heard it from his churchwarden, Mr. Besmer. He's
cleared out of his cottage and gone, though I will say he's arranged for
a locum for next Sunday. He's gone to stay at a monastery near
Horsham--he's very much upset and was sick directly he arrived and had
to go and lie down."

"I must say you've mastered all the details. Do have something, Rose.
Have acigarette--or a medlar--or some ale--or some nice water."

"No, thank you, Jim. I really must get off, or Sinden will be back and I
want to talk to his wife alone."

"Why?"

"Well, it's not a subject I like to discuss in mixed company."

"Oh, tell me, Rose--we're not mixed."

"It can't really interest you. It's only that he took one of my G. F. S.
girls for a ride."

"And bumped her off? Do tell me."

"I can't tell you, Jim. But he behaved dreadfully--shockingly--and the
poor girl came back in tears, and her mother's frightfully upset. She
says there's complaints of him all over the village and he ought to be
stopped."

"And can Ivy Sinden stop him?"

"She can stop letting him her room, and no one else I'm sure, will take
him in, so he will have to go home to his parents at Wittersham."

"And take the girls at Wittersham for a ride?"

"They know all about him."

"Well, so will the girls here in time. And anyhow, Rose, his car will
soon stop if he doesn't. As far as I can see it only goes by clockwork."

"He'll buy another; he's got a lot of money--that's the terrible thing."

"I shouldn't find it so; but he and I are different--certainly very
different in the way we spend our money. I'm glad you take a sensible
view of such things, Rose."

"I think it's dreadful the way the village people are spending their
wages on luxuries. Even the Sindens have a wireless."

"Dreadful indeed; I agree with you--it's shocking the way the working
classes manage to amuse themselves without asking us to help them. Fifty
or sixty years ago their entertainment was carefully doled out to them
from the Manor House with their boots and blankets."

Rose looked at him suspiciously.

"You're being sarcastic, Jim, and I'm surprised. I thought you always
admired the good old days."

"The good old days of two centuries ago, not of Queen Victoria's time.
Things had got bad by then. In Hanoverian times the working man knew how
to enjoy himself without the Squire, and I'm glad he does to-day; though
I must say that some of his amusements are not mine."

"Well, I really must go, or Sinden will be home. Good-bye, Jim."

"Good-bye, Rose."



                                  4

Ivy was not going to give away anything to Mrs. George Alard--miserable
old cat! what business was it of hers? Who cared what anyone did to her
G. F. S. girls? and what right had she to meddle with folks earning
their living?--but for some weeks she had been worrying about her
lodger. He had been with them now for nearly eighteen months. The job at
Ellenwhorne had taken longer than was expected, and as soon as it was
finished Mr. Snashall had been given a contract to convert Winterland
oast into a gentleman's residence. An incredulous neighbourhood had
watched casement windows being inserted into cracking, nine-inch walls,
while the beheaded kiln was weather-proofed with tar. The general
effect, when finished, was of a gigantic high-heeled shoe lying upside
down.

This architectural achievement exhausted Mr. Snashall for a time--he was
not clever at estimating costs, and there had been a lot of extra
expense putting things right that had been done wrong owing to the
inexperience of his workmen, mostly translated farm-hands. Ivy had then
just begun to hope that Bob Collins was leaving--he had begun to worry
her. But instead of leaving, he found another job with Mr. Kemp, the
builder at Vinehall, and announced cheerfully that he was going to stay
for ever.

It wasn't that she and Fred didn't like him--they did, in a way, both of
them, and they didn't believe half the stories that were told about him.
He was a good lodger, too--paid well and punctually, gave very little
trouble. She hardly knew what worried her and she never spoke of it to
Fred. Perhaps it was his way, his little air of swagger and
exaggeration--those flat pieces of hair each side of his face . . . his
fair-isle sweater . . . his brightly painted car . . . it was all
Different, and it worried her, though most of it was just what the girls
in Leasan liked. Perhaps she was silly.

Yet she knew it was not silly to mind some of his ways--the way his hand
came suddenly over hers, sometimes, when no one was there. He would say
"Beg pardon," and look at her, and she would look away. She would
pretend to herself that it was an accident, but she knew that it was
not--it happened too often. She would feel offended. He did not attract
her in the least, but he thought that every woman must want him to make
love to her. He thought himself an almighty man with women, and those
silly girls of Leasan and Vinehall encouraged him. He couldn't see the
difference between a silly, fat, giggling girl and a decent woman who
had her own husband. She was angry, and she was worried.

On the other hand, if he left, there would be difficulties. She could
not manage without a lodger--there was no use trying--and it wasn't
likely that she would find anyone else to pay six shillings a week, with
wages going down all round and working men leaving the district.
Besides, no one would give as little trouble as Collins, because no one
would ever go out as much as he. He went out every evening in that car
of his--sometimes he didn't even have his supper. Anyone else would
probably sit in three evenings a week, and there was nowhere to sit but
the kitchen, for the parlour was ruined now, with the ceiling down again
and the paper hanging in strips--oh, why wouldn't Fred try for a council
house?--and in the kitchen there wasn't properly room for them all. She
had only one easy chair, and that was Fred's by rights, and the weather
was coming in behind the sink . . . anybody but Collins would grumble
and say that four shillings was quite enough to pay for such a place.
No, she must put up with him somehow till she had got round Fred and
made him try for a council house--then she could ask ten to twelve
shillings a week for a decent room and get quite a different class of
lodger--someone's chauffeur or manservant . . . she could not believe
that those palaces of slate and rough-cast on the Leasan road let in as
much weather as Float Cottage.



                                  5

Bob Collins suffered from indigestion. It was the one dark spot in his
glittering career. Only the uncharitable and wilfully misled would put
it down to Ivy Sinden's cooking, for neither she nor Fred nor either of
the children ever had a pang. There must be something wrong with
him--after all, he was an undersized little chap. Sometimes he'd hardly
have a bite all day, which was one reason why he was such a convenient
and profitable lodger. On such days, Ivy would make him a basin of bread
and milk, to which he would add a splash from his whisky flask. For he
always carried a flask of whisky about with him, and it was said that he
gave it to the girls.

In the fall of that year he took a turn for the worse, and Ivy felt
sorry for him, and guilty when she thought of how much she had wanted
him to go--and might have asked him to go if it hadn't been for Mrs.
George Alard interfering. Sometimes he'd feel so bad that he didn't go
out--he would go to bed instead, so that they still had the kitchen to
themselves, and she would take up his basin of pap to him, and somehow
feel wrung and maternal at the sight of his little pinched face between
its ridiculous Rudolph Valentino whiskers.

"You ought to see a doctor," she told him, but he replied that he didn't
hold with doctors.

However, after a time, as he grew worse instead of better, he called on
Dr. Egan, and returned in a mixed mood of horror and elation.

"He says it's my teeth. He says I should ought to have 'em all out.
They're gone antiseptic, he says."

His teeth were certainly not his strong point and one or two were
already missing.

"How'd you fancy me with a lovely set of false teeth? I'd fancy myself,
you bet, and so 'ud some folk I know of. They wouldn't ache, neither. I
tell you I've sometimes had toothache just about cruel. The doctor wants
me to go to the hospital for 'em, but I say I'd sooner go to a proper
dentist and have something smart."

This part of the programme stimulated him: for a couple of days he
talked of nothing but his new teeth, and the various merits of the
dentists in Hastings and Rye. But as time passed, and eventually an
appointment was made, the dark side of the enterprise began to show.

"Have you ever had any teeth out?" he asked Ivy rather pathetically.

"I'd four out when I was at school."

"Did it hurt much?"

"Not much, though I bet I hollered. The dentist put some stuff in."

"So he said he would for me. He said I shouldn't feel nothing."

"And no more you will. Mother had a tooth out only six months ago, and
didn't feel a thing, though the dentist was pulling and twisting for
more'n a quarter of an hour."

"More'n a quarter of an hour!"--his eyes grew round with horror--"why,
that'll mean--that'll mean--I've thirty teeth in my head--it'll take him
three whole bloody hours to finish me."

"Oh, I reckon yours won't take nearly so long as mother's. Hers was a
great old fang--been terrifying her for years. Yours ull be out in a
minute."

She tried to comfort him, but as the ordeal drew nearer his fear
increased. Fred was inclined to be contemptuous.

"He's scared as a rat--I never seen the like."

"Well, you'd be scared too if all yours had to come out."

"His haven't got to come out. It's only his vanity--thinking how nice
he'll look with a set of make-believes."

"The doctor said they must all come out."

"But he wouldn't have it done if it wasn't for his looks. He's a proper
little cockerel."

"Now, Fred, you're being unkind. I'm sorry for him--he's only a boy."

"Boy, indeed! He's man enough to be the father of three children, so he
should ought to be man enough to face having his teeth out."

"I don't believe he's the father of three children--that's just your
gossip--that you talk at that everlasting old pub of yours."

"It un't gossip--it's plain truth, and you know yourself as there's
been three bastards born since he came into these parts."

"I know, but it doesn't follow he's the father."

"He's the father all right."

"Then why don't they bring him into court and ask for an order? Answer
me that. I'll never believe such things against the poor boy, and you
oughtn't to, neither--and if you do you shouldn't keep him here."

"I don't know as I mean to keep him here."

"What are you talking about, Fred? You know that if he went we'd lose
six shillings a week."

"We'd get another lodger soon enough, and anyway I'm not sure as I
wouldn't rather have nobody than a man who's spoken against."

"It's your own fault for listening to a lot of dirty gossip, and you've
no right to believe such things of him. I don't."

She spoke hotly and her cheeks were hot. She knew now that she didn't
want him to go.



                                  6

The next day Collins came back to dinner, for he had the afternoon off
to go to the dentist. He was pale, and' his hands were shaking. His
knife and fork rattled against the plate.

"Feeling cold, Bob?" asked Fred. "Ivy, you can't have made the fire up
properly."

"Thanks, I un't cold."

"Reckon you must be, for your teeth are chattering--chattering for the
last time. You won't be able to rattle 'em however cold you feel
to-night."

"Oh, hold your bloody tongue!"

"Come now--I won't have you talk like that before my wife and children.
I'm sick of your dirty language."

"Fred, Fred. . . ."

It struck her that his temper had been getting worse of late. Maybe it
was having to do work he didn't like--he missed his plough . . . well,
it was his own fault not trying for another place.

Both the men became silent and the meal continued. Little Doris sat on
her mother's lap, eating sippets of bread soaked in gravy; Norman, now
nearly three years old, had a piece of meat on his plate, cooked into
solid exercise for his young teeth. Thus occupied, he too was silent,
but his great eyes stared in relentless observation of the grown-up
people. The gipsy strain in the Crouches showed itself in Norman's
eyes--they were huge, black and mysterious, and could stare as only
gipsy eyes can stare.

His father was eating quicker than usual, shoving his knife and fork
alternately into his mouth in a way that Norman knew well was rude and
forbidden. Then suddenly he stood up, pushed back his chair, mumbled
something like "I'm off," and went out.

"Daddy!" cried Norman.

"Daddy!" squeaked Doris.

It was not usually thus that he took leave of them. Generally he stopped
a few minutes to play with them or give them a ride on his knee.

"Daddy's in a hurry," said their mother.

"But I want a ride-a-cock-horse. He's never given me a
ride-a-cock-horse. Mr. Collins, please give me a ride-a----"

"Be quiet, Norman. Don't bother Mr. Collins. Now you get down and take
Doris out to play."

"I've nothing to play with--my cart's broken."

"Haven't you got your conkers?"

"No."

"Well, go out and find some conkers. There'll be some still by the shaw.
You run out and find some."

She tied a muffler round the neck of each, crammed two woollen caps on
their heads and sent them out on a quest she knew was vain but would
occupy them till she had got rid of the afternoon's victim.

"Now, cheer up, Bob. It won't be nearly so bad as you think."

"I reckon it'll be worse."

"Oh no, it won't--for the matter of that, it couldn't be, you worrying
yourself like this. Come now, have a drop of whisky--that'll make you
feel better."

"I might do that."

He had filled up his flask at the pub on his way home. Now he poured out
a pretty strong dose and swallowed it neat.

He blinked, and held out the flask to Ivy.

"Have some?"

"No thanks. I never touch spirits. Besides, you'll need it yourself."

"Reckon I will."

His misery came down on him again. His hands shook and his teeth
chattered and his eyes were bolting like a rabbit's. Ivy's heart ached
for him.

"Cheer up," she said, and patted his shoulder.

"I've half a mind not to go."

"But you must go and get it over. And think how nice you'll look when
it's done."

"Those teeth ull cost a tur'ble lot of money--a pound down to-day, a
pound when I get the set, and a pound when I'm satisfied."

"Yes, it's a lot, but it'll be worth while if it cures your indigestion.
And now you'd better start off, or you'll be late."

He rose from the table, smiling wanly.

"I shan't be much to look at when you see me again."

"Never mind about that--it won't be for long, and I'll have some nice
soup ready for you to-night; the stock's cooking now. Take your warm
scarf and cover your mouth up when you drive home or you'll catch cold
in it."

Thus she fussed over him maternally, while he put on his overcoat,
picked up his scarf, gave a fleeting and melancholy look at himself in
the kitchen glass, and moved towards the door. Then suddenly he turned
round, and his manner changed.

"Ivy, Ivy--you might give me a kiss, just to comfort me."

For a moment she was startled, then she was moved by the appeal of his
poor bolting eyes; after all, there was no harm in it--a kiss for
comfort.

Without coming any nearer, she leaned forward and kissed him. She had
meant to kiss his cheek, but it was their lips that met. She would have
withdrawn hers after a touch, but his seemed to hold them--seemed to
hold the whole of her. She could not escape from his hold, and she knew
now why girls and women loved him. There was something about him that
held and thrilled--she could feel her skin creep, and a kind of
trembling seemed to pass from him to her. Then with an effort she tore
her mouth away, and moved back from him, out of his reach. He made no
effort to follow her, but opened the door, said "So-long," and went out
as if nothing had happened.



                                  7

She was horrified at herself. She could scarcely believe it. What had
made her do it?--and yet what she had done was harmless enough; it was
what she had felt . . . she could scarcely believe that she, Fred's
wife, could have felt like that all suddenly for another man. . . . It
explained him, of course, and his power over the village girls, but it
did not explain her--not to herself. She could never have imagined that
any other man than Fred had power to move her, and yet when she thought
of that kiss it seemed as if Fred had never kissed her at all.

She must not think of it. It was wicked. She was wicked. She knew that
when Fred came home she would want to tell him all about it, and at the
same time she knew that she must not. He would be more horrified even
than she deserved--he would say that she ought never to have kissed Bob;
and yet how could she have refused him as he stood there, looking so
miserable, and begging her? . . . Just to comfort him--Lord knew there
hadn't been a thought in her heart but comfort when she consented. She'd
no more thought of anything wrong than if it had been little Norman
. . . at least--she couldn't quite say that, she'd known that really it
wasn't quite the proper thing to do, and she'd only done it because she
hadn't the heart to refuse. She shouldn't have been so good-hearted, and
yet if it was all to happen again she'd do just the same--she couldn't
help it; poor little fellow! standing there so scared and so miserable,
asking her to comfort him--he hadn't meant anything wrong, he just
couldn't help the way he was made. She must forget all about it.
Thinking only made it worse.

The November day, gleamy with watery, yellow sunshine was turning to
rain. She could hear the sudden leap and howl of wind round the house,
and the swish of it in the trees. She ran out to fetch in the children,
who were playing disconsolately by the shaw. Then she ran to collect
bowls and basins to stand round the parlour walls and receive the worst
of the "weather." All the while Norman was crying to her that he had
nothing to play with.

"Mum, there wasn't any conkers in the shaw."

"What have you done with those you used to have, you naughty boy?"

"I dunno."

"You must have lost them out of doors. They aren't anywhere in the
house."

"Mum, will Dad buy me a new cart?"

"Dad hasn't any money to buy you a new cart--at least not till
Christmas. You be a good boy now and sit quiet, and Mum will cut you
some pictures out of the papers."

"What sort of pictures?"

"Any sort you like--you can choose."

She took an old _Mirror_ out of the drawer where she kept them for fire
lighting, and they sat down all three together at the table, two little
faces leaning over her arms and breathing on her hands as she clumsily
manoeuvred the scissors.

"Cut out some ladies," asked Norman.

"Pussies," begged Doris.

Ivy cut out both. Pictures that in the newspaper were quite
uninteresting became glamorous and exciting when cut out of it. Each
child stared with pleasure at a growing pile. All was comfort and
happiness. As she sat there between her children Ivy forgot that she had
been wicked, had felt what she ought not to feel. She could scarcely
remember now what it had been . . . the memory of that kiss was
lost--even when she tried she could not recall it; it was dead as a
forgotten tune.



                                  8

Fred came home early. Darkness was falling early with the rain, and he
could not see to work in fields that were veiled in rain and dusk. All
that day and for the last week he had been hedging, a lonely, dreary job
that he considered ought to have been given to Masters. Since he was no
longer ploughman he ought to have been made cowman and looker. But
Masters stuck to the job that had always been his, and Sinden, though
the better paid man of the two, did the inferior work. He resented it.
Ivy was only half right when she guessed he missed his plough; what he
missed most of all was his horses. He was used to working with animals,
and felt lonely without them. Mr. Vincent had sold two of his four
horses, and mostly went out with the other two himself. Norman would
never be the little boy with a whip of his father's dreams--instead he
would carry a handbill and swap the hedgerow grass and lop the shoots of
oak and beech and maple, or "lay along" the sprouting ash-tillers of the
woodland fence. Fred invested Norman with the same melancholy as he felt
himself, working in the cold sapless days of the year, the same sense of
estrangement from work he loved. It was terrible to see the Hundred now,
all sown with grass and scarred with thistles.

He did not always feel so bad--there were hours, many hours, when he
enjoyed his work and was thankful to have it. But this day had been
depressing--hedgework always depressed him--and he came home as much in
need of comfort as Bob Collins had been when he left it. Ivy, who had
not expected him, was still playing with the children at the kitchen
table; the room was nearly dark, and from the next came the tinkle and
splash of the rain as it fell into the pans.

"Hullo, Fred--I didn't expect you back so soon."

He said nothing, feeling unreasonably annoyed because she was not ready
for him.

"I'll have the kettle on in a minute."

But this proved a too hopeful forecast. The water-bucket was empty, and
he had to go down to the well and fill it, and then Ivy found she had
run out of oil, and had allowed the fire to go right down owing to her
absorption in the children. It was three-quarters of an hour before Fred
had his tea.

"I've got a pussy," said Doris, showing him what her mother had cut out.

"I've got a lady," said Norman. "Mum, will you gum summat at the back to
make her stand up?"

"No, I'm far too busy getting Daddy's tea."

"Dad, will you give me a cart for Christmas?"

Fred tried to amuse the children and keep them quiet while Ivy got the
tea. He felt he had been a bit short with them at dinner time, and a bit
short with Ivy now at tea time. It seemed as if he was getting a bit
short all round. He mustn't let that happen, for she was a good little
girl and they were good little children. He must remember that if things
were hard for him they were just as hard for them, and not so hard for
them as they were for some people. He had heard that day that Standen
and his wife from Gooseleys had had to go into service as cook and
handyman, having been unable to find any other kind of work now their
farm was gone.

At last tea was ready and set on the table with the remains of the
rabbit stew warmed up for Fred, and some baked potatoes for Ivy and the
children.

"I wonder Bob isn't home," said Fred.

"I don't suppose he'll be long now."

"Maybe he wants a drink and 'ull wait up at Vinehall till the pub
opens."

"He had his whisky with him."

"That should ought to be enough for him, but I guess it won't be. I
shouldn't be surprised if he came home drunk."

"Oh, Fred, you know he's never drunk."

"He can stand a lot, I grant you. But I shouldn't be surprised if to-day
he didn't take more'n he could stand. He was scared as a rabbit at
dinner time."

"He was, and you were terrible rough and unkind. Poor little chap----"

She broke off--her wickedness had come alive again, and somehow she felt
ashamed to be talking of him to Fred. She thought of what she must hide
and the thought was both sweet and bitter. Pity was a snare.

"You won't be going out again to-night?" she said, to change the
subject.

"I dunno. It un't properly my night for the Queen's Head"--he had cut
down his beer to two pints a week now money was scarce. "But if that
chap comes back there un't room for us all at home."

"I don't suppose he'll come back, and if he does he'll go to bed."

"I wouldn't be too sure. I think I'll go up to-night and stay at home
to-morrow."

"Oh, Fred, do stay."

"What d'you want me for?"

"It's only--only that it's such a terrible bad night, and I--I like
having you at home."

"I'd stay if there was room for me, but mark my words that chap 'ull
come back, and you'll be putting him in the easy chair and making a fuss
of him just because he's making a fuss of himself."

"I shan't--of course I shan't. And it's silly to talk as if there was no
room. I'll have the children in bed in a minute, and you can get into
that chair now, and then if you get out it's no one's choice but your
own."

"Very well, then." Grumbling a little, he sat down by the fire. But he
did not take off his boots. In his mind was a snug image of the Queen's
Head bar, and somehow he could not bear to cut himself off from it by an
irrevocable step like taking off his boots.

Ivy cleared the table, heaping everything by the sink, preparatory to
washing up later. Then she turned to the children, who were playing
together squeakily in a corner.

"Bed-time now."

But neither Doris nor Norman had any mind for bed. "I wanner stay up and
play with my ladies."

"You can play with them to-morrow. Come along at once."

"No."

"I say you're to come at once."

"No-o-o--" a passionate wail went up--"I don't wanner go to bed. I
wanner hear the children's birthdays on the wireless."

"You can't possibly stay up for that. That's not for a long time yet."

He had got his mother arguing, and by that method might have put off his
bed-time another ten minutes had not his father intervened.

"You get to bed at once or I'll beat you," he threatened from his seat
in the chimney corner.

Norman collapsed at once, and Ivy led them both upstairs, feeling
inexplicably ashamed of her victory.

When she came down again half an hour later Fred was buttoning on his
overcoat.

"What! You're never going out!"

"Yes, I am. I'm going up to the Queen's Head."

"But you said you'd stay. . . . And it's a justabout terrible night."

"It won't be much wetter out o' doors than it is in here," and he looked
round disgustedly at the oozing walls, "and at the Queen's Head it'll be
much drier."

He was asking for it. She simply could not help crying at him:

"Fred, why don't you try for a council house?"

"Because it wouldn't be any drier than this one."

"It would--you know it would."

"I know it wouldn't, my girl, and I'd have to pay five shillings a week
more for getting wet in a council house than I pay for getting wet in
here."

He went out, leaving Ivy drearily convinced that he was right.



                                  9

Half an hour went by and still Bob Collins did not come back. Fred was
right and he had most likely gone to the pub; now she began to wonder if
he would come home drunk. If he was drunk he might have an accident--it
was none too easy to drive a car down the lane even if one was sober. It
struck her that it might not be a bad thing if he did have an
accident--nothing terrible, but just enough for him to be taken to
hospital. She would be glad not to see him for a few weeks--Fred could
visit him and cheer him up, but she would not have to go; he would
understand that she was busy with the children. But she would send him
in some nice soup--the jug with the blue border would do to carry it
in--and the nurses would say "What lovely jelly--that's what I call
perfect soup jelly"--and Fred would say "That's my Missus--wonderful
soup she makes. . . ."

Thus Ivy dreamed, lifting from her mind the burden of reality, as one
lifts a chafing saddle from a weary horse. While her hands fumbled
plates and cups in the greasy water of the sink, her relations with her
husband and her lodger were straightened out in cheerful phantasy, and a
new image of herself was set up, as of a woman acclaimed by her husband
and the world at large as a perfect cook and housewife. This was her
daily recreation--day-dreaming over her sink as a more favoured woman
might day-dream in her bath. She always felt the better for these little
frisks, and always wore her saddle again quite willingly.

Just as she finished washing up, Collins came in. At first she thought
he was very drunk--his eyes looked watery and his face flushed and
swollen, while his speech was mumbled and nearly incomprehensible; but
soon she saw that he was only a little drunk and that his condition was
mainly due to the state of his mouth.

His teeth had been devils to come out, he told her, bloody devils. The
dentist had pulled and tugged till he'd thought his head was coming off.
No, it hadn't hurt him much at the time, but it was beginning to hurt
now--hurt like hell. He boasted gloomily of his sufferings, which were
obviously mingled with relief that the ordeal was over. Ivy made him
some soup, but it was some time before he could drink it, because he
could not bear anything hot. She was anxious to get him off to bed
before Fred came in. Fred would be as contemptuous of this garrulous
grandiloquent mood as he had been of his earlier terrors. It was not so
that Fred himself reacted to adversity.

After a time, when his soup was drunk, and he had described his ordeal
about four times over, he agreed to go to bed. She watched him go with a
queer feeling of mingled disgust and relief. He did not please her when
he was like this, talking and boasting--and he was drunk, too; certainly
a little drunk. As she listened to his footsteps retreating and slipping
on the stairs, she felt her heart beat quickly with a sense of release.
She didn't feel afraid of him any more, nor of herself; and she no
longer felt wicked. All that was over and done with. It had been silly
and muddling and worrying, but it was over now. She needn't think of it
any more, or feel guilty before Fred.



                                  10

The next morning Collins did not come down to breakfast. It was Fred who
suggested that Ivy should go up and find out what had happened.

She knocked at the door and heard an inarticulate sound. She took this
to mean "come in," so went in and looked at him.

The room was dark, for he had not drawn up the blind. She could dimly
see the untidy shape of clothes on a chair, and distinguish the darkness
of his head and shoulders against the pillow. The room was stuffy, and
there was a sour smell of whisky about. She heard him groan.

"What's the matter? Aren't you feeling well?"

"Christ!" he groaned.

"Ssh!" said Ivy.

She came nearer and looked at him; then she went to pull up the blind.

"Don' do tha'. I ca' bear the ligh'."

She was now able to see that his mouth was so swollen that he could
hardly speak. His face was flushed and his eyes were bleared and
running.

"My face! My hea'!"

"You must have caught cold motoring home. I told you to beware of that.
And you've been drinking, too--that's bad."

"They to' me to drink whisky--all say it's goo' for tee'. Maybe I've
ha' too much."

"Reckon you have. What would you like now? Some bread and milk?"

"No, no--nothing--for God's sake!"

She went out and shut the door. There was nothing she could do, at least
not now. She must go down and look after Fred.

He was in a much better temper than yesterday, and inclined to take a
tolerant view of his lodger's affliction.

"Poor chap! Reckon he feels tur'ble awkward. He won't be going to work
to-day."

"No, he won't, nor to-morrow either, I should think. His poor face is
all swelled up"--she found herself unaccountably ashamed and afraid of
the word "poor"; she went back and took it out of the sentence--"his
face is all swollen."

"Well, he was a fool to have so much done to it. Stands to reason a chap
feels ordinary when he's lost every tooth in his head."

"The doctor said they were to come out. It was for his indigestion. But
he can't ever have wrapped himself up properly driving home, and he's
gone and drunk a lot too much whisky, thinking it was good for him."

"Um," said Fred, "that was a poor notion. But he'll get over it," he
added more kindly; "he'll lie in bed and sleep it off."

Mindful of this, Ivy left her lodger alone for the whole morning. She
had not much time to spare for him, being busy with the house and the
children, but just before it was time to prepare Fred's dinner, she
thought she might as well go up and see if he wanted anything. She found
him awake, and he indignantly repudiated the notion that sleep was
possible.

"I feel much too bad. My head aches--oh, Ivy!"

His skinny young arm shot out from under the bedclothes and his hand
clasped hers. Something instinctive urged her to pull it away, but
something equally instinctive and more kind would not let her do so.
Poor little chap! she mustn't be hard on him. There he was, suffering
miserably, and with no one to be kind to him but her.

"You wait," she said, "and I'll make you more comfortable."

She shook and turned his pillow and smoothed his tumbled bedclothes.
Then she patted his shoulder. She could not help it--kindness was better
than caution. If he'd been at home his mother would have made a fuss of
him, but since he was not at home she must make the fuss of him. After
all, he was far too ill to take any liberties. She felt a little ashamed
of herself for having been so cold and careful at breakfast time.

"Now won't you let me fetch you a cup of milk?"

"Um . . . maybe I could do with a drop now. But no bread in it."

"No, just milk. I'll go down and heat it."

When she brought it up, she persuaded him not to add any whisky. Then
she settled him down to sleep, drawing the bedclothes over his shoulder,
and patting it again. She couldn't do less.

"Dear Ivy," he muttered, and his eyes smiled at her above his swollen
mouth.

Well, there was no harm in that. She was not afraid of him now. He was
just the same to her as little Norman--no, that was an idea which had
already brought her trouble. . . .

"Go to sleep," she said quite roughly.

The rest of the day was all on that rather disturbing note. She seemed
to be always doing more or less than she ought. Every time she smoothed
his pillow, arranged his blanket or patted his shoulder she knew that
his mother would not have stopped at that. At the same time her feelings
as she did these few small things were not such as to warrant her
attempting more. Bob's mother no doubt would have made his bed for him,
dusted his room, and chatted to him for a bit. She certainly would have
helped him foment his torn and swollen mouth, instead of just leaving
the jug with him. She would certainly have kissed him, too, and fondled
that poor hand that was always being thrust out at her from under the
bedclothes. And all the time she would rightly think that he was just
the same to her as little Norman . . . oh, dear! Up till now Ivy had
always thought that right and wrong were two utterly different, distinct
and separate things. But to-day they seemed all mixed up together, so
that she could not tell which was which. Whether she waited on him and
comforted him, or whether she neglected him or spoke to him sharply, she
could not tell if she was doing right or if she was doing wrong.



                                  11

The next day, the rain, which had cleared the previous afternoon, came
on with renewed violence, breaking through the worn defences of Float
Cottage and enlarging its waterways. Resignedly Ivy put out her set of
pans and basins to catch the falling drops.

Her lodger seemed much the same as yesterday. His mouth was less
swollen, but he insisted that he felt just as bad.

"Shall I get the doctor for you?" asked Ivy.

"No, no--I don't want him pushing and prying at me."

"Well"--Ivy had a sudden inspiration--"what about asking your mother to
come over? I could write her a line this evening--I've got some paper
and ink. I reckon she'd do better for you than I can."

"No, she wouldn't. She'd be no use at all. What I say is thank heaven I
un't at home."

"But maybe she'd be grumbling at me for not letting her know."

"She won't care. And don't you worry. I'll be better soon, I will. It's
only to-day I feel so bad; and you're so sharp with me."

"I! Sharp!"

"Yes, you're always snapping at me and running out of the room."

She was speechless. She could not think of what to say. She felt that it
would be useless to try to explain.

"You might be kinder to me, Ivy. It's miserable for me here--not able to
go out or to see anyone but you, and my mouth terrifying me so."

"I never meant to be unkind. It's only--it's only I'm sometimes in a
hurry."

"Well, you've no call to be in a hurry, and it wouldn't take you long
just to say 'poor old chap,' or do summat to comfort me."

His hand came out from under the bedclothes, and this time she must hold
it, as his mother would have done if she had been any use.

"Poor old chap," she mumbled.

"That's better."

He turned his head on the pillow, and his eyes smiled above his rigid
mouth. She could feel his fingers playing with hers and she longed to
pull them away. But she would not let herself hurt him. Poor boy! Poor
chap!--thinking her "sharp"--not understanding. . . . How could he
understand? Reckon he didn't feel much like love-making now. He'd never
guess what she was feeling--now, while his hand stroked hers. She was a
fool, and she'd no right to let her foolishness make him miserable. She
smiled bravely and kindly at him.

"Well," she said at last, "I must be going now."

"But you'll come back?"

"Of course. I'll come back and make your bed, and bring you some nice
hot milk."

"Thank you. That'll be fine. Don't be too long."

She promised not to be too long, and ran downstairs, her cheeks burning.
Well, there was nothing more to be done about it--she couldn't help
herself. Whichever way she acted she was wrong, so she'd better act the
way that wouldn't hurt him. She mustn't hurt Fred either . . . but there
was no question of hurting Fred; he wouldn't mind these things she said
and did, for he would not know what she felt while she said and did
them. He would not have liked the kiss, no doubt, but then that would
never happen again. Poor soul! he had no mouth for kissing. And Fred
wouldn't mind her holding his hand, not when he was so miserable; he
would never know what the touch of that hand made her feel. It was her
feelings that were wrong; but she did not see what she could do about
them. She could not help that creep of her skin, that swoon of her
heart.

Downstairs the children were waiting for her.

"Mum, may we have those little paper boats that Dad made for us?"

Fred had stayed at home yesterday evening, and had played with the
children, making them paper boats out of an old newspaper. Ivy reached
them down from the shelf where she had put them for safety.

"Mum, may we sail them on the water in the next room?"

Ivy looked doubtful. This was a new game, and she was nervous of its
possible developments, but it promised to keep them out of her way while
she was busy.

"Well--if you take care not to upset anything and not to get wet--and if
you put on your outdoor coats and mufflers; it's uncommon cold in
there."

The children thought it rather fun to be dressed up to play indoors, and
in a few minutes Ivy had them ready, and sailing their boats in the
rain-water that had already collected in the largest dish.

She washed up the breakfast things, cleaned and tidied the kitchen, and
put a rabbit stew on the stove for dinner. To the gravy of the stew she
added a soup square. She felt extra particular to-day about Fred's
dinner, more anxious than usual for it to be nice. She remembered Bob's
milk, but somehow she delayed putting it on to warm. She did not want to
go up to him again just yet. She was afraid . . . she felt so helpless
now. He had broken down her poor defences. . . . Oh, dear! It was not
thus that in the old days Temptation had appeared to the heroines of the
pictures. On the pictures, if you were tempted by a man who was not your
husband, he was always someone very handsome and strong and charming,
while your husband, just to make things clear, was a regular brute.
Whereas, poor Bob was ill and disfigured and far from charming, and Fred
was a good kind chap whom she loved much better than Bob. . . . She
tried to remember a single picture that had suggested even a single
parallel to her case--she even ransacked her fading memories of Holy
Writ . . . it was no good--no one else apparently had ever been tempted
in this peculiar way. She began to feel vaguely monstrous to herself.



                                  12

For some time she had been aware of a new sound, weaving itself into the
web of sound that muffled her ears--a web of wind and rain, of soughing,
cracking trees, of water tinkling into pans, of hissing wood on the
fire, of her children's voices in the next room. Plop, plop, plop--it
sounded like the rain coming in somewhere and no basin to catch it. But
it did not come from the parlour. Plop, plop, plop--she looked round,
and saw a drop of water fall from between the two middle beams of the
ceiling on to the kitchen table. For a moment she stared bewildered,
then she realized what was happening; the weather was coming in
upstairs.

She felt something very like despair. Hitherto it had always been such a
comfort to think that whatever happened to her parlour and kitchen her
bedrooms were warm and dry. But now . . . with an exclamation of misery,
she ran out, leaving her spoon in the stew. She must know the worst at
once, though most likely she couldn't do anything about it till Fred
came in.

The bedroom over the kitchen was her own, and she found, as she had
expected, that the rain was coming through the roof immediately above
it. Already a large patch of ceiling was wet, and probably soon would
fall. With a sigh she put the washing-basin in the middle of the floor
to catch the water and save the room below. Then she heard herself
called from the other bedroom:

"Ivy."

She pretended not to hear.

"Ivy."

She'd better go and see what he wanted. Then she could run down again
and leave him till Fred came home.

"Ivy, why have you been such a tur'ble long time? Have you forgotten my
milk?"

No, she had not forgotten it. She had deliberately withheld it. Her
heart smote her.

"I'll go and get it now."

"No, I don't want it now. I want you to come and talk to me. I feel so
awkward."

Ivy found herself shutting the door behind her.

"How long do you think I'll look like this?" he asked.

"I dunno. I should hope not long."

"So should I, surelie. But it don't seem to get any better."

"Why won't you let me get the doctor in? Reckon he could do something
for you--give you something to take."

"Maybe I will if I un't better to-morrow. Ivy, I'm scared of being like
this. I must go back to work in a day or two or I'll lose my job, and
reckon all the other chaps 'ull laugh at me."

"No, no, no; you won't show so badly in a day or two."

"But it'll be weeks before I'll be able to wear my new teeth. It'll be
weeks before my friends won't be ashamed to be seen about with me."

Ivy understood him, and understanding sent the tears to her eyes. Poor
little chap! He'd been so looking forward to swaggering about with his
new teeth. He'd never thought of the days, perhaps weeks, he'd have to
live through first without them. No girl would go out with him looking
as he did now.

"You cheer up," she said pityingly; "it won't be nearly so long as you
think. And you must be a lot better today or you wouldn't be talking so
much."

"My mouth un't so swollen as it was yesterday. But it hurts more. It's
terrifying."

Out shot that hand she had learned to dread.

"Oh, Ivy, sit by me a moment and hold my hand: Tell me I'll be better
soon."

"I've been telling you----"

"But I like to hear you say it. I like to hear your voice. Won't you sit
down by me?"

She looked round for a chair. There was only the one on which his
clothes were tumbled, and that was out of her reach as she stood beside
him holding his hand.

"Sit down on the bed."

He pulled her down beside him.

She sat there holding his hand between her own. Then she found herself
stroking it and saying, "Poor boy, poor boy." His other hand came out
from under the bedclothes, so that their four hands were together in her
lap.

"It's nice having you here, Ivy. I like you. No one else bothers about
me but you. I reckon there's no one been here to ask after me since I
was took bad."

"Well, I'm here, and they aren't," said Ivy lamely. She found that if
she stroked his hand it lay quiet; then it was safer than when it moved
about. But his other hand was there, moving up her arm.

"Oh, don't," she murmured.

"Don't what?"

"Don't. . . ." She could say no more. His hand crept up her arm under
her sleeve.

"I'd better go."

"No, don't go. I want you to stay."

"But the weather's coming into the next room."

"Never mind. You can't do nothing about it."

His hands closed unexpectedly on both wrists, and with a sudden movement
he pulled her forward so that she fell beside him on the bed. She
struggled to rise, but he held her there, and soon she was powerless to
move.

"Ivy, stay with me, and comfort me like this."

He turned his head to her and snuggled his face into her bosom.



                                  13

Poor Ivy! Twice in one hour the weather was her betrayer. If the rain
had not come in through the roof she would not have gone upstairs into
temptation, and if wind and rain had not squalled and lashed round the
house, splitting the noon with a thousand crazy voices, she would have
heard her husband come in; she would have heard him come upstairs--when
he saw the wet patch on the kitchen ceiling. As it was she heard nothing
till the door latch moved, and then it was too late. During that
horrible slow-motion of time which passed in five seconds on the clock,
she realized that she was in a situation which she could not explain,
even to Fred--some would say least of all to Fred.

He was not a hasty man or an angry man, and he would have been willing
to give Ivy the benefit of almost any doubt. But it is hard, indeed
impossible, for the husband who finds his wife in bed with the lodger,
to believe that she is acting only out of pity, even if she tells him so
again and again in the midst of sobs and streaming tears.

"Oh, Fred . . . do understand . . . do forgive me . . . it's only that
I'm so sorry for him without his teeth."

He raised his arm, and for a moment she thought that he would strike her
as she stood weeping before him. But instead his hand swooped to
Collins. Ivy screamed as he seized him by the scruff and with one
movement of his powerful arm dragged him out of bed and threw him on the
floor.

"Don't! Don't!" she cried. She had a vision of Fred pounding Bob's
swollen mouth with his fist. "Don't hurt him. He's ill."

"I'll be damned!" But he did not strike Bob when he picked himself up
and stood facing him. For a moment Ivy thought that Bob would hit Fred,
but just as he would have lunged, Fred had him again by the scruff, and
ran him through the door.

"Out you go!"

"Oh, Fred, let him dress first!"

But her husband took no notice. The children, distracted from their
play, watched in amazed excitement their father running downstairs with
the lodger, who looked very strange and wore only his shirt. The stairs
at Float Cottage were not made for speedy descent, and near the bottom
both men tripped and fell. Fred, however, kept hold of his enemy's
scruff and the next moment dragged him to his feet again, and sent him
through the door with a well-placed kick, just as Ivy, who had snatched
up the first garments she could lay hands on, came tumbling in their
wake with a cap, a waistcoat and a woollen scarf.

"Let him have his clothes, Fred; he mustn't catch cold."

Fred snatched the things from her and threw them out, then realizing
that there were omissions went upstairs and threw the rest out of the
bedroom window. Then he threw out other things that were not
clothes--the lodger's brush and comb, his collar-box, his razor, his
photograph of his married sister and her family. Then he opened the
drawers and threw out his best suit, his pullover, his felt hat, his
other pair of boots, and all he could find in the way of socks, ties and
handkerchiefs. Then he tore up some letters, and sent the pieces
showering from the window like snow. Then he felt better.

Meanwhile Ivy sat on a chair in the kitchen, crying and crying. Her sobs
were loud and rhythmic, and seemed to come strangely from outside
herself, and her tears washed her cheeks as the rain washed the windows.
The children stared at her in bewilderment. They could not understand
what was happening to-day. Dad, Mum, and the lodger were all behaving in
a queer, frightening manner. They began to whimper a little, but their
Mum took no notice; she sat there on the chair, rocking and crying.

She could hear Fred stamping to and fro in the lodger's room. What was
he doing? She hoped he wasn't smashing up the place. Though it would be
no more than she deserved if he did. Oh, she'd been wicked! wicked!
wicked! . . . and Fred would never believe that she still loved him,
that she had only let Bob cuddle her out of pity--he would catch his
death of cold out there in the rain . . . well, no matter if he
did--he'd been wicked too--he'd played her up . . . her pity suddenly
turned to rage, and her sobs grew louder. Miserable little tyke that he
was!--he'd played her up--he'd played her up. What a fool she'd been!
Fred would never believe her--would never believe her. Oh, Fred, Fred!

She was sobbing out his name now, but he did not hear her, or if he
heard took no notice. He wasn't thumping about any more. . . . She
strained her ears to listen. She thought she could hear a car at the
back of the house-that must be Bob going off. She wondered if he was
dressed-he would die of cold if he drove a long way without proper
clothes . . . well, let him die! He deserved to die-so did she. Oh,
Fred! Fred!

At last she heard him coming down. He would have to come into the
kitchen--he couldn't go out of the house unless he did. She sprang to
her feet, and seized his arm as he came in. He shook her off.

"None of that."

"Oh, Fred, Fred-do believe me."

"Believe you!--I saw you. I don't have to believe anything."

"But you've got to believe it was only because I was sorry for him--that
I don't love him. I love you. And I didn't even mean . . ."

Sobs broke her voice. Fred caught sight of the children's enormous eyes.

"Here--you clear out. Get in there."

He opened the parlour door, and they trotted through it, confused and
scared.

"I wonder you un't ashamed to carry on like that before your children.
You're a wicked mother and a wicked wife. I'm shut of you."

"Fred, before God I swear I didn't mean any harm. All the time he was
well I never thought of him, though he used to try and make up to
me----"

"Made up to you, did he? You never told me nothing of that."

"No, I--I----"

"Why didn't you, if you never thought of him?"

"I was afraid you'd turn him out and then we'd lose the money. He was a
good lodger."

"He was a ----" said Fred, using a word which he had learned from Bob,
"and as for you--well, I won't begin to tell you what you are. If I was
the man I ought to be I'd take off my belt and beat you. But it un't
worth the trouble."

"Oh, Fred, Fred! I swear I don't love anyone but you. It was only that
he was so miserable and ordinary--I couldn't help it. He kept on asking
me to comfort him."

"And that was the only way you could do it--getting into bed with him?"

"Well, one thing led to another. Oh, Fred, you don't know how I
struggled and fought against temptation----"

"No, I don't, and don't you begin to tell me, for I don't want any more
lies."

"They aren't lies. Fred, I swear----"

"I don't want any more of your swearing, neither. Hold your tongue. I'm
going out."

"Without your dinner? Oh, please don't go. Oh, Fred, do wait and have
your dinner. I'll get it ready in a moment."

"Dinner! it 'ud choke me. Don't be a fool."

He broke from her detaining hand and went out. Her heart was rent at the
thought of him without his dinner.



                                  14

Ivy sobbed till she could sob no more. Then she stumbled to her feet,
groped for the matches and lit the oil-stove. A few last tears fell
hissing into the saucepan as she pulled it forward over the burner, but
only a few, for she felt as if all the tears had been squeezed out of
her--she was wrung.

The slow processes of cooking went forward, and in the end the
children's dinner of suet and vegetables was set on the table. She
called them in and they stared at her solemnly, observing her altered
features.

"Mum, do your teeth hurt?" asked Norman, struck by a new resemblance
between his mother's face and the lodger's.

"No, dear. It's my head."

"Did Dad hit it?"

"Oh, no, no."

"I thought he said he was going to."

"He never said any such thing. You mustn't get these ideas, Norman."

"Was Dad angry with Mr. Collins or were they just playing?"

"They were just playing."

"Was Dad playing with you?"

"Oh, be quiet and don't ask so many questions. You shouldn't be always
wanting to know what grown-up people do."

Then grown-up people shouldn't behave in such an unusual, frightening
and exciting manner . . . Norman brooded over the situation for a few
minutes. Doris asked:

"Where's Mum's din-din?"

"Mum's not having any to-day. Her head aches."

"Poor Mum"--Doris reached up to lay a hot sticky hand on her mother's
forehead. "Made it better," she announced triumphantly.

"Is it better, Mum?" asked the more sceptical Norman.

Ivy tried to smile brightly.

"Ever so much better."

"Where's Dad's din-din?"

"He's taken it out with him. He's busy."

"Where's Mr. Collins' din-din?"

"He's having it at home. Now, don't ask any more questions."

Mercifully after dinner the rain stopped and the wind went down, so she
was able to send them out to play. It was dreadful having to think of
answers to their questions. It was also dreadful to have to sit alone in
the house, wondering what Fred was doing, or worse still, what Fred was
thinking. Would he ever forgive her? . . . But the distant and uncertain
future of his forgiveness was easier to face than the certain imminence
of his evening return. What would he say to her? How would he look?
Would he eat his supper? The questions that she asked herself were
worse than the children's.

She must do something to take her mind off things. When she had washed
up her crocks and tidied the kitchen, she went into the parlour and did
her best with that. She emptied the rain pans, and lit a small fire of
sticks to dry the place. Then she went upstairs, and tried to work up a
counter-irritation of woe at the sight of the fallen flakes of ceiling
and the brimming basin on the floor. But she knew in her heart that she
did not really mind about this new misfortune. The house might blow down
and she would not care if only she could have Fred back, forgiving her
and loving her again.

Last of all she went into the lodger's room, and there she saw what had
happened. Fred had thrown out all his things, so he hadn't had to drive
away in his shirt--not that she'd care if he had. It would have served
him right. She looked out of the window and saw nothing except some torn
pieces of paper on the ground. He'd taken everything, then. . . . Oh,
Fred was kind . . . and he hadn't made much mess of the room,
either--some men would have broken everything up as a punishment for
their wives. But there was no harm done here that she couldn't put
right. She tidied the place. She made it look as much as possible as it
had looked before Collins came down to lodge there.



                                  15

The November day drew to its swift closing. A darkness of mist and night
swallowed up Float Cottage. There was no wind, only a thick silence
hanging over the trees--not a footstep on the mud, not the cry of an
owl, not even the sudden croak of a moorhen from the pond beside the
shaw. Sounds inside the house seemed large and unnatural by contrast.
The kettle on the fire was a band playing, the clink of china was the
crash of armies. Ivy prepared the tea and waited.

"When's Daddy coming home?"

"Daddy's late to-night."

She'd known he would be late--he'd dread the bad hour of meeting as much
as she did.

"Mum, may I have my tea? I'm hungry."

Better give them their tea quickly and put them to bed. It would be
better to have them out of the way; though she realized now that she had
been counting on their presence as a sort of protection. . . . But she
could not abide their questions, and anyhow they would have to go to bed
some time--to keep them up would only be putting off the bad hour.

All the time she was washing and undressing them upstairs she expected
to hear Fred come in, but he did not. He was really late now--too late
for mere dawdling; and there was no sort of work in winter that would
keep him at the farm. No, he must mean to stop away--perhaps he would
never come back--perhaps he was done with her for ever . . . hadn't she
heard him say, "I'm shut of you"?

Her teeth began to chatter. She could hardly keep her self-control
before the children. She hurried to get them into bed so that she could
run away before they noticed anything. At last they were settled--Norman
in the little packing-case crib that Daddy had made for him, Doris in
the middle of the big bed with her own little tiny pillow. Ivy kissed
them both, gave automatically her good-night counsel to be good and to
go to sleep quickly; then she slipped out of the room, almost happy in
her freedom to be as miserable as she liked.

The clock at Float Cottage was not reliable, and she did not take
seriously the extremely late hour that it indicated. But she knew that
Fred must be a full hour and a half later than his usual time for coming
home in winter. What was he doing? He couldn't be working overtime at
this time of year; and he couldn't have gone to the pub, for that didn't
open till six, and he'd never go wandering about for an hour and a half
without his tea . . . and he hadn't eaten any dinner. Oh, Fred, Fred!

She wished she hadn't taken up this idea that he didn't mean to come
back--that he meant to leave her. He couldn't be so cruel--he'd never go
off without giving her a chance to explain. . . . Oh, if only he would
listen, she could make him understand. The meeting which all that
afternoon had been the thing she most dreaded was now the thing she most
longed for. Fred, come back and let me tell you exactly what
happened--what didn't happen--how I still love you, always loved you,
never loved anybody else.

His habit was so invariable that she could not find any explanation that
did not involve his meaning to stay away. Besides, he had said he was
"shut of her"--she remembered it clearly now. Yet surely if he had meant
to leave her for ever he would have taken some of his things, whereas he
had taken nothing . . . and she knew that he had very little money, for
it was Thursday evening. . . . Perhaps--a still more ghastly thought
invaded her shaken mind--perhaps he had meant to "leave her" in another
way, to get shut of her by getting shut of the whole of the life that
had suddenly gone bad on him. . . . Perhaps he had thrown himself into
some pond--there were several in the woods--and was at this very moment
lying cold and drowned and dead. She put her hand over her mouth or she
would have screamed. He was one of those quiet regular chaps there was
no telling with. Though she would never have suspected him to commit
suicide she never could say for certain what he would do. And she had
taken all the goodness out of his life . . . oh, poor, poor Fred . . .
he loved her and he thought he had lost her, and he could not live
without her.

Ivy was not a constant reader of any newspaper, but husbands
occasionally disappeared even in East Sussex. Sometimes they came back,
with or without explanations, sometimes they wrote from distant
addresses--asking either for their things to be sent after them or for
the price of their ticket home; sometimes their bodies were found,
drowned in ponds or hanged in outhouses. . . . Again Ivy put her hand
over her mouth. Then there was the wireless with its recurring S O S
messages--"Missing from his home . . . it is feared some ill has
befallen him." She had sometimes tried to imagine what those men's wives
must feel. Now she knew.

It struck her that this was just about the time the wireless would be
giving out such messages. . . . "Missing from his home at Float Cottage,
Leasan. . . ." She switched on the battery, and the voice of the distant
god was heard--"Bertie Holloway of Purley Down. Many happy returns to
Rosie Keen of Honiton, Veronica Pyke of Enfield, Leslie MacAndrew of
Georgemas. . . ." They hadn't got as far as the news yet. That was the
children's birthdays . . . and she'd meant to send up Norman's name
before his birthday came at Christmas; she must remember to do it. After
all, now she came to think of it, the S O S messages must be sent up
too. The wireless was not likely to know anything about Fred unless she
told it--at least, not so soon as this. Why, he hadn't been missing two
hours yet--it wasn't so late as she'd thought. . . . "Dulcie Turleigh of
Peacehaven. . . ." She switched off the bright voice. She suddenly felt
convinced that Fred was at the pub.



                                  16

Fred was not at the pub. He had left work early, because the light had
failed early, and also because he could not set his mind to anything. He
was shocked--not in the merely conventional sense of the word, but in
its full medical meaning. Sometimes he could hardly believe what he had
seen, he felt that he must have dreamed it; sometimes it seemed to
swallow up the whole of life--his marriage, his fatherhood, all he had
ever loved and thought good, leaving him with a dreadful sense of
outrage and betrayal, as if the earth had lied. If he had sown wheat and
reaped turnip-tops, or picked the deadly bryony berry as the fruit of
his apple tree he would not have seen the course of nature more upset
than when he had seen his wife in another man's bed. And all that she
had said and done to him afterwards, crying and pleading and making such
poor excuses, had been so like Ivy herself that it made the other
unlikeness appear all the more monstrous and shocking. He was shocked;
his arms shook on the spade-handle, his legs were weak--he could not dig
his ditches. He carried the spade to the outhouse farthest from the
farm, and left it there, seeing and speaking to no one.

He could not work, and he could not go home. He trailed miserably
through the growing darkness, crossing the fields to the upper part of
the lane, so that he cut off Float Cottage; though he could not help
seeing the chimney-smoke rising through the dusk. He did not know where
he was going. He was taking the Vinehall direction, away from Leasan. He
did not want to go to the Queen's Head, even when it was open. He was
ashamed. He could not sit with his fellows in the bar, talking good
sensible talk, if his heart was full of humiliation. He was best alone.

Coming up to the Vinehall road he found the dusk almost as thick as in
the valley. Though the rain had ceased the sky was low, with heavy
clouds swagging over the fields. The only light seemed to come from the
road, of which the wet surface gleamed a luminous grey. Fred walked
along it, following its shining path through the darkness. Every now and
then a bicycle skimmed past him; the farm-workers were riding home on
their unlighted bicycles--skimming through the shadows like moths, with
a soft whirring sound. Like moths, too, they flew towards the
lamplight--to their homes, with the lamp lighted on the table and good
food spread under it, and their children's faces golden round it . . .
he saw it all as a warm and golden picture that made his heart feel sad.
For a moment he thought of turning round and going back to his own lamp,
but the next he felt that he couldn't, and set his face once more to the
opposite darkness.

So far he had had the road to himself except for the bicyclists--the
Vinehall road, though clamorous with cars on summer Sundays, saw very
little traffic in winter after dark; but as he drew near Jordan's Farm
he noticed a man walking ahead of him, a man who carried a gun and was
followed by a dog. He dawdled along and Fred gained on him rapidly. It
was too dark to see much, but something about him seemed familiar. He
was evidently one of the "gentry," and they were close to Cock Marling,
so Fred had little doubt who he must be.

Neither custom nor inclination allowed him, even in this outlawed
moment, to pass Jim Parish without a greeting. He swung his arm in the
usual vague salute, which might be partly due to recent military
influences, partly a survival of the old forelock-touching days.

"Evenun'."

"Good evening--oh, Sinden? Hullo, how are you?"

He had not expected such a cordial greeting. He had to halt his stride
to the other's stroll.

"Very well, Sir, thanks."

"I don't often see you nowadays, nor in these parts. Vinehall isn't much
in your way, is it?"

"No, Sir."

It struck Parish that Sinden was not behaving or talking quite
naturally. He wondered what he had been up to--poaching, he guessed, and
his experienced eye swept the dim shape beside him for bulging pockets.
Well, never mind--he didn't care if the man had taken a rabbit or two.
Lord knew there were enough for everyone and some to spare. . . .
Boorman, his keeper, made an unnecessary fuss about a little illicit
ferreting. Besides, he liked Fred, and liked talking to him and his
kind. He would rather talk to him even than walk alone in the darkness,
which obliterating the outline of to-day might well be the darkness of a
good time long ago. He had dawdled so that his dreams could take shape,
and fill the fields with corn and the farms with plenty, the parsonage
and the manor house with learning and good cheer; but now he quickened
his pace so that the other man shouldn't forge ahead of him.

"How are you, Fred? How's life? How's Ivy?"

"Quite well, thank you."

He certainly wasn't answering in his usual way. As a rule he was glad
enough to talk, but to-night his voice sounded almost surly.

Parish did not want to make him talk unwillingly, and was about to send
him on his way with a friendly "good night," when it struck him that the
man was surly because he was miserable. Something had happened. . . .

"How's Vincent getting on?"

He would take the conversation a little further, till he saw for certain
that Fred did not want to talk.

"Pretty ordinary."

"Most farmers are nowadays. On the whole I think they're the worst
treated set of men throughout the length and breadth of England. When I
feel tempted to grouse I generally try to remind myself that I'm not so
badly off as a farmer--and nor are you, Fred. We all get hit nowadays,
but the farmer gets hit hardest."

Fred said nothing. They tramped on for some hundred yards in silence.
Parish felt vaguely embarrassed by his companion and a little unhappy.
He thought that Fred must be in some sort of trouble, but did not like
to question him. He shrank from using methods that he would not use with
a man of his own class, but Fred was not so responsive to hints as a man
of his own class would be. Should he be more direct? Fred was a good
fellow, and he did not care to think of him wandering sadly in some
private muddle that could perhaps be straightened out by a more
experienced or more powerful hand. He liked him--partly for his own sake
and partly for the sake of his kind, which Parish found more congenial
than any other kind. With such a man he dropped his usual,
slightly-posed air, and spoke naturally, as he felt. He liked
entertaining the neighbouring gentry, showing them his possessions,
confusing them with his ideas, but--with the past exceptions of Peter
Alard and one or two others--he never felt at his ease with them as he
did with George Bates and his fellows. The intervening class, the
farmers, yeomen or tenants, he respected and commiserated but did not
like; he felt towards his own tenant-farmers much as they in their turn
felt towards their labourers--that without them he wouldn't be sunk in
quite such a deep hole.

They had reached Cock Marling's gate--an unpretentious farm gate,
differentiated from a thousand others only by a coat of white paint and
a planting of limes at either side of the drive beyond it.

"Well, I must turn in here. Going much further?"

"I dunno."

"Where are you making for?"

"Nowheres. I'm only walking."

Parish felt he could not let this poor man go unfriended.

"Look here--you're worried about something, aren't you? Can't I--I mean
is there nothing I can do?"

"I'm afraid not, Sir."

Fred was surprised that the Squire had noticed anything wrong.

"Tell me, is it anything up at Float?--has Vincent stood you off?"

"Oh no, Sir, not that,"--he hesitated--"it's only that I've had a row
with the Missus."

"With Ivy? That's bad--I'm terribly sorry. But after all, Fred, most men
do have rows with their wives and make it up again. I'm a bachelor
myself, but I should say that not to have a row with one's wife was the
exception rather than the rule."

"I've never had a row with anyone in my whole life till to-day."

"Then, Fred, you ought to be stuffed and put in a glass case--or rather
you ought to have been if you hadn't had this row and proved yourself a
human being after all."

"But I don't like it--having it with Ivy. Seeing as I've never so much
as argued even with that chap Masters it seems hard to start on her."

"Can't you go straight home and make it up?"

"No, Sir. Not after the way she's treated me."

Parish saw that it was a long story.

"Come up to the house and have a drink."

"No, thank you, Sir. I'd rather not."

"You'd better come. If you're upset about anything there's no good
wandering in the dark and making yourself feel worse. You'll feel better
after a drink, and you needn't tell me anything you don't want to."

Fred hesitated. Parish's goodwill had touched him, made him feel warmer.
And there certainly was no harm in a drink; he had wanted one all the
evening, but he hadn't liked the idea of going to the pub and sitting
among the elders with his secret shame. If he went up to Cock Marling he
could have a drink in private and not say a word he didn't want to.



                                  17

A few minutes later they were sitting by the fire in Parish's study,
each with a glass of beer in his hand, and a well-filled jug on the
table behind them. This certainly was better than wandering in the dark.
Fred felt thankful and friendly towards Parish, especially as the latter
did not press him to tell him anything private, but opened the
conversation on the safe subject of Leasan's chances for the Football
Charity Cup. They talked about football, of which Fred was an occasional
spectator, about cricket, about the new recreation ground at Vinehall,
about the new bungalows that were being built along the Leasan road on
land that had once been Gooseleys', about the need for more council
houses, and at lower rents too, about the need for more houses
generally, and the shocking state of many of the old ones, leading to
the shocking state of Float Cottage in particular, with the weather
coming into three rooms out of five.

By this time Fred was feeling warmed and comforted and had drunk two
glasses of beer. It seemed easy and natural to pass from the structural
deficiencies of Float Cottage to its recent spiritual upheaval. He found
himself beginning to tell Mr. Parish about Ivy. Mr. Parish was a good
chap, he knew how to hold a conversation in the proper way--a way which
is like an old lane, wandering from cottage to cottage and farm to farm,
down to the stream and up the bill and down to the stream again, and not
apparently going anywhere in particular, but getting there safely in the
end. Mr. Parish was, of course, not a married man himself, but he seemed
quite sensible, and certainly it was good to talk to someone--a great
relief.

"You see, it's all on account of this lodger. Mus' Vincent had taken
seven shilling off my wage, and it came hard on Ivy, so we thought we'd
take a lodger."

"And quite a good idea, too--but I don't like your lodger, Fred."

"He un't my lodger no more now. I've thrown him out and everything he's
got--I chucked it out of the winder."

"I hope you threw his car out of the window. I hate his car."

Fred chuckled at the idea of a car being thrown out of a window. It
struck him as funny even in the midst of his distress.

"So do I, Sir. But I'm glad he had it this afternoon, for he drove away
in it. He's gone."

"And a good riddance, too. What led to it exactly?"

"Well you see . . . he--he'd been making free with Ivy."

A burning crimson came over Fred's brown face, making it the colour of
mahogany. He lit a cigarette with a shaking hand.

"Dirty little dog!" said Parish.

He waited for Fred to say something more, but evidently his feelings had
gone beyond speech. He sat smoking in a silence which the other had to
break.

"But I'm sure Ivy must feel about it just as you do."

"She don't, Sir. That's the tur'ble part. Ivy--Ivy--she . . ."

"She can't really like him. It would be impossible."

"Lots of girls do."

"I know, but only one girl's got you, Fred."

Again Fred was silent for a while.

"Are you sure she likes him?" asked Parish; "that you haven't made a
mistake about her side of the business?"

"What am I to think when I saw----"

"You caught 'em at it, did you?"

"In the very act."

A dim Scriptural echo seemed to hang about the room. Parish felt stirred
both to rage and to compassion.

"Well, I must say I'm terribly sorry, Fred. I hope you beat him up--I
think it uncommonly self-controlled of you not to have wrung his neck."

"I gave him a good kick in his bottom, Sir; but I didn't like to do
more, seeing he'd had all his teeth out."

"All his teeth out. . . ."

"Yes; he went into Hastings on Tuesday and had 'em all out--every one.
He was in a proper state about it, and yesterday and to-day his mouth
terrified him something cruel. That was why Ivy said she did it--she was
sorry for him, she said."

"Oh."

A new improbability had been added to the situation and for a moment
Parish found it difficult to make any adequate comment. Luckily Fred's
speech had gathered momentum with the recital of his woes.

"Aye, would you believe it? She said he'd made up to her I dunna' many
times before and she wouldn't look at him, but now she was that sorry
for him she couldn't stand out any longer. She begged and prayed me to
believe her, but I've more sense than to do that."

"Ivy's penitent, then?"

"She's what, Sir?"

"She's sorry, I mean. She doesn't want to go off with Collins? She wants
you to forgive her?"

"She's begged me to forgive her, to understand, she says, and let her
tell me all about it. But I don't want her lies."

"Are you quite sure they're lies?"

"What else can they be? I'll never believe . . . she un't a true woman.
There's things no one 'ud do just out of pity."

"I quite agree, and I'm not defending Ivy. But if she's asked you to
forgive her--if she's shown no signs of wanting to go off with Collins.
. . ."

"She'd never dare do such a thing--and she's got her children, too."

"Yes. Your children, Fred."

"I know, Sir--poor little mites. There they were, playing together in
the middle of it--not knowing the kind of woman their mother is. Oh, how
she had the heart!"

He suddenly buried his face in his hands.

"But it needn't affect them. They need never know. You--you hadn't
thought, had you, of doing anything drastic?"

Fred didn't know what he had thought of doing.

"They're bound to know some time."

"Not if you forgive her."

"I don't know as I've any heart to forgive her. I don't know as how I
can."

"But if she isn't really fond of the other chap--if it was just the
temptation of the moment . . . if it's true what she told you about
being sorry for him----"

"I don't believe it's true."

"It might be. Surely, Fred, if she was inventing an excuse, she'd have
thought of a better one. I don't pretend to know much about women, but
it seems to me that if a woman's going to invent an excuse for herself
she'll invent as good a one as she can; whereas I can hardly think of a
poorer reason for being unfaithful to your husband than that the other
man's had all his teeth out."

"It's the very thing Ivy ud do, Sir. She's that silly in some of her
notions----"

"There, Fred! Listen to yourself talking. If it's exactly the silly sort
of thing she would do, then she's probably done it."

"Maybe she has, Sir. But all the same it was a tur'ble thing."

"I agree, a terrible thing--and honestly quite beyond my comprehension.
I suppose there was nothing that started it--no earlier trouble between
her and you?"

"Not as I know on. She didn't like my dropping that seven bob a week,
and she mutters about the weather coming in; but we've never had
anything more than a few words. I--I--you could--I couldn't believe my
eyes to see her--" and once more he covered his face.

"You must forget what you saw."

"I shall never do that--it wouldn't be right, neither."

"Are you sure of that? She's behaved in a way that neither you nor I,
nor probably herself, can understand. But she's sorry. She's asked you
to forgive her."

"I don't see as how I can."

"What'll you do if you don't forgive her?"

Fred hadn't properly thought of that.

"If you send her home to her mother," continued Parish, "she'll take the
children with her, and that'll be punishing you. If you want the
children you'll probably have to go to law about it--get a separation or
a divorce. Do you want to do that?"

"I dunno as I do."

"Well, if you don't, you'll have to let her take the children away from
you, or you'll have to live in the house with her and the
children--which will be most unpleasant if you don't forgive her."

Fred said nothing to this, and appeared for a while lost in thought.
Parish filled up his glass.

"Go on--have another drink. This stuff's good for you."

Fred took a long pull, but still said nothing. The clock ticked on
towards seven; an owl began to call outside a sad, falling note. Parish
re-lit his pipe which had gone out during the discussion, and smoked
silently. He would not say any more--Fred must be allowed to think.

After a few minutes he picked up his glass and drank again.

"If I forgive her," he said as he put it down, "she'll have to manage on
my wages."

"That's only reasonable."

"I won't let her take in another lodger--not if she asks me on her
knees."

"I shouldn't think she would. She'll have had enough of lodgers after
this."

"But she won't like being six shillings down. And I don't know how
she'll manage--she un't a good manager."

"Perhaps you could earn a little more. I don't say now, but when summer
comes you might do a bit of gardening in the evenings."

"I don't know who I'd do it for."

"There's all these new people settling around--at Winterland oast and
the Gooseleys bungalows--people we don't want here, but who are going to
be jolly useful to us all the same. They'll be glad of a little help now
and then; and I think I could find something for you here at Cock
Marling in the summer. You might easily make an extra twelve or fifteen
shillings a week if you didn't mind working hard and late."

"I shouldn't mind if I was paid for it. It's uncommon kind of you, Sir,
to think of me. I'd be glad to do a job at Cock Marling."

"I wish I could give you the job you really ought to be doing--make a
ploughman of you again."

"I wish you could, Sir. But I've a feeling I'll never get back to the
plough. That's done with. They'll never put those fields into corn
again. Sometimes I think I'll be lucky if I keep any sort of job on the
land."

"You must--it would be a crime for you, of all men, to be driven into
the town. You're one of our few skilled men and a hereditary ploughman.
You must hang on somehow, Fred. Maybe we've got to go down to the bottom
of the hill, but we shan't stay there--we'll come up again."

"Maybe, Sir. But that's for them as can afford to wait. I can't. I've a
wife and family to keep."

"You're not expecting to have to leave Float, are you?"

"Not exactly expecting it----"

"Then don't think of it. It won't happen."

"But I may have my wages brought down again. Mus' Vincent says he's
paying more out on the farm than it's bringing in."

"He can't reduce your wages below thirty-one shillings--that's fixed
round here."

"There's chaps as are taking less and saying nothing about it, just to
keep their jobs."

"I bet they're not skilled men like you. Cheer up, Fred. I really think
I can put you on to a bit more in the summer."

"I should be uncommon glad of that, Sir. I know there's many women
around here manages on less than Ivy; but she can't do it--she un't no
manager. She's been in service, you understand."

"I quite understand; and I'll do my best so that she doesn't have to
manage. I shall soon be glad of an extra part-time man. The whole of the
Cock Marling land wants draining. Like most of the land round here it
was drained fifty or sixty years ago when the farms were doing well, and
it badly needs new drains now. I can't afford to do much, but I was
thinking of laying a mole-drain. . . ."

The conversation was ending properly as it had begun. Sinden and Parish
chatted about land-drains for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then Fred
thought he heard a car drive up at the door--most likely someone to see
the Squire . . . it was past seven o'clock, and he realized that he had
been sitting with him over long. He mustn't take up any more of his
time.

"Well, Sir, I should ought to get home."

He stood up and held out his hand, which Parish grasped warmly.

"I suppose you ought. But I'm sorry you've got to go; I've enjoyed our
chat."

"So have I. And thank you for all you've said."

"I've said nothing. But I hope it'll be all right between you and Ivy."

"Maybe it will, Sir, now. Anyway, you see, she's asked to be forgiven,
and that shows a proper spirit."

"Yes, it does. Go home to her, Fred; I expect she's crying her eyes
out."

"Well, it won't do her any harm to be a little sorry."

Parish realized that Ivy had duly been tried at the bar of Fred's
judgment, and sentenced in those last words. He did not think that he
himself had said or done anything to influence him, beyond, perhaps,
making his mercy swifter by giving him a drink. Fred would have forgiven
Ivy sooner or later because there was really nothing else for him to do.

But he was glad that Sinden no longer saw his home in ruins, and that he
was content for the sinner to be only a little sorry. . . .

"God bless you, Fred."

He opened the door, and as he did so both men exclaimed, for just
outside in the passage, ghostly in her long coat of pale fur, stood
Betsy Parish.

"Hullo! Where on earth do you come from? I'd no idea you were coming
down."

"Nor had I till this morning. It's all right, isn't it?"

"Of course. But if you'd sent a wire I'd have kept Mrs. Holmes in. It's
her night out and I'm dining with the Fullers."

"It doesn't matter. I don't want any dinner. All I want is to go to
bed."

Her voice had something of the sad, hollow quality of a ghost's.

"This is Sinden, Betsy."

"Sorry, Fred. I didn't recognize you with your back to the light. How
are you? How's Ivy?"

"Very well, thank you."

"Remember me to her, won't you? And will you please tell her that I've
some washing for her, if she's able to do it for me. I'll bring it down
to-morrow or the day after."

"Yes, Miss, I'll tell her. She'll be pleased to do it, for certain. Good
night."

He left them there together, and slipped out.



                                  18

So Betsy Parish was back, was she? That would be something to tell Ivy.
She'd looked changed, somehow--older. He wondered why she'd come back
all of a sudden like that. Mr. Parish hadn't looked any too pleased to
see her. Most likely he didn't hold with her ways. Mr. Parish was a
nice-feeling chap. It had done Fred good to have a crack with him, and
his notions on draining were uncommon sensible. It would be a fine
thing, too, to have some extra work in the summer. If he made ten or
twelve shillings a week, then he could put some by for the winter months
and there wouldn't need to be any talk with Ivy about taking another
lodger, which would be one good thing.

If he stood at the corner here the 'bus would pass in a minute and take
him as far as the top of Float Lane. He could tell by the new-risen moon
that it was past seven o'clock. The moon had a ring round her--that
meant more rain. And the rain was coming into the bedroom now--a bad
business. He would have to look to-morrow and see what could be done;
and anyway if the worst came to the worst they could move into the
lodger's bedroom, which was plenty big enough for two. It was lucky
getting rid of the lodger like that just in time. Miserable little tyke
that he was--Fred wished he had given him more than one kick; he
deserved kicking round a twenty-acre field. But it was too late to do
anything about it now. Please God they'd never see his face again; he'd
never dare show himself around Vinehall and Leasan after what had
happened. Well, maybe, some of it was Fred's own fault, for keeping him
as a lodger after he knew the sort of fellow he was. Maybe it hadn't
been fair on Ivy. . . .

A shaft of light came burning between the hedges. The Vinehall to Leasan
'bus was like a torch, all lit up and blazing within, kindling the road
before it for half a mile. Fred stepped out of the hedge-row and hailed
it, and it stopped to pick him up. "Evenun', Mr. Sinden--evenun', Mr.
Hornblower." He entered the shining palace of its interior, where there
was no other passenger, and sat down on one of a wide choice of seats.
He had exactly one penny in his pocket. The gears ground, changed, the
engine roared, and the 'bus leaped forward into the darkness, a fiery
chariot commanded by his penny to bear him home.



                                 1929

                                  1

Betsy Parish's return caused a mild excitement in the neighbourhood of
Leasan and Vinehall. She had been so long away that her coming back
almost savoured of a new arrival. It was rumoured too that she looked
ill--was ill. Certainly she did not seem to go about much. Her car was
hardly ever on the roads. One or two people said they had seen her
moping in the garden, and it was freely stated (though without any
further evidence) that she had had an unhappy love affair. Well, that
might be a good thing--it might cure her of some of her ways. Everyone
knew that it was terrible the way she went on in London. . . . Mr. Gain
of Eyelid, who had an aunt living in Leytonstone and therefore a claim
to inside knowledge of the capital, asserted that she had been turned
out of an hotel for getting drunk. Anyway, her return was doubtless part
of the usual story--she was broke and had run away from her debts; she
would stay down at Cock Marling till she'd scraped up some money, and
then she would run away from another lot of debts. When she had dashed
off like that in the summer of '25 she had owed quite three pounds in
the district.

She was gossiped about in the drawing-rooms as well as in the pubs. Rose
Alard hinted complete knowledge of her story, but evaded questioning.
Mr. and Mrs. Fuller were surprised not to find her dining with her
brother at the Hursts, and Mr. and Mrs. Williams were disappointed not
to meet her at Mrs. Bateman's tea-party.

"It almost seems as if she was hiding from someone," said Mrs. Williams.

"She's hiding from all of us," said Rose. "She doesn't like to face us
after what's happened."

"What's happened?" asked Mr. Williams.

Rose looked mysterious, and a little disapproving of his bluntness.

The occasion was a tea-party given by Mrs. George Alard to introduce the
new Rector of Vinehall to a select circle. How Rose, emphatically
proclaimed by herself as a lone widow, should have contrived social
relations before anybody else with the newly-settled bachelor was a
mystery, and likely to remain one. She even had the honourable pleasure
of introducing him to his fellow-cleric at Leasan, each gentleman having
been out when the other called. Besides the Williamses she had invited
Miss de Pledge, an established spinster of Leasan, and two slightly
younger women, Lorna and Carey Ashton, either of whom she thought would
make him a good wife.

For of course he must not be allowed to remain a bachelor. It had been
bad enough having Luce for twelve years unmarried amongst them; if this
man did not marry it would establish a tradition and do a lot of harm.
Certainly Mr. Brady had no religious reasons for not marrying--he was as
Low Church as his predecessor had been High; nor could he have, thought
Rose, any personal ones. He was aged between thirty and forty, strong,
well-made and nice-looking, without being actually handsome. The living
of Vinehall brought him in less than two hundred a year, but he was
reported to have ample private means, and had given substance to the
report by taking possession of the ancient Rectory, which Luce had
always refused to live in, and turning it into a very comfortable sort
of country house. Indeed, so eligible did he appear, that Rose began to
wonder if he couldn't be made to wait a year or two for Edna or for
Lilian--Edna would soon be old enough to marry; perhaps it would be a
pity to waste him on either of the Miss Ashtons. . . . She was glad to
see that their new winter hats were distinctly unbecoming.

The only thing against him was that he was an Irishman. Apparently the
Society that had the presentation of the living had been unable to find
any Englishman Low-Church enough to fulfil their requirements, so had
drawn from the number of Protestant Irish clergy who had come to England
after the proclamation of the Free State. Certainly a Protestant
Irishman was better than a Catholic Irishman, but Rose would rather not
have had an Irishman at all. You could not trust the Irish, she said.
They were thriftless, shiftless, dirty, plausible, dishonest and
indigent. It is true that Mr. Brady showed no signs of being any of
these things; but then you could not trust the Irish--he might be all of
them underneath.

He certainly was rather quiet and shy for an Irishman. You expected an
Irishman to be full of brogue and blarney, keeping the company in a roar
with his bedads and his begorras and his tales about Biddy O'Flanagan's
cow . . . perhaps it was being a Protestant that made the difference.
After all, Rose supposed, it would. And he certainly had a very slight,
gentle brogue that pleasantly slowed his speech, though he never said
bedad or begorra. The conversation, being firmly centred in Betsy
Parish, did not give him much of an opportunity. He sat quietly
listening and drinking his tea while stranger tongues demolished the
unknown.

But the conversation must have interested him, for walking back to
Vinehall with Mr. Williams--who, anxous for a little ministerial chat,
had sent his wife home without him--he suddenly began:

"I believe I'm soon to meet the lady they were talking about at tea. At
least her brother has invited me to luncheon at his house."

"You'll find Cock Marling a very pleasant place. It's the only really
important house in the district now that the Alards are gone. I suppose
you've heard all about the Alards--a sad story."

But Mr. Brady was not interested in the Alards. His deep, gentle voice
persisted:

"After what I've heard I shall be interested to meet Miss Parish. But
perhaps she will not appear."

"Oh, she's certain to appear, I should think, at luncheon in her own
house. She hasn't gone out much, I understand, since her return. But
you're sure to find her at home."

"It was only that from the conversation at tea I gathered that she was
something in the nature of a fallen woman, and I thought perhaps the
family----"

"My dear man! You mustn't think any such thing. Mrs. Alard's tongue
sometimes runs away with her; but you mustn't infer . . . fallen woman,
indeed! What a dreadful idea! Miss Parish is certainly a bit modern in
some of her ways, but she is also unmistakably a lady."

"Then," said the new parson in a voice that was suddenly loud and
fierce, "they spoke very wickedly, to speak of her as they did. They had
no business to speak in that way of a virtuous woman."

"Oh, I don't say she's exactly that. . . ."

"She must be one or the other."

Mr. Williams coughed and said nothing. This innocent clergyman from the
Irish wilds made him appear sophisticated by contrast and Vinehall
metropolitan.

"It was wrong," continued the other, "very wrong to say such things if
they are not true. I thought possibly they were speaking from a good
motive and meant to warn me. But to tear a young woman's character to
pieces like that--it was abominable, and if it happens again I shall
speak out--I shall tell them what I think of such wicked slander."

A backwoodsman indeed.



                                  2

Jim Parish was both sorry and glad to have his sister at home. He was
sorry because her whole conduct and attitude towards life had always
been a challenge to his. She held his gods in contempt, she outraged his
conventions. On the other hand, her return was a testimony to Cock
Marling's power over her. Though she had not fulfilled his threat and
come back in a year, she had come back at last. She could not keep away.
She was irresistibly drawn to what she pretended to despise. The place
would get her in the end.

Moreover, he was glad to have her with him, for it was dreary living in
that rambling house alone, among the echoes and memories of the family
that should have been there and was not. Vernon spent his school
holidays mostly with his mother in London, and Ronald had found a
job--he was now a traveller in silk stockings, and clad in a hyperbole
of plus fours drove about the country, calling at lonely farmhouses to
tempt farmers' wives with the shining produce of a Leicestershire mill.

It was good to have someone in the house, a woman too, who would play
hostess to his guests, though she gave him a free hand in their
entertainment. She would be hostess, while he remained housekeeper,
which was what he wanted; and if occasionally she derided both the
guests and the housekeeping, he would regard that only as the price he
paid for a convenient and unusual arrangement.

The first entertainment of 1929, which Betsy was to preside at and he to
organize, was the luncheon to which he had invited Mr. Brady. He was
aware that it need have been only a very simple occasion--he need
perhaps have invited no more than the new Rector himself. But Parish
disliked parsons, that is to say, modern ones, and required a bodyguard
both for offence and defence. For the attacking troops he had engaged
Mr. and Mrs. Williams, whom he also disliked, but for whom he had the
tolerance of custom. They would do most of the talking to Mr. Brady, and
entertain him with the sort of stuff he liked. For his protection he had
invited Jenny Godfrey and her husband. It is true that Godfrey seldom
spoke on such occasions, being a little out of his element, but he would
give Parish the invisible support of his five hundred acres, the
consciousness of Four-houses piled on Cock Marling as a tower of
defence. And Jenny, bless her, was, in spite of her treachery to it,
still a citizen of his world, speaking his language.

The menu, he reflected, need cause him no special anxiety. Mrs. Holmes
could be allowed to send in the meal which was by now almost a reflex
reaction to his announcement of company for lunch. It is true that the
Williamses had already eaten many times her entre of eggs and cheese,
her roast chicken, and her trifle, but as such dishes were almost
unknown in the straits of their own living, they would cheerfully eat
them many times more. The same applied to the Godfreys, whose coarse,
scrambling meals were dictated not so much by economy as by custom and
the need always to feed one or two farmhands at their table. As for
wine, he certainly would not serve anything choice until he had made
sure his chief guest was worthy of it.

His hopes were small, and when the time came they were extinguished.

"Water, please," said Mr. Brady firmly.

Parish glanced down the table in the hope that Betsy had put on her
richest carmine for his outrage. But of late she had not troubled much
about make-up, and today her face was pale and her large mouth only
faintly pink. It might be the pallor and pink of art, but that fool
would never know.

The conversation followed his plan pretty accurately at first. Mr. Brady
was on Betsy's right hand, with Mrs. Williams beyond him, and Mr.
Williams sat on her left, so that she was sucked into the clerical
element, or rather floated on it like some alien substance on the
surface of a pond. Jim had the two Godfreys on either side of him and
talked about what he liked.

"Are you smitten with the new hope, Godfrey? the hope which is to make
the wilderness of Vinehall and Leasan to blossom and the farmers of the
Tillingham valley to turn their overdrafts into super-tax?"

"No, I haven't heard of any such hope."

He spoke gruffly, for he was always on his guard with Parish, and could
not really understand his talk.

"What is it?" asked Jenny.

"Change the last letter and you have the answer--hops."

"The man who puts his hope in hops," said Godfrey, "deserves what he's
likely to get."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, for I agree with you. I've been arguing
with Chivers, my tenant at Pickdick, most of this morning, and yesterday
I was arguing with his neighbour at Billingham. They're both convinced
that this is going to be a record year for hops. They tell me that the
whole neighbourhood thinks the same. Generally we keep ourselves to
ourselves down here, but this year we seem to have come together and
decided that what we want is hops and hops and hops."

"Last year I grubbed up ten acres of mine."

"The grubbing up of hops has been an annual custom until now, but this
year apparently we are to plant them."

"I can't see that this is the time for it."

"Well, the idea is that prices are going up. There's a duty on foreign
hops, there's a government marketing board, and we have also discovered
that hops can be used for dyeing other things besides drink."

"But that's well known."

"Not by some of your neighbours, Godfrey. It has just burst upon them in
the light of a new revelation. I tell you there's a sort of wave going
through the district, a kind of mob suggestion--the stampede of a herd
of farmers maddened by a new idea."

"Hops are scarcely a new idea."

"No, but the idea that they may make money is."

"Perhaps it's due to Hobday and Hitch," said Jenny; "their fields at
Perrymans and in the Rother valley have done extremely well, I believe,
for the last two years."

"Yes, but look at them, my child. They're grown and they're dried by
entirely new processes. Hobday and Hitch are building new kilns, with
scientifically bellowsed furnaces and all sorts of up-to-date
appliances--no more of old Crouch crawling round like a stunted devil,
blowing up a charcoal fire with the draught of a wooden shutter, and
spoiling one bushel in every five."

"Well, you don't expect the local farmers to build new, up-to-date
oasts, do you?"

"No, I don't, so I don't expect their hops to make money. Farming is
like most other industries in England, failing for want of modern
equipment."

"It's the price of labour makes the trouble nowadays," said Godfrey.

"There you speak as a farmer and as a farmer I agree with you. But when
I think of these things as an ordinary human being it seems to me that
it wants some nerve to ask another human being to live on less than
thirty-one shillings a week."

"If they would take less, we could employ more of them."

"And get back to Jim's Golden Age, when the peasantry starved on three
shillings a week."

"Jenny, you don't know what you're talking about. The peasantry starved
in the nineteenth, not in the eighteenth, century, and the farmers
starved with them. When the farmer flourishes the farm-labourer
flourishes too. The fact that he's not starving now is due to the fact
that there are so many other trades to absorb him. He's not starving
because he's not here--he's gone. No one stops in the country nowadays
except for love. If a countryman loves the country, as some of them do
round here, he'll stay in it and face the consequences, not otherwise.
Even our farmers are farming for love--all those who were farming for
money have cleared out long ago. We're a land of lovers. I run this
place for love--it doesn't bring me in a penny; on the contrary, it
costs me about five hundred a year out of my private income. If I hadn't
got private means I couldn't stop here another month, any more than Mr.
Brady could stop at Vinehall."

"I beg your pardon; were you speaking to me?"

"I was merely impressing on Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey that this is a land of
lovers, and that the Squire and the farmer must make up their minds to
be like the parson and do their work for love."

"Surely the best work is always done for love."

"Not by farmers. I don't know about the clergy, but if you see a farm
that's run for love and compare it with one that's run for money--if
such can still be found, you will notice the difference. Besides, when I
said we were a land of lovers I was only saying in English what most
people would say in French. Most people would say we were a land of
amateurs."

"If you suggest that the clergy are amateurs," said Mr. Williams, "all I
can say is Thank God."

"I wasn't speaking specially of the clergy, but of the country as a
whole. As a people we are amateurs, and if our clergy alone were
professional we should be driven into righteousness before we could help
ourselves, so I join with you, sir, in saying Thank God."

"Jim," said Betsy sharply, "I think you're being outrageous."

Mr. Brady's large grey eyes stared at him in luminous gravity.

"A professional clergy," he said, "has been the curse of Ireland, and
far from driving the country into righteousness I hold that the Catholic
priesthood is responsible for its present state of moral degeneracy."

"You must find the people here very different from your people in
Ireland," said Mrs. Williams brightly, feeling that the conversation was
getting too ecclesiastical and controversial for the luncheon table.

"There used to be many more gentry in my congregation at Clonmara. I had
the Roskills and the Herberts and the Tynans--the Protestant Tynans, of
course. Here there seem to be no great families."

"I don't think there are," said Parish, "now that the Alards have gone.
But of course the Alards never went to church at Vinehall--except
Gervase; he was Luce's white-headed boy for a number of years. No, I'm
afraid the only gentry belonging to Vinehall are what you see before
you."

"And you never come to church."

There was a moment's silence, in which the Williamses could be heard to
gasp.

"Oh yes, I do, sometimes. But Sunday's my busy day--George Bates and I
are both extremely busy on Sundays, owing to all the other men being in
bed or standing round the village pump. Betsy does nothing--Betsy will
have to go. You can go now, Betsy, for Mr. Brady has made Vinehall
church safe for devout members of the Church of England like yourself.
Tell me, Mr. Brady; how did you manage with Luce's leavings? Last time I
went inside the place it was full of idols. What have you done with them
all?"

"Most of the things belonged to Mr. Luce himself, and I've sent them to
him at his request. The church looks very different now."

"And has your congregation noticed the difference?"

"Indeed it has. Many people have come to me and expressed their pleasure
at being able to worship in their parish church again."

"And what about those who liked Luce's ways? Have they expressed
anything?"

"I don't think so. There were not many of them, and a number of them
left when Mr. Luce did."

"My impression--you and Mr. Williams must correct me--is that only about
a third of the people go to church, in any parish, and therefore if you
drive the whole of your congregation out by your goings-on and what not,
there's still two-thirds of the population left to draw from."

"I should put down a third as a very rosy estimate," said Mr. Williams,
"unless you count in the people who go to chapel. I believe you have a
large number of Nonconformists in your parish, Mr. Brady. One usually
finds that where the church is or has been extreme."

"Yes, I have a large number. But I get on with them very well now that
they know I preach the Gospel."

"Oh, of course; I make a point of getting on with my Nonconformist
neighbours--excellent men. I even have a family of Roman Catholics in my
parish and we are very good friends."

"But I suppose you go and reason with them."

"Oh, no--oh, dear me, no."

Mr. Brady looked surprised and a little alarmed.

"But if you do nothing, aren't you afraid that the poison may
spread?--they may corrupt others. My experience is that a Catholic is
like a rotten apple in your loft--it's only a question of time before
the rot is everywhere."

Here Mrs. Williams again plunged desperately into the conversation.

"Talking of apples, have you ever noticed . . ."



                                  3

When his guests were gone, Parish turned to his sister.

"Well, Betsy my dear, that's over. What do you think of him?"

"The point is rather what I think of you."

"I didn't know you ever thought of me. What _do_ you think?"

"I think that you were often silly and sometimes rude."

"How kind you are! How kind to say 'often' when you mean 'always.' But I
deny that I was rude."

"You were perpetually trying to make a fool of him, which most people
would call rude."

"I did not try to make a fool of him; there was no need for any effort
on my part."

"He talked quite sensibly when you were busy with the Godfreys at your
end of the table. It was only when you began bewildering him with your
attempts at humour that he said some things that some people might think
silly."

"Some people, but not you?"

"No. If anyone's lucky enough to believe anything I can't see that it's
silly to believe it very strongly. I thought old Williams was much
sillier with his dreadful, official broadmindedness. At least Brady's
honest."

"Betsy, I believe you like him."

"Why shouldn't I like him? He's a real person, which is more than most
of our neighbours are."

"But you didn't like Luce, and Luce was just as real, just as bigoted,
as Brady."

"Brady's not a bit like Luce."

"I agree. He's much bigger and better-looking. Bigger and Better
Brady--broad-shouldered if not broadminded."

"Don't be an ass, Jim. Can't you see that he's alive?"

"I wish he wasn't--at least, not in these parts."

"What do you mean? He hasn't done you any harm--you don't care what
happens to the church."

"No, but I care what happens to you. I always looked upon you as an
intelligent, if unsympathetic, woman, and I'm surprised to see you fall
for a stupid man who's no more 'real' or 'alive' than any other stupid
man you've met."

"I haven't fallen for him."

"Then why do you insist on regarding him as Titania regarded Bottom?
Can't you see that he's only a poor clown with an ass's head?"

"It's you who have the ass's head. You think of nothing but thistles."

"My dear Betsy, what has bewitched you?"



                                  4

Float Farm had a share in that new hope which had spread so suddenly and
surprisingly down the Tillingham valley. Certainly it was going to be a
good year for hops, and the farmers would be fools if they left all the
profits to Messrs. Hobday and Hitch. Doubtless the success of those
mighty men at Perryman's and in the Rother valley was in part
responsible for the mounting tide of optimism. Fabulous rumours
circulated as to their profits, and at the same time a profound contempt
was entertained for their scientific improvements and devices. If Hobday
and Hitch had done so well with that ugly, useless contraptious kiln,
how much better must fare the honest farmer with his honest oast.

Float grew some fourteen acres of hops, which Mr. Vincent, for the first
time in his experience, wished were more. He was now in a state when he
had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If this year was only no
worse than the last he would be bankrupt. If he gambled he stood to lose
no more than he would lose anyhow, and he stood to win at least a year's
respite for himself and his farm. So, greatly daring, he did the almost
unprecedented thing of planting another six acres. They had been a
hop-field not so very long ago; the position was sheltered and the soil
was good. He planted fuggles and saw them make a promising start.

Fred Sinden was glad to have the work of the hop-fields to do. It was
nearer to his old job than any other. Not that pushing his little hand
plough up and down the rows could be compared to the furrows he had dug
behind Flossie and Soldier across the Hundred or the Red; but at least
it was skilled work, the kind of work his father had done and he had
been bred up to do. He was used to hops, and now the corn was gone they
were his only comfort. He set up the hop-poles, too, and spent days in
spreading the cat's cradle that was to be a trellis for the vines. He
knew that Messrs. Hobday and Hitch had a permanent system of poles and
wires which did not have to come down and be put up again every year,
and he did not share Mr. Vincent's derision of such a scheme. On the
whole, the farmhands of the district, especially the young ones, were
more advanced in their agricultural notions than the farmers. But then,
of course, they did not have to pay for improvements.

Ivy would have liked to help with the tying--she would have been glad of
the extra bit of money it brought in. But it was skilled work, and she
had never troubled to learn it, though she had had many opportunities;
for her mother was an experienced and capable tier, and visited many
farms every spring. Now Ivy felt sorry when she saw the cart come up
with the women in it, and wished she had not been too lazy and
new-fangled to learn an accomplishment which would be useful to her now.

But she could help with the picking. That was a thing anyone could do,
and she had done it every year except when she was in service. The
children would help too--even little Doris would be big enough to pick
her share. They would spend long, happy days in the hop-fields, in the
steaming, scented sunshine; grouped in bright colours round the bins
whence would rise friendly talk and joking and laughter. Most of the
houses in Vinehall and Leasan would be shut up, because the families
would be out in the fields. The schools would be closed too, to release
the children for the labour which was holiday. Their parents would take
the kettle down to the hop-field and boil it under the hedge, and they
would all picnic together in the sweet, dry, shortening days. In that
merry company Ivy would forget the burden of the child she carried, even
though it would be drawing near its time. Sometimes she wondered
dreamily why her babies always came in the winter. The bare branches of
the trees outside her window had become a part of the pattern of
childbirth in her mind.



                                  5

No year could have been better for hops than 1929. Early frosts had
cleaned the ground--there was a remarkable absence of pests. Rain fell
at the right time, and then scarcely fell again. During the three summer
months a drought lightened and crumbled the soil. All crops were good
and farmers who had turned their cornlands into grass felt almost
regretful. The hop-harvest came early and was gathered in almost perfect
weather.

So heavy was it that oasts which had long been out of action had their
fires lit again. The oast at Starvecrow, which had not been used since
Peter Alard's death, was hired by Mr. Elphick of Eggs Hole as
supplementary to his own; and neglected oasts at Ethnam, Newhouse,
Sempsted and Doucegrove were requisitioned for overflowing crops. Soon
there was scarcely an oast in the district which was not breathing out
perfume. One by one the blue pennons of the newly-lit fires streamed
from the cowls, and the air at dusk became full of a troubling
sweetness--scents that came and went on imperceptible breezes, that
lurked in hollows with the mist, that crept into cottage rooms at dawn
and sweetened the stagnant breath of pools at night.

The Crouches were jubilant. It was long since they had had such a year.
After a spring of busy tying, Mrs. Crouch was now booked to pick at
Ethnam and at Float, where the harvests were in accommodating
succession. As for her husband, he had had to refuse one or two jobs
that could not be fitted in. His activities as a hop-dryer had been
dwindling steadily during the past few years, till they had almost
reached the receding point of his activities as a charcoal-burner; and
though, while these trades went down others were coming up--his trades
of chimney-sweep and water-diviner, for instance, which made him much in
request by the new inhabitants of the bungalows and metamorphosed
farms--none had the same merit of taking him for long periods from home.
So it was with a thankful heart and a cheerful countenance that Mrs.
Crouch waved him farewell as he set off with his tins and his teapot and
his lanthorn and his gun for Sempsted oast, and he on his side was moved
to shout "Cheer-oh, old girl. See you again Christmas." It was long
since they had had such amiable exchanges.

Most of the pickers were local. Only a few of the bigger farms--Jordans
or Eyelid or Stonelink--encouraged foreigners from Hastings or "cart
people." Ivy picked at Float, of course, with her mother and her
sister-in-law and a set of friends and acquaintances from the village.
The place swarmed with children, crowding round the bins to earn their
threepennies or playing in the alley-ways, in the shadow of the unpicked
hops that hung like bunches of grapes from the trellises. The sunshine
would grow thick with the dust and fume of the hops, and towards evening
everyone would begin to feel drowsy, and sometimes one or two would nod
over the bins, or even fall asleep and dream--a quick, fleeting little
dream like a breeze running down the alleys. The cold would wake them,
as damps rose from the brook and the ponds and autumn proclaimed itself
in a twilight chill. They would stand up, yawn and sigh and laugh a
little, and give in their accounts to the tallyman, and wander home
rather slowly, thinking how good supper and bedtime would be.



                                  6

Fred enjoyed the hop-picking less than his wife. He had no special love
for gossiping with his neighbours and he did not like to see the farm so
overrun. Sometimes the children strayed, and broke down hedges or scared
stock, and everywhere you would find the litter of meals, paper and tin
cans and bits of rubbish, making the place look ordinary. How was it, he
wondered, that all the village wanted to pick hops and would come and do
it even if you offered no more than twopence a bushel? while if you ever
wanted a woman or two in spring to terrify the thistles, not one would
come except at a fancy price.

Another drawback to hop-picking was the gipsies. They came in numbers,
and camped on those farms that would employ them. There was a whole
field of them at Jordan's. In the evenings they would come up to the
George at Vinehall and the Queen's Head at Leasan, spoiling those places
for decent men. Not that Fred went much to the pub these days. All that
summer he had been working up till the last of the light, at Cock
Marling for Mr. Parish, at Ellenwhorne Oast, where they were making a
tennis lawn, and occasionally at one of the Gooseleys bungalows--Rookery
Nook it was called to Fred's secret bewilderment. Then when he came home
after work he liked to sit with Ivy. They were good friends now, and
never so much as thought of Bob Collins and all the trouble he had
brought them. The house was in better heart, too. He had mended the roof
himself, and anyway the weather never came into the place in summer.

So he generally sat at home in the evenings after his work, but now and
then he liked to go up to the Queen's Head just to hear the news; and
the gipsies spoilt it, because no one could talk freely before them. It
was all mumbling over your beer, while they leaned against the bar and
drank their whiskies. The money jingling in their pockets was an outrage
on honest men.

One evening a young gipsy came into the bar, looking uncommon pleased
with himself. He was working at Eyelid and most of the company knew him
by sight.

"Good evening, gents," he said, looking round him, proud and careless as
a lord.

There were unwilling mumbles of "evenun."

"Your very good health, gents," said the gipsy. "Won't you join me? I've
had a piece of luck. I've sold a horse for twice as much as I gave for
him."

"Twice nothing un't much," muttered Brotheridge to Fred.

"Well, since you're so kind. . . ."

Everyone looked round to see who had spoken. It was Young, who used to
be cowman at Dinglesden, and had been out of work, except for occasional
jobs, ever since the farm was sold. He had been hop-picking with
everyone else, but all the money he earned was owed for rent and to the
shop, so he had nothing over for a drink. Now and then he came up to the
Queen's Head just for half a pint, or perhaps in hope somebody would
treat him. To-day somebody had.

"Fine," said the gipsy. "What'll you take?"

"Same as yours," said Young.

"And you other gents, what'll you have?"

There was a moment's pause, then Masters said:

"Thank you, but I must be getting home."

He stood up and moved towards the door.

"Whatever's this, Mr. Masters?" cried Mrs. Allwork; "this isn't your
usual time. You're never going now! Nor you, Mr. Brotheridge."

They mumbled something unintelligible as they went out.

"I think I'd better be getting off," said Mr. Pannell, the woodcutter.
"My Missus'ull want to go to bed early after the picking."

"Same with mine," said Boorman, from Doucegrove Farm. "I'd better be
off. Thank you all the same," he added as he passed the gipsy.

Fred thought he might as well go with the rest, and they left the gipsy
alone with Young, who was poor and thirsty, and with Ashdown, who was a
kind-hearted man.



                                  7

The Sindens were not church-goers. Float Cottage was nearly three miles
from Leasan Church, and to be there by half-past ten in their best
clothes and skins would involve an early rising which both considered
out of place on Sunday. For the evening they had the complementary
excuse that the children ought to be in bed and could not be left alone.
And anyway, morning and evening, three miles was three miles--six miles,
in fact, by the time you had got home again.

But there was always an exception made for the Harvest Thanksgiving. On
Harvest Sunday nearly everyone went to church, including the Sindens.
Even the chapel-goers went; any resentment which might have been roused
in their Ministers' breasts being appeased by the thought that when the
chapel thanksgiving came the church-goers would come to chapel. Dogmatic
barriers in Leasan were not high, and attendance at any place of worship
was governed by personal and territorial rather than theological
considerations.

That September evening, as Fred set out, dressed in his careful,
outgrown best, and carrying little Doris in his arms, while Ivy led
young Norman, the bells came ringing down from Leasan on an easterly
breeze. Often those bells were Float's only Sunday, stealing to Fred as
he leaned on the gate by the pond at Dodyland shaw, and troubling his
head with queer thoughts that were half religious and half quite
different; they even reached Ivy as she washed up the tea things and
made her feel it would be very nice to go to church if she had the time.
It was nice to be walking towards them this evening, up the hill to the
Leasan road where the sunshine still lingered though it had left the
valley. At the top of the lane they had to wait only a very few minutes
before Mr. Pannell's lorry came along to take them the rest of the way.
Like them, he always went to church on Harvest Sunday, and he always
gave them a lift. They could hardly have managed without him.

The evening air was chill, and Ivy had quite a struggle to keep Doris
wrapped up. The little thing was always trying to look out and see about
her. Inside the church it was warm enough--warm with the comfortable,
substantial warmth of oil lamps and human bodies. The last of the
sunlight was there too, pouring through the west window like a heavenly
limelight, a great golden shaft lighting up the stage of the chancel set
with cabbages and lettuces and marrows and runner beans and piles of
apples and trails of hops. There seemed more hops than ever that year,
as if grateful farmers had been specially generous in memorials of their
harvest. The hops trailed over the chancel screen, and wreathed the
great, squat pillars of the aisle. Their scent triumphed over the smell
of the lamp-oil--they were an incense smoking before the Lord of the
Harvest.

Fred felt pleased to be worshipping among so much friendly growth and
fruitfulness. The hops, the green-stuff and the apples made him feel
good, though something that was almost pain smote his heart as he looked
at the two little sheaves of corn on the altar.

It was all according to custom--the harvest hymns: "Come ye faithful
people, come, Raise the song of harvest home," "We plough the fields and
scatter The good seed on the land" (alas! many of us no longer do that),
"To thee O lord our hearts we raise," and other old favourites. There
was the harvest psalm about the valleys laughing and singing, and there
was the special thanksgiving "For a Bountiful Harvest," and Mr.
Williams' sermon, which he preached twice every Harvest Sunday but did
his best every time to make sound new. This year he could be more
eloquent than usual on the special bounty of the earth. The weather had
been excellent, conditions ideal, the harvest plentiful, especially in
the hop-fields. Perhaps there was hope for the hop growers again. For
many years they had been sacrificed to foreign interests, but now it
looked as if the tide was turning . . . a few sentences later the sun
was rising, and soon the daystar had appeared. Then the ethical
application was made, and the congregation were on their feet again,
stretching their cramped legs and filling their lungs:


                "All good gifts around us
                   Are sent from heaven above.
                 Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord
                   For all His love."


After such a thanksgiving it was a pity and a disillusion to find out,
as they found out later, that as a part of the queer new twist and
change of the times the last thing they had cause to thank the Lord for
was a bountiful harvest. When the harvest is good there is a glut and
prices drop to nothing. When the harvest is bad at least a few lucky
ones may make a fortune; but when it is good nobody makes anything at
all. While tons of coffee beans were being thrown away as useless in
Brazil and the Middle West farmers were burning wheat instead of tares,
the bountiful hop harvest of the Tillingham Valley was rotting in the
London warehouses. The district had produced nearly fifty per cent. more
hops than could be sold at the prices the government marketing board was
asking. It seemed a mistake to pray and a farce to give thanks for such
a thing.



                                  8

Before this was fully known, and before Float Farm realized that it must
be destroyed by the abundance for which it had hoped, Fred Sinden's
youngest son was born. Once more Ivy saw those dark bare boughs in
restless design against a moving sky. Under the bark she could see the
swelling of the black ash buds, for winter seldom struck or nipped the
valley of the Tillingham, and every year when the old leaves fell the
buds of the new leaves would show on the bough, while primroses hid a
secret yellow in the woods and the catkins hung like rain upon the
hedges.

The baby's head upon her arm was like a black ash bud. Every now and
then she looked at it tenderly. She seemed to love each one of her
children better than the last; and this child was specially dear as the
flower of the second spring of her love for Fred. Lying there in the
great bed spread as a field about her, watching the bare ash boughs,
their brief estrangement seemed to her like a dream. Her unfaithfulness
was a dream--it had never happened. How could she have lain in any man's
arms but Fred's? Bob Collins's arms were not real; she had lain with a
ghost.

She thought of him, though, sometimes, as one would think of a figure in
a dream; and sometimes she heard gossip about him and once she had even
seen him. She had heard that he was one of the Yellow Boys--a gang of
youths in highly-coloured pullovers, who, roving in from the surrounding
villages, would collect outside the Picture House at Rye. Rumour said
that in winter they took girls down to jury's Gap, to the deserted
bungalows; in summer they took them into the woods. On the only occasion
during the past year that Ivy had been into Rye she had seen Bob Collins
standing in the High Street, and he had seen her too, and smiled at her
with a full white grin of surpassing splendour. She knew then that he
had forgiven her. He had got what he wanted and had suffered so much to
obtain--his wonderful new teeth; and now she too perhaps was only a
creature in a dream.

She lay so much alone there with the baby that sometimes she would
almost seem a dream to herself. Rafters sagging low over her head felt
more real than she did. Perhaps nothing was real except solid things
like false teeth and Float Cottage. After all, your soul was the chief
part of you--at least so she had been taught--and what was a soul but a
ghost? A ghost was somebody dead, and when you were dead you were a
soul, so a soul and a ghost must be the same thing. There she lay with a
ghost inside her, herself already dead. One day her soul would wander
out beyond those ash trees. She seemed to find herself beyond them now,
naked and homeless, crying to come back. Her soul was like a bird,
crying in the ash tree. Oh surely there is something more than
this--somebody should have told me . . . I can't get back, and my baby's
there. I can see its head on the pillow.

"Oh. . . ." She was looking up into Fred's eyes. He was leaning over her
and his breath was on her face, warm and comforting.

"Poor girl! had a bad dream?"

"I didn't know I was asleep. I thought I was dead."

"But you un't dead. You're doing uncommon well. Nurse told me."

She gave a deep sigh of relief and closed her eyes. She could still feel
and smell him as he leaned over her, and she was reminded of her wedding
night when he had leaned over her in the darkness, and she had known he
was there, because, though she could not see him, she could feel the
warmth coming from him and the good smell of his skin.

She opened her eyes.

"Kiss little Clarence."

"I'll kiss you first."

He kissed them both as they lay there, his heart full of a strange
mixture of fear and thankfulness. He was thankful for her safety and he
was thankful for the child, but he had anxieties which at present she
must not share. He knew that things were not going well with Mr. Vincent
and Float Farm, that trouble might come of that bountiful harvest, and
yet here he was increasing his stakes just when it looked as if the game
must go against him.

It shouldn't ought to be, he told himself. A working man with three
children had no business to feel afraid and awkward before the world. It
shouldn't ought to be. Yet so it was. Times were changing, and a
fruitful marriage and a fruitful field were no longer the good things
they were once. Something was wrong, he felt, when blessings were
changed like this into curses.



                                 1930

                                  1


                     _By Order of the Mortgagees_

                     MESSRS. CARTER, WINCH & SEAL

                    Will offer for sale by Auction
                       AT THE GEORGE HOTEL, RYE,
                 on Wednesday, April 16th, at 11 a.m.
                    the Freehold Property known as
                          FLOAT FARM, LEASAN.

                             Consisting of

           192 acres of grass and arable land, with valuable
           road frontages, together with dwelling-house
           containing five bedrooms and two reception
           rooms, kitchen and offices, also cottage, cow lodge,
           cart lodge, barn and oast.

                      _The Land is in Good Heart_



                                  2

Float's bill of sale, affixed throughout the district to walls and
hoardings, and displayed on the front page of the _Sussex Mercury_, had
varying effects on those principally concerned. Mr. Vincent's chief
emotion was, paradoxically, one of relief. The struggle was ended. He
had lost; but he need not fight any longer, see himself being driven
back inch by inch, feel himself shaken to and fro between hope and
disappointment, each of which had come by this time to be as painful as
the other. The worst had happened, so he need no longer dread it--wake
in a sweat for fear of it and then lie racking his poor head for means
of escape. He need no longer drive himself or his men to do more than a
day's work in a day, and he need no longer urge his wife to contrivances
and economies that were bad for her and the children. He had thrown in
his hand and he did not even feel ashamed. He was too tired, and a
positive state even in ruin, was too great a relief after years of
restless uncertainty for him to feel any other emotion than a kind of
empty quiet, in which rested not only his body and his mind, but his
whole character, all he had of honour and kindliness. It was some time
before he could even feel sorry for his men.

They certainly had no experience of relief. Not only had their struggle
been lighter, so that they still felt able to go on with it and thought
that he might too, but the gulf of the future yawned more pitilessly and
closely to their feet. Their employer's ruin was relative rather than
absolute. The price of land, especially land with a good road frontage
and therefore possibilities of development, had not yet sunk so low that
the selling price would fail to cover the mortgagees' demands. There
would probably be a bit over for Mr. Vincent to go on with. He would
manage something--farmers always did. He would go into partnership with
somebody, like Mr. Cooper, or start again somewhere else as a
tenant-farmer--landlords were so anxious to find tenants nowadays that
they did not mind a man having failed with his own place.

But what about them? They lost their jobs and it was unlikely that they
would find others. Float might be bought by gentry and the land become
mere grazing. Or it might be bought by a farmer who would work the place
with a partner or a pupil or with his own sons. That was the only way to
make farming pay nowadays, people said; manage without hired labour.
There was not one single farm in all the place around that had a vacancy
now for a hired man of any kind. Either they would have to go right away
somewhere else to find work, or they would have to find some other sort
of work here.

It was true, of course, that none of this might happen; Float might
merely change hands and go on as before. But such a thing was most
unlikely according to recent experience; they had no reason to expect a
better fate than had befallen their fellows at Gooseleys and at
Ellenwhorne and at Winterland and at Dinglesden. Besides, whichever way
you looked at it the future was uncertain. Mr. Vincent had peace because
his failure had brought him the relief of certainty, but his men, on the
contrary, were brought by it out of an accustomed routine into a waste
land of mapless wandering.

Masters, as was inevitable, considered himself the worse used.

"What's to become of me? I've got eight children to provide for. There
ought to be something done for men with more than four children."

"Well, anyway you've got your cottage. Mine's up for sale with the
farm."

"I pay four shillings a week rent and I shan't be able to find that when
I'm out of a job."

"Mr. Waters 'ull wait for his money."

"Not he! leastways, not more than a week or two. He'll chuck me out, and
I'll never find another place. Nobody 'ull look at a man with eight
children. You'll be all right with only three."

"I'll be all right if I can find somewhere to go at a rent I can afford
to pay. But I don't expect to do that easy."

"No, we'll both soon be homeless, I reckon--under the hedge or in the
workhouse. But it'll be worse for me than it'll be for you. You're a
lucky man with only three children."

"Three's bad enough when the eldest is five. Your Stanley brings you in
fifteen shillings a week from Mr. Hurst, and soon your girls 'ull be old
enough to go out and earn a bit. But it'll be eight or nine years at
least before one of my poor little lot earns anything."

"Your Missus 'ull be able to go out houseworking. She's been in smart
service, and they say some of those new folk 'ull pay a woman a pound a
week for cleaning their houses."

"Ivy could never leave the children. They're too small."

"But there's only three of 'em. My Missus could never go out, if you
like. She's got 'em at all ages."

It seemed undignified to Fred to go on arguing like this about their
comparative misfortunes. He turned away from Masters and plodded off
homewards, also turning away his mind, and comforting himself with the
thought that had already comforted him many times since Messrs. Carter,
Winch and Seal's poster had first put it into his head. For the
auctioneers had proclaimed in print for all the world to see: "The Land
is in Good Heart."



                                  3

He and Ivy often talked things over together and wondered what they
should do. Of course they knew that Fred must find another job, but that
was about as much to start on as if they'd known he must go to
Australia. The question was which was the best way to set about it. Fred
did not like to begin looking round before Float was sold--it would be
barely decent, and besides, suppose the new man decided to let things go
on as before . . . he'd be properly had if that happened. On the other
hand, it would never do to let any chance slip or miss any good advice
his friends might have to give him.

He duly canvassed the matter at the Queen's Head--to his inevitable
confusion. Some were for having him go into the building trade. There
were one or two quite good jobs about. Messrs. Snashall kept a permanent
staff of six men, in addition to which they "took on" others according
to the work they had to do. At present they were building council houses
at Vinehall, a bungalow at Gooseleys and another on a piece of land that
had been snipped off Starvecrow. In the future they would probably have
still more work, as farm after farm went up for sale or sold off bits of
itself as "eligible building sites." The trouble was that Fred, unlike
so many of his fellow workers, had no real knowledge of bricklaying. He
could dig, because he was strong, but he could do little else, because,
skilled in one job, he had not troubled about skill in another. And as
builder's labourer it was well known that sometimes you were paid as
little as eightpence an hour and were liable to be turned off as soon as
your part of the work was done.

Others suggested going "on road-work." If you were able to get a job on
the permanent staff of the County Council, you did well. The pay was
good and the work was regular. But it was most unlikely that a man who
up till now had been doing something quite different could find anything
better than a temporary job, and there was not even a good chance of
that at present. The Council had just stood off nearly fifty men,
having--so rumour insisted--spent all its money in cutting off the wrong
corner of Snailham hill, and very little work would be done on the roads
before next year.

Building and the roads were the main hopes of those labouring men for
whom the farms no longer had any use, but who wished perversely to
remain on the land that refused to nourish them. Alternatively there was
the chance of getting a job with one of the strangers--that stream of
retired townsfolk that was beginning to dribble through the broken
defences of the countryside. It was one of the many contradictions of
the times that while the land was being drained of its native population
it should also be more thickly inhabited than ever before. And a good
thing too, they said at the Queen's Head. Nobody liked strangers, but at
least they spent money and gave employment. It would have been terrible
if things had gone in Leasan and Vinehall the way they had gone in some
of the Shires, if the empty farms had stayed for ever uninhabited and
the empty land gone derelict and all the village shopkeepers and
innkeepers gone bankrupt for want of custom. At least things weren't so
bad as that. Land that no longer grew corn could grow bricks and mortar,
and the buyers of bricks and mortar required an army of
handymen--gardeners and motor-drivers and carpenters and wood-cutters
and coal carriers and water-diviners and well-cleaners and
hedge-trimmers, besides milk and bread and eggs and chickens and fruit
and all sorts of stuff that brought good to others as well as to
themselves.

Fred might find a job with one of these invaders, though at present no
one knew of anything definite that was going; and if he did, then
probably he would be paid more than Mr. Vincent had ever paid him. But
he did not like the idea. He had never done any gardening beyond that
required by his own little patch, and he knew nothing about motor-cars.
It was all very well for those chaps to talk; they were jacks of all
trades and masters of none. He was master of a trade which no one wanted
any more.



                                  4

It struck him, having exhausted the counsel of the Queen's Head, that
Mr. Parish might be able to help him. If he could not give him anything
himself, he would know of something, and he would understand Fred's wish
to stay where he was and do the sort of work he was accustomed to. Fred
had thought very highly of Mr. Parish ever since that terrible night of
his quarrel with Ivy. He had shown himself a sensible and good-feeling
sort of man. Of course there were some that said he was queer, and even
less good at his job than the Alards had been, but he was comfortable to
talk to and, in Fred's opinion, knew what he was talking about.

So one evening he walked up to Cock Marling and asked to see the Squire.
He was shown into the office, where maps and schedules and plans and
bills littered the floor, and the bursting leather of the armchairs.

"Hullo, Fred!" said Parish, who was stooping over the safe to which he
was attached by a key on his watch chain. "Clear a place for yourself
and sit down. I'll be ready in a minute. I've been having a row with the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who insist that I must pay tithe on my
pond. They say corn grew there in 1830 or something, so I'm hunting for
an ancient map to show 'em that it didn't."

"From what I've heard of those 'Missioners, they'll soon be telling us
that corn's been growing in our hats."

"Reckon they will, but it won't do them much good. The farmers' backs
are up now and they just won't pay."

"And quite right, too, I think. I understand those 'Missioners have a
hundred million pounds a year."

"Let's say two hundred million, Fred--and that's pitiful compared to
some of the figures I've heard. Anyhow they've got more money than we
have, so I don't like them taking ours."

"I can't understand things, Sir. You'd think that if a man has a farm he
shouldn't ought to pay out more than he has to pay for stock. But
seemingly there's no one pays quite so much as a farmer in tithes and
taxes."

"If he owns the land he farms, certainly. If not it's his landlord who
has to pay. Landowning is a sin, Fred. It was made a sin in
nineteen-twelve and all the holy politicians are trying to stop the sin
by punishing the sinners. Unfortunately it's such a darling sin that
some people will never give it up--they'd rather be fined every penny
they've got in the world."

"I shouldn't care about it much myself. I don't know as I've ever wanted
to own anything more than what I've got. Belongings are a trouble."

"But you wouldn't be without any at all."

"Maybe not, Sir. But not too many. Anyway, my belongings are things and
people. I don't want any places to belong to me."

"There, Fred, is where you and I differ. I don't want people to belong
to me, but I must have places--a place. And you ought to want a
place--Gervase Alard thinks you ought to be a landowner and that's why
he cleared out of Conster and sent us all to wrack and ruin eight years
ago."

"I understood he wanted the farmers to have their farms."

"Well, they've got 'em now, haven't they?--or haven't they?"

"They haven't, Sir. Leastways mine hasn't. That's why I've come to see
you. I was wondering if you knew of anything that 'ud suit me when
Float's sold up."

Parish groaned. He sat down in one of the bursting armchairs and stared
at Fred.

"I wish I did. I wish I could offer you something on Cock Marling--I
wish I could give you a hundred acres to plough. But, my friend, it's no
good--I already employ more men than I can afford at a wage I'm ashamed
to pay."

"I'm not particular as to the ploughing; I know I un't likely to get
much more of that. All I ask is my wages and my house. I can do any sort
of job on a farm, I reckon--look after stock, milk, mow, see to the
woods and the hedges. I un't as particular as I was, and I'd do any
sort of work nowadays, even what used to be woman's work such as
terrifying thistles."

"You're used to horses, of course."

"All that, Sir. And I could look sheep and manage cows too."

"Do you know anything about mechanics? Ever driven a tractor?"

"No, Mus' Vincent used to manage that himself."

"Well, there aren't such a number of them about here. We aren't so
mechanically minded as the Shires; though we're having the electricity
brought out to us, as you know."

"Yes; they're going to have it at the Queen's Head."

"It was one of the late Conservative Government's gestures towards
agriculture--graceful as a kiss, and of about as much use. We poor
broken farmers can't afford it. The only people to benefit will be the
people from the towns. They'll find the country still more pleasant to
live in and will flock into it in still greater numbers, and Mus' Muddle
and Mus' Puddle, the builders, will build them lovely houses with pink
asbestos roofs. . . . I hear that part of Starvecrow has been sold to a
Hastings builder and is to be developed as an 'estate.' It's just on the
line of the proposed electric main."

"I wish they'd build some houses for working people. It's the thought of
getting a house worries me more than getting a job."

"Couldn't you get into one of the Council Houses?"

"That's what Ivy always used to say. But I told her it's no good. Every
one of them's full, and dozens waiting."

"It's a bad business, I know. But take heart, Fred. After all Float may
be bought by a decent farmer who'll be only too glad to have a man like
you."

"I hope so, but after what's happened in other parts I daren't think it.
That's why I made so bold as to come and see you."

"I'm more sorry than I can say to be so useless. But you know my
position. I can't afford to employ you myself or I certainly would. I
promise you I'll keep a look out, though, and tell you if I hear of
anything going. How would you like to be a gardener to one of the new
people settled here? Two pounds a week and a house--it wouldn't be so
bad."

"No; not so bad in the way of money, but I shouldn't like it.
Gardening's a sort of idling to me--I should feel as if I was playing
all the time."

"But you wouldn't refuse to do it?"

"Oh, no, Sir. I wouldn't refuse nothing--not now."

They talked on desultorily for a few minutes, then Fred rose to go. He
felt that he had had a very comfortable chat with Mr. Parish, though
nothing much was likely to come of it.



                                  5

Jim Parish did not regard it as a comfortable chat. All the time he had
felt ashamed. It was scandalous that a good man like Fred should be
wandering about in search of work. It was wicked that a skilled workman
should have to suffer because he had thoroughly learned his job. It was
pitiful that the only big landowner in the district could do nothing but
bid him hope for the mercies of strangers.

Fred Sinden's job had been the occupation of mankind for hundreds and
thousands of years, ever since in the dawn of the world some scientist
had invented the first plough. But now it was a job that mankind no
longer wanted. The day of the horse plough was over, and the motor
plough had not much of a future in the small, hilly countryside of East
Sussex. Civilization was abandoning the idea of self-contained,
self-supporting communities; in the future wheat would be grown in
districts chosen from the acreage of the world instead of from the
acreage of a single farm. As methods of production changed and transport
facilities grew, men would no longer argue whether the High field or the
Low bore the better crop, but whether to sow in Russia or in Canada or
in Rumania. Instead of each farm having its own plough and ploughman,
whole nations of ploughmen would spring up, the population of a whole
country be given to the plough, not as peasants, but as chemists and
mechanics, learned in machinery and the medicine of the soil.

That would not be in England--the world would not take seriously England
or even Scotland as a corn-growing country. England would be planted
over with skyscrapers . . . no, sky-scrapers needed a rocky soil--all
the sky-scrapers would be in America or in parts of Asia. England would
be given over to charming _villgiature_--an English countryside--purged
of recent building excesses, with about one studiously picturesque house
to the half-acre . . . neatly planted roads, plenty of market gardens
and poultry farms, and no doubt a national park with rural industries
working for show, and perhaps a rustic or two carefully preserved and
reared to pull a forelock, and say "I be. . . ."

"What on earth's the matter, Jim?"

His young brother Vernon had come in and was staring at him.

"What on earth's the matter? You look as if you wanted to be sick."

"So I do. So I will, if I think any more about this ghastly business."

"What ghastly business?"

"Fred Sinden from Float Farm has just been in to see me. His boss is
going to be sold up, you know, and he wondered if I could help him to a
job."

"And you can't?"

"Of course I can't. Fred's a skilled man--skilled at a special kind of
work nobody wants."

"Then he'd better learn something else."

"That's just what I've been telling him. I've told him he'd better take
up gardening."

"And won't he?"

"Oh, I daresay he will; but it's a shame--a bloody shame."

"What's a shame?"

"That a good ploughman should be wasted as a gardener, you young ass."

"It's a pity if you like, but I can't see that it's a shame. He ought to
have known when he took up ploughing that it wasn't the sort of job that
would last."

"How could he have known that? He's a ploughman's son, and he grew up
during the war when England was almost a corn-growing country. You
couldn't expect him to foresee all that's happened since. I didn't
foresee it myself--not until the Alards quitted."

"It's nothing to do with the Alards. It's a thing that was bound to
happen. The war delayed it a bit, but it was beginning to happen even
before the war."

"As you remember clearly."

Vernon sat down and lit a cigarette.

"I came to ask if you'd play a set of singles with me. But you don't
look as if you would."

"You know I hate tennis. Can't Betsy help you if you want to be hearty?"

"Not now. She's out driving with that Parson--showing him Bodiam castle
and what not."

Parish groaned.

"Vernon, isn't that association the surprise of your young life?"

"Not exactly. Betsy always liked going about with men.

"Yes, but--men. Hurst I can understand--not Brady."

"Personally I prefer Brady. Hurst's a bounder."

"Quite, but so is Betsy. I'd have thought they'd get on together pretty
well. But Brady--what has she in common with a fanatical Irish parson
from the wilds of Kerry?"

"I don't suppose she's got anything in common with him. But I think
Betsy's changed from what she used to be. She seems to want things
quieter."

"I agree with you. She's changed, and I don't like it."

"In my opinion she's changed for the better."

"I daresay she has. But I don't like changes."

Vernon surveyed him critically.

"I wonder if you had a very difficult birth."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"In psycho-therapy it's pretty well established that when otherwise
normal people have an intense dislike of change, it's nearly always due
to a premature or complicated birth."

"You don't think it reasonable to object to seeing a bad thing being
substituted for a good one?"

"In Betsy's case you've just said you don't think it's a bad thing."

"I don't always mean everything I say. You can cut Betsy out. Do you
think my objection to changes in this country is reasonable?"

"No I don't. Not really. I can't see that they're changing for the
worse. A gardener isn't worse than a ploughman."

"But a field full of thistles is worse than a field full of corn."

"Quite. But the choice isn't limited to corn and thistles."

"No; we can have asbestos bungalows. Do you think they're better than a
crop of wheat?"

"They don't look so nice certainly, but they're probably just as useful.
If the population increases, we must house it."

"And not feed it?"

"We can feed it from other countries that are better suited to food
production than we are."

"Blast you! you talk like the Wireless, and you're only telling me what
I know already. I know it's got to come, but I wish it hadn't--and
anyway I don't see why it need be so hideous."

"New types are always hideous--at the start. The first trains were
hideous strings of travestied stage-coaches, and the first cars were
hideous caricatures of dog-carts. It wasn't till the designers forgot
the thing they'd started from that they made anything beautiful."

"I don't think either trains or cars are beautiful."

"I do."

"Yes, I suppose you do. We're different generations really, although
we're brothers. When I was a brat I played with a Noah's Ark, but you
played with tin Rolls Royces and the Scotch Express. And now you've left
school I suppose you'll want to play all your life with engines and
wheels, while I'll just live on and rot and die here in my Noah's Ark."

"I don't feel specially mechanical. As a matter of fact I'm going to
Greenland."

"Greenland!"

"Yes, I meant to tell you. It's all fixed now. I'm to go with Kettelby's
expedition. Mother's putting up the money."

"My God! what a thing to spring on me! How did it happen?"

"I met him at Winchester last term, and he suggested it. But I never
thought anything would come of it, because of mother. However, she
decided to play up."

"You're young to be so lucky."

"Do you want to go to Greenland?"

"God forbid! But it might have been a good thing if I'd met an explorer
when I was at school and he'd taken me off to the North Pole years and
years ago. At present I feel like a spinster daughter who's always
stopped at home with Mamma, and now Mamma is dying--rather unpleasantly.
What will you do in Greenland?"

"Oh, just look round--see what the country's good for. We shall have our
base at Upernivik, and make expeditions inland. There's a lot of
Greenland that's never been explored."

"Blessed experience! It will be like throwing away a sucked orange and
starting on a fresh one."

"I must say I'm looking forward to it."

He threw his cigarette end into the fire and stood up to go.

"You won't come out and hit a ball?"

"No thanks. I'm busy here. There's always a lot wants doing in my Noah's
Ark."

Vernon went out, and for a minute or two Jim sat thinking. Greenland!
That was one way out--one way of escape from a world that he suspected
his young brother liked as little as he did; though doubtless he was not
running away from the thistles and the bungalows so much as from the
prospect of having to sell silk stockings. . . . Greenland--hundreds and
hundreds of miles of utterly useless ice-cap; that was the only sort of
country left now in its integrity--country that was either too hot or
too cold to be any use. . . . Greenland, Spitzbergen, the Poles, the
Himalayas, the Sahara, the forests of the Amazon, the Mountains of the
Moon. . . . Vernon would doubtless spend the rest of his life visiting
strange lands, and coming home at intervals to reproach his brother for
lamenting the ruin of his countryside. Young humbug! What was he doing
himself but running away from changes?--seeking the unchanged in its few
remaining strongholds. The memory of an old hymn revived and droned
itself in his head--"Change and decay in all around I see." Wasn't there
another hymn about Greenland's icy mountains? He would ask Brady--or
perhaps by this time Betsy would know. Change and decay in _all_ around
I see--even in Betsy. Oh, damn! I'll go and talk to George Bates.



                                  6

Float Farm was duly put up for auction and duly failed to find a
purchaser. This was the common fate of farms at auction and nobody
minded very much. It was now the auctioneers' business to sell the place
privately, and as usual they decided it would go better in lots. Lot I
was the dwelling-house, with the tangled wilderness of roses, peasticks
and ancient plum trees that in better times had been the garden. A small
field went with it, and a shaw with a bog and a pool. These were the
rudiments of a "gentleman's residence," "complete with kitchen garden,
flower garden, shrubbery and ornamental water," advertised for sale in
the _Sussex Mercury_.

Lot II was the farm-buildings and about forty acres. These might go
either as a small-holding or to those eccentric people who liked living
in oast-houses. Just as some years ago it had been discovered that any
tumbledown house could be sold for a lot of money if only it was old
enough, so now the local agents were beginning to realize the hitherto
unsuspected residential qualities of oast-houses and windmills. Somebody
would soon be sure to come along and buy at a high price Float's cracked
old oast, knock windows in it, divide its lofts into rooms, build
fireplaces, and settle down contentedly to a future of leaking walls and
smoking chimneys.

Lot III was some meadowland by the Tillingham. This was good grazing
land and of no use to anyone for anything else. It would probably go to
some local grazier for a moderate sum after much careful bargaining. Lot
IV was poor Fred Sinden's cottage, with the shaw and about ten
acres--poultry farm or week-end cottage with "a wealth of old oak." Lot
V consisted of the two fields fronting the Leasan road--"Building plots
to suit purchaser" and suiting best those able to live without water, of
which there was none.

There remained some odd lots of from seven to fifteen acres which the
agents proceeded to get rid of by a kind of blackmail. One by one the
owners of adjoining properties were approached and offered some part of
Float, otherwise "ripe for immediate development." One or two--the new
arrivals at Ellenwhorne and at Winterland--succumbed at once and bought
their views fairly expensively. Others, older residents at the Furnace
and at Eyelid and Jim Parish at Cock Marling, damned the agents with a
lofty silence. By the time--some two years ahead--that the farm was at
last completely sold, it had realized almost as much as Vincent gave for
it on the ill-starred day he bought it from Gervase Alard.

Meanwhile he lived on in it--first in the house, and then when that was
sold--and it soon went to some artist friends of the people at
Barline--in the outbuildings. He did not like leaving the place, and the
mortgagees were willing that he should stay there to keep the land in
order. He brought his furniture into the barns, and made them look as
homelike as he could with his bits and pieces. Mrs. Vincent managed her
cooking and washing with the help of an oil stove and a wooden tub.
There was a separate bedroom with their beds set up in it, very clean
and neat, and in that way they contrived to live for several months,
undisturbed by any prowling Health Officer. Vincent kept round him the
dwindling remains of his stock--four cows, two horses, and about a
hundred and fifty head of poultry, caring for them with the help of his
wife and his eldest boy, who was about twelve years old. So ended a
yeoman.



                                  7

Of the men, Masters fared better than his employer, and Sinden worse.
Masters was lucky. Only luck could be held responsible for the sudden
death of the gardener at the Furnace and the economic stress which urged
the Hursts to engage a local man in his place. Hurst had been wont to
sneer at local gardening, with its slow fatalistic methods and ignorance
of any flower or vegetable more exotic than the marigold and the potato.
But as his grievance grew against a Labour government he decided that
his gardener's wages could not henceforth be more than two pounds a
week, and that he had better engage Stanley's father who happened to be
out of a job. Two pounds a week and a cottage--the words were forgotten
music in the Tillingham Valley. There would be Stanley's wages too, and
Mrs. Masters would be sure to get odd jobs at the house, and when Connie
was older she might start as under-housemaid . . . through the gate of
adversity the Masters marched to plenty. The string of their washing in
the first Monday's breeze outside Mr. Hurst's new, brick-built
six-roomed cottage was like the fluttering pennons of a triumphant army.

Fred saw it from the road on his way to Doucegrove, where he had heard
there might be a job going. "Masters is in," he said. Lucky Masters. Not
so lucky Fred--there was no job for him at Doucegrove, nor at Sempsted,
nor at Knelle, nor at Eggs Hole, nor at any other places he tried even
as far away as Kent. In those first days of unemployment he was still
set on getting something on a farm, on doing the kind of work he was
used to even if he could never find himself again behind a plough. But
after a while he saw there was little hope even of this. Farmers were
turning men off instead of taking them on.

He would have to accept his fate and take to gardening. There was no
first-class job going for him as it had gone for Masters. The gentry,
new and old, were apparently equipped with gardeners. All he could do
was to get a few hours here and there with the people at the
bungalows--mostly retired policemen and tradesmen, living in little
brick boxes on land that had once been Gooseleys' grazing and
Winterland's hops; there was still the great, tall hedge standing
northward of the sullen little row, making pretence of protecting them
as it had once protected the hops.

Some of the people at the bungalows were good gardeners, and they mostly
managed for themselves; but some knew little or nothing, and for one or
two of these he did what he could--digging and sowing and planting and
trimming a few hours every week, raising the homely plants that were the
only plants he knew, phlox, and Canterbury bells and stocks and
marigolds, cabbages, onions, peas and runner beans.

He sometimes worked at Cock Marling too. Mr. Parish had been extremely
kind and had had him on to help with the hay-making and the harvest; and
of course at hop-picking time they had all had plenty to do--Ivy and the
children as well as himself. Ivy never complained now or said she could
not manage on a pound a week, which was the most, outside harvest times,
he ever brought her. Something seemed to have struck her and shown her
that the time for protest and complaint had passed; that the time of
endurance had begun. Besides, they still had a roof over them. Float
Cottage was theirs to live in as long as they paid the rates--no rent
was asked of them now. They both knew that the time would come when this
comfort would be taken from them, but they would not think of it before
they must.

The summer passed and Fred's gardening came to an end, except for one
afternoon a week he still put in at tenpence an hour for an old lady
living over at Staple Cross. For three weeks that was all he earned. Ivy
made two or three shillings by washing for Miss Betsy. She would always
be able to count on that, for Miss Betsy was going to marry the new
parson at Vinehall and would never go back to London. (People wondered
how much he knew about her and how much he would find out when it was
too late, and what he would do about it then. It was also said that he
had ordered Mrs. George Alard out of his house for trying to tell him.)

On October Fred had six weeks' work as builder's labourer; in December
Mr. Pannell took him on to help him in the woods, cutting and splitting
the chestnut pales, binding the brushwood into bavins. Mr. Pannell was
cutting the underwood of Stentbog and Wagmary down on the marsh by the
Tillingham, where the river runs red and angry with iron and floods,
tearing at its banks and choking its course with uprooted sallows. Fred
liked his new labour, among the woodfires, in the sweet-smelling air,
with the woodsmoke and the mist smeething together over the tops of the
oaks, and the little red hearts of the fires glowing and leaping in the
shadows under them. He was sorry when at last the wood was finished and
closed up--the hedge of ash and hornbeam carefully "laid along" by his
fingers almost loving to be at such work again.

After that came a month with nothing at all but his afternoon's
gardening and Ivy's washing for Miss Betsy. He had almost made up his
mind to go to the parish when he was again offered a job as builder's
labourer, for new houses were going up on the Leasan frontage of Float's
land. He kept on at this, with occasional weeks of idleness, till the
spring had come with its better hopes.

Somehow he had contrived to live through the winter and to keep his
little family alive without asking for charity. Now and then he had been
down very low, but in the country you can always keep going if you have
a place to live in. People, too, are kind. Mrs. Waters never asked for
payment when he was out of a job--"you can pay me when you're in work
again, Mr. Sinden" . . . just as she let poor old Sam Luck, who had
nothing but his old-age pension and a cottage as full of holes as a
sieve, come and sit by the counter in her shop when it rained, and keep
himself warm and dry and smell the sugar and tea. When Fred was working
in the woods, too, Mr. Pannell had let him have four great sacks of
chucks all for nothing. They had kept his fire going through the
winter--they and the bits he was able to pick up, or, if the truth were
told of his need, cut down in Float's neglected shaws. Ivy never said
now that she could not cook except on an oil-stove.

Another mercy was the fact that since the going of the Alards there had
been no attempt to preserve game, and the whole place was alive with
rabbits. If for the same reason there was also a plague of foxes, this
made no difference to the Sindens, for in the matter of conies there was
plenty for man and beast; they ate rabbit stew at least four times a
week. Now and then, too, Fred would catch and skin a moorhen; they were
not good eating, but they made a change.

In the country one might live even if one could not work. Nor did the
blight of uselessness and idleness descend on Fred as it descended on
his brothers in the towns. He dug in his garden, and kept his cottage in
some sort of repair, and when he had nothing to do at home he went and
helped Mr. Vincent with what was left of the farm. They worked together
as equals now, no longer as master and man. Mr. Vincent wore a frayed
blue shirt and an old pair of postman's trousers, which for some reason
were common wear among the labouring men of the Tillingham valley. They
felt friendly and easy together, bound by their common misfortune, their
struggle to live, and the uncertainty of the future for both of them.



                                  8

But in spite of his having made shift to live through it, the memory of
that winter would always be to Fred like a bad dream. For six months he
had wakened daily to face the chances of hunger and homelessness. His
tiny edge of security depended on Float Cottage remaining unsold. He was
like a man who has fallen over a precipice and found a perilous refuge
on some ledge half-way down the abyss--it is only a question of time
before he must fall to the bottom . . . unless he is rescued, and Sinden
had begun to despair of rescue. All through the winter he had looked for
work and there was none--he could hear of none. In summer he supposed it
would have to be last year's round of gardening. This time, feeling more
sure of himself, he would ask a shilling an hour, but even that would
not bring him in much more than twenty-five shillings a week. It would
be enough to live on, of course, but it would not allow him to save; all
the children wanted boots and shoes, and Norman would have to go to
school in the fall--and then again winter would come. . . .

He wondered if he could learn a trade, such as bricklaying. . . . But
even that would be uncertain if he stayed in the country. In spite of
all this new building, Mr. Snashall did not as a rule take on extra
people for more than a few weeks at a time. He would have to go into the
town and become a Union man and get the dole . . . but his spirit shrank
from going into the town--he would not know what to do there and any
evil times would be tenfold worse than in the country . . . they said
you were often asked as much as a pound a week for rent. He must keep
out of the town, even though there was no hope for him in the country?
Why didn't the government do something for countrymen? They called
themselves Labour, but it was only labour in towns they thought about.
No one cared for the country now. The country was turning into a place
for rich, retired people to come and play in. The countryman who wanted
to get on must go into the town. But he would not go into the town.
Thank you, but we'll stay here. We'd sooner starve here than in the
town.

His worst moments were when people came to look at the cottage. This did
not happen very often, but sometimes a car would come lurching down the
road and one of two sorts of people get out of it. One sort would be a
brisk-looking young man in a soft hat and a mackintosh; he would go
round and tap the walls and jot things down in a notebook. He of course
was a builder's man come to see if the place was worth as much as half
what was asked for it. If he thought it worth while, his firm would buy
it and mend it and decorate it and put it up for sale for four times the
money. The other sort would be gentry, laughing, chattering people. They
would go round saying "we could do this" or "we could do that," and
sometimes they would scream "Oh, look at this lovely old oak." Fred did
not know which he hated most, the brisk young builders' men or the
rapturous week-enders. Both equally would rob him of his cottage, the
only part of his old life he had left, the only thing that stood firm in
his shaken world. Sometimes he had strange murderous feelings, such as
he had never known before--he would feel he wanted to rush into one of
those comfortable new-built houses and turn the people out and put his
own family in and shut the door and shout "God damn you all!" He was
often surprised at himself.



                                 1931

                                  1

He had expected the blow for so long that when it fell he accepted it
meekly. His cottage was bought by a Hastings firm of builders and he
received a fortnight's notice to quit. They could turn him out any day
they liked, for he had paid no rent for a year, so had no legal claim on
anybody. It was kind of them to give him a fortnight.

That evening he went up to the Queen's Head. He hardly ever went there
now, for he had not the money to spend on drink. But if he went he might
hear of something in the way of a house--there might be a rumour of some
cheap place in another parish. He knew of nothing in Leasan nor in
Vinehall.

It was a soft, clear evening, cool for the time of year, with a greenish
sky, burning at the rims, and a few big stars hanging low like lamps
above the woods of the Furnace and Brede Eye. Lights also began to
appear among the fields, and brighter ones along the string of the
Leasan road; for after some valiant resistance on the part of the
inhabitants the electric light had come to the village from Hastings. It
had been duly installed at the Queen's Head, and instead of the two oil
lamps with their red shades standing on the counter there were two white
dishes of radiance hanging from the ceiling. Fred told himself that the
red lamps had looked cosier, and the shining dishes were often a danger
to one's head; but on the other hand it was useful to see at a glance
exactly who was in the bar.

There were not many people there to-night. Low wages and uncertainty
were incompatible with the price of beer; but he saw Mr. Pannell, and
Ashdown, and Brotheridge, and Masters was there sitting very
comfortably--Young did not come any more.

He took his half-pint to Ashdown's table. His old friend had been useful
in the matter of the lodger (if it had come to no good in the end, that
wasn't his fault) and perhaps could help him now. But Ashdown knew
nothing about any house to let.

"There's no such thing, leastways not at any rent a working man could
pay. I hear there's a bungalow going at Brownsmiths, but they're asking
a pound a week for it."

"Which don't leave much over if the most you earn is fifteen shillings."

Nobody said anything to that, but they all brooded sorrowfully.

"You'd better get into lodgings," said Ashdown at last.

"At how much a week?"

"I dunno. I pay five shillings for my room--you'd want more than one
room, though."

"I un't sure as we should. But five shilling's a lot. More than I could
properly afford to pay--and only lodgings too."

"You can get a Council House for seven shilling," said Brotheridge.

"You can't get a Council House for love or money. There's a'dunnamany
names on the waiting list, and anyhow they'd never let one to a man
that's out of work."

There was another sorrowful silence.

"I know a chap," said Masters, "who built himself a house. Jack Sivers,
I mean, over at Guestling Thorn. I saw it in the _Mercury_ only the
other week--all about him being had up for it before the Magistrates."

"Can you be had up for building yourself a house?"

"Surelie, if you don't do it proper and send the plans to the Council.
This old house of Sivers, he'd built it of bits of wood and co'gated
iron he'd picked up and some winders he'd come on somehow. He was like
you, Fred--turned out of his place, and couldn't get any work; but his
brother had done better and he said Jack could run up a shack in his
garden, and so he did, and I can't say it looked any worse than many of
the places they put up nowadays. But the Inspector came along and made a
terrification, saying it wasn't a fit and proper human dwelling. Then
Jack he had an idea and he said it wasn't a fixed dwelling, but a
caravan what he'd taken the wheels off, so the Inspector said he was to
put the wheels on again, and poor Jack he went catering about to find
four wheels what nobody wanted, and it wasn't so easy. But when the
Inspector came again there was four wheels under it--two old
motor-wheels he'd found on a car that had been left in Leanham Wood, and
a wagon wheel, and a cart-wheel. Jack had near sweated his heart out
getting the house on to 'em, and after all the Inspector wouldn't have
it, and had him up before the magistrates, who fined him a pound. They
do all they can to make things hard for poor people."

He noticed a certain air of discomposure among his listeners. While he
was finishing his story the door had opened and a gipsy had come in--one
of the gipsies who was often there in hopping time, but as much out of
season now as fox-hunting. Curiosity and disapproval were in the glances
shot him through the white electric glare. Then the conversation was
resumed rather consciously.

"I know of a family that's been living for months in a barn at Eggs
Hole," said Mr. Pannell, "and nobody's interfered with them."

"People have got to live somewhere," said Brotheridge.

"I hear," said Ashdown, "as how a Hastings builder's bought all the
Hobbyhorse land of Starvecrow and is going to make it into an estate,
with real cheap houses--fifteen pounds down, and then ten shillings a
week till it's paid for."

"That may help somebody," said Fred, "but it won't help me."

"I should try for lodgings," said Ashdown. "Maybe you'll find something
cheap if you look for it close enough."

"That un't likely," said Masters. "I know a family that's paying twelve
shilling for couple of bedrooms. Those Austins, you know, from Alpha
Place in Vinehall. Their house was condemned and they mustn't sleep in
it, so they sleep over at Mrs. Southerden's every night and go back to
their own place in the morning. They've got plenty of money, but they
can't find a cottage."

"Yes, indeed," said Mr. Pannell. "Money don't always help--at least not
unless you've enough to buy your house."

"People have got to live somewhere," said Brotheridge.

"Excuse me, gentlemen."

The gipsy had spoken, and silence fell swiftly and disapprovingly on the
bar. What did he want? Was he going to offer to treat anyone again?
Hands moved for hats and sticks.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, but I couldn't help hearing what you said about
this gentleman not being able to find a house. Now my sister, Mrs.
Serena Smith, has a very fine caravan for sale--a caravan that's as fine
as a king's palace, with a stove in it and a double bed and
window-curtains and a letter-box in the door. She would sell it cheap,
having no use for it herself. Any offers, gentlemen?"

No offers.

"Nobody here wants a caravan," said Mr. Pannell.

"I dare say my sister would let it for a time, if she finds no one will
buy. The rent would be less than for a cottage and would include a fine
horse. The fruit-picking season will be beginning soon and any gentleman
who is out of work could make a lot of money between now and October."

"How much does she want for it?" asked Fred; "how much a week?"

Everybody stared at him, and he laughed, pretending to himself as well
as to them that he had not meant it seriously.

"Five shillings a week, gentleman, and if you go fruit-picking you will
earn three pounds."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Fred.

The gipsy fumbled in his velveteen waistcoat pocket, and brought out,
surprisingly, a visiting-card. On it was printed "Tom Playden. Dealer."

"I shall be back in a week," he said, "and if you will come in here at
twelve o'clock on Thursday, I will meet you and show you the caravan."

Fred laughed again, but when the others were not looking he pocketed the
card. Brotheridge was right--people must live somewhere.



                                  2

All the same, he did not think seriously of the gipsy's offer till he
had tramped twice round the district and found nowhere to go. There was
nothing to let at any price that he could pay, and even lodgings would
be difficult to come by, on account of the children. If he had been a
single man he could have found a room at four or five shillings a week,
but nobody would take in three young children, unless, perhaps, for
extra money. He had only five days left before he had to clear out--into
the lane seemingly; unless he closed with the gipsy's offer.

After all, he had known honest people live in a caravan. There had been
that fellow Barnes at Reedbed Farm, who had lived in a caravan for
nearly a year, during the housing shortage after the war. He had gone to
work from it and sent his children to school and no one had thought any
the worse of him. Nor would anyone think the worse of Fred; he too would
work and send his children to school--he would not go with the gipsies
and cart people, he would keep himself to himself and be just as good a
man as he was before. It was worth asking about, anyhow. . . . Of course
the rent was too high, though less than he would have to pay for any
lodgings they might get . . . and he didn't reckon there would be much
in fruit-picking this year . . . if he stayed, he would have his
gardening and Ivy her washing. They would be sure of earning at least
five shillings a week between them. . . . And probably have to pay eight
or nine shillings rent. Perhaps he could get the gipsy to take four
shillings, or even three-and-six . . . and if he went to the right
places he and Ivy between them might make as much as thirty shillings a
week at the picking--that would be more than they would ever earn at
home. Besides, they had nowhere to live--all his wondering and guessing
came back to that. They must have a roof to cover them--a caravan roof
if no other could be found. He might hire a caravan and pitch it on some
unsold part of Float; perhaps the gipsy would let him have it cheaper
without the horse.

He decided to talk over the matter with Ivy. After all, it was her
affair as much as his, and he must find out what she wanted. She seemed
to like the idea better than he had expected.

"It'll be somewhere for us to go, anyhow. It's been worrying me not
having anywhere. And mother was saying only the other day that you can
get two pound a week fruit picking."

"Depends on the season, and it un't likely to be too good this year.
I'd a notion we might stop where we are for a bit; they'd let me keep
the caravan in the Clay field, by the bridge."

"No, if we live in a caravan I'd like to move off somewhere else.
Everyone's looking down on us as it is."

"I'd never say that."

"But I would, with Mr. Firrell thinking steak's too good for us."

She would never forget the insult she had received when she went to buy
her usual pound and a half of steak for Sunday. The butcher actually had
said, "I've got something that'll suit you better than that," and had
offered her six pounds of broken meat, pieces he had cut off joints and
steaks--good meat all of it, he had said, though not easy to dispose of,
and Ivy could have the lot for eighteen pence, and he'd throw in some
suet to make a pudding of it.

"There he was, offering me a lot of broken pieces I'd feed the pigs
with--and knowing we've always had fried steak on Sundays, and never
gone without it. 'Thanks,' I said, 'I'd sooner have the steak'; and he
had to give it to me, and I walked out."

"I reckon he meant to do you a good turn."

"Maybe, but if he hadn't known I was poor he wouldn't have dared. He'd
never have offered broken meat like that to Miss Betsy or Mrs. Hurst, or
even to Mrs. George Alard. It's just because everyone knows we're poor
and takes advantage of it."

"Well anyone who likes can take advantage of me in that way. I un't so
proud. If we stop along here I can keep on with my gardening and you'll
still be able to do your washing."

"How can I do washing in a caravan? I'll have enough to do to wash our
own things without taking in other people's. And your gardening never
brought us in more than fifteen shillings a week--and those people have
left Rookery Nook. Besides, we'll have a horse, so we may as well
travel."

"Maybe they'd let us have the caravan cheaper without the horse."

"Not they. They'll let it with the horse to somebody else."

They argued on for some time. They both had their pride, but it was of
different kinds. Fred's shrank from driving off in a caravan like any
old pikey or diddicoy; he would feel quite different if the caravan were
horseless and stationary, as Joe Barnes's had been. Ivy's pride on the
other hand was sensitive of the opinion of her neighbours and anxious to
travel out of reach of their contempt. Also, unknown to Fred, she had,
when in a tight place, borrowed money from her mother, who was now
clamouring for its return, being in process of moving into a new house
of her very own (or to be her very own in twenty years' time when all
the instalments were paid) on the Hobbyhorse estate.

However, the outcome of the matter was that Fred went to see the gipsy
at the Queen's Head.



                                  3

That day he had not a penny to buy a drink, so he told Mrs. Allwork he
had come to meet a man, and asked if he might wait there.

"Have one on the house, Mr. Sinden."

Fred had one on the house, trusting it would make him feel less
old-fashioned. The gipsy was late, and Fred hoped to goodness that he
would come before any of his friends did. He did not like the idea of
making his arrangements before them. At present none of them was
there--only one or two village people whom he scarcely knew except to
nod to. As a rule the farm hands and Mr. Pannell did not come in till
the evening; they had not time between twelve and one to do more than
eat their dinners.

At a quarter-past twelve the gipsy came, looking dark and brisk after
the manner of his kind.

"What's yours, gentleman?" he asked Fred.

"Nothing thanks"--he did not want any chance of his being muzzed up
before seeing the caravan. So he made Mrs. Allwork's half-pint last out
the gipsy's whisky, and then they went out together.

The caravan was quite close, in a field at the back of a cottage known
as Frog's Hall. It was not very new, and it badly needed paint, but for
a caravan it was roomy and in tolerable repair. Fred looked inside--it
still smelled of gipsies, but they had left no London bugs behind
them--he examined it carefully to make sure. There were the stove and
the double bed he had been promised, and some shelves and two stools and
a great deal of brass-work. At least it would give them somewhere to
live and sleep out of the rain.

"You may buy it for twenty pounds, gentleman," said the gipsy.

"I'll buy it for nothing--not a penny more."

"You may buy it for fifteen, and two pounds for the horse."

"You told me last Thursday I could have it and the horse for five
shilling a week."

"But since then we've had many fine gentlemen after it, and ladies too.
I could sell it for thirty pounds tomorrow."

Fred knew that this was what you had to expect when bargaining with a
gipsy. He had half a mind to give up the whole thing, but his common
sense made him stick to it--his common sense and his fear of having
nowhere to live next week.

"I was going to ask if you'd let me have it for three shillings a week
without the horse."

"Without the horse! But, gentleman, what would you do without the horse?
You could not travel from place to place and make a gorgeous fortune
fruit-picking. And he's a fine, splendid, gorgeous horse. Look at him
there behind my sister's caravan. Isn't he a good horse? He'll take you
from here to Scotland and back and never feel it."

Fred looked at the horse--first from a distance and then closely. He was
the oldest horse he had ever seen. He was covered with a mangy ginger
coat, and his mane was half hogged, half falling on his sad neck. His
eyes were melancholy and resigned. But something about him appealed,
though it would be hard to say what it was, unless it were the fact that
all his life up till two years ago Fred had lived and worked with
horses. For two years he had had nothing to do with them, and he must
have missed them more even than he knew. There was something about this
old horse, wretched as he was, that linked him up with Flossie and
Sorrel and Soldier and many another better horse of better days. He blew
down his nose against Fred's hand. In three months I reckon I can make a
change in him, thought Fred.

But he would not have acknowledged that his liking for the horse had
anything to do with his agreeing to take the caravan at five shillings a
week. After all he had plenty of good reasons for paying more than he
could afford for some sort of a home. Tom Playden would not budge an
inch; he knew he could get that much for it anywhere. So in the end Fred
agreed to pay him what he asked, though he had hoped to get it for less.
By the time the bargaining was finished they had been joined by all the
rest of the fraternity--Serena Smith and her dirty children and her
husband Leander Smith and her other brother Joseph Playden. They all
stood round and praised the horse and the caravan and reproached their
brother Tom for giving them away; though the reason for selling the
latter was apparent in Mrs. Smith's smart new caravan that glittered
with brass. As for the horse, thought Fred, he's his own reason.

A fresh difficulty now arose. Letting a caravan is not the same as
letting a cottage--the tenants may go off in it anywhere; and though Tom
Playden would have been surprised if the horse had really taken the
Sindens to Scotland, he might well take them where they might be
difficult to find when wanted. The first four weeks' rent must be paid
in advance and a meeting arranged for the next payment; meanwhile the
gentleman would leave some pledge with the poor people--his watch and
chain, or a ring, or a tie-pin, or some piece of furniture from the
gorgeous home he was leaving.

Again Fred argued and tried to impress his landlord with the fact that
he would probably stay all the summer within a few miles of Leasan. The
gipsy remained as before, politely, respectfully, subserviently
obstinate. He must have his four weeks' rent and his pledge of future
payments. Later on, when he and the gentleman knew each other better,
perhaps they might come to some other little arrangement. Fred knew that
he would have to sell some of his furniture--otherwise he would have to
pay for its storing--and as the sign of the Three Golden Balls is not
the same temptation in country districts as it is in towns, he had still
in his possession many little treasures that a townsman would have
parted with in his distress. He had a heavy old silver watch that had
belonged to his father, and this Tom Playden agreed to take in pledge of
their meeting at Haffenden Quarter, in Kent, when a fresh payment would
be made.

Haffenden was a farm belonging to a big firm of fruit growers, and in
another month the cherry picking would begin.

"You go to the big places, gentleman," said Playden; "the little places
will only be able to pay little wages this year, because the times are
going to be bad. So you follow the poor people round to the big places;
and they will pay you big money and you will pay my little rent."

Fred was determined in his mind not to follow the poor people.



                                  4

Never in all his life would he have believed that the day would come
when he would turn out of his cottage and live in a caravan. But that
day came towards the end of May, with a sultry wind blowing, the
hawthorn off the hedges and a grey sky sullen against the green. He
brought the caravan himself from Frog's Hall--he would not endure the
shame of a dirty gipsy driving it to the door. Ivy was ready, a little
tearful, with the children, who were a little excited. She had packed
all their clothes in a wooden box, which would not take up much room and
would do for an extra seat. Besides their clothes, she had brought the
bedding and blankets and one or two coloured tablecloths, all their
crockery, of course, and pots and pans. Otherwise there was not much
room for any furniture, and she had agreed to Fred's suggestion that
they should sell some of it to pay the first month's rent. The rest her
mother had taken to her new abode, where she would keep it for them free
of charge till they came back. Fred would not know--at least not for
some time--that she had given her mother the old grandfather clock in
payment of that troublesome debt.

Float Cottage was empty. Without the furniture that had crowded it for
so long it looked a miserable little place. But never had Ivy loved it
more--indeed, until that moment she had not known that she loved it at
all. As for Fred he would not think about it. He could not. That part of
his mind which belonged to Float Cottage must be shut up and left just
as the cottage was being shut up and left.

"Sure you got everything?" he said to Ivy rather roughly.

"Yes, I'm sure. Oh, Fred, what a terrible horse."

"He's good enough."

"He looks as if he'd fall down dead."

"I tell you he won't, and he's good enough for five shillings a week."

"May I ride on him?" asked Norman, moved by memories of better days on
the farm.

"No--get inside."

Norman got inside rather dejectedly, and Ivy lifted in the other
children.

"Oh, what a funny little house," said Doris.

She looked round her at the queer, gay little windows, the brass rail,
the big bed at the end, on which was heaped all their bedclothes and
crockery and kitchen stuff in attractive confusion.

"I like it. Are we going to live here?"

"For a time," said her mother.

"Then shall we come home again?"

"No--not to this house."

"Why?"

"Oh, don't worry me, dear."

Fred took the horse by the bridle and coaxed him. The caravan jerked
forward and began to move up the lane, the wheels rumbling and lurching
in the ruts. All the crockery sang and rang, and the boughs of the ash
tree rattled on the roof as it passed under them.



                                  5

They were not going far just at first. There had been a sop to Fred's
pride in the offer of a job which would keep him in the country for at
least a fortnight, while Ivy's had been satisfied by the prospect of a
move into Kent at the end of it. She would not mind just a fortnight in
the low field by the bridge--it would be as well, perhaps, to get used
to living in a caravan before they set out on their journey. And Fred
would be earning thirty shillings a week for helping make Mr. Potter's
tennis-lawn at Winterland oast. Three pounds would set them up nicely.

The remains of Float were up for auction now Mr. Vincent had been lucky
enough to get a bailiff's job in West Sussex, and was leaving. Barn
walls and the _Mercury_ offered the world his Live and Dead Farming
Stock--his four head of dairy cattle, his two cart-horses, his hundred
and fifty head of poultry, his plough, his harrow, his chaff-cutter, his
quoiler, carts, shims, bins and troughs. Soon nothing would be left but
the empty barns. Fred could not help feeling glad that he would be gone
before that happened.

Down by the brook there was peace from the fluttering, sultry wind. The
branches of the sallows moved against the sky, and there was a queer
little moan of wind among them; but it was a sheltered corner, with a
sunshine of buttercups in the grass and a great white blow of hawthorn
in the sheltering hedge. Hops had once grown there, long ago.

Fred unharnessed the horse and let him graze. It would be some time,
poor beast, before he got him looking anything like a horse, but the
effort would interest him and help fill up some of the empty place that
was growing in his heart. "Woa, Ginger, good boy," he said, and patted
the sagging neck.

He built a fireplace of some stones, and Ivy heated up some remains of
stew for their dinner. The children were excited by this new experience
of dinner out of doors. They associated meals with the darkness of the
kitchen and the heat and smell of the oil-stove--there was something
almost magical in sitting out of doors with their little bowls on their
knees and the buttercups rising round them and the May petals blowing
down on them like snow. Little Clarence would put out his hand to the
butterflies, trying to catch them as he used to try to catch the motes
in the kitchen sunlight. Doris said:

"Are we going to sleep out of doors?"

"No, you're going to sleep in the caravan, in a hammock daddy's going to
put up for you."

"What's a hammock?"

"A bed made out of a rabbit net."

"Will the rabbits want to sleep in it too?"

"No, no. Of course not. The rabbits sleep in the ground."

Norman asked:

"Why have we left our house?"

In the evening they went up to see Ivy's mother. She was now no longer
in the Barline cottage, but in a new and luxurious bungalow on the
Hobbyhorse estate. Old Crouch had quarrelled with his gipsy landlord,
and to spite him had applied to the parish council to have his cottage
condemned. Though his charcoal-burning and hop-drying trades had
decreased, he had done well during the past two years and had saved a
bit of money. He was now firmly established as the local chimney-sweep,
and sometimes travelled as far east as Peasmarsh and as far west as
Staple Cross, to sweep the chimneys of important houses, where the
incongruous cleanliness of his work would earn the praises of butlers
and parlourmaids. He also went long distances to find water; all the
neighbouring builders employed him, and in his shapeless, gnarled old
hands the hazel twig would leap and quiver, responding to some primitive
understanding between him and the waters under the earth. He hoped that
all this talk about bringing a proper water-supply from Tenterden would
come to nothing.

His powers had not been requisitioned for the Hobbyhorse Estate. There
one or two surface wells supplied the needs of the eight or nine
bungalows that had been put up during the winter. A Hastings builder had
seen the economic wisdom of providing homes for a homeless people. The
prices of the bungalows that were going up on the wrecks of Gooseleys
and Float, and on the road frontages that the yeomen of Eggs Hole,
Ethnam and Reedbed were selling to save their farms from the same fate,
were beyond the reach of a working man. They attracted retired tradesmen
and professional people from the big seaside towns, and had now been
built in excess of the demand for them. There was not much more money in
them now. But there was money in really cheap houses which would help
relieve the housing shortage among work people. Any working man who had
done well at his job could find ten pounds for a deposit, and ten
shillings a week was quite a normal rent. The land had been acquired
cheaply, for Starvecrow had remained on the market longest of all the
Alard farms. The little houses were built on piles, so saved the expense
of foundations; their walls were of planks coated with solignum, their
roofs of asbestos tiling. Their proximity to the electric cable from
Hastings did away with any necessity to build chimneys and fireplaces
and allowed their creators to advertise them as "all-electric,
labour-saving homes."

They looked more like chicken-houses than human dwellings, and their
erection had plunged their more genteel neighbours into a panic of
protest, while even the Rural District Council took alarm and began to
consider town-planning as a possibility. But it could not be denied that
they were better to live in than Barline cottage. Even with the wind
blowing up between the floor-boards round her feet Mrs. Crouch expressed
herself well pleased.

"When we've got the carpet down we shan't notice it. And the bedroom's a
treat--as dry as old bones. How do you like _your_ place, Ivy?"

"I haven't been much in it yet. It's small."

"And so is this, but what I say is the smaller the better. You don't
have half so much trouble. At Barline I'd always be stumping about the
kitchen fetching things, and on a stone floor too, while here I can
stand at the table and reach what I want out of the cupboard without
moving. And what's the use of stairs if they're so rotten that every
time you go up you're like to fall through them?"

"I wish I had a place like this."

"Well, maybe you will some day. I heard only this morning that a rich
stockbroker from London was going to buy their oast at Reedbed. Fred
should go there as gardener."

"I don't know enough about gardening for that sort of job."

"But you can learn. Why are you so set against learning anything new?"

"I don't know as I'm set. But I don't see as how I'm going to learn much
with nobody to teach me."

"You don't want nobody to teach you. Look at Dad--he knows plenty, but
nobody ever taught him nothing."

"I wur born knowing things," said Dad.

"Well, I wasn't, except maybe to plough, and I've got no chance of
that."

"You'd much better forget all about the ploughing. There's not going to
be any more. We're going to get all our wheat from Russia."

"Whoever told you that?"

"I read it in the newspaper. The Russians don't want any money for
ploughing, so it comes cheap to them to do it."

"Reckon it does."

"Yes, and it stands to reason that if they can get people to plough for
nothing they won't want people who ask two pound a week for it."

"I never had two pound a week after the first year."

"Let Fred alone, Mother," said Ivy. "He does his best."

"But he ought to learn some sort of a new job. Maybe Dad 'ud learn him
chimbley-sweeping."

"'At dat I wouldn't. Dere un't de work fur two in dis country."

"Fred's got a good job at Winterland, making their tennis lawn," said
Ivy.

"Yes, and I do hear they'll be having a lawn-tennis at Barline too. He
should get himself started as a lawn-tennis maker."

"There won't be enough lawn-tennises to keep me in work all the year
round. What I want's a regular job winter and summer. I don't ask for
much, but I want it regular."

"Maybe you'll hear of something when we go into Kent," said Ivy. "There
may be some jobs going on farms out there."

"Anything to get me into Kent, Missus. But I don't believe in it."

He recovered his spirits, however, when his mother-in-law had brought
out some bottled beer, and they had all drunk to their housemoving, and
then drunk again. In the end everyone was noisily cheerful and inclined
to think their lives had changed for the better. It was a long time
since Fred had had more than half a pint. Under the influence of at
least four times that amount he began to see the future in a rosier
light--money earned and money saved, low expenses, and a healthy life
for the children in summer time . . . and sure to find a job before the
winter. Nothing like going round and looking at things. . . .

It was nearly midnight when he and Ivy set out, each carrying a sleeping
child, while Norman clung stumbling to his father's hand. The great
stars wheeled over the black sky--Jack and his Waggon, and the Kite, and
many others whose shapes would never change, no matter how much things
changed under them. . . . It was queer to be going down to the brook. He
would not look to the right of him, for there among the ash trees in the
hollow he would see the chimney of Float Cottage thrust up cold and
smokeless to the stars; he would look at the stars instead. Down by the
brook the owls were calling--hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo--and from Dodyland shaw
came the song of a nightingale. Things had not really changed much.
. . . They used to hear owls at the cottage, and every year in May a
nightingale had sung among the sallows by the pool. In Kent too there
would be owls and nightingales . . . and the same stars and the same
smells and the same ways of living and speaking. Only if he had gone
into a town would he have lost these things. So thank the Lord he had
not gone into a town. What could he have done without these things?
. . . hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo. . . . He felt almost happy as he helped little
Norman up the caravan steps.



                                  6

When the time came, he found that he was glad to go into Kent. Those two
weeks by the brook taught him that a caravan is a thing to move about
in--it seems smaller, somehow, when it stands still. Also he could not
help feeling awkward while he lived in his own district and met his old
friends. It was not the same as living in a house; he felt at a
disadvantage . . . and it hurt him to see, as he had seen almost every
day, Float Cottage standing empty--first just empty, waiting for the
builder's men to begin, then with the door and windows torn out and the
stairs broken down, in the process of some queer change . . . he would
be glad when he did not have to see it any more.

His work was finished at Winterland, and he set forward with more money
in his pocket than he had had for a very long time. It was a fine day,
warm and sunny, and the old horse, refreshed by his fortnight's rest,
pulled with a will. Fred walked beside him, holding Norman by the hand.
Ivy did not like to ride on the caravan steps like a gipsy, so sat
inside with the two younger children, who pressed their noses against
the windows, one between each pair of little lace curtains tied with
pink ribbon.

It was about ten o'clock and everyone was at work--they did not meet a
soul to say good-bye to. They had actually said good-bye to no one--Fred
told himself that it was not worth while, as they would soon be back
again. He meant to come and go quite a lot--he could do as he liked now
that his home was on wheels--and anyhow he would be back for the
hop-picking; there were as good hops in Sussex as any in Kent--it was
only for fruit that a man must cross the border.

They pushed forward till twelve o'clock when they stopped for a dinner
of bread and cheese and bacon, washed down with some hot tea. At first
Ivy had had a certain difficulty in managing the stove, which was
uncertain and volcanic in action; but she was used to it now, except on
hot days when it raised the indoor temperature to infernal degrees and
compelled her to ask Fred to make her a fire outside.

After dinner they all dozed on the grass verge beside the lane. It was a
lonely byway, and no passing car disturbed their sleep. The sun shone
hot on a still air, and all the world seemed vividly blue and green. It
was good to be able to lie on the warm grass and sleep instead of having
to go to work directly after dinner, as he had done for the last
fortnight. That bit of work at Winterland had specially gone against
him--turning a meadow into a tennis lawn . . . that was a wicked thing
to do when you came to think of it, and he had thought of it often.
Also, Mr. Potter who owned the place and had called it The Towers, was a
set, hard-driving sort of man, always wanting the men to work overtime
and refusing to believe that three weeks were as good as a fortnight. It
had all been so sadly different from the slow work of the fields, where
a man so seldom has to hurry and to-morrow is nearly always as good as
to-day. He felt quite glad to be off work . . . perhaps his year of
intermittent idleness had made him lose the habit.

When the day was cooler, he put to the horse and they set out again.
They had gone over the edge of the world as he knew it and he must
advance carefully, studying sign-posts and asking his way. Ivy was the
more travelled of the two of them, for she had been as far as Tenterden,
besides several times to Rye and to Hastings. Fred had been once to
Hastings and two or three times to Rye, but never northward of Vinehall
Market. They were now in a little lane between Sandhurst and Benenden,
in a country very like the country they had left--a country of shaws and
brooks, meadows and hop-fields, oasts and red-tiled farmhouses. They had
plenty of time before it was necessary to be at Haffenden Quarter; they
could travel as they liked, stop where they liked, eat and sleep where
they liked.

This was not quite true, as they found when they started to pitch their
camp for the night in a field near Rolvenden. Fred had unharnessed the
horse and was looking for stones to build Ivy's fireplace when he
suddenly heard the barking of a dog, and a voice cried:

"Hi! you! get out of here."

"We un't doing any harm," said Fred, going forward to meet the shadowy
figure that came to him from the hedge.

The dog leaped and snarled at him. He was not used to that.

"Harm?" cried the farmer--"of course you're doing harm, mucking up my
meadow. You be off or I'll fetch the police. You damned diddicoy!"

So this was what he had to expect from such people. With a crimson face
he re-harnessed Ginger, drove the children back into the caravan, and
set out again through the curtain of white mist that was rising from the
brooks. Of course it was only a question of waiting till it was quite
dark and finding another field and then packing off again before people
were about in the morning; but the experience had hurt him, it had made
him feel something less than a man.



                                  7

Haffenden Quarter was one of a chain of farms owned by a newly started
fruit-canning firm. They had taken over nearly a hundred acres of
existing cherry orchard, and planted two hundred more. The times were
certainly against them, with falling prices and competing nations, but
they had the advantage of being among the first to venture in this way,
also of having in their directorate a rare combination of progress and
experience.

The land under the trees had been planted with potatoes, pease, and
other vegetables, and they were besides digging about twenty acres to
plant with asparagus another year. They employed a certain amount of
local regular labour, a great deal of local casual labour, and a great
deal more of visiting casual labour at picking time. Fred had the new
experience of entering a district in which almost every able-bodied male
could work on the land if he chose. Omenden, the company's nearest farm
to Haffenden, was only a mile away, and there was another three miles
away at Stede Quarter and another at Middle Quarter--no need here to
sell farms for building land and gentlemen's residences, no need to turn
pasture fields into tennis lawns, no need for ploughmen and carters and
stockmen to change into bricklayers and gardeners and chimney-sweeps.
Perhaps now there might be a chance of finding regular work and
settlement. . . . The old work that provided for man's necessities of
meat and bread was not needed any more, but the new work that provided
for his luxuries in the way of fruit and vegetables out of season was
beginning to flourish and looked as if it might continue.

Fred found no difficulty in getting himself and Ivy taken on as pickers
at a piece rate that he was told by other pickers would with luck bring
them in each between thirty and forty shillings a week. The foreman
recognized him at once for a respectable out-of-work, which though
generally slower and less effective than the vagrant type, was more
honest and steady. He told him he could put his caravan in a field
already containing half a dozen others, besides a row of pickers' huts
built of corrugated iron. There was a very good spring of water there,
he said.

Sinden's first feeling was one of honourable establishment. He had once
more a home and a job. The home was only the caravan he had lived in for
the last three weeks, but after ignominious dodging and wandering it had
once more its rightful station--no one here would call him a damned
diddicoy and set the dog on him. The job was only for a few weeks, but
it was well paid and would probably lead to others of the same kind. He
felt so pleased with himself that he went up and had a drink at the pub.

Here he found a number of his fellow pickers. For the most part they
were a rough crowd, but friendly. One or two were derelict farm hands
like himself, others were East London out-of-works, the majority
belonged to the familiar genus--gipsies, pikeys, cart-people, all one
and the same thing according to his notions up till then. But apparently
his notions were all wrong . . . that day began his initiation into the
ways of the road and its people, among whom he was to find as many and
as sharp social distinctions as among the householders of Vinehall and
Leasan.

Most of the people he met at Haffenden were anxious to assure him that
they were not gipsies--had never had any connection with gipsies. There
were practically only three real gipsy families in the South, the
Ripleys, the Boswells and the Lees, but as their numbers ran into
hundreds they were the virtual bosses of the road--it was unlucky to
fall out with them. As for going with them, no one ever did that, nor
would they have it.

An old man with whom Fred fell into conversation over a pint of Kent's
Best told him these things. He also told him that there was a gang of
half-and-halfs, to whom his landlord and his father-in-law's late
landlord, Messrs. Playden and Miller, belonged. They lived in caravans,
some of which were very fine, whereas the real gipsies favoured carts
and tents--"like Chinese heathen," the old man said in a slow, plaintive
voice that came from nowhere Fred knew. The half-and-halfs as well as
the gipsies were often very rich, and owned house-property and strings
of horses.

After these princes and dukes of the road came a proletariat of tramps,
pushing barrows and perambulators. Some were real tramps, that is to say
they tramped because they liked tramping, others were not so real and
tramped in search of work. Often the not so real ended by becoming
real--"those don't come here of course--they just goes from workhouse to
workhouse till they drops down dead."

The old man seemed to have plenty of money on him, and when they had
finished their pints he treated Fred to another, after which of course
Fred had to treat him. The result was that he left the Lamb Inn in even
better spirits than he had arrived, though gnawing at them was a vague
anxiety as to how Ivy would receive him after so long an absence and the
expenditure of one and nine.



                                  8

He found his wife, however, in as good a humour as he was. She too had
made friends, and at the moment of his return was actually entertaining
company. Somehow she had managed to light a fire on the grass by the
caravan, and round it, eating large chunks of bread and margarine and
something which looked and smelled like sausages, sat Ivy and the
children, and a couple which at first Fred took for two old men, as they
both wore cloth caps on their heads, striped mufflers round their necks
and extended enormous broken boots to the fire. A closer inspection
revealed a nob of hair and two hairpins under one of the caps, a ragged
skirt stopping an inch or two above the beginning of one pair of boots,
and beneath one muffler a large, collapsing bosom.

"Fred," said Ivy, "this is Mrs. Dalrymple--and Mr. Dalrymple."

"Mrs. Reginald Dalrymple," corrected the lady as she shook hands. "We've
got to be particular about that."

"Bloody particular," elaborated her husband.

"No, not bloody, Reg. That's not a word to use. It's only that there's
such a lot of Dalrymples on the road--Charley Dalrymple and his lot, and
Stanley Dalrymple, and all those others. They're always getting jugged,
too, so it 'ud never do for us to be mixed up with them."

"It bloody well wouldn't," corroborated Mr. Dalrymple.

Having once rebuked her spouse and thus shown that she understood the
difference between good and bad language, Mrs. Dalrymple made no further
effort to restrain him. Fred being, like most countrymen, soft and nice
in his speech, at first listened with some anxiety for his family's
ears. But a few more sentences soon showed that Mr. Dalrymple had only
just the one word, which he used so generously--sometimes even stuffing
other words with it--that in a short time familiarity had made it almost
unnoticeable.

"Mrs. Sinden was having a bit of trouble with her stove," continued
their new acquaintance, "so being used to such things I made so bold as
to help her. We've a stove of our own, you see; leastways it's my
daughter Sue's, but we're travelling with her and her lot for the
present. Her husband's in the osier trade, and they're all out now
selling baskets, so I thought no harm to bring along a few hot dogs
she'd got in for supper."

"Very kind of you, ma'am, I'm sure," said Fred.

"Sit down and try one. Your wife has cooked them for us. But there's
plenty left for Sue and her lot when she comes home. She's doing well,
she is, and I tell you there's no stint in that place."

Fred sat down and was given a sizzling sausage and a cup of tea.

"Mrs. Dalrymple says she knows our part," said Ivy. "She says she knows
Dinglesden and Starvecrow."

"Yes, indeed, many's the time Reg and I have stayed at Starvecrow; once
we were there almost a whole week."

"In Mr. Peter Alard's time?"

Fred was wondering vaguely if this was a couple that had seen better
days.

"Oh no--since the place became empty. We stop a lot at empty houses, Reg
and I. You see it's only some times that we lives in a caravan. When
we're alone we mostly walk. Then a place like Starvecrow comes in
handy."

"Doesn't nobody ever try to turn you out?"

"Sometimes, it's happened, of course; but not often. And we never do the
smallest harm. There's some you know wouldn't think anything of burning
a few banisters, but Reg and me we always goes out and picks up wood
even when it's raining. Don't we, Reg?"

"We does, old lady."

"Are you picking at Haffenden?"

"Sue and her lot are, and I am, but Mr. Dalryrnple isn't. He doesn't
work"--in the tone of one who should say: He doesn't smoke, or He
doesn't drink--"but I must say I enjoy a bit of work now and again, as
long as it's well paid and don't last too long and don't happen too
often."

"How do you live," asked Ivy, "when you don't work?"

Mrs. Dalrymple went into a fit of wheezy laughter.

"Ask him," she choked, nudging her husband in the ribs. "Ask him. He
knows a dodge or two. He knows how to live without working, don't you,
Reg?"

Mr. Dalrymple spluttered and winked, laid his finger against his nose,
and spluttered and winked again.

"He'll show you one day," said his lady, "if you keep along of us, we'll
learn you a thing or two."

"What sort of things?" asked Fred, rather anxiously.

"Oh, fine, first-class, gorgeous things--nothing to land you in the
jug."

"Maybe you've done a bit of poaching yourself in your time," said Mr.
Dalrymple.

Fred felt his cheeks redden.

"Well, I may now and again have trod on a rabbit. . . ."

"Rabbit!" shouted Mrs. Dalrymple. "Rabbit! Ha! Ha! Ha! D'you hear that,
Reg?"

"Rabbit!" yelled her spouse, convulsed. "Ha! Ha! That's bloody good!
Rabbit! Rabbit! Rabloodybit! Rabbit! Rabbit!"

"Rabbit! Rabbit!" piped the children, thinking it was a funny game.

At this crisis the proceedings were interrupted by the return of Sue and
her lot. Mrs. Dalrymple checked her mirth to perform the necessary
introductions, and soon Fred lost his embarrassment in conjecture as to
how Mrs. William Stubberfield, her husband, her father and mother, her
husband's father, and her five children fitted into their caravan. She
looked more of a gipsy than her parents, with her flashing black eyes,
and big black loops of hair hanging over big gold loops of earrings; but
her husband was certainly a gentile--blue-eyed and sandy-haired, hulking
and loose-jointed. The children took after him, from the eldest who was
about thirteen to the youngest, swung in his mother's shawl. Nothing
here of that dark, dapper gipsy trimness that marked even those who
spurned the name of Egypt. The sight of Bill Stubberfield and his sandy
brats did much to reassure Fred, who had begun to feel nervous as to his
company.



                                  9

They stopped three weeks at Haffenden Quarter, during which the Sindens
earned nearly ten pounds between them. Their living expenses were
contrastingly low, so they found themselves in a new and surprising
state of affluence, even after another month's rent had been paid to Tom
Playden.

On leaving Haffenden they picked for a fortnight at Stede Quarter, and
then turned north-west, to Kipping Cross and Brenchley, and the villages
round Tonbridge and Sevenoaks for the soft fruit. This went with a rush,
and after another fortnight they were back in the area of Kent's Best.
It was not yet time for the apple-picking to begin, but Fred found a
week's harvesting job on a farm known as Catherine Wheel.

Throughout this excursion they were accompanied by the Stubberfield
caravan; indeed their whole journey had been planned in the light of a
wider experience than their own. Stubberfield had been on the roads ever
since the war, during which he had served in the Royal Sussex Regiment
with only minor inconveniences, until a month before the armistice, when
he was badly wounded in the head by a shell-burst. He proudly pointed
out to Fred the steel trepanning of his skull and the fact that two
spinal vertebr were missing. He could not hold his head upright, and
any violent exertion was liable to bring on what he called his "fits."
He was unable to go back to his old job of stockman, and as in a moment
of war-irresponsibility he had married on his last leave the daughter of
the Dalrymples--or Lovells as they called themselves in those days--it
had been easy for him to take to a wandering life. He had his pension,
and made money, besides, out of selling baskets. He was, by Fred's
standards, a wealthy man, and lived as he did from choice rather than
from necessity.

His company on the road was a reassurance. Here was no gipsy or piker
but a labouring man like himself--a labouring man who had lost his job,
though more honourably than he, and like him was making the best of it.
He had, Fred found, been stockman at a farm near Arundel and also at
Shoyswell Farm near Ticehurst, some fifteen miles from Vinehall. They
could talk of farm life together, though to Stubberfield all that had by
this time grown rather dim. The war raged between him and those peaceful
years of leading beasts and tramping the clay; and since the war there
had been marriage and the begetting of children. He had almost forgotten
what it was like to live in a house, and as a family man knew nothing
but his swarming caravan, relieved by a brown tent which he pitched at
night.

He bad no regrets and few sorrows. His only real trouble was his "fits,"
but that, as he pointed out, wasn't nearly so bad as it might have been,
because he always knew when they were coming on. Then Sue would turn the
children out, so that he could have the place to himself.

"Sometimes I'll be unconscious for two hours," he would say proudly,
"screaming and hollering fit to send the roof off. Sue says the language
I use is something tur'ble; but I don't remember none of it when I wake
up."

Sue was not so happy about him as he was about himself.

"It's bad to hear him--I don't like it. He goes on as if he was back at
the war, and I'm scared of him hurting himself when he rolls about. He's
getting worse, and the doctor says a time ull come when he'll have to
lie in bed always . . . there's some positions already as he can't get
into, and some he can't get out of when he gets into them. He says to me
'Sue, lift my head up--I can't move it.' Oh, I know as there's some been
out in that war and caught it worse than Bill; but we notice it more
with him, because he's ours."



                                  10

Though he was sorry for her, Fred could not like Sue as much as he liked
her husband. There was something about her that was plainly gipsyish.
She belonged to that bad old lot of the Dalrymples and followed their
ways. Stubberfield sometimes did the same, it must be confessed. He was
not above a bit of poaching--and chickens, too . . . when it came to
chickens Fred had always called it stealing, but apparently it was only
poaching to the Stubberfields and Dalrymples. Stealing was when you went
after bigger game, such as pigs, sheep and horses; also when you took
things like spoons or tools or money. Neither the Stubberfields nor the
Dalrymples would ever steal, but they poached freely--they ate roast
chicken at least once a week.

Fred told Ivy sternly that if ever he found her cooking a fowl he was
shut of her for good. But he could not stop her learning from Sue other
ways of cooking which, though not dishonest, he considered undesirable
and unclean. Sue taught Ivy how to cook a hedgehog, also that you could
eat rabbits out of season without getting poisoned, which was contrary
to a doctrine firmly held in the district of Vinehall and Leasan. Now
there was always something unpaid for in Ivy's pot, and though Fred
disapproved he could not deny that the meat was tasty.

As time passed he gradually got used to this idea o feeding like the
gipsies, especially when he found how much it saved his pocket. When
they lived at Float Cottage their Sunday's fried steak had cost them
nearly two shillings every week; now in the place of this expensive
cinder, which Fred had only moderately enjoyed, they ate plump, roast
hedgehog, basted to tenderness and stuffed with herbs, and a salad of
dandelion leaves, and some of the spoiled fruit of the orchards. It cost
them nothing and they thrived on it--Fred felt he could not really
object, though it was not till the end of the season that something in
his heart stopped disapproving.

In other ways he learned better things from his companions.
Stubberfield's advice saved him a lot of trouble, idleness and expense.
Stubberfield knew of the best farms to go to, the big places that
employed outside labour, the well-founded, go-ahead places that did not
feel the slump. They wandered down the whole chain of Messrs. Cameron's
farms, from cherries to apples. They lifted potatoes. They picked peas
and beans. They visited the big corn-growing farms of the Kentish plain,
where Fred had the pain of helping reap the fruit of other men's
ploughing. Sometimes they stopped at a place for a night, sometimes for
two or three weeks.

On Stubberfield's advice, Fred took out pedlars' licences for himself
and Ivy. In certain places that felt the slump the fruit was being
almost given away, and it was good business to buy it and hawk it round
for twice the money, but still cheaply, to those housewives who were too
lazy or ignorant to buy it direct from the grower. There were also empty
days or even empty weeks that could be filled with basket making and
basket selling. This was gipsy work, and at first Fred had protested,
but Stubberfield pointed out that he had made baskets for fifteen years
and not turned into a gipsy--and the gipsies did not so often make
baskets themselves as buy them from industrious gentiles who had made
them. . . . It was profitable work, too; you made a basket for nothing
out of osiers you had picked without paying for--indeed you didn't know
whom they belonged to, and anyhow nobody cared--and sold it for two
shillings or half a crown. There was money in that.

There seemed to be more money on the roads than Fred had imagined,
especially if you weren't too particular. But even if you were, you
found it easier to live than settled in a house. Not only was living
cheaper, but it was easier to find work--you did not have to sit at home
waiting to hear of something, nor did you have to tramp in search of it
round a circle of country limited by the walking powers of your two
legs. If work did not come to you, you could go after it. There was
always the rumour of it somewhere to be chased. His journeyings did not
take him very far; all that summer he was within the areas of Kent's
Best and Messrs. Style and Winch's breweries--he never went as far north
as Friary ales or as far east or west as Tamplin's or Hobday and Hitch.
But that piece of country--which had the kindly grace of being like the
rest of the world he knew--gave him enough work to put in his pockets
more money than they had held since the days when he was earning two
pounds a week.

At first he had had hopes of being able to find a permanent job, but as
the summer wore on these grew fainter. The times were bad--worse than
they had ever been--and were going to be worse still, so everybody said.
In the pubs they talked about a National Government and coming off the
gold standard, before they passed on to the more absorbing topics of
Smarden's chance against Frittenden at cricket and what would win the
3.40 race at Folkestone. Fred saw the future as a narrow cross-country
lane, going inevitably downhill, down and down and down, to that
inevitable stream at the bottom, and that bridge which was "Dangerous
for Heavy Traffic. . . ." Thank God, he was travelling light!--lighter
than he had ever travelled, with this new cheap living and his moving
home.

His only big expense was the rent of the caravan. Stubberfield said he
was paying far too much for it.

"Why, in three months you've paid him nearly four pounds, and you could
have bought the whole thing for five."

"He was asking twenty."

"Twenty! The dirty, gipsy dog! Why, look at it--it's scarce worth twenty
shillings with those cracks in the roof. I wonder you can sleep in it on
rainy nights."

"I'm used to the rain coming in. It came in worse than this at Float."

"I don't say those cracks couldn't be mended, but what's the use of
mending another man's property? When do you see him again?"

"I'm meeting him next week at Ramstile."

"Then you offer him four pounds for it. You can run to that, can't you?"

"Maybe I can. But he'll never take it."

"Take it! He'll jump at it. He's had three pounds out of you already.
Four and three makes seven, and I've told you the thing ain't worth
five."

"What about Ginger?"

"You offer him thirty bob for Ginger."

Fred did not expect his offer to be accepted; but it was. No doubt the
presence of Stubberfield had something to do with his success in
bargaining. Stubberfield was a gentile, but he knew all about gipsy
ways. He had only to tell Playden that if he wouldn't sell there was a
much better cart and horse he knew of for less money, and the dealer was
rushing down a sliding scale of five shillings till he had hit Fred's
level.

"Not that the horse and cart aren't worth thirty pounds, gentleman,
being a very fine horse and cart, such as a lord or an earl might be
proud to ride in. But this new gold standard allows me to sell them
cheap. The wise people say that everything is to be cheaper now except
beer."

Sinden had parted with more than half the money he had put aside to see
him through the winter, in case he could not find any winter work. But
against that he had now a home of his own, bought with his money and
belonging to him, so that no one could turn him out nor could any
poverty make him homeless. Whatever happened he would have shelter for
himself and his little family, and he and Ivy would be able to make
something out of the basket trade. Besides, there was the hop-picking
still ahead--that would help fill up his pockets again.

Stubberfield wanted him to stop in Kent for the hop-picking, and work
with him at the big hop farms round Pluckley and Paddock Wood, but Fred
was determined to go back to Leasan. He could find work on some farm he
knew, with people he knew. During the hop-picking there was no need for
him to wander in the foreign land of Kent. When it was over he would
join Stubberfield again at an appointed place, but for three weeks at
least he would be back among his own folk.



                                  11

It was with mixed feelings that he led his horse up the road that winds
past Reedbed and Ethnam to Leasan street. It seemed almost queer to be
going over the familiar way again--queer and good. Yes, on the whole it
was good. He might look like a gipsy, with all those baskets hanging
from the eaves of the caravan, but he was not a gipsy, nor did he go
with gipsies--the Stubberfields were not gipsies, nor even the
Dalrymples. He had behaved himself, and he had made a lot of money.

He had done better than he could have done if he had stayed in the
Leasan district, even if he had been able to find a house. He had earned
more and he had spent less. He fancied himself, too, as a house-owner.
He had mended his roof, and his caravan was drier than Float Cottage had
been. Moreover, he now had a stock of poultry. Stubberfield had sold him
half a dozen fowls (at what, four months ago, he would have considered
an ominously low price) and these travelled in a kind of crate he had
made and slung beneath the caravan. When it came to rest they were
turned out, and scratched by the wayside, and apparently they did not
resent their strange mode of life enough to deny him their eggs. No,
indeed, Fred did not return to Leasan as a vagrant, but as a travelling
householder, which was quite a different thing.

Ivy, too, had lost some of her shame and her anxiety as to her
neighbours' opinion. She had spent a whole day in cleaning the caravan
and polishing the brasses. She had washed the window curtains and put a
jar of flowers on the window-sill. The children looked, she knew, the
picture of health--the roving outdoor life had suited them; living in a
caravan, she had not been able to keep them much indoors, they had had
to learn to be out in all weathers, and they had thriven on it. As for
herself she did not look so bad, as she had kept some of what she called
her "good clothes," and wore them on this critical day of her return.
Also she and the children had never under any provocation given up
wearing their hats.

The first thing to do was to find a pitch. Fred was wiser now than he
had been in those first days on the road; he no longer risked the wrath
of farmers and of dogs by illicit camping. Either he drew up on the
grass verge of the road or in the mouth of some unused lane or on some
free common-land, or else he called at a farm and formally asked
permission. This had seldom been refused him, as he was a man of good
speech and honest looks.

To-day he went to Eyelid Farm and asked if they would let him pitch in a
field some way from the house. It was a good field for camping, because
the ground sloped away from the wind towards a little stream. Beyond the
stream rose the oak and chestnut of Wagmary Wood, and the sunshine
spilled itself on that sheltered corner, brewing a scent of grass and
leaves and common flowers like clover and daisies and milkwort and
fleabane. They would do very well here if Mr. Gain of Eyelid would let
them stay.

Mr. Gain knew Fred at once.

"What, you, Sinden! You've come back?"

"Just for a while--for the picking; and I've called around to ask you if
I may put my caravan in the field yonder by Wagmary Wood."

"So you've still got your caravan? I heard you'd gone away in one."

"I've bought it now. It's mine."

"Then you like living in a caravan?"

"I can't find anywhere else to live."

"Got a good horse?"

"Not so bad. He was something tur'ble when I took him on, but I've fed
him up, and now he's just strong enough to pull us around."

"Well, you're welcome to the Wagmary field for as long as you like. We
start our picking here on Monday. Maybe you and your wife 'ud like to
come on at that."

"'At that we would. I'd meant to ask you if you could take us on."

"I'm paying only tuppence a bushel this year. These are bad times,
especially for hops."

"No one's paying more than tuppence a bushel, I reckon--not even Hobday
and Hitch."

"How did you do all the summer? You must have made some money if you've
bought your caravan."

"I went fruit-picking at Messrs. Cameron's farms--Haffenden, and Stede,
and two others over at Tonbridge; and I lifted some potatoes too, and
got one good harvesting job."

He did not say anything about the baskets.

"They say there's going to be money in fruit," said Gain doubtfully.
"This new government's going to tax foreigners, leastways they will
after the election. Maybe it 'ud pay us to grow it then--or maybe it'll
just be the same business over again as it was with the hops."

"That wouldn't do us any good."

"Reckon it wouldn't. Vidler of Sempsted was telling me the other day as
he was thinking of growing fruit, so I said to him, 'That won't hurt you
as long as you don't do any more than think of it' Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I'm
going to wait and see how things go before I even so much as start
thinking. They say some of those Kentish growers have been giving their
fruit away. But sometimes I think anything would be better than seeing
the place cut up as it is. Ethnam's gone now."

"What! Up for sale?"

"Sold. They've sold the house for old oak, and cut up the land into
small holdings. Seemingly bungalows don't pay any more, but everybody
wants to start chicken-farming."

"Anyone bought Starvecrow yet?"

"No one. That'll never go now with the Hobbyhorse land all built over.
Though I did hear a rumour as some one was after it for a tea-place. The
tramps that come and doss there are just about terrifying. Mrs.
Hornblower, who's got one of the Hobbyhorse houses--Hobbyhouses they
sometimes call 'em now--Ha! Ha! Ha!--she was telling me only the other
day that she can hear the language that they use. There was an old chap
lost his boot, and what he said was worse than you hear on the
Pictures."

"How's Mus' Parish getting on?"

"Oh, him! He's all right. He's got money. You can't take him seriously
as a farmer. He's all for doing fancy things, like putting chemicals
into the ground. Give me honest crops, I say--wheat, and then roots, and
then barley. None of your chemicals that are like to blow the place up."

"Is Miss Betsy married yet?"

"She was married last month. I never thought it 'ud happen. I made sure
as either she'd scare him off or he'd scare her off. However, neither of
'em did. And it was a fine wedding too, with those two young girls of
Mrs. Alard's for bridesmaids, and a lot of people down from London. Mrs.
Parish came and young Ronald, but Vernon's gone to the North Pole."

"Seems a queer place to go."

"Oh, he was uncommon set up with it, I can tell you. I reckon he means
to start farming there. Ha! Ha! Ha! Not so bad, it wouldn't be--no
tithe, no taxes. . . . We've had a terrification about the tithe since
you left, Mr. Honeysett of Ethnam was put up for sale to pay his, and
everybody came along and bid in sixpences. The auctioneer was properly
wild, I can tell you--selling a whole flock of sheep for under two
pound. We all laughed fit to bust ourselves, and someone went along and
stirred up all the cattle, so as they went rushing everywhere--and there
was a dead sheep put in the auctioneer's car. Ha! Ha! Ha! Q.A.B.--that's
Queen Anne's Bounty--R.I.P.--that's French for dead--they wrote it on
the gate-post. I tell you it's years since I laughed so much."



                                  12

It was George Bates who told Jim Parish that Sinden had come back.

"He's living in a caravan on Mus' Gain's field at Eyelid. I understand
he's picking for 'em there."

"Um . . . I wonder if he means to stay. Do you know of any job that's
going for him, George?"

"No, I don't--nor a house neither."

"It's a pity."

"A tur'ble pity. Looks as if we shan't be able to catch that wheel
before it rolls down hill."

"Oh, come, George--Fred's a decent, steady chap. He won't roll down
hill."

George muttered something discouraging and inarticulate, and Parish said
no more about Fred Sinden while they were together. But when their day's
work was over, and he had taken off his dungarees, and washed, and
combed the sweaty straggles of hair which was all that remained of the
dark plume that Jenny Alard used to stroke in years gone by, he found
himself thinking bitterly and deeply.

Another good man gone wrong. . . . Fred had been a part of the honest,
settled life of the countryside, and here he was a vagrant. He might
have gone into the town, or he might have gone to the colonies; the only
thing he could not have done was to have gone on living where he was and
where he wanted to be. Parish acknowledged in his heart that he could
not blame Fred; yet he felt angry with him. Why hadn't he been to see
him before going off like this? He might have been able to do something.
. . . No, damn it all! Don't let's have any humbug. He could have done
nothing--he would have had to let him go just the same. It was only that
his vanity would have been pleased if Fred had consulted him. He liked
to think of himself as friend and counsellor of the neighbourhood, and
of course he was nothing of the kind. They had all grown that much
beyond the Squire, even before Gervase Alard cleared out and left them.
They no more wanted the Squire to help and advise them than they wanted
Lady Bountiful to give them buns. He ought not to mind the one any more
than he minded the other; but he did. It was a sign of change, and a
change for which he could not blame Gervase Alard.

"Change and decay in all around I see. . . ."

He had lit his pipe, and lay back, pulling at it, in his leather
arm-chair. He always sat in the office now. The house seemed to grow
more and more empty. He could not think why that was, because for years
he had lived in it alone. It had not felt empty at the start, but now it
seemed already empty with the emptiness it would have when he was gone.
How old was he? Forty-seven. That was past middle age. He would have to
go and leave no one to come after him. Why had he never married? He
could marry now, of course--a man with all his limbs and wits and
faculties, even without a few of them, can always find somebody. . . .
That was it, of course. He did not want somebody--or even anybody. He
did not want even Jenny Alard now. That was all over and done with;
though he could not help feeling pleased that Godfrey was at last
beginning to feel the draught. . . . Damn him for his smug navety,
stealing away that lovely girl. She had been lovely then, though she was
lovely no longer now; he remembered her free step and clear, dark,
laughing eye. Change and decay even in Jenny . . . and he couldn't blame
Gervase Alard--yes, he could, for Gervase had encouraged that
preposterous marriage, and it was marriage that had worn her and dimmed
her and changed her. She should never have married. She should have
lived on in some small village house, a glorified Rose Alard, and helped
him save the neighbourhood from the Alard wreck, and encouraged his work
at Cock Marling, and beamed her bright eye upon him over an evening
glass of wine. They would have slid into an intimacy which when the
times were ripe would have slid into marriage--a marriage that would not
have dimmed her. But she had refused to wait, and he refused to remember
that she would not wait because she hated the things he loved and loved
the things he hated.

What would happen, he wondered, if he left Cock Marling to Jenny's
eldest son? That lumpkin youth would without fail grow up a Godfrey and
despise any better heritage than Fourhouses, if he did not by then
despise that. No, better leave it to one of Betsy's sons. For Betsy now
would probably have sons . . . he found it as hard to think of her sons
as to think of knitting socks in the Casino at Monte Carlo. Why had she
done this insane, incongruous thing? Yet he knew she had not done it
insanely; she had known and faced all that it meant. But she had said,
"I am tired. I will lie down and rest." That had been the gist of the
wild, angry conversation they had had when she announced her decision.
She had been tired and the man had offered her rest, and she had
believed that he could give it to her. Women, he supposed, were like
that.

But there were other influences, too, as he had seen when he watched
them together. Her eyes had melted as they looked at him, become soft
and suffused, and his had glowed--their hands had stolen together. . . .
After all, this man was a fine creature, and the strangeness of his mind
was softened by the warmth of his heart. Jim had to confess that in some
ways he approved of him. He rode to hounds, bred pigs, and farmed his
glebe. Probably he would not object at all to coming himself to live at
Cock Marling if his brother-in-law were to die before him. Given some
training and encouragement, and ignoring certain wild Evangelical
tendencies (as doubtless they could be ignored, or even tired Betsy
would not have married him), he might in time make an excellent
squarson. There was always that abominable water-drinking, of course.
. . . He would bring up his children as teetotallers. But that would
mean that they would drink like Hanoverian Squires when they grew up.
Certainly a son of his might be no unsuitable heir of Cock Marling.
. . . He would talk about it to Betsy when they came to dinner to-night.



                                  13

John and Betsy Brady had just come back from their honeymoon. That her
name would be Betsy Brady had been a part of her brother's argument
against her marriage. It was, she reflected, just like him to drag out a
reason like that when she would not listen to the others. As if she
cared what her name was. . . . As a matter of fact, it was Elisabeth.
Her husband always called her Elisabeth. He was not the man for toying
with small names; and she was glad to be changed without as well as
within. Elisabeth Brady seemed a different woman from Betsy
Parish--older, quieter, happier, already experienced in a new kind of
life.

She looked a different woman, too, as she alighted from her husband's
car and entered her brother's house. She had chosen her new clothes with
a view to Vinehall parsonage, and they were quietly becoming, rich
rather than smart. She had dusted her face with powder, but had left it
uncoloured. Glancing at herself in the hall mirror she was struck by the
fact that her pallor had given her that air of mystery and
sophistication which fashionable women sought in 1931.

It felt strange to be entering Cock Marling as Jim's guest for dinner.
Clear soup, flavoured with if not reeking of sherry, fried fillets of
plaice, roast chicken, a cream sweet, and minced haddock on toast . . .
she knew the menu as she knew Jim's old-fashioned dinner jacket and the
rosebud he would have in his button-hole. John, for all his
unworldliness, looked better dressed. . . . What a fine man he was . . .
the silken expanse of his clerical evening waistcoat spoke to her of a
strength and beauty that were as much a part of her love as his
kindness. The white unbroken circle of his collar seemed to light up his
face, so living and so true . . . she was looking at him rather than at
her brother as she walked into the room.

"Hullo, Betsy my dear! Greetings. Hullo, John. Have a glass of sherry."

"No, thank you."

They both said it.

"Oh, Betsy--you too?"

"Yes; why not? John doesn't approve of it, so I'm not going to worry
him. Alcohol hasn't the moral significance for me that it has for you."

"It hasn't any moral significance for me--but your going teetotal has."

"There you are! You've said it. And I haven't gone teetotal--only till
John's got used to me."

"And how long will that take?"

"I don't know--some time yet. Don't look so shocked, Jim. Have a glass
yourself and feel better."

Jim poured himself out a glass, feeling injured.

"Now are we going to sit staring at each other till dinner's ready?"

"Not unless you'd rather. Personally I'm able to talk without
stimulants, and so can John--or he'd never talk at all, bless him!"

"But one's lost a social force. Can't you feel it?"

"No--and anyhow, Jim, aperitifs are out of place in your Hanoverian
scheme of life. They're modern and they're foreign. If you really want
to be an eighteenth-century Englishman you must get drunk at dinner
instead."

"I probably shall."

"Then we'd better start telling you now about Ballycullagh. John has
quite converted me to Irish scenery--haven't you, John?"

She wanted to make him talk--he was shy, and she was encouraging him. Oh
Lord, how she was changed!

They talked rather meaninglessly at first, forcing conversation till
they were at the dinner table. Thank heaven John would have to drink
sherry in his soup--unless he refused soup altogether. But either he did
not smell the devil or he accepted him as a cooking ingredient. There
was sherry in the trifle too . . . really Mrs. Holmes should not have
done that; but to-night he would forgive her because she had made John
swallow two lots of cooking sherry after having refused his best
Amontillado.

He had always found it difficult to talk to John, and now the fact that
he was actually his brother-in-law did not seem to make it easier. There
was also a new embarrassment in talking to Betsy. By marrying this man
she had proclaimed herself incomprehensible, and the mystery grew as he
watched her so plainly loving him--always with her eyes upon him, her
voice stroking him, her mind searching for opportunities to show off
his.

Certainly the man might have been worse. He was a sincere fool, and so
many fools are insincere. He was presentable too, and had good if rather
simple manners. But he was more alien than a Frenchman, with his Irish
idealism and intolerance. Could there be anything more remote than an
intolerant idealism from the golden age of civilization, when men's
minds were mellow as their port and materialistic as their politics? The
trouble was that Betsy too seemed now to share in this remoteness. He
could not talk to her, he could not even quarrel with her as he used to
do. He made conversation laboriously. . . . And all the time he was
wondering how much this man she loved was a stranger. How much about her
did he know? What had she told him? What was there to tell? After all,
he knew very little himself about his sister, and had never believed
half or even a quarter of the gossip that had reached his ears. Perhaps
it was all nothing--the phantasy of country prudes, based on
highly-coloured appearances and their own smouldering desires. Perhaps
this clerical bridegroom had taken to himself a virgin merely
tongue-soiled. . . . On the other hand, he was just the sort of man who
would have enjoyed forgiving her. His love would feed on
forgiveness--butter on a lordly dish. . . . Well, her brother would
never be told. Betsy had always been a riddle to him, a riddle as to
whose answer he had up till this moment felt perfectly indifferent. Now,
for the first time, he would like to know one or two things that he
would never know.

Meanwhile his tongue made the conversation.

"Betsy, the Sindens are back."

"Oh yes, they went off in a caravan, didn't they?"

"Alas! and they've come back in it."

"Who are the Sindens?" asked John.

"Ivy used to be housemaid here once--not a bad little thing; and she
married a very decent chap, who lost his job owing to the slump. They've
been wandering about all the summer and now they're back here for the
hop-picking."

"Are they parishioners?"

"They usen't to be. They lived in Float Cottage, which is strictly
speaking in Leasan. But now they're camping in the Wagmary field at
Eyelid. I believe that's in your parish all right, if you want to pay
them a pastoral visitation. But I warn you, they're not used to it."

John stared through the uncurtained window at some dim place beyond the
evening star.

"I mean to visit all my parishioners--every one. I know they're not used
to it, but that doesn't excuse me."

"Oh, no, quite; but it may excuse them if they don't receive you quite
in the manner you've been accustomed to. However, I do want you to see
Fred, because I've been wondering if you could possibly give him a job."

"What sort of a job?"

"Well, you're farming your glebe, aren't you? Couldn't he help you
there?"

"I've got Fred Waters, you know. He was on the land when Weller farmed
it, and I can't very well turn him off."

"No, I suppose not. Of course not. And no one wants an extra man. You
don't want to grow wheat, do you, by any chance? They say there's a good
time coming for wheat, and Fred used to be a fine ploughman."

"I haven't the time to farm seriously. I shall keep a few sheep and
cows, that's all, and see that the land's kept in order."

"Well, that's a good work. But I wish I could find something for poor
Fred."

"What can he do?"

"Ploughing very well, and almost anything else not so well. He'd drain
your fields for you if you wanted it."

"I understand that they were drained in nineteen-twelve. Anyway they
don't want draining now. But, tell me, can he work indoors? Elisabeth
was saying only this morning that she doesn't like the man we've got."

"I don't like him because he doesn't know his job; but Fred would know
it still less. My wildest imagination can't picture Fred Sinden as a
butler."

"Nor can mine. But Ivy might do as a parlourmaid. Couldn't you take her
on as a parlourmaid, Betsy, and let him be with her as a sort of
handyman? You'd find him useful in a lot of ways, and you needn't give
them more than her normal wages if you let them have board and lodging."

"My dear Jim, haven't they got at least six children?"

"No, only three."

"But I can't take in a married couple and three children."

"We could put them in the attics, dear," said John, taking fire at an
altruistic scheme. "You said yourself that our attics would make quite a
nice little self-contained flat."

"For one of us, if we ever get tired of each other--not for a clumping
ploughman, a draggle-tail, incapable slut and their three dirty
children."

"Betsy! Betsy!" cried Jim, "that's not talking like a clergyman's wife."

"It's talking like the sort of clergyman's wife I mean to be. I know
John would willingly house all the homeless population of this
neighbourhood, but I won't have it."

"You'd get good service in exchange."

"My dear Jim, have you forgotten how you were always cursing
Ivy?--saying that she was untidy and lazy and forgetful and ought to be
sacked . . . and now you want me to take her on as parlourmaid. She's
probably gone to pieces entirely since her marriage."

"Most women do, I know. But she'll recover when she finds herself at her
job again."

"The old war-horse sniffing the battle, eh? Somehow I don't get that
idea of Ivy."

"We might give her a trial," said John. "I don't like to think of decent
people living in a caravan."

"Good man," said Jim, warming towards his brother-in-law. "Make her obey
you. She's promised it."

"With mental reservations," said Betsy.

"It would only be for a short time," argued her husband. "I understand
that the man will take a ploughman's job again as soon as there's one
going."

"As there may be quite soon, if we get a National Government."

"How many governments have you hoped in, Jim?"

The conversation switched on to politics.



                                  14

Fred Sinden enjoyed his three weeks in the Wagmary field. The weather
kept fine for most of the time, and he, Ivy and the children picked hops
first at Eyelid and afterwards for a week at Jordan's. Even at twopence
a bushel their earnings were good.

Most evenings Fred went up to the Queen's Head and met his old friends.
At first he had felt rather anxious as to how they would receive him.
Would they look upon him as a gipsy and a foreigner, or would they
understand his position? He was relieved to find little or no change in
the atmosphere. They pitied him for losing his work and his home, but
they did not despise him. On the contrary, they seemed glad to see him
back again, and listened with interest to his traveller's tales about
the country beyond the Kent Ditch, about Haffenden Quarter and all
Messrs. Cameron's farms and fruit-picking and fruit-growing.

They were interested in fruit, for one or two farmers were thinking of
planting cherry and apple trees. There was a vague unquiet hope about
the countryside--that there might be money in fruit. The augurs said
that there was going to be a National Government that would tax
everything foreign and send up prices for home growers. Pessimists
mumbled "hops," and meanwhile many heads were shaken over fat-stock
prices, which were rushing down. But it was a fact that Mr. Vidler was
going to plant thirty acres of fruit trees at Sempsted.

It did Fred good to be among his old friends again. One or two of them
were no longer there. Young had left the neighbourhood--he had gone into
the town and was working at a garage; they said that he was going to
learn to drive a 'bus. Brotheridge was out of a job owing to the sale of
Ethnam, and could not afford beer at its present price. Everyone seemed
to be very careful with his money and to be drinking less. The shadow of
uncertainty hung over the neighbourhood. No one knew who would be sold
up next, and the invading townspeople were feeling their increased
income tax, and showing their displeasure by making wages their first
economy. There was a general air of anxiety and depression--deeper than
it had been before Sinden left, in spite of political hopes. Sometimes
he almost felt glad that he was no longer settled here among them, that
any day he could pack up and go to seek his fortune where it promised
best.

While Fred sat at the pub among his friends, Ivy, seeing hers at home,
also felt pleased to find her social fears unjustified. Her mother, her
brother and sister-in-law, Nurse Ashley, Mrs. Waters and Mrs. Masters
all came to see her and were impressed by the luxury of her dwelling.
None of them had ever properly seen the inside of a caravan, which they
had imagined to be something much worse than it was. They were delighted
with the big double bed, for which Ivy had made a spread out of the best
of her old curtains at Float. They praised the little windows with their
frills; they admired the corner cupboard that Fred had made and painted
a cheerful blue; and they were amazed at the convenience with which
everything, including the children's hammocks, was stored away by day.
Ivy's stove, too, with its volcanic action over which she had now
complete control, excited their respect.

Her caravan was much better kept than, it must be owned, Float Cottage
had been. But there she had had four rooms and a wash-house to cope
with. Here all was compact and easy. Also Fred helped her more--he had
more time. A motive she only partly acknowledged was the necessity to
prove herself better than the gipsies . . . if anyone took her for a
gipsy, let them look inside and see for themselves. No gipsy ever had a
place so fresh and polished, so entirely without smells, or children so
neat and well-washed; no gipsy ever cooked her food so carefully. To
Ivy's buried sense of inferiority her husband owed a new domestic ease
and her friends and neighbours a certain amount of surprise.

The Sindens had been only once to look at their old home. Curiosity, and
some fainter and sadder emotion, had drawn them down through the
rustling underwood of Wagmary to the Tillingham marshes, and then along
beside the stream till they came to a neglected slope of fields above
which stood the ruddy crown of Float's farmsteading. They crossed the
fields into the lane and walked up to it a short way. There stood a
queer little timbered house, neat if a little crooked, with walls washed
yellow between the beams, and rather a bright roof which did not seem to
belong to it. The door was open and there were men at work inside. Fred
recognized a man called Goodsell who used to work at Reedbed.

"Hullo," he said. "You here!"

"Aye, I'm working for Small and Son of Hastings. They've taken me on for
six weeks at this job. What are you doing now?"

"Picking hops at Eyelid. This used to be my house."

"Did it, now! What d'you think of it?"

Fred grinned.

"Not much."

"We've smartened it up a bit."

"I think it looks nice," said Ivy.

"Those joists will never bear that roof," said Fred.

"They'll bear it for a year or two, which is all we want."

"Is it sold?"

"'At that it is--to some people called Bennett. He's a retired lawyer
from Eastbourne."

"A large family?" asked Ivy.

"No, only himself and two daughters. They're over here most days."

"When do they come in?"

"They was to have been in a fortnight ago, but we couldn't get finished
in time. Now they're always driving over in their motor-car and plaguing
us. But they un't here to-day. Like to take a look round the place?"

Fred was not sure, but Ivy cried: "Oh, do let us!"

So they went in and had a look round. It was all very much changed, and
every now and then Ivy had to tell herself that this was Float Cottage.
All the wallpaper had been taken off and the walls washed with a yellow
distemper, while the beams were dark with solignum. The stairs had been
made a part of the kitchen, instead of being shut into a kind of
cupboard of their own, and the kitchen was to be used as a dining-room,
so Goodsell said, and the cooking done in what used to be the
wash-house. In the new kitchen a bath had also been installed and there
was some joking between Fred and Ivy and the workmen on the chances of
the newcomers ever having any water in it. Upstairs the bedrooms looked
cold and featureless with their distempered walls, and Ivy noticed that
two boughs of the ash tree had been cut away--they darkened the room,
according to Goodsell. The old floors had been left, but were in process
of being stained dark brown. Now that all the wood had been uncovered,
Fred could see how much dry rot there was in the house.

"I don't so much mind leaving it," he said, "now I've seen it like this.
It wouldn't have lasted us our time. We'd have had to turn out before
long."

"But it'll last better now," said Ivy, "with all they've done to it."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that, mum," said Goodsell, "now we've taken
off the wall-paper. Reckon that was what mostly held it up."

"Well," said Fred, "it's been interesting to see it."

They went out, and noticed that a name had been painted in antique
letters on the garden gate--"Olde Wayes."



                                  15

It was a warm Saturday afternoon near the end of September. The Wagmary
field smelled of hops, for the wind was blowing that way--from Eyelid's
oast and Cock Marling's, and from the fields of Tanhouse and Road End,
where the picking was not quite finished yet.

It was finished at Jordan's, and in a day or two the Sindens would leave
for Kent, unless in the meanwhile Fred heard of something to keep him
where he was. He was sitting on the caravan steps, smoking a pipe and
reading the _Sussex Mercury_. Ivy sat just inside, mending the
children's clothes. The children lay asleep on a blanket in the sun. Ivy
had grown used to the idea of their sleeping out of doors; she always
spread her old mackintosh under the blanket, and certainly they did not
seem any the worse for it. Indeed she could have said that they looked
all the better.

The sun was very hot, in spite of the September breeze. But there was a
smell of autumn about--not only the smell of hops, but a dim, soaking
sweetness of decay, in earth, in trees, in hedges, faint as the gold
that was spreading in the green, but hovering in the wind like a
sigh--telling of the fall of the year, of the winter fogs and the dead
leaves that would muffle the earth. Even though now and then he put up
his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, Fred knew that summer was
gone.

This time he did not feel as he had felt last year. He did not have that
same sense of terror and foreboding. His five months of wandering life
had given him a new feeling of independence. He was no longer a man tied
to a stake, to suffer blows, but a man who can move about and dodge his
troubles. Moreover he had seven pounds saved, besides a horse and
caravan; and Stubberfield, whom he was to meet in a fortnight's time,
had a hopeful plan for the winter. There was no real need for him to
worry.

"Fred," said Ivy, "somebody's coming."

He must have dozed off over his newspaper and his thoughts, or he would
have heard the approaching footsteps before she did. He sprang up, and
was surprised to see Mr. Parish coming down the field.

"Hullo, Fred!"

"Good day, Mus' Parish."

This was the first time a visitor of such eminence had called upon them.
Ivy hastily looked round, and saw to her relief that the caravan was
tidy. The little folding table Fred had made was even set for tea. Mr.
Parish would be surprised, like everyone else, to see how nice her place
was.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Parish."

"Good afternoon, Ivy. How are you?"

"I'm very well, Sir, thank you."

"And the children?"

"They're fine. It suits them being out of doors. Get Mr. Parish a stool,
Fred. I won't ask you in, Sir, for it's a bit hot inside, this time of
day."

Parish sat down and gazed round him. The Sindens certainly looked
well--sunburnt and flourishing; and the place was unexpectedly clean.
They had not yet learned gipsy ways.

"I've been meaning for a long time to come and see you," he said, "but
I've been working hard, putting a new roof on my cart lodge. Besides, I
thought that possibly you would come and see me."

Fred felt the implied reproach.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I thought of it, but I didn't like to."

"Why not?"

"Well, I knew there was no use troubling you."

"I've never been much good to you, have I? I know that, and it's worried
me a bit. But speaking comparatively, the bad times have got me quite as
badly as they've got you."

"I wasn't meaning that. I know you'd help me if you could, and I know
you can't, so I didn't like to worry you."

"And it didn't strike you to come and see me as a friend? Well, never
mind--I've come to see you. I'm glad you're all looking so well."

"We're in good heart all of us, I'm glad to say; and we've all done our
share of the picking."

"What are your plans? The picking's nearly over now. Are you going to
stay here?"

"No, we're going back into Kent."

"Can't hear of anything in these parts?"

"No--I've tried, but I can't. I was over at Delmonden yesterday, having
heard as the new people there meant to farm it. But when I got there it
was only a tale."

"Do you think you're more likely to hear of anything in Kent?"

"I dunno, I'm sure; but I might. Anyway, I'm going to meet a chap who
knows of a good place for the winter. There's a farm seemingly where
they let out ground to campers: you pay a shilling a week and there's
water on the place, and a tin shed where everyone does their cooking. It
won't be so bad."

"And what will you live on?"

"Well, I've saved seven pounds, even after buying the caravan, and I
reckon I'll get some sort of odd job now and again; and then there's our
basket trade--we make sometimes as much as ten shillings a week out of
that."

"Oh Fred. . . ."

"Mus' Parish?"

"It's damnable, that's all--to see a good, skilled man like you,
wandering about in a caravan and living from hand to mouth. . . ."

He looked genuinely distressed. He had taken off his hat as he sat on
his shady stool, and his hand stroked back his thin soft hair with a
nervous, despairing gesture. Fred and Ivy were surprised to see him
looking so upset.

"There you are," he continued, "one of the aristocracy of this
neighbourhood. I won't talk doubtful rot about de Syndens or anything
like that, but certainly you come of an older and better family than I
do. Your people were living here, most likely as farmers or small
landowners, when mine were probably tradesmen in some place unknown. And
now you're without a job and without a home--driven out of your own
place--your own place, mind you, yours by right. . . ."

His indignation seemed to choke him.

"It un't so bad as it looks," said Fred, "nor as I thought it 'ud be.
You get used to most things."

"Alas!" said Parish, "you do."

"And I reckon I'll get a job some day if only I've the patience to look
for it."

"I suppose you wouldn't care for domestic work?--I mean, for Ivy to go
back into service and you to go with her as gardener or handyman."

"And what about the children?" asked Ivy. "What 'ud we do with them?"

"Wouldn't your employers take them? As it happens I've been speaking to
my brother-in-law--you know Miss Betsy's married the new Rector of
Vinehall--and he was quite willing to have you and the children. There's
a number of big, unused attics at the top of his house, and my idea was
that he should let you live there and pay Ivy so much a week for being
parlourmaid, while Fred did odd jobs about the place just for his keep.
I know it's not a grand offer, but it's something, and I thought it
might keep you going for a while, anyhow. Brady himself thought it quite
a good idea, and I expect his wife will in time, though at present she's
raising objections. If I could tell her that you are willing. . . ."

He looked at them expectantly, and they looked at each other. The scheme
seemed to both of them quite terrible.

"I think Miss Betsy's right," said Ivy, "it wouldn't do. I never was a
real parlourmaid, you know--only when the other girl was out--and I
expect I'm a bit rusty at even what I used to do."

"And the children," said Fred; "it would be a tur'ble business keeping
them quiet and out of the way. It's kind of you to think of it, Sir"--he
saw that in some strange way he was on this man's conscience--"but I
don't think I could live like that in somebody's house. It would be more
awkward than living in lodgings."

"I'm sure Miss Betsy would never have it," said Ivy, "nor would any
other lady I've heard of."

"Just a blundering male scheme, in fact, and you both spurn it. I'm
sorry; for even though it is somebody's house, I'd rather think of you
living in Vinehall Parsonage than in a caravan."

"A caravan isn't so bad," said Ivy. "We fit in very nice and
comfortable."

"I'm sure you do. I'm sure you've made the very best that can be made of
it. But it can't be the same as living in a house . . . and do you like
being on the roads?--meeting road people?"

"We never go with gipsies and such like," said Fred, "but there's a lot
of road people the same sort of people as us. This man Stubberfield I go
with, he used to be stockman on a farm near Arundel, and afterwards he
was at Shoyswell, over by Ticehurst."

"And how long has he been on the roads?"

"I dunno exactly--ever since the war."

"Ever since the war! Why, that's thirteen years."

"He could have had a job if he'd wanted it, I reckon. But he un't in
good heart, and he'd sooner be free and live on his pension."

Parish stood up.

"Don't tell me any more, Fred. It's just the sort of thing I can't bear
to hear. . . . And I must be going now. I wanted to see you both and to
tell you about this idea of mine--which you won't have, and probably
you're right. If I hear of anything at all likely to suit you--decent
farm work, I mean--I'll let you know at once."

"I'd be uncommon thankful if you would."

"Where can I get hold of you?"

"I shall be at Tiffenden all the winter."

"Tiffenden?--is that where you're going to stay?"

"Tiffenden Farm, near Shadoxhurst, in Kent. It's the place I told you
of, where there's a camp."

"I'll write to you there if I've any news. I don't suppose I shall have,
but I hope I shall . . . I don't want you to stay on the roads as long
as your friend."

He smiled a little wryly as he shook hands with them both, and walked
away. They watched him going up the field, a small, disappointed figure
in that great swamp of sunshine.



                                 1932

                                  1

Tiffenden Farmhouse stands back from the unfrequented lane that winds by
Harlakenden and Gablehook to Shadoxhurst. Fred Sinden had never seen
that part of the country; it was away from the big fruit farms and
mostly given to small ways in agriculture. The farmer, Mr. Surrenden,
who had been there since the war, suffered from a tender heart that
lately had reproached him for refusing work and money to the wanderers
who came to his door. Yet, as he said again and again to Mrs. Surrenden,
what could he do about it? There wasn't any more work on his seventy
acres than he and his men could manage quite easily, with a little extra
help at harvest time. He had no work to give, nor could he afford to
give money. Yet he lay awake worrying about those he sent away.

It was Mrs. Surrenden who suggested that they should set apart the
Wagstaff field as a sort of camping-ground for ex-service men. It was at
a suitable distance from the house, sheltered, and well-supplied with
water. It contained moreover the remains of an old barn, which could be
put in order and used as a sort of field kitchen. They would let
ex-service men and regular down-and-outs camp there for nothing, but the
others could pay a rent of one or two shillings, just to save the place
from being over-run.

This scheme was received with more enthusiasm by her husband than by the
neighbourhood at large, who regarded it as a prelude to every horror of
disease, dishonesty and violence. The well-to-do chattered of lost
amenities, the poorer sort locked up their chickens. And it must be
owned that there was something to be said for their attitude. It was not
long before the Wagstaff field became no transient camping-place but the
permanent home of the lost ones of the countryside, a sort of rural
limbo, where dwelt in a deep sighing those who had lost the heaven of
home and work but had managed to escape the hell of the poorhouse, the
prison and the town.

At first Mr. Surrenden had meant to limit the time of sojourn, but he
soon found that it was easier to refuse newcomers on the plea that the
place was full than to tell established residents that they must go. So
there arose on Wagstaff a permanent population, housed variously in
railway carriages, buses and cars; to which in winter would be added an
array of tents and caravans, as the battle of life on the roads settled
down into trench warfare. There was trouble of course for everyone, and
complaints and interference from the health authorities, but Mr.
Surrenden had managed to keep the place going for two years.

It was not so bad, really, and he was able to point out that the number
of dwellings to the acre was actually smaller than on a neighbouring
bungalow estate. The sanitation had been organized by himself and one or
two others with camp memories, while the water supply was more abundant
than in the village. In the course of two years the railway carriages
and buses had managed to wreath themselves in roses, though compelled by
law to retain their wheels and thus proclaim their mobility even when
sunk above the axles in mud.

When the Sindens drove into the Wagstaff field one evening in November,
the washing on innumerable clothes-lines fluttered like the flags of an
army. Against the cold, crimson sky rose the dark shapes of caravans,
with their chimney-stumps and over-hanging eaves. Fires glowed and
twinkled in the shadows by the hedge, for a section of the inhabitants
would always prefer to cook out of doors in spite of the facilities
given in the barn.

The Stubberfields were there before them, for Fred had managed to get a
fortnight's root-lifting over by Witters Oak. His friend came out to
greet him and show him where he might pull up his caravan and where he
could graze his horse. Fred would have to pay a shilling as weekly rent,
for he was too young to remember the war except as a continuous faint
mumble of guns over Snailham hill. There had been trouble on that
account, said Stubberfield, with his wife's parents. He of course camped
for nothing, being an ex-serviceman, but Mr. Surrenden did not see why
he should give free lodging to the Dalrymples, and had insisted that
they should pay the weekly shilling, which Stubberfield acknowledged
they could quite well afford in spite of the fact that they never did
any work. Where they got their money from was more than he knew, and
didn't want to know either. They were now in a tent of their own,
thinking a shilling too much to pay for a corner of someone else's
caravan. Fred was surprised to find that Stubberfield regarded their
going as a catastrophe.

"Sue created something terrible, but I told her they'd be back with us
in the summer."

"They haven't gone far, have they?"

"No--that's them."

He pointed to a small brown pyramid, from the apex of which ascended a
column of flavourous smoke, heavy with some queer cooking smell. On one
side moved a mysterious bulge, which in time pushed open the flap and
revealed itself as the hinder parts of Mrs. Dalrymple, stooping over the
pot. There was also a glimpse of the hairy, crimson face of her husband,
pillowed on some sacks.

"I reckon it must be thick in there," said Fred.

"You get!" said Stubberfield, "they know how to make themselves
comfortable. Hi! Ma! Come out. Here's Fred Sinden back."

The tent heaved convulsively and Mrs. Dalrymple came out, carrying a
kipper impaled on a fork.

"Good evening, Fred. Got your Missus there?"

"Aye, she's in the cart."

"Tell her I'll be round to see her soon, but I'm busy at the moment
cooking supper. We've got our own place now."

"So I see. How do you like it?"

"Fine. I haven't been so comfortable since we stayed at Conster Manor.
We've got our photographs up and all. I don't say we ain't a bit
crowded, but we're warm, and so far there ain't a bug amongst us. Come
in and have a look, and maybe a bite of something tasty."

"Thank you kindly," said Fred, "but I must be getting back and help my
Missus unpack her things."

"That's right. You go and be a good husband. I'm all for husbands
helping their wives. Reg helped me put up this tent and now he's helping
me cook the supper, and soon I reckon he'll help me eat it. You tell Ivy
I'll come and see her as soon as she's straight, and anyway we'll all
meet and talk again to-morrow. I reckon we're going to have a fine, snug
sort of winter here in this place."



                                  2

So she may have found it, for to her, "fine" was kippers and "snug" an
atmosphere one part human reek, one part cooking reek, and one part
smoke. All Fred could say when at last he stood on the further shore of
spring was that the winter had not been so bad as the one before.

He had been free of the spectre of uncertainty. He had not sat there
wondering when he would be turned out of his home. He had enjoyed the
supreme comfort of his own dwelling, which no one could conceivably
snatch from him to turn into a middle-class bower of rotting oak. He had
been spared too the ceaseless anxiety of hunting for a job. The money he
had saved, with the money he earned by basket selling and one or two
occasional jobs and deals, had been enough to keep them through the
winter according to the modest standards of their new life. But he had
grown tired of the amenities of the Wagstaff field and his company
depressed him.

Hitherto he had had to do only with the more successful population of
the roads. On the big fruit farms he had met chiefly those who were
still ready and able to find work, like Stubberfield, or who, like the
gipsies, managed somehow to be prosperous without working. There had
indeed been more money about than at Leasan--no stint of meals or beer.
But here at Tiffenden he had found those whose dire poverty had the sole
triumph of having escaped the workhouse--and that only because men and
women were willing to accept the same standard of living as beasts.

The aristocrats were there too, coming and going. A gipsy would drive
his cart in at the mud-stodged gate, set up his tent, and spend a few
days at Wagstaff with a medley of children, dogs and horses. Now and
then the glittering caravan of a half-breed would arrive, also with
children, dogs and horses. But these gentry never stayed long. They were
so made that they could not endure to stay more than a short time in the
same place. Soon they would be off again, amidst a lot of shouting and
whoa-hoaing, their gay-coloured women rocking on the carts with rolls of
lino and festoons of baskets, clothes-pegs and rag mats.

There were also humbler tourists--those who had been walking for so many
years that they could not now sit still. One day an old man and woman
came in, hairy and shaggy like animals, boiled some tea in a biscuit
tin, and went to sleep in a tent made of sacks stretched on an old
umbrella frame. Another time a very old tramp, wearing a woman's hat,
came in pushing his few possessions in a doll's perambulator. He had no
food, and Ivy felt so sorry for him that she gave him some bread and
dripping, while Mrs. Stubberfield made him a cup of tea. But public
opinion forbade him to stay the night. After all, anyone in his position
had no need of Wagstaff as a camping-place. The field ought to be
reserved for those whose residence wanted some larger site than the
grass verge of the lane. Besides, he looked just the sort who might be
found dead next morning . . . everyone at Tiffenden knew that once the
place achieved the notoriety of a coroner's inquest, some public
busybody would be sure to interfere and have it abolished; which would
come very hard on a lot of people. So they bundled him out and told him
the way to Cranbrook where there was a workhouse. But he was a childish
old man and did not seem to understand them.

The permanent population was divided between the prosperous and the
unprosperous. First among the resident aristocracy were the Boormans,
living in a disused railway carriage. Boorman had regular work at
Batchelors Farm near by, and lived at Wagstaff only because of the
impossibility of finding a cottage. After him came a half-gipsy widow
with seven children, living in a bus, a rat-catcher and his wife in an
old army tent and various others in various dwellings, shading down to
the Misses Bellhurst, two old maiden ladies living in a derelict Ford
car.

These two, though financially at the bottom with five shillings a week
to live on, considered themselves and indeed were considered by everyone
else, to be socially far above their surroundings. They had lost their
money in the approved style of genteel spinsterhood, through a dishonest
solicitor, and now lived at Wagstaff in much the same mental atmosphere
as they had lived three years earlier in a suburb of Tunbridge Wells.
Materially of course, it could not be the same. They had to allow for
the restrictions of life in a car. Their residence stood a little apart
from the others, sunk by this time almost to the chassis-top in mud, but
proclaiming its mobility by its steering-wheel, wind-screen and engine,
all intact if a little rusty. The limousine was fitted with two bunks,
two stools, and a folding table. They did their cooking and washing in
the barn, where their few crocks and pans were kept with scrupulous
cleanliness, and as scrupulously respected by the other users of that
common kitchen. They had both of late come to suffer very much from
rheumatism; and sometimes Miss Lucy Bellhurst, the younger sister, was
unable for days to leave the car. They answered inquiries briefly and
politely--they would not mix with their social inferiors, as indeed
nobody did at Wagstaff, so it was not expected of them.

The Sindens consorted mostly with the Boormans and the Stubberfields. It
was realized that they were not "cart-people," but genuine working-folk
down on their luck. Occasionally some visitor would offer to fraternize,
but Fred had learned to "keep himself to himself"--that war-cry of
struggling respectability. Norman was now past school age, and went to
school with the little Boormans and Stubberfields, walking three miles
to the village and back every day. Meanwhile Fred and Stubberfield would
often go out together, snaring rabbits, and sometimes pheasants, and
collecting the spare parts of derelict motor-cars (such as are driven
into the hearts of woods and left there by their owners, failing other
methods of disposal). They did a trade in rabbit skins, mole-skins, and
old iron, which did not make them rich, but helped them pay their way
and pass the time.

When they were not out, but could be relied on to look after the cooking
and the children, Mrs. Sinden would go out with Mrs. Stubberfield, and
sell baskets. They sometimes brought back quite a lot of money, and bits
of clothing that they had been given by well-disposed housewives. Now
and then Fred would feel anxious in case Ivy was learning to beg--after
all Sue Stubberfield was little better than a gipsy; but she always
strenuously denied that she had asked for any of the things she was
given, and though of course if she had learned begging she might also
have learned lying, he felt bound to believe her.



                                  3

One day he stood on some high ground beyond Wagstaff and saw the pippin
face of old Tiffenden through a golden mist of hazel catkins. Spring had
come and it was time to leave the Wagstaff field and its sad company,
and look for work again. Perhaps this year things would improve and he
would be successful. Hope rose again in him, budding like the hazel
catkins.

Stubberfield advised him to stay a while yet. There was sure to be some
more bad weather before spring really came. Fred replied that he could
have the same roof over him wherever he went; he was tired of his winter
quarters--the mud, the swarming children, the fluttering washing-lines,
the many little fires. . . . He was not used to living so close to other
people. He would be glad to find himself alone on the grass edge of the
road or in some old lane's mouth.

Ivy was sorry to go; she had enjoyed her expeditions with Mrs.
Stubberfield, and she declared that they would not do nearly so well
when they were by themselves. And what about Norman's schooling? Hadn't
they better wait till the Easter holidays?

But Fred could not endure another month of Wagstaff. He must run the
risk of Norman's absence from school getting them into trouble. After
all, that risk was not great. Some of the gipsy children never went to
school at all, and their parents managed somehow to dodge the inspector.
Not that he meant to bring his family up like that . . . no, of course
not; they should all go properly to school. But that could wait till he
found a settled job, or if he should again be unsuccessful, till he went
back to Haffenden Quarter for the picking. Then Norman could go to
Biddenden school, which was also within reach of Stede and Middle
Quarter.

So early in March, Fred Sinden led the unwilling Ginger out of the
Wagstaff field. He had bidden a friendly good-bye to Stubberfield and
arranged to meet him at Haffenden in June. He had also said good-bye to
Mr. Surrenden, asking him to keep him in mind if he should hear of any
likely job in the neighbourhood; which Mr. Surrenden promised to do, as
he had already promised at least thirty working men that winter.

The first night they pitched at French Hay, and the next they were back
in the Wagmary field at Leasan. For Fred had been unable to keep away
from the countryside of his birth and friends. Often during the winter
he had thought of it and wondered how things were going there. Were any
more farms up for sale?--were any more of his old friends out of work?
Or in more hopeful moods: had any rich people come to the neighbourhood
and made work for poor people? That was what he would like to hear.

He did not hear it, but it was almost as good to hear Mr. Gain's
friendly welcome and free offer of his old pitch.

"For as long as you like, Fred--as long as you like. I'm only too glad
to oblige a chap like you. I know you're careful and won't stodge up the
place; and if ever you like to terrify a thistle or two we'll take it as
rent. Ha! Ha!"

It was good to be back in peace and loneliness. That was what he had
been used to all his life; he was not used to camps and crowds and
comings and goings, and it had hurt him to see so many people so
unfortunate. He did not consider himself unfortunate; he had good health
and enough money to live on, and his wife and children were healthy too.
But at Wagstaff he had been unable to keep himself from wondering what
he might come to . . . it was silly, of course, but he could not help
occasionally seeing himself as that old childish man in the woman's hat,
with nothing to live on but the charity of poor people . . . or himself
and Ivy as those two who had slept under the old umbrella . . . or Ivy
and the children as that poor woman living in the bus with her dirty,
hungry brats.

But now that he was back in the Wagmary field he no longer troubled
about such things. He knew that he was no nearer them now than he had
been during his last years at Float. A working man can always lose his
job; but when he has lost it and learned all the various ways by which
he can keep himself alive without it, he has really less to worry about
than when he had his work.

He had also learned to feel comfortable in his caravan. At first it had
seemed cramped, but by now what used to be cramped had become cosy. He
could remember how cold and draughty the rooms at Float Cottage had
been--how deadeningly cold in the early morning, when to get out of bed
had been like stepping into a bath of cold water. Now their risings were
always warm, with the stove kept in all night, and he found himself
going back to a custom he had dropped quite soon after his
marriage--that of getting up and making Ivy a cup of tea. After all, he
hadn't, most mornings, got a long day's work before him--he could do
that much for her.

In certain other ways he and Ivy seemed to be returning to a lost
estate. They no longer quarrelled and argued over things, with nerves on
edge; she had less to worry her, and showed it in a renewal of
playfulness and amorousness. She seemed to grow young again, or rather
to have stopped growing old. . . . Yes, certainly they were better off
in many ways.

Of course it would be awkward if their numbers increased, if Ivy ever
had another baby. People sometimes had as many as six or seven children
in a caravan, but Fred did not approve of that--he did not think it
healthy. He was relieved to find that Ivy did not seem to be going to do
it again; little Clarence was still the baby at four years old. Their
love's impunity might have some connection with that nasty strain she
had given herself some time ago, when she was helping him mend the roof
at Float Cottage . . . she had been in great pain for hours and he had
wanted her to let him fetch the doctor. But she had refused--she had
said it was nothing. Well, as things had turned out, he could not feel
sorry; though at the bottom of his heart was still a protest against
that untoward twist of things which had made barrenness a blessing.

Ivy was hanging out the washing, a clothes-peg in her mouth, but in
spite of it humming a little tune. Moved by an impulse which was partly
the spring, partly his relief to be alone again with his family, he went
up behind her and put his arms around her waist.

"Oh. . . ."

Ivy dropped the peg, and the song turned into a squeal and then into a
laugh.

"Oh, how you did frighten me!"

He put his cheek to hers.

"Tell me you're glad to be home again."

"Home. . . ."

"Aye, this is home, un't it? We're back in our own place, along of our
own people. The house don't matter."

"Reckon it don't"--she turned to him, her mouth still young and
fruit-like in her fading face--"Reckon nothing matters but us two and
the children."

"And having our place and enough to live on."

"You want a lot."

"No more'n I've got. We've been lucky, my dear. Things haven't turned
out half as bad as I thought they would a year ago."

He hugged her to him and kissed her mouth which had begun to sing again.



                                  4

The Sindens stayed two months in the Wagmary field, little Norman
trotting every day to school at Leasan, for all the world as if they
were still living at Float Cottage. Fred got a month's ditching at
Eyelid. Mr. Gain asked him if he would come on for twenty-five shillings
a week, and nothing said to anyone about it--he could not afford to pay
more and if Fred would not come for that the work would have to wait
till next year. At first Sinden was glad to have the job, but by the end
of the month he was heartily tired of it. He had never cared for
ditching, and twenty-five shillings seemed a miserable sum to receive
for such hard labour. At the fruit-picking, for half the trouble he
could earn half as much again.

Nevertheless he began seriously to look for work. Now was the time--when
the farms were getting busy. Not that he dared hope for much; everybody
said that this year would be worse than last, with the stock prices
still going down, and a long time yet to run before the Government's
plans for agriculture could do any good--if they ever did any good. But
Fred felt that he must make the attempt--he could not sit there and
resign himself to living in a cart and doing casual labour all his life.
No, that would be a cowardly, miserable thing to do.

So he set out once again, and tramped the country day by day, returning
every evening to his caravan as he used to return to Float Cottage. He
could not find a job, though he walked as far as Fairlight, and Battle,
and Ticehurst, and Hawkhurst, and Wittersham and Rye. Here and there he
thought he saw signs of increased cultivation--a farmer hoping enough
from the wheat quota to put another ten acres under the plough--but
nobody wanted a ploughman, or a cowman or a carter or a looker or
anything Fred was willing to call himself to get a job. If they did
there was always plenty of men in their own part of the country waiting
to be taken on. Every night he would come home to the Wagmary field as
tired and disappointed as he used to come to Float Cottage.

The only difference was that it did not seem to matter so much. After
Ivy had given him his supper he would soon cheer up and want to go off
to the Queen's Head. That was the reason, perhaps, for his feeling more
cheerful about it--he had money in his pocket and soon would be earning
more, even if he did not find regular work. And Ivy did not have to
greet him with tales of the people who had been to visit their home with
a view to turning them all out of it. No, decidedly it did not matter so
much. He would often feel tired and fed-up, but there was also that
feeling that the worst had already happened and was not so bad as he had
thought it would be.

He had lost all his old anxious sense of shame when he was among his
friends. Even if, as it sometimes seemed to him now, they did not take
quite the right view of him--could not see the distinction between him
and a gipsy that was so plain to his better knowledge of road
life--there was always the moral support of his money; he had as much as
and more than they, even though he was not in regular work. He still had
some of his summer savings left, and Ivy still brought in money from the
sale of baskets, also from the sale of garments which she seemed to be
given as generously by the ladies round Vinehall and Leasan as by the
ladies round Shadoxhurst. He no longer worried himself about her
begging; she had told him that she didn't and he left it at that.

He still felt that he belonged to the neighbourhood and had a right to
discuss its affairs. He would go up to the Queen's Head almost every
evening, and sit in the bar, talking about the sale of Glaseneye, the
new kiln Messrs. Hobday & Hitch were building at Udiam, the miserable
price Mr. Vidler had got for his tegs at Vinehall lamb fair, the mess
Mr. Parish and George Bates had made of their cart-lodge roof, for all
that they thought it so fine, the hundreds of fruit trees that Mr. Cook
was planting at Stonelink, the untoward and unwelcome zeal of Mr.
Brady's parochial visitations, the new people who had come to
Ellenwhorne and the betrothal of one of them to Mrs. George Alard's
eldest girl, the Government's new dodge of having tithe sales by tender,
so that they couldn't be bust up--all the gossip of the farms and the
cottages and the bungalows, chatted and chewed and flavoured with
rumours and alarms, till it became a rich soup, cooking all the week at
the Queen's Head--a _pot au feu_ to which everyone had his morsel or
pinch to add, and which kept them all warm and comfortable through the
cold spring days.

The company at the Queen's Head was a little scantier than it had been.
Brotheridge and Young had left the district. Masters was always there,
and sometimes a little drunk--which his wife came to hear of, and
thenceforward sent their eldest boy to fetch him home every evening,
causing a certain amount of trouble. Pannell was always there too, and
Smith and the Frenches came most days. Ashdown seldom came, for he was
out of a job, and though his new trade of bricklayer had got him on to
the dole, he found that fifteen shillings a week, out of which he paid
five shillings for his room, did not leave him much money over for beer
at sevenpence a pint.



                                  5

Mr. Parish had seemed hurt when Fred did not go to see him last time he
was in the neighbourhood, so this time he went once or twice. The Squire
showed him the work he was doing at Cock Marling, the new roofs to the
cow lodge and the cart lodge that he and George Bates had built with
their own hands. They were not so bad as the gossip at the Queen's Head
had given him to expect.

"In time we'll get the whole place done," said Parish. "Before I'm
buried I expect to see a decent set of farm-buildings here; but not long
before I'm buried."

"Pity you can't take on some chap to help you go quicker."

"Meaning you, Fred?"

"No--I'm no hand at building. Wish I was. But there's a chap called
Ashdown that used to be with me at Float, and he's stood off now, and
has to go into Rye every week to get his unemployment."

"Yes, the building trade's feeling the draught like everything else,
though it doesn't look much like it round here. Glaseneye's for sale
now, as you know, and Elphick's been trying to blackmail me into buying
the four fields next this place. I can't do it; but he thinks I can, and
that I will if he frightens me enough."

"No one 'ud build in any of them fields, I reckon. There's no water, for
one thing, and the road must be a quarter-mile off."

"I know; but he's got a builder's board up, all the same; and yesterday
he brought round half a load of old bricks just to show me that he means
business. Why can't I make someone think I'm going to build on my land
and pay me not to? . . . A brilliant idea, Fred! I shall tell those
artists at Barline that I'm going to build a hotel in my Warnham field,
close to the bottom of their garden--and if they don't believe me I can
bring up some pieces of corrugated iron and a lavatory pan to convince
them. But joking apart, it's a shame to make a mess of the country like
this. It isn't merely the atrocious sights I object to--I'm not a
house-agent to go cackling about 'amenities' and 'extensive views over
unspoiled country.' What breaks my heart is all these farms being cut up
and spoiled, all this land going out of cultivation. Think of what this
place used to be--think of Ethnam and Winterland and Glaseneye and
Ellenwhorne and Doucegrove and Starvecrow and Float and all those other
Alard farms--and think of them now, stripped and torn to bits and
rotting and neglected. . . Fred, don't you feel your heart burn
sometimes when you look out on all those fields at sunset and see the
light show up the ghosts of the furrows that used to be there--under the
grass and thistles? From the end of the garden here I sometimes look out
on what used to be Dinglesden and gnash my teeth."

"Surelie--it's tur'ble."

"Tur'ble indeed--and all for nothing. If someone very rich came along
and built a palace and gave lots of employment all round I shouldn't
mind so much, or if for a change they were to build some workmen's
cottages at a low rent. But all this division of the land seems only for
the benefit of retired colonels or retired policemen, who are none of
them rich enough or even nice enough to console us for what they've
done. I know that in a sense we're better off than parts of East Anglia
where the land is no use even for building purposes and a whole parish
goes pauper and derelict. . . . I suppose I ought to be glad that we've
someone to give a little employment to builders and gardeners and
garage-keepers and to spend a little money in the village shops. I
suppose I ought to be glad--but I'm not. I'd rather see a noble
desolation than this shoddy mess . . . and it's been no help to you, the
people who belong here--you've been driven out of your homes just the
same. In fact you'd probably still be in your homes if the farms had
simply been abandoned--you could have stayed on and cultivated your own
little patch and become a sort of squatter--perhaps at last a farmer in
your own right . . . that's the way the original yeomen were made--not
Gervase Alard's way, with forced sales and loans and mortgages. Oh God!
I could murder that man for the harm he's done."

"I reckon most of this would have happened without him."

"Not if he'd hung on. . . . We shall get right in time--it's only a
question of waiting. I'm going to hang on, and if he'd done the same
we'd have the whole place right again in twenty years or so. I believe
this new Wheat Act will do something for us--not quickly, but
eventually--and we've got a duty on foreign stuff which is what we
squires and farmers have been groaning for ever since Gladstone's day.
But what good will it do us all now? The neighbourhood's destroyed
agriculturally. Barring my own farms, there's scarcely any real farming
being done here at all. We're fast becoming a down at heel residential
district. And who are the residents? People from the towns, who've saved
enough money to buy a bungalow or turn a workman out of his house. The
real people are going--gone. You're a real person, Fred, and you've
gone. Yes, you've gone. I know you'll say you're still here, but you're
not--not belonging here as you used to do. You're a ghost--you're
haunting the fields like a ghost--the ghost of a dead ploughman,
haunting the ghosts of the furrows. . . ."

His face was white and working, and he twisted his hands between his
knees. Fred was shocked and sorry to see him take on so.

"Lor' bless you, Sir," he said--"I don't mind all that much."



                                  6

When Fred had gone, Jim Parish sat down to write to Gervase Alard. As he
wrote, his hand shook a little, and his queer, ornate handwriting lost
some of its stiffness.


DEAR ALARD,

It is some time since I have written to you; but I thought you might
like to hear some news of the district. Of course Jenny writes to you,
but I doubt if she tells you more than what is happening at Fourhouses.
She is hardly ever outside the farm, and anyhow she sees things from
your point of view. Also I am quite sure that she would never write
anything to distress you. Perhaps what I am writing will not distress
you. You took the land away from the squires to give it to the yeomen,
but I don't suppose you will be broken-hearted to hear that the yeomen
have found your gift too expensive and have in their turn handed it over
to the speculative builder (on the edges) and to desolation (in the
midst). Of the dozen or so Alard farms you left there is, I think,
exactly one in the hands of its original tenant--Eyelid Farm. Two or
three of the rest have been bought by "gentlemen farmers" who still hang
on precariously, living on capital. The others are mostly split up into
smallholdings, miniature estates for miniature landed gentry, and
building plots. The chief part of their unoccupied land is let for
winter grazing, but a great deal of it is not let or grazed at all and
has practically gone out of cultivation. Let me give you the histories
of one or two of your yeomen. Blazier of Ellenwhorne went out of action
first, and his house was bought by gentle lovers of Ye Olde, who know
nothing about farming, but in order to preserve their view, bought all
the Ellenwhorne land and a good part of Winterland when that in due
course came up for sale. Winterland farmhouse is also in gentle
occupation, and the oast has been astonishingly changed into a
gentleman's residence and called The Towers. The part of Winterland
which does not come into the View has been sold for building plots, and
now supports a row of waterless bungalows. Ethnam did not fetch much as
building land, owing to lack of roads. The greater part of it is now a
jungle, and a bird sanctuary for such friends of agriculture as jays,
magpies, pigeons and hawfinches. Ye Quaint Olde house is of course
suitably occupied by a retired Indian Civil Servant and his wife.
Barline (house and buildings) is in the hands of artists, and the land
in a better case than most, being now let to me. Float was sold up two
years ago, and divided according to the usual formula. Glaseneye has
just gone. That isn't the lot, of course; but I won't go through the
list; it's too painful, to me at least. All I want is for you to know
what a mess you've made, and how much better it would have been for the
farmers you used to talk so big about if you'd stayed at Conster and
pulled things round. Don't think I'm cursing you because the landscape
isn't what it was with all this new building. I'm angry because the
farms are ruined, and the land, in Biblical language, is left desolate.
Also because the people of the land, not only the farmers but the farm
hands--the Sindens, Ashdowns, Brotheridges, Beatups, the aristocracy of
this neighbourhood--are turned out of their homes and of their jobs to
make room for townspeople. Some have had to go into the towns (I can
picture you in some pulpit shouting--Back to the land! Back to the
land!), some have taken to tramping the roads, some are hanging on,
living from hand to mouth. I know that agriculture generally is in a bad
way, but I don't think you can blame the slump entirely for all this.

After all, we are near several big seaside towns and have a better
market than many. Also the farms which were never Alard's are in a
better way--extremely shaky, of course, but not overthrown. No, you must
take the blame--for jerry-building Utopia and then going off and leaving
it to fall down. I wish I could do something, but I'm helpless. I
haven't a penny of capital, and it's all I can do to keep my own place
out of the mess. If you had stayed you could have sold a couple of farms
to pay death duties, and carried on with the rest. Between us we could
have saved this neighbourhood from its present desolation. Forgive my
writing like a minor prophet, but I feel like one at the moment--at
least I have an idea that they were a sort of doleful gentry who cried
Woe! Woe! to an indifferent audience. Which is no doubt what I'm doing
now.

                                              Yours sincerely,
                                                         JAMES PARISH.


When he had written his letter and addressed it with malicious care to
the Reverend Sir Gervase Alard, Bart., Thunders Abbey, near Brighton, he
wondered if he had not perhaps been only childishly rude where he had
meant to be impressively candid. Alard would despise his
indignation--think it hysterical. Better perhaps be content with having
let off steam, and put the letter in the fire. But no--some one word of
it might sting or prick or even stab, and on that chance he posted it.

The answer came in a few days.


                                          St. Swithun's Clergy House,
                                                         Shoreditch.

DEAR PARISH,

Thank you for your letter. I am sorry things are so bad down at Leasan,
but you really must not blame me. Everywhere it is the same. I did what
I could to put the neighbourhood on its feet by setting it free, but I
was too late. The squires had kept their grip on the land too long and
it was impossible to revive it. Possibly if it had not been for the
slump, things might have gone better.

You will see by this address that I am no longer at Thunders Abbey. My
order has just taken charge of this poor slum parish, and I am working
on the staff of a big East-end church. If you could see the conditions
here, you would not be so upset by those at Leasan. I shall certainly
shout "Back to the land!" as loud as I can, and am already (in
conjunction with others) forming a scheme for bringing East-Londoners
into the country, to work co-operative farms and land settlements. It
ought to help solve some of your problems as well as mine.

Best greetings to Betsy. How does she like being a Parson's wife?

                                               Yours sincerely,
                                                       GERVASE ALARD.


Jim Parish crushed the letter into a ball and tossed it in the
waste-paper basket.

"So there we are," he said--"that's what we're after now. Utopia number
two--and as fine as the first. 'Till we have built Jerusalem in
England's green and pleasant land' . . . and how much of the green and
pleasant land will that leave, I wonder."



                                  7

In May, Fred Sinden set out for Haffenden Quarter. He was not sorry to
be on the move again, though he had enjoyed his two months at Eyelid. He
would be glad to see Stubberfield, and hear the gossip of the roads.
Also he was beginning to feel hard-up. He had spent all his last
summer's earnings and had not been able to earn much more--it would be a
relief to find himself making two or three pounds every week.

There was a hopeful outlook in the fruit-growing industry; even at
Vinehall and Leasan they had been talking of planting fruit trees next
autumn. Everyone said it was the thing to do--as once long ago they had
said the thing to do was to grow corn, and then to keep stock, and then
to supply milk, and then to keep poultry. Now, with tariffs on foreign
fruit, the thing to do was to grow English fruit for the English
fruit-canning firms. And not only fruit, but vegetables-beans, peas,
tomatoes, asparagus--most of which could be grown on land already
planted with fruit trees. Everybody in England was now eating food out
of tins, even the inhabitants of Vinehall and Leasan, whose tins came
from America, Czecho-Slovakia, France, Switzerland and other foreign
parts. Even Ivy, when she wanted a change from gipsy food and could
afford it, would buy a tin of prawns from the sea coast of Bohemia.
Everywhere the barriers of nationalism were being broken down by the
world's food-canners, and now it was proposed to set them up again and
make a great deal of money.

When Fred arrived at Haffenden he found that another fifty acres had
been added to its territory, and planted with strawberries. At the other
farms of the Cameron circuit he found similar development and expansion.
In his heart he did not altogether approve of this new kind of farming,
but there was an atmosphere of hope about these fruit farms which was
encouraging in its novelty. Not that it extended to smaller farms
outside the ring; here he found conditions very much like those on the
mixed farms of his experience--lack of capital and insufficiency of
markets. In time no doubt farmers of all sorts would realize that, like
other tradesmen, they must combine--that the multiple farms would crush
the single farms as surely as the multiple shops were crushing the
one-man shops. But farmers were still a long way from co-operation, and
something fundamental in Fred would have been disgusted at the idea of
co-operative farming, much as he appreciated the advantages of the
system, as worked by Messrs. Cameron.

The summer passed very much like the one before. The Sindens went mostly
with the Stubberfields, though occasionally they would separate for some
good reason. For Fred now knew his way about the roads and that strange
road life which at first had seemed so baffling. He no longer camped on
forbidden or waterless pitches or wasted time going to farms which did
not employ cart-people. He was remembered, too, at the farms where he
had worked last year, which were glad to have him back, knowing that he
was a good worker and a respectable man. He organized his itinerary as
much as possible with a view to the children's schooling--he would not
have them growing up illiterate gipsy brats, and as far as possible he
would keep within reach of a school. Luckily both Norman and Doris had
by this time a stout pair of legs and their father's pocket was equal to
an occasional bus fare.

That summer, however, was in one sense exceptional in that it brought
Fred the offer of a job--a miserable job, it is true, but nevertheless
something more than a fortnight's picking or a week's haymaking. While
he was working at Flightshot Farm near Horsmonden as an extra hand for
the harvest, he came to know a poultry farmer who owned some twelve
acres or so outside the village. He was in a small way of business, and
could not afford a man to help him, but he had more to do than he could
well manage himself, as his wife was delicate and the mother of two
young children. He had to work a certain amount indoors as well as out,
and he suggested to Fred that he should come on as part-time man at
fourteen shillings a week, with rooms in his own house, which was far
too big for him.

"I know it ain't much of a job, but fourteen shillings is all I can
afford to pay, with the Missus so poorly and the trade not doing too
well with all them Australian eggs on the market. And as for a house,
there ain't one to be had around here for love or money, and you could
have a sitting-room as well as a bedroom and be as cosy as if you was in
your own place. . . . Anyway, you'd be better off than you are now."

The poultry farmer was one of those who thought it a sad and disgraceful
thing for a working man to be wandering round the country like a gipsy.

But Fred and Ivy, after they had talked it over, decided that they would
be worse rather than better off.

"It would take you a month to earn what now we can get between us in a
week."

"I should get it every week."

His first impulse had been to accept the offer, miserable as it was.

"Still I reckon it wouldn't come to so much in the end. And even if
we're not picking we've got our baskets--and the other things."

"We could go on with the baskets and--and--the other things if we were
with Ades."

"No, we couldn't because we shouldn't be moving about. If you're to make
anything out of baskets you've got to move about. The trouble with
baskets is that they last too long, even if you're careful to put the
weak osiers in the middle; once people have bought a basket they don't
want another. You've got to go around looking for fresh people to buy."

"We should be able to send the children regular to school."

"They go pretty regular now. And anyway, what's the use of sending them
to school, poor little dears, if when they come home they've got to keep
as quiet as mice because they're living in another person's house? I can
tell that Mrs. Ades would be fussy about noise, having headaches as she
does, and I know in the end she'd want me to be doing things about the
place--and her husband too, seeing as he has to do them now. They'd
think that as I was using their kitchen to cook my own stuff I might as
well cook theirs. I know that's what it 'ud come to in the end."

Fred thought it highly probable; and he did not like the idea of living
in another man's house. Neither did he care much for poultry farming. He
knew very little about it, his own hens being in Ivy's care and mostly
left to themselves. He didn't believe in all this fuss about
fowls--feeding them as good as humans and housing them better than some
humans . . . and there wasn't much money in it, as there were already
too many people on the job; Ades would soon go bust for certain sure.

"You wait till we get back to Leasan for the hopping," continued
Ivy--"we may hear of something there. I shouldn't mind a part-time job
for you there so much. Everyone's saying that things are going to get
better, and if you were in your own place you'd be one of the first to
be taken on again. It would be a pity if you'd fixed yourself up out
here."

She had used a powerful argument with Fred, who would, however, have
been persuaded against so miserable a job by one of only moderate power.
He told Mr. Ades that he was very much obliged to him, but did not want
to fix himself up so far from home. That seemed the kindest and politest
way out of the matter.

When he told Stubberfield what had happened he received his unqualified
approval.

"You'd have been a fool to take on anything like that. You make more
money doing as you do, even if it ain't so regular. I tell you things
are going to get better. Everyone says they've got to the bottom now.
You wait, and you'll be back in your own job. And if you ain't, what's
the matter with you and me going into the osier trade together?"



                                  8

In September, Fred and Ivy were back to Leasan, in the Wagmary field.
Fred had been inclined to wonder if Mr. Gain would continue to welcome
these returns--he had been prepared to find himself driven to ask the
shelter of some other farm. But the farmer of Eyelid evidently took a
right view of his tenants. He realized that they would do no damage,
also that it would be an advantage to have an able-bodied man like Fred
at hand when wanted for any occasional labour.

"Stay as long as you like," he said--"I've no objections at all to folk
like you. Stay the whole winter if it suits you."

His words dispelled the last of the shadow of Tiffenden. For a long time
the shadow had been growing fainter in Fred's memory, but he was very
glad not to have to go back there, all the same. The Wagmary field would
do very well for winter quarters; it was dry and it was sheltered, and
it was in the country that he still called his own. He would miss
Stubberfield, of course, and for a moment the idea crossed his mind of
asking Mr. Gain if he would let his friend come and camp beside him.
. . . But he remembered the Dalrymples, and realized that there was a
chance of Wagmary becoming another Wagstaffe. Mr. Gain would never stand
for it--he would send the Stubberfields away and the Sindens too. No, he
and Ivy must spend the winter alone, and no doubt they could make
themselves very comfortable.

"After all," he said, "we've got our friends around us."

"And I've got Dad and Mother," said Ivy, in a rare gush of filial
remembrance--"It's scarce more than a mile to them if you go by the
fields."

"It'll be almost as good as being at Float Cottage."

"Just as good, if you ask me. The weather doesn't come in half as bad."

So they settled down for the hop-picking. Afterwards they would go back
into Kent for a month or six weeks, Ivy to sell baskets, and oranges and
bananas (her autumn trade), Fred to lift roots and build clamps on the
big farms. Then they would come back to Eyelid and stay there till the
spring.

They found the neighbourhood of Vinehall and Leasan in a more depressed
condition than the region of the big farms. Political changes had not
brought it the same hopes. It did not grow enough fruit to feel
encouraged by tariffs--even if the great hop smash of '29 had not taught
it that political remedies are often likely to be worse than
agricultural diseases. As for the wheat quota so much arable had lately
been put back to grass that at present it scarcely meant anything to
anybody. The main hope, or rather anxiety, of the neighbourhood was
stock, and the price of that was still rushing downwards, with
apparently nothing to stop it. Season after season farmers had said:
things can't be worse than they are now; and things had inevitably shown
them how much worse they could be.

One evening Fred was sitting at the Queen's Head in a sadly reduced
company--no more than Masters and Mr. Pannell and two men working at
Sempsted who could still pay the price of half a pint--when Mr. Penfold,
the farmer of Jordans, walked in.

He did not often come to the Queen's Head, Jordans being at the far end
of Mr. Parish's estate, and within convenient distance of Rye and its
wider opportunities. But to-day he had been to Vinehall lamb fair and
favoured the Leasan inn rather than the George at Vinehall.

"Good evening all," he said, sitting down with rather a wild look in his
eye.

"Evenun," grunted one or two.

"I've just sold a hundred Kent ewes at Vinehall fair and I'm going to
ask you chaps to help me go a bust on the profits. What'll you have all
round?"

For a moment everyone was too startled to reply. An opinion formed
itself, and grew, that he had already gone a bust at Vinehall.

"What'll you have?" he repeated--"What's yours, Mr. Pannell?"

Mr. Pannell chose a whisky.

"Come on, Sinden, what's yours?"

Fred thought it safer to stick to ale.

"Now, yours, Fuggle--yours, Masters . . ." so it went on till they all
had their full glasses before them, including Mrs. Allwork.

"Your very good health, Mus' Penfold."

"Many thanks. It isn't often I sell stock as I've sold it to-day--a
hundred Kent ewes. . . . Drink up your glasses and we'll have another
round."

The company drank up and another round was set on the tables. It was
years since any one had had so much good liquor inside him and a general
warmth and cheerfulness spread through the bar. At the same time one or
two felt uneasy to see a small tenant farmer spending such a lot of
money.

"How much did you get for them?" asked Mr. Pannell.

"Ah. . . . You'd be surprised if I told you. But it'll pay for the
drinks."

The company sniggered politely.

"I hope there'll be something left over for Mrs. Penfold," rallied Mrs.
Allwork.

"I'm afraid there won't, mum--not when I've paid for the drinks. One
round more and I'll have blewed the lot."

"Eh. . . ."

"I got a shilling each for them, see--a bob each, that's what it came
to--and it cost me ninepence each to get 'em to market. So another round
'ull just about blow all my profit."

The bar was completely silent.

"You'll never tell me," said Masters slowly after a while, "as you only
got a shilling each for Kent ewes."

"I'm telling you that and nothing else. They were store beasts, of
course, and not young, but they weren't so bad. Fatted sheep were going
for eight or nine shillings."

"And nothing more than that?"

"Oh, there was a pen of prime South Downs fetched about forty shillings
each, but they were sent in by Lord Meryvale over by Eastbourne. There's
nothing us poor common farmers sent in fetched more than a few bob."

A sudden astonishing cry broke from Fuggle, the stockman from Sempsted.

"Then in the Lord's name what are we to do?"

"This'll just about finish English farming, I reckon," said Pannell.

"It was finished years ago," said Saunders, the other Sempsted man.

"Every season they said things couldn't get any worse," said Fuggle.

"Seemingly it's better in Kent," said Fred--"leastways on the fruit
farms. Messrs. Cameron made more out of fruit this year than they did
last."

"Fruit--fruit--who wants fruit? We're farmers around here; not
market-gardeners."

"When I began farming," said Mr. Penfold, "I grew corn. It was during
the war and I got ninety shillings a quarter for it. Then after the war
prices dropped to nothing and I gave it up. I kept stock instead and got
good prices for that till 1928 or thereabouts; I'd get forty pounds for
a steer, and forty shillings for a Kent ewe--same as I've sold for a
shilling to-day."

"If you ask me," said Fuggle, "it all comes of paying members of
Parliament."

"It comes of paying parsons," said Mr. Pannell. "If only the farmers
could have back all the tithe they've shelled out in the last ten years
they could manage now."

"Stands to reason," said Saunders.

"What's the parson to live on?" asked Masters. "Private means, of
course, like the chap at Vinehall. Every parson should have enough money
to keep himself and not come down on the farmers to keep him."

"Well, I'm a tenant farmer," said Penfold, "and it's up to my landlord
to keep the parson, which I reckon he won't mind doing, seeing as he's
his brother-in-law. But I've got to pay my rent, and I can't do that if
things get any worse."

"Come now, Mr. Penfold," interposed Mrs. Allwork. "Don't be so
downhearted. I reckon the time's truly come when we can say things can't
get any worse. You can't sell a sheep for less than a shilling."

"Can't you, ma'am?--you can let 'em go for nothing. That'll be the next
thing."

"Or pay the other chap to take 'em."

"I don't believe it. I believe things really are at the bottom now. This
has proved it. Mark my words, we'll be better off from this time
onward."

"Well, I trust you're right and I'm wrong. Let's drink to better times,
anyway. I promised you chaps another round. What's yours, everybody?
. . . the same again? . . . The same again, Mrs. Allwork, and we'll
drink to better times."

"That's it," said Masters--"better times--eighteen pence each for our
sheep."

"Eighteen pence, eighteen pence. . . . When I was young and had no sense
I sold my sheep for eighteen pence," sang Mr. Pannell whom three whiskys
had made merry.

They were all feeling rather merry now; they had forgotten the gloomy
words they had just spoken. Someone put a record on the gramophone
"Happy days are here again," and they all drank to their host's good
health and to better times.

"Nothing but tenant farmers!"

"Big landlords back again!"

"Wheat at ninety shillings a quarter!"

"Fat sheep at five pounds each!"

"No tithe for parsons!"

"No pay for members of parliament!"

"Beer back to twopence a pint!"

So they capped each other, feeling comfortable and rather muzzy; while
the gramophone played "Happy days are here again," till they almost
believed it.



                                 1933

                                  1

The winter came and passed over Vinehall and Leasan without, apparently,
bringing those happy days much nearer. A slightly larger acreage went
under the plough, as certain farmers responded slowly to the stimulation
of the Wheat Act. A still larger acreage felt the warmth of good tidings
from Kent, and was planted with fruit. The prices of stock rose slightly
but decidedly. Yet to balance these improvements an adverse wind blew
from the financial world, a squall unexpectedly stirred up by the
Government's thrifty measures of the spring.

While impoverished spinsters with five hundred pounds in five-per-cent.
War Loan sank willingly to three-and-a-half per cent. for their
country's good, certain bigger investors of the profits of local trade
did not see why they should lose so much money. Have the money out and
invest it in land. That was the thing to do now; no investment was
really safe except land. Land could still be bought cheap and sold dear.
Agricultural land could be bought at from five to ten pounds an acre and
re-sold at an average price of three times that amount. A great land
gamble started. Farmers who hitherto had kept out of auction found
themselves approached from Hastings and Bulverhythe with offers for
their farms. Dazzled by such an extraordinary turn of affairs, they
quickly succumbed.

Sempsted, hitherto regarded as the most solid farm of the district, was
sold to a Hastings syndicate for two thousand pounds. The house, with
six acres, was resold for twelve hundred. The two labourers' cottages
were made into one and sold with fifteen acres for a thousand. The rest
of the land was divided into strips running back from roadside building
sites and sold at from a hundred and fifty to four hundred the strip,
according to the quality of the land.

Towards the end of the winter rumour said that Fourhouses had gone the
way of Sempsted and other farms. It proved to be not strictly true, as
Godfrey had parted only with the Snailham half of his land, but everyone
knew that the sale of half Fourhouses was a more revolutionary and
subversive thing than the sale of the whole of Sempsted. The rot had now
spread beyond the Alard farms. It was not only Gervase Alard's
twopenny-halfpenny yeomen that were falling down like ninepins, it was
the genuine long-established prototype of these. It is true that he was
consenting to his own fall, but even the temptation of ready money would
not have moved him if his foundations had not been already shaken. He
could have scoffed at such an offer for his yeoman pride; but now
throughout the land that pride was being emptied, and he was only too
glad to take what he could get for it.

There was, in fact, only one man in the district who scoffed at such a
temptation. Jim Parish could not afford to do so any better than others,
but he had the pleasure of refusing an offer for Stonelink in as
insulting language as was compatible with the laws of libel and slander.
He was a little surprised at the turn affairs had taken. At the
beginning of the winter he had been, like many others, prepared to hope
if given enough encouragement; but this was a new attack from an
unexpected quarter.

"This knocks us flat," he said to Jenny Godfrey, "and what is more, it
keeps us down."

She was paying one of her rare visits to Cock Marling. He had met her in
the road, on her way back from the village with her shopping, and he had
persuaded her to come and have tea with him, promising to run her home
in his car in time for the usual farmhouse meal.

"I hardly see anything of you now, Jenny, and I particularly want to see
you to-day and hear what you think about this dreadful thing."

"What dreadful thing?"

"This new form of agricultural calamity--this bourgeois gamble, with our
fields for counters. I hear they've got Godfrey into it."

"They offered him seventeen hundred for the Snailham land--it was far
too good to refuse."

"I've just refused fifteen hundred for Stonelink."

"Good, virtuous squire! But you haven't got a wife and children to
support."

"No; and if I had I'd have jumped at it-you're telling me that. I don't
believe you."

"You needn't, for I'm not telling you anything of the kind. I'm quite
convinced that if you had a wife and a dozen children you'd have done
just the same. You'd have seen them starve rather than part with a
two-acre field. Fortunately Ben isn't like that."

"But he's being penny wise, my dear. The Snailham land is some of the
best land in this country, and he'd only got to hang on to it. He's not
sunk and broke like those other poor devils."

"He's pretty hard hit, and the children are growing up, you know, and
costing us a lot in education. Do you mind if I take off my hat?"

She lifted her arm and took it off with a kind of weary flourish,
handing it to him to put on a chair. He did not know much about women's
clothes, but he knew enough to tell him that this was not a happy or
fortunate hat. It was faded, a depressed purplish colour, and old
fashioned, with a high, awkward crown. Of course Jenny had not known
that she was going to meet a friend and be asked out to tea, but the
Jenny Alard of years ago would never have worn such a thing, even to
scramble about the fields. In its shapeless lines he seemed to read the
elegy of that fine, high-stepping creature.

He put it on a chair almost tenderly, his pity stirred. Looking back he
saw that it had dug a line across her forehead, the fillet of a purple
bruise, on either side of which her hair flopped greying.

"My dear," he said gently, "I'm sorry you're having such a hard time."

"You needn't be sorry for me. It's been rather a struggle, but thank
heaven it's over now. That seventeen hundred pounds will make things
pretty comfortable for us."

"You really think so?"

"I do. I know you regard it as the wages of sin, but to me it would have
been much more sinful to make the children suffer for the land, as we
all were made to suffer when we were children. It's my own people, the
landed gentry, who've taught me to hate the land."

"It's as bad as that, is it?"

"Yes--I don't want to have a big place that we can't manage. I'm glad
half of it's gone."

"And you don't care what becomes of it. You won't mind seeing the arable
fields your husband spent so much time and money on going back to grass,
becoming a mass of thistles?"

"No; I'd rather see shabby fields than shabby children."

"But think of other people's children, my child. Think of what'll happen
to the men you'll turn away--will they get another job? or will they go
into the town? or will they live like gipsies in a caravan, like Fred
Sinden?"

"You talk as if we had an army of men. As a matter of fact we've only
got Beeney and Apps. Fred will keep on Beeney, as now he's sold Snailham
he'll probably be able to put some more of our Icklesham land under the
plough. Apps is a single man, so his children don't come into it."

"I'm sorry for Apps all the same."

"So am I, but I can't put him before my own people."

"No, but what I'm trying to explain to you is that you're taking rather
a short-sighted view of your own people's welfare. There's bound to be
an agricultural revival some day."

"When we're all broke, or dead."

"No, before that. I now really believe it's coming. Prices are going up,
tariffs are helping home production, the Wheat Quota Act allows us to
grow wheat without an actual loss. . . . I prophesy that things are
going to improve. But what use'll that be to us if we've sold all our
land to the townsmen?--if all our best, road-served fields are strewn
with bungalows and villas and petrol-stations? You can't farm land in
rags and bits, and soon there'll only be rags and bits left--here a
little and there a little, as the Scripture says. No agricultural
revival will be any use to us when we get into that state. Even your
brother Gervase won't be able to establish his Back to the Land colony
of Eastenders--there won't be any land to go back to. My only
satisfaction will be in telling him it's his own fault."

"Which, if I know you, Jim, will comfort you quite a lot. Anyway, you'll
be all right. You'll be able to take advantage of anything that's going
in the way of revivals."

"But I'll have to look at other people's messes."

"You won't mind that--you'll be able to feel superior."

"Don't be so unkind to me, Jenny. You loved me once."

"Yes, Jim, and in a way I love you still. But every year I grow gladder
that I didn't marry you."

"And every year I grow gladder too. We're an ideal unmarried couple."

"Well, I mustn't stay any longer now. I must get back in time for
everyone's tea. Will you give me my hat, please Jim."

He fetched it for her, then as he watched her set its ruin on her
greying hair, he took his last opportunity and kissed her.

"Don't do that. You mustn't do that."

She rammed the hat down on her head to stop the sudden trembling of her
hands; for his kiss was alive, though he himself was only a dream.

"I've done it, my dear, and it can't be undone. But I'm sorry--I won't
do it again."

"We shan't be the ideal unmarried couple if you kiss me."

"I'm not so sure of that. But I promise I won't."

As he drove her home he wondered what had made him kiss her. He had not
kissed her for twelve or thirteen years, nor had he ever particularly
wanted to. What had made him suddenly do so now? He thought it must have
been her hat.



                                  2

Spring came, April and May, bringing gifts to the just and the
unjust--to the delicate green tips of the wheat that showed above the
furrows, to the young snow bloom of the orchards, to the green fire of
the refreshed pastures; and also to the sour springings of dock and
thistle, to the harsh prickliness of brambles and the bane of nettles,
to the toughness of the swart couch grass.

Fred Sinden had left the Wagmary field in March, and May saw him in the
flat, green shaggy country beyond Ashford, farther than he had ever
wandered before. He found growing in himself a reluctance to stay in one
spot--he had cut short his winter and wandered away before the air was
warm or the days were long. Now he was exploring the marshes of the
Medway, in a country that looked strange, and enticed by its very
strangeness.

"Reckon we can go where we like," he said to Ivy. "Ginger's a different
horse these days and ull take us anywhere we want to go."

"Till he falls down dead."

"He won't do that--he'll be with us for years yet; he's a good old
horse," and he caressed the mangy yellow head that for two years now had
almost been to him what Flossie and Soldier and Sorrel used to be.

He was a dog-owner too, these days, having bought a puppy for half a
crown at a farm near Bethersden. It would be a good thing to have a
watch-dog for the caravan when they were all away--he and Ivy at the
fruit-picking and the children at school, or he and Stubberfield down at
the osier beds, and Ivy going round with Sue, selling baskets and
clothes-pegs and tape and ribbon and lace and reels of cotton. She often
did this now, and he had grown used to it, though at first it had made
him uneasy. Sometimes she would bring home quite a lot of money, and she
and Sue would laugh a great deal about it--he never asked them why.

The summer passed as usual, fruit-picking, haymaking, harvesting, osier
gathering and basket-making, peddling round the farms. Perhaps there was
more trade and less work than there had been in other summers. The
children also did not go to school so much as the summer before, for
their parents wandered more and it was difficult to arrange for their
attendance. After all, they would go to school at Leasan all the winter.
Little Clarence was old enough to go now, and Fred was only waiting for
their return to the Wagmary field to send him for the first time.

They were back early in September for the hop-picking, and the first
piece of news they heard was the death of Mrs. Parish of Cock Marling
Place. Mrs. Crouch brought it, calling to see her daughter on the
evening of her arrival. They were all sitting in the warm twilight round
a flavourous supper of stewed moorhen, a novelty for Mrs. Crouch, who
was surprised to find it so tasty.

"Which reminds me," she said suddenly, "that they've buried Mrs.
Parish."

"Buried her?"

"Yes; Tuesday morning. She died up in London, but she was buried down
here, which I call a tur'ble waste of money."

"Reckon she wants to lay beside her husband," said Ivy.

"I can't see that's much use to her now; anyway it ain't worth all the
cost of bringing her down from London. When I dies, Ivy, you can lay me
where I fall; I don't want to have my body-corpse bumping around in
motor-cars. Oh, you should have seen 'em . . . there was one full of
nothing but flowers, and another with young Ronald in it, looking as
black as death, which is only right and natural."

"Mr. Jim Parish ull be upset," said Fred.

"I don't see why he should be," said Ivy, "seeing how she was scarcely
ever at home."

"But you feel it when they're dead, even if you didn't take any
particular count of them when they were alive."

Their eyes met, as they both remembered how they had once sat making
love in a dead man's chair.



                                  3

Making love in a dead man's chair. . . . Crying and singing and praying
for joy because your mother is dead and has left you ten thousand
pounds. There was not much difference between Fred and Ivy on the day of
old Sinden's funeral and Jim Parish on the day of his mother's. Ten
thousand pounds. . . . Capital--ready money. . . . He could put Cock
Marling and all its farms on their feet again, now, just when hope was
dawning for agriculture. He could take advantage of all those tariffs,
Wheat Acts, Agricultural Acts, Marketing Boards, which for months had
mocked his poverty with their promises. All he had needed was
capital--to launch out with, to build with, to repair with, to drain
with, to plant with, to sow with, to stock with. Thank God! thank
God!--and he had not sold an acre. Thank God! He had kept his land
inviolate, whole and complete . . . two thousand acres . . . ten
thousand pounds. . . . Poor little mother whose life was fretted out in
a series of little runs and dartings here and there . . . so sweet and
so unkind, so dense and so intelligent . . . he would cry for her some
day, but at present he could not help knowing that he had loved her only
a little and that her death had set him free. It had surprised him, and
shocked him, but only for a moment, for in a moment he had remembered
that some of her money must come to him--only some, and he had not
expected so much; he had expected only a fourth share, and here she was
giving him half of it--dear little mother! He had never loved her so
much as he loved her now, even though his heart was dancing for joy on
the day of her funeral.

The others were not so happy. None of them had ever loved her in any
real sense--they had known too well that she had been glad to escape
from them all, that their father's death had released her into a life of
her own, and that she had joyfully run away into it and shut them out of
it. But they had not expected her to leave more than half her money to
Jim--it did not seem fair. Jim had Cock Marling. Now he had ten thousand
pounds as well, and the others only three thousand each--Ronald out of a
job again, and Vernon with all his future to make, and Betsy expecting
her first child. It did not seem fair.

Only Ronald and Betsy were at the funeral. Vernon was still away on his
Arctic adventure, beyond the reach of tidings. He did not even know his
mother was dead; perhaps he would not mind very much when he heard he
had been left so little. Ronald minded--bitterly. If Mother had divided
her money equally, he would have had nearly five thousand pounds--two
hundred and fifty a year, enough to keep him in any strait of
unemployment. Now he would still have to come down and stay with Jim
when he was out of work, and struggle and search and not be too
particular. Or perhaps he could live on his capital till he had found
something that really suited him . . . that seemed a more comfortable
plan, if a more dangerous one, and it cheered him up a little.

"Would you like to stay here and help me manage the place?" suggested
Jim. "There ought to be a lot of work soon, and I'd be glad of someone
to help me. In time, when you'd learned the way of things, you might be
my Agent if you wanted."

"Thanks. I'd rather be dead," said Ronald briefly.

Jim felt hurt, for he had had an idea that he was being generous.

Betsy was not so black and bitter. After all, she was comfortably off as
John Brady's wife and ought really to be satisfied with three thousand
pounds, as she already had money of her own. But she thought her mother
should have considered the baby; she had known it was coming and she
should have considered it, instead of leaving such a lot of money to
Jim, who would blow it all on his lousy land, so that there would be
nothing left for any inheriting niece or nephew. It was unaccountable,
too, as Mother had never appeared to care more for Jim than for the
others. Probably when it came to a solemn business like making her will,
she had gone all county about it, and thought of the Family Estate and
the Rights of the Eldest Son.

But it did not really matter to Betsy. Not only had she enough money,
but she was now at last independent of money--she had a life apart from
it. She no longer needed it to take her up and down and to and fro and
round and round, for her life was no longer a search. She had not found
what she was seeking--she did not even know what she had been
seeking--but she had found something worth having, so that she could sit
down and be satisfied with it.

Besides, John Brady had taught her a new simplicity of life, a pleasure
in little things, in slight interests and small spendings. He was
well-to-do, and enjoyedor rather had not imagined life without--certain
stereotyped comforts. But he had no extravagances, no dissipations; and
mysteriously she found herself liking what he liked, content with what
contented him.

Sometimes she was amazed at herself, and amused. She did not seem to be
the same woman who had been so inexpressibly bored by the piddling
activities of country life. Here she was like Jane Austen's clergywoman,
busy with her household, her parish and her poultry--with only an
occasional nip of the old spice, when she crushed Rose Alard on some
committee meeting. Here she was doing her weekly shopping in Hastings,
joined the crowd in Woolworth's, making little purchases, feeling a kind
of comradeship with all those other women spending in sixpences. . . .
Then across the road to Plummers and more serious buying, fingering
stuffs (she hardly ever went to London now)--sitting at last among the
other women, with all her parcels round her, over tea and a scone in the
restaurant. . . . Hurrying out on the lamplit pavement, looking eagerly
round her . . . the joy and relief of seeing him, standing beside his
car--come to fetch her home. He would be full of something that had
stirred his indignation, boiling with it, pouring it out to her almost
without a greeting . . . "Elisabeth, do you know? . . . can you imagine?
. . . can you beat it? . . ." She would smile and listen and sympathize,
only half-hearing him, but loving him for his very fanaticism, because
it was himself. But it was her eyes and her hands that loved him rather
than her ears.

Driving home beside him through the dusk, she would detach herself from
his hurrying voice and take a curious, sharp savour from memory, seeing
herself as she was once and as she was now. The past seemed far away,
but very clear. There was nothing dreamlike about it; on the contrary,
it was the present that was the dream, and the real, waking Betsy who
had roved and searched and suffered years ago. Now she was a girl in a
dream; but it was a happy dream and she prayed that she might never
awake. A sleep from which you never awake is death, and many who had
known her in the past would now call her dead. It is only the dead who
know how happily they dream.



                                  4

Jim Parish walked down to the end of his garden, looking out between the
fir trees over the Tillingham valley--"The valleys stand so thick with
corn that they shall laugh and sing." He would grow corn down to the
river now--he would reclaim those profitless snapes; as for the
pastures--yes, he would dare his fate and break up grass. He would get
the land into condition, clean it and manure it--some of it might
require salting. . . . He would grow fruit too--he really thought there
was a future for English fruit--canning and English fruit-growing; and
he would grow hops--those vanished bowers should return.

The signs of change and corruption that for years had disquieted him,
seemed to have lost their evil meaning. The scattered geranium tints of
new roofs amidst the green, the black, tarry streaks of the roads, the
orange flowering of petrol pumps beside them, the scarred, bewildered
faces of oasts made newly quaint by human habitation, now appeared to
him dredged of all significance. They were a mere palimpsest upon the
unchanging manuscript of the earth--under their fading, transient scrawl
were all the mysteries of summer and winter, seed-time and harvest,
unchanged and unchangeable. The rainbow of his new hope now stood over
the Tillingham valley, where he had so often seen the actual portent
stand, striping the woods into unearthly colours.

He saw himself the Squire of a model estate--farming scientifically by
modern methods, keeping his farms and buildings in repair, employing an
army of Sussex labouring men. In the end he would make money and the
vanished glory of the Squires would return. In the midst of all the
Alard wreckage there would be two thousand uncorrupted acres and a Manor
where the Squire dwelt in Hanoverian liberality and prosperity. He saw
himself sitting at his table, over his wine, talking to his guests about
enclosures, plantations, ploughs and pedigree cattle, or alternatively
exchanging learning and wit with some modern Warburton or Burke or
Chesterfield. . . . He saw Betsy's son, his heir, come in for the
dessert, when the cloth had been removed from the polished walnut table,
and fruit from his greenhouses stood heaped between the decanters. . . .
The dream was so powerful that he actually saw John Brady drinking port.

With an effort he dragged himself out of this sweet brew of past and
future, into the present and its immediate cares. He walked slowly away
from his view over the valley, towards the barns where George Bates was
busy tarring the wooden walls of a new shed.

"Hullo George! still at it?"

"Reckon it wants two coats--I'll be at it another three days yet."

"Never mind. I'll soon have got someone to help you--then we'll get
along like lightning. There's a chap called Ashdown who used to work for
Snashall, but who's stood off now. I'll take him on as estate carpenter
and builder. We want somebody experienced in that line."

"Reckon we'll manage better by ourselves."

"Oh, come now, we could do with a bit of help. Then we can tackle all
the repairs and rebuildings. There's a lot to be done."

"That chap Ashdown will be too grand for us."

"Not he! He's just a farm-labourer--he used to work at Float."

"He's a bricklayer now and getting the dole. He'll be too grand for us."

"Well, he needn't come to us if he doesn't want to--but I'd like to ask
him. I want to get hold of all the out-of-work farm-hands around here
and put them on the land again. I shall build cottages for them. . . ."

"It'll cost us a lot."

"Well, we can afford it. Don't be so captious, George. We're rich
now--we needn't worry over what we spend."

"At that rate we'll soon have spent it."

"Stop croaking, George, and I'll tell you some more things that I'm
going to do. I'm going to grow fruit for the English market."

"And where will you grow it?"

"In the twelve acre field down by Nightingale Shaw--it's nice and
sheltered there; and in those two fields along the bottom."

"Surelie you'd never break up grass!"

"Yes-acres and acres of it. Now do you want to leave me?"

George was silent.

"I don't want to leave you," he said at last, "but maybe I shall have to
if we're broke and sold up."

"We shan't be broke and sold up. There's an agricultural revival coming,
as I've told you a hundred times, and we're lucky in being able to take
advantage of it. I shall grow fruit and hops, and at least another fifty
acres more corn. And another thing I'm going to do--I'll take Fred
Sinden on as ploughman. Hodd won't be able to manage it all himself.
That's another man I shall be glad to get back on the land."

"Fred Sinden! He's no better than a gipsy."

"George, you're really too provoking. I'm sick of having cold water
poured on all my best ideas. I shall engage Sinden. He's a very decent
chap--I like him, and it's not his fault he's living in a caravan. He's
had a rotten time, and I'm glad to be of use to him."

"You won't be any use to him, Sir, nor he to you."

"What do you mean? He's a fine ploughman."

"He was."

"You don't forget that sort of thing. His heart was in it and it nearly
broke him to have to give it up. I'll be proud and glad to get him on
the land again."

"Reckon he won't come."

"Of course he'll come. He's mad anxious to be back."

"Maybe he was once, but it's got him now."

"What's got him?"

"The lazy, bad sort of life he's leading. He don't care for work--he's
all for picking osiers and selling baskets with that pikey chap
Stubberfield, and if he does a fortnight's picking at the farms he feels
it's enough. Maybe he was all right once, but I tell you it's too late
now to do anything for him. He's just a diddicoy."

It was obvious that for George Bates no rainbow stood across the
Tillingham.



                                  5

Evening had come to the Wagmary field. The picking was over for the day,
and Fred and Ivy rested in their caravan--she stretched upon the rosy
counterpane of the great bed that filled almost half of it, he sitting
in the swamp of sunset that poured through the little window and made
the brasses of stove and bed and locker shine like so many more suns.
The children were playing outside with the dog, and their voices seemed
to come from a great way off to Ivy as she lay and listened to Fred
reading. He sometimes read the newspaper to her in the evenings while
she rested like this. His voice was a part of her rest, flowing against
the background of the children's small cries hesitating at the snags of
unaccustomed words, then drawling on again, peaceful and expressionless
as a brook.

"The _Carania_ has now finished refitting for the luxury world cruise
that is to take her away till the spring. Passengers will have all the
advantages of a first-class hotel combined with the ay-menities of a
smart sports club. The dining-room is in Louis Quince style, with walnut
panelling and fres-fres-coos after Bowcher. There are three hundred
cabins, each complete with a bathroom which is the last word in luxury
on land or sea. Everywhere is marble and shining taps; there are taps
for fresh and salt water as well as for the accustomed hot and cold. The
first cabin I visited was eighteen feet by sixteen and panelled in
pear-wood. The built-in furniture is also of pear-wood, up-uphol-stered
in deldelph-in-ium blue. There was a sump-tu-osely fitted lav-a-tory
basin, and the twin beds were covered with gold and blue quilts, and
each provided with a pillow--a billow--billowy ee-ey-der-down in
delphinium blue. Another cabin----"

He stopped and licked his finger to turn the page.

"I shouldn't like us to sleep in twin beds," murmured Ivy. "I like a
double bed. I'm glad we don't have to sleep in twin beds, you and I."

"Had buttercups hanging--buttercup hangings--against walls of pink pine,
and the twin beds----"

"Mum--Mum----"

A tousled, sun-bleached head appeared in the doorway.

"What is it, dear?"

"The postman's coming."

"What!"

Ivy sat up. The postman's visits were rare to the Wagmary field. What
was he bringing? a letter from Stubberfield, changing their place of
meeting? Or had the ticket of which Fred had bought a twentieth share
drawn a horse in the Irish Sweep? Or was mother ill and asking Ivy to
come and see her? To Fred and Ivy a letter had all the portentousness of
a telegram in more exalted circles. Ivy felt sure that something
tremendous had happened, either for weal or woe.

"What is it, Fred? Ask him what it is?"

"He doesn't know. How can he? Good evening, George. So you've brought us
a letter."

"Well, you've got a letter-box, so I thought you might as well have a
letter in it now and then," said the postman.

"Give it to me," said Fred. "I'll take it."

"It's meant for you; it's from Mr. Parish."

"You don't say so! I wonder what he's writing about."

"I can't tell you that. But I know his writing uncommon well by this
time. It's queer writing, if you ask me; more like printing than
writing--the sort of printing you get in old books."

"Well, it's easy to read, anyway:

                            _'Mr. F. Sinden,
                                 Caravan at Eyelid Farm,
                                        Leasan.'"_


"Lucky I knew where you were, or I'd have wasted my time going up to the
farm with it. I've walked far enough as it is. Hope you don't get
another to-morrow."

"Not likely," said Fred. "Good evening, and thank you, George."

"Good evening."

The postman trudged away, and Fred opened the letter. It was only a few
lines, asking him to call on the writer as soon as possible.

"What can he want you for?" asked Ivy, who had been reading over his
shoulder.

"I'm sure I don't know."

"It's queer of him writing you a letter when he could have come himself
or sent word."

"Maybe he's busy, and can't spare the time. They were saying at the
Queen's Head as Mrs. Parish has left him a great lot of money."

"Then of course he can afford the stamp. I wonder what he wants to see
you for."

"Maybe he's got a job for me."

"I shouldn't think that was likely."

"Well, he's certain sure to spend his money on the farm, and he always
said he'd think of me if there was anything going."

"Oh, Fred. . . ."

"I'd better go up at once. He's pretty sure to be at home now."

"Come and make yourself tidy, then. You can't go like that."

"You're right, Missus. You fetch me a pail of water, and I'll have a
wash."



                                  6

Fred found Mr. Parish in his estate office, surrounded by maps and bills
and dust. There was no outward change in the room since he had last seen
it, except perhaps a greater disorder. But even his not very perceptive
soul must be aware of a changed atmosphere, of hope and purpose
radiating from the shabby desk, where, almost engulfed in litter, the
master of the estate sat writing away as if for his very living.

"Hullo, Fred? Did you get my letter?"

There was an eager look in his prominent blue eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Parish. I came up straight along."

"Good man. I didn't expect you so soon, but the sooner the better. Sit
down and have a cigarette. There they are--under the _Farmer and
Stockbreeder_. I'm just finishing this letter to Selmes--I'll be ready
in a minute."

Fred smoked and watched him. He was like a boy, smiling and scribbling
away--though his hair was thinner than ever on top. The day was
darkening, dimming round a single star that hung in the high window,
above a clump of fir trees. Parish put out a hand as he wrote, and
switched on the light.

"There, that's done. A Fordson tractor, Fred. I'm buying a tractor."

"I reckon it'll be useful."

"I reckon it will. I suppose you've heard that my mother left me ten
thousand pounds?"

Ten thousand pounds was a miserable sum compared to what Fred had heard
of Mrs. Parish's legacy; but the Queen's Head was given to
over-statement.

"And I'm going to spend it on putting this place to rights. I'm going to
make a model farm of it. I shall need a lot more men"--his eyes played
happily over Sinden's inexpressive face--"I shall need a new ploughman."

"What about Hodd, Sir?"

"There'll be far too much for him to do--with all the horses and the
machinery. I'm going to buy a lot of machinery, Fred. Do you think you
could manage it?"

"Well, I un't never had much to do with machines."

"But you'd soon learn--you're a young man, you know, and brought up in a
mechanical age. You'd soon get the hang of things. After all, the
principle's the same--the basic idea of ploughing. And I shall keep one
horse plough and team."

"Then I reckon you mean to break up grass."

"Yes; George Bates is terribly shocked. But I shall do it. After all, a
lot of the grass was arable not so very long ago. I shall simply be
putting things back to what they used to be, with some additional land,
of course. I shall drain all the marsh land properly, and I believe it
would bear fine crops."

"What do you think of growing?"

"Wheat mostly; also oats and a little barley. I shall plant some more
hops, and I shall put in fruit trees."

Fred was silent. He felt a little bewildered--he, Fred, a ploughman
again . . . tractors, machinery . . . breaking up grass.

"And I don't think I'll lose my money, either," continued Parish--"I
really do believe that things are looking up again, and with ten
thousand pounds capital I shall get a good start. Of course I _may_ lose
the money, but I'm determined to have a damn good run for it first. I
simply must do something to stop the rot--this dreadful suburbanization
of our country. The Alard estate is smashed up too small to recover; but
Cock Marling isn't smashed at all--it's only starved, and wants feeding.
I shall be giving employment, too--stopping another rot. I've just
written to that pal of yours, Ashdown, and asked him how he'd like to
come on as Estate builder."

"Ashdown--I reckon he'll be pleased."

"And so will you, won't you?"

"Surelie, Mr. Parish. It's a fine thing for me. And Ivy too. . . . But
what about a house?"

"I'm going to build a house for you, Fred--two houses to be exact. I
shall put up two semi-detached five-roomed cottages at the end of Dixey
Lane. Breeds is sending the plans to-morrow."

Fred was silent, trying to imagine two cottages at the end of Dixey
Lane.

"And your wages," said Parish--"I should have told you about your
wages--but my head's so full of so many things at once. Two pounds a
week and three bob for the cottage. How does that suit you?"

"Reckon that suits me fine."

He felt as if he was in a dream. Somehow he could not feel as if things
were really happening. A ploughman again . . . how long was it since his
hand had been on a plough? It must be seven or eight years, and four or
five since he'd had a regular job--and nearly three since he'd lived in
a house. A house with five rooms, semi-detached, at the bottom of Dixey
Lane. . . . The dream-feeling seemed to grow. . . . He looked quickly
round him, at the untidy room and the high window and the single star,
impressing on himself that he was awake.

Mr. Parish was talking.

"Then, Fred, you can start as soon as you like. It'll soon be time for
the autumn ploughing and I'm all for winter-sown crops. Of course your
house won't be ready, but you've lived so long in a caravan that you
probably won't mind living there a bit longer. I'll have your place
ready for you by the winter, I promise you."

"Thank you very much, Sir. I'll talk to Ivy about it."

He scarcely knew why he had said that. Mr. Parish seemed surprised.

"You're going to ask her first, before you decide?"

"Well, I may as well have a word with her, like. She wouldn't be pleased
if I fixed it all without telling her."

"Er--um--perhaps you're right. I'm not a married man, so I don't
understand these things as well as you."

"I reckon Ivy will be wunnerful glad about it all," said Fred hastily,
feeling that perhaps he had seemed ungracious.

"I reckon she will too. She'll be glad to have a house of her own again.
Five rooms, Fred--five good rooms. And I expect I'll be able to let you
have electric light. Dixey Lane's only two hundred yards from the
posts--it wouldn't cost much to bring it to you. I shall have
electricity wherever I can manage it, put it in the barns, and use it
for sawing and pumping as much as possible. We may as well get some good
out of this beastly grid-system, besides a few shillings for way-leave,
which is all I've had out of them yet."



                                  7

It was quite dark when Fred came back to the Wagmary field. A reddish
light guided him down the steep slope of knotty grass, wet with dew, and
soon the little dog was barking loudly at his approach, and Ivy was
dishing up his supper in the caravan, where the children were already
asleep in their hammocks--even Clarence slept in a hammock now, having
grown too big and restless for his parents' bed. The inside of the
caravan was hot and stifling with the fumes of the stove, and so crowded
that it was difficult to move about. But the children slept peacefully
through everything, as the last three years had taught them to do.

"Well, Missus," said Fred, kissing her--"how would you like a house with
five rooms in it?"

"I shouldn't like it at all. What should we do with five rooms?"

"Live in 'em, of course. Have one bedroom for ourselves and two for the
children, and a kitchen and a parlour--and all with electric light. Mr.
Parish said he'd give it to us."

"You've got a job, then?"

"Yes. He's offered me two pounds a week to come to him as ploughman."

"Two pounds! . . . and a house?"

"At three shillun a week. He's building one for us, with five rooms and
electric light. He's going to build two semi-detached cottages at the
end of Dixey Lane."

"Semi-detached! Oh, Fred, I shan't like that!--it'll be nearly as bad as
living in the same house as other people."

"I own I'd have liked 'em better separate, but I reckon it's cheaper to
build together. Maybe we'll have a nice sort of people next door to us."

"And maybe we won't. Finish your supper, Fred, and come to bed quick. We
can talk better there. I want you to tell me some more."

It was nine o'clock, and generally they were in bed before that. When
you live in a caravan there's no comfort or sense in sitting up after
dark. Soon they were lying together under the rosy coverlet, now
patterned in black and white with shadows and moonshine. The lamp was
out, and a gibbous half-moon filled the little window. They could see
each other's faces quite clearly.

"Tell me some more, dear. Is he really asking you to be ploughman?
What's to become of Hodd?"

"Hodd's to stay on and be carter. There'll be more ploughing, Mus'
Parish says, than what one man can manage with the horses."

"And will you be under Hodd?"

"I shouldn't think so. But I don't rightly know--I never thought of
asking."

"I reckon you'll be under Hodd. He's an older man than you and he's been
there sixteen years."

"I thought we'd manage separate--but I should ought to have asked . . .
there's going to be a lot of machinery. He asked me if I could do with
machinery."

"And what did you say?"

"I said I'd never had nun to do with machinery, and then he said he
reckoned I'd soon learn."

"Reckon you would. Most men understand machinery nowadays."

"Maybe; but I don't like it. I can't think how it would be to plough by
machinery . . . I used to think as much of the horses as of the
ploughing. Howsumever, he said he'd keep one horse plough and team
going."

"But Hodd is to be carter."

"So he is. I'd forgotten that."

He found something rather disconcerting in the way Ivy was spreading out
the lump of Mr. Parish's offer, showing him all the things that he
hadn't seen and that he didn't much like the look of now that he saw
them.

"It's a good job," he said, stiffening.

"A very good job, dear--two pounds a week. We shall be rich."

"But I shall miss Ginger."

"And I shall miss the caravan. Do you know, Fred, I've grown quite fond
of it? I didn't like it when I first came to live in it, but now I like
it better than living in a house. It's so easy to keep clean and we all
fit in so cosy."

"Reckon it'll be a bit too close in a few years' time when the children
are older."

"We could buy a tent for them, then. You can buy a tent quite cheap."

"I shan't buy no tent. I shall be living in a five-roomed house. I think
better of that house than you do, even though it's semi-detached. The
only thing I'd like a caravan better for is that you can move it about."

"Yes; it's nice moving about. . . . Shall you go to Witsunden and meet
Stubberfield before you go to Mr. Parish?"

"Surelie. Mr. Parish wants me to start at once--he says we can live as
we are till the house is ready--but I must take a week off and go and
see Stubberfield first."

"He'll be sorry at your leaving him."

"Reckon he will."

"And Sue will be sorry not to have me to go about with."

"I shan't, then! I never held with you going about so much with Sue."

"You held with the money we brought home."

"Maybe, but Sue's a gipsy--she un't like Stubberfield."

"Sue's no gipsy--they've nothing of that sort in the family nearer than
her grandmother. And talking of that, the old Dalryrmples are going into
Maidstone workhouse this winter; they're old enough to be in the married
quarters now. Poor Stubberfield 'ull be losing them at the same time as
he loses us."

"Well, I'm not going to turn down a good job to please Stubberfield."

"Of course not. I'm only telling you. . . ."

"You needn't tell me all that now. It's time we went to sleep."

Ivy murmured something and sank her head against his shoulder. For some
time they lay motionless, but in spite of what he had said about sleep,
Fred did not close his eyes. He lay staring at the gibbous moon . . .
smeary, it looked--there would be rain to-morrow. It had moved to the
side of the window, and was looking at him round the corner of
it--sinking behind some ash trees. . . . He glanced suddenly downwards
and saw it shining in Ivy's eyes.

"I thought you was asleep."

"I thought you was."

"I dunno why I un't--reckon all this has roused me up a bit."

"Yes--I can't stop thinking about it."

"But you're pleased, un't you, Ivy? You're pleased with it all?"

"Of course I'm pleased. Aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

They said no more, and after a time they both fell asleep.



                                  8

It was unlike Fred to wake up early, especially when he had gone to
sleep rather late; but he woke up at the first pale fingering of dawn
upon his pillow. He had a feeling of vague disquiet, and comforted
himself by watching familiar shapes and outlines pass out of darkness
into light. Through the window he could see the meadow sloped against a
sad, whitish sky. There was a great whispering of wind among the trees,
and suddenly a moorcock gave his harsh, warning note from some pool away
in the woods. Ivy stirred and woke.

"Oh, Fred, I had a dream--a tur'ble dream. I dreamed we was on the sea
in twin beds."

"Well, we un't, old lady--that's plain enough," and he hugged her close
to him in the warmth of the big brass-bounder.

"But I shan't like it when the children are in a separate room from us."

"What's that got to do with going to sea in twin beds?"

"Nothing--but my dream made me think of it. I shan't like it, Fred."

"It's a thing that'll have to be some day."

"But not yet--they're so very little yet."

"Well, we can have them in along of us to start with. There's no need to
furnish all the rooms at once."

"Where are we to get the furniture from when we do? We haven't half
enough here to furnish five rooms."

"I've told you we needn't furnish them all at once."

"But we haven't got enough to furnish even one room. Most of the things
in here are fixed. We shan't even have a bed."

"I thought your mother was keeping some things for us."

"Some--but not much; not enough for five rooms."

"How you do go on about those five rooms."

"Well, they're the part of it that means most to me. I haven't kept
house properly for three years, and it'll be bad starting without enough
furniture."

"I thought you said you were pleased--you don't sound pleased, to my
notion."

"There's some things I ain't pleased with, and that's one of them."

"The house? That's what pleases me most of all. It'll be comfortable to
spread ourselves a bit. But I know it's awkward about the furniture.
. . . I could ask Mus' Parish to let me have some of my wages in
advance, and then with what we get for the sale of the caravan--and of
Ginger---poor old Ginger. . . ."

"You don't sound pleased now, Fred."

"Well, I'm like you. There's some things about it I un't pleased with.
I don't like the idea of being stuck down without horses. And being
under Hodd, too. . . ."

"Maybe you won't be under Hodd."

"Well, it's you who first said as I would be, and it seems likely as I
will. We can't both be bosses, and he's twenty years older than I am and
he's been with Mus' Parish sixteen years. . . . I don't fancy working
under a boss."

"You worked under Mr. Vincent."

"But he was different. He was like Mus' Parish--the place belonged to
him. Hodd 'ull just be a sort of foreman boss, same as they have in
towns. I don't know as I fancy working on a big place with a lot of men
and all sorts of notions. There was only three of us at Float. Besides,
I've got out of the way of regular working now--it'll come hard on me."

"Same as it'll come hard on me to keep house."

They were both broad awake now, though it was not time to get up.

"Fred," said Ivy, "I think I should like a cup of tea."

It was only four o'clock; but he rose good-naturedly and set about it.
Neither he nor Ivy could sleep any more. He lit the stove and put the
kettle on to boil, and all the while he said nothing. He still felt
vaguely uneasy and dissatisfied. The elation that had filled him
yesterday was gone. He felt flat--perhaps it was being up so early after
a poor night. . . . He did not like the idea of selling Ginger and the
caravan, of being stuck down in one place and having to work under
another man . . . the inevitable accompaniments of two pounds a week and
a cottage. Yesterday these had been shadowy doubts, only just strong
enough to prevent him pledging himself to Mr. Parish; to-day they were
substantial difficulties. . . . Perhaps he would feel better when he had
had a cup of tea.

"Well, it's been a bit of a surprise, and there's a lot of things to
think about."

"Reckon there are."

"Perhaps it was a pity you didn't think about them before you settled
with Mr. Parish."

"I haven't settled nun with Mr. Parish."

"But, Fred--why, you told me it was all fixed up."

"I never told you nun of the kind."

"I'm sure you did."

"I tell you I didn't. I said particular to Mr. Parish that I must talk
to you about it first."

Ivy said nothing. She stared at him through the steam of her tea-cup. He
sat on the edge of the bed, a trifle hunched, a trifle dejected in the
morning light.

"Well, then . . ." she said at last.

"Well, what?"

"You've promised nothing yet. When are you going to let him know for
certain?"

"I thought I'd go around this evening after work."

"Fred, I don't believe you really want this job."

"Want it! Of course I want it! I'd be a fool not to want it. There's
some things I don't like about it, that's all."

"What sort of things?"

"I've told you--being under Hodd, and having machinery instead of
horses. I never thought of all that when Mus' Parish was talking so
fine."

"But you didn't really want the job even then--not want it very
badly--or you wouldn't have said you must talk to me about it first."

Fred shuffled uneasily.

"I told Mus' Parish I didn't care much about machinery."

"But everything's machinery nowadays. You'll have to learn about
machinery if you mean to get on."

"Ivy, do you want me to take this job?"

"Of course I do. I should like to have you in regular work, bringing in
two pound a week. It's the house I don't care about."

"Sometimes we make as much as three pound a week as we are now."

"I know, but it ain't regular."

"It'll be more regular when Stubberfield and I have worked up our osier
trade."

"Yes, and Sue and I could do better if we carried lino. We often gets
asked for lino, and bigger mats. . . . All we want is a little cart to
go round in. . . ."

There was another silence. They sat side by side on the edge of the bed,
sipping their tea, while the dawn glowed slowly into living colours,
gold and purple kindling on the white and grey. The children still lay
asleep in their little hammocks of rabbit-netting. The light on their
faces did not wake them.

"Ivy," said Fred, "what about the children? It would be better for them
living properly in a house."

"They've been much healthier since they've lived in a caravan."

"Yes, they look in good heart. But it would be nice for them to go
regular to school."

"They can go regular. We can see to that. Maybe we've been a bit
careless these last six months; but if we see to it we can manage things
so as they go regular. You must say, Fred, I've always kept the children
clean and respectable, with proper hats and shoes, and made them behave
nicely at meals. They aren't like the gipsies."

"Oh, dear, no."

That was one thing nobody could ever say of him--that he'd gone like the
gipsies. He wasn't even like those half-and-halfs, those Dalrymples and
such. Farms employed him which did not as a rule employ cart people. He
was a respectable working man, moving round from place to place instead
of working for one master. He did not know whether he would care to be
working for one master--getting up at the same time every day, going the
same way to work, never having a day off except Sundays. . . .

"Ivy," he said slowly, "should you mind tur'ble if I didn't take this
job?"

"No, Fred. There's some things about it that I like, but others that I
don't."

"I like some things about it too, but on the whole, I think we're better
as we are."

"Yes, dear. I don't feel I could abide living semi-detached."

"And I couldn't abide working regular. I've got used to other ways now,
Ivy--used to freedom. When we go about like this in our caravan I feel
the whole world belongs to me. I'm my own master now and can go where I
like. I don't know as that un't better than having a regular job and
living in a house."

Ivy said nothing. She had had a vision of herself driving round in a
travelling shop, like Mrs. Chittenden.



                                  9

Jim Parish and Fred Sinden faced each other once more across the
littered office table. Parish's eyes were shining as brightly as they
had shone the night before, but the light in them was not the same.

"Then am I to understand, Fred, that you're turning down the job?"

"I reckon that's what it comes to."

"Merely because you don't like working under another man?"

"That, and working with machinery."

"But I've told you that you won't, strictly speaking, be under
Hodd--that he'll merely be sort of senior to you, as is only right. And
as for the machinery, if you were an old man I could understand your
prejudice, but you're not--you're young--scarcely thirty yet. . . .

"I un't used to it," said Fred stubbornly.

"No, of course you're not. But you'd get used to it--even George Bates
has said he thinks he may do that. Any young man with normal faculties
could get used to a tractor. . . . The fact is, Fred, I'm driven to the
conclusion that you don't want to work."

"I don't want to work regular."

"How do you want to work?"

"As I'm working now--going from place to place."

"You call that working?"

"Reckon I do. Sometimes I've picked for ten hours."

"And sometimes you've loafed for ten hours. What a way to live!"

"It un't a bad way, Mus' Parish. I'm my own master and I see the
world."

"The world as bounded by Paddock Wood. . . . Oh, Fred, I'm disappointed
in you. I knew you were living the sort of life that sooner or later
sends a man to pieces, but I never thought you'd go to pieces so soon. I
wouldn't believe George Bates when he said you were no better than a
diddicoy."

"Diddicoy! He dared say that!--it's a lie--I'm no diddicoy"--his rare,
slow anger choked him. He had sprung up, and stood glaring at Parish
with suffused eyes.

"Keep cool, Fred, and sit down again. You must realize it's a thing
people will say if you go on living as you do when you've a chance of
something better."

"But I don't live like a diddicoy. My place is decent and my children
clean, and we're respectable people, as I'd have you know."

"I do know it--that's why I'm so upset about you. I simply can't
understand why you and Ivy should choose--deliberately choose--to live
from hand to mouth in a caravan when you might have regular work and a
comfortable home."

"Ivy won't live in a semi-detached house."

"So you've told me, and if that had been the only objection I might have
built detached. But of course it isn't. It's only an excuse, just as
your dislike of machinery is an excuse. Ivy doesn't want you to take
this job any more than you want to take it. She's got caught by your way
of life the same as you have, and all I can say is that I'm sorry for
your children."

"They're right enough. We've always looked after them properly. No one
can say as we haven't thought of the children."

"But what's to become of them when they grow up? You're giving them no
chances. If you were ploughman here your boys could come on the land as
soon as they'd left school. Your eldest boy could slip into your shoes
and be ploughman after you."

A little boy with a whip? . . . the vision rose, but it was doubtful and
dim.

"If Norman and Clarence want to go on the land when they're older, they
can go just the same. If this agricultural revival you're telling me of
really comes, there'll be jobs for them right enough."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that. Norman and Clarence will scarcely have
been brought up in a way to suit them for decent jobs."

"You've no call to say that, Sir. I tell you I'm bringing them up as
respectable as I could bring 'em up in a house. They do a bit of work
even now--picking; they're both picking now at Eyelid, and soon they'll
be old enough to come on the fruit."

"Picking! You call that work?"

"Aye, and hard work, too. Somebody must do it."

"But not our old landed families--not our skilled ploughmen. Leave the
picking to the gipsies and cartpeople and the townees who want a holiday
. . . or at best to the village wives and children who need an extra bit
of money. It's no job for you."

"I can't help it, Sir. I tell you I've thought it over, and the Missus
and I have talked it over, and we both think that we're better off as we
are. Often we make more money than three pound a week, and there's a
chap I'm in with who's in the osier trade, and between us we ought to be
doing well at the end of another year. I'm my own master, and Ivy un't
terrified with the housekeeping the same as she used to be."

"But does she really prefer a leaky caravan to a five-roomed cottage?"

"It un't leaky, Mus' Parish. It lets in the weather less than the house
we used to have at Float. I must say, as speaking for myself, I would
sooner be in a decent house in winter time. But we're cosy enough as we
are, and when the children are older I shall get an old army tent and
pitch it along side."

"And Ivy really prefers it."

"Reckon she does. She's got out of the way of housekeeping, and anyway
it's a better life for her having other things to do besides cleaning
and cooking all day."

"Depends on the things. But do you always have to do as she wants?"

"'At that I don't!" cried Fred, touched up by the flick. "But I happen
to want the same myself this time."

"That's what I thought. . . . Well, Fred, I won't say any more. I'm
disappointed in you, that's all."

"I'm sorry for that, Mus' Parish, but I don't see you've any cause to
be. If anyone says I'm a gipsy he shall pay for it."

Parish said nothing for a moment. He was fighting with his anger and
disgust for a man whom he had hitherto respected. After all, it wasn't
Sinden's fault--he had been caught up in the machine and broken. He was
a victim of his times--it was unfair to blame him. The European War, the
slump in land values, the financial World Crisis, War Loan conversion,
political neglect, Queen Anne's Bounty, Free Trade and Building
Societies were the vast causes of this small effect--of this lost man
before him. He must forgive.

He held out his hand.

"Very well, Fred. I won't argue any more. You must go your own way, and
I hope we're still friends."

"I hope so, Sir. It's been kind of you to take such an interest in me."

"I shall always take an interest in you, Fred. Goodbye." But I don't
want to see what becomes of you, he said in his heart.

The two men shook hands, and Fred went out of the room. In the doorway
he looked back, for a moment uncertain. But Mr. Parish was not looking
at him; he was lighting his pipe.



                                  10

Sinden had paid his visit early, and the sun was still above the horizon
when he came out. The air was full of the smells of earth and evening;
the smoke of burning weeds blew down between the hedges, carrying in its
bitter cloud a stray fume of sweetness from Cock Marling's oast. Once
outside the gate, Fred paused and lit a cigarette. The acrid smoke
curled into his nostrils and ate up the sweet smells, but he had
scarcely noticed them. He wanted something to soothe him down--he felt
all on edge, somehow--all upset. . . .

It was tryng to have had words with Mr. Parish, and though in the end
they had shaken hands he still felt that the Squire did not think well
of him. Perhaps it was only natural, full of plans as he was for his
place. And it certainly had been kind of him to think of Fred and offer
him the job. But he was wrong in having all these big notions--he'd lose
his money for certain sure. Even if Fred had gone to him most likely
he'd have been out of work again in a few years. Not that he wouldn't
have liked working with old Ashdown again, and having a good house even
if he didn't fancy being so near his neighbours. . . . But he was only
acting sensible in staying where he was. He was his own master, he was
free and he was safe--he didn't have to worry about things that were
scaring other people. It was just as well not to have to depend on any
one job for home and wages. He'd already had some experience of that at
Float, and what had happened once might happen again. He was well out of
it all.

But he knew that it was not only caution that persuaded him. During
those last three years he had found something new, something which he
did not want to give up to comfort and safety. He had learned the new
pleasures of change and independence; he had learned new secrets, new
ways, new friendships. Yet the things he had loved in the old life were
with him still--the earth and its changes, the fields and their fruit,
comfortable talk at the inn, his own fireside, the kind, familiar body
of his wife and the health of his growing children. He had found much
and he had kept all he wanted, and he did not know yet what he had lost.

He was feeling better now; his smoke and his walk had eased him, while
the image of Mr. Parish's indignation grew fainter in his mind. He had
come down the Furnace lane as far as the stile, and across the stile was
a little shaw, and beyond it the Wagmary field. As he went through the
shaw he could hear his children's voices and the barking of the dog. A
step farther, and he saw the caravan resting against the wood, with a
curl of blue smoke at its chimney and its little window shining like a
golden heart in the last light of the sun. Praise the Lord that he was
not leaving it, that he had not pledged himself to labour and
civilization, to wages and neighbours and regular hours. He had had a
lucky escape. It would have been terrible if he had sold his horse and
caravan and bought new furniture and mortgaged himself to one place and
one master and then found that he hated it all and wanted his freedom
back. . . .

He swung up his arm and signalled to the children, who came running to
meet him. The sunlight that poured after him down the field lit up the
pattern of ridges under the knotty, weed-choked grass, and sent his
shadow heeling down to the wood's edge. The ghost of a ploughman walked
ahead of him over the ghosts of the furrows. Then the sun dipped behind
the hedge and the shadows were lost in twilight.

                               The End




[End of _Gipsy Waggon. The Story of a Ploughman's Progress._
by Sheila Kaye-Smith]